ive noticed for me, (i'm a male) there are a few days every month where i struggle more deeply with depression than other days. i currently do have a mild form of depression and am working through it, but there are a few days where it becomes especially harder, often for seemingly no apparent reasons. i'm pretty in tune with my emotions; i journal about 1-3 hours every day about topics of shame, guilt, past experiences, expectations, fear etc. i feel like i've made some good progress. i just suffered from it a few days ago and feel better today. i feel like journaling and leaning into pain/discomfort has helped me. the intensity isn't as bad as it was before but still not good. do you guys have like a monthly emotional roller coaster? where you guys are depressed/anxious/sad for several days or so? and if so, what do you guys do? has giving up porn/masturbation helped you guys? i just started the process and am excited to where it can take me (a few days ago while i super depressed though, i really struggled a lot to be excited or optimistic about anything)
One thing I realized recently about cycles of depression is that they always pass. For every time I can remember being super depressed and wanting life to just be over, I can also remember a few months or weeks later, when everything was great and I was loving life and felt super happy. So it helps to keep that in mind, and realize that it will end eventually. Its like having a cold or the flu. Theres not always anything you can do to feel better, so sometimes you just have to wait it out and ignore you misery as much as possible until the season passes and you feel better. Just to clarify, though, I would only recommend ignoring the problem AFTER you've dealt with it and come to the conclusion that there isn't anything else you can do to fix it. You should certainly try to get to the bottom of things and make it better if you can, but sometimes it's just those pesky emotions that you can't really do anything about.
There is no such thing as a monthly cycle for guys, however, I did read somewhere that after two weeks abstinence the perceived benefits of no PMO drop significantly and starts to plateau. I've also experienced that personally. It's almost like the testosterone build up fades away into the body or something, I can't explain it. But after two weeks the mood and confidence levels definitely plateau.
LOL, I always use this for reference. Spoiler ^If you look at that, it is only about 9-10 days where a lady is feeling great/ok, the rest is bad. That's is 10/28 days which is approximately 1/3 feeling ok/great. 2/3 feeling bad And just after her peak confidence / sexuality there is a terrible low. Oh and it all runs like clockwork every month. That's pretty crappy, if you ask me. I don't know why us guys complain so much, we got it easy!
I´ve heard about a male cycle. But I´m not sure if I exeperience that. There are always ups and downs, but I do not know where they stem from. "roller coaster" describes well what I have often experienced when I had longer streaks of no MO. For me the ups and downs are much greater when I am abstintent. If the depression gets too deep I don´t have any other solution but relapse. Does anybody have a better way to get out of this?
Oh. Sorry for my imprecise language. I´m not talking about depression as a serious desease. It´s more about feeling depressed.
Exactly. The same thing happens to me. My greatest happiness usually comes after a period of feeling down. Ill feel low or depressed for a few days or weeks, then when i come out of it i feel really great. (Not that im depressed often, i just feel down from time to time)