Watch Porn After 16 Months Harmode

I masturbate about once a month, but without fantasy and definitely not to porn.

 

Careful, addiction is taking a hold of you. You've been clean of it for 16 months, why return back to it now? You do know you'll feel even worse if you're continuing to do this? You've had horrible withdrawal situations, they won't get any easier if you continue doing this.

Assess the situation of why you returned to porn. So, boredom was the trigger. Why are you bored? Are you mindlessly browsing the internet perhaps? Turn off your pc/smart phone and go do something else. Like, right now. Don't be on this forum crying that you watched porn. What happened, happened. Buy a pen and paper and draw something. Clean up your room. Meditate for 30 mins. Just anything to get it out of your mind. Don't return back to it and hurt other people around you. Above all, you're only hurting yourself.

I have a huge brainfog right now, but hope that helps.

 

Install blockers, like kaspersky safe kid etc. If I were you I would do not use computer / internet for two weeks, and go in a different enviroment meanwhile to become untriggered faster.

You are triggered at the moment, your frontal cortex in sleeping mode. Find a place where you never used to pmo and spend most of your free time there. I guess that will be outside. Avoid triggers and be busy.

 

I’m 100% serious. I don’t know, I don't remember exactly what it characterizes (hardmode or softmode), but I think at the beginning I was in hardmode (about a half a year or something, maybe longer) but later I gave myself a little more slack. I didn't want to be afraid to look at the woman's buttocks, etc. and I often had that before. I was very afraid of relapse. But I saw that it was probably no sense. And for some time I felt better and better. Now came the moment when I do not know where I am. You know... four months ago there was a moment when I woke up hangover and involuntarily erotic thoughts came to my head. I thought about my ex-girlfriend. I wasn't thinking about sex, but rather something like foreplay. it lasted a few minutes and I Realized what I was doing, so I stopped. The next day I felt a little bad, but still not as I imagined relapse. From that moment I was afraid that I came back to the starting point, but later I had the impression that my rehab was progressing all the time. sometimes I have high stress, sadness, depression, nerves, sometimes shortness of breath, light symptoms ibs for two weeks (it wasn't very long, about a year and a half) but otherwise, I don't have a brainfogs anymore, my cognitive functions and thinking are better than before, I get along quite well with people (I had a problem with it once through addiction), generally I feel like rehab is progressing because these things. I had problem with these things when I was doing pmo and at the beginning of reboot. Despite that I'm afraid that at that moment I did something that affected how I feel now. I will add that more or less earlier I started thinking about women who I like passionately, not erotic, but during this time I had an erection, so I wondered if it was good. You know, thinking about kissing etc. ... Sooo... Lately I'm afraid that my symptoms are too strange for such a withdrawal period. The line between what I was doing and relapse is thin. Despite this, I don't feel like I have relapse. It’s weird... Just the symptoms worry me.

Last year, on May I got a flatline, libido started coming back around July / August, also last year. I have the impression that it returned fully only around September / October this year. Recently, I had such a fucking libido that I wanted to write to my ex-girlfriend that she would open a window in her room so that I could enter... haha
I wonder if my symptoms are caused by the fact that libido has come back and the body is not yet able to cope with the lack of stimulus in the form of porn.

 

Hi pal,
success is a dangerous opportunity! Sadly we can all become complacent after a long period of abstinence. We forget, I certainly have, how bad and scary things were.
Pick yourself up. Whatever you did to abstain, from PMO, for so long start again. We are all the same but dfferent. Each of us has our own individual triggers. Do what you must, within reason, to stop viewing porn again. There is no such thing as a safe amount!
Good luck.

 

One more thing Freeddom, with reference to your physical and mental reactions. When you experience tremors, shaking, confusion etc your body/mind was screaming at you. It was telling you to stop doing what you were doing.
Be advised that one cell of your body is infinitely wiser that the sum of recorded human medical knowledge. Learn to listen to your body/mind.
Take care!

 

Man, stop yourself. It's totally not worth it. Think of all the suffering relapse would bring you. Listen to your gut and heart. I was in the same place last year, relapsed after a long hardmode streak and it f...ed me up for half a year. All the progress I've made gone in 4 months long crazily daily PMO binge. I needed another 4 months to get back on track and start from scratch, enduring all the suffering early recovery brings all over again. I scares me shitless if I just think about going through withdrawal process all over again. I don't know how bad it was for you but for me it manifested in deep depression, social and general anxiety, crazy mood swings, chronic headaches, joints pain, brain fog, total fatigue, not being able to sleep for days,... Do you really want to repeat it?

 

It took you 16 months to get better. I remember you posted on the forums a short while back that you were starting to recover and soon after that you posted this thread. I'm sorry to say, but you're still very addicted to PMO. It's the same with me. Every time I've felt better I've relapsed and every consecutive relapse has been worse in both the symptoms and time taken to get better. You need to remind yourself every single day how bad you felt during those 16 months and why you want to get rid of PMO. Do you really want to end up bed ridden for the next few weeks or even months? Remember, it took you 16 months to get better. If you go back to PMO now, it might take you 2 years to get better or you might even permanently damage your brain.

You're not a typical fapstronaut anymore since you're suffering from PAWS. It's basically the same with alcoholics that have a fatty liver. They can't return to alcohol or they risk killing themselves. I don't want to frighten yourself, but you're kindling yourself to your grave if you continue on this path.

 

Hi Freedom,
don't be discouraged. Progress is not linear. You have had a setback. But it is vital you stop PMO.
The last 16 months count of course. But you can't pretend the recent relapse did not happen. Learn from it but don't dismiss it. You will always be prone to PMO!
This is because neural pathways have been formed. This is a result of the dopamine rush you get when ejaculating. These can lie dormant but they never go away. All it takes is one lapse and they become active once more.
But please remember relapse is not a certainty. Stay strong!

 

Good luck with getting back on track man, Id say remember your severe withdrawals and the damage it was doing to your brain and that should help you get back on track... Your name is freedom taker after all, Your taking your freedom back one way or another right? Good luck.

 

I feel you man. This addiction is hell. You're not alone. Do not give up. If you made it to 16 months, you can do it again and even longer and everlasting.

 

Whatever you do as hard it as mate dont beat yourself up. Honestly I've relapsed over a dozen times since as I still havent had any severe withdrawal symptoms pop up. I'm less inclined to believe they are withdrawals and just what porn does is ramp up anxiety to an extreme.

If you drink caffeine limit that.

 

I feel you man, relapse F you up no matter what we say to you. I was in a similar position in May 2018 when relapsing after 6-7 months of hardmode. I fell back into daily binge PMO rabbit hole for 3 months and needed additional 5 months of tries and failures to climb out of it again. Relapse ruined 2018 for me. I ended up way more f...ed up then when I started the 2017 streak, exhausted physically and mentally. That's why I made a step by step preplan how to behave in case of a slip/relapse this time around. I'll copy/paste it here. Maybe you can find something useful in it for yourself:

Plan in case of a slip

I'm doing fine, not planning on slipping, but it's better to have emergency plan just in case… I'm nearing the longest streak I've ever had and it's better to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst than to relapse into multi month long binge like I had last summer, just because I had no emergency plan in place.

I like to keep plan simple. All my relapses have happened in front of my computer so I have only 2 rules:

1) A) If I open porn related website -> B) I immediately unplug PC power cord (and stay away from the PC for the rest of the day)

I have always prepacked backpack in the case of lapse happening:

2) B) In the case of lapse (=one time MO or PMO) -> C) I immediately take my backpack and go for a 2-3 days hike to prevent lapse becoming full blown relapse

I didn't need to use second rule yet, but I decided that if lapse happens and I implement second rule, I don't have to reset counter if there isn't another lapse following inside the next 3 months period. I came to this conclusion after reading this article how to avoid shame and guilt cycle from ruining progress you've made -> https://www.smartrecovery.org/stopping-a-slip-from-becoming-a-relapse/

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"So does this mean that even a brief lapse must lead to a full-blown relapse? Does it mean a person must continue to drink or drug until the use returns to the initial level? Is spiraling out of control inevitable? Simply put, no. A lapse need not become a relapse. After a slip, you have not unlearned all that you have learned. You have not unchanged all that you have changed in your life to support your recovery. You do not have to start counting again from day one.

If you view your lapse as a mistake and as a product of external triggers, rather than as a personal failure, research shows that you will have a much better chance of return to abstinence quickly. Your lapse becomes a tool to move forward and to strengthen your motivation to change, your identification of triggers and urge-controlling techniques, your rational coping skills, and the lifestyle changes needed to lead a more balanced life."

The point of not beating yourself up over the relapse is very important. There is no room for guilt and shame in recovery process. Remember, perfection is unattainable, we're all just humans, perfectly imperfect. That's why there's no need to reset your counter, as long as you've made just one mistake as resetting will demotivate you by telling you that all is lost which could not be any further from the truth. That's where "a probation period" of 3 months comes in. If you don't FU in the next 3 months you can still keep your progress. Let the counter work as a motivator not as a demotivator telling you that you're at day 0 again, because you're reallly not.

 

Nobody can help you except your self, 16 month huge achievement and you can't forget what have you done to stay clean long time ..