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

Discussion in 'Rebooting - Porn Addiction Recovery' started by Fenix Rising, May 12, 2019.

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  1. DerJogge

    DerJogge Fapstronaut

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    You are the prime example of what spirituality does to a person that is not ready for it yet. It's like you are wearing a jacket that doesn't fit you. I know as I have been there too and sooner or later you will realize what nonsense you are actually talking about. You yourself are in the midst of a process that you aren't capable of grasping yet.

    And I tell you why I am protective so much: you are like the 87th person in the last 19th months that comes to me and tells me that this whole PAWS process is nonsense, that it's all in the mind, that you just have to eat right, meditate and exercise OR that the withdrawal process itself is just an illusion. At this point I'm just wondering what drives those people to constantly tell other people what everything is about. I'm getting messages on a weekly basis on my reddit account of people digging out 1 year old posts of mine where they rant about the fact that porn addiction isn't real and that masturbating everyday is healthy. I don't argue with any of those guys since a long time ago but it's like the same psychological pattern as it's in here. People read about a some guys that go through a two year long process of literally freaking hell and then they tell them that this process isn't real just because they themselves didn't experience it yet.

    Just imagine a traumatic life event happens to you and you develop a post traumatic stress disorder which drives you close to suicide. You then share your experiences with other folks on the internet where you develop a space of understanding and empathy and then there are guys constantly coming to this place telling you that they feel that the post traumatic stress disorder doesn't exist, that they just have to do this and do that WITHOUT having any clue of what the illness or condition is causing to them people.

    What you are doing is straight up disrespectful and just because you are floating in your spiritual bubble for the moment while thinking you understood it all - doesn't mean that people have real problems and are suffering because the condition of PAWS is taking away their essence of being a human as your cognition, good sleep and life energy is taken away from you because your brain is recalibrating itself.

    You're trapped in your spiritual thinking and I know that because I went through that phase as well. And just for the record: I'm meditating since 3 years every single day, I'm eating healthy 95% of the time, I'm exercising 2-3 times a week. I did Qi-Gong for 5 months, I am stretching every single evening, I did breathwork, energy transmutation, I did keto, vegan, vegetarian. I am barely eating any gluten or sweets. I am doing Hardmode 18 months straight. All the SR recommendations one possible can do and yet here I am. You are just in the beginning of your process. And no this isn't some mad feminist BS. If you don't agree that we have 9,81 m/s^2 gravitational force then this is your personal opinion. If you don't agree that the earth is round then this your personal opinion. If you don't agree that withdrawal of a lifelong addiction that formed since the beginning of your early puberty could cause major withdrawal symptoms that may even last two years then this is your opinion.

    And no you are helping no one with. I know that I am mad but I'm still aware of the fact that your whole logic doesn't make any sense and the sole reasons I'm pointing out bullshit when I'm sensing it, is because I don't want people to spread Fear, uncertainty and doubt about a process that involves dedication and consistency. There are many silent readers in here that can easily fall into the trap of relapsing if someone is offsetting doubt.There is a certain responsibility involved when you're shouting out things in to the world. Just because it doesn't matter to you if PAWS is existing or not doesn't mean that everyone else isn't caring as well. You are so trapped in your current beliefs that you are ignorant to the rest of the world and sooner or later you will realize this predicament. On a deeper level I feel all the same about the universe and how most of our concerns aren't important but once you made that realization you still have to interact with the normal world. You still have to deal with your daily "problems". You still have to deal with life but with the knowledge that there is a deeper level of peace that always exists. I still have to deal with PAWS leaving me as the shadow of my true self. I arranged myself with it but it still is a drag sometimes and I would highly recommend to you that you don't loose the connection to the world by forcing your own spiritual realizations onto the world and expecting everyone to read your words with the same mindset you currently inhabitate.
     
    Brain Fog and zander13 like this.
  2. Ok. But I just know that what I "experienced" was not a flatline. It was from unhealthy diet, lack of sleep and exercise. How do I know it? Well, from experience. Kept on eating unhealthy and felt like shit. Changed eating habits and my problems with it started to fade, same happened with sleeping and exercising.
    As I said - it seems bs to me and you can't change my opinion. Not saying I won't change my mind. Never say never. Just for now I'm standing at one spot and that's that. Thanks for wasting time.
     
  3. By the way... Logic is supposed to make sense, so how my logic can be logic if it doesn't make any sense?
     
  4. DerJogge

    DerJogge Fapstronaut

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    I'm beyond trying to change anyones opinion. Im just pointing out bullshit when I'm sensing it. You wasted your and everyone else time the second you came in here and thought it's necessary to point out that you personally don't feel like PAWS and the flatline exists.
     
  5. DGZ

    DGZ Fapstronaut

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    I respect your opinion, but kindly realize that just because you didn't experience PAWS doesn't mean it doesn't exist. People can be very different, in many ways. Antidepressants work on people so differently for example, it's a whole spectrum from becoming physically ill to saving a person's life.

    We're not going to convince you, and you're not going to convince us. I guess that's just how it is. Thank you for coming here and sharing your opinion.
     
  6. I just gotta say: I fucking love Mad Men.
     
    DGZ likes this.
  7. DGZ

    DGZ Fapstronaut

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    A man of taste!!!
     
  8. Humanexperiments

    Humanexperiments Fapstronaut

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    PAWS can last a lot longer than 6 months because porn addiction is not black and white like alcohol addiction.

    In this modern world graphic scenes and triggers are unavoidable. Stuff that will trigger the sensatized addiction pathways will pop up every now and then. Your brain doesnt know the difference between porn and a sex scene in a movie.

    This is my theory on why this shit takes so long. Its like trying to unlearn to juggle. If you «accidentally» do it sometimes, you will maintain your skill.

    And even if you havent done it in years, you will quickly get back to where you were if you start again. Its the same with porn. If an ex-addict relapses, his problems will be back in no time.
     
    DC1234, clapas, UWSDave and 3 others like this.
  9. I think I shared my opinion, that is what I did. Did not feel like wasting my time.

    Sir, yes sir.
     
  10. Dude I have shared this experience verbatim. I don't know if the internet brings it out of people or if society has always been this way, but yeah, I understand your frustration with people going out of their way to, ever so confidently, say something "isn't so" based on their own limited experience/knowledge. What I've gathered is that people love to project. They are often (not always) afraid of the depths of their own issues and try to paint a reality that isn't true--hence the word "paint". When their carefully constructed artwork gets challenged, they'll defend its image to the ends of the earth as opposed to studying it for what it is: a work of the imagination. It's easier to tell someone on a forum PAWs isn't real than to stare into a possible 2 years of extremely difficult, strenuous psychological/emotional/spiritual/physical healing. The lie is a much smaller pill to swallow than the truth. We know this isn't a novel human tendency--hell, I jerked off to porn rather than trying to face and/or understand who I truly was. It's not really that different, ironically enough. People have always taken shortcuts.

    Fear plays a massive role, as you've alluded to. A lot of the people who are going out of their way to dispel something are being triggered by that very same thing, unconsciously, and reacting to it without having the self-awareness to know "why?". Why else would someone who doesn't believe in something be on a forum thread that is solely dedicated to the very thing that they don't believe in? If I didn't think PAWs existed then I'd never, in a million fucking years, be on this website taking my time to dispel the beliefs of others. I'd be living my fucking life. You think any of us dreamt, as little boys, of one day being able to post on a forum thread about how our lives had become unmanageable thanks to masturbating to strangers engaging in sexual activities on a computer screen? I wanted to be a famous soccer player or some shit.

    I also agree that it's the right thing to do to respond to stuff like that, because you share the same sentiments that I do: the faceless, soundless other "lurkers" on these forums are staking a large portion of their lives on the information found within this site. You and I both know how major of a life event the discovery of PAWs was for us. And we know how delicate the situation is. It may seem like a throwaway internet escapade, but it's actually a fucking cornerstone of my existence. This forum has been a bedrock for me, and I continue to return to it even after all of the weirdness I've encountered while interacting with it.

    Good for you for sticking your neck out. I'm behind you 100%. Though I feel bad for coming down on guys who are, most likely, young men who don't know any better, it's more important to publicly challenge them than to let their misguided information take root in the brains of others. We have a moral responsibility to those who follow us. Things need to be portrayed correctly and with all of the truth we can muster. This shit is important to me, and I'm not going to let a scared, fearful person on the other end of a computer screen to fuck with the lives of people who are already under such an evil, morose, soul-crushing spell. We aren't the last round of men enduring PAWs, so we should be ever mindful of the things we are putting out there, as you (DerJogge) so expertly said already. The internet isn't as much of a vacuum as people think it is (including myself). Real people are interacting with you. People with their own lives and own pain.

    PAWs is real, and before anyone makes a grand statement like the above, at least do us the service of reading more than one effing page of this thread, so that you can quickly realize that you aren't the first person to challenge my ideals. In fact, you will quickly realize that what you are doing isn't in the name of all things intelligent, it's just cliche.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 29, 2021
  11. FpsMato

    FpsMato Fapstronaut

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    Where do i find those testimonials? Need motivation for this war.
     
    gangstaLjos likes this.
  12. DGZ

    DGZ Fapstronaut

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    Maybe the porn addiction patterns will be quick to resurface, but I think the recovery of the reward system is another story, because the reward system is not really a brain pattern in the same way that porn addiction is.
     
    Humanexperiments likes this.
  13. Dave G 123

    Dave G 123 Fapstronaut

    Totally agree with everything you said here.
     
  14. gangstaLjos

    gangstaLjos Fapstronaut

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    In another hell-week.... Feel as dead as ever (previous hell-week). Maybe I have again exhausted myself? Been around people a lot lately and I have also trained a lot. It annoys me how I cant be certain if this is a cycle that will indefinitely come and go at what seems like completely random rates, or merely a result of me exhausting my recovering brain.

    I also look like completely shit right now. Who can relate? My appearance is overall affected during PAWS, but during the worst of phases, my face just screams death - absolutely hideous.

    Maybe these hell weeks are also situational. I am currently at home with my family who I no longer respect or have love for, which just makes my existence the more depressing. Does my brain recognize that I am ''home'', a place where I dont feel like I belong, and then just throws even more lethargy, depression, fatigue, anhedonia etc on me?
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2021
    zander13 and Freeddom_Taker like this.
  15. Humanexperiments

    Humanexperiments Fapstronaut

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    Yes exactly. Pied and other issues caused by porn are so complex. Some people can go maaaany months without improvememts, then suddenly just snap out of it.
     
    zander13 and Freeddom_Taker like this.
  16. Is it me or did this site beef up its security?
     
  17. DerJogge

    DerJogge Fapstronaut

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    The only thing that was persistent for me through this whole process is the fact that stress will make all my other symptoms more difficult to bear. To much social interaction, to much stuff do, to much exercise, to much food, to much of anything sooner or later results in a State of mind that is worth then before.

    I feel like you have a different amount of dopamine coins on every single day and as soon as those are spent you feel like shit. Sometimes you wake up with no coins, sometimes you have 100 and sometimes you have 1000. The worst thing is that you don’t know how much coins you get everyday and it’s fluctuating all the time. That’s why I am so cautious of to much exercise. I recently managed to decrease the intensity of my jogging training as I started running with my mom. She is super athletic for her age but the overall tempo is still very slow. But this also forces me to jogg slower then I normally would do which is so much better. My brain and body don’t crash after 8-10 km and I’m still able to do things afterwards.

    I had a really good day btw. I met up with a buddy with our bicycles, got some fresh meat + salad and found a nice little spot beside a river grilling and just talking. I also could observe how little I need to feel good on some days. Just me getting the fire started, walking around shirtless in the sun with nature all around you and spending time with a friend, making jokes and talking about things. I then did some wood cutting with my knife and I just felt so at peace. I mean I still kinda felt derealised and somewhat weird from time to time but it’s so much better then a year ago. Still with all those symptoms I’m starting to enjoy life again on days like these.

    I also managed to finish my first exam paper of this years semester which actually turned out quite nice. Writing 13 pages in scientific style wasn’t that easy of a process where arranging everything in a mind map really helped. I also learned that writing out things really helps me to structure and understand things better as my mind is always so clouded as I can’t really steer or direct it.

    I also had two and a half wet dreams yesterday and pre-yesterday which was kinda weird to have them so close together but beside my interest in woman spiking nothing really changed. I really start to feel like they aren’t affecting me anymore and I only get a little chasers effect. Those really heavy urges from one month ago slowly faded away.

    Overall I’m heading into the right direction and I just hope this whole COVID situation resolved itself soon with the help of good weather and the vaccine.
     
  18. In 5 days I will be on day 500 of semen retention and in two weeks, by God's grace I'll be celebrating four years of sobriety from alcohol. There was a brief spell last week where I was coming out of flatline but now it's back to dead dick, waking up groggy, and afternoon naps. No worries, more time is all I need.

    Today I was comparing the PAWS I went through after quitting drinking and now since this is not my first rodeo. For whatever reason the whole process has been a lot easier this time around and I'm trying to put my finger on why. Maybe it just seems easier because I've done it once before and know that there is no substitute for time. Or maybe alcohol messed me up worse than masturbation and sex addiction. Or maybe it's because high speed internet didn't exist when I was a kid and I got spared from really destroying my brain. All I know is I was depressed and suicidal for 20 months the first time around so I am certainly not going to cry about a bit of brain fog and impotence.

    What is similar this time around is that I can slowly feel the sickness inside my psyche dying. As the months rolled by after putting down the bottle I could slowly feel that sickness being suffocated until one day it had been extinguished from my being. This other sickness is not dead yet but it's getting weaker and weaker. My fetishes don't have a hold over me anymore. I can think about my exploits from the past and not even feel angry or revolted by them...I just feel nothing. The person who was engaging in that activity is so far removed from the person I am nearly 500 days later it's as if I'm thinking about a fictional character.

    Today while doing some praying and reflecting I was reminiscing about how I gave myself five years to completely turn my life around when I quit the booze. Slowly I started removing bad habits from my life and replacing them with new ones: exercise, intermittent fasting, cold showers, becoming debt free and minimalist, new career, new wardrobe, and the list goes on. It all culminated in this present journey I'm on, the last step in my five year plan before my life is completely back on track.

    Therefore I made a promise to myself and The Creator that I will continue on the path of semen retention until I achieve five years of sobriety. At that point I'll determine if I want to continue or if I want to start dating again but not a second before.
     
  19. DGZ

    DGZ Fapstronaut

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    I'm really glad you are feeling better! A year ago, did you find it difficult to socialize? Like the happy chemicals to interact with other people were just absent.
     
  20. Indigo

    Indigo Fapstronaut

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    Valued comrades of Nofap,

    I haven´t been an active participator for quite a while now but I have been around in Nofap for a couple of years. The reasons why I didn´t take part in sharing that much were that there was basically little changing in my condition on the one hand, and that I´d experienced extreme weeks and months of exhaustion and alongside being utterly unmotivated on the other hand......you most probably know what I´m talking about.

    Throughout my own journey of quitting this addiction (sex addiction in general, with PMO probably being the most critical part), I certainly benefitted from numerous accounts of Nofappers, especially when it came to the ordeal of withdrawal. So in the past, I issued a little bit about myself here and there, yet I haven´t given full particulars of my own misery of withdrawal if my (f*cked-up) mind serves me well right now. So in catching up on this right now, I´d like to reciprocate as best I can at this point in time and my hopes are that maybe you guys will also benefit from yet another account of somebody who has to go through hell on earth for the sake of quitting a very real addiction for good.

    A few details about myself first. Male, 40+, never married, couple of relationships in the past, no children. Addicted to PMO for probably 30+ years and never even realizing it was an addiction until about 4 years ago. Porn was the very early seed for what over the years should develop into a more substantial sex addiction. The rise of the internet accompanied this development, as you might surmise. Having been blessed by nature with a physique not too appalling to the opposite sex, I learned that it was quite easy for me to date on the internet for casual sex. And if that "supply" was temporarily unavailable, I simply retreated to sexting, PMOing, doing stuff via cam and so on. Luckily enough, I´ve never engaged with prostitutes or any other kind of commercial sex offers. Numerous ONS and other sex affairs drained me emotionally, though, thereby rendering me unable to commit to a loving long-term relationship. This of course was the reason why my more serious attempts in this regard were always doomed to fail in the long run. I always told myself that it is just normal for me to need such a variety of ....you know.

    The idea of suffering from an addiction never crossed my mind, which is probably an inherent facor of most addictions anyway. The usual pattern of my acting out in the last few years consisted of PMOing almost every day, or at least 3-4 times a week, and having sex approx. once a week. Yet, the very search for future opportunities of casual sex dates became an addiction in itself and I could literally spent hours on the net just browsing, chatting, finding and finally dating. My PMO sessions could also consume hours and hours....you know this multiple tabs crap and stuff.

    Apart from that, there wasn´t much excitement in the rest of my life. I´d never found a profession that made me feel fulfilled or happy in the long run but I´d sought just that since the age of 16...... tried many jobs, underwent several different trainings to find a new profession in this process. To sum it up, I hated my work life which drained my energy levels so much due to feeling misplaced and unfulfilled there. So what could feel better than an exciting sex life to compensate for that? Nothing. The price I paid for that went unnoticed until much later. Which brings me to the reason why I found Nofap....

    About 6 years ago, I suffered from tremendous brainfog which I couldn´t explain to myself. I had just finished university and was totally exhausted from studying. I tried to change my diet in order to improve but that backfired in the extreme. Keto didn´t do any good and my brainfog increased to unbearable levels. It felt like I was suffering from Alzheimers. So I kept searching, tried dietary supplement, had my amalgam removed from my teeth, went to several doctors and all that. I estimate that I have spent about 3000 bucks on diagnostics and treatments. Nothing really helped. At one point I found Nofap and the accounts of people who were suffering from brainfog. Could this be the solution? Had I messed up my brain chemistry throughout the years of PMOing and f*cking around? Naah, I don´t think so, sex is fun, right?

    But from then on, Nofap was in my mind. When I came to a point where I couldn´t find pleasure in having sex with my girlfriend anymore, I decided to give the 90 days challenge a go. Needless to mention that I failed. That was a surprise to me. To cut it short, it took me more than two years to accomplish even 90 days without porn. It did little to nothing to improve my bad condition, though. But I was so proud and content once I managed to abstain for 90 days that I thought: "Well, you see, no problem stopping PMO. So you might as well get back to it. Sex is fun, right?" And so I went on...PMO, cheating on my girlfriend, hell yes, I never even felt the slightest bit of remorse doing so. I was emotionally dead. The only thing I had felt emotionally for many many years was depression and unhappiness. Why would I stop doing the only things that really made me feel alive in life? After all, sex is fun, right?

    As fate (or rather luck!) would have it, my gf dumped me about two years ago. One year prior to that, I had lost my job due to brainfog, derealization and exhaustion. I hadn´t been able to go to work for more than two years after that. My brain was operating at such a dysfunctional level and I felt so utterly exhausted physically, emotionally and mentally that there was no way I could go to work. The official diagnosis was depression and burn-out and this might be true to some degree. But the underlying cause for that I managed to hide because I was so embarrassed and felt so ashamed. And of course, no doctor knew about the devastating effects porn can have on your brain, anyway.Yet, many of those experts still claim to know almost everything about health and disease just because they surely went to university and there they became sages. Poor world.

    Well, after my gf ditched me, I felt so totally lost and depressed in my life. Every single moment of my waking hours and even throughout most of all those sleepless nights, I experienced that I was so disconnected from the world outside, from other people and from myself. The only thing I could rely on were feelings of depression and crippling physical ailments. They were there day and night. I decided that I wouldn´t go on like this anymore and this very thought made me panic. I remember one morning shortly after my gf left me, I woke up and felt so miserable, along with these suicidal thoughts. This creeped me out and I jumped out of bed. I sat down and started focussing on my surroundings as intensely as I could possibly do. And then something happened that changed my life from then on. Something within me realized (without thinking!) that all the misery I had felt for so long in my life ended right where my skin came in contact with the rest of the world, so to say. I could sense now, that outside my body the world was just as amazing and alive as it had always been in every single moment. And there is no real past or future. There is only NOW and now I happened to realize on a very deep level that all my negative beliefs, opinions, memories, attitudes...everything....were a self-made illusion. I kept these remnants of the past alive by myself and this conditioned my mind and my body even deeper into the abyss of misery. A strange addiction in itself, being addicted to negative thinking and even to negative emotions, both of which supply each other with fuel in an endless vicious circle. Well, I am a very spiritual man and I have been a fan of the teachings of Eckhart Tolle und Dr. Joe Dispenza for many years. I intuitively knew that the things they talked about was the only true exit out of hell for me. But at that moment in that very morning their teaching not only engaged my thinking as it used to do (even though I had meditated for years before that)....no, now I could FEEL it. So that was a turning point and I realized a couple of things even more:

    1. Underneath an addiction, there most probably always lies the "addiction to thinking and negative emotions". This self-supplying vicious circle stems from past experiences and it has left deep traces in one´s neural pathways. By driving those thoughts, negative emotions ensue. By feeling those negative emotions then, thoughts that confirm the perceived validity of these emotions will be the result (called "emotional reasoning" in psychology). Addictions serve to numb that.

    2. In order to get out of this vicious circle, one has to be veeeeery mindful (mindfulness is THE best medicine in my book) of one´s thoughts and emotions, thereby learning that they are mere objects in your consciousness and not the truth. Addictions fuck up the normal functioning of your prefrontal cortex (your main computer so to say), thus the ability to mindfully detect and simply observe negative thinking and negative emotions is deeply compromised. This way one gets stuck in one´s own hell....the exit door is slammed shut, so to say. If one is not mindful, one will probably be trapped in old patterns of thinking, even without realizing it. So frontal lobe needs to be repaired. This repairing requires the very commitment of no longer damaging the brain. Does PMO damage your brain? Decide for yourself.

    3. Quitting an addiction runs on different levels. First of which is the above mentioned. Another one, of course, is abstinence. And I am not talking about those 90 days challenges and then going back to porn. Porn can infiltrate and pervert your whole being, turning you into someone who sees women (or men accordingly) as mere objects of lust. This way, you will lose touch with reality more and more. You will lose the ability to truely and deeply FEEL another human being. And the world around you, everything apart from sex, lust, women (or men accordingly), will lose its colour. Let alone a multitude of physical and mental symptoms that might develop.

    So finally now, I have come to the part why I posted this in the PAWS forum. Withdrawal. If it hadn´t been for my own experience of withdrawal, maybe I would have doubted the whole PAWS thing as well. Well, here we go.

    Once I started to become seríous about my own journey of abstinence 1.5 years ago, I almost immediately experienced severe urges and cravings. My whole being cried and begged for sexual release.Yet, I would rather die than go back to PMO. So I kept on trucking. The first three months were pure hell on earth. The insomnia almost killed me and there was nothing but benzodiazepine which could give me a certain amount of sleep at night. I knew about the risks, though, and I only took very little of it once a week. Anything else to put me to sleep failed. In those first three months I slept an average of maybe three to four hours every night. Sometimes two or even three nights in a row without sleep at all. The pressure in my head was so strong that I almost called an ambulance several times at night. This pressure would be there all day and all night for many weeks. I tried to keep myself as busy as I could throughout the day (with no job) and so I did a lot of hiking. Some days my movements and my balance were impaired to a degree that I feared to be suffering from Parkinsons disease. My memory was non-existent, so to speak. The scariest thing I remember was that one day I couldn´t remember how I changed the subway. Suddenly I was sitting in another subway without remembering how I got into it. That scared the shit out of me, to say the least. Apart from that, exhaustion and depression developed into a real monster.

    Of course, I had medical check-ups but MRIs, blood tests and other stuff turned out to be fine. And devices that can measure our very real experience of hell have yet to be invented, I guess. Before that happens, there will be many doctors and sadly even researchers (in some cases rather pseudo-scientists) who will keep telling the world that porn and sex addiction is no real addiction and that there cannot be such a withdrawal syndrome. In many of those cases one can immediately detect the underlying personality structure of those self-claimed experts, though.....dripping of narcissism and/or greed. Well anyway, we do know better.

    I will cut a long story a little shorter. Now after 18 months of no PMO (9 months of hard mode in the beginning of my abstinence), I do feel better indeed and this is the reason why I posted an update. Brainfog, derealization, exhaustion and bad memory are still there. But my mood has improved considerably. I also feel something like motivation every now and then. This had been absent for sooo long and the only feeling I had was that my life had come to an end without any future for maybe 15 years. So the slow lifting of my depressive mood and the beginnings of feeling motivation in life is the latest news.


    Now, here is a little abstract for better reading:


    • 40+, male
    • Never did drugs, never had issues with alcohol (but there was a lot of partying in my 20s and early 30s)
    • Addicted to PMO for more than 30 years.....PMOed approx. 3-4 times a week to normal porn (no fetishes)....in the last few years PMOed almost daily
    • Apart from porn, casual sex dating quite a lot (searching for opportunities in this respect is also very addictive to me)
    • Started Nofap 18 months ago....first nine months were hardmode (no sex, no PMO, nada), then started casual sex again unfortunately (approx. once a week, sometimes twice)

    Before Nofap I suffered from:

    • Depression
    • Anhedonia
    • Brainfog
    • Derealization (this is sth that started about 30 years ago and I wonder whether it coincided with the discovery of porn...can´t remember for sure unfortunately)
    • Bad memory
    • Exhaustion and fatigue

    On Nofap now, the withdrawal symptoms are:

    • Pressure in my head (very bad in the first months, now only slight pressure remaining)
    • Brainfog (very bad in the first months, but also even existent before my streak ...nowadays sometimes still very bad...feeling truly retarded at times)
    • Problems with balance and movements (occasionally in the beginning....nowadays very rarely)
    • Insomnia (very bad in the first months and now slightly improving)
    • Memory problems (very bad in the first months and now a little improvement)
    • Depression (very bad in the first months and after 18 months of no PMO improved A LOT)
    • No motivation whatsoever in life (very bad even before my streak but after 18 months of no PMO improvement is there)
    • Diarrhea (in the first months severe ...almost three weeks of consistent diarrhea almost freaked me out. Now it´s okay again)
    • Stomach pain in upper stomach (not too heavy though, but can sometimes last for weeks and then it´s gone again for weeks or months)
    • Cracking joints
    • Lost muscle mass and it´s pretty hard to gain muscle now
    • Exhaustion (extreme in the beginning of my streak....now sometimes bad, sometimes not so bad)
    • Fatigue (constantly)
    • and all those other weird little symptoms that would come and go (like for instance I remember that there was a moment when I couldn´t swallow anymore. As if I didn´t know how to activate the muscles to swallow.)

    In general I do see improvements in my conditions but the journey is a long one. Simply removing PMO is by far not enough and I can feel that. It´s like a whole new birth of my very being. One might misinterpret that sentence of PMO removal by far not being enough to improve my condition and to heal. For the sake of clarity, I am absolutely convinced that porn is the very root of all the things mentioned above! It distorts reality, thereby dragging you to a place where lust and pleasure become the sole meaning of life. The true sources of feeling good in life will be burnt down in this process. These are gratitude, patience, love, affection, appreciation, compassion....

    This means that I will have to totally change the way I view and have sex. Simply getting your rocks off is just like taking drugs. No feelings of affection involved......probably producing a whole different cocktail of brain chemicals which is addictive in the long run. Dopamine shot. An interesting observation within me is the following, by the way. When I sit down to meditate and when I succeed to generate positive emotions (check out the teachings of Dr Joe Dispenza), I do activate my vagus nerve. I know that because I use a biofeedback devise for heart rate variability (HRV). I also know that because my body feels more alive in that moment, happier, more energy....and LESS urges or cravings. At that moment, there is no need for me to jerk off or fuck around anymore. I just feel balanced and good. So the vagus nerve is a big one, I guess. I remember there has been research on addictions and vagus nerve as well, but lately I tend not to stick my nose too deeply into research anymore (even though I am a professional in this respect). You can learn all about DeltaFos-B, dopamine, VTA, NAcc and all that...and maybe it´s helpful somehow. But in the end, you can compose a dissertation about honey even without ever having tasted honey. So my preferences have changed from learning to performing. One of the reasons why 12 steps may be so successful in the treatment of addictions could also be the vagus nerve. Here you focus on giving, on sharing, on being touched by other people´s stories, on developing the desire to help and so forth....all activating the ventral vagus nerve (see Polyvagal Theory by Porges). And this is the diametral opposite of the very selfish practice of porn abuse, of using women (or men accordingly) as a mere sex object and so on. So focussing on elevated emotions (as Doc Joe puts it) might be the biggest remedy in the end. But when the brain is so impaired by years and decades of abuse, of course it will take a long time for those feelings to reappear again. Meditation (mindfulness or Metta for example) is a big one in this respect. Practicing meditation on a regular basis, with intention, mindfulness, patience and goodwill, can change your whole being and certainly your body chemistry as well. Needless to mention that it doesn´t make sense to quit PMO but then do other addictive stuff as a substitute (junk food binge eating or the like).

    So I will keep on going through abstinence when it comes to PMO. I have no desire to ever watch porn again. By now this is safe for me to say because there haven´t been any urges to watch porn for many months now. I despise porn. Also, I haven´t had any urge to masturbate for many months now. No desire at all. But I do feel the urge to have sex pretty intensely at times. This is now the other mountain to climb for me...stopping casual sex. Having sex only in a loving relationship. A long journey back.

    I wrote this to tell you guys that I am convinced that PAWS in porn and sex addiction exists and that this could go on for many many months if not years. I am also convinced that we can heal but it can take a long time and may require tremendous effort. I am aware of other people´s opinions in this respect and this, of course, is just fine. If somebody has had different experiences in terms of withdrawal from porn and writes about it, it is just fine and also very valuable information. But I also know that there are people out there who keep telling you that PAWS CANNOT last for that long. And that they KNOW FOR SURE. All I know for sure is that those people are intellectually challenged even without suffering from brainfog and that those people are misplaced in here, as well as in any library probably. It is like telling a dog to stop pissing at your leg. The dog will not understand. Trying to explain to those guys that just because he (or she) hates icecream does not mean that everybody else on the planet hates icecream is a futile endeavour.

    Anyway, I salute you, fellow fapstronauts. Just as I salute myself. May we come out of this with a lot of insight and wisdom which we would never have attained if it hadn´t been for this addiction. There is always a positive side in everything.
     

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