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

Meet someone I had a huge crush on (well, we both crushed on each other, but there was a serious case of "already having a boyfriend being confused about shit" on her part.) Now we're friends, somehow made that happen. Liked her too much as a person to accept it all being torn apart by love (fuck you, joy division, fuck you very much. why did you have to put it so bluntly? :3 )

So after beers and pizza and a lot more cigarettes than two people who're still trying to quit smoking would care to admit, we talked about my little Porn addiction, too. Among everything else, I hate making a conversation just about one of my topics. Symmetry and all that jazz right?

Turns out she'd have had this talk with a lot of dudes in her life, and she knew the problem and appreciated my struggling with that. Phew. It's so good to meet open ears and no longer be in that safe polite spot, where you talk about the weather while a fracking monster is at your throat, halfway done with tearing it out. Sorry, don't know where the gore just came from. Happens. Have you seen my chainsaw, by the way?

It feels right to give up the privacy settings on my troubles. Helps with stepping out of that insane pretend zone of saying "I'm fine" while being torn to peices by the forces that are inside you. Give up that shred of control, set that truth free, materialize a bit more as a person. And in return, the addictions grip, its control over me, gets less and less.

I see how I've been a bit of a control freak with sex, as I didn't trust it could work, didn't trust I could function (hello, PIED, fuck you too, and not in the nice way that joy division can fuck themselves, with you I mean it, you useless thing), so I always made it about them having a nice time, fearing to let go and be there as a real person. Gah, there is so much to repair, relearn and reconquer. Hailene and corenne, man.

Anyhow, tangents being tangents, she ended up staying and we cuddled the whole night through, and that was awesome. No sexy stuff, just some good old close up humantime. So good, being able to connect with other people, so good not having it have to be about fucking, too.

 

Fantastic! I'm so happy for you. Let me tell you from my own experience that it has been such a relief for me to open up to my little brother and two of my best friends about my pmo addiction. It lifted such a weight of my shoulders. Telling a girl you like must have been even more satisfying and she even reacted well. And you cuddled the whole night, man, that sounds totally awesome! Keep on going, man, it'll be worth it!

 

Yap. At this stage I need every win, everybit of upswing I can a hold of. I need progress like I need air, water and money. :3
Thanks for he support, man!

Regarding PMO: I have failed to completely abstain from that Triplet of Doom for more than a year now. Seems like a fight I cannot win at the moment, so I try to cut porn and fantasy and downgrade that problem to just MO, once daily. Urges are aparrently too overwhelming if I try to lead Le Clean Life all of a sudden, so this approach might not be as ambitious as completely abstaining. But constantly failing at a goal is too high a cost, so I'll aim a bit lower. The frustration just feeds into the binge/purge/relapse cycle way too hard. Over time it should help to remove hyperstimuli, and both porn and fantasy are that for me.

(I have a VERY, VERY vivid imagination, which isn't doing me any favors here. And I was quite the pervy guy on my own long before porn came along, thank you, universe!But porn made that worse and amplified it to an absurd degree, and I think it'll be months till my brainthing doesn't incorporate pornlike elements in my personal imaginary stuff anymore. So I'll not be thinking of pink elephants in the room in the weeks to come.)

So, picking fights I will actually win is the strategy for now. Attack pattern alpha has failed me, and I cannot afford to go redshirt here. Recalibrate that shit, reiterate.

 

You are the most creative wordsmith on this forum. Do you ever channel that creatively into songwriting, lyrics, poetry etc? Vivid imagination is the number one skill set requirement of artists!

 

thanks a bunch. I write occasionally. we produce theatre plays about once a year, the writing process is most often from semi scratch, we take the plot bones of some greek ancient tragedy or something and then build on top. writing for theatre is a bit weird tho, as you have the text go through the work process and it gets canged a lot. not everything looking good on paper works on stage and then there isthat weird ad lib magic and sometimes ppl flat out refusing lines for their character. I used to write short stories, which I'm planning to pick up again, since its a lot of fun (and no one can interfere like in theatre, which is always a team sport:3). Apart from that I run table top roleplaying games, which do have a potential for writing, but mostly I'm an improv kinda guy and its more like noting down shit you just made up on the fly than real planning with me. (Splittermond an Das schwarze Auge mainly, if any German nerds should read here and be interested. Think a teutonized version of DnD, stolen xerox style thirty years ago and having evolved in its very own, krauty egalitarian trajectory.)

especially my own personal writing was a lot of unfinished beginnings, I really hope getting more focus and clarity will allow for me tackling longer projects, since it is a lot of fun. I write almost exclusively on my native tongue, which is German. Working as an EN to DE translator, but not really satisfied with that, since you mostly only iterate another often heavily corporate brand identity kind of voice into another language. creativity isn't really needed there. And being on the improvisation side of things I'm not sure I should do that for a longer time, since written translation requires an attention to detail that isn't impossible for me, but just not my real strong suit either. Kind of interested in interpreting, as I like thinking on my feet and its more my thing, but thats a harder field to get into than my lazy style at the moment really allows for. same "anothers voivce" issue here, too, which one of my wonderfully blunt exes once put as "dude, you're way to loud and opinioned to do that kind of job, that is bullshit." she's right, but damn that was blunt. (which I reckon Germans are kind of known for abroad, but she's even quite in your face for us lot as well. wonderful person, by the way.)

one way or another, I'll keep doing something with (and lets be honest, to) language, I am nothing if not a creature of text, if you will. One of the things I want to find out in the coming months is what exactly.

my new strat is working okay so far. I've settled for sieging up on porn and fantasy and slowly starve them out over the course of weeks instead of just blindly trying to storm the castle. I know there will be always remnants of porn within my brain, but at some later point I think I will try to reclaim that part of my capacity for fantasy, but that is in the future. now I need to stabilize my siege and have that patience to let those memories and pathways in my brainspace starve over time. patience is key anyways, I think at least a part of my losses is due to no longer getting these quick wins the early abstinence brings and thus losing that feeling of fast, tangible progress. But we're playing a longer, maybe infinite game here, and that requires a new and heavily improved mindset. working on it, and for some reason I get the best inspirations from esports, mainly sc2 here. (ya, if you haven't figured by now, I'm kind of a nerd or geek or whatever. heh.)

 

Ha, I played DSA as a young kid and was fascinated by it. Unfortunately, I lost my group during my teenage years. Nowadays, I only play paper Magic (and the one friend I'm playing with evolved into a monster and is now travelling to various GPs to compete ). I'm more of a shooter guy myself and played CS:GO in a team for a few years but this team has dissolved a year ago and thus I stopped playing CS:GO completely and I don't even miss it. In conclusion, I stopped playing games completely but I would love to start a new Crusader Kings 2 (my favourite strategy/RPG game) multiplayer game with a few guys. At the end of the day, it's a bit like an ultra complex board game.

 

mhhh. quitting porn while maintaining MO isn't something I have done on purpose before.

what I expect is that some symptoms will decrease while others stay stable. I also expect the general addiction dynamic won't dramatically just go away. I'm still hitting myself with a rush, a different one, less dependant on media and memory, but still. my masturbation addiction predates my porn habit, so it makes sense to attack the latter first. well, attack is a bullshit term. overwrite maybe.

urges for porn are present but don't survive MO. fantasy is more elusive, but hey, no surprise there, it runs on my brain and can react, so its of course the livelier of the two things.

I don't feel so out of it, not so icky like porn consumption makes you feel. It's fog around me still, different type maybe. all in all I'm glad I changed my strategy.

 

I leave the house half past eleven, I'm out of tobacco. fifty metres from my doorstep, my shoelace on the left hand side unravels, I have cut my left thumb last weekend and still can't use it, and my left thumb is integral to how I learned binding my shoes. I try to redo it and scream as it pisses me off and I haven't smoked a single cigarette all day. I go to the third-next kiosk selling smoking wares, as the first two have pissed me off in the past and that third one is rather nice. I buy tobacco from the old turkish lady, commentning how there's new paint on the door. I ask whether they are redecorating, she says no, it would be the landlord, and the painter has done a shit job of it, not even covering up holes in the door frame and painting over stickers and the like. She says that back in the day you wouldn't see a penny for a paintjob so bad. She says that she as a woman could have done it better myself. I agree, I would've done better, too, but then I was raised in a house were we did have to do everything by ourselves, so I'm quite free to say that. I leave for the canal for a smoke trying to roll a cigarette on the way. I fail, miserably, again my left thumb is integral to how I do shit. I continue onwards, cross that bridge that all of them tourists and hipsters and us lot too have made into a constant party location, much to the dismay of everyone living around. I seek shelter rom the wind in the entrance area of a house and give cigarette rolling another go. A group of three middle aged cleaning women passes me by. I finally succeed in rolling, and go to the waterside, to sit on the stone wall next to the worn out spiral stairs. Suns shining but I'd rather look the other way as the light is dancing in a bright pattern on the waters surface and my brain is still not very fond of bright lights in blinkin patterns, a remnan of that season were my body had decided to give epilepsy a shot. Sitting and smoking there I feel like I felt fifteen years ago, when we would hang out here after school, smking pot and drinking beer. I feel like myself, feel that time and it hasn't left me, its still there. I'm still in contact with most of the people from back then, well the ones that mattered. And I'm still that dude, and there's not much difference between me at 19 and me at 34. The cigarette consumed by exothermic reaction and, well, me, I head home. My left shoelace is loose again, I just stuff it in once or twice, then I give up, I live close by and have run out of fucks to give about shoelaces apparently. I pass my old school on the way home, and again, I feel unchanged, fee that continuation of personality through all these years and that there is no need to worry, I am coming back to myself.

 

uh. maybe there is a reason I remember and feel this specific time in my life. it's the time I got stuck, or better, the time before. before I ever watched porn, before depression hit me like atidal wave, before my stepdad died and all that shit begun. maybe I remember it so clearly, because that not so little dark age of mine is in itsdying moments. the waves of depression have split, and now I can only pick up where I really left, left my heart, myself.

fifteen years man, fifteen years. and now to come back.

takes a while to sort through and accept. was für eine verfickte reise.

 

Warning: this is just a super lengthy dancing around a problem post that'll most likely bore y'all to tears. Tl; dr: I'm crap at strategy.

so. I'm thinking about rythm at the moment. I'm shit at it and I do not mean rythm in a musical way. not my craft, really not my craft.

but shits cyclic in nature, right? the binge/abstain/relapse thing is cyclic. we feel like we're bound to a wheel, doomed to repeat our mistakes. my attempts at changing stuff and then abandoning them come in certain intervals, too. at the moment I am at the part of the cycle where I set sails and try to reach a new state. and I've been here many times before, at that stage. what interrupted my progression always is a question of either doing too little and then relapsing, or overdoing it and relapsing. as I get more momentum it gets harder to see the big picture, and you get to places where you've either forgotten what the task at hand really was or overwhelmed with the onslaught of new things yu haven't yet figured out and then reaching for old, dysfunctional ways of coping with that stress.

huh. for switching from PMO to just MO, I've stepped out of most routines and done very little for about five days now. during that time, I had spare ressources enough to think and ponder and fend off porn. But this is a state of doing nothing else but trying not to watch porn that isn't sustainable. money'll run out, and after too much time with littl to do I get completely derailed be default.

I've dropped all other instruments to play that drum of "dig for who you are and avoid porn". That is my baseline at the moment, but if I do not add in other instruments it is too little to call a life. and I cannot keep it up, economy wise, both financially and well, energetically, if you'll excuse that vague term.

the trick now is to add in another element into my life. and I feel this is going to be quite hard. I'll have to have enough clarity of mind and time to ponder shit while still a) keeping my situation non-critical and b) improving on it slowly but surely without trying too much and burning out.
think of icarus and his old man, who can't fly to low, as the sea would soak their wings and cannot fly to high, as the sun would melt th wax they've used to fix them feathers to their shoulders.

if you've wondered, I'm as shitty organizing life stuff as I'm good at organizing words. and I'm very prone to making stupid plans sound super clever in my head. I've never gotten around to developing a consistent planning style, in part I think because addiction tends to fuck up that special part of the brain that is needed to assess value correctly. going to work versus staying in bed all day are clearly of different value in the abstract for me, but honestly, thats not how I really feel about it. for me, both seem to be reasonable and worthwhile, being the lazy fuck that I am.

when I'm planning (or trying to) its about the same for me. I overdo it. I have a hard time parsing out the worthwhile, necessary stuff from the maybe nice optional crap. so when I'm sitting down to plan, I'll just write down everything that comes to my head and sounds kinda cool to have. not good at knowing what will take how much time and sometimes misjudging what I'm capable of and what not super hard Goes both ways, I could end of overplanning a cakewalk and underestimating a real challenge.

I've come up with many attempts of building a system of organizing my shit over the years, with the same consistency and outcome pinky and brain exhibit when they are once more trying to take over the world. nil.

also I'm quite prone to writing lengthy introductions and essays about this issue, as I'm doing right now, to be honest. I don't know how to fix this, so lets walk in cricles blabbering about it until I feel I've kind of done something about it. super good at mistaking thinking over with actually addressing a problem.

and it goes and comes in cycles, thats where I started this, right?

so, like my trying to fight porn use but not trying to fight MO too, as that'd stretch my ressources too thin, I need a similar approach to planning my life. not too little, not too much. and I have to accept and account for that I have trouble asssessing value and understanding whether or not my problem solving approach is applicable. if I just try to ignore that, failure is the only option. and I have to also account for my brilliant ability of being impressed with my own, daft ideas.

damn, thats a puzzle. I could really use the clarity my brief periods of being PMO free afforded me, but no dice. I've tried headbutting into that state way to often. so this'll be a game of mental ressource scarcity until I've broken my porn habit and can start to move out of my masturbation habit, too.

And I think it would be super nice to have a timeline for that, but how to understand how much or how little time it'll take?
how to navigate if all your instruments are fried? meh.

 

Okay, that was a load of out of proportion bs. I'm fine with that. If I don't spell out my bad ideas, I cannot see them clearly and cannot let them go.

I've recorded myself reading that wall of text and listened to it. My take away from that ramble are two basic things:

a) It will be necessary to establish what my basic needs are and how to cover them

b) It became apparent to moi that I seem to hold the belief that I am unable to learn planning. Thats bullshit, though.
There are very little things we cannot get better at, and my planning expertise is so moderate it shouldn't be that hard to
make some basic functional improvements. Seems though the issue is mainly with my catastrophizing mindset in regards to planning
(fueled and compounded by past mistakes) than with the actuality of sitting down and figuring out what needs to happen and why.
Phew. That was a roundabout.

As for the timeline regarding the switch from no PMO to no MO, I'll just give myself ninety days for now. I'll look into that strategy question in thirty days and reassess the issue then. Stuff will change, but this approach seems to work fo now, and its a preliminary solution I'm perfectly fine with.

As for the other stuff, I have begun looking into the material over at recovery nation, and since I feel they re worth their salt I'll pick up where I left.

No need trying to wing it if there are proper tool kits around.

 

I don't think those were bad ideas but even if that was the case: keep them coming. I really like your stuff. And from your second post I got the impression that just writing down your thoughts helped you to put them into perspective.

 

I have two things to say:

-Momentum: When you try to change your habits and routines for the better, start slow and start adding only one or two healthy routines/behaviour at a time (as fas as I recall, it takes up to 30 days until actions become habitual). Move from there and keep adding more and more without overreaching.

- Hard mode vs. MO: For me, allowing myself to MO didn't work. For several reasons. Because I was so desensitized (PIED for more than 15 years here, yay!), I sometimes wouldn't be able to get it up when I tried to MO. So then I would peek at some softcore P to arouse myself and then continue MOing without any P. That lead me back to P. Then I made up rules like, I allow myself to MO only once and only on sunday. By implementing that rule, I was looking forward to MOing on sunday so much that it became addictive in itself. Of course, I then would legitimize to MO once more during the week because it was just 'healthy' and 'natural' MOing, right? And then eventually everything spiralled down again and I always ended up using P. I tried several months, to reboot 'soft mode' but it just didn't work for me. My conclusion was to reboot hard mode. It is way more effective, you give your sexual system a much needed break and your sensitivity will come back way faster. Just from my own experience, my sensitivity is through the roof at the moment. It's so crazy, dude, just thinking about holding hands with my queen of hearts gives me a huge erection. Just yesterday, I had a first date with a girl that I really like and find adorable and we just took a stroll for 3 hours and just talked and that alone gave me massive blue balls, I'm not exaggerating. At the end of the date, I really feared I would come in my pants because I was so aroused. Of course, that's not ideal either, but it will calibrate back to normal, once I'm used to female contact again. So yeah, all I can say is, be honest with yourself regarding the MO. Maybe, it'll work out. Maybe not. It's worth a try. For me, it didn't work. But it might work for you, who knows.

All the best, my man!

 

Luke, I think you're right, the ideas weren't bad, but that I distract myself from the core issue is. And yeah, that is how my thought process works, at least with topics I find highly confusing.

Pete, re the soft reboot, I think in general a hard reboot would be better, yes. Since I don't have a hard time getting it up anymore (my attempts at quitting have mitigated that issue to a great degree), I don't need porn to masturbate, that might be a crucial difference. I'm more concerned with my fantasy and especially with my ex, I feel spellbound to this day. I know this approach is neither ideal nor will it rid me of my addiction pattern. What I'm hoping for is that by quitting porn I can at least remove its direct effects and somewhat claim back my sexual imaging.

In the end of the day, my addiction is expressed as: porn use, compulsive masturbation, nicotine addiction and video binging/video game abuse (netflix, youtube, endless hours spent on video games). All of that is the same in essence. The most destructive is porn. I know quitting one and leaving the others isn't removing my addiction, only modifying its nature. I have to start somewhere, though.

I hope the gains from kicking porn add to my strength to fight the rest. I have figured out several methods to have more clarity in life. (Yoga, writing, going for walks, working through my facade, theatre)

I hope that if I habitualize these, they'll afford me the strength to face the addictive patterns in my life and learn how to self regulate with new, saner methods.

So far, I unearthed some parts of myself. The more I do that, the more I know WHO actually it is I'm fighting for here. Just now, I'm still lacking that.

As for building habits, I'll have to get in the habit of planning my time. I'm very reactive and impulse driven atm. I'll plan my next week today and then I'll try to fulfill that plan.

That and sticking to MO is the next task. Next week I'll have to reassess then. And I need to keep in mind to not overdo it, keep it simple.

 

Sounds good. At the end of the day, you need to find a plan that works for you. What works for me or the next guy might not be the weapon of choice for you. I just wanted to give you my perspective.

How often do you plan on MOing? Will you ritualize it, or do it whenever you feel like it? Will there be a weekly limit?

 

mh, once daily without much tought. didn't yesterday, didn't feel it, same goes for today. think of it as the cavalry that I'll cry out for if I feel le addiction is about to break my little siege fortifications. in the back o my head, I feel this thing building up, not an idea, not a decision, not fear, not hope, something pre-thinking, saying: you need to face it all at once. you cannot postpone that stage, its all or nothing, childe.

for now its on the back burner, but it simmers and sizzles. clearly your words about going full scale attack on this struck a bunch o chords, pete. will have to let my brain do its thing and wait for what comes out of it. in a bit.

cances are one of my exes and moi will soon jump on each other, and it's that ex, the best, the worst. I'm insulated against her ...antics to a ludicrous degree though, so it will be a fun diversion and maybe a chance to do some, well, field testing.

 

lol, she cancelled. dodged a bullet right there, I feel.

I feel weird. like my mind is decomposing into a primal sort of matter before reorganising. urges are non present. smoking sucks, and I feel like I'll try to kick it, soon. quite bored with my usual vices. feel a bit tired, like something going into hibernation. slow now. this good. it feels weird, but I know I can trust this.

 

So. I'm at the centre of the valley of boredom, at a standstill. No wind, no movement, no thoughts. Tired from doing nothing. Flatline. Masturbated as a form as trying to reach for something in that silent fog, got nothing.

As I am now, I know and want nothing. I don't move. Maybe this is by mistake, maybe this is necessary. I wouldn't know. I feel I kind of need to learn everything again, but different this time.

The only thing I can think of that seems worthwhile pursuing is this: Find out what is important to yourself, find a way to do it and keep doing it and abandon any distraction from it.

I have so much time on my hands and so little focus and attention. I'll need to move slow (not an issue) and purposefully (quite an issue.)

It is time tho. Time to step back into my stuff. Been avoiding porn, nice, keep that and cut down masturbation, keep that and work on it, but now I have to pick up leading that life of mine. Only different.

And give up all these distractions.

 

been writing a bit. getting out of hanging around too hard is always a bit like the first levels of an rpg game: you whack at rather harmless issues like they are tame-ish monsters and it takes a while. no way around it though.

I sometimes have trouble doing shit I know I like and I know helps me. Writing, yoga, going for a goddamn walk. I know it helps, yet I have a hard time getting there. Well, I did it today, so thats good. Time to be unconscious in the bething for a while now.

 

So. Two weeks of no porn. Huh. Okay. I feel better, generally speaking. Not superb, but there is difference. Don't feel as dull, distant and dirty as I used to. My brain feels a bit more private, if that makes sense, without all these clear fresh memories of naked people in there. There are memories, and they'll stay for a long, long time, but my brains a weird place anyhow and sooner or later they decompose.

I have a mental kind of experiment. I picture a scene I remember, and then the ppl get a shower, put on some clothes and do regular stuff. Go for groceries. Sit in the kitchen having boring conversations about their favorite brand of cereals. Sometimes they agree, sometimes not. Some of them get to be dull. Some are maybe kinda funny people.

I'm not entirely sure why I do this. Maybe, because I tend to think of porn as all powerful, all consuming, indomitable.

And that is one way of attacking that and maybe warp these memories into a form I find more agreable, less dull and distant, more of this world. Not really sure, tho, to be honest.