Checking In

I'm feeling very depressed tonight at work... the wife has been very emotional and needy, but I haven't been able to connect with her very well. We haven't seen much of each other over the last couple of weeks.

I'm lonely and need to feel wanted and desired right now.
I'm an attractive, athletic, intelligent guy. Why don't I feel better about myself? Where does this void in need of self validation come from? It never seems to be filled... each time I find peace and serenity it seems to last such a short time before I'm yearning for something again. Sometimes my relationship with my God and Father satiates this feeling... sometimes my relationship with my wife or close friends. Sometimes it feels unquenchable, like now.

Guilty Thoughts on My Mind

Untreated guilt progresses to shame... which is much more difficult to treat.

Guilt can be treated by using it as a positive force to turn toward God and healthier living... or allowed to fester into shame.

Guilt can be positive if dealt with.
Shame appears to have no positives.

Untreated guilt always progresses to shame, which eventually results in acting out.

Trudging

Life just keeps getting better. I'm in the middle of the biggest fight I've ever had with my wife and I feel like I'm in the right for once. We had an understanding and she changed her mind because things look tough.

Rough week. Struggling to be patient with the wife's emotional volatility without neglecting the kiddo. Relapsing.

Shitty Week

I should be in my meeting right now.

But instead I'm a few yards down the hall from my meeting, sitting in the bathroom with my intestines convulsing. What a shitty week... literally. I guess when I'm done making disgusting noises I'll go back to my meeting and sit there to listen... while more gas bubbles through my gut loudly for everyone's enjoyment.

Because I'm bigger than this GI virus... and just don't care about saving face anymore. I need to be at this meeting, especially after this week of being sick.

But I needed to blog about it from the bathroom to convince myself first.

Masturbation While on Prozac: CONTRAINDICATED.

I learned a lesson about my newly lowered sex drive and it's consequences on masturbation. I can't.

That is, unless I want to grow incredibly frustrated with my inability to reach orgasm... so frustrated that I eventually turn to porn, which barely pushes me over the edge. But not until I've managed to injure myself getting there. And that edge is no longer a monstrous cliff towering over a pool of bliss and nothingness. No. That edge is more like jumping down from a fence. Things have changed.

So that is that. I cannot masturbate while on this dose of prozac. It feels very final and very relieving. I'm not advocating for other sex addicts to jump on this drug... but the decreased sex drive, eased depression, and decreased ocd symptoms are a big win. I'll take some nausea and occasional vomiting with all that; it's a small price to pay.

I don't want to be on meds forever; I hope to use this opportunity to work on my thought patterns. I'm being forced to figure out what to do with my compulsive brain during the hours of the day that I was previously filling with fantasy and obsession.

Compulsive in Sickness and in Health

Feeling okay today. Although the family has been sick and work has been crazy, I'm managing fairly well. Today is day 5 sober and I'm trying to stay focused on healthy behaviors, even if that means being somewhat compulsive about them. Journaling, blogging, and reading blogs and books from my smartphone has been super helpful.

I've been trying to keep my contact with attractive young adult females to a minimum after some recently over the top flirting that was really, honestly a lot more than 'flirting.' The relational aspect of my addiction is really coming out strong right now, probably partly due to my relationship with my wife being strained by sickness and work... and partly due to the prozac taking out my usual coping mechanisms... my libido is practically absent most days on this increased dose. It still seems very surreal to have my sex drive remain mute like this for so long.

Manipulation and Medication

The increased dose of prozac has all but snuffed out my libido.  It is very strange indeed for a sex addict to not feel sexual all the time. For those readers who are not sex addicts, I'm not sure I can convey how terrifying it is to have my drug of choice taken away from  me. It's always been there in my mind, ready to go. Whenever I get angry, tired, depressed, resentful... my sexual fantasies were always there, ready to kick my body into "let's have sex" mode. Not anymore. My libido has been crushed by two small capsules taken twice daily.

I've been struggling to find new ways to cope. Pot, nicotine, coffee, whatever.

The only sexual behavior that still seems to bring on a rush is flirting. Which quickly escalates into more than flirting. The rush I get when I know a girl is obsessed with me is indescribable, just like the rush from porn. But when you're flirting with another live person, there is also an intense ego boost. When you can turn someone on with a word because you've gotten so good at manipulation, that is a rush. I'm ashamed to confess that I feel a little bit of pride in this manipulation. Some people would call it charm. I know better.

My addiction ALWAYS escalated from porn to flirting to affairs. It's a little frightening that the whole first third of this escalation no longer provides me with any relief from the symptoms of life. I have to jump straight to flirting to escape reality.

It seems like this will make it easier to stay sober, since my relapses are mostly with porn. But this also increases the risk that if I do relapse, it will be big.

At least, that's how things look at the moment.

Preoccupation, Prozac, Performance

I haven't been doing well with sexual preoccupation, although my physical responses to sexual arousal are very decreased.
My ocd symptoms have decreased as well, but we  (my psychiatrist and I) decided to increase my fluoxetine dose again to see if that provides more relief from compulsive sexual thought patterns and the few ocd symptoms remaining.
I do feel like the prozac has completely removed the persistent depression and despair I had been experiencing, which is already incredible. I hope it continues to help without increasing the sexual side effects any more....
Although I am thankful to have my libido suppressed... I have to confess that it its a little distressing and depressing when I can't summon an erection on command. I am so used to being constantly sexual and being able to be aroused on the spot...anytime. Not anymore. I can't summon the same physical response, so it seems like I have to work twice as hard at the mental side in order to masturbate or have sex. Maybe this is a little taste of femininity for me?

Prozac and Porn

Trying to asses how much the prozac is affecting my sex drive... My compulsive preoccupation with sex has not diminished, but my body doesn't respond the same way to sexual stimuli. The racing heart rate, fast breathing, flushed skin.. all of my body's  responses have dulled. Erections aren't as hard or as frequent as they used to be. It requires a lot more stimulation than it used to in order to have sex or to masturbate.

I haven't been viewing porn as often lately because of it. Which is nice, but I'm still struggling with sexual preoccupation, even in the absence of physical response.

So Fresh and Not So Clean

I know that my recovery program has been lacking something that keeps it fresh and personal. I think that I've been trying to keep distance from my emotions because this has been such a tough year. I need to keep up the introspective part of my recovery program. When I stop looking inward, it's easy to let things slip into mental dissaray inside.

I hope to be able to journal on my phone and cut and paste snippets on my blog. I would my updates to become more frequent, so they will probably be muuch shorter and probably less polished.

I apologize in advance for the smartphone keyboard typos that are to come :)