Excellent article I found that I thought needed sharing

[tru2myself]

*LINK REMOVED*

The article discusses how P destroys men's ability to have intimacy with real-life partners. The author interviews various people who's natural intimacy have been negatively impacted by the use of P.

I found one excerpt from the article that really touched close to home for me: an interviewee mentioned, "How could you be constantly synthesizing an orgasm based on dozens of shots? You’re looking for the one photo out of 100 you swear is going to be the one you finish to, and you still don’t finish … How does that not affect the psychology of having a relationship with somebody? It’s got to."

What struck me is how I've found myself in the past looking for that "special kick-ass video or photo" that is gonna be worth it all. So many times I've tricked myself into thinking that there exists the "holy-grail" of porn. Why do I fool myself into thinking there's a perfect video or pic that needs my attention when the truth is I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR 12 YEARS NOW AND I HAVEN'T FOUND IT YET!

Many times I've relapsed because I try to search for the "one" video out there that's gonna be the perfect video or pic. Even more precise to what the real issue is, I need to come to grips with that fact that there will always be videos and pics I haven't seen yet, new ways to explore porn I haven't tried yet, and new videos and pics coming out every day. So many times I've given into my addiction because I'm craving that "video I haven't seen yet" or thinking about new ways to feed the addiction. For example, I received a new 40 inch TV for Christmas. I was clean for a whole week before relapsing because I kept thinking about how much more satisfying it would be to watch P on the new 40" HD television. It got to the point where I was having a slight anxiety attack just thinking about how awesome it would look on the big screen but, simultaneously, reminding myself how terrible a relapse would be. Unfortunately, I viewed porn on the new TV just to stop the anxiety that was building up inside me.

The truth is there will always be new ways to get high off porn that I haven't tried yet (viewing it on big HDTV, live chat, 3D porn etc...). There will always be tons of videos or pics I haven't seen yet. There will always be new porn videos coming out that I'd die to see.

Part of my recovery is giving up the feeling that I'm missing out on something special. I need to realize that the porn industry doesn't stop when you successfully defeat your addiction. The temptation to explore the undiscovered material will always be there. My job is to make sure that I'm aware of the desire for uncovering new material, learn to control it, and ultimately don't let it drag me down back into the pits of self-destruction.

[grasshopper]

WARNING ...

...that the linked article may be triggering. It is explicit in its tone and names websites, actors and particular acts.

However, this is a very insightful post. It reminds me of a saying about giving up smoking. "The best cigarette you've ever had is the next one." It is all about a sense of incompleteness, that something is not quite right, that all we need is a little something to fix up our dissatisfaction.

[TooSensitive]

Hello Tru,

I am a partner here. What struck me most was when you wrote about giving up the feeling that you are missing out on something special by giving up p.

How about this? You are missing out on something special by NOT giving up p. That special something is intimacy with other real, live people. That special something could be a meaningful relationship with a real, live woman. That special something is having an appreciation of living in the present and living in the moment. Right here, right now. When we are distracted so much by something else, we inadvertently end up missing out on some of the important things that are said or done by others who are there before us.

None of us are perfect, and we all have our distractions at times. Like a high level work project, or an ill family member. But to have a distraction like p, which provides no meaning in our lives, is so sad. P gives nothing back. P is not special; p is destructive, in so many ways that I don’t have to get into here. To do so would be preaching to the choir!

Good luck on your continued journey toward recovery.

TS

[Hibiscus]

I can't begin to describe the level of anxiety this topic stirs up for me, as an SO. My husband has always had a difficult time articulating what fueled the internet compulsion, but often used terms like "there's always more, it never ends".

Even in the moments when I'm feeling more confident that we finally have a handle on this and are making permanent changes, the vast availability of it is so overwhelming to me.

The endless quantity available online.
The ever evolving technology to access it.
The desensitizing of our society that sexualizes everything.

It's so mentally exhausting to feel on guard every moment, waiting for the next inappropriate image to appear. I'm so tired of not being able to go and see any movie we want to, watch any tv program...heck, I'm nervous just walking through the mall or approaching the magazines at the grocery store. A certain well known catalog appeared in the mail last week and my first thought was "thank goodness I got to the mail first".

It's such a sad situation for both the PA and the SO. The PA battles the impulse - the SO battles the left hook to the self esteem. I wish everyone strength to continue and the rewards that come with winning the battle and rediscovering each other.

[chasman62]

This is really the hook that grabs all people struggling with compulsions of whatever kind. It is that gnawing anxiety that even after a prolonged period of 'hunting' 'archiving' or whatever there is still more out there that needs to be discovered. That you have missed something.

I think that this also feeds from the stress and angst that we all felt after a binge of P or whatever. That terrible feeling of guilt and remorse and shame (which I do think is more extreme with something as socially taboo as P and MB) feeds the anxiety that drove us there in the first place....and guess what we go right back to it to find that thing that we know is out there.

One of the theories about why the internet is particularly problematic is that it feeds right into BF Skinner's theories about repetitive mechanical acts leading to reward and how powerful those are in creating conditioned behavioral responses in animals. The computer is a particularly powerful instrument in that respect and the nature of internet searching and the power of that whole cycle of search and reward is very much a part of this. Applies to all compulsive internet activities of course and not just P, compulsive facebook, shopping, even text messaging.

Hibiscus. The only way of dealing with this is confronting it head on. Your SO has to be willing to be honest with you about things that affect him...and you have to be open to accepting that and then moving on. The only difference between a man with an S/P compulsion and one who doesn't is the response to sexually provocative material. The compulsive will get an urge from that material to feed his compulsion whereas the non-compulsive will not. Doesn't mean he doesnt find such images stimulating or pleasurable to look at. Recovering from PA doesnt mean that you have to become an ascetic...it just means you have to be open about those feelings and not suppress them, bottle them up where they will overwhelm you into acting out. Did you talk to your SO about the catalog? We have got to the point now where we are able to share that sort of thing with each other and often laugh about the whole thing.

[Hibiscus]

Chasman, I've read many of your posts lately and I have to admit they challenge me in ways I know I need to be challenged. I hate that sometimes (lol), but it's the push I occasionally need. I think as an SO it's sometimes easy to slip into seeing things as very black & white when you have struggled with this for so long. While my brain completely understands that it is normal and healthy to find certain images and people attractive, my beaten up heart and self esteem wants him to be blind to everyone and everything else but me. Not realistic, but honest.

I didn't mention the catalog the day it appeared. Honestly, I didn't even think about it as being something to talk about at the time. I flipped through it myself and then put it with my things because I ended up spotting something I wanted to order. My husband, like many of the PAs here have admitted, is not very emotionally open in conversations. Much of the time I'm met with long silences or routine pat answers to questions - "I don't know.", "What do you want me to say?", "What are you asking me?", "Why do you want to talk about this?", etc. He has a very let's just move on and forget about the past mentality and feels like my need to discuss and uncover things is just prolonging the agony. He sees it as me self torturing without an end goal.

Because of the reaction I get from him when I do try to discuss things, I think I have a tendency to meter out what I choose to bring up and when. It's like I'm trying to ration conversational topics in hopes of not wasting a potential opportunity on something that seems small at the time. On top of that, his work schedule has been particularly difficult and will continue be so through March. That's left us with very little time together and he's made it clear he doesn't want to spend it talking about this issue. Of course, that leaves me frustrated and torn because I want our time together to be enjoyable and loving, but I'm not the one who brought this issue back into our lives again and it still needs to be dealt with. Frustrating!

Having said all this, I did decide to bring it up after reading your post. There weren't really any surprises that came out of the conversation, but it was a positive exercise in trying to learn to discuss issues as they present themselves - without delays, avoidance, or assumptions made. He said it would have been a trigger when he was actively using but that it isn't right now. He insists if he had been the one to bring in the mail that evening, he would have simply handed it to me and not looked at it. I think we have different interpretations of this. He sees not having the desire to act out as not being triggered by the catalog. I see it more as him taking a positive step in avoiding looking at this trigger. He's done the same thing since the last d-day (Nov 10th) with all media - tv, movies, magazines or whatever else pops up. He avoids provocative material, but he says it's because he knows it makes me uncomfortable. He claims he isn't currently triggered by the more routine media.

I think the entire topic of triggers confuses me. If any suggestive material is triggering when a PA is actively using, how can it cease to be a trigger just because the PA is now making the choice to not use? I might have felt differently about that if every discovery over the years had been P. But mixed in with the P I have almost always found other material, like men's mags (not P per say, but the readily available at the grocery store type - I'm trying not to name them). History has shown them to be his back up material if he can't access true P.

Going back to the original post, I can certainly understand why the internet can exacerbate an addiction or perhaps even push a sometime user into a compulsive behavior. My husband's use skyrocketed when we got our first computer years ago. When I cut him off at home, he found a way to access it at a previous job. He admits his use at work became so compulsive that he eventually cut himself off because he felt so out of control. Unfortunately, by then he had also printed out hundreds of his favorite pics and was still using and MB.

Clearly I need to end this post and start a journal thread.

[chasman62]

Hibiscus:

Thanks for what I will take as a compliment. I think what happens as you move along this journey is that you do gain a sense of perspective that you (obviously) don't have when you are acting out or in the immediate aftermath of that final decision to quit.

The whole issue that you bring up of 'triggers' is one that I think is a difficult one to generalize about. For me, a lot of the compulsion (at least until it got really out of control) was about the ritual of planning as much as the actual execution. Impulsive acting out was not really something I did that much and so merely observing something that was sexually stimulating did not immediately lead me to 'crave' an acting out session. This was especially true at the end when almost all of my activity involved pre-arranged online chat activity and not random internet browsing. I find it difficult to believe that if you were someone who was more of an impulsive-type PA who did typically get strong cravings after seeing something provocative and who would seek the earliest opportunity to act out that those impulses would simply disappear. All aspects of compulsive behaviors wane in their grip after time if you address them head on, but I can't believe it would happen immediately.

I think it is important for PAs to discuss their particular predilection with their SO. For your h he should be honest about whether the sight of a VS catalog would be problematic for him. It never was for me but I cant speak for him. It's not fun but in being open about things that are intensely shameful and embarrassing there can come real honesty in a relationship. I also believe that I don't get to choose when and how my SO wants to deal with this. As an example, we had a friend (who knows) over to dinner and a large part of it was spent discussing the final few months that culminated in the ultimate breakdown. It was sad at times, and embarrassing at times, and sometimes funny (in retrospect now after 6 months) but it was not designed to humiliate me or be vindictive in any way it was what K needs sometimes to help her move on with our life together. It is really tough if you are getting stonewalled when you want to talk about things that are important to you. Lack of communication is one of the real root causes of the whole vicious cycle in the first place.

Chas