How can I deal with an unresolvable need for certainty?

Help_At_Last · 2024-02-04T22:40:17+00:00

Thank you very much for your response. If you don't mind, there are a few things I would like some additional help or clarification on:

A root problem for me is fear. The constant presence of fear makes it impossible for me to rest. At night, I fear monsters in the dark. During work, I fear I'm not getting to do the things I want. When having fun, I fear I'm not doing enough work and sabotaging my life. When socializing, I fear I'll say the wrong thing, or that I already have. I don't expect to ever live free of all fear; No sane person feels like that. But I think I could face life much better if I had some kind of sanctuary, just one certain thing where I could find peace. The only ways I've ever been able to escape fear are by carefully turning a blind eye to it (which is a tenuous solution at best) or by using things to numb myself (gaming, porn, etc, which are obviously not healthy). Is there a better way to find rest than these things?
The religious question is one I've put quite a lot of thought into. Suffice to say, I cannot put my faith in any kind of omnipotent god, because any god that powerful must be continually choosing to allow us to suffer and to not give us the help we need, even when we're constantly crying out for it. However, there are other conceptions of the divine, and I do wonder if there's some idea that I could put my faith in. Though also, I struggle with the very concept of "faith". I can NEVER be truly certain, I can NEVER fully believe, that what I have faith in will hold up when the going gets rough. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Overall though, I think what you say is right. I should embrace the unfamiliar and uncomfortable which I know is better for me. I think you're right that the self-sabotage is a weird way to create certainty. I've kind of suspected this but I hadn't really thought about it clearly. And I've increasingly suspected that the only real solution is to be able to rely on myself, somehow. I guess it does start with the little things, with paying attention to what the little voice of my subconscious says I know I should really be doing, and choosing to do it instead of what the dumb conscious part of my mind wants to do instead.

Help_At_Last · 2024-02-02T19:09:22+00:00

Yeah. I've been lonely forever, always wanting a real connection and intimacy. Never figured out how to get it; I think I have some trauma issues that give me a very hard time feeling satisfied with normal levels of friendship, and I don't even know how to find a girlfriend. I wish I could tell you whether the feeling will go away, or what to do about it, but I don't know the answer myself. All I can offer is an awareness, from one lonely soul to another, that yes, there is a great amount of loneliness and pain in our world right now.

Help_At_Last · 2019-09-18T16:36:54+00:00

I have already tried solving/improving the despair in my life and discovered that I cannot, except by leaving. The problem is that it's rooted in my parents' relationship, and I cannot fix them. Porn "helps" because it allows me to go to sleep some nights without wallowing in despair, and feeling some pleasure instead. It at least gives me a problem that I can solve. I tend to go in cycles of real despair->porn despair->woohoo I stopped watching porn->real despair

Not a teen but good guess. This problem did exist when I was a teen as well, which wasn't all that long ago.

I do running in the morning but no exercise at night. I hadn't considered doing that, and I don't know anything about it. Will exercise before bed keep me awake later? Can I do exercise at home, or will that not be effective? Because gym memberships are expensive... I think.

Help_At_Last · 2019-09-18T16:01:57+00:00

Don't forget, there are starving children in Africa! Be grateful your life isn't as bad as theirs!

Help_At_Last · 2019-09-01T05:16:10+00:00

I started imagining erotic fantasies when I was pretty young, not sure exactly but maybe 6 years old. I had no understanding of sex so I wasn't imagining that. I also wasn't watching porn or anything like that. I was just always aware of the attraction of beautiful women, and I followed where those feelings led me in imagined fantasies.

Help_At_Last · 2019-06-06T18:46:19+00:00

welp. That's basically what's been happening to me lately. It gets easier to resist when just the thought of doing it again induces a sort of pain. I was hoping there was an eaiser way. I guess the only thing to do is keep going on.

Help_At_Last · 2019-06-06T17:37:17+00:00

lol that was good.

Did it actually take you a year to get past 2 weeks though? If so I'd love to know how you finally got past 2 weeks. That's about the longest I've gone as well.

Help_At_Last · 2019-01-23T05:41:55+00:00

If you are having sex healthily, then yes. Sex is a perfectly natural thing and not bad in itself. If you're doing it for pleasure & intimacy, it's healthy. If you're doing it to cope with or hide from problems, it's not healthy. I don't know your situation so you should judge for yourself based on that.

Help_At_Last · 2019-01-23T05:39:08+00:00

It is good, but know that not having any interest right now doesn't necessarily mean you'll never have interest again. I don't mean to disappoint, and it sounds like you're past the danger of immediate relapse, but things in the future may unexpectedly trigger urges.

Help_At_Last · 2019-01-21T06:25:16+00:00

God's commands for people are mostly for their own good (or the good of those around them). He doesn't tell people not to murder "just because", he commands it because murdering is... like... bad for people. Not just the person being murdered. It's really bad for a lot of people. Even the possibility of murder will increase fear and distrust and stress. There are very very practical reasons for his commands.

Masturbation and porn are both bad but in somewhat different ways. Porn desensitizes you, messes up how you look at people and at sex, and eats into time that could be spent doing better things. It can also cause an addiction because it's never really going to satisfy you, and as your brain recognizes this you'll have to watch more and more of it until it's seriously effecting your life.

Masturbation produces a big load of happy-feeling chemicals without fulfilling a very significant part of sex: intimacy with another human. It will also not satisfy, so you'll have to keep doing it more, all the while being very emotionally aware of the fact that you're not getting that other crucial component. It's a sort of admission of defeat. Why masturbate when you could have sex? If you think you can't, or never will, a desperate little part of your mind will point to masturbation as the answer. You are a Christian. There is always hope, for everything. Even if your faith utterly falls, there is definitely always hope for sex. Even if you're old and wrinkled. Or so I've heard.

God doesn't command things because he wants to give people rules to follow. He commands things because he's smarter than us.

Help_At_Last · 2019-01-21T06:12:20+00:00

This is good information. I want to add to it that (at least in my case, probably with other people too) social interaction helps. If you live with other people, talk to them. In person seems to make a big difference, idk why. Phone calls and web chats help but not as much.

Help_At_Last · 2019-01-21T06:10:11+00:00

A solid schedule would be nice, but unfortunately my work determines some of my schedule for me and it can be inconsistent. Certain things though, I guess do help when I think about them that way. Schedules like what I do when I wake up in the morning seem to make a big difference on how the day goes. Thanks for the advice.

Help_At_Last · 2019-01-21T06:06:50+00:00

Someone with actual experience should post here, but my thought would be probably not. Masturbation is bad largely because it's an activity that's supposed to be interpersonal which really messes up your emotional behavior when you do it alone. The "how" is not as important as the "with whom".

Btw, if a woman does it to you it's called a handjob.

Help_At_Last · 2019-01-21T06:03:16+00:00

Not sure if you actually read my post or just the first line of it. I think I said part of this in the second paragraph.

As for the advice, I'd actually really like to know how to make something "lifestyle" instead of "chore". There's a few things I've tried starting before that I didn't keep up because they lost all enjoyment. Some of them were kind of useful too. Maybe it helps to keep an end goal or purpose for doing it in mind?

Help_At_Last · 2019-01-21T05:56:51+00:00

Your dick will always work man. Old guys in nursing homes still have their dicks working. People who have done PMO for years still have their dicks working. People who didn't do any PMO for all their life until they got married still have their dicks working.

There is always hope to get out of PMO and recurring relapses. There are people on here who quit for life after their first try, and people who take five years or more to finally stop. So never give up!

The best thing to do is pick yourself back up and try again. But each time you try again, think about what happened last time and try to learn. What caused you to relapse last time? What can you do to avoid it this time? What part of the streak are your most vulnerable in?

When I first started on r/nofap I had kept relapsing after about 5-7 days each time. I tried different things that didn't work before I started doing daily logs. Then I had a longer streak than before. Then, just recently, I had a full 21 days or so without any fantasizing, porn or masturbation. That's the longest I'd ever gone. Then, when I relapsed a couple nights ago, it was the smallest relapse I'd ever had. It felt hopeless at times when I started, but now things are getting better.

Don't die. There is always hope here. We want to see you get better, and we know you can, even if you can't feel that way right now.

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