Journal of the hopeless critic

[WriterbyDefault]

This is my first journal, though I should have started doing this a month ago when my therapist told me about Gabe and rebootnation.
I am 25 and have struggled for years. I first knew I was addicted as a teenager but denied it was a problem until I was 19 and realized I have PIED. For years it has been a back and forth of trying to solve the problem. I wish I could have had a sexier addiction like heroin, maybe people like family would actually give a shit and take me seriously. I've never been more than a couple weeks without masturbating or looking at something of the pornographic variety. I can't date, I can't fuck, I can't succeed in any meaningful facet of life. I'm a 3 time college dropout, having burned out every time not for lack of intellect, but the inability to plan and motivate myself to succeed in such environments.
I have 17K worth of student loans to pay off and I'm stuck working in a tractor shop right now. Every time I try to branch out and embrace a new responsibility, or something to learn, or even a hobby, it feels like life slashes at my legs and cripples me further. I'm constantly teetering at the precipice of suicidal ideation and intent.
Today I wanted to out sword-fighting, in the nearby city there is a club that offers HEMA (Historic European Martial Arts). I had to leave work a half hour early just to give myself time to have dinner at home first, and I was still running late. By the time I was getting into the city, I was already late, I had to shit, and I couldn't find the place. Half an hour of driving around to find a bathroom because they're all locked due to rampant crime and homelessness, and it's now an hour late and I can't find where I'm supposed to go. This was one of several attempts to go out and join this club on different days and all thwarted by outside forces.
I wish I could take radical action, I want to cause pain if it means I'll be noticed but I know that's wickedness and ill-contrived. I want to disappear into a life of zealotry under a disciplined mentor, the kind of person who could turn me into a well learned thinker, more capable than any ideologue with a degree, and an instrument of death. I wish I had someone in my corner who could beat me into a bloody pulp every single time I strayed from my desired path. I wish the radical option existed to liberate myself from this matrix, but that path only seems to appear through a life of crime. I am angry, and self-loathing, and patience has still refused to yield me a damn thing.

 

[WriterbyDefault]

Journal 2:
Wow, reading that first journal post the next day and that sounded quite dark. I've noticed I'm more tactful and upbeat when I'm not in the nihilistic post-orgasm crash.
Today was a better day than yesterday. I finished two audiobooks today while polishing tractors at work. I would still prefer if I could break out of working jobs like this and instead tackle more meaningful work, but at least I'm keeping busy. I finished the last chapter of George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier. Thereafter, I listened to Animal Farm and continued listening to Helen Joyce's book Trans.
I left work an hour early so I had time to change clothes and get to my therapy session today. I was still late; there is always one asshole on the country road who drives 15-20km under the speed limit when you can't pass him. However, eight minutes late is not too bad in the grand scheme of things. The therapist I work with specializes in sexual addictions and has even interviewed Gabe for his YouTube channel, however I was a bit nervous going into the session today because I had consented to a psychology student being present so that she could learn. Once the session began though, I basically forgot she was there. I don't have a particular issue with talking about my problems and my past in front of people, provided they aren't close acquaintances I interact with often. I'm always amazed at the truths I reveal in the presence of strangers. I wasn't even concerned when we talked about my history of experimenting with girls, guys, trannies... despite being a straight man. There's a funny joke that I usually tell along with that. I was once eating lunch with two friends, a bisexual and a gay man. I knew both their sexualities, but our gay friend was actually coming out openly for the first time to me. I stayed quiet while he talked for the first part and let them talk about their experiences for a moment. When the conversation inevitably reached an awkward pause I said, "You know, I find it ironic that you two are the ones in the LGBT community yet I've had sex with more guys than both of you." In hindsight, I probably should have waited until they had finished sipping their drinks for that one.
During my session today, we talked about the addiction cycle and identifying the 7 steps in acting on addiction:

• Triggers; emotional, environmental, and sexual.
• Euphoric recall: The mental flashbacks to pornographic imagery.
• Thought distortion: The little lies we tell to justify bad actions.
• Anticipatory excitement: The moment of highest dopamine rush we get before we start looking (the pre-porn boner).
• Altered state: The moment when you become locked in. Your pre-frontal cortex is taken over by your limbic brain (intellectual to caveman).
• Acting out: Doing the naughty, naughty things you really shouldn't.
• Crash: The post-orgasmic depression.

As he explained to me, it is really hard to escape from the cycle once you get into anticipatory excitement and altered state. Nothing short of a shock like a cold plunge will release you. Therefore, it is important to get out in the early stages of the cycle. My homework for the next few weeks is to identify triggers (when and how they cluster together) using the BLAST (Boredom, Loneliness, Anger, Stress, Tired) system and to identify a list of remedy behaviors that can help you escape.
Thinking back to work today, I identified some times when I was bored with what I was doing and some cue words (sexual triggers) in the book I was listening to triggered euphoric recall. There weren't enough triggers to lead to the next stage and I was able to power through by refocusing my attention on the content of the book. I can see how easily it can happen though, especially if combined with stress, a primary trigger for me.
Normally at work I've had issues with peeking at pornographic images while in the bathroom at work. I know some guys have suggested downgrading phones or just not carrying them in their journals, but I know this isn't possible for everyone. The other day I did find one of those accountability apps that I have already found quite useful for a nominal fee of $7CAD a month. The app Detoxify operates as a VPN when given certain permissions and control over your phone that allows it to sift through apps and browsers for sexual content. I've seen no flaw in it so far, and it even includes a panic button for notifying accountability partners (if you have one, I do not), a streak recorder with a log for urges and relapses, as well as a habit tracker for recording healthy habits.
I'm hoping the next few weeks are better, but I am cautious of putting too much stress on myself.

 

[WriterbyDefault]

Journal 3:
I'll try and do one of these every day at least for the next month. As stated previously, part of my homework is to record types of triggers I experience during the day. I didn't experience any environmental or sexual triggers today, at least none to my knowledge that would trigger an urge or a relapse. At no point in the day did I experience any euphoric recall to pornography. I was experiencing some strong emotions though that could have potentially compounded with other stimuli to produce a trigger. It being Thursday, I was quite bored at work. Most of that is due to my personality and the nature of the job. I'm really not well suited to mechanic shop grunt work. It's not that I can't learn the more intricate parts of tractor mechanics, it just feels alien to me. It feels almost no different to working in a McDonalds. The boredom of it led to a lot of anger, not towards my coworkers or the job, but at myself. I'm constantly wondering how much further along in life I would be had I not become an addict. For those of you who are familiar with the Big 5 personality test, in the dimension of conscientiousness, I scored 2nd percentile out of 100. How much of that particular score is a manifestation of the lack of motivation I've experienced for so long? I wish I could have taken the test back when I was 15, those numbers would be quite interesting to compare. The short story is that I haven't been able to motivate myself to pick a good path or even to follow through on my prior commitments. I have an idea of where I want to go, but I have no idea how to pave the road to it.

 

[WriterbyDefault]

Journal 4: It's been a few days. Thanksgiving weekend was pretty busy but I didn't experience any serious urges or relapses. There was morning when I was casually flipping through Tinder and it caused some arousal, but I shut the phone off for a bit and went to play the piano for a while.
Friday I ended up just calling in sick for work and just stayed home to hang out with my brother and his wife when they came to visit. We played Catan for hours and I got a great deal of writing done for my screenplay. Then a workout on Friday night with my buddy to close out the day. The rest of the weekend was just spending time with family and eating. All in all a pretty good weekend and I am now at 7 days on my streak. We will see what the rest of the week has to offer. I am anticipating a lot of potential stressors.