It takes up a significant portion of my day. I am unemployed and I live with my parents and they don't have access to my computer. I would suggest that you at least incorporate Connection, Urge Surfing and SOBER. Once you are good at Urge Surfing and SOBER you can do them without the recording whenever you have free time and you aren't driving. SOBER can be effective even if done for only 3 minutes, as long as you are completely focused and free from distractions. You can also do it in bed before falling asleep. I also highly suggest that you journal the way I posted on December 31st when you have severe anxiety. You would anyway be forced to pause and tend to your health and this type of journaling was my most effective and quickest method for avoiding a panic attack. You can overwrite it and delete it if it is on the computer or shred it if it is on paper a short time after journaling and it will still have the same effect. If you have additional time you can incorporate exercise. Even half an hour once a week or 10 minutes 5 times a week can help a lot. Someone who is employed and has a family probably won't have the time to journal regularly and they may not have privacy. There are many people posting on the forum but I don't know how they find the time for it.

Thank you for the blessing. V'chein l'mar.

I learned through GYE how to highly regulate my mood through all the techniques I mentioned in my post. Although I joined GYE because of M, GYE was the best tool I ever had to heal from bipolar disorder. I have a therapist and I journal on Word in detail throughout the week everything I am experiencing that effects my mood or feels significant. I resolve 2/3 of my issues simply by journaling and the other third by sharing my journal with my therapist and discussing what I wrote. It makes therapy extremely effective and my therapist is having a blast because he has everything that is going on in my mind expressed clearly in writing. I journal when I have severe anxiety in a different format that I described in my post on December 31st. ​I frequently listen to Urge Surfing and SOBER audio exercises I redeemed with coins. I have a list of cues and appropriate responses from the toolbox and some additional responses that work for me and I already worked out well what to do in every situation. I had to update my list many times but recently I haven't had sexual urges and I already know the appropriate responses for negative moods without thinking. Posting on the forum is a form of Connection and it does a good job at regulating my mood.

I post my daily progress on the dashboard, including whether I had urges, the intensity and what I did to overcome them. At the moment I have a low sexual drive due to medication but I still have negative moods which are my urges when I do have a sex drive. Therefore, I write in my daily progress chart that I had an urge if I had a negative mood even if it wasn't sexual, and I write the mood intensity and what I did to overcome the mood. I then copy and paste what I wrote onto my journal so that my therapist reads it.

Before joining GYE I had panic attacks and now I can get anxiety but it doesn't lead to panic attacks, acting out or getting into a fight with anyone. I am very prepared and I use my techniques immediately when the negative moods surface so they usually don't have the time to develop into something serious. Occasionally my anxiety level is high due to having too many triggers at once but I live with my family peacefully because I don't get overwhelmed by it. I treat it on my own, sometimes with medication but usually with the techniques I wrote in my previous post until it dissipates. Since my mood is regulated the risk of mania is much lower than it was before joining GYE.

My intention when joining GYE was to treat M but as you can see I benefited from GYE more than I could have imagined in my wildest dream. I am forever grateful to Dr. Avrohom Yehoshua Twerski z"tzl for his input, to the GYE founders, staff and donors, and to the people posting for everything they have done so I can heal.

The challenges I had due to bipolar disorder were only when I had negative moods and the Taphsic method would be useless, probably increasing anxiety and causing a higher frequency of falls. I found Urge Surfing, SOBER, journaling, exercise and Connection to be the best tools for negative moods of anxiety due to bipolar disorder. I found Exercise and Connection to be the best tools on GYE for depression. I haven't had hypersexuality or severe mania since joining GYE and I don't know of a solution. I assume that some of the things I mentioned will work for mania but I never had the chance to try them out and I don't know whether there is a solution for hypersexuality.

notezy wrote on 17 Mar 2024 14:06:

I recently posted the Maharal who writes that the truth is that the Y"H is much weaker than us but he tricks us into believing that we will be overpowered by him which leads to a fall. He writes that we are like a bird sitting high up on the tree and the Y"H is like a predator on the ground. There is no way he can reach us but he frightens us and then we fall off the tree out of fear that he will attack us. Once we are on the ground he wins over us.

I guess, next time don't listen to his arguments and try Urge Surfing instead. It worked for me very well and it will probably be the same for you. It works wonders.

I thought about audio exercises at the time like urge surfing and the YH responses was your only prolonging the inevitable. I felt a great pressure that wouldn't go away till I gave in and an overwhelming sense of dread... now after giving in that was replaced with self-doubt and feelings of worthlessness. 
As for talking to someone I can't remember if I checked but I am pretty sure No one was online on here... 
Not sure if that's enough the problem feels deeper but maybe I am just making excuses.
I really don't think that will have an effect on the feelings of prolonging the inevitable accept to do so a bit.

For #2 find alternative coping solutions to reduce stress. For me talking about it with someone, Exercise and Urge Surfing work to resolve stress in a healthy way. Also, for you, try finding kosher music that will do the job.

getitright wrote on 06 Mar 2024 13:00:

Yes. My struggles were because of negative moods. I wasn't lusting at all. Good solutions for stress are exercise, Urge Surfing, SOBER, and connection. From other people's posts it seems like they tend to choose exercise over the others but I found any of the above very useful. I prefer Urge Surfing because I find it difficult to do exercise.

First of all, here's a hug!
Urges will come. Check out the f2f program to learn some tips and techniques for urge surfing. Keep up the amazing work, and make some friends here. It can really help!

Nothing major. I try to pray for this every day, and when I have an urge I do urge surfing, which really helps me.Any ideas are welcome, I would really love to have a bigger tool box.

Exercise, connection, including the forum, and doing something you enjoy are therapeutic interventions for depression, and Urge Surfing, other tools in the toolbox, journaling and CBT from the Cabin Pressure section of the F2F program are therapeutic interventions for anxiety and many other negative emotions. Regarding a difficult childhood, I had one and a lot of it got resolved indirectly by posting and overcoming my struggles. Regarding a low self-esteem, as far as what relates to these struggles the forum does a pretty good job at building a person's self-esteem. Connection, including on the forum, the F2F program and TBOTG are therapeutic interventions for struggles, and the chizzuk and guidance given in the forum is more effective than what can be received in ordinary formal therapy sessions. I have a very good therapist and I am writing from experience. The F2F program might be underutilized because it is hardly mentioned on the forum, perhaps because it is assumed that people are taking the course. There is psychoanalytical therapy which digs deep into the problems of the past and it isn't addressed anywhere on GYE. Modern therapy has moved away from it for the most part but even if and when this is necessary it would have to be done in individual therapy sessions.

There are people who need the 12 steps, traditional therapy, a mentor or partner in addition to the forum and they should do so but the forum isn't meant for that. There might be someone who is using the forum without taking the proper action to effectively overcome his struggles and is just going around in circles. If someone is in that situation he should take note of it and adjust his strategy. As far as the forum goes, there are people who go for traditional therapy for many issues and don't heal for the same reason.

Please specify if there is something that is not being addressed with all of the above.

Welcome!
Happy to hear you are trying to address this difficult struggle!
I had this problem when I started and worked out several methods to deal with it: 1) if you have roommates go to bed at the same time as them or a drop earlier. 2) listen to something while falling asleep (music, comedy, a book, or a shiur) 3) work on your sleep in general, in the GYE+ theres a section on sleep which helped me a lot in getting a better routine so that I fall asleep quicker. 4) keep a chart by your bed to mark off good days when your going to sleep. 5) even if you don't have something to listen to (or if it makes it to hard to fall asleep) prepare something else to think about so you don't slip into fantasizing. 6) if fantasizing is part of the problem, work on redirecting your thoughts (others have had success with urge surfing, while I personally have not had success I would suggest trying it as it has a lot of good reviews.)
Hatzlachah Rabba!!!!!!!!!
Your doing an amazing thing! Keep in touch!

It might be disappointing that you are facing a struggle. You have a long history of success and you should be able to make it through this struggle as well. Exercise, Connection, Urge Surfing, and finding things to do that I enjoy (behavioral activation) got me out of situations of stress and despair. When possible, it is worth dealing with the stressors themselves and resolving them. You might also find speeches of Rabbi Elimelech Biderman or someone else very useful. It might be worth reading TBOTG so you are well prepared if you have an urge. Keep up your good work. We are rooting for you.

The only quick fixes for anxiety that I know of are medication and sometimes STOP, but I found journaling, Urge Surfing, meditation and exercise to have long term effects. If you do them at night they may reduce your anxiety level significantly throughout the day. There are breathing exercises that can be done even while you work.

yitzchokm wrote on 31 Dec 2023 05:25:

I was going to say something encouraging about  journaling... and then I read this...

'Nuff said.

I journal 3 pages a week, mostly about negative emotions. I found two ways of doing this. One is when I have negative emotions that are extremely powerful. They are making me extremely angry, stressed, etc. to the point that I am about to explode. I write everything down in a journal exactly the way I am thinking in my mind with all the negative emotions and all its severity. I write extreme powerful emotions exactly the way I feel them. The emotions are too strong for processing so I just write them out on paper as they are. This releases extreme amounts of tension and help me avoid a panic attack or screaming at someone.

The second type of journaling is when I have very strong emotions of anger, stress, etc. but I am not about to lose my mind. I may act out later if I don't resolve them. I write down what transpired, and my thoughts and emotions the way I see it. I am relaxed enough that although I see things subjectively I am capable of seeing other people's perspectives and pointing out the parts of my thinking that are objectively speaking irrational and I write them down as well. This actually treats the negative emotions with CBT the same way a psychologist would treat them. I am very trained at this from therapy sessions where my psychologist does this for me so I am actually in a way acting as my own psychologist. I bring my journaling to the psychology sessions but I have already done most of the work myself. All the techniques I use for CBT are in the cabin pressure section of the Flight to Freedom program. I also redeemed coins on GYE for Urge Surfing audio sessions that I use frequently for negative emotions. Nowadays, I am so good at this that I do it the second negative emotions surface, way before they have the time to lead to an urge to act out.