Heirs of the Sun April "Change Your Life" Challenge Thread

What made me turn to porn?

I turned to it because I was lonely. Because I have had little success with girls and have been rejected time and time again, which fucked me up emotionally and made me think all girls would never find me attractive. Course that is not true (I got into a holiday thing with a beautiful Spanish girl at Christmas a few years back) but my problem is/was that I have had little back home in the North of England. Seriously, this began when I was very young. When I was about 12 there was this girl called Danika who had red hair, amazing blue eyes and so on. For the first time in my life I was in love, or thought I was. I was infatuated. I was so afraid to f*ck things up with her, and I was also so incredibly introverted (more on that later) that I did not push hard enough. One day, when she decided to not talk to me, I decided to give her some space… and never talked to her in any meaningful way again. That really hurt. I had discovered porn a little while previously, when I was 11 in fact (which probably screwed my head up as well). I couldn’t fathom what I had done wrong.

Throughout the rest of my high school life, I could NOT let GO of my wish for her. She still was in my thoughts, as painful as they were, and I never gave up hope for a long time. I remember in desperation asking her out after a French class and getting brutally turned down. Now this spread across the entire school, and to a 14 year old kid who has traces of Asperger’s and was kind of shy, this was like a nuke went off with regards to my self-esteem. I took to porn as a refuge, where girls couldn’t hurt me or where I couldn’t fail, because there was nothing to gain aside from the wasteful 5 seconds of numbness my adolescent self was capable of. I saw the popular boys getting these amazing girls, and my confidence sank even lower. Safe to say, I have suffered from depression in the past, and am still haunted from time to time even today at 16 (was worst at 15, during GCSEs).

A few times in the far past I was caught, and told it was bad and so on by my parents (of course, I kept watching it anyways). Porn had and did make me chicken when it came to actual girls, and was probably exacerbated by my mental state and so on.

Essentially, I turned to porn to escape the lack of human love, warmth and contact I was not getting at all (from my family, yes, I was getting enough - I mean in terms of the opposite sex), which was only made worse by all these hormones coursing through my body. Knowing that girls in my year were getting up to stuff which the jocks and so on made me feel worthless, undesirable and ugly. I felt like I was always going to be alone, always sad, single and never going to feel the touch of a girl and experience those things which are so human and real. The same thing which led to me crying myself asleep countless nights is what made me watch porn. I would want some of those girls, but knew in my subconscious I would never get them in my room. My life was not good because my success with girls was not good. My goals were not as important as finding a girlfriend, and thus I gave off incredibly desperate vibes which I believe still linger in the same girls today (doing A levels at the same school, so most people are still here before moving to university) although I am a world away from that timid little kid.

I am now realising that girls do not come first, second or even third. My goals do. My life purpose does. My ambitions, dreams and vision for the world do! Becoming ubermensch (above/super human, Nietzsche had some powerful ideas) is a primary goal of mine. Strengthening my mind, body and soul into a disciplined, unstoppable goal-driven juggernaut is something I want to achieve. Becoming the best version of me (mentally emotionally and spiritually) is my No1 purpose in life now. I have places to go, an impact to have on the world, and any girl that is lucky enough to see how far I am going to go (which I already can see) can take it or bloody well leave it. I’m not stopping for anyone. This quest of self-improvement is what led me to NoFap, and the potential for us men (and women) is unprecedented. If we know the reason WHY, we can endure and overcome ANY barrier.

This is why I turned to porn, and why I am casting it asunder to fall back into the fiery chasm hence it came, and why I am choosing to step into the light and transform myself beyond all recognition and self-imposed barriers. Thank you.


My 3 Small Goals:

1) Be PMO free for 3 months – a standard goal, but one I WILL achieve.

2) To get back into my guitar – for too long I have neglected and made excuses to stop playing this incredible instrument, and there is only things to gain from it.

3) To achieve 2 A grades in my A Levels – I am doing Design, Business and History. I am capable of achieving this, as well as at least a B in Business, possibly another A.

My BIG Goal:

1) To physically transform my physique and body beyond all recognition from when I started the year. I will do this for many reasons. To become the man I have always desired to be yet not pushed enough to become. To blow the minds of all these girls who turned me down or ignored me, and essentially turn into something these girls want, but cannot have. I won’t be nasty about that, but there would be a sense of satisfaction knowing the tables have so drastically turned. To get fit enough to potentially become an Officer in the Intelligence Corps – a path I am increasingly certain I want to take (although I have no idea what the future holds, and I am glad it is that way).

Thanks for reading heirs, and PRAISE THE SUN!

 

Will be away all of next week at an Air Cadet camp crawling around in fields in DPM with camouflage cream all over my face, being all warry and so on, so I do not think the guitar thing will happen next week haha. Still going to get exercise, revise and stay PMO free.

 

What happened or is happening in my life that led me to turning to porn for comfort and to escape reality?

I first turned to porn as a coping mechanism after becoming addicted when I was 12 years old. Several life-events, and emotional situations caused me to fall for the idea of using porn as an attempt to escape.

I found as my addiction progressed that my loneliness, depression, social withdrawal, lack of confidence and self-esteem, and my mental illness were key factors in keeping me addicted to porn through attempts to cope and escape – porn in-fact made it worse.

At first it was only larger things that made me turn to porn – when a girl rejected me after I had asked her out, or when I failed a project in a class at school. This went on until I started to use porn to try to cope and escape from every negative life event, however small.

When I was 13, I used to come home and play video games – on the Super Nintendo -- with my Grandma and talk about life, it was like we were best friends. Then when I was 14, she passed away, I was devastated – like something had been ripped away, never to be replaced. I used porn to try and cope with the loss and to fill the void in my heart.

When I got to the age of 16, I was being bullied at school – life was getting stressful with homework, tests, and everything else stacking on. I was slowly becoming more and more dependent on porn. I'd spend hours on my computer, escaping what was happening with me.

When I got to the age of 17 I had already started losing my mind. My opinion towards everything, my religion, my morals, and my ideals, had all suddenly changed. I became very obsessed with my religion at the time (Christianity). By the time I realized that I had lost it, my mental stability was in chaos, I saw things that weren't real, I thought I was things I wasn't, I was paranoid towards others – friends and even family -- and I ended up in Hospital.

When I got to hospital I was bullied, things were stolen from me, the towel when I was in the shower, money from my wallet, but that was the least my worries at the time, I was in a terrible state. When I got out, I gained 40kg (88 pounds) but regaining my mental stability was priority.

After a while, I went back to porn in order to cope with my Schizophrenia, and to try to escape from everything negative in my life. Until recently that's what I've been doing; Trying to cope, escape, and running away from my problems instead of facing them.

My 3 small GOALS, and 1 big GOAL:

1. To work on my Mental Illnesses, through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - thought changing, and action changing, to new different feelings. and Show progress.

2. To be PMO-Free for 90 days and keep updated every week. (54 days in)

3. To face my problems, instead of using methods of escape. List the problems and methods and tick them off once achieved.

BIG GOAL: To change my life for the better: Live life to the fullest, to do the things I need to do and want to do. Share what I have been doing to change my life, the progress and the backwards steps.

 

This is a real touching story man. We all have our demons, and we will help you fight them. One inch at a time.

 

What was that which made me turn towards porn?

When i was aged 12, i was thinking about the structure of a woman and that was the age of adolescense too(more hormone secretion), which made me more aroused too. I wanted to know about the parts of a woman, so i first saw nude pictures and i was content with that.

After a year or two(got good internet connection) and wanted to explore the video content. Then started the addiction. I didn't know what masturbation was at that time. I started stroking my penis like how they did in the video and i was about to reach orgasm then i got afraid that something will happen if i do like that.I stopped.

After six months , i did the same, i got a full blown ejaculation. I felt like WOW!. I thought porn will give me this pleasure and started using it extensively and also masturbated. That was the most blunder mistake i ever did in my life.
Then at times i got breathlessness and i knew i was due to my porn addiction and constant relapses. I tried stopping it for a day or two, but i couldn't, as my brain was hardwired to porn and no ideas on how to.

During some days i was low on confidence and motivation, i didn't know why. I was the tpper of my class before PMO and got the best marks but after the mistake i got low marks and faced lots of mental problems like depression.

I relapsed even when when i didn't want to. I cursed myself, cried and was even thinking of quitting from life. One time i was busy for a week and i didn't PMO, then i found out the real meaning for life. After that i had constant relapses but i didn't give in. My longest streak is 13 days.
Then,

I stumbled upon my life saver : NoFap.

I did relapse after that, but i found my main urge : Intntion to watch P when i am online. I started reducing my time online and i did gain a alot out of that. I could control my urge for P easily!

MY 3 SMALL GOALS:
1.Get to the standard goal of 90 days PMO free.
2.Study for 6 hrs a day to get into IIT.
3. Live my life to the fullest.
MY 1 BIG GOAL:
Become a famous personality like isaac asimov in the field of robotics.

 

What made me turn to porn!
well, when i came to this world i found myself with unbelievable parents , they don't do any thing than shouting , fighting and doubting , insulting each other , i didn't find real family who could help me during my young age , the main reason is that i didn't have support from any of them , i have been exposed to many kinds of abuses such as emotional abuse , physical abuse , my father was a nightmare for me , he used to slap me when i was young more than saying Good morning for me .

I really hated my life , because no one of my parents was giving me love , they just like to tell me you are failure , started putting me in comparison with others like your cousin or brother is pretty good than you , why are not you like others ?
they always used to fill my head with negative thoughts , till i lost my self confidence and my self esteem , as my parents didn't give me what i really needed from them.

So at age of 13 i started to know about porn , then some of my friends at school was talking about porn , so i found high curiosity to know more about porn , later when i have been supposed to porn i was like escaping from my bad life and my dull parents , i was engrossing my self in porn pleasures and i was starving of pleasure which i didn't found in my life , later years passed then i found myself an addict who live his life seeking for porn movies dosage with no hope in life, all days was same with no meaning i found myself worse than before.

I tried more than 100 times to stop this addiction with different methods and algorithms , but all of them was in vane , until i joined NoFap community and i started to have an AP group and accepted the idea of AP which i always refused to have at , but when i found myself so weak alone i realized that there is missing side of my recovery triangle.

My Big Goal:
is to get rid of this addiction forever and have a new life that worth to live for , and have a successful family that i would compensate them with the things that i didn't find in my life, also to achieve my dream of being an Game developer cause i like the idea of entertaining others and make a joyful life.

My 3 small Goals:
1-Finish 90 days no pmo.
2-Face my fear and tense during exams.
3-Have a good relation with girls and stop objectifying them.

 

What happened or is happening in my life that led to me turning to porn for comfort and to escape reality?

PMO became just another habit for me. Watching all those videos and doing all sorts of crazy things became just another normal thing for me. And I derived so much pleasure from doing the deed than going out and enjoying life. I'd venture to say that PMO WAS my life back then. There's this old mantra that goes around in exercise circles that goes, "Eat, Sleep, Work Out, Rinse and Repeat." Replace the Work Out with PMO, and that was me a year back.

My addiction started off innocently enough. I heard about a certain young female celebrity having indecent pics of theirs leaked online. This was around the time I was in another country and I started to have slow, limited access to the Internet. After hearing of said story I went on the family computer and searched it off. I was curious. Being the naive high school student (at the time) that I was the computer was located in the living room and right behind me, on the sofa were my cousin and her boyfriend. I got told off on my lewd enterprise.

And what started as mere curiosity soon spiraled into darker territories which I won't mention here. I was still searching all this stuff on the family computer and I even got caught again and again by family members. I started getting consumed into the world of PMO and all its dark pleasures.

In college was when I really got into it. High Speed Internet was installed at our place when I was in my sophomore year, and I used and abused it for PMO as much I can. Most of my friends were interested in anime. They helped start me off on my interest in anime and manga. However they also got me into watching the more perverse forms of animated entertainment produced by the Rising Sun. Watching the latter just gave me a new world to lust over.

All of this PMO got to a point where it was what I was known for among my friends. I'd spend days off from classes just DL'ing videos. It rose to a fever pitch last year when I finished college and my father passed away. The depression caused by his death along with the anxiety of moving on to another phase of my life, made me completely shut myself out from the outside world. I immersed myself in my PMO addiction along with playing video games. Days and nights I spent all alone in my room, playing Monster Hunter and looking up newer videos that tickled my fancy. I used PMO as an escape from the what I considered the trivialities of anything associated with the real world.

I didn't have much of a social life. I'm introverted and I prefer doing my own thing. I didn't care much for going out, talking with groups of people, etc. I'd prefer to chill at home rather than go out with friends. That indifference to social situations helped aggravate my PMO addiction and turn it up to eleven.

Finally I found this site. I'd heard of NoFap before via the subreddit. In my PMO fueled days I scoffed at the very possibility of giving up porn. After evaluating my life, and seeing all my friends and family on Facebook enjoying their lives, posting about how well they were doing, I decided enough was enough. I burned my bridges to porn and joined this site.

Fast forward to now, almost a year since I made that choice to live a PMO free life, and I feel that I'm loads better now than I was when I first started.


My 3 Small Goals

1. Go through the entire month of April on Hard Mode.
2. Keeping physically fit by eating right and exercising
3. Live each day to the fullest as possible

My Big Goal

Becoming a Freelance Writer, and someday publish a novel.

 

What has made me turn to porn both in the past and the present?

To be frank, I crumble under stress. I keep up a good front, I can function, but behind the scenes I need a release to keep me going, and for the longest time that release has been porn. I'm doing my utmost to keep it from becoming alcohol as well. A lot of you guys know that lately life has been pretty tough for me. I got hurt back in August, meaning that I got laid off due to not being able to work. Our car got stolen in September. I got my insurance cut in December, had another surgery in February, got back to work about 2 weeks ago and got laid off again because I wasn't healed yet. All of that made a perfect breeding ground for the addiction to rear its head and start killing me yet again. As I said above, I have a hard time personally dealing with extreme stress, so even with multiple 30+ day streaks under my belt I've had a hard time breaking 5 days since.

My Three Goals
1. Work on vocalizing my stresses. Get them out in the open, don't try to deal with them in silence and solitude.
2. Work on getting this IT job or any IT job. Whether this means committing to this new opportunity or busting my butt trying to get my A+ and other certs, do it. Don't let a day go by where you don't at least read 5+ pages in the study guide.
3. Remove temptations. Only use the sites I need to if I'm browsing, and try not to browse more than an hour at a time if alone. Keep the phone out of the bathroom, read books at night, just decrease the amount of time I spend on a browser.

BIG GOAL: Get completely self-sufficient. Our own car, my own job, own place to live, etc.

 

What happened or is happening in my life that led to me turning to porn for comfort and to escape reality?

Well, this might be long. I have (had?) severe social anxiety and depression since I was maybe 14. Probably earlier, at least for the anxiety. I had dabbled in P and MO as a kid, but when I got my own laptop at 16 I became officially addicted. Because of my anxiety, from 10 years old on I couldn't make friends at school. I started faking sick, or outright refusing to go, because the dread of judgment consumed me. My relationships with my divorced parents were not good, and I was passed back and forth between them when I did something wrong. I hated life, I hated school, I hated people, I hated my family. My family and I moved a lot throughout my life, so even if I made a friend, I couldn't keep them. It was hard. I yearned for companionship and camaraderie.

I stopped going to high school. I dropped out in 9th grade, then tried online school and still couldn't deal with the chat interactions. So I got a General Education Degree (GED) a year later. My mom got me my first ever laptop as a "graduation" gift at 16. Cue the next 3 years spent in isolation, barely going out of the house unless I had to. I didn't talk to anyone, and eventually my social anxiety got so bad that I was anxious interacting with my family, who I had been living with my whole life. I spent every day in my room. I became even more anxious and depressed. I couldn't go anywhere by myself. The simple interaction between cashier and customer when going to stores was panic attack-inducing. I felt so alone.

I used porn to cope with these feelings. The lack of companionship, the lack of romantic relationships, the low self-confidence I had, and I felt even worse that I could not function in life because of my social anxiety. This led to my severe depression. When I was close to 19 years old, my mom told me I needed to go to university or get a job. I decided on university. I figured it could help with my anxiety to be exposed to social situations. I went to the doctor and got put on anxiety meds, which helped. I stopped using porn, simply because I didn't have the time nor the privacy while living in a dorm. The excitement of new experiences and the friends I made kept me busy and happy.

I ended up meeting Sun/Knight Solaire at a gaming party held on campus. Having a new relationship fueled my happiness and I had less of a reason to use. Eventually though, my meds lost their efficacy and my relationship was going down the drain. I became extremely depressed. I didn't go out of the dorm unless to eat. I stopped going to class. After a while, Sun and I dropped out of university and got an apartment together. Things were okay. Sun and I were still having problems with our relationship, and I turned to porn for comfort. Time passed and I found Nofap shortly after I turned 20. My anxiety was worse than ever. I couldn't walk through a grocery store in the middle of the night or go anywhere on my own. My first streak was 240 days. I ended up relapsing. Shortly after that (like a few days), I went to the doctor and asked for anxiety meds. Strong ones. He was really nice about it. They have helped so much since I started taking them August 2015. I feel normal now.

Anyway, I'm back to 234 days and plan to go beyond my last streak.


3 SMALL GOALS:

• I will learn to talk to others when I need help or am having a bad day. Be more open. Work on communication.
• I will strive to improve my relationship with Sun
• I will get therapy for my lingering anxiety and depression in May

1 BIG GOAL:

• Work on my co-dependency issues by separating myself from Sun and becoming more independent. Get a physical job OR start doing freelance writing.

 

What happened or is happening in my life that led to me turning to porn for comfort and to escape reality?

Well at first, when I was introduced to porn, it was all by accident. I don't blame my brother for the problems I have now, all I want to do now is help set him free by showing him that if I can do it, he can too. At first, it started with curiosity, after I saw that first video, I blew my mind. I was drawn in and I deep down, I'm sure i knew it was wrong, but it was hard to realize exactly what it was when I was a kid. So, as time progressed, I watched porn more frequently, until one I discovered M and O.

I wasn't sure what happened, but before I knew it, I began to use it as a means for "fun" when I was bored. Or was feeling wide awake at night, and wanted some sleep. I used it for all sorts of things, not even realizing the impact it had on my life. At these times, I was never good with girls, always got friend zoned for being such a "nice guy", and lots of bad luck seemed to come my way. All of these things, I used them as an excuse to M. Just so that I could release stress, or calm down a little. But, nothing seemed to work, it began to draw me in more and more. Until, one day, I just kinda took a step back, and looked my life before. Never had I felt so dirty, I guess. That very first video changed my life. It was like I learned to see women differently, and not in a good way.

So I tried to fight it. No knowledge, no power, no commitment even. Just anger and frustration, I even doubted I could change. I battled with Porn for years, never making a single foot hold in progress. It was always 1 step forward, 2 steps back, and it was rapidly pulling me in more and more. I began hiding and worrying about people finding out about my double life, it only brought me shame, and guilt during the day hours.

Then, December, 2015, I found NoFap. This was the single most effective thing I had ever done to really try to break the cycle. I've made more progress here, than 3 years of trying to quit by myself. Combined with power of the heirs, it really made me feel like I could actually do it. On top of that, people have done it, but just beating PMO isn't enough. I've always wanted to change as a person, but it seems never quite no where to start, or how to start. But, I can start here and now even if I don't know what I will do, I'll find something to do.

3 Small Goals
- I will improve my discipline in all areas of my life
- I will work with my negative emotions, and resolve my problems without the use of escape behaviors
- I will stop being so pessimistic and enjoy the moments of simplicity in life

1 Big Goal
- Kill this addiction, save my brothers and sisters, and go professional in soccer

 

"What happened or is happening in my life that led to me turning to porn for comfort and to escape reality?"

I believe the first time I saw porn was from a pop-up when I was around 6 years old. I was confused, and all I knew was that I wasn't supposed to be looking at it, because my brother demanded whether I saw it, and I quickly lied. It didn't come up again until around when I was 8 years old. Someone mentioned it online in a game, and I looked up what porn was, clicked a site, and immediately left the site after. Years would pass without incident until middle school hit. I was close friends with this one girl that confessed to me when I had zero interest in girls, and flustered, I said I liked her too. And that was that, it became awkward because neither of us knew what even was a relationship. It also didn't help that during this time, I had hit a massive depression. Lost on what relationships were, I rediscovered porn again and it finally stuck with me up to my senior year in high school.

As of recently, it has been what I turn to when the loneliness eats up too much of me. It hurts mentally and physically thinking about how alone I am, even when I'm not alone. I have a lot of friends, a few very close friends, and it still hurts. Stress has also been eating at me, as I have several important exams coming within these next few months, and I don't have much time left. These feelings aren't about me wanting to be with anyone that likes me. It's the constant, gnawing pain and worry of never finding "the one." I've heard people say we shouldn't focus on girls, but for me, finding this person is large portion of finding my own happiness because I value having kids and raising a happy family so much, and it's not something than I can change. It's a big part of what I want and value in life.

Three Small Goals

- Practice piano everyday, even if it's a little.

- Lower the amount of time spent on my phone.

- Go on a run at least once a week.

Big Goal

- Genuine relationship