500+ days of PMO abstinence and its life-changing effects (4 parts in this thread).

Part 1/4:

Hello all fapstronauts! This long post (or novel rather) is dedicated to all of you out there who are: currently struggling with PMO-addiction, those of you who are getting control over it and to those of you who have more or less mastered it. I make absolutely no judgment based on which one of these categories you belong to, as long as you take action, keep pushing, fight the good fight and spread the NoFap-gospels to the yet unenlightened.

Reaching the 500+ day felt magic and although that mark is a difficult task overall (at least in the beginning) it is essentially about making those first 90-100 days of abstinence and the rest will go almost on autopilot. I don't want to sound cocky or arrogant but it really boils down to making those first 100 days. The story I post below is therefore (at least part 1) about what my life used to look like during my PMO days and how that changed as soon as I jumped onto the NoFap train.
Just for your knowledge, I decided beforehand to split this post into three parts since writing it in only one piece would be too long of a reading-session for most, plus it will make great cliffhangers paving the road up to the release of part 2 & 3. Since English is not my native language, please be considerate that I might make minor grammatical errors along the way.

The reasons for me writing this novel are multiple but the main ones are based on:
My genuine desire to get out the message about the multitude of perils and set-backs that come with PMO-use which can affect and poison men from all races/ethnicities, professions, educational backgrounds, and socioeconomic backgrounds (Yes, there are women who are PMO-addicts as well but more commonly they are indirect victims in the form of codependents).
Also, I hope I can provide some useful insights, tools, and techniques to combat this sneaky and highly addictive poison which is so easily available and literally cripples peoples’ lives. In my case, PMO had been crippling my life for 14-15 long years but thanks to some already good established habits in my life, I had the self-discipline and self-control to jump on the NoFap-train for a prolonged period of time. But in fact, what choices did I have?
In all honesty, the choices available were limited since going back to my old fapping habits was not a good option but rather one that would bring me another 14-15 years of misery and stagnation.

Right before I started out on my last NoFap-hard-mode streak on that beautiful winter day in February last year, the previous 14-15 years of my life had been an almost daily struggle combatting depressive thoughts, low confidence and self-esteem, poor social skills, disbelief in myself, and pessimistic/problematic outlooks on most things in life. I literally had a hard time seeing the good in anything, even the most apparent and self-evident events and achievements I had been carried out. When looking back at it, I realize that the main reason for why my life had come to a standstill was purely due to self-sabotage, created by my own destructive, pessimistic and counter-productive thinking. Mainly because my entire mind (both conscious and sub-conscious) and thought-capacity was so overloaded and overwhelmed with thoughts of sex, lust, masturbation and pornographic images that my entire system (physical, mental and spiritual) was poisoned, hence affecting all areas of my life.

Although I don’t blame anyone else or any specific circumstances and events as the main-causers to my past failures, setbacks and life-struggles, I dare say that the main-contributor or catalyst that sparked my mood-swings, deicion-making ability, T-levels, motivation and drive the most was without a doubt the poisonous PMO-habits I developed at an early age. The decisions leading to the early stages of this adopted habit were probably the worst I have ever taken, even to this day. If I could turn back time, I wish I had never opened that Pandora’s box of lust, temptation and MO-cravings in the first place. I had also wished that some bald authority-figure had been brave enough to speak out at the time, telling me about the consequences and perils of PMO-use. My dad if he had been a strong father figure, could have been such an authority but since he was mostly a scared sissy (who was watching porn secretly while being married still), he just laughed it off, tried to white-wash it, telling me it was just a completely normal and harmless thing for boys to do.
This habit also started at the beginning of this new millennium (2001-2002) when the internet connection started to gain speed and with it, also the availability of internet pornography. The existing studies and research about PMO-use, its effects on the brain, mind, soul, body and nervous system were also few and didn’t have a significant reach amongst the public since the first few studies didn’t get any significant publicity in the mainstream media outlets.
Contrary to this, the few aspects regarding PMO that was ever brought up were rather done so in positive terms: “Masturbation and porn-consumption is good and healthy for you, your sex-life and completely healthy if kept at a moderate level. Experimenting with yourself, your body and sexuality will do just good for you. The people who will ever mention it as something negative, self-destructive, sinful or bad are just some religious, old-fashioned, superstitious, right-wing wackos and/or religious preacher bigots trying to control you, your body and your sexuality through shaming”. The only bad thing ever mentioned about porn was that it could be degrading/deprecatory to women, thus objectifying them. Although that was true, not a single word was mentioned about the addicts, destroyed marriages/relationships (and even families) or ED-issues amongst men.

I remember starting to PMO regularly already at the age of 14 and only a few years later, it had become a compulsory addiction/craving that I couldn’t live without. It didn’t only suck interest and pleasure from the little and more important things in life, it even sucked the joy out of life itself and affected every single part of it. Especially my relationships to people, motivation, drive, focus, attention, and social skills. Simultaneously, I was bullied at several occasions (inside and outside of school) and although most of it was indirect through alienation and ostracism, I still felt like an outsider who didn’t like to partake in the fakeness, jealousy, conformism and weak values amongst regular people. Because of my integrity I chose to rather be on my own rather than trying to become popular and impress people who I didn’t like anyway. Hence, I had very few real friends at the time (maybe 3-4 in total) which had been okay if other parts of my life were good, but they weren’t.

Because, between the ages of 14-18 (my High school / Gymnasium years), my parents were arguing a lot and later separated when I was about 17-18 years of age. I also wore braces for 2-3 years and had lots of pimples in my face (during winter, parts of my face looked like a salami), my confidence was at the bottom. Since my classmates were fake, immature, insecure (although they tried to play secure) and lacked integrity, I disliked them, felt very lonely and had very few sources of relief from my feelings of angst, ugliness, worthlessness, inadequacy, invisibleness, and low confidence. One of those sources of relief came from the practice of my sport where I not only had talent and potential to become much better, I also had a good male role model in my coach. He had the calmness, self-control, and present-mindedness that my own dad seemed to lack.
The other source of relief came from PMO since it gave me instant stress- and pressure relief, pleasure, and excitement all at once, so it became my new drug or antidote for every single negative feeling in my life at the time. That pleasure though, was mostly short-lived as the feelings of guilt, shame, and regret all poured over me after each session.

Unfortunately, the person who should have been the good/strong role model in my life that I needed at this point (my father) was quite weak, afraid of conflict and often absent (both physically and mentally) because of work and other issues. Hence, I felt neglected and even worse, he just trivialized PMO-use. Laughed it off and saw it as something normal and healthy for boys to watch if consumed in moderation. I soon found out that he consumed it himself and when this info reached my mother (after I found two of his VHS-casettes with porn in his drawers), he felt somewhat infuriated at her when being confronted with it. Unable to face the consequences of his poor judgment and actions, he just ended the shortlived discussion with a gnarly statement like: “Everyone is watching it, even married couples and that shouldn’t concern you the least”.

As a result of my crappy life at the moment and weak father figure with whom I couldn’t even talk or have deep discussion about my hard issues, I felt like the loneliest, most abandoned and invisible youngster in the world so I used PMO regularly to numb my feelings. As the cravings started to return on a regular basis, I sometimes felt like I wanted to disappear from this world since it didn’t have anything good to offer anyways. I felt trapped and didn’t have a clue about how to change or turn my crappy life around so I many times isolated and numbed myself by going outside running a lot (which was a good relief) and spending time in front of the computer. I was totally unaware of all the side-effects that started to pop up like buds during springtime and that would follow me for another ten years until my late 20’s:

-Low confidence and self-esteem
-Poor eye-contact and body-language (erratic and shaky movements)
-Negative thoughts and pessimistic outlooks on life
-Bad temper and anger management skills (little things freak me out)
-Poor social skills and social anxiety
-Feelings of despair, hopelessness and stagnation. Lots of self-pitying.
-Lack of clear goals and purposes in life
-Anxiety and fear about most things in life, especially others’ opinions about me
-Feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy
-Having a scarcity mindset (instead of abundance) regarding most things in life.
-Lower testosterone levels (one of the main causers of my anxiety)
-Problem oriented mindset (instead of a solution oriented one)
-The ability of blaming others for my failures and setbacks
-Having a skewed perspective on sex, intimacy and relationships overall
-Poorer texture of hair and facial skin
-Lack of motivation, drive and energy (especially after fapping)
-Objectification of people (not only women but everyone). I sometimes felt like a robot with numbed emotions and senses.
-Lost sense of manliness and manhood (due to lower T-levels)
-Watery muscles on my back, shoulders and arms.

And the list went on and on an on. Despite having achieved and earned several personal successes during my late teens and 20’s (athletic and academic ones) as a collegiate runner and student-athlete, something that most people could only dream about, I still felt miserable most of the time. I simply wanted to be the best (or at least great) at everything I pursued and if I wasn’t, I was essentially feeling worthless. I needed to show off everyone that I could become something great, despite having been bullied when younger so I developed a crippling performance anxiety over time. This kind of performance-anxiety and negative self-talk for many years did of course have a negative and blocking effect on my body language and vibrational frequency, thus making people feel repelled in my presence. I didn’t understand it then but it makes complete sense today. No one wants to be near a person who is negative and think poorly about himself and others.
Although that performance anciety started to loosen up a bit in my late 20’s, the feeling was still lingering in the background and I seriously wondered if something was wrong with me. It never ocurred to me that my PMO-habits could be responsible for much of that. But, so one day during the late summer and autumn of 2016, came one of the first turning points I so well needed.

To be continued…………

 

Maybe I did, even if I have know clue what it has been like. Fortunately, I was able to get out of the past tracks and move on to something better and greater. There are so many men out there who get stuck and stagnate for the rest of their lives.

 

Thank you! That negative vibrational frequency does not only increase and radiate out from you because of PMO. If you simultaneously talk yourself down, think negatively about yourself, others and the world around you, there will be a resonance-effect, sending out even stronger negative vibrations that repels people even more.

 

Thank you! The second part will be released at some point tomorrow afternoon (Central European Time).

 

Be lucky that you realize the PMO-issue at such an early age. Because when I was 20 years old (back in 2008) there was almost no such help, tool or advice to get anywhere.
Still, I am incredibly grateful to have realized this around age 29-30 so I can regain back life again in my 30's.
My best years are still to come since my SMV (as a male) is steadily on the rise as long as I take care of myself.

 

Part 2/4:

I was quite clueless but I did at least get one good starting point to begin after listening to one of my favorite political podcasts (which had a traditionalist/nationalist/conservative profile). In one of the episodes, they were talking about pornography and all its side-effects for the users, especially those regarding social skills and personal development. One of the hosts asked the moral/ethical question regarding porn-use: If you (the user) are totally fine with your own sister, mother, cousin, daughter, niece, girlfriend, wife performing in any of those adult movies, you do at least live as you learn (although you are quite weird and have low levels of empathy still) but if you are not, you preach one thing and do the other, living according to a double-standard and should really ask yourself why you are doing it.
I realized that I was living according to a double standard and couldn’t call myself a virtuous and genuine traditionalist/conservative if I was watching that kind of content since I knew instinctively that it was wrong and that there were evil forces behind the industry. Also, I wasn’t okay with any woman in my nearest family being an adult movie star, having other guys jacking off to them so I needed to live according to my own beliefs and values.

It was really that concept which really stroke a chord within me, realizing I had been jacking off to someone’s sister, mother, cousin, daughter for so many years. It made me feel creeped out and disgusted about myself, realizing a good way to start would be to quit this porn-habit for good, even if it would be hard at the beginning. Because if I did, I would have more peace of mind and also would never have to lie to anyone about me not watching porn. That was also one of my biggest motivators to quit:
The fact that I never had to lie to people about this anymore but could be completely honest about it and simultaneously feeling good about myself. All that lying to people about not watching pornography had also been taking its toll on both my conscious and subconscious mind. The saying: “God always sees you” has always been appealing to me since you can’t hide behind a façade or lies because the universal force will always see you and bring difficulties to you later (in one form or the other) if you do.
To stop watch pornography completely was harder than I thought at first and although I had been able to step it down until for the first two months after taking the decision, I couldn’t get it out of my mind completely. A few days before New Year’s eve that year (2016/17) I remember watching pornographic video-clips for the last time while also promising to start some serious self-improvement over the upcoming year since my previous path had been disastrous. Right before the fireworks were launched, I promised myself to at least start shooting for the following bullet-points during 2017 to get going:

-Stop watching pornography
-Stop blaming others for my shortcomings
-Stop pitying myself
-Start looking for ways to self-improvement and take the action necessary

The first three bullet points had been going well during the winter (but it would take another 10 months before I watched my last pornographic image) but the last one was the one causing me the biggest headache since I still felt quite clueless. In what ways could I possibly improve myself and how long would it take?
I know it wasn’t going to be a quick fix so I decided to take it one step at a time. The first things I did was to finding ways of improving my somewhat insecure body-language and average social skills. This helped me a bit as I started to feel more confident and grounded when practicing this better body language in real life. But there was still something that bugged about the slight shakiness and jerking in my motions I often felt when talking to some people (especially attractive women). I seriously wondered what was wrong as this didn’t seem to go away, no matter how much I practiced.

Another change I performed during the early autumn that year (after my trip to Australia) was to improve my diet. I had not been eating as healthy during that trip as I normally did and I really felt how fast that affected my mood, drive, motivation, mental and physical health. Still, I managed to practice some social skills and difficult situations since I was travelling alone without a working mobile-phone. I remember so well that dark, rugged (but crystal clear) Tasmanian winter night when I traveled by car to a remote B&B in the countryside and saw all the wallabies jumping across the road. Seeing that (to me) quirky and compressed Southern hemisphere starry-sky after stepping out of my car was amazing and generated a sense of freedom not having to care about work, electronics, or anyone else but myself and my presence in that beautiful Tasmanian landscape.
What if I could feel this every single day??

That upcoming autumn, I started to make changes in my diet by replacing many of the unhealthy foods ( processed snack-bars, dairy-products, meats and all products with added sugar) with healthier alternatives while adding more fruits and vegetables as well. I soon started to adopt an overwhelmingly plant-based diet at home while simultaneously eating at least 5-6 vegetables and fruits per day (these days, I am up at 10 per day!!). Even if I started to feel significantly better, I still had occasional mood-swings who could appear suddenly and intensely without any precaution. The prospect of possibly having a touch of a mental disorder of some kind (like OCD, Asperger’s syndrome or schizophrenia) was a thought that repeatedly came back and seriously considered taking a mental health examination some day if it didn’t improve.
Especially that awful Christmas with my dad and his new (and very toxic) woman was an event that drained me mentally and almost brought me back to square one overnight. I hadn’t felt that sad, despaired and mentally whacked since our beloved family dog passed away a few years earlier. My body, chest and head ached so much and intensely I almost felt an intense panic-attack coming which I had been having a few of during the previous years. They normally came in the form of nightmares in which I was stuck in some dark room, underneath a car, or the trunk of a car, gasping for air.

A few weeks after Christmas (early 2018), I went to New Zealand for the first time to use up my remaining weeks of summer-vacation. It was during this trip I seriously considered myself having a mental disorder of some kind because every night (after sunset) I still felt somewhat depressed and thought negatively about almost everything, despite enjoying the local summer-weather and a trip that most people dream of and never get the chance to do. I had no clue about why I could possibly feel this way. I was focusing on too many of my past failures, shortcomings and hardships at any time of the day so there was no wonder why I felt depressed towards the end of the day. I realized that I was entirely creating those negative thought patterns and beliefs myself but how would I fix and correct these destructive and draining habits and turn them around to something positive, solution-oriented and lasting??

It seemed like an almost impossible task but the answers would arrive more unexpectedly and sudden than I realized. Especially after my return to Sweden where I was faced with multiple difficulties, hardships and challenges all at once. Not only did the dark and gloomy Nordic winter weather suck, there were other things that were hitting me like a sledge-hammer upon arrival, all at once. Not only had my Super-bowl team had lost in the recent NFC Conference final (and its chance to reach the Superbowl for the first time in decades), I didn’t get the job I had applied for but also the fact my dad was about to suddenly break all contact with me and my siblings (because of his new woman) after accusing us for things we hadn’t done, I was close to losing my mind almost instantaneously. 4-5 weeks later, things with my dad (and his new gold-digging woman) started unravel and head in the wrong direction even more and the situation felt out of control.
That was the last time I spoke to him on the phone btw and I was faced with some quite serious decisions then and there. I couldn’t continue pitying myself for all of this happening to me, even if me and my siblings are not at fault. If I can’t get through and past these difficulties, things will never change for the better so I can either:

-Continue to pity myself, blame others and circumstances for my shortcomings, or
-Stop dwelling on my past failures, difficulties and shortcomings and instead start creating something great, no matter the effort or cost.

The first alternative sounded miserable so I decided to accept the second but I had (just like the year before) no clue about how to begin this path in the first place. I needed a real challenge that required some serious self-control and self-discipline but of what kind?

To be continued………

 

I had also an extreme social anxiety between the ages of 14-20. Sometimes so much that I would reject going to parties because they the thought of meeting new unfamiliar people made me feel so uncomfortable and scared. Especially since I had a strong integrity and didn't like the things that normal (blue-pilled) people valued and looked up to. Their entire world felt so fake and phony that I distanced myself from it rather than taking part of it as it made me feel weird and sick.
My teenage years was the worst time in my life but to this day, I am grateful for having been hit so hard early on because too easy of a ride would have made me too comfortable and lazy early on.

The best thing is that I kept my integrity all the way through and still have it left to this day. Most people pretend so much just in order to become popular, approved and please those people they don't like. Such mindsets are doomed to experience misery, unhappiness and great voids in their lives since it is built on dishonesty, lies and superficiality.

 

I am glad you like my content and breakdown of it. It is quite difficult to write and relive these moments but I do it with the intention that others can get something useful out of it.