How do you overcome an addiction like this?

[Hemidakota]

Trigger is a good choice of word....thanks.

[FunkyTown]

Hey Lost,

It sounds like the issue goes a bit deeper than just the sexual issue. I hear self-esteem issues, almost crippling depression, feelings of alienation and loneliness.

Have you considered that the sexual sins might be just the surface of something deeper? I have some other guesses, but I hesitate to say them on a forum. Counselling might be in order.

Just remember: You don't need to hate yourself. No matter what you've done, there is always a way out and there is always a way forward.

You're amazing.

Originally Posted by lost87

Prodigal Son......

I live alone and am single. Spiritually speaking I am really far from where I ought to be. I have felt the spirit once in probably two years, and my testimony is on incredibly shaky ground, i've been questioning even the basics......I think though that the questions are just an excuse to justify what i've been doing, deep down I know the church is true. In my head all the doctrines make sense and I know its right, but I can't at all feel it in my heart anymore. Its like I am dead to the spirit. I haven't ever been through the temple and received my endowments, and i've not been worthy to take the sacrament in 15 months.

I have talked to my bishop, and he is a very sweet and kind man. About a year ago I was put on "informal probation". Last time I talked to him he said that the general rule for what i've done is a disciplinary councel, but he didn't want to do that yet. That was a month ago and I am still in this situation, so I am afraid that if I talk to him again he will feel like that ought to happen. Either way though, I really just want to change, so if it needs to happen, thats ok. I feel like when I talk to him I am wasting his time because i have been trying to change for so long (3 years) and have only done worse things.

So thats where I am.

Just_a_guy...they do go beyond pornography...and I hate it because I am a girl and this isn't supposed to be an issue. I don't really have any close friends that are girls....but I see how that would be helpful. Any guy I have told about the situation eventually ends up using my weakness to his advantage in some way or another.

Thanks to the both of you for your help.

[rameumptom]

In his book, Awakening the Giant Within, Anthony Robbins gives some good advice. First, our lives are what we make it by what we focus on. If we continually allow misery to enter our thoughts, we'll be miserable. We must choose to focus on concepts that bring hope and joy to us. How? By asking ourselves the right questions.

Miserable people ask the wrong questions: Why me? Why are they so mean to me? Why can I never overcome this weakness? Why can I never succeed?

We need to change the questions we use to positive power questions: Hows and whats.

How can I turn this around? What changes do I need to make to succeed? What do I need to learn to have the right options in my life?

Ever see someone crying, who in a moment can be made to smile or laugh? Why? It is because the focus is taken off the miserable thought, if only for a moment. We can rework our personal questions (or questions we ask others who are down) to lift ourselves up:

What are some of my favorite memories? What things bring me pure joy? How did I feel when I held my newborn in my hands?

In his book, What Happy People Know, Dan Baker PhD, wrote about the death of his son. It tore him apart and he just could not be consoled. At least not until he refocused. He began thinking about the wonderful moments with his son, and was filled with love, joy and warmth for the time they had together. It was a healing feeling for him, and he often reflects back on those wonderful moments to regain that hope and joy.

We see the same thing in Robin Williams' Peter Pan, in the film, "Hook." He cannot fly or regain his Peter Pan powers until he replaces his current thinking with new ways to think. It takes a happy thought of his son for him to fly. But we go through most of the film watching him struggle until he finally catches on. Nothing works, until he changes inside.

If we are miserable, it is because we choose to be miserable. We have taught ourselves misery, and it becomes implanted as a neural habit in our brains. It affects us physiologically to where many of us need to use medication and therapy to learn to manage the misery. Sadly, the answer for most will not be in meds, but in teaching our brains to think in positive questions.

[martybess]

Rameumptom awesome post!!!!!! Soooooo true for all of us, everyday of our lives!!! I wish we could of seen or could remember how the Savior acted and thought in everyday life. Everything in the scriptures is serious. (For a reason).... but still we could learn so much from the master!

-Marty

[MissKitty]

You are worth so much, so much more that you realise. You deserve so much more too. I have been in a similiar dark situation so , you meet a person and you want to feel loved important special cherished only it doesn't happen. Your left feeling dirty, empty, and of less worth than before the enounter happened. So what next? On to the next person, it'll be better next time won't it? You hope and then the same feeling. It's like an endless circle and the only one that can brake this circle is you but not YOU a lone you need the strength that comes from the love of our Father in heaven.

Heavenly Father wants to give you the strength to over come this addiction as you are such a precious daughter of His if only you could see. He wants good things for you, he wants you to have a partner who will love and cherish you not these strangers who abuse you and take from you and leave you with nothing.

It makes Heavenly Father so sad for you, some thing so beautiful he created not aware of how very precious and beautiful you are.

The way to over come this addiction is to have a greater understanding of who you are (a daughter of God) and to not be afraid. You deserve His love as much as any of us do. You don't deserve to be used by strangers. You need to open your heart to the Lord and ask for strength. You must believe you are worth it, you must believe you are a precious daughter of God (these things are hard to accept especially when your self esteem is already so low) pray often and openly, strive to feel the love of Heavenly father and Jesus Christ. The love of our father and Jesus christ is so much more powerful and meaningful then any of these people you have encountered.

Other good things would be to develop yourself, find hobbies and things you feel a sense of achievment in, develop your inner most feelings of self worth.

If you want to talk to me at any time please send me an IM and I'll come back to you.

Thank you for being brave enough to ask for help and remember when you realise you've got a problem your half way to finding the solution

[martybess]

Originally Posted by MissKitty

You are worth so much, so much more that you realise. You deserve so much more too. I have been in a similiar dark situation so , you meet a person and you want to feel loved important special cherished only it doesn't happen. Your left feeling dirty, empty, and of less worth than before the enounter happened. So what next? On to the next person, it'll be better next time won't it? You hope and then the same feeling. It's like an endless circle and the only one that can brake this circle is you but not YOU a lone you need the strength that comes from the love of our Father in heaven.

Guilt ans Shame are crippling!

#
Mosiah 2: 38
38 Therefore if that man repenteth not, and remaineth and dieth an enemy to God, the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of the Lord, and doth fill his breast with guilt, and pain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.

Sometimes we feel just like Zeezrom..... no one wants us and our guilt is overwhelming. But just as in the case of Zeesrom we too can find forgivness and overcome!

Alma 14:7
7 And it came to pass that he began to cry unto the people, saying: Behold, I am guilty, and these men are spotless before God. And he began to plead for them from that time forth; but they reviled him, saying: Art thou also possessed with the devil? And they spit upon him, and cast him out from among them, and also all those who believed in the words which had been spoken by Alma and Amulek; and they cast them out, and sent men to cast stones at them.

Here's the key.... our heart given to the Lord and realizing we our not just a piece of junk. We are loved. HF loves us as does our Savior more then we know. Remember back when you felt the spirit, was it not an overwhelming feeling of love.
D&C 64:22
22 And after that day, I, the Lord, will not hold any guilty that shall go with an open heart up to the land of Zion; for I, the Lord, require the hearts of the children of men.

G~d Bless,
Marty