MT:
La'aniyus Da'ati, I respectfully disagree about Hashem being more close to us at certain times than others. (I have the same problem with "this time being an eis ratzon, this time not", etc.) Hashem is there year round, 24/7, and it's only our perceptions that make Him seem closer or more distant.
Avrom--keep it up man! Keep on going! Every post you write literally gives me tons of chizzuk.
I fell last night, and that was after drinking two cups of Caffeinated Pepsi at 8:00 shallosh sheudes and staying up till 12:40am before going to bed--I was still to tired to fall asleep, and my organ was on fire (figuratively of course) as I lay there trying to fall asleep. You know, this isn't like any other addiction--if you don't have cocaine, you can't get high, whereas just by moving or rolling over in the wrong direction you can "get high" as it were on this. But Baruch Hashem, I didn't use imagery, and Hashem helped me make it through 4 challenging days clean, since Tuesday.
I've discovered a few things:
-I have mood swings occasionally. Anyone have good ideas about how to combat those? One day I'll be doing great, then the next day I will have trouble focusing during davening, won't want to learn, will try watching TV, etc.
-I think some issues of mine are humility and self-esteem: that is, I sometimes build myself up unconsciously in order to assure myself that I am perfect while knowing deep-down that I am not. I think I have a faulty idea of self-esteem ingrained in me, in that it isn't okay for me to make mistakes. I have to accept that it is perfectly fine for me to make mistakes.
-With that attitude, it shouldn't be any problem for me to accept that I am an addict / have problems, and not only that, but I need to open up to someone (because I haven't really opened up in real life to anyone explicitly (even though my brother and two friends know that I've been "nichshol" in this area / watched porn in the past)).
-I also need to gain confidence in social interaction, because I have an insecurity or two about my appearance, my shyness while speaking to people, etc.
-I agree that this problem is a symptom of other problems--but I think this issue has also helped create the problems, and thus a big motivation of stopping is that these other problems might go away as a result of stopping.
-I stay inside most of the day without much social interaction, as there aren't many good Jewish kids my age where I live. Hopefully that will change within a few weeks, when I start at a Jewish college.
On a more positive note, I blocked YouTube on my computer, and after deleting a lot of people as friends from my Facebook account (down from 500 to 180), since I never really talked to those people anyway but I just knew them (an interesting experience which created a queasy feeling I couldn't quite put my hand on), I decided to delete my Facebook account. (However, I can always "restore" it by just logging back on, but as of right now, I'm off Facebook.) A big step.
I'm feeling pretty good right now, just because I've been learning well the past few days (even though it was a gigantic adjustment coming home from camp to my house, I think I'm over it.)
I also need to come up with more positive hobbies also. I think I'm be'ezras Hashem going to resume:
-Piano playing
-Maybe learning how to cook
-Playing basketball
(I haven't done any of the above in a while.) I also need to make time for them at college, since I have a feeling I will be learning Torah a lot and academics a lot, so I need to make sure to get outside and stuff.
Oh yeah: one other thing I realized was that I've been subconsciously diagnosing myself with a ton of problems. Like "your parents are divorced", "you've been through this, that, etc.", "this incident happened to you as a little kid,", etc. I think that it is counterproductive to focus on all of the PROBLEMS I've gone through:
-First, if I was to really count it up, the billions of kindnesses Hashem has done for me completely outweigh problems I might have had; and
-Second, when I focus on problems, it almost becomes as if "wait, I'm not supposed to be happy. Quick--stop being happy!" It's kind of like when my mom yelled at me recently, and normally my reaction would be to storm to my room, but Baruch Hashem this time I didn't particularly mind. But I went to my room anyway--why? "Because I'm not SUPPOSED to ignore that". I need to just forget about problems I have and just be thankful all the time.
-The above point is very similar to a realization stated in a chizuk email a few months ago: someone got onto a bus, and realized "hey, there's no CHIYUV for me to lust at random passengers on the bus, look at them, etc." There's no obligation for me to have a yetzer hara in the first place, and I can survive without lust just fine!
-Third--I also focus on the problems of others around me too much (like my parents, my brother, etc.) While I need to feel empathy, it's becoming counterproductive--like I'm sad when they're sad, etc. I doubt the definition of empathy involves actually undergoing the actual sadness they are going through, because it is quite frankly very paralyzing to be empathetic like that.
Sorry for the long post; those were just my thoughts the past few days.
Avrom--I guess I've kind of been thinking "once I overcome my addiction I'll solve problems A, B, C, etc.", and this gets me very into the 90 day count. At the same time, though, while my goal is to be rid of this, the battle is fought one day at a time, and I think all cheshbonos are counterproductive. My cheshbon after getting home from camp was supposed to be "no porn through my start at college, I'll by then have like 60 days (running from camp through college), and pretty soon I'll hit 90 days"! You see how long that cheshbon lasted.
You see, we aren't in control of anything. Just put in my effort for TODAY, one day at a time, and maybe in a month we can look back and say "whoa--where'd those 30 days come from? I've been clean THAT long??"
I've also found that it was good to get away from GYE (no offense to anyone), because GYE stresses a huge focus on the problem, which for me was kind of counterproductive. It's almost like the realization above: there's no chiyuv for me to be unhappy given what I've gone through, to lust for anyone--in fact, there's no chiyuv for me to act as if I have a problem at all! Ignore it, forget about it (but of course with a solid plan of shmiras einayim, and fences), maybe post once a week, and when you need chizuk there is plenty of that, because we are literally all in this together.
Now just time to live and be happy, because R. Nachman was really correct that depression is the root cause of all sin.
Thank you to anyone who took the time to read that
![](https://guardyoureyes.com/components/com_kunena/template/default/images/emoticons/new/smile.png)
, I wrote that for my own benefit, but if you took the time to read it maybe you found something helpful.