Hey guys. I am 30 years old, I have been an addict since I first discovered P on the internet at age 15. I never thought of it as a problem or an addiction. I thought that it was normal to watch P, that that most people did it. But I'm not everyone else,- like an alcoholic cant have just one drink. I found myself spending hours at a time searching for clips that i did not have to hord and archive them. This went on for probably 7 years. I have been with my wife for 10 going on 11. My wife an I started to drift physically, then emotionally. I half-assed aknoweldged an issue about 3 years ago, thinking i could just quit and walk away. I had her put P blockers on my phone and computer. Which worked out pretty well, but then I found other varieties of what i know consider porn, YouTube, Chive, things like that. Why could i not just be satisfied with this beautiful woman before me? Am i that far down the rabbit hole i can no longer appreciate and be as attracted to true beauty? My wife just kept trying harder to impress me....manicure, pedicures, new outfits, i would only half aknoweldge her. As she was screaming for attention subtully. I HAVE ruined her self- esteem, confidence, trust and damn near our relationship. We had always been so solid, she's my best friend. How could i have been so selfish, so stupid, for so long? I ask myself all of these questions, but it was still too late. I would ask myself those same very questions right before i would PMO knowing that if i continued i would loose her, and my family. Afterwards i would feel like the worst human being ever. "I" emphasis on I finally decided to put myself out there.....make my self vulnerable, admit that I'm NOT perfect and everything is NOT okay. I am so thankful for this site, and to warriors like you batteling everyday and not giving up! I just need some support guys I'm in a bad spot, i feel like shit about myself and what ive become. i start counsling next week and so does my wife. I just want to be better, my wife deserves better! This is my 4th day without PMO. I am anxious, and excited to meet more of you and become a part of this community. Thanks guys.
Welcome to NoFap where you are amongst friends who are here to encourage you and sometimes challenge you but not judge you. The enemy is here to steal, kill and destroy. What are your current strategies for combating the enemy called PMO?
Thanks D.J. I guess my strategies include being open to other people, being honest with myself, being accountable with my wife as I venture this jourmey. I have P blockers on my phone and computer that my wife has the passwords to. We also start individual counseling next week. Also just reading other peoples similar situations and input in this forum has been very theroputic for me. For me the counseling is for me to learn more about myself and set a road map for me to follow to break free for good. For my wife it's to try to break down the walls that she has built to protect herself from the shit I have put her through, and so we can both step outside the situation and get another point of view to sort out our feeling and work on building trust. I'm trying to reboot but I don't know the best approach when your married? I know its different for everyone, what is your opinions? Thanks guys.
Welcome to NoFap where you are amongst friends who are here to encourage you and sometimes challenge you but not judge you. The enemy is here to steal, kill and destroy. What are your current strategies for combating the enemy called PMO?
Your story is painfully familiar! I may have stopped too late to save my marriage, I'm holding on to hope and trying taking it one day at a time. I'm 35 days past p, first real attempt in my life. Best I've found is to watch yourself for triggers and you can catch yourself before you go into the test/question/Pmo/shame/hate loop. If you get an itch, walk away from your phone or computer and find something to keep yourself busy! If you're about to start go outside, go for a run, do push-ups and sit-ups until it hurts. Make a salad, write down your feelings, try to find what triggers you... keep going even if you fail at first. I wish you strength. Take charge before you lose her, or any more of your life!
@ParvusSapentia, I appreciate your input, and suggestions. Can I ask how you guys were able to identify your triggers? I honestly cannot think of one thing besides stress that is a trigger. I guess I have not been able to identify a pattern or a constant that are centered around my urges. To me they feel sporadic and inconsistent mainly based on if I am by myself, and what time of day it is. But I get the feeling that its deeper, I read an article on how "sex addicts" use P because they have zero coping mechanisms. I feel like if I ever want to give myself a shot of getting over this for good I need to do some serious soul searching, and be able to identify my triggers/the reason I turned to P in the first place. I'm hoping the therapist can help with that. I'm nervous because I will have to take business trips every week Monday through Friday and come home on the weekends. I will be doing this until September maybe longer. During this time I will be by myself in a hotel away from my family. I have done this 1 week already with success, but I cant say I didn't think about it. I try to have the attitude to take it one day at a time saying to myself today the number 1 goal is to stay clean and not MO. But lately I cannot seem to keep P off my brain. I keep having unprovoked images of my P stars in vivid detail, it will pop in my head when I am laying down trying to sleep or when I'm driving. I don't get it because I never had things like that in such details pop into my head. I feel like the addiction is growing desperate and constantly trying to break me.
Check out In Case You Didn't Know for strategies and tips which may help you along your journey.Within this list is a list of common triggers.
You'll be fine bro,, the more you last the easier it gets because things just start to feel better and get better.. I know what it feels like.. Im sure most people are in bad sexual patterns but dont even notice it. Like u said, we think it's normal to watch p.. Its time to take it back to basics and rewire that part of our brain. Forget what we've learned about "sex" from p and the way we've pmo since we discovered it.. Its because of technology that we've been exposed, but let's make the effort to better ourselves, even if everyone else is doing it..
Identifying triggers is like recognizing black holes. For a long time, astronomers only believed that they existed because the theory said they must. Eventually, they started to identify strange phenomena that according to the theory would be caused by a black hole, and so they just had to infer the existence. Eventually they just learned that you could tell that there was a black hole because there was a whole galaxy swirling around it, being sucked down into its gravity-warping mass. (I'm not a physicist, and I'm oversimplifying.) The point is that first you have learn to recognize the feeling that you're being dragged toward the black hole. What are the thoughts? What's the voice in your head saying? What parts of your body are lighting up like an electrical storm? Of course, at that moment, the most important thing is to stop your slide into oblivion, and to get yourself AWAY from wherever you are. But eventually, you have to chart the contexts. Where was I? What was I doing? What was I seeing? What was I worried/anxious/irritated/angry about? With whom? You will start to recognize patterns, commonalities, keys, and buttons. Those buttons are the triggers. Which buttons get pushed that start your slide toward the black hole? And when you can name the triggers, you can begin to see them coming. And when you've acknowledged that they're going to have this same effect on you EVERY TIME, you start working out tactics: How not to allow yourself to be in those situations. How to make sure that you have people you can reach out to in the moment. How to address the worries/anxieties/irritants/angers that are giving the buttons their power over you. It all begins, however, with being able to recognize the very moment that you begin to feel the pull. Start there, and plan what you need to do to protect yourself. The rest will become clearer.
Thank you, I like the idea of logging and keeping track of when, where, what happened, and what mood I was in. that will definitely help me start to identify things to avoid, maybe give more insight as to why I feel the need to PMO.
In my experience, that need to PMO has come from being depressed or not having anything to look forward to. PMOing was all I had that made me feel a rush and joy or hapiness and pleasure. It made me feel alive and awake. So ofcourse i couldnt stop doing it. Watching p made it even more of a rush. However that rush only lasts for that amount of time for that activity, and then its back to regular "boring" or depressed life.. I noticed that when i was bored and not in the mood for PMO, which was a lot, i start to convince myself to do it, and i would imagine p clips, one thing would lead to another and in 5-20 mins i would be done, drained, bored, and feeling worse about myself, even guilty.. i feel like we've treated our body like using drugs. We've figured out how to make our bodys feel good all around and we've taken advantage of it. So many people say it us healthy for us to masturbate daily but that cant be true. For one, masturbating is something we've learned to do that tricks our bodys/nervous system into thinking were having sex. Is daily sex healthy? Probly not for similar reasons to NoFap, because its still orgasm and release, release of chi and everything else, expenditure, loss of testoterone etc (all the reasons lol) Ive gone a little off but a lot of times we could be doing it from not having anything else in life that brings us into a rush, hapiness, and pleasure (release of endorphins) We should try to get that feeling from other aspects or activities in life/daily life. Exercise is a great way, especially by giving it your all. That has worked for me, just really going all out at some point in my work out (sprinting my fastest the last 300 feet of a run etc) i have gotten that great rushed feeling of satisfaction along with great deep breaths filled with endorphins and peace in my mind. Im sure there are many activities we can get this feeling from, if we put in the same effort we put into PMOing im sure we can find a BETTER and healthier alternative.
Urban mythology here....it has no appreciable effect on sex hormones. Brain chemistry, perhaps, but not on T...
