Healthy Freedom

Well, I guess it's time to start my journal. I stumbled upon this site late at night and I didn't realize how robust it was and how many people use it. As it says above, I was definitely part of the original teens with access to porn on line. Although, my struggles with porn and more often just highly suggest images began in my 20's after I defeated my video game addiction. I had a rather healthy Christian relationship with the idea of sex till 19 when I was encouraged to try masturbating in seminary of all places.....oh boy. ‍♂️ I've come to learn over the years that there is a lot of bad advice out there. My addiction is more an addiction of the high and I've noticed it is primarily used for stress relief. This was what I used video games for and eventually that transitioned to porn/lustful images. I have had extended periods of being PMO free....not PMS ......but life challenges and the abundance of lewd imagery seem to always get to me eventually. I recently started trying to track my progress. The longest I went without P was a couple months in the last year but it wasn't without lewd imagery that was basically porn in my mind so I'd say about 21 days. The longest without masturbation this last year was about 2 weeks. I have been abstinent since I was divorced about 6 years ago. I believe and live a life of no sex outside of marriage.

I know some of my struggles directly relate to recovering from a very toxic person in my marriage and a 3 year battle fighting for my daughter, my livelihood, and my reputation in court. I'm about 2 years into things settling down and I'm finally getting to heal and move forward with my life.

I also had some Injuries that have made it hard to work out which resulted in me gaining 50 lbs. Self esteem and a lack of stress relief from working out has been a big factor too. I guess that is why I titled my journal "Healthy Freedom", because I want to get back to being healthy and with my ex-wife getting remarried soon I finally feel free from my responsibilities towards her and our marriage we had together.

I'm also moving forward with my career. I'm in the last term of my credential. This season is definitely a reboot for me. A time to focus on myself and the things I want out of life. I've spent so much time living foe the benefit of others that I have seldom taken the time to live and learn about myself. I want to be healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally before jumping much back into the dating pool. Also, I want to be healthy for myself. I'm at a point in my life where I would like to get remarried some day but it is no longer the priority it once was. I want to be healthy for me.

My first goal is 90 days with benchmarks at 2 weeks, 30 days, 60 days, and then finally 90 days. Thanks for reading this far and I hope to be able to continue posting success on here.

 

Day 4 done. I had a close call of starting to M on day 2 but stopped. I feel the urge lying here in bed. I know I've developed a pattern of de-stressing through M right before bed. Unfortunately, the habit has made it so that I want to do it even though I have desire or urge for it. It is more like a compulsion. Giving into this compulsion seems to be how I get sucked back in the most. It doesn't help that there are random pictures of scantily clad women showing up in ads or Facebook feeds...
I saw the movie Jesus Revolution today. I have mixed feelings about the content but one thing that stood out to me was when he said to stop running. When Lonnie sat down with the guy in the ran while the other guy was struggling with drugs I started crying. I used to have thar type of freedom to lovingly share the gospel with people. I have since become much more hardened and I've been chasing after all kinds of things while not being as committed to the glory of God as I once was. I realized that was something that needed to change. I need to get to a place of peace where I'm no longer striving after the things of this world and instead abiding with God. I look back at my seasons of success in being off of PMO and they always go hand in hand with how I'm living for God.

As a result, I actually removed myself from dating apps tonight and told the woman I was talking to that I don't want to be with a woman in this season. Now is the time for me to get healthy within myself for myself. Now is the time to honor God.

So that's my plan. I'm not gonna be chasing after women. I'm gonna focus on getting myself right before Got and getting healthy. Whether or not getting married again is in the cards, I need to get healthy for myself as a steward of this body God gave.

 

Day 5 and the impulses are still in the back of my mind, especially after having a stressful day working with middle schoolers. Just working through it hoping to regain control at some point. I hate the feeling of helplessness and Inevitability I feel regarding turning back to pmo.

 

On to day 8. The urges are strong but so far I've been able to resist temptation. I even worked out for the first time in quite a while. It was cute seeing my daughter working out with me using 3 lb dumbells and going on the treadmill. She said, "I'm gonna exercise as long as you exercise daddy." She's 5. That's my big inspiration right there. I don't want to be a do as I say not as I do person. I want to be an example for my daughter of what a healthy, godly man looks like. I keep asking God for his help in how I can raise her to be a godly woman that can survive in this age where so many get deceived and lured away by lusts.

Social Media is tough.....the ads are so triggering. I've noticed a little more clarity and a little less brain fog. I've also had the realization that even though I see women as valuable co-heirs in Christ, I have inadvertently begun to objectify them through these MO/PMO habits. I know me biologically make strong visual bonds and I see myself overlooking the ungodliness in women for their beauty. I think....I know...this coupled with immaturity and a confusion on some key points of scripture that I was poorly taught led my to choose my ex-wife. She was a woman who's fruit contradicted her words. I need to get to a healthy peace in God with a clean mind before I could ever consider re-entering the dating market.

8 days in is enough to show me that I've only scratched the surface of cleaning out the fog in my brain. I hope this is the time it sticks. I don't want to be unhealthy anymore. I don't want to be so easily trapped by these snares. I can barely "hear" God's voice anymore. As in, the Holy Spirits guidance and godly compulsions that once we're so prevalent in my life. I've lost the vision of chasing after God and become rudderless.

I was so full of conviction, peace, and joy for the Lord. How I want to get out of this sin and to experience that again. God help me.

 

Definitely. In some ways the divorce and fighting for my daughter were a gift from God. It taught me the importance of spending focused time with my daughter and the value of the moments I have with her. My father was around but has never been the most involved parent.....If I didn't have to fight a custody battle like I did then I would have likely ended up in a similar parenting style. By God's grace I learned from that situation and I do my best to be the dad she deserves.

On to Day 10. The urges haven't subsided and the triggers seem to be relentless. My mind is always trying to convince me "It's no big deal." Or "You can always get back on track afterward." Or "You don't want to waste your youth. Time is precious, wnjoy yourself." Or "You've worked hard and are stressed, why not get a little release to help you relax." The same old tricks. Definitely had a few moments where I about hit the panic button. Journaling on here has helped. I don't feel like I'm going at this alone and I have a place to talk about it.

 

Starting Day 12. The night of Day 11 was the hardest. So far. I came very close to giving in. When the urge comes, my mind doesn't see any benefit from not giving in. It tells me, "you're not hurting anyone. What's the big deal? Why would deny yourself these feel good feelings and stress relief?" Not really sure how I made it past Day 11 but here I am.....I hope it gets easier at some point.

 

You're correct Timcia. My main challenge right now is that my life is super busy and my brain power for this subject is low atm. I'm working full time at the school, going to college full time, part time at the church, and a single dad. My relationship with my ex-wife wrecked me and I'm only just now really getting past it for several reasons. I wish I was devoting as much attention and commitment to this part of my life like it deserves but I'm barely getting by atm. Most of the time I'm looking for ways to de-stress without being promiscuous, and MO offers the "quick fix" that really isn't a fix. It's the age old short term pleasure with long term problems. Hopefully, after finishing my last term in college I'll be able to re-calibrate, this is definitely a tough season.

However, while I don't feel mentally capable of succeeded at this atm, I also don't feel it is something you wait on. It is sin of the flesh and even though my mind can't comprehend how it's mpacting me, I do know, at least intellectually, it is. It is kind of like a cognitive dissonance, a battle, that rages in my mind. My Spirit is wailing over my fleshly lusts and decisions, and all I want is freedom.

It has been another tough day but I'm persevering even though my mind doesn't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet.

Day 13 - PMO is a lie.

 

Well, I made it 14 days. This morning, the pressure build up was strong and with low inhibitions while being tired I MO'd. I wasn't looking at any images or imagining anything, it is was simply a pressure build up that took mere seconds to release. This is what started my PMO/MO problems in this first place. The pressure would build up and all it would take is 1 time where I failed to stop myself. 2 weeks seems to be the hump I need to get over. Other times I've tried to stop I can get somewhere around the 10-14 day mark with close calls along the way and then usually it deteriorates from there with the time frames decreasing and eventually it moving from no longer just being a "pressure release" to actively searching out stimulating content.

I had the goal of 90 days and that felt impossible. My brain has developed so many different methods to get me back into the habit. 2 weeks. Is not a bad start I guess. I am a bit disappointed in myself that's as far as I got. The pressure one is a tough thought to overcome because I'm not lusting after a woman, I just want to relieve the build up, so I find it easier to justify. Even if it were somehow justifiable, it always leads to more until it is no longer just about relieving built up pressure.

My habits are all screwed up. I was just watching a talk by a neuro scientist and psychologist last night and it is clear to me that my internal reward system is jacked up. Everything in my life has become unpleasant and hard to enjoy. My dopamine system is all about the payoff at the end of an activity. It no longer functions correctly in releasing proper amounts of dopamine during daily activities. I bet my brain operates like an addict looking for its next high.

I didn't really start struggling with MO till my 20's but I can see the groundwork for my addiction was laid in video games. Excessive gaming was a part of my life till I was 23 almost 24. I broke free only because I was so invested in my college career that it reached the point of having to choose games or college. I ended up disassembling my computer and giving it to my parents. That lead to the healthiest part of my life as an adult till I was about 26. Loneliness, a lack of finding quality women, and trying to stay a virgin ultimately drew me into MO and ultimately PMO. I had done the Joseph style running away from women at least 5 different times over the course of my adult life. Around 28 I recommitted to getting healthy and started getting fit. I began attracting a lot more women but none with great character or morals, even in the church. I even had mothers and grandmothers asking me to date their daughters. MO became a periodic coping mechanism for stress, avoiding relationships with low character women, and releasing pent up pressure. It didn't happen very often......Also it took about 5 years for my brain to really recover from excessive video gaming and actually be able to recognize within myself when I was being drawn back into it internally. My brain was also in recovery from the onset of a seizure disorder from 20-25. My neurologist told me I was working too hard and not getting enough sleep which caused my brain to start releasing stress through seizures. I ended having about 200 over that time period while attending school full time and working. They stopped after I quit video games and started playing sports 4-5 days a week.
I had lost almost all memory of my childhood for several years. I'd also lost my borderline iedetic memory. My seizures only occurred in my sleep and it took till I was about 35, so 10 years to overcome the fear and trauma of sleeping. Prior to having seizures I slept hard and straight through the night. Now I'm lucky to get 3-5 hours without waking up......but at least I can sleep again and not have the lasting impact of having a seizure. I often joke that seizures made me normal. It was through this same time period that I learned to connect with people. Prior to them I didn't relate to people well because of my God gifted intelligence. I was in the top 1-3% in California when it came to my test scores, and I never studied and rarely paid attention in class, largely because it was boring and the teachers/professors were poor. Anyway, I digress. The point is that seizures impeded my memory recall, memory retention, the function of my nervous system, and etcetera during my early 20's and had lasting impact into my 30's.

Ultimately, I started dating a woman who had a less than ideal past and family but seemed to be going a better direction with her life. I ended up marrying this woman at 29 despite the red flags I saw. Ultimately, those red flags led to the end of our relationship. Looking back, I realize I was getting impatient and my loneliness had caught up to me. When I should have focusing my energy on my career, I allowed myself to drift for a little bit too long and made a bad choice. This opened up the door to my sexuality but also stymied it because of a horribly unhealthy relationship. I PMO's 2 times during our marriage from 29-31. She left and then the next 3 years involved an awful custody battle where my lawyer told me I had "the patience of a Saint." It was during this horrible time that I really picked up PMOing. I've come to realize that a PMO habit/addiction essentially replaced my video game addiction. My brain was primed to become addicted to PMO. What was largely a periodic thing over the course of my adulthood, except for those 2 years in my twenties, took hold of me. I've been fighting a losing battle with it since for the last 5 years. I had made some progress but I injured my ankle/knee which made it very hard to exercise. That exacerbated the issue. When I look back at my life.....exercise and getting physically healthy has been the only thing to keep my mind right. I'm trying to get back on top of it but have yet to succeed. In many ways it is so much harder to overcome PMO than video games because it is always accessible and I can't just give away my access to it like I can with a computer. I don't want to replace one addiction for another addiction. I want to get healthy. That is the goal.

I've grown numb to life. I thought that was because of other factors but after watching that neurologist talk last night I realize that my whole internal reward system is screwed up. I've been going through the motions of doing what's right and being a good father with little to no enomjoyment. Even in moments where I should be happy, I feel nothing. It is like all I have left for emotions are mild happiness, frustration, and occasional anger. Even my anger is mild compared to what it once was. I'm not emotionally bonded to hardly anything and it feels awful. It has also sapped what little drive I have to find a mate. I am not healthy.

This is why I'm not fit to be in the during market right now. I need to heal my body, my mind, and me emotions. How can I properly bond with a new woman or even my daughter for that matter when I feel this way. My daughter is the only thing in my life that actually elicits some type of feeling out of me. I've got so many disappointments, traumas, and frustrations that I am not healthy. I don't ever talk about it but I am also low key angry at God. I am grateful for how he carried me through the trials but I am also angry he didn't circumvent them as well. That doesn't help my prayer life. That's for sure. I'm mad that He has the power to insert Himself into my life but chooses not to. Who am I to tell Him what to do? But that still doesn't change how I feel. That also is probably why I don't really trust Him to help me get out of this.
.I'm tired of always having to be the one that has things together. I'm tired of so many people around me rarely having to be the mature person. I'm just tired.

I have nobody to talk to unless I pay a counselor. Every time I try to reach out the person doesn't follow through. My family can't help me. I feel....so alone. That's probably why I'm on here. I'm not really sure how I stumbled on to this site, but maybe it is God's way of throwing me a bone so I have somewhere to actually talk about what I'm going through.

.....Well, today is Day 1. My new goal is 21 days. God willing I'll get there.