Day 17 - Post mortem
My day ended at 1:00 AM last night, and I went to bed without journaling, so here's Saturday's autopsy.
No porn. By this point this part is effortless. No cravings, no substitutes with other types of sexual visual stimulation, like lingerie catalogues or anything like that. I might be wrong, but as I said before, I don't think I'll ever even consider it again. Fingers crossed.
Again, I took out the motorcycle around town. I wonder if this is becoming some sort of thrill-seeking activity to compensate for the other thing. I noticed, however, that I'm driving very slowly and just paying attention to what is going on around me. Breathing it all in. It feels more like meditation than Bucky Barns escaping Black Panther in Civil War.
I have now understood that I am avoiding work. Actively, and that scares me as a possible sign of underlying depression. I don't feel depressed though. On the contrary, I feel very positive about life. Elated. However, being able to function is crucial for recovery and it feels that my working-self just punched out and never came back into work. I am beginning to think that's how the flatline is manifesting itself; read on.
Last night my girlfriend and I corroborated that I am fully into a flatline. A lifeless-dick impervious to any stimulus and to a great degree incapable of getting aroused. We were expecting this to happen. Back when I started my reboot and brought her in the loop, I also sent her this video: https://youtu.be/D1l9hQtcjgE which kind of gives you an idea of what's in store for a rebooter (there's a part one of that video too for people with milder cases). Back then, we made the decision to ride it out without viagra hoping that, without that artificial crutch, the body will reach homeostasis at a healthy level of hormones and neurotransmitters faster. We might be deluded, don't take this as advice and we don't really know what faster really means. Is it 6 weeks, 4 months, a year and a half, we don't know.
I still kissed her and caressed her with love. I tried to make her feel that I was connected to her. She dry humped me and got off that way and as weird as that was, I was thrilled to flatline this hard because I thought it was working and since she knew what to expect, her feelings were not hurt and she didn't get self-conscious (at least I think it seemed that way; I sure hope so). We didn't even try to make me cum. We don't want to fall into other Pavlovian rituals just yet. I felt nothing, not the least bit horny, not an ounce of pleasure. We had a loving moment and laughed and talked afterwards. I do realize that she'll only be fine with this for a while and anxiety will kick in eventually and we'll have to make a decision when that time comes whether to keep our no-viagra policy going.
Exercise, box breathing, hydration, and nutrition in check.
Bilbo Baggins said:
Well, we might as well enjoy your presence while you?re here, you really bring some fresh air to the forum. I?ll probably have to leave it behind at some point too, I?m just not there yet. After almost one year away from porn, it?s not that I see myself as an ex-porn addict who needs a forum to stay clean, it?s just that PIED is still there. I don?t know why I write these random thoughts in your journal... But I feel you, we have to continue evolving and move on to other things at some point. Have a good day, man!
My dear Bilbo, I really appreciate your words and I welcome your random thoughts in my journal. We all are looking for connection in this universe and this is a way to connect. The more, the merrier. After reading your message, I realized how insensitive and selfish I was to post that 90-day thing. Especially knowing how vulnerable we all are here and how we take cues from the journals of others to reflect on what is going on with ourselves. I suddenly felt that I should tell myself to get off my high horse. I also thought of editing it out, but I decided not to. These mistakes are also part of this and it might also be a mechanism to hide my vulnerabilities from myself and others. We all should embrace our journeys.
I will, however, apologize for being insensitive to your situation and that of others here. My own's as well. It is not what I intended. I work in international aid and development and I've seen the dangers of perpetuating victim roles. You see, when a disaster strikes (say a hurricane that wipes out entire communities), one of the solutions that governments and aid agencies tend to push is the creation of victim villages. They lump together people from different areas who don't have previous social bonds into one permanent "refugee camp". To add insult to injury, they usually name these villages with the date of the disaster. When offered this type of free precarious housing and some money, people say yes and it's as if they agree to get a tattoo with the word "victim" on their foreheads. They never leave the victim role, they jump from assistance program to assistance program. These places become ghettos and many years later--decades, actually--there is a lot of social decomposition inside of them, with rampant poverty, crime, different forms of abuse.
Another approach is keeping them alive in the days after the tragedy with food and shelter, and then helping them out with their own solutions. For example, they have friends or relatives that would have taken them in, regardless of government help. Then they go for that solution, but the government can give some money with
a time-limit to those families willing to take in their relatives in so that social bonds are maintained and strengthened. At the same time, the other priority is helping them rebuild whatever income activity they lost or want to start. These people become fighters for themselves and leave the victim role as soon as they can. That approach has been more successful in my mind. What is the equivalent in life after porn? And that, my friend, was the train of thought that led to me just insensitively blurting out the 90-day thing.
I was thinking, there are definitely many benefits to journaling during addiction recovery. It's a way of appeasing the mind, reducing anxiety, getting an emotional release and coping. But it is also true that what you resist, persists. Our brains are like the YouTube algorithm. Whatever you engage most, you get more of. You see where I am going. At some point, journaling and reading about this particular problem that we have, will start to eat into the time we need to be curious about life and to fill it with other great experiences and real life connections, and will start to define us. I want to be defined by other things and for that to happen I have to be able to try other things and engage with a different type of content.
You told me you liked how I write. I had never given that a thought, imagine. How nice would it be to explore that in another setting. Perhaps journaling about life in general and other topics.
But I feel you too. I have been struggling with PIED for a few years now and it does feel like a curse. It is also very hard no to have it on your mind always. I have ruled out medical issues, and I have gotten my testosterone levels up naturally with exercise and nutrition. That didn't work but I continue to do things to maintain those two things in an optimal place because I don't want them to become a contributing factor. From what I read, I feel rebooting might be the answer to this puzzle. However, if it doesn't work eventually, I will continue keeping this in check, lest it become a contributing factor, and I'll keep looking. That's why there is a time limit for my journal, so that I can move on.
I understand how you must feel a year into it, thinking "why wasn't I one of the cases that takes four months?", while still trusting the process. But think of it as a tool you've added to your belt, and continue to look for things in real life worth living for. I would encourage you not regurgitate this much longer my friend.
) and sure enough, a big drop of seminal fluid came out (like precum mixed with cum, sticky creamy stuff, sorry for the visual). Plop in the toilet!