That is so powerful! You made my journey much clearer you added such a real and healthy approach for what I'll get out of breaking free and you increased my will to try and be stronger. Plus I'm going through a parent struggle like what your dealing with it, helps to know that there are important holy people like you who struggle too and do see the fruits of their hard work. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! ❤ 

I'm sorry to hear what hardships you went through. I'm truly awed by how strong you are I'm inspired by your devotion and dedication!

Thank you!! Would you like to share more detailsabout the challenge your having with your parents? Obviously only if you feel safe. #NJZ

Im going through so many crazy feelings today. Im starting to realize why im attracted to certain groups of people that others would consider "not normal". Im also realizing that the more i come to understand my "different" attractions. The less they have control over me. Instead my brain is pushing more and more for me to just watch porn, love scenes in movies or to bond in a healthy way with someone not too religious.  Im exploding from my mind running towards physical touch and connection =, but my body is staying put. I'm exploding right now. but I'm just 11 days away. so i cant. Hopefully im going to explain my desires and what causes them in order that whoever else has similar desires can feel like their not alone.

Human being wrote on 13 Nov 2022 20:15:

Understanding where our feelings come from is great especially if that knowledge can translate into a re-evaluation of your circumstances in order to arrive at a healthier place. But when we are having “so many crazy feelings,” it’s not a good time to act, as we may not be acting from our heads. I’m not sure from your post what you are thinking about doing but nothing physical will be good for you at this moment I think. If I’m wrong please let me know where I’m off base.

Human being wrote on 13 Nov 2022 20:15:

Oh wow, I can so much relate to some of the things you've mentioned here. The need to fill that loneliness with physical touch, acceptance and love. And in order to fill that void, you seek out scenes that portray the exact thing you so much crave. In fact, I'm willing to bet that you're not necessarily looking for porn, but for scenes of true connection. Unfortunately, as we all know, this does nothing to quench the thirst, but rather reminds us of our current loneliness. I wish I knew the cure for this, but perhaps something that could help a bit would be to seek out connection in the real world with some friends or family if that's a possibility. 

I know it's tough. Heck, it's unbearable at times. But never forget, there's always a tomorrow. What you're feeling now, is not the way you'll be feeling always. Just hang in there. We're rooting for ya'

                                                                                          Long read. enjoy

I was trying to explain to my mother the way the healing process works, and I was thinking to myself, so many people have no clue how it works, so I figure I might as well lay it out here and put in on the table.        PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!!

Being emotionally neglected in childhood is traumatic for a child. A Childs brain cannot be "masig" (perceive) why it is being emotionally isolated. He is terrified and alone and doesn't know why. He cannot understand logically what is wrong with the connection to his parents that is making himself feel so unsafe. So what happens is, a child starts reasoning with the only information he has. The only information a child has is himself. A child at a young age cannot come to understand that his parents don't have skills or are unhealthy emotionally. All a child has is himself, his feelings, his thoughts and his experiences.  

What happens next is the main point in so so so many painful childhoods. Isolation and abandonment becomes rejection.  We as children start trying to comprehend why we are getting isolated and emotionally abandoned, and the only thing we can come up with, is that we are the cause of the abandonment. That there must be something wrong with us.  

Once we as children started to 'understand' that there must be something wrong with us, we then start confirming it. We even start looking for it. We want connection and safety from our parents so badly, that we want to "fix" the things that are making us unworthy of love, connection and safety. 
We start looking in our lives for all the things that make us "no good" "unattractive" "bad" "unlovable" "worthy of rejection".

And once we start seeing all these things in our lives that "prove" we are unworthy, --and that's the reason our parents don't love us--,  we start confirming to our young innocent brains, that its understanding of its predicament is correct -that we deserve no love.

Once its confirmed that we deserve no love, every single time someone rejects us, bothers us, doesn't include us, jokes about us, looks at us bad etc etc etc..... the message gets repeated over and over and over and over and over and over in the Childs brain that "I am getting this because I'm "no good", "unattractive", "bad", "unlovable", "worthy of rejection".   

By the time we are older and start dealing with our "feeling gross" feelings,  --of being unlovable, unattractive, worthy of rejection, bad, add in your own---  our brains have already had many years of messaging, which created strong as steel belief from 1000s of interactions, that we are fundamentally no good.  Not only that, but usually, we all have had a few specific events that are we think makes us "really really bad" "like actually bad". Like we are an inherent pervert, or an inherent psychopath. This may be something we felt or did wrong, that most people wouldn't or don't consider "normal". And therefor we "know" that if we tell people about our feeling/s we had or our action/s we did, they would "know" that we "really really are crazy".  

So how does healing happen?

By utilizing a wonderful characteristic our brain has, called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability of our brain to form new neural-pathways.  But hay Human Being what is neural-pathways? Neural pathways are the biological items in our brains that are formed by our various memories, associations and connections/learned experiences we have had in our life. They become actual physical items in the structure of our brain. They connect different cells in our brain. We have our learnt feelings, experiences, associations and beliefs, physically-in our actual biological brain. (as apposed to just in our "mind"). In our scenario- our neural pathways {the facts about our experience} are very strong that we are "unlovable, bad, unattractive etc.)

Now how do we utilize nueroplasticity? By crating new neural-pathways. How do we do that? By gaining new experiences, new connections and new memories. By experiencing new experiences and creating new neural-pathways that are different from the previous neural pathways that were formed.  

Ok now we know the scientific process. But now does this process look in real life?

It looks complicating, hard, and looooooong. Its a process.  If I have 1000s of strong neural-pathways that experience myself as "bad" "unattractive" or "dumb" (or anything else for that matter) its going to take an equal amount of new neural-pathways that experience myself as "good" "attractive" and "smart" to start actually feeling that I am good, attractive and smart. Until then, its going to be up and down, depending on how many "I'm good" neural-pathways" I have, vs how many "I'm bad" neural pathways I have.    Once we can experience enough new strong neural-pathways for the positive, we can then actually start feeling that "I'm good" or "I'm attractive" or "I'm smart" .

​So its a process. Depending on how strong our neural pathways are for the negative, It will take that many more positive experiences to build up new positive neural-pathways to be louder and stronger then the negative neural pathways.

Now that we understand how the healing process works, we can understand a few facts. We can also come to a few conclusions.

 Facts,

-Neuroplasticity is in regards to any learned experience. For example, addiction. If my brains neural-pathways are strong as steel that if I'm on a open computer then I must watch porn, enough experiences of using an open computer and not falling, can quite literally change our brain. (our neural-pathways.) to start believing that even if we are on a computer that's open, we don't have to watch porn and well be ok.

​-In regards to life, SSA   --(not everybody with SSA. that's what I was told- and i respect that)--, anxiety, depression, relationships, beliefs etc etc etc In every area, we can heal. And develop safety, connection, kedusha, and happiness.


Think of neuroplasticity as lemonade.   If we have a cup with just lemon juice, it will taste really sour. The more water we put in to dilute the lemon juice, the less sour the lemonade will be. Think of the lemon juice as SSA, as angriness, as anxiety, as depression, as hurt and pain in relationships, in danger, in addiction, in our enjoyment of life. In our beliefs.   The more water (when I say water I'm referring to the good/desired experiences) we pour into our cup of lemon juice (our bad/unwanted experiences), the less and less the lemon juice tastes in our life.

And that's what therapy is all about. Its about learning how to open up and explore our various lemon juices. Because if we cant assess our bad feelings and experiences (our cups of lemon juice) then we can't know where to put water in. We sometimes don't even know we have cups and cups of lemon juice inside of us. That's how therapy helps us. It creates a safe place to access our "lemon juice". In general we are embarrassed and ashamed to confront our lemon juice's, therapy gives us the safe space to get to know them, understand them, and ultimately heal them by sharing, expressing them and helping them. Only once we can access and face our lemon juice, can we begin the process of pouring in a little water drip by drip.


    Conclusions,

-Our logic can't change our neural pathways because logic can't change experiences that are literally physically imbedded in the structure of our brains. Therefore, 
-Anyone who tells you to "just stop" or to just "understand", doesn't understand the way the brain works. even if we "understand" that what we are doing wrong is bad or not wanted, our brains structure still tells us a different story.

-Working to "mussur out" our addictions doesn't work. And the reason is the same. No matter how many times we "come to understand" what we are doing is wrong or not wanted, --we still want it. it is still imbedded in our brain that we still want it.

-Understanding or trying to explain to someone why "he's really not bad" or actually pretty attractive" wont change anything suddenly. Hehas 10000000s of strong neural-pathways in his brain telling him "I'm not attractive" "I'm bad" I'm dumb" etc etc etc. So telling him he's attractive is a great step. BUT he's going to need many may more of those to start beginning to actually FEEL that he's attractive.

-There's a reason why there's a 90 day chart on gye. scientifically, that's the amount of days that it takes to begin changing the neural-pathways of an addiction. and when we start feeling that we don't really don't have to watch porn/smoke/drink.


If anyone has anything to had to the things we can learn from this and take out of this please add!!! Thank for reading!!

WOW WOW WOW
Human Being,
You are able to make complex topics so easy to understand.

That lemonade example is really good one.

i relate 1000% to everything you wrote in the above post

Keep up your great work and looking forward to reading more of your posts

Vent? Here it goes....

life sucks! And everything is perfect except my mind and heart. 

A part of me hates myself.

My mind is mind boggeling.

I feel somewhat hopeless to ever feel 'normal'.

I Don't feel part of anything, nor do I feel as an individual. 

I dont know what I like/enjoy, and what I don't.

I wouldve love to share with others, but I just somehow can't. Heck, I can't even share with myself.

Enough for one post? 

Sapy you really expressed yourself well there. I feel like I'm inside your heart looking at all the pain of feeling all isolated and confused. About yourself about others and about life. 
Hugs. hugs and hugs. 

Sapy wrote on 17 Nov 2022 18:26:

Dear Sapy,

I can feel you pain oozing out of these words as I'm reading them. And honestly, I can relate to so much of it.

The feeling of "I should be feeling good and yet I feel like a walking zombie. There clearly is something wrong and screwed up with me somewhere deep down." An extremely painful burden to carry with you!! "And who knows if I'll ever be cured of this?" A compounding statement to an already difficult one to bear.

Then there's the feeling of isolation and loneliness, the yearning to share a deep connection with someone else that has yet to be realized. And the overhanging question-mark if it ever will (chas veshalom).

All of this doesn't seem to help our mental state as questions of purposelessness and meaninglessness start to kick in.

Not a great place to be stuck in, I can attest.

Also, the anger and hate directed towards oneself, blaming oneself for the pain seemingly caused by oneself. Perhaps we should be more forgiving of our selves. But that's another "should", so let's not take that to the perfectionistic level.

Rather, let's allow ourselves to feel. Let's allow ourselves to be angry. Let's allow ourselves to feel sad. Yes, those ugly emotions need to be felt as well. For the only way past is through.

I guess a simple consolation could be that you're not alone in your ordeal. We've got your back and we feel ,albeit never entirely, the hardships you're going through.

I hope your pain comes to pass quickly and all of this shall soon be a thing of the past. Wishing you the very best with a huge hug!!

AM

anonymousmillenial wrote on 17 Nov 2022 21:44:

Thanks for that. Really hit the right spot today! 

anonymousmillenial wrote on 17 Nov 2022 21:44:

Wow. what a post. Made me feel a little better myself. Sapy expressed the words we all cant manage to say. Thank you spy for helping me feel like im not alone. And you expressed a really authentic reply. Thanks!

Thanks friends! 

AM I almost feel like it was worth it to feel this way today, to get such a beautiful post.... Thank you!

BH I'm feeling better now, I've come a long way after 15 month in therapy, although those feelings still come up, and lately more frequently. 

Like many others, I also was somewhat emotionally neglected as a child, and was given the Nisoyen of anxiety, loneliness, emptiness, self questioning, isolation, addiction, mind racing, perfectionism, among others... 

Bh I'm in a much better place today, although I'm not out of the woods in any if the above mentioned problems, but my progress has taught me that things can really get better. 

And at last to all my dear friends out there, what are suffering from the above or something similar, I just wanna say I feel for you, it ain't your fault, am you don't deserve it. I feel your pain, and see your struggles, it's real. And it hurts. But with hashems help there is hope. It takes work, believing in yourself and time, but we will all hopefully feel better.

Love you all guys, and thanks for giving me a space to vent... I might even come back here....

Please do we and I are always listening!