simchastorah,

Just seeing your thread for the first time. Boy do your posts resonate!!! The wish to escape, the soothing feeling of watching p***, etc....

BH I reached the point where I view p*** as poison and look for inner contentment. It wasn't easy, but connecting with the good folks here is magical. Cutting off urges (including fantasies) is what helped me a lot and I'm happy to be your listening ear if you think it may help you.

My number is in my signature....

With brotherly love,
Muttel

simchastorah wrote on 10 Nov 2024 06:12:

To my dear friend R' Simchashatorah, I'd like to very respectfully put in my 2 cencts on this, not chas veshalom to be preaching and giving advice or anything like that, I know that everyone is different, and what worked for me may not work for you. It's just that if there is even a 1% chance that something I say will resonate with you and help you somewhat, I'd feel really guilty if I would've just ignored your pain.

I've been thinking all night about your plight, letting my old feelings overtake me until I came to some sort of clarity, and I look at it as follows, in my humble opinion there is 3 questions we have to ask our selves, 1. What do we define as the "TUNNEL" ?; 2. What's the problem of "BEING IN THAT TUNNEL" ?; 3. What do we define as "THE LIGHT" at the end of the tunnel ?:

1. What do we define as the tunnel ? Up until joining GYE or honestly until feeling like I'm finally breaking free, I was one big mush, I tought that everything is "THE TUNNEL" the tabooness, the hating myself, the watching p..., the m...ing, etc. etc., But once I've started enjoing the freedom, I've come to see that "THE TUNNEL" is really just the fact that this is taboo, and the problem of hating oneself, all the other things are really not the tunnel, the tunnel should be defined only by what really causes the darkness, not the pain of being inside it.

2. What's the problem of being in the tunnel ? Now that is all the pain we feel inside this dark danky place, the feeling of being alone; the pain that comes from hating oneself (not the מעשה of hating yourself, just the פועל יוצא); the watching and falling to P&M; the constant struggling with lust; these are the problems of being inside the tunnel, but it's NOT the actual tunnel that causes the darkness.

3. What we consider the light at the end of the tunnel ? Now once we've got a clear understanding of number 2, I think this should be easy, The light obviously should be stopping to hate ourselves; not feeling alone anymore; not falling CONSTANTLY into P&M; and having a easier time with our lust struggles.

Getting completely free of lust is not the light at the end of the tunnel, nor is getting completely free of P&M, I think that would be unhealthy, and would cause a lot of shalom bais issues, there's a reason why hashem created us with the lust issue, and when the אנשי כנסת הגדולה cut out the yitzra deareiyos from siblings, they didn't cut it out from all women other then our wives, they left the YH of 99% women intact, because otherwise we would never get married, or maybe even when already married we would not be interested in being together with our wives.

So now once we joined this great community, the tunnel which is tabooness and hating ourselves, should have some enlightment, so now we gotta deal with the problems of being in there, which is; feeling alone; easily conquerable, by calling and shmoosing with other hostages stuck in the tunnel; the pain of hating ourselves; easily conquerable, by focusing on our wins, posting them on the forums, calling a good friend to share it with him, treating yourself with a good treat that makes you feel loved by yourself;  watching and falling to P&M; not so easily conquerable, but manageable, by all kinds of methods the f2f program has to offer, everyone finds something else helpful to them, and also accountability with a mentor besides for the online accountability program, has proven itself to work wonders for most people, {accountability with a human works not only with a nightly text saying if you're clean, it's also about letting that someone know before and after using a device that might make you feel vulnerable, etc.}; Struggling with lust; is also sort of  conquerable, but with time, after fully micro managing our P&M struggle, and using effective methods like HUMANIZING, or any other great methods, Lust, eventually starts to fade away.

Now does that mean that you're free for life of any kind of lust ? NO you'll still get urges from time to time, you'll struggle when walking down the streets,etc. but you're going to have the right training on how to deal with it, and most importantly, IT WON'T JUST BE TOOLS THAT YOU KNOW ABOUT, BUT RATHER IT'LL BE TOOLS THAT YOU'RE USED TO DOING, TOOLS THAT HAVE BECOME SECOND NATURE TO YOU, now thats what I call the light at the end of the tunnel, not so far away to achieve, just needs full comitment to work on it until it becomes your second nature, and btw it's exciting.

Again I'm sorry if this comes across like I'm trying to preach, I'm really not, I just want people to understand with clarity what the true definition of this fight really is, and as I said, I myself was one big mushy chulent in the beginning, which made me also feel that the light at the end is not real, at least for me, and that I deliberately want to give up this fight, but at the end I bh got out of this "AND SO WILL YOU VERY SOON".

Keep it up and keep us posted
With love, hope and confidence in you; Akiva

simchastorah wrote on 10 Nov 2024 06:49:

I love this attitude. Heck yeah! It's not about warm fuzzy lights at the end of the tunnel. It's not about money raining down from heaven because you were "shomer your eyes" like the occasional Vayimaen video promises. It's not about self-esteem, a better relationship with your wife, or any of the other myriad real or imaginary benefits of stopping porn.

It's about getting your life back. Nothing more and nothing less.

And the life you get back may suck horrifically. But at least it's your life.*

I also strooongly relate to the work pressure trigger you mentioned. For me it gets into a pretty vicious circle. Boring or unpleasant or (most often) overwhelming tasks at work lead to pressure that I relieve through escaping to porn. Which only results in the overwhelming work piling up to be more overwhelming plus a terrible feeling of feeling like a retard for making the problem worse.

White knuckling through like you describe is one mehalach. I'm not so good at that since I have like zero self-control. What's been working for me right now I think is some good filtering, accountability, prayer, working on stopping the cycle before it gets too much momentum, and working on surrendering (I'm not actually sure what specifically has been working but somehow something is).

I strongly recommend Dov's twelve steps workshop recordings for this issue. Your life is Hashem's ratzon for you. Stop trying to run away from that ratzon and start trying to accept that ratzon with love. Ask Hashem for help to accept his ratzon.


*Note that I also think it's impossible to do something you truly dislike long term, and there is a certain pleasure from being "clean" that can be tapped into. This might take work, but it's an important element of the long term avodah.

rebakiva wrote on 10 Nov 2024 17:21:

Thank you for clarifying and your heartfelt post

Simchas Torah, your vulnerable posts are courageous and make others feel understood. Your script of no-one liking you, and feeling rejection at various turns is something many of us suffered from. My fantasies all revolved around "being taken care of" and accepted with all my flaws, as you describe. BH i changed the script; you can as well. You are a likable intelligent fellow with incredible hasagos. (Well, we have spoken a lot...)  One point - As you did, i viewed my penis as something bad. As i healed i came to realize that it is the holiest eiver in the body - the only one that Chazal attach the word "kodesh" to. (That is a direct quote from one of the gedolei Roshei Yeshiva). 

Day 8

simchastorah wrote on 10 Nov 2024 06:12:

Your post resonates with me. I also had about a 5 month clean streak and then boom crash and about a year of depressive cycles with a lack of hope.

Baruch Hashem I feel like I have a resurgence hugely supported by being able to deal with work stresses and the tzaddikim here.

I don't think you really detailed your work stresses in your post (happy to PM if you like) but for me some things that have been helpful on the work front:
1. Not working with the folks I perceive as toxic
2. Offloading to a friend that "gets it"
3. A schedule with built-in breaks that doesn't really overlap with stresses like kids (I'm also constantly amazed at how much snoozing in bed with a parenting book at the end of the work day for 20-30 minutes recharges me for the kids)

For me, the most frequent work stress is boredom. The sense of boredom leads to a sense of being trapped in boredom, not being free. The lack of freedom brings a sense of stress. 

The next most frequent work stress is when technical things aren't working. This stress is multi-faceted, there's an element of frustration, wanting it to just work, there's an element of feeling bad about about myself, blaming myself that it's not working, and there's once again the element of feeling trapped in something I'm not enjoying.

The last one, which is probably the most powerful but comes up the least frequently, is when I feel like my work is not satisfactory or not appreciated. Then I feel bad about myself, I feel like I'm a fool, I feel angry at the people who should be appreciating me. I feel like "don't you know who I am? I am a freaking נשמה קדושה that came down from שמים to this lowly earth! how dare you make me feel invaluable because of your stupid whatever!"

Shalom, Simchastorah. 

Your old thread was one of the first that I read when I joined GYE about a year and a half ago. (I’m pretty sure). 

You’re articulate, intelligent, exposing your vulnerability, and have a lot of painful feeling and thoughts that you’re sharing. My heart goes out to you, here’s a warm hand. I think I still count as a fellow-sufferer. There is always hope here, that’s what GYE means. I’m glad that you haven’t given up. 

A lot of what you write boils down, I think, to self-loathing. When you feel trapped in hopeless existence that you are loathing, when you are exposed to feeling shame or a sense of hatefulness in your core, you turn to porn for escape, comfort, numbing pleasure. And also possibly as a way to self- destruct, is that possible? If it is, I relate. And I remember the hurt.

I have a lot of Rachmanus on the guy I used to be, on his pain and loneliness , on the sick feelings he used to carry around. I want to give him a hug and tell him it will be ok, that he can put down the burden. He is healing for a while now, Boruch Hashe-m. I hope you can find the way to a place where you can do the same. 

Creating some relationships (not just connecting with a mentor) with some of the Chevra here can break the wall of shame. Letting in light and openness can remove some of the festering and rotting from your feelings. And when you share the pain it surprisingly becomes easier to find other ways to deal with. I have theories about why this works, but they are less valuable than the actual experience. I hope you can bring yourself to really connect to a couple of good guys, it can make a big difference.

chaimoigen I appreciate the keen and compassionate words. You are right, there is a deep self loathing within me. It is an old thing which runs very deep. I have been aware of it for many years, and have done much work to improve. That work has included connecting with a mentor like you mentioned, therapy of different types, speaking with friends, speaking with my wife, journaling exhaustively, and being misboded with Hashem.

I am so far from מיואש. I am totally hopeful, and feel that for years, maybe 10, I have been on a steady journey upwards. Any feelings I express here are not meant to express the totality of how I see myself, but are a 'zooming in' on one feeling, being מגדיר and fleshing it out.

When I say that I don't believe in a light at the end of the tunnel, I mean that I don't believe that "once I'm clean" (not sure what that means, I'm clean right now) from these most wonderful vices that somehow I will be healed from the pain which is causing me to run away in the first place. I think that being clean is absolutely imperative, and even if I didn't think that it's a fact. And I think that there's a lot of good which becomes more reachable once a person is not שקוע in טומאה. But I don't have any hope that once I've been clean for a month, two months, three months, that suddenly I'll feel like a million bucks.

I have plenty of hope that with work every week, every month my davening will improve, my learning will improve, I'll continue to grow in אמונה and see with my eyes how Hashem is ממלא כל עלמין ומסבב כל עלמין. I'll continue to be more and more filled with שמחת החיים that comes from living a life of פנימיות and not חיצוניות. And being פוגם בקדושה is a tremendous impediment to that.

I just don't think that there will be any one day where suddenly the walls of shame slip away and I burst free. I have spoken with many friends openly about my inner turmoils. I am years past being ashamed to talk about it. And it has helped, and it continues to help, and when I have a hard experience I often speak it over with a friend, sharing that the root of the pain is a deep fear / conviction that I am worthless, and how various experiences serve to 'prove' that if you know what I mean. And it really does help. But it has been years and I expect it to continue to be years. And that's ok. Because at the same time I have the absolute best thing in the world - the ability to sit with a Gemara and learn

I totally agree with you. I've been clean 6 months now. Though it's great, I'm not on "a high" looking at my streak.

I'm working through some stresses now, and although difficult with part of me wanting to run to p*** (first time in about 5 months), I don't want it!!

Point is, this challenge is lifelong. Our work is to keep working in building ourselves up on the inside and to keep trucking up the holy mountain.

It's made easier with people like you to climb with....

Muttel 

I appreciate your clarification. 
I relate to a lot of what you write, I think you’re ahead of the curve, and hope that you continue to see success in your Avoda. 

I also, BH, have to ability to find my reason for living in front of the Heilige Gemora. It’s a Bracha that many don’t have. Ashrecha.  

Im struggling today, in a few different ways. 
Some of what is helping me get through is the fact that I now genuinely like myself. On every level (yeah, I still have a lot to work on, as my wife and others can certainly attest ). 

Speaking for myself, the benefits that I’ve received from feeling a newfound sense of  Tahara did not just creep in incrementally , along this journey. Although my Davening and other aspects of קרבת אלקים were enhanced somewhat from the start, there were significant “jumps” at about 200 days, and after about 350, and more. As the changes I have been blessed to make have become internalized, and have penetrated to my core, I have been blessed to experience certain “breakthroughs” that I couldn’t have foreseen until they happened. This is already more than I’m comfortable writing. I don’t know if that would be the case for others. It’s a מתנת אלקים and I have no words to thank Him, כי יעמוד לימין אביון להושיעו משופטי נפשו. 

I hope and Daven that you can find lights along the way, too. It’s a long tunnel, and it lasts until our time here is done. I’m dealing with some pretty dark challenges, and some of the darkness is inside of me. But I have been Zocheh to see Light and Life. 

And that has made all the difference for me. 
I hope it can be so for you, too, friend. 

מאן דבעי חיים

I would certainly not say no to breakthroughs and it's encouraging to 'hear' you 'talk' about them

simchastorah wrote on 11 Nov 2024 17:20:

Beautiful post! I was sitting outside the BM with no cheshek at all to learn while scrolling gye and trying to make time go by quicker. When I got to the last four lines of this post a I got a wisp of the sweetness you were describing and a deep deep yearning started swelling in my heart. That deep desire to disconnect from the artificial reality is this world and to fully immerse myself in hashems torah and relish in its sweetness. I went inside and totally immersed myself in the Gemara with such neimus and with such passion. I don’t recall the last time i felt this way.  Your soul is in your words I must say it’s fire, You infused me with much chizzuk!