Well said E. (Funny I seem to remember someone else who goes by the name 'E'...)

Well last night I installed K9 on my computer, and then went to install WebChaver. But my K9 is a bit glitchy and just stops working and therefore shuts down my internet. So I wasn't able to completely install accountability software yet. We'll work it out.

Last week was my birthday (20) and I took upon myself not to wear glasses when I'm walking in the street. The campus of the Yeshiva is pretty enclosed so the first time I was able keep my resolution was today when I walked to the cleaners, and you know what? I lived!! But on a more serious note I realized that now I can start wearing nice sunglasses outside because I don't need my glasses to be able to see things clearly. Can't wait for it to get warm and sunny!! (As if thats the only reason I want it to be warm out. )

So far my day has gone well. Woke up a bit late but otherwise I've been good. Now all I need to do is be productive and get some things accomplished. Where's my list? I really want to do some learning and get into it, but my chavrusa keeps pushing off our one hour of learning because he's involved with preparing for his shiur. I'll get him one of these days.

I'm trying to get in touch with a therapist but the closest one is 40 minutes away and I don't have a car. Aside from that even if I do sessions with him over the phone it would be around $100 a session because he doesn't take insurance. That's what I make in a week.

I also called someone from the SA website who is supposed to be "in charge" of local SA meetings. There is one about 30 minutes from me so I left him a message. Hopefully I will get a call back soon.

silentbattle wrote on 26 Jan 2011 18:48:



These boxes have bean questioned extensively for years! There have bean no satisfactory answers .

The member status is based on the number of posts. A Newbie moves up at 50 posts, etc.

Small update. I got a call back from the guy in charge of the closest SA meeting in my area. It's like a half hour away. He said that there was no one from close to my town who would be able to give me a ride to the meetings. At the rate I'm going looks like I'll have to invest in a car soon. Hopefully someone else in the area will recognize his problem and decide to work on the issue. Till then it looks like I'm stuck with phone groups and you guys. :D

Just kidding! You guys are AWESOME!!

OK so I got a few responses from people saying that I don't really need to go to live SA meetings except as a last resort. A couple comments: 1) My logic in many situations has been that I'm going to end up needing the last resort method just because that's who I am so I may as well cut to the chase and do it now. That's what got me to open up to my Rebbi which was very helpful to me. (Which is curious because even though he didn't have much advice to give on the subject, the fact that I opened up to someone was helpful in its own right towards breaking me and hitting bottom and facing myself.)

2) When I first was told that I basically had no way of getting to a live SA meeting I was a bit bummed because I really wanted to go. I feel they could really help. When I got those responses I realized that I'm trying to run the show over here. Apparently Hashem agreed with you guys and felt that it's not a good idea (yet?) for me. I was getting upset because I wanted to go, Hashem had other plans. I'll stick with his. Thanks E!

Sober today. I spent most of the afternoon reading on the forum and posting a little. Got a couple things done that I wanted to, however I didn't learn all the things I wanted to and didn't exercise today which I noticed really gives me a bit of a boost, because I spent so much time on the forum. So I'm going to bed feeling happy (thankful?) that I am sober but disappointed that I didn't do everything I wanted to. I know conflicting emotions are normal but these make me feel really giddy. I need sleep. Good night!

From what i hear, the phone groups are supposed to be truly fantastic. I'd go for those - if you stick with that, I don't think you'll regret it, I've seen a lot of people here who committed to them, and really grew a lot!

Therapy is expensive in general, and good therapy is even more expensive. Be very careful, please- while I am a big proponent of therapy, there are many therapists that are NOT good. Not only can you end up not being helped, it can actually hurt. Make sure you find someone that has been referred by reliable people, preferably professionals. If you'd like to PM me, I might be able to offer suggestions.

However, if you can't afford therapy right now, the phone groups are still a great option.

I'm on Dov's phone group now. Also I did go to one therapist while at home over the summer. She was very good. Then I tried getting another therapist for when I was in yeshiva but she really turned out to be more of a fraud type. So as of now, all I have is the GYE forum and all it's entails and Hashem. Not too bad.

I'm wondering if I need to do more introspection and think more about these life-lessons that I get from day-to-day experiences, or should I focus now on just staying sober and the rest will come gradually. I was speaking to a mashgiach yesterday in yeshiva and he quoted to me what we say every morning in shachris: "Leolam yehei Odom" only after "Odom" do we say "Yerei shomayim". First we have to become human beings, normal mature people, then we can start worrying about being a yerei shomayim.

That's an interesting point!

OK I am getting REALLY FRUSTRATED  >. My K9 has completely locked down my computer. The internet just doesn't work. Like the whole K9 just crashed. Nothing works.

Oy! That's Icchy!

My sincerest empathy.

Hope things work out,

E

OK, using someone's netbook to post this and see whats going on while I wait to sort out my computer's problems. We were able to go to all measures to get our fix I should be able to go to all measures to get out and post. Man these netbooks are _tiny! My hands barely fit on the keyboard. Either way I just wanted to make a disclaimer. I wasn't serious about going to get a car just to go to meetings. I just have this inherent feeling that a few of you were getting worried.

My day otherwise has been good. Spoke to a couple people from the forum and got some learning done. I really need some help, or rather help myself, in regards to time management. Any ideas are appreciated.

Hopefully I'll get my computer up and running soon. In the meantime I'll mention a feeling and thought that I had while dealing with my misbehaving computer. I started getting very frustrated about it. I can't say that i performed marvelously considering the circumstance and in retrospect I could have done a lot better. But I started thinking that right now, my computer isn't working, Hashem obviously doesn't want me using the computer right now. My proof is that the only guy who could uninstall my filter and try to get it working again is not available. What I should have done was make up a time when he would be able to help me and move on to other things that I want/need to accomplish in the meantime. What I did was repeatedly try to restart the computer and look through the troubleshooting for the filter numerous times. Then when that didn't work I tried hacking into my computer and restarting the filter manually. Apparently I'm not as computer savvy as I thought I was. I was virtually shooting an already dead possum . (Sorry, it was the first animal I could think of ) Then I went to someone else's computer and posted my cry above in the middle of the afternoon. Then I davened mincha because I knew I wouldn't gain anything by not davening as frustrated as I was. Then I sat and played a video game. Basically an unproductive day when Hashem wanted me to really not get distracted today and rather focus on Him. I feel sort of bleh.

Man my fingers are cramped!

I dunno...

Sounds gevaldig!

You are starting (or continuing) to look at everything through Hashem tinted glasses!

That's incredible!

Git Shabbos,

EBD

Just a thought I had today. It may not be written very clearly and I apologize. I thank SG for helping me realize this.

I was reading about an approach towards teaching children and one of the suggested methods of taking control was by giving the child choices to make decisions of their own so that when the parent asks the child to do something  that the parent wants and the child refuses, the parent will have what to draw on. The parent can tell the child look how many decisions you have made, now it's my turn.

Similarly when dealing with reaching out to people when I feel stressed or feel like I'm slipping. At the beginning it was very difficult to reach out to people even though I had phone numbers and people who were willing to listen to me. Often I would feel bad afterward that I hadn't reached out. Then I began to start contacting people on my phone list just to speak to them. Independent of whether I felt like I was slipping or not. Just to build up a relationship with them. I realized that just like to deal with a child you  need to build up a deposit account that you can draw on when you need to have them listen similarly when reaching out. It is very difficult to reach out to someone who you only know as someone who also struggles. Otherwise you are total strangers. On the other hand when you build up a relationship with the other person it is much easier to call in a time of struggle because then it is two friends who struggle with similar things and are helping each other out.

Good Shabbos everyone!
You too E!

Very true. The only thing I would add is that yo're not building up an account to withdraw from. When you build a friendship with someone, they're happy to help you out. You don't have to worry about running out of credit.

Eggggzactly!!!!!   

True, I guess that was a bit short sighted.