why few good looks, its dangerous, leg looks are sucking
even in the "dov mode" seeing them as real people, its still sttractive, avoid triggers

End of the day. Still sober. No more real slips.
Those good leg-looks were obviously bad not good.
Now to get the bus home.

we are so happy for you
drinking a lchayim for you
wishing you another clean day
with lots of hatzlocho

Blind Beggar wrote on 08 Nov 2011 10:21:


That is an ikkar - that the giving of names is actually an essential humanizer. A normal guy who has lust for a woman might do better by considering them nonexistent, nameless, and useless creatures. Strangely, playing that game can make it much more difficult for an addict. In fact, davka an addict usually does better when actually being goreis the woman/women, and davka using their names, and davka davening to Hashem to help them using their actual names. Distancing from the fakeness of the lust and fantasy means getting more aware of their humanity. And humanity means imperfection, needs, and innate goodness.

Sure, using the ladies' real names could just create a 'label' for a lust object and he might just be making a handle for an easier way to carry the it around with him! But I submit that is only if he wants to keep abusing their images in his head and to keep lusting for these people. If a guy is already in trouble and is able to admit that he needs help, then it is no longer time to 'run away'.

So ironically, it is the somewhat perverted guy who needs to become aware of his real relationship with these 'problem women' (not his nutty fantasy one), and use their real names (at least sometimes) when praying for them!

Just as an aside, if you have not used the word "masturbation" in your personal bakoshos in sh'moneh esrei yet, I submit to you that you are not taking this stuff seriously. G-d knows, and using fake terms like "coming lidei zera levatola," or "aveiros chamuros" is pretending that Hashem is yeshivish, frum, or some other silliness. He is G-d, period.

Maybe my point is misunderstood. Either way, I am blabbing now, really blabbing.... 

dov wrote on 09 Nov 2011 01:00:


funny you should mention that, i was just wondering about that…

You're seriously telling me Hashem isn't frum???
I didn't know that.


Hey BB.  I don't think this is about the young ladies.  Like Bards says, "They're not your problem".

Remember, I'm a therapist.  Allow me to make a diagnosis:  Your problem is that you have a tendency to become a lunatic, to lose your mind, to become a raving fool with drool running down the corners of your mouth and yellow snot coming out of your nose.  You smack your lips and bury your face in your beard.  In a word, have you forgotten that you're nuts?  But that's just my professional opinion.

You've been put into a maddening situation.  So you're right, this calls for some industrial strength coiach. 

Here's my version of what everybody else has been saying, too. No matter how attractive the woman patient is, when she starts to tell me her tsurus, the attractiveness goes away and she's just a person whose hurting.  It's crazy, I know, that I can handle the yh without much problem professionally, because I HAVE to relate to them as real people.  Outside the office I'm just another nut case, with drool running down my lips and snot coming out my nose.

So, like everybody's been saying, if you get to know them, they'll become kids with their own joys and suffering, and not anybody you'd really want to have any kind of relationship with.  Just kids who could probably use a kind word and a laugh with a frummeh Yid.

You are now on my Rephua AND Sh'mah koleinu lists.  So I'm thinkiin aboutcha!

much love,
j

Thank you Dov and 1daat, I am with you both. Sarah is a lot more human and looks a lot older than 18 now. Gila has to ask loads of questions because it is hard to start a new job as I well know. We are all in the same boat and we are all people. This will not go away in a day and I am definitely not normal. Sober for 230 days by the Grace of God, but far, far from normal.
I only got one look at those legs under the desk so far today and I don't need any more.
That's all for now.

That, friends, is a miracle. One quiet miracle at a time. That is how we get by. And it's OK. No fireworks needed, no party, no streamers...it's just a regular, real day in the life....and very nice. And it gets better over the years. (And the alternative really stinks.)

Have a nice day, chabibi!

(1daats post was gorgeous and so real, thank you from all of us, I am sure)

End of another day. I still cannot get over Sarah's short skirt. Gila sits next to me so she is more human.

Breaking news : Sarah just asked me a question and I went over to help and answer. On the downside, talking to her has given me a slight erection. Dov will say to pray for her and not only to talk to her. This gives a new meaning to one day at a time.
Without GYE I would be masturbating every night having all the women in the office. It's a good job I never went to college.
That's all for now.

With all the talk here of treating them as people and using their names here, I think we need to add a drop to that.

I am not sure if my experience is the same as everyone else here. I think I've mentioned in the past that I find real people to be more triggering than objects. (In my job I run around the world talking to clients, of course you have to be as nice and freindly to clients as possible. I've almost never had a problem with women clients, precisely because in my mind they are business objects and not real people. The biggest challenges I have had are with the one frum girl who is a client, because she is a real person.)

But I think everyone will agree that with "real women" there is a risk of emotional attachment that is quite unhealthy/dangerous and therefore one needs to make gedarim that will ensure the relationship remains a formal business relationship and doesn't become anything more than that.

Also, obviously one can be "attracted" to a "real person" (as hopefully is the case with one's wife), so it is certainly only part of the process, not the whole process. 

To second kosher's thoughts:
There was also a discussion here somewhere about being on a first name basis with women in your life (co-workers, clients, customers etc). First names create an illusion of intimate connection, and it is much easier to fantasize bout someone if you can use their name as a label and a "handle" (see Dov above) to carry around their image in your sick mind.
Getting in a habit of addressing them as Miss Ploinis creates a wall (in my feeble mind) that is easy to erect (please no pun!) if an inappropriate fantasy comes to mind, while still identifying them as real people.
BTW, as you were calling the girls by their names and describing their body parts, I was quietly raising my hand here to indicate that I am being triggered.....oh, well, no one ever looks my way....

I was being triggered too  :-[.  I am learning to skip over the triggering parts here.  I don't need to read every word of a post.

In am sorry I have been triggering. I shall try and write in a less triggering way in the future.
I appreciate everyone's help in this particular struggle.

obormottel wrote on 09 Nov 2011 16:49:


Ok, so I'll tell u a story and everyone thinks, "no, that's not me...I couldn't do that!":

I was walking with a guy who was a program buddy, going to meetings, etc. There was a woman about ten feet in front of us and he appeared to me to be staring at her rear end and mumbling something. I figured I was wrong, but it continued and I asked him, "____, what the heck are you doing?" He answered simply, "I am praying for her." I suggested to him that while he is praying it is probably not a great idea to be staring at her rear.

After a second, he laughed and agreed that he was crazy for doing that. We actually both had a good laugh about how nutty we can be, and went on from there.

Now to the point: I never said to be on a first name basis with these women, or with any women! All I wrote was that if you are able to, keep all women irrelevant to you. But if a person is already having a problem or seriously assumes that he will have a problem with a certain woman, then it is not the time for him to clutch his hands, squeeze his eyes closed, and repeat over and over to himself things like, "they are not real, they are not real, they are just goyim, they do not count, they are not real, they are just dolls, silly dolls, not real..." It is a useless game to lie to ourselves if we are already putting pretty women onto a pedestal! The woman are not the problem - the pedestal is. It is in us, not them, and we must change, not them. The relationship - which is already there because we deify them in some small way by empowering them - needs to be brought in line with what Hashem really wants from us. Ben odom lachaveiro is real, and applies to everybody.

All I wrote was to be aware of and use their first names when it is appropriate. True, "Miss", or "Mrs." are a given! The title is very important in establishing the proper relationship! But it is often impossible to do that. "Morat Deena" will simply not fly in an office setting.

And acting creepy by using last names when everyone else is using first names, may not work sometimes, either. Hashem needs to be involved here, not just your or my feelings about what I need to do or like. If the right thing to do in this setting is to use first names, then I will openly ask Him to help me do that and maintain the proper professional relationship - and the real bed odom lachaveiro relationship with all people, including these women.

I am sorry for going on and on. There is something that really gets me the wrong way about assuming from the halachos of yichud, that a Jewish man is going to end up seducing a woman he is alone with, or assuming from the derech eretz of yiddishkeit (not to be on a first name basis with women in general) that I will end up fantasizing about the women who I must speak to on a first name basis in order to just be NORMAL. Our G-d is real. His Power and Love are real. My illness is real. And yet He helps me one day at a time.

And as far as erections go, I ignore them. I might get one in the middle of sh'moneh esrei - it does not bother me in the least. I might get one in the office when near an attractive women I had a sudden lustful thought about - it means very little. I need no proof that I have lust - if I have a lust thought I may start to get an erection. So? Walking around asking for a minyan to grant me absolution from a nidui because of a kishui lodaas, is a nutty way to see avodas Hashem. And taking an erection seriously is poison for me, a sex and lust addict. So the anatomy works. Mazel tov. I need to believe that all Hashem needs from me is to do my best under the circumstances, and move right along.

Sorry for going on and on. Wishing everyone a great day, even if they have erections, have lust thoughts, or break rules. We pay for what we intentionally do for lust. We suffer the longer we give our own power away to other people just because they happen to have breasts. Externals. All garbage. Nu. But we are sick, and even if we are not sick, we are still very superficial. We need help, honesty, and more help.

Maybe I missed it in an earlier post.... What do you mean by "praying for the woman"? Can someone please explain that concept and how it helps? What are we praying for?