Multiple periods of pretty intense sadness today. I'm not sure what it is that brought it on. Just thought I should make note of it. Sometimes it seems to be part of the journey. What finally helped (briefly) was watching an episode of Seinfeld.
Man that's hard. Removing the PM crutch can bring on mood swings so maybe it's that. Strength and all the best @TrueSelf . Happy Festivus
Thanks man. Today is better. I've been at home with my wife all day so I have not felt "alone". I do think that porn consumption does dull emotions. Take it away and both the good and the bad are felt more strongly. Edit: I remebered what I think part of the sadness was about. This happened last year as well. I think it had to do (at least in part) with being sad that another year was ending and my issues with PMO continue.
Sex I need to analyse this is greater detail in the future but I wanted to make note of a "victory" I had in this area today. I think one of the aspects that will help to gain freedom from porn is to be able to improve sexual communication with my wife. So today I requested (I'm not trying to get her to do anything she is not interested in doing) something sexual from my wife and we engaged in it. Success!
Breaking the Cycle I watched a movie with my wife the other day. There was a "triggering" moment when the female lead said to another character, in another language (so this was subtitled) Spoiler: possible trigger "I'm a little slut" . I think I was triggered by this because I find it very appealing when women are "sexually confident". I thought I had gotten over the trigger but just this morning I had a thought that I should lookup on Reddit something related to the quoted line. Like do some women feel this way/like being treated this way. Of course this is a horrible idea to do and I will not make such a search. "Seeking behavior" is one of the initial steps that almost exclusively results in full blown relapse. I can break the cycle and not respond to "my history" with this sort of thing. I am hoping by writing about the experience it will help to dispel its impact on me. One other thing I wanted to mention. Yesterday I was at a store with my wife. I saw a woman with a guy walking towards my wife and I. The woman was somewhat attractive but not overly so. As we approached them I found myself feeling very self conscious and overly aware of the way I was walking. It was strange. I have had things like this happen to me in the past but it has been a long time. Anyways I thought I should make note of this odd event.
Fantasies Just a quick note as I need to get off line. One of my goals as I noted is to be more open with my wife in general but especially with sexual stuff. So this morning I mentioned two things I was thinking about. I think this was good. Unfortunately my mind started wandering too much. "Maybe if I tell her I would like to try... she would be open to it". This was not good. I was thinking too much about this stuff. I thought about going down bad paths with "researching" different people's opinions on stuff. This is never helpful and not relevant. Ultimately I was able to keep it only to thoughts and not actions which I may pleased with but it was unwise to temp myself in this way.
Sounds like things are going well. You are able to dodge triggers and are communicating with your wife.
Urgency Saville has this quote in his Success Stories post that spoke to me: I remember having a conversation with someone years ago and saying something like, "I don't want to be 40 and still dealing with this shit (PMO)". Well that ship has sailed. I'm getting close to another birthday and thus creeping ever closer to 50. I'm worried about becoming the type of person Saville speaks of. I still think I can make some changes but only if someone (me) changes. I believe I have gathered enough recovery "tools". I just need to use them instead of letting them rust as seems to be my default. Speaking of tools I am still working through the Collins course. Looking back at an early entry I apparently started working on it Fing months ago. Yikes! I resolve to finish it by the end of the week. This morning I attempted the dreaded cold shower that others have spoke of. Initially I decided to only change it to a bit cold toward the end of my shower. Then I thought what's the worst that could happen if I turn it all the way cold (it is very cold where I live so the water was cold AF). It did not kill me and seemed to give me a bit of a warm (ironic) boost that lasted for some time. Out of time for now.
Last night I had an odd dream. I only remember bits of it. In the dream I think I was in some kind of gang or mafia. Part of the dream involved seeking revenge as some famous? person had slept with three women (at the same time) who were also associated with the gang. One of these women was my wife or girlfriend? In the dream logic it was acceptable for the famous dude to have slept with one of the women but having sex with all three was a punishable offense. On the way to the dude's house I suggested that we should cut his junk off as retribution. The other gang members agreed with this in kind of a "duh, of course that's what we're going to do to him". In the dream we made it to his house but never actually saw him. The dude had sex with three chicks at the same time. I kind of wanted to meet him. I took another CAS (cold ass shower) this morning. I think I overdid it a bit with keeping my head under the water. Head hurt for a bit (brain freeze I guess). Moving around more often seems to be required. Same warm boost as yesterday though! I finished the Collins course. Although I could definitely stand to go back through some of it's points again. Major ideas from the course: "you always have a choice", "you are not your story (you don't need to live in reaction to your history)", "what else? (can you do besides looking at porn), "what's always true". Main action item is dialoguing with your addict/what is troubling you.
Saw a friend last night which was good. Drank too much. I had three strong drinks which was is a lot for me. This morning it was tough to get going and I feel slightly ill. So the urge to self sooth via PMO was stronger than it has been for the last while. Also, through a series of events I managed to lock myself out of my old chromebook. I don't think it's possible to undue based on what I found online. Feeling about this. It's not a huge deal but there were some old files that I had stored locally and I wanted to keep. Oh well. I have kind of made peace with the loss. Needless to say this frustration also increased the urge to view P although not terribly so.
Choose to MO earlier in the week. Thought I would keep it at that but I allowed myself to get drawn into full PMO later that same day. The good news is that I was able to keep to a single occurrence. Urges were strong the following day to give into more PMOing but I was able to make it through. I've been doing some journaling first thing in the morning and one goal I had was to remain clean for the rest of the week and be able to make a 5 day clean post today. So this is it.
Thank you. I've been slowly working my way through your journal. I'm thankful that you are still on this site encouraging others.
The time change seems to have hit me hard this year. Very low energy. I was watching a series with my wife last night and things seems to be headed to a potential "steamy" scene as the characters had to stay overnight in a motel. I must admit that part of me was hoping that some stuff would go down. The woman character is hot. As a nice change there was no bed bumping which has made me more hopeful that the series is "safe". Last night I spent a lot of time (too much) looking into finasteride. I have some thinning on my crown and it bothers me big time. I ultimately decided against trying the drug. I was scared away by posts on another site. I had thought that if I experienced any of the scary side effects I could just stop using and they would go away. According to some of the accounts on this other site people only took the drug for short periods and suffered persistent troubles long after stopping. Nicer hair did not seem worth potentially growing breasts and having sexual issues...
Good call. I'm pretty bald on top and the only thing that truly works is getting hair transplantation, which is expensive. I just keep it buzzed and it looks ok. Luckily for me I'm not that good looking and so it doesn't make much of a difference. lol
Being bald sucks. I lost a lot of hair in my twenties, which made me look older – not in a cool way. Like Saville, I thought that only hair transplantation could fix the issue, and it's so expensive that I never even considered it. But a few years ago, I discovered another solution to hair loss: scalp micropigmentation. Most people don't know about it, and I don't know why, because it's truly amazing and way cheaper than hair transplantation. It's also a pretty quick treatment. Look it up on Google images. First, when I found out about scalp micropigmentation, I was skeptical, I thought that maybe the pictures I saw were photoshopped or something, so I booked a free consultation at a clinic. Turned out that the professional who was doing scalp micropigmentation at the clinic had had it done on his head because he had lost his hair a few years earlier, so I could see with my own eyes how great and realistic it looks. It's exactly like the pictures you find on internet, it's truly amazing (if it's done properly, by a talented person). So I did the treatment (3 sessions), it cost me 1800$, and it's one of the best decision I've made. When I tell people that I had that treatment, they are always surprised, because no one can see a difference between my hair and the tattoos. The result is amazing. I shave my head every 4-5 days to keep my hair short, so my hair looks exactly like the tattoo. And it also works for people who don't shave their hair and keep it longer, like you. In that case, you wouldn't even need 3 sessions, probably 1 or 2, so that would be cheaper for you. I would highly recommend this treatment to any guy who's bothered by hair loss. It's great, and there are no downsides. I'm completely satisfied with it. I'd show you before/after pictures of me if I didn't care about being publicly known as an impotent lol...
Something interesting (to me) about hair transplants is apparently you have to use finasteride afterwards also to help the transplanted hair to not fall out. Not sure if this is always required but that sucks. Pay tons of money for the transplant and have to be on the crappy drug too! In one video I watched the guy's hair post transplant looked okay, not great and he was also using hair fibers! I think I'll eventually go with a really short hair style.
Hi - thanks for mentioning this. I actually had heard about this. I agree it does look good on many people (unless they go for the really squared off hairline). I'm not sure that I would be a good candidate as I have light skin and light colored hair. Thanks for sharing your experience I'm happy to hear that it is working well for you!
I reset again after my post on 3/15/22. I was able to keep it to only a single day. There was not a "good reason" (is there ever?) for it to happen. I think the main driver was an extended period alone in the house. Many years ago while in the middle of a long edging/PMO session I suddenly and unexpectedly experienced a very pleasurable whole body type orgasm. When this happened I thought I had discovered a new way/type of orgasm. Since that day I have tried many times to recreate the experience and have never been able to. When I have long periods of time to myself there is a temptation to try to achieve this orgasm. For my own good this is something I need to give up on. I am able to share very pleasurable times with my wife which do not leave me feeling terrible for having wasted time and breaking promises to myself (like the porn fueled edging sessions do). Speaking of time with the wife, we had sex last Sunday and it was good! The stars aligned where I was feeling both legitimately "in the mood" and there was an opportunity to take the wife to pound town. The only downside was the chaser effect which I experienced an hour or so after. I wanted another O bad.
