I'm Not the Real Me

Hello NoFap and all you wonderful people. I've been a lurker on this site and also at YBOP for a few weeks now and only just decided to create an account.

I'm a 22 year old guy, just had my birthday recently, on the 11th of March, and I first came into contact with porn when I was 10 years old. I was at someone's place and for some reason there was a porn magazine left open. I was curious, and also at the point in my life where I was beginning to be attracted to girls. Naturally, I couldn't help myself. Fast forward to when I was about 12, maybe 13, I had learned how to masturbate. At this point in my life, at a very young age I had already become addicted to PMO and did it almost every day, sometimes more than twice a day. I was raised by christian parents, and I personally have deep religious convictions, which is besides the point, but because of this I always knew that what I was doing was wrong. At first when I was just looking at porn, I knew it was wrong, but being a kid and discovering girls for the first time, I had no idea of the consequences and honestly, I wouldn't have cared if I did. Little more than a child, I became hooked.

From the time that I was 10, to now, at 22, I have been caught up in a vicious cycle of PMO almost every single day of those years. More than half of my entire life. In those years I really achieved nothing. I lagged behind in school, badly. I dropped out school after I finished year 10 at the age of 16, being convinced that academic accomplishment was not for me. For about a year I did nothing with my life but PMO every single day, often multiple times a day out of sheer boredom. When I turned 17 I began to work. My dad gave me a job and I did fairly well with it, but even at this point I was lazy in my personal life. I lacked willpower and motivation to do anything meaningful, and what seemed like a fresh start with a job quickly turned into a depressing cycle of eat, work, PMO and sleep. My attitude deteriorated greatly, and I lost some friends because of it. Even damaged my relationship with my own parents. I moved away from home at the age of 18. This was when things really got bad.

I got tremendously lucky, and found a place of my own to rent for cheap, through a connection I had with some people. I had started a new job, and it payed well so I could easily afford to live by myself, which suited me as an introvert. For about a year, all I did was work, play video games and masturbate to porn. By this point, at the age of 19, I was so desensitized to "normal" porn I couldn't even get it up and had to escalate. I eventually ended up developing fetishes that Google and I are going to take to the grave, and even now that stuff doesn't have anywhere near the same 'zing' that it used to.

Anyway, time went on, I lost my job because all I wanted to do was sit at home, play video games and masturbate and I would make any excuse not to come into work. I got fired eventually, and when I did I didn't even care. I wasn't happy that I lost my job, because it was actually a pretty good job, I had just lost the ability to care about anything that happened to me. PMO was more important.

When this happened I was 20 years old. I moved out of the city, moved to the country to work and to do some soul searching. I knew I had a serious problem, and my conflict with my religious beliefs were constantly in the back of my mind. In hindsight, it was this, and only this that kept me mindful of the fact that I was on the wrong path. I had no knowledge of NoFap or of the science-based facts surrounding porn addiction. My religious confliction with myself is eventually what drove me to do some research.

Which now brings me here. Over the course of all this, I had tried countless times to simply stop, but without any knowledge of how to do that, I had always failed. Since learning about the effects of porn on the brain I have had considerably more success. Late last year (I think Spetember), I began learning and started to really strive for my goals. Then a life changing event occurred when my mum was diagnosed with a terminal illness (cancer) and I came to realize some things. The first of which, was that at my current rate, I would never have kids, and my mum would never have grand kids. She always wanted to have grand kids. Second, I realized I have never been the real and true me. I have, for my entire teenage and adult life, been the me that was addicted to porn. The me that was secretly jerking myself off every day. The me that was living with a perpetual brain fog and total lack of motivation. Even my own mum, who is now dying, doesn't truly know who I really am. My addiction has controlled for over a decade, causing me to end friendships through negligence. Causing me to drop out of school because of brain fog and zero motivation to achieve. Causing me to lose jobs because of, again, lack of motivation, and countless other things aside.

Now, I don't want any sympathy. My story is horrible, but I did it to myself. The whole lot. The point is, I'm angry at myself. More angry than I've ever been in my entire life. Now I'm determined, I'm going to fight harder than I've ever fought, because I've decided that the real me is a man who isn't a coward and gives up. I don't care how hard it is, or how long it's going to take, I'm going to fight my addiction and I'm going to win. Naked ladies on a screen will not control me any more, like they have done for the last 12 years. I have goals now and I'm going to push for them. Get a girlfriend, get new hobbies, train at the gym and keep achieving longer streaks, winning myself every victory possible. I have had multiple small streaks since the beginning of 2019, and I'm down to PMO'ing about 2 times a week on average, with having only relapsed once since my 22nd birthday, my birthday being the 11th and my relapse on the 14th of March. Although I haven't even come close to kicking the habit; even just by reducing the frequency of it I feel better than I've ever felt before. More alive, more passionate, more alert, more emotional, more powerful. Everyone here who is going through this and dealing with their problems have my deepest respect. I honestly believe, If I can turn my life around, anyone can.

 

Thank you so much man. I'm really excited about this. PMO has played such a huge, negative role in my life, I was genuinely beginning to believe there was no way out of this. Looking around the site and reading up on things has changed my mind completely.

 

Thanks man! I have a plan, and there are many exciting changes coming to my life very soon.

 

Thanks for the support dude! I'm on my 4th day clean and haven't had much trouble yet. Feeling really good about being clean.

I always get up early, on weekdays anyway. I start work early, so I'm usually awake by 5 AM, never later than 5:20 AM. I do tend to stay up for too long though. However, I have noticed already that I'm more inclined to do the things I need to do. For example, I have a gaming PC that I built myself and it's kind of my pride and joy, but for ages I had a part for it that I didn't put in because I was always too lazy and I just play games. Last night I got home, and I got sick of seeing this part on my desk all the time, so I spent an hour with my tools and pulled PC apart to get this thing in there and working. I felt really good after it. It was basically the first bit of work I had ever done at my house for months. So I'm going to start doing the other things that I've been putting off, and there's a lot.

I will start journaling on here. I will post today after work, if I remember.