Day #6.

Have a great Pesach!!

You are an inspiration and whenever I come on I look for your forum!

Hey shevah yipol...v'kam, love to see you shteigh! Yom-yom you got this!! Stay shtark and strong, remember you are in control of the decisions, nd hashem will help you along the way!

This year has been challenging in the areas of pornography and masturbation.

Reasons why:

• This year, I have been in night school while actively looking for a new job. Either one of those alone would add a lot of stress, but both at the same time... It's not just stress, but it's stress while sitting in front of a computer screen.
• My current job has mostly unstructured time.
• Unfiltered devices. I have two work devices that are unfiltered and for my night school, I removed my filter for a reason which I explained in earlier posts.
• Apathy. Even with all of the above, connecting with you all on this GYE forum and texting GYE mentors are great tools to overcome this challenge. But, they require me having the sense of urgency to address my pornography and masturbation issues. I am not proud of my behavior, but I have been apathetic. Kind of like, I have too much going on right now to have the headspace to talk about my porn issues.

What prompted me to post today?

• Shavuos is coming up. I want to purify myself in time for receiving the Holy Torah.
• I got a new job, so the stress of the job search is no longer.

Plan:

• Control my internet usage. Be intentional as to what I do on the Internet as opposed to spending time on it with no thought.
• Become active on this forum again.
• Text my GYE connections regularly.
• When my program is over, I am going to put the filter back on my computer. That is only in a few weeks time.

Day #2.

שבע יפול צדיק וקם wrote on 24 May 2023 00:17:

Awesome. 

Are you working on the apathy?

Grant400 wrote on 24 May 2023 00:43:

Love it, Grant400. I believe that we take matters seriously, in this case again, when we are involved in them. I can't work on apathy if I am just continuing to have falls with no serious efforts in stopping. I am increasing my efforts and I do believe that I will take the topic more seriously and will develop an increased sense of urgency to stop.

Day #3.

Made a new connection offline with a GYE chaver today. Feeling good about giving my pornography and masturbation issues extra attention especially before Shavuos.

Day #7.

Day #8.

My main area of struggle is when I try to get work done--school work, take home from job, other responsibilities--at night. I am exhausted and not motivated. I end up sitting in front of my computer and procrastinating with everything that I don't want to do. That usually leads to me looking at pornography and masturbating and not getting any work done that I had intended to. It finally hit me tonight. ממה נפשך, the entirety of the work will still be left over for tomorrow morning. I decided, that's it. I'm capping my computer usage at 10:30. If I still have work to do, it's not like I would get it done anyway after 10:30. 

I will be finished with most of this after hours work in two weeks from tonight, but I don't want to wait for another two weeks to get myself together.

The only time we have is right now.

Day #11.

It is usually around this time that the challenge is no longer acute urges, but is now making sure that I can keep my guard up. I am proud that I have made it this far and I do believe that this time I am prepared for the next part of the challenge.

Day #14.

Day #17.

שבע יפול צדיק וקם wrote on 30 May 2023 01:46:

Day #21.

I usually am not satisfied when I don't masturbate and/or look at pornography. I am usually just not dissatisfied. In this case, I am actually feeling satisfied and proud of myself. I have one more night of the after hours work that I mentioned in that previous post. I didn't wait until those burdens were over and now I am three clean weeks later.