A squirrely Journal

42 days no PM, 12 days no a O, 29 days no games, 8 days out from last relapse.

Been too busy the last few weeks and haven't had a chance to journal. I personally believe that journaling is a big part of my recovery. It gives me a chance for self reflection.

After a few days of not being active in nofap, I begin to get stagnant in my recovery and when a person stays stagnant for too long, they will relapse.

R and I have started an accountability post on whatsapp so I can keep her informed of every saw or notice. I have not done well with this. I tell her in person, but I almost never post it to her when it happens. I have to start being more consistent with this. When R doesn't know what is happening with me, it makes her worry.

R asked me yesterday if I have had any temptation to watch P. I told her only twice. Once, when I first started, which I mentioned in a previous journal entry, and the second time was that day, and it did not last long.

I read on the forums all the time where people are struggling with watching P. I'm not. However, I do struggle with not giving in to a dopamine high.

Some things I've noticed that can give me a dopamine high are, drinking to much coffee, eating a LOT of sugar, ogling(this is a p-sub), and taking b12 on top of coffee or my medicine. I might need to consider these as p-subs for me.

 

I'm standing here waiting on someone to flip on a switch to see if a lightening protection system is working. It looks like a stoplight with a horn attached too it. The good thing is, its giving me some extra time to think.

I started looking at P when I was 6 years old. Some where I started using P as a way to deal with stress. I know that's bad and is a big part of what lead me to have an addiction to P. Anyway, I started thinking, how did it get so bad?

I remember my dad buying a computer for me. I loved it! I have always liked to look things up. I have always been a curious person. I want to know everything. When we first got the computer, it was downstairs mostly in the open where anyone could see you on it. So I never saw P on it, until, we moved it upstairs to our game room. I did not immediately use it to look up P.

As a child, I was told I was learning disabled. I was in LD classes until 6th grade and that's when I started fighting to be in regular classes. No one, not my parents, not my grandparents, not even one teacher ever fought on my side. The best thing I ever heard (and I heard it every year) was "he is the hardest working student I have ever seen."

So to recap, I'm a kid with a curious mind and with a computer. I started looking up the human body wanting to now what made me LD. I felt sad, lonely, and just needed someone to love me enough to help me. Instead, I was a kid by myself in a room looking up the human body wanting human contact, and eventually, I started looking up P to make me feel better.

Off and on throughout my childhood, I would go through periods where I would stop looking at P. In fact, at one time when my dad was in prison, I took all the P in the house ripped it up and threw it away and put blockers on my computer so I couldn't use P anymore.

Thinking about it now, I went through a very bad period of depression soon afterwards where I cut myself and cried all the time wishing I had someone there to hug me.

Around that time, I did a lot of drawing and my drawings were dark. Sketches of monsters, mean looking dragons, half naked women and even the four riders of the apocalypse.

I wish I know then what I know now. That all the depression was just a part of withdrawal.

My dad came back from prison several months later, and soon after, the porn was back in the house...... To be continued...

 

Day 43 no PM, day 13 no O, day 29 no gaming, 9 days out from relapse.

My day started out good. Wife took me to work we were joking and as she was driving me off. Later she calls me and the kids are driving her crazy. So we ended up I having a little fight before and as I was hanging up I hit an article on BlinkFeed. I don't know what the article was because as soon as it was loading. I backed out of it. Now my wife has a security app on her phone that makes it where she can see everything I see. So the page then I clicked on showed a scantily dressed woman on it, so of course, my wife was freaking out and called me because she thought I had relapsed. I never seen the page. After a little bit of time I was able to prove that I backed out of it before I saw anything. Then after we got off the phone I figured out a way to delete BlinkFeed off of my phone. So that would never happen again

Later that day. I come home to a letter on my door. It was an eviction notice saying that we had till 10 a.m. Thursday morning to pay our rent. I had already talked to our apartment complex about paying are full rent Friday. Thankfully after me and my wife had talked we figured out a way to pay our rent before the cutoff date.

Later that night I was triggered but not in a p*** way I was triggered emotionally by what someone had said. I ended up going upstairs to my room shutting the door and crying for a little over two hours. The pain was so intense that it physically hurt and I thought I was actually going to die from years of feeling like a disappointment and not living up to everybody else's standards.

today I'm doing better.

 

Day 46 no PM, Day 0 form last relapse. Yesterday me and the wife had sex and I had an o also I got to start playing games again. Our day was great we joked and had a lot of fun. I was excited because I thought I've come so far since the start of all this and then later that evening after the kids went to bed. Me and the wife cuddled for like 30 minutes and I went downstairs to play a video game, which is the first time in over 30 days. I had told my wife before I went downstairs. There was a certain game I wasn't going to play because it could be triggering. Well I tried one game and it did not work and after trying for over 15 minutes to get it to work. I gave up and played the game I told her I wasn't going to be playing. And I didn't tell her I was going to be playing it. So I lied to her again and I have restarted my counter and she's done with me. she want talk to me about all this stuff going on. She don't want to see and I slept on the couch last night. I can't take this pain. I just don't want to breath anymore.

 

Day 47 no PM, and 1 day out from last relapse.

Yesterday I sat down and wrote A Promise list and boundaries list. On the promise list I wrote down things like doing dishes 5 times a week clean the car at least once a week not taking my phone to the bathroom. Things I hope that will help build trust back into our relationship. On the boundaries list I have no P no thinking about P no lying no gaslighting and to tell my wife what's going on with me everyday. I spent so much time thinking of my list yesterday that I missed out what my wife was trying to say to me. That she wanted to spend time with me. I was so caught up and working on myself that I missed out on her needs. I've got to get to a place were I'm seeing her needs at the moment instead of what I think she wants

Some things I have learned in the last few days.

Lying: is an addiction
I must remind myself I have a problem
Remind myself lying messes up life
To avoid lying
Questions to ask myself.
Am i thinking about hiding anything I did?
Did I tell R I would not do something I'm about to?
Things to remember
I need to be realistic about what I promise
Don't lie anymore I could lose my family if I don't stop
Why do I normally lie?
Giving in to my own once is normally the thing that causes me to lie

Gaslighting and what it does to your wife
Trouble making decisions
Feel confused or crazy
Wife will say to her self "am I to sensitive?"
If everything is going well right why am I not happier?
Wife makes excuses for husband
She feels like she is walking on eggshells.
Wife runs through a check list to make sure the house is predicted all the time
The wife feels like she's lost a sense that she used to being confident fun-loving and relaxed.

 

Day 48 no PM, 2 days out from relapse.

I called in sick yesterday and spent the day with the family. At first I was moody because I was worried about missing work but as the day went on I'm happy I called in sick. We had a good day. We went to a place called Discovery Place and it has a bunch of big toys for kids and adults to play together on. For me what made it really good was it should be a high triggered environment because of mom in yoga pants. I had 6 saws 2 notices. I have been doing well with looking away as soon as I see someone. I'm trying something new now. If I see someone I focus on there face for a split second. Let me tell you there are a LOT of ugly women around here. I'm starting to be able to be out longer with fewer problems because of this.

 

Day 49 no PM, 3 Day's out from relapse.

My job called work off yesterday because of snow and ice. I had a blast with the kids and wife. I tried making a snowman with the kids but the snow was too powdery. So I got a bucket and packed snow down in it. Then I took the bucket and flipped it over. The packed snow work as some sort of structure for a snow man..... I thought. When my wife came out my three year old son went up to her and said "were making a snow astronaut". So when we were done I put the bucket on his head and said "snow astronaut"

Later that evening we all watched a movie. Then when the kids went to bed R and I played card games. It was a day we all needed desperately and I'm thankful for the day.

It's days like yesterday that makes me realize how much I've missed. I could have had so many more days like yesterday but I cheated myself and my family. I can't change the past but I can make the future better than the past was.

 

Day 50 no PM, 4 days out from relapse.

Had O with my wife last night. Here lately when I O I don't have a very good O but it's like I get a very little dopamine hit and a lot of oxytocin. Normally, after having an O I would want to roll over and sleep. However, with out a massive rush of dopamine I'm not tried right after O. With the blast of oxytocin I just want to cuddle for a little bit before I fall asleep.

 

Day 53 no PM, 7 days from last relapse.

Last few days have been good. I'm keeping track of my saws, notices, when I have sex, and when I orgasm on Google Calendar. I'm right at a week today. I have noticed that when I have an orgasm, my saws and notices numbers are higher. So I'm dealing with a chaser effect. I've had an orgasm 3 times in the last four days, all with my wife.

Even though I've had sex a lot in the last few days, my sex drive is low and my orgasms suck. I don't feel the fog as bad as I did, nor do I feel depressed as often. I just feel blah. I'm tired a lot of the time and I hate being tired because for me, that can be a trigger. I used to use P to feel awake. I'm trying to figure out were I'm at in my recovery. I've been told that I'm still flatlined, going through the 70%, and the blue period. Truthfully it was bothering me a lot until my wife said "it don't matter what part of recovery you're in. We have at least a year to go". Her saying that, made me feel better.

 

At this point I'm in 9th grade and have my first girlfriend. We dated for almost a year before we had sex for the first time. A few months went by and I started driving over to her house in the middle of the night to have sex. Around this time was when I would use P to M before going over to her house. I didn't want to cum too soon and she never knew I used P beforehand. Around the beginning of 11th grade, we broke up but we continued to have sex even when I started dating another girl. That went on for awhile, until girl #1 asked if I would give her one of my condoms to use with someone else. I said "No" and never had sex with her again.

Side note: I did go over there one more time. She called me in the middle of the night saying there was someone outside sneaking around and she was scared. I jumped in the car to make sure she was OK. When I got there, she was acting funny and a few minutes later I hear screeching tires outside. A car door slammed and a couple of guys come in the front door. The first guy has a shot gun in hand pointing at me and the other is a small guy who can't stop shaking. Girl #1 goes over to the guy with the shot gun smiling as she walks. Then the four of us had a little chat. I said something along the lines of "I have a knife in my pocket. You will kill me but I will get at least a chunk out of one of you." The guy with the shot gun told me just not to come back and I said "ok".

On to girl #2. I'm a senior in school. A few months went by after I broke it off with girl #1. Girl #2 and I never had sex. We went to church together and I tried to stop using P.

My depression came back and I started acting moody. I went over to her house in the middle of the night 2 times before I got caught and we had to break it off.

Possible Triggers
I went on to college when I graduated from high school. When I was around 20, my grandpa was caught molesting my 12 year old sister. Before that, my grandpa was my hero. He was the only person in my life who ever tried to teach me something. He's the reason I'm good at troubleshooting mechanical and structural problems. He's the one who got me into working with my hands. I was devastated, but worse than that, no one in my family helped my sister. My grandmother kicked my grandpa out of the house and made him go to the VA to see about counseling. The VA told him they don't handle that kind of problem and told him to leave. A week later my grandpa moved back into the house. Then life went on. During this time, me and my sister got close and I was the only person she would talk to.

I started getting more and more depressed after that day. One day I prayed "God I'm done, I need you and if something doesn't happen within 2 weeks I'm killing myself". A week and a half went by and someone invited me to church and I said I would go. It was a small church with a pastor, his wife, and 4 kids. There were 3 old ladies. One had her grandson and a middle aged couple there. The church was in poor shape. The paint was peeling off the side of the walls outside, the carpet was that old shag carpet from the 70's and the pews were all scratched up and rickety. But I felt God there and that's all I cared about.

For the next 6 months, I practically lived at that church. I went to school, I had a good part time job making 18 dollars an hour, and I repaired the church. I fixed everything in the church, from painting the outside, mowing the lawn, even got some help and built a swing set. During this time, my younger sister started going to church with me on Sunday's. I was staying away from P for the most part at this time but I was still M, however not like I used too.

I was baptized and received the Holy Ghost soon after my 21st birthday. After receiving the Holy Ghost, I didn't use P for a long time and rarely M .

After that, I was over at the pastor's house when I was not at the church. The pastor lived near the church in a home he was remodeling so I helped, or hung out with his kids. I looked up to him because he taught me how to fix things and helped me through a rough time with my family. During this whole time, my family hated the church I went to. I'm Apostolic and my family said things like, you're in a cult and constantly tried to prove that what I believe was wrong. I was always able to show them in the Bible what I believe but I handled it wrong.

After some time, I started dating the pastor's daughter. The whole time we were dating, the pastor acted odd. I chalked it down to being that she was his only daughter. (I found out later that he was molesting his daughter) The pastor and his family were like the family I never had. The pastors wife even told me I was like one of her kids. When I started asking the pastors daughter about her thoughts on maybe getting married one day our pastor told me that we needed to break up. I stopped going over there as much and started M more.

 

Day 54 no PM, 8 days out from last relapse.

Yesterday was a bad day for my wife. Most every morning, R and I get up around 3:30 am. I make a quick breakfast then she goes to the gym. After she leaves, I pray and work on my recovery. I got on the Jordan Gray website, I had forgotten that R told me not to go there unless she was with me. Then, when I got to work, I used the nofap app and hit emergency, hoping some article about PA would show up so I could read about PA. Then, throughout the day, I wrote in my journal about some very hard things.

My wife has an app that can see everything I see. So she got on her app and saw that I was on a website I wasn't supposed to be on without her, that I hit the emergency button, and I was writing some hurtful memories down. She was being triggered hard, thinking I was on the verge of a relapse and I was not telling her.

We talked later and I made a internet list.
1. Let her know what I'm looking up.
2. I'm not going to Jordan Gray website without her.
3. I will let her know if I use nofap app

 

Day 55 no PM, 9 days out from last relapse.

It's been 3 weeks since R and I had been to therapy and last night we went. Therapy went well, I showed the therapist my lists and told her about some of the videos R and I have been watching. When R and I started therapy, we were in a very bad place. Truth be told, last time we saw the therapist we were in a bad place.

In the last 3 weeks I've started doing my lists ( similar 2 @Rock_star lists) and they are helping our marriage tremendously. I feel like R is starting to trust me again and I can't put into words how good that feels.

"Trust is the corner stone of a marriage and lying is a sledgehammer." WillSquirrel (I like to think I can come up with cool quotes )

Trust is the one thing I don't want to lose and I do worry I will mess up. I tell myself as long as I'm completely open with R, I know we will be OK.

 

Day 59 no PM and 13 days from last relapse.

Had a very stressful weekend. From the outside, it would have seemed good. Got out of the house Saturday and went to the mall. While we were at the mall, the kids played at the play-place and the wife got some perfume. Went home and the wife made shrimp fajitas, and for the first time in a long time, I got to play a video game.

What made this weekend stressful was just a feeling of being overwhelmed, tired and worried. Went to church on Sunday and that made us feel better. I played a video game with the kids and when they went to bed, I did some homework and played a little more.

It's now Monday and I have messed up. I played games too much this weekend and played on my phone when I first got to work. My wife called me on the phone and confronted me about my game use.

I admitted I have been going crazy over playing games the last few days. The truth is there are days I get worn out with all this PMO stuff and I've not gotten to relax and stop worrying since D-day. It's nice not to have to think or worry. I know I took it too far though the last few days. I let playing a game consumed my life and let everything and everyone fall by the way side. I didn't take out the trash, make sure the kids have clean cups, or post anything on nofap yesterday. These are things I usually do everyday or every other day to help my wife. I can't stop worrying about my addiction not for a long time if I'm going to over come it.

The addict in me says, "I don't need nofap, and to constantly be learning more about my addiction. Just don't ogle everything and don't lie and that's all you need to rewire your brain." I know it's not true because it takes learning about a problem to find a solution.