Wrestling with a fetish all my life

A better weekend temptation-wise, and no issues in that respect today either.

Had a very productive day, which I'm proud of, but have found myself hit with various anxieties in the evening.

Going to have my prayer time now anyway, so will put it all before God.

 

Temptations have felt stronger today, especially in the morning, but no touching. I feel like the fetish is trying to tell me that giving in to temptation is something I "deserve", as if I am depriving myself of a need.

But as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:13: "You say, 'Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.' The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.".

 

There's a lot going on over the next couple of weeks, a lot to do. There's stuff to look forward to but it's largely social with little breathing space for an introvert like me! It will be nice to spend time with people but potentially very tiring.

So stress is piling up again. Prayers appreciated. I felt that desire to give in to temptation purely more stress relief more than out of sexual desire. In any case, I resisted.

 

Over half way through a busy two weeks. Noticing the stress still but nowhere near as bad as it could be. However temptations are there and have been getting stronger over the past few days. There were definitely points where I felt like giving in was something I genuinely wanted. However, I resisted.

 

Yes, absolutely! Recently I've really been thinking that stress is just as strong a trigger as any sexual stimuli.

Today was tough. My mind has been all over the place trying to balance things and I just couldn't focus on anything.

Urges to return to self bondage have been the particular temptation over the past few days, which otherwise hasn't come up as often. This morning I even had a dream where I was experimenting with a new idea in self-bondage. I woke up desperate to return to that old practice. I told myself no, but still it was difficult to stop myself just fantasising. I was mostly able to divert these thoughts, thankfully.

It's make me realise we mustn't just avert our eyes but also "avert our minds". This is what I've been aiming to do with my morning scripture readings and meditations.

I have the opportunity for a more relaxed evening, which I'm absolutely taking. Probably have the same tomorrow. Thursday and Friday will be more hectic, but then Saturday should be pretty chill.

 

Urgh, PMO'd.

The stress of all these 2 weeks got the better of me, and I encountered triggers where I didn't anticipate them.

Yesterday was a business trip to a university. Seeing all the young women walking around the campus reminded me of my own time at university, when I was much less restrained, and would ogle them all and make little effort to fight temptations. It made me want to return to that time.

Then we went for food and one of the waitresses was very attractive. She was actually very moderately dressed, but still very pretty. It's easy to trick ourselves into thinking it's not lust if it's just a woman's face and hair, but that's so not the case.

Then there was difficulty getting home, resulting in a longer trip back late at night. Flicking through the news a name of a celebrity came up who I'd always had a crush on. There weren't even pictures of her... just the mention of her name got me fantasizing.

I got to bed at midnight, and to sleep at 1am. 2 hours later than normal following an exhausting day. I woke up thinking about all of the previous day's temptations... the "good old days". The pretty waitress. The celebrity crush. Before I knew it I was M-ing and O'd.

I came online to confess this all after this final busy day, but slipped into the trap of making the most of the earlier failure, and before I knew it it was PMO again. I wasn't doing it for long, but I was doing it nonetheless.

I can't blame my stress. I still made the choice to have the previous day's lustful thoughts. But my willpower is breaking up. And I really, really need to think about how the previous weeks stresses and temptations could have been avoided or at least managed better.

I finally have a day to rest tomorrow after this crazy time. I really don't want to waste it to PMO. But that's what I told myself before my failure half an hour ago.

 

It’s not been a great week. I had a couple of “aftershocks” I think the day after last week’s failure. Then I was mostly fine for a week but then gave in again yesterday. I’m losing control.

It feels like It’s all being triggered by a re-emergence of a desire to allow myself back into self-bondage as a release from the stresses of life, especially as Christmas approaches and I’ll have a lot of free time. I think these brief slips into PMO are me acting out on my own refusal to give in to the above temptation, itself likely driven by increasing stress and frustration.

As I gave in yesterday, I got thinking about what I’ve thought for some time regarding the likely appeal of this fetish, especially self-bondage.

As a child, seeing those cartoon characters wrapped up neck-to-feet in cocoons of rope or tentacles or even a snake always made me imagine a hugging sensation, like a baby being swaddled or held in a womb. The baby feels safe and provided for. It can just be. So the appeal of just being is likely a strong appeal of this fetish for me, as I have read it is for many others. In self-bondage, so long as everything is not too tight, it’s a comforting feeling, free from responsibility. I can just be, and let my mind wander freely.

The fetish beckons because in a busy, noisy world of responsibility being tied up in the dark gives me space to just exist as a mind and let thoughts go where they will. But it’s ludicrous I’d turn to a fetish for these needs, because God allows us to seek comfort in him, to break away from responsibilities, pour out our thoughts (hearts) before him in complete honest and just be with him. If I need darkness to help me focus I can always just pray under my duvet!

If I just want to stop what I’m doing and open up my thoughts to God without restriction I can do that any time I want. I just have to stop what I’m doing and do it.

So why don’t I? I have devoted prayer time, but it’s more structured, making sure I’m praying for others and for God’s Kingdom to come. If I just let my mind rest and wander where it wants to go (so long as they aren’t sinful thoughts!) and putting those thoughts before God, that also is a form of prayer. The Psalms are full of examples of such prayer – they may even appear to be complaining about God at times, but they are actually honest confessions of anguish being put before God so that He can heal them. However I struggle with prayers like this because they feel selfish. I’m putting my own needs first and I’m not praying for others or for God’s purpose.

I would very much value opinions and comments on these points. On the one hand, I can see that I am letting my fear of selfish prayer get in the way of just being completely honest before God. On the other hand, I want to pray for others and for the Kingdom also, but from the heart, as when I do pray for these things sometimes it feels more like a chore.

Of course, I do pray from the heart for others and for The Kingdom. I’m just not sure how to pray on those days when the heart has no interest in others. That said, when I feel I’m doing it out of obligation I confess this to God too, and ask him to answer not because of my heart in that moment but because of the needs of others.

For the time being anyway, I’m going to try and allow myself more space to just be with God and let my thoughts wander in a more Godly way.

 

This has been immensely helpful, thank you Tao. I have been allowing myself to pray for myself more, naturally and from my heart. It naturally becomes confession, admitting my prayers my be selfish, but this leads to humility as I'm reminded of how far I am from God's own perfection. I've found that from this point my mind does naturally pray for others I care about anyway.

I've been reflecting on how my Christian upbringing may have led to my recent struggles with prayer.

I grew up church of England. Not high Anglican - but nonetheless very structured. Worship in my life has always had structure. I can see how particular structures can be intended to honour God (praise, then prayer for others, then prayer for yourself, for example) but without the heart these structures lose meaning.

I also recall a time when I became idle. I was shy around other Christians at university time so I started skipping church and Christian Union meetings. I realised this was becoming bad habit and decided I needed to force myself to keep attending. Others at these same meetings played a part too, checking up on me to encourage me back in. But the point is that without structure or discipline, I don't really trust myself.

So the fear of praying selfishly is not only driven by a fear that I "should" prayer for others, but more-so a fear that it could be the beginning of a downward spiral. First I'm not praying for others, then I'm not praying at all, nor am I reading my Bible.... and sooner or later I've abandoned the walk with Christ altogether. Structure and discipline have always been habits of self-control to ensure I don't become that idle student once again.

 

Happy New Year all!

I PMO'd shortly before the new year, but I'm counting from New Years' Day. More on that later, as I want to unpack more something I wrote about in November:

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...etish-all-my-life.310845/page-30#post-3687722

I wrote about these "fetish days", when I knew I'd have my home of the time all to myself to explore my fetish through hours of uninterrupted self-bondage.

When living with my parents, this might be when they were going on holiday or some other day-trip and I was house-sitting. I'd be double-checking exact dates and times, acting casually like it was just "out of interest". I'd be looking forward to their departure and secretly planning my activities, getting excited about the people I was planning to fantasize about and dissociate as.

A common pattern when at university would be going home for the holidays - Christmas included - and hoping I'd get back to the house before my housemates so I'd have the place all to myself to spend some time entertaining my fetish undisturbed. In the run-up to these holidays, I'd be seeking opportunities to check with housemates when they'd be away, as casual conversation would tend to go, but secretly plotting my sin. I'd get more and more excited as one more person's holiday schedules aligned with the others until the free days were clear. Anticipation would slowly build as the opportunity to finally be tied up again drew closer and closer, and I picked up more ideas along the way, mentally building my to-do list for the fetish days when they came.

Christmas was the best time for this as it was the holiday most people went home to be with family, less so at Easter. However Christmas would usually be at the start of the period everybody was away, which meant traveling home to spend Christmas with family first before I returned to my student house for my more worldly "celebrations". What I'm particularly ashamed of is that this meant at Christmas I was heavily distracted by the sin I was planning and not nearly as focussed on Christ as I should have been (and Christmas-time is full of enough worldly distractions as it is!).

On the train back to university after the time with family, I'd be bursting with sexual desperation as the time for my sin drew closer. What went through my mind as I finally re-entered the student house isn't really relevant for the rest of this post, and I've written enough about my actual activities in other posts anyway.

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Despite living on my own for a number of years I've only slipped back into self-bondage twice within a month or so, almost 3 years ago now. Perhaps the anticipation and lack of opportunity was a factor in the temptation back in those student days, or perhaps I've just matured so much more in my walk with Christ that these temptations aren't what they once were.

However this Christmas has been strangely triggering of the feelings of anticipation and planning I used to have in those days. Having relapsed earlier at around March 2023 and continued to slip up here and there since then, mentally it's put me in the place I was in those student days. Furthermore the time I've spent with my family was at the beginning of my 2-week break, so it's a similar setup as those days with respect to timing.

I've wanted to use some of my time this week to go back into the self-bondage practices, but resisting has been so easy that I can hardly call it resistance (this is far from the time for complacency though!). From my heart, the activity seems much more deplorable than it used to. But my flesh wants *something*. Similarities between this Christmas and the ones back then are setting off old neural pathways that clash with my more mature heart, and it's been weird in a way I can't quite describe.

Any PMO or MO in the past month or so has felt like my inner child acting out against the knowledge that my adult self won't indulge in the self-bondage aspect of my fetish. The war with sin manifests in short(ish) bursts with masturbation or occasionally online content, and once or twice recently drawing. Actually some temptations to draw a bondage story over a period of time to help me "process" my fetish and get some newer ideas out of my system have been there too, but again deep down my inner child is lashing out at the adult me who knows I won't be able to live with a work-in-progress piece of bondage art sitting around in my home. I might get as far as drawing a few pictures but they don't last very long at all before I just shred them. My sin is angry that I can't bring myself to have "planned" fetish time in any form, whether self-bondage or art or anything else.

Christ has won the war. My heart is becoming a more fierce fighter, but at the same time the battles have become more intense.

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One of the battles I lost was a few days before new year, so a bit further back than my counter currently says. But somehow I feel it more motivating to count from the New Year itself.

Going with the comparison to my student days, this would be the week that I had the student home all to myself. Temptation for self-bondage is mostly absent. Temptation for drawing and watching online content is stronger, but I also feel incredibly aware of the futility of any acting out on my fetish, knowing that I won't ever convince myself to go "all out", which is what my sin is really tempting me to do. The desire for Christ-likeness aside, wasting my long-cherished 2 week break to something so futile when there are so many other things I want to do is something I'm really afraid of. Giving in just seems like a terrible idea no matter how I look at it!

But there are nonetheless ever-present battles, and I would ask your prayers in overcoming them, especially this week.

 

You are welcome, and thank you for commenting in my journal and sharing your own story I don't find the honesty too difficult actually, but that's really because I'm under the protection of anonymity here, which I'm very careful to maintain!

Have you considered writing a journal for yourself here on NoFap? It's a great way to find help from other members in a thread that you have control of. There are also various other journals by other Christian members who have struggled with all kinds of fetishism (if interested I can send links via DM). I think fetishism in Christians (and in general) is more common than many realise.

I think the fight has to be both bottom-up (looking at causes and needs, then how to find them in God) and top-down (correction of habits etc.), but ultimately it's all by God's grace. Sometimes we will fail but God will continue to change our hearts if we let him. I was doing really well for nearly 500 days, but then since March there's been more PMO on-and-off. However, something honestly does feel different inside. When I give in, I give in more reluctantly, and there's less planning to give in. Failure feels like my inner child getting into tantrum and throwing its toys across the room in a futile attempt to get what it really wants: for my adult self to abandon God and surrender to this fetish entirely. This is what I was getting at in my previous post, thought it's very hard to put into words!

Just to clarify I don't think having a fetish is necessarily a bad thing so long as any practice is consensual between man and wife. What I mean by surrendering to it is to live for it before marriage, or to be more interested in it than my wife in marriage.

I can relate to never fighting back. However for me it was more a fear of getting into trouble with my parents. They loved me for sure, yet somehow I lived in fear of them abandoning me. I've never quite understood where I got this unjust fear from. Anyway, the fear of fighting back turned me into a coward and is possibly one reason I ended up with an anxiety disorder. It may also be another point of identifying with the archetypal "damsel in distress" - depending on others to save me from sticky situations!

I believe that our faith doesn't necessarily stop us from fighting back.... but I wouldn't consider myself to have thought or prayed enough about it to advise when it is or isn't okay to do so! I just always remember that Christ was not a pushover, the best example being His trashing of the temple marketplace in defense of His Father's House. That being said, the vast majority of His defense against opposition was through words.

I will continue to pray for you and your own battle!