Honestly, i'm not following a specific strategy, no cold showers, no new hapits, nothing has changed at all in my normal day except i'm fed up of feeling shitty after fapping. So, i only remember how bad i would feel afterwards when the urges come. The strong positive feeling you feel after overcoming an urge is becoming more satisfying. I guess after day 20, i started having fun by overcoming an urge which equals to the dopamine shot i used to get from masturbation. Just hold it for your future self. Take the decision, everyday you fight back will heal your brain and make you much stronger.
Day 24/30. This may not apply to everyone. What I've discovered is that PMO is not a problem, but a solution to a problem. As long as I kept ignoring the underlying causes of PMO compulsion, my willpower was very limited. For me, PMO is a coping mechanism for dealing with the negative emotions which show up whenever I am triggered by past trauma. I grew up in an alcoholic home, didn't feel loved by my parents, was physically beaten as a child, verbally and sexually abused, and I was alone most of the time having no friends nor anyone to talk to. PMO became the friend I never had and this is why I am so drawn to it. I found this article which explains this perspective and I used it as a start on the path of healing (it's rather biased towards men): https://www.menprovement.com/masturbation-addiction/ Once I figured out my past traumas and spent some time working through them and processing painful emotions, PMO slowly started losing its fascination. In fact, I've lost almost all interest in PMO and it's rare for me to have urges now. I am constantly in a flatline now, meaning I have no libido. The only temptation I have is I can temporarily restore libido by purposely relapsing so I do that sometimes because I'm afraid that I've become permanently asexual. I know I have to stop doing this and just go through the flatline until it ends and it may take years, but flatline makes me feel dead inside and unmotivated to do anything.
Day 16. I feel much better now. Urges starting to fade away, but I need to be productive again because in the last 7 days I haven't been productive. I'm lazy lol
Still struggling along. Day 16. Insights and self knowledge is getting stronger but so are my urges unfortunately.
@270916, @Overcome Fear and @Dr Xero, thank you so much for what you shared and your helpful advice. Really grateful! Day 2 for me
9/30. After almost crashing the car yesterday - one instance of peaking (no edging) which I'm going to allow as long as it REMAINS one - feel refocused and both hands firmly on the wheel. Hope everyone's doing well and staying on target.
Thanks for encouraging me. I really appreciate it. I'm also grateful for the references to deal with anxiety. I will check them out
Day 27 This morning I didn't follow my usual routine and I came across a trigger randomly, so I wasn't as cautious as I normally would be, but after a few minutes I managed to see the rationalizations my emotions were feeding me for the half truths that they are and got back on track again. This showed me how important it is to start the day off right and set your intentions for the day instead of starting the day on auto-pilot and doing what is most convinient.