i was close to failing today.

just today i posted how everything was going well... maybe G-d is teaching me a lesson not to be too confident in myself and stay careful.

i am determined to follow through with the 90 days!
i will not lose!

god give me strength, for myself and for my family that i live so much.
M

thats the attitude HBH just brought out of you by todays test!!!

keep on trucking!

We learn from our slips...or at least, we should! Sounds like you are, and that's perfect!

it's funny how confident i was, and how i was so sure that i'm doing fine.
and here i am. i fell once again.

what pains me the most about falling is the lies i end up telling people, and the double life i lead.
there's me, the nice guy, talented, smart, helpful, good husband, hard working...

then there's the other guy, "the real me" the one no one knows about, the one who shows up in the dark. impure, immoral, and vain.

i wish i could lead my life with just mr. nice guy. i would wake up in the morning and just do what was right. i would go study, work and learn. daven three times a day and have no trouble at all.....
but instead it's a pendulum swinging back and fourth. once i'm good and once i'm bad. jekyll and hide... it feels unstable. it makes my whole personality is unstable. i can't trust my one decisions, i can't follow through with the goals i set for myself. my inability to control this state makes me feel like i can't control anything. no matter what i decide - i'm bound to fail.

it just feels really bad.

not to mention my poor wife who knows nothing of all this... when i think of her i just want to cry.

i'd love to get your input guys.

god give me strength to get through this...
thanks for your support everyone,
M

muststopnow wrote on 03 Jun 2010 11:49:

This is tough for me to say, and maybe tougher for you to hear. And probably not even relevant. But I've started typing anyhow, so here goes.

I also felt a separation between my pure and my shmutzy sides. I'll skip the details. But I'd fall into depression, and then sometimes anxiety. I was medicated for both at the same time once, I recall. I found ways to keep myself from falling into the depths of 'down,' and to stay away from the siren call of unsustainable 'high.'

When I hit about 40, my umpteenth therapist correctly diagnosed that it was what they called "a mild mood disorder." A form of bipolar. I fought against the diagnosis, tried all kinds of denials and therapies and what have  you. Until I actually tried the medication consistent with that diagnosis. And, IT WORKED. I hated it working. But it worked. Life looked very different on the other side of that divide. And I liked it.

I'm not even SUGGESTING any kind of diagnosis in someone I've never met. I'm ONLY trying to say that this stuff is absolutely under-diagnosed, mis-diagnosed, and on and on. Finding a pro who really knows this stuff is hard. But the difference between an occasional antidepressent and effective drug therapy absolutely saved my life. And if the 'down' you're feeling might be a good picture to share with a good pro to see if there's a good treatment that you wouldn't find when you're a little more smug in hiding all your private dirt... well, there might be a reason that HKB'H is letting you feel so down right now.

That's a little sharp, and I don't know why I'm saying it this way, but the fingers are flying and I'm just going with the flow. Just understand that I care.

think, if you don't stop, than YOU willl suffer from the hand of Mr. Hide. The nice guy is not so nice. I think that Mr. Hide and Mr. Jekyll are both YH. If you stop M and P, then there will be just one guy, just YOU. And YOU have a purpose.
Hashem would take me out of this world if He had enough of me. The fact that I am still here means, that I still can do a mitzvah, still there is something good to do. Really good.
All these tears will become tears of joy for everyone. I am with you man, you can do it.

Hi, MSN. I can really feel your pain, they scream out from the page. I know G-d hears yours prayers, don't give up.

I can sympathize with the guilt and shame. I know exactly how it feels to be known for one thing by others and to know myself for something else entirely. It's a terrible feeling I don't wish on anyone and I'm struggling with it now. Here are some things that seem to be working for me.

Be positive. Help yourself. If nobody else, let "you" be there for "you". Truth is, you're just one man, not two or three or however many. Just one. And we all make mistakes; that is part of being human. Yes, you might think your errors are the worst, but everything looks like the worst when you truly regret it. We need to move past zeroing in on our errors, terrible as they may have been, and start looking towards our well-being, our healing. How do I know we deserve to heal? If G-d extended teshuvah to our lowly state, he extended healing as well. Let's heal.

It's time and move forward with a right mind. I had to face myself. It wasn't fun or easy, but I did (and I still do). You can do the same. You might find, as I did, that there is a way to live with who we are, even with this knowledge of who we've been. Tell me, who else are we if not ourselves? The only way forward is to accept ourselves and seek honest ways to better ourselves. I am comforted by the fact G-d is the One who called us forth to live. It is reasonable to believe we are in good hands.

Accepting yourself doesn't mean accepting only that side of you that has erred, but also that side of you that is wise, loving, family oriented, fatherly, kind. The list goes on.

Strangely, when we face what we fear, it isn't scary anymore. It loses its hold. Facing ourselves, even the ugly side, has a way of giving us strength, making things manageable that once seemed all too unmanageable. This has been my experience. Somehow, we come out able to live with ourselves.

Mr. Hyde becomes subsumed in Dr. Jekyll, but only when we face and accept him. Until we do, it is a terrible duality that we see, with us stuck in the middle crying for the shame of it all. But it all changes when we face the darkness, honestly and with a desire to return to G-d. We start to live again. And, as living tends to Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde is sublimated. Again, this has been my experience. I am still working out the kinks and taking it day by day, but these are some of the signposts I have seen on my way out of guilt and shame.

Maybe I misread your guilt. Maybe I'm just talking to myself here (I know I certainly am at least talking to myself). If this message isn't for you, no problem. Pass it along to the next guy. In any case, I am and scores of others on this site are pulling for you. Hatzlocha Rabbah!!!!! Keep your head up.

Do we really belive that G-d is on our side? We should. This is the key out of gehinnom.

Hello mister mustop,
welcome to the wonderful world of GYE. As you grow and continue on this journey you will begin to heal and be able to better work through the addiction. It is important to take this thing one day at a time. Don't think about doing 90 days. The attitude must be that I must stay clean TODAY. All you have is today. You don't have tommorrow, next week, or the next week. This is the attitude that will help you stay clean. I encourage you to join a 12 step progaram. It is the way that thousands of people have healed from this horrible destructive addiction. Your life is worth it. Duvid Chaims program begins a new cycle soon.
Much Hatzlacha.
your Friend,
Zalmandoovid

Thanks for your fears, they are my also. I am an addict, fellow addict. But you know that. Did I have to say it? For me, I had to.
With great strength comes great responsibilty as Spiderman said. Funny how many superheros have dubble lives!? What does that mean? Hm... As superheros, we fall only to rise higher!?  Hm.. Without my addiction, even though terrible as it is, I would never really come so much closer to the real me, to Hashem. I think.
When it pains me I am thinking, that's my rader, my Spidersense, something is wrong outside and inside, gotta tune in and be extra careful.
Do you feel that you have a new day, a new opportunity? How do you focus? Why do you focus? I must say, I really didn't answer these questions for myself yet, but i guess I focus because of my wife and because I can't go on like this anymore, I want light.

thank you all for your wonderful support and comfort! i am truly a lucky man to have found this site and people like you.

so i'm back in the game... it's a new day and a new battle.

this time i'm going to take a break from all video entertainment.
no movies, no TV, no youtube. nothing!!!
i'll read more books, help my wife, and sleep better.

but only for one week. if i try to go for a longer period, i will probably fail, as i have in the past.

so one week!!!
here it goes!

again, thank you all so much.
B strong people,
M

Hi,

Great! Maybe take just one day, is all i can handle...
y

Hi MustStopNow,

I wonder if perhaps, speaking to your wife may have some to'eles. Of course it may be disastrous and I'd hate to be the guy telling you to do it. But hearing your pain at covering your tracks is painful for me too. When I sat down and told my wife I had a problem with M, it was very scary. One of the hardest things I've had to do. But so necessary, for me at least. Leading the double life is pashut no life at all.

You really need to put something on your internet connection, too. I would recommend web chaver. Getting her to let you install it without telling her about the M would probably work quite well, especially in Israel. Say that your Rosh Kollel / Rosh Yeshiva / Chavrusa / Boss thought it was a good idea. Find a nice Rabbi who you and your wife know well and send the reports to him and your wife. With that kind of scrutiny, it'll be far harder for you to find any kind of dodgy sites on the net.

If you decide to tell your wife about your problem, you'll hopefully have her support. It may be easier to tell her you have a problem, but that you have a plan at the same time and that you need her help - eg Web Chaver, K9, counselling even?

Either way, I know I'm projecting (apparently a lot of people do that), but I feel the weight on your shoulders from keeping this deep dark secret is so debilitating that you probably ought to tell someone. Is there a Rav you could open up to?

Good luck. I'm rooting for you.

NGUYOB

NotGivingUpYetOldBean! wrote on 08 Jun 2010 00:45:


Your comment cut very very deep into me. Because "of course" it's no life at all. Unless it's the only one you've got. Or the only one you think you'll ever be zoche to have, or deserve, or find.

In which case the double life starts looking normal. As it has for many of us. Like, me.

But as others have said here, cleaning things up at the WRONG time is simply unfair to the other people involved. Figuring out the right vs wrong time isn't easy. But for a Torah Jew I'm still thinking it involves not just a therapist but also a Rav. Yep, a Rav who would need to know Everything.

[Yep, everything. You think they've never seen it before? You think it's not in the Shulchan Aruch?]

So, the comment cut very very deep to my own life, and to my "right now." But maybe it's also a sign that the sharpness of it might work for others, as well. Kill the double life, to help the unified life work better. Ouch.

i need to refine my objective:

one week with no TV is too much.
so instead i'm gonna go on a week of watching documentary films only. going cold turkey is really hard for someone like me - an addict.

i just heard that my niece is in a serious operation, so i decided to use this to my advantage! i made a neider not to watch any pornography for a month, in the hopes she gets better.

i know it's risky, but it will give me strength.
i just need to take a day at a time, like you all said.

another notion that i came to is that on days that I miss the minyan for shacharit - the whole day is gone and it's more likely i'll sin. so getting up for the minyan is crucial.

as for telling my wife....
it's just not time yet. maybe if i'm clean for 90 days it will be worth discussing, but for now i'm just not stable enough to go and tell her.

thank you all so much for your help and advice!
M

Reb Muststopnow, how have you been?

Keep up the good fight. You're going to make it.