Hey everyone. This is my first post here, so excuse me that I start with a post of desperation, but I am seeking for help…
This is going to be a long post.
I really don’t know where to start. I am 20 years old, still live with my mum, am pretty intelligent, creative and I am absolutely certain of the immense potential that is within me. I see problems in the world that I would like to adress and think that, if I manifest my full potential, I could absolutely be a force for good that could help the world. I want to live a good, fulfilling life and help the world in whatever ways I can.
But in order to help the world, I first need to help myself and get my act together. The problem is that I suffer badly from self-sabotaging behavior. Sometimes I feel really motivated by this life purpose that I have set up for myself, but it’s almost always fleeting because eventually I almost always do things that are absolutely detrimental to myself and that inhibit me from moving forward. For example, I know how beneficial semen retention is for me (I feel much more energetic after just a few days of retaining) and how watching lots of pornography really screws up my dopamine receptors and brain chemistry, but I have a bad habit of watching pornography (and edging to it without ejaculating) for hours, with which I screw up my brain - and then edge for too long, until I inevitably loose control and ejaculate.
I know perfectly well how bad it is to do these behaviors, but it’s so hard to stop nonetheless. They are habitual/addictions and it is almost like, I can try to stay mindful and not do these things for as long as possible but one moment of distraction or me not paying attention and my default mode network automatically leads me to do those things.
Another example of this is how a few days ago, I listened to Sapiens ‘Brain Regeneration’ audio with the intent of healing my brain of this prolonged porn usage/addiction from which it has suffered all these years (I watch porn since I am 11 and have a pretty hard time stopping ever since) and I could feel how my brain would start to regenerate with the help of Sapien right away. But a few hours later, I would resort back to my conditioned behavior/habit of opening my phone, opening and looking at pornographic content and jerking off to it.
It’s like my hippocampus (rational part of the brain) wants to help me and knows what to do or not to do, but the parts of the brain that control behavior or habits just make me do these things nonetheless. While the hippocampus would like to help, the other brain areas are the ones that are actually in control and they are making me behave in ways that are not good for me in the long run.
And even if I have successfully retained my semen for a few days, I still procrastinate. If I sit in silence for some time, I know exactly what I have to do in order to move towards achieving my life goals (or, if I don’t know what exactly to do, I at least know what NOT to do), but instead of working to achieve my goals, I choose to procrastinate by doing low-vibrational activities such as watching pornography and edging, binging animes, playing video games or watching youtubers play video games, after which I feel horrible and like I am rotting away, because I know exactly that I am wasting my time and not helping myself achieve my goals. But I am doing it anyways because I can’t seem to motivate myself to do the things I need to do, because the dopamine I get from those activities is so much lower than if I just watch porn or do any of the other low-vibrational activities.
Those other low-vibrational behaviors also are so much more familiar and comforting than what I would have to do to move forwards, which might also contribute to this lack of consistent action. It’s like I am distracting myself from the things I know I should be attending to, because attending to them causes me discomfort and stress and puts me in an unfamiliar situation in the here and now, which is why I’d rather numb and distract myself, even though that doesn’t solve the problems, and so they just compile.
Sometimes I procrastinate literally the ENTIRE DAY or multiple days in a row in this way.
I feel so beaten and almost hopeless right now because my day today started this same way. I started watching some porn pretty much as the first thing in the morning (so easy with a phone with internet access), edged to it, then ejaculated (without intending to do so), felt very lethargic after the ejaculation and then spent hours watching some let’s player play video games. If this was a one time thing, I wouldn’t mind so much and get back on track right away, but looking back on my life over the last few weeks and months, this is nothing new - I have been sabotaging my own progress in this way for some time now. I can only wonder where I would be right now if my behavior wasn’t so self-sabotaging and if I’d spent less time procrastinating and more time actually making progress and building momentum.
I am still hopeful. I know that, even though I have already wasted so much time in the past, I could potentially get my act together now or in the future and still achieve greatness. I am certain that I have a lot of potential, that, if I manifest it, could potentially make up for all the wasted hours and days (in the sense that, maybe the wasted time wasn’t wasted if it was what motivated me to ultimatively leave this old life of procrastination, distraction and self-sabotage behind me for good, for me to become who I can become).
Anyways, this is my first post here and I just wanted to get this off my chest. I don’t even know why I specifically posted this in this forum but I have this feeling that this could be the right community of people to ask (I don’t know any better ‘place’ or forum to write this than here). I usually don’t share such desperate things from my life with others / ask others for help, because I feel like most people already have a lot to bear and I don’t want to load my problems onto them, so I usually just try to deal with my problems myself. But in this case, I have been suffering from this kind of behavior for so long now, that I feel like I need some help… Is there anyone here who suffered from severe self-sabotaging behavior and has gotten themselves out of it (at least mostly)? How do you deal with it, if it still comes up? Is there any advice you can give me on the things I have written about? Any knowledable/good advice would be hugely appreciated.
I have NEVER asked for life-advice on any forum on the internet ever before. This should tell anyone how desperate for some helpful advice I am - because while I am convinced of my potential, I really don’t know how to reliably stop my old, negative and self-sabotaging behavioral patterns, that seem so deeply ingrained within me. There is nobody in my life with whom I can talk about these things, where I feel that I would be properly understood. That’s why I am trying my luck here.
TL;DR: I know that I have a lot of potential but I have been wasting way to much time with procrastinatory, distractory and self-sabotaging behaviors (old habits that are hard to kick and self-distraction) that make me feel miserable and I need to somehow learn to not sabotage myself in these ways, in order to fulfill my potential and achieve my goals.
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