30 DAYS HARDMODE! No more suicidal ideation!

Wow, I can almost not put in to words what these past weeks of no PMO has contributed with. This feels unreal and reached far beyond my expectations, and that's only within 30 days!

If you wanna read my background story, check out my introduction post!
I have divided up this into a three parts: Initiation, benefits and final thoughts. Hope you enjoy this read!

1. Initiation

February 17th. This was a super emotional night. I knew that if I was gonna fully commit to this, I had to give up a lot of things that I had been clinging on to alongside porn. You have to understand, I did not just fap to porn. I fapped to text messages, photos, videos, sound. Anything a girl had sent me for example, that got me aroused, I would fap to. Some of these where old, going way back. I had used them to fap to when I was sad, anxious, rejected, stressed. So giving them up really made me freak out, I honestly felt like those people on hoarders getting rid of all that crap and having an emotional breakdown. I am guessing they were also clinging on to everything with a lot of emotions.
So, EVERYTHING had to go. I deleted it all. And with every delete of a conversation, that had tons of material in it, I felt like I was dying inside. But at the same time, I knew that I was also taking steps in the right direction, and that the only thing that was really dying inside me, was the old me. I did not own any porn videos apart from that, so my computer/phone was clean from all that. When I was done, I literally just sat quiet in my room for an hour. Feeling empty, sad and lonely. But then it all turned, it just felt as if something new had begun. Fast forward 30 days, and here we are!

2. Benefits

• Suicidal ideation is almost completely gone. This took me by huge surprise because I honestly did not think my thoughts regarding ending my life were so centered around my addiction to porn. I'll give you an idea of how my days played themselves out for the past years; I would start each morning with a fap, fap some more times during the day, and end the day with a fap in bed. Thoughts regarding suicide would always kick in right after the last fap before sleep, I would literally put myself to sleep by thinking about how liberating it would be to end my life. Fortunately it never went as far as planning anything, but I can only imagine where that road would have ended. 30 days in now and I noticed 2 weeks in that I hadn't had a single thought of suicide in those 2 weeks! It did hit me once or twice the following weeks but they did not really manifest into much and diminished pretty quickly.

• MORE ENERGY! Damn, people were not exaggerating this one. But hey, I should have expected this. I mean I would fap 3-4 times a day, that is a lot of energy gone to waste. And now I feel like I have more than I know what to do with it. Bringing me to my next benefit, which overlaps a lot with this one.

• Brain fog. No more brain fog! I have more mental clarity. I keep having these moments during the day where I am just.. aware. It is sad that I had become so numb to what is suppose to be a basic human feature, that rediscovering it now brings such novelty. But I am not complaining, I am just glad I got in touch with it again.

• Improved social interactions. I am by default a pretty introvert individual. But I have noticed that I am more talkative, more engaging in social interactions. And also more attentive when talking to people, not mindlessly drifting off.

• Slightly improved empathy
• Increased positivity
• More patience
• Improved eye-contact
• First female friend
• More in touch with my own feelings
• Starting to enjoy the "small things in life"
• More hopeful of the future
• Reoccurring childhood memories

3. Final thoughts

The biggest thing I have learned from a mere 30 days of no PMO, and this has been said many times before; NoFap alone will not fix my problems. It became very clear to me that simply abstaining from PMO was not enough. Sure, the initial benefits can be strong depending on the severity of the addiction. But how I go from there is really how I keep those benefits peaked. Porn addiction for me felt like shackles around my wrist and ankles... and when I stopped, those shackles went away. Which feels great in the beginning, to have all that weight removed. But I can not just stand there now, I have to move! Pick up a new hobby, meditate, go out for a run, read a book. Do anything! Otherwise, my guess is I will fall right back into those shackles again. This is just the beginning. There is a lot of work to do, bad habits to kick, healthy habits to start. Shackles are off. Time for me to start moving.
I decided on 30 days of no PMO, I am now gonna extend it to a total of 90 days. I want to keep improving myself and my close relationships. Hopefully I can keep my streak going. And if I do relapse, I hope I will have the strength to pick myself up and keep moving forward.

Thank you so much for reading and thanks to this great community. Cheers!

 

Thank you guys so much for your kind words!

It's not an easy road that's for sure! I think the real challenge is when we relapse or have those strong urges. And if you can pick yourself up, keep motivating yourself, as you are doing now, you're taking steps in the right direction! Glad my post could bring some tail wind to your journey, keep it up!