Do you smoke? Do you use marijuana? Have you ever had a full psychiatric evaluation?
Hey man!
I don't smoke tobacco (I fucked around with cigarettes a little bit in my last year of high school and never touched them since) and I've never smoked marijuana. As for full psychiatric evaluation, I can't say I've had a very in depth look into my head but the psychotherapist that I used to go to told me I sounded Autistic based on what I was talking about and it didn't come as a surprise because I've been investigating if I'm on the Spectrum for a few years and we both basically came to the same conclusion. Me on the Spectrum explains some of the difficulties I have regarding quitting my addictions, my obsession with routines and habits (which I've heard it's an Autism thing). My alcohol and porn addiction work with routines and habit (obviously they do, for anybody). What I've noticed was that if I could get over the "meltdown" (this is a term they use in Autism spectrum) that comes with me not following my "routine", I might have a chance to leave those addictions behind. I went 45 days without alcohol so it's definitely doable.
What happens is this: It's not much until my shift is over and I can leave. The thought shows up right away: "Yo, so we can pass by the store and get something to drink." I say: "No, not today, we need to end this bullshit" and then the "meltdown" begins. In the end I would tell myself: "Okay, alright, we're passing by the store to get something to drink!" and then I calm down. I definitely need to find a way to get a period of time of "breaking the routines", maybe not doing it becomes itself another routine and then I could follow that. What I've noticed is that I have to face this idiotic discomfort and pain for a while, which is something that I didn't want to do. Without doing this I really have no chance. If I self-comfort myself any time I become upset over self-refusal to buy alcohol, this will keep going. It's definitely not easy though. Sometimes I could enter a very hard depression with suicidal thoughts over periods of abstinence from alcohol and/or porn. The pain is definitely not easy. But this is not an excuse. Some of us have it harder than others but this doesn't mean we can choose this as excuse and explanation and stay at the bottom of the hole.
The reason I ask is because I recently found out I am bipolar. Now that I know this, things are actually easier to deal with. I finally understand my mood swings, and why they happen. If I had known this 10 years ago, it would have been a lot easier to stop drinking. I have found that the more we know ourselves, the more we can work with ourselves and not against ourselves. The problem with drinking is that it blocked me from myself, so I never got to know the guy on the inside. I've had to make up for lost time so I can get to know him. Not really easy at 40, but it's possible.
Yes, finding out you have some disorder, mental illness, spectrum whatever it is or whatever it's called, especially later in life is not fun. It hasn't been for me to do research about Autism at 28 and then at 32 to have a psychotherapist tell me I look like I'm on the spectrum. I had already known that for 4 years, actually I was so sure because it was very obvious. But again, this is not an excuse for us to take the easy way out. Some people might go from point A to point B, some might need to go from A to C, to D, to E and finally B but all of us can get there. All of us can end up having a stable, calm life. But it doesn't come sitting on the couch. It requires hard work.
I wish I had more constructive things to say. I fear this is not really helpful. But then, I'm not trying to help as much as just have a conversation. I like that you talk about things other than porn, and talk about your trauma, and you bring something new to the table. I wish more people were able to be as brutally honest as you are, and I always read what you post. I have trauma too, a lot of it. It sucks. Therapy helps. We are on the same path, you and I. Maybe at different points on the path, but the still the same one.
Don't worry, man. I know, trauma sucks. It's taken me years and years to finally admit that I don't have to see myself as a piece of shit every day. And as "simple" as this mind sound like, the process of fully fitting this concept into your brain takes time. It takes time to finally understand that maybe I was a loser good for nothing, maybe I still am, but I don't have to be for the next 20 years as well. One thing that happens is that for some of us this "growth" asks for a lot of suffering, discomfort, pain, some of us don't want that and choose the easy way of the comfort (addictions, our nice routines etc.). I guess what we have to do is to accept that in order to reach that point where we want to be, we have to "embrace the suck" as the say in the military (I almost got into military when I was in elementary school but it didn't happen. Wonder where I would've been today).
Anyway man, thanks for the support.