Finally posting

Dungalef

Dungalef

Active Member
particularly_respecting said:
I think this is a good way of thinking about it
Building healthy habits takes time - I'm working on it myself now
Yeah it would be great if I spent every free minute running a marathon or creating a world-changing piece of art
But that can come later. For now I'm happy if I'm reading wikipedia or a forum post instead of porn - still a huge improvement
Step by step brother 💪
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Yeah, good thoughts! One step at a time. After I wrote that post yesterday I spent the last 10 minutes of my toddler's nap reading a poem, so that's a win!

Working on even just using the phone time better, like reading ebooks and learning languages. Ultimately I'd like to be doing more in the real world vs virtually, but spending the virtual time more intentionally is also a win.

Anyway, I'm sick now too, and I was up with the baby for like 2.5 hours last night, so I feel like crap today. 🙄 I can tell that this is a time when in the past I might have MO'd or PMO'd to feel better, and while I feel a slight attraction to that, I feel totally free from the slavery to it. I just know that I don't do that anymore! The urge just washes over me and I move on.

The feeling of empowerment and freedom is awesome. Even if everything else kinda sucks right now, haha. (Not everything, actually, not by a long shot. Just feeling sick, and that's such a tiny and fleeting thing I know.)
 
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Dungalef

Dungalef

Active Member
Day 37

Saw a mildly triggering picture of a woman on Facebook yesterday and clicked through almost automatically, scrolled through a few pictures in the group. Very tame, but I realized I was kinda hoping for more. Stopped pretty quickly, which I'm proud of.

Still wanted to log the behaviour here even just to avoid the trap of feeling like that kind of minor stuff doesn't matter. Because I'm learning more and more that behavior like that, while not a relapse, is super super dangerous and one of the number one causes of relapses for many.
 
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particularly_respecting

particularly_respecting

Active Member
Dungalef said:
Still wanted to log the behaviour here even just to avoid the trap of feeling like that kind of minor stuff doesn't matter. Because I'm learning more and more that behavior like that, while not a relapse, is super super dangerous and one of the number one causes of relapses for many.
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Great job staying strong and nipping this behavior in the bud! 💪
 
Dungalef

Dungalef

Active Member
Thanks for the support everyone, it's so helpful to have a community at my back!

Made it to Day 42. Almost to 45, which is halfway to 90! That feels like a big milestone to me. I really want to make it to 90 this time, to beat my last streak.

Encountered a mild trigger this morning, but dodged it like a boss. An e-book deals site that I use regularly had a cover with mild nudity on it (classical painting), which has led me to a middle-circle kind of rabbit hole in the past of looking up art with nudity. Didn't even flirt with it this time.
 
Dungalef

Dungalef

Active Member
Day 47

Everything is going well! A couple of small moments where I lingered a bit too long on web stuff (celebrity news, etc), but moved on quickly. The biggest issue I've found lately though is controlling my thoughts in real life. It's so easy for me to fall into a pattern of viewing every attractive girl as a potential opportunity to see some skin, which is unhelpful for my recovery and dehumanizing to women. I want to work on practicing NOT looking at women that way. I think that as my streak continues this might get a bit easier, because porn constantly cultivates a sexualized view of women. I want to be able to automatically see women as PEOPLE, not just objects of desire. So I think what I want to do is focus on keeping my eyes on the face, and not lingering on the body.
 
Dungalef

Dungalef

Active Member
Day 49

Whoa, that means tomorrow is 50! Anyway, all is going well. Feeling good about how I've handled situations where I see women showing skin-just moving on and not fixating on it.

Feeling like I've got this right now. On the one hand this is great, and I find porn drifting to the back of my mind. Which ultimately is the goal...I don't want to always be fixated on porn recovery, because even that gives porn more power over me than it should. BUT right now it's also important for me not to get complacent. I want to keep checking in here every day or two, and most importantly I want to keep reporting any issues that come up so they don't snowball.

So far I feel like I'm in a much better place than this time during my last streak! I haven't been compromising, and I've got a healthy pattern of identifying dangerous behavior and not returning to it.
 
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