Physical and Emotional Healing

Hi NoFap! and everyone here,

So I don't really know where to begin, but I guess starting with talking about myself and why I joined this group would help. Hmmm, I'm a 22 year old male, I started fapping early on around when I was 11-12 and at the time I didn't even know I was fapping because I was just rubbing outside of my pants and things just happen. I had a lot of shame and guilt associated with it, which was a big blow to my confidence and self esteem growing up. But, 10 years down the road, I've come a very long way from those days and have experimented with erotic stories, porn images, porn videos, fleshlights, blow up dolls, sexual massages, escorts and even trans escorts all of which led me here, a point where I realize that my addiction was insatiable and that if I didn't take control, sooner or later my fetishes would go out of control and that my tolerance would just expand to a point it takes a life of its own and consume me. Aside from the emotional turmoil that I suffer from fapping, i realized that physically it was also taking a toll on me with my balls shrinking significantly, my erections weakening, my hair falling out and a whole other physical issues.

So here I am, 3 day into the NoFap Challenge. What I aim to get from the NoFap Challenge is to teach my self discipline and self-control, relearn what it means to form healthy relationships (as I have often objectified/ belittle the women I date), understand that sex should never be associated with guilt or be used as a tool and lastly accept that I am my own person and I am responsible for my actions.

How am I going to do this? I have posted in one of the other newcomer post that I am going to start small by doing 30 days without PMO and entering my 3rd day now, I'm already excited to see small improvements/ changes happening in my life (increased confidence and better sleep). All in all, I've always thought that the NoFap Challenge was for people with extreme social issues and that I was exempted seeing that my life is in order (have a good job, have robust social life and have experience dating a few times in the past), but I now know that its not true. PMO no matter how small, plays a huge role in the shaping of your mind, perspective and outlook in the world, understanding that, I hope that with the NoFap Challenge I will soon be able to recover and become a better and healthier person.

 

Have to agree with Sere, really love the poem, another one of my favorite which shares the same vibe is:

The Man in the Arena - Theodore Roosevelt, 23 April 1910
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I think most of us are already very brave in that we're willing to fight our selfish urges to become better Men. Anyways, just an update: I had a dream just now where I saw my crush smoking and then acting all bitchy (shes normally a very religious conservative person) and when I asked her about it in this dream, she was all like don't get in my business, you won't understand and its complicated etc. Waking up, I felt sick to my stomach seeing her behave that way, but it made me realize that the kind of porn I watched made me come up with that nightmare scenario. For the longest time I've been a fan of Netorare a genre of porn where the girl is stolen from a guy, usually through some means of deus ex machina that allows for the normally reserved/ shy guy step it up and steal the girl from a jock/ someones husband. That is wrong. I realized that I'm constantly in fear of losing my loved ones, because I'm constantly feeding my mind with scenarios of people cheating, secretly having sex and other fucked up scenarios making me paranoid, possessive and distrustful when it comes to relationships. I now know that, YES a lot of people are messed up (I have a co-worker who went after someone who's married just for the thrill of it), but we ourselves need not stoop to their level. In fact, the more we hold our moral high ground and having REAL VALUE AND INTEGRITY the more we are likely to find the right person for us. I can say this, because I've dated some of the most beautiful girls that every guy wants, only to realize how much emotional baggage it is they carry masked by their attractive looks (I'm not a hypocrite, because I know that I carry my own sets of baggage as explained above). All in all, again day 4 and I've learned to re-learn my motives, figure things out and clear my head instead of living on auto-pilot and walking in a day-dream/ fog-like state.