What was your tipping point?

My porn addiction was so bad that it escalated into a sissy fetish and one day when I was alone in the student flat I shared with my ex gf I started chatting with a guy and showed him my butt through webcam. I had tried to meet up with men before that out of porn induced bi-curiosity and hocd. So I remember sitting there hating myself and thinking to myself that I couldn't go any lower than that. I remember thinking about God and what He would think about me sitting there masturbating to porn (more or less lost faith before that) and that's when I decided that enough was enough. There was no Gary Wilson or nofap.com at the time. I started having withdrawals some weeks later and didn't know what was happening. It's been a rollercoaster of streaks and withdrawals over the years after that but I've finally come to the point of reaching 365 without porn.

 

I always thought I was the exception. I had a committed marriage, and my life was doing OK. I was really good at hiding my PM addiction from my DW, and we had a good sex life. I thought that I could keep PM and our sexual relationship separate, and I did for several years. I'm not old yet, I told myself, thinking that my PM use would never affect ME...

Until a fateful night after a romantic date with my DW. We had just finished being intimate, and she asks "Why weren't you very hard?" I knew instantly, but passed it off as a one off. We had sex a couple more times that week, and the next weekend she tells me that she is concerned. I've never had any problems before, but if it is noticable to her, I know it's real. We had both used P in our past, but as far as I know, she stopped years ago.

So, yeah, it was a real revelation that I indeed age just like the rest of the human race, and I'm not immune to the dopemine hits that PMO brings. After that, I decided I was completely done with PM. I want to be the best for her sexually, and to be more honest with myself. She does not deserve to suffer for my selfishness.

 

I noticed as I got into my 30s that I was having a more difficult time staying fully erect during sex with my wife and my initial reaction was embarrassment / fear. I had no idea about porn addiction, etc. but when I started googling I made my way over to yourbrainonporn.org and as I read through the articles, everything made sense. So right then I started making some lifestyle changes.

 

Isn't that amazing how humbling that is? I think it officially moved me from my invincible 20s to my more self-aware 30s in an instant.

 

My story is in my first journal but typing it out again might be cathartic. I had gone basically my entire life having never asked anyone out, that changed in October 2017 when I confessed to a girl at work that I had a crush on her. I eventually asked her out and got that first rejection, and I took it well at first.

After a week or so I was doubling or tripling my "usual" porn habits, edging too. I discovered NoFap while searching, I'm not sure entirely what for but just under a month after being rejected by my crush I started NoFap proper. The rest is history.

If all that is a bit Tl;dr for you then try this : I started NoFap on a whim to try and win someone over. Don't do that, do it for yourself.

 

After years of vanilla porn, I started seeking out ever more deviant and self-destructive types. I would sit there, disgusted at myself after, and scared too that I was even watching this stuff, when I knew it wasn't the real me. I got concerned that the porn itself had actually started changing my brain, making me someone I really wasn't at the core. When I first went nofap, it was such a relief to feel my true self return, with natural healthy thoughts/desires/feelings.

 

Being afraid of having basic conversations. I'm a master at looking down or away to avoid eye contact. No self esteem. Women were being looked at as sex objects, in an unhealthy way. Hard to explain but it's a feeling I got.

So I stumbled upon Nofap. And read that porn has influence on the things listed above.

Tried to quit, failed. Tried it a lot and failed. Then I knew it was a dependence, addiction, both in mind and body. I actually start showing small withdrawal symptoms if I don't do "the act". It's like I'm possesed and my mind starts to bargain with me to go ahead.

That's not natural in my eyes. So now I'm trying to pass the 1 week mark and see what happens.

 

Even anonymously I feel ashamed to say how many years I have masturbated to porn. Like so many guys, my life looks great. But inside I have this behaviour that I only recently realized how ridiculous and sad it was. My wife and I haven't had sex for years, and we kind of pretend that's okay, but I am hoping that somehow I can take that back. The internet was probably the worst thing to have happened to me. The first time I was alone with dial up I was searching for porn. High speed took it to a new level. Luckily, I didn't move on to real nasty stuff, but if I do not stop now, I never will. The key was realizing I was not alone, as well as having a better understanding how badly it was messing with my brain. I haven't been able to get a hard on (without masturbating) for years and years. Even if it is somehow too late for me, I really want to leave all the old lifestyle behind. Max I ever quit was a month, but my mind feels more focused this time. And this site, which reminds me that I am hardly alone with this challenge, is motivating. Guys, I know how you feel, and if you are young you gotta dump that habit now.

 

• Touching myself while my parents were still awake & then with the door cracked open..stuff like that... made me feel pretty bad..especially being all sweaty afterwards n wanting/ waiting for a shower (or taking too many showers ) because I would end up touching myself after the shower...

• Sleeping on my sweaty sheets for a while till wash day so my mom wouldn't suspect anything...
• My temper I'd have for a while after PMO- ing.
• The pornography dreams/nightmares.
• The feeling of waking up and knowing I'd do it all over again.
• Dissociating during sex(ting)
• Feeling like a complete lost cause.
• Not wanting to be __ years old and still PMO-ing.

 

Yep no question about it. I'm a somewhat analytical person, so as I was reading through all those science articles everything just lined up and made so much sense, and I was like ok, that's gonna have to pretty much be the end of porn for me because if not, I knew the path I was on was going to lead to basically not even feeling like a man anymore.

I think the only reason I lasted as long as I did was because I was never an "edger". I would just find a vid I liked and whack off to that one vid pretty much, so thank goodness I never got in too deep like some other poor souls. About 12-15 days off porn and only masturbating about every 3 or so days was all it took for me become fully functional again. I've been trying to come to this site more over the last week or two just to try to encourage other folks because this can be some scary shit the first time you go to have sex with a girl and struggle to get it up. It's scary, embarrassing, and it pisses you off.

 

Small steps dude. Get used to going 2-3 days at a time, and only masturbate to your thoughts, don't think about porn and don't fantasize about extreme stuff. Once you can do 2-3 days ok, move it up as you need to in order to ensure you feel good when you're with a woman.

 

**TRIGGERS WARNING*

It was after that one week where I went on a mega-binge. I binged for most of my time awake for an entire week. Talking about 12+ hours a day of just porn while browsing some other crap for a couple of minutes at a time. By far the most I've EVER binged.
Played a lot of adult porn games, watched many movies, countless of erotic pictures.
Up until that point I had no doubt in my mind that I'm straight. transwomen were disgusting to me and my penis retracted whenever I saw thumbnails or ads involving transwomen. I once watched gay porn just because I was curious if I might be bi, and it repulsed me and made me feel extremely uncomfortable, got the opposite effect of an erection. My penis shriveled.

But fuck...little did I know that after binging and edging so hard(I practically edged for most of the day)my brain would get so fucked up, I suddenly found myself getting an erection from gay furry porn(cartoon only) and became unable to achieve an erection while watching my usual straight porn. My go-to genres that were almost exclusively what I fapped too were JOIs and Virtual SPOVs among girl/girl and solo girls.
I thought the solution was to just watch only my usual genres and fap to them and I'll end up forgetting and reverting to my old self...not only was I having a hard time Oing to these straight videos(a lot of it due to anxiety that went out in full force because I feared I became gay), it didn't fulfill my urges at all, I found myself thinking about that gay furry porn 10 minutes after finishing up and getting another erection. It only made things worse.
Two months later, after reducing time spent watching porn and forcing myself to watch my usual genres, the last straw was this - I stumbled upon a random video of a transwoman masturbating and got erect rather quickly. Then I told myself "NAH AH FUCK THAT", looked for a solution and other people who experienced the same issues and sudden changes and rediscovered Nofap in a much better light. That thing I thought was ridiculous, simply a community of gays in denial and religious fanatics, suddenly became so relateable. I was amazed to discover and read so many different experiences, scientific explanations and success stories...I slowly realized that I'm not actually gay in denial nor am I even bisexual. I'm just a dumbass who dove too deep into porn instead of doing something with his life.
I think I wasn't, and still am not too far from deteriorating to gay porn. Although I'm not attracted to it nor men, I don't find it repulsive anymore and don't feel uncomfortable by it. No qualms with gay people, but there's no normal functioning straight dude on earth that is not at the very least slightly repulsed by gay sex. At least this much is 100% certain when it comes to straight guys and gay porn.

That being said, the war is still on. I lost some battles, but also won on some fronts. Not being able to achieve an erection to such a fine, beautiful view of the female body, like I EASILY(too easily) used to before, hurts my fucking soul. It's depressing.
My current state is definitely a huge leap from what it used to be several months ago when I was utterly zombified. Looking back I'm disgusted by myself and very ashamed. Why couldn't I recognize this problem earlier? Why did I let it takeover and crush my spirit? This shit made me stop going to the gym after several months in a row of doing so and experiencing some seriously good progress both physically and mentally.
But it happened, I fucked up, now It's time to end this shit and change my life for the much better once and for all. I hope I'll get to do that.

 

There are different effect pmo does to you, some are more scientifical, like the problem Gary Wilson describes in his famous video, other are more related to chinese traditional medicine and ancient wisdom.

I remember watching a video listing all the problem pmo gives you, things like eyefloaters, back pain, very weak legs, kidney problems, black circles around your eyes, digestion and bowels problem, social anxiety and many others.
Well, i just find out i had all of them! It was like BAM! Something hit me hard, i realized in a moment i was super addicted to porn for all my life, and never even had a clue. Like everybody else, i thought watching porn was normal, and i never related the issues i had to porn or masturbation, until i saw that video.

After that i just sit down and i thought: "ok, i fucked up my life bad, enough with this shit..."

 

I just started NoFap again this week after giving up for months straight out of frustration as i relapsed a ton. What motivated me this time was genital desensitizing, to discover if it is one of the factors fueling my depression, to see if it is what is giving me horrific concentration (foggy brain), and to be able to feel healthy loving feelings again instead of plastic sexual attraction. I REALLLLLLY want to make it to 90 days. NoFap is an amazing help to me.

 

PIED, but not only PIED. PIED got me into nofap, but honestly I just kinda randomly "woke up" one day. I was tired of all my shitty weird fantasies, habits and ridiculous amounts of time spent on the internet. I simply removed the option of porn from my life..and I hate to say but since I have done that it has become....easy to avoid porn. The option simply doesn't exist. It's like an annoying bitchy ex that I have blocked from my life. Even if I see her out in the mall some day, I'll immediately go "nope". Since then I have been working on my posture...I have used my new time to literally find how shitty I stand. I had scapular winging, nerd neck, slouching and slight anterior pelvic tilt. I now do corrective exercises on top of my training routine. I now stretch around 30 minutes a day...and my posture has drastically improved.

Hell I even finally discovered I am most likely lactose intolerant..it's amazing what having more time does. Before I just blamed my bathroom problems on irritable bowel syndrome, but now I keep a diary of everything I eat..and yup it's probably milk. Literally a problem I have had for years and years...I solved it in about 2 weeks.

I have introduced meditation into my life, begun to read books more...all things I enjoy vastly more than being a zombie on the net and randomly jerking off whenever I got the urge, then back to zombie browsing on the net. So basically my tipping point was realizing how shitty I was being and realizing I want to reach my potential.

 

To be honest, I don't really know what it was. I created the account on Oct 2 2017. That date has no significant value. Maybe it was the sum of everything PMO related: the secrecy, feeling of shame that I do this, be being single etc. I guess my whole current situation was the tipping point.

 

I started to experience DE and PIED... was really causing me to venture into the pits of despair plus I also got a really bad prostate, UTI and epididymal infection... which just killed everything.

After realizing that there shouldn't be anything physically wrong with me at my age, I started to google and came across nofap and my life has had more meaning since I started.
Took me weeks to finally commit though as I thought that maybe I was just having a bad few weeks due to stress etc.

Not feeling anything when you cum and also not being able to get and remain hard really open your eyes as a man!