Hi everyone.
I am a bochur who has been struggling with motzi zera l'vatala for roughly the past 8 years.

In the beginning I barely knew what I was doing, and I would do it once or twice a day. I didn't realize that it was destroying me. My drive and enjoyment in life. My energy. It would take them all. My thinking became cloudy and I couldn't focus on life or learning properly. I would always be tired and sleep till late in the day.

Back then I would be m"zl while thinking about any women that I saw in the street. In fact there were many times I would just sit by the window waiting for a women to pass by so that I can fantasize about her. Eventually I came across pornography, and even though I've never had more than occasional access to it, I got pretty hooked on it when it was available, and would crave it when it wasn't. I would also be m"zl while thinking about what I've seen online even when I didn't have any access.

Over the past 8 years, I feel like I've given the fight to stop all that I've got. I've spoken to many of my Rebbeim about it asking them for help. I made charts for myself. I made one of my Rebbeim my accountability partner. I tried exercise and cold shower. I gave tzedakah. I davened. I cried. I tried my hardest to throw myself into learning. But still nothing seemed to work.

At this point, I still have occasional access to unfiltered internet and it's just as hard to resist the urge to watch "just one video". But I've b"h been having a much easier time looking away from improper sights. I'm "only" being m"zl on average once a week which is also b"h a big improvement from what I used to be doing.

Even though Hashem has given me tremendous siyata d'yishmaya to improve a lot over the years, I still can't completely shake the yetzer off. I feel like I've tried everything I could but for some unknown reason it was only enough to get me till this, hopefully, last stage. I very very often cry myself to sleep begging Hashem to help me kick this addiction away once and for all. I simply can't take this anymore! There are times where I feel like I would rather die than continue to be struggling with this. I had to leave my yeshiva because I was so depressed about this that I stopped showing up to davening and sedorim. Now I'm in a yeshiva where b"h I started showing up again but I have a very hard time fitting in for many reasons.

I see no possible end in sight, and don't know where to turn. B"h I just found out about GYE and was able to get a modified version of the app to work on my flipphone. I just signed up for the 90 day challenge and I really feel that if y'all here can give me some chizuk, with Hashems' help, it can give me the final boost that I need in order to win over this yetzer hara.

Please, if anyone has any sorta chizuk that they think would be beneficial for me to hear at my stage, please share.

Thank you GYE and y'all who are out there to help!
Yosefhamevakesh

Welcome! You are not alone. Wishing you lot's of Hatzlocho on your journey to menuchas hanefesh. 

Wow. You described me exactly - 35 years ago! You are so fortunate that you are working on this now and that there is so much help available for you.   And even though you have previously worked with some mentors on this, I am confident that you will find that the tools and connections available on GYE far exceed anything you have had access to in the past.  I recently spoke to two rebbeim who regularly counsel bochurim and neither of them were even familiar with “the battle of the generation” by Hillel s. (Available on Amazon or through a link on this website.)

it is important that you try to stay connected here and post regularly through the struggles.  Use this opportunity to open up and you will hopefully learn a lot about yourself too.  

best of luck on your journey and thanks for posting 

Thank you so much for your response!
I always knew that I'm not alone in my struggle, but it's a whole different story when you go on GYE and see that there are so many others that are and were in the same situation and are able to overcome it.It sorta gives a whole new validation to the fight. I'm still new to the forums and don't know exactly how to navigate though it all, but I would definitely love to continue posting my thoughts and questions and interact with other.Is this the right thread for me to do that?

Wow! Welcome to GYE. I hope you will soon see that being here and using GYE to its fullest can help even though you seem to have tried everything. I too felt very similar to what you describe - when I was a Bochur and then later married - and only recently came here (after many years) and found much help. You can read through my thread Forum (guardyoureyes.com) to see some ideas.

Hatzlocha Rabba!

Yosefhamevakesh wrote on 22 Feb 2022 02:53:

Yes. Most guys maintain one thread - kind of like a diary documenting the journey and any thoughts, questions, etc. can be posted there. You can also comment on anything that others bring up on their respective threads.

Welcome! We're all rooting for you! B'ezras Hashem you will win this fight we're in. Check out the live chat: guardyoureyes.com/chat, Shiurim: gye.nu/articles/shiurim and articles. We're all behind you 100%!

It is not easy for Bochurim to stay holy in today's difficult world. Yet unfortunately, this topic generally is not spoken about much publicly, and Bochurim usually end up thinking that they are alone in their struggles and cannot usually gather the courage to speak to anyone about it. This causes them to get depressed and think low of themselves, which often leads to even more falls, in a vicious cycle. It also leads to a yeridah in other areas of Avodas Hashem.

This letter (booklet) was written by a typical good Yeshiva Bochur learning in a typical Yeshiva. He had the same struggles as everyone else and Baruch Hashem has succeeded to grow through them and move on. In this important letter, he wanted to share with other Bochurim what he learned from his journey, to encourage them and share that they are not alone! He guides his peers to the right perspective and suggests a few simple tools, encouraging and ensuring them that they too can see tremendous Siyata Deshmaya and overcome this difficult struggle.

Although GYE has many eBooks and resources that deal with this topic, we feel that this particular letter is important because it is coming from one bochur to another, as opposed to being written by a mechanech or therapist who is coming from a different place.

See attached ...

Is there anything you can do about the unfiltered internet and what's the situation with that if you don't mind sharing (as in what type of device is it)? I assume that because you've been fighting for so long that you're already aware of webchaver but is there maybe any chance of getting an accountability program like that on the unfiltered device if it's not possible to filter it for whatever reasons (like if it belongs to someone else who doesn't want filters)? You can get it for free if you look at the directions for it on venishmartem through this link: venishmartem.com/kba 
If you don't want to explicitly talk with someone or even hint at your problems at all with them and so this isn't an option for you then look at the free accountability program below, you can get it discreetly by just saying you want to use the microsoft edge browser because that's your preference over the other browsers on that device (it works if its windows or android.) and from there you can set up the accountability features discreetly even without the knowledge of the other users because there's nothing else to download after getting the microsoft edge browser, all that's left is to be done online through the microsoft family safety website. Let me know if your interested at all in microsoft family safety and I can post in more detail of how you can set it up discreetly. Microsoft family safety also doubles down as a really good filter, you can block specific websites or set it to allowed websites only and this doesn't even have to affect other users that use the device if it's a computer. 

If by the way you don't want to deal with the unfiltered internet access at all because of the potential embarrassment it may cause with whoever the owners or users are (and I'm not saying this is the case, you haven't wrote anything that suggests that) then sort of imagine of how much more embarrassing it would be to be caught in the act (I got that from user k9) to try to propel you do so. I did this with my mom of all my people because I had to, and I wasn't embarrassed at all after doing so, the only discomfort I felt was the anticipated embarrassment I thought I would feel but again, that never happened. I can post below of how I told her if you think it can help you do the same with other people you know. 

If it's because the people that own that device don't want to feel restrictive then microsoft family safety and webchaver are great options and you should get both if you can. You've probably already know about webchaver but microsoft family safety offers many more accoutability features than webchaver without restricting your browsing at all. It's also a filter service but that is optional. If you want I can post below of all the great features of it that are not restrictive so you can convince those owners or users of that device to get these but at least microsoft family safety because this service is not restrictive at all, and it doesn't even have to affect their accounts on the device if you set it up correctly, it'll only affect just yours. (webchaver however will take screenshots on everyone's account on the device maybe they don't want that) And I can post below of how to do this. Just as a heads up the accountability services are turned on by default and can't be turned off and so is the safesearch setting but this is really nothing, you've very likely browsed with safesearch enabled before because it's on by default on browsers unless you turn if off and I've only ever done this to access p websites so it's not restrictive at all. It blocks only p websites from loading but all other websites are good and you won't even come to this if you have webchaver and definitely not if you also use microsoft family safety. And if you still can't convince them to get this accountability service then you can still do it discreetly, just post below if your interested and I'll try my best to show you how to do to so. 

Hope this helps.

Thank you everyone for your responses and support.

I feel like although my introductory post does a good job covering my basic timeline, it's a bit vague covering how I got to where I am today and my current day to day struggles (like Bilaam Harasha to Yosef Hatzaddik pretty much pointed out).

I've got tons of questions that bother me about these inyanim that I would love to ask and I really want to get more involved in the forums. I'm still new to GYE and am having a hard time puting all the my thoughts into words, so plz y'all bear with me and give me some time to put it all together.

Now to try my best to put out some more details of my story so it'll be a little more clear. When I was 12 I started being m"zl while fantasizing about any women that I've seen. It felt good so I would do it once or twice a day, not realizing that it was destroying me. Without realizing it, I started losing my energy, drive and enjoyment in like. I went to yeshiva and continued doing being m"zl while looking at pictures of women (usually in science or mathbooks).

Eventually I found out that the reason that I was always so tired and out of it was because I was being m"zl. I decided that I would stop, but of course, I was hooked and it was too pleasurable to stop.

When I was 15, I opened up to my Rebbe about this and we learnt though some of what chazal say about it. It definitely helped to have someone to talk to about it and I was able to get it down to a few times a week, but I was embarrassed to talk about it enough and I wasn't ready to give it up yet.

A little after I opened up to my Rebbe I realized that the laptop at home wasn't filtered and I could access porn. I was in an out of town yeshiva so I barely had access to the laptop and my family went through a few laptops over the years so I didn't have regular assess to porn but I still had some videos locked in my mind which I would play over when I was m"zl.

Over the next few years nothing much really changed, I wanted to stop but it was just too hard. When I got to beis medrash it started to bother me a lot more that I was still struggling with m"zl. I was too out of it to really show up for sedorim enough to keep a chavrusah for more than a few months. I was barely showing up to shachris. I always felt ashamed and guilty. I felt like there was a part of me that was missing, and I would be uncomfortable around people because I was only showing them half of myself. I was just too lost and didn't know where to turn and I started to cry a lot. I opened up to a few more Rebbeim but nothing they said could help me stop.

Over my first 2 years of beis medrash I had to buy a few new phones and it always took me some time until I made it to tag to filter them, meaning that I was watching porn much more often. Eventually I got myself a phone which you can block the browser through parental controls which would work for most of the time, but I would just end up resetting the whole phone whenever the urge got too strong, and I would be back to watching porn.

I started feeling extremely hopeless and started to fall apart. I pretty much stopped showing up to davening and sedorim most of the time until I finally left my yeshiva this past elul, at the beginning of 3rd year bm, for a yeshiva with a more relaxed schedule.

Over the past bunch of months Hashem has given me incredible siyata d'yishmaya to start puting my life back together. I started showing up to sedorim and davening. And after going though days and days of crying myself to sleep, I have been able to narrow it down to falling on average once a week. After falling so many times and wishing I would rather be dead than to continue fighting an impossible battle against this yh, it couldn't be more clear to me that I want to be clean. I've bh set up many gedorim after falling to prevent myself from falling. I've smashed a smartphone after the filter I installed wasn't enough to stop me from finding inappropriate pictures. I've deleted videos with bad content. I removed apps where it was possible to access semi- bad pics. I've done all I can. Bh I so much want to be clean, that I'm usually able to look away from bad things that I see and I'm able to push away bad thoughts. I still have a phone that I can reset in order to get my browser back and I can still easily download any app that has a built in browser on my phone. I also have an old unfiltered phone at home. Generally I'm able to resist the temptation to stop being m"zl reminding myself how bad it'll feel if I fall and how good it'll feel he I keep on holding strong. I even once even had a 17 day streak. After a bunch of days I usually get a burning tayvah which I can't push away. I'm usually able to push it off a little, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few days even! But in the end, the urge just won't go away and I fall. Bh after much work, I got to the point where I daven for Hashem to save me as I commit the action!! I don't even get depressed anymore after falling because I know that I've tried as hard as I could and it just seems like Hashem wants me for some reason to be struggling.

At this point I don't know what Hashem wants from me or where to turn. Obviously He wants me to just continue giving it all I've got and just take each day at a time focusing on the fight at hand until I find myself on the other side. It just seems so pointless to me to continue fighting a battle which I don't even know how I'm suppose to win and don't know why I still have to be stuck fighting it. I feel like there's nothing left for me to gain falling. All I want is to be close to Hashem and be able to connect to him properly, and it feels like no matter how hard I try, I just can't get there. I've gotten up too many times to still be stuck here.I Would greatly appreciate if someone can plz help shed some light on what I'm missing here and how I should continue fighting in order to win over this terrible yh.

Thank you all again for your support!! Be"h this should be a z'chus for all of us.

We feel your pain loud and clear through your writing.  As you continue to read and post on GYE you will find many different new ideas to try. Keep on trying and keep on posting. Looking forward to celebrating with you.   

Welcome. You are a hero buddy, a real hero. There are loads of guys who wish they could trade places with you. They can't even go one day without acting out. You are courageous and have spoken openly with rebbeim, and have reached out here. Iyh you will pick up confidence and eitzas how to break free here. Hatzlocha. For starters, know that Hashem is proud of His loyal soldiers who are walking head on into the tsunami of filth in this world and screaming "NO!". They may get dirty from time to time, but they are marching on b'ezras Hashem to be on the front line when Moshiach arrives....

Welcome! As HHM said, you are a true hero. Here we try to follow what Hashem values, which is effort. And you are putting in a lot of effort. Hashem values that a lot, and it makes us impressed too! (Btw we never know the reasons but maybe that's why you've received siyata dishmaya recently.)

In addition to what you are doing, I recommend that you read from The Battle of the Generation and listen to The Fight, which will help you with this perspective. They are free (see links below in my signature. Though you can buy The Battle of the Generation on Amazon for around 10 bucks if you prefer that over an ebook).

​Hatzlocha!

Your story is very inspiring, it sounds like you were frum from birth and that is really something humbling to see. I'm a baal teshuvah in sorts trying to become a torah observant jew and I have to say that you really do serve as an inspiration as has already been said by the chevra here.  

In regards to your phones, if they are android, have you ever tried microsoft family safety? I recommend you try this even if you've everything else, I don't think the loophole you mentioned above will work with this filter system and it also has a lot of very good accountability features and screentime features so you can block all browsers from being used and additional apps on top of that. You will have to set someone as the family organizer though. It's free so there's really nothing to lose and I think it will help you tremendously.

Baruch Hashem 4 days clean so far. I had pretty bad fall a few days a ago right before I joined gye and then a pretty shvache week over all. Right now I don't have much of a tayvah but I'm feeling that void and want to look at inappropriate stuff or masturbate to fill it up. I know that it ain't worth it and I'll only feel worse afterwards so I'm gonna try not to do anything. But I feel pretty empty and it's hard. Gonna go take a cold shower and hopefully I'll feel a little better afterwards.