I feel like a baby, just in an adult version.

A baby cries. It can't express what it wants so we stuff it's mouth with a pacifier.

Life throws it's hardships I can't express the feelings, so I feed myself the pacifier.

Thank God it's not porn but it's a hell a lot of searching for something to feed my lust and ending with ejaculation.

Welcome back my friend! We've missed you here...
I'm so sorry to hear that the journey is still bumpy.
It's tough. You're feeling מיואש. I feel your pain.
Remember though how much Hashem loves you and ישועת ה' כהרף עין..
Hopefully sometime soon you'll suddenly find the power to get this beast under control.

Keep us posted with the ups and the downs!

Wishing you a gut Shabbos,
UpAndDown

I can really relate to that feeling, I get it too many times. The negative emotion that drives us to lust can seem so foreign to us, so hard to understand, let alone express in any cohesive or productive way. I've been working for years to be able to articulate and still have a hard time very often.
But this understanding you have, that there is a lacking inside that is woken up when life gets stressful, and that drives you to lust, is so powerful even before you have any knowledge of the specific mechanism. With this knowledge you have the power to choose a response to the lacking, rather than just letting your body's default reaction occur.

The road to freedom doesn't have signs telling you how long until your there.

It sounds like your closer than you think.

I did something stupid the other day. Basically opening up a whole new can of worms. Something that can be the beginning of a spiral down hill. So why'd I do it? It's a good question.

I masturbated way too much in the last few days.

#InADarkPlace

stopsurvivingstartliving wrote on 18 Jun 2025 18:31:

I'm sorry brother. Here's a hug from across the ocean.
Be well and be safe.
Hoping some light shines through for you soon, and for all of Klal Yisroel.

Kol Tov

KOMT BRO!
call anytime

I guess it isn't fair to just report when things are sour.

Thank god I am doing pretty good lately.

Sincerely,
StopSurvivingStartLiving

Thank you for this post.

Your positivity helps me too....

as they say "Trach't git vet zein git"

Glad to hear, my friend!

KOMT!

Reporting a win!

Found a loophole, went on there and saw a softcore picture. I could have went further and saw more softcore stuff which would have been very triggering now that I am clean several days. I went a head and clicked my filter extension and blocked the site. Now if I want to open it I need my admin's approval.

I don't believe it myself, but when there is something motivating you it makes the battle a whole lot easier.

The following post is really a confession but I am not writing it lsheim that rather to bring out a point. Facing what I am gonna write will be hard for me but something is telling me to do it.

For a nice tekufa I got my hands on some movies / TV shows. I generally kept away from the bad rated ones. I mainly watched action over romance. Now even though it wasn't titled "romance" they still stick in a lot of it. The things I watched weren't so clean either. Sex was bought up all the time in the scenes (nothing hard core).

Most of the period I was watching these stuff I was masturbating at night. I somewhat gave up. Stopped posting. Stopped keeping in touch. Stopped living, Period.

I never associated this to the fact that I am watching. I wasn't watching porn after all, not even soft core. Lately Baruch Hashem I stopped. Not because I wanted to but because Hashem made me.

Since then I was pretty much clean. Since then I don't think I masturbated. Since then the battle was much more pleasant.

I was thinking one day, WHAT IS PSHAT? How come I am finally able to do it?

And then it hit me. The sex scenes, the talk about sex, was going right into my subconscious. Then at night in the shower an urge would hit me to masturbate and I would do it. Once I stopped watching all this poison (@Chaim_Oigen always says after watching porn there's that poison in your blood, I am saying these non pornographic stuff can be poison as well) things got much easier.


So all those out there watching soft core / romantic scenes, first of all I am not saying it's an easy one to stop. I can't say I wouldn't be watching if Hashem wouldn't have stopped me. I know how "geshmak" it is to sit down to a show you've spent hours following already.

But, if kedusha is a struggle and you never thought it's related to this, rather blaming it only on the hard core porn stuff. You may want to rethink. From my experience the case can be different.

Hatzlacha Raba,
living

Amazingly important post!! 
thank you! 

stopsurvivingstartliving wrote on 10 Jul 2025 00:07:

Wow, so true. In my experience I have found watching the "non P" stuff leads to watching explicit stuff, and even P. The avoda is...stay the HELL AWAY! (Even from the less "hellish" stuff) 

stopsurvivingstartliving wrote on 10 Jul 2025 00:07:

FTFY
Very important truth. Our brain plays oh so many games and labeling techniques to "help" us get what we "need".