Juliusjulius1907
Fapstronaut
Over the past week or two I've had a huge racial fetish problem, it's shown up out of nowhere as a compulsive and intrusive plethora of thoughts, triggers and insecurities (what doesn't help is the fact that I am mixed, while white, the mixture in my family is enough to make my nostrils and lips different from everyone else and I tan olive easier, so in certain lighting and angles I look less Caucasian and European which confuses me and has led to negative sounding banter from randos, it has been a source of insecurities and shame that has for a couple of years, been mostly unconscious- till now)
(it also doesn't help that- for those who don't know: I am autistic, literally- does anyone have any idea how this effects my addiction and paraphilism? and ofc how this may effect my recovery and chances of getting what I want from it?)
Its been gnawing at me since the 20th of Jan when it was awakened by an incident where I was exhausted with zero hours of/no sleep which is bad for the brain (and results in a lack of self awareness and control) combined with a wikipedia/images doomscroll where the topic of race and ethnicity came up (for an art project) then i looked at various images of the faces of POC, but that then released dopamine in relation to the fetish, which led to fighting and stress in the mind and the haze of it all probably crossed some wires or reawakened some dopamine receptor conditioning, what didn't help was that in the following days I searched up 2 triggering images that stayed in my mind from the incident atleast once, but in short I didn't fap or watch porn or anything all that sexual then but the whole issue has been stuck on my mind, and at first I seemed to be recovering from this powerful thrust of fetishising and obsessing over race (particularly that of non-white people, usually lighter than africans but still different from europeans, like middle easterners and asians)
however that slow and almost invisible recovery has been ruined, because of my insecurities and obsessiveness, but before I tell what happended yesterday (Feb 12th 2025) it is important to note this particular fetish didn't come from nowhere on the 20th, It has tempted me and toyed with my mind and perception throughout all this run since April 2024, and it has been present, and particularly the whole asian, yellow fever (that's not a nice term) thing has been a thing since I moved to it through escalation and masturbation- as you do in this addiction, early on in my pmo shenanigans when I was probably 12, about 8 or 9 something years ago, it didn't help that when I was in my teenage HS years that it (among other things) led into me becoming a weeb and watching anime, and that ofc led to the hentai and cartoon porn rabbithole that made things worse in the long run, but that's a different topic entirely- now thankfully I don't watch anime anymore lol, last I watched was in like may or june and not of my own volition but a family members and the show wasn't half bad: Hajime no Ippo.
But back to the point: I escalated away towards more outlandish things from the racial fetish thing ages ago and only had a similar but more depraved one that took root in 2022 or 23' and it kind of blended in with the rest of them this recovery, and the last vestiges of it were present with what happened to me on the 20th of Jan and it's aftermath, and since then it's like this old fetish has come back to haunt me, and it feels more powerful in that I can't refute it and instantly get it out of my head like the others, the feeling of it stays and it pops in my head, again my insecurities don't help, as for the past few weeks the most asinine and false crap has appeared in my thoughts and perception: I find myself subconsciously fretting over my own race and focusing on things that don't matter like the insinuation in my thoughts (even though I don't believe it) for example the bigoted and outdated notion that Italians or Spaniards or Greeks aren't white and that having a tan means your skin isn't white and that brown eyes make you different from other white people and the same for dark hair, even though I'm blue eyed though still dark haired, I'm not even Italian, my family's largely British and French from the little that I do know of them, and I have nothing against Mediterranean people.
All of this indicates that yes, I am insecure about my mixed African heritage, and that I'm unconsciously paranoid about who is and isn't white even though I shouldn't be, because what ever your opinions on race itself, your own race and race relations in general are (hopefully they're not negative) can we all agree that you shouldn't be a rabid, paranoid, obsessive a-hole about it? not to mention it's bad and creepy as hell to fetishize race? (or really anything for that matter)
Now I can tell of what happened, I woke up in the morning, very early and and tired and I sleep in till seven or eight (9 on bad mornings) and then wake up, but like usual as of late, much like the aforementioned recent bout of racial fetishism, I've been spending too much time on my phone, 30 minutes to an hour each morning before getting up (i'm doing that rn typing this, I gotta hurry up and have breakfast) and each night before bed, even worse on bad days where I just want to distract myself from urges even if it doesn't work.
Like with what happened yesterday:
I get on my phone, to have something to focus on so I can wake up and wipe the crust off my eyes, but the thoughts have been swimming through my tired mind obsessively, and obsessively I've been trying to dispell them, show my disgust, that hidden natural reaction that should appear against fetishism, so I look up an image from a YouTube thumbnail that has been tempting me since the beginning of the month (inbetween or including the 4th-7th I think) and has come to represent this particular part of the bout of Asian fetishism, thinking that well even though it tempts me very much and I don't want it to, I've shaken this off and ignored it before like I have with all the other triggers over the past 300 days, well I looked this image up and two more, one of the model herself and another I am forgetting, I don't get aroused at the time in any way, it's just the same feelings of pressure and air and stress and dopamine in my head, apparently I needed to show my mind the disgustingness of it, how gross and perverse this fetish is and how weird and pornographic it is to obsess over someone's race, that I never found attractive before porn or that much outside of beating off to a fetish, getting the novelty and rush of being lustful towards something alien, and exotic, something taboo to some, strange to others.. and yet so familiar, because the images made them look ambiguous, atleast to my tired, obsessive and fetishizing mind (and the most triggering one that led to all this was doubly so) so the worst part is all of the images, being in relation to my colour-based insecurities and delusions that feed the fetish, is that even though the fetish wanted to latch onto whiteness and the obsession about mere skin colour and the illusion that "there isn't an asian fetish because look at there skin colour and features! so pale and round! and look they're brown eyed and dark haired too! and if that means italians and brown eyed white people are just as white as blonde blue eyed white people (just ignore that green, grey and hazel eyes exist!) then they're basically, kinda, maybe white! there is no fetish! Julius! why are you still so uncomfortable with the thoughts, flashbacks and urges I'm giving you? don't you see? there is no fetish, it's all natural like you wanted! It isn't deviantart crap=not visceral=not a fetish=natural=healthy=just beat it" that's the so called logic of the fetish addiction here that I can (you can see the racial and other insecurities I have that I spoke of) but I could tell that this was a fetish, because depsite not being visceral it was still very perverse and very freaky, and being a fetish it is depraved and unnatural and unhealthy, I could also tell that these girls weren't white, they were asian (and that's ok) and they probably hadn't gone out in the sun and and put on makeup and eye contacts and liner and lashes and the pictures were probably taken in specialised lighting conditions with very precise camera angles to make them seem more attractive than any one of any race in real life, almost... no literally to an unrealistic and illusory degree (which all porn and photoshoots do) even though my addicted brain didn't want me to see the truth, it wanted to reinforce those delusions of skin colour and fetishism and what they both came from: the paranoid obsessive insecurities about race and colour.
Imagine if I told a POC (or any one for that matter) of all this racial objectification, jesus, remember why this fetish is disgusting, because all fetishes are and if you have a clear mind you can see why.
Anyhow this image surfing happened 2, maybe 3 or 4 more times, I can recall two more in the afternoon, and one more either at a desk or fucking hell, sitting on toilet (but that could be a false memory, because if I do bring my phone there I usually play games or read the news or some other piece.
It feels like I fucked up big time, but that's the funny thing, I never did look at outright porn that day, nor did I even get really aroused in the way of being actually turned on or getting anything resembling a boner from the p sub images or any of the intrusive thoughts and insinuations of the fetish and the insecurity it stems from, so I didn't mo, the only image that was close to porn was the one of the most ambiguous looking girl because she was wearing a revealing swimsuit and had a nice bod, but that was the most revealing image, what the focus was, was their race, was their features, was the ambiguity, the novelty and the paranoia about who is and isn't white, don't you see how ridiculous this is? the fetish can't, I mean come on? the addiction and insecurity makes it hard for me to see southern europeans and brown eyed and tanned people as equally white as other whites, but asians (who I am insulting by fetishizing and being obsessive about their race and every other race) being paler than their own in SEA whilst also wearing makeup, eye contacts, and probably not going out in the sun enough, etc. etc. to look more white suddenly they're ambiguous? and Italians are also ambiguous? man I hate this addiction and fetishism, these literal illusions that aren't based in reality, or in fact, but in insecurites, trauma and porn categories, It makes me feel so gross, like I can't see properly because of porn, I hate that it clouds my judgement like this, that it literally makes me see race or think of race and other stressful things where I don't need to, and when I do I think of it improperly and start to obsess over a consideration, definition and distinction that should be easy to answer and put away, and forget about, and that for all intents and purposes isn't real!
so with all that, what does this mean? what do I do?
Another 2 bits of info is that my workout routine has declined from being 4 days a week since nov/dec to 2 days since my breakdown and other mini-attacks in early jan (what a good way this has been to start off 2025! :3) with varying levels of intensity and vigour, even though I try to keep it consistent with what it was in december-
and the other is that for while since nov/dec is that for a lot of days I woke up a good amount of days with strong boners and that trend has continued to now, though I don't know how long it'll last or if it's becoming a bad thing since I've begun to be harried by this suddenly strong of racial fetishism, dysmorphia, paranoia and identity obsession, though I guess what's good is that for a while I could get really hard and horny at times just by seeing a moderatly attractive woman irl, and my fantasies (usually dreams or when I'm tired in the morning) were mostly (consistently/on a more regular basis, but nowhere near 100% of the time) natural or vanilla, very little fetishism confusing me, trying to taking root and getting in the way, as all the other fetishes since the beginning of my journey have waned greatly to the point that they basically don't effect me (even if they do) if I don't pay them any mind or let them get to me, but maybe that's part of the problem, it gets to me! it pulls at one of my biggest traumas and insecurities and ignores my objections, the other fetishes did the former but worse, and eventually failed the latter, plus the addict for pmo within is so relieved that my perfection seeking self has given it a fetish to work with that isn't so visceral, and aren't the ones I struggled with for most of this journey (even though all fetishes are the same in that they are unnatural, come from the brain with the only input from instinct being your hormones telling the brain that you're horny and it sending signals to the closest source of arousal, in this case it's conditioned, trained paraphilia, in other words it's developed, acquired 'tastes', being not based in instinct and coming from pornographic consumption, masturbatory lethargy and other unhealthy sexual and mental habits, and as such they are psychological or illusory, a sort of spell or charm (I mean look up the etymology of the word fetish) perhaps a curse, (if you will) disgusting or depraved in some way, unseemly and to some or many: 'immoral' or 'ungodly', yes even though some 'sins' are worse than others, they are still sins: something bad or unhealthy that has risks to yourself or others, whether it is noticeable or subtle) basically the problem may be that I have the illusion of being cured because so many visceral immoral fetishes have been peeled back that the mind thinks it can just settle on this less visceral by comparison but still immoral fetish and call it a day, being lazy so it doesn't have to recover and destroy every fetish, just the ones it thinks caused me to go on nofap; so the addiction and novelty seeking brain is still there and I just gave it a boost by being vain and putting my shame and my desire to get rid of all my fetishes above anything that matters, like my responsibilities, my religion, my family, my income, etc. so in this case I was testing if it's even there by literally looking at triggering and confusing images that release dopamine and activate some sort of conditioned response, but how do I know if this was a relapse? I didn't get hard at all, only getting what has been usual all this time in regards to pmo and fetishes: slightly funny/tense feeling in top of head, right cheek, heart and centre of torso, anxiety, restlessness, increased urges and horniness, and maybe a bit of a feeling down there, but only ever a slight movement and wetness or puffiness that has been there for a long time and that probably has nothing to do with the urges of fetishism or pmo addiction at this point, arousal and hardness comes later after the body wants to be horny from all the triggers and being pent up at not beating it for so long.
My main fear of failure is that I looked at the stuff like 3 or 4 times and the effect that might have on me, this was a major slip up/setback and I've made my personal counter on the subject reflect that, the funny thing is I know it's all in my head, I was being a tired fool and simply let my shame and vanity get to me and control me, the problem was that it happened not once in the morning, but multiple times during the day, perhaps after the first time the addict brain rationalised it by reading the logic of "slipping up and accidentally or (in my case) otherwise looking at psubs or triggering or borderline content isn't a relapse if you don't let it become one and bug out before it escalates into p and/or mo binging" as "haha lol its ok to look bcz atleast it not something (visceral) like literal shit or blood and guts, or anything deviantart-tier, so u fine to look bcz it so bad it gud no yank-off or no go to da hub doe bcz suddenly that bad for some reason, even doe u let dis heben" instead of what it actually means "you made a mistake, try not to make it again, don't beat yourself up, don't escalate into any other bad behaviour, stop and roll with the punches but don't beat your meat either mate" also I should make the point that I don't agree with the logic that because this fetish isn't as visceral or violent or grotesque as some of the others that i've fought against that I should accept it, because it is less sickening than the others and it to me it feels more stronger and actually attractive to my mind, but not my body, because even though like all the other fetishes it stresses me out, something is off, and yes disgusting about it, I know it is unnatural and not becoming of me, I find it horribly immoral and unconscionable, I hate myself for having it, and it simply is depraved and I don't want to be depraved, I don't care how much it makes the addict part of my brain feel good and how it somehow ignores most of my objections to it unlike with the other fetishes, though I guess my other fetishes that are easy to object to now were like that earlier on in this run, so perhaps they have peeled back and an older and more unaddressed (in regards to both my personal issues and how the escalation into different categories by this addiction worked out over the years) fetish or paraphilia or kink or whatever, and now the demon curse within me, or rather the addict scum retreats to more stable ground to defend itself and secure a constant supply of dopamine? using my insecurities, paranoia, obsessiveness in general and the other bad habits in terms of racial, cultural and familial identity against me in a more direct way..... if that's the case have I been recovering or backsliding? or both? should I view this addiction and the battle against it like an onion with layers to peel back and the odour gets stronger and more domineering each layer peeled?
Regardless of anything, what do I do now and what do I expect? (for example) do I try atleast a week or two of dopamine fasting, or do I keep trying to distract myself with stuff and work? will I have to expect a heavy wind of urges, flashbacks and triggers, along with horniness and arousal towards sex and pleasure in general, or will this lead to another big flatline, where not much bothers me, but the absence of 'stimulus' in my mind and instead all my other issues in life? maybe it's (e) for all of the above at some point or other?
In relation to this subject, has anyone heard of 'unwanted' by jay stringer? someone here brought it up and the book piqued my interest, so what's the sell? the gist of it? is there anything In there that can help me in anyway with this particular issue? even an inkling?
(it also doesn't help that- for those who don't know: I am autistic, literally- does anyone have any idea how this effects my addiction and paraphilism? and ofc how this may effect my recovery and chances of getting what I want from it?)
Its been gnawing at me since the 20th of Jan when it was awakened by an incident where I was exhausted with zero hours of/no sleep which is bad for the brain (and results in a lack of self awareness and control) combined with a wikipedia/images doomscroll where the topic of race and ethnicity came up (for an art project) then i looked at various images of the faces of POC, but that then released dopamine in relation to the fetish, which led to fighting and stress in the mind and the haze of it all probably crossed some wires or reawakened some dopamine receptor conditioning, what didn't help was that in the following days I searched up 2 triggering images that stayed in my mind from the incident atleast once, but in short I didn't fap or watch porn or anything all that sexual then but the whole issue has been stuck on my mind, and at first I seemed to be recovering from this powerful thrust of fetishising and obsessing over race (particularly that of non-white people, usually lighter than africans but still different from europeans, like middle easterners and asians)
however that slow and almost invisible recovery has been ruined, because of my insecurities and obsessiveness, but before I tell what happended yesterday (Feb 12th 2025) it is important to note this particular fetish didn't come from nowhere on the 20th, It has tempted me and toyed with my mind and perception throughout all this run since April 2024, and it has been present, and particularly the whole asian, yellow fever (that's not a nice term) thing has been a thing since I moved to it through escalation and masturbation- as you do in this addiction, early on in my pmo shenanigans when I was probably 12, about 8 or 9 something years ago, it didn't help that when I was in my teenage HS years that it (among other things) led into me becoming a weeb and watching anime, and that ofc led to the hentai and cartoon porn rabbithole that made things worse in the long run, but that's a different topic entirely- now thankfully I don't watch anime anymore lol, last I watched was in like may or june and not of my own volition but a family members and the show wasn't half bad: Hajime no Ippo.
But back to the point: I escalated away towards more outlandish things from the racial fetish thing ages ago and only had a similar but more depraved one that took root in 2022 or 23' and it kind of blended in with the rest of them this recovery, and the last vestiges of it were present with what happened to me on the 20th of Jan and it's aftermath, and since then it's like this old fetish has come back to haunt me, and it feels more powerful in that I can't refute it and instantly get it out of my head like the others, the feeling of it stays and it pops in my head, again my insecurities don't help, as for the past few weeks the most asinine and false crap has appeared in my thoughts and perception: I find myself subconsciously fretting over my own race and focusing on things that don't matter like the insinuation in my thoughts (even though I don't believe it) for example the bigoted and outdated notion that Italians or Spaniards or Greeks aren't white and that having a tan means your skin isn't white and that brown eyes make you different from other white people and the same for dark hair, even though I'm blue eyed though still dark haired, I'm not even Italian, my family's largely British and French from the little that I do know of them, and I have nothing against Mediterranean people.
All of this indicates that yes, I am insecure about my mixed African heritage, and that I'm unconsciously paranoid about who is and isn't white even though I shouldn't be, because what ever your opinions on race itself, your own race and race relations in general are (hopefully they're not negative) can we all agree that you shouldn't be a rabid, paranoid, obsessive a-hole about it? not to mention it's bad and creepy as hell to fetishize race? (or really anything for that matter)
Now I can tell of what happened, I woke up in the morning, very early and and tired and I sleep in till seven or eight (9 on bad mornings) and then wake up, but like usual as of late, much like the aforementioned recent bout of racial fetishism, I've been spending too much time on my phone, 30 minutes to an hour each morning before getting up (i'm doing that rn typing this, I gotta hurry up and have breakfast) and each night before bed, even worse on bad days where I just want to distract myself from urges even if it doesn't work.
Like with what happened yesterday:
I get on my phone, to have something to focus on so I can wake up and wipe the crust off my eyes, but the thoughts have been swimming through my tired mind obsessively, and obsessively I've been trying to dispell them, show my disgust, that hidden natural reaction that should appear against fetishism, so I look up an image from a YouTube thumbnail that has been tempting me since the beginning of the month (inbetween or including the 4th-7th I think) and has come to represent this particular part of the bout of Asian fetishism, thinking that well even though it tempts me very much and I don't want it to, I've shaken this off and ignored it before like I have with all the other triggers over the past 300 days, well I looked this image up and two more, one of the model herself and another I am forgetting, I don't get aroused at the time in any way, it's just the same feelings of pressure and air and stress and dopamine in my head, apparently I needed to show my mind the disgustingness of it, how gross and perverse this fetish is and how weird and pornographic it is to obsess over someone's race, that I never found attractive before porn or that much outside of beating off to a fetish, getting the novelty and rush of being lustful towards something alien, and exotic, something taboo to some, strange to others.. and yet so familiar, because the images made them look ambiguous, atleast to my tired, obsessive and fetishizing mind (and the most triggering one that led to all this was doubly so) so the worst part is all of the images, being in relation to my colour-based insecurities and delusions that feed the fetish, is that even though the fetish wanted to latch onto whiteness and the obsession about mere skin colour and the illusion that "there isn't an asian fetish because look at there skin colour and features! so pale and round! and look they're brown eyed and dark haired too! and if that means italians and brown eyed white people are just as white as blonde blue eyed white people (just ignore that green, grey and hazel eyes exist!) then they're basically, kinda, maybe white! there is no fetish! Julius! why are you still so uncomfortable with the thoughts, flashbacks and urges I'm giving you? don't you see? there is no fetish, it's all natural like you wanted! It isn't deviantart crap=not visceral=not a fetish=natural=healthy=just beat it" that's the so called logic of the fetish addiction here that I can (you can see the racial and other insecurities I have that I spoke of) but I could tell that this was a fetish, because depsite not being visceral it was still very perverse and very freaky, and being a fetish it is depraved and unnatural and unhealthy, I could also tell that these girls weren't white, they were asian (and that's ok) and they probably hadn't gone out in the sun and and put on makeup and eye contacts and liner and lashes and the pictures were probably taken in specialised lighting conditions with very precise camera angles to make them seem more attractive than any one of any race in real life, almost... no literally to an unrealistic and illusory degree (which all porn and photoshoots do) even though my addicted brain didn't want me to see the truth, it wanted to reinforce those delusions of skin colour and fetishism and what they both came from: the paranoid obsessive insecurities about race and colour.
Imagine if I told a POC (or any one for that matter) of all this racial objectification, jesus, remember why this fetish is disgusting, because all fetishes are and if you have a clear mind you can see why.
Anyhow this image surfing happened 2, maybe 3 or 4 more times, I can recall two more in the afternoon, and one more either at a desk or fucking hell, sitting on toilet (but that could be a false memory, because if I do bring my phone there I usually play games or read the news or some other piece.
It feels like I fucked up big time, but that's the funny thing, I never did look at outright porn that day, nor did I even get really aroused in the way of being actually turned on or getting anything resembling a boner from the p sub images or any of the intrusive thoughts and insinuations of the fetish and the insecurity it stems from, so I didn't mo, the only image that was close to porn was the one of the most ambiguous looking girl because she was wearing a revealing swimsuit and had a nice bod, but that was the most revealing image, what the focus was, was their race, was their features, was the ambiguity, the novelty and the paranoia about who is and isn't white, don't you see how ridiculous this is? the fetish can't, I mean come on? the addiction and insecurity makes it hard for me to see southern europeans and brown eyed and tanned people as equally white as other whites, but asians (who I am insulting by fetishizing and being obsessive about their race and every other race) being paler than their own in SEA whilst also wearing makeup, eye contacts, and probably not going out in the sun enough, etc. etc. to look more white suddenly they're ambiguous? and Italians are also ambiguous? man I hate this addiction and fetishism, these literal illusions that aren't based in reality, or in fact, but in insecurites, trauma and porn categories, It makes me feel so gross, like I can't see properly because of porn, I hate that it clouds my judgement like this, that it literally makes me see race or think of race and other stressful things where I don't need to, and when I do I think of it improperly and start to obsess over a consideration, definition and distinction that should be easy to answer and put away, and forget about, and that for all intents and purposes isn't real!
so with all that, what does this mean? what do I do?
Another 2 bits of info is that my workout routine has declined from being 4 days a week since nov/dec to 2 days since my breakdown and other mini-attacks in early jan (what a good way this has been to start off 2025! :3) with varying levels of intensity and vigour, even though I try to keep it consistent with what it was in december-
and the other is that for while since nov/dec is that for a lot of days I woke up a good amount of days with strong boners and that trend has continued to now, though I don't know how long it'll last or if it's becoming a bad thing since I've begun to be harried by this suddenly strong of racial fetishism, dysmorphia, paranoia and identity obsession, though I guess what's good is that for a while I could get really hard and horny at times just by seeing a moderatly attractive woman irl, and my fantasies (usually dreams or when I'm tired in the morning) were mostly (consistently/on a more regular basis, but nowhere near 100% of the time) natural or vanilla, very little fetishism confusing me, trying to taking root and getting in the way, as all the other fetishes since the beginning of my journey have waned greatly to the point that they basically don't effect me (even if they do) if I don't pay them any mind or let them get to me, but maybe that's part of the problem, it gets to me! it pulls at one of my biggest traumas and insecurities and ignores my objections, the other fetishes did the former but worse, and eventually failed the latter, plus the addict for pmo within is so relieved that my perfection seeking self has given it a fetish to work with that isn't so visceral, and aren't the ones I struggled with for most of this journey (even though all fetishes are the same in that they are unnatural, come from the brain with the only input from instinct being your hormones telling the brain that you're horny and it sending signals to the closest source of arousal, in this case it's conditioned, trained paraphilia, in other words it's developed, acquired 'tastes', being not based in instinct and coming from pornographic consumption, masturbatory lethargy and other unhealthy sexual and mental habits, and as such they are psychological or illusory, a sort of spell or charm (I mean look up the etymology of the word fetish) perhaps a curse, (if you will) disgusting or depraved in some way, unseemly and to some or many: 'immoral' or 'ungodly', yes even though some 'sins' are worse than others, they are still sins: something bad or unhealthy that has risks to yourself or others, whether it is noticeable or subtle) basically the problem may be that I have the illusion of being cured because so many visceral immoral fetishes have been peeled back that the mind thinks it can just settle on this less visceral by comparison but still immoral fetish and call it a day, being lazy so it doesn't have to recover and destroy every fetish, just the ones it thinks caused me to go on nofap; so the addiction and novelty seeking brain is still there and I just gave it a boost by being vain and putting my shame and my desire to get rid of all my fetishes above anything that matters, like my responsibilities, my religion, my family, my income, etc. so in this case I was testing if it's even there by literally looking at triggering and confusing images that release dopamine and activate some sort of conditioned response, but how do I know if this was a relapse? I didn't get hard at all, only getting what has been usual all this time in regards to pmo and fetishes: slightly funny/tense feeling in top of head, right cheek, heart and centre of torso, anxiety, restlessness, increased urges and horniness, and maybe a bit of a feeling down there, but only ever a slight movement and wetness or puffiness that has been there for a long time and that probably has nothing to do with the urges of fetishism or pmo addiction at this point, arousal and hardness comes later after the body wants to be horny from all the triggers and being pent up at not beating it for so long.
My main fear of failure is that I looked at the stuff like 3 or 4 times and the effect that might have on me, this was a major slip up/setback and I've made my personal counter on the subject reflect that, the funny thing is I know it's all in my head, I was being a tired fool and simply let my shame and vanity get to me and control me, the problem was that it happened not once in the morning, but multiple times during the day, perhaps after the first time the addict brain rationalised it by reading the logic of "slipping up and accidentally or (in my case) otherwise looking at psubs or triggering or borderline content isn't a relapse if you don't let it become one and bug out before it escalates into p and/or mo binging" as "haha lol its ok to look bcz atleast it not something (visceral) like literal shit or blood and guts, or anything deviantart-tier, so u fine to look bcz it so bad it gud no yank-off or no go to da hub doe bcz suddenly that bad for some reason, even doe u let dis heben" instead of what it actually means "you made a mistake, try not to make it again, don't beat yourself up, don't escalate into any other bad behaviour, stop and roll with the punches but don't beat your meat either mate" also I should make the point that I don't agree with the logic that because this fetish isn't as visceral or violent or grotesque as some of the others that i've fought against that I should accept it, because it is less sickening than the others and it to me it feels more stronger and actually attractive to my mind, but not my body, because even though like all the other fetishes it stresses me out, something is off, and yes disgusting about it, I know it is unnatural and not becoming of me, I find it horribly immoral and unconscionable, I hate myself for having it, and it simply is depraved and I don't want to be depraved, I don't care how much it makes the addict part of my brain feel good and how it somehow ignores most of my objections to it unlike with the other fetishes, though I guess my other fetishes that are easy to object to now were like that earlier on in this run, so perhaps they have peeled back and an older and more unaddressed (in regards to both my personal issues and how the escalation into different categories by this addiction worked out over the years) fetish or paraphilia or kink or whatever, and now the demon curse within me, or rather the addict scum retreats to more stable ground to defend itself and secure a constant supply of dopamine? using my insecurities, paranoia, obsessiveness in general and the other bad habits in terms of racial, cultural and familial identity against me in a more direct way..... if that's the case have I been recovering or backsliding? or both? should I view this addiction and the battle against it like an onion with layers to peel back and the odour gets stronger and more domineering each layer peeled?
Regardless of anything, what do I do now and what do I expect? (for example) do I try atleast a week or two of dopamine fasting, or do I keep trying to distract myself with stuff and work? will I have to expect a heavy wind of urges, flashbacks and triggers, along with horniness and arousal towards sex and pleasure in general, or will this lead to another big flatline, where not much bothers me, but the absence of 'stimulus' in my mind and instead all my other issues in life? maybe it's (e) for all of the above at some point or other?
In relation to this subject, has anyone heard of 'unwanted' by jay stringer? someone here brought it up and the book piqued my interest, so what's the sell? the gist of it? is there anything In there that can help me in anyway with this particular issue? even an inkling?