So here I am after not being here a few days.  I thought I would suffer extreme GYE withdrawal symptoms, but so far I managed alright.

Still going strong and clean!!!  Another day to dance and laugh!!!

Dreams...

I am wondering about something and would welcome others' thoughts on this.  I have been clean for about 3 weeks since coming across this website.  I have found that I had a semi-wet dream this past weekend and the previous one as well.  In my dream I was sitting at a computer and I there was porn there and I was struggling to not look and I was also looking at the same time.  I do not think the dream went on for long but I remember thinking in the dreams that I do not want to fall, but I had already fallen in the dream so I kind of remember being defeatist and not finding the strength to stop looking.  These dreams were bothering me a little because it seems to conflict with me trying to rewire my brain.  I mean if I see in my dreams stuff then how am I able to rewire my brain?

strugglingyid wrote on 05 May 2010 22:02:


Look, I also found myself in a dream where I started acting out. In the dream I told myself I had to stop because I wanted to continue reprogramming the GYE brain synapses. What I did in the dream to stop was to get up and walk around, at which point I awoke from the dream. And realized that I had pulled my hand back in real life, not just the dream.

In other words, the rewiring was starting to affect my dreams as well as real life.

This, frankly, freaked me out. I realize it's a good thing, and probably better than seeing some images in the dream motivating me/you to do something in real life.

All I can say is, it's not clear what order all this reprogramming might be coming in. Surely each person has their own path. But I don't think it's so unusual for the unconscious world to be lagging the conscious world in this regard. Sex in the unconscious realm is a very powerful force. (Ask Freud: a Jewish boy could make a good living off this stuff.) And, there's a whole thread or more around the site explaining that involvuntary nocturnal emissions are not falls, are not aveirahs, do not bring tumah (in its classic sense), etc etc.

Did I get your question??

Briut,

Sorry for taking so long to respond I have been quite busy lately and have not been around too much lately.  I read your response and I think it is right on.

I am not sure what to post today as things have been pretty quite with me lately.  I still struggle when I am on the street to not look but I think I have been making good progress there.  I think staying away from all the triggers that I can makes a HUGE difference.  There was a certain newspaper I used to read on the way to work which I stopped buying because I was concerned about triggering images.  I came across this newspaper the other day in the barber shop and started reading it and suddenly I was on a page showing an underfed objectified women without a decent amount of clothes on and I found myself struggling to look away.  It suddenly hit me how much the triggering affects me.  Without it I find it much easier to not get started on the route to looking at inappropriate stuff.  (Note to self... need to read the various recommended books and pamphlets here to make sure I have taking full advantage of all the available weapons to fight this disease).

Honestly I can say I am really looking forward to Shavous.  I have grown this last month tremendously and hope to continue.  Things between me and my wife are the best they have ever been in our marriage.  We hardly get upset at all anymore with each other.

Moving on to the relationship with my wife...  I want to mention some things I have been discovering this last month.

I have found that by making an effort not to lust even about my wife and by making an effort to be more giving our friendship has increased.  I think that by taking the sexual tension down a notch it creates an environment where my wife wants to be closer to me and I want to be emotionally closer to her as well.  If I could draw a chart, it would show that when sex drives the relationship the emotional needs being met goes down, but when the sex is eased up on, the emotional needs start getting met.  The interesting thing I am finding is that when the emotional connection is being fed strongly the sexual side of the relationship becomes a natural response to the emotional connection.  Ultimately it does not lead to a decrease in sex or a decrease in the satisfaction from sex, rather it leads to sex that is completing the emotional bond that is there.  This is something that is hard to explain and something that I need to work on for the rest of my life but I think it is well worth it.
To illustrate the before and after differences I think this would be a good example.  If before I tried to come onto my wife and she was not in the mood it would lead to a very testy interaction.  She would react coldly to me and I would get upset at her.  Of course it makes sense, my reaction to her not wanting relations was getting upset because this was the driving force in my relationship to her.  By her denying it, I had the most significant part of my relationship with her being denied.  How can you be close to someone who denies the most important part of the relationship?!  Now if my wife is not in the mood, because she feels much more emotionally secure with me she can tell me no in a pleasant way.  If I feel I need something we can then try to work out a suitable time to make it happen.  Because I see that sex is not really what the relationship is about (it is an expression of the relationship and a way to become closer to one another), I can still be close to my wife and not be upset with her.  Amazingly enough this attitude ends up yielding a better and warmer relationship and yes the sex is just as frequent or as frequent as we want it to be.

What a beautiful and inspiring post. Thanks for the updates.

One thing I'm finding is that the more I control my eyes, the more sensitive I become to triggers. Like you with your newspaper, I believe.

I came to one (Hispanic) cashier wearing a top that wouldn't exactly satisfy Sara Schnierer. Earlier, this would mean nothing to me. Now, though, I really HAD to look away. I would have thought this work would help me feel BETTER equipped to handle this, not LESS so. But this awareness is probably a positive sign that I'm returning closer to where a Yid ought to be. Fascinating.

As to the wife, I'm seeing that putting less focus on ME and what I WANT (for my bris) at that moment... means I'm less self-absorbed and more able to be there for HER. It helps me bridge the gap between MY feeling that I am listing to HER... and acting so that SHE will feel LISTENED TO by ME. A big difference, usually!

Keep up the inspiring work.

A gut voch!!! Another day has come and gone and I am still clean!  Feels real good.

I get these thoughts sometimes that I should look and then I remind myself how lousy that made me feel in the past so I definitely do not want to go that way again.  So far I have been managing okay.  Here and there my gaze may linger a little to long but I pull away and the next time catch myself real quick.  Definitely these triggers throughout our daily lives are a real challenge.  B"H I have made it so far and I intend to make it through today as well.  Tomorrow I will see about then but I hope I will still have the right attitude come then.

What is fantasy...  but a pale imitation to the true wonder in this world.  Why chase after it and miss out on the best.

Oysh...  I had a fall (I looked at some inappropriate stuff, did not come to mz'l) and for what?! For a foolish thought that I found to not even be satisfying.  I thought I wanted to give up this lust, but here I am still holding on for dear life, and I don't even like it.  I have so much good in my life.  I have a wife who I love more than anything and yet I still let the fantasy take hold of my senses.  I thought I was doing good and then perhaps I let my guard down and where did that get me, but to chase after foolish thoughts.

I think my time here has helped and given me new insight into myself.  This time when I was down I became very aware how frustrating and fruitless this lusting really is.  Not only did I find that I could not find any comfort or satisfaction in it, I was also aware that I was hopelessly looking for more when I knew that that too would not satisfy me.  It is so clear that inside of me I really want to fill my life with good things, but for some crazy reason this drive inside of me says I need to chase the fantasy.  I need to let go and let G-d for once and for all.  Not just today but tomorrow and the next.  I can't just rest on the laurels of a few days.  I need to tackle each day as it comes.

I know G-d loves me because he led me here to help fix myself, and if G-d is on my side I can only succeed!

strugglingyid wrote on 11 Jun 2010 13:45:

Welcome back to posting on your thread. Sounds like you wanna stick around. Cool. Pull up a chair, my friend.

Thanks for the welcome back!  :D

Just some thoughts on my fall last week...

For a while I was doing great, staying clean and feeling good.  But then I started getting these thoughts that I should take a look.  I kept on pushing it off but I kind of stopped fighting it.  Then one day I decided to fall.  It is strange to think about it, it really makes very little sense now.  The reality is I don't need this stuff, it is not even satisfying to look at and to pursue, but yet somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I was convinced that I needed to look and then I could get back on track...

Once I looked suddenly I found myself thinking how I can keep on looking and this will be good.  I sat there looking for more and for better stuff to see and was convinced that just a few hours more would allow me to find the perfect thing I am looking for.  Naturally I never found it.  Each time I thought I found what I needed it turned out that it wasn't enough.  I also lost the desire to get back on track.  It felt good to not be fighting the addiction, but the writing on the wall was there...  if I did not stop this it was gonna start getting bad.  I was too euphoric to feel bad at the moment but as I saw I could not find satisfaction I began to realize I better stop.  The truth is I did not want to stop.  I was thinking about my wife and kids and decided to just stop even though I do not want to.  I came here and suddenly began to realize how very much I wanted to stop.

The truth is I should be very scared...  When I fell I almost fell harder than where I started off from.  I started saving stuff to my harddrive, when in the past I always deleted afterwards.  I even started to consider being mz'l which is something I have not done in years.  Perhaps that is what scared me and made me really realize that I was going down the wrong path.  When in a few days you suddenly start considering things that you did not do for years that is a problem.

I think perhaps the things I have learnt here are what made this fall a bit harder then before but it is also what saved me.  What I mean is, I think I was more acutely aware how futile and frustrating my fall was as opposed to the past when I was not on GYE.  I think that awareness made me start considering going beyond what I have done in order to find satisfaction and it made me start doing this much faster than anytime before.  But this knowledge also helped me.  By me seeing that I was ready to fall farther than before so quickly, it gave me a wake up call that I need to get back on track.  Yeh, I did not feel I wanted to get back on track, but I realized I had to.  Now that I am back on track, while I feel I have lost a lot of what built up before, I am slowly finding that I don't need to look.

I hope for the day when I can overcome the need to fall.  I did not think this struggle would be easy, but I am working on myself day by day.  I am just really glad that I bottomed out before it got worse, or else I am not sure I would have been ready to come back here.

Perhaps that is the message anyone reading from this can take.  Letting yourself fall is not going to help.  I am way behind where I was before (perhaps in one aspect I am ahead in that I have a stronger realization of the negative consequence of falling).  Not only that the falling did not give me a reprieve or a recharge, it only drained my strength to fight this addiction.  I am glad Hashem was there to catch me and to get me back on track.  I think this will be a message I read and reread throughout my time here.  I suspect there will come a day again where I decide I want to fall again, but hopefully the message here will remain and remind me of the wrongness of that choice and why it is not going to help.

I haven't posted much lately, but I have not given up.  Actually I have given up... Does that make any sense?

See it is like this...

I have fallen but they don't matter to me anymore.  I mean I kind of see that this part of me that falls sometimes but it is not me.  It is just some loony who comes to visit once in a while who takes control of part of me for a short while.

I read something recently that one reason sex addiction develops is because we somehow think that sex/lust is very important to us.  In a way it is understandable that we should come to such a conclusion.  I mean it is something special for married people.  It is perhaps the driving force for why men get married.  It is something that is taboo otherwise.  I am not saying these things are wrong, I mean the Torah places a high emphasis on sexual morality and I believe the Torah to be right.  But I think whatever the reason we are brought up to believe this is a very important thing.  When we have issues in our lives that we have difficulty controlling it is easy to fall into lust addiction as an escape.  Here is something super important to us that we can control.  I fell before I knew had to use the internet, I would think of a girl I was infatuated with.  It is not the internet that causes the addiction or even what keeps us attached to it, it is the escape to this most important thing that fuels the addiction.

So what do I mean I have given up.  What I have given up is the belief that sex or lust is really that important to me.  I mean if I continue to believe it is so important then how can I let go or  why should I let go.  I tell myself each day I do not need to lust, as it really is not that important.  I will be fine without it.  When I do fall, in a way I am wondering what am I doing.  Afterwards, it is easy to tell myself that it was some ridiculous part of me that makes no sense.  What is the point in feeling bad about it?  What is the point in focusing on it?  It really is unimportant.  It is not who I am, rather it is some part of me that sometimes wakes up and tries to convince me that something unimportant is important.  It is like a good salesman selling snow to an Eskimo, he has no need for it but the salesman can make that snow seem so special.

I have yet to decide whether I will post more frequently or not.  Perhaps I will just make a most every once in a while saying, "it is just not important, so why bother cling to it" as I think that is the strongest thing I have found to help me lately.

G'mar chasima tova to all!  Keep up the good work!  Hashem must truly love us as he as given us this wonderful resource to encourage ourselves and each other.

A gut moed!

Has been smooth sailing lately.  Just keep on reminding myself that I don't need to lust because it is not that important.

Keep up the good work all.

SEX IS OPTIONAL . It is not our higher power. I doesent solve any problems. It is just a mindset.
Great going
P.s. This site makes us more self aware. Hence when we fall we feel the fall more.

keep reinforcing yourself bro. you're awesome. one day maybe it'll be smooth sailing for me too- for now i'm jsut biting the bullet and keeping my hands busy.
any tips?