Reb Chaim, I love the clarity and the way you express yourself.
​I can relate to almost everything you described, and I'll probably relate to everything once I reach your madreige!
Thanks for describing my triggers so well!!! 
Keep on shteiging my Chaver ! Please continue being our inspiration!

BH, with help from Hashem, another week of Tahara. I don't take it for granted, this was a particularly difficult week.
I love havin' all of yous to hang out with and learn from.

I was deeply moved by a post by richtig earlier this week (not sure if this will work for link- guardyoureyes.com/forum/19-Introduce-Yourself/396104-Some-Stuff?limit=15&start=60#397012 ). I want to share what it meant to me. I don't know if these feelings are so relatable, I'm writing them for myself, but you are all part of me now ... 

I was driving in the car by myself, thinking about some of the things I had been reading on GYE, when I suddenly started weeping, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of sadness and regret for all of the mistakes I have made. I found myself crying over the pain of softhearted lonely Yeshiva Bochur I once was. Lurking in the dormitory, finding magazines that others had hidden, guilting about it the next day, then going back for more. Making heartfelt, whispered promises and breaking them, and breaking my own heart repeatedly in the process. Sobbing for the Chosheva yungerman I was, working on so much learning and growth, working on his relationship with a sweet wonderful good woman, who still managed to find himself looking for and at pornography in sick, hot, fascination, at strange and at trying times. And I was thinking about all the brachos that Hashem has given me, and how I have not repaid Him in kind, rather with רעה תחת טובה at so many occasions, so many mistakes.... A deep upswell of  surprisingly powerful Charata, even בושה, from my depths. The tears left a weird feeling of peacefulness, too. Strange.

I called someone for Chizzuk, listened to what he said, and kept on going forward, to my next appointment, not really understanding the catalyst for the experience.

Richtig, you explained it so well. As too many years have gone by, I had to, needed to accept myself as ok. So even while working on these inyanim, I began to accept these parts of myself. I told myself that my falls don't define me.  That these struggles fall into the realm of normalcy. Everyone has a Yetzer, no one is perfect, etc... I grew a protective, leathery calloused shell around the softest, most vulnerable part of my heart. And I buried the despair of unrequited hope and forlorn guilt beneath a false wall of optimistic pragmatism. Kept shteiging, yeah, thats what I do. Helping other get better, teaching Torah, and the Torah is מגין ומציל and I am good. I did get better. but not completely. But I didn't feel a certain, deep kind of regret, in years. Until now.

And I think i understand it now. And I think for me, it's healthy now (though for others it may not be, guilt is like chemo - in the wrong doses it's catastrophic). Acceptance is good as a Mechayeiv , not as a Ptur.

For the first time in a long long time, I actually believe in my deepest self, that I can be ok, that I will be truly clean. I am chaimoigen, and I am working on being a tzaddik. I am.
And I can now, finally truly allow myslef to rip off the dead skin around my, thankfully-still-beating heart, and deeply regret all the lost yesterdays in a different way..... כי עמך הסליחה, למען תוורא - There is hopefulness now, and I can actually cope with ideas now that I couldn't before.....   

I'm sorry, Tatteh, for not being who You wanted and hoped I would be, even after all these years. But i think, maybe, if you will continue to be so good and keep holding onto my hand, I can maybe give you a different kind of Nachas from now on... I'm snuggling under your Tallis, my new white one, and I can feel you holding me. Thank You for this new start.
And thank You for GYE.

Wow, incredibly powerful! 

chaimoigen wrote on 09 Jun 2023 17:31:

What a masterpiece Chaim! (I won't do the "I am so deeply humbled" routine; to the contrary, I am gratified that you take me seriously). To be honest, I am scared of reopening the depths because I don't know what I will find, and I don't know if I have the kochos to deal with all that just now. To clarify, were you crying over what you lost as a bochur, or were consoling that poor boy as someone else? That can be so therapeutic. Will it hurt when you rip off the dead skin? Keep us informed. It is wonderful that you can believe in yourself again! I am doing it day by day, and it is wonderful but I am scared to think long-term yet.

I don't know how this Torah works, but if the 50th shaar in Mitzraim was Yiush... then hope is mamash like the first rays of dawn...

כי עמך הסליחה, למען תוורא--- yes, ouch! it hurts to say that in front of the amud on rosh hashana, please bashefer help me this time I mamash can't do it alone... you are making my insides ache... It's a good thing. I hope so much that this year I can come with a clean conscience. 

I just want to share one more thing- I heard Torah from Rav Yonason David in a Tisha B'av Maamer, that in the bayis sheini they didn't have the aron, so they did the avodas yom hakipurim by the makom ha'aron. It looks like a huge, sentimental bedi'eved, but in a way there was a giluy that was not present during the first bayis. Why did the aron go davka in that place? Must be the place was special (as we know). But normally, or prior to the churban bayis rishon, we only were privy to the aron itself. But when the aron was taken away we got to see what was underneath, what was more yesodisdig than the aron. When we daven ממעמקים its not from our aron, its from our makom ha'aron. (If anyone wants the actual maamer i can try to find it).

​ Your last paragraph made me uncomfortable to read; it was so personal and so vulnerable, thank you for sharing 

Reb Chaim, I cried through it. Powerful beyond words

Delicious! 

Reb Chaim!!! The inspiration is huge! fascinating & unbelievable!
If you have done it to where you are now, I can too.
Thanks for sharing, you woke up my emotions once again, (I cant cry now...).

richtig wrote on 09 Jun 2023 17:59:

It was both. I feel a wave of powerful Rachmanus when I think of myself as a young boy, finding that skin magazine in the waiter's shack in camp... When I picture myself as that yearning, emotional, somewhat-lost Bochur crying into his Yom Kippur Machzor, and then falling again before Simchas Torah... Learning until very late at night, and then going and wandering the streets staring at a lonely moon, rummaging through discarded magazines behind the drugstore... I have a lot of pity and empathy for him, I am in pain over his struggling. So too when I think on and remember some of the difficuties I faced as a fresh Yungerman....

But now I am also feeling a lot of regret for all that I have lost. Regret for all that I could have been, if not for this damned, bloody, albatross weighing hot and heavy on my poor neck all of these years. I could have been so much more, so many of my dreams could have been realized. I could have been different, brilliantly better. I deeply regret not getting help a long time ago, not having made better choices, [although I am proud of the postive choices I did make, BH]. For me, this is a healthy feeling now, I think. 

The better news is, as a great man once said "The עבר is always Gut ". I am not too old, I am not too jaded, and my future is not lost in the past.
So I am moving forwards and working BE"H, together with ya'll, toward a different future, a different Chaim.
[ועי' רמב"ן פ' אח"מ וחיי בהם, דברים נוראים ונשגבים ומפליאים, ואיכמ"ל]

You want to know how it feels?
I am much more easily moved to emotion. Colors seem brighter, my connections with others seem so much richer. I feel everything more. Mostly that's good, except for the painful stuff, but it's ok. I feel more alive, I guess.

To tell the truth, there's one issue I need to mention here, (and I think it's fairly common). I am unfortunately experiencing heightened awareness of  each and every curve on every woman I meet or pass.  Beckoning and alluring in a completely different way, each time the wind blows....

So I am working on being extra careful where I look, and being Machazeik myself.... Because I want and need the richness and colors to remain in my interactions with wife and kids and talmidim and in the Gemora and the Siddur. And it helps when I BH also have incredibly heightened awareness of the sweet, soft curve of my wife's lips as she smiles, of the soft look she gets in her eyes (sometimes). And I was even aware of the gentle way she touched my hand, even as she got seriously annoyed at the way I dealt with something in the house on Shabbos....and more.

It's a good trade, but gotta stay on top of it. I keep asking for help.   

I am Chaimoigen, and my eyes are open, and it's a work in progress... BH

chaimoigen wrote on 11 Jun 2023 15:57:

regret is important for unhealthy choices. there may also be a period of mourning for the perceived possible lost potential.  however, it is also important to move on from regret.  try to focus on the incredible opportunity that you have.  much of that opportunity is available to you specifically because of your past.  Try to think, what would hashem want me to do now.  You cannot change the past.  But you can use the lessons of the past to capitalize on today and build an incredible future.  The emotional awareness that you feel at this point afford an opportunity to connect to hashem in a way that is very powerful and not always attainable.  Now is a great time to develop your passion for torah, mitzvos and kedusha.  Please continue to share. you write beautifully,

hatzlocho
Vehkam

chaimoigen wrote on 11 Jun 2023 15:57:

Great post as per our usual arrangement.. I have rachmanus for that boy too. I didn't that same experience but I can imagine it's painful, broken into a public persona and a private, shameful one. Who's the real you... Anyway, this is an amazing trip, thank you for including us in it, and keep enjoying your wife's subtleties, I am trying that now too.

Incredible post, thank you so much.

A little while back I expressed to ChaimMod that it's a real shame I didn't find this site years ago. To which he responded by sending me this story
See the story on page 3 about Reb Chaim Dovid Doctor
https://guardyoureyes.com/GYEFiles/PDFs/GYE%20Weekly/20_GYE-Weekly_110920_Nitzavim.pdf
Reb Chaim, I totally get your feeling. In spite of the story, I still feel that way, like imagine if I would have stopped all this nonsense years and years ago, how different would I be. I appreciate your words on the subject

A reinterpretation (with some changes), of William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus”, by a grateful Oved Elokim…..

            Inmortalis
Out of the night that covers me,
    Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank my God unendingly,
     For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
    At times I've winced and cried aloud.
Yet bludgeonings of seeming chance,
    Leave my head bloody, but unbowed.

For beyond this place of wrath and tears,
    There shall be respite in His shade,
And so the menace of the years,
    Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll,
He is the Master of my fate,
    He stands me Captain of my soul.  

Last night was extremely difficult.
Long, draining day, with a lot of frustration and setbacks, low energy level, worries and challenges. My wife got her period. Then I needed to deal with something extraordinarily painful for me, at length. Did the best I could, and afterwards, I was on the verge of tears. I called my wife to discuss for a minute, but she was busy with something....
Sitting in my office, I had a strong thought/urge to "take a break" and "air out my brain" by looking up some interesting and distracting innocuous things on the internet.... Yeah, it was the same old corpse bride, beckoning to me to be with her, makeup on her rotting face.  
Thanks to the Rebono Shel Olam and all of you, I called an accountability partner instead, and texted a GYE friend. Told my wife I'd be home very late - And went and hooked up with a chavrusa and learned for a few hours. I generally love it, but felt a different chaim in it last night.  Maybe it was actually the sweetest night in a while...

I am still susceptible, and life can be hard. I still would have enjoyed what the red haze of abandon would have brought me, while I was in it ר״ל, and that is something that I have to continue to live with.  But I am eternally grateful that I don't have to do the same stupid things I have done in the past. I am grateful to have someone to call, who i believe truly cares about me. I care about me too, I think, more than I did a month ago. That feels good too. Thanks for being here

chaimoigen wrote on 14 Jun 2023 12:00:

Some post Chaim! This is mamash the work! The different things pile up just right, asking for a fall, and then you think about what to do, and then go through with it. I think this is kedusha, like in the old yeshivos, during shovavim they focused on the mind rather than the eiver. The mind is the real makom of kedusha. Last night was extremely difficult, and sweet. Can be both. And I relate to what you said about not having to do the same stupid things- it has been compulsive; as though such and such facts must lead to such and such actions. Turns out I'm learning, they don't. I also feel, not having to knock myself so much, that I care about me some more, too.