Hros
Fapstronaut
Been quite a while since I've made a success story thread. Since I hit 60 days today, I thought I'd share some thoughts.
My first streak, which started back when I joined NoFap, was about a year long (2018-2019). Various life challenges which I hadn't been able to deal with in the best way led me to eventually go back to PMOing. Since then, for years I've tried getting back on the horse, but most streaks were about 2-3 weeks long. The last significant streak I had was when I started my BA three years ago, and I made it to around 80 days.
Last time I PMOed before my current streak was during a fairly bleak period of my life. I felt pressurized on every front, from having to make tough career and academic choices, to feeling like a loser because I'm not doing well in the dating universe (at an age where most of my friends are married), to having difficulty dealing with various health-related issues because of my social anxiety. I was navigating my way through my final BA projects and often PMOed when I needed a boost of energy, or wasn't able to fall asleep. Yep, in the past, PMOing, paradoxically enough, could both help me stay awake and fall asleep, depending on what I needed in that situation. But a few months ago I started noticing that PMO didn't help me fall asleep anymore. So I ended up pulling some all-nighters despite PMOing, and so though I have been aware since first discovering porn as a teenager that this stuff was bad, I realized that now the only thing I could get out of it was a dopamine high for one minute and going back to feeling like a loser than next minute. There was no added "bonus" of sleeping or waking "assistance".
Two months ago I decided to get back into the game, more seriously than I've tried for years. It hasn't been easy, and I'm still figuring out how to quit porn substitutes.
Other than realizing that right now, all PMO can give me is a momentary dopamine high which really isn't worth losing progress over, what's helped me the most has been becoming a bit more active on the site than I've been for some years now, and in particularly, journaling very often. I journal now most days, and sometimes more than once a day, and I've started being more open about myself and what's going on in my life.
At the same time, I started doing a bit better in life. I finished my BA projects and got to relax a little bit. Then quite a few academic opportunities and even a couple of career opportunities started showing up. Dating is still iffy, but I've also started going to a psychologist again, with whom I'm trying to take a different direction in how to deal with my social anxiety, which affects many areas of my life. I hope it'll work out significantly better this time around. I've also started exercising more, something I did a lot when I first started NoFap.
Way back people used to talk a lot about NoFap "superpowers". I'm a skeptic, I don't think there's really such a thing. But I do think that when you focus on bettering yourself, and put energy into not feeling like a loser in one area of your life, you may also see progress and success in other areas of your life.
So, good to luck to everyone and have a great week!
PS, if anyone's interested, you can check out my current streak's journal here.
My first streak, which started back when I joined NoFap, was about a year long (2018-2019). Various life challenges which I hadn't been able to deal with in the best way led me to eventually go back to PMOing. Since then, for years I've tried getting back on the horse, but most streaks were about 2-3 weeks long. The last significant streak I had was when I started my BA three years ago, and I made it to around 80 days.
Last time I PMOed before my current streak was during a fairly bleak period of my life. I felt pressurized on every front, from having to make tough career and academic choices, to feeling like a loser because I'm not doing well in the dating universe (at an age where most of my friends are married), to having difficulty dealing with various health-related issues because of my social anxiety. I was navigating my way through my final BA projects and often PMOed when I needed a boost of energy, or wasn't able to fall asleep. Yep, in the past, PMOing, paradoxically enough, could both help me stay awake and fall asleep, depending on what I needed in that situation. But a few months ago I started noticing that PMO didn't help me fall asleep anymore. So I ended up pulling some all-nighters despite PMOing, and so though I have been aware since first discovering porn as a teenager that this stuff was bad, I realized that now the only thing I could get out of it was a dopamine high for one minute and going back to feeling like a loser than next minute. There was no added "bonus" of sleeping or waking "assistance".
Two months ago I decided to get back into the game, more seriously than I've tried for years. It hasn't been easy, and I'm still figuring out how to quit porn substitutes.
Other than realizing that right now, all PMO can give me is a momentary dopamine high which really isn't worth losing progress over, what's helped me the most has been becoming a bit more active on the site than I've been for some years now, and in particularly, journaling very often. I journal now most days, and sometimes more than once a day, and I've started being more open about myself and what's going on in my life.
At the same time, I started doing a bit better in life. I finished my BA projects and got to relax a little bit. Then quite a few academic opportunities and even a couple of career opportunities started showing up. Dating is still iffy, but I've also started going to a psychologist again, with whom I'm trying to take a different direction in how to deal with my social anxiety, which affects many areas of my life. I hope it'll work out significantly better this time around. I've also started exercising more, something I did a lot when I first started NoFap.
Way back people used to talk a lot about NoFap "superpowers". I'm a skeptic, I don't think there's really such a thing. But I do think that when you focus on bettering yourself, and put energy into not feeling like a loser in one area of your life, you may also see progress and success in other areas of your life.
So, good to luck to everyone and have a great week!
PS, if anyone's interested, you can check out my current streak's journal here.
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