Hi, day 15 here. Grateful that I'm clean. Been feeling a lot of emotions, some sadness, loneliness, and negative self talk. I'm aware that when coming off an addictive behavior or substance it's common to struggle with emotional regulation. It's been tough, curious to hear if others have experienced similar thing. For me life is a roller coaster and I have hard time being comfortable with the uncomfortable. When I a am uncomfortable I seek comfort and acting out has provided a distraction from everyday discomfort in the past. IYH hashem will help me deal with life in a healthy way. I strive to continue to make progress one day at a time.

Until next time,

Optimistic Cheetah

Totally,, feel much more emotionally disregulated since I started this journey but I also feel that I'm actually learning how to navigate life with all it's emotional discomfort and make myself a stronger more durable person. So yes I think that that's normal . Also I'm on day 14 so one behind you and could relate to the urges your having as I just got really urged a hour ago but dealing with it now or more like dealing with myself and then it should go away on its own . 
     Asach hazlacha my friend were optimistic for you!!!!!!! 

optimisticcheetah wrote on 05 Mar 2025 17:03:

Hi there Reb Optimistic Shlit"a,
​I definitely agree about all the emotions, exactly what I'm going through. I can't remember if I read this somewhere or if I imagined it but it seems to me like the nisyonos are coming to guide me into learning how to regulate my emotions, rather than the emotional storm being a bi product of fighting the nisyonos. The GYE daily programs and f2f have been an amazing guide for me in working on this. I've got a loooooooong way to go but drawing strength from you and all the great Chevrah here. Thank you!! Wishing you only Hatzlocho! 

Hello Everyone, 
I have (too) much to say on this subject.................... so here goes. I dont know if anyone will get something out of it but hopefully........

I can definitely agree that since stopping these behaviors my emotional health has gotten worse. 
Let me rephrase that, it hasn't "gotten" worse. I just feel it much more and i am aware of them. 
For over 20! years, I used sex and sexual stimulation take over whenever i felt any uncomfortable emotion, i wasn't even aware that i was doing. I was doing it since before i was aware what emotions are............. As a very young boy i was a very scared and emotional kid, nobody understood me, i had no friends, my family wasn't very emotionally healthy, so i found this pacifier that made everything feel good. I could escape for hours into that wonderful world of bliss..............by the time it learned how problematic this is, i was already hooked. It took me decades to get out of the auto response of reacting to heavy emotions with acting out. 

Now, I know that doing these things only make it much worse, its like doing drugs or getting drunk to escape my issues, it helps for a few minutes but then you have more problems than before.... So I stopped. 
But since then, my emotions are a mainstay, I am always aware of them, I feel every negative bgelive, every fear, every judgment, every sad thought, I overthink everything to the next level. 

So am i better off? Yes, because i am clean and holier then ever before. I am closer to Hashem., My davening and learning are much better! BH! My relationships are better. 
Am i in more pain? No, i dont think so. 
Do I feel my pain more? Yes! Yes, I do. 
What Now? Im learning how to trust Hashem, its not easy, i thought overcoming this addiction is hard............. Bitachon is much harder! 
I have learned and I believe that Hashem uses our lives to teach out how to grow. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes its impossible. But growing we are. 

If all we do is not give up and we keep on getting up (almost) every day, we daven sometimes better and others not so much. We learn and we guard our eyes and ears and mouths among other body and brain parts, we are winning! Sometimes we will feel it and sometimes not. 
But after a while, when we look back and we see the mountain we climbed, we will scream out of joy!!! How didnt we see that we went up? We thought we are just shlepping along on an endless road, when in reality we were climbing into the clouds!!!

Hang in there, Hashem wants you and loves you! 

I’ve actually recently been making it a priority to learn bitachon every day. Shidduchim has been a tough time so far(bh not too long, but still hard). So I’m focusing on learning to trust Hashem. And yes it’s a challenge! But I’m wondering, where does bitachon come into play here? Falling to my P and M urges mean I lack bitachon? If I have more bitachon I won’t fall, or at least not as much?

Day 20 bh. Learning to ride the emotional roller coaster, life is full of ups and downs and today is a beautiful day. Grateful for this community and TYH for giving me the strength to experience life without running away. 

Until next time

Optimistic Cheetah

Day 30 tyh.

Day 34, been dealing with some urges, haven't acted out but the idea keeps crossing my mind. It's irritating and it scares me.

Nice! I've found BOTG helpful in reframing the occasional thoughts urges from "scary" to "opportunities to win", if that's helpful

Day 35 here TYH. I had some struggles over the last few days. Bh i did not view any inappropriate content but I had some strong urges. I did take some action but not a fall. I was feeling very sad and felt like acting out was inevitable. Iwas on the shame train that leads me to a hellish zombie existence of compulsively acting out.

I got in touch with a member and he shared this well known story with me.

One time, some Jewish women who had been kidnapped and then released were brought to the city of Naharda'ah, in Babylonia. They were taken to the attic of Rav Amram the pious, and the ladder was taken away so that no men could climb up to bother them. One of the women was exceptionally beautiful. Rav Amram took the ladder—which was so heavy that ordinarily it would take 10 men to move it—and picked it up all by himself so that he could climb up. When he was halfway up, he braced himself and shouted, “There’s a fire in Rav Amram’s house!”

His students came running, and when they saw what he meant, they said, “We’re ashamed at seeing our teacher so consumed with physical desires!”

Rav Amram said, “It’s better for you to be ashamed by Amram in this world so that you won’t be ashamed by him in the next world.” He managed to expell his desire, which appeared in the form of a towering inferno. Said he to it, “Look, you are fire and I’m just flesh, but I am stronger than you.”

I'm kind of a cynical guy, and a story from the gemara usually would not be impactful to my emotional wellbeing, but in that moment it was the perfect message for me. 
Still going strong One day at a time, TYH.

Until next time

Optimistic Cheetah

optimisticcheetah wrote on 25 Mar 2025 15:15:

I thought the GYE default usernames were randomly assigned . . . but perhaps not?

Kol Tov Brother 

They are randomly assigned, I'm just owning it