Is a long distant relationship (through a screen) dangerous for a rebooter?

[Triptonicmaph]

If I start a long distant relationship with a girl(used to be my classmate), is it harmful for my reboot?

I will be communicating with her through a screen ofcourse, but will this be me, just going back to the same place I was, (interacting with females through pixels - watching pornography).. instead of starting a relationship with a female around me (not far away). The reason I am worrying about this is because I have fallen into the same trap years ago when I was a porn-user, but now I am not and I dont wanna go back. I wonder if this urge for a long distant relationship is because I still can't approach a girl around me.

I am willing to stop the start of this long distant relationship for my reboot. Your thoughts on this will be much appreciated.

 

[William]

May I make a suggestion?  Get a dumb phone during your reboot, something that you can talk to her on, but won't possibly produce the visual stimulation that can problematic.  I encourage interaction with real people during the reboot.  It is part of rewiring yourself to prefer people over pixels. 

 

[Triptonicmaph]

Thank you William, I am definitely going to do that!

Btw do you think that chatting with her online would be problematic as well?

Would it be the same thing with skype?

I would really appreciate a few words about this. Thank you in advance.

 

[William]

I saw from your other question, is this a relapse, that you have the best of intentions, but are still playing with fire, that is playing with your triggers.  I think it helps to conceive of a reboot as avoiding anything that gives you a dopamine high--anything.  It is not for life, but for a relatively short period.  Just talking to someone probably is not going to give you a dopamine high unless you are doing sex talk, in which case, avoid it. 

 

[Triptonicmaph]

Thank You William. Really appreciate your words. Helpful. Yes today I played with fire and relapsed to MO, but I will just reset my MO counter I guess.

 

[William]

It is hard for you, at 24 days, in the midst of severe withdrawals, in the midst of that physical, mental, and emotional torture, to understand why I push the 90 day hard mode method so much, but the reason is simply this:  for most of, once we get to 90 it gets easy, we are back in control, and the withdrawals either completely go away or are a minor nuisance or distraction.  I know that between day 1 and day 90 I spent entire days with one thought going over and over and over in my head just to keep myself from relapsing:  "no porn, no PMO, no porn, no PMO, no porn, no PMO, no porn, no PMO".  I came up with thoughts to distract myself, during that 90 period, from having sexual thoughts, to distract myself. What I am telling you is, get the hard 90 out of the way and you will probably not struggle with it any more, at least a lot of us report that.

Peace. 

 

[Triptonicmaph]

True, William. That's exactly what I read everywhere, nothing will be complete at 90 days. It's just the first milestone where things get easier.

Damn, I should have seriously gone to training today cuz I wouldn't have relapsed to MO if I had.

Regrets man, regrets. Wish me luck. From now on, I am going to consider edging as a relapse too. Thank you again William

 

[William]

I wish you luck.  A lot of us fail to recognize the problem is hypersexual thoughts.  We can get those through porn but we can get those through edging too. That is how we give ourselves a dopamine high, and dopamine is what we are addicted to, the rest is just a button we push to get it.  If you want to get clean you need to avoid all of that during the reboot.  Easily said, I know, difficult to do.  That is why they do not call it "easy" mode.  Calling it easy mode would be the biggest bait and switch since they named Greenland. 

Keep going, porn is not an option.  I have absolute confidence you will succeed. 

Peace.