I need to do this. (Relapse. Starting again)

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
I'm again with mousemat1.
If you and the fiancee feel better catch a good moment to talk about it.
For battling addictions there are common ways. Very common is that one has a counsellor/therapist, then a peer group of people who understand the situation and believe you can get better and finally yourself and your willpower to change your life for the better. It needs all three to improve your state and help your fiancee to not have the feeling, that she has to do anything or is responsable for. This, she must understand. The more you 'fight' against PMO, the more she will think that you're taking care of your addiction.

Imsor
 

Chris1986

Active Member
@Gigili
With going though the accounts with my Fiancee I needed to show her that I wasn't hiding anything else within them. Like i said her mind was restless and she ended up searching through my emails and woke me up to confront me about them. I felt that if i didn't i gave her more reason to distrust me and I have given her enough reason already I want to try and rebuild that trust.
Also this is not my first attempt at quitting. I have tried to quit many times over the years but since I kept it secret and didn't really accept that this was an addiction I failed everytime.

@imsorrynotsorry
1.Well I am starting my counselling on Thursday. It seems far away but I can hold out.
2. I am using this site and been opening up to some from friends about my addiction who want to learn more about it and help.
3. I believe I finally got the drive and purpose to to get through this but I know i got to take each day as it comes and always take it serious. I know I can do this. I need to do this.


 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
That's very good and nice to read.
Keep focus and track of what is happening at this more turbulant stage of the reboot. Writing it down helps most of the time or just make a note here to keep track. In every case, i wish you all the best in going through this first period and make it to calmer waters.
 

Chris1986

Active Member
I feel awful. Miserable, defeated and anxious.

Yesterday after work I was feeling pretty awful again and started to type yesterday's entry while my fiancee had my phone. She questioned me over a couple of contacts on my messenger. It got heated and I got overwhelmed  so i fled the house. My head went haywire and i went for a walk. I wanted to go get drunk, go hurt myself or find a big gang to pick a fight with to kick the shit out of me.
I walked around the block and headed home. As I got closer I remember she had her counselling over zoom. I had no keys. I spent maybe an hour outside our house.
She didn't realise I didn't have my keys. Couldn't phone me as she had my phone and had no idea where I went.
After talking some some more we eventually had dinner and had some rats out the cage time. My head was too all over the place to type my post for yesterday which i now regret.

Today started bad. Fiancee wanted me to go through and delete contacts and in doing so saw that pictures (non sexual) have been exchanged. I was getting defensive and denying there was any harm or any unhealthy behaviour in these messages. I had to leave for work. We continued to message before I started work and spoke on the phone and I realised/accepted this obsessive messaging is part of my addiction. I have since been reading on the dopamine cycle that messaging creates. 
I have since deleted many of my facebook contacts and messages and gonna make sure I am vigilant in cutting out this behaviour. I am going to be coming off Facebook for a while.
All this also questioned my honesty again. The self loathing is strong today.

Work was shit today. Started a new project for the firm I am subbying for.  I work in construction by the way.
It might not of actually been that bad but I been having mood swings but mainly been feeling down. Like my head is being swarmed by a dark cloud.

When i got home I was full on in deep sad and self loathing. I couldn't really speak or look at my partner when she got home. We had a good talk and I wrote a brain storm all all the things that stem from P and my dopamine behaviours. It helped ground me and made me focus on what i got to do to fight this. We also spoke about how I compartmentalised things and how I didn't really talk about my actual feelings with her. I didn't realise how disconnected I actually was. This is something I am going to really work on. I need her in my life and if we get through this she is going to have all me. She says she wants to know the real me. including the bad.

I am struggling to type this out head is still all over the place so I don't know how much sense this is making so apologies again.

I nearly restarted my day counter due to the dishonesty but my partner said I haven't done anything so.


Day 7 NO P


If you are reading this remember I am still cheering you on.
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
Hey Chris,

all in all i quite understand it very well. The mood swings, the realisation of all the aspects of P. It sucks, yes, but growing awareness is one important thing to do at this stage. So, that's positive, very positive. You'll earn the fruits for that later, believe me.

Delete all the contacts or just delete your social media apps on the phone. This helped me to spend less time on the phone and more in real life.

Wish you all the best. The next days urges will increase, maybe headache, maybe NE, but be sure, it will fade!
 

aquarius25

Respected Member
Hey there, I am the wife of an addict. I wanted to offer a perspective form the other side of this. You seem to be really wanting to make this relationship work and I really commend you for being able to tell a few people in your life.

Coming clean is really difficult. My husband and I struggled with this a lot. I would really suggest the two of you sit down and set some boundaries around disclosure. Also since you do have a few people in your life who know and care about you and want to see you get better have you considered asking about an accountability partner? Your partner can't be your accountability partner. She is dealing with her own emotions and hurt and frankly is too close to this. You need someone who you can be open with about her and the difficulties you are having. I would recommend you connect daily with your AP (accountability partner). Doesn't have to be a long convo but just a simple did you look at porn or porn subs? Were you tempted? If yes what was happening then and what was the trigger? Someone who you can text if you are feeling tempted and they can be encouraging and keep you accountable.

As far as boundary setting an example that my husband and I now have is that he tells me everything that he can think of that is needing disclosure. If he forgot something than when he remembers it he discloses it. If he has a relapse or feels triggered he discloses and answers my questions. That gives me the chance learn as much detail as I am ready for instead of him questioning how much to tell me. Also he has 48hrs to disclose in. I understand the head wrestle that he goes through (he is a huge compartmentalizer as well but has come a long way!) and I know he needs time to go through that. Also I want to set him up for success in the ability to be honest and breaking through the fear. By asking him to tell me right away, if he is scared and trying to get the nerve and I stumble onto it before he can tell me than he feels defeated and I just feel more lies. It doesn't help anyone, so giving him a window of time to process allows him time to make a good choice. If disclosure comes after 48 hrs or if I find something and he didn't tell me then we have consequences. They are things that I have said I need to help me feel safe and secure in our marriage. Like him sleeping on the couch if he didn't disclose in the time window, or if he lied he needs to stay somewhere else until I feel ready to work at this again. We agree no matter where he sleeps we must talk daily about this until we feel better about the situation. Also we share an icloud acc and now a facebook acc. I see every photo taken on his phone and I see all his messages (and he sees all of mine since fair is fair). When home I have permission to look at his phone anytime I want, and he can look at mine. We both keep open and transparent. O and read together. That was so huge for us! Love you, Hate porn was such a great book! It gave us a language to work though and was really helpful

THose are just a few of the things that helped us a ton. I would encourage you to show your partner the partners forum. Also if you ever want to ask questions about anything I mentioned feel free. My hubby comes on here every once in a while. He is metal22. Our d-day was over 3 yrs ago. He struggled with PIED huge but has recovered. He was clean 3 yrs and then had a relapse during quarantine this year. We are back on track and doing better. It is possible to make your relationship work but it is not easy. Sorry for the long post and it is meant to be encouraging but if you don't want a partners perspective on your journal let me know and I won't post here no offense taken at all. I just recognized a heart that wanted to make a relationship work and as someone who has and is there I am happy to encourage as best I can.
 

Chris1986

Active Member
@Imsorrynotsorry. Yeah it's quite surprising how the reach the P and dopamine loops have got.
Already deleted Instagram off my phone and going to be doing the same with Facebook and its messenger service.
Yeah i been getting a fair amount of headaches. Well i would say it's pretty constant but like for now its fairly light compared to other times when it feels consuming.

@Aquarius.
Thanks for replying and glad to hear you and your partner are still together. During his early reboot days how would you say the moodswings were?
One of my besties was going to be my accountability for a blocker app on my phone but sadly the app was fair crap so my partner managed to sort something else out although it wasn't easy. My mate has been checking up on my but I think you are right I should message them daily.
We have gone through what we class as cheating and unhealthy behaviour. I am trying to take my time answering the more difficult questions rather than having the addiction speak for me. Yesterday morning was a bit of a setback sadly.
My partner is already on the the forum and has been active in the partners section.
Thank you for giving me your perspective.

Today I have done my first ever counselling session. We did it at home over Zoom and I was surprised at how nervous I really was before hand. It was good obviously didn't just click their fingers and ta da! I was cured but it did feel good and I will be continuing with sessions.

Been trying to read up more on cognitive dissonance. I feel like my belief is to treat everyone equally and fair but as pointed I have been using many people to get images/get my high and then just abandoning/ghosting them.

I been thinking back to about 8 years ago when i started sub contracting for the firm I was with before lockdown. Looking back there were times I was really down. Like deep pit of despair down. I would take days off on occasions just cause i felt like i couldn't face going in. I also got my first Smartphone early on starting this job so I think possibly I started getting deeper into these dopamine loops and it just escalated. I guess. it really helped with my repression of my "bad feelings"

This is all I can think to type right now in this moment of time.

DAY 8 NO P

Still cheering you on.

 

aquarius25

Respected Member
Glad to hear she is on the forum and getting support as well. Being a partner can be really difficult as well. This addiction isn't easy for anyone. As far as my husbands mood in the beginning I will say that we was pretty depressed. It took a bit for him to come out of it. The first month was awful! After that it went in swings. He would have a good few days but then a bad couple. By the end of the third month his mood wasn't all over the place. I will also say that my mood was pretty sad too so in no way was I a shining example of healthy mental capacity, lol.
 

Fappy

Respected Member
Hi,
as other posters have said, its fantastic that you have such a supportive partner. thats going to be a great help!
others arent so lucky, their partners just heap more shame on them and do nothing to help. dont offer support either moral or sexual, and just treat the whole thing with disgust and loathing.
its also fantastic that your partner has also joined the forum, together with the excellent advice you can get here youre sure to kick this addiction in the balls!
 

Chris1986

Active Member
@aquarius25. Yeah Sadly I had a rage fit last night which I am ashamed of. Will go into more detail in my update.

@Fappy. I am lucky although right now I don't feel I deserve her.

Yesterday evening my partner was being really quiet. I tried to hug her and got shrugged off. Tried to speak and would only get 1 or 2 word answers. We cleaned the rat cage together and still not much talking. I thought she must of wanted space so I tried to give it to her. I did my post on here then i spent sometime reading "The Porn Trap". She cooked a really tasty chicken and chorizo combination for dinner which i told her how nice it was.
We continued not really speaking while i was reading and she was on her tablet which some netflix on in the background. This was broken when she asked me what's with this weird mood and why was I ignoring her?
I explained I thought she wanted space and why I would of thought that. We also discussed some of her concerns of my family "never going to forgive her" that they are going to hate her for not seeing them during this time. I told her that they love her and she is an important part of the family. After chatting for awhile things seemed a bit calmer and we watched tv till bed.
As we brushed our teeth we were chatting about things to do with what i was doing P related during lockdown. We went to bed but it wasn't long till she got up and went to the other room. I wasn't sure what was going on so I got up to check. She was stood there silent with her head in hands. I tried to console her. This is went things get a bit blurry. I think she was saying I admitted not needing to come to P related stuff stuff during lockdown cause we were having regular sex was me admitting that it was sex related. My brain took this as an attack and I lost it. I am not sure exactly what i said but i said some horrible things. I punched and dented a wall in our bedroom. She was in tears screaming. I realised I fucked up and tried to apologise. She left the house I was freaking out I threw some clothes on and went after her. I actually ran. We spoke. She really thinks we should have some time apart as we our both going through different processes and they are not mixing well. I don't want to be without. I want to go to sleep and wake up with her everyday. I love her.
She said she would walk around the block and then come back. I wanted to walk with her but she wanted to be on her own. I went home and waited for her to return in bed. She came home and we spoke some more. Spoke more about having sometime apart. I really don't want to. We ended up cuddling and having sex before going to sleep.

In the middle of the night (or possibly just 1 hour later) I am half awake and we are doing things again. Half sleep sex happens from time to time. She asked me this morning though if i would that was a P urge thing.  I like to think it isn't and that it's just something that we do.

Leaving for work was hard this morning. My fiancee was panicking about being able to cope. I tried to console her but I had to go to work.
We exchanged some messages about my behaviour last night. I have been feeling really shitty as I have been so selfish in my recovery that I haven't really stopped to fully grasp the pain and trauma that I have caused her.
Her world has been turned upside down and yet she is still loving and supporting the cause of her pain. I will never be able to thank her enough but i hope we get through this and i get the chance to try.

We have spoke again and right now things don't seem bad between us. The pain and hurt is there but we have been able to smile and crack jokes. My favourite moments are always with her.

Day 9 no P

Merry Friday to you all.
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
Good to hear you both rearranged things in the end.

For the partners of addicts there is no rule that defines the social fairness. Addictions are always socially unfair for partners, friends, family. It's not your fault, it's the way it is and it will get better, but our partners are choosing or have choosed to be with us in this fight against this addiction. They do this because they love us and we fight because we love them. This must not be forgotten.

I can totally understand that you want to answer her questions, but this leads to some other problems in your relationship. Question-answer leads to blame and explanation. This is not how relationships work, because this shrinks the place for trust. Long term, this must be improved.
For a point in the future, mayber after this stormy period, it is helpful to find time and place to speak about P addiction. This is helpful in different ways. She can adress her questions when you're ready for it and it protects certain events from the 'it's the addiction'-suspicion. Talking about such a complex thing before going to bed is guaranteed to end up in a mess.
I suggest once a week for about an hour. For all other things there is counselling or RN. If she wants her questions to be answered, she can create an account in the forum aswell.
 

Chris1986

Active Member
@imsorrynotsorry

imsorrynotsorry said:
I can totally understand that you want to answer her questions, but this leads to some other problems in your relationship. Question-answer leads to blame and explanation. This is not how relationships work, because this shrinks the place for trust. Long term, this must be improved.

I believe the question and answer dynamic is actually helping improve the trust in the relationship. I have answered some hard questions that I knew she wouldn't like the answer to build up my honesty and properly connect to her.
We speak about the P addiction most days and I believe we both find it helpful. Last week was very hard as we kept finding how deep the addiction went. Today was the first day she looked at my phone without something new being thrown into the mix. Thursday was a bad day for me and my head. I realise this was the addiction fucking with me and will be vigilant in recognising these feelings and not letting them take control.
Down the line after I have done some work on myself in counselling we are going to do counselling together.
She already has an account and been posting on the partners section.

Right now for update. Yesterday was a good day. I was suppose to go visit my Gran but she wasn't feeling so great gave it a miss this week. (she hates being made a fuss of). Normally me and my partner go together but at the moment decided not to do family things as a couple while we work things out.

My Fiancee wanted to go visit her parents and I went to Morrisons to do the weekly shop. I walked down and had the first Biffy Clyro album playing on my Ipod. Haven't listened to that album for so long. It really does seem like music is hitting me with more power now. It's nice.

I did the shop and realised there was no way I could carry it all back so I phoned my partner up and she came down to get me. While I waited I realised I forgot the Pizza's that she wanted for later that evening.
I was going to my mates house that evening and their partner was coming to ours.

After sorting out the shopping at home I went on my laptop reading posts on here while my partner read "Love you, Hate Porn" (thanks for the suggestion Aquarius25).

I have found reading the amount of relapse cases on here quite concerning and it did put my mood down for a while. I had to retreat from the forum for a bit and tried a bit of gaming (greedfall on ps4). I ended up pausing the game to tell my partner how I was feeling. It was a good talk. We really feel like true honesty and connection is key for this. I know within myself I got this. I don't want to leave room for excuses. I will beat this. I have control.
She found a folder for "Smart Recovery" that she had from her old work which seems good and a more realistic approach to recovery than 12 steps so I will be working through that sometime.
After talking I went back to my game and it was quite nice to escape reality even if just for a little while.

When evening came we did our social time with our friends as mentioned earlier. I was good to speak face to face with my mate. He made us burritos and chatted as well as watching old school wrestling on his projector. Was the 1998 deadly games survivor series where Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson first won the wwf/e title. It was a fun time.

This morning we slept in. It was good to properly sleep in and cuddle. Think we are both feeling anxious about the coming week but as I said to her I think we have worked out how to communicate through this better now.
We both have done some of the bullshit boring housework stuff now and I plan on cooking a very tasty dinner. Paprika Pork with chorizo.
I think that is all I got to say right now but hope everyone is well and having a lovely Sunday.

Day 11 NO P
 

Chris1986

Active Member
Merry Monday everyone. Hope you are healthy and doing well with your recovery.

I have been feeling easily agitated most the day. My partner was not feeling secure this morning and I did not handle it as well as I should of. In person or via text. I think we are at a better place now after speaking on the phone earlier. Been looking at Betrayal Trauma and she is definitely showing signs of that. She really feels she cannot cope with all this and that she is going to end up losing her job. I need to stop being so selfish about my own recovery and be there for her fully during this.

Coming home today I was feeling quite anxious. Last week I hung around my parents for a bit after work to avoid the old bad habit routine of PMO. Today was first day of coming home normal time after work.
I  gave the ratties a grape each and did the dishes from last while watching some youtube videos on retro wrestling stuff. Also was
exchanging messages with one of my friends in my RPG games group.

I had a soak in the bath while watching a lets play of SKYRIM by Many a true nerd.
Feeling quite relaxed.
My partner has gone out after her work with a couple of collegues to discuss what has been going on lately. They know things are not good.

Going to read some other posts on here now.

day 12 no p
 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
It's not nice to read what's not good right now and i hope your partner will find her way through this. We, you, me and all others, we believe in our recovery for good. To even try to fight against it is a positive thing. I'll again come up with the idea of cutting time to talk about PMO-topics to a certain amount. If this was the reason why your partner isn't feeling secure anymore?

I can tell you there are hundreds of ways to overcome this and she must not doubt anything because of that. Maybe you both should hold on more to what is good right now, like the cooking and all.

Wish you the best
 

Chris1986

Active Member
@imsorrynotsorry.
It got pretty bad again but we have spoke and had a nice evening yesterday. We are learning how to communicate and navigate through this.

So it's been a few days since my last update.

I have had some weird feelings at times the last few days which I know understand to be cravings. Monday evening they got stronger and stronger and made me feel really uncomfortable and my chest heavy. Luckily playing with the rats helped distract me long enough till my partner came home from being out with her colleagues.

We spoke that evening and I answered some questions although I did lie first of all. Still got to work on this honesty.
We went to bed that night calmly and slept well.

Next day was bad twice. I kept a friendship basically compartmentalised away from her with and old school friend who I have slept with in the past. She herself is an addict and has been in and out of AA the last year or so.
I have mentioned this friend before but my partner did not know how often we were messaging and had phone calls on occasion.
I honestly feel like this is a friendship and I do not know why i kept it so compartmentalised.
My Fiancee seems to be suffering from betrayal Trauma and Tuesday night it got really bad. She kept wanting to speak about it although I felt i answered her question to the best of my ability. I said I don't think this friendship is unhealthy behaviour but give me a month to think it through. I am off instagram which i used to communicate with my friend. The conversation got heated. Very heated and for a little while it seemed like my fiancee wasn't really there.
She has since said in her mind she was listening but it wasn't going in. Her mind basically convinced her i was one of her ex's.
She can't remember a lot of what she said that night.
We eventually went to sleep but the next morning she was really panicky. I wasn't sure what to do. I had to go to work.
As I was on my way she called me crying. I could not make out what was being said. She hung up. I kept trying to call her that morning. Called her work mobile to see if it was on and ended up speaking to someone at her office just to check she has signed in. I was worried that something bad had happened with the radio silence. She ended up messaging me and we ended up having a good chat on the phone.
We have since decided no serious conversations over text as it easily can get confused with what tone things are meant in.

When I was walking home I felt the sickness talking to me it seemed. It seemed to romanticise porn use. It was really trying to sell the idea to me by saying how its harmless and its a great stress reliever. I did not give in to these thoughts. 
When I got home we ended up chatting some more, We spoke about our feelings and our behaviour lately. I also told her about my brain trying to play tricks on me. We spoke till my phone started making a strange noise. It was my counsellor. I got my days mixed up but yeah had my 2nd counselling session. It was good. Glad I am doing them.
We ended up having a lovely evening. My Partner cooked a lovely spag bog and we chilled with the rats out. I gamed for a bit as well. We were close and had lovely cuddles as well. We both really needed that evening. We went to bed early and both slept really well.

Today nothing really of note. We messaged and spoke on the phone which went well.
Had some cravings while I was walking home again but resisted again. I shook it off and checked my phone for messages from my partner. I ended up sending her a suggestive message. It went down well. When I got home I ended up cleaning out the rat cage, doing some vacuuming cleaning and preparing dinner. I started typing this out and had some tedtalks  about pornography on youtube playing.
When she came home we spoke and we were intimate. I won't go into too much detail as don't want to trigger anyone!
I finished dinner and we ate. She checked my phone and was happy with results :).
Now I am finishing this we are having a nice evening and going to get the rats out in a bit :).

Hope everyone is well.

DAY 15 NO P
 
Hey Chris,
Just reading through your journal and wow, it seems that you really are struggling with alot of things at the moment. It cant be easy. It must be very difficult situation in particular with your partner at the moment, but, if you manage to work through this issue together, this could be a period for you to enter into a deeper, more genuine relationship. Your whole mental attitude will certainly improve the longer you stay off it. God bless you both.
From your last post on how your mind is 'romantising' porn- thats something I understand. Its trying to trick you, that it would be ok in moderation, and then before you know it you are back at square one. Don't listen to it!
 

aquarius25

Respected Member
Chris, glad you got the book. One thing that my husband and I did that was huge for us was we read the books and work through them together. We would each read a chapter and about 3 times a week in the evening we would discuss it together and talk about anything that came up for us. I would journal about it, my husband not so much lol he isn't a journal'er and that is ok. It gave us a path to process slowly and in a way that lead to healing and health. It also gave us a common language to use. That is important because often I find that people will be arguing the same point but they use different wording to describe their point, lol, people are funny. So reading the same books together give wording and context that builds a common language. At the end of every discussion we would say 3 things we love and look forward to about each other. This is really really important. For myself when I focus on the past I feel a lot of hurt and resentment build. my husband tends to get filled with regret and shame. However, when we are looking forward we see hope, possibility and new. Listing things we love about the other person reminded us why we are doing this and it keeps us motivated and committed to the relationship. After a big discussion when you feel really raw ending on a positive note is really good.

It is not easy and there is a lot of hurt but I am so glad to see that you both are keeping at it! This will make your relationship stronger for sure! I know for myself I am not sorry or regretful about any of it now. I am glad that we are working through this and honestly this has made our relationship better than it ever was before. It is certainly not perfect and we still have our ups and downs but it is much better than anything I could have imagined! It is worth it!!! Keep up the good work!
 

Chris1986

Active Member
@joe_ireland Thanks for reading and posting :). Yeah I am being vigilant on ignoring that part of my brain. I know it's trying to lure me back and I wont let it get me again.

@aquarius25 hey yeah my Partner has started reading it on her tablet and yeah think we are gonna try reading it together so we can discuss it :). We both seem to be in a calmer place at the moment but know we are not out of the woods yet. We both really want this to work and both going to keep on working through it. I know I am very lucky to have her. I am also thankful to know that we have people like you out there who have been through this and are very much still together.

Fabulous frigging Friday Everyone!

Man this working week has been hard! Physically feel ruined! (lots of sledgehammer usage and concrete breakers this week).

I have been reading more on mindfulness and been doing little short sessions of it during the day today when had the chance and find it to be pretty helpful! Me and my Partner are on about doing mindfulness sessions before bed as well.

I feel like I will probably do a more in depth post in the next day or so :).

Hope everyone has a great start to their weekends!

DAY 16 NO P
 

Chris1986

Active Member
Hey everybody. Hope your weekends are treating you kindly and managing to keep your eyes and minds away from P.

Friday evening while I was doing my post's I have some TED TALKS about porn addiction on in the back ground. One of  them "The Porn Paradox" by Megan Johnson stood out to me so I rewatched it giving my full attention alongside my fiancee. She was still considering being a casual porn user still but this video changed her mind. The video explains how Porn use contributes to the supply and demand of sex trafficking. I really recommend watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU9v8h_OwcY&ab_channel=TEDxTalks


Saturday I did a coffee morning with my gran as it was her Birthday a few days before. 94 years old now!
My fiancee did not attend as we feel best not to do family things during this time of healing so told my Gran a little white lie about her having work commitments.
I am looking forward to when we can get to the point where we can do family things together again.

When we reunited back home we spoke for a while. It's been good learning to communicate again. Taking our time and remaining calm. We spoke about times I used sex workers in a the past (in my early to mid 20's). This also links back to the tedtalk I linked earlier as during this phase I was mainly looking at Asian porn so they were the sort of woman I were visiting. In hindsight a lot if not all of them were trafficked. The shame manifested itself in the deep sharp headache again. We spoke about the loneliness, shame  and embarrassment I felt back then as PIED affected me a lot.  We spoke about how I managed to stop that as i realised this "was fucked" but ended up going deeper into thinks like KIK and buying images.

I suggested on Friday that we should do a little date night on Saturday and that is what we did. We went to our favourite Burger Joint in our city. It's very 90's retro themed and does awesome burgers and milkshakes. Definitely ate too much but we had a good time. Was our first time out doing something like that since before Lockdown. We went to a coffee shop afterwards before going home. When we got home we got in our pjs chilled on the sofa with the rats while we watched Black Mirror. Season 3 episode 3 "Shut up and Dance" really stood out to me as I felt like the majority of the "victims" in that episode are all porn addictions sufferers. If you haven't seen I recommend watching it.

This morning my partner woke up feeling sad again. We spoke some more. I feel like we are connecting more and more. We were intimate again.

Nothing to report cravings wise but I haven't really been on my own. I find the worse time for them is walking home after work and being home alone. I remember times walking home and browsing the porn subs on reddit. It was fucked.

Today on the food front I have prepared a joint of pork with a home made seasoning mix to slow cook and make into a pulled pork later and my partner has prepared a red kidney bean salad which looks rank but is frigging gorgeous.

We are going to have a nice relaxing Sunday. Have the rats out later and eat some delicious food. We also plan on reading "hate you love porn" together and discuss chapter 1.

I shall end this here but remember I am cheering you all on.
Much Love.

DAY 18 NO P

 

Chris1986

Active Member
Today was not a good head day.

Yesterday I looked at my Facebook while my fiancee was in the room to look at changing my email address for it. I saw the amount of notifications on there and I guess they stayed on my mind. My fiancee did not realise that i was keeping off facebook currently but I told I was keeping away from it for now.
Today I went on it Twice. Once to check my notifications and the second just to browse before I stopped myself.

I was feeling anxious and sketchy. My body was physically failing me today as well. I have not mentioned this before but I have had issues with the nerves in my neck running down my right arm/hand. I get numb tingly feelings, spasms, loss of grip/strength as well as shooting pains. My arm was bad today and I felt like I had shooting pains running down my back. Not good anything but while trying to plaster a ceiling even worse. I am sure the pain was really there but I do wonder if my brain was jumping on it trying to play tricks on me. To make me give in.

I called my fiancee to speak. I told her I was in pain and feeling very anxious as well. We spoke about me going on facebook. I told her my password so she can check that I only did what I said I did.
I felt calmer after the chat but the anxiety was still there.

After work I got home and did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. I showered and tried to play some Skyrim but I felt the anxiety and the cravings rise. It made me feel awful. I quit gaming. Put on a tedtalk and played with the rats for a bit.
My partner came home and I told her How I was feeling. We went upstairs and spoke for a while.
I felt bad for being so weak and told her I felt like an imposter. I wanted to be a strong happy man. She comforted and loved me. I love her.
I feel we are growing closer again and she is pleased that I am really opening up to her. Telling when I am feeling bad rather than just holding it all inside and numbing it with P and all things P related.

I feel my brain is a bit fried so I will leave it here for today.

DAY 19 NO P
 
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