How do you cope with your fantasies?

I invite anybody with ideas or input about coping with unwanted paraphilic fantasies to post here. Please take the opportunity to gripe about how hard it is or whatever drives you crazy about your paraphilia if you feel like it.

Even though this is a public forum, there are many of us with similar and sometimes nearly identical problems. I mean for this thread to include everyone with paraphilia, not any specific sub-group.

[EDIT] Note: I tend to write my guts out. I don't expect everyone to be interested in reading everything I write. If the thought that you'd have to read all of this would prevent anyone from participating, then, please, just ignore it, and I won't be offended, but what I've written in my first couple posts is highly recommended.[/EDIT]

I personally use a lot of different ways to deal with the sort of moment when, as someone with pedophilic attractions, the "object" of my fantasy sits next to me. These moments are actually fairly common for me since I live in a family centered community with lots of kids. How I cope, I guess, depends on what the circumstances are, especially the reasons I feel that need to fantasize. When it comes to dealing with unwanted thoughts in the presence of children I've often tried, with some but not much success, focusing on other more important things around me until I'm out of the situation. If I can't distract myself by talking to a nearby adult or working/reading/etc, I may try to leave, but that too doesn't really help me long term.

What I've found most effective is to confront the issue. Often, the first thing I recognize feeling after I've tried to ignore my thoughts, is frustration. I start by asking myself, "Why, for the frickin' love of my own sanity, is that little girl there so intensely and adorably hot to me?! WHY!!?" The first thing that happens when I do this is the tension starts to be diffused mentally and emotionally. It's no longer something that I'm actively trying to ignore or not acknowledge. The effect is greater when I can look at the girl or watch her calmly in my peripheral vision and give a platonic smile if she looks at me. I think to myself that the feeling of attraction is actually a powerfully good thing, but what I do or how I act with it is what's dangerous, and, if I'm not careful, I can hurt myself or someone else. If I choose to look at the girl I don't let my gaze wander much from her face or I'll start to loose focus on why I'm urged to fantasize and think instead about the fantasies themselves. While I ask myself why, answers start to come. If they don't at first, or the answers don't help, as they more often do in my case, that's okay. The answers have become more and more abundant and helpful for me as I've become more familiar with my own patterns of thinking and feeling and as I've come to accept and love myself. I learned a lot about my own reasons and felt supported just through writing my thoughts down in these forums. My counselors have been extraordinarily helpful, and sessions with my sexual addictions group have been, if possible, even more helpful.

In any case what's important isn't so much that I know why I'm urged to fantasize, but that I begin to turn my focus inward rather than onto the girl. I might start by asking myself other questions like, "How exactly am I feeling right now?" Even that's no easy question to answer sometimes. Common things I check for are guilt and shame, (two very different things), and how it feels when I ignore the negative and focus on just the good aspects of the fantasy. I don't mean that I focus on the fantasy, but, rather, I let the fantasy happen (in a semi-controlled way), and I focus on how it makes me feel. With practice doing this I've learned a lot about my motivations and the reasons behind my fantasies being triggered. When I've figured out how I feel I'm in a much better position to start making connections between feeling and reason, why I feel the way I do thinking about particular aspects of my fantasies. In my fantasies I try to dissect my motivations by looking at the nature of my relationship with the girl, the circumstances that brought us together, the circumstances that we're in currently in the fantasy, and sometimes I also look with caution at specifically what the girl and I do together or to one another in the fantasy. An important key in being able to discern all of this is to look at my thoughts and emotions almost, as it were, from the outside, to recognize that these things all come from my mind and heart, but that they do not define me unless I let them. Learning to do this comes more naturally for some than for others, but I believe that it's possible for everyone. Once I look inward and see the reasons I carefully try to think myself back into reality... That's a whole other spiel which I'll go into later when I have more time.

Hi,

What I do is tell my brain to think logically; and that if I acted on the thoughts in my head, then I would be in a lot of trouble. There is a fact in what we are talking about here though, and that fact is this: All girls ARE pretty, and there is nothing that will stop that. I mean, they are pleasant to look at and bring a smile to the face, right? This is not problematic, however, and men should not be afraid to smile at a young girl if they believe that she is attractive (because that's what they simply are). It is the same for women smiling at young boys, except that is viewed as more socially-acceptable than the other way around.

Kevin

I absolutely agree Kevin. There's no denying the charm of a pretty face!

The method I described above is, for me, mostly a way of learning about the fantasy and trying to calm my mind by acknowledging what I'm thinking and how I'm feeling. This is only part of how I cope. The latter part I mentioned at the end, that I think myself back to reality. This essentially means taking myself out of a state of mind where I want to "act out" on the fantasy, (i.e., masturbate to it, view porn [cartoon drawings in my case], or simply revel in it). It's far more difficult and I often struggle with myself at that point, but before I can even begin to do that I have to achieve and maintain calmness.

Forcing myself back to reality from fantasy, (trying to forget it or tell myself it's not real/ worth my energy/ etc.), usually only fuels my fantasies unless I have powerful distractions to take their place. Distraction is a viable option sometimes, like I said before, but most of the time I find myself too tired to go work on a project or to exercise, etc, and sometimes I'm simply too wound up in the fantasy to care about anything else and I don't want to peel myself away from it even to try and understand my thoughts and feelings. At times like these I usually feel some combination of boredom, loneliness, anxiety, hunger, stress, tiredness, and depression. Hunger and tiredness are often the root causes for not being able to calm my mind in order to deal with the other things. I have to take a break, eat, and/or sleep, and then I can come back to the issue if it's still bothering me. I actually find sometimes that taking care of these things is all that's required to bring myself out of that fog. I try to eat and sleep only enough to feel good, comfortable, rested, and satiated, (as a student in high school or college this is sometimes a difficult thing to achieve, I know from experience). When I find the odds stacked against me, it takes determination to find time to take care of myself, yet I do better, not only with coping, but in all aspects of my life when I'm healthy. On top of eating and sleeping right, an exercise routine helps tremendously to keep the mind calm and in control. When the body is healthy, the mind receives the same benefit! I've heard exercising works for some people in the moment of temptation or trial, but I've never been able to use it as a distraction when I'm confronted by my fantasies. I've only ever been able to use exercise as a tool to keep me healthy so that when I have to face my fantasies I have better control. What's better for me in the heat of the moment when I can't focus is to meditate or play a video game and listen to music.

However I choose to get it done, I calm my mind, acknowledge and begin to analyze the fantasy without fighting it, and without fueling it. When I have a decent amount of control and calmness I begin to find my way out of the fantasy in somewhat the same way Kevin said. The only way I've found to do this so far is difficult for me. In short, I look at my emotive response to the stimuli in the fantasy, figure out why each stimulus makes me feel the way I do (positive and negative). I try to acknowledge that it is what it is, neither good nor bad, but simply a process of my thoughts and emotions working, and I begin to identify the lies behind each element of the fantasy. It's painful, but worth it. It won't work unless for every lie an equally positive truth fills the hole that's left behind. For each truth that replaces a lie in the fantasy there's freedom from the power of the fantasy, and contentment with reality begins to set in.

Thank for replying to my - ummm - reply. Would you say that the fantasies that enter your head are obsessive?; and that fighting them would be too much effort? (Is that why you don't fight them?) I was diagnosed with OCD and know all about obsessive thoughts. I hve learn that fighting them is futile. Instead, you have to think logically around them. In some cases, however, I purposefully allow the obsession to overcome me.

Whenever I cyber or use porn the fantasies do seem compulsive, Kevin. If I can go for a while without those things and wipe my slate clean then there's much less of a problem for me in dealing with my fantasies, but then I loose that sexual gratification as my coping mechanism for other things. The fantasies are only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. As I sit there on top melting away with a blow torch, more and more ice continues to surface until the area to melt becomes too broad and pools form that won't drain off, but the water just keeps on refreezing around me. The underlying things for me include stress and anxiety at school and at home. When those things go away, I'm rather peaceful and don't have many problems with my fetishes or attractions. Take this summer for example, I only spent 8-9 hours a day working on a couple of projects at once, had the weekends off, and during my leisure time I was at home with my wife and playing games. I had almost never been so serene. It's times like now, when every other day I'm working 12 hours then at least 6-7 hours on alternate days, (very irregular to me), I have 6 or 7 projects to think about at once, I'm not getting enough rest or time with my family, and I don't have any alone (just me) time, that makes that iceberg grow rapidly to the point where I wish I could indulge in porn again.

Is there any time or are there any reasons that your fantasies seem to become more powerful?

I've been trying to explore and control the fantasies I have more lately, but with stress and not enough exercise and personal time, I feel like I can only run away right now or I might be overwhelmed. It's an extremely dangerous time for me right now to want to cyber with others who share my fantasies. There's only a small, but significant part of me holding myself back, and just BARELY! I feel better recognizing that at least, somehow.

Hi,

I have at this stage learned to completely dismiss my fantasies whenever they enter my head. I can freely think about them and have no urges to act on them whatsoever. I am the same as you though: They would have been at their 'worst' when I am feeling stressed, anxious, etc. It's important not to feel guilty for having such thoughts though - I think that's the downfall of many people who get these thoughts in their heads; and then the guilt they feel just make the problem worse because it makes them think about it more.

What you said is true, I think, but I make a conventional distinction between guilt and shame. Guilt seems to be driven by truth and personal conscience while shame is driven by social/cultural values and the reaction of others. I think that with either shame or guilt it's important to use caution when dismissing them or they might accidentally be repressed instead of subdued or gotten rid of. Getting rid of guilt is more difficult than getting rid of shame, for me. I have to answer to my better self, the part of me that longs for freedom from the feelings of self doubt that come when I seriously contemplate or actually engage in fulfilling my fantasies, (i.e., I start to make plans to cyber, or I go find some suggestive pics.) Getting rid of guilt is the painful part of identifying the lies in the fantasy for me, but I find it's bearable and I have greater peace afterward if, like I said, I have or think of more powerful truth to replace the lie. My source of truth is personal insight into the doctrines of Christ based on truth revealed to prophets and personal revelation through divine communication such as prayer, so misunderstood throughout history and nowadays. Shame, on the other hand, is much easier to shake when I identify it because I no longer let others define me. I simply replace my value of their judgment with my value of God's judgment. Religion may not be the only way to deal with shame and guilt like this, but I haven't tried any other way successfully.

... btw. I hope I don't sound like my answers are for everyone. I guess it's obvious already, but I'm not an expert.

I'm doing better than I was earlier, but I still can't or don't want to look past the illusion that role playing my fantasies will make me happy. Maybe it will make me happy, I mean, but I can't trust that really, can I? There's an addictive quality to the fantasies and to acting them out with someone who shares them. It's amazing how good my brain is at hiding all of my inhibitions and safeguards and blocking my route to clear thinking. I often suspect that when I'm trying to set up safeguards or build a wall to stop myself from regressing I always leave a way to get around it all subconsciously.

*burns out*

You confuse me, S3, because I get the feeling sometimes that you are in control of your problem but, at other times, you make it sound as if you are struggling to control them. Which is it? I mean, you said in your penultimate post that you are doing better, but then make it seem as if you are actually doing worse. Again, all I must say is that you should not be scared by these fantasies in your head. There is, after all, the case to be made that the more scared you are of them, the more likely they will be to 'infest' your mind. If you can b at peace with them, then they are more likely to fade-away over time, I believe.