Battle Journal

Pazienza

Pazienza

Active Member
Day 25

I'm doing so much better the last few days. I'm in a better place, in a better mood, and handling my shit.

I have some serious mental health issues, but I am addressing them, and that makes me feel more positive about the future. I have a tendency to live in the past, beating myself up for my mistakes. I also tend to worry about every little thing that comes my way, and then I get overwhelmed and flip out.

Fuck that. The past is dead, and there is absolutely no point in going back to it ... especially since mine is so dark.

My only goal these days is to stay in the moment and look only to the future .
 
Pazienza

Pazienza

Active Member
Day 28

After 27 days of hardmode, wife and I had sex last night. It was nice, but different. There were no frills, no swinging from the chandelier or anything wild. Instead of chasing the climax, I took it slow and let the climax come slowly. I was present during the encounter, and enjoyed it for what it was. It wasn't as intense as I thought it would be, after taking such a long break. The sensitivity in my dick was greatly improved, and I had no trouble at all getting and keeping an erection. I think my brain sensitivity still has some catching up to do, but all in all, it was good. Time well spent with the wife.

At first, I was interested in sex, but also not interested at the same time. In my experience, the more sex I have, the more sex I want to have; while the less sex I have, the less I want it. So even though I felt like I could go either way, I decided to go for it. It was kind of awkward at first, but once things got going it smoothed out. Sometimes it takes a little extra push to get the ball rolling.

My mental condition is still a little wacky, I'm kind of up and down, but I start with a new therapist this week so we shall what happens there.
 
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Pazienza

Pazienza

Active Member
Day 35

The wife and I had a good weekend for the most part. It was extremely hot, like 104° plus humidity, and we had an outdoor concert to attend on Saturday night. The concert was a very good one, but the heat made things less enjoyable. Especially for my wife, she ended up overheating and started feeling sick towards the end of the show. But we still had fun.

We also had a lot of sex over the weekend, maybe a little too much. I don't want to overdo it by climaxing too often, because I know from experience that can lead me to using sex as a means of mood control instead of it being a special moment I share with my wife. At any rate, we had sex three times over the weekend, and each experience was different.

The first time, Friday night, I fell into the old mental fantasy trap, and thinking about porn, and even though I recognized it as a problem, it was difficult to pull out of it. I also fell into my old habit of selfishness, and not reciprocating or thinking about her during the sex. We stopped and took a break for a while, and when we continued I was able to be in the present moment with my wife.

The second time was Saturday afternoon, and that one was perfect. We were both relaxed, in the mood, and in the moment. The emotional closeness and arousal was high for both of us, and getting hard and staying hard was effortless. The sex lasted as long as we wanted it to, and was completely satisfying. For the first time that I can remember, I had zero fantasy during the encounter. It was a wonderful experience, just being present in my body and in the moment with her. It was the best we've had in a long time, and reminded me of when we were younger.

The third time was unnecessary. We were both tired, it was bedtime, and it was the end of a long weekend. Neither one of us was really feeling it, so it seemed like we were pushing our bodies to have sex when we weren't interested. I think it was purely mood control on my part, so I think it would have been better to just cuddle for a while and go to sleep.

My takeaway on the sex is that I enjoyed it, and that I am learning how to recognize when I am doing it for the wrong reasons or falling into bad mental territory during sex. But mostly, I just enjoyed it.

Also, I wanted to touch on dealing with triggers. I had two instances of triggers over the weekend. One on Reddit, and another on an online forum. Reddit (on the app) circumvents the blocking software I have on my phone, allowing NSFW pages to show up. Once I saw the pages, I was hit with a sudden urge to click on them, but I didn't. I am glad to say that I stayed strong, and instead deleted the app. The other time was a forum that I go to for information mushroom foraging. Some of the members have pictures of porn stars as their profile pictures. Both of these triggered me, and forced me to decide if I was going to relapse or stay strong. I ultimately stayed strong, but the triggering effect lasted for a few hours and was kind of distracting.

I have a tendency to overthink things, and I am trying to break that habit. My focus on the weekend is that I didn't watch any porn, even tho I was tempted to, and that I had good sex with my wife.

All in all, a good weekend. Simple as that.
 
E

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Skittelz said:
Thanks Dungalef, SimonM, and Blondie.

The triggers, while unpleasant, serve to show me how much I have improved. In the past, seeing a NSFW post on Reddit would have sent me directly into a relapse. Not this time.
Click to expand...
That's right. In situations like this, I try to keep the dopamine low. I see something by mistake, I try to "walk away" from it in the first 2 seconds, close it, focus on something else etc. It's been working.
 
Pazienza

Pazienza

Active Member
Day 42

Doing good. Had a good weekend, had a lot of sex. Good times. I am unfortunately still using fantasy during sex, I don't really know how to fight that. Hopefully as I continue to not use porn that will eventually stop. Fantasy comes into play less than it used to, and I think that's a good sign.

My only regret is that I got too high on Saturday. Actually, I've been going too hard on all my substances -- weed, caffeine, benadryl etc.

So I think I'm going to lay off them for a while.

Otherwise, I have nothing to report
 
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Pazienza

Pazienza

Active Member
Day 48

This is my first weekend without weed in a long time, so I was sceptical as to how it would go. But, it's been a real good weekend so far. I slept for 10 hours on Friday night so I had a ton of energy on Saturday and put it to good use doing yardwork and oil changes on the vehicles. It felt good to be productive and I am satisfied with my progress. It's so fucking hot and humid here tho, like 98° plus humidity, so I sweat-soaked all my clothing. This has been a brutal summer so far.

I didn't take any Benadryl last night just to see if I could sleep without it -- and I slept like shit, tossing and turning all night. Not good. Today I have felt kind of lethargic and slow to energize, but I'm not letting it diminish my good mood.

We have had plenty of sex this weekend, just like usual 😁

The fantasy is still there, but it seems like I am able to control it more, and keep it in the background, and have my connection to wife as the main attraction. I have always used my imagination during sex and masturbation, ever since I was 12 so I'm not too worried about it. If the fantasies begin to become a flashback of porn, then that is different and I stop myself and bring my focus back to the present. This practice, as well as my daily meditation practice, is teaching me that I can control my thoughts more than I previously believed. Hey, I'll take it. Progress is progress.

Every week that goes by, the porn monster dies a little more, and the sex gets better, as well as my overall quality of life. My wife has been unusually horny this weekend, which has been nice.

I didn't expect to enjoy a sober weekend this much.
I have really felt the joy of being present and more aware of the moment, and not being stoned has left me with more energy physically and mentally. I think I'm going to abstain from the devil's lettuce next weekend too lol.

My only real complaint at the moment is back pain. I deal with some chronic back pain from a spinal injury I sustained in my early 20's. Sometimes the pain is so bad it's hard to get out of bed and walk, and twice in the last year I have had ER visits due to it. This last week the pain has been quite bad. The Dr wants to put me on Opiate pain killers, which I refuse, due to the fact that I used to be addicted to them. The only thing that gives me relief is marijuana edibles, and that is my primary reason for using them. But they aren't perfect and present their own negative issues to be dealt with. But I find it easier to deal with them than to be addicted to opiates, so I choose the edibles.

At any rate, life is going well. I feel that I can deal with whatever problems come my way, as long as I stay away from porn, alcohol, and hard drugs.

One thing I often say to myself is this:

It matters less what I am going thru, and more how I am going thru it. Because the cold truth is that we will always have problems, no walk of life is immune to them, but how we choose to deal with them is what matters. I truly believe that is true.
 
Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
Skittelz said:
It matters less what I am going thru, and more how I am going thru it. Because the cold truth is that we will always have problems, no walk of life is immune to them, but how we choose to deal with them is what matters. I truly believe that is true.
Click to expand...
Good to hear your pressing on Skittelz!

I really like your quote there.

Best man.
 
Pazienza

Pazienza

Active Member
Day 55

This weekend has been stressful, and less than ideal to say the least.

We went on a float trip yesterday, and things went south immediately, and continued in that direction for the rest of the day. It was a Murphy's Law day on the river. Everything went wrong. It was a much more difficult run than we planned for, we were physically and mentally unprepared, and we are sore and in pain today because of it. I decided to have an edible on the river as well, and that backfired also. It was not the right situation to be high during, so that also sucked. But it wasn't all bad, we did have fun in between the bad parts, and we made the best of it.

The worst part of yesterday was last night, at home. I couldn't sleep, so I got out my phone and went to Reddit. I need to just stay away from that sight, it is way to easy to find yourself on NSFW material, without necessarily looking for it. For some reason it gets around the porn blocker I have on my phone so it caught me off guard.

I did not relapse.
This is the silver lining. I slipped up, but did not continue towards telapse. Once I started started scrolling thru the images, I caught myself, and stopped. I realized that I was in unsafe territory, and put my phone away. I didn't masturbate, I tried not to think about what I had seen, or anything sexual, and went to sleep. I didn't even touch my dick. My sleep was restless and disturbed, but it was better than a relapse.

I feel upset with myself for going as far as I did, and a little ashamed too. While I didn't full-on relapse, I engaged in extremely risky behavior that I am not proud of. I am treating this as a red flag and taking it seriously. No more reddit, and no more phone time as a cure for boredom. I need to keep my hands and mind busy and out of trouble from here on out
 
downhillfromhere

downhillfromhere

Well-Known Member
Good job catching yourself and stopping there! Last relapse I had a similar thing where I couldn’t sleep and browsed Reddit, where I started looking for nudity and of course relapsed a couple of days later.

Coming up on two months, nice!
 
Pazienza

Pazienza

Active Member
Today has been a rough day. I added Reddit, TikTok, and Quora to my blocked sites on my phone and all my devices. Just seeing the images that I did last night, and seeing them again today during the process of removing them from my devices, has left me feeling very triggered. When I saw the porn, it looked unappealing to me, and I felt sorry for the people in the video clips. They didn't look cool, or sexy, or anything like that. The whole thing looked pathetic to me, like they are trying so hard to get a few likes by degrading themselves. Even though I was disgusted, I was also drawn in. It left me feeling sick and anxious, but at the same time aroused. But not in a good way. I hate that there is any part of me that desires to see it. The porn monster has been silent for weeks now, and my dangerous behavior has woken him up again. He keeps telling me that I miss porn, and that I want it again, but I know that this isn't true. I actually hate where I am today, and I am fighting to get out of this headspace. I feel cornered and threatened by this.

I will not relapse. I will not go back to this.

It doesn't matter how hard I have to fight, I will fight until I win. No matter how long the porn monster gnaws at me, I will not give in. I am not losing my progress, I am not going back to where I have been.

Fuck porn. It is a thankless god who will consume life and leave nothing in it's place. Fuck porn.

I'm still here, and I'm still fighting
 
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