My Introduction/Story

I've been on this site for a while and have decided to have a 'renewed' attempt at improving myself. This post will be my story/background information that people can read when I'm looking for accountability partners.

Timeline:

10 - first viewed porn.
15 - PMO addiction and chronic insomnia developed.
16 - began trying and failing to quit PMO.
17 - diagnosed with major depression and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

I'm currently 18 years old, and am in my first year of law school. As you can see above, I've got numerous problems. Several things have contributed to my depression - stress, lack of exercise (haven't played sport since age 12, rarely exercise), poor diet, lack of sleep (insomnia + staying up late doing uni work), genetics (depression runs in my family), and my PMO addiction.

My PMO addiction causes me to lose sleep because often I'll stay up all night doing it. Additionally, I'll PMO when I should be studying, which results in me needing to sacrifice sleep to catch up on the work I should have been doing. Anxiety worsens insomnia, because worrying and having racing thoughts at night keeps me up. Insomnia is also a symptom of depression. And to top it all off - lack of sleep makes depression worse, anxiety worse, increases stress, decreases productivity (and a lack of productivity means needing to sacrifice more sleep to catch up on work), and more.

The pattern above ^^ kind of demonstrates the vicious cycle I've been stuck in for over 1.5 years, and I haven't been able to overcome it.

To me, nofap isn't just about quitting porn; it's about turning my life around. Quitting PMO is just the first step, and is a necessary step for me to get healthy again as it is at the root of many of my other problems. Depression, insomnia and PMO have drastically worsened my grades (and in law, grades are what get jobs, so you could say my future career is being ruined also). Recently I've been having suicidal thoughts during particularly bad episodes of depression and my PMO has only gotten worse; which has made me realize that if I don't overcome this addiction and turn my life around, I might not have a life.

In terms of just PMO, porn has warped my sexuality and massively desensitized me to normal sex/porn. I want to be able to get aroused by seeing girls in real life and the idea of normal sex again, like when I was 14-15. I'm still a virgin and have never had a girlfriend, and the last (and only) time I kissed a girl, I was like 8, and that doesn't really count. So getting better with girls is another reason pushing me to quit PMO.

I'm going to be doing this "hardmode". The longest I've done without PMO'ing in probably over 2 years, is 11 days. I'm aiming for 30 days initially, and then once I've accomplished that, I'll be aiming for 90 days, then hopefully I'll have rebooted and be rid of this forever.

If I get an accountability partner, I will want to be held accountable not just for PMO-related things, but also: study, exercise and sleeping habits.

If you managed to read until the end, thanks!

 

Hey, thanks for the reply! And totally, I'll send you a PM.

 

Not much unfortunately, but on the bright side I'm going extremely well at the moment. Almost 6 days, which is the longest I've been in a long time things are definitely looking up!