If you are truly feeling suicidal, please tell someone and or seek professional help. As far as PIED, it is possible that it will simply take more time. But it is also possible there is a separate issue at this point, you could consult with a doctor if you believe it is that.
6 months is not unheard of at all. Especially if you grew up using porn before having a normal sex life. I started nofap to beat pied in oct 2016 and went for over 10 months. I only ever saw signs of not being in a deep flatline deep into the 10 month streak and when I was around women in an intimate way. It would always surprise me and I never pulled the trigger with them, even the multiple times I had erections around women. After a few relapses pied came back worse and in my next 6 month streak I saw almost no improvement in symptoms. Only 2 random occasions getting erections talking to women at work. Then I watched porn for 3 hrs one night and I developed extreme paws symptoms and that was about 16 months ago. After that even seeing a woman on a screen would bring back pied and withdrawal symptoms. I had my first 2 successful sexual encounters in December by getting 2 blowjobs and a week or 2 later I looked up 1 Facebook photo and pied came back after 11 months since last slip. Symptoms include panic attacks, insomnia, pounding chest, headaches, depression, coordination problems.. all this after feeling recovered and feeling very confident and successful. I thought I was free forever. My advice is to rewire, rewire, rewire, with women you will only know it works when it works and you are in a sexual situation with a partner. I had only ever gotten off to fetish porn before nofap and never had an interest in sex. Only during my first streak did I get boners with women without my fetish involved. The only 2 times after that that I got an erection with a woman was after 11 months clean and it required a woman going down on me for it to go up, it was not spontaneous.
You could reach out to one of the ministry call lines for prayer support or the national suicide phone line. "This too shall pass" is a good rule. If you do what you should do, get out of isolation, take walks, avoid screens, read healthy literature, listen to good music, you will feel better. Feelings are not facts.
I’m confused u only looked up 1 Facebook photo and pied came back? How is that possible? Also how long was ur addiction
You need to consult a sexual doctor, and a psychologist. I was reading a post, the guy said that it took him 8 months of abstaining from PMO to cure his PIED. I suggest you read some posts on curing PIED, and watch some sexual health videos as well. Suicide isn't the solution to this, bro. What the solution to this is the quality of being strong and motivated. Think positively, not negatively.
Yes withdrawal symptoms returned worse than ever before. Significantly worse. Pied included. I developed kindling. I was literally starting to worry I might have a seizure for about a month because symptoms were so bad. Long periods of abstinence punctuated by relapse is an addiction risk and you develop a risk of developing more severe withdrawal symptoms. When your brain starts rewiring and those old pathways become dormant they become more sensitized to addictive stimuli. Those pathways are always there and are waiting to be reactivated. When those pathways are lit up again they are lit up stronger than before because you are no longer desensitized from habitual use. This long abstinence followed by a relapse trains your brain to hold onto those pathways for longer because you have now conditioned yourself that that reward is coming again even if it takes 6 months to a year. It also increases cravings more with each relapse because your brain is now trying to get you to return to that reward. Basically how rebooting works is that your brain wants you to contunue giving it that neurochemical hit and you are denying it, this causes your brain to give you negative feelings such as depression and cravings in an attempt to get you to return to your old behavior. Once it realizes that the reward is never coming it starts to resensitize and rewire to natural rewards and you start to heal. If you start to heal though and you just give it that reward again you are training your brain to hold onto those pathways for much longer. After a few relapses just the act of seeking out one image (even if you stop before finding it) can cause those pathways to reactivate very powerfully which in turn produces more severe withdrawal symptoms and a return of pied. You can look up some of the paws recovery threads on this site or look up Noah Church’s video on intermittent use or Gary Wilson’s talk from a few years back on addiction science where he explains how intermittent use can be more effective at causing brain changes faster than even constant use without discontinuing can. It’s scary stuff but it is important to be educated on it. Again I had thought I was in the clear for months and was dating multiple women. After that episode in December I once again have pied, social anxiety and depression and have not dated since. I even stopped carrying my smartphone with me because now for the first time in my life, even seeing a woman on tv that I am attracted to is bringing about headaches and anxiety for several hrs after and if it happens before bed I am now having insomnia, this is after being free from insomnia for over 6 months prior.
I can’t pinpoint when my addiction started but it was 13 or before and I used regularly til I was 23 I am now 27 have watched porn less than 10 times in that 4 years and haven’t been to a porn site in over 16 months. It feels like I am starting from scratch or worse since December.
I agree it is extreme. I didn’t ask for this to be the case and I learned the hard way, in fact I was completely dumbfounded by it. You do whatever you want brother, I’m just telling my story. Do whatever works from you and at least take my story into consideration. I’ve been doing hard mode the whole time. I’ve done 10 1/2 months, 6 months, and 14 months hardmode without even MO. I used social media throughout most of it until the last 6 months of this streak. During that time I did see some improvement that I would attribute to abstaining from PMO and social media and casually dating a few girls. That being said when I reactivated Facebook to check out a girls profile in a moment of anxiety due to life circumstances, and searched for something “hot” I had an extreme return of withdrawal symptoms and pied. This is my story, not everyone experiences this but I’ve “recovered” multiple times and this is my account of recovering and relapsing multiple times. Each time is harder brother. I’m also not unique in this experience either, I’ve talked to others who have been on this journey for years who have gone through this. How seriously do you want to recover? I play music and perform and for a long time I only used social media to promote my events and then I would deactivate it and set a hard limit on scrolling the timeline or profiles. After slipping on that promise I now don’t go on at all. It is a sacrifice for sure and I wish I didn’t have to make it. My first few streaks did not seem to be affected by my frequent social media use even when I was using it questionably. That changed however. Either way it is undeniable that the escapism of scrolling through social media mindlessly or looking at profiles of girls mimics porn use and the neuro pathways involved are the same or can be activated in the same way. It’s about searching for novelty, that is how we got addicted and why we have these problems. Social media is specifically designed to be addictive and to cause compulsive checking of notifications and scrolling because you are always in the act of anticipation. This is what dopamine is for. It is released in anticipation of reward. You must realize that you have abused this seeking behavior to the point that you have developed a sexual dysfunction, that is pretty extreme and if social media is designed to be addictive and to elicit compulsive behavior in healthy people then to think you are not at risk and playing with fire is a bit naive. Best of luck in whatever you choose to do and when you read this response I encourage you to read it a second time and just consider what I am saying and then make your own decisions of what you think will work best for you.
yes it will help because then you will simultaneously shut off 1 pathway and open up another , isn't that better than shutting 1 off , waiting and then opening another? overall it shall speed up the process but you gotta bear with it.
