Post published by Aerchie

Hey,
I have just joined because I'm kinda in sad place right now, so please excuse the essay I'm about to leave.
I am a physics student and have been abstaining from porn and masturbation for a year now and it's not having all the desired effects. I, indeed, am as quickly aroused as ever and experience nightly erections once again. Unfortunately the more mental effects seem to be missing for me. My memory may have slightly improved, but it's hard to tell because maybe I've just forgotten alot from the time I fapped because of time, rather than bad brain chemistry.
But I'm feeling really depressed and lonely. I struggle alot with college-related stress and can't simply relieve myself the old way. Also I can't say that my confidence has gone up significantly. It may just be that I'm surrounded by smart people alot, making me feel avarage to stupid. Other students don't seem to struggle significantly with that though. I also am lacking in motivation quite alot with my sense of duty being the only thing that keeps me in college and doing excercise. Lastly I, for the great old ones blind cruelty, am still a virgin, having not improved in terms of charisma or, again, confidence.

I, quite foolishly, quit porn believing I could get the girl a crushed on, if only I proved my will power to the universe. After coming to terms with the terrible reality and telling her the truth and that we unfortunately can't be friends, feel emptiness where I once felt rightous motivation. Since the girls I meet show the same dreadful disinterest I don't ever chase them to not repeat old mistakes and to keep my dignity.
I also tried psychedelics not to long before I started NoFap, which I imagine convinced me on some subconscious level, that I am after real relationships. Unfortunately I'm in no state to trip again right now. I recently had a negative experience after smoking one joint, which showed me just how much I'm currently not having peace of my mind.

Having just made it through a chaotic and tough semester, I long for nothing more but some sort of reward, be it a real relationship or, unfortunately, porn. I just almost relapsed, which made my realize I really should give this community a shot.
I can't claim that I'm not missing porn. I was never really ashamed of liking what I liked, which was fairly vanilla.

The rat-experiment, where a rat is locked in a cage with one dispenser for regular water and one which is laced with heroin, comes to mind alot recently. The poor rat, being imprisoned and lonely, will always chose the drugged water over the plain stuff. It will become dependent and drink it until it overdoses and dies. In contrast, if you put a rat in a grand community it will most likely not become addicted the the heroin water. This does translate to humans, because you will get clean heroin in the hospital if you have a serious enough injury, which more often than not, doesn't lead to addiction.
Conclusively, I feel like that lonely rat, being unable to fully beat my addiction until I escape that dreadful nightmare-cage. I'm not totally awkward and have tried socializing more, but I genuinly don't enjoy it. Same thing for sports. And my motivation to try new things as hovering infinitecimaly above zero.

If anybody knows a thing or two which could help me, do tell.
Thanks for reading and have a nice day!