My Situation

Hello Everyone!

I hope it is okay to start a new thread on here. If not, feel free to delete this.

I just wanted to say hello, introduce myself, and explain my situation. I feel that this would help me right now to get this off my chest and hopefully get some good feedback and encouragement.

As I said in my intro to NoFap, I'm a twenty-something engineering student and I am soon to graduate.

I'm not actually Roman Catholic yet. I hope to go through RCIA next year. I have been sincerely interested in joining for a few years now. The only thing that has stopped me is my family.

They are pretty much against it. I've talked with them, prayed with them, prayed on their behalf, gotten green scapulars and prayed the prayer daily, given them rosaries (which they accepted but never used), and done everything else I could think of.

My family is okay (or claims to be okay) with me attending mass and only hesitant with me going to adoration. I try to go to these as much as my current family dynamic allows. Hopefully I can go to adoration tomorrow. Maybe we could start an adoration reflection thread on here if you are into going to that as well.

I plan on joining next year because by then, I will hopefully be out on my own and have a good paying job to support myself. I can't move out now because I am still recovering from some health issues.

A big thing that drew me to the RCC was the idea of confession. The act of needing to go to a man who is a stand in for God made flesh to confess your screw ups seems like a great idea to me. It is biblical too but I feel that on a practical level this really works. I want to become the best I can be and to have a guy who you can talk to about when you screw up and offer help as to how to avoid doing those things again, seems infinitely helpful.

Like many of you in this group. I want to end my addiction to porn and stop masturbating. I also want to grow spiritually and physically.

I normally only pray my rosary about half the days in any given month and rarely do I pray the Chaplet of St. Michael. I am going to try to make these more frequent. Right now I am focusing on saying the rosary daily. In a week or two, I will add in the chaplet. I also need to cultivate some more courage to face my family and at least attend mass more often.

Also, I started counting calories the day I joined NoFap. 2000 cal/day. I haven't had success with restricting to 1200 in the past.

Sorry to ramble but thanks for reading if you managed to trudge through all that. Like I said, I am looking for any help, support, encouragement, or even constructive criticism you might be able to offer.

Thanks!

-knighterrant

 

Thanks so much, you guys, for the love and encouragement! It truly means a great deal. I will be sure to pray for you as well. We are all in this together.

 

Thanks for the welcome, encouragement, and support @Longinus and @DeProfundis ! I really appreciate it!

I can't tell you all the benefits I have experienced just from my somewhat inconsistent devotion to this devotion. I can only imagine how things would improve if I succeeded in doing it more often. I really enjoyed St Louis de Montfort's books also on Marian devotion and the rosary. Mary and Jesus have really helped me through some rough times over the past decade or so.

I haven't developed a relationship with Joseph though. I can see where he would intercede for people both in our position here on NoFap and in trying to grow closer to Jesus. I will try to include some intercessory prayers to him in my daily devotions.

That was a beautiful line @Longinus .

Concerning my weight issues and health issues, the weight issues actually are a side effect of my health issues. A few years ago I was struck by a hit and run driver and suffered some injuries. One of the injuries led to some seizure activity and it seems that nearly everything that they use to treat brain related issues causes weight gain (except for Topamax lol). I am all up for suggestions on how to get rid of this weight though. I'll send you a PM sometime if that is okay.

@DeProfundis As far as I can tell, my extended family share some common misconceptions about the RCC, my father objects because he has ran into "too many bad Catholics", and my mother is hesitant because her grandfather was a Baptist preacher. I'm slowly trying to convince my extended family, and my parents to an extent, that the misconceptions are just misconceptions but I'm having a harder time with the other issues concerning my parents.

Thanks for the encouragement though. If I try my best and allow God to work through me so that I can grow in Faith, Hope, and Charity, it will be hard for my family to deny that this is the best path for me and hopefully them too.

 

Update: I might get a chance to go through RCIA this year after all. Prayers are appreciated.