HALT filters everything

 I'm tired from not sleeping much in this crazy strong heat.  I lie there actively fighting against myself to not touch her.  If I do, I'm only thinking of myself.  If she says yes (which she probably won't) I'll feel guilty and bad for my selfishness, my failure.  Then I'll feel no better and no less in lack the next day.  So pursuing disconnected sexual pleasure won't actually make me feel better.  The physical pleasure will be outweighed by the guilt and knowledge that I've added one more grain of sand to tilt the scales of our physical relationship toward unhealthiness.  I'm aware of my perfectionistic fears, but... still...

I do my meditation, listening to Tara Brach's talk.  I experience my pain a bit and think about all this.  In the last 24 hours I've definitely been powerless over my obsession and compulsion; yes I'm still a sex addict.  But it's good that porn and masturbation hasn't gotten the best of me for almost three years.   Still I'm feeling that lack and that overwhelming sadness, so that positive doesn't matter to me now.  But I'm not needing to be perfect, connecting is my new goal, and I embrace my shadow self and remind myself every day that perfection isn't the goal at all.  I've come to believe that a power greater than myself can relieve me of this suffering.  That means I'm not alone, I'm connected. I run through a list of people who I have varying degrees of connection with, but none of them seem significant.  Even my ever loving Bridge's love seems insignificant because I'm feeling depressed and overwhelmed.  I made a decision to turn over my will and my life to the care of my loving higher power. That means I'm loved, so I reject the lie and feeling that I'm alone, not loved, not good enough.  

Later I reread this post and imagine myself being soothed by a loving caring understanding mother.  I feel her arms surrounding me and her close breath saying, 'You're going to be alright, I know, darling.'  and 'I've got you, honey, it's okay, I'm here.'.  I imagine myself feeling soothed and comforted and I imagine feeling better, in hopes that with practice I actually will feel better.

anatomy of insanity

I feel that lack, and I feel it strong enough that it's f****** up my time with my beloved.  I read in John Gray's book about sex that women don't know if they want sex (like the opposite of many of us men know, we know that we do want it).  I need to ask her, to give her a chance to think about it, I need to woo her.  But 35 years of porn has dug deep trenches in my brain so I default hard against risking rejection, making myself vulnerable, and not knowing whether her response will be yes or no.

I ask her, then I get angrier and angrier as I wait to see what she says.  I feel humiliated making myself vulnerable.  I feel like a fool wondering what she'll say.  And all the while my emotions form a force-field around me that pushes her away and traps me in my man-cave of isolation.  The thing I need is comfort and reassurance and affection.  But the vibes I'm giving off pushes her away in the exact opposite direction.

A few days later, and I have a lot to be grateful for (although I've been livid with anger and heartbroken with sadness too).  This is part of my addictive cycle.  This is going to happen again (dammit!)   I have done well (good job, well done!) to have taken action by going for a walk and making a phonecall.  I am grateful to realize it takes more than a few hours, sometimes more than a day or even two, for the anger to subside.  That means, unfortunately, it might not be best to puruse/expect/engage in intimacy during this spiraling.  Again, the very thing I want the most is not what I really need and acceptance is huge.

Roots Push Through Pavement

The way a seemingly weak weed works it's way through and cracks concrete, the way the roots of a tree wind their way right through pavement or a road.  My feelings will find a way out.  Like water finds a leak, inevitably burrowing slowly and unstoppably.  I'm like that boy with my finger plugging the whole and the damned dam of pressure behind my emotions gotta go somewhere.

If I'm talking to her, she'll say something for my anger to latch onto.  If she walks away, I resent that.  I want her to stay while I walk the tightrope trying to balance my anger so she doesn't see it.  But maybe she will, but I hope she doesn't, or does.  I don't want her to mention the elephant in the room, nor do I want her to walk away. 

I am a tightly wound ball of anger, resentment, neediness and sensitivity, coiled and ready to deploy, a spring ready to be sprung, a mess of contradictions and conflicting desires that are impossible to resolve!

Sight: the favoured sense of a porn/sex addict

She's upstairs finishing her morning routine.  I am drawn and... can I say it... 'repulsed'?  That's such a strong word.  I feel shame allowing that feeling, uncomfortable writing it.  But I feel a strong guttural pull toward her knowing she's showering, cleaning herself, making herself ready and there's something alluring about that.  It seems like she's 'available'.  There isn't the usual barrier of clothes.  She's in our bedroom, or near it.  I have sexualized so many things (underwear, nakedness, etc.) that I instinctively keep away while she's showering and walking around in various states of undress.  I feel anxious and triggered.  My memory is stronger, the fantasy of immediate and context-free sexual encounters (which I programmed and reinforced over many decades of consuming porn).


But what about that word 'repulsed'?  I don't want to admit it.  I don't want to write it down.  But, she's gained more weight recently than ever in our marriage.  I used to get turned on by looking at her body, but now I often look away when she climbs into bed naked (the way her body sags isn't nice to see).  I feel guilty, but while I am drawn to her while she showers and dresses, I am simultaneously repelled by her flab and dumpy shape.  My addiction is never far away, so I want sex--any time.  I love her and I appreciate her for who she is, her care and companionship and our conversations, and yes, the pleasure and connection of us enjoying sex together.  But I have to touch her and kiss her to get turned on.  Maybe it's because I'm getting older (I'm not a teenager anymore, that was over 30 years ago) so it might be more about my body than hers.

What a strange feeling to be drawn and repulsed at the same time.  And when we are intimate, those times when it's not ideal, I feel a stronger pull than ever.  When sex isn't satisfying, I want more sex.  The sex that isn't fulfilling creates a stronger urge than ever for more more of that same thing.  Like that anology of a thirsty person drinking salt water, only to end up more thirsty.  I want sex but need to step back and see that there's something else that I really need.  The strongest and most powerful physical experience is what I want, but I will only get what I need if I look somewhere else.

I am learning that there are no wrong feelings, that I need to acknowledge and feel this repulsion, so I can let it pass through me (healthy) and move on.  It's no reason to be ashamed or label myself as 'bad' because of feeling something that I don't like.  The feeling isn't me.  It's not my decision, judgement nor a belief nor permanent.  Writing about this is helping already, but I know I need to talk about it honestly and with people who are understanding and who are not judgemental.  Being heard is really important for my recovery and it communicates that I am worth (and I have) value. I'm worth talking about my feelings. I'm worth forgiving myself and practicing being compassionate toward myself.  As I struggle with this, hearing myself say these things out loud and knowing I'm being heard and seeing others model accepting me, helps me to follow, join in, and accept myself too.

Better Self-talk & New Mantra

Today I noticed her annoying habit (which isn't sexy) or maybe it was that she's gained weight or just the doldrum boring familiar bedtime routine.  Whatever it was, I thought,

"I don't like this" but then I thought, "But I can accept it".
That seems healthier.  I acknowledge the feelings and verbalise the reality, then, and only then do I put it in context and say something about my relationship with this reality.  It used to be more like,

"I don't like this".  "Why can't it be like (insert fantasy here)" and much rumination and anger and longing followed.

"I feel disappointed, but I can accept this reality which is better than fantasy."

Distortions, Thoughts & Emotions, oh my!

I've been reading about and pondering the cognitive distortions used in CBT for a while now. They make sense and I can identify with them, but there's always been a disconnect between the idea and my problems.  I've never been able to use cognitive distortions personally.  It's like they are concepts, but very individual and 'in my head' and of an analysis and academic perspective.  When I'm struggling I'm all in my emotions, overwhelmed, confused, angry and not thinking clearly.

But this week the two converged.  I was in the middle of my addictive obsession, trying to think through the confusion of what seemed like thousands of thoughts behind a few very strong feelings.  One of my 'core lies' messages was intelligible though, "She doesn't want me".  Looking back on it, I think it was really more like, "She is annoyed with me", or "she's annoyed about something and it's coming across in her conversation with me".  What a huge difference between the first and the last of those three messages.   I could take the 'core lie' and expand it to it's ultimate destructive and hopeless conclusion as well:

"She doesn't want me"  descends to "No one wants me, I am not loved and I am all alone".  Seeing it in the cold light of day it is obviously rubbish.  I've got a loving family, thoughtful colleagues, a supportive church and friend network.  I get on with some of my neighbours and on and on.

But in the fugue of my addictive pain, these lies seem very real and I can't rationalise about them.  It feels like I'm stuck in a room with horrible messages playing on a loop.  They are not clear, but they are relentless.  I used to respond by going deeper into my addiction where the numbing would quieten those thoughts.  But the addiction was somehow temporarily distracting them from me, but somehow it feed them and making them stronger for next time.

So, what about these distorted thoughts?  

By LoudLizard

Selective Abstraction:
I based my conclusion that she doesn't want me, that I'm not loved, that I'm alone... all on one fact, that she was annoyed with me or didn't seem to want me in one way at one time.

Minimisation: 
I downplayed the fact that she's been married to me for a quarter of a century, that she says and shows that she's committed to me, she's patient and understanding of my struggles.  I downplayed all these things and drew my conclusions on one negative and temporary thing:  That she was annoyed with me or didn't seem to want me in the way I hoped.

Personalisation: 
This isn't so clear in this scenario, but it does seem to be my default assumption whenever anything goes wrong.  Someone makes a mistake, I automatically think, "Shit, that was me!" when usually it's not at all.  It's accompanied by fear and some wrong assumption that mistakes are fatal.

Arbitrary Reference:
Again, I draw the conclusion that I'm unloved, I'm not wanted, I'm alone, not quite arbitrarily, but definitely illogically and incorrectly.  I didn't bond when growing up, so I didn't feel or learn to feel loved or attuned.  My parents thad their own problems that distracted them and made them unavailable, so, yes, I did get a strong sense that I wasn't wanted.

Magnification:
Definitely making a mountain out of a molehill when someone being annoyed with me or not propositioning me in the way I like gets exaggerated and distorted into, "I am alone and unloved"!

Overgeneralisation:
Again, it's understandable why mental health issues make us think of craziness because my feelings translated into thoughts because of long-held deep and unexamined beliefs that seem insane!  Everyone can see it's crazy to think I'm alone because I'm not getting what I want or maybe what I think I need.

This shows a lot of filtering, black & white thinking, over-generalisations, catastrophizing emotional reasoning and mislabeling (cognitive distortions) which are deep and not gonna change automatically or without dedication and work on my part.

Resentments: listing them to help them along their way

I resent her.  Mostly physically and it all fits under the umbrella of being a 'real woman' and not the porn fantasy that I brainwashed myself to expect for all those decades:

She's getting older, flabbier, saggier.
while porn gave me never-ending variety and youth and physical perfection.

She doesn't want me more than anything else. She's sensible and practical.  There are scenes in movies and TV where people rip each others' clothes off, oblivious to the rest of the world in their passion and overwhelming desire for each other.  Porn makes me expect this (and her gagging for it with no connection, no foreplay, no work on my part).
Then there's TV shows where lifelong partners undress and talk about their day while climbing into their own side of the bed with their habits formed over many years.  They might might read in bed, they might kiss, they might talk about making love, but they often don't.  Real life means talking about our sex-life, alongside talking about other relationships and practicalities.  Not always sexy.

She doesn't represent fertility.  Her impending menopause has not only put a damper on our love life, but it simultaneously reminds me of both us being in the last half of life and how diametrically opposite from young-sex-fantasy our reality is.  Instead of vagina being a mystery of pleasure and desire, with the period being an ignore-able symbol of her youth and fertility, it's become a reminder of the unsexy practicalities of her childbearing past (along with her drooping breasts and permanently pointy nipple--mutilated by breastfeeding,--something else that's unsexy and not about me.  Every period is an unwelcomed guest which should have left the party long ago.  We're too old now and just want to watch TV and go to sleep.

More Realities.  She burps, she shits.  
I've held women to a double-standard and I haven't minded them working harder to look better, to be attractive even when sexuality isn't relevant.  I can fart, but she shouldn't burp.  Of course her bowel movements are smaller and shouldn't smell.  They should be dainty and really she shouldn't shit at all according to my narrow view that ignores reality and focuses on fantasy and sex for pleasure.

I've ignored the parts of reality that don't fit the idea of youth and idealized sex.  I embrace her breasts as erotic zones, sex organs, a way to turn both of us on.  But I resent the natural and normal changes they've had from the miracle of feeding our beloved children.  I've worshiped her sexuality as a way to make me feel powerful and alive and happy.  I wallow in the peace of mind from knowing she's committed to me and will be here for me for the rest of our lives.  While I simultaneously resent her getting older and changing.  I can't justify having her, enjoying the comfortableness of 25 years' of intimacy while simultaneously yearning for someone young.  I'm not really wanting someone else.  I'm wanting that stupid impossible fantasy of porn.  Porn never gave me children, who really do give my life meaning.  Porn never listened to me and understood me, only an ageing and flawed woman can do that.  Someone to love is what I need as much as someone to love me.  I am working to leave behind the fantasy from porn so I can embrace the real her, and real love (giving and not just getting), which involves pain and lack as well as satisfaction and real connection.

What I Need (on two levels)

On one level, I feel I need sexual stimulation and gratification.  It's my 'go-to' way to self sooth and cope with pain and celebrate and fend off boredom (it's the answer to everything, really).  This supposed need isn't rewarding.  It doesn't delivery what it promises.  I think this is related to dopamine as I'm always chasing and wanting and only feel worse after receiving the fix on this level.  I'm drawn to it but ultimately left bereft.  It's shallow and selfish and it's causing harm to my oh-so-important lifelong marital relationship.  This need seems to run on autopilot.  It's always there and seems to have an endless fuel supply.

I have another need, that can operate at the same time, but on another level. It's a need for connecting and a need to give and love and experience real love.  This need is linked to the big picture and the long game.  I need to know I'm doing the right thing with my life.  I need to grow and improve and give.  I need to mature and develop.  I need to know that when we are intimate, that she's really there because she wants to be.  If we are together out of a sense of duty or if she's just trying to stave off my Baser Needs, my Egoic ID and animal needs, then the real me is left disappointed and unhappy.  This need seems to be related to seratonin as when I feel this quiet and subtle feeling, it's satisfying and there are no cravings related to it.

The only way I can experience authentic satisfaction is by engaging my mind and my heart and accepting that my monkey brain will have to be quieted and my Baser Needs can't be in the drivers' seat.  This means pain, this means discipline.  The problem is that I surface into this higher level of existence periodically.  But I live most of my life unable to tune out the thumping base of Need and screaming nerve endings of physical sexual desire.

I have to keep cultivating the Higher me.  I must keep learning about what my body is doing and I must keep handing over my 'needs' spiritually so I can keep on remembering what my autopilot keeps forgetting:  I am more than my subconscious pain and automatic urges.

I know why I am not good at handing pain from what Gabor Mate teaches.  I know why I am drawn to sexual stimulation.  But knowing isn't enough to overcome it.  I need to keep internalising and understanding while practicing handing it over. I need to wash my brain with the fact that I don't need what I keep hearing I want and need hundreds of times each day.  This obsession can ease and this compulsion can fade.

What it feels like (today)

Two years since M.   I have been meaning to write down the small but significant ways that life has improved.

But first I want to try to capture a little of the overwhelming feeling that I'll call, 'The Funk'.  It's like being depressed, but I feel it mostly around her:  the object of my addiction.  She's the one who insists on treating our sex life as if it involves choice!  Ridiculous!  I'm angry and resenting her not giving me sex, or if that, not really wanting me in our sex.   But she picks up on those negative vibes and reacts by not wanting to come near me.  So the very thing I want, I push it away through my heavy and weird wanting.  Sex isn't really what I need.  What I need is to feel loved and accepted and wanted--yes, sex is my preferred delivery mechanism for all these.  But it's not the only way, and sometimes not the best way. 

It's a quiet weekend together.  We have time to talk and enjoy being together.  There's no reason we might not be intimate together this weekend..... Except me!  My mood, my funk is strong.  I'm very quiet.  It started with my counter, my fair-meter.  I woke up thinking about how she decided to not give me sex last night.  Which then reminded me how often she's done that lately.  Which then reminded me how long it's been since she actually wanted me sexually, enjoying making love to me!.

I'm sitting in a restaurant with her but I can't pull myself out of my wordlessness.  Then she asks me how I'm doing.  I don't know where to start.  I think she's criticizing me for struggling.  I think she's just trying to get me talking so she can give me a quip for how to change my attitude.  I know these feelings are too much about her to talk openly about.  I settle on a partial honest statement, "I don't feel needed by you".  It's true, but I say it because there's a sexual interpretation as well as bigger one.  I try to think of something to say, but 9 out of 10 of my ideas are negative, and most of them are about how I'm upset that she's been neglecting me.  She can feel the 'vibes' coming off me.  My mind is stuck going 'round and 'round about how I'm not wanted, not needed, not enjoyed.  I want to feel better but I'm depressed because I can't.  I know the only road to intimacy is for me to be normal, yet I can't help being needy.  The state I'm in is not attractive, yet I need her to be attracted to me.

Still, what are some of the little things that are different/better after 2 years of no porn:

1) I'm not obsessed about every way she's showing her ageing.  I notice, but it doesn't make me angry, it doesn't take over my thoughts.

2) I'm content with my age.  I walk past older couples and I don't dread the 'writing on the walls'.  I walk past younger couples and I don't yearn for her and pine and ache to be with youth.

3) I can almost always get to sleep at night without sex.  I used to get so angry, that often I'd miss out on that nights' sleep.  I'd be very full of resentment of her the next morning, and maybe through that next day.  Not anymore.  I might be mad for 10 or 20 minutes, but I usually sleep okay and am not harboring or ruminating on it the next day.

4) I can be at home on my own all day, several days in a row and rarely does my mind turn toward addictive sexual gratification.  I used to be hopeless on my own at home, now it's.... just.... fine!

5) I can be at home with her, no one else in the house, and not obsess and get worked up and obsessed until I'm angry and unable to communicate (because of fantasizing and being unable to stop thinking about having sex right there, right then.

6)..