P.A.W.S. - what are they, cure, duration

Has anyone tried Wim Hof's breathing technique together with cold showers and if so, have they helped to alleviate the symptoms?

 

I'm certain in my case it was the last piece of the puzzle mate. I have been sleep deprived for years with the stress of it all.

 

The pain has only gotten worse. Fuck man it's been so acute lately, and it's relentless. I haven't had a single symptomless day this entire experience. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever hurt as much as this. Maybe the death of a loved one, but that's different. Fuck man this is so hard.

 

Sorry for all the questions, I appreciate all your responses. You said total recovery time was 3.5-4 years, as your first 2 years was with a lot of relapses. Can you describe those first 2 years in terms of streaks and how bad you relapsed, as it seemed they didn't contribute to any overall healing?

 

Thanks @Don Quixote . Can confirm to everyone I am back on the horse after recent relapses with tinder and escorts. It's crazy that when you get back on, how different you feel to the person who was like a crack addict chasing the dopamine. Literally like brain was hijacked. Im monk mode again and feel more determined then ever. Going to first time get flatmate to put passcode on phone to block all dating apps, (tinder was/is my gateway), which is the last piece of my puzzle, will guarantee my path to recovery without access to apps. I think a part of me wanted to do it without having to have someone block the apps, almost like from pure willpower, but I'm past that point now, just want to heal. Nearly 19 months since I start this meta-streak, and 2 years since I first started nofap, probably around 5 years since I felt normal, its so mind bogglingly fucked up what we did to ourselves unwittingly

 

Hi Don. You are an inspiration to many lurkers on this thread. I am approaching day 200 monk mode and still suffering all of the PAWS symptoms. I'm writing in response to your post because I believe you're making an incredibly important point here. I'm just sort of expanding on your point about being stuck. Congratulations btw of getting relief from most of your PAWS symptoms at this point.

I have been in PAWS for many years without even knowing what it is or what was causing it. While PAWS is obviously a biological reality, I also know that complaining, obsessing, and otherwise resisting the misery only serves to reinforce it's power. That's not specific to PAWS but to humans in general. Whatever you resist persists. Throughout my life I became habituated to porn and porn fantasy, to be sure, but now I know that that is only the beginning of what really happened.

Porn addiction also caused me to habituate to:

* social isolation
* fear of intimacy
* panic
* obsessive thinking
* repetitive and ritualistic thinking
* perfectionism / mental rigidity
* indecisiveness
* over-identification with my thoughts and though patterns
* hyper-reactivity to my thoughts

PAWS additionally caused me to habituate to:

* generalized fear
* living in existential crisis / depression
* suicidal ideation
* fear of disease / obsession with my health
* hypochondria
* fear of permanent brain damage
* identifying as a victim
* waiting to be a whole person

All of these things are the result of progressively extreme brain plasticity changes in the direction of over-activity in the emotional limbic system and simultaneous under-activity in the prefrontal cortex. As long as these patterns are happening automatically, recovery from PAWS will be slow because the dysfunction is fully habituated. The negative thoughts feed the negative emotions which in turn feed and reinforce the negative thoughts. It never ends. When it is severe and persistent enough, the negative emotions are so intense that they happen without any provoking thought. The frontal cortex is just too weak to override or redirect away from the negative thoughts and emotions.

Is there a way to speed up the process of healing from PAWS?

I don't know. The jury is still out on that one but if there is, it has to involve addressing ALL of the mental dysfunction and not just waiting for sexual abstinence to cure everything despite the continued pathological thinking. There is no nutrient or supplement that is going to help either because PAWS isn't a nutrient deficiency. It is the end manifestation of highly habituated and highly dysfunctional thought patterns. Our brains have structurally changed and we are completely identified with our thoughts. There is no space in between them either. They just keep coming at us in an endless unobstructed stream and we helplessly believe them and react to each one of them because we think that our very existence depends on it.

It's not just sexual fantasy that needs to be avoided, we need to avoid ALL fantasy because the hypofrontal mind is conditioned to fantasize and daydream about everything. Executive (frontal) functions happen in the context of being fully present. If you are lost in the pattern of your thoughts reliving the past, predicting the future, or creating some alternate present reality in your head, then spiritually speaking, you are unconscious. You are so lost in your own head that you are oblivious to your life that is unfolding right in front of you. Healing involves becoming conscious again. Becoming fully present and awakening from the dreamlike existence of over-thinking.

I've come to believe that the symptoms of PAWS are extreme manifestations of the same suffering that humans have always experienced. At it's core, PAWS is a spiritual problem because the sufferer has lost their ability to live their life in the present moment. It happens on a spectrum. And the degree of this deficiency is directly related to the level of suffering. As long as we believe that the cure is something that can only be obtained at some point in the future, then that will continue to be true. Our thoughts will always be on the future instead of right here, right now.

The only solution is to live the best you can in a state of total non-resistance to what is happening. Not just with PAWS but with every facet of your life. You can't pretend that you aren't uncomfortable but you can decide not to do things that exacerbate it. That includes when you are feeling anxious or scared. No avoidance and no escape. Face it and accept it for what it is. Live with it instead of against it. Observe it but don't fuel it. Learn about the egoic mind and how it feeds off your emotions. Learn to recognize when your mind wants to reinforce it's identity as a victim, or of anything negative, by feeding you negative thoughts. Realize that you are under no obligation to react to those thoughts or to let them lead you into other negative thoughts. Put your attention on the present moment. This is reality and it is where you want to live all of your waking hours. Pleasant or unpleasant, this is where you want to be.

Don't analyze your situation anymore. You know the problem and the answer. Sex fantasy is one of the most spiritually deadening things you can do because you literally create an alternate reality in your mind that takes you as far away as you can get from your real life. The spiritual irony there is that after abusing it, you can't experience your own life anymore. When you dig further under the hood you realize that all fantasy separates you from reality and therefore separates you from peace and joy. Fantasy represents the acknowledgement of unfulfilled want. It represents a desire to be somewhere else other than where you are. It is resistance to life.

Everyone living with PAWS should at least read Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now and A New Earth. He doesn't talk directly about pornography or PAWS but instead, human suffering in general. He combines spiritual teachings from a variety of sources and makes them quite accessible to the average person. If you choose to read the material you will instantly know that it directly applies to you and your situation with porn and PAWS.

The most important thing is to understand that dissolving the past can only happen by being fully present. By existing in a state of awake alertness and consciously avoiding the use of thought. Observing without labeling. This activity simultaneously quiets the limbic system and activates the frontal cortex, at least to the extent you are currently able. Of coarse, your brain will resist this. That happens to everybody with or without PAWS. You have to progressively get better at it like bodybuilding. The results aren't obvious at first. Don't be fooled by your ego's demand that you analyze your past some more. It only makes your association with it stronger. There is nothing to uncover that is going to help change the present. Only being present dissolves the past. Don't try to solve it at the level of intellect. You have to kill PAWS through starvation just like you're killing porn and porn fantasy. The most likely thing to actually speed up the PAWS healing cycle, if it's even possible, would be to deny it's emotional fuel. Surrender to reality. Don't resist.

It won't be enough to meditate for 30 minutes a day and think it's going to override what is happening in your brain. Focused meditation is only part of it because habituation is what you are after. You have to interrupt your negative thought-stream all throughout the day whenever you catch it with your conscious presence. Observe the egoic mind so it loses it's power over you. You have to have enough knowledge that you feel motivated to incorporate awareness into your daily life at every opportunity you find. You need to be so consciously proactive that you habituate the new way of thinking. Until it becomes automatic however, it's a struggle. You will find that being present is the hardest thing for a hypofrontal brain to do. It's proof that practicing it is worth your time and energy. Eventually, you can spare yourself hours of negative ruminating everyday by just interrupting the very first negative thought and stopping it from spiraling into a never-ending stream.

Meditation isn't about going into a trace-like state. If you find yourself in a place that feels detached or disconnected then you have fallen below the level of thought. You are somewhere between thought and sleep. When done properly, you rise above the level of thought. You are fully awake, eyes open, and as calm and clear as you are currently able to be. It's not mystical in any way. You are simply trying to suspend the use of time in your brain. No past or future. Only acceptance of what is right now without any avoidance. When you have no choice but to think, think only about what you are doing. Stay present and think only about one thing at a time. Deny yourself any emotion-fueling inner dialog or narrative.

If you're in active PAWS then there is nothing you can do to change the fact that you are hypofrontal today. The anhedonia is there. The anxiety is there. But you can effect how badly you suffer today, at least to a degree. You can watch it and experience it dispassionately instead of being immersed in it and actively fueling it with analysis. You can try to experience today, and this moment, with as little resistance as possible. You can deny the urge to Google a symptom and then go on a useless anxiety filled binge reading countless scientific studies about neurotransmitters, Parkinson's Disease, dementia, D2 receptors, or any other unhelpful thing that you can't control and/or probably doesn't apply to you.

Thinking about and analyzing what happened to you in the past and how you got here (porn), etc... only reinforces your identification with it. There is no way to fix problems of the mind with more thinking. You can't logic your way out of mental problems. The compulsive thinker in you desperately wants to rest, but it can't because the brakes don't work.

I don't mean to come off as a spiritual know-it-all or anything. Obviously, I'm still a major work in progress. But the spiritual angle has to be explored more in relation to porn and PAWS. There is a strong connection. Spiritual transformation and awakening also results in structural changes to the brain. Plasticity just refers to any changes in the brain that result from habituation. Imagine if peace, love, and joy are just as hard to reverse as PAWS is, once they become the new law of the land

 

To me, Eastern philosophy is as innocent as they come. All it asks of us is to live in the present moment.

I've found that both meditation and the identification of ego have both helped me immensely. I always feel more wholesome and in control after meditating. It's like the perfect antidote to the mass stimulation computers provide. Our minds are getting so bombarded with information that our thoughts are bouncing around like schizoid electrons in a balloon. Meditation is the best way, I've found, to feel, once again, connected to the tangible world. And, in a scientific sense, it strengthens the parts of our brains that allow us to say "no" to wacking off.

Keep on keepin' on for those who find Eastern stuff useful.

 

As usual your comments are full of truth and insight. This board is lucky to have you. Like you, my negative experiences with meditation happened during active addiction and acute withdrawal. Meditation can make DP/DR much worse, there is no doubt about that. This is the first time though that I've revisited mindfulness since being sober for nearly 7 months. Mindful states no longer pull me further away from reality because I'm not trying to "go deeper" into anything. I only want to be more connected to my life. I don't even do any of it with my eyes closed. The only goal is to pull myself out of rumination because that is the thing that makes everything worse.

The thing about yogis and gurus is that they take everything to the extremes. Even positive aspects of the ego are eventually deemed as bad and something that must be destroyed in order to achieve happiness. Some try to live on air only. Obviously this is extreme, delusional, and luckily, most people can't and won't do that. I'm not advocating that people latch on to eastern philosophy as a cure. But that doesn't mean that the broader teachings of focus and emotional discipline should be dismissed as something akin to quackery.

At the moment I feel like PAWS has taken away my personality, not mindful practice. If anything it gives me something to work on when anhedonia prevents me from living at all. Being present in my life is difficult right now so focusing on it directly seems important. When you are in active PAWS you have no choice, you have to spend your time either resisting it or accepting it. My natural instinct is to fight it and resist which compounds the suffering. The loss of executive function is something that I have no idea how to do battle with. My whole life was centered around my intellect. No matter how hard I try, I struggle to organize and carry out tasks that used to be invigorating and rewarding, and that struggle then leaves me feeling worse off than before. Maybe when the PAWS symptoms go away I will no longer feel like I need something to anchor to. For now, mindfulness help me with the fact that I may be dealing with this for years.

Thanks again for your perspective though, it is always welcomed.

 

I agree. Sitting with yourself forces you to face the discomfort that PMO has been masking for years. By fighting the impulse to ruminate or distract you are re-learning impulse control. As long as you don't treat it like a cult or expect it to remove all your problems in life, it is one of the precious few tools that we have in our recovery. Giving up porn and fantasy forever means finding a new way. Facing reality directly is the best medicine even if it is hard. Some lucky people just do that naturally. God bless them.

I'm rooting for you zander13. I saw a recent post where you were struggling. Hang in there. Eventually we'll all be where Don is. Time still seems to be the major factor.

 

Meditation made me feel worse about a year ago when in PAWS. Sure, you are in this blissful state for 30+ mins, but somehow anxiety backfired later on a lot. I'd be careful with long meditation sessions, but I don't think there's anything wrong with short sessions to control the breathing. I much prefer actually do things with my bare hands, feel the things in my hands and be in the present, plus I also feel rewarded for seeing all the stuff that I've accomplished. I'd be careful with meditation and recovering from PMO, especially if you're in PAWS.

 

The human brain is filled with concepts. Concepts of how a happy life should be like, which things we want to experience and which things we rather not want to experience. We have concepts of literally everything. All those concepts are constantly fuelled by thoughts consciously and unconsciously. Life can be totally fine and lived without any form of meditation or spirituality and this works for most of the people however there may be times in your life when life works against your concepts and understandings of what your reality should look like. There may be times which are so horrifying that your brain won‘t be able to cope with it if you don’t have anchor. A human life was filled with tremendous suffering over the course of the last thousand years. Humans needed religion and spirituality, basically some form of understanding what this is all about and something to hold onto. It’s only since the Second World War that western society is living in comfort and peace for most of its society. There was no need for religion and spirituality as the big suffering like constant present of death, terror and illness stopped for a large amount of the people. So many people in the west turned away from religion and spirituality because the need for it went away. It’s only when individual people truly suffer that they find their way back to it. This need for it started growing again in the last two decades as humans find themselves in a world full of conflict and immense stress. The whole situation of reality didn’t even change that drastically but we reached an interconnectedness of the world through the Internet that offers us so many informations which often is to much for one individual. Our brains are overstimulated in every sense. Whether it’s through porn, video games, constant news about the happenings in the world, Videos of horrific things happening...our brain is bombarded with so many things and thus we loose connection to reality or otherwise called the here and now.

For me meditation was the Kickstarter and going into teachings of Eckhard Tolle, Alan Watts, Sam Harris and Mojii allowed me to find they way back. I can guarantee you I wouldn’t be here writing this lines at this point of time and history if I didn’t start to reevaluate the relationship to my thoughts and my ego. The shit I went through over the last three years was extremely painful. As I wrote earlier in a post I was addicted to amphetamines, weed, alcohol, cigarettes, video games, coffeine, PMO and sex. The full spectrum of addictions. I can’t tell you the numerous times my brain tried to force me back into consuming anything again. Random thoughts in the middle of day while being in university suggesting me that doing some speed and calling up a fuck buddy would be a good idea. Smoking smoke weed or cigarettes because I had an shitty day. I could reinstall world of Warcraft classic and get me an ounce of kush. All those temptations and fantasies that my brain played out right in front of my consciousness. I still would be addicted if I wouldn’t have had the distance to my thoughts. Thoughts and emotions are just conditioned reactions by your brain and body. At the very moment you identify and fully emerge with then you are lost in unconsciousness and this is what got you in the situation of PAWS and addiction itself. You false identified with the voice in your brain and thought that it’s you yourself craving the dopamine. The voice speaks as it is yourself. Why are people going back to any form of drug after one year of hard worked abstinence? Because they have no other way of handling thoughts then to act on them in order to make them disappear for a short amount of time. In fact it’s just your fucked up dopamine baseline or in other words your brain crying and demanding for homeostasis. Nothing more. This craving is expressed in thoughts and emotions and it’s up on you if you want to act on them. Just today I found myself lost in thoughts and suffering again. It was just after reading Masked-debaters post that I got reminded of the thing that really helps you in paws. I nearly forget it everyday and have to remind myself of it. It nearly feels like some part of my brain is hiding this information from me because it fears to get dissolved by it. This is just my ego playing tricks on me and it still is in control most of the time as my cognition and memory isn’t allowing me to build up a mindset over days as bad sleep is making everything so cloudy at the moment.

At one point in recovery I had a phase of 3 days where I first read Eckhard Tolles Power of Now and where my brain felt really good through some lucky circumstances. I felt peace, happiness and just fully alive as I can’t describe it in words but at best you can describe it as Satori or in other words a temporary enlightenment. I was to overwhelmed by the joy and the experience itself to not cling to it and to let my ego take over the ship again but it was at this time that I knew that all this spiritual bullshit is no nonsense but in fact true. I crave for this state of being since today and that’s the very reason I won’t reach it any time soon. My ego wants this state but it also is the reason why it’s not happening and therefore it’s fully okay and not causing any disharmony in me. It’s not time yet. Many things have to come together in order to reach a higher level of consciousness. I know I sound like spiritual hippie that is way to deep in a concept or experience but I can tell you the insight I reached over those 3 days. I had this immense clarity and alertness in my consciousness. It’s not like I was in cloudy ignorant happiness blindly moving through space and time. I just became one with everything that was happening and this caused immense joy and peace. Peace, love and happiness are an outcome of living in the here and now but the problem is that we want to reach those states but you can only reach them by living in the present without any intention to get anywhere. I know this sound complicated and paradox but let me put in other words. If you are doing anything for the outcome and not the thing itself then you are doing it for the wrong reasons and thus are not living in the here and now which will cause disharmony to everything you do. If you just do the dishes so you can eat as fast as possible then you are not really doing the dishes and in your mind you are already eating. Thus you feel annoyed and feeling like it’s a chore to do something. This transfers to even greater things then dishwashing. Back to my experience: I realised in these 3 days that your (speaking) mind is just a tool which helps you to solve problems but at some point you‘re mind gets hijacked by your ego and this where the trouble starts. Society is conditioning you via socialising and teaches you that your whole sense of self revolves around the way other people think about you. There is a false self created and most People live with this false self for their whole life and thus never truly arrive as they always try to reach a state of satisfaction in the future because they have a Concept in mind of what Life should look like in order to be happy and fulfilled but through all my years of going down the rabbit hole all I know is that nothing in the external world can truly fulfill you for any time longer then you are doing it. Doing speed/amphetamines with a beautiful woman while the sunset rises, then going home with her and staying in bed together for 2 days smoking a ton of weed is a beautiful experience but just for the moment it is happening. As soon as the moment is gone your brain is starting another cycle where it tries to search and reach fulfilment in any form of activity. Meditation can be the Kickstarter to finding your way back to default mode or resetting to factory mode. It’s helping you to get rid of all those concepts and ideas that build up to this day in time. It creates a space between your thoughts and your true self/consciousness. It allows you to observe your thoughts without (re)acting on them and if you need one thing while going through PAWS then it’s this. BUT meditation should not be viewed as something that helps you to have no thoughts at all or to control your thoughts this is where most people make the mistake. They use meditation for egotistical reasons and thus meditation can back fire. Meditation simply allows you to observe what’s happening in the here and now - what you do with it is another chapter. At the moment I can meditate for as long as I want - I still have PAWS symptoms. I can’t make them disappear by ignoring them. I can’t change the fact that I had two wet dreams this night with a dream of me preparing to snort amphetamines although I didn’t consume it in over 2,5 years. I can’t change my low energy levels today but what I’m able to change is the way I‘m reacting to those emotions and thoughts. I can choose degree of suffering. I still had an overall good day after working for 8 hours packing food boxes full of regional food that I bought earlier and delivering it so several people as the business of my boss and me is growing which I‘m really proud of. I had to do a nap at 4pm and woke up fucked up after napping to long but I still had a beautiful moment in the morning while talking to this redheaded cashier where we connected through our eyes for the time I ordered my mozzarella baguette. She was so feminine and full of joy as I made my order with a childish playfulness. I can fully value those moments and not cling on them although life feels shitty 10 minutes later. It’s all a matter of training and perspective and meditation and living in the here and now could help most of the people being in PAWS. I wouldn’t have connected with the cashier if I was busy in thoughts about my drug dream and the sexdream with my ex-gf. I walked in there without any concept or idea of what was happening and just let my energy at this point in time shine outwards.

And lastly I want to give my comment on your warnings on spirituality and meditation Don. I fully agree on certain points with you and I can really understand your feelings towards meditation and that life filled with ignorant and clouded happiness helps no one but yourself but I think there are some points that might be true for you but don’t translate onto everyone else. I feel like you have developed a certain attitude through your subjective experience with meditation while being in the early stages of recovery and PAWS. As I mentioned earlier meditation is making you more conscious of what IS at the moment which often translates into feeling worse after meditation then before because you realise what chaos goes on inside yourself. Realising the chaos in your inner world is the first step of overcoming it and this is where most of the people step away from what they see. Especially when one is presented with the full range of their mental health problems (generally speaking). Usually meditation is normally something teached by a professional that is able to tell you what’s going on and what is normal and what not. Doing meditation all by yourself is possible if you‘re helping and guiding yourself into the right direction. But it often can lead to confusion and derealisation as the already present anxiety and disharmony gets intensified for an untrained and uncontrolled mind. If practiced and used right meditation has only benefits to the brain and isn’t something dangerous. The concept of people being indifferent, mindless drones that are just happy nabbeling on the leaves of a tree isn’t right in my eyes. Sure they may be people that are like that but you will find many people like that without them meditating. Enlightenment or in other words awakening from the illusion of suffering puts you in a higher State of being - not in a lower state. Just because you don’t have thoughts and the feeling of a self the whole time doesn’t mean that you are not connected to the world and it’s events. You are still partaking in it but not so much influenced by the often negative condition life has put onto you until this day. If you fear loosing your sense of self and all the „positive“ things that go along with it then I have to tell you that this is just a trick of your Ego trying to keep it self alive. On a side Note: I don’t want to convince you of anything or tell you that you are completely off the mark but for the sake of other people possibly finding a positive outcome of their situation through spirituality - I have to comment that your view on meditation and spirituality seems like a very subjective and biased concept from your very own experiences with it and that this might not be representive for meditation and spirituality as a whole. I don’t want to discredit you in any form but sometimes I feel like constructive criticism is needed which contributes to the overall goal of us recovering from this illness. I’m sorry if I understood you wrong in any way - just feel free to give me any criticism or not so rosy feedback if you feel like it. I also think that it’s completely fine to have different opinions on topics like this as well so there doesn’t has to be complete agreement on everything all the time.

In the end I read so many recovery stories from any form of PAWS that involve meditation and spirituality. At some point you get in control of your brain again an this where the benefits from meditation multiply and help you to leave those traumatic emotions and thoughts of addiction and PAWS behind. In my eyes there is still a long time of recovery where the symptoms and suffering is just to strong to get any grip on mindfulness. Especially in the first 6-9 months depending on the intensity of PAWS. There will be along time where you can’t help yourself and just be patient and wait for your brain to produce enough neurotransmitters again and getting the receptors back up. While this is happening don’t make yourself feel more guilt as you already have to. Prepare yourself for the worst and fight through no matter what life brings on your table. If you would have asked me 3 years ago if I would be able to go through the worst withdrawal you could possibly imagine over a time span of 2 years while my father and best friend nearly died from a brain injury and me having to deal with the emotional trauma of dealing with it while managing the life of a big family, studying at a university, working a part time job and a pandemic going around - then I would have collapsed by just the thought of it. But after living through it over the last year I can tell you that there is an immense power and will in every one of us and I can tell you first hand that I didn’t reach enlightenment or how you want to call it yet, but meditation literally prevented me from going insane and killing myself by allowing me to let the most depressing thoughts float away without hanging onto them and after all still valuing the beauty of the gift of existence.

 

In a way, this is even worse—not necessarily because the pain is worse than having to come to terms with the fact that you will not be able to speak to them ever again, or even prove to them that you changed for the better before they died, but because you get numb to that pain.

In the seven years that I've suffered these dreadful symptoms, I've lost two grandparents and a dog, and I couldn't even shed a tear if my life depended on it. I couldn't even properly say goodbye. It made me question my own morality, that I couldn't even give them a proper send-off. But I can't even be angry about it because, even though my life is in fucking splinters, I can't get those emotions to flow.

But being negative will only serve to invite more of that in. It is very important we don't fall prey to that! You're all inspirations, and I really mean that. We're going to make it. Just hold out a little while longer, and a little while longer, and a little while longer after that, because this won't go away tomorrow. But it will most definitely go away.

 

Everything should be questioned! That's the one thing that should be obvious to us going through PAWS. Personally I have elected to keep firm stances on certain subjects to a minimum, especially controversial topics like meditation and fasting. When we're dealing in anecdotes, I think it is very beneficial to be willing to believe, but not to put one's full trust into something.

Many great things can come from that, especially when you have doctors (not that I blame them, they have a job they need to do) telling you that nothing is wrong with you, but the internet tells a different and, although wildly differing and sometimes inconsistent, generally positive story. I didn't even know PAWS existed until I went on the internet to look for solutions. Our entire story is pretty much having faith in something that may or may not be true, because conventional medicine barely acknowledges the problem. Maybe because we have no other way out, but still. Not a medical professional I've spoken to has even acknowledged brain fog as a real issue. But here we are, most of us laymen, identifying links between porn use, sexual fantasy, masturbation and all manner of life-destroying symptoms.

Maybe I got off-track, but I think you all make very good points, and it's very good we can have a wholesome discussion like this on the forum. I agree that meditation during PAWS could be detrimental to recovery. It is probably uncharted territory, especially given that PAWS greatly disturbs one's ability to focus and makes us scatter-brained (or, at least, that's what it's done to me, besides make my thoughts a hazy mess and a slew of other things), so meditation is probably challenging for most of us until we get that sweet mental power back. Perhaps the risk of worsening one's symptoms, or crippling one's recovery in a way that might lead to a relapse, is enough to say that it should be avoided. But I think the negative experiences had with meditation during recovery say more about PAWS than they say about meditation. Our brains simply aren't normal. I never believed meditation to be anything that would help me through PAWS, though. It strikes me as something that should be considered when you've recovered.

Ultimately, the idea that we should be present and come to accept that our lives are suspended (but to still encourage recovery wherever we can) as best as we can through the PAWS (PAUSE?) symptoms is one that I stand behind. And maybe meditation can help with that, but it's difficult while suffering the symptoms. Anyway, it's not helpful to lament our problems. Focusing on the good, perhaps even praising the good, invites more of the same. At least that's what I've heard, and I'm inclined to agree with it. Either way, what do we have to lose by looking forward?

 

Don't worry, I don't understand the conversation either. What good does it do to even know if dopamine receptors are involved? It's not like I can will my D2 receptors to fix themselves. Maybe people think there could be a drug that would make things all better? IDK what the point is. Our experiences are what drives brain plasticity. Porn and fantasy create artificial experiences that our brains have habituated to. The only cure is to teach the brain to forget them.

Of all the neurochemicals that are involved in porn addiction, Serotonin is actually the most interesting to me. Serotonin is obviously involved in anxiety and ejaculatory control which is part of our spectrum of symptoms. But even more interestingly it is involved in sensory input, mood, identity, sense of self, spirituality, social status, tribal/social hierarchy, pair bonding, satiety, contentment, circadian rhythm maintenance, etc... There is an enormous overlap with PAWS symptoms. The anhedonia is what we want cured so badly though so we focus on dopamine, but I really think all of our neurotransmitter systems are at play. For instance, the lack of dopamine signaling causes excessive acetylcholine firing which is involved in a lot of our mental and physical symptoms. The dopamine/acetylcholine relationship has been known for decades. But again, knowing that doesn't change anything because I can't act on it. Brain plasticity is much more complicated than just adjusting neurotransmitter levels. It's structural.

Instead of knowing about D2 receptors, I would rather know about the connections between our PMO behaviors, our sexual thoughts, our personality traits and the severity of the addiction. It would be helpful to know not just if age and duration determine PAWS severity, but of other factors are at play.

For instance,

1) Some people develop premature ejaculation while others develop ejaculatory anhedonia. If we're all doing the same thing, how can that be?
2) I developed PE after a few years of addiction as well as social anxiety and obsessions. Do those things always go together or, do people who develop delayed ejaculation also experience social anxiety and obsessions?
3) I experienced a lot of genitourinary symptoms as well. Does everyone? Is it because of edging? Do delayed ejaculators get that too?
4) Some people are dominant sexually while others are submissive. Do submissive PMO fantasizers trigger evolutionary genes that activate brain plasticity related to low social status and social defeat? Are dominant fantasizers prone to delayed ejaculation, maybe?
5) Do straight men who end up programming their minds to get horny for femdom, transgendered person, or gay porn (for shock value and novelty), end up creating deep conflict in the egoic sense of self that worsens depression and withdrawal symptoms?
6) When humans habitually eroticize the suffering or abuse of themselves or others, does that reinforcement cause depression?
7) Most fetishes mix elements of humiliation, fear, or power and control with sexuality. Does adding strong negative emotions to pleasurable fantasies make them more deeply entrenched and therefore extend the severity and the recovery time from porn induced PAWS?
8) In my teens I was outgoing and social. Starting in my 20s, other people would describe me as a loner and a serious person. I became a hyper focused, obsessive, perfectionist, and anxious introvert. Do other people with the same personality changes share PMO habits and/or addiction severity?
9) Is the depth of self-identification with fetishes actually the main indicator of whether or not you will experience PAWS, or is it something else?
10) Does everyone with PAWS have fetishes? Does the content make a difference?

For me, answering these types of questions would be light years more helpful than worrying about D2 receptor density. Especially since we already know that time is the major factor in healing anyways. Ideally we can create knowledge that would prevent future generations from being lured into content that is going to hurt them. I created a separate post with a detailed survey for anyone with PAWS that wants to participate. The more participation the better! It's long but I think it would be great to try to isolate and find out if there is an overlap of symptoms and patterns of behavior that would help us understand what's really happening to people with porn addiction.

Here is the survey post. Again, the more people that fill it out then the more we can all learn from it :
https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...hdrawal-symptoms-survey-and-analytics.291337/

 

@Masked-Debater I agree with a lot of the questions you posit. They are all extremely important. I think the questions point to something deeper, especially when it comes to the human psyche, sexuality and suffering.

PAWS is a physio-psychological response, and it seems that a lot of the extreme versions have the biggest impact physiologically, but also psychological, in regards to our internal sense of self and the types of fetishes we escalate to etc etc. There is definitely a perpetuation of despair, depression and anxiety when their is inner conflict with who we think or want ourselves to be, and the actions we keep taking that conflict with this sense of self. This is like the ultimate self harm/destruct.

The main thing is, abstinence and recovery seem to cure all. It seems to wrap it all in one big meta-bubble and discard. So I have come to learn to accept and not try to overthink or worry about these inner conflicts, and have faith that when Im healed the human system I am will return to normal healthy balance and homeostasis.

That's the problem, the cure is actually doing nothing, nothing at all, and just patiently wait. Paradoxically doing nothing turns out to be hardest thing we can do

 

I kind of think that all of these symptoms are because of an unresolved issue. I had them > problem solved > all gone. In my case my problem was severe PIED. I relapsed, PIED came back > PAWS. I can’t get my self out of this PAWS, but I know that it will vanish if I manage to fix this PIED problem.

Note: that doesn’t apply to severe depression as it can occur even if you have little to zero problems in your life.

 

Day 183 - No masturbation no orgasms

Still in a sort of flat, anhedonia, just getting by state. No joy or real enthusiasm for life. Have been on dates with really attractive women who are flirting with me and wanting me, I dont respond to them in anyway. On the plus side I am really confident socially and can keep eye contact etc. Although im flat it feels better to me norm, stable perhaps. I went on a date with a girl yestarday and I really like her, we talked and had fun effortlessly at dinner table for 4 hours. She sort of forced a kiss at the end of the date andthere was nothign inside me, literally no emotion. MAkes me sad and scared of getting anywhere past a couple of dates. The anxiety of having to peform sexually, or letting myself fall for someone because I know I dont want them sexually and itll enevitably cause the realtionship to break down and ill get depressed and heart broken.

I was feeling really good at points at day 150 odd, ive had no glimpses of highs in recent days. Just been pushing myself through the mill of work, going jogging. Have been meditating the last few days but just sort of feels empty. Erections are few, wet dreams are completely non existant.

Seem to of got a new little lump on my testicle, probably just a cyst like the last. Guess I should get it checked out.

Im geting impatient in this flat state, makes me want to do something to shake it up, like have a orgasm, but I guess thats unwise. I guess ill plod on but weeks of nothing does make you question the process. But im thankful im not bed ridden, massively depressed and suicidal like I was at the start. But was that really addiction? Was I just heart broken? Nothing more I can do but keep going.

 

I feel you with the impatience, thats been the main reason for my relapses, pure despair due to nothing changing

 

Have relapses ever improved things for you?

 

Lol no, absolutely no, they just send me back into terrible PAWS symptoms. The more I sext, tinder, sex apps, have sex, the worst my symptoms get. The only benefit is the longer in my journey, the quicker I bounce back.

And the only benefit from relapsing, is the learning of how empty and worthless it was, and the added resolve to finish the job.

Like right now im 2 weeks monk mode, with more resolve to finish to the end, then in the past 19 months. And I have a real feeling that I can genuinely do it, theres no doubt or fear this time of if I will be able to make it or not. I know deep down its over, just need to see it through. Blocked all apps and girls from phone (which was my main downfall) and given passcode to my friend, who wont give it until im healed