Fap 5 Freddy

The penny dropped for me when I watched the TED talks video by Gary Wilson last week. I have struggled with serious depression for several years now, and for 10 years I have been actively PMO-ing to temporarily escape this. 6 years ago 4 close friends and 3 acquaintances died in a really short time, and I just lost the plot. I spent a lot of time distracting myself from my grief with a chronic habit of PMO. I realised that I was deeply depressed, and I sought help. I had a year of talking therapy, which helped a lot. I grew up in an extremely violent and psychologically toxic home. When I was old enough to leave home I managed very well for about 10 years, and I was incredibly creative, motivated, sociable, confident. But my confidence and motivation began to drop off, and PMO began to fill more and more of my time. When I spoke with my therapist about this, he simply tried to discourage me from feeling ashamed about it. He didn't seem to want to see it as a problem, or perhaps I didn't want to see it as a problem and I am projecting that on him. In any case, I found that talking about it helped, I stopped needing to watch porn for about a week and then I started again, justifying this with typical addict thinking: if I was able to stop for a few days, it can't be a problem. I now realise that I have a lot of addiction issues, and not being in touch with my feelings is partly driving these issues.
PMO is how I dealt with stress. I tend to work from home, and the projects I was working on would be continually interrupted with longer and longer porn breaks. I got so I couldn't focus or concentrate for more than an hour at a time. Projects took longer and longer to complete, because watching porn was becoming more and more like my full time job.
So the video by Gary Wilson and other videos by people who have given up porn was eye-opening for me. The depression, the lack of motivation, the inability to finish projects exactly fit what I was going through. This almost certainly has roots in my turbulent childhood, but despite spending a year in therapy, and changing some habits, like giving up smoking weed and exercising more I still find myself in a state of depression with little curiosity about things I used to find enjoyable. I have now gone 10 days without PMO. The first week wasn't a problem but it's now begun to feel like this will be a real challenge. The last 3 days I have been having quite compulsive urges to check out porn. Reading other peoples stories and progress reports has made a big difference. So here is hoping that I can go 90 days without checking out porn. I spent years thinking that watching porn was harmless. But having stopped for a few days and now feeling cravings for it makes me realise what a compulsion it is/was. And for me it worked like an addiction - it became something I required. So my reboot has started with all the symptoms I've read about - flatlining, anxiety, and of course, depression. I understand that these are common symptoms, and the truth is that other than flatlining they are the symptoms I've had for years now. Despite this, I feel very positive about the changes that will occur...the idea of rewiring my brain is exciting, I just wish it would happen faster. So the withdrawal blues I have today I'm going to just push through. I am giving up something I was addicted to and my body doesn't like it at the moment. Learning about the science of porn addiction and seeing and reading the personal accounts of so many people in the same situation has both shown and inspired me to take up this challenge and make a positive change for myself. I expect that there will be many tribulations, but many triumphs as well.