The Opposite of Addiction is Connection (840 days of freedom)

SkyFallBack · Dec 4, 2017

acceptance&surrender said: ↑

I've been thinking about this question a lot, and how to respond to it well.

I think that staying in the present is the secret to my happiness. This is easier said than done, because I find myself a lot of the time feeling I simply can't enjoy the present as much as I want to. There's guilt and shame, resentments, expectations, greed and a million other things that bear me down a lot of the time and so what I try to do during the week in preparation for more socialization in the upcoming weekend is whatever I can to quell everything and anything drawing any energy from me, in order to make myself as absolutely naturally present as possible for any given social event.

Doing this requires doing things I don't necessarily feel like doing. This is confusing because my purpose for doing these things is to make myself more readily able to respond and act truthfully according to my feelings. It doesn't really make sense logically that in order to be able to do this I have to do disciplined actions which conflict with them 80% of the time, if not more than that. Things like quitting porn, boosting your self-esteem with regular exercise, doing the same by keeping a clean room and house, even eating less than you want sometimes helps me have a clearer mind and makes me more confident in myself. Not to mention what has recently seemed to become most essential to me: making sure I'm giving my job my all. If I half-ass work, I half-ass my weekend, and get half-assed happiness.

Fighting PMO I find myself attempting to draw security from the good on the other side of the struggle, basically focusing on the carrot at the end of the stick that doesn't even seem real from my porn addicted perspective. Because of this I have to work really hard to fantasize it into my reality. This way of thinking was and is immensely crucial and helpful for me because I am able to remind myself what's worth the struggle.

The fantasy of who I can be (and by the way, some of which I have become) and undertaking the actions to become that person feel very different from each other. It's easier to believe that I can be that person when the fantasy is already in my head. But a lot of the time it's gone, like any time I experience all the fear/pain/discipline involved in the actions I undertake. So what do I do when the fantasy just won't come to me? My helpful fantasizing gets distorted. There seems to be a fine line between fantasizing to encourage throwing myself through fear and pain into discipline, and doing so simply to avoid feeling these things. The fantasizing is not exclusive to potential reality, so my brain moves easily from "here's what I can be, and this pain is helping me get there," to "this pain is not comfortable, so lets convince our self that we are already who we want to become." Basically, spending a lot of time in the pink cloud just turns into pride and convincing myself that I'm better than everyone else, which easily snaps back into insecurity and using unhealthy social habits to simply make myself feel better throughout a whole social event rather than forgetting about my damned comfort and putting myself into reality and out there for anyone to see, because in doing this I can be enabled to see them better.

The fantasizing can get out of whack, but that shouldn't take any credence from that reality worth fantasizing about.

I think the most important thing for us to remember is not to be surprised by a feeling of doubt or apathy; the potential is as present as that fantasy in your head at its strongest impression, despite its concurrent deceptive tendencies.
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Thank you for the reply. It's immensely helpful.

I will learn to be more like you as in being more present (even if it contradicts with my goal) and accept the pain in order to become the person I want to be.

Arohanui · Dec 5, 2017

acceptance&surrender said: ↑

I have come to a point in my recovery where I experience daily a reality in which I am less afraid of being afraid, and am compassionate enough to expose myself truthfully to others. In so doing I have felt enabled to experience a filter free reception of people. This transforms the world I thought I knew every day. My brilliant conclusions about it all get turned upside down. I stop waiting for things to happen in a world I already know about, and start seeking in every moment new Truth and life in a world I know nothing of. Embracing this fear and uncertainty, I am made anew.

I actively listen to others and respond truthfully. Their words flow in without my visualizing them, and I simply respond on impulse. Life flows through my limbs without overexciting them. I am more comfortable with discomfort. My heart is more capable of receiving those around me, and my energy gained through abstinence from PMO flows out of me and infects others with happiness and inspiration (at the very least, positivity). I haven't been able to use this energy in this way ever before. It was there, but I kept it all balled up inside of me, spending it on pursuits more personal, although still positive and constructive, nothing so involved. It stank of pride.

Now I feel it has become more akin to charity: I get over myself enough to direct my full attention to who a person I am socializing with is. I ask where they're from, what they studied, what they like. I ask these questions, but I really ask them, not because I want to watch myself in my mind's eye be social and cross that box off my "self-development activities" list, but because I can only see the outside of the person in front of me and want to understand the intangible things that comprise that person’s character. Embracing a fear of silence in conversation, and revealing my hearts most inward emotional reactions discernible in their physical expressions gives me a heightened awareness of who they are. This awareness is not a series of Sherlockian deductions, but is more of an emotional presence. Scarier, but more real and more fun. From a place of humility, I open myself up to being affected by all of their actions and allow my emotional subconscious and an existence I am less certain of control the topics of conversation. I surprise myself every time with how much I end up having to say, and from a place of confidence and self-esteem I boldly allow my reactions towards all their actions rise to the surface, un-dampened by any distracting ideas of what a smooth conversation “should” look like, simply allowing the life to happen. I more often than not say it all very smoothly too, and charmingly. I ask questions about them directly relevant to the immediate surroundings and circumstances, controlling myself for just a second to think about their personality in the context of the situation we are socializing in, and a smooth, charming, friendly and fun guy comes out.

I’m finding true worthwhile communication to be not so much in the words exchanged as it is in living truthfully with another person. Instead of a sterile exchange of words and opinions which one or the other might be proud of, it becomes responding to mannerisms and facial expressions, acting with a profound sense of tone someone is carrying, and other things that I'm sure linger in my subconscious but cannot elaborate on. These are things that bring out subtext, and this is where the communication really happens. I am fulfilled in my social life in a way I've never been fulfilled before, and its FUN! SO MUCH FUN!

I think there is pre-requisite self-esteem necessary to experience this, but this process brings additional self-esteem and fulfillment on another level. Communication and life have become so much more. By embracing my fear (which don't get me wrong, is hard every time I have to do it when I enter a conversation. I’m never fully ready to do it), and laying myself bare in a conversation, I get back so much more than I've ever gotten from life before.

Interacting with people in this open-hearted way has surprised me about so many things. It makes me feel that I’m just going down the aisle of categories in my life and redefining everything, or at least cracking ideas open to more interpretations. My intention with approaching people more openly was originally one of those self-development activities that I build myself up with. I thought living with others this way would simply make me smoother and more attractive to others. It does this, but I started developing real levels of trust with others. I am making a ton of friends (guys and girls). My understanding of friendship has been utterly transformed.

What’s being taken from us by PMO is very real. Conversely, our lives are waiting to be transformed in a way that we actually cannot imagine from the imprisonment of our PMO state of existence (as useful as it is to try). It’s so good it's commonly been described as becoming a superhero. But the overwhelming nature of my discovery makes me think that I can’t really relate it to you with words alone. This is simply what life was meant to be all along. People are drawn to this, even without an ability to perceive what it could really be like for themselves. It's allowed me to get along with people I could never have imagined getting along with before.

I think we in this community know that what we’ve lost includes a lot of different things, but can’t say the reasons for which they are all connected. I think the greatest reason to be motivated to join the fight is the experience of connection I have found myself in, and this existence is no category of life, but encapsulates all of it. It’s living truthfully with another human being. In this the possibilities are endless. Perspectives are transformed, motivation is multiplied infinitely, energy skyrockets. With others, we can go from crawling to flying.

Watch these videos and you might be satisfied with an understanding of the idea of this all-encapsulating ability inside of you merited simply by being a human being (although more particularly for men). But I think the only way to experience it is to be wary of how much you involve yourself in the pink cloud fantasizing about what you can be, and to make sure that despite all of this, you cannot live your life with any certainty about your faculties, at least the ones that involve human interaction. I think this is what people mean when they say there is never a right time to do something. I think preconceived notions about anything, even if they’re actually 100% true, really stand in the way of being self-less and other seeking, and keep us in our own way of becoming truly happy.

Mark Queppet describes an energy gained from abstinence as a “retraining of your emotional system.” Addiction cripples it, and abstinence empowers what is otherwise difficult to even be aware of, much less empower.

I think this retraining of my emotional system is part of what makes me feel alive. I feel that I’ve taken hold and started utilizing a better part of me. It’s a part I can’t quantify or analyze, but a part that makes life more uncertain and amazing. This part of me connects me with the world around me, and that’s the whole point. We cannot do anything alone. PMO and other addictions keep us alone. Recovery brings us together.
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Hey there,

thank you for sharing your amazing story and insights with us. I´ve been experiencing exactly the same as you are right now. After a few failed attempts i was finnaly able to reaach 90+ days of noFap while travelling the world. I noticed huge improvements in every area of my life, but most importantly of all i felt so real, like i finally knew who i was. This connection you´re talking about is the most beautiful thing i experienced during that time, just truthfully being yourself in every situation and thus reaching the hidden true self in others. I was so happy and positive, took responsibility and felt like i had positive impact on everyone around me. I was amazed by everyone, I learnt new things each day and I knew that I´ve found wwhat life is really about. As you described it: It was like living without any filters, I was real and thus I saw the world and other people how they really are as well. It was all so beautiful.

Then something I still don´t understand happened and i lost touch to all that positivy and my connection to myself and basically everything just faded. I was getting depressed and relapsed after maybe 150ish days. Since then I´m living with depersonalisation and derealisation. I don´t know if you´ve heard of this before, it is basically the exact opposite of connection. Way worse than ususal depression. You just don´t feel like a human anymore, you don´t recognise yourself anymore, you look at your hand and it doesn´t feel like yours. The whole world around you seems unreal, things and people you knew very well seem strange and all this is super frightening. It´s a neverending feeling of fear and anxiety. It´s like I once knew who i was and now i don´t exist anymore, moreover sometimes i question wether i ever existed. Well anyways, its the same as the feelings you´re describing in this post, words are not enough.

For me it feels like i felt pure light/enlightenment (basically what you are experiencing right now) and then i´ve been to rock bottom. I can´t imagine anything being worse to experience as a human being than dp/dr. I nearly lost hope in between and was close to hurting myself.

Now to come to the point that i wanted to get to all along Thank you, Thank you so much for giving me some more hope, it felt like my old self was speaking to me through your post and I know that i will feel like this again in some time.

I assume that you are very clear and sharp with your mind at the moment, so maybe if you have an impulsive idea, to why My experience of life changed so dramatically or what it´s all about please share that

Have a wounderful day, you are indeed a great human being.

Lots of Love

Repentance Gorgon · Dec 5, 2017

Arohanui said: ↑

Hey there,

thank you for sharing your amazing story and insights with us. I´ve been experiencing exactly the same as you are right now. After a few failed attempts i was finnaly able to reaach 90+ days of noFap while travelling the world. I noticed huge improvements in every area of my life, but most importantly of all i felt so real, like i finally knew who i was. This connection you´re talking about is the most beautiful thing i experienced during that time, just truthfully being yourself in every situation and thus reaching the hidden true self in others. I was so happy and positive, took responsibility and felt like i had positive impact on everyone around me. I was amazed by everyone, I learnt new things each day and I knew that I´ve found wwhat life is really about. As you described it: It was like living without any filters, I was real and thus I saw the world and other people how they really are as well. It was all so beautiful.

Then something I still don´t understand happened and i lost touch to all that positivy and my connection to myself and basically everything just faded. I was getting depressed and relapsed after maybe 150ish days. Since then I´m living with depersonalisation and derealisation. I don´t know if you´ve heard of this before, it is basically the exact opposite of connection. Way worse than ususal depression. You just don´t feel like a human anymore, you don´t recognise yourself anymore, you look at your hand and it doesn´t feel like yours. The whole world around you seems unreal, things and people you knew very well seem strange and all this is super frightening. It´s a neverending feeling of fear and anxiety. It´s like I once knew who i was and now i don´t exist anymore, moreover sometimes i question wether i ever existed. Well anyways, its the same as the feelings you´re describing in this post, words are not enough.

For me it feels like i felt pure light/enlightenment (basically what you are experiencing right now) and then i´ve been to rock bottom. I can´t imagine anything being worse to experience as a human being than dp/dr. I nearly lost hope in between and was close to hurting myself.

Now to come to the point that i wanted to get to all along Thank you, Thank you so much for giving me some more hope, it felt like my old self was speaking to me through your post and I know that i will feel like this again in some time.

I assume that you are very clear and sharp with your mind at the moment, so maybe if you have an impulsive idea, to why My experience of life changed so dramatically or what it´s all about please share that

Have a wounderful day, you are indeed a great human being.

Lots of Love
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This so heartwarming to hear... all of you are amazing people! You have no idea how this is gives me strength in my struggle to overcome this thing on daily basis.
It makes me remember of being kid, pure and peace.
I can't describe of How I want to experience this in my life..
May God gives you all of you the strength and happiness in your life buddy!

5zenses · Dec 13, 2017

Congrats brother, well written.
The ordinary person sees everything through the filter of his or her desires, memories, prejudices and wants; the enlightened person `sees things as they really are'.

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The Opposite of Addiction is Connection (840 days of freedom)

SkyFallBack Fapstronaut

Arohanui Fapstronaut

Repentance Gorgon Fapstronaut

5zenses New Fapstronaut