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Hello everybody.

I just created an account on this forum, because I failed again. I was getting better, almost given up on porn, but then I, unfortunately, saw it again.

So now I start again, from the complete bottom - but one important thing I learned so far, is that despair won't do anything good. I should learn from my mistakes, apologize to God for my terrible sin, change my strategy, and try again. And here I am, haunted by the awful images I saw - but it will get better. With every day, even with every hour, my soul will slowly repair itself.

I am an young adult male with both Asperger syndrome and OCD diagnosed - and because of that, it is very hard for me to give up on masturbation. Usually, it isn't even pleasant to me, it is just aggressive, annoying thoughts, that I struggle to overcome. And because I have AS, I don't have a girlfriend and just a few friends. Now I even live alone, without my family, so I feel painfully lonely almost all the time. The problem is I communicate in a very specific way, other than "normal" people. I hope I will someday meet a person that will understand me, and maybe even have a relationship with that person, but for me around 20 years of life, I haven't met anybody similar to me.

There are also many bad things going on in my life at this moment, but perhaps it will get better - One year ago I started university studies, but unfortunately, the subject was too hard for me, and quite different than I expected. But now I finally know what I want to do in life - I'm preparing to change my subject, and I hope I will finally manage to do what is interesting to me. I also went to the therapy, and learned some techniques, that helps me control aggressive, brutal or sexual thoughts I'm struggling with, although they don't work all the time.

I conclusion, I hope I will find help on this forum. Maybe somebody is in similar situation to me, or maybe you know some meditation/self-control methods that could help me. I'm religious, so prayers really support me. I'm also ready to help anybody who will look for some advice.

I would also like to meet some new people, just to have online conversation with them, (either here, or in some other forum) to train my social skills. I love discussions, and I'm super interested in art, movies, and games.

Thank you for your attention. This confession already made me feel better.

 

Hi. Welcome to forum!

Make sure you create a personal journal thread in Reboot Logs section and blog there on a regular basis. As well as just generally be active participant in various forum discussions. I recommend this to everybody new here because it's the major thing that helped me when I was first starting. Just lurking on forums, reading and learning is great. But it usually is so much more powerful to engage. It helps to keep us motivated and accountable when we are active part of community. And keeps this in front of our minds so we don't forget about importance of it and slip away in our old habits. Sharing is also therapeutic. This is a major reason why AA meetings work so good. But that was developed before internet era. These days we can get most of the same benefits online through communities like this. So don't underestimate the power of active participation.

I would also like to suggest you to look into mindfulness meditation. It has helped me personally tremendously to learn how to deal with urges and triggers. It takes a while to get good at it and notice results, so you need to be consistent with it, but once you do it's very powerful. It has been used by sages for thousands of years to deal with various issues of the mind. And in recent decades the science is also catching up to what ancient sages have know for centuries. Meditation these days are widely used as very effective tool by psychologists for treating addiction and by neurologists for supporting recovery of the brain after physical injury. Plus it is generally a great exercise for the brain the same way as jogging is great exercise for the body.

Check out this Ted talk on mindfulness practice, it gives a good idea of what's it's about when it comes to philosophy. The mindfulness practice as described by psychologist in a the video can be used by itself but ideally should be used as supplementation to your daily sitting meditation. There is this awesome smartphone app called Headspace for guided meditations to get you started with formal sitting practice. By the way, mindfulness practice has been proven to help OCD as well. Some people don't even need drugs anymore and report their OCD to not effect them at all anymore.

Wish you lot's of strength and success in your reboot journey!