I have sporadically looked at the GYE site over a couple of years. This past week is the first time that I actually signed up (and joined the 90 day chart.)

Knowing myself, I've avoided getting an Internet connection at home. So for better or worse (and both are true!!), my primary connection to the Internet is at work. This hasn't stopped me from viewing inappropriate stuff. A mental health professional that I see has bluntly told me that I'm an idiot for viewing stuff at work, and I was glad to hear him say that. It's a reality check that soemtimes I can recall to help me.

I am attracted to same-sex images and thoughts. I wonder sometimes if I rationalize to myself that "well, this is not fully forbidden because it's not women", but I know this is simply the yetzer hara. For a long time, I've kept little markings in my personal pocket calendar showing when I have viewed inappropriate stuff or been motzi zera l'vatalah. My February was great; March was bad; Pesach pretty good, but after Pesach, it's been disastrous. That finally brought me to sign up here.

So this is my hello. Probably more will follow. But I really shouldn't spend time logging on to GYE all that frequently. But I expect I will catch up and read postings every once in a while.

Welcome to GYE.
First of all, I have never met someone who isn't an idiot in some area, so we're all in good company.
when you wrote " I am attracted to same-sex images and thoughts. I wonder sometimes if I rationalize to myself that "well, this is not fully forbidden because it's not women", but I know this is simply the yetzer hara" I thought you were reading my mind! That is exactly the perverted logic that I came up with again and again. The 90 day chart is a great idea, but I find that it only works if you update it often. otherwise it moves to the back of your mind.
Anyway, it's a great idea and we hope to hear more from you soon.
Best of luck.
SG

Welcome, so many of us have begun to turn our lives right here on the forum.

I wish you the same

Hatzlocha and keep on posting!

xyxorwa wrote:

over here, we are all "meshuga l'oso davar."

Xyxorwa,
Welcome. Thanks for sharing. Well done for signing up. It could be the first step in the beginning of a journey of a bette life.
You were buts for looking at stuff at work but as stillgoing said we all are nuts to an extent, which is maybe why we got to where we are.
You are among friends here. We are all struggling here. That is why Yaakov was called Yisroel after all - but he succeeded. That's not to say it will always be the same terrible struggle it is now; many of us here have found that it does ease. Like all yetzer haras and changes it's the initial process of letting go that's so so hard.
That's my experience anyway.
Once again welcome. And keep posting and sharing.

Hello Friend,
You came to the right place.
Please do not do anything personal on you work computer.
I share office space with a creep who has software installed on his office computers that records every key push and every screen. A recent young girl on the fringe who worked for him used her work computer for personal stuff. He went through all her personal stuff, got all her email passwords and is busy snooping through her personal emails and sharing very intimate details of her sex life (nebach she is sleeping with someone) with people in my office. This is a Bas Yisroel whose father is a talmid chacham and tzaddik who is struggling so hard to help his daughter. My creep neighbour is hurting her horribly by sharing such private information, printing up her private email conversations and showing it to other young girls in our office. At least one girl in the office told him that this is terible what he is doing. I hope he will stop.
Imagine what would happen to you if you were caught.
I love you and would never want to see you with that pain.
Let's stick together and help each other.

Welcome! I also struggle with SSA and I remember having those same thoughts. When I was young my rebbe had given us the usual speech about not looking at or thinking about girls etc. I was totally clueless and I had no idea what the big deal was. A couple of years later in my early teens I became conscious of the fact that I was fascinated by other boys but I still didn't know much about "the world" and I didn't understand what it meant. But I remember thinking to myself "at least it's not girls"!

BTW how do you pronounce your name?

..

WELCOME! We look forward to hearing more from you. Take a look at the handbook, 90 days is only one tiny part. There's a lot more there. Why are you seeing a mental health professional? From what you wrote, 90 days isn't going to do the trick. It may help, but don't be satisfied. See what else you can do.

pischoshelmachat wrote:
It's hard for me to talk, since I don't know what I would do in your situation, but it would seem that you have an achrayus to stop him somehow. You may need to discuss with a rav, what is an appropriate repsonse in this situation. It may be as simple as telling this girl that all computer use is being monitored. Although, that can also have a downside, if she realizes that he has all her personal info. I'm not sure what to do, but I don't think you can just "watch" this happen and not do anything about it.

To Gevura Shebyesod: I had trouble coming up with a name that I felt comfortable with. Should it be based on some idea or feeling? Should it be grounded in English, in Hebrew? So finally, I decided to throw together a bunch of ugly letters from the end of the alphabet which would clearly mean nothing to anyone. There is no hidden meaning. I like to think of it pronounced as zy-zor-wa (like the X in Xerox.)

gibbor120: Wny am I seeing a mental health professional? Well, I do have depression that's been (mostly) controlled for many years. I also have major issues with obsessions and compulsions-- hello, Guard Your Eyes!! I'm on medications for depression (sertraline) and obsessive thoughts (buspirone and naltrexone). So the doctor who called me an idiot is the psychiatrist who prescribes these medications.

OK. So, as long as I got that out of the way, I'm embarrassed to say that I waste tremendous amounts of time at work. Sometimes it's on the forbidden stuff. But even when I'm avoiding that (and thanks to the 90 day chart I've been doing OK) I can still get sucked into: reading news, doing kakuro and other puzzles, etc., etc. I do keep track of all of the time I'm not "working" at work. This includes time lost on winter Fridays. But it's frightening to me to see how much this gap keeps growing. I haven't added it all up since the end of March, but it was a total of 69 working days. That's 69 times 7.5 hours!! (I have never admitted this to anyone.) I tell my boss and my wife only that I'm keeping track of it, but I'm really scared that I won't be able to make up this time. This is probably my greatest fear, and in the stupid way these things work, this anxiety can provoke me into wasting more time-- with really bad stuff or just with bad (unproductive) stuff.

Summer should be a time that I can make progress in chipping away at this time debt, but I'm pretty sure that I'm still losing time.

OK. Stopping for now. It's been an hour that I've been reading and posting on GYE, so I'll mark this hour and get back to work.

Thank you especially to those who have acknowledged their own SSA. It helps me to connect with others who have this different aspect of guarding our eyes.

if you tend to do other things at work, that is not work this will eventually lead you to looking at inappropriate thing on the internet so i think if you tackle this problem, it can really help you on the lust problem.

I personally respect and admire you for not having internet on your house, that is really brave.

Welcome.

Hi xyx.
How's it been going? Since you haven't posted here in a few days, I guess you are taking your own advice and only doing work related things at work.
Hope it's going well.
(P.S. What happened to your 90 day chart?!!!)

Seems like this thread is a goid meeting area. . .i have SSA too. Reading your story, i could really resonate. Especially with the yetzer haras way of saying that it's not women, so it's not assur. Kudos to you for opening up! It's a journey, but you're on the way. Further, you're not travelling alone but rather with a group of brothers. You're not alone, and we're all rooting for you. If you ever want to reach out to me, my email is shomerbro@gmail.com.