The clean journey
- Thread starter Percival
- Start date
Percival
Active Member
The last few weeks have been rocky. I keep getting into this cycle of looking, more or less briefly, reminding myself that it's bad and closing tabs, then going right back to it an hour or so later, like I completely forget. It's tied very closely to my emotional state: most of the time, it is literally difficult to remember (if I even think about it at all) that looking at sexy whatever is bad for me. That's the amygdala: the part of the brain that deals with deep instinctual things like sleep, hunger, and sex. And it tends to react faster than the higher self-aware part of the brain, which is why I find myself staring at a girl in a short skirt before it even occurs to me that I'm not supposed to.
I can't change how the biological brain works, of course. But it does, and I keep trying to remember that and not let it sidetrack me for more than a few seconds.
I can't change how the biological brain works, of course. But it does, and I keep trying to remember that and not let it sidetrack me for more than a few seconds.
Percival
Active Member
So far so good. It's weird how sometimes the temptations are just constant and overwhelming, and then sometimes they just recede and aren't there. There are connections between my general mood, how long it's been since I last got any, and whether I've been looking or not, but it still sometimes seems just random.
In any case, right now I feel "normal", like I can appreciate and enjoy life without a thundering compulsion constantly trying to batter the door down. It'll be back, I'm sure, sooner or later. But this is proof that it doesn't last forever.
In any case, right now I feel "normal", like I can appreciate and enjoy life without a thundering compulsion constantly trying to batter the door down. It'll be back, I'm sure, sooner or later. But this is proof that it doesn't last forever.
Percival
Active Member
Going good. Trying to hang on to why it's going well and head off the temptations before they even get started. Kind of weird how simply neither looking nor allowing myself to think about looking makes the temptation to look itself go away. Completely obvious when I think about it, of course, but hard to remember in the moment.
Percival
Active Member
Yesterday I was starting to feel tempted. So I confronted the temptation directly by journaling about it and then actively looked for other things to do in place of: for me, that meant using AI to generate an entertaining (non-sexual!) story, which I could do in little bits of time across the day.
Percival
Active Member
Wednesday and Thursday were good days. Today: so far so good, but I can tell the temptation is hovering just off-stage. And it's the end of the week and I'm feeling worn down, and my wife will be working overnight the next two nights. So I need to be aware that it could (probably will) get stronger at the same time that my willpower will be falling.
Percival
Active Member
It's hard to keep up here because a) when it's going well, I'm too busy with normal life to post and b) when it isn't I don't want to post because then I'd have to control myself or confess that I didn't.
The last week or so was rough. But I made a change last night: at the beginning of the bedtime routine, I put my phone on my dresser, across the room, instead of on the nightstand next to me. I need to get out of the habit of looking at it before bed; even if I'm not looking at porn, it's a bad pre-sleep practice. And when I am feeling tempted, it's too easy to wander. Better to keep a book beside the bed and read that before sleep.
The last week or so was rough. But I made a change last night: at the beginning of the bedtime routine, I put my phone on my dresser, across the room, instead of on the nightstand next to me. I need to get out of the habit of looking at it before bed; even if I'm not looking at porn, it's a bad pre-sleep practice. And when I am feeling tempted, it's too easy to wander. Better to keep a book beside the bed and read that before sleep.
Percival
Active Member
I have to confess today: I went looking yesterday. The negative is that it happened at all; the positive is that it was mostly pretty soft-core. And that I ended the day by putting my phone away and not looking, when I thought about it right before bed.
I'm very tired of fighting myself. It's this constant low-grade stress war. The stress and temptation does mostly go away when I don't look for a few weeks, but the temptation is always there and it never takes much to drift back into it. Things are better than they used to be: I can (shamefully) remember much worse porn for much longer, much more often, in years past. That happens rarely, if ever, any more. It's just that "not failing as badly" isn't anything to brag about.
I'm very tired of fighting myself. It's this constant low-grade stress war. The stress and temptation does mostly go away when I don't look for a few weeks, but the temptation is always there and it never takes much to drift back into it. Things are better than they used to be: I can (shamefully) remember much worse porn for much longer, much more often, in years past. That happens rarely, if ever, any more. It's just that "not failing as badly" isn't anything to brag about.
Percival
Active Member
Yesterday: good. A combination of being tired of giving in, tired of looking (there's a point at which your rational brain can say, to a temptation: "Uh, you know we just looked at that yesterday?") and finding other interesting things to distract myself instead.
Today: looked at some bikinis early this morning but I'm going to make that all that I do today.
Today: looked at some bikinis early this morning but I'm going to make that all that I do today.
Percival
Active Member
Thursday and Friday and all weekend went well. Might've been a few peeks here and there but I know there were also a lot of time that I considered looking and didn't. Mostly I was much better at finding other things that engaged my brain and so there just wasn't idle time for thinking about girls. So, pressing on to keep it up.
Percival
Active Member
Yesterday went well, right up until the last minute before bed, when I turned Safe Search off for a few minutes. It's perfectly predictable but still somehow manages to take me by surprise. Still working on the new habit of not leaving my phone by the bed.
On the plus side, I was awake for a while this morning with insomnia and didn't idly turn to porn, so that's a big plus.
On the plus side, I was awake for a while this morning with insomnia and didn't idly turn to porn, so that's a big plus.
Percival
Active Member
I had two week off work for Christmas break. The days when my wife and family were also home went fine, but then there was 4 or 5 days when they were away visiting grandparents and I stayed home to feed the farm animals. Plenty of time when no one was watching, and I took advantage of it.
On the plus side, afterwards I spent a couple of hours setting up a block list on my home computer, setting up Screentime on my phone, removing Brave from my phone (because I couldn't find a way to block sites with Brave, but I can with Safari) and removing Youtube from my phone. Safari's not as good of a browser, and it's inconvenient to not have YT on my phone, but they were conduits. External controls don't replace self-discipline, but it makes it harder when I'm feeling weak.
On the plus side, afterwards I spent a couple of hours setting up a block list on my home computer, setting up Screentime on my phone, removing Brave from my phone (because I couldn't find a way to block sites with Brave, but I can with Safari) and removing Youtube from my phone. Safari's not as good of a browser, and it's inconvenient to not have YT on my phone, but they were conduits. External controls don't replace self-discipline, but it makes it harder when I'm feeling weak.
Percival
Active Member
Weird how if I simply don't look, the temptation to look goes way down. Although it being winter probably helps a lot, with no girls walking around in skimpy clothes. I do sometimes get distracted by Amazon suggestions for a something revealing, but even those have been brief and not real often, so all in all things are going pretty well right now.
Percival
Active Member
So last week the kids had an evening event scheduled that we had to take them to and pick them up from, and that meant that the mid-week tryst that my wife and I had scheduled did not happen. And that meant unsatisfied me.
The bad: sometimes I went looking for sexy pictures.
The good: I never really got sucked in, drawn in to where the compulsion for more and more was driving me. That's because I have set up so many filters and layers: I think that I only ever encountered literally one or two images that were seriously NSFW.
So that's encouraging. Obviously not-as-bad is not the standard I'm trying to reach, but it is encouraging.
The bad: sometimes I went looking for sexy pictures.
The good: I never really got sucked in, drawn in to where the compulsion for more and more was driving me. That's because I have set up so many filters and layers: I think that I only ever encountered literally one or two images that were seriously NSFW.
So that's encouraging. Obviously not-as-bad is not the standard I'm trying to reach, but it is encouraging.