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

Oh look, I've been posting today and I just noticed my counter is about to roll over 300! I remember waiting to reach the magical 90 days, so much for that Now I don't even pay attention to it. I guess I'll have a drink this weekend and toast to the next 300 days PMO-free.

 

You're healed man so you forgot how you were few months ago just like some other rebooters who left the forum.

 

Congrats man.

 

I think we need to hear from all the precious few people who have gone through this - those of us who have been able to see the problem in the first place, and then successfully, after however long it takes, made a recovery. We (ie all of us on this thread!) may have differences of opinion, but mutual support and inspiration are invaluable, so thanks for sticking with this thread.

 

Ah, but is it? Given my own battles with the medical world over a health problem that I'd rather not mention (but which is almost certainly a manifestation of PAWS), doctors are pretty resistant to new thinking on anything that wasn't taught to them at medical school. And psychiatrists are a particularly arrogant and over-confident bunch who seem least able to listen with care and respect to their patients. It's knowable in the sense that there does seem to be a pathology that can be studied and understood, but it seems to take medical science about 20 years for something to go from being scoffed at as "all in the mind" to being accepted, and maybe treatable. Prior to online porn being widely available, I doubt anyone would have thought that excessive PMO could lead to serious health problems. They're starting to now, but I reckon we're somewhere near the start of that 20 year cycle.

To be fair, doctors are dependent to some extent on people like us being prepared to talk to them about our most personal habits. How many people here would actually be OK saying to their doctor "well, I do masturbate quite a lot - could that be the cause of my problems"?

 

A doctor told me that pmo couldn't cause my PAWS even though I explained the length, excessiveness, and kindling. I was suggested to talk to a therapist. She didn't know nothing about PAWS, withdrawals or the symptoms. So I ended up not going to their meeting.

 

Whats happening fellas, I've since done a whole 180 on PAWS and withdrawal. I believe symptoms were due to stress, depression and most notably with me that I've been experiencing for a while, hormones being out of whack. Porn was just the painstakingly obvious thing I was using that took the blame and undeniably brought some issues itself. But my journey is coming to an end now and I'm starting to get somewhere. Go and have a full check up if you can too see if things are operating all good.

 

Its sad to see what this thread devolved into so quickly. People like you are why I valued this community. Sadly it seems many did not have the same appreciation.... I think its time for me to sign off for the final time as well. This community has become a toxic cult. Peace Beaches.

 

If you come back in 2 years like you said, you may see new rebooter suffering with PAWS or people who were badly and need 3 to 5 years to heal.

 

This forum is about PAWs. Post. Acute. Withdrawal.

I'm getting better with or without anyone on this forum. At the end of the day you either succeed or you don't. It's just nice to have people share their experiences as they traverse this difficult path. I've found comfort in people's personal anecdotes.

Two years ago I had a bottle of pills and a rope lying on the coffee table because I didn't know what was happening to me. Me and my family thought I had Bipolar 2 and I tried every fucking med under the sun for it, and none of it worked. I'd get excited each time I tried something new. You have to wait 2 weeks to see if each new med works or not.

Knowing that PAWS is causing my difficulty has given me hope. Without hope, I'd be back to questioning the worth of it all. No one is going to tell me that I need to fix any kind of learned helplessness. Period. I don't believe this place is a cult. It's just a stupid forum where people struggling look for some comfort. Leaving or not leaving won't erase the challenges we all face.

The truth will set you free, as my Dad always says.

 

I don't know everyone's story but I definitely haven't been coming here for years and years and don't plan to. I've been posting for about 5 months and I'm at 10 months monk mode for the first time in 30+ years. It was @Don Quixote who's profile writings convinced me that 1.5-2 years was the time frame, time was the main factor, and that everyone can heal. For that I am grateful. Without this thread I may never have been able to put the pieces together of what was happening to me all those years. At 10 months in, I'm 100% certain that I personally need MUCH more time and distance from all PM or O and that's exactly what's going to happen. The amount of time I actually spend on this forum is negligible so I can't really see how it is hurting me. Who knows though, maybe I'll feel differently next year.

As far as cults go, I was a high priest in the fetish porn cult for many many many years. It altered my brain severely and it will take a very long time to wash it of all that garbage. If a militant commitment to abstinence and mental cleanliness is a cult then count me in. That's what I'm doing. It can't be any worse than where I've been.

 

I just want to express the immense amount of gratitude for all your posts and insights. I think I wouldn’t be this optimistically about recovery when there weren’t people like you!

I hope you come back one day and see how the seed you sowed grew into a plant!

 

Sad to see you go man. This forum is personally useless to me without helpful stories like yours.

 

The cult wishes you well.

 

Damn, what happened in here? I feel like I've stepped into an alternate universe.

 

This pattern repeats itself every 6 months. I'm going to restate again:

People may have multiple causal factors to why they feel like shit, PAWS being one of them. Some people heal from PAWS to find they still have other biological pathology that needs addressing. They have a tendency to then come back to the forums and assume everyone else is the same, and that PAWS isn't the cure or the total fix, and that if we think it is: we are screwed. We need to building healthy habits, get a job, stop smoking, stop drinking, go to the gym, get a girlfriend and so forth.

I will re-state: I have 0 other causal factors besides porn. Im lucky in so far Im wealthy, have a good social network, Ive always played sport and always go to the gym, I don't drink and have never smoked, and I meditate daily for over 5 years.

My symptoms started with PAWS, they track any and all SIDD (sexuality induced dopamine disorder) activity directly. This isn't some: 'Im sat at home and I feel a little psychosomatically down poor me ' - my brain constantly has pressure that started in the first week of NoFAP, that gets worse if I do anything related to SIDD, and comes with a host of symptoms, and the inverse, gets progressively better when abstaining from SIDD acitvity.

I really find the stance that those that went through PAWS think it's somehow ethically sound to come back to a forum, to a post, where there's people in a critical condition, where anything other then one foot in front of the other in the pursuit of abstinence can be fatal, to tell us essentially it's not that real.

How about just saying; 'Hey guys at some point after you've been through the hell that is PAWS don't forget to put it past you and build a normal healthy life' - you don't have to, nor gain anything by, discounting or discrediting PAWS.

PAWS is 100% real

 

I know, I feel the same way. I had a house, a great girlfriend, a 6 figure salary, and was at the top of my mental game when everything came crumbling down. MY PAWS symptoms started affecting my life long before I finally figured it out and quit. Hypofrontality happens with severe addictions whether or not you stop using. You progressively lose your impulse control, working memory, and your ability to feel happiness and reward. Those changes are at the heart of our condition. I'm perfectly happy to give myself rewards, the problem is that I can't actually feel them. At least Pavlov's dog could be persuaded by anticipation I laughed out loud when I read that I should treat myself like a dog .

But that's OK. Every once and a while I'm not afraid to chime in with my current opinions so I don't mind when other people do it too. It's always enlightening to read other people's perceptions of things. The thing is that everyone who has claimed to have gotten better also did their time. No matter what else they did, they also did their time. The ones who don't get better, or take years and years to get better, always relapsed. As far as I can tell those are the undeniable truths that I take away from this entire thread.

 

Nailed it, brother. The sheer arrogance to come here and tell us its all in our heads, and the solution is merely to leave this forum (cult) and get on with life.
I hope that when I am recovered, I wont have lost memory of what I went through and the process - nor do I hope that I will have found some definite solution in the aftermath of my recovery.


Lets continue doing healthy activities and make the best of our time - 2021 is ready for our recovery. We shall not relapse. We owe it to ourselves and this community.
Love to you all, brothers <3

 

I think many people in here are on a good way and I can’t think of any reason why recovery shouldn’t arrive for us.

The last day I was plagued by a mix of an extremely strong libido and craving to be intimate with a female. It is so freaking intense and my mind just bombards me with „temptations“ and I try my best to be stoic about them. There was this one Supermarkt cashier and she just drilled my whole being with her eyes and the way she looked at me. I could sense that she was really into me although we both were wearing masks. I wouldn’t have hesitated to get in contact with here if I wouldn’t have set up my principle of recovering fully and then reevaluating if a woman really is helping me with my life at the moment or of it’s just a hinderance. Yet I still went back to the store yesterday to buy some eggs and avocados that I forgot the days before. I know ridiculous but there was a strong gravity to going back and just seeing her again. I think part of it is just the physical side of being intimate with another person but the other side is that I‘m missing female energy a lot. I‘m just delighted by happy feminine People that spread joy and good vibes. There aren’t a lot of them but whenever I meet a female like that I have to actually work against myself to not engage with her any further.

Beside the strong fantasy images arising I see this needing for female energy as a really good sign. It feels like this is very natural and how it’s supposed to be. There is not a single thought involved whether she will like me or not, no anxiety, no constant self talking about what-if-situations. I never had this before. The problem is that I don’t think the old patterns are gone yet.

I understand that for some people this thread has no value anymore if people like Don left but the value of this thread doesn’t lied in just one person that comes back regularly. There are over 100 (!!!) Pages filled with so many experiences and informations. Just go back in time here and there and you will find real treasures. I just read some old posts of Don where he exactly describes how he is attacked by really strong cravings and fantasies. For me in my current situation this means a lot. After reading those posts I feel like these are the last battles of fighting my old thought patterns. I’m disgusted by them and it’s time for them to leave.

 

Yeah this is where I fell down recently at around the 15-16month mark, exactly as you describe; the pull toward sex with women. It triggered old thought patterns and behaviour for me, and set me back in recovery, so you did the right thing. It gets easier no doubt as time goes on, but new battles are faced.