dov wrote on 08 Jun 2010 04:31:


May I ask what Hashkafic debate you would be referring to? I see nothing wrong here in terms of Hashkafah, but I may be missing somethign and I am definitely no Baki in Hashkafah.

Thanks Dov.

-Yiddle

sorry.... i might have missed that one too.

on a more personal note..... :'( :'( :'(

i fell today....again. this time, i had a win earlier in the day, but the menuval came back for more and i lost.

the weirdest thing is that i could hear this voice inside my head saying " just call silentbattle" or "take the shvua u wanted to take to keep u away from comps today."

but i obviously didn't - this is really gettting discouraging. im just trying to keep my head up is all and distract myself from the pain.


odd how im distracting myself from my distraction

If we are addicts in recovery (or whatever you consider yourself - but in recovery) we already know that once we see it or fantasize about it it will grow to truly seem in our best interest to us. We accept that we really get crazy and very stupid once we start to use lust. Powerless.

Once we are convinced that using garbage is really not in our best interest - life boils down to one simple question at any moment: are we getting distracted from real life, or sticking with living the real thing?

ok, so far ive been ok since last fall. ive found that learning more has really worked wonders in my staying clean - possibly one reason for it has been the boost in self-esteem. I think i suffer from a very low self esteem - specifically when it comes to my capabilities in learning. These fears and self-dislike also stem from a fantasy world. But entering reality, i can see that i really can learn and can accomplish. Sometimes just plugging away at reality makes fantasy seem more nightmarish.

on another note - just thought i'd share a story thats happened to me recently.

ive been shadowing a doctor who works in oncology (cancer doctor). Just yesterday, I met with a bright 60 year old man who considers himself a "player." With shaved legs, perv-like mustache, huge ego, gold braclets and watch, and stud diamond earing on his left ear to top it all off, this was not a man whose ego made it hard to breath. He lives to be a ladies man. So much so, that he even requested in recent months to switch to a woman doctor.

He has head/throat cancer.

Oddly enough, he refuses to get radiation - the only proper treatment for his type of cancer. Radiation means 35 days of a painful visits that guarantees his specific type of cancer a 90% success rate. No cutting, no removing of his neck - just hair loss and pain.

Instead, this man demands only taking chemotherapy --  a  guaranteed failure treatment that will only shrink the cancer in a minute way temporarily. The doctors have made clear to him time and time again that the longer he pushes off his radiation, the larger his tumor gets, the less likely he can be completely cured and the more painful radiation will be. Trying everything to avoid the sure-fire cure, the man even asks the doctor if surgery on his neck would be an alternative option - despite having been told many times that it will fail and only remove part of the tumor, and it will will eventually require radiation to cure what the surgery could not. Stubborn as a mule, the man simply refuses to get the proper treatment because it will "hurt his game."

I thought to myself - what a fool.... what an idiot. i just wanted to yell at him and smack him upside the face - "Don't you understand you are going to die? Just go through the temporary pain and live happily and healthfully another 20 years!"

Throughout the visit, he continued to push advice at myself as if he was a wise man. As I left the room, he calls out "Kid, you got a lot to learn..."

I'm thinking to myself - look whose talking - you are the one who won't listen to the experts and is willing to throw it all away.

Only before I was going to sleep that night, did it hit me. That's me. I need to be getting real treatment. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I need real help. I need to get myself to a 12 step program. I've been trying to shrink my spiritual ailment for too long. The experts have been yelling at me "you will die if you don't treat it soon - and the eventual treatment you will need when you hit rock bottom will be much more painful and have a much lower success rate!" I know that I have been illogical in my reasoning. I know I am  getting worse just trying to shrink the problem with the wrong approach, but I have been willing to avoid all real commitment to my healing if it meant any pain.

No more.... Lefum Tzara Agra (According to the pain is the gain) - I have what to live for and am excited to really live it with a clean mind and a foot in reality.

Looking forward to enjoying my long, healthy life one day at a time and finally getting rid of this cancer of my head....

            See you in the 12 steps,
                  Ahron
               

down for the count... there was just too much stress this morning.

the trigger: i finally spoke to my rav about the issue and he seemed to think that it would be better for me to lay off dating as long as my self-confidence is low.

his point was mainly that as long as i have low self-esteem, i will continue to lack the ability to give fully. (sounds awfulyl familiar).

this was on top of a various tense morning which i was supposed to see one of the girls at an event but ducked out after driving there thinking that it would not be appropriate . i might have been right that it  would have just brought me to bad thoughts or further confusion about the issue, but it all just added up and created an unhappy ending.

time to wait until i'll be able to feel again...

and just when i was enjoying the pleasure of living too

You'll be OK, hang in there. He has a good plan for you - that is obvious to me. Trust me if you don't trust yourself now.

the signs i receive in the heat of a battle are so weird. like:
          - ussually everyone starts being nicer to me and giving me more attention than I used to.
            EX:like in this fall, my brother offered to make me a sandwhich right in the                                    middle of it all,
          -I also become super sensative to interpriting torah i've recently learned into what I am perceiving.
                *Today, i heard a background song about fire that reminded me of the story of the tana going up the ladder and screaming about a fire ,
                * weirder than anything (sorry if this is too blunt) but i even hear the word G-d so often in the heat of the moment that it really bothers me. It really is impossible to totally escape.

maybe these signs specifically in the heat of the moment are so loud because H' is making it clear to me "but I  really love you"...

I also came to realize that every dose of lust really is a dose of suicide. besides for the bittle zman, it also sets my personality back every time into a degree of depression that requires a great degree of pulling back from everthing i know and love, taking up even more of my time and holding me back from what i could have achived. And I too don't particually care what lav suicide is... i'm interested in avoiding it for other reasons. (sorry, i just love this quote on so many levels)

forum's been awefully quiet lately. is it just me, or is sunday night/monday morning a busy time for people 

I've been having trouble lately (philisophically) balancing how we are supposed to have proper self-esteem and self-confidence and how we are supposed to bring H' in our lives.

Chances are it has to do with a poor definition i need to get rid of, but i thought that maybe someone could help me with this....

Some words from Dov...

dov wrote on 11 Jun 2010 17:34:

i hear that, but i'm not entirely sure that the only reason for my lack of self esteem is from my being an addict.

i just have tendancy to be hard on myself in many areas of life... not limited just to this one.

in other words i'll agree that self-esteem may not necessarily be the root of this problem, but it is a big issue for me that could help me with my general welfare.

so does anyone else seem to know how to balance keeping H' in my life with proper self-esteem?

Yeah. Learn how to stop acting out with lust so that you will no longer be disgusted with yourself and then you will finally be able to truly believe that it is possible that He really loves you and is rooting for you and has a Plan for you. When we start being able to believe all that we stop running like hell away from a relationship with Hashem (and people).


Ooppps! You wrote "does anybody else..."! Sorry!

:-*

Thanks dov (again) - i always really appreciate your comments


today's question is as follows:

For better and for worse, I have become indifferent to my falls, simply classifying them as not being the real me. i simply live with an "acher" inside of me constantly. I know him to be someone else. This recent separation of his personality from my own has made the struggle much easier. No longer to I guilt myself with crying or crazy teshuva that would make me feel like garbage, but rather I pick myself up and move on as quickly as possible. As i was once told by silentbattle, my addiction has placed me in a battlefield, with bullets flying by my right and my left. I am running towards safety, but in the process I feel a nick at the back of my leg. Do I stop and check the wound in the middle of the battlefield? of course not! Only once in the safe zone can I treat the wound. My life is still at stake out here, so theres not time for caring for minor wounds.

Q: The only problem I have found in my approach is not feeling responsible for my actions. Because the line of distinction is so thin between not drowning in guilt and not taking responsibility, I have had a hard time fighting future battles. I am unsure if what I am doing is ignoring my Y"H in order to get myself away from the root of the problem (RID) so that I can try and rebuild a new life of simcha, properly ignoring the minor issues in hopes of eventually reaching that stage of teshuva where I will be able to feel proper remorse for my previous way of life OR if I am just reducing my yiras shamayim.

I'd love to hear some thoughts about this one if you would please.......

I just  fell again... somethings got to change - but im wondering if maybe the entire problem is that i don't want to change.

even if logically i can know that this is for me, im having a heck of a hard time abandoning this when all i know of it is the pain of abandonment.

sombody help me~!

Confidence wrote on 17 Jun 2010 19:18:

Yep, I think lots of us can commiserate. Not much to say... but that's never stopped me from trying to offer SOME kind of word of chizuk .

Maybe if you really do believe, intellectually, that there's a better place to be after abandoning all this "stuff," then maybe there's a path to consider.  Act "as if" you really believed it and had your whole heart in it. Make every choice "as if" it were in your heart and not just your brain. And when your heart (or some other body part...) tries to tell you otherwise, ask them to come back after some period of time (2 wks? 1 mo? 90 days?) of your experimenting with the model of living "as if" you were 100% certain of all this.

I'm rambling, but maybe you can figure out what I think I'm trying to say....