Porn in your Head

Do you know how on an old CRT monitor you can sometimes see 'ghosting' of the last image displayed before it's turned off? That is exactly what I get when I watch porn in relapses. 'Ghost' images of the shit I saw intrude on my mind's inner eye. The frightening thing is, it feels like these images are being forced on you - it's not your choice for them to be there!

 

Yes, it is. This shit, as you so eloquently put it, is really deep imprinted into our mind. One of the reasons for the challenges and the standard 90-day no-PMO reboot is to allow the deep-imprinting to loosen up, and to allow some other stuff to get in there.

This is not my first time, and I know from relapses that I used to think about porn even during real sex. It's not a recipe for success. I need time, discipline, and experience to replace the porn images in my head with IRL experiences.

In a sense, they are forced on you, in that your subconscious plays them out for you and you don't have much control over that. I find when the images come up, I have to stop them, usually by going to do something else (I can't always just choose to think of something else; I find I actually have to move my body somewhere).

I think this is what the addiction is, and I think it's why we have to do these disciplines to change ourselves.

 

I'm going through this same exact thing right now. It freaking sucks big time. I've been clean for over 2 weeks on this streak, and it's hitting me harder than ever. My first 60 day streak, it seemed so much easier, but now, it's almost impossible to get rid of. I've recently taken up meditation, and trust me it has been helping...but one thing that sucks, is while I'm meditating, I'll be in deep concentration, and then out of nowhere a scene will pop up in my head. It sometimes takes a whole 5-10 minutes to get back into my concentration.

Spoiler

Today has been such a hard day too. I had a really sexual dream last night. Dreamt that my Fiancee and I had a threesome with a pornstar and in that dream they both were relentless on me and each other and we all did things to each other that my Fiancee and I would never do. I joked about it with my Fiancee this morning and she joked back and said "What makes you think I wouldn't be down for that?" But she was joking and I would never want that to happen. I know she was joking because then she said "It's just a dream honey, I would slap you if you ever asked me for a threesome." I never would though, because I love my fiancee and have been working so hard to get back to her being the only naked body I want to see.

The worst part is that the dream from last night has been creeping in and out of my head all day. She's at work today and I'm by myself all day, and that is when I get the most nervous...I'm doing good all day, but the thought and scene remains in my head.

 

So what are you doing to manage it? If you let it stay without doing something about it, it might get more and more powerful. If you take control and do something - SOMETHING - to get past it, maybe you'll be in control again.

 

I've fought with this. Until the real good memories bury the fantasy, there is always room for porn flashbacks.

 

I ended up doing something that I haven't done for months...EXERCISE! haha - I went into the basement and started lifting for 45 minutes and then ran on the treadmill for 15 afterwards, the whole time listening to music. After I was done, I took a cold shower and voila! the urge and scene disappeared from my head. I attribute that to me giving my body a different way to get a release by exercising instead of PMO'ing. I felt so much better afterwards because I didn't relapse and I felt that as a MAJOR victory. Glad I did all of that too, because my fiancee and I became intimate that night and it was amazing and all I saw was her and nobody else.

 

I'll say. Well done. You've got another tool in your kit.

 

Yes i know the seared images. They upset me too. Maybe it's something because of this Digital medium we're viewing the porn on. The blue light and pixels, etc. Idk. Situations within the acts on camera, themself i believe cause this as well.

 

I've definitely had these old "burn-in" images pop back up during my reboot. Makes me wonder why I ever downloaded any, since most of them were already in my head by then. Some of them I really wish I could un-see, since they were disturbing/deviant images which I encountered as my P escalated over the years, and which I believe were harmful to me psychologically and emotionally.

But I'm the one that stupidly opened up that channel for that junk so now it's my responsibility to cope with the after-effects. I have noticed that overall these images' power over me has faded, as they become more cartoonish, silly, phony in my memory. They're pixelated two-dimensional nothings which every day are becoming more brittle and faded and forgotten. Sometimes I look at things like landscape photography or abstract paintings or whatnot which helps replace them with something more positive.

 

https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/adapt-not-force.138546/

 

Was listening to a podcast, and there was an advertisement for Howard Stern. During the Ad, there was a quote he said, "My goodness, do you see the shape of her ass?"

This, even though it was small, was quite a trigger for me. I was at day 23 of my reboot process, which was my second highest record streak. My longest was 61 days. I believe since I was only at day 23 this time around, I was still quite vulnerable to triggers. This led me to feeling depressed and very aggravated. I went on to Tumblr, and started looking at girls in bikinis, and then that led to a "recommended page" with a very famous porn star. Of course I fought, but i ended up clicking on it. I got about halfway down the page after 5 minutes, and exited out. However, the image of the trigger remained, and I edged for 10 minutes. Even though I didn't complete, this is still a textbook relapse in my book. I was so happy with the progress I was making, and now I feel like absolute crap. My fiancee have been having some of the greatest sex we've had in a month or two, and I attribute it to no PM. But now I feel like i've back tracked. I got a bit snippy with her this morning because of the feelings of guilt I had after I was done edging.

I'm not sure what I was thinking. I've been working so hard to get the images out of my head, but it's like they're imprinted in my head. I've been struggling with these images for the past week it seems like. I have been doing many extra curriculurs, and they go a way for a while, but even with one moment of down time, they come back. They're so haunting. I'd give anything to trade in all of the time I spent as a younger lad surfing the internet watching P.

The silver lining is this: Whenever I used to Edge and relapse, I'd edge for hours and hours, and eventually give in and release, or just stop and give my self blue balls. This time, I edged for only close to 10 minutes and then stopped. Progress is progress no matter how you look at it I guess. Rome wasn't built in a day, and I'm just glad that I stopped after 10 minutes and not 4 hours.

 

Ive heard that More real sex, and Less PMO, is what is needed for a consistent reboot. Idk.

 

good morning this last two days i was too close of relapsing from my journey because of allot of temptation goin in my mind is not just porn on your head you go out now your body get hot like a volcano when you see a gorgeous woman its like an animal instinct that force you to chase woman and this last Thursday happened weird things like attractive women's looking at me with a strong eye contact one of them putting her indicator finger in her lips looking at me other looked and turned down her head and smiled other woman who is short was facing me ,in that moment i didn't know what was really happening when i back too may home i went straight to the mirror to see if i have something wrong with me and i didn't see.