@sonoftheking

I appreciate the warm words of Chizuk you offer me, but they dont talk to me. It might be true that all the hard trials are intrinsically good, but for me that is irrelevant! I think in terms what I have to do and what I must not do, if I have to sit and suffer for weeks on end in order to heal then I will do it even if it God ordained it out of hatred, not out of love, Chas VeSholom.

I am doing it to heal, not because I believe that the pain itself is there to benefit us. I do believe it, but that is not here nor there. I do not give myself Chizuk by telling myself that even my mistakes are Bashert, that I do not believe. I truly believe that I probably have done actions that made my situation worse then it would have been and God didnt especially want me to suffer all this pain but it I brought it upon myself through my own actions.

I am very OK with accepting that I am to blame for my situation, I see no need to make myself feel better by using the Bashert theory. Maybe for other people this works, but for me it doesnt and it is not needed.

Thank you anyway!

I am starting to feel much better over the last few days, and i hear a voice telling myself I dont really need therapy. It was just hard with my cousin staying by me!!

Should I ignore this voice and go anyway just in case or indeed measure myself again now over the next few months to see if maybe I am really normal?

don't ignore
you are normal

one has nothing to do with the other

But I am thinking like this now.

On an average day in my life, true I check out every girl and love seeing a good sight, but it doesn't last in my mind very long. True I masturbate in the shower, but who cares, everyone does it. The underwear story is disturbing, but it is an extremely rare occurrence.

Maybe I over exaggerated my problems whilst down in the dumps!

I am really unsure now that my mind is free again, whether or not I need to go still for therapy.

If the strong urges were there once, they'll resurface at some other time.

Therapy should be able to teach you things about yourself and how to grow.

Why not give it a shot instead of wondering?

cos its expensive? And it makes me into a guy who goes for therapy as crazy as it sounds? Its also not easy pulling it off in secret.

You dont just wonder if you need therapy, you find out first!

Do you think your obsession/addiction/problem/whatever-you-want-to-call-it will get better over time or worse?

To answer that question, consider another question. Has your acting out gotten better or worse over the last 10 years? The last 5 years? The last couple of years? What is the trend? Up or down?

I would say mayb eslightly getting worse, dont forget as I get older I have more access to girls, porn etc etc.

The only thing that terrifies me is a story like my cousin one happening again and that time it goes further!

Maybe your right. Is it normal to suddenly think you dont need to go 5 minutes after you decide you are going to phone a therapist?

Many of us addicts go through periods where everything seems to be ok. That is normal. If things are getting progressively worse (the trend over the long-term), why do you think they will magically start to get better?

You can choose to ignore the warning signs. You can wait and see, but you are better off seeing a therapist by choice than going to one because things have gotten so bad that you no longer have a choice.

The decision is ultimately yours.

endofmytether wrote:

Very normal. I think the technical term for it is "cold feet" .

I get you, the way I see it I have two choices.

I can either delay the therapy and work through the GYE guidebook and if after half a year I havent really progressed then I will know I gave it my best try and go for the therapy

Or I can start now. Will think it over!

endofmytether wrote:


If you decide to try the first choice, perhaps make a vow that if you don't see 'such and such' progress by 'such and such' date, then you must start therapy. This will give you an incentive to improve.

Hatzlacha either way,

MT

Nice idea, Machshova Tova, a bit not my type though

I'd like to share something that has helped me and may help you too. I like to over think and over analyze everything. I had to learn to let go and take direction from others. My over thinking was part of my trying to be in control of everything. In recovery, I learned am learning to let go and "let" Hashem have control. Listening to others and taking direction from them is a good exercise in letting go of our own control.

Oh, and one question. Do you consider yourself a perfectionist? If the answer is yes, I highly recomment listening to/reading Dr Sorotzkin on perfectionism. There is a link to his website in my signature. It was a HUGE help to me.

His article on sexuality is a great article for anyone on this site as well.

Watching you go in circles is sad, EOMTether. The idea you asked:

It is simply taking real action, that is your challenge, that's all. Thinking about it all and fantasizing about it all are all fine and good...then when the tayvoh 'overcomes you' (as a result, of course, of your buildup of self-fantasizing) it feels like you had no choice. Right?

The entire avenues of 'figuring yourself out' or of 'figuring out how to beat this problem' are dead ends. They may have been so for your whole life. But we all gravitate to our most comfortable and sweet places.

So being a fantasy-and-thinking man, deciding to call a shrink is fine. It's just thinking! But as soon as you are about to actually take the action itself, look out. In operant conditioning this phenomenon is called 'extiction burst', basically. Resistance to change does not exist very much in the mind - it only exists in real action. That is terrifying...I know cuz I have had a lot of it!

Gevalt, man. It is up to you to relax your overpowered brain and do something good for yourself.

Get help.