soaring high wrote on 16 Jun 2021 17:52:

Not sure what type of phone you have, but on an iPhone, if you block a number, it blocks calls and messages. 
If you have a different smartphone, I'm sure if you do some research you'll find an app that could block the texts...
If you have a basic phone (great!) But I doubt there is a way to block text.

HappyYid wrote on 17 Jun 2021 12:05:

thank you for responding, but i do have a basic phone (one of those few ), so i guess there's something more kosher about the smart phones

Sapy wrote on 16 Jun 2021 23:09:

Thank you r' sapy for your warm welcome!, and thanx for sending me to excellence thread it's really amazing.

so why do i want people to think of me as mr. perfect? great question, i guess u can say that i'm going for tayvah and kovod together, (i guess that i have kinah as well from all the guys who have their life together)!

from the saorar that's finishing day 6!

i have a question for you guys, do any of you know of anyone that has struggled with live one on one with women (not just as a one time thing), that has gotten fully clean for a substantial amount of time (atleast 2 years), without going to sa?, i am not looking for opinions, just wanna know if you know anyone like that, because i would like to be intouch with such a person, so if you do can you please let me know either here or pm me, thank you

soaring high wrote on 16 Jun 2021 17:52:

Hey, @SH, welcome!

I am just reading this now, sorry that I came late to the party.

I relate a lot to what you wrote, "the problem is that I feel so isolated, I don't really feel like I connect well with people (even or maybe especially family..." This is me in a nutshell. I don't have any answers but this feeds right off of the rest of what you wrote. "People pleasers" and "nice guys" and the like who need the fake persona that they put on to feel worthy tend to have a very difficult time connecting in a real way. I think this is because we are essentially lying to everyone about who we are. We know subconsciously that we are not giving our whole self. We sometimes feel that if only they would know who I really am, they wouldn't look at me, and we can also feel that if someone would lie like this to us about themselves (think spouse) we wouldn't like them so they must not like us. 

The isolated feeling is hard, I have it too. I lie to my parent's, I tell them that everything is fine even though it's not. That's what I think they want to hear, that their little tzaddik is still a tzaddik (he is btw, just struggling, like everyone else). 

A plunge into the deep end would be to find a real person, someone who is trustworthy, who can listen and who is able to be non judgemental and spill out your heart. Learn to be honest with at least this one person. Then we can work towards being honest in general with others as well. We don't have to tell everyone we see every detail about everything, but we can tell people that we are having a hard time, that we feel lonely, that we made a mistake here and there etc. A therapist is great, a good rebbi or rav works as well or a family member who you are close to.

It might also be a good idea to see a therapist anyway, sorting through all this is not easy. Also, when the bubble bursts, at least for me, I literally went into a depression. I had to figure my life out again from scratch, what drives me, what motivates me etc. I couldn't do it alone. 

I discussed this a little in my thread "The Truth" check it out if you want (link in my signature). 

.

.

Thanx to everyone who reached out, it is very much appreciated, i am counting day 9! i also feel like i am in a better state of mind, i can't really explain it so well, as it is i have a very hard time writing clearly on here, but it still helps and it's making me be accountable (to noone in particular) i hope that i am going to be honest, and i mean really honest with myself, i have more to share but i gotta go now so maybe later

from the soaror who loves to soar

counting day 11!

BH

counting day 16!

hi today will be day 23 iyh!, I feel like celebrating already, not because 23 is a big number for me as I have done way more in the past, but because I feel like I am (finally) really being serious about this, I am trying to be honest with myself, and to be InTouch with myself, basically I am working on making my mind clean besides for just being physically clean.

And for me that means to wake up in the morning and tell myself r' yid you wanna have a productive day, u wanna have a day that u wouldn't mind that u acted/thought..... this way, it may even be ur last day (i'm just saying what works for ME for now, i don't personally get scared when I think like that, for me it's just really facing reality).

Of course I find myself sometimes over the day having trouble, and when I am hit with a feeling of lust than I turn to hashem and tell him to please take it away from me because I really don't want it, I don't know if it's hashem helping me or just the fact that I am saying that I don't want it already makes it a lot easier

Eitherway this is what I am working on these days, and for the first time I feel what we say here that it's one day at a time, I knew the slogan a long time ago, but in the past when I was clean for a bit I would convince myself that I am already perfect, but now bh I know and feel that I have to constantly be on top of my game, and just because I was clean yesterday doesn't mean i will be today, so i wake up every day with a new commitment to be clean and wanna be clean today, and with the knowledge that otherwise it wont work.

I know that it's a journey and i'm still at the beginning, but it will always be a journey, with no final destination, rather this is life itself to keep on getting better and better.

A issue that i am dealing with now is that i feel like that because of everything that i have done therefor i am not really a good jew and even though i am doing as good as i can right now, but still i did so much bad, so i know that we have to just do our best and that's all that counts, and i know chazals are full of that if we overcome it than how great it is......, and tshuvah is wonderful! and i beleive it but i still think that someone who hasn't done all this is holding in a way better place, and it makes it hard for me to accept myself, just sharing because i don't think there's much to console me (other than a sit down with r' chaim kannievsky:)), basically i wanna really accept and really love myself for who i am, and even if it's possible to reach higher hights i should still be satisfied with where i'm holding, while at the same time keep on striving to be better,

ok that's it for now from the flying soarar!

soaring high wrote on 04 Jul 2021 18:22:

If a sit-down with Rav Chaim Kanievsky would help, maybe some gemoras and Rambams would also help. (Especially Rambam Hilchos Tshuva perek 7 halacha 4. Check it out.)

Hi chevra today is gonna iyh be day 30!!!!!!! i am truly grateful to be holding here, a huge huge shout out to hhm for always always always (3 years) being there for me, and although i know how busy he is, still every time that i talk to him he has all the time in the world for me, and he really has a great understanding of people, secondly i wanna thank my new friend rwbg who woke me up! and has alot of practical advice that i use all the time.

I wanna just get my story out there, not another book here, but rather to just understand myself and what led me to act out in life, as hhm told me its good to define things for what they are, and my therpist thinks it's good to be able to have clear story line, so after speaking to my therapist, this is what i came to realize.

I grew up in a home that on the surface it looks like a normal healthy home, and it is in many ways, but my father never connected with me as a child, never showed me that he loves me and accepts me for who i am, i never got a hug from him, and never felt like i meant anything to him, he did not show interest in me as a person, the only times that i mattered was when i did bad stuff, he would then come over to me to either smack me or yell at me or just tell me how bad i am, and how i am a embaressment to him, so that was the extent of our conversations and interactions, and every time that he would do any of the above i would literally feel like i was exploding, i wanted to really hurt him, and i wanted to run away, i never felt any love and it hurt so much.

I even remember learning with him as a child (which i had to do alot of) and anytime i didn't know something (often) he would show me his dissapprovel and then tell me that i have to ask the stranger sitting next to me to explain it to me (because then i would remember it), and i would just feel like a piece of dirt worth nothing and yes i would feel like that i wanna burst, oh and when we were done he would make sure to let me know how poorly i was doing, and on and on this would go in many other areas.

So because i had this lack of love and acceptance, and i was quite often having this feeling of wanting to explode (sorry can't explain it better then that), i therefor ran away not in the literally but emotionly i ran away, i was looking for my escape, and i found it in acting out especially with phone sex, (iv'e seen a porn magazine in 5th grade already so i was exposed), acting out was my comfort zone, it was a place where i felt happy, and it was the only place for me to feel happy, because i wasn't getting it in the home.

So even when eventually i "shaped up" and i started doing all the things that are right, and he was happy with me, i still didn't feel that love, A. because it was conditional, so i knew that he only likes me because i am making him proud, so it wasn't what i needed, i needed him to just reaaly care about me a nd love me unconditionally, and B. because i felt that i wasn't really doing good because i was already acting out, and if he would only know the truth about me than he would hate me, and C. because i felt like he could see right through me and he could tell that i'm a fake, so i didn't think like he's really happy with me (and there are examples that i can prove that he wasn't fully happy with his son) so i therefor never felt his love, and still turned to acting out as a place of comfort as a place where to be happy, and this basically continued for many more years.

ok i gotta go now chevra, iyh i will continue this when i have a chance, it is very relieving to put this out there, and to have clear picture of what happened to me and why, bye for now from the soaror who's holding by day 30!!!

Oy, very painful. I’m sorry you went through all that pain and turmoil.
Congrats on making it to 30 days, and May you keep growing in this area as well as in all facets of life.

YeshivaGuy