Hello friends.

Here I go. I'm finally tired - no, better yet, exhausted. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of making commitments I know I'll never keep, of seeking admiration in others eyes and knowing that it's lies. Worse, I'm sick of buying into that false image that I present to others so well - that of the brilliant Talmid Chacham - the Ari Shb'chabura - and buying into so completely, because I've given up on real truth so long ago. But eventually the lies must, the music stops, and eventually we are just left with ourselves, starring at ourselves in the mirror  and wondering Master Of The Universe, when did this all happen?.

Bosti V'Nichlamti, L'Harim Roshi elecha

But I've made a commitment - this time, I'm tempted to believe it. Let me explain. I had a horrid childhood. Details perhaps I'll speak of later - but now I that my parents were sick people themselves - perhaps as I am today. I wonder if they ever got a chance. And so , it was passed to onto me. One cannot live a lie to their children.

I was walking with my one and a half year old the other day - and I realized - if I don't conquer this - myself, my essence, my addiction - my own pain - then who knows what I will pass onto to my children.

So it's enough. It's not about me anymore.

Friends, I beg for your help. In none can I confide. Interestingly, it says in Iyov that the ribono shel olam gave the satan reshus to take everything from Iyov save his life.
And so, Iyov's children died. His fortune was taken, and merciless boils covered his body. But oddly enough  - his friends - remained unharmed. The answer is clear in the Gemara in Bava Basra (end of HaShutfin) - Oh chavrey k'chavrey d'iyov oh misusah.

I hope that you will be those friends from far off.

KaNesher, welcome.




Those friends are here, waiting for you.

KANESHER HEILIGER TZADDIK
FIRST OF ALL SHALOM ALEICHEM

IS ONE COMMITMENT TOOO MUCH TO HANDLE??

I BELEIVE NOT

COMMIT TO STAY ON THIS FORUM

OK WHERE DO WE START

YOU CAME HERE BECAUSE OF 2 REASONS


A. YOU HAD ENOUGH
B.YOU CAN NOT CONTINUE LIVING A DOUBLE LIFE

I KNOW THE FEELING

I AM A MARBITZ TORAH BIRABBIM (LITTLE SECRET  BUT IT IS TRUE)
I STRUGGLED ALL MY LIFE

I HAD ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH
TOO MANY YOM KIPPURS WITH BROKEN PROMISES
TOO MANY FALSE STARTS
TOO MUCH LIEING
TOO MUCH COVERING UP
TOO MUCH DELETING

I FOUND THIS SITE THE SAME WAY I FOUND THE 'SMOOTTS"
I GOOGLED IT
I FOUND YKV SCHWARTS 15 YEAR BATTLE

I SAW IN EVERY WORD YAAKOV SAID THAT I WAS TALKING TO MYSELF

I CRIED SOOO HARD

I WANTED TO BURY MYSELF ALIVE

I CANT TELL YOU THE BUSHA AND THE UPSETTNESS

I COMMITTED MYSELF TO 90 DAYS

THE FIRST WEEK WAS EASY
THEN.. THE.. IWAS CLIMBING THE WALLS

PLEASE LMAANCHA ULMAAN TINOKES SHLO TA-AM TAAM CHET
STAY HERE FOR 90  DAYS
bardichev

-- deleted --

Dear Kal Kanesher,

I am the admin of this forum. It is my greatest honor to welcome yet another holy yid to this community. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED! Once you've arrived here, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

I sense a great soul in you, hurting... You will yet learn how to be free, kal kanesher. I gave you an Avatar on the forum already, as a sign of our love for you!!

We get cries for help exactly like yours every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, please join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and make sure to post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation! We have such holy Tzadikim just like you on this forum. Very soon, you will start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. You won't believe me when I tell you this, but one day you will BLESS Hashem for your addiction, because through it - and through recovery - you will learn how to TRULY give Hashem your heart.

You are very right. What we don't take care of is often passed on to our children to take care of. When you fix this, not only will you be saving your children from these tests be"h, you will also be bringing a great tikkun to the souls of your parents.

I also highly suggest joining one of our anonymous 12-Step phone conferences. See this page for various options throughout the week. The 12-Steps teach us how to let go and let Hashem take away the addiction from us. We have learned the hard way, that will-power alone is not sufficient in dealing with an addiction.

Now let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Make sure to read them, they contain a wealth of information on beating this addiction! And I'd love to hear your feedback on them...

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

May Hashem be with you!

GUARD SHOIN A PIC!!!

KANESHER YOU ARE VERY SPECIAL THE GUARD LOVES YOU ALREADY
b

KaNesher,

Welcome Home! To the Family of GYE we are ALL here for the same or very similar reasons.

We understand the struggle you are going throu.

Feel free to shear as much as you need to.

We will all help you in every way we know how to.

We will teach you some of the greatest tricks & give you some of the most updated & sophisticated weapons to date to fight & trick the Y"H.

We will let you in to many of his tricks he tries to get us in his trap. Like letting you grow get close to Hashem Very close just to knock you down & show you what a looser you are & so on.

So here are some tips for starters that previous posts have already made.

1) Read Reb Guards Hand Books! It's a Must!
2) Sign up for the Chizuk & Shmiras Einaim Emails.
3) Read other peoples threads.
4) Post your own struggles & problems on your own thread so that we can respond.
5) Like Reb B. said you will have withdrawal symptoms a week or 2 into the recovery, you will have to hold on IT WILL PASS.

If you will stick with us through Ups & Downs and commit to the 90 days you life will become Kal Kanesher! that doesn't mean you that the Y"H will disappear. He will always be there,only you will be in control!

You will learn as you go that when we talk about "Fighting" the Y'H its more like letting go of him & letting Hashem take over! its a deep concept I just had to make myself clear so I don't get hit on the head by my friends on GYE for using the term "fighting"

With All The Love In The World
Efshar Letaken

Holy Warrior,
Warmest shalom alichem to u my newest yedid nefesh. 

I'm sure u know by now that the GYE site is molie vgodesh with ahavas yisroel, assides from being an oasis of sanity and wellspring of chizuk for those seeking holiness, purity and sanity!

The most important thing that I learned from Rav Don Segal shlita. -and his words still ring in my ears- is that one may never ever  be "nispael" from a fall!

Rav Don explains the pasuk of "sheva yipol tzadik vkom", when is he a tzadik? If only After he gets up is he a tzadik,  the pasuk should read "sheva yipol vkom tzadik".  You see from here, says Rav Don, that even "bshas nefila" a person can still be a tzadik!!

As long as he brushes himself off picks himself UP and goes on!!

Bahavas olam and fiery love

Noora

B'Erev Yalin Bechi U'Baboker rina -

I went asleep feeling silly for posting . And there you all are. You know, the underlying essence of the internet is that it's the human voice. George Orwell predicted that technology would one day lead to a total control of the individual; instead it has released everything, destroyed any and every authority.
People used to perhaps be promiscuous in the depths of their hearts, but could never act on it because of social norms. The internet has broken down those norms, and let everyone speak freely and anonymously -  what they read and what they see.

And that is the horror - in chedrey chadarim - when there is kavod, no moreh shamayim k'moreh bney adam - well, the human voice isn't so very pleasant to hear, is it? And I saw another website that seemed geared to the frum community and was horrified; the prustkite seemed to be totally without busah...and I asked myself - is that all we are? Is everyone a faker - just like myself - and not even ashamed of it?

But here is another voice. The voice of all of you. Here, free from posturing and kavod - how genuine you all are. Here, were no can see, where none will gain shidduch points or kavod...

Thank you, for making me believe in an ideal again.

I've had an excellent filters installed a while ago, and have not been able to look at anything, though I tried hard (both rimon/net nanny, actually blocked this site. I had my wife unblock it - for shemiras eynaim )Well, I've signed up for the 90 days, so far so good. I read through the two GYI books. And I walked into stimetskys and they actually had the AA big book (open siyata d'shmaya). I'm hesitant about joining one of the 12 step groups; even writing like this makes me incredibly uneasy. I need to - kind of ease myself into this group support system. And I've finally realized I need to see a therapist - badly, even though I saw one in the past when I a bachur. But , frankly, I wasn't looking to be totally honest, and was smarter then him and convinced him of what I wanted him to believe. I didn't really want to get better, I didn't even admit I had a problem, and spoke mainly about my abusive past. Now I need to find the right one - and walk in with a commitment to be honest. Frankly, I find it almost impossible to trust - so this will be a challenge as well.

So, I am starting with all of you. 

Reb Guard (is that the correct title?) thank you for the avatar. The Posuk in tehillim says about teshuva -HaMeir KaShachar Neurichi - and Rav Kook writes so beautifully about that posuk in Oros HaTeshuvah; I would quote it but I don't remember it exactly. I will have to dig it up, and will share it with you all.

So far, so good, dear friends. Please don't stop posting. For now, this is what I have.I know I've been vague about my addiction; I will bli neder write more pratim to get your advice, but I need to work myself up to that.

kanesher,
Welcome aboard.  We are so zoche to have another warrior with us here. 

I stand in awe of your honesty and determination to win your battle.  I have a feeling I am going to blind my eyes watching you fly to the heights of the world. 




Sh'koyach!  You have identified the enemy.  Now you can beat him! 




Bardichev, that's interesting; I had the exact same experience!  ;D 

kanesher wrote on 13 Aug 2009 03:34:


I felt a little silly when I started posting here, too.  But then I realized, I keep posting and feeling silly afterwards!  If I never posted, I would have kept those ideas in my head and never realized those thoughts were silly.

boker tov heliger kanesher

I am amazed at how you fit right in with the group here

Do not give up before 90 days are over

we will help you every step of the way

you will find yourself

enveloped(E.L. you got that?) In ahavas Yisroel

ltaava yivakesh nifred

lust wants seperation

The Talmidei Baal Shem put a big emphasis on dibbuk chaveirim for this very reason

ok chaver

welcome aboard
post away

bardichev

R' Yankev, where can I find your story?

I have not posted in a while but I clicked on the link in today's Chizuk e-mail, read this thread, and felt like I had to weigh in.

I am simply amazed at the people on this forum.  What I see here are not people but pure, sensitive, beating hearts, full of honesty and the desire to to Rotzon Haborai.  In the "real world", you will rarely find simple, honest acknowledgment that all of us, from marbitzei Torah to the simplest Yid, live in this world at this time and face challenges on a monumental scale.  As factual and inescapable as that is, most people try their best to appear as if everything is under control.  They can work in Manhattan, buy a nice house and marry off their children to b’nei Torah in style…while giving the impression that they live every shaar in Chovos Halevovos to perfection (and have since before their Bar Mitzvah), that nothing matters except learning and that every facet of Halacha is carefully adhered to.  I am not cynically complaining about hypocrisy.  I am illustrating the impossible level of expectation that we are supposed to live up to.  And the more capable and sensitive you are, the more you think it applies to you.  And the more it applies to you, the more painful it is when you realize that you do not truly measure up.  So you medicate.  And try harder.  And medicate again…and the cycle begins.

Then one day you realize, as you inevitably must, that this isn’t working.  It’s only making things worse.  Something has to give.  It’s not that your learning isn’t sincere or that your commitment isn’t real.  It’s just that it’s a little harder than you thought to be the perfect person.  What’s incredible about this site is that you can admit that and hear others admit it.  That you can take it from the top, acknowledge your challenges and share your triumphs that, in the “real world” don’t exist because perfect people have no challenges.  The feeling that you can be you and are loved for it.  That we will cry with you, laugh with you and drink l’chaim with you (Woodford Reserve, of course).

Kanesher, we are here for you, welcome!

That's what "Oilom Hufach RoIsee"

"Elyoinim L'Mato, V'Tachtoinim L'Malo!"

The head table when Moshiach comes wont look anything like the picture we see in the "Kol HaOilom Kiloi" weekly Gedoilem updated picture Magazine.

E.L.