I am really looking for ways to cope here. To everyone here please think of this post as a call for help from a sister and do not let your brain wander to areas which will only bring regret and sorrow.
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1). I do think my porn addiction is prodding me to seek out attention but sometimes I am unable to understand the nature of the attraction felt. How do you differentiate between an ordinary need to be shown affection against such a feeling arising out of the masturbation addiction? Is is possible even to distinguish between the two? I want to know what is healthy and what is not.
2). What I am worried most about is that porn has become a part of me and now to an extent defines me. The guilt and shame is really making it difficult to function. I constantly feel as if everyone is knowing everything about me and noticing me. How to cope with that constant anxiety?
3). The mechanism for girls is a bit different so when gripped with sexual thoughts I tend to feel warmth and wetness which does gross me out. The increase in the time spent on such thoughts only aggravates it. How do I instantly shift focus and deal with it. Do understand that since the physical change (wetness) persists on the inside, so how should it be coped with.
It would be particularly helpful if you could offer some strategies in the form of TASKS/THINGS TO DO so that I can try them out.
Okay so, i didnāt know about nofap. My female friend told me about this and how she was in the same situation as you. She went through spiritual awakening and left the things behind which isnāt she. Stopping this addiction will help you discover more about yourself. I didnāt know whatās wrong with me but on this journey i got to knew Iām a feminine in male body. Thereās way more things to know that I hadnāt discovered yet. Donāt be tensed so much, Iād suggest you to do inner work, writing therapy and shadow integration it will help you a lot. Pain is temporary so donāt worry, youāre carrying suppressed emotions in you, when it would be out youāll get pure and pure. Try to find female companions here or if you understand hindi and need to learn more about this i can share some links of hindi spiritual channels leads by females if it helps you anyway in this journey, good luck.
No i dont think it is. I think we wont be in our real senses until we cure pmo addiction and get our head back together. We cant trust our minds to actually know what is the difference between love and lust, as our brain knows only lust, thanks to porn. I donāt mean relationships are impossible while trying to quit, just that it will be incredibly difficult to hang on to one or make it fruitful, at the same time easy to fall into an abusive, toxic relationship out of desperation.
With this realisation, I guess youāre almost there. Now what we need to do is flip that identity. Completely transform that identity into a new one from its foundation. We are trying to make small changes, not drastic ones, small small changes which will add up in the long run, contributing to this new identity we envision for ourselves. That is this journey about. Read Atomic Habits, the author goes into a lot of depth with this identity-change concept.
I just exercise. 7 pullups. I tell myself, ālets put those thoughts away for a second, and lets just hit the bar.ā So Iām hoping eventually, my brain will assosciate the craving with the pullup, not with porn. It is an instantly gratifying, fruitful activity. You need to do something along those lines. Let your body take the pleasure it is looking for, just not through masturbation. There are a shit ton of other instant gratifying, productive things, that at the same time give a sense of accomplishment.
I canāt even imagine what its like to be a woman to be trapped in this addiction. Itās like you guys are on a totally different planet in this regard. So there is a limit on how much guys can advice you, but you will figure out a lot by yourself, and educating yourself. Keep learning-this is the most important thing. And ask for help, reach out whenever necessary, without hesitation. Be active on the forum.
Just dont feel ashamed or left out, we are all in this together.
What can I say. I am just grateful you took the time to type it out and that I am āscreenshottingā this answer to re-read it when it becomes hard to pull myself up and not fall.
Hey !
This sounds too extreme but what I think is that something outside of your body cannot define you. Porn is not inside you. It seems to you that way because you have wired your brain that way.
Most of the time our mind work unconsciously with what it has been practiced. Whenever you are stressed you have this evil thing to ease you.
So, you have a pattern right?
And you are here to rewire your brain right?
So you just need to change the pattern, practice the pattern consciously for a month or two depending upon the addiction and then your mind will choose the right pattern unconciously.
It is said that it takes mostly 21 days to rewire the habitual pattern.
Yeah, you may have urges (wetness) and we guys also have urges. In case of girls its wetness , similarly we guys have precum. We struggle too and try to beat the urges everytime.Thereās nothing impossible. Be stronger, stay stronger.
it is completely understandable that a mind, fatigued by cyclic and stacking burdens that this type of behavior puts in all areas of life, seeks out ways to escape having to endure another relapse, another endless trial of debating what went wrong and whether or not it was okay to do, i.e. another burden. In my experience and understanding, ācopingā is a passive term and therefore insufficient in this journey, and perhaps even a detriment. It may appear to be a small thing, but attention to detail is key here as small, unseen, and unnoticed steps accumulate until itās too late to turn back (as our programmed automatic addiction loops kick into high gear and hijack our mind).
When we realize our true adhyatmic (rough transl. spiritual) nature, we stay free, as unbounded masters in a boundless material world. However when we live in ignorance of and distance ourselves from the our true Self, we become trapped, bounded subjects of the boundless material world. In the previous case, material nature becomes divine. In the latter case, material nature becomes mundane. Both cases are reflections of our inner harmony or disharmony, respectively. The one is a wholesome expression of the essence of life, aligning, uniting and creating vitality and awareness. The other is well the opposite XD and to know which is which, is something that can only be known, not really told lol
Having our indriyas or senses under control, the same untainted forces/drives, serve us. But when we give them free reign and let them wander, we become subjects and they drive us around. The only way to dis-empower and break the chakravyuh that molds itself around our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, is to forge our own narrative. Things like identifying our key drives in life and the reasons why we donāt pursue them, our primal fears and the reasons why we seek to escape them, our major distractions and the reasons why we indulge them, etc. Listen to some David Goggins while youāre at it XD
Thereās nothing instant about it so let go of the idea that this uncomfortable/triggering experience can be done away with. The more you accept the reality you are in, the better equipped you are in facing it. Donāt forget that itās all happening in the mind and the body is just reacting to those signals coming from years of cyclic abuse of this powerful system, so it will take its time to recover. So stop the mind in its tracks, and the body will follow. I recommend intense exercise for a short period of time e.g. pushups, pranayama (especially bhramri), active writing, inspirational anchors (e.g. videos, audios, etc), reading, etc. and keeping this sequenced in an emergency plan to refer to whenever you catch yourself slipping even slightly. Be ruthless.
The differences between the sexes (and they are vast enough to have their own domains) aside, we are similar enough that we can all tell light from dark and so, we can follow the path of light out of the darkness. Itās truly, genuinely up to us. All the best.