NoFap is making me think of my life, and all my pitfalls thus far. Is this normal?

Yes, that's what happened for me since I've been in recovery now for 3 months. The first month, was pretty crazy. All I thought about was my mistakes and what others would think. Working with others has been helpful in accepting myself, my past, and understanding that I can't control others. I'm now just getting to a list of people that I'm angry with. Often, when we stop PMO, we find out why we are turning to PMO. Cheers man!

 

Yes, our past wounded memories are often why we fap in the first place - to medicate the pain or shame of the past and the lies we swallowed about ourselves if we were abused and bullied - it's quite easy to sexualize such shame in degrading fantasies as well - give or take. If you are facing these memories now in your consciousness, this is actually a positive step in self-healing, since you are not repressing the memories, not trying to cover the pain through some addiction, or not trying to run away. When stopping our addictive behaviors, it makes sense that the memories will surface. If you have any capacity for it within you, the ideal thing to do now as part of recovery is to forgive all that people in your past who hurt you - in a sense, we let go of the past, disown the baggage they tried to give us, recognize that our abusers themselves probably were unhappy abused individuals themselves (otherwise they wouldn't be abusive), and we move on into the healing integrity of ourselves and allow God to love us in the broken area of our life and allow ourselves to love ourselves where we are most vulnerable and wounded as well. This is the process of inner healing, and we do it anytime the memories of hurt and woundedness come back to us - in a sense we forgive and heal and let go of the baggage on a newer and deeper level each time around. As we heal, we also reduce the need to self-medicate (with dopamine sex addiction) for this reason as well.

Best wishes!

 

JoeinMD, How do you actually forgive those people from the past? How do you let go people you are emotionall attached to? It seems abstract to me.. I am still attached to a girl, even though we decided to break up 7 months ago...

 

I don't really know what your precise story is. Forgiveness sometimes means letting people go out of our lives (especially if they are not ultimately good for our health and stability and happiness), but holding no anger toward them. In that way we can be free of them. In other cases, we may allow people back into our lives (and our trust may still need to be earned by them, even after forgiveness), but only if that reuniting is really the best rational thing for each of us in reality - not out of wishful or emotional thinking, especially if one is young. Again, I don't know what you precise story is.

 

Yes, I think it's normal. And good. One of the secrets to NoFap and to unlocking anything really in life is just being honest. If there's stuff coming up from the past, there might be a reason. If you're angry, be angry. Ride the wave - let yourself be angry- and then watch it dissolve. Things like anger and sadness can bloom into worse things if repressed.

 

I'll try to make the story short. There was a big gap between us on a spiritual level. She's a very religious person and I'm... None in that matter. I feel like it was affecting the whole relationship (lasted 2yrs), and most of the time I felt unhappy because to me, her expectations of me and how we spend time came strongly out of religion. I felt like she wanted me to change, what to me seemed like becoming a different person. I didnt feel accepted as I am. It probably worsened my PMO, even though we had a satisfying sex life. I wasn't able to cherish little things with her and I wasn't able to fight for her when I typically should or just take her places. All that seemed to be a huge effort.

When we decided to break up - due to the difference of our beliefs - that didn't feel like a good decision to me, was really hard. I just couldn't deal with it. And I actually still haven't.

 

I would say it's normal. When you have an addiction usually it's because you're trying to escape something. When I quit doing drugs I had all the memories of all my short comings, disappointments, guilt of things I've done in the past came crushing down on me. I became severally depressed and was having panic attacks. Not really the same as your situation but I think it's still the same concept. I feel once I quit doing drugs I came face to face with my fears and things I've done wrong in my life. I'm doing much better now after 3 years of being sober and now I'm 2 weeks in with no PMO or MO. Also I'm 5 days without nicotine . I feel like as time goes on I'm only bettering myself. You will too and use that anger to help you with your future struggles.

 

Sounds pretty normal to me, just try not to dwell on past mistakes.

 

Nofap leads to lots of thinking as it is all about changing our lives. Today I've seen an old man in the bus and started thinking if that man was me and if I have wasted years of my life fapping. I'm only 21 and I already regret the years I spent fapping.
So yeah it's normal, we have a lot to think about...