A Journey With Cerebral Palsy

I have been watching timelines on recovery for years. To help my healing from an addiction to watching pornography and engaging in self-gratification. If you have been reading my work, you know my struggles have been reduced to self-gratification. Having worked successfully to rid myself of watching any kind of pornography. I have reached the milestone of more than three years since my last viewing of any kind of pornographic images. The habit of self-gratification however, lingers with its draw to sexual fantasizing. These habits continue to cause challenges in my life. Even though I have been reducing my habit of self-gratification steadily, for three years. With the total number of days reducing each of those years. Still, I haven’t been able to reach milestones like being clean for thirty days or rid myself of the habit entirely. My record over the span of this journey has been twenty-three consecutive days. A feat I was able to accomplish in the spring of 2023. I just recently reached a consecutive day streak of 21, from May to June. But, all the back and forth has gotten me to thinking about the experiences, during the streaks. Noting the emotions, even when only making it just over a week. My journey has crossed more goals lately, like greatly minimizing the number of weeks that have more than one episode. Putting streaks together on a consistent basis has given me more information. Providing me the knowledge to find patterns forming inside each attempted streak. I have found the fourth day to be noticeable. 

A lot of time has been spent looking through these timelines. People seem to come up with all kinds of ways to communicate the benefits of living clean of these habits. The biggest draw almost every video promotes has been attention from the opposite sex. Many of them have boosted about understanding the number of days it takes to start getting noticed. They claim you become much more attractive on the fourteenth day of being clean. I happen to feel, in my case, like it takes a little bit longer. In my experience the attention seems to pick up during that third week. Making it take a bit more than the 14 days they talk about. However, I haven’t experienced enough of those clean stretches, to be certain for myself. The kind lasting into the third week. I have only recently found myself involved in multiple clean streaks lasting into the second week. Getting myself into a position of reaching these streaks, repeatedly. The patterns of my emotions during these times, have begun making some sense. Up until now, my feeling has been one of just trying to survive. I was so desperate to get a couple days strung together. Not finding the ability to reflect on my emotions inside of each clean stretch. I was only relying on my research to inform me about what I would be experiencing. Having now, gathered more insight through experiencing the path, repeatedly. The fourth day has felt like the first relevant marking post along my clean attempts. 

The most interesting part of my first bit of research was finding out about the first two days. Following an episode of self-gratification, with or without the use of pornography. The brain experiences a flood of dopamine. The flood seems to provide a feeling of ecstasy. Making my body feel as though all pain has evaporated. Both the emotional and physical pain experienced during each day. When the flood inside my brain ends, I’m left with emotions of shame and regret about my behavioral choice. I never had this information before my thoughts of starting a healing journey. Even this little bit of investigation helped me begin understanding some of the impact, my habit was having on my brain, and therefore my personality. When these situations occur, with dopamine flooding the brain, healing from them takes time. I never thought about the concept of my brain recovering from my behavior of self-gratification. Meaning when I was engaging in the behavior more consistently. My brain wasn’t really being given time for rest and recovery, as I was engaging in self-gratification almost daily. My gathering of information was telling me that it took 24 to 48 hours for the brain to reach some kind of recovery. When I first heard of this time lapse, it made me think about recovering from having too many drinks. Which, meant to me, reaching self-gratification over an episode of sexual fantasy felt equivalent to getting drunk. The knowledge struck me as being scary. Making me want to do something about my habit. 

The timeline left me feeling pretty bad about my behavior. Indicating that for all I could understand, most of my life had been spent in a state, much like being hungover. No wonder I was having struggles with my relationships. The first objective for me would be keeping in mind the timeline of recovery from the dopamine flood. It was feeling important to implement distance of at least a couple days between my episodes. When my healing journey started, that space wasn’t easy to create. I had to work diligently to provide my brain its first chances of recovering from the flooding. Sadly, there remained times when I just could not find the discipline to create the space. Finding myself continuing to have episodes two or three days in a row. Those binges would be followed by clean streaks of a few days. But I found myself inevitably falling back into multiple day binges of self-gratification. Eventually, those binges became less frequent, and less in the number of days. However, I was still experiencing struggles in getting much beyond the end of the hangover period, before an episode struck me, again. Still, through the gaps in these struggles, my brain was starting to feel some small bits of relief. Which, felt like they were necessary, to initiate the belief of healing. I had to experience feeling a little better, before a commitment could truly take hold. I do think the hangover might end after a day or two, but the emotions of being controlled by the addiction, don’t find much relief. 

If I were to think of myself as being tied down to something. Like ropes are tied around my hand and connected to something stationary. The ropes feel like they provide the control of the negative habit. At the moment of self-gratification, those ropes release the hands, but only momentarily. Before tightening with an impact feeling more penal than before the episode. For the following few hours, the ropes feel extremely tight. Making the temptation of engaging in another episode almost impossible to deny. As the hours pass slowly and I refrain from giving into the idea of relief. The ropes feel like they give way ever so slightly. The lessening of the tension happening so subtly it can almost be impossible to feel at times. I have found the first couple days following an episode can be excruciating. The shame and self-doubt making it feel like those ropes couldn’t be tighter around my wrists. In those moments, my emotional state can fluctuate in ways that feel challenging to control. The hangover period can feel like it brings emotional chaos. I have found the third day can also be just as challenging. For whatever reason, the fourth day of being clean, often feels significant. The first time I feel any amount of personal relief from the toxic emotions of my addiction. On the fourth day, the idea of putting together a streak of clean days, finally feels achievable. It’s like a release of the tension from those ropes of addiction, can finally be felt. 

The fourth day has consistently been my first day of feeling some hope. When trapped inside of an addiction, hope seems to be the saddest emotion to leave. I have found, the main way of healing from a negative habit, has been trying to lean into hope. On the fourth day, I’m given something to look back upon. Being clear of the couple days that constitutes the hang over period. The fourth day provides even the smallest of streaks to reflect on. Even though it might have only been three days in a row. Getting though the 48-hour hangover period can be some of the most challenging hours. Since my understanding of the impact of those two days. I have battled them many times. Sometimes, I lose that battle, giving into the toxic temptation, and must start the journey all over again. When the battle of those two days is won, the third still feels downtrodden. Though, slightly easier to manage from the first two, the ropes continue to feel pulled tightly. When the easing of the rope tug arrives on that fourth day. It feels like the first inclinations of freedom. A feeling I have always felt like basking inside. But I have learned its just the first touch on the shoulder of hope. Giving into the first little taste of feeling better has bit me many times. Leading me back into my addiction within the next 48 hours. I have learned the best thing is to recognize the first touch of hope but stay vigilant about the journey. Making sure not to congratulate myself on three days and let down my guard to celebrate the feat. 

The journey of remaining clean from self-gratification has been more challenging than abstaining from watching pornography. I feel the challenge each day of stopping myself from sexual fantasy leading me into the dark place. The positive part has been continuing to fight myself along the pathway. Not giving up on putting together the greatest number of consecutive days of remaining clean. Even when I do slip, trying to learn something I can use in starting my next quest. So far, there has always been another try, beginning just after I experience the regret of slipping. The continuation of making each attempt has begun helping me recognize patterns in my trials. I wanted to begin sharing some of my discoveries to the point of my journey. To get a journey moving in a positive direction, hope must be found along the pathway. Inside the darkness of the first few hours following another slip, there isn’t much hope. Only the desire and pull to feel the ecstasy of the dopamine flood, again. A feeling like without that gratification there will be no loosening of the ropes. I hope you can change your mind and begin recognizing the markers, long before I did. Allowing for the feeling of that first ray of hope, the small easing of those ropes around the wrists. Even though, I have found the first signs come through on the fourth day. The small feelings of hope continue, as the clean days started piling on themselves. For me, it has taken much practice, but the feeling of hope can multiply. I don’t know yet, just how far it can go.