...at least we can joke about it now, what do I know

I have a hobby. Sometimes I imagine what I am going to regret having lost in the future.

Well. These days this hobby has suffered. Can't get it up, you know. No reason to predict
future regrets if I have a problem so clear and evident. (Well, evident in absence, on the
run, in effigie, so to speak.)

Send a fella googling shit. So I found people talking about all this no masturbations
pied or pide or whathave you and I was like...

Oh. Oh fuck.

Is swearing okay here? This topic makes me feel like swearing, to be honest.

So very much. Here's hoping!

I heard of this stuff before. But sometimes I need to see, hear, read stuff lotsa a
times before it kind of ...klicks and my brain-thing
(whats left of it, in what state it's in anyway) flares up with epiphany.

Wonderful word, that.

So here I am finally having figured out why and how my dick is no longer available.

Hey everyone!

I've made it without PMO (or MO) for seven days come tomorrow on my own.
Valiant effort! Almost a week!

And today morning Sister Lethargy, aka depression, hit me like a broadside from a
battlecruiser. I'm not new in the depression handling business, no sir, but I know
the challenge just got real. So I figured I might start yelling at the screen in
textual form here.

Have had no serious cravings so far, and if they going to come, let them.
Can't be that much harder than smoking, can't it? I hope? I have no clue,
I'm new to this.
(I suppose there was a time I haven't wanked for longer than a week,
curse me if I know. When I was ten maybe?)

Porn was bad for me, that much is clear, but I've always been a wanker.
Guess that's behind me and I'm pretty sure it gets worse before it gets
better but I think I'll somehow manage through this.

Watch how I soar, I guess?

Kind of expecting hang-ups. Rolling out a red carpet and putting up
a mini bar for them I am. Lull em in with a false sense of security.

This will be fun fun fun! XD

tl; dr I am new here, hey everybody!

 

Welcome, friend.

 

Hi mailboxsam! Thanks for welcoming!

Weekend was nice so far. I was out and about yesterday and ended up drinking a lot.
I tend to forget my problems (in general, not with drinking) sometimes, which can be nice.
Sometimes I stumble over old to do lists and plans I had completely dropped from memory.

Keeping my attention focused was always a problem for me. Here's hoping I can stick to this.

Made dumplings for the first time friday night (not good at cooking, but I improve, slowly).
They looked like shit, the dough had gotten too wet and I was sitting there, considering flushing
the whole project literally down the toilet. I somehow forced the dumpling in some shape with
half a ton of flour and cooked them anyways.

This feeling: Sticky dough you can't really shape or fix that won't accept any kind of form is
actually pretty much how personality developement feels sometimes. Bah.

First I was furious at the dumplings (very grown-uppish and manly, I know) but then
I was thankful my anger had an actual target. Is this devolving from a I should wank no more
to try harding cooking journal already? Who knows.

I ended up looking at pictures of my ex gf, almost masturbating. We quit on very bad terms but
she's still quite prevalent in my fantasy. I really should get rid of my pics of her (all safe for work
for safe but one), or at least dump em on a stick and put it in a remote drawer or something.

Full disclosure, gettin her behind me was my last big self developement project and it took all of last winter
and most of spring. Let's just say covert narcissism is a real and sad thing and delve into that sad,
broken tale no more.

Well. While I am okay-ish with just not watching porn and wanking for the time being (day 8, if
it matters) I know that I have to develope other parts of my life. Like get a job.

I recently finished my vocational training (with very nice marks, thank you occasional diligence outburst
of mine!), the general field is translating and interpreting. (English is not my first language, I hope it's
not too painfully obvious.)
Summer and having nothing to do was nice and all, but my bank account is drying up fast now and fall
and winter in my hometown are a real downer, so I need some therapeuthic occupation. XD

 

Well. I masturbated monday and today, not what I had planned, but I don't terribly regret it.
I haven't watched any porn nor felt any strong inclination to do so. Apart from one day
of depression I'm feeling normal to great. ED has receded quite quicker than I had hoped,
there is still room for imrpovement though. But in general I seem to be one of the older guys
who didn't start masturbating to pornography and thus recover more quickly.

The reason why I watched so much porn and masturbated so frequently is a feeling
of boredom, emptiness and the wish to escape feelings I don't like. MO is my MO, so to speak.
While porn is gone, and I am relatively confident I can keep it that way, this underlying problem still exists.
I'm aware of that.

I noticed that I only MO'd when I'm bored, I was working the whole day on tuesdays, wanking never
crossed my mind. I am still unemployed, so thats a bit of a problem. Job hunting should be
my priority, but I find it really hard to focus and plan. Not sure how much that is connected to
this whole porn thing, but I think chances are it's an influence. So, completely abstaining from MO
for a while should be the goal. I don't want to go too quick with all of this. It hasn't even been two weeks.

I have become more emotional. I get teary eyed at approximately once a day when I watch a video that moves me.
That used to happen once in two months. Weird.

 

Okay. I'm getting to the heart of the problem. It wasn't porn, it's just wanking.
Which is, well, harder for me to not do. It's easier to understand that porn is weird,
too much for your brain or an unnatural array of naked ppl, whatever have you.

But masturbation seems so natural to me, it's always in arms reach quite literally and
it's nothing external really. I have a hard time telling myself I should quit it.

MO'd thrice this day. And don't get me wrong, I'm glad ED has receded as much as it has,
but this is still a problem. I will have to regroup, think about this, understand this.

When I stopped smoking, it took me 8 or 9 attempts spread over several years to finally quit.
I have never before or after felt as angry. But cigarettes are external and proven to be deadly.
It just ain't the same. Also, you could not buy tobacco back then. This? Different approach
necessary.

Strategic debate time: What is bad about masturbation (without porn)?

1. Possible delay/interruption of ED recovery
2. I don't understand the science behind this, but constant MO might inhibit motivation and planning
3. It's a default go-to behaviour whenever I face difficulties. I hide behind it.
4. I run the risk of picking up porn again if I let this habit escalate. Left unattended, it WILL escalate.
5. It's time intensive and compounds other problems like lack of motivation.
6. It diminishes the chances of me going out there and meeting real people.

So possible gains from supressing the habit would be

a) Full, quicker ED recovery
b) Better motivation and more focus
c) Facing the problems I have instead of hiding from them.
d) Building better defenses against picking up porn again
e) more ressources/time for other, important tasks
f) improved drive to go out and meet folks

Mh.

 

Wanked twice today.
Figures. Alphabetized lists of future benefits? I don't really give a damn.
Maybe I can get behind not satifying an impulse now so can satisfy it even
more later on. Maybe, not sure. I think I'll have to struggle with MOing and
trying to understand how I function in that regard. Find the chinks, learn
and all that jazz. We'll see.

At least I have my problem right in front of me. I've had times were I couldn't
for the life of me figure out just were to start. That's something I appreciate.

I suppose if I can develop some kind of morning routine that doesn't involve
lying in bed for three hours, that might help. I'm bound to get funny ideas that way.

Today I'll be cleaning up my room. I get distraced by disorder quite
easily, and I have a habit of piling up stuff. It's not hoarding-bad, but I could
improve and it's been sitting on that (unwritten) to-do list for quite a while.

Also I might go back on experimenting with dumpling making. Last batch on
Wednesday wasn't much of an improvement. Maybe use another recipe.

 

Went outside for bit, read stuff. Further assorted my personal stuff. Not done yet.
Made some appointments with friends. Sitting at home with only the flatmate isn't that
good. (Love her though.) MO'd twice. Feel like my brain is on autopilot.
Mood is okay though. I think I'll eventually get through this, somehow.
This can't be worse than quitting smoking.

Don't miss porn, but I've strangely fixated on the ex again. Not good. She was bad news,
really, really bad news.

 

Huh. Managed to not wank yesterday. Same goes for today, so far. I picture this thing as a
river. A broad, roaring beast of a river, full of currents and whirlpools.

I could never stop it, I could never hold it at bay. But I can swim to the bank and have a look from
there. I think it's hopeless to want to no longer feel this . It's insurmountable,
a force of nature. It's childish to pick a fight with sexuality itself. (And I'm aware that in my
case sexuality is hard to tell apart from That Thing I Use As An Instant Fix. I suppose it's not
impossible parting the two in the future, though. But right now, uh, it's a mess.)

But I don't have to drown in there. I can accept there'll be a flood occasionally, and then I'll
have to run for the high ground. Stupid personality developement. Always so much work.

Strange life, man.

 

MO'd today and yesterday.

Mh. I am close to abandoning this project. Don't know why I do it, don't know if it's worth keeping up.
I know this specific point very well. I have a personal scrap yard full of cancelled projects.
I'm not normally aware of this moment, but I think this time around I can see it quite clearly.

Here's were I normally go back to normal stuff and stop thinking about myself and this problem
at hand: Distracting myself with masturbation when things get hard. It's not super lethal. I get
shit done sometimes.

Now I'm not gonna say I will continue, unwaivering. I have come to not trust my own statements of
commitment, no point in making it harder on myself if I fuck up. And fuck up I will.

But I'll keep doing this. Let's see what's around the next few corners.

Tried cooking dumplings again. They still look as ugly as a winter morning with hangover.
One batch just fell apart and sat on my plate as a sorry steaming pile of potatoe slime.

I was laughing so hard. I am a Frankenstein of the kitchen; I make monstrous things.

 

Mh. So many small things happening. I stayed in the kitchen for hours today. Eating cooking doing stuff.
Generation 4 dumplings are the first to have some decent consistency. Lots of flour. I already have an idea
how to get gen 5 in better shape: won't drop the formed dumplings on a plate, but directly into the hot water.
No more deformation from lying on a plate. Bam. Also figured a way of how to mix the dough without hands, too much of a mess.
And grating the cooked potatoes is pointless, I just mash them like mashed potatoes. Less time, less effort, better
results. Also made french toast and a soup. Went for a run around the canal. First sporty spice thing to do in a long time.

Have switched from hot, long to cold and very short showers. No real reasons, but it will save a ton of energy and water.
Also helps waking up.

Weird thing: I'm not even into dumplings. It just so happened that I tried to pick up that skill. It's like:

Q: What has quitting porn taught you?

A: How to make dumplings.

Huh. That makes no sense, I suppose.

I have an exam (interpreting, translating) coming up, some weeks or months in the future, date is not yet set. Want to start training for that.
Reading, thinking, learning words, learning note taking techniques, maybe learn to listen better, especially multiple
conversations. Maybe do another small radio play using audacity, just for learning and shits and giggles. Oh and I should totally keep
translating this one longer text. And I really need to look at all my notes. And map those training dialogues. Terms, idioms, phrases, concepts.

I need practice. I'm the best in that class anyways, but they are pretty green, so that doesn't mean that much. And I've been
quite lazy. Lazy I can do. Ts.

I have been thinking about masturbation. I have no real memories of a time when I didn't do it. And it's hard to stop when I don't know
what will happen then. So I would need to stop for a trial period in order to be able to try stopping it - what?

I guess I can only do prototype pioneer stuff in that regard. I have left porn, and that was easy. Because it wasn't the problem.

THIS is the problem. But getting rid of porn is helpful as well, and I think I'll just put it down as a partial, preliminary success.
Also THIS isn't the problem. My exam is the problem. Dumplings are the problem. Mom is the problem. Dad is the problem. I am the problem.

Sometimes I feel like I'm constantly switching through possible targets, never aquiring.

However, at some point I will have to come to the conclusion to stop wanking. Because time. Because focus. Because lonely, at times.
Abstract understanding does not equal me getting it, though. So we'll have to wait for that to happen for a while. Huh.

Or I could just stop it. Hah. Sometimes I really think it is just as easy, side-stepping a life long habit like that. So stupid.

 

Gods, but it's one of those days. Thinking of the ex gf (I think she's my crystallization point for any pornographic fantasies and boy do I have some in my head), almost watched porn. Avoided thinking of both things, but it was a close call. Then I MO'ed not thinking of anybody or thing.

Have repeatedly smoked pot this week for the first time in years. Like the high but I think I can't afford the side effects. Am having a hard time getting out of bed.

 

Huh. Third day I managed to do no MO. Yesterday was by sheer luck. I was lying in bed almost too far gone when a friend called. (When did calling become a rare thing? Stupid ubiquitous messengers.) I took the opening that conversation offered and fled the flat.

I have a trick to help me in the morning. I always write diary in the morning so I set myself a glass of water and my pages at the couch table. in the evening. Tricky part is getting from bed to there in the morning before I get silly thoughts. I figured that morning wood plus keep staying in bed are the moment I am most likely to wank during the course of the day.

Once I am up and about it's not as hard to abstain. I might have gotten myself a job yesterday - which is a good thing because finances are a bit tight. Another area in my life on need of overhaul. They'll inform me in the next week but I know many of the ppl who work at that place. And since I am kind of a people person I'm positive they put in a good word for me.

Its weirdly reassuring being almost broke. I used to live there all of the time. Another problem I had to escalate into a crisis before I addressed it. One way to learn, too, I guess.

 

Sounds to me like you are going along just fine..! Nothing wrong with making those dumplings.

 

Yess, it's progress of sorts. This last night was something else, though. I was going stupid from wanting to MO, could not sleep for hours. Made it, somehow. Don't know how. The night obscures her weird proceedings. :3

Thanks for your comment. I have embraced dumplings. :3

 

Huh. MO'd twice today. Not proud, but not heartbroken about it. Had about four days of no MO. Definitely an improvement.
Getting too drunk is not the best idea when trying to avoid MO. Was quite tempted to look at porn today, in the wake of having MO'd
and with a hangover. Interesting. All factors seem to compound into an avalance of "Why not, it's fun for the whole family".

Chaser effect detected. No big surprise, but I kind of heat up the more I go. I remember that now.

Have severe back pain (way before MOing), no idea if correlation or completely different thing. Getting better.

I have a grudge with two former friends of mine, unrelated people, both have left me without proper explaining.
Twin dark suns in my emotional universe, a puzzle I can't solve, I'm still bitter about it

...and one of the few dogmata in my life is: you are not allowed to become bitter. I'm not a man of many principles, but this I hold to heart: I am not going
to be bitter. You have to fight that shit, tooth and nail, dissolve it, defuse it, dismantle that dirty bomb under your heart,
it's the very first duty of the recovering person to escape that prison, for if you don't escape bitterness, you escape nothing,
your caught, done for, will get tarred, feathered, eaten, crushed. I can't stress this enough.

I have a saying: If you can't heal the wound now, you have to at least keep clean. You can't afford battles of attrition.
That way lies only one thing, death. Death by suicide or because one day your heart will just break, and you'll carry on
some more years, shards in your breast, going down slow, but in no less horrible a fashion.

Huh. That just came.

Well, I think of the two people, let's call them ash and bear, while going down the canal, I love water, need it around, if you can call it water here
in the krauts rotten capital hive, and it comes to me, simple yet somehow relieving: I do not have to go back to them.

Not ash, not bear. I somehow feared that they just might step back into my life and assume I would be their friend again. (ash was never that
important. only for a time we were close. fuck him. bear? different story. she basically saved my soul more often than I would care to admit. her leaving?
big wound. complicated. like long lasting curse-spell. can't reach, can't scratch. still so pissed she just abandoned me, I was a friend, and we
had so much behind us, blood shed together, battles lost and won, if you will, no living being on this planet knows, well, knew, me better than bear.
not one.

then she left me. it's been a while. and since then I have been trying to solve this puzzle. Mind you, I am good at that shit, like really
good. I had to. The great silent grey crushing wave of major depression leaves you two choices, when you boil it down to extremes:

Grow quick enough to escape it's blight or wither away and be nothing but a faint whisper on the wind. One foot in the realm of Our Dear Deceased.
Been there, came back. Wasn't easy. I am good at recovery, resourceful, resilient, not holding position I can't defend, agile in avoiding the
most deadly traps. I can sail that ship, I can cook that glue of the soul, I can deny the things too horrible for fixing now (denial is such a feature
when you really think about it).

Still, with all this res gestae not at all humble brag skillzors I still aven't found a way from this feeling of loss of having bear leave me.

Feels helpless. Like a cowboy who was fighting back to back with his best buddy, who, finding his friend gone suddenly, falls to his back,
wondering if it is even worthwhile ever getting back up while bullets are flying everywhere.

Okay, I think this was enough dramatic description bullshit. Stuff get's to your head. Words, man. Just understanding that
I have to accept no one back into my life whom I don't want back made it a little easier. Because somehow I thought if they
left me on their unilateral whim, they might somehow just one day decide to come back to me the same way, on their own terms
without my consent, not giving a damn what bridges were burnt when they left.

Stupid, I know, but that was what was in my head, what I believed. No, I was loyal. Not perfect, never perfect, so flawed, and so many reasons
for leaving me I could actually understand. But just discarding my loyalty like that? Like it was nothing? Without any explanation?
Still not liking it. Have been chewing on it for a year, no, two now. Chew chew. Maybe I was able to just spit a bit of that matter out.

Okay, enough gratuitous rambling. You can overdo almost anything.

 

Thanks Marston. It's kind of my line of work and to be honest, it runs in my family. Meaning: I had to be good with them in a sink or swim fashion. Verbally, my family is a fleet of capital sized warships. :3

It has it's good and bad parts. I more often than I'd care to count ended up believing eloquent bullcrap I said just because it was phrased nicely - impressed by my own logic if you will. Deep traps, hard to spot. Broke some bones there. XD

On the bright side, words can rearrange stuff which is unclear, cut problems to size, and sometimes ppl, if someone tries to assault you verbally.

I like your trumpeting, by the way.

 

Engines offline, navigation shot to hell, we might have a boarding party on the freight deck and that port bow laser shoots at random, making maintenance of the hull a bit too interesting for my taste. Happens. Will wait for the cooldowns to run out; ponder my recent actions while that trusty autopilot takes me back to home base. No use blaming yourself, childe.

 

Drifting still. Toxicity lowered but present. Someone (contact since cut) reminded me of a romantic shipwreck I had this summer. I had buried it, forgotten it almost, a wound closing itself.

And this person just ripped it open. (the story is simple: fell for someone with acute boyfriend syndrome, not that they told me, we liked each other a lot, mind you from a distance, when our project was over they ditched me, since boyfriend. Understandable. Stupid behavior, but understandable.)

Without my old filters aka porn and endless wanking I feel this loss/emotion so much sharper. It doth sucketh, I am telling you.

I know more emotions are generally good. Yet. It's just damn painful.

I wrote the party bringing all that up what they had done and that I no longer want them in my life. Sometimes people catch flak. That's life, too.

Picture it like this: The boarding party has breached a high sec vault, unleashing a volatile energy fluctuation. They then got spaced, orbiting the ships hull, the erratic bow laser eating away at them at random. Figures.

 

I am off the weed, which had become a daily thing for two weeks or so. MO is still a problem, but it's shifting at the moment and I have
this weird thing were I find wanting to MO more pleasureable than actually doing it. Driving myself around the bait and fantasizing about
it seems to be a kick in itself, for some reason.

Reminds me of this:

Video has a woman crawling around in the forest, dressed and all. Still, since our fracking brains can spot teh sexay in everything,
be warned. :3 Really like the song though.



I have a hard time focusing today. I have energy, but energy isn't the problem, focus is. At least for now.
Zuviel Kraft in der Lunge für zuwenige Trompeten. Something along these lines, I suppose.

At least I am over that depressed feeling from that romance gone wrong from last summer. Siedenote,
would not have terminated the contact to the person mentioning it if I haven't had other issues
with them. I am not THAT vengeful. It was the last coordinate in a slow moving aiming process.
Main gun big, main gun go boom, BFG of the soul, man.

I've gotten better at discerning whom I want around but I still need a casus belli.

Time to be productive now, no matter how volatile my focus is at the moment.

 

Mh, many things are better and I have more clarity, for some reason. Haven't watched porn in over a month now, but that wasn't really the problem. Not that I don't appreciate having dropped that overdosing whirlwind of body parts and pixels making them up, don't get me wrong. I like that these memories will wither and lose their potency over time. And I am glad I have disconnect from that disconnected, dismembering, often faceless interpretation of the good old sexy times.

Doesn't mean I can escape wanking, or my own very vivid, very powerful imagination. That one might have been hijacked by porn and it will take much time till most of the remnants have decomposed, but I was one horny dreamer before ever setting foot into porn territory.

And I still self regulate by masturbation. Far from perfect, but at least I have gotten rid if porn and my erections back, thank you, kind Sir Plasticity upon Neuron. :3

Well. I can hardly complain much, yet there is quite some space for improvement.