1 day.
I relapsed to Tik Tok on Saturday. I knew I was going to post it here ultimately but I put it off a day because I was ashamed.
I know the trigger in the moment, and it is avoidable, but more importantly I know the mistakes I have been making for the past few weeks.
In the moment: I found myself stumbling on a girl I used to be really into on social media. She is married now and very much out of the picture but it brought back some feelings and memories. Not just about her, but also the earlier days of my porn use. See back then I was at the stage in my porn use where I still felt like it was all about horniness and the porn had also really messed with how I saw women, sort of just seeing them as there to get you turned on. She was incredibly fit and athletic and every time I saw her I wanted to use porn. Back then I hadn't yet hit the stage where it messed up my erections and my sex drive. So when I stumbled upon her profile, it brought memories of that stage of my life back. It felt almost like my brain was transported back in time and I was that person for a while. I didn't immediately find myself on Tik Tok, I walked away from the feeling and tried to take a nap because I was feeling exhausted but couldn't fall asleep. Instead, I started fantasizing, and there I went from there.
The real issues:
1. I'm back on social media at all, as of a few weeks ago. It started because I am in a band and we decided we needed to start engaging more on Instagram, so I re-downloaded the app. My intention was to only get on it when it was time to make a post but I didn't stick to it, because I found myself getting on to check for likes and comments after we posted. Then I would find myself switching from the band Insta to mine and just scrolling around mindlessly for a minute. Stupid and pointless. I deleted the app again. Going forward I will make the posts as scheduled from my computer and will only check Instagram for the band at scheduled days and times. I am not "on" TikTok at all. I just have gone to the website for my 2 relapses because it was "safe", not "real" porn (which is nonsense, of course). There's really nothing to be done there except to not be triggered or to not follow my triggers.
2. The biggest issue, I think, is that I let myself start fantasizing before bed again. It has been happening really gradually for the past month or so. This is unacceptable, but more importantly, pointless. I let myself forget that no amount of fantasy puts me with that girl. It's not real, and it gives me nothing. As of last night that is over. No more fantasy.
3. I have let myself get back to watching TV/YouTube. Just wasting time. Not huge periods of time, but enough. Just useless dopamine rushes that make my brain crave more. I'm going back to reading during meals instead of watching things, and limiting YouTube to only when I need to research something. I didn't actually miss it when I was off, it just is so good at drawing you in once you are on.
The first relapse wasn't great but it didn't really scare me, I knew i just had to move on and forward. This one scared me, and that's a good thing. I needed to be scared back into taking this seriously.
