The Stopping Starts Again
- Thread starter sonofJack
- Start date
sonofJack
Member
A strange, vivid dream last night. I was back in my old career (second time in less than a week for this premise), and felt very unsettled by the new direction being taken by our bosses. Though they swore that I would not be adversely affected by the changes, I felt otherwise, so I sought out my best sounding board; my current running/colleague (with whom I worked for several years in my previous career).
The advice she gave me was quite sobering, and had me certain that my job would be coming to an end, then she led me by the hand to her backyard, where we started making out. This was shocking, even to my dream self, and jolted me awake. There has never been even a hint of shenanigans between she and I, nor will there be, as both of us are in happy, committed marriages to wonderful people (I consider her husband a good friend), so to have this new random image played out for me was kind of disturbing.
Luckily, I won't have to see her for a couple of weeks since we don't get as many chances to run during the summer. I'm pretty sure that I'd be a bit awkward around her today. Very, very odd.
I'm sure she got into my subconscious through the fact that I've applied for a couple of promotion opportunities of late, and have been unsure as to the motivations behind the postings; as she holds a more administrative role than I, she would be my go-to person to sort out my questions. Perhaps my brain is trying to tell me that I need to go this one alone.
On another note, I have been in a rather down mood for the past week. Tonight, I'll be going to a concert featuring one of my daughter's best friends, with her new band. I should be the oldest geezer in the establishment, but at least I'm a huge fan of new, hipster, alternative music, so I won't be disappointed. I do hope the change of location, pulls me out of my funk, and gives me a much needed kick in the ass.
The advice she gave me was quite sobering, and had me certain that my job would be coming to an end, then she led me by the hand to her backyard, where we started making out. This was shocking, even to my dream self, and jolted me awake. There has never been even a hint of shenanigans between she and I, nor will there be, as both of us are in happy, committed marriages to wonderful people (I consider her husband a good friend), so to have this new random image played out for me was kind of disturbing.
Luckily, I won't have to see her for a couple of weeks since we don't get as many chances to run during the summer. I'm pretty sure that I'd be a bit awkward around her today. Very, very odd.
I'm sure she got into my subconscious through the fact that I've applied for a couple of promotion opportunities of late, and have been unsure as to the motivations behind the postings; as she holds a more administrative role than I, she would be my go-to person to sort out my questions. Perhaps my brain is trying to tell me that I need to go this one alone.
On another note, I have been in a rather down mood for the past week. Tonight, I'll be going to a concert featuring one of my daughter's best friends, with her new band. I should be the oldest geezer in the establishment, but at least I'm a huge fan of new, hipster, alternative music, so I won't be disappointed. I do hope the change of location, pulls me out of my funk, and gives me a much needed kick in the ass.
sonofJack
Member
(copied from my YBR page in its entirety because, well I'm too lazy to edit, and getting tired of how my computer is taking over my life)
Every day starts the same for me lately: I awake around 6-ish, pull on some pj bottoms, and head downstairs. I set up the coffee maker for my wife (still not one slight urge to have caffeine since Sept 1 last year), then get the paper. Our daily news rag takes less than 10 minutes to read cover-to-cover, and its content has devolved rather badly after it was acquired by a large 'news' organization; my greatest entertainment now comes in the form of seeking out typos, horrible grammar, and erroneous reportage (some local social media people seem to have the same hobby, and they are now making my day too). Then I have a very small breakfast, sit down at my usual place (head of the dining table; rarely used for dining), and flip open my laptop.
During my work cycle, two or three mornings a week begin with a 6am swim, followed quickly by a quick breakfast, putting the coffee together, making my lunch, and flipping open my laptop.
I've owned this MacBook Pro since the summer of 2010. It's a wonderful machine, which gets a pretty thorough workout every day; I use it through every lecture as the base station for my a/v displays, and it acts as my portable 'office' as I am rarely easy to find in one place during the school day.
But these past few days, I've given a great deal of thought to how I'm using this machine. Our old eMac is whirring away in the basement, older, wiser, but no slower from a dozen years of non-stop usage. It took our children from pre-teens to college, and beyond. It's my wife's trusted go to for finance, research, and shopping (though I suspect those last two are mostly one in the same), and it was my work station, music library, and porn screen. I know that at least 10% of my time spent on the old eMac was in search of that perfect image, by which I could masturbate to the perfect orgasm; that was, at least, the intent. Writing this is bringing back memories, both revolting, and weirdly nostalgic.
I rarely use the old computer, except when doing financial stuff with my wife, or trying to get our home network back on line after a digital hiccup.
This new device spends far too much time open in front of me, though I've moved a lot of its functions to my iPhone (all my teaching is done through the mobile now, with the laptop merely hosting, and emitting the files). I've caught myself whining about having to pull the laptop out of my satchel, as that has become so onerous compared to hitting the home button on my phone, and clicking on the appropriate app. I have never, ever, ever, used the iPhone to view porn. It has a hard drive that is free of such corruption, and it will stay that way.
The laptop unfortunately, can not lay that same claim. Though I had tried mightily to defend its digital purity, my P brain found ways to implement its slick functionality to transmit sexually explicit, and intellectually devoid, images. Though nothing has been kept on the hard drive, I must live with the fact that a forensic search would call up every mindless click (I often wonder how the people who do that sort of work react to what they see, as I'm sure they constantly discover that they indeed have not seen it all). Though none of it is illegal, most of it is morally reprehensible, and none of it is necessary. All of it was viewed for one particular reason, and for that, I will always be greatly disappointed in myself.
So today, I got up. Found my running gear, and pulled it on long before I had to. Retrieved the paper from our stoop, laughed at the errata, cursed at the paper-wasting inserts, and moved on to making the coffee. I had about an hour before my ride to our running group. I looked at my laptop. That was the very moment where I connected this instrument, and my devotion to it, to my P problem, for when I ritually open it every morning at this same spot, my browser opens my mail, my FB page, and whatever other tab I've left open (sometimes this very site, usually some article I have procrastinated to "later"). I scan my mail for ones that may lead to extra work. I scroll mindlessly through the rest, hoping that none need my attention. FB can suck me in, and I feel almost dirty letting it; the great majority of its content is dreck, but for the few postings by my true friends, it sucks the intelligence out of my already challenged mind, and insults the last vestiges of that which remains. But I click. I scroll. Click. Click. Scroll. I open Twitter to find traffic conditions for my wife, then get lost in its somewhat superior material (helped along by choosing a better brand of person to follow there), then maybe check here.
None of it is necessary. Upon leaving the front door, I'll get my mail more quickly and efficiently from my phone. Twitter will scroll by in the background, and all other social media will be mediated by apps and preferences that I've prescribed. But there I am, madly clicking away. Click. Quick scan. Click. Instantaneous judgement. Click. Click. Hmmm. Keeper. Click. Obviously (at least I hope it is obvious) none of this process involves pornography. That was for my me-time. But after thinking very deeply about my methods and motivations, then carefully assessing my history from recent "morning checks," I can only conclude that my particular affliction, and perhaps that which we share, involves more than just a predilection to viewing dirty pictures; there is a very clear pattern on my part by which I go to this machine without questioning why. Sure the paper gives stale news, but I rarely ever try to find updates on here. My phone's weather app is far quicker, and more accurate than the one on here.
What's more, on the very rare occasions that a titillating image pops onto my iPhone screen, I always immediately scroll away, never to return, and certainly without ever clicking the image. That same circumstance on here can lead, and in the past has led, to P sessions. My phone has become my trusted digital companion, helping me stay out of the cybersewers that I so need to avoid. The laptop though, by the very nature of how I've ritualized its use, has left some easy, and far too tempting paths back to my obsession.
This morning, I did not open the laptop until arriving back home from a very full day. I checked my mail. I gave FB about a minute of my time. I found a very provocative article in the Atlantic. I wrote this.
Every minute I spend on this machine, mindlessly clicking through the Internet, is a minute that I can't get back. Looking at FB for inspiration is as useless as scanning Tumblr pages for titillation, and offers the same spiral of endless, endlessness. The feeding and caring of that ritual also leaves me vulnerable on those bad days; times when I'm at my worst, when I'm just a click away.
Just a click away.
Not today.
Every day starts the same for me lately: I awake around 6-ish, pull on some pj bottoms, and head downstairs. I set up the coffee maker for my wife (still not one slight urge to have caffeine since Sept 1 last year), then get the paper. Our daily news rag takes less than 10 minutes to read cover-to-cover, and its content has devolved rather badly after it was acquired by a large 'news' organization; my greatest entertainment now comes in the form of seeking out typos, horrible grammar, and erroneous reportage (some local social media people seem to have the same hobby, and they are now making my day too). Then I have a very small breakfast, sit down at my usual place (head of the dining table; rarely used for dining), and flip open my laptop.
During my work cycle, two or three mornings a week begin with a 6am swim, followed quickly by a quick breakfast, putting the coffee together, making my lunch, and flipping open my laptop.
I've owned this MacBook Pro since the summer of 2010. It's a wonderful machine, which gets a pretty thorough workout every day; I use it through every lecture as the base station for my a/v displays, and it acts as my portable 'office' as I am rarely easy to find in one place during the school day.
But these past few days, I've given a great deal of thought to how I'm using this machine. Our old eMac is whirring away in the basement, older, wiser, but no slower from a dozen years of non-stop usage. It took our children from pre-teens to college, and beyond. It's my wife's trusted go to for finance, research, and shopping (though I suspect those last two are mostly one in the same), and it was my work station, music library, and porn screen. I know that at least 10% of my time spent on the old eMac was in search of that perfect image, by which I could masturbate to the perfect orgasm; that was, at least, the intent. Writing this is bringing back memories, both revolting, and weirdly nostalgic.
I rarely use the old computer, except when doing financial stuff with my wife, or trying to get our home network back on line after a digital hiccup.
This new device spends far too much time open in front of me, though I've moved a lot of its functions to my iPhone (all my teaching is done through the mobile now, with the laptop merely hosting, and emitting the files). I've caught myself whining about having to pull the laptop out of my satchel, as that has become so onerous compared to hitting the home button on my phone, and clicking on the appropriate app. I have never, ever, ever, used the iPhone to view porn. It has a hard drive that is free of such corruption, and it will stay that way.
The laptop unfortunately, can not lay that same claim. Though I had tried mightily to defend its digital purity, my P brain found ways to implement its slick functionality to transmit sexually explicit, and intellectually devoid, images. Though nothing has been kept on the hard drive, I must live with the fact that a forensic search would call up every mindless click (I often wonder how the people who do that sort of work react to what they see, as I'm sure they constantly discover that they indeed have not seen it all). Though none of it is illegal, most of it is morally reprehensible, and none of it is necessary. All of it was viewed for one particular reason, and for that, I will always be greatly disappointed in myself.
So today, I got up. Found my running gear, and pulled it on long before I had to. Retrieved the paper from our stoop, laughed at the errata, cursed at the paper-wasting inserts, and moved on to making the coffee. I had about an hour before my ride to our running group. I looked at my laptop. That was the very moment where I connected this instrument, and my devotion to it, to my P problem, for when I ritually open it every morning at this same spot, my browser opens my mail, my FB page, and whatever other tab I've left open (sometimes this very site, usually some article I have procrastinated to "later"). I scan my mail for ones that may lead to extra work. I scroll mindlessly through the rest, hoping that none need my attention. FB can suck me in, and I feel almost dirty letting it; the great majority of its content is dreck, but for the few postings by my true friends, it sucks the intelligence out of my already challenged mind, and insults the last vestiges of that which remains. But I click. I scroll. Click. Click. Scroll. I open Twitter to find traffic conditions for my wife, then get lost in its somewhat superior material (helped along by choosing a better brand of person to follow there), then maybe check here.
None of it is necessary. Upon leaving the front door, I'll get my mail more quickly and efficiently from my phone. Twitter will scroll by in the background, and all other social media will be mediated by apps and preferences that I've prescribed. But there I am, madly clicking away. Click. Quick scan. Click. Instantaneous judgement. Click. Click. Hmmm. Keeper. Click. Obviously (at least I hope it is obvious) none of this process involves pornography. That was for my me-time. But after thinking very deeply about my methods and motivations, then carefully assessing my history from recent "morning checks," I can only conclude that my particular affliction, and perhaps that which we share, involves more than just a predilection to viewing dirty pictures; there is a very clear pattern on my part by which I go to this machine without questioning why. Sure the paper gives stale news, but I rarely ever try to find updates on here. My phone's weather app is far quicker, and more accurate than the one on here.
What's more, on the very rare occasions that a titillating image pops onto my iPhone screen, I always immediately scroll away, never to return, and certainly without ever clicking the image. That same circumstance on here can lead, and in the past has led, to P sessions. My phone has become my trusted digital companion, helping me stay out of the cybersewers that I so need to avoid. The laptop though, by the very nature of how I've ritualized its use, has left some easy, and far too tempting paths back to my obsession.
This morning, I did not open the laptop until arriving back home from a very full day. I checked my mail. I gave FB about a minute of my time. I found a very provocative article in the Atlantic. I wrote this.
Every minute I spend on this machine, mindlessly clicking through the Internet, is a minute that I can't get back. Looking at FB for inspiration is as useless as scanning Tumblr pages for titillation, and offers the same spiral of endless, endlessness. The feeding and caring of that ritual also leaves me vulnerable on those bad days; times when I'm at my worst, when I'm just a click away.
Just a click away.
Not today.
sonofJack
Member
Went to bed early last night. It was a fairly busy day, spent for the most part outside in brilliant, humidity-free, sunshine.
As the day wound down, my son dropped in unannounced, just as my wife I and were about to watch another classic Miami Vice. We were excited to share this piece of our distant past with him, but quickly found ourselves squirming through one of the show's rare Sonny's Love Interest episodes. What made it all the more challenging was the actress playing that role was for all intents and purposes a physical clone of my wife from that time; not just a passing resemblance, but nearly a perfect copy.
Thankfully the show got back into the gratuitous violence and over the top acting that made it great, but each time she appeared on screen, I felt waves of nostalgia flooding over me. I don't remember watching this particular episode back in the day, though many of them were interrupted, or indefinitely postponed by, that stuff that happens with a newly married couple who realize that they're home alone on a Friday night
In the end, my son found the show "awesome." He loved the shots, the music, the old cars, and the costumes (he seemed particularly taken by the beach scenes); precisely the reasons my wife and I fell in love with that show so many years ago.
As the day wound down, my son dropped in unannounced, just as my wife I and were about to watch another classic Miami Vice. We were excited to share this piece of our distant past with him, but quickly found ourselves squirming through one of the show's rare Sonny's Love Interest episodes. What made it all the more challenging was the actress playing that role was for all intents and purposes a physical clone of my wife from that time; not just a passing resemblance, but nearly a perfect copy.
Thankfully the show got back into the gratuitous violence and over the top acting that made it great, but each time she appeared on screen, I felt waves of nostalgia flooding over me. I don't remember watching this particular episode back in the day, though many of them were interrupted, or indefinitely postponed by, that stuff that happens with a newly married couple who realize that they're home alone on a Friday night
In the end, my son found the show "awesome." He loved the shots, the music, the old cars, and the costumes (he seemed particularly taken by the beach scenes); precisely the reasons my wife and I fell in love with that show so many years ago.
sonofJack
Member
My wife is not a hoarder, but she does exhibit some of the warning signs of hoarding. She has the unfortunate combination of procrastination and sentimentality, which leaves her finding "places" for items that are slowly taking over our living space. Our daughter moved out on her own four years ago, and our son has done the same within the past year; both do come and crash here a few times per month, but their rooms are still much as they lived in them, and how they left them.
A good friend of my wife's (who I find annoying as hell) is visiting this weekend. She always chides my spouse for her inability to rid her life of excess baggage, and this has led my wife to spiral into a black hole of stress over how her friend will react to seeing the kids' rooms. I am eternally in support of this woman for all she has done, and have tried myself both gently, and not-so-gently urging her to allow me to begin throwing stuff away. Neither have delivered much success.
Yesterday my wife's plan was to do a massive cleaning of my son's room. He came home for the weekend, and showed some eagerness about the process. I was up at dawn, ran, had breakfast, and was raring to start this project that has haunted me for years, but cautioned by the knowledge that beginning without them would derail the entire process. I pumped them full of extra-strong coffee. I urged. I cajoled. I hinted. Then I made a horrible miscalculation; I began cleaning a small three square foot area of our kitchen counter, where my personal effects gather.
My wife attached herself to this task with vigour. Immediately, I knew she would not stop until the small area was perfect. After five hours, the tiny corner was cleaned of its chaos. 3pm, and the boy's room was still untouched. By 4pm, I coaxed them up to the room to survey, analyse, and plan our attack. At 5pm, tired from the frustration of hearing unsubstantiated strategies, I left the house to buy groceries. At 6pm, I drove downtown to bring my daughter back for supper, which I cooked. By 7pm, I braved a peek into the room.
It had evolved from a state of complete disarray, into no really change.
We ate. My wife drove our daughter back downtown. Finally, as the day grew dark, we began tossing, shredding, boxing, and cleaning up years of collected artifacts. My son is as sentimental as his mom, and I knew that my personality could only cause rancour, so I went downstairs, and watched the Tour de France. By 11pm, I finally braved another foray into the abyss.
Things had happened. By most metrics, it was still horribly messy, but I could clearly see that a great deal of what had been occupying the space, was now itemized into labelled boxes, destined for The Goodwill, younger relatives, and the recycling centre. Though I was dog-tired, I injected whatever scrap of energy I could muster, and started moving two unnecessary furniture items to another room. By the time I went down for the evening, one small room was starting to look a lot more civilized.
This morning, my wife is a ball of stress. I know she's second-guessing every micro decision she made over what symbols of our family culture had served their purpose. She's also convincing herself of the futility of it all; certain that she hasn't the energy to continue the task of getting our house back. She's wrong, but telling her that only makes matters worse.
***
All of us on here have lived with a compulsion that steals valuable chunks of our lives. We'll not get back those hours spent not doing work around the house, not enjoying our families, not improving our minds and bodies; we wanted to do those things, but we just couldn't. There was something else we had to do.
Visitors to our house rarely see the horribly cluttered upstairs, garage, or basement. Our living room is neat and tidy, our kitchen is passable. The deck is pristine. Our yard looks no better or worse than those of our neighbours. Bathrooms are impeccable. For most who see it, our house is a shining example of middle-age, middle-class organization; the shameful secret exists just out of sight, always threatening to expose all should we make a small misstep.
We really do have to get our house in order.
A good friend of my wife's (who I find annoying as hell) is visiting this weekend. She always chides my spouse for her inability to rid her life of excess baggage, and this has led my wife to spiral into a black hole of stress over how her friend will react to seeing the kids' rooms. I am eternally in support of this woman for all she has done, and have tried myself both gently, and not-so-gently urging her to allow me to begin throwing stuff away. Neither have delivered much success.
Yesterday my wife's plan was to do a massive cleaning of my son's room. He came home for the weekend, and showed some eagerness about the process. I was up at dawn, ran, had breakfast, and was raring to start this project that has haunted me for years, but cautioned by the knowledge that beginning without them would derail the entire process. I pumped them full of extra-strong coffee. I urged. I cajoled. I hinted. Then I made a horrible miscalculation; I began cleaning a small three square foot area of our kitchen counter, where my personal effects gather.
My wife attached herself to this task with vigour. Immediately, I knew she would not stop until the small area was perfect. After five hours, the tiny corner was cleaned of its chaos. 3pm, and the boy's room was still untouched. By 4pm, I coaxed them up to the room to survey, analyse, and plan our attack. At 5pm, tired from the frustration of hearing unsubstantiated strategies, I left the house to buy groceries. At 6pm, I drove downtown to bring my daughter back for supper, which I cooked. By 7pm, I braved a peek into the room.
It had evolved from a state of complete disarray, into no really change.
We ate. My wife drove our daughter back downtown. Finally, as the day grew dark, we began tossing, shredding, boxing, and cleaning up years of collected artifacts. My son is as sentimental as his mom, and I knew that my personality could only cause rancour, so I went downstairs, and watched the Tour de France. By 11pm, I finally braved another foray into the abyss.
Things had happened. By most metrics, it was still horribly messy, but I could clearly see that a great deal of what had been occupying the space, was now itemized into labelled boxes, destined for The Goodwill, younger relatives, and the recycling centre. Though I was dog-tired, I injected whatever scrap of energy I could muster, and started moving two unnecessary furniture items to another room. By the time I went down for the evening, one small room was starting to look a lot more civilized.
This morning, my wife is a ball of stress. I know she's second-guessing every micro decision she made over what symbols of our family culture had served their purpose. She's also convincing herself of the futility of it all; certain that she hasn't the energy to continue the task of getting our house back. She's wrong, but telling her that only makes matters worse.
***
All of us on here have lived with a compulsion that steals valuable chunks of our lives. We'll not get back those hours spent not doing work around the house, not enjoying our families, not improving our minds and bodies; we wanted to do those things, but we just couldn't. There was something else we had to do.
Visitors to our house rarely see the horribly cluttered upstairs, garage, or basement. Our living room is neat and tidy, our kitchen is passable. The deck is pristine. Our yard looks no better or worse than those of our neighbours. Bathrooms are impeccable. For most who see it, our house is a shining example of middle-age, middle-class organization; the shameful secret exists just out of sight, always threatening to expose all should we make a small misstep.
We really do have to get our house in order.
sonofJack
Member
This mass-cleaning of our house is such a metaphor for what my wife and I are trying to do with our brains.
Neither of us are happy with our compulsions (PMO for me; OCD for her), yet we've allowed them toflourish fester for so many years now. If we both felt they would be harmless, passing phases that would soon fade, we were both very very wrong. Maybe compulsive behaviour grows from an environment where everything else seems so overwhelming, that one falls back to that which is at least predictable. Most smokers seem to bring up how they "really should quit," my hard drinking friends are always having "a few more than I should have," and my workaholic colleagues talk at length about how they "need to slow down a bit." We analyse, evaluate, and work out a plan to attack our maladies, though the result is usually little more than learning how to articulate that plan aloud, in hopes that those listening will tell us "you're not really that bad."
Our society has drilled into us the notion that we're not so bad, as long as there is someone who's worse.
My wife has from time to time watched Hoarders. I'm sure part of the appeal was that the poor souls depicted were so much more afflicted than she is; their motivations were so much more disturbing than hers. But left unchecked, I worry that she could easily slip down that same slope. I am far from a neat freak myself, but I lack the need to keep artifacts, and happily purge clothing, papers, and useless items, whenever they hit some kind of tipping point in my world. She has a much tougher time letting go.
A while back I saw an episode of one of the multitude of Rehab-Reality programs that insinuate themselves into my TV. A former popular TV actor was shown in his natural element, smoking crack, wanting to P for six hours a day. Intervention did not change him, nor did drug and psychological therapies. Perhaps it was because in his mind, they did not cure his core problem: he could never again live as that person who we once was.
Yesterday, I cleaned, organized, and sanitized my daughter's old room. It was excruciating. My impulse to discard had to be tempered by respect for her need to go through her symbols from the past, then decide their fate on her own. My daughter, luckily, is a lot like me, so I arranged things in such a way that she could easily flip through remnants of those parts of her life (childhood, college, and adulthood) and choose where they go. Cleaning the room gave me a huge amount of bookshelf space, which I immediately occupied with my academic texts and papers (out of their floor space in our bedroom). Clearing her desk will now allow me to move my laptop, and my necessary work papers way from our dining room table, and with that allow us to reclaim it for eating (we are notorious for eating in the glow of the TV).
With all this, it is more clear to me than ever before that pornography, and masturbation are not at the crux of my malaise, but rather it is that I have allowed my home life to drift with no sense of purpose. This stasis could have sent me in any other direction: alcohol, gambling, womanizing, or worse. Instead, I went with what got me here; that thing that I learned how to do as a 14 year old, who felt trapped in an existence. The masturbating, and the pornography (and later, testing the limits of my marital obligations), were all just part of the happy fantasy world I'd built; one impenetrable by my stresses and failures. It's as though I could create a version of myself so interesting, important, and successful, that even I wanted to get intimate with me. The P images were representations of the only creatures who I wanted to populate my fake universe; physically perfect, and unable to disagree with me in any way.
I'm better than that. I have a few solid friendships, which I perpetually undervalue. I don't give enough time to my relatives, or my wonderful immediate family. I probably drink more than I should, don't exercise as much as I'd like, take in too much TV, butter, and chocolate. Oh, and I masturbate some times. In other words, I'm like just about everyone else in our society, and I'm certainly not the worst.
Which doesn't mean I can't be better.
Gotta go. There's more cleaning to do.
Neither of us are happy with our compulsions (PMO for me; OCD for her), yet we've allowed them to
Our society has drilled into us the notion that we're not so bad, as long as there is someone who's worse.
My wife has from time to time watched Hoarders. I'm sure part of the appeal was that the poor souls depicted were so much more afflicted than she is; their motivations were so much more disturbing than hers. But left unchecked, I worry that she could easily slip down that same slope. I am far from a neat freak myself, but I lack the need to keep artifacts, and happily purge clothing, papers, and useless items, whenever they hit some kind of tipping point in my world. She has a much tougher time letting go.
A while back I saw an episode of one of the multitude of Rehab-Reality programs that insinuate themselves into my TV. A former popular TV actor was shown in his natural element, smoking crack, wanting to P for six hours a day. Intervention did not change him, nor did drug and psychological therapies. Perhaps it was because in his mind, they did not cure his core problem: he could never again live as that person who we once was.
Yesterday, I cleaned, organized, and sanitized my daughter's old room. It was excruciating. My impulse to discard had to be tempered by respect for her need to go through her symbols from the past, then decide their fate on her own. My daughter, luckily, is a lot like me, so I arranged things in such a way that she could easily flip through remnants of those parts of her life (childhood, college, and adulthood) and choose where they go. Cleaning the room gave me a huge amount of bookshelf space, which I immediately occupied with my academic texts and papers (out of their floor space in our bedroom). Clearing her desk will now allow me to move my laptop, and my necessary work papers way from our dining room table, and with that allow us to reclaim it for eating (we are notorious for eating in the glow of the TV).
With all this, it is more clear to me than ever before that pornography, and masturbation are not at the crux of my malaise, but rather it is that I have allowed my home life to drift with no sense of purpose. This stasis could have sent me in any other direction: alcohol, gambling, womanizing, or worse. Instead, I went with what got me here; that thing that I learned how to do as a 14 year old, who felt trapped in an existence. The masturbating, and the pornography (and later, testing the limits of my marital obligations), were all just part of the happy fantasy world I'd built; one impenetrable by my stresses and failures. It's as though I could create a version of myself so interesting, important, and successful, that even I wanted to get intimate with me. The P images were representations of the only creatures who I wanted to populate my fake universe; physically perfect, and unable to disagree with me in any way.
I'm better than that. I have a few solid friendships, which I perpetually undervalue. I don't give enough time to my relatives, or my wonderful immediate family. I probably drink more than I should, don't exercise as much as I'd like, take in too much TV, butter, and chocolate. Oh, and I masturbate some times. In other words, I'm like just about everyone else in our society, and I'm certainly not the worst.
Which doesn't mean I can't be better.
Gotta go. There's more cleaning to do.
sonofJack
Member
Houseguest arrived last night. She's a friend of my wife, not so much a friend of mine. Instead of finding every possible excuse to leave the house, I have committed to trying to talk with this woman (who at times displays the curiosity, and intelligence of a ten year old), and though it can be excruciating, so far no homicidal thoughts have percolated.
Every person has a redeeming value, and I will have to work hard to find hers.
Having this woman in the house though, does shine a floodlight on what a truly wonderful woman my wife is. Also, I have determined that if ever I find myself slipping over the edge, and wishing to view pornography, I shall conjure up this woman's image (not her look, but every other unlikeable aspect of her personality).
That should keep my counter ticking away permanently.
Every person has a redeeming value, and I will have to work hard to find hers.
Having this woman in the house though, does shine a floodlight on what a truly wonderful woman my wife is. Also, I have determined that if ever I find myself slipping over the edge, and wishing to view pornography, I shall conjure up this woman's image (not her look, but every other unlikeable aspect of her personality).
That should keep my counter ticking away permanently.
sonofJack
Member
A sure sign of not contributing on here was seeing my journal on the second page of RN entries. That is both a good, and a bad thing; I have not posted for lack of time, and yet I am aware that losing contact with this community is often a first step back to from whence I came.
Our houseguest left a few days back, and immediately the relative peace and quiet returned. The smell of cigarette smoke left within a day, but I am still finding stashes of butts in random areas outside our home. My wife's friend is loud, somewhat crude, and in many ways a ten year old inhabiting a 45 year old human, but she is also someone who has next to nothing. She lives in a very large city where she works part time, lives in a tiny apartment with her 24 year old daughter (who works intermittently), owns no car. In fact, smoking cigarettes appears to be the only luxury she affords herself.
Only a few years ago did she get her high school equivalency, otherwise she'd probably have had to apply for social assistance, as her ex provides her with very little in the form of support.
This is someone who could spend hours going through the litany of ills in her life. She doesn't though. Her problems never come up in conversation, and if queried on them, they're quickly dismissed. As annoying as she is, she also has a heart of gold. Her overly simplistic view of the world grates against my need to overanalyze my own. Her inquisitiveness can seem elementary (while I was watching a very close stage in the Tour de France, she plopped down on the couch and began asking questions such as "does it rain harder in France than here?"), and it is unquenchable; when my kids were 5, they asked for fewer explanations!
After she left, I headed downtown and ran with my group. Correction: I let the group go, and ran by myself. I needed the run, but I needed the solitude after 44 hours of chaos. After the run, we had our usual beers, then I came home to our now much-quieter home. My wife was thankful for the visit, and equally thankful that I kept myself from uttering the many observations that were flowing through my mind during her stay.
We were both also thankful for the things that stress us out. After two days of watching this woman in action, knowing her history, and how we'd cope in the same circumstances, we realized how minor, mundane, and completely solvable our own middle-class problems are.
Her friend sees herself as rather simple, and unable to challenge anyone on an intellectual level. But she taught us both some very powerful lessons on how to deemphasize the importance of what we lack, and to simply enjoy what we have.
Our houseguest left a few days back, and immediately the relative peace and quiet returned. The smell of cigarette smoke left within a day, but I am still finding stashes of butts in random areas outside our home. My wife's friend is loud, somewhat crude, and in many ways a ten year old inhabiting a 45 year old human, but she is also someone who has next to nothing. She lives in a very large city where she works part time, lives in a tiny apartment with her 24 year old daughter (who works intermittently), owns no car. In fact, smoking cigarettes appears to be the only luxury she affords herself.
Only a few years ago did she get her high school equivalency, otherwise she'd probably have had to apply for social assistance, as her ex provides her with very little in the form of support.
This is someone who could spend hours going through the litany of ills in her life. She doesn't though. Her problems never come up in conversation, and if queried on them, they're quickly dismissed. As annoying as she is, she also has a heart of gold. Her overly simplistic view of the world grates against my need to overanalyze my own. Her inquisitiveness can seem elementary (while I was watching a very close stage in the Tour de France, she plopped down on the couch and began asking questions such as "does it rain harder in France than here?"), and it is unquenchable; when my kids were 5, they asked for fewer explanations!
After she left, I headed downtown and ran with my group. Correction: I let the group go, and ran by myself. I needed the run, but I needed the solitude after 44 hours of chaos. After the run, we had our usual beers, then I came home to our now much-quieter home. My wife was thankful for the visit, and equally thankful that I kept myself from uttering the many observations that were flowing through my mind during her stay.
We were both also thankful for the things that stress us out. After two days of watching this woman in action, knowing her history, and how we'd cope in the same circumstances, we realized how minor, mundane, and completely solvable our own middle-class problems are.
Her friend sees herself as rather simple, and unable to challenge anyone on an intellectual level. But she taught us both some very powerful lessons on how to deemphasize the importance of what we lack, and to simply enjoy what we have.
sonofJack
Member
Want relief from thoughts of PMO? Go on a 4 hour bicycle ride through the woods. I did, and spent the entire time communing with nature, swearing at my tired legs, and feeing the cool breeze in my face.
I haven't ridden in over a month (this from a guy who easily gets in over 2500 miles per year), and though this is just one ride, I'm hopeful that whatever has driven me away from one of my cherished pastimes, has been fixed.
Something else that is interesting to me, is how my first sentence is a bit off; it does not really describe my situation right now. The days I spent in pornfog, I was certainly not thinking about PMO; in fact, it was the mindlessness of wanking away to dirty pics on the Internet that appealed to this tired old brain. My most intense episodes always followed some kind of unexpected stress from work, my family, or my assumed health (fearing sickness without having any proof - good old hypochondria). The worst anguish brought on by my habit, always came during the times I was deliberately avoiding it.
The more time I spent trying to not do something, the more that thing came to define me.
I'm finding that lately, I don't give PMO a lot of thought. My wife and I watched a movie which displayed some remarkably healthy young females in their natural state. There was a physical reaction, which was concurrent to my wife's verbal reaction, and then...nothing. I did not go seeking more. I did not fantasize. Nothing.
Perhaps this is a function of the time spent away from it, but with each passing day, I feel that my Internet P habit holds less and less importance to me. A month ago, I realized that even coming on here could send me reeling. The community is so incredibly helpful in keeping me from slipping, yet too much contact with it, and I begin to identify myself by my habit. But that habit, is only a small, damaged facet of me. It's like that 68 I got on a Creative Writing paper in university; my GPA, and my subsequent success after graduation, show that my academic experience was so much more than one small misstep.
And that is what PMO is becoming to me now; one small misstep. No doubt, it was one that had tremendous ramifications, but ultimately, it never did own me. I hope never to slip again, but if I do (and I truly hope that never occurs), I am confident that it will be temporary.
This process has revealed the path out, and now I can never un-know it.
So take that four hour ride, or hike, or walk, or whatever it is you've been wishing you could have done if you just didn't have so many more important things to do. Do it until the day comes when you notice that your mind did not once drift back to PMO. That is the moment when you'll know that things are beginning to come together for you.
Hell, at the very worst you could end up addicted to four hour riding sessions every day, but at least those would be something you could unashamedly bring up in public.
I haven't ridden in over a month (this from a guy who easily gets in over 2500 miles per year), and though this is just one ride, I'm hopeful that whatever has driven me away from one of my cherished pastimes, has been fixed.
Something else that is interesting to me, is how my first sentence is a bit off; it does not really describe my situation right now. The days I spent in pornfog, I was certainly not thinking about PMO; in fact, it was the mindlessness of wanking away to dirty pics on the Internet that appealed to this tired old brain. My most intense episodes always followed some kind of unexpected stress from work, my family, or my assumed health (fearing sickness without having any proof - good old hypochondria). The worst anguish brought on by my habit, always came during the times I was deliberately avoiding it.
The more time I spent trying to not do something, the more that thing came to define me.
I'm finding that lately, I don't give PMO a lot of thought. My wife and I watched a movie which displayed some remarkably healthy young females in their natural state. There was a physical reaction, which was concurrent to my wife's verbal reaction, and then...nothing. I did not go seeking more. I did not fantasize. Nothing.
Perhaps this is a function of the time spent away from it, but with each passing day, I feel that my Internet P habit holds less and less importance to me. A month ago, I realized that even coming on here could send me reeling. The community is so incredibly helpful in keeping me from slipping, yet too much contact with it, and I begin to identify myself by my habit. But that habit, is only a small, damaged facet of me. It's like that 68 I got on a Creative Writing paper in university; my GPA, and my subsequent success after graduation, show that my academic experience was so much more than one small misstep.
And that is what PMO is becoming to me now; one small misstep. No doubt, it was one that had tremendous ramifications, but ultimately, it never did own me. I hope never to slip again, but if I do (and I truly hope that never occurs), I am confident that it will be temporary.
This process has revealed the path out, and now I can never un-know it.
So take that four hour ride, or hike, or walk, or whatever it is you've been wishing you could have done if you just didn't have so many more important things to do. Do it until the day comes when you notice that your mind did not once drift back to PMO. That is the moment when you'll know that things are beginning to come together for you.
Hell, at the very worst you could end up addicted to four hour riding sessions every day, but at least those would be something you could unashamedly bring up in public.
sonofJack
Member
Pornography works like a drug; it distracts us from what we're feeling.
I am convinced that guilt and shame, both the product of being instructed by my mom on the evil nature of masturbation, were what led me to seek out pictures of what my adolescent mind saw as attractive, willing, sex partners. This may sound a bit of a stretch, but the more I think about it, my initial stimulus for masturbation was all in my mind. I'd generate complex fantasies about real, or imagined, girls. I would do so out of loneliness, sexual ineptitude, teenage horniness, boredom, and most often, to escape the verbal sparring that my parents carried long into the night. Every night.
The time that elapsed between my new found hobby, and my mom's discovery of evidence (I'll spare the detail, but you know what I mean), is not clear in my mind, but I do know that my first weeks of masturbating were awesome! It wasn't just the release, but the feeling that I was growing up; becoming a man, who would be able to pack his things and leave soon. Mom shut that down with her stern warnings about things falling off, or the possibility of me "going funny." Always a squeamish lad, I had real trouble imagining life without any body part, let alone one that had become so important to my daily survival. The second circumstance was never explained, but I had a good idea of how weird some of my aunts and uncles were, and could not condone anything that caused me to turn into one of them.
Thing is, just like you, the warnings didn't curtail the activity, they only made me feel bad about doing it. Socks and old towels disappeared (I became the favourite son for taking the laundry downstairs, and emptying the waste baskets). My enterprising spirit should have pumped me up, but instead, made me feel that I was a bad person. My brother fixed this by introducing Playboy Magazine to my life. Unlike every other male in North America, I actually did read the articles too. They explained how I could dress, drink, and articulate myself into the kind of man who would get girls similar to the one's who posed inside. The result was actually blissful. The time I'd spend with those mags took my mind off the fact that I was probably going to lose my thing eventually, and that I was in the irreversible process of "going funny."
Here I am, many years later, amused by the fact that though physically still intact, mr Happy hasn't been quite able to stay upright when on call, and like all of us, I'm deep in contemplation of how masturbation and pornography may have come together to unhinge my sense of the world. Lately, I'm beginning to see pornography as the greater problem, at least in my case. Porn became a mask; an artificial guide to my nascent sense of sexuality. 70s-80s pornography was commercialized to the point where most of it was simply a medium, used to sell products by creating a lifestyle: "Do you want all these women? Fuck yah! Then you'll need this car, these shoes, and this hairstyle, otherwise, you are sol." And so it went until pornography got into our computers as limitless as it was tasteless. It didn't just numb our brains, but it took out our ability to enjoy our previously bought-and-paid-for sexuality.
This left me (and probably you) where I am now; wishing I could get an erection, just so I can feel the way I used to, but knowing that if I use pornography, and in particular Internet pornography, I'll be reduced to nothing better than a titillated voyeur. If masturbating was my way of dealing with the frustrations of being a fourteen year old boy in our society, then pornography has become the source of my major frustration as a 56 year old man.
I don't wish to rankle those on here who back a masturbation-free existence; I am both humbled, and impressed by anyone who's been able to reach that state. But I do feel that many who are struggling to end their PMO habit, can go a little easier on themselves. Every time I accidentally brush past my penis, I hear that klaxon go off in my mind; warning flags are raised, as I try to avoid the inevitable tailspin back into where I don't want to be. When it happened today though, I stopped myself. I asked the question in my mind "are you going to masturbate?" Out loud I said "nah." I neither congratulated myself for my decision, nor did I rue it. There are far more crushing concerns in my life right now than how, where, or with whom, I orgasm, and frankly, it isn't anybody's business except mine, and my loving wife's.
Perhaps the next time you feel the urge to look at P, don't. Whether you use your sexuality to please yourself, or your partner (hopefully both), just keep pornography out of it. You just don't need another distraction.
I am convinced that guilt and shame, both the product of being instructed by my mom on the evil nature of masturbation, were what led me to seek out pictures of what my adolescent mind saw as attractive, willing, sex partners. This may sound a bit of a stretch, but the more I think about it, my initial stimulus for masturbation was all in my mind. I'd generate complex fantasies about real, or imagined, girls. I would do so out of loneliness, sexual ineptitude, teenage horniness, boredom, and most often, to escape the verbal sparring that my parents carried long into the night. Every night.
The time that elapsed between my new found hobby, and my mom's discovery of evidence (I'll spare the detail, but you know what I mean), is not clear in my mind, but I do know that my first weeks of masturbating were awesome! It wasn't just the release, but the feeling that I was growing up; becoming a man, who would be able to pack his things and leave soon. Mom shut that down with her stern warnings about things falling off, or the possibility of me "going funny." Always a squeamish lad, I had real trouble imagining life without any body part, let alone one that had become so important to my daily survival. The second circumstance was never explained, but I had a good idea of how weird some of my aunts and uncles were, and could not condone anything that caused me to turn into one of them.
Thing is, just like you, the warnings didn't curtail the activity, they only made me feel bad about doing it. Socks and old towels disappeared (I became the favourite son for taking the laundry downstairs, and emptying the waste baskets). My enterprising spirit should have pumped me up, but instead, made me feel that I was a bad person. My brother fixed this by introducing Playboy Magazine to my life. Unlike every other male in North America, I actually did read the articles too. They explained how I could dress, drink, and articulate myself into the kind of man who would get girls similar to the one's who posed inside. The result was actually blissful. The time I'd spend with those mags took my mind off the fact that I was probably going to lose my thing eventually, and that I was in the irreversible process of "going funny."
Here I am, many years later, amused by the fact that though physically still intact, mr Happy hasn't been quite able to stay upright when on call, and like all of us, I'm deep in contemplation of how masturbation and pornography may have come together to unhinge my sense of the world. Lately, I'm beginning to see pornography as the greater problem, at least in my case. Porn became a mask; an artificial guide to my nascent sense of sexuality. 70s-80s pornography was commercialized to the point where most of it was simply a medium, used to sell products by creating a lifestyle: "Do you want all these women? Fuck yah! Then you'll need this car, these shoes, and this hairstyle, otherwise, you are sol." And so it went until pornography got into our computers as limitless as it was tasteless. It didn't just numb our brains, but it took out our ability to enjoy our previously bought-and-paid-for sexuality.
This left me (and probably you) where I am now; wishing I could get an erection, just so I can feel the way I used to, but knowing that if I use pornography, and in particular Internet pornography, I'll be reduced to nothing better than a titillated voyeur. If masturbating was my way of dealing with the frustrations of being a fourteen year old boy in our society, then pornography has become the source of my major frustration as a 56 year old man.
I don't wish to rankle those on here who back a masturbation-free existence; I am both humbled, and impressed by anyone who's been able to reach that state. But I do feel that many who are struggling to end their PMO habit, can go a little easier on themselves. Every time I accidentally brush past my penis, I hear that klaxon go off in my mind; warning flags are raised, as I try to avoid the inevitable tailspin back into where I don't want to be. When it happened today though, I stopped myself. I asked the question in my mind "are you going to masturbate?" Out loud I said "nah." I neither congratulated myself for my decision, nor did I rue it. There are far more crushing concerns in my life right now than how, where, or with whom, I orgasm, and frankly, it isn't anybody's business except mine, and my loving wife's.
Perhaps the next time you feel the urge to look at P, don't. Whether you use your sexuality to please yourself, or your partner (hopefully both), just keep pornography out of it. You just don't need another distraction.
sonofJack
Member
Yesterday while walking to the bus, I passed a crew of two who were doing some yard work in the neighbourhood. The guy looked like a convict; emaciated, tattooed, long scraggly hair; not someone I'd invite into my home. His partner was interesting too, workbooks, tan, and fluorescent pink bikini!
I did two things that kept her image from possibly triggering something in me: 1) I did not look back after my first 1 second glimpse, so I have really no other details of the young (or not young) woman, other than her sartorial choices, and 2) I crossed to the other side of the street. That second reaction was totally unconscious, and even a bit inconvenient, as it complicated, and lengthened, my route to my bus stop.
When I told the story to my wife, she found it difficult to believe that I was not fully behind this sort of uniform for the lawn trade. I had to admit that I found it to be a clever marketing position, but that I feared her appearance was more a possible diversion, so her "partner" could case the house undetected. My wife was skeptical, saying "maybe she was just hot."
I'll never know. I didn't give her a second look.
I did two things that kept her image from possibly triggering something in me: 1) I did not look back after my first 1 second glimpse, so I have really no other details of the young (or not young) woman, other than her sartorial choices, and 2) I crossed to the other side of the street. That second reaction was totally unconscious, and even a bit inconvenient, as it complicated, and lengthened, my route to my bus stop.
When I told the story to my wife, she found it difficult to believe that I was not fully behind this sort of uniform for the lawn trade. I had to admit that I found it to be a clever marketing position, but that I feared her appearance was more a possible diversion, so her "partner" could case the house undetected. My wife was skeptical, saying "maybe she was just hot."
I'll never know. I didn't give her a second look.