Lets call me James. I am a 27 years old dude living in north-east France with a really huge problem, you guessed it : PMO. When I discovered NoFap in august 2014 I felt really happy because I couldn't pinpoint what wasn't right with me, why I always felt tired and angry at life in general. At this time I was barely 130 pounds (59kg) for 6'2 (190cm), skinny as fuck, couldn't run for 10m, couldn't lift anything heavy, terrible diet. NoFap made me go to the gym, start running and eating more healthy. By December 2014 I already took 38 lbs (mostly fat yeah), I was looking healthier, going to the gym, started running. Then in January 2015, everything went south : cut contact with my parents, lost my job, lost all incomes and I became a loser who couldn't do anything else but jack off, go at my friends' house and get drunk and do nothing productive. I think I fell deeply into depression too, cause I have no idea where the fuck this year 2015 went, it lasted like 6 months to me. Anyway, what I wanna say is that I wanna better myself. Now, finally. I don't have the choice. It's either that or I should kill myself now because I will not be able to endure seeing me in here in three months talking about the same thing, I don't ever wanna have to reset my counter again, I don't wanna wake up with these nasty thoughts on my mind, I wanna leave all of these behind and forget how horrible these last year was for me. I've done so bad in 2015 that I'm not in control of my life as we speak. Thanks to my wonderful girlfriend of six years (on and off) I have a place to stay, if it wasn't for her I would be homeless or dead already. I wanna take my life back, and the first step to do so is to eradicate PMO from my life definitively, for ever. I have failed so much things in my life cause of that addiction that I would kill myself before I let this happen again. My parents don't believe in me, many of my friends don't believe in me, my siblings don't have much hope for me, and I know my girlfriend loves me and overlook many aspects of my personnality because of that but I know that our relatioship could break at any moment if she justs meets somebody better than me (which isn't very difficult at this very moment). Only I know what I'm capable of, and only I can realize all these dreams that I have in my head, dreams that I wanna experience in real life as soon as possible. Thank you for reading me. See you around.
@korgek welcome to NoFap. First thing I want to say is to try and remember to not have such a high standard of perfection for yourself. Often times it is that same perfection that can drive us to become beautiful and amazing people, but until we learn to work with it, it can be too big of a challenge that we are unable to meet it, and so "drop out" completely into substances and other self defeating behaviors. The first thing I would say is to lower your expectations. I know this sounds counter intuitive, but in my experience it has helped me to ultimately reach higher standards by having more reasonable expectations. You may hate to hear this, but you may fail, relapse, or partner leave you. None of this takes away from the special and meaningful person that you are. It is really good that you have started on the NoFap forum. Alongside, you might want to look inside and think about something that you have always wanted to try or do, but you never felt that you had support from your family. Maybe it is dance, or exercise, or creative, writing, acting. I don't know, but I have a feeling that you feel completely "blocked" from being able to express yourself in the world. It is a hard road ahead of you my friend, but I know you can do it. I believe in you. I believe in the capacity of the human body and psyche to heal itself. I believe that there is a giant inside just waiting to come out once given half a chance. 2016, its a new year. Nobody believes in you? I believe in you. And soon you will believe in you. We can not expect anybody but ourself to believe in ourself. Start setting tiny goals and reaching them. NoFap is the big war, find small battles, and start adding up those victories. Soon you will be a force of nature. Not over night, but much sooner than you think. Take it easy on yourself. Remember, you are like a drug addict in recovery, except you do not have a Malibu retreat center to go to. If you have not yet, check out this video. Part of what I found useful is how because of addiction and recovery, I feel a tremendous amount of stress more than usual, and completely disinterested in the other parts of my life. Remember that your thoughts are not all true, they are just there. Wish you the best.
