Catch 22 situation for me

If you have been involved with PMO for a long time it will only add to your shyness and introverted tendencies. Regardless if you are naturally that way or not, it can only hurt you further by continuing with PMO. Furthermore, a relationship does not magically solve all of your problems. What many of us are saying when we ask for a girlfriend/boyfriend is that our life is lacking in love and support. We are aching for someone to be tactile with, whether that be something as simple as a hug or holding someone's hand. Yet our PMO habits are injected into that desire and the translation gets skewed. It becomes, "If I find someone who is willing to have sex with me, I will be cured," which is untrue because our drive is selfish. Our search for someone is based on OUR needs not a mutual interaction. However, as you mentioned, there is a fear and lack of interest, which is perpetuated by PMO. Rebooting is the best place to start. Fear drives us to relapse because we feel that nothing will change, which is also untrue. This process takes discipline but we also need support and NoFap is exactly that. This community has much to offer and we are here for each other for every step. We all have the capacity to overcome this demon and create better lives for ourselves and others. Stay strong friend.

 

We all share in those moments of weakness, it is part of being a human. Rationalizing is what we do best because we are self-aware and we want to believe our actions are just or reasonable. The true test of character is being able to say to ourselves, "I have made made mistakes or made poor judgments and that's okay." Even those who commit atrocities can change their behavior; from the outside it is hard to see but if you believe that all humans share in common desires then anyone can grow and change.

And PMO DOES make you a different person! It literally changes how our brain functions and after years of use we forget who we really are. Our mind becomes foreign to us because we keep trying to run away from the things that make us feel pain or sadness because we are not using healthy methods to express that. Think of your brain as a plant: we know that plants need water, nutrients and sunlight to flourish. On the other hand, if you left a plant in darkness with no nutrients and little water, it would cease to grow. Our brains are the results of what we feed it.

Glad I can help a brother out, you can do this friend!

 

Also, there are other ways of geting the dopamine that your brain might crave. One way of geting it its by aplying your extra time with your one projects (since you won't be porn binging anymore). You can also start doing exercises. Those will help with endorphine and dopamine.
And, for the gand finale, the prospect of meeting someone in person opens a new world of possibilitys to get to know new people. You won't marry and live happly ever after with any of them, but binding with people and stabilishing a suport network will grant you serotonin, with grealty diminish your need for dopamine (wich, if Im not mistaken, it's the hormone that's liberated after a PMO).

Important: I'm a law graduate, so everything I said it's based on research. But please don't take it for granted. I'm no expert.

 

Can I let you in on a brutal secret? Sex isn't going to solve your problem.
And sex won't solve your problem because porn didn't solve your problem.
So you could try and fill it with whatever addiction - sex, porn, cards, alcohol, gaming, tv, chips - but they still won't solve your problem.
So here are a few questions to mull over:
What drove you to porn? What purposes did porn serve you?
If one bad day can throw you off (as it can for me, too), what else is going on in your life?
And if your goal is to be more social (a great objective!), what is getting in your way? What other methods, beyond NoFap, can help you reach that goal? If a friend asked you about achieving that goal, what advice would you give?

 

Some great points here, especially the questions you could ask yourself. Understanding what drove to this in the first place may help relieve some issues. If you're like me then maybe you were introduced to it through someone else but we continued to use it for other reasons. It is escapism, an easy solution to stress or feelings of being overwhelmed. Ironically, PMO only makes it worse in the long run and yet we keep running to it. It's like walking towards the edge of a cliff and expecting not to fall if you step to far.

 

About your suposed inferiority complex (just saying like that becouse it's grounded on your point of view, not being necessarily true or false), perhaps psychological therapy could do you some good?

I share your point of view about using masks and being afraid social judgment. Actually, it's a modern issue for men, since toxic masculinty started to be criticized. There's a documentary on netflix called "The Mask You Live In" that has some interesting point of view about it. Most of the media that I follow about it it's in portuguese, but if that topic catches your interest, there's always some good posts in sites like everydayfeminism.com.

The thing is, trying to overcome this selfbuilt barriers can take some time and assistance. Thats why the therapy idea. To be honest, I would do it myself if I had de money.

About trying to find out the source that drives the PMO behaviour, it's something that I'll start thinking myself. It helped with my alcohol problem and now a days I can stay more than a week without a drink (still working progress, but fuck it, it's something lol).

Understanding driving behavior might help avoiding triggers and finding new ways to deal with unhealthy emotions, such as lonelyness, stress or hatred.

One tought about your relapsing: maybe rationalisation isn't the key to unsolve this. Emotions are tricky to understand, specially for us men (due to our social construction and lack of incentive to explore them). The way you said it, sounded like you relapsed and then rationalised. So, the rationalisation it's a form of explanation, but not the cause. My phylosobar (bar phylosophy) question your life's goals and the way you deal with them. Perhaps the ocasional lack of trust in yourself may cause the "fuck it" reaction. Like "nothing it's going to change anyway" tought.

My whriting skills are far below avarage, so I apologise in advance for any ambiguity in my post.

 

By the way: I'm a fan of Dune. Couldn't help to recognize the Bene Gesserit litany agaisnt fear. Cool.

 

Having a FWB and literal sex on tap didn't stop me relapsing.

We PMO to escape from our issues. If we dont SOLVE those issues, we can't just transplant our addiction onto some poor girl that we just use as a sex object to numb ourselves from our issues.

 

Yes this is exactly what I'm thinking as a SO. I can see how having a partner may motivate you more to stop but if you are not fully cured of pmo chances are high it will only make the pmo worse. A common misconception is that pmo is about sex when it's not. It's a coping mechanism developed to deal with uncomfortable feelings. Once you remove it you have very raw emotions that can cause you to turn into an emotional basketcase. Dating these days is brutal and involves a lot of rejection. I read that the poster is already insecure so bring pmo free in a crappy dating world is a recipie for disaster. Also If pmo causes you performance issues in bed that may lead to relapse. Finally most women are not interested in dating a pmo addict active in his addiction. If you can't quit you likely will end up in a spiral of lies creating a whole lot more pain for yourself and bringing an innocent clueless partner along for the ride. When you are in a relationship you have someone else's feelings to consider which if you can barely care for your own is difficult. Read around on here about people trying to do it. And we a SO who used me as a replacement for pmo I can assure you we can tell and the sex is not good. The best thing you can do is get yourself healthy first then get out and date.