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

I seem to be stuck in some weird hybrid state where sexual function has returned but I'm still feeling the effects of PAWS. Yesterday at work I was struggling to stay alert and knew when I got home I would instantly pass out. Sure enough I got home and slept for 12 hours straight.

Now while having my morning cup of coffee I had the strangest experience. I was reading some content from this website while nursing a minor headache and the words were blurry. Within a split second the words became clear and the headache disappeared. As I type this the words look to be appearing in 4K definition. I'm halfway into month 20 of retention, minus one involuntary ejaculation and several very close calls recently.

 

(Thought I posted this before but I guess it didn’t go through.)

This is super exciting to hear, Grateful Retainer. I still have a lot of vision problems that I’m hopeful can be resolved if and when I get out of PAWS. Glad to hear things are (literally) looking better for you. Have you had other visual issues throughout your recovery?

 

I actually went through this before. When I suffered from PAWS after quitting drinking some years ago I periodically had blurry vision, especially in my right eye. It made me worry my eyesight had started to rapidly deteriorate and I would be practically blind within a short amount of time. Then I got out of PAWS and the vision problems stopped until I decided to quit jacking off and here I am back on the merry-go-round.

Besides random blurry vision I have not been having any visual problems.

 

What kind of vision problems do you have?

 

Bad floaters and moderately bad visual snow/tracers/haloes/glare are the main issues. Those are all problems I’ve had for years but they got much worse around the time I crashed last year.

Some new symptoms have appeared since I started hardmode though, namely: weird distortions like the edges of screens appearing curved or bent or words on a page looking slanted; generalized blurriness despite no apparent change in my prescription; bad light sensitivity; constantly seeing my nose in my vision; colors looking kind of washed out; and a very hard-to-describe feeling of being “disconnected from my vision” or there being a “veil” over things. Of course eye doctors I’ve seen say there’s nothing wrong (though they can see some floaters, which are physical objects inside the aqueous fluid in the eye).

I know the other Dave said he has also experienced some of this, so I comfort myself with the hope that it’s related to PMO withdrawal and will fade if I abstain long enough. And there have been significant improvements with a lot of it over the last 6-9 months, especially regarding the distortions and slanted text. So I’m optimistic I’ll see more improvements with time (I actually wonder how much of the visual snow type stuff I’ve had for years was because of starting PMO around 14, and whether quitting it for good will get me back to something even better than “baseline”). All of this is also stuff that’s reported by people in benzo withdrawal, which suggests that some of the same underlying mechanisms must be at play.

 

I'm also having similar visual problems and I would say 90% of those problems are what I'm dealing with. I had some good days throughout the last years where those visual problems were simply gone or not noticeable.

 

Just as an addendum to this: I’ve noticed something pretty alarming over the last few weeks, which is that my eyes seem to be literally sinking backwards into their sockets. I think this may be part of why my nose appears so much more prominent in vision: because my eyes have actually moved further back in my head. Has anyone experienced anything like this? It’s kind of scary and I’m thinking I need to go get it checked out, but I’ll probably just be told I’m imagining things as usual.

 

I have some promising news to report.

This weekend was my best yet strictly from a recovery standpoint. First of all the libido has been strong and consistent throughout the weekend as opposed to short bursts here and there. On top of that there have been no other physical symptoms at all to report. No grogginess when I wake up, no headaches, no brain fog, no blurry vision, and the big one is no fatigue.

My hope is that I'm transitioning from having the final lingering symptoms of PAWS to the earliest stages of being completely rebooted.

Another promising sign is that although my libido has been strong there is no urge to jack off or go see an escort. On the contrary, my libido is making me feel alive on the inside.

I believe time is the most important factor in the equation but the two main lifestyle changes I've made recently are enemas and meditation. I've always been off and on with meditation in the past but recently I've forced myself to make it a commitment from here on out. Twice a day for 30 minutes apiece if I can swing it but no less than once a day for 30 minutes. Between these two lifestyle changes I think it has allowed my sexual energy to circulate throughout my body easier.

 

Sounds unpleasant. Not noticed this myself.

 

See what I found in Quora from a recovering benzo addict:

And there are some more testimonies in that thread. So interesting! Look up "protracted withdrawals."

https://www.quora.com/Has-anybody-w...but-two-years-later-youre-still-dizzy?share=1

 

The similarities between PAWS from PMO and PAWS from benzos are undeniable.

 

@Don Quixote Hey man I have a couple questions if you don't mind. It all revolves around the last several months of your reboot.

-Was it a gradual change that slowly occurred over the 24 month process, or did things kind of suddenly go from bad to good? Was it more of a flip of a switch, or a marathon that you completed inch by inch?
-What indicated to you, looking back, that you were close to the metaphorical finish line? I know you've stated that even after 3 years you're still improving, but the impression I've gotten is that month 24 truly was a turning point for you. Were there any definitive signs that pointed to an end of the worst aspects of PAWs?
-Were the last 3 months of your reboot just as hard as any other time period, or did things lighten up after a certain point? I guess this question is very similar to question one, but I think what I'm asking is if it was a more gradual improvement, were the last 3 months a little easier than the others?
-You've stated that the depths of your perception of life improved as time went along, and this made some of the symptoms even more difficult. I sympathize with this very much. It seems like my perception is slowly fading in, like it's a transitional stage direction in a screenplay. How positive of a sign is this when thinking about 24+ month timelines?
-Is there anything else you think is worth noting in regards to the final phase of this? I don't even know if I'm near the end of my journey, but I think I'm much closer to the end than I am to the beginning.
-If you can't think of anything pertinent in regards to the above question, can you maybe describe what was happening to you?
-My recovery is very cyclic in nature. Patterns and numbers can be found everywhere. One of the more unfortunate parts of this phenomenon is how it affects my sleep. During the harshest stages of the merry-go-round, my sleep is abominable. My brain operates on its own timeframe, not allowing me to fall asleep until midnight, then 2 a.m., then 4 a.m., and so on and so forth for about a month or so. It's fucking wild, to be honest. Like, I'll have a 5 day stretch where I can't fall asleep until 2. Then another 6 day stretch where it can't happen until 5. It makes living an average life nigh impossible. I guess my question pertaining to these observations is this: if your recovery was also cyclic, did the cycle begin to dissolve towards the end, or was the 24 month mark just a random break in the vortex? Were you able to just, one day, step out of the cataclysm, or did the cycle just kind of fade in severity. Another similar question to the others, but I hope you get what I mean. Kind of all leads to the same thing I guess.


Thanks in advance. I realize this is a lot.

 

How many of you are experiencing fatigue as well?

 

Read this thread from the start! It's very common.

 

Estrogen levels are high since rebooting all hermones normal excpet estrogen please tell me your result of estrogen test

 

Thanks for posting this educational content.

 

Hey man what's up, any updates?
There is still no consensus on what a true healing means and what it looks like. Is it being cured from PIED, or is it having no anxiety/depression ?

 

I can't speak for everyone, but surely true healing would mean being cured from both PIED and anxiety/depression?

 

Being cured from having PAWS, ACUTE WITHDRAWALS, PIED and your mojo back.

 

It would have been great to get an answer back on some of these question, as I myself have been wondering about some of these same points. However it seems that the Don having escaped the cave, may have moved on to greener pastures..