Dear Tatte, Please give me the strength and perseverance to see this thing through. Without your assistance, I'm like butter in the hands of the Y"H. I'm sick and tired of carrying around all this guilt, and the feeling of inferiority that envelops me after every botched attempt to finally shake free of the shackles of my own ineptitude -- the ineptitude of willingly falling prey to the very thing that I believe is responsible for all that is wrong with me.
Good heavens, you do seem rather hard on yourself! Your ineptitude? We are all inept. You're inferior? We are all inferior. We are. Especially addicts like myself. The terminal uniqueness does me no good, and Hashem doesn't necessarily give us stuff just because we are "hurting enough". He seems to give us what we can use - not what we need.
Many are walking around without sanity. Don't they need it? "Hanosein chochma lachakimin" - He gives wisdom to the wise - because those with at least a touch of wisdom can be trusted not to take His gift of a bunch more and squander it, or to turn it to their undoing.
We need His help to care about ourselves enough to be trusted with His gifts. Rock bottom is the point that the heart - the need to have it all my way - finally breaks. Leiv Nishbar - not self-flagellating, not self-anything, but empty of expectation and "my way" - just empty and given up to Hashem - that's a cup that can be filled with His gifts.
One thing jumping at me in your posts is that it seems to me that you keep putting self-judgment on a pedestal. "I don't feel good about myself," "I brought this all onto myself," "the tests were not strong enough, hence me still standing." Really, what is the relevance of all this? What business is it of yours whether you are considered a tzaddik or a rasha? Really. I understand if I had nothing better to do, it might be a nice way to pass the time. Or perhaps, if I were basically in control of myself and doing no chato'im, a study of my madreiga might be nice for growth purposes... but I am not 'there'. And if you are posting here and will still have big struggles for the foreseeable future, you may not be 'there', either.
I mean nothing negative by any of this - heck, I don't even know who you are! But what you seem to be a bit preoccupied with seems to be exactly what I was preoccupied with all the years that I was so busy using (and fighting) my lust use in addiction. The only reason I share it with you is that for me, getting free involves living (thinking, talking, behaving) a bit differently than we did when we were still acting out our lust in addiction.
As long as people think they can remain basically the same - just get rid of the acting out with lust behavior - they never seem to get any better... and they go on and on pitifully wondering, "why?" My sexuality was and is not my main problem. It's the stupid way my mind works that is the real issue. And that takes work, time, and work.
A repeat quote from above (for emphasis):
Rock bottom is the point that the heart - the need to have it all my way - finally breaks. Leiv Nishbar - not self-flagellating, not self-anything, but empty of expectation and "my way" - just empty, and given up to Hashem. That's a cup that can be filled with His gifts.