Sometimes by mind gets carried away with fantasizing. If I fantasize too much, my brain goes through almost the same process it goes through after watching porn. That's what happen yesterday. I allowed my mind to fantasize a lot, and after stopping, I started to have withdrawals similar to the withdrawals I had after stopping pmo. Things like high stress levels, brain fog, confusion and high urges. All these things came to me just through fantasizing. Fantasizing, especially when done in detail and large amounts, feels very similar to watch porn in terms of consequences and the after effects. I have to take fantasizing more seriously because of what it does to my brain. It caused me pain and stress, brain fog among other terrible things. It really prevents me from enjoying the benefits of no pmo. I need to stop this and move forward. I need to think of fantasizing differently and be more adverse to it. I need to avoid fantasizing completely for the next 2 months and then decide what's a natural and healthy level of fantasizing. Maybe a little, maybe none at all. I don't know, I have to find that out in this journey.
I dont think fantasising is inherently a bad thing but it depends about what you are fantasising about. If its about a porn scenario or some unrealistic situation induced by porn, then certainly nip that in the bud before it leads to a full blown relapse. If its about a more healthy and natural situation, ie physical/emotional intimacy, or genuine love with another person, then the only negative side effect of it that I can see is if you are single it could make you depressed. In general though I dont subscribe to the idea that trying to repress natural feelings is a good thing, its all about finding what your natural feelings are first and then going from there.
This is very true, talked it over with my psych a few weeks back and been trying to be aware of it since. I'd guess it's not as bad, but still uses the same 'connections' in the brain, and I believe you OP on the same withdrawals coming back. This isn't talked about much it seems? No fantasies during reboot would be best. But realistically, at least make it healthy (completely vanilla thoughts).
Day 86 now. Almost to the 90 day challenge. There are many goo days and bad now. Good days are more common now after 80 days of NoFap, but the bad days still come. Yesterday was particularly bad. I don't know why, I have some ideas, but it was bad. I felt really depressed, but it passed. Today was better. I have many improvements in my life, but many things that could also improve. Overall my life is on an upward trend, everything is slower getting better. I know that I need a lot more healing, and much more improvement, but I'm encouraged by the progress that I made. I'm going to keep going strong, I need to change some of my unhealthy behavior that I have kept since I was in my pmo addiction. I need to steer the ship in a slightly different direction to move away from my pmo addiction and past behavior.
There was a porn ad that pop up on my browser. I closed it right away, but I haven't seen anything like that for almost 3 months now. It seems unfair. I know that I will probably have a negative reaction to it. Probably in increase in withdrawals for a couple days. I shouldn't even be going on the computer for anything other than nofap. I need to restrict my access to the computer. I should give it up completely and for good. I would feel much more secure in my ability to quit pmo for good. When I'm on the computer, I'm only one click away from messing up my progress, and many times I'm tempted to. I really need to get away from the computer and do more productive things. I reading a book right now. I'm going to read more tonight instead of staying on the computer. That will be healthy for my mind. Day 87 now. Very close to reaching the 90 day reboot. Many things have improved in my life so far, and I know that things will continue to do so if I stay on the right path and stop getting side tracked. Although I have not been completely relapsing, I have been getting side tracked here and there by fantasizing too much and staying on the computer too long and things like that. I need to base my life around quitting pmo which means I need to kick all the bad habits that I have that draw me back into pmo, like going on the computer and undressing women with my eyes. I need to find out what works for the long term. I always have to think about the long term. That is what truly matters. If I just do things for success in the short term, it's going to be a losing strategy overall, and I know this, but the road to quitting for good is much harder. I need to take the hard road out of this. That's the only way out of this.
My therapist t even looking at women in public and having a short fantasy as a slow drip of dopamine. Dopamine is what we all were addicted to in full blown porn usage and seeking more and more to get an even bigger dose. I just started refraining from ogling this week and it has been difficult since my eyes are automatically trained to look at their bodies. Anything that causes arousal activates the dopamine system and makes cravings to masturbate......in me anyway.
I've started to notice when I begin fantasizing, and I stop immediately and think about something else, anything, as long as it isn't sexual. It does help and as long as you start to notice it early you can really start to control the fantasies and I'm sure this will also help preventing a lot of relapses in the long run. Good luck!
I think its a tough problem to solve but not unsolveable. I still fantasize occasionally, but it's far removed from the scenes i viewed when I was using porn. One thing to understand is that you can't get away from the fact that you will have sexual needs and desires, that's just part of being a human, but we can control how those things are managed and dealt with. I focus on women who could be real partners, but there's more to it than that, it's also about restructuring how you think about intimacy and love so I meditate first and imagine stuff that simply you don't see in porn, like going out on a date first, what the date will be, what her smile looks like etc, that starts the build up for the eventual release of whatever sexual frustration I might be feeling. The goal of course is to meet a real woman and go on a date and enjoy being with them so rather than artificially relieving sexual tension it is done in a more natural way. It has taken me a long time to get to this more healthy way of viewing sex and it's only been possible since abstaining from porn, I also can relate to my previous relationship and what it felt like when I was with a real woman. I think people that have not experienced proper intimacty or connection with a real partner who have problems with porn struggle more, since they don't have any alternative reference points.
