So it's been a year : proud and strong

Hi fellow Fapstronauts, I wish you a very nice new year - may your efforts light up the path and lighten your burdens!

I've had addictive behaviors regarding PMO for 25+ years. I won't get into the details here, but the headlines are :
- Associated with social isolation and anxiety
- Associated with extreme delayed ejaculation
- Associated with a general lack of sexual/intimate partners
- Associated with generalized depressive patterns light enough to not raise any concerns anywhere besides "character issues"
- Otherwise fully functionnal... if this still has any meaning after the previous list.

I'm here today to share with you that latest milestone. One year ago, I've started another counter, another challenge that previously only got me so far as 128 days. I say "only" because what's happening now is so much bigger. All i can wish for you is that you get there too. And I trust you will !

This time I got to 370. A year. It's still counting. Though to be honest there's nothing to count anymore - that "everyday is day 1" feeling is long gone, and P is not an option, not anymore than drinking 17 litres of brandy in the evening would. Not appealing at all besides the occasional "hey, could be fun" thought, which wears out effortlessly in a second, thanks to the knowledge of consequences and the values I've come to build around those practices.

During this time I've not watched P or P-subs, intentionally or not. I've covered my eyes when friends teased me with explicit content, turned my gaze away when nudity appeared on screen, etc. Not in a prey-like move, but rather in a confident self-preservation gesture similar to blocking rather than dodging. Full disclosure, I was not on hard mode - so over the course of the year I M'd exactly 20 times. Which is about the amount I use to do in a week, about two years ago. Some might say it's a small achievement compared to Hard modes, and I truly understand that statement. But I figured that reducing the frequency was the way that worked with me, that I could maintain for extended amounts of time last year. When I M'd it was 95% waking up from a terrifyingly sexual dream, in the middle of the night, and decided to delve into the feeling. Twice only I sought physical relief by focusing on the physical sensations (and making sure I wouldn't fantasize or visualize), and immediately regretted it big time.

I didn't seek to just stop P or M, that I knew I could. What I wanted was to truly change the underlying foundations of my PMO habit. Let me explain that bit.

You see, when I started NoFap i was like many of other fapstronauts. Angry at P for being so mean and so damn attractive. "Damn you Porn, you're so evil, you wreak havoc in my life, go away". Then after looking my habit right in the eye I taught her who is in charge here. But as you may have experimented yourselves, this is often hard won, and lasts until the next bump in the road. Like many here as well, I figured that this habit didn't come out of nowhere. That I called it into my life and let it stay, like this overstaying friend you agreed on sheltering for a week a year ago. That many people use P for their entertainment and aren't hooked like I was. Just like you don't feel threatened when you grab a beer with friends, like an alcoholic would.

If you've followed me there, you might think that these concepts alone are easily understood, that they're pretty obvious, and that they don't do the heavy lifting alone. And you'd be right! During this period of time I've started a few activities that helped structure my life differently : that's right - CHANGE. If you haven't figured this out yet, I strongly suggest you start considering your life as being built with some rotten bricks (PMO) and that maybe those walls need replacement. Not being afraid of change may be a hard step to take, and to be fully transparent, I was still afraid a few weeks ago when I started to change something else in this life - and asked a girl out (for the first time in decades). So don't fret when you start laying the foundations of those new walls - they don't have to be perfect at first, they just need to be different from what you have now.

Among the steps I took to change, I started a new education project which will take me to a new profession in a few years ; invested more time into activities that I wanted to develop like sports, photography, reading, walks, hikes, social events ; meditaiton ; writing ; etc.

Those weren't just a list of things to pass the time, what they all had in common is the NON-INSTANTANEOUS GRATIFICATION. For some I had to invest heavily in a short period of time, for others I had to invest small efforts regularly, etc. And this, friends, is really where the cycle of PMO got dismantled. It got broken before that, with the NoFap challenges that showed me I could very well live without fapping to exagerated sexual action 10 times a day. But the real dismantling was the realization that the more I invested myself in something that couldn't be instantaneously reaped, the more I enjoyed the benefits of it over longer periods of time, thus would try to repeat the experience and improve it.

Additional benefits of this way of thinking is I trust myself more and more, which started a beneficial cycle: more opportunities, more energy to materialize them, etc. And the more this process takes places, the easier it is to say "Not a chance" when a P-related thought comes into mind.

I remember a few days ago, thinking rather sexually about the woman I'm currently dating, that the little voice that used to speak so loudly to my broken willpower was completely quiet. I can still hear it whisper tiny fragments of "hey.. it's me... remember the good time you had when...", but I face it with a sympathetic smile and go "Sorry but.. Not a chance, Not interested " just like I would on a street vendor with her fake jewelry or cigarettes.

Thinking forward I suppose I'll stop recording the 10 indicators I used to record daily on a spreadsheet (willpower, energy, morale, P flashes, urges, etc etc) and just concentrate on living this new life. I'll come regularly here to keep in touch with the community, the outstanding efforts that many of you provide for free everyday to improve the life of others who share the same affliction. I'm starting to date a fine woman with whom I feel very much aligned and safe, and I trust that, on top of the 370 P-free I'm here to share, the P&M-free streak I'm on now (46 today) will only grow - can't see no reason to MO without my partner now anyway. I feel like the worst is behind me and I can fully enjoy what's here and now. While keeping an eye on the pesky thoughts and the bumps in the road of course. Should they arise, it would be an other opportunity for growth and learn.

There's a process in psychopathology that make you go through a certain amount of linear states when faced with a traumatic experience (be it big or small), and I guess I've arrived for quite some time at the adaptation step - when you've integrated the details of your past experience, the trauma itself and you've found solutions to deal with it on a daily basis. It doesnt mean that the trauma is gone or rendered harmless, but that you've done the work to grow around it in something that wasn't possible before nor without it.

It is a time of opportunity and discovery, an exciting perspective that doesn't fail to amaze everyday. There's a wish I'd like to seed in the universe today, and that is "May all of you experience relief from the burden that is PMO, and may you be proud of it for the rest of your days".

Thanks for reading this far into my wall of text - May it inspire you like so many others did to me in the past two years!

All the best to you all, and may 2018 bring you the courage to take a step further than wherever you are now. There are no missteps when you're going forward.

 

Well, brain fog really became brain fog when I started NoFap - it's like while doing heavy PMO sessions the fog couldn't settle.. If that makes any sense? Now after those two years working on those habits and this year without P and almost without M, I can definitely say that what used to prevent the fog from settling is present in anything else we'll do with our waking hours. Furthermore there's a chiselled precision in the way you see/feel/receive/live your life after being far from instant gratification for a long time. Sort of a veil that's been removed. In this sense, yes, I used to have that. Now it's only there after a big drunk party... ^^

As for depersonalization, I only experienced it associated with severe depression episodes a few years ago, so I'm not sure if we're speaking of the same thing?

About the damsel, I had a few relationships in the past decade, but they've all been plagued with the issues surrounding my PMO use. Though to be fair, my usage probably dropped 90% when I was with someone. But still, the underlying way I handled my life made them unstable and painful at times. Not to mention sexual compatibility posed by the negative effects (DE) of fapping so fucking much (who wants a guy who can switch positions effortlessly for 5 hours without O? Yep that's right : no woman after the first month is over.) which was a big issue. So in the end I'd definitely say that the NoFap approach helped me realize the weak points in my behavior, including affective and sexual ones, and the overall will to make changes in my life around the issue of PMO brought a lot of changes on the confidence and attractiveness side as well. Oh boy. I'm still not sure if I wasn't aware before or if it is something new that was brought by the changes I've made, but there's a million time more signs of interest from women now than ever before. In this regard I wouldn't have been the same without NoFap, last month when we met, instantly catching each other's eye and going ahead to start something a few days later (after a little anxious fumbling). But make no mistake : NoFap and the community helps you reveal the door, you're the one that has to go through it

 

On DE: Yeah well, that kind of extreme delayed ejaculation is appealing for a woman who (the following must add up to each other) :
- enjoys sex very much, AND
- has much fantasies to explore, AND
- has a tremendous resistance to genital irritation (Quoting GQ here : In a 2008 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, sex therapists said intercourse that lasted 1-2 minutes was "too short," 3-7 minutes was "adequate," 7-13 minutes was "desirable," and 10-30 was "too long" (interesting that there's some overlap between their opinions on "desirable" and "too long") - Go compare that to hours and hours in terms of chaffing.)

Even then, and I say this from experience since I've had a girlfriend for years which checked all boxes, very soon a woman needs to see the result that she's pleasing you. And she was, but somehow ejaculation is the finish line where you all "know" that it happened big time. And it happened sometimes, before the night was over OR we got so tired that we just stopped, so we stayed together for a long while. But she ended up needing an extra sexual interaction (yeah she cheated), so you know, it's not all about how long or how inventive or how tender etc. Delayed ejaculation is something that many men would want (because they feel like they're lacking) but like all extremes it's just bad and ruins everything.

On attraction: If you notice women catching attention your way, maybe it's time to get closer, and to train the "I just want to chat with you a little" state of mind. Get more comfortable. Invest in your relational skills and in the moments you are sharing with them, no matter how mundane or short. The hard part is getting rid of thoughts like "I can see that something should be possible here, if only I knew, if only I could" etc. Remove any pressure, just dip in this river and go with the flow. You'll grow more confident,, you'll find yourself at ease in more social situations, you'll end up noticing more subtle things like that about you and others, and women around you. What can that lead to, I wonder? It's the medium-long game, I've been told. And sometimes the benefits come earlier. Just like quitting porn is the antithesis of instant gratification - it's a long process, where you set a long shot goal, and even though the desired objective is quite far, the early benefits are encouraging and awesome. And so fucking worth it ! I've met this woman while teaching classes I started the year I staretd NoFap as a challenge to myself - see, it didn't happen so quickly, but I wasn't looking for anything special, and I found something on the way ^^

On brain fog and depersonalization: Yeah exactly this, and those are completely gone, the more I've accumulated days in the counter it seemed... With peaks at some precise points that I pinpointed before and after relapses. Those balancing effects happen when transitioning from one equilibrium to the next. Different areas of the conscious and unconscious shift like moving parts, until a new balance is reached, matching the new reality. It's tiring for your mind, and that's perfectly normal. If the mental fatigue or restlessness doesnt wear off after a while, you should reconsider the actions you've taken, the thoughts you fight, how you fight them, the goals you have set, the help you've gathered, the motivations etc. Because there might be something off. For example I rememner when I started my first challenges, I would white-knuckle the shit out of my challenge, until I broke to pieces mentally and almost physically, and after a week or two went uncontrolably on a binge to soothe myself: my efforts were placed at a spot that didn't match my needs to combat my habit. In time I ended up understanding this and shifting my actions, and it gained much efficiency. This higher perspective is tough to reach for some though, especially when there's a family life or demanding jobs involved. I was lucky enough to have enough time on my hands to experiment, and retry.

Sorry for the delay - I'm quite busy at the moment

All the best