Is It Blissful?
2026-02-06
I'm becoming worried. I keep relapsing into using pornography.
The despair is marching its way back into my life. I am losing motivation to pray for deliverance because I feel so ashamed and alone. It's as if I can't learn from grace; I can't learn to remember how it feels to receive it and instead, I fall back into the same traps. I'm also frustrated because I feel so constrained by my situation. It's not like I can just throw my phone away or get out of my house. I have tied myself so directly to my circumstances that it feels as if there's no way out.
Ultimately, I know that I can receive that deliverance and grace, but I don't know if the doubt comes from demonic presence or if it's from myself alone. It's one thing to blame your own iniquity on demons, but true accountability seems even worse. It's worse because it's something that I have to work on. It's not a demon that I have to cast out, but a part of myself that I have to change.
And I don't know how to let it go.
I watched a video of a deacon from my church. He was doing an interview with someone. In the interview, the deacon talked about how he received deliverance from lust and pornography addiction through the intercession of the Theotokos (Mother of God, Mary). That, to me, makes more sense. She understands chastity better than anyone else ever has, so it's an issue close to her heart, I suppose.
I was so beat down and tired last night that I didn't go through my usual prayer rule; I barely prayed at all. I didn't even brush my teeth or wash my face like I usually do at night either. All I could do was go straight to bed. I woke up this morning and still felt zapped. I couldn't even face my icon and pray. I could barely even get ready.
There's a clear inverse relationship between prayer and sin.
It's such a difficult trap to find myself in. To stop sinning, I need to pray more, but the sin makes it harder for me to pray—a difficult catch-22, it seems. Really, my whole life feels as if it's coming to a halt. I couldn't even go to the gym yesterday. Why is it that I can't maintain a simple program for an extended period? My life is an easy one, yet I feel so weak. I couldn't imagine facing more difficult circumstances; I wouldn't survive.
I guess that's why most people don't.
I'm just frustrated. I feel that deep lamentation again. Lately I've been listening to the classic Dream House by Deafheaven and feel a deep resonance with it. The song is about a man's struggles with alcoholism. You probably have to look up the lyrics, since it's a black metal song and the singer is screaming the lyrics in this guttural way that's hard to understand. This section feels most resonant:
"I'm dying."
"Is it blissful?"
"It's like a dream."
"I want to dream."
I remember a few years ago—it was a few months after my first hospitalization. I had just started this new job as a server at a Tex-Mex restaurant. In the middle of a chaotic dinner shift, I had this aching realization. Once the thought crossed my mind, I walked out in the middle of the shift and never went back.
I realized that I was already dead.
In that way, there's nothing that I feel the need to live for. Every day feels like a dream. I feel like the worlds I go to when I'm asleep are the same as this one. There's never any true rest. At least, I haven't felt like I've rested in a long time. Even in the midst of prayer or in the midst of mercy, there's nothing I can do to truly find comfort in anything. It's all a trap. It's all fake. It's a dream that keeps playing on repeat.
Is this hell?
Bitcoin address: bc1qtgqvj6qjxnaxkns20x5rcwnxvv3jqzhduvvxfc