purim shpeel
THIS POST IS THE MOST SERIOUS I HAVE WRITTEN YET
This may remind you of Koheles. "A time for....and a time for.... ." I will give a brief intro. and jump right into my shpeel. To go straight into the shpeel, scroll down... but its much more soap
opera like with the intro:
INTRO: This is a too-brief sumarry of my marsupial addiction. If you like soap operas then you'll like this too:
I have been a bad addict since I was twelve. p&m was ASIDE from doing things with...jedi marsupials . I had hypersexuality, no sheilah. I had even stolen many times ____ in order to satisfy my addiction. I had been caught doing some of these things a few times, and with cunning jedi mind tricks and fast talking, i had gotten out of it. Otherwise i could have had my whole name and life ruined right there. Boruch hagoimel chasadim tovim lichayavim.
When I shtarked out i began to use the Torah and chizzuk approach, in the most intense manner. This DID help to curb the opposition to usually just p&m. And I was in yeshiva then so i did not have access to a computer almost ever. I did "find" the ocassional printed materiel (pun). Either way, although i was thouroughly addicted, most of the time i acted out but not in a dangerous scale. It was this way when i went to Ey as well. I infrequently had access to a pc or certain addictive things, but it was just p&m, and i got used to being clean a week, or two or three at a time. That was pretty managable.
Of course, every single bein hazmanim i did p&m every breathing moment, with a pc right next to my room in a basement with no one else, in a house of RID abuse. And almost did the dangerous stuff like in the old days. There were more than a few times where my hypersexuality brought me near the later steps in the handbook, vido'k. No sirus please, thank you.
What made p&m difficult to overcome was that i did not ever need a computer to get access, and of course i cant explain that comment except in a pm for a purpose. But I was quite talented. So i really have all that i need to act out with me all the time, in my head.
I lived a life of terrible tzaros and so this is what pushed me to act out.
*The ascent began to happen when i refused to go home for pesach one year, tore up my ticket, dated and got engaged before the new zman. Although things at home did not improve, i had some happy things to think about.
With marriage, i had short tekufas where i brought my addiction into the fray, throwing me backwards.
Then was the heilige tekufa. I did not act out for over a year, or look at women, or think about anything bad. I was not "dry" bec. like i said, i have instant access anywhere. It was really because of super intense crazy torah and chizuk methods. Even in food I would eat whatever was put in front of me.
However, this only lasted a little over a year, bec. it was too much for me and I almost made my brain into burnt toast. However, during that time i was very involved in kabalah and mystics, so even when i cut down on intensity, it was already for me a style of living and type of conciousness that i lived by every moment. So even when I wanted to chill out, i had the mind of a one nostil flying harley davidson mekubal. So recovery from brain toast took until recently, two years later.
Additionally, during this brain toast and post toast tekufa, all together three years, i studied over 50 sefarim from ramchal to r tzadok to r chaim vital to r nachman to besht to even the litvish side of me, ohr yisrael and nefesh H'. Etc. Almost all esoteric and deep. So I turned into a deep philosopher, austere and cold, emotionless like a dead fish. I was sad. I knew all this knowledge, yet i didnt fit into any community. That's why the begining of this very thread started with struggles of depression and loneliness. Since i had learned and interacted with such a diverse amount of cultures, i developed an identity crisis.
During this toast and post toast tekufah, i was in kolell. A rosh chabura in fact. And yes, i would always manage to throw the zohar into my works, as a point more than a joke. And i started in a yeshiva where i was quite happy. And then, as my years there continued of the three years, i began to feel empty and jealous. Empty bec. there was no one around to share in my esoterics with me, so i was lonely. Jealous, because ta'avah and sinah make kinah, and i so badly wanted to impart my knowledge with others, and sin-ah because the yeshiva hired all these young rabbeim for the hashkafa bit, whose hashkafa was drawn from torah circulars on shabbos and papers on the floor in meah shearim. Maybe talk shows on radio also. So i HATED THE FACT THAT i was rejected by the yeshiva to fill these positions which were so up my alley, while these young lunkhead fakers did it instead. The yeshiva did not at all appreciate chassidus or esoterics, bar the maharal, because of his strong debut in the baalei tshuva world, where the yeshiva staff was from.
The final straw was when mr. rosh yeshiva gave a nefesh hachaim shiur, skipped all the hagah's, translated all high terms as "Hashem". Then, some/o asked in the shiur if it was possible to feel the dveykus of a mitzvah. Rosh yeshiva said "no." I went beserk, spewing forth mareh mekomos in Gra-ic literature to prove he was wrong. A rebbi like this teaching hashkafa?! fooey! I had so much resentment, rejection, and RID.
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
THE MAIN POINT OF THIS POST IS HERE:
I began to use my self therapy called regression that i posted about last week. This was for many months, and i helped set the foundation for my out of body experience with GYE, as you'll see.
Then we went away once for shabbos, the hosts said i should go into a certain profession, the idea was brilliant, and feasible. My wife loved the idea. I was so confused ("what about kolell, torah mah tihay aaleha... ." The following sunday morning, a certain famous Jewish singer who I learned Leshem with (!a real soap opera now!) suggested i go ask advice from a certain big man in klal yisrael. I asked. Knowing nothing about me, gadol was on the dot with all my talents and faults, how to use them, and he suggested that i leave kolell, hastily finish my degree from nine years ago, and go for a master's!
Many Gye's iv'e seen start their addictions with the new setting of having the internet. So here i was, mr kollel dude, who dropped second seder to sit by pc and finish my degree with online studying and research, etc. AND THE BEAST WITHIN ME WAS KICKED IN THE EYE AND AWOKEN!!! aside from the unreal and unbelievable RID involved in finishing this degree in just two and half months, i now had internet, AND all the previous brain charcoal to boot.
downhill.....downhill....downhilll.... .
AND THEN I WAS SHOWN THE LIGHT OF GYE BY A FELLOW GYE-they said "tzaddik, please join GYE or i will kill you, thank you." And that was it.
Now originally, bec. of my background of abuse, acting out, and torah and chizzuk approach, i once thought I could be helpful to others on this funny website. The GYe just looked at me askance, probably thinking "this guy is so messed up-please God kick him in the eye and get him to join GYE as an addict and not a holier than thou circus freak rebbi-type. Amen."
So i joined GYE.
Here's what happened in a nut shell:
1)i became extremely aware like staring at the sun that i was an addict
2)i got the tools and terms and handbooks to climb out
3)i got an infantile but working havana of how my addiction works, and triggers, and RID and HALT
4)i discovered KOT, which changed my life when using it in all my emotional battles, like after making wife feel bad, etc. W/out it, those things wld. plunge me back under.
5)I learned from Dov and Dov ii many amazing points, so fine that a philosopher like me cld appreciate (Gaurd was not really posting since i joined).
6)i learned from Bards that simcha is an action, not a madreiga, and how you just have to do it. Retroactively i understood everything about simcha from R nachman and the Besht.
7)i was pulled out of isolation by the forum, never to return. never!
8)i made unbelievable friends here, all good men of valor and purple hearts, who i would make gedolim cards of if i could. They all bit by bit pulled me forward and did brain surgery on me.
9)i had support for my struggles, which was exhilirating, which i never felt before.
10)I was pulled out of the loneliness of my life to be part of a community.
11)Bards kicked me lovingly in the pancreas and showed me how to be part of a real community, where people die and get married, to quote him.
12)I posted more and more like myself until i wove together all 50 parts of my personality to just be myself, the way God designed me to be.
13)i shared some experiences with others so that hopefully they gained.
14)thank you forever, gaurd (and all shiny moderators). Forever, since your work has positively helped me for the rest of my life ahead of me.
___________
Now, comes the question. How do i take the GYE world and put it back into my real life?
Certainly, the point of GYE is to lead a real happy life, and not to survive off of GYE like intrevenous tubes.
I am not stupid enuff to think that i should stop GYE, or cut down. I know from the Bill story in the SA lit. that we need to reach out to stay sober. More importanty, i am not yet sober and need to continue trucking to get there. Also, GYE helps me express myself and does too much for my other emotional struggles.
WHAT I AM SUGGESTING THOUGH IS TO BEGIN UNDERGOING A TRANSITION from being a virtual GYE to being a recovering oveid Hashem, with all the other parts of real life. So i want to move GYE from BEING MY AVODAS HASHEM to being AMONGST and AIDING in all of my various avodas Hashem.
With this jedi mind transition, i will be able to recover even better, focusing very much on implementing the gye ideas into my activities, and not leaving it partly by my computer.
I will be able to continue again now on my path to be a talmid chacham and simple oveid Hashem, wit GYE to help me get there.
I am more relaxed. I have regressed and now bounced back up. My neshama is patiently waiting for me now to continue.
I have more awareness, tools, awareness of who i really am.
I want to go on now. And USE the therapy. AND NOT JUST LIVE IN IT.
it does not mean i will not be on the forum, or less on the forum. Rubbish.
It means that i will employ this Jedi mind trick and then whatever will happen after that will happen, and i will judge at any moment in my future what is best for my path in life and my recovery. If it will mean being online an hour a day, so be it. If it will mean changing my name to Vanderbilt and becoming a steel tycoon, so be it. I am not dumb enuff to decide what's best for me tomorrow while i live in the today. Ha'avar ayin, viha'asid adayin, vihahove kiheref ayin.
That's it. That's my whole point. It took me several hundred words to say it, but thank the maker. And i can't believe i was able to so clearly outline what got me to GYE and what i now need to do to continue on my path in life. Thank you Hashem for constantly showering me with pure chessed and giving me so much. You are so nice to me. Thank you so much. And thank you fellow GYe's today. You have helped change a life, when you didnt even stop to realize. You all change the world. Thank you.
