OK, maybe I'm NOT necessarily one of the players. I could just be the shoe, the talc, even the beer. But all these play an important part in the bowling world. Plus, I might not be important, but I am essential.

I've long wondered what we'll learn in Moshiachzeit, soll zein kommen, about which mitzvois He really counted on us to do. Maybe it's not limud Torah, or shmiras Shabbos, or even avodah zorah. WHAT IF IT'S ALL ABOUT SHATNEZ?

In other words, we just don't know. Tayku. I'll just have to do the best I can.

OKAY, chevra, I'm going to take my next couple of posts on a different vector. A tricky one. As part of an 'inventory' of what's going through my (unique??) mind these days, I've been thinking about some of the more, er, um, individualistic items in my inventory. Somehow, sharing them -- even on this anonymous forum -- seems a little scary. I don't know why.

(Maybe it's because I predict that I'll be "outed" on this forum and someday my future machuten will see all this strangeness about me. Let's only hope that he sees it because he's been here, too. . I think.) Anyhow, strange ideas are lingering in my head and I can't make sense of them yet. Maybe you'll have ideas, or maybe just posting it will somehow help me as well. The first one is:

>>> I get more se*ually excited by cars than by even good-looking people. <<<

Okay, this probably sounds strange. But I love cars. Fast, good handling cars. Cars where the top goes down. Cars with beautiful sheet metal. When I was in puberty, and friends were sneaking their fathers' Playboys, I would read Car and Driver. (Probably because I didn't really like Playboy, but I loved it when they'd sneak them into a Bar Mitzvah party and look at them and I could look at the boys and their tightened zippers. Another story. I'll move on.)

Anyhow, a couple of years ago I rented a fancy European convertible. Heaven. Took it through a summer drive through the countryside. Bliss. And then I noticed I was getting aroused. Really aroused. Pull over and 'adjust myself' aroused. Not quite pull over and act out time, but I did give that serious consideration.

Now, maybe I just like the take-without-giving that an inanimate object can promise. Or maybe I just get so relaxed when involved with cars that blood vessels naturally dilate. (Did you know that the Greeks understood that the 'anatomically correct' position of the bris is aroused? Because it's only everyday tension that keeps those vessels tightened up? Fascinating to me.)

In any case, I tried sharing this trait with a good friend with whom I could normally share these kinds of things. I got a look of disgust or shock or something. Anyhow, he didn't get it.

Somehow to me, this trait doesn't seem too weird. Except I'm now embarrassed to even speak the words. Which means I wanted to get it out there somewhere. Like here.

Go! Man, Go!

Love that post Mikva night thing you got going on...makes total sense.

You can make it...remember you gut new guys like me looking up to you and counting on you! You are blazing the highway to success for us to follow.

I'm davening for you right now...I hope it worked...just said a quick k'pittel tehillim for you, my friend.

Also, today during Torah reading I like to try and find a "yud" during hagbaa or when I get an aliya and take a message from that to carry out the day. Today I saw the word "Yom"; it was amazing...like Dov and others have said...it's all about one day at a time. Just live for today--when we think about tomorrow it becomes too difficult.

Y

P.S. Had a great ma'asah last night. After the basketball game (I love sports), I realized that I didn't eat dinner...I was starving, but I'm on a diet...and the diet says no eating within three hours of bed. So I began to get irritated and you know what comes next...but because of YOU and YOUR encouraging words, I said; "Screw it!" and I took food from shabbos prep and went to bed clean and happy! This is more important than any stupid diet.

Thanks, [NOT]AAOT:

Yeah, I think the irritability of the ossur days is now gone. Working on why it happens (like the biochemical hormonal 'why') is a useful exercise for me, but in the meantime I'm just glad it's gone. Still difficult to be patient with kids and little irritations, but I'm able to see the little brochos in my life, too, so things aren't so bad.

I'm still wondering if anyone will see my earlier post about how a good car can actually cause a physical arousal. More than most real-life beauties. Weird. Sick, even. Bewildering, certainly. I wonder if sobriety requires that I stop driving .

OK, guys, bizarre question: Does anyone ELSE here find specific situations "arousing" that have nothing to do with people, s*x, whatever?

i am not sure but i find i get aroused in the car but i don't feel like i like the car or anything its mostly the way i sit, it happens a lot in the mornings but also some other times. i don't like cars and sometimes get nauseous in them, i think it is just the way i sit.

a person can get triggered by anything..

a memory, a smell, a sound, a picture, an image... food, etc.

its just memories, and transforance...

lack of sleep can also be a trigger - why ?
when the body needs sleep it goes through tis memory banks and says..Hmmmm sleeep, what worked in the past... oh, how about m***, causes a release and then we get some sleep.. ok - so how do we do this M*** thing... okk - needs some images, thoughts, ect...anything to get one excited - which could also be cars for that matter!

btw - nice to "see"you on the DC call ...great bunch of guys !

(it sounds cornyu and cultish - I know... but neverthe less, keeep coming back, becasue it works )

Briut, we have not heard from you in a while! Is everything ok? looking forward to hearing from you!

Briut,

I'm not sure if questions, per se, arouse me or if just the wind...sounds like to me it doesn't take much to get you going ;-).

Let's stay focused together, my friend!

Y

Hey, I hope everything is OK there!

Just because I don't get turned on by cars, can we still talk? :-\

Day 77.

Everything was so nice and calm in the GYE department for a couple of weeks. Yomtov, client work, a mini-vacation with my wife, lots of reasons. Now, symptoms are coming back up with a venegence. I think I can deal with it, though. My focus really isn't so much on how to walk away from the mental and physical symptoms, it's really on how to replace those feelings with something that's not so self-centered, so self-indulgent.

I've been working on a longer essay that helps put this into words. Maybe I'll share it.

I'll confess, I'm a little hesitant to share my thoughts online these days. Maybe they're just too intimately personal, maybe a little too unique-to-me. A couple of weeks back, I would have said, maybe that no one really gives a d(ar)n about my rambling posts, but seeing that folks posted some 'wake up, are you there' posts recharges my egotism that there's somehow some value to someone, somewhere.

Anyhow, I think my mental state is simply the Yetzer Hara pulling out all the stops to halt this work in its tracks. And I'm so mad at him that I'm not interested in giving him the satisfaction. So, other than seeking advice on what to do when cold showers don't help , I think things are pretty quiet around here.

Thanks, guys. -Briut

Learning from you is always possible - and sometimes, you know, you need to post for you - because you need to talk stuff out. And we're here for you then, too.

Glad to hear that things have been going well!

Well, as I'm working on composing bigger posts on grander subjects, here's a little bit of confession to post.

I had a slip yesterday. At least, I'm willing to call it a slip rather than a fall.

I think I'm trying to PROVE to myself that I'm really in control of this (GYE) thing, and that I'm responsible enough to direct my own life in this regard. So, anyhow, here are the brutal facts:
1. I have no filters. Not on my laptop, not on my smartphone. And for about six months now I've been clean.
2. Yesterday, I intentionally went looking for some specific images I knew would drive me crazy. And they did, at least enough to go hunting for some more. And I found more.
3. Still, I was able to look for a minute (okay, 2-3 minutes) overall without much urge to jump in for the next hour (which would have been my downfall in the past). And I stopped. No acting out, no further surfing, nothing.
4. I was sorta proud of myself, I'll confess, that I was able to go, look, and still leave. I know I'm supposed to stay far far away, but somehow I wanted to test and see how it went.
5. On the more positive front, though, I think I can see some mental reprogramming in place, since I could look and say 'yum' and still say 'bye.'
6. THE MOST IMPORTANT PART: I ACTUALLY FELT THAT THE EXPERIENCE OF WATCHING THE SCREEN WAS UNDOING SOME OF THE NEW SYNAPSES IN MY BRAIN. I believe I can feel some new neural pathways burning into place through my GYE work, and I had the sense that the little "see how tough you are" experiment was reversing some of the progress. So I'm very glad I stopped.
7. Of course, I'll confess that a couple of the images are still wandering in my mind, but in sharp contrast to the past I'd now rather have them leave. (In the past, I'd allow them to linger as I savor them for as long as possible.)

Okay, that's the confession. No filters, no belief that I'm powerless, grand belief that I can "handle it" but I'm merely choosing a different path.

Oh, and PS: I've realized that my Russian Roulette in going filter-free might work for me, but shouldn't imposed on our kids. So even though our computers have no fulltime net access (except my business laptop, which is well password-protected)... I just installed K9 on the kids' machine for those rare cases when I hand them a wifi receiver on a USB stick for researching a school assignment.

Thou mayest all line up here for a turn flogging Briut with a wet noodle (or the posting equivalent) for this little stunt of a slip. Except I'm still not sure that I'd feel the flogging was really called for....

It sounds like your no-filter thing is connected with the rest of the whole issue there - and without flogging you or anything, I think you already know that whatever happened there was far from ideal. So I would suggest that you examine the motivation that lead to you "testing" yourself.

Briut man...I love you...we are so much alike because I used to do that all the time...it would work the first few times and then I'd crash and burn hard thinking that I had beaten this addiction.

Keep strong buddy! You can do this...us newbies look up to our hero members!

Y

silentbattle wrote on 25 May 2010 05:40:

Yeah, I'll admit that you've got a point. I'll be giving it some thought.

At first glance, it would seem that I'm basically eager to see real, concrete evidence that things are looking different than before I arrived here. Which they might be, although it's sorta funny that I'd be sticking my finger in a light socket to see if I had really turned off the switch. At least the good news is that I'm seeing the switch really did seem to be turned off... mostly....