Crawling out of a ditch

Day 11

Another day in the bag. Once again, no thoughts or urges to PMO. My exam was difficult as expected, but I think I did alright, so that went quite well. After that back to revision for my next exam tomorrow. My effort in revision is declining rapidly throughout the week, noticeable by the fact that I did 3 past papers as revision for my first exam, and none for tomorrow's. I kind of expected this, as I noticed a similar thing happened for my AS exams last year. Hopefully I will work a bit harder for my last 2 exams at the end of the week.

Thanks for the link, but there wasn't anything in there that is secret or password protected without having to pay. If you come across anything good please let me know.

 

Day 12

There was a huge temptation to relapse again after coming across a very revealing picture of a young woman I met in real life, which got my insides buzzing like crazy. However, I reminded myself of my level of commitment this time and the benefits to me of not being so superficial. So I didn't relapse. Really crappy mock exam today though and I'm exhausted, so goodnight.

 

Day 13

Today has probably been one of the proudest days of my life. This morning I watched a film and just after quite a suggestive scene that already got my heart rate up, my mum and brother went out to go shopping, leaving me alone in the house. At this point, already horny, the most phenomenal urge came over me to relapse, as expected. I've been in situations like these before, and without a doubt, every single time I have given in. Well, I did decide to relapse. I started mentally preparing what porn to use, where to do it etc. and chose to watch the raunchy scene once more to get myself more in the mood. Here's the amazing thing though: when normally I would be anticipating the end of the scene so that I can get onto real porn and PMO as soon as possible, I ended up continuing to watch the film and next thing I new my mum and brother were back. This didn't quite kill the urge but pushed it out of the danger zone. I decided to get on with some work and relapse before I went to bed.

Just 15 minutes ago, as I was getting ready to go to my room, I was completely set on relapsing tonight. I was aware of my nofap goals but in that state I convinced myself that if I relapsed today, I could start afresh properly after my last mock exam tomorrow. I then went to the toilet and while sitting there my conscience got to work. I started debating how high my sex drive was at this moment in time, despite what happened earlier in the day, how bad I would feel afterwards for breaking my streak, but the thing that made me decide to abstain today and onwards was thinking of how good I would feel if I abstained on the hardest day of my life. It would be a new personal record, and the best show of willpower for me in my life so far. And I am glad to say it has been exactly that. I am just so happy I didn't give in this time I wanted to share it as soon as possible.

An absolutely outstanding day for me, I hope this can inspire some of you to stay strong, even if all the triggers and signs are there, because I have proven that you are the ultimate ruler of your own body and you dictate your decisions and actions, not anyone or anything else. Onwards to a better, stronger future!

 

Day 16

I was so busy Friday and Saturday that I didn't get round to / was too exhausted to post. However, the good news is that my new resolve has held strong and I have not relapsed in these 3 days. Temptations have come up, and even some strong urges but I am determined to make this time the final cure for the PMO disease. I'm noting though that I am having more wet dreams than usual, I had 2 on consecutive nights, compared to maybe once a month normally. I'm guessing that's just an innocent release for the sexual energy and hormones that my body is used to spending regularly.

 

Day 17

Overall good day. No relapse. 1 or 2 small triggers but I dismissed them with ease. Quite busy revising for test tomorrow so good night.

 

Day 19

I was too tired to post yesterday but all was good and I didn't relapse that day.

However, unfortunately I relapsed today. The reason was as usual complicated but I was having a crappy day and happened to be feeling a huge urge when I was on my laptop in my room. I relapsed, with porn as well, and of course this is bad, but I'm not too disappointed because I made a deal with myself before I relapsed. In my unstable mental state, arguing with myself as to whether I should PMO, I decided I would if I took a shower afterwards and started everything afresh, tackling a great deal of work tonight first. Now usually I would have ignored that deal afterwards and binged on porn, relapsing 2 or 3 times tonight but amazingly I didn't, and used my mistake to propel myself forward. I got the work done and have a plan and motivation to set all aspects of my life right again starting from now. I now look forward to beating this 10 day streak at the very least.

David

 

Day 20

I relapsed again just now. I said before that I wouldn't binge on porn but that has ended up happening. I had a really crappy day today and felt depressed, so much to the point where I comfort ate for the first time. I have a partial allergy to chocolate (I can't have too much) but I was so unhappy that I broke off a fairly big chunk of a galaxy bar, took it up to my room and ate most of it in my bed. I then had a zero productive evening, ending with PMO... and I still don't feel better. I'm just confused and depressed now - I'll go to sleep and see if I feel better in the morning.

 

Day 21

Relapsed again. Bit better day but still binging. I need to stop this. Any advice would be appreciated as always.

 

Day 23

This is really getting out of hand. Yesterday I managed to abstain but had a ridiculously unproductive day. And for the first time in a long while, I relapsed in the morning today. I'm just feeling really shitty and need a bit of a morale boost to get out of this binge. Not sure quite how I'm gonna tackle all of today's work.

 

Day 26

Right, so I've had several really shitty days with many relapses (like 5) which explains why I haven't posted. I love how I created the thread to "crawl out of a ditch" yet I've thrown myself into a deeper one. However I decided to get a grip a couple of hours ago, so hopefully things should improve. Should write a longer post tomorrow if i have time.

 

Day 36,

I haven't posted for 10 days straight on here, due to me falling into an incredibly bad slump. Without a doubt, these have been the worst days of my life, relapsing at least 5-10 times in this time, having bad relationships with people around me , deteriorating academically and the worst thing for me is that my spirituality and connection with my God is at an all time low for my entire life - which shocks and terrifies me to the core as I know that if I don't sort this out now my life will just spiral worse and worse out of control. Needless to say I'm feeling pretty bad right now, but I've taken the first step to fix things by getting active on here again and I hope I can get back on my feet. I'm not concentrating on abstaining from PMO too much right now - I'm just gonna try to keep posting a bit every day just to get my general life back on track and then focus on dealing with PMO.

David

 

Day 37,

Things are looking hopeful. Had an amazing day today to complete the most productive weekend I've had in years - literally. I also opened up to my mother about some of the problems bugging me lately to do with my feelings and depression (still haven't and never will open up about PMO - and I hope to get rid of it before it ever slips out). But generally feeling better and feel like my life has a bit of direction up and out of this, well more like a chasm now than a ditch. I have a plan to get my life back on track and I look forward to trying out everything tomorrow. Also, a couple of urges but no relapses today.

 

Day 42,

Thank you Gareth, your view is very accurate and to be honest I've never thought of it in that way. I will definitely look at those two texts and try to better understand my situation. I still want to be successful, but perhaps it is easier if you give yourself some room to fail and improve.

As far as nofap goes, not very well these past few days. I've come out of that almighty slump thank God but I still PMO'd 3 times in the last 4 days, although not today. I'm still a bit in the wilderness about my nofap problem because it seems like just one in a sea of problems right now that drown this out. Once again, I'll try to get back to posting regularly, but I guess you'll see tomorrow.

 

Day 46

No time to say much today. Not that there is any success to report. Relapsed twice over the last 4 days (but not today). Generally feeling pretty depressed about other aspects of life as well.

 

Day 47

Glad I am finally able to post 2 days in a row but don't have the motivation to write a long one. Didn't fap today. Pretty unproductive day again but quite exhausted. Urges getting stronger. Depression not getting better or worse.

 

Day 50

After relapsing once on Thursday, I amazingly managed to abstain for 2 days so far without any motivation. I got some urges, but I'm not sure why I didn't resort to the usual "solution" when I was so depressed. Anyway, its a good sign, and I'm feeling much better at the moment.

Earlier today I watched a clip of an old 1960s movie in a ladbible post that popped up on my facebook feed (I tried to find it but couldn't otherwise I would link it). In this clip two men are having a conversation and one starts to make predictions about society in the future which were shockingly right. He said that people would become more and more like robots, conforming to societal norms and doing what they are expected to. People would copy others rather than think for themselves and would waste their brainpower and energy on meaningless work and enjoyment rather than developing themselves and making a difference.

This got me thinking and I realised that so much of this is true. Many people today work in boring jobs that seem useful in today's money-driven society, but in fact are truly meaningless. For people more like my age, all the digital games on consoles, phones, tablets, online etc., and TV and films are in reality just pointless, useless visual stimulation to give short-term enjoyment; they do not help you develop as a person and just waste time that could be much better spent improving yourself. And finally, the thing that prevented me from relapsing today was the realisation that porn is a huge culprit of this mind-numbing effect, as it literally does not give the viewer anything but a bad habit and a twisted view of the opposite sex.

So right now I have deleted all stupid little time-wasting game apps from my phone and replaced them with self-improvement ones. I'm not going to just not play any games or watch TV again; I'll just be more aware of how I spend my time and concentrate on improving myself.

I hope someone out there will have been inspired by this knowledge because I sure was.

David

 

Day 51

All going very well. Just got a part-time job today and enjoyed working with my new colleagues. One of them in particular was a hot young girl my age whom I chatted with for hours (not with the intention of flirting with her or anything - she was just nice to talk to). I found that I had much more confidence talking to her since I haven't relapsed in a couple of days and it felt good being able to maintain conversation with an attractive member of the opposite sex without thinking about them in a dirty way. That said, after I left my testosterone levels were very high so I had a couple of urge moments but I controlled them and overall finished off the day well.