Been plagued by it lately, and always, can't seem to shake it. It's always about one person, my ex, sex with whom I can't stop thinking about. We haven't spoken in a while. The possibility is up in the air. I don't want to get back together. I just want to have sex with her. It's hard not to text her. I'm going through withdrawals. We won't speak for a while, things will feel good, like I'm in the clear and moved on, then one will text the other, nothing will happen and the cycle will start all over again.
I can't move on. I want to move on but I'm assailed by the fantasy. Maybe it wouldn't come if I was working my program better: more calls, more step work, more meetings. When I was working with a CSAT she said fantasy is the last bastion of the illness, the final hurdle. Maybe that's true. She said it takes 3-5 years to get over this addiction. I'm getting close. I need to cut off relations with my ex altogether. When we broke up we said we would be friends but we're not being friends. Friends talk to one another, they see each other and so on. Friends is just something you say when you break up. I really wanted to try it. I thought it would be cool and modern, but I don't think I'm capable. There's so much confusion. Even after we've clarified we're just going to be friends there's still so much confusion. I want to have sex so badly. It's still so important to me. It's still a cure.
I actually saw her today driving through my neighborhood. What was she doing? Did she move close by, was she trying to be close to me? She must have been on her way to work, but was that the fastest way? Probably so. She could cut over and be there in a few minutes. I think she pretended not to see me. I fought off the superstition that came over me - it's meant to be! I told myself it's over, but I get back to my apartment, to the smallness and the four walls and fantasy kicks in. I did well for a minute. I checked my phone but I knew she wouldn't text, then I lay down to read. I got tired, rolled over to take a nap and that's when the fantasy kicked in, it's so powerful, paralyzing! I wanted to text her. I crafted a message but didn't click send. I imagined where it would lead, but something told me it wouldn't go anywhere.
I wasn't going to be able to sleep. I decided to try something new. I decided to take a shower and masturbate. I don't normally masturbate when fantasy pops up, especially to that fantasy, it seems to feed it. This time I tried to appease it. I told myself if I still wanted to text her after then I could. I didn't want to. I just want to gratify something and that's not fair to her. I could have messaged a friend in the program but I decided not to. I was about to go to a meeting anyway. I lay back down to read. I wasn't feeling any shame like I sometimes do after I masturbate. I was feeling good, relaxed. There was nothing wrong and that made me uncomfortable. I decided to make something wrong. I got anxious. I calmed myself. I breathed some essential oils. I just had to make it to the meeting. The fantasy was gone.
The fantasy was gone. In its place was shame and anxiety, fear. I had a hard time concentrating in the meeting, but I'm still trying to bounce back from the spiral I went into on Wednesday. Maybe that's why the fantasy has come back. I don't feel the shame as consciously as I did on Thursday, but it's there, deep down in the cells, and I'm trying to escape. Maybe I could do more to deal with it. I could share about it but I feel like the people in my meeting won't understand. That's the essence of shame. I try to do the bare minimum, who up and hope that's enough. I could pray but I don't. My estimation of prayer is that it doesn't work. I don't even think to do it. I could try. The other night I prayed, I asked for the obsession to be relieved. I asked to be healed. Maybe that's progress. I don't normally ask for anything. I normally just say thank you for things. My relationship with my higher power is one of fear, and feeling unworthy. Do you feel supported if you believe you're supported, even if you don't feel it, is that all it takes - to trust even though you don't trust? You have to trust in order to trust. Sometimes you trust because you trust, but when did you choose to start trusting, and how much do you trust?
I don't beat myself up for fantasy anymore. It's just something that's there. I don't try to rid myself of it either. Once it starts it seems like it's there until it's depleted in the form of some kind of ejaculation, and even then it probably just builds back up to a peak again. So maybe it follows a normal drive cycle, and the fantasy is the object of the drive rather than something like a loving, healthy, sexual experience, meaning, fantasy is a symptom of something going on rather than the thing going on itself. It's a craving for validation. It means I'm in the middle circle. It means I'm depriving. In the past I've thought there's nothing I can do about it. Fantasy has struck me and I'm with it till the end. I white knuckle it. That's the MO of my recovery, white knuckling. I try to do it all myself, all alone, as if getting help means I can't do anything. But who's done anything in the history of the world all by themselves, that is, without help from someone else?
I'm not always hit by fantasy and sometimes I think I like it. Again, it's something to distract myself, a reason not to be vulnerable, an excuse to go back to the way things were, but then I don't seem able to do that either, I'm too scared, so I'm stuck. This addiction is a hard one to give up. Steps 6 & 7 are where the giving up occurs. It is something to give up. You'd think it would be easy but it's not easy giving up something that served as your parents, your friends, your nourishment, your love, your God, your all, your fun, your excitement, your thrill for so long. Is it easy to give up on something that protected you and made you feel good your whole life? But then, did it really? Ah euphoric recall! One must play the tape forward, or more often, one must feel the shame of acting out to see it's really not worth it anymore, and to want to give it up once and for all. I've had many once for alls, but then I seem to forget and I want it back. I want to go back to what I think it was: control and fun and thrill, but what about the misery? What about the afternoons of off days spent lying in bed with your head in your hands, paralyzed by loneliness? You don't think of that. You don't think about the desperation and you certainly don't think about the shame and fear and paranoia that come afterward. The isolation, to say nothing of the people you hurt. None of that crosses your mind, it's only the good moments, whatever those were.
The mind doesn't want to, and yet, somehow, it's able to stay in it now because you set your happiness outside yourself. You think,"if I could only get that thing then I'd be happy." Even though when you get that thing it's never enough and you have to start all over and you want more, more, more. You create a game for yourself because you don't want to face your pain. You're still attached to this thing that you believe will save you if you can just get it one more time. You're so ready to believe in this and yet, when it comes to everything else you're skeptical, but I guess it's good to see that you can have faith.
So where does that leave me with fantasy? I need to prevent it from coming around. If I were in a more positive mindset maybe it wouldn't happen so much. But even when I'm feeling good I fantasize. I fantasize about talking about my writing on talk shows, passing on wisdom somehow. I fantasize about being famous and revered, but I can pull myself back from those fantasies. They seem harmless. These others are more bodily. I take them to another level. I want to leave completely and escape, and once I do it feels impossible to return. I tell myself I don't want to fantasize. I know what it gets me - nothing - I know how it feels, empty, and yet some days I'm more susceptible to it. Perhaps it's a trigger thing. It's something I go to to escape when I feel particularly lonely or hopeless. It happens at night mostly during downtime, before bed if I can't fall asleep or after I wake up when I'm lingering in bed and don't want to start my day. It's those times when I need the most help. The tricky thing with fantasy is that I tell myself it's harmless. I'm not hurting anyone. The same thing I used to tell myself when I would objectify, and then experience craving later. So, I'm hurting myself. I'm not hurting anyone but what about me? What about how it feels in my body and when I'm around other people: anxious, scared, ashamed, paranoid. What about how it feels for others when they're around me? It must be painful, not only to experience my anxiety, but to not be able to get close to me. And who can get close to me when I'm in that space, completely absent? So I can see why my CSAT said it's the last bastion of the addiction. It's not the last place it resides, it's the last thing I have to let go of, and it's the most difficult thing of all: the thing that's closest to me: my vision for how I think things should be, rather than participating fully in the way things actually are, but I know from experience now that the latter is MUCH more fun than the former, I just hold myself back. So that's the next thing to focus on, and maybe that will help with the letting go. If I'm making my life somewhere I really want to be, I'll have no need to escape it. Of course it could be that way now too. I'm just adept at seeing what's wrong rather than what's right. Maybe all that takes is practice.
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