Trying Again…

Hey everyone, I’m 26m w/PIED. I didn’t have any sexual contact until I was 23 I think, and realized I had ED. I learned to masturbate prone and would O while soft. That continued for several years until I was a teenager and learned the “normal” way with porn. I was a heavy porn user for many years, but even then it was common that I’d only be fully hard right before O, and would be mostly soft while not directly stimulating. I’ve never had sex, bj, hj, etc. I’ve made out with and fingered a lot of girls but never escalated because it wouldn’t work. As most of us here know, the feeling of a real interaction feels so alien to a porn addict. At times I can start to get hard just with a hug and making out, then it goes soft. Sometimes I can be deep in a makeout with not so much as a nudge.

I found nofap around age 23 and have been on and off streaks. I really fell off the wagon during Covid when I went like 1.5 years with no dating or kissing. I was at a club recently dancing/making out with a girl and couldn’t feel any movement down there and I feel so terrible about it. I hate that I’m an attractive guy in my prime that gets plenty of attention from girls, but I always have to awkwardly hide the fact that I can’t actually escalate physically, trying not to let her grind on me too much etc.

I’ve had some long streaks in the past but during those I was often edging/flirting online/receiving nudes and convincing myself that my steak was alive because I wasn’t actually watching porn. The hardest part is cutting off so many behaviors that are comforting/help me cope, like flirting online etc. The goal is to make the “alien” feeling of real sexual interaction normal, and quite honestly, porn should feel strange and alien. I realize now I have to replace digital conforts with real interaction, dating women, etc.

I’m on day 5. I’m feeling urges for the first time so I thought I’d make this forum. The urges for me never start out with the desire to view porn. It starts with the urge to check Instagram and Snapchat. When one of my “online girls” posts and intriguing story I’ll message them. Start flirting; sexting, receive some nudes or something, and then it’s easy to justify a relapse - “hey at least it’s better than porn. Might as well O now or I’m gonna be in a brain fog. Better to O then edging.” The relapse inevitably leads to watching porn until I get the willpower to start again and the cycle repeats.

Now I know that the urge to even check social media is the problem. I’m an addict physically and emotionally. The urge should be to go meet real girls, not flirt with girls I’ve never met online. The other component is the emotional dependence. The idea of “giving up” these girls I’ve known online for years feels like real loss. It’s so screwed up honestly. They are real people, but there is no real connection. My brain and body is conditioned to respond to the pixels, not to the real humans.

I’m expecting a long reboot, but the goal is to change my habits and lifestyle. Wish me luck. I’ll probably come here to journal the journey.

 

Day 8 still going strong. I’ve been with friends a lot and I’m on a little trip right now. It really helps to shake up the routine and be with people. It’s so easy to ignore any urges that way. The danger comes when we are alone and comfortable.

One thing I need to be careful about is chatting with girls online/watching social media stories. It’s not technically porn, but it’s using the same circuitry in the brain. I can feel the slight rush when the idea to message a certain girl comes to mind, or when I I see the notification of a message from a certain girl and get the idea to flirt. I’m so much stronger now because I realize once I indulge that desire it’s over

 

Day 10. Had morning wood today, but like 50%. Still getting the urge to check the phone/flirt online. This is where I failed in past attempts, I didn’t spend enough time rewiring in the real world. Urges are getting stronger, but interestingly a lot of the fantasies that come in to my head are about having real experiences. I’ve had plenty of sexual contact (never sex with penetration though), whereas when I started my first nofap attempt I hadn’t even kissed a girl. I think having real experiences plus past streaks is really helping. The real girl pathways exist in the brain, even if they are weak.

 

Why?

 

My problem is porn addition and PIED. Maybe I'll try it in the future, but I need to rewire and see if it cures the PIED completely

 

Still going in case anyone is interested lol. I did let the water run over my penis in the shower for too long for the purpose of stimulation but I won’t count that as a relapse. Still trying to refocus. My brain keeps telling me to go to the screen, and it’s keeping me in brain fog. Need to get back to real life. Getting a weird hard flaccid with pelvic floor pain one minute and random 50% erections the next.

 

Not sure which day I am on, my counter should show it. Had a wet dream last night, there was no sex in the dream literally just dreamed I was orgasming and woke up to see it really happened. Also had decent morning wood today. Onward

 

Had a legit sex dream last night, with the sensation of penetration. One of the few in my life. Unfortunately I was only 50% erect during penetration but that’s a huge improvement. Usually the wet dreams feature an orgasm with the strange technique that I learned when I started to m as a preteen. Good progress I think.

 

ok 23 days in. I have been on instagram, flirting online a bit. I have seen a nude here or there but but no porn and no masturbation. I know I need to cut out these behaviors, but on the bright side I am going out more than I ever have. I am meeting lots of people and this is the cleanest streak I have ever had.

I moved into my new apartment complex about 6 weeks ago. I met a girl here and we have been acquaintances. Hung out a few times in a friendly way, no sexual or romantic interest on my end. Anyway she is moving away in a few days and she has been eager for us to hang out before she goes. Today she straight up asked me to have sex with her before she leaves. I had to decline of course, as I am not ready and the pressure of a hookup might do more harm than good.

This is a reminder of the harm I have done to myself. I should be in my sexual peak, and girls seem to like me. I'm not saying I would have sex with every girl I can, but it would be nice to have the option. So many guys can only imagine being offered no-strings-attached sex with an attractive girl. I on the other hand get the chance and can't even consider it. It's so demoralizing and emasculating.

 

Was reading some other threads that got me reflecting on my history with porn.

I was a pre-teen when I first watched internet porn. I have no idea what year or how old I was but about 15years ago. I overheard a conversation about how a pop up of a naked woman appeared on my grandpas computer. I guess I realized that the internet might have naked girls and got some ideas. I didn’t have a computer at my house, but I was at my grandparents house quite a lot. I was never there alone though, so I waited a long time to get my chance to be alone with the computer. One day I was at my grandparent’s house with my siblings and we all decided to go swimming in their pool as usual. This time, though, my grandpa decided to go with us, which he rarely did. The house would be empty, so I knew this was my chance. Told everyone that I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to stay home. So I did. I searched YouTube for a while but couldn’t find anything really explicit. I didn’t know where else to look, I watched my uncle search YouTube and was absolutely amazed you could search for and find almost any kind of video in one place. But I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Eventually I got the idea to go to a search engine. I looked at some naked photos for a while, but then got the idea to search something more taboo. Probably sometime along the lines of “girls kissing” or “girls sex.” I still remember… it was the first porn video I ever saw. It was a “vanilla” lesbian video. One girl sitting in a chair and another girl kissing her, sucking her breast, then going down on her. It was such an incredible rush. I had never felt anything like that. I don’t remember if I got an erection, but there was an incredible rush of nervous energy through my stomache and groin. That was the only video I watched as everyone came back to the house in the middle of it. I didn’t get caught.

looking back, that was one of the turning points in my life. Most of my time was spent searching for that rush that made me feel so good when I usually felt so bad. It engrained in my young mind that the ultimate pleasure was to be found in skipping real life activities that I enjoy with people I love, and instead to engage in a shameful and secretive endeavor. I didn’t have a great home life. And the screen made me feel better than anything ever had. Funnily, my taste in porn for the first few years was exclusively “lesbian teens” like I had seen in that video.

fortunately, I rarely had access to hardcore porn until I was a in high school. I did however, constantly seek sexual material wherever I could find it. I would try to be home alone as much as possible to watch nude scenes from my family’s movie collection (DVD and VHS). I would save underwear/lingerie adds from magazines and newspapers. It because a compulsive addiction very early on.

the way I learned to masturbate was even worse I think. Because I discovered porn before masturbation, I never learned to feel the sensations of my body. I learned that my body was a tool to give my brain the ultimate dopamine hit to accompany porn. I was still a late preteen/early teen when my family came into hundreds of VHS tapes. Us kids made forts with them and sometimes watched the ones that were labeled. One day alone I was watching through some of the tapes and realized a lot of them had recording of cable soft-core porn. When I was alone I would watch them on a mini tv/vhs player in my room, while laying on my stomache on my bed. I would have my penis pointed down (as it would be while standing) and eventually i realized it felt good when I pressed my pubic area into the bed (while flaccid obviously). I developed the habit of pressing into the bed while flaccid, then once i started to get an erection, I would wait for it to subside before continuing. Eventually I realized if I pressed into an object (such as a rolled blanket or something something harder) it could kind of reach into the space between the goin and the base of the penis (while flaccid of course). One time while doing this I had an orgasm. It was the most pleasurable moment of my life. This started a habit that lasted years, multiple times per day. I trained my brain that I had to be flaccid to masturbate, and that erections were an impediment to orgasm. I’m not sure what stimulation caused the orgasm, but there was obviously no stimulation of the head or along the penis. Eventually I realized (middle school or jr high) that this isn’t how I was supposed to masturbate. I remember the first time I tried to masturbate “normally” it took me a long time to get an erection. I was scared even back then that I had done serious damage to my penis. I masturbated mostly normally, but would often “relapse” into my old technique because I missed the unique orgasm. I think the last time was sophomore year in high school, but it was a rarity by that point. By high school I also had a tablet which gave me access to as much porn as I could consume. I think my random erections stopped happening by sophomore year. I never kissed a girl all the way though college. I probably had PIED since high school, plus the damage from my early years of masturbation.

 

Had another wet dream last night. No sex or masturbation involved in the dream. I think I may have almost woken up during because the "dream" was basically a parallel of real life... I was sleeping and the sensation of my erection pressing against my shorts caused an orgasm.

Of course I dont count wet dreams as a relapse. But I do wonder if they prolong the healing process. I do usually experience the pleasure of the orgasm in the dream, so it must be giving my brain the chemicals it's craving. Fortunately, I havent had any porn dreams or cold sweats that I experienced the last time I attempted rebooting like 3 o 4 years ago. I deeply regret that I fell back into the habbit. Over that several years I had small streaks here or there but I was so disheartened with the lack of progress with ED and also other disappointments in life that I basically gave up.

This time is different though. I'm not just rebooting to cure the PIED. My desire to live in the real world is stronger than my desire to live digitally. this was not the case before. I wanted to quit porn and have sex with women without changing anything else. I'm also changing other facets of my life this time, including the chronic tension in my body along with the knee and back issues.

I think the fact that nobody expects me to have the problems that I do served as a crutch for years. I received validation from girls and people generally think I'm attractive. Girls usually assume I've slept with lots of girls. Little do they know I've never had successful penetration, or even oral, sex. From the outside I look muscular and lean, but I'm in almost constant pain. My knees swell and hurt for three days if I jump or run. My entire mid back is chronically tense and has barely relaxed in a decade. It's time to really change. Validation from others is not enough anymore. No more vanity. I have to actually be accountable to myself.

 

Thanks for the advice. How do you go about getting a prescription? Is it sent to your doctor?

I'm not sure Im ready for it anyway. I want to at least get to 90 days. Or until I can get a strong erection just from thinking about real sex. On the other hand, I dont even know if that is normal.

 

Feeling pretty down today. Last night I masturbated briefly, no orgasm. It wasn’t porn but some girls sent me some “triggering” things. Photos/videos and sexting. They weren’t even fully nude. For some reason I lost all reason and I kind of snapped out of it after a few minutes and stopped.

reflecting on this made me realize that it started with too much time on social media. Then in the shower I let the water run on my penis too long. Then when those photos and messages came in my will power had already been eroded. Because my brain got what it wanted yesterday I feel so much less motivation for the real world today. Less motivation to go out and try new things. Less motivation/excitement to see my real world crush. I realized this is the actual battle: digital vs real world. It’s not even about the porn for me. Porn is the end of the road. But if my rewards come in the digital world, it's all but an certainty that I'll stay wired to also pursue sexual outlets digitally.

On the bright side, some of the more grotesque patterns and behaviors are starting to reverse. When I was younger I was nervous to even talk to a girl online, and if there was any flirting/sexual talk it would be after many hours of chatting and I would proceed with caution. Over the years the filter and inhibitions disappeared and I'm ashamed to admit I was downright creepy at times. This is so damn sad, I have girls pursuing me in the real world, but instead I would choose to flirt/be a creep online in pursuit of sexual gratification from pixels on a screen. WTF!!

At this point I can genuinely say that I am starting to win the war against my shadow self, the one that wants to live in the screen, creep, manipulate, and get off on self-hatred. Last night was a lapse in judgement, but I am starting to really see major changes for the better. The challenge is that in real life there is no instant gratification. I have to trust the process, and understand that the reward comes slowly over time.

I also noticed that i kind of get hard flaccid symptoms when I get the dopamine surge from porn/nudes/etc. My penis kind of shrinks into itself and get harder(not like an erection) and I have to stimulate for a while with my hand to get it to relax and start to get erect. Then it will be like 50-70% hard depending on how much continual stimulation I provide. When I am with a real girl and get excited I get a partial erection straight away, there doesnt seem to be the hard flaccid response. Of course it's never consistent or hard enough for sex but still and interesting observation. Now the goal is to get to 90 days without another slip up. I'm 1/3rd there

 

Slipped up a little bit again today. Not as bad as last time. I'm getting triggered flirting with this girl while texting. We are going to go out, which is great. The temptation comes usually when there are multiple trigger (flirting + hot instagram story). When multiple temptations come quickly I seem to pass a threshold where I almost involuntarily start masturbating. Wasnt a bad slip up but it cant happen again. I'm starting to look for dates. This is usually the point where I start edging every day until I relapse, and why my progress stalls. This time will be different. I'm going to stay in the real world. Real dates, real girls. There will be obstacles, scary situations, and hard conversations. I'm ready to face that this time.