My PIED story

So I must have started masturbating when I was around 14 years of age, the usual age with testosterone just surging through my teenage body. I probably masturbated (on average) around once a day until I got into a relationship with a girl at 19. As far as I was aware, masturbation was only beneficial to me and there were literally no negatives con-notated to it. I had no idea the damage I was dealing on my body - both physically and mentally.

The pornography I started off watching was what would be considered by today's majority to be 'normal' (standard male on female). Around the age of 15/16 I found videos which are called JOI videos (jerk off instruction), for some reason a woman telling me how to masturbate excited me/got me off, this including such things as edging. I probably spent around 2 or 3 years watching these types of video before I encountered erotic hypnosis at around 17 years old. There's a particular way in which I ended up at this point, however I won't explain how just in case anybody reading this decides they might want to try it. Trust me, it's not worth it.

I also at some point along the road (probably around 18) found myself watching videos where you masturbate to a certain musical rhythm whilst watching pornography and try to last for as long as you can. As you can imagine, from all of the above combined with masturbating once a day for 5 or 6 years straight, I got pretty good at it pretty quickly. Silly me thinking this was a good thing for when I got a girlfriend... wrong.

So at 19 I got into a relationship with a girl and the first time we had sex (my first time ever) my shit didn't work. I couldn't maintain an erection. Nerves? No, I'm a fairly confident person (it just didn't feel as good as I expected) but this is what I pipped it to anyway. At this point I was probably masturbating 3 or 4 times a week still, I didn't see any problem with it. For the first 6 months it wasn't a problem because we both just made the excuse that I was nervous and it was something psychological that I would eventually get over. I truly believed this until around a year into our relationship and I decided to do some research of my own. I found out about how porn may be affecting my brain and that I may also be gripping too hard when I masturbate (death grip) desensitizing my penis. For the following 6 months I tried to stop masturbating all together but I couldn't, I would eventually and inevitably relapse.

I've never considered myself to have an addictive personality. I don't smoke, I don't do any type of harmful/illegal drugs and I only drink heavily around once a week (I'm a student). I look after my body by going to the gym and playing sport, yet without even a sliver of knowledge, I'd developed an addiction to masturbation and it was harming my personal life. My body/brain craved the dopamine/serotonin (whichever it is) release. So after a year and a half I decided I had to end the relationship, we weren't really having sex and it was becoming more of a problem. The worst part was that I lied to her, but I couldn't tell her the real reason, how could I? It's embarrassing.

So here I am at 22 still struggling to get over my addiction by myself (I haven't told anyone and don't really want to - I'm stubborn like that I guess). In the past 9 months my longest period of time without PMO is 3 weeks. I managed this through sheer willpower and distraction... although eventually I relapsed and I went back into my normal pattern. Recently, sometimes I'll only PMO once a week, but then other times I'll PMO 3x in one day - it's really inconsistent. However something clicked 5 days ago, I don't know why or what, but I actually wanted to stop. The first time properly in forever, or I at least want to reboot. I guess I hope not masturbating for 90 days will just rid me of any want to go back to it.

So anyway that's my story and this is me trying to reboot hard mode, props to you if you're still reading, I don't even know if it really makes any sense.

 

What would this entail? I have so far gone a week without PMO, my best is 3. Thanks for your message.

 

No problem, thank you for reading it and thanks for your message. I have no real current strategy, apart from my own willpower. I understand it will be hard and it hasn't worked so far for me, but this is the only time I've ever really wanted to quit.

 

Thank you.

 

Hey, sorry I've not been very active for the past few days, I've been busy with uni work and my dissertation in particular. I've been withstanding pretty well, however today and yesterday I have noticed myself starting to think about PMO more and more, I'm having to tell myself not to give into temptation. I don't have any religious faith, I'm what many would call atheist.