Efshar Letaken,
You stole the words from my mouth. You said it precisely the way I understand it. And the truth is that I believe that this yesod from bardichev is one of the MOST important for people like us. So much of my 15+ years of battle revolved around not realizing this was an "inside job". I went through so many periods of ups and downs as described by Efshar Letaken. Every time I did intense teshuvah, I felt "cured" and went back to life as usual. I did not grow in my avodas hateshuvah. I did not grow in my yiras shamayim. I did not grow in my shemira from the Y"H. I did not continue to beseeach Hashem for help. I did not continue to address the concept of self change. I did not grow in kedusha. In my mind, it was all over. The Y"H was gone. Why worry about him? He is dead. But in truth, it was an "inside job". He was still there deep within my heart. He sat there patiently waiting for me to forget the whole episode. And then he would attack. I would be taken off guard, feeling hopeless and powerless, and would just give in.
There was one point in my life (2001) I was going to therapy. One of the reasons I stopped going was because I felt it was futile. Why bother? I no longer desired p**n. I felt so "cured". My shemiras eynayim was great. I felt great. And so after three visits with the therapist, I stopped going. And the Y"H was probably laughing away. He waited six weeks for me to forget. And then he pounced upon me without any warnings; I was goner.
But, B"H, I have learned from mistakes. I have learned the hard way to realize he is still there. As we like to say, "we are always an addict". I do not believe it went away. And I continue to be conscious of my past shortcomings. I do many things in my daily routine so that I will not take my eye off the ball, and that I can continue to grow.
If one cannot understand this yesod, they may have never experienced it. Which is fine. We are different people and all of our struggles are not always the same. But I do think this yesod is something many on this forum have expressed, including myself. But those of us who did experience it are terrified because of it. And so, we fortify ourselves properly, continue to do investigations and ask help from Hashem to activate results.
Once again, thank you bardichev for relaying this yesod in such simple terms. It is always good to get a reminder of this. In fact, if you could remind of this yesod once a week, I would have lots to thank you for.
