When I became religious several years ago, I was definitely at my lowest point with shmiras enayim and shmiras habris. Coming from being a not religious high schooler with no sensitivity to this stuff, I would masturbate and watch porn several times a week, sometimes multiple times a day. But the idea of no longer being a slave to myself completely motivated me to get out of it. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be doing it. So after I met with my rabbi about it my senior year, I never looked at porn or masturbated again. That was until this past summer. After being in yeshiva for the past 5 years, I had a really stressful summer job. I would come home from work, emotionally and physically drained at the time, I had an instagram account, and I started to let my guard down by looking at non-modestly dressed woman on instagram. Not porn, and nothing completely naked, but definitely immodest pictures. It was then when I started to masturbate again, to release the stress I felt. From that summer I guess I got used to feeling of it, I liked the way it felt, the dopamine levels produced from looking at those images and doing “the action”. Without any filter on my phone I started looking at actually nude images, and a few videos on my phone, even after the summer ended as a way to relive stress. It would be once a week, or once every two weeks. I davened really hard to stop, but I never really did anything about it.
Finally, in January, I knew I needed to stop for good. I got engaged and really felt like I was lying to myself, my kallah, and everyone around me. I knew it was Assur, and I knew it was preventing me from really experiencing spirituality, but that didn’t stop me from doing it. It was really preventing me from being who I wanted to be, and feeling free, feeling honest.
I asked around for the best filter and someone told me about gen tech. I had already been getting the GYE emails fro months. I downloaded a filter for my phone, and blocked instagram. I didn’t download a filter for my computer because I hardly use my computer. Ultimately that was a bad move, because it still worked enough to look at porn. So nothing really changed, except for that I wouldn’t use my phone. So then I started leaving my computer with no battery, and left it high up in my closet, so if I had an urge to take it down and charge it, then I would have a moment to stop and think about whether I really wanted to do, instead of as easily giving into my impulses.
However, the phone filter didn’t block inappropriate images on Facebook, on swimsuit or lingerie Facebook pages. So I would look at those things. Then I blocked Facebook from my phone. But twitter was the same problem, lingerie companies, or just random accounts had immodest, and even really pornographic images and some videos (on twitter!). So I blocked twitter too. I havnt touched my computer in months. This coming year, I’m going to get a new computer and make sure to have a filter on it.
Since I started having issues a year ago, my longest streak that I can remember is 3.5 weeks, around Pesach time, when I tried to internalize personal geulah from these detrimental actions. I don’t think I have an addition. I know I have a problem, and I know I have little self-control. I don’t think im addicted, because I can stop and have been able to for 2-3 weeks at a time. Also, I haven’t watched/looked at anything even close to what I used to watch in high school, and if anything my issue isn’t getting worse, it’s getting better. I also think it’s a matter of not having the access. I have davened a lot about this and I really think I have the ability to stop. I was at the beach last shabbos, and I literally screamed to hashem to help. I have tried so hard these past couple months, with filters, with davening, with learning about it, listening to shiurim, chizuk, blocking websites. I davened to hashem harder than I ever have before. He knows how much I want to be free from this. I asked hashem to have rachmanus on me, and help me out for everything I’ve done to no longer do this. More than anything else right now, I need to get over this. After those 45 minutes on the beach, I felt different. I have a feeling that this time it’s for real. I‘m about to graduate college, which was a huge source of stress. Im about to get married, and a lot of great things about to happen for me. And I am feeling optimistic about my future of kedusha and shmiras habris.
I’m not sure why I haven’t signed up for GYE until now; I guess I didn’t realize there was a whole app and all these resources. I really want to be done this time, and I decided to start exercising regularly to give me healthy inputs of dopamine so that I don’t need to look at inappropriate images or masturbate to make myself feel good.
I don’t want to go into my marriage with this issue; I also know marriage won’t solve it. I want to be able to experience really love, real kedusha with my marriage and be able to experience the true spirituality of Shabbos and limud torah. I want to get out of this filth and lowly level of tumah.
