Here's part 2, this is something I'm still working on and really acts as a lynchpin for success when I'm able to get into the right mindset.

I made it back to do some more writing. I really hope the therapeutic effect is worth it and doesn’t cause me to just hate myself more for taking so much time off from yeshiva.

I want to focus on a thought I had on Sunday and try to crystallize it. 

One thing that makes me feel dysfunctional and incapable of accomplishing anything in this world is the time swallowed up by my mental health recovery. Even when I was just starting on GYE I was spending a couple hours a day working on it. From watching the videos to posting on the forums GYE essentially became a part time job for me. But now that I’ve shifted my focus in life to becoming more mentally stable and working through some trauma which is stopping me from living fully, all while maintaining sobriety, it feels more like a full time job plus overtime.

I attend 3 in person meetings a week as well as the vaad phone call. I go to therapy once a week and am now starting twice a week sessions as well as meeting with a psychiatrist to get some meds. I have to exercise regularly, and I have to be working towards goals that excite me and keep me motivated. This translates to around 7-10 hours a week of working out (depending on what training program I’m currently working on). I need to journal regularly. I need to get 7-8 hours of sleep on a regular basis. I need to occasionally take personal time to relax and treat myself for how I’m doing. I need to occasionally take time to be with my feelings when my emotions get really raw.

This is all just to take care of my mental health. Beyond this I have a wife and kids, I have basic responsibilities in life and I’m supposedly in yeshiva full time. But I struggle to really fulfill those responsibilities and to be present in yeshiva because of the time constraints from keeping myself healthy and functioning. I feel like a cripple, seeing and desiring the simple life of others but unable to be a part of it. I’m stuck with my nose to the glass, and I continue to tell myself to just push through and I’ll be able to join them, but alas I’ve found that even when it bends I bounce back and if I push to hard the window shatters cutting me up with shards of reality, landing me flat on my back where I started, still looking but separated.

I’ve written before about the difference between acceptance of limited potential and the appreciation for unique opportunities hidden within a struggle. I think I need to go back to those concepts and focus on them again and again. But one mashul helps me to be able to work on the acceptance aspect.

If I ChV’Sh had a diseased kidney and needed dialysis every day for four hours just to live, I think I would have an easier time reframing my mindset and changing my goals and lifestyle to fit what Hashem has given me. It is clear, if your kidneys aren’t working you need treatment, end of story. Now it’s just a matter of taking the situation and working to see the diamond in the rough. 

The problem is that in the world of mental health nothing is clear. There are many different approaches and different things work for different people. So there's a lot of trial and error, there's a lot of guesswork trying to figure out what I need for my recovery. How often do I need to journal? When I’m feeling down and alone should I push past it or take time to feel it? How many meetings should I go to? Do I need to be training for a marathon or will I still be excited about a shorter race (with shorter work outs)? How often should I treat myself? Should I learn Friday night or take the time to read a novel and enjoy myself? Should I commit to part of seder or leave it open ended? Should I have a chavrusah and deal with the pressure and flaking on a commitment or learn myself and feel more loneliness and less successful learning? And there are a myriad of ways to mediate all these points, details filling pages and pages in my mind of “what if’s”. 

I don’t want to overthink everything, but it feels like there’s so much at stake and I’m constantly recognizing mistakes that I’ve made and want to change, so how can I just continue on wasting away in one direction or the other.

So now back to the clarity: it doesn’t matter. I must do what I think and feel is the best for my recovery (sobriety and mental health) based on my personal experience and the guidance from professionals and others who have had similar struggles who Hashem surrounded me with.

It’s hard to not show up to seder. It’s hard to go to sleep early. It’s hard to miss minyan in order to exercise. It’s hard to tell my wife I can’t go out because I need a meeting. It’s hard to spend money treating myself when I’m on a kollel salary and am getting support from family. It’s hard to not learn outside of seder. It’s hard to take a vacation in the middle of the zman because I just need to get away from the pressures of life. It’s hard to come home late because I was making a phone call. It’s hard to go out to eat because I missed lunch in yeshiva because I was on the vaad call.

It’s all the same thing: It’s hard to be different.

I need to recognize that the noise from outside, and what other people who don’t share my struggles do and think, doesn’t matter. I need to trust myself and what hashem has given me, even if trusting myself means not trusting myself but trusting others who should be trusted in these areas. I can’t afford to live my life based on how others live theirs. I need to get this clear. I don’t know in the total view of pure emes what exact actions would be the best for me in my recovery. But I do know, based on the understanding and knowledge that Hashem has given me, what appears to be the right general course of action. And that's what I need to do. I don’t have to get the perfect formula, and in fact I won’t. To get the exact perfect formula of how much to do of everything would be nothing short of godly. I don’t have to demand that of myself and surely hashem doesn’t demand it of me.

Once I am comfortable that I am doing my best within hashems expectations I can face myself and say “Others may not understand what you’re doing and they may think you’re going about it wrong. But it doesn’t matter. The craziest thing is that they might be right that objectively you should be doing something else, but since that wasn’t the perspective Hashem gave you, then it’s not true, you shouldn’t be doing something else. Keep doing what you should be doing through the eyes and mind that Hashem has given you. Your job is to do Hashem's will, not ploni’s will.”

90 Days Sober! Very grateful for hashem getting me here and the miracles I experienced during this most recent segment of my journey. I want to share something I was writing up yesterday, just a look at some thoughts I'm struggling with. As I mentioned before I am struggling with some depression and the past few days have been pretty rough. As always I'd love to hear feedback and chizzuk from the chevra, and I hope that this can be a source of support and help for others who are facing similar challenges.

Through my journey I started to become more depressed. This is interesting because therapy is supposed to make you feel better, but it takes a while. First you become aware of your feelings, then you learn to accept them and live with them. But there's a space of time in between, where you’re aware of your feelings but haven’t yet accepted all of them. That's where I ended up.

Right now I just want to write about the past few days and the feelings and thoughts that have come with it. Sometimes a depression spell has a clear trigger and sometimes it seems to have come out of nowhere, suddenly in the throes of spiraling thoughts. This time it was the second type. I don’t remember when it started.

I am losing my feeling of connection and passion with yeshiva, and along with that is a loss of passion for teaching. I’ve mentioned to people that I might become a therapist, as I have been helped by the field and have gained a lot of knowledge during this period, and some said they thought I would be a good therapist and that I should go for it. But there’s a voice in the back of my head saying “Do you really think that’s a good idea? What if you get depressed again and need time off? How can you abandon your clients like that? You’re not safe to be around people in a meaningful way. Better to just hide behind a desk job so that you can’t hurt anyone.”

The theme is to not take any responsibility because I can’t commit and am not reliable.

Now, once I’m not able to take any responsibility I get the feeling of inferiority and disfunctionality. Coupled with the focus on how I hurt people when I don’t fulfill my commitments, and it feels kind of terrible. I don’t want to be this person, the unreliable person who hurts people, and so I start looking for escapes. 

But now I’m also a person who can’t handle life, which makes me more unreliable and also unable to relate to others. And I’m also questioning whether I have a “real” problem or it’s all in my head and I should just snap out of it which feels like a lack of identity that I don’t know whats real about me.

At about this time I usually realize that this feeling is familiar and keeps coming back. But this feeling is super uncomfortable, not wanting to be what I am since what I am is so pathetic and weak and worthless, so I start wishing that I could just not wake up in the morning. 

Now thats a really uncomfortable thought to have. Not only do I look for escapes in movies, alcohol and lust, but I wish for the ultimate escape: death. I really don’t want to be that person, the suicidal crazy guy, and so I double down on my escape methods. I’ll stay up late so that I don’t have to lay down with my thoughts. I’ll drink until I can’t think straight. I dread the next day not knowing how I’ll feel. And the spiral continues, each feeling triggering the next in a full blown storm of emotion.

Ok at this point things are pretty bad. But the problem is that it’s getting worse, I started to make a plan of how to end my life, and though I didn’t put it into action I did prepare everything. When my therapist asked me why I don’t get rid of the means to kill myself, I responded that I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready to let go of that security blanket, knowing that I had the choice to escape the pain I’m in. It’s scary to let go and trust in G-D. How can I trust him when I’m in so much pain? 

OK so now I’m here, I did get rid of the means to end my life, but I still have some work to do, and that’s what I’m going to be focusing on today. I’m not sure how this will work, but I plan to take the time to keep writing about this and find some calm amidst the storm.

(I'm not sure why it bolds the font when I copy and paste but I can't seem to undo it, sorry if it hurts your eyes)
I wrote up another part also which IY"H I'll post in a few minutes, this post is long enough that it doesn't need anything more tacked on

if he was your role model till now the fact that he got married, shouldn’t change he can still be your role model after all you saw someone in your situation managing to break free no?

Hopefully you fell back asleep from Mrs. Chai singing

Day 64.


Kinda emergency situation. 

I need support. I need belief. I need to know that its possible. 

Any single's on here with 50+ days for accountability? And any single with 250+ days for chizzuk and for demonstration of possibility?

Meanwhile I've only found my role-model Jewizard who recently got married.


Code 1!!!

I'll be very honest. I thought the whole time that Holy Ari isn't married and it gave me a sense of feeling that on some level Im in this with a partner, even though we never spoke.

Now I feel like there is no other bachur on this platform with 50+ days. I need chizzuk emergency!

I'm looking for someone in a similar situation as me who has plowed through 50+ days who I can watch and climb together to see that it is possible!

Is it possible?!?

Code one!

All bachurim on standby.

Let's open a Bachurim only thread for once and for all!!

And to follow your advice. 
Here's one positive post for today. 

It's 4am and I am having a hard time falling back asleep after being woken up by the baby (BH I never hear him cry in the night, of which he does plenty, but I do often wake up from hearing Mrs Chai talking to him or singing him back to sleep. Oh the weirdness of life) 
Anyways, as I lay on my bed at this unearthly hour, I cast my mind back to the time of a little over a year ago, where I know exactly what would help me fall back asleep. In fact, many nights it was hard to fall asleep without that stimulation. It chased me most of the day. 
BH now I can live without constantly needing to be sucked into that way of life where every day and all day, the lust is insurmountable. 
Now, most days I'm calm in this area. I don't need it and it doesn't control me. I'm kosher and clean for over a year. 
Shmiras einayim is an issue but P and M aren't. I'm not complacent. I'm filtered and still have work to do, but I'm not drawn to it. 
Lust still comes and goes (sometimes I know why, but I don't want to confuse this post with it) but breathing through the tough moments, I know it doesn't last and I'll be ok. 
 A reminder to newer folks trying to break free. Once you get the monster octopus off your back that used to be glued to you and direct your feelings and actions, it gets way way easier. 

Wishing everyone a productive day. 

BenHashemBH wrote on 03 Sep 2025 14:57:

For some reason, I didn't read this and missed the good points there in. 

I do generally compliment the kids, but definitely not enough. If I'm home when they get home from school, I will compliment them on going and working hard etc. By Friday night when I give them a bracha, I try to also whisper something nice in their ear, just so they know I think they are awesome.

They are special and deserve to be told so on a regular basis. They should know that they are loved, cherished and adored. Especially coz they are adorable!

Great move you made by posting your story, it's a good wat to get welcomed to the warmest family in klal yisroel!

Welcome! Wishing you Hatzlacha Raba, and may this streak you are in now continue to get bigger and bigger!

Wow! Powerful post! Good job opening up! Here you have friends and family. We have all been down this road. Be'H we are here to be your support and shoulder. Reach out to more of the amazing people here. Make more connections, and Bezras Hashem you will get married to an amazing bas yisrael and live a wonderful happy life together bkdusha uvtahara!

Day #27
Today was a very easy day, Baruch Hashem.
I wish I had known six months ago how easy it would be to quit.

It’s a hard battle, but once you're able to rewire your brain and truly recognize that you are the boss here and not your urges, everything becomes much, much easier.

"Your mind is a tool. Make it your servant, not your master."

I’m deeply moved. Thank you! 
You’ve got tremendously power in your heart. 

touched and inspired, 
with an outstretched warm hand, full of admiration, I am
Sincerely Yours,
chaimoigen

Mazel Tov!!!!!

hollyari wrote on 10 Sep 2025 14:27:

I went to my local Ice-cream shop, and excitedly exclaimed loudly "Everything is on me tonight!"