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

A friend of mine is headed straight for a weird identity centered around being a person without relationship experience. Think a lighter version of incel who feel their issue is mostly a social one, not genetic. (They'd kill me for that explanation, though.)

I've become very careful when it comes to centering your identity around a negative, and the communities that result. Of course it can be done right, if I didn't believe in that I wouldn't be here. But my friend is admiring and studying their problem, instead of looking for a way out.

They're catastrophizing their situation. They go deeper and deeper into that mindset, pushing away friends who don't agree or understand, because how would you ever understand having a problem as affecting when your life is going meh/okay?

I wasn't going the same trajectory, but at some point my mindset and my perception of the world where as fucked up as theirs. Like a ship with navigation and sensors shot to hell, drifting slowly to that black hole.

Fuck, but I got out. Am I ever thankful. Mostly to myself, because along the way I kind of constructed a working approximation of self-worth. (Kidding, I can be as full of myself as the next guy and his mum combined. But you get the idea.)

 

Me too. I've attended groups for shy people, singles, and even one for Nice Guys recently. The thing is, the kinds of people that attend these are not the kinds of people I want to spend my time with. It just feels like a group wallowing in collective self-pity - yes, there's empathy, but no action.

 

Mh, I had a rather excessive party two weeks ago with weed, alcohol and cigarettes. I had a blast, but I've fucked up my brain quite hard in the process. Had some porn relapses and gargantuan netflix binges. At least smoking and booze haven't caught on. Trying to cool my stimuli-horny brain down today, but it will take a longe while till I'm back to where I was. Do what you want and then pay the price, as Moiraine would say.

Ach je.

 

Mhhh. Still trying to rally. Not there yet, drifting. Out of control. Urges and the hunger for instant gratification. My brain is like a howling animal, hungry, having broken into the pantry.

Would like to have calm of mind, like wishing for the sound of waves in the middle of a sunburnt desert. Will get there, somehow. Need to learn more, to train more, grow more habits, understand better. Decide. Thats the thing, right: Deciding. Letting go of the infinity of possible choices. Isn't hat it?

Abandoning choosing the rush, the stupid thing? I'll have to carve myself out of this mess. Bla, rambling, who cares about that. Onwards.

 

DRDV - one day at a time. Onwards and upwards!

 

Ive come to realize that less is more when it comes to my mental state. Ive given up caffeine and alcohol for nearly 3 weeks now and its been 9 days since my last pmo binge. I stayed off electronics most of the day today and read half of a book ive been putting off for months now. Im the calmest ive been since December and im feeling phenominal. I can feel the reserves starting to regenerate. Abandon the rush, as youve said, its worth the peice of mind.

 

I know what you mean. Used to be a lot more tolerant of that type of person, and now I've lost that tolerance. Means I'll have to change some relationships around. Or end them

The person mentioned in the earlier post and I aren't on speaking terms any longer. No longer able to bridge that gap, happens. Life.

 

One week of no pmo. I try to get the idea in my head that sex isn't something I can have on my own, only something to be shared. Its okay to feel the need, but its out of my hands to do anything about it. Don't know how I ended up with this approach, but here I am. Haven't had strong urges, but its a question of when not if, obviously. Maybe this powerlessness to do something about my urges can be empowering, some weird effortless effort yoga shit.

Or its just another stupid magical thinking bullshit idea, I am navigating without any telemetry here. Time will tell, she is a conversation partner prone to getting the last word, that much is for fracking sure.

 

She is also a fast talker. I've gone 12, 13, 14 days clean before, and on those days where I tell myself it's going to be different and I'm not even feeling urges, hours later I'll be in a relapse already 2 hours in a binge. Don't think itll sneak up on you. One minute you're two weeks clean talking about pmo like its old hat, the next you're elbow deep in body parts and your brains on autopilot. Happened to me plenty of times. Never let your guard down, even for a second. This has to be our life now. If not now, when?

 

Ya, the feeling of 'I'm through it, finally' seems to be the tell-tale sign of a large scale attack.

Regarding never letting ones guard down, I have a weird yes and no-feeling.

Yes, we need vigilance and no, we cannot think about it that much all the times, as we need to forget this whole mess, too. Like the addiction was a wild, monstrous being you have to lull into sleep, until it loses conscience and stops existing, having forgotten about itself.

 

Mh, had a relapse today. Chain of events: obsessed about an ex, stalked her social media, drunk emailed her. That got me thinking about sexy stuff, which had me masturbating, she emailed back, more drunk emailing followed, more masturbation and today porn.

Thought about the emails which were basically "wanna fuck" in complicated and understand now that this isn't a good idea, bc the ex is the ex for reasons tm.

Have decided to post here on sundays each week, as I'm too bloody prone to forgetting I have this whole pmo/mo issue.

And thats bullshit, right.

 

Well that didn't happen. :3

Been thinking about shit and how to change it. Nothing seems to work.

Today I once more got the idea that my brain is just too overloaded with all that gratification seeking stuff I do:

Watch videos, netflix, porn, masturbate, endlessly checking my phone, staying in bed, smoking, fantasizing about how to change my life. You probably all know what I mean.

I'm not a truthseeker, not religious and only spiritual in very homeopathic doses, but: I think if I don't cultivate a level of awareness and focus I'll never get out of this homeostatic stasis trap that has been my mind for around twenty years.

So, king boredom come and wash my filthy brainthing clean. Hah.

What I'll be doing is cutting all that crap cold turkey, do more yoga and shit and try to calm my stupid brain down from its eternal dopamine fest. Not a new plan.

But unless I do that, I see no way out of this circular problem.

 

You need to find something "authentic" in your life. Your brain knows what is just "treading water" or just running on the wheel in your hamster cage. Something like a spiritual path or intellectual challenge might be exactly what you need. Call it a direction... and start walking towards it. Our minds feel a calling to the authentic.

 

Ya, thats what I thought for a while, too.

But no map is useful if you're too drunk to walk. I'm in a state were I can hardly navigate. My drive is at best erratic. I can get shit done, but really, I'm just floating around. My mind knows nothing, its like a puppydog. Does cute shit sometimes, other times it just shits on your carpet.
I need to let the cooldowns run out and not hit that blinking red button that has 'entertain me' written all over it.

So, what your saying might be the step after that one which I'm about to tacitly take. We'll see, hopefully. Crawl then walk.

 

My. Todays that special day. Fight, stupid me, fight. Do the thing were you don't do the thing.

 

Failed. Reiterate. Do the thing. Y otra vez, y otra vez. I don't mind, at least I know what my task is, and this addiction thing, well, its a formidable opponent.

Like all teachers worth their salt are. Hippie shit, still true.

 

Huh. Thinking about caoimhin said about authenticity.

Think I lost mine somewhere in the gutter. Traded it in for a feeling of detachment. Lost my pains and passions.

Not that I do not feel pain or passion occasionally. But I'm in that fog. Part age and the distance it brings (which can be a good thing, don't get me wrong.) Part the dulling of senses that addiction brings. Part hesitation: What could I say, what could I add to this wonderful, messy, fucked up thing that is life? (not that I don't talk a lot, I do, but its all so scaled back, distanced in a way, though you couldn't tell when talking to me. And even I do not notice it most of the time)

I used to self-doubt, quite a lot. That's gone too, replaced by this weird hybrid mixture of acceptance, dullness and a sense of mediocrity that is neither elevating nor down putting. Sort of limbo, sort of a haze, that has been going on for so long I forgot the part before, halfways.

I can fight addiction all day long. That is going away from something. But I have nothing, nothing really to go to. All those halfbred plans and whishes I have for my future (not that I'd act on them) feel like another mans plans and wishes, not my own. Gain the world and lose yourself?

I don't know. Life tastes like yesterdays tea. This is not it, its not even a preview.

Not that I don't have skills, oportunities, great friends and stories to tell, enough of them to bore half a town to a somewhat peaceful death. I am a person, I know that. As an abstract fact, like I know that the sun is at the centre of our solar system. I don't know it in my blood, my bones. They've forgotten, the lazy fuckers, and so have I, the laziest of all fucks - or so it feels sometimes.

I just read some stories I wrote more than a decade ago. I am not that dude, I'm just the lousy steward of his meagre inheritance. And he fought so hard to stay alive - and won, somehow, won against major depression and the terrors of being an adolescent. I'm not doing his sacrifices and pains justice by this half life. And not even that shame really touches me at my core. Dampening fields eat up most of that emotion, feels like the feelings of another, maybe a character in a book you read while in the tube on your way to work.

He fought so hard, and now that he's won and I'm him I just sit on my ass and do nothing.

And when that suffocating feeling of depression is threatining to kill you (and all the windows seem to morph into doors, sorry to be blunt) you fight for survival, yes. But you also fight for a life worth living, something with meaning, with heart, a place that you truly live in.

And now that I'm out of it, after ten long and hard years of heartbreak I have become that dull, distant creature touching itself wile others do stuff on a screen which they only do for dull, distant creatures touching themselves?

That is too little. Gewogen und für zu leicht befunden. But the part that gets me isn't that its by far too little, but that I have to sit down and type all that out just in order to get a vague emotion for all of that bullshit. And not even that feels much like anything.

I'm lost, aren't I? Far out on the sea, in a distant nebula, dormant in my own bloody skull, like a princess in a tower and all the princes are either dead or dull and distant creatures touching themselves in front of ... you get the picture.

Na mere. Blutige Asche. What an elaborate trap. What a dead end. And weep for my future (Na'toth) if I don't get out of it right now

Cause what it took from me really was any drive I had to do anything else but abide, abide by the situation, abide by what is asked of me, less and less over the years, as the environment adapts to underperformance and absence. And no one saw it, not even me, always taking pride in knowing myself.

I know nothing. I'm still the bloody fool, I just learned to play myself as well, so good that I didn't catch it myself.

I thought I had climbed the mountain, but I'm in the valley, at its feet and it towers high over me, unmoved by my being lost.
I thought I was wise, judging those around me, offering counsel, while I still could not take my own. Hah.

Wait. This means there is still stuff to learn in a world that has felt ...dull and grown up for years now. This means I still have something to fight, and if you have things to fight, you always have the means to, too. That's just conservation of ninjutsu, man. Thermodynamics, seriously no need to explain that one, right?

Go to that river. There at the bend, where you threw blade and shield into the shallow waters years ago. Rusty, like your eyes are, still there. Get that old recipe for poison out from under that pile of unpaid bills. Sing that song of war and needlessly detailed violence. Grasp for Saidin.

Accept your mistake, kid. You thought yourself a master, but you're a fool. And that is a good thing to be. (Caoimhin, you were right, but I had a grade a deflecting knee jerk reaction with some justification tm.)

A fool gets to travel the path of life. A fool gets obstacles put in front of him. A fool who understand he is a fool is free to learn. I am free to learn, I am free to fight this. I get to see this mess as it really is. I get to be lost.

Bless crisis. Best time to learn. Move, childe, you're no knight yet. Get that rusty spoon, start scratching at your prison walls, dig out. Cause this, you dumb potatoe, ain't life. It can't be. You cannot still be like this when Boron, death, comes and takes you one day. Where are your manners, humanthing? This isn't how you're supposed to be, frack, this isn't even WHO you're supposed to be.

Huh. There. Took a lot of digging, but this is me. Hi guys! Only took me a year. Now to unearth that person that I factually know I am.

this should be fun

 

Wohin auch immer Dein Weg Dich führen wird, ich bewundere Deine Fähigkeit mit Wörtern umgehen zu können. Du hast da wirklich ein riesiges Talent. Und Dein Charakter sprudelt aus jeder Silbe. Bleib am Ball, hör nicht auf neue Dinge auszuprobieren und dann wird Dein Weg auch irgendwann von Erfolg gekrönt sein. Ich bin 3 Jahre lang andauernd nur rückfällig geworden und auf ein mal hat es irgendwie 'Klick' gemacht und nun habe ich da eine große 66 in meiner Signatur. Es ist wirklich möglich, auch wenn es Dir zur Zeit viel zu weit weg erscheint.

 

Hey, dankeschön! Ist immer witzig, das einem die Muttersprache doch immer näher geht als die anderen Sprachen.
Da wo man wohnt, sozusagen. Ich mag das Lied.

Managed to abstain yesterday, today not so much, no porn tho. Have been strapped for cash because I didn't invoice for a while.

It's amazing what basic tasks I just put off, even if its detrimental, even if they are easy.

Went to a bar yesterday with a friend of mine, for the reason of a fling of his coming to an abrupt end.
Talked about lot of things, my issue with porn and not feeling like myself among them. I've been putting up a mask between the gravity of my issue and the people in my life (including me, as you know).

Picking away at that wall of compacted earth with my spoon. Doesn't feel like enough. Keep picking. Feelings aren't that trustworthy at the moment.

 

Pick pick pick. Felt my rage today. Frustrating situation, but good to get closer to having a genuine reaction, not just be polite.

Thought: I've been avoiding crisis to a point of, well, crisis. Fun stuff.