What have I learned over the year of visits to this forum? Well, that is hard question. At first, it seems like wasted time. I still have not beaten my addictionsand was quite moderate on my other goals. I have not achieved anything significcant, something that I would be proud of. But there is the other side of the medal. Is I the same man as I was year ago? Negative. What have I changed over the past year? At first, it seems like nothing. I am still undergraduate student without girlfriend and bright future. But that past me is not here anymore. That past me is dead and its death bring a new life. Someone more mature and not naive. I reevaluated my view of me and world around. Past ideas were often naive and overly idealistic. Past ideas were foreign for me, products of culture and marketing certain traits. Who am I today? A man dealing with its own unic experience which is extremely valuable. I have learnt have to learn from my mistakes. I have learnt about difficulties in life. I have learnt about responsibility and value of time. I have learnt about power of emotions and how both productive and malignant it can be. I have learnt how to appreciate what I have and do not be jealous over what is not belong to me. I yet have been learning how to live with my past. What is my purpose, my mission? I have a reason to believe that old pieces are forming together a new picture in my mind. More realistic and deeper. Less superficial and less foreign. It is about values and experience and healty perception both myself and world around. It is not a static image, a desirable end state. It is a lifelong path with wins and losses. And I still have to learn a lot. I am especially proud of recent lesson. I have learnt now to measure my expectations to reality and don`t be jealous. I establish deeper relationship with my father and letting go past fantasies about fictional relationships with girl. What is next? I want to go further with The Recovery Workshop. It helps me to think more about things that were quite beyond my vision.
Sometimes I regret over the past. This happens when past missteps are influencing my current status and decisions. It is horrible to have obstructions to my future due old mistakes. It is depressing. It is depressing to have problems with earning foreign stipendium because I did not earn some points in my resume. It is depressing to see stories in Insta from a girl to whom I had fallen in love before terribly fucked everything up. It is depressing to see the main reason of my problems in the mirror. On the other side, it is a lesson. Hard and valuable. Lesson about ownership, emotion management, values, discipline and keeping movement forward. It is a lesson about chaos and my need to adjust myself to life. It is not easy. I still want to throw wverything out of my sight, break something or hurt so.eone and then just lie in bed crying. Extreme aggression and deep sadness. Yet I have to master one of the recent lessons. My experience is unic due to my unic view of the world. And I can benefit from it.
Strong fantasies, almost delusion. It is a sign of a common compulsive ritual: seeking of pleasure when there is a discomfort. I had a bad sleep last night. As a result-pain in muscles, depressive thoughts and anger throughout morning. Common way out is P,M, fantasies. New way out is investigate the reasons of bad feelings and work through then, not to sugarcoat it.
Second most common compulsive ritual linked with internal struggle and self-talk while getting obsessed with fantazies. These thoughts are usually out of my conscious control and my dick does not respond to them. Contrary, there are times when I really aroused but all these thoughts are controlled and there are no problems with erection, it just happens but I have no problem withignoring it. I believe the second case is my natural sexual desire because it happens spontaneously, usually not often, especially when there were week-long streaks of abstinence of any sexualized content. First case is clearly linked with addiction. There are no spontaneous erection, I have to force it and as an excuse touch myself "just to verify whether everythiing working or not". Quite often I have seen these two cases as one and deployed a wrong tactic to deal with. Natural thing is easier to control, lasts shorts period of time and actually pleasurable on itself, I feel good without direct stimulation(, porn, masturbation, orgasm) and even after. Addiction-induced looks like badlu working coping mechanism, lasts longer (I mean mental state) and there is little pleasure.
PMed. Felt sick, headache, stayed in bed longer than usual, and as a result, launched old compulsive rituals. What is good that I feel better with less frequency of masturbation and P. Seems like I catch common cold due to inappropriate clothing and inhaling cold (+4 celsium) air. Maybe, I should not running during cold period of a year. I think that walking, especially uphill, can be good substitute of running. Same with calisthenics. Light jacket+warm hoodie+T-shirt+sleevless shirt. And I should not forget about training inside of my flat. It is not about ideal training, it is about consistency. Also, I have to admit that I am responsible for my illness. I should not blame weather, my sick friend with whom I have worked in lab for 2 days. I am responsible for my life and that means I can take control. I almost used to wake up at 07:30 and go to bed at 23:00. I working out regularly. I work on establishing growth mindset to substitute fixed one. I do not want to compare myself with others to enhance my self-esteem and I do not want to compare myself with my imaginable yet unrealistic self-ideal. It is not about some unrealistic standards, which were earlier. It is about constant growth, not some laurels. I letting go resentment about unachieved goals. It is past mistakes. Past tence. I letting go pressure to sucssess. It will not lead me anywhere. It did not lead e towards my goals. I want to reestablish old mindset from my high-school. Curiosity, humility, willingness to evolve, learn and accept mistakes as lessons, not as a marks of being me bad.
Yes. ZOOM, Microsoft Teams and so on. This is really demotivating factor, especially when student learns at third-grade university from Eastern Europe. Lectures are not the only available source of information novadays. In case of real studying, mere fact of attendance to lecture strengthens attention and forces to listen to the lecturer. At least, it worked for me. Also, opportunity for face-to-face communicating with other students, especially women. Virtual thing is not as interesting as real, but it can be a great tool for installing the discipline. Doing the blring thing over and over again.
Med. Somehow it becomes easier to fight with urges, especially urges to watch P. Also, my possible low sexual constitution helps. Mere lack of immediate erection and morning wood helps to deal with fantasies and crawings. To be sure, I am not sure about sexual constitution. It can be the result of long-term P poisoning. In case of 6+ days streaks morning wood retrives easily. Anyway, I believe I should continue my abstinence from P and M, and also continue work through The Recovery Workshop.
Fantasies and illusions are lurking nearby and can take form of other, innocent thoughts. Be hyperaware of your thoughts.
Med. I have problem with maintaining sleep schedule. I reset my alarm to 07:50. I see common pattern: sleep schedule go south, PM, and all day is not going to follow the plan. It happens very often and I did not make any conclusions. It creates some problem with my studying and physical training and generates a lot of stress.
Around 12 PM/M this month. Roughly one case every two days. That sounds pathetic and scary. But I made definite progres from times with every day PM. Work on changing myself is actually hard. It is every day grind, maintaining princiles and standards. It requires a lot of knowledge, practical one. A lot of interdisciplinary knowledge. Well, man can never be too smart for learning. Sick again. I hope it is not Covid or strange syndrome from last year. Low temperature and sometimes discomfort< almost pain in the chest. Pain correlates with raised temperature and actually absent when body temperature is okay. I use the same medications, like I did last week. I actually scary to go running or working out outdoors. I am going to temporarily stop running and substitutes it with long walks. Also, focus on indoors workouts, stretches and moblity exercises. A lot of thoughts and I struggle to express it. I have to digest a lot of new information and link it with old. I feel hope. I feel that I have the capability to cope with depressive thoughts, stress, huge amounts of university work etc.
Fantasies are lie. These girls from dreams do not exist. These imaginary girlfriends are product of my sick mind and have nothing to do with reality. Their prototypes in reality are not the same as images in my mind.
PMed. That`s all about right system. By creating a proper environment I`ll not require to use willpower or so. It`s also about right system of disciplining the mind. When I really focus on my tasks and plans I don`t need to fight with sex thoughts. That`s all about building a good system, not waging war against bad one.
