funkmeister's reboot

Hi everyone,

I found out about nofap through some other websites (nomoremrniceguy forums & yourbrainonporn.org). I've been on a journey of improving myself since last year because I had some trouble with myself; I didn't love myself and was experiencing severe anxiety issues. The fact that I'm 25 and still a virgin bothered me a lot, but I've learnt to feel good about myself and do things for me. At least my life isn't dominated by fear anymore.

I already quit porn a year ago and MB'd a lot less automatically because of it. In February I wanted to see the effects of no MB at all and I lasted 50 days. The effects where simply amazing. I started to do sports again, the situation at work improved and I was a lot more outgoing in general.

I made this account because I'm slacking again and I wanted to reinforce my commitments. It frustrates me a lot because I know how I'm able to feel, but still keep falling in the same old traps. I'm doing unconcious stuff to make me do it again (like typing some questionable search terms in google just for 'information'), until I realise I got to a point of no return. This is something I didn't even experience in my 50-day streak and it freaks me out as hell.


I KNOW I can do it, I just don't know where I lost it. So from now on, this is what I'm committing to:

- no edging (on top of the list because this is my biggest issue right now)
- no masturbation
- no porn (obvious)

- starting to swim again
- being more talkative/open to new people (already doing a good job but I can still do better)
- watching my alcohol use

I might include healthy MB (without O) later in the process, but for now it's certainly not an option.

 

That's a good way to stop googling stuff; not even starting and realising when you're going to do it. For me it works often as well. Unfortunately when I'm on the computer long enough, usually in week-ends, something still slips trough and I'm back doing what I did before. Most of the times I still hold myself back from clicking on the links, but I'm torturing myself just long enough that I'm actually mimicing porn searching behavior, and then I have to finish it off by MB'ing somewhere else. It has the exact same feeling even without seeing any imagery. Really nasty. I stopped one of these this morning and hours later my mind keeps telling me it's OK to click on things when I shouldn't. I just have to leave my computer whenever I'm not doing anything useful on it at all.

You're right about this one. Most of the time I don't bother about being a virgin as well. Only when friends are talking about their experiences with sex, I feel like I've missed out a lot so far.

I remember a year ago, when I just stopped PMO'ing, I told some friends of mine and I just felt weird being the only one who didn't watch porn. Guess what, I relapsed the day after. This won't happen anymore, I've made up my mind enough already.

It's a strange thing how porn use is considered normal amongst the youth. I even saw a commerial from the Belgian government the past week, which used it as some joke.

Thanks! I don't know exactly why, but it's harder these days. I think I have a whole lot of extra positive energy since my last attempt, and I don't always know how to deal with it. I feel happy, I want to go out of the house and do stuff, but I always have some time gaps to overcome when I'm waiting for something I've planned. Especcially in the week-ends.



After 2 weeks of no MB, I had to reset my MO counter previous week-end, this time fortunatly not because of driving myself crazy enough by excessive internet usage. Now I'm 6 days further again.

I'm also on a 1 month drinking moratorium since the 1st of November. It's really challenging because I go to events where I'd normally drink almost every evening. But the clearness in my head is awesome. I've put my swimming to the next level, started to eat 2 pieces of fruit a day and I just feel very healthy (although I still smoke 4-6 cigarettes a day). I'm considering not drinking on weekdays at all anymore, and of course significantly less in week-ends.


I feel like I have to convert this energy by going out and getting to learn to know new people. I'm playing a show with my band tonight so let's try that again! Usually I want to try, but it's always 'just not the right moment' to start talking to someone. I'm still searching for ways to change this, any tips are always welcome!

 

Hi jatar!


Thanks for your advice and words of encouragement. A lot of it is really helpful for me, especcialy at this time. Good to know there are people out there with similar problems; we're in this together!


I haven't been on the forum for quite some time because (like you said) when I feed the attention to it (the fact that I don't MB) it can get a lot harder.

I'm still not giving up but I've only been moderately successful. Since the last time I posted here, I MB'd once every 2/3 weeks. Unfortunately half of the times was because I had pushed myself too far being curious about googling stuff. Not even much imagery was involved, but it leaves this sick feeling until there's almost no way back.

There has been one period of almost 6 weeks without MB or excessive browsing for stuff. Don't remember how it ended but I definately felt better at the time.

I'm back in for almost 3 weeks now. I started googling stupid stuff again some days ago, and every day I find it harder not to do it again. I'm not sleeping well at all and I'm starting to have difficulties concentrating. I don't remember this being so hard last time I made it to 50 days (a year ago). Every day my mind is trying to trick me a bit more into MB'ing, then I tell myself relapsing once is better than the days of torturing I've put myself into already. On moments of not paying attention, I find myself googling for “nofap” and “better to relapse” or some things like that, because I just want to read what I want to read: someone who says it's better to get it over with. Call that obsessive.

In a way putting a stop to it and just starting over with more determination makes sense, but I don't want to do it this time. That's what got me into the 2-weekly relapses in the first place. It would be an excuse for next time as well. How many times I thought I'd learnt my lesson?


F**k this shit, I'm going outside and beat the shit out of my drums.

 

I had a heavy week-end (late at home after playing some shows with my band, and some drinks) and tonight I didn't sleep at all. Edging on those half-awake moments in bed hasn't helped me as well. But it's probably mostly due to the late hours the night before, and the fact that I almost always don't sleep well anyway. I didn't find it particulary hard to abstain from MB when I was lying awake this night, because I just know the stressy feeling isn't horniness.

I almost drove myself to death today driving back from work. Ridiculously enough I did a lot at work today, still not sure how I could manage.

I'm experiencing a lot of would-be wet dreams but I wake up completely dry. I think it's a good sign that my unconcious is with me as well. Still a bit worried about it (maybe because somehow I want it to happen).


I know this is a rationalization per definition, I mean, if you're committing to nofap, then you're not fapping, simple as that. But on the other hand I think I should cut myself some slack. Sometimes I think it's better to just start over with MO than to keep going on like this until I eventually relapse in a worse way (PMO) anyway. It's a vicious circle. I'm getting more tired and tired and it's becoming harder to not give in to the stressy feeling, which can lead to doing some really unhealthy things. Feeling somewhat guillty about thinking that I could just MO, feeds that feeling.

Of course this is a vicious circle too if I used this as an excuse to relapse more often, and I would be betraying myself if I would say I'm perfectly fine with that. It has happened in the past. But why didn't I have any trouble abstaining from questionable links and google searches a couple of months before? Because I just cared a lot less. And even then I MO'd only once every 3 weeks or so. I think caring too much is dangerous as well.


Just some thoughts that were in my head. I want to be clear that my goal is still abstaining from any MO at all. For now I'm not doing anything because I would like to see where I can go if I abstain for longer.

 

I'm glad I vented this because it allowed me to see that I already believe MO'ing shouldn't be a neccesity in any way. If I were to do it now, it would only be to try to relieve stress and there are other ways to do that. I know what the benefits of abstaining are and I will continue.

 

Yup. Had the same again today. I even clicked on multiple clearly questionable links telling myself "if it's unsafe my K9 blocker will block it anyway". Eventually some NSFW sites came through and suddenly I found myself in a very hard position to stop browsing. But I did and took a cold shower. Close one ..

Day 29 now. It's been a remarkably calm week since my last post since I straightened some things out for myself, not much difficulties with NoFap. It's always on moments like that it suddenly tends to come in extremes the opposite way. But I survived this time.

 

It's a great technique and it has worked for me many times, but sometimes things still slip in. It's crazy what the mind does to justify all this. Guess I just need to keep practicing indeed!

I also think that if I were able to stop those stupid searches, I wouldn't have a lot of problems running longer streaks. It's a strange thing I didn't have this problem in the past. I just relapsed sometimes, but in a way more obvious way than the sneaky things my mind is trying to pull of now. It's really stupid when I think of it; this should be way easier to stop than the relapses when I got straight to looking at P. And now I believe it is.


I slipped with MO at day 30 today. I'm glad it wasn't preceded by any of the things above, but the fact that I've done that the days before probably didn't help. And I'm a bit hungover as well, this doesn't help either.

The most important thing I'll remember about this streak is that the google search problem is my number 1 enemy. If I hadn't started with this nasty habit again 2 weeks ago I probably would still be going. But it's a good thing I realised this back then and I didn't use it as a reason to reset my counter already. Realising this made me able to avoid relapses with a strength I'd never seen before. I know now that I'm able to fight back even at that stage. But still it got back at me now. Something in me always kept wondering if it was better to just MO and restart with the new insights I gained. An excuse, that's for sure but well, here I have it now. Time to put what I learnt into use!

 

It's been some time. I've been avoiding this place because I made a way too big deal out of it. If it did anthing, it was making me think about not MB'ing (so ultimately about MB'ing) even more.

I'm back here because I realize that for the past year, I've still been fooling myself. The random search thing got better for a while, but it was still there and once every couple of weeks it returned. Mostly when I encountered some NSFW content, I was able to close the browser after some time. But sometimes it made me MB later that day (or worse, after cringing for a couple of days) without the actual image in front of me just to get it over with. The excuse was; if I don't get this over with now, I'm going to keep searching for ways to do it and I'll end up watching P. But overall it was more manageable than when I first came here. Streaks were always 2-3 weeks and I never ended it with porn.

Last month I had a 30 day streak and I don't feel like I've been making it hard on myself, except for the last day itself. Which is a tremendous lesson off course. I didn't try to do anything questionable and I felt stable, it even didn't get any harder after time. I had lots of things to do and didn't (have to) spend time on the computer. Just until one time when I let my guards down.

I was 12 days in again until yesterday. I thought I would help myself to search google for nofap + some term that could equally mean that I would possibly encounter nudes or similar. I ended up on some site that was considered “healthy P” (BS if I think of it now off course) until I was unable to stop myself from watching a video. I basically O'd with all my clothes still on from the tension that created.


All that time I thought I got it right, but here I am, doing the exact same things I posted I wouldn't do again a year ago. It didn't get THAT bad, that's probably why I didn't see it. But it was only a matter of time before it did.

I've been thinking again about MO'ing every 2 weeks or so to relieve the tension, only concentrating on me and myself. But I figured out that's not what I want to do. Ultimately, I believe M'ing is not unhealthy but orgasm shouldn't be the goal. On the other hand, trying it without O would be too difficult right now and would be only making things harder (pun intended ;-) ). That's something I MAYBE see myself do in a couple of months, but for now I'll just leave it all.


It took me some time, but I'm seeing this as a lesson. I don't feel like I took a step backwards, because now I know what's been really going on for the past year. It's not that it suddenly got worse now, in hindsight this is something I could expect when going on like this. I must take this 'random search' thing seriously like my life depends on it. It was almost the only thing that made me give in.

 

I'm currently on day 42, longest in over a year. I just returned from a 2 week trip with some friends, which started when I was at week 3. This made abstaining a lot easier. I noticed though that before the trip (even minutes before I left) I tried to trigger myself with almost everything I thought of, as an excuse that I wouldn't be able to MB on the trip anyway. Luckily that didn't go wrong.

Tiredness from the trip has made me do some stupid things that certainly don't make it easier now, especially when I wake up during the night. I'm happy to say that I find it easier than before to just return to where I was before. But I think I'm using this as an excuse to keep trying to 'test' myself; I must put an end to this once and for all or suddenly it's going to be too late again.