What you give is what you get (I went 580 days. Relapsed. Finally back on track.
- Thread starter Emptyroom
- Start date
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 43
Yesterday, I ended up O:ing to mild audio-stuff on YT. I feel that it somehow minimized the damage at the same time that my urges became a bit more stable. At least I didn't watch P on a P-site. Still, it was a step in the wrong direction. This morning, I O:d to memories of real sex. I hope that this will make my day safer even though I know that O:ing for me usually leads to P. In fact it always does so that was a bit unthoughtful of me. At some point soon I have to stay with the urges and let them pass without escaping.The core of these negative activities is a will to escape from negative feelings in the present about the future. I wonder why it is so hard to accept those temporary feelings when they arise instead of escaping into P. Are the negative feelings really as bad as my subconcious seem to think? They can't really hurt me. One thing is sure: We can not win this battle with willpower alone.
What to we need then besides willpower? Good habits, help from others, other things to focus on, love and understanding of oneself. Maybe the most important thing is a higher purpose than self-improvement alone. Self-improvement has to be a means to help your community, Being a better person is for the people around you. I have to start doing this for other people and not myself alone. I have to be a better person for the sake of all of us. I am not fighting for myself but for the betterment of the world.
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 47
I started working at my new sommer job this week. I have been so busy so I forgot all about my urges. I feel good now. I didn't fall down the P-rabbit hole. My urges have fallen asleep and for now I am safe. P is not an option. Hopefully I can keep that door close for a long time now but if I open it just a little the urges will put its foot in the door and it will be hard to close again without a huge internal battle. I wonder how I can work more actively not to only stay away from P but also never willingly go back to it.To me it feels like there are three journeys I am on. The first one is tearing down and destroying the relationship I have with P. This is done by waiting and waiting out urges.
The second one is to grow good habits and become a better and more caring person.
The third journey (the one I feel the least ready for) is to prepare and build a shield around me so that I can face emergency-situations like a burnout, a depression or stress. That is to say apply strategies to deal with negative life-situations in healthy ways.
These three are connected. They are all necessary but especially the last one. I don't want to be P-free for three years just to get a depression and fall right back on the old ways of dealing with my problems.
So how does one make the third journey? I think one important thing is having a network of people that know about your problems that can support you, but I think that one have to be careful so that a networks non-judgemental attitude towards relapses and the positive attention towards you after a relapse doesn't make it easier rather than harder to relapse. I think that when you are depressed and come to the point where you actually want to relapse there is no network that can stop you. Maybe your closest friends if they know where it would lead you.
Another important thing I think is practicing and planning different ways to deal with hardships rather than P and behaviour that leads to P.
Lastly I think that it is important to take long term precasions so you won't go down the slippery slope or get to depressed. This is where the second journey comes in: exercise, studying a philosophy, psychology, creating bonds to other people and to your community and mankind.
I really hope that I can keep this streak for a really long time but I realise that although I can fight the fight and win the battles to the point that the enemy (the P-watching side of myself) is really weak, I can never really win the war. All my life I have to be aware that I could fall into the old habit again. This is a good thing because it can motivate me to be the best person I can be, all my life.
/Empty
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Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 53
I just celebrated my 30th birthday. I am very glad that I was on this journey when the day came because being on the right path makes the days better. I had a wonderful birthday. I was surrounded by music and friends. I still feel that my PMO-craving is hybernating. It is not a choice right now to PMO. If anyone reads this and wonder how to get a streak longer than a few weeks, I got a tip: Somehow get away from your normal life. Go on a vacation. Go to a different environment. After a few weeks it can get a lot easier. you have to distract your body and mind until you gain some distance between yourself and PMO.I remember when I started posting here. I remember that I really wanted to get rid of this thing before I was 30. I am still here but I am contented with my life as it is right now. I have to keep making up my mind not to use again. All my life. I have to remind myself to grow as a person and not be stagnant and destroy my work. All my life. This is just how things are and It is in the long run a good thing because life is better in the presens of death, you have to have saddness once in a while to be able to recieve the greatest joys and you have to know about the bottom to make it to the top and stay on top.
/Empty
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Blondie
Respected Member
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 57
I really enjoy my job for the summer. It has really helped me to get away from thoughts of using. Now I have a two week vacation and this could be dangerous. Urges are not present but I know that doing nothing usually brings temptation. It should be fine but I have to realize that when the urges finally come, and they will come, I will have to go against that craving. I would like to start exercising but I have a bad caugh. I have cleaned my room so thats a good start to being orderly. The challange now will be filling the days with meaning.
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Emptyroom
Active Member
I have been hurt! My "girlfriend" and I have been having a break from each other. It didn't feel like a real break until yesterday when she said that she had feelings for someone I know. Someone that she didn't want to reveal. It chocked me and made me feel heavy and sad. The plan this week was for me and mother to visit her family and then for her to come with me to my mothers house. Her mind seems to work a lot different from mine because I'm thinking of canceling the whole thing while she doesn't think our relationshipstatus is relevant when we meet our families because we "have a connection as humans" (not as partners then obviously).
My main priority is to avoid PMO. I don't want to get depressed over this. One part of me is glad that I wont be with this person. Another part is sad about this whole thing. I have two weeks where I have to distract myself and make an effort not to use. This is a dangerous situation and I just hope that I can make it through it.
My main priority is to avoid PMO. I don't want to get depressed over this. One part of me is glad that I wont be with this person. Another part is sad about this whole thing. I have two weeks where I have to distract myself and make an effort not to use. This is a dangerous situation and I just hope that I can make it through it.
Blondie
Respected Member
Sorry to hear this @Emptyroom. Hearing the truth about our relationship is never fun. Try to do something that might put your mind at peace in these times, especially when you feel really down. It always gets better.
Stay strong out there. Porn won't fix anything. T
This too shall pass.
Best
Stay strong out there. Porn won't fix anything. T
This too shall pass.
Best
Emptyroom
Active Member
Today I in a sense broke up with my girlfriend. I told her that I won't join her at her parents house and that I will limit my time with her. It made her really sad but I don't feel that I am to blame here. She is clearly not really interested in me as a partner and she is in love with someone else. I will not live like this. It is sad because we have been together, not being sure what we are, going backwards and forward, for more than a year. When it comes to relationships she feels very imature. I feel hurt and used. She just want us to be friends now but It is not really possible for me to just shift my feelings like that. I need time away from her. She has hurt me long enough, going back and forth, back and forth all the time with our relationship.
In a real relationship I feel that the partners are supposed to find rest and comfort in each other. She just stresses me out and I can't believe how I could believe in the dream that our relationship could work when it has been bad from the start. I believed in us for too long.
Thank you Blondie for your support. I have been trying to distract myself with friends and I have tried to sit with the pain. The urge to PMO has not yet appeared. I feel vigilant. I really don't want to take that route now. I have to see this as a good time to program my mind to deal with sorrow in a healthy way. The third path: finding new ways to deal with discomfort and pain.
In a real relationship I feel that the partners are supposed to find rest and comfort in each other. She just stresses me out and I can't believe how I could believe in the dream that our relationship could work when it has been bad from the start. I believed in us for too long.
Thank you Blondie for your support. I have been trying to distract myself with friends and I have tried to sit with the pain. The urge to PMO has not yet appeared. I feel vigilant. I really don't want to take that route now. I have to see this as a good time to program my mind to deal with sorrow in a healthy way. The third path: finding new ways to deal with discomfort and pain.
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 59
My journey has reached this point where I have to deal with loss without PMO. I will start a new chapter of this journal here now that I call "The third journey". I will journal how I deal with the grief of losing my girlfriend in a healthy way. The worst part is that she is very sad and is suffering tremendiously because of this breakup. I am the bad guy even though she is the one that doesn't let romantic feelings grow between us, loves someone else but still wants to hold on to me and wants me to be as close a friend to her as if we where a couple. She wants to have the cake and eat it too. She is manipulating me because she doesn't want to lose me as a friend. I have not cut all connection with her and we have been writing a little since I told her I wasn't playing along anymore. She is going to contact me later and maybe this connection is dangerous because it has the potential to make me feel worse and to make me want to get together with her again. To still have contact with her might be dangerous but I don't want to be horrible towards her and leave her in the dust suffering. I don't know. It is not what I want to do right now. I have been doing a very good job this far not letting this sadness get the best of me. This new journal inside this journal will contain my struggles with this, how and what I learn about dealing with loss and grief in a healthy way.
The third journey (entry 1)
Background:I have been with a problematic woman for more than a year now. She has gone back and forth about wanting to be with me and she has both issues with abandonment and being in relationships (a bad combination of issues). Things where positive for a long time but two days ago she said that she feels like she doesn't really want to be with me. She has proclaimed this three times in the past and those times we broke up just for things to return to normal again after a few days. This has hurt me every time. The difference now is that she also said that she had feelings for someone else. Someone that I know and that she won't reveal to me. This hurt me on a new level. She has told me before that the problem isn't with me but that she has a difficulties letting feelings grow for anyone. Now this seems to have been a lie since she can have romantic feelings for someone else. Despite her telling me this she expects me to visit her family with my mother and then spend a weekend in my mothers house with me. She wants to have an intimate life with me despite having feelings for someone else and not wanting to be with me in the long run. It feels like she is using me. I found out about this other guy when she causually tried to ask me if I think it's shameful to get a new partner directly after leaving another or not. I can't understand what she was thinking asking me that. Of course I realized that she was talking about herself, called it out and then she told me.
I called her the next day (because she is not in the same town as me at the moment) and told her that I would not follow the plan and meet her with my mother at her parents place. That would be a thing that couples do. She trembled and was shocked. She understood but now her life is full of darkness because of my decision. She had made fun plans for me and my mother and us not coming to her familys place broke her heart. It is a shame but she needs to accept reality I feel. You can't have the cake and eat it too. You just can't. We can't act and live as a couple when she feels what she feels. When she is hurting me.
The important thing for me now is to move past her. To allow myself to feel grief and to deal with this situation in a positive way. I have to learn how to deal with sorrow without PMO. Without trying to escape. This is what this journal within a journal will be about. I will try to educate myself on this topic and write down what I am feeling and what I learn.
Yesterday was the day I told her. Afterwards I avoided going home to my place. I didn't want to be alone. I bought ice cream at a coffee shop and sat by myself. I called two friends and had long conversations about what happened. They supported me. I met up with another friend and talked with her. Then I went with my friend to other people that where trying to learn french. I just listened to them speaking in french. Not understanding the language, it made me feel calm and also distracted me from thoughts of my now exgirlfriend. It was a day of distraction. I looked at some videos on YT that talked about dealing with loss and sorrow and they conveyed that one shouldn't escape from negative feelings. One should feel them as much as possible. The question I must answer now is: How do I not escape from my feelings? How can I meet my sorrow and loss head on? I think that I have to escape a little too. Otherwise I think life will be unbearable. I have to be aware and not let M be a way to escape because M will lead to PMO. I will have to stop sexual thoughts (even of a non-PMO nature) from festering in my mind. Escape will have to come from music and friends and positive activities. I don't want to be a person that escapes into the stuff that is on social media. This is not the time to develop a Tik-Tok-brain. That is not the solution. I have to be able to tell good ways of coping from bad ways of coping.
She wrote to me this morning and made me feel bad by telling me the fun activities that she had planned for me and my mother this weekend. It felt manipulative (I don't think that she wrote to me with that intention.) What I did was first to try to feel the pain of it as much as possible. Then for some reason I went out and bought a yellow rose and a glass vase. I'm telling myself that the yellow rose is my future without her. It is the good and solid future with someone else that is possible for me to have If I just move forward from the situation I am in now. I really want the future that I can see in that yellow rose: A future with a person that is calm and stable and doesn't have issues and feels like a responsible adult. A future with a person that I can trust. A future with someone else than my ex. I will try to look at the rose often and take care of it.
I hope this little journal will do some good for others. I think that a lot of peoples problems with P stem from an inability to deal with negative feelings in a positive way. I will write about my process concerning this here and what I learn. Take care for now!
/Emptyroom
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Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 60
I have no urges yet. I have two weeks of free time so I haven't got much to do. I have been practicing playing an instrument all day except for when I ate lunch with a friend outside. I'm bored right now. That could be dangerous. Maybe I can sit with the feeling of boredom. Practice feeling uncomfortable for a while. Or maybe the right thing to do is to find something good to do. If I get urges I will try to take a slice of habanero.The third journey (entry 2)
My ex is so depressed now that I feel that I want to spend the weekend with her to try to make her feel better about life. She is almost suicidal. I have never seen her so depressed. It is not just because of us breaking up but because of lots of things that she regret about her life. I feel that I want to be a good friend to her and I feel good taking care of her in her time of need. As a friend. My plan is to be with her for a week and then afterwards and together with her make a long break where we don't see each other for a long time until we really can become friends without any romantic feelings. I must prepare myself so that I don't end up with her again. I must visualize a future without her. I must be very clear about what I want. That I only want her to be a friend.
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 61
I have started to feel some positive changes. I feel more comfortable than before. I feel more balanced and even though my relationship has failed. I feel relatively happy just existing. A positive thing that happened today was that I was thinking about reading a book and the first though I had choosing was: what imaginary world would I like to enter right now? The question wasn't what book would I have want to have read. This question I have asked myself to often. It is so shallow. This new question felt much more genuine and relevant to the person I want to be and it came to me naturally without effort. What imaginary world would I like to be in right now? The question sparkles with life-energy and somehow I feel that it came because of this journey. Being on this path feels exciting and I'm going to stay on it. Who knows where the yellow brick road of no PMO will take me next.The third journey (entry 3)
I have started to have some small urges. I'm not as cool as the prievious couple of days. I think it has something to do with being alone with my thoughts and not having much to do. I think that it must also have something to do with me not knowing how this weekend will go (I am going to visit my ex and I hope that we just can get along without any emotional repercussions).My strategy dealing with this worry is to allow the feelings to exist at the same time as I try to fill the day doing something fun. I think that the third journey is all about finding a balance between trying to escape and not escaping; acknowledging the feelings and letting them be. This is the thing I have to practice the most. It is okay to feel what I am feeling. The emotions are safe in my stomach. There is no need to escape the negative ones because they will pass.
Emptyroom
Active Member
(still day 61)
Since I wrote I've had some P-flashbacks. Overly sexual thoughts have also moved trough my brain. I think that a key here for me is to accept that these thoughts exist and see them as a sign that I am making progress. They are like clouds that must pass. I am not indulging in them at the same time as I'm not panicking over the fact that I have them right now. This is one of my first trials on this streak and I feel that I can face it by being calm and collected.
It is not an option. It is not possible If I make it impossible.
This is a good time to remind myself why I am doing this journey. From the top of my head I will make a small list here to remind myself of why I do this:
1. I need to let my dopamine-receptors heal to feel real happiness.
2. I love the way I feel when I am free from this addiction.
3. I want to find a partner and I don't want P-problems to be a part of that relationship.
4. I love to climb the ladder towards a better me and rome was not built in a day.
5. If I keep it up I will see many benefits in my life.
6. I want s*x to feel as good as it can.
7. I want to be able to think clearly
8. I don't want to wait another 10 years for this to be over. My 30s is my time to have this under control. I am an adult now that have to be able to take care of myself.
9. P sucks
10. Life is the greatest thing and I don't want to miss it.
Since I wrote I've had some P-flashbacks. Overly sexual thoughts have also moved trough my brain. I think that a key here for me is to accept that these thoughts exist and see them as a sign that I am making progress. They are like clouds that must pass. I am not indulging in them at the same time as I'm not panicking over the fact that I have them right now. This is one of my first trials on this streak and I feel that I can face it by being calm and collected.
It is not an option. It is not possible If I make it impossible.
This is a good time to remind myself why I am doing this journey. From the top of my head I will make a small list here to remind myself of why I do this:
1. I need to let my dopamine-receptors heal to feel real happiness.
2. I love the way I feel when I am free from this addiction.
3. I want to find a partner and I don't want P-problems to be a part of that relationship.
4. I love to climb the ladder towards a better me and rome was not built in a day.
5. If I keep it up I will see many benefits in my life.
6. I want s*x to feel as good as it can.
7. I want to be able to think clearly
8. I don't want to wait another 10 years for this to be over. My 30s is my time to have this under control. I am an adult now that have to be able to take care of myself.
9. P sucks
10. Life is the greatest thing and I don't want to miss it.
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 70
Things are stable. I have not had any urges since last time I wrote. My ex is very depressed and we have not yet truly parted. When we finally have our break things might change for the worse. This is day 70 and I feel good about that. I am no longer fixated with numbers. I just want to be on the right track. That is the most important thing. Of course it is more benificial for me to have gone longer than a few days. I'm feeling some of the benefits. I still have a long way to go though.The third journey (entry 4)
Goals. Setting them is everything. They need to be SMART goals: They need to beSpecific
Measurable
Attractive
Realistic
Time limited
I'm going to spend some time next week to really think about the goals I want to reach in the coming decade. Then I will think about some goals for this year and divide them into shorter goals.
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 71
Me and my sort-of-ex are now finally having a bigger break where we are not going to be intimate. This will probably affect my stability on this journey negatively. I have to be focused on other things. Setting goals is one thing that I can do. Not setting to many goals is another. I need to relax and not force a change. I am glad that my vacation is over and that I will work for three weeks. This will keep me busy and make me feel productive this summer. I had a great day today. I hope you guys are having good days too./Empty
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 79 (29/7)
I'm afraid to say that I haven't make any long term SMART goals yet. I have not watched P but I have been having more sexual thoughts and I have MO:d twice to sexual thought. A sadness moves within me. I can sort of feel that itch that we all feel on this forum. As I continue on the path I have to make sure to handle these feelings: To take them seriously and make precations so that I don't end up in a situation where I only have my will-power to stop me from PMO. I will lose that battle eventually. I have to make small possitive changes and reduce negative influences.I should feel glad that I am still on this journey and that I have come so far. I have only been at this point a handful of times. I am close to some of those benefits that improve my experience of life. I have to be prepared to suffer a bit to reach that.
/Empty
Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 83
I feel temptation to watch sexual things on Youtube. I have been able to resist that urge but I don't know for how long I can do that. If I tell myself that I will resist as long as possible, that gives me strength. I also need to think about that I am at day 83 again. I don't want to loose this streak. As I wrote this post I searched for a sexual thing on YT. I didn't click anything but It was a dangerous behaviour and I saw some women in suggestive clothing. God dammit! It sucks! Why go back to it? Life is better without it. Stay on the path!Edit: I watched some more and basically PMO:d to soft videos on Youtube. I will not reset my counter because it wasn't proper P and It also makes me feel less bad if I keep the 83 days for now. Hopefully I can recover from this before it gets worse.
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Emptyroom
Active Member
Day 0. I don't really trust myself, but maybe I should because I feel a new desire to become a good person. I will live for humanity and not for myself alone. I have cleaned my room. In the future I see myself helping and being a responsible person for others. I need to treat my mind as a church and show respect. I can not treat my mind as a trash-can or a hedonistic tent. I need to practice my moral beliefs and not take actions that make me feel bad and hurt humanity.
The day is 0. The time is now.
The day is 0. The time is now.