Are you a shadow of your former self?

I feel the same way. However, there is still good in you. Remember that; I have to keep reminding myself that. My brother, who knows my struggles, recently told me I need to fight feelings of shame. Keep moving forward!

 

I feel the same way. A younger me would be disappointed in the present day me. It breaks my heart to think about. I mourn the version of me I thought I would become. And I mourn the old me. A lot of my struggles are with mental health too. I deal with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, personality disorder. I didn’t cause those. But my actions are what lead to my pmo problem. I think we should feel brave knowing that we are confronting something big in our lives. It’s no small thing to confront an addiction like this.

I read recently that people with higher levels of happiness and contentment in life have this ability of blocking out the bad in the world and in their life. They are able to tell themselves stories about their life and the world that aren’t so bad. Almost like they build their own delusion of the world. And the people with depression are the ones with the mental illness? Delulu is the solulu I guess.

 

sorry to hear you are struggling. When was your last relapse? Just want to know of you a struggling through a cycle of relapses or symptoms

 

yes I’m 31. The world seems to be changing at a rapid pace. But maybe that’s just the way of things. Yea i find it hard to be hopeful sometimes too. I definitely try to seek out things that make me hopeful. Maybe don’t look for a normal girl? What is normal anyway?

 

Quite right, mate. PMO has not led to anything worthwhile, just a few moments of extreme pleasures for which we traded the best and most important part of our lives. Being aware of this sickness helps us defeat this evil and eventually gain back what it stole from us. We might be encircled by this cloud of darkness but the rays of light are around and soon ready to shine bright.

 

Thanks for letting me know. Sounds like your primary goal in life at this point should be to find a way to remain pmo free. Especially since it has been such a long time for you. Sounds ridiculous when i say it like that, of course it is hard but you should have the experience now to get your recovery on the right track.

one of the worst things you can do for yourself is focus on the outside world or what others are doing. Being angry or upset at whats going on around you is not helpful so instead, focus on whats going on internally and work outwards.

to get out of this you will have to put recovery before everything else, in my opinion thats the only way. Gotta make some sacrifices to get where we want to go.

 

There’s definitely value in finding your tribe. Whether that be a friend group, or family, or relationship, or some other group. I certainly value knowing what’s going on in the world which is mostly a total bummer. I also value my own well being. And that should be my priority. There’s nothing more important than my well being because if I can’t get that taken care of then I can’t effectively help anyone else.

 

I think its definitely possible. For me i never saw progress until i prioritised my recovery first and foremost. What do you mean that you are not a typical addict?

hmm i have always put more focus on the individual than anything that is external. It is our own fault that we all ended up here. I couldn't care less on what is going on around me, as im so focused my own recovery. Of course i experience jealousy at others who seem to be in a better place than i am but in general ive made my peace with where im at.

 

This resonates completely.

I'm in my mid-40s. When I was a kid, I remember being so much more engaged in life. I was attentive, curious, fascinated ... I could focus, my mind was always asking questions, trying to figure things out ... I was just active, physically and mentally.

After decades of addictive conditioning, I struggle with consistently feeling like I'm checked-out, almost on autopilot. It feels like I'm just going through the motions of life and not truly being present or engaged. Even though I can read and digest complex material, it feels like I'm doing it through a thick haze of brain fog, and I know this is predominantly due to brain chemistry changes as a result of my addiction.

Porn hasn't been an issue in quite some time, thank goodness (largely because my personal devices are filtered), but M/O are still difficult for me, since they're always so easily accessible (blocking porn has definitely helped reduce MO, but unfortunately I still have a mountain of real-life experiences that provide euphoric recall whenever I want to call them up in my memory).

Lately, whenever I've felt tempted to MO, I remind myself: I want my old brain back. I want to feel that same engaged, "alive" feeling I had when I was a kid. And I know I'll get there. It just takes time for the brain to heal, and it requires that I completely abstain from the behaviors that hold me back.

 

They only seem that way.

There's a reading in SAA 12-step groups that says, "our insides didn't match what we saw on the outsides of others." At first I thought it was a typo because it just read weird to me. Then it didn't even make sense--why would we expect our insides to match someone else's outsides? That's comparing apples to oranges. But then I realized that's exactly what we do. We compare our complete knowledge of self--all of our insecurities, imperfections, weaknesses, and self-criticisms--and size it up against the carefully-curated public images of our peers and of society at-large. When we do that, we will see ourselves as inferior every single time.

This clip of Jordan Peterson is fantastic. Don't compare yourself to the people you only know the partial truth about--compare yourself to who you were yesterday. (And for me, if I'm staying sober, I can always say "I have more sobriety now than I did yesterday.")