Can porn permanently damage your dopamine receptors?

Same here. You will soon have a few days or even hours where you feel healed – or at least see some progress – and that makes it easier to continue.

 

The short answer is that nobody knows exactly why panic attacks occur. Unfortunately it is difficult to identify the cause of each panic attack - so you need to look for a pattern. What is going through your head each time you have a panic attack? Does it happen only when you look at P.

While I can't be sure, it sounds as though the potential arousal from the images could be causing the panic attack? It could be that your nervous system has been wired to react in this way over the years - only you will know for sure.

 

That could be your issue than.

 

It's can't. That's not spice drug or crack. It's physiological and had some protection so you can't hack it even if you abuse it. But your body may be in crisis like in hunger. If you don't want to be skinny or female like, don't fap everyday, like me. LoL

 

Can totally relate to this. Maybe it's the quantity and the amount of time period porn was consumed by guys like us. Even though we never did other stuff, we got high on this particular drug.

Yet, there are cases like us. And nobody has an answer or solution. The only thing we can do is, continue with abstinence. Only time will tell.

A severe alcoholics liver takes 3 months to a year to regenerate to its original capacity and to functionality but the scarring damage is irreversible.

And it takes 12-14 months for neuroplatic changes to occur in an alcoholics brain during abstinence. Where the cravings and addictons Completely subside.

A smokers lung takes 9-12 months to return its normal capacity and functionality. Though certain damages are irreversible.

In us porn addicts, there is not much of an organ damage like the above addiction. But neuroplatic and neurology damage(erection mechanism).
So I believe we will definitely recover but it might take a lot of time in abstinence and as well in re-wiring. Until then just live your life.

 

Is this permanent damage or temporary which only abstinence can heal?

 

Yup, that's what it does. I had about 10 minutes over 2 days – and it sent me right back to the flattest of flatlines. Didn't even enjoy watching the porn that much. So lame. But more fuel to not make the same mistake.

 

In Norman Doidge's book called "The brain that heals itself" he very articulately describes how each mechanism is divided into brain map areas. And if one particular area goes dormant due to any accidents or ailments such as stroke. The dormant map area is taken over by the closest sensory or motor maps.

This is well documented in stroke patients. But the brain map area is still there. So it's just like the old addage, USE IT OR LOSE IT.

According to Penfields brain map, feet and toes sensory brain map is located right next to genitalia. And it quite explains the foot fetish. As the gentitalia brain map possibly spilled over into the feet and toes map and hence causing the cross wiring of sensory inputs and leading to sexual fetishes of non-sexual organs.

So I tend to believe that, we have sort of over ridden the natural sensory input of genitalia and as well the motor function of the erection mechanism. Sorta short wired it in laymans term. So we jus have to undo it by being abstinent, until our brain goes back to homeo stasis and the neuroplatic changes and healings occur for the addictons to weed out and then we need to re-train/ re-wire with our partner as long as it takes. Teach your brain how to USE IT as it was intended to. By getting aroused through touch, smell, visual cues and not by oral or hand stimulation. And the following advice is controversial, even am skeptical about it but I believe it's better strategy than no strategy at all, I feel the use of pills for some months to sustain erections will accelerate in retraining your brain to get aroused to your partner or a female physical body by her touch, smell and visual cues. And the more you do, it sticks in the brain. And slowly reduce the pills and finally no pills at all. But there is one catch, you just don't become to reliant or so worked up and become anxious about it. Especially when you are weaning of it. Because that might become performance anxiety. Again, this is just my opinion. When the time comes, I intend to try this strategy.


So in my humble opinion, we have been absuing our brains for so many years. And we sorta messed up our brain map and neurotransmitters levels and receptors. To undo the damage, to get our brain to homeostatic state and re-train(re-wiring) our brain to get aroused in the way it is intended to. It will take considerable amount of time in worst cases like us, but it is definitely possible. After all erection is a default mechanism, hardwired in us since the dawn of man.

And to ans your question. Its definitely a temporary damage. But with a irreversible damage left in our brains, which is the blueprint of PMO and PIED. Whenever you go back to it, both pathways will re-ignite. Hence, many of them go through pied even after they have recovered because they relapsed to porn and fired the old pathways. Again, this is just my theory.

 

That is why you never look at it again. You are done with it for life. And don't worry, if it was jus one brief moment. You will be back to normal. Jus don't overthink and become anxious especially when you're with your partner or in a sexual setting. That becomes a loop again. If you're partner is aware and understanding of the whole issue, you have ready won half the battle. Because she is going to be the key element in your full recovery.

 

About 5/6 weeks.

 

Well, I must say if there's one thing I'm glad is that there are at least 2-3 other people than me in this topic who have masturbated to porn and inadvertently put themselves into a flatline. Not that I think that's great mind you, we're recovering porn addicts after all.

I truly felt alone in that regard in that all of these friggin' recovery stories of going into flatline after quitting porn only. It made me felt like I can't find many stories of people flatlining after an orgasm to porn. Because this is how I was made aware that I have a problem and I've been OCDing over it.

So in a sense I want to say - thank you for not making me feel too alone (in a sense).

 

Are you in School?? If so, can you study with brain fog or none at all???

 

1. Not in school now.

2. When I try to do self-study, I am slow to catch onto new concepts and it affects my confidence. Might be due to brain fog.

Fuck this Porn. I'm so done.

 

I think I said this already. I've reached a phase 6 months ago or so where I remembered a state of one of a P escalation. I thought 1 relapse wasn't going so bad. Wrong!
After the deed, I was confused, exhausted, lacking coordination... It's like all my grey or white matter spiraled out after that 1 relapse. Since then I am unable to complete 30 days. It's 1 week to 3 weeks max.
I think our brain may not be the same ever again before the PMO addiction. We might heal but not 100% capacity.

 

Can I take the time to say that this is false but also that this can be a dangerous message for this forum. Nowhere in the land of NoFap has somebody come out of a reboot with their brain permanently damaged. Not that I am aware of anyway.

Your brain is not damaged. I repeat: your brain is not damaged.

Think logically: if you abstain from PMO for a long period of time, then relapse and find that your relapse symptoms are worse than before - PMO is very likely not your main issue. There is something else at play that you have not addressed.

Going streak after streak, year after year and experiencing worsening relapse symptoms is a major red flag. Your relapse symptoms should be improving, even if gradually.

 

Not damaged per say but not at the same rate as before the addiction...

 

The brain is neural plastic. It will change itself through growth and reorganisation.

You might be worrying about the wrong thing. Maybe focus on why your symptoms are getting worse rather than better. The fundamentals of how the brain works is really just a distraction from the real problem at hand - your urges for dopamine and the desire(s) that lies behind it.

 

So you still haven’t healed?

Sounds like it is permanent then