Hey there Yehoshua!
I've just now stumbled on your thread, and am so glad that I did!
As I read through the posts
(mostly erased, but the responses themselves told a story I think) - I felt so so connected to you. I got a lot of chizuk seeing someone else with similar struggles as me - and it reminded me that we are in this together.
There are so many things in your stuggles that I can relate to: I'm also a HUGE procrastinator
(even in writing this, I'm procrastinating from some work I need to finish up before going to sleep
) - and often get depressed. When you wrote:
All I wish in my life is to be a part of that table where the whole family comes together. A true part. And I am a shaddow.
- those words pierced my heart. I (and I suspect, many here) know what it feels like to be that shadow. But we both know those shadows are not us - they are just the husks that are/were concealing our brilliant neshamas. I can see from the amount of feeling that you put into your posts - that you are a VERY bright Neshama.
Let's shine together!
yehoshua wrote on 07 Dec 2010 19:01:
Hm, I don't believe in filters.
I know what you mean. Philosophically, I'm also kind of in favor of getting macho enough not to need them. However, there is one particular use-case that I can't argue against. This is - sometimes you really are doing an innocent search and garbage comes up out of, seemingly nowhere. This, to me - is analogous to putting yourself in a makom sakana. So, I installed K9 on machine - and after configuring & (after a long struggle) giving the password to my wife, it is definitely helping (I for sure still have problems - but it's alot easier than before)
The suggestion re: using a program like WebChaver is also very very good. One important piece of advice on that, it's very important to pick the right person to be your accountability partner. Obviously, it has to be someone who you'd be embarassed to have them see that you looked at bad stuff. But another important factor is - that person has to be really commited to reviewing your logs regularly. I've used Coventant Eyes in the past - but found that the people I asked for help never really reviewed the logs. Even though the deterent factor was initially there, it slowly dissipated over time when I realized the weren't really looking at the logs regularly. Just food for thought with regard to picking the right person.
yehoshua wrote on 07 Dec 2010 19:01:
I am reading the White Book
http://www.guardureyes.com/GUE/PDFs/eBooks/White%20Book.pdf right now, I saw Dov suggest it in Naftali's log. So thank you Naftali, thank you Dov.
Last week was a HEAVY week for me, in terms of thinking & self-analysis. Definitely a huge thanks to Dov and everyone else who helped me. B"H good results came from it - I am now committed to a specific 12-step group & and will I"H be starting early next week. From reading through your posts and from the fact that you're reading through the white-book, it sounds like you're pretty interested in going through the 12-steps in a practical way. Obviously I'm not in any way, shape or form an expert (or even novice) on 12-steps - but one thing that I'm pretty sure of is: if you're going to do it, you really should do it with a group. Our problem thrives on isolation and darkness - working on it with other people is so important, and there's a huge difference between a forum and live voices. There are a good number of phone-groups starting in about a week (take a look at the announcement section on the main site for more details).
Anyways, I just meant to say hi and look at this rambling long post....
Hatzlacha and Simcha to you, my holy brother!