Greetings all. I posted this in the men's forum last night due to the . . . masculine nature of certain problems involved; but I'm not receiving any responses, so I've decided to post it in here, which is probably where it belongs anyway. So ladies, please forgive me for giving details on male biological functions. Men, many of you will probably know what I'm talking about. I'll just repost what I wrote in the men's forum with some slight alterations.
The first thing you should know is that I've suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder for many years. Oftentimes it manifests itself in the more religious form of scrupulosity and causes me to do some strange things like repeating prayers, holding my breath while praying, rereading passages of Scripture if I get interrupted, etc. I won't go on, but there are all kinds of things that happen. One of the big ones, though, is the temptation to make vows. I constantly feel like I'm making a promise to God to do something or abstain from something. For example, I might get the idea that if I break the speed limit, I'll have to give up some activity that I like. Sometimes I mentally agree to these thoughts as if I find them acceptable. But the next thing you know, I'm going 10 mph over the speed limit and I have someone on my tail. Therefore, in my mind I just tacitly vowed to give up that particular thing that I like. It got so bad at one point that I asked the Lord to not hold any vows against me unless they 1) were made with the full consent of my will, 2) were not induced by OCD, 3) were fully articulated with my mouth, using the word "vow", "promise", "swear", or something like that (In other words, I had to fully and clearly speak the promise by saying "I vow/promise/etc...", and 4) were about a greater good.
Now, as most guys in their 20s I've struggled with masturbation and to some extent pornography (If some of you don't think masturbation is a sin, just indulge me and assume that it is for now). One night I felt pretty guilty about it and made a vow to God that if I do touch or look at pornography, then I would fast from food and drink for 9 hours the next day and avoid styling my hair or wearing my contacts, both of which irk me since I like to look nice when I go out (NOTE: I know what Christ says in Matthew about not looking disheveled when fasting, but I don't think that applies since the Pharisees were making themselves look haggard so people would know they were fasting. In my case, nobody knows what's going on). This all was done as a sort of act of punishment/repentance.
At first I started taking this to an extreme. If I found myself aroused and my penis rubbed on my underwear in a pleasurable way, I would start to question whether or not that was considered masturbation. And what about pornography? Well, I got to the point where I found myself thinking that Galadriel from Lord of the Rings was too sexy and therefore I might be breaking my promise not to look at porn. Eventually, after some prayer, I was able to convince myself that these elements were unrealistic and that the Lord probably would release me from that part of the vow. I tried to redefine the conditions so that only masturbation to [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] and content explicitly labeled as pornography would count.
After some time, I ended up increasing the amount of time to 24 hours. So, instead of fasting and looking bad for 9 hours, I had to do it for 24. But sometimes I found that if I thought about sex a lot, I would [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] small amounts of sperm. I suppose this is normal for many guys. But since thinking oneself to [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] can be considered masturbation, I decided that this must count as something and so I occasionally think that it warrants a small fast or something, maybe 9 hours instead of 24, all the while being allowed to comb my hair and such.
Now, this whole system was meant to work as a deterrent, and that it did. But in a way, it's also made me worse. Recently I've started looking for girls online who would be willing to just hook up for sex. After all, I never promised to fast after actually having sex, just masturbation and pornography. For the record, I never actually met up with anyone.
Last week, however, I started to question whether or not any of this stuff was legitimate and I basically gave in to masturbating and some pornography. Of course, now I'm afraid I'll have to fast to keep my vow. The problem is that since I masturbated about six times over a period of five days, I owe about six 24 hour fasts, which is one meal a day. I've already been skipping meals since last week due to the thing with small amounts of sperm. Overall, I have about six days of 9 hour fasts under my belt, two 24 hour fast days, and as I see it, I owe about three or four more, since the fast days accumulate based on how many times I touch. Needless to say, I don't feel like doing this anymore. I want to eat and have a normal day!
Looking back, I'm fairly certain that the initial increase to 24 hours was influenced by the OCD, though at one point, since I thought it was a good idea, I willfully remade the vow after giving it up for some time. Now I'm stuck because even though I willfully remade the vow, the first time it was influenced by OCD and therefore never should have crossed my mind in the first place. Second, it seems that it partly violates conditions 2, 3, and maybe 4, of the request that I made to God, which I mentioned earlier. The problem, however, is that I don't know whether or not God accepted that request.
What do you think? I need some advice. Should I keep fasting, or just consider all of this to be nothing more than the result of a psychiatric condition?
The first thing you should know is that I've suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder for many years. Oftentimes it manifests itself in the more religious form of scrupulosity and causes me to do some strange things like repeating prayers, holding my breath while praying, rereading passages of Scripture if I get interrupted, etc. I won't go on, but there are all kinds of things that happen. One of the big ones, though, is the temptation to make vows. I constantly feel like I'm making a promise to God to do something or abstain from something. For example, I might get the idea that if I break the speed limit, I'll have to give up some activity that I like. Sometimes I mentally agree to these thoughts as if I find them acceptable. But the next thing you know, I'm going 10 mph over the speed limit and I have someone on my tail. Therefore, in my mind I just tacitly vowed to give up that particular thing that I like. It got so bad at one point that I asked the Lord to not hold any vows against me unless they 1) were made with the full consent of my will, 2) were not induced by OCD, 3) were fully articulated with my mouth, using the word "vow", "promise", "swear", or something like that (In other words, I had to fully and clearly speak the promise by saying "I vow/promise/etc...", and 4) were about a greater good.
Now, as most guys in their 20s I've struggled with masturbation and to some extent pornography (If some of you don't think masturbation is a sin, just indulge me and assume that it is for now). One night I felt pretty guilty about it and made a vow to God that if I do touch or look at pornography, then I would fast from food and drink for 9 hours the next day and avoid styling my hair or wearing my contacts, both of which irk me since I like to look nice when I go out (NOTE: I know what Christ says in Matthew about not looking disheveled when fasting, but I don't think that applies since the Pharisees were making themselves look haggard so people would know they were fasting. In my case, nobody knows what's going on). This all was done as a sort of act of punishment/repentance.
At first I started taking this to an extreme. If I found myself aroused and my penis rubbed on my underwear in a pleasurable way, I would start to question whether or not that was considered masturbation. And what about pornography? Well, I got to the point where I found myself thinking that Galadriel from Lord of the Rings was too sexy and therefore I might be breaking my promise not to look at porn. Eventually, after some prayer, I was able to convince myself that these elements were unrealistic and that the Lord probably would release me from that part of the vow. I tried to redefine the conditions so that only masturbation to [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] and content explicitly labeled as pornography would count.
After some time, I ended up increasing the amount of time to 24 hours. So, instead of fasting and looking bad for 9 hours, I had to do it for 24. But sometimes I found that if I thought about sex a lot, I would [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] small amounts of sperm. I suppose this is normal for many guys. But since thinking oneself to [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] can be considered masturbation, I decided that this must count as something and so I occasionally think that it warrants a small fast or something, maybe 9 hours instead of 24, all the while being allowed to comb my hair and such.
Now, this whole system was meant to work as a deterrent, and that it did. But in a way, it's also made me worse. Recently I've started looking for girls online who would be willing to just hook up for sex. After all, I never promised to fast after actually having sex, just masturbation and pornography. For the record, I never actually met up with anyone.
Last week, however, I started to question whether or not any of this stuff was legitimate and I basically gave in to masturbating and some pornography. Of course, now I'm afraid I'll have to fast to keep my vow. The problem is that since I masturbated about six times over a period of five days, I owe about six 24 hour fasts, which is one meal a day. I've already been skipping meals since last week due to the thing with small amounts of sperm. Overall, I have about six days of 9 hour fasts under my belt, two 24 hour fast days, and as I see it, I owe about three or four more, since the fast days accumulate based on how many times I touch. Needless to say, I don't feel like doing this anymore. I want to eat and have a normal day!
Looking back, I'm fairly certain that the initial increase to 24 hours was influenced by the OCD, though at one point, since I thought it was a good idea, I willfully remade the vow after giving it up for some time. Now I'm stuck because even though I willfully remade the vow, the first time it was influenced by OCD and therefore never should have crossed my mind in the first place. Second, it seems that it partly violates conditions 2, 3, and maybe 4, of the request that I made to God, which I mentioned earlier. The problem, however, is that I don't know whether or not God accepted that request.
What do you think? I need some advice. Should I keep fasting, or just consider all of this to be nothing more than the result of a psychiatric condition?
