The Lord of the Rings Challenge

Day 31 - Elf

I think I did get a little too proud of myself in that last post. Last night I played a video game that, in and of itself, is not a p game nor is it designed to be erotic or sexy. The player character just happens to fit my “type” very well. The game I played last night is the second game in its series; I’ve already played the first one, but that was before I started NoFap a month ago. Seeing that character felt very triggering. It’s frustrating, because the core gameplay and the story are completely wholesome, my mind just goes to a weird place with this character. Anyways, I went to bed last night in only my underwear, which is not routine for me, I usually where basketball shorts over. My addict mind was priming me to make decisions that would make it easier to slip. I recognized this in the moment and put the basketball shorts on. I didn’t have my phone in the room, so no P, and I didn’t MO. But I had a dream that I MO’ed. It was such a realistic dream that I couldn’t tell if I had relapsed when I woke up this morning. I determined it was a dream, because I was fully naked during O in the dream, but the actual “aftermath” was in my clothing. I’m sorry if this is triggering, I just need to process what happened. I don’t know if I can keep playing this game. I think this might be a sacrifice I need to make if I want to stay true to my goal.

I feel discouraged by this, and upset that I can’t finish that game, because I enjoy the gameplay a lot. This streak is my longest, and I was starting to feel like I was invulnerable. For any of y’all who have done >30 day streaks, what should I be expecting in the next 20 days on my way to Dwarf? This is my first time doing this, and I am a newb. I feel like I was on my high horse while writing that last post. It’s foolish of me to think that I should know what to expect from now on. I shouldn’t know what to expect, I’ve never done this before.

I do feel better now that I understand why the dream happened. I’m still excited to go to my friends birthday party tonight. I need to get up and do something though, I’m writing this in my pajamas. I might work on DnD characters today.

Hope y’all have a good weekend. Peace and love.

 

I'm in. I don't know what day I'm on (my counter is wrong), but I'll assume that I'm on day 5.

 

Checking in. All good

 

Day 107

 

570 days semen retention

 

Day 1, just the first mile on the long road.
Sorry to hear you're sick, hope you all the best. Now that i realize it i kinda feel bad about choosing that user, but it's the name that has accompanied me in all my important steps and I think this will be quite the challenge so I hope it won't cause you much trouble(this granted that i'll get into a Fellowship rank, which will be very difficult for me, but you can be sure I will give it my best shot)

 

New girl, vasectomy postponed
my vasectomy was scheduled for today but it was postponed for December 3rd.

The girl I dated some days ago turned out to be domineering so I had to let her go. I noticed this the 3rd day we met. She wanted to control even the most strange things like I should drive to a certain street without she even knowing where that street will take us.

So we only lasted a weekend, I would have avoided sex if I knew this but knowing a woman takes time also they change once you have sex and you are more into a relationship. No harm was made, I even asked her if she was mad about me she said no, she simply stopped talking to me after the driving incident. I guess she figured out she could not control me. But occasionally she sends me a heart emoji or asks me something about medecine. Who knows if she wants to meet again I could consider it but I won't be making an effort.

I found this new girl she just got a liposuction, and a butt lift and wants to have sex, in general she seems fine but a bit crazy but mature. I'll have to wait until she's fully healed to meet her.

Back at dating, it can be overwhelming having so many girls at your disposal, but now I'll try to go for the right one. Which can be a hazard.

 

Haah, I remember the times I used to play a dating/ anime game... was getting pretty bad, but I learned something from normal videogames (used to be a gamer in my youth), is to delete them when you are looking for a sensation that the games provide instead of waiting to play the game for the fun of playing it.

 

Day 72! Checking in. It was a chores day mostly... Last night I thought about trying to do a dopamine detox today, but I found that it needs some preparation. I'll put it in the backburner unless I find a way to do it during the week which isn't quite the same as work and interactions do still pump up dopamine... Anyway, feeling better today.

 

I have used this along my journey, it's taking a meditative and present stance. This is to observe what your body does while experiencing an urge and what it does when it doesn't get it's fix. Also when going through withdrawal, you will actually be face to face with the stress triggers and emotions you ran away from. By sitting with those, you learn to diffuse and accept all negatively perceived emotions.

There is no magic fix, for this to work you need to apply yourself each time. And as I'm sure you already know, some of those pulls or emotions are quite powerful. And like anything else, with practice, it will get easier.

 

Quick check-in: since the wet dream last night, I have had really bad chaser for most of the day. About to go my friends birthday, can’t shake the feeling that I am a fraud. I think my addiction is trying to tell me that the past month hasn’t changed me, and I’m just as trapped as I was then. But the fact that I’ve made it this far is proof that I have the strength to do this. Keep me in your thoughts/prayers

 

Checking in Fellowship Friends!

Day 304 free of MO and Day 376 free of Porn.

Yesterday was a fantastic day. A day that I did not experience for quite a while. I felt happy, composed and present. Today, on the other hand, was a challenging day. I was debating whether I should write a post or not, I concluded that it may help some of you along the journey. My post will be focused on todays events.

Last night I spent a bit too much extra time listening to interviews and such content on youtube, quite literally right before I went to bed. I believe part of that messed up my sleep and also triggered a potential stress response. I believe this stress response ignited a spark of PAWs(post acute-withdrawl ) anxiety this morning. I started my day off as usual and stretched, I went to prepare some breakfast and suddenly I felt a small anxiety attack, no heart palpitations or anything of that nature. More so, just a rush of dread, as if something was going to happen and a slight tension on the chest. Fight or flight occured. Although this happened, this is where I see the fruit of my efforts. For starters, instantly I felt a desire to distract myself with either TV, going on my phone and listening to something and I even had a small PMO urge. Instead of caving into any of the above, I just sat with it, I watched it and knew it would be over soon. Once I ate my breakfast things settled. In the past I would of just plainly jumped into the downwards spiral my mind would lay before me and wish for the unpleasant feeling to disappear, victimize myself by wondering why is this happening to me and rack my brain to figure out why it happened. I was not unscathed though, the fight or flight response did leave me feeling a bit off. Slight brain fog and fatigue. I am thankful that I did not have anything scheduled and that I did not have to work either. When you experience PAWs, and know what reoccuring symptoms to expect, you can handle things more calmly. This also has to be attached with a sense of acceptance.

PAWs is part of the journey, at the beginning these moments with dreadful fatigue, mood swings, anxiety etc, would last 1-2 weeks and they would reoccur quite often, then later it would only be for a few days and occur maybe once in a month or less. This time around the intensity of the symptom is far lesser and the frequency has also decreased. It has been at least 2 months since the last time I experienced a reoccurring symptom and I'm suspecting that a good nights rest or two will get me back to where I was just a day ago. For any of you who will experience PAWs, know that at first it may be from any minor stressor/trigger, be prepared and promote as much rest and self-care that you can. I spent 2 hours of my day meditating, on and off, split throughout the day. I rested and omitted to do any other form of physical exercise. I stuck to the very basic chores that I had set out for the day and that was all. Through an excess and artificial amount of induced dopamine damages your brains receptors, but take heart, each time PAWs symptoms reoccur, know that your brain is taking another step in healing itself. This is why you have to promote as much rest and as much healthy practices that you can during those instances.

Stay strong friends!

 

Day11

 

Relapsed.

I fall for my most obvious trigger. My wife left the house to get a drink with some friends and the moment that door closed I felt it. For the first hour I was fine, I told myself that “I’m riding the wave of the urge” like I’ve read some of you were describing it.

And then… I decided to search on YouTube the most triggering music video of an artist I don’t even like… and that was it. PMO and sadness.

Tomorrow is a new day but man. This is just so hard.

 

Resetting. Got through all the challenges earlier today, did all my tasks, watched the game on TV, had my dinner, and was about to go to bed but just spur of the moment looked up an escort site instead. Did not go into any P sites or watch any P, did not M, but was triggered from the e site, so put in some fish terms and clicked on the images tab, which had P images, but again did not click into them nor did I mull over them rather scanned quickly and closed it again. So the whole point was to detox for 90 days, which clearly tonight was not, and so I am resetting my counter to begin that 90 day detox again. It was a good 3 week streak of practically zero triggers, though if I am honest some non trigger streaming series were still high on romance with beautiful women etc... which just triggered the yearning and the lonlieness... 3 weeks ago I started with a no devices for non-work use rule, and I will do that again. This addiction is ruthless, and so there is only one thing for it and that is to be more ruthless than it is.

At least I will get the satisfaction of becoming a Hobbit again in 2 weeks time

 

To answer your question; Elf was probably the hardest stretch for me to get through. This surprised me because for some reason I thought I'd be largely in the clear at that point. What saved me was honestly and truly making the reboot my #1 priority.

With that being said it was also one of the worst stretches of life I'd had in a long time so it might not have been as bad otherwise. I figured my life was probably at risk, I was possibly going to lose my job, my super fucked up ex girlfriend came back into my life... Tons of stuff happened. I pushed through it though and eventually my addicted brain started to weaken a lot and I gained a lot of confidence (too much) and started to believe I couldn't relapse and also that I had probably beaten PMO and so even if I did relapse I'd be okay with moderate usage. None of this ended up being true.

I think my addicted brain saw the level of stress I was enduring around the month point as a last ditch opportunity to make me PMO and keep the habit. This is probably also happening to you with that game. 30 days is a lot for someone who has historically only had very small streaks and your addicted brain is very thirsty for that dopamine hit!

I would postpone playing the game if it is a trigger. Maybe try again in a month or two?