[Post-Midnight Post]
I may have not written a new entry yesterday, but the day was far from uneventful.
Yesterday and today's workday involved a lot of very stressful physical labor, plagued by the issues of space, and I didn't handle it well. It's something that I only have to do every couple of months or so, and I'll probably be done with it after tomorrow, so whatever.
The feeling of my life being fairly stagnant makes the stressors of work less tolerable. The solution is to make the most of my free time, which is very much possible despite spending physical and mental energy at work. The four months that I spent in-between jobs two years ago weren't very productive, which is evidence of this being more of a willpower thing.
The money that I earn doesn't mean much to me. Yeah it allows me to buy some personal groceries and help some people out and pay rent to my parents and etc., but those abilities are easy to take for granted over time.
My fears regarding Hearth and relationship stuff contributed to my frustration, and also made it difficult to fall asleep the night before. I lightened up like a kid on Christmas when she got back to me shortly after I got home. Turns out that she was just busy, which is totally understandable of course. Her busyness might be a consistent thing considering that she hasn't responded to my response to her most recent response yet. I'm disappointed that she isn't more available to text, but she's so worth it
It would be painfully ironic if things fell through after a lengthy period of time of going at this pace and talking exclusively to her, but I'm willing to take that risk.
Later in the evening, I spent some time in an online community that revolves around sharing memes about schizophrenia and conspiracy theories and stuff like that.
Like many other Generation Z males, my sense of humor has evolved in a strange way. To be topical, I believe that there are some parallels between this phenomenon and the escalation of the pornographic content that us addicts consume. I can appreciate conventional forms of humor from various eras and cultures, but a lot of what gets me laughing is of the modern and odd variety. Some of these memes involve going against society, through means such as mental illness or consciously acting like a horrible person. This material appeals to the outsider in me, a common trait for us young men to have these days it seems.
This ties into the awful "I need to feel very special and rebel against society" mentality that I have yet to conquer. Sometimes it's almost like I want to worsen my mental health and retain my intimacy starvation, getting a sick sense of superiority out of it. The isolation involving the pandemic that's happened over the last two years underlined this twisted shit in my head, along with other things that have appeared in the mainstream, such as the "_ days without sex" memes.
Indulging in these thoughts is not only an act of betrayal against everyone who's tried to help me out, it's also a flurry of backstabs against the more rational parts of me. Or in this case, shots to the feet. OK, a compromise: Harpoons shot into my heels. Does that make me Achilles? No, because I'll bounce back; I'll kill these bad habits.
So anyways, I spent a lot of time staring at myself in the mirror that night, moving around and tapping my fingers abstractly. This wasn't just because I was under the influence of those memes, it was also related to something that I had told Hearth. She asked me how my autism affects me, and part of my answer was that I tend to avoid eye contact. [I wanted to tell her that I'd like to practice with her someday, but I quickly decided that it was too early to say something like that].
Looking at my own reflection kind of creeps me out, and can remind me of my loneliness when those feelings are lingering, but last night I was like "Fuck it, this will be a net positive". I suppose that it ended up being so, broadening my perspective.
I developed a now discontinued habit of staring at my dick in the mirror until I got hard, which usually didn't take very long.
Everything gets a reboot!
It seems like my unsuccessful condom-trying sessions put my dick into a deep slumber. I almost completely stopped getting erections, even when I was in my room. I wanted to get and use one two days ago in order to distract myself from my paranoia, but I couldn't, and in hindsight that wouldn't have really helped me overall.
Last night I was adamant about trying out the new condoms, so I did, but only with one of them. I knew that my dick wasn't doomed to be soft forever, but the discomfort that I felt during the condom attempts combined with my flatline had left a worrisome taste in my mouth. I managed to get hard, to try and fail to put a new one on, and to have an MO session. The quantity and types of the fantasy weren't the end of the world, but they were still a bit worrisome.
My standards for "healthy" fantasy have changed in response to meeting Hearth. I took the romantic fantasy approach that I had been developing, and applied it to my memory of what she looks like. I wish that I hadn't required any fantasy whatsoever that night; even the healthier stuff still felt wrong to me. [Objectifying my size was also a thing that happened
, or at least hyping myself up to get it at its peak]
The condom that I tried this time was a larger version of one of the ones that I tried earlier, and it probably could've fit on me, but I wasn't as patient this time around, so I gave up before it got past the head. I don't really have a need to figure this condom stuff out though: I'm focusing my intimacy goals on a singular person who lives in a different state, so even if things work out it'll be a while until I need to use them.
[Post-Midnight Confession]
I said that I would acknowledge all of my slipups from now on; it's time to honor my word.
I've been measuring my member and taking pictures of it. I wanted to be certain of my dimensions, and I was still in a self-objectifying mentality. I've discussed in my journal multiple times how penis size generally doesn't matter that much, but I was still focusing on it on a personal level. What a lame thing to do, especially since there are other ways to use your time that will actually make you more desirable to women.
I got the urge to do another needless measurement/photo session tonight, and in order to assure optimal hardness, this time around I eventually resorted to using a substitute: My lewd texts with Aurora. Pretty fucked up, I admit.
This also ended up being an MO session, predictably. It felt better than usual at the end, but obviously I feel shitty about having done it.
This could be an especially impressive trick by my addict brain to set up the Chaser Effect and get off track again, but I feel like this is more of its own thing, despite the correlation between porn and my self-objectification. So I'm not going to harm Bless or expel my mattress again, but I'm on thin ice! I deleted all of the photos of it that I've ever taken, and I promise to stop taking new ones and measuring it [this journal is really something else...]
Anyways, I got a non-morning-wood erection within an hour of waking up this morning, and I was just like, "Fuck it, I'm getting this over with now". This MO session was a sign of regression: P flashbacks were more difficult to block out, I was more dependent on fantasy, and the line between "healthy" and "P-inspired" fantasy was blurrier. I was able to make it more exciting than before via technique [and probably via those sketchy thoughts too...], but that didn't justify doing this compulsive session. And with enhancing the excitement being on my mind, my urges to use a visual aid were stronger. I refuse to be in my room unless necessary, writing this entry on my phone in the kitchen.
This session yielded a revelation for me. I've been happy about the moments in these MO sessions in which fantasy isn't necessary, but there's something else that's sometimes happening in these moments, something that's P-influenced: I'm taking the "Big=Sexy" mentality that I have yet to fully correct, and applying it to myself, now that my perception of size is more realistic and my confidence is stronger and my focus during MO is directed at the physical action and sensation. I'm getting off to my own size,
I am the porn! I'm a fucking clown
- It's OK it's not explicitly P it's a sub
- It's OK it's not lewd enough to be a sub
- It's OK you won't have to harm Bless
The first two were often followed by escalation, what would make the third one any different? Here's how I should've been thinking about this sort of stuff from the start: If it's a net negative for my reboot, I shouldn't do it. If this escalates further, I really will take one of Bless's lives.
The sparing of Bless's lives and the continued use of my mattress have gotten more difficult to justify. Here's my justification: These pseudo-relapses were under relatively foreign circumstances, ones that have yielded lessons, lessons that throughout my future entries I'll prove to have internalized. I've been clean today, and I'll keep it up! For Bless and my mattress and Hearth and everyone else and
myself
.
Just kidding, it's not a fair comparison. I can't visualize Hearth very well yet, compared to someone that I knew in-person for several years.
I can still draw hope from them though, hope that me and her will develop something special together.
[EDIT: She's never played it, oh well. But she's a longtime Anxiety War fan, so that's pretty cool]
