Taking back my dignity

Not a Rabbi

Active Member
Guys, depression is kicking in hard atm...fucking loneliness. I am not sure if I can stay abstinent when I don't get out of it again. Because at some point I just stop carrying or even worse want to destroy myself. Urges are very strong today and it is kind funny how they are not connected to arousal (I am certainly not feeling horny), but to negative emotional states.
It got worse the from day to day and since like two to three weeks I feel like I am fighting a battle I can't win, because I need such a constant stream of positive experiences to compensate the negative experience (being mostly loneliness) that I just can't provide it. I can't visit friends every day because my best friend is hundreds of km away and here I know some people with which I connected the last months, but they are not so close friends.
I don't really know how to to on...
Hey man, sorry to hear you're feeling depressed. I don't know you of course but you have things you can do to lift yourself up: work out, go for a walk, engage in any kind of hobby, watch a movie, listen to music, whatever. I've been in this situation a lot and I feel like the key is just doing something, anything instead of aimlessly going on my phone/computer which just makes me feel worse. Doesn't even need to be active honestly, just something that can help me feel less shitty/occupy me.

Btw, I don't know if you can relate to this, but the city where I live gets pretty dark all winter and I get depressed. Best ways to help this for me are using a sun lamp, getting outside as much as possible, and taking extra vitamin d.
 

canguro

Active Member
Thx for your reply @Not a Rabbi .
You are right that I need to do anything that is helping me to get out of that mood and yesterday I cooked and listened to a youtube channel called "Therapy in a Nutshell" about depression etc. That did help me and today I am feeling a bit better.
Tbh, I am working out/doing sport maybe 5-6 out of 7 days. I think the problem is, that I am constantly trying to run away and be occupied, so I don't have to think. Maybe I have to learn to be more accepting instead of avoiding being with myself. But I'm not sure if that's not my depression talking that wants me to do less stuff and just waste time feeling bad.

I am taking vit D, but yes, maybe I should go out more often, that's definetly important.
 

canguro

Active Member
I am doing better again and I am so glad I didn't relapse. That would have made everything much worse. But I could learn from it. I think what I understand now is, that my problem lies in the way to process (or not to process) emotions. My intention is always to avoid them, to bury them. I did that with the help of alcohol, drugs, self harm and porn. And I still do that with sport! Going running when I have emotional stress is certainly the most healthy way to avoid the stress, but I think I have to learn to really process my emotions instead of shying away from them. That means learning to talk about them and show them in the first place.

I am happy that I will see my therapist again this friday after maybe two months, there is a lot I have to talk about.

Overall I think Iam doing pretty good and making progress. 5 months mark is getting close guys!
 

canguro

Active Member
Hey guys, I just wanted to share a Vid from YT (or a whole course to be more specific) with you which I find very beneficial!

 

canguro

Active Member
I forgot to mention: 5 months down.

At the moment my depression is gettinger stronger again and loneliness is increasing. But I have no urges to watch porn, that's something I guess.
 

canguro

Active Member
Urges are very strong at the moment. Most time I don't think about porn, but sometimes it is really hard. Can't get the pictures out of my head and can't stop thinking about it. I really hope this will stop at some point!
I won't give in though.
 

canguro

Active Member
All right guys. I just relapsed.
Since I got rejected by a woman last week depression and loneliness skyrocketed to a pre-reboot high and also I´m worked on trauma in therapy yesterday, together leaving me in a devastating mental state today.
I didn´t know how to cope with that, normaly I would go running, but I wanted to white-knuckle through it until the afternoon when I go to the gym. Then I wanted to MO to relieve some tension, but that only triggered me worse. I felt like in a fucking madness, like PMO was the only thing that I need now. Fucking addiction.
I will use this to get back on track and find new motivation. At the moment I am feeling mostly empty, but partially more motivated to get back to my journey.

5 months down with one relapse.
 

canguro

Active Member
I'm sorry to here this, but there's some more positive aspects that I want you to be aware of:

Your progress that you've accumulated so far is still with you even though the day counter has reset, so things will be easier compared to before.

Your proficiency with handling the stressors that caused the relapse will improve.

Reminding yourself about how awful this relapse has made you feel will be further encouragement to not do it again.

Keep fighting!
I am not counting my days and won´t reset any counter, as I think this is counterproductive. I will continue my monthly count with adding "with one relapse". So I have a reason to not let myself slip again "because now it doesn´t matter, as I am at day 0 again".
Interestingly the relapse doesn´t make me feel very bad. Some part of relapsing was, that I thought going down the hole to rock bottom could help me gain motivation again, because most of the time this was my drive. I hope I am not lying to myself with this to justify my relapse.
At the same time I am kinda too depressed to care much atm.
 

Emptyroom

Active Member
All right guys. I just relapsed.
Since I got rejected by a woman last week depression and loneliness skyrocketed to a pre-reboot high and also I´m worked on trauma in therapy yesterday, together leaving me in a devastating mental state today.
I didn´t know how to cope with that, normaly I would go running, but I wanted to white-knuckle through it until the afternoon when I go to the gym. Then I wanted to MO to relieve some tension, but that only triggered me worse. I felt like in a fucking madness, like PMO was the only thing that I need now. Fucking addiction.
I will use this to get back on track and find new motivation. At the moment I am feeling mostly empty, but partially more motivated to get back to my journey.

5 months down with one relapse.
Sorry about your relapse! You know the deal. Do everything you can not to do it again. If you can get rid of the computer and your phone for a couple of days and plan out your activities during the day. Maybe you can go to a library or another public place. It might feel soothing to go back to PMO during a bad time but the reality is of course that It only makes things much much worse. The soothing effect is extremely temporary. You have to go against what your brain is telling you and that feels really hard to do but it is not at all impossible. It might even be easier than it feels because urges are powerful but short-lived.
You can do it because you know what's on stake here: Your life. I believe in you Canguro!

/Josef
 
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Emptyroom

Active Member
Some part of relapsing was, that I thought going down the hole to rock bottom could help me gain motivation again, because most of the time this was my drive. I hope I am not lying to myself with this to justify my relapse.
At the same time I am kinda too depressed to care much atm.
I think that your brain was lying to you to justify your relapse. Imagine if an gambling addict said: "I thought that I would have more motivation to quit gambling if I lost everything I own so I gambled my house and lost". Don't blame yourself too much though.

When you are depressed and don't have the motivation to quit it is hard to stay away from PMO or care but I think that you really do care because you are here. You are stronger than you think! The first step is the hardest but it is worth it! Take that step!
 
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canguro

Active Member
Thanks for your word Josef, it means a lot to me. And you are right with your comparison to the gambling addict...I´ll keep that in mind.
 

canguro

Active Member
I heard much about it here on the forum and now I am reading it myself: The EasyPeasy Method book. Not sure what to think about it by now. But helps me to concentrate on rebooting and get back on track. I will do Noah B. Churchs Hypnotrance before bed and I will stand up early tomorrow (as everyday) and be productive.
I am glad this fucking day is over and I sincerely hope for a better day tomorrow.
 

Filmguy30

Member
Hey dude, how are you doing now? I know you were in a really tough stretch recently and have put yourself through the wringer trying to get better, but we haven’t heard from you since Saturday. Would love an update when you get some free time this week. Stay strong brother! We’ll all beat this together.
 

canguro

Active Member
Hey brother, thank you for checking on me!
I felt a bit bad for not writing here how I am doing, but I always have a hard time to write when I am not doing good, because I always try to present myself as strong, disciplined and motivated.
The reality is, that I didn't relapse again, but I am not as stable as I wish to be. I was more motivated after my relapse, but depression is increasing again and I have a hard time staying positive.
Urges are okay, pretty strong sometimes, but most of the time absent.
Still reading on EasyPeasy book, not too impressed till now, although I think there are important ideas. But I will continue.
But I feel what I am doing is very important for my future - not only rebooting, but I am also working a lot on trauma and I learned a valuable life lesson from someone I am in touch with here in the forum. I think I am progressing though very slow and I am very impatient.

My main problem is social anxiety due to traumatic events in my life. I feel like I can achieve anything, as long as I can do it alone (still working out nearly every day, meditating every day, taking cold showers every morning etc. - I am living such a disciplined life), but as soon as social bonding is involved I feel not strong but fucking weak and incapable. I hate it and I have to overcome it.
 

Filmguy30

Member
I totally understand where you’re coming from dude. Bouncing back from a relapse is always so hard to do and practically impossible to do perfectly. So happy to hear you’re still with the program though, bettering and arming yourself with more resources. That’s all you can hope for in the short time after a relapse. I’ll keep staying posted on here to keep checking on you brother!
 

canguro

Active Member
Don't feel like journaling these days, mostly because there is not much (positive) to say. The last days my depression was paralysing and I had no strength to do anything and was on sick leave 2 days.

But there is one thing I want to write about, that helped me a lot recently. I am still reading the "EasyPeasy" Book and as I said, I am not too impressed by now, but there was one thing that was a real Eye-opener to me!

When you think about relapsing, do you also think about that strong feeling of relieve you always felt when PMOing after a hard day or even some days when you tried to cut down?
I always do and it is the same with cigarettes!
I think about this great feeling of sucking in the smoke and feeling this relieve and joy. But guess what? When I smoke, this feeling doesn't appear and it feels pretty boring. And when I relapsed with porn recently, that feeling didn't appear either. Why is that? Because consuming your substance doesn't make you feel good, it only ends the craving and the pain it causes which feels good. So no addiction = no cravings = no feeling of relieve.

When I understood this, I understood there is no point in relapsing, because this feeling won't come back, except if I worked on getting physically addicted again, which I won't.
So there is no point in craving porn, because there is just no way it will make feel as good and relieved as it did when I was physically addicted.

Since I realised this, I had no more urges. Why even think about it, if there is literally no possibility I will get this feeling back, except going deliberatly back into physical addiction?

Maybe this helps you, too. And I do recommend reading the EasyPeasy-Book, as it is available for free online.
--> https://easypeasymethod.org/

Stay strong brothers!
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
I feel you, man. I know all about depression. I had a period of about 6-7 years between 18 years old and 24-25, with the level of depression you describe. Depression has not left me yet anyway, mostly because I can't fuckin succeed with this stupid addiction.

Regarding Easy Peasy, it has some good things in it but I've found the book Rational Recovery even more interesting for me.

Talking about relapses, the author of Rational Recovery wrote that the number 1 reason why we drink or use drugs is for the pleasure and maybe some people don't agree with this but I do and I will explain why. In the heat of the moment, when the urges are in the sky, all I think about is the pleasure, I don't really think about medicating depression or whatever. I remember writing in my journal something like "How do I deal with the craving for pleasure?" Maybe I didn't say it exactly like that but you get the idea. This craving for pleasure is the no. 1 thing that makes me want to return to porn. I feel like self-medication and coping are only excuses I use to justify the porn abuse. Because if unhealthy coping addictive things didn't exist, how would I deal with pain? I've never been able to kill myself, even during that depression mentioned earlier when I was suicidal, so the only thing left for me would be to find something for healthy coping. But because porn showed up, I unconsciously selected this as my excuse to say I can't cope with my life. In fact, I don't want to cope with my life, I want to experience the pleasure of porn and then bitch about my life and say I use porn as a cope. Does this make sense?

Remember: The pleasure puts pain on hold and after pleasure is over, pain returns.
 

canguro

Active Member
Hey Escape, thx for your comment, hope your doing okay! Didn't visit your journal for some time as I am not very active at the moment.

Fucking sucks to loose your best years to depression! What helped you get out of it (at least to as far as you are now)?

I agree with your claim about pleasure only partly. Yes, we think about the pleasure. And this can be enough to get addicted, without having to deal with depression etc. BUT:
1. when you feel down all the time this short time where you feal pleasure will feel even more precious and you will get back to it even more, as you have to cope with other problems in life, because it helps you forget about them. So while you think about the pleasure, behind it stands the problems you don't want to face.
2. when you watch porn long enough you will eventually escalate to stuff you don't feel comfortable with and you hate yourself for watching it and still you do. So where does this pleasure come from? It comes from the relieve of the addiction! And this is nothing less than the ending of the pain that abstaining from your drug causes you!
3. So there are different factors here, the factor of unhealthy coping, the factor of relieving the pain from the abstinence of your drug and so on.
When you use coping to justify your porn use, that doesn't mean that utcis not a factor. Only that you use it as justification. Then you need to find more healthy mechanism.

But what I initially said is, that when you are abstinent long enough, that your withdrawals end, porn use will no longer give you the pleasure it did, because one big factor is gone. And when you realize and accept that porn use will never again be able to give you that pleasure it did, when you were addicted, you won't crave it any longer, or at least less.
 
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