A fresh start for a mountain goat ⛰️

the_mountain_goat

Active Member
ME 145 | 7 PORN

November
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Aprilhgh=g▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ← I'm here!

▇ no PMO ▇ PMO ▇ healthy MO and/or 'real' sex


I haven't been here in a while. Which maybe explains the relapse (only partly, of course).

Very intense but satisfying work gig this week.

However, I came back home exhausted and that's when shit hit the fan (relapse). Classical situation:
  1. Exhausted me, needs to decompress after a physically and/or mentally demanding trip/experience.
  2. Arrives home, potentially alone, feels like MO is a good way to decompress (or sometimes, straight to PMO).
  3. I'm tired and my willpower is thus not very strong. I MO, and that usually feels nice!
  4. The chaser effect the next day is super strong and I'm still tired, and usually alone (at home during the day) and so I easily give in to PMO.
This is reinforced at the moment because of my injury which is preventing me from doing the physical activity that I could be doing outdoors to help me "release", "relax" and feel satisfied...


I think I want to try and remind myself weekly of what porn might do to my brain (and thus, partly, why I'm doing this). Decided to look at this today: The Top 3 FATAL MISTAKES Rebooters Make. Copied a few things below:

Mistake #1: Using Porn to Stop Feeling Bad
"You’re very stressed about work or school. You spent all your day working your ass under pressure and you know that the upcoming days are going to be the same. There’s pain in your body. You’re mentally exhausted. You want to relax and feel good. So what do you do? Watch porn. (...) Please, stop this. You need to stop medicating yourself with porn every time you feel pain and discomfort. (...) If we keep taking refuge in porn and running away from pain and discomfort then we will never be able to grow as persons"

Mistake #2: Being Hard On Yourself Every Time You Relapse
"There is this damaging belief in the forum that success is measured by how many straight days you go without porn.

Mistake #3: Focusing Too Much On NOT Watching Porn
If you’re thinking about not watching porn, you’re thinking about porn. As long as porn is in your mind, you will have a lot of trouble letting it go. The correct approach is to just forget about it. When urges arise, watch them mindfully. Observe them. Do not react. Do not suppress them. Do not push them away.


I think I mostly struggle with Mistake #1 these days. I'm dealing with loads of work-related stress, tiredness and physical pain. Let's address these one by one:
  1. Work-related stress: my work is like a roller coaster, it goes from very little work, to intense 2-3 days where I travel and everything happens at once. For now, that's how it is. There are many benefits: I don't have to work 5 days a week, I mostly have chill weeks with a few intense ones here and there. These have been accumulating lately. But calm will come back. Also, I need to take care of myself when these crazy weeks happen. I must be able to say 'no', like "no I will just go to bed early and won't go out with colleagues" etc.
  2. Physical and mental tiredness: I'm someone who does a lot. My life is very busy. I say yes to many things and then I feel burnt out a little bit. I must again learn to say 'no'. Save more time for myself. Not over plan.
  3. Physical pain: I think that's the one that I feel the most powerless with for now, and thus creates a lot of frustration and stress. I worry a lot about not finding a solution and am very impatient. I'm seeing another doctor/doing other tests in 9 days. I hope that it will start feeling like a solution...
In any case, I do feel like porn won't solve any of these issues, if not just bringing a fake, very temporary relief, and then bring more pain and stress than before.

The problem is to ANTICIPATE when this stress will be most problematic. Which I can now do easily. The same pattern is repeating itself (the five steps at the beginning of this post). I know the pattern. How do I break it if I'm tired and exhausted? It's hard. I might need to stop feeling tired and exhausted and find ways to make more care of myself.

But also to WELCOME pain and discomfort. Accept it. See it as an opportunity to check with myself. Relax. Take care. Meditate. Yoga. Sleep...
 

Trisquel

Active Member
Maybe taking a couple of deep breaths and focusing on feeling and welcoming the pain/tiredness, can be powerful enough to break the cycle.
Just a thought, of course, it may doesn't work like that, but I know some people find it useful.

I agree that preventing exhaustion from happening is thw best thing to do, but also having a back up plan in case it's there seems like a good idea. Maybe just sleeping after ordering some healthy food and taking some deep breaths can be enough!
Idk, you'll figure it out.

It seems like you are able to see it in a very soner and helpful way, and that's great.
Good luck, and take care
 

Androg

Administrator
Admin
Moderator
Classic.

Every heard of "HALT?" It stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. It was developed to help addicts in recovery see when they are most vulnerable to relapse. Some models also put a B (for bored) in a similar acronym.

Point is, tiredness isn't permission, it's a trigger to watch out for. Have your tools at the ready! Make yourself use them FIRST. Then, if you relapse, you have at least interrupted the cycle instead of strengthened it...again.
 

TypeN

Active Member
Hey man, sounds like we're both struggling with external triggers lately. I am sorry to hear that you continue to deal with pain from your injury. What you said about feeling powerless to respond to that trigger/source of stress definitely resonates with me. Maybe what it indicates is that we need to rethink the idea of "response" to mean something other than "fixing" the problem (at least I know that's where my head goes, even when there isn't anything immediate for me to practically do -- and that just sets me down a path of ruminating about it, which is itself just another source of stress).

Perhaps seeing "response" as meaning something more like acceptance and self care could work better, just doing what we can to take care of ourselves while we try to find a solution. You're already thinking constructively like that, which is good.

Hope this week has been alright for you my friend.
 

the_mountain_goat

Active Member
Thank you everyone for all the answers.

I haven’t been here in a week. Relapsed tonight. I MOed a couple of days ago.

I had an intense but really great week, making beautiful human connections during a work trip. Which was then followed by a more difficult family weekend (still not home) where I feel like I struggle to connect with family members, all the while feeling tired from my week. I feel a little isolated and that’s probably why I relapsed.

I really struggle making this “constantly on the move life” work for me in terms of my addiction. Or, in other words, I struggle to find ways to take care of myself in these moments of traveling/constant movement… I know the things I could be doing but I’m not doing them.

I know that starting Monday evening I will have some 4-5 weeks of more “settled at home” time and maybe this should be the opportunity to start taking more care of myself again?

I’m very tired of it…
 

Trisquel

Active Member
Good luck, I hope you find your balance in this coming month of beeing at home.

Hopefully it'll give you a bit of calmness and space to think about how to cope with your emotions and your addiction when you are on the go.
 

the_mountain_goat

Active Member
ME 151 | 8 PORN

November
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Aprilhgh=g▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
Mayh....//g ← I'm here!
▇ no PMO ▇ PMO ▇ healthy MO and/or 'real' sex


Hello again my friends. Thanks for the support!

Starting tomorrow nigh (getting home), I hope I can see this as a new "fresh start". I will be home, with just a few couple days' exceptions, for 4.5 weeks. Then out of home for a week, and back home for the entire summer (almost). I like that perspective, I must say it's a comforting thought.

The other comforting thought is that Tuesday I'm finally getting the ultrasound for my injury that I've been waiting for 3 weeks, and the potential injections that will soothe the pain!

I really like the HALT - Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired framework. I would perhaps make it BALT for me: Bored, Angry, Lonely or Tired. What I'm taking out of it is this... They are not permission, but triggers to watch out for!

Then I need my tool kit... Went through my previous posts... What might all the things I could do instead of giving in...?
  • Read a good book
    • I realises most of my relapses at night happen at times when I don't have a gripping enough book to read, or I'm not enough into the book yet to make it attention-gripping!
  • Do a yoga session
  • Watch a movie
  • See a friend
  • Workout (need to get back to these abs!)
  • Meditation
  • Cooking
  • Going to the pool? (a good way to enjoy physical activity without hurting myself!)
  • E-bike ride
  • Bike ride
It also comes down to trying to spend less time in front of screens at night. I usually put it away, but not always!
 

the_mountain_goat

Active Member
ME 152 | 8 PORN

November
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Aprilhgh=g▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
Mayh....//g ▇ ▇ ← I'm here!
▇ no PMO ▇ PMO ▇ healthy MO and/or 'real' sex


Traveling back home today. Feeling good about it.

Excited about future projects.

Looking forward to my ultrasound tomorrow. Also exploring how the injury might be psychosomatic. This has motivated to meditate, I did meditation sessions yesterday and tomorrow. There is a good cycle on my meditation app on « living with pain ». It insists on the fact that we must welcome, observe and accept the pain, and this will lead to less suffering. This may help me obsess less over them. I realized the pain does come in periods where I’m more stressed, anxious…

Otherwise, definitely planning to try and hit the swimming pool this week (and, perhaps, my bike!). Meditate. And work meaningfully. And reconnect with friends as I haven’t been home consistently in a while.
 

Androg

Administrator
Admin
Moderator
ME 152 | 8 PORN

November
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Aprilhgh=g▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
Mayh....//g ▇ ▇ ← I'm here!
▇ no PMO ▇ PMO ▇ healthy MO and/or 'real' sex


Traveling back home today. Feeling good about it.

Excited about future projects.

Looking forward to my ultrasound tomorrow. Also exploring how the injury might be psychosomatic. This has motivated to meditate, I did meditation sessions yesterday and tomorrow. There is a good cycle on my meditation app on « living with pain ». It insists on the fact that we must welcome, observe and accept the pain, and this will lead to less suffering. This may help me obsess less over them. I realized the pain does come in periods where I’m more stressed, anxious…

Otherwise, definitely planning to try and hit the swimming pool this week (and, perhaps, my bike!). Meditate. And work meaningfully. And reconnect with friends as I haven’t been home consistently in a while.
I’m glad you’re learning to Cope, but I’m sorry you have to deal with this
 

the_mountain_goat

Active Member
Almost relapsed but decided to quickly come here as it was starting to happen!

Just feeling a little horny. I could have just MOed but as I know these days it’s a slippery slope.

So will take a moment to cool down, breathe, relax. Cold shower perhaps. Read a book. Meditate.

Update: after splashing cold water on my head, I did a cool meditation session about pain management; learnt that when we’re facing pain we’re hit by two different arrows that mindfulness helps differentiate: (1) the actual physical pain my body is feeling and (2) what my mind makes of it, the negative thoughts amplifying the pain.

Update 2: soft relapse with light content. Much better than previous ones! Didn’t put ‘crazy’ or ‘unhealthy’ things into my head.
 
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TypeN

Active Member
That's good work that you're doing, separating out those two different kinds of pain. Perhaps there are even some times when the emotional pain concerning your injury is worse than the physical? Depression and anxiety about that sort of thing must be really tough. So, anything you can do to alleviate that part is well-deserved.

Hope you have found some peace today in your mindfulness my friend.
 

the_mountain_goat

Active Member
ME 153 | 9 PORN

November
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Aprilhgh=g▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
Mayh....//g ▇ ▇ ← I'm here!
▇ no PMO ▇ PMO ▇ healthy MO and/or 'real' sex


Good to be back home. Love seeing my friends and housemates again.

Celebrating that I've been committing to meditation for the last 4 days! It's helping me a lot.

Still, I've been struggling both with the chaser effect of my recent relapses, some horniness and also my classic trigger situation: decompression after intense trips.

I think I want to remind myself of why I'm doing this... Looking back at previous posts...
  • More confident in life, socially and romantically
  • More confident at work, more efficient

☝️ These are two things I notice have happened. Two good reasons!

But also...
  • I want to be able to have good, intimate, fun, and loving sexual relationships. This has manifested itself many times earlier this year. During longer streaks, I would put myself more out there (probably due to higher levels of self-confidence!).
  • I don't want to be enslaved to a behavior that only exists to compensate for BALT situations (Bored, Angry, Lonely, Tired), in other words: I want to be free and find joy and meaning in self-care activities that allow me to handle boredom, anger, loneliness or tiredness.
I need to keep these in mind when thinking of relapsing. These 4 reasons help me find the motivation I need. They're my guiding star!

Update: interesting meditation session on how to be a spectator to your pain/feelings :)
 
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TypeN

Active Member
It's great that you're rediscovering your reasons for doing this my friend. I think when I have a little mental space this weekend I will reflect on the same thing.

You're killing it with the meditation too! Like you've said to me, I think it is key for what we're struggling with.
 

Trisquel

Active Member
Almost relapsed but decided to quickly come here as it was starting to happen!

Just feeling a little horny. I could have just MOed but as I know these days it’s a slippery slope.

So will take a moment to cool down, breathe, relax. Cold shower perhaps. Read a book. Meditate.

Update: after splashing cold water on my head, I did a cool meditation session about pain management; learnt that when we’re facing pain we’re hit by two different arrows that mindfulness helps differentiate: (1) the actual physical pain my body is feeling and (2) what my mind makes of it, the negative thoughts amplifying the pain.

Update 2: soft relapse with light content. Much better than previous ones! Didn’t put ‘crazy’ or ‘unhealthy’ things into my head.
Hey, well done!
 

the_mountain_goat

Active Member
ME 165 | 11 PORN

November
December ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
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FebruaryW ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
MarchWhg▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
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Aprilhgh=g▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
Mayh....//g ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ← I'm here!
▇ no PMO ▇ PMO ▇ healthy MO and/or 'real' sex


Hey all. Thanks for the notes of encouragement!!

Sorry I've been quiet here in the last two weeks. I had friends visiting -which was really nice- and a few difficult moments where my injury bugged me a lot which led to two small relapses. .

Re-read my latest post which I think is a key one for me...

I think I want to remind myself of why I'm doing this... Looking back at previous posts...
  • More confident in life, socially and romantically
  • More confident at work, more efficient
☝️ These are two things I notice have happened. Two good reasons!

But also...
  • I want to be able to have good, intimate, fun, and loving sexual relationships. This has manifested itself many times earlier this year. During longer streaks, I would put myself more out there (probably due to higher levels of self-confidence!).
  • I don't want to be enslaved to a behavior that only exists to compensate for BALT situations (Bored, Angry, Lonely, Tired), in other words: I want to be free and find joy and meaning in self-care activities that allow me to handle boredom, anger, loneliness or tiredness.
I need to keep these in mind when thinking of relapsing. These 4 reasons help me find the motivation I need. They're my guiding star!

Update: interesting meditation session on how to be a spectator to your pain/feelings :)

Two relapses in the last two weeks. They didn't last too long. Mostly because I struggled with my injury. It is maybe about to be solved medically tomorrow, fingers crossed!

Still, I've managed to hold it together! And doing better now than I was a week ago. The meditation helped A LOT! It's all about rewiring my brain not to obsess over my injury. Allowing my brain to step back, and be more aware of my whole body and surrounding environment rather than focusing on that part of my body that is suffering. And getting back to yoga. And back to outdoor climbing, and e-biking.

Please, cross your fingers with me for tomorrow, really hope the small medical intervention I'll be getting will help :)

Lots of nice things ahead this weekend, some mountaineering and attending a music festival.
 

the_mountain_goat

Active Member
ME 166 | 11 PORN

November
December ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
Januarywr ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
FebruaryW ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
MarchWhg▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
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Aprilhgh=g▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇
Mayh....//g ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ▇ ← I'm here!
▇ no PMO ▇ PMO ▇ healthy MO and/or 'real' sex


Thank you guys!!!

Medical intervention went well, will know if it worked in 48 hours. For now I can't move for the first 24 hours, sofa life! It's actually nice hehe. My housemate is working remotely so she's nicely taking care of me!

Had a fun night with friends last night. Might be feeling attracted to someone, which is a nice feeling. We'll see where this goes.

Trying to use the forced sofa life + bad weather to relax and also get some work done.
 
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