TheNewMe2.0

@BooksandTreesI appreciate the response and dedication to prevent suicides on this forum. Avoiding spiritual things isn't going to do anything to help this problem though. If anything that'll make it worse. I don't think I can find another job that will work for me. This DE problem has progressed to the point where I'm pretty sure just talking with the clients is making it worse. At any therapy company I go to I'm gonna have to deal with people and it'll probably be the same thing going on that I'm dealing with now. Which is why my solution is to just stop working and more fully become invalid. I don't see any research jobs for people with an MA in psychology on indeed. Got any keywords to search for me? The Reiki is going okay so far and it's really my only hope for not becoming an invalid at this point in time aside perhaps from asking therapists if they have any idea how to fix this thing. So I'm gonna give it a try. What do you mean by take control and all this you're saying? How? Is there some method and practice/exercises you're suggesting for improving the DE problem?

Hey welcome. Those are all good things that you're planning to do to fill your time with. If you don't like duolingo there's an app called Mango language learning that you could checkout as an alternative if you'd like. I read that making like 1000 flashcards with the most common phrases/words and memorizing them is a good way to build initial fluency. I didn't really progress with language. I don't have a cute girl to motivate me atm. But I guess if I did I could try to learn Chinese because sometimes my family sets me up with Chinese girls as we're Chinese. And they would appreciate some ability to speak it I'm sure. Anyways, do you or have you had any form of spiritual practice? If that doesn't work for you it's fine I'm not like going all mormon door to door on you here. I just wanted to encourage you to practice or try it out if that might work for you. Spiritual practice can greatly improve the willpower and ability to successfully resist giving into the craving to game or do other addictions/bad habits. Addictions after all are just deeply ingrained bad habits that have often built up over long periods of time. The longer you go without the stronger the new good habit of not gaming becomes. I want to caution you against trying gaming again after 90 days. I saw the same Cam video you described and after 90 days I tried gaming again. It was not a good experience. I immediately felt much worse after gaming. More anxious, more craving and obsession with the games. I recommend if you can just quit forever. It'll add an extra 90 days to your streak that way. But if you really do want to try moderation I suppose you can give it a try. But do thoroughly go through how you thought, behaved and felt when you were gaming. And be honest with yourself when you assess how likely you're going to be to actually moderate. Or will you most likely just end up going from 1 hour a day to 10 hours a day within a month and be in full blown addiction again so it's best to not even try moderating. I learned that when I play LoL even for 1-3 games a day. I eventually give into the craving and start playing for hours everyday. And that even when I successfully 'moderate' 1-2 hours a day. The other 22 hours of the day I'm in a state of constant intense craving for the game. And thinking obsessively about playing the game whenever I'm not doing it. Which led me to conclude that it just wasn't worth living a life where my mind is in a state of constant craving and obsession with gaming. I wanted to be free and have more peace of mind. My life is still riddled with one gigantic messed up problem that I'm trying to solve. But gaming aint one you know.

Positive: I got my Christian practice back last night and I started messing with Reiki again this morning. Okay so. Since I got on the crutches my acne has been getting progressively worse, I lost my Christian practice because of chest pain and the dark energy I've been experiencing ever since I got this job has worsened. Let me give you a bit of background on what the 'dark energy' I experience is. Basically when I talk to people I experience dark energy coming from them and sticking to me. Like gum stuck to your shoe. I experience it as sort of floating above me and trying to enter into my body through my head/face. And the worse/bigger the DE (dark energy) gets the deeper it enters into my body. And once it gets down to about my heart or even whole body I feel completely suicidal. And I feel almost no resistance to it anymore. I feel like I've surrendered to the energy's will to make me commit suicide and sin. Last night was the worse it ever got for me. Like ever in my life if I'm not mistaken. It gets worse everytime I talk to a client at my job. So I'm honestly thinking about quitting and never taking a job again and just becoming an invalid. Honestly that life would suck but it would be better than being accosted by this DE and possibly killing myself. Since it's the weekend and I have time I'm going to fill you in on where this DE came from and how it all started. My origin story. I never had a problem with energy in my life and I was going to school for my MA in psychology. I was around 24 years old or so. There was this little lesbian vietnamese girl who was always smiling in the class her name was Michelle. She and I had some sort of magnetic connection. It was like I we were drawn to each other. We'd sit and talk about energy and meditation and stuff. I think I was into yoga or Qi Gong or both at the time. And those both have their own energy systems and practices. With the Prana and the Qi. We both liked eachother's energy. And we would eventually even just sit and talk and hold hands because it felt so good. I think we both justified it as being sort of a divine thing that we were doing. Like it was just about sharing the energy it wasn't really about sex or anything. But we'd hold hands while her girlfriend sat and chilled with us. And her gf was like giving us looks like what the heck? I think she said do I need to be concerned about this? But Michelle was just like no it's fine it's just about the energy we aren't trying to elope or anything like that. And it was pretty much true I mean we never did more than hold hands. Idk I wasn't a Christian back then so I was a lot more open about just touching people and fornicating. It wasn't a big deal to me then. But then one fateful night we went to a party with michelle and her gf. We danced some and we sat in a circle with the three of us holding hands. Michelle talked for a long time about like spiritual stuff. The energy, maybe past lives, how we were all connected the three of us in a past life, something about us being Russian and we came up with Russian names that we all used to have when we knew eachotehr in our past lives. It was kind of interesting and funny. And hours passed like that and the party ended and we were still sitting there holding hands talking in a circle. So it was time to go. And I eventually went home. I'm not sure if this was the same day but I felt out of it and got a ticket for driving with my headlights off or something. But I was so like into the spiritual feeling I had that I even tried to like express gratitude to the officer for protecting people. Even though he was ticketing me. Then I went to the park next to my house at night. This is where I had a really intense spiritual experience. Or experienced psychosis for the first time. Everything seemed to be more alive, like it was almost glowing and perhaps even moving. I felt all the earth. The grass, the trees, the bushes maybe even the rocks. Talking to me. And they all had a personality that reminded me of someone I met in my life. I felt a lot of love and happiness at being with them. I danced and ran around the park for a while. Just sort of interacting with the earth. And after that intense experience I was going to the park and talking to the earth everyday. It was kind of nice. I felt this great connection to the earth and I had the urge to channel the strength to a woman. And she and I both felt the strong energy channel and she said it made her feel much better and able to push through her dissertation in the following weeks ofr her PhD. But at some point in time. The experience stopped being good. My connection with the earth wasn't so powerful. A woman in the class was constantly freaking out about things having 'bad energy' like people or buildings. She told me I had the same problem as her and that I was sensitive to energy too. Maybe those two people kind of led to what happened next. I started experiencing dark energy coming off things and people. Mostly people. And it was harming me. Fast forward to today and I've become isolated. I hide from people as much as possible. I can't do Church or yoga studios or meetups or dating apps. I can't even read most books or watch most videos/tv. My life is all screwed up from meeting those people at school or whatever else caused this DE to form in my life and harm me. On days I see people that I feel like have more DE I experience more intense stress, anxiety, my skin breaks out in more acne and I even have suicidal ideation sometimes. Last night was the worst. I recited a 100 bible verses and that helped me not want to die anymore. And I think about how I don't want to make my mom sad and make God happy by obeying word. That says, 'Don't kill yourself those that kill themselves will be destroyed.' Thou shalt not kill (yourself or others). But the more DE there is, the greater the chance will be that I actually kill myself. Because the desire is so strong when the DE comes into me. The light and the hope inside me is so small. Sometimes I don't even feel it anymore, I just feel the darkness consuming my soul. It's not good. However, this brings me to my last stitch attempts that I'm making as of today to survive this condition I have. The goal is to be able to keep doing my job with manageable levels of acne and DE. When I first started experiencing the negative effects of feeling energy. I searched for anything involving energy from any religion or spiritual tradition or scientific research. I found Qi, Prana, Orgone, Reiki, and metta/mindfulness. Although that last one isn't really explicitly an energy. I feel an energy from it. Like a Buddhist one. I feel energy from many things that I do. I feel a Holy energy from God. I feel a yoga energy that's sort of Hindu like. I feel a Catholic energy from my mom and love energy. But from my clients I feel both light and dark energy. The light isn't so bad. Sometimes it causes me tension in my body which is somewhat manageable so far. But the dark I get from them that sticks to me is like. I'm struggling not to swear when I describe the horrible discomfort I experience from it on a nightly basis. So, back to the solution I was looking for when I researched energy. Reichian therapy while it did wonders for the energy and the musculoskeletal tension in my body. Was causing me to become very anxious and hyperaroused. I needed to stop because it was making me feel unable to be calm and settled. Things I worked so diligently to achieve through my daily 1hr meditation and 1hr+ Christian practices not to mention the recent increase of my daily yoga practice. I'm working so incredibly diligently to try to offset the DE. To try to make my mom proud by being able to continue in my career. And to not lose hope of the dream of rejoining a Church, yoga studio, becoming an RYT (registered yoga teacher), making friends and marrying a good woman. Having positive relationships that are nurturing and a good influence on me. Rather than pushing me to use substances and play video games like my old friends and girlfriends did. But if I can't beat the DE. If I can't at least get it to a manageable level to where I can endure 28 hours of work a week as a therpist and not get severe acne or suicidal ideation/tention/discomfort/anxiety/insomnia. Then I'm going to have to embrace the life of an invalid. A life where at best I can still do meditation, yoga, Christian practice and watch my few shows. Live at home where the only person I'll ever talk to is my mother and if I'm lucky a person or two here and there on these forums. Live off government assistance and never have a career or any of those things I listed in my dream life. I talk to him about it. I pray for him to fix me so often, for years I've asked him, begged him to fix me. I don't know if God will answer my prayers. I hope so. It's my job to pray in faith that he will. So I'll try to hold faith he will. Cure me. I just don't understand. I know in my youth I lived for alcohol, marijuana and sex. I had casual sex and sex with girlfriends outside of wedlock. I wasn't especially mean. I feel like I was always a pretty kind and empathetic person. That didn't want to hurt others. Although I definitely was harming myself with the excessive substance use and the promiscuous sex was hurting me too in many ways. I didnt know God and thought of myself as an atheist at times, later on I felt spiritual then Buddhist then Christian. And I screwed around with a bunch of religions for a time trying to see if I wanted to switch. But I came back to God these past two years. I'm probably more devout and live my life closer to the word of God than I ever have before. I try to help people in my profession and an actually making a positive impact in a lot of the lives of my clients. Maybe all of them even. I try to talk to them all about God and living a life in line with the word. Like I'm really doing better than I ever have in my life to be of service and glorify the kingdom of heaven. And it's my intention to continue living a good Christian life till this earthly life ends and the heavenly life begins. Why wouldn't God give me a second chance at life? Wouldn't he want to help me live for him now that I've changed? Like, I think it was Paul in the bible was the leader of a group that was killing Christians to stop the spread of the religion. Then he became converted and one of the most prominent Christians in the word. I think it was him who said, 'All my teaching can be summed up in one commandment love thy neighbor as thyself.' Doesn't God want to make me like Paul and turn me from being a heathen to a firm believer that helps people come to him? I begged God for a second chance last night. Maybe he'll give it to me. So there may be some solution to this problem in Reiki. I used to go to a Reiki group when I wanted a solution to the energy problem. They told me I needed energetic boundaries. To imagine the Reiki pouring down from heaven into me surrounding me with a bubble of white light energy. And the group laid hands on me and prayed and we all imagined the energetic bubble around me together. And I felt the deepest peace and contentment I've ever felt in my life to this day. And it lasted the whole drive home and all into the next several days. Then I was at the park and some like hispanic workers or whatever were there and they were glaring at me and maybe making aggressive gestures towards me. And the bubble felt like it broke. I went back and reestablished the bubble with the reiki people. But then someone else wasn't so nice and it broke again or I started dating some girl and the energy just got destroyed. She wasn't so bad though except she couldn't make and stick to a plan for the day and she sort of scared me off when she tried to do polyamory with me. But she was a good kisser and I think was down for the yoga and maybe meditation. Definitely spiritual. I wonder if we could've made if work if I tried again. When she told me she made out with someone else I broke up with her. Even though she was willing to just be exclusive after that and be monogamous bf/gf. Whatever though. Sorry for the explicit detail here. But the sex could have been better. Although that can improve as you get used to each other and maybe find a way to make that work. But yeah we were not living the Godly life. And she wasn't into the faith. I hadn't found God yet. So maybe it's for the best you know. I wanted to like chill at home and maybe go eat, yoga or hiking. She wanted to like walk the whole town and talk to everyone. And see all her friends. And I was like, man I just want one on one quality time. So maybe it wasn't gonna work even if I did take her up on that monogamy offer that I turned down. So in conclusion today is my last desperate attempt to mitigate the effects of the DE. I'm doing this by employing two things that people have told me to do to deal with it. My therapist told me to do affirmations from the perspective that the DE is a delusion and isn't real. IE: Dark energy cannot harm me, I'm safe. The other method is to meditate on the Reiki energy protection bubble. Reiki, for those of you who do not know, is a really beautiful energy and practice of energy healing. It's practiced in India and Japan more popularly. And the woman I learned from said she went to like a four year university to get her degree in Reiki if I'm not mistaken. Which was a huge trip because in America most people will denounce Reiki as insane, not real, or bullcrap. It was mind blowing to know it's such a legitimized thing in other countries. I used to play Reiki music and meditate on it while I gamed to offset the toxic energy from the gaming community. There were nice moments in that here and there. But I didn't like the violent nature of video games. You have to kill other people in the game to win. It's just constantly performing violent acts with your mind and hands. So yeah I'm gonna try and get to 20 minutes of Reiki meditation today on top of the 1 hr mindfulness meditation and 30 minutes of yoga visualization. Which by the way has progressed to include some chair yoga again. As my knee is doing a tiny bit better post rehab exercises. So this was the longest post I ever wrote on here aside perhaps from my initial story history post. If you actually read some or even all of it. I pray a special blessing on you to get the desires of your heart. Writing this giant post is helping me fast. I want to lose 10lbs and get down to 165. I used to weigh 135 at 6"1. I developed more muscle since then but more fat too. So I just want to get back to 165 and maintain. So I'm kind of just starving myself or you could call it calorie restriction or fasting. Im just trying to eat as little food as possible while still feeling okay, enough energy and able to sleep without hunger pangs. I've done this before when I gained a little weight from eating fast food. Just ditch the fast food and don't eat much for a little while. There's little concern for anorexia or starvation. Plus mom forgot to make breakfast today so I'm not exactly looking forward to standing on crutches trying to make food and clean water bottles to nourish myself. My good leg hurts from standing one legged on it all the time. And my shouders hurt from the crutches I smiled at gigantic post I accomplished affirming DE cannot harm me and meditating on Reiki I am grateful for big post, light, love, good energy, light energy, god, reiki, bubble, energetic boundaries, safe space God bless us one and all

Hey, welcome. D2 and LoL were what I was most addicted to when I gamed. I used to play D2 and I'd be thinking about it constantly and unable to work very competently. What I did: deleted the game, deleted all records of my CD keys and I think? deleted accounts linked to blizzard that I could use to retrieve CD keys. Then I gave my gaming PC to my mom and bought a Macbook which can't really play games worth a darn. And of course committed to quitting, did a pros/cons list on gaming and found some replacement behaviors that satisfied the pros that gaming did for me, did other things when I felt bored, yoga, meditation, journaling here daily, paper journal, work, spend time with mom, Yeah that's most of it. Just keep trying till you stay stopped and never give up.

Hehe yeah people who are using will usually try to get you to use with them. I guess that's just human nature to want other people to do what you do so you can share in it and have company while doing said activity. Exercise is good just remember to exercise caution as well and not push your body into an injury.

dang 50% would be a huge discount. I hope you get it. Yeah you can do those things with a PsyD. Hehe I gave up on the ice shower too. So cold. Glad the other stuff is going well. It's good to have hobbies.

@TheresaYes that makes sense. I'll just have to find other solutions. I was just walking too much like 5-10 miles a day on a relatively hard surface with crappy shoes. But honestly I think there was already some damage in there from squatting weight and soccer. My knees used to hurt when I did those things. Ya I'm lucky to have the help. Thank you. I do like to be rational about things. Positive: rehab went okay So they gave me 6 exercises to do daily. I'm already starting to put a little bit of weight on my leg after doing them. I have some small hope that I will recover from this and be functional enough again. They said based on my mri they expected me to be able to walk so it was surprising to them that it hurts too much to do so. They're sending me to an ortho so Idk I gotta call and stuff to get that appt. It'll be some hassle but I'm planning on doing it at lunch today. My shoulders are really aching a lot from using the crutches. I hope I can start bearing more weight on my leg soon. My acne has gotten worse and I think it's from using crutches strangely enough. They want to put me on a two month antibiotic cycle and that has potential side effects which are always concerning. Maybe I can like wait tilll I get off the crutches and wait a week to see if the skin improves before making the decision to get on meds. I smiled at yoga mat I accomplished cancelling an appt I am grateful for yoga mat, appt, cancel, rehab, medical help, books, laptop, macbook, work i guess, and couch I wish us the best

Oh you're welcome, glad you're here too. Yeah I think it'll be fine either way. As long as I make it through licensure that'll probably be good enough. I don't think I'll need the PsyD for income. It would just be for the prestige of being the only person in my family to get past the MA level and to potentially be a teacher at certain schools that require a PhD. What's your motivation to do the PsyD instead of just an MA? The debt is a pain in the butt. However, I think it's worth it to have a job that pays better and you (hopefully) enjoy.

I've had this exact same thought after living x number of years and just realizing that I didn't achieve much with my life because I was busy giving into my addictions. It sucks about your test but at least you're on the right track now so keep going.

Positive: Still doing the nomas thing day 18 I was struggling last night a bit in part due to the reichian therapy practice I did yesterday. I decided to discontinue that because honestly it was making me hyper aroused and I couldn't stay calm like usual so I didn't like that at all. It was eroding my reservoirs of self control. I'm experiencing worse acne since getting on crutches and not exercising so I'm gonna appeal to my derm for help today. I really hope they have something else for me that can help or I'm gonna be looking a little homely till I can get off the crutches again. Good news came back from the MRI. My shoulder and knee aren't damaged although there is some thickening of the cartilage and something else he said about the shoulder. So I'm going to physical therapy today. I hope they can fix me or I'm gonna be paralyzed the rest of my life. Mom didn't make breakfast today. Probably because I didn't finish my food yesterday so there is half a breakfast sitting in the fridge still. I guess it's alrigth I'll finish it. As long as she makes it again tomorrow., Really hoping I recover soon so I can walk again and make my own food. Being dependent on people is so much worse overall than being more independent. They're going to see what they can do for my wrist. My meditation is going okay, I'm up to an hour a day now so that's good. As long as my somnolence lasts I would like to eventually get up to 1.5 hours a day but that's the limit. I may even need to keep it at 1hr so I have time to cook. But if and when the somnolence goes away I'd like to get up to maybe 2 hours a day or even 3. I wonder if I'm being too greedy and out of balance seeking for such a high level of practice. I don't plan on doing more than an hour of yoga a day to practice balance and prevent injury. I was thinking 6 days a week 1hr a day would be my ideal goal for yoga. I am still holding onto the hope that one day my conditions will clear up and I'll be able to socialize more and find a wife and even friends. Join a yoga studio and get certified as a teacher perhaps. Work 30 hours a week with clients and get my license. Making really good money. Once I have a lot of money maybe I could go back for my PsyD so I could teach at the universities in my state. I'd teach my four interventions if I could fit all that into a class. Idk though. Maybe just the license and becoming a supervisor would be enough for me. I'm not even that sure about what I'd teach atm. I smiled at my blue blanket I accomplished preparing to communicate with my doctors I am grateful for blue blanket, communication, preparation, knee, rehab, circles, white, red, tan, crutches, armpits I wish us all the best

Dude, I switched to mac when I started gamequitting and I'm at over a year in. Switching was the best idea ever. Please trust me for a second here and just recognize that what you're saying is extremely valid and important. The more barriers you have to gamign the better. Stay with the macbook. I know safari is buggy. I use mozilla firefox for certain sites. But seriously try to stick with the mac if you can manage to. It'll give you that much more willpower and energy to maintain the streak. Plus macbooks generally last longer because they're much less prone to getting viruses and other reasons. Good luck

I feel you on that family story. I realized I was just leeching off my families good will towards me when I was gaming and living with them not doing much else to contribute. I read the slight edge too that book was inspiring. Made me want to keep up good habits. It's okay if you want to post less often I mean some people post every few days and have been clean for years. So whatever works for you is good. I just would like to encourage you to be cautious and scientific about it. Try to experiment with how long between posts you go to find the optimal consistency for your maximum resilience. For me I felt like once a day was good, anymore was too much and any less I'd feel like I was thinking about gaming again. If less often works for you that's good too, but if you get lots of urges or whatever coming to post and read on here might be a good like emergency plan. Nice thoughts btw you're really intelligent and articulate. I find your posts to often be wise and supportive. I wouldn't be surprised to see you thriving as a therapist someday. You make me consider getting to that next level with the PsyD too but I kind of don't want to get more debt as I'm just now paying off the MA debt. Good luck T

@Jason70I get what you're saying. It's good enough just that I'm doing something it doesn't need to be perfect or the best ever. Honestly I'm just not even close to as satisfied with my meditation practice since I started having to do it on the couch downstairs. Being around my mom's energy while I do it is very uncomfortable for me. But when I was doing it by myself in a room I felt much more relief and peace. I guess I'm gonna try doing it lying on my bed. Idk what else to try because honestly I'm tired of the discomfort. I want my relief back. @RealworlderThanks. Like I said to Jason I'm gonna try to do it on my bed because I feel much better when I do it alone without anyone else around. Although I always prefer to be sitting if possible I guess it's worth a try this way. Positive: getting the MRI today. Yep it's finally here MRI day. Hopefully they tell me they can do something to fix my knee and shoulder. And they're supposed to give me a new scan for my wrist. Which will take longer, but I have time to wait on that a bit because I'm gonna be recovering from knee surgery probably for a while. I wish I could sit on my chair upstairs but I can't. My knee hurts when sitting in a normal chair. It need to be elevated.. I found a way to sit more upright without pain which is helping my chest pain. ?But it's uh it's kind of hurting my low back. So I'm just dealing with a lot of discomfort lately. And my acne has been getting worse since getting on crutches. Maybe because crutching around causes oil production and that leads zto acne or maybe because I'm not exercising which balances the hormones and can be good for the skin. Either way this is definitely the biggest valley I've gone through in the past Idk 3 years. It's a major struggle. I've even had to back off on my spiritual practice of my religion because doing that for some reason was making the chest pain worse. And I used to spend over an hour a day praying, meditating on God and reciting bible verses from memory. I had to stop all that to mediate the pain. It's tough, and I hope I get my religious practice back someday soon. I feel so alone at night sometimes now that I don't have him to talk to anymore. Something kind of erm, questionable happened last night. My chest was in so much pain that I started breathing really heavily. And the influx of oxygen was reminiscent of the times I would practice reichian therapy. I did it for an hour a week with a therapist for a little over a year or so if I recall correctly. https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/reichian-breathwork It's kind of a controversial thing. Especially because it kind of like can activate an intense sex drive among many other potential pitfalls. However, it definitely makes your body stronger and it was good for my skin, digestion and muscular development. I'm kind of desperate right now to do something to make my skin improve so I might give RT a try again. I'm just kind of aware that I'm probably not going to be able to maintain my nomasturbation streak if I do the RT. I guess that wouldn't be so bad. But darn it, I've worked so ridiculously much to maintain this current streak. It's been such a battle and I created all these rules and I try so dilligently everyday and night to refrain from thoughts of sex. I mean I'll try to continue the streak even with the RT going. But like I really am not sure if the two can coexist. Unlike the drawing though, I think RT might be worth doing even if it causes me to masturbate. Just for the clearer skin and better physical health. I wish I could find a cure for my disease that makes me feel uncomfortable around people and with dating apps. A girlfriend would be nice to have. My reichian therapist back in the day was totally okay with masturbation and fornication. She was encouraging me to find someone to have sex with although I didn't really find anyone at the time. I was kind of insane back then too though. Well, my streak's at 17 days. I'm probably gonna go lie down in my room and do some breathwork today. And also do my meditation and yoga in bed too. I'm just spending more and more tiem in bed now. Kind of a bummer. I feel like those people who have severe illness and have to lie in hospital beds all day. Which honestly I don't mind lying down all the time as long as I feel comfortable. On another note I feel kind of nauseated this morning and have no appetite. My mom made breakfeast but I'm just not gonna eat until I feel hungry I guess. Gotta leave for my MRI at 1045am. Cancelled all my morning clients. I smiled at milk I accomplished nomas 17 I am grateful for milk, nomas, energy, self esteem, releasing tension, good health, inner peace, happiness, clear skin and dermatology Wishing us the best

@RealworlderTy I think I'm going to just try drawing landscapes. I'll definitely miss the beauty of the anime characters but Idk I can basically either draw anime or abstain from masturbating. It doesn't seem like I can do both. The temptation is too much. Gotta get away from it if I'm going to keep this streak going. Positive: Mom's cooking Okay so she made a bizarre italian pasta in thai curry sauce last night that wasn't so good. But she makes me breakfast everyday. And include a lot of veggies which I don't normally eat much of. And fruit. So it's nice to eat healthier like htat. Today I was chewing my food more than usual. So that's a good sign too. I meditated 1.5 hours yesterday and it still didn't feel like all that much. I mean that's a lot for me I just felt I could maybe do more? Anyways I'm just trying to get through the day as comfortably as possible. Tomorrow's the MRI. I really hope nd lookk forward to being able to walk and exercise again. I hope the shoulder scan provides some info that they can use to make me able to do push ups again. I smiled at blueberries. I accomplished CBT I am grateful for blueberries, CBT, pros cons, conclusions, new thoughts, smartness, intelligence, wise mind, wisdom and discretion. I wish the best for us

Yeah I overdid the exercise and got injured. Hopefully that doesn't happen to you

@TheresaWell, Idk maybe I could get an anime book or something to draw from. Or search for 'clothed anime person'. We'll see. @RealworlderYeah todays the day I'll attempt 60. Idk about the drawing I've been getting aroused from like just about any female anime character. I was kind of throwing in the towel. I got a knee sleeve we'll see if it helps. And thanks last night was a lot easier to get thru. Positive: Still alive. Nomas 15 Well it's another week. I was watching TV yesterday and just wanted to continue indefinitely. I was kind of sad to see the weekend end. But, it's okay. I'll just keep doing my best with what I've got. That's about all I can do. I just went through something that I uh well it uhm. I lost something that was pretty important to me last night. I don't really want to talk about it that much right now. But maybe later I'll fill in the details. I smiled at grace I accomplished acceptance I am grateful for grace, acceptance, mercy, forgiveness, love, kindness, compassion, understanding, fellowship and goodwill. Be well

That's epic you made that much ice cream. Oh yeah not that much counseling got done doing community based work. It was mostly just chilling and not getting paid much, hehe. It was a lot easier than my current job temptation aside. I'm a real therapist at the new job though. You're welcome, I hope something I say might be of use. Good realization. That's impressive swimming you're doing.

@TheresaThanks. Breakfast is nice, I hope the knee gets better soon too. Positive: Made it through the night nomas 14 So I had a lot of thoughts about sex last night. I was trying to stop but just couldn't stop the thoughts. I managed not to masturbate though. So that was good. I think on days I dont visualize yoga I have less willpower to resist sexually immoral thoughts. So gonna try to stick with my plan of yoga 6 days a week. I saw a somewhat explicit image in teh anime google search yesterday while looking for stuff to draw. Now I'm kind of not trying to draw today idk. Maybe just do it with clients for art therapy only. I just don't want anymore temptation in my life. I Want to be as pure as reasonably possible. I think by biblical standards any thought of sex is immoral even if it's thoughts of sex with your wife. Especially because they lead to masturbation. Anyways. I guess I'm gonna try to just watch TV eat meditate visualize yoga and hopefully have a chill night. No working out or drawing. I smiled at lamp I accomplished getting thru night nomas I am grateful for peeps, trees, leaves, blue, sky, clouds, creation, destruction, love, meditation, God bless

Hey uh I transferred majors too and it took an extra year to do undergrad. Then I didn't graduate with my MA till like 7-8 years later. So it can be a really long process to get to that career we want for many of us. Even my supervisor is on her third career at age like 50+. Can't believe she got a PhD in psychology at her age. The point is even though it does suck and it's 'late' if you make it in a careeer you like in 4 years then that's still pretty good and you'll be licing a good life with a good career you actually like. While many people are stuck in careers they don't like and will eventually have to go back to school for a whole new career later in their lives. Doing good man keep it up

@RealworlderI tried using a brace but like after an hour or so with it on the knee just started hurting really intensely so I took it off. Idk maybe I could like try a different one. I'll see about messaging my dr about it. Hehe it definitely takes some dilligence to maintain a meditation practice. I've been increasing it by 5 minutes a week and my goal is 1hr. So starting monday I'll incresase to 1hr. I am still drawing. Idk if I'll continue with it. Sometimes the pictures of anime girls are like too arousing and it makes me concerned I'm going to relapse on masturbation. But I also enjoy drawing and it's a nice hobby. I tried watched demon slayer and liked it but I can't watch it because of my disability. Pretty much no new shows unless something changes. I have been in a lying down position to elevate my knee. That could be it. Positive: Breakfast was good My mom made me a breakfast quesadilla. So it was really easy to eat. I didn't have to scoop around with my fork like usual. So that was nice. I uh accidentally put some weight on my right leg yesterday when I was getting up to use the bathroom. And then it started hurting really bad. And it hasn't really stopped hurting except for a bit while I Was asleep. I'm pretty concerned about it. I'm gonna be doing my best not to let it touch the ground when I'm getting up from now on. Even though I'm getting no exercise. I feel like I'm pretty beat. Just mentally exhausted from being in pain on and off throughout the day and like crutching around. And just the stress of not knowing if my injuries are going to recover. If I'll ever be able to do Yoga again with my physical body. I looked up how to draw bodies with geometrical shapes. And I think I've improved at drawing bodies. I'm doing the circle and like lines method for drawing heads. But that's still more of a work in progress. The heads are coming out a lot rounder now that I'm doing that though. I'm kind of hungry for improvement. I noticed a trend where I just always want more. Like with the meditation I used to do 1hr a day so I guess it's reasonable that I want to get back to that level. But like I recite bible verses and it started with just two at night. But I eventually did more and everytime I set a new record I'd get so excited and feel accomplished. And then I kept pushing for more. Now I'm at 280 verses. There's a lot of paraphrase along with exact verses of course, but it's the most I've ever recited from memory. My moms kind of the same way. She just never stops pushing to make more money. She'll work like 10+ hour days 7 days a week. And that's just what she wants to do really. She's even happy and positive about it often. I guess I got that same sort of spirit but I apply it to my self care/hobbies. When it comes to work I'm kind of like that too but I have to temper that spirit with recognizing that I am at risk for burnout so I need to not work too much and just like make enough time for self care you know. Super long post for the weekend, maybe I could use some like indentation/paragraphs. I smiled at sketchbook I accomplished bearing the discomfort I am grateful for anime, bearing with, bible, verse, meditation, recitation, liquids, solids, chemistry and math. God bless

You can go at your own pace and do what's comfy for you with the meditating. It's big time that you have a consistent practice, good for you. Take care of yourself and your triggers. We all want to see you here for a good long time with us. Yeah at my old job my client would smoke CBD which is like weed and play video games while I talked with him. It was super sketchy because I'm sober now and used to smoke weed. So I was like double triggered. I had to stop seeing him eventually, but that was because he wouldn't show up for sessions. I'm really glad I quit my old job for that reason, they basically needed me to play games with clients which I couldn't do so it was a bad fit. The new job some of my clients play games while i talk to them but I don't have to watch the game and ask them to mute it too. So it's not so bad. But they still talk to me about what they're doing in minecraft or whatever. I requested no more children to get away from the gaming so it's only like 2 clients like that. 'We can't be sugar cookies' hehe. So I'm not dealing with anything as difficult as you're describing now with the coworker but I have before. I recommend everytime you are about to see them close your eyes and take a breath then open them. It really helps me deal with difficult stuff and I do it before I check email. You really do have to endure that nonsense and still not game though which can be difficult at first but make it 30 days and it'll become easier because it'll be a good habit by then.

@TheresaIt is a long time for normal people. But I read that monks do 6-8 hours a day when they live at their monasteries. So I figure an hour is okay. I feel like it really helps me stay calm and be mentally healthy. Thank you I hope my work does make a difference. Some of the clients improve and express gratitude for services. @RealworlderYeah I hope so. Time will go by fast enough, I just look forward to getting to the next steps. I dunno I just got more serious about meditating recently and started upping the time. The more I do it the more I seem to want to do it. Even with 55mins I still feel like I want to do more. I figure if I watched no TV a day I could maybe make it to two hours a day meditating. I always imagined if my discomfort got more out of control and I couldn't watch TV that's what I'd do. Or if my job got taken from me because I couldn't work anymore or I retired and had nothing to do. I could just meditate 6-8 hours a day like the monks. Kind of weird to think about it like that. I mean you wouldn't really be doing anything all day. Idk that'd be weird. Might be interesting, but I'm wary of over meditating. Especially after overdoing it with my knee. I don't want like a mental injury. Positive: People posted on my journal. I'm so grateful for you guys. I'm still drawing. I drew like 5 anime pictures yesterday. Which is a lot for me. Usually I do 2 and that feels like a lot. I just pushed to draw more yesterday because I sit on the couch all day and wanted to do something other than TV for a bit. I guess I could post the pic on here but I kind of am reluctant to because I just don't like sharing the art that much. For some reason I've become a very private person. This journal is the only space where I feel okay to write about what's actually going on in my life. Aside from my paper journal too. Still visualizing yoga. I did 30 minutes yesterday. My goal is to do 1 hour a day 6 days a week. Then rest on the 7th day like God. Maybe then I can develop the diamond body they talk about in Yoga. Which I perceived to be like energetic protection. I was able to do a superman pose and lay on my back with bottoms of feet paralell to ceiling. I was just really careful not to let my right leg touch the ground. My heart hurts lately. I don't understand completely why. It just started hurting one day. I dunno if there's much I can do for it. I'm concerned about it. I hope it gets better. I got thru the night with nomas but it was extra difficult and tempting because it was so hot I took off my sweatpants. Being in only underwear made me more prone to arousal and I had much more sexual thoughts than usual. So I'll be wearing shorts tonight to get that extra layer of desensitization in. I smiled at everyone I accomplished getting through the night with nomas I am grateful for people, mom, water, shirt, smiles, happiness, calm, peacefulness, meditation, eggs, God bless

Being a substance addict isn't so good. I have some permanent damage to my throat from all the weed I smoked. And my stomache isn't so godo from the alcohol. I hope that these can maybe get a bit better with time though. The games supposedly erode your willpower and I've experieced this firsthand where I just don't have motivation to do anything but game when I'm gaming. I used to steal money from my parents too. I'd always lie about what it was for and spend it on weed. Even though you're starting again as long as you're on this site and trying to stay clean you're doing a lot better than before when you were in full blown addiction. So keep tryin never give up and you will find a way to quit for good.

Good luck with the ice showers. I hear they have all kinds of benefits. Meditation has a physical health benefit once you do 12 minutes a day. I'm glad to hear the meditation is going well. I was never into simulators for the most part. But I stay away from them, I'm as cautious as I can be about getting triggered again. I remember I watched my client play CoD and had to resist the urge to pick up the controller and play when he left the room and decided no more watching games after that. I guess figuring out where you want to draw the line is up to you. I hope the best for you.

@TheresaWell, I can really only stretch my arms a bit on the couch for now. The yoga I do is just visualization which I find is actually more difficult than doing it with your physical body in some way. It still makes me feel better though. Thanks for your support. @RealworlderYeah I got my mri on the 14th then probably 2 weeks or so before surgery then a month to recover from that so like I'll be out for two months just for the knee. Idk what will happen with the wrist and shoulder that's gonna take a while too. I was doing fist push ups but then my shoulder started hurting. I kind of have a lot of injuries hehe. If the knee fixes I can at least like feed myself though. Positive: Increasing meditation nomas 11 I've been increasing my meditation. 5 more minutes this week. It's at 55 minutes a day now. That's about to my record of 1hr a day. It's pretty cool. I like meditating. It helps my mind feel more calm and focused. And to endure my physical discomforts. Hanging on barely at my job. The job stress seems to hurt more when I'm not able to offset it with exercise like usual. I was just chasing that runners high and didn't pay much attention when my knee was aching some. Then ikept walkking on it and it broke. I will probably only go on hikes once in a while once my knee is fixed. I don't think I'll be doing any 10k steps again. My mom fills me two water bottles now in the morning so I can have water for the day without having to fill it myself. It's very nice of her. Glad she's here to take care of me. I smiled at energy I accomplished brushing teeth I am grateful for @Theresa@Realworlder, psych, fuerza, deon, football, people, solitude, calm, and loving self. God bless