Day 200. Horrible ongoing Withdrawals

winningover

winningover

Fapstronaut
So basically I have gone over 200 days now without porn and my withdrawals are killing me, LITERALLY. My withdrawals include panic attacks and social anxiety. I know these are withdrawals because I am a very sociable person but now even a simple together with friends is enough to give me severe anxiety.

Anyways, I just want to know as to when will they get better? Moreover, any ideas to deal with these withdrawals?

I have been masturbating to porn for over 10 years now. No prior real sexual experience. And age is 30.
 
Don't panic brother. 200 is quite long a time and please do stick to it. As of your described symptoms, I share the panic attack one. But I guess as long as we keep exercising, going to bed early, it shall go away in its due course. More power to us.
 
winningover said:
So basically I have gone over 200 days now without porn and my withdrawals are killing me, LITERALLY. My withdrawals include panic attacks and social anxiety. I know these are withdrawals because I am a very sociable person but now even a simple together with friends is enough to give me severe anxiety.

Anyways, I just want to know as to when will they get better? Moreover, any ideas to deal with these withdrawals?

I have been masturbating to porn for over 10 years now. No prior real sexual experience. And age is 30.
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Panic attacks and social anxiety is part of recovery process. Don't stress to much about it. It's your brain freaking out and it will get better.
Here's how I deal with it on daily basis:

1. daily aerobic exercise (cycling/running/walking in nature)
2. 7-9 hours of regular daily sleep
3. diet (excluding all processed food and refined sugar to avoid dopamine spikes)
4. supplements: Omega 3 (fish oil), vitamin B complex, D3, minerals Zn. Mg, Ca, K
5. daily Wim Hof breathing and cold showers -> Showers are bloody unpleasant but work wonders
6. changing the way I think (I fell in love with stoicism: Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Tao de Jing -> It's crucial to adopt I don't give a fuck what others think or say of me attitude that stoics cultivate. They say You have control only over two things, your own thoughts and actions. Everything else is out of your control and thus not productive to worry about it).
 
Anyone experiencing panic attacks really needs to see a specialist and get to the root of the problem, which may or may not have something to do with recovering from pornography. I would not wait and see.
 
Ogikubo said:
Anyone experiencing panic attacks really needs to see a specialist and get to the root of the problem, which may or may not have something to do with recovering from pornography. I would not wait and see.
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Visiting specialist won't do much for you. You'll be rushed into EM, get ECG test done and if everything is fine, you'll get anxiolytics and SSRIs. That's my experience. Totally not worth it.
 
I am unsure how that happened to you. I am speaking about going to see a psychologist or therapist to discuss the panic attacks. In my experience, that does not entail what you have described, but maybe it depends on the location.
 
Ogikubo said:
I am unsure how that happened to you. I am speaking about going to see a psychologist or therapist to discuss the panic attacks. In my experience, that does not entail what you have described, but maybe it depends on the location.
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Panic attacks can look like you're having a real heart attack. My heart was racing +200 BPM and my blood pressure was 170 over 130 when I visited my GP. I wanted to get some anxiolytics to calm me down, but he rushed me to the hospital asap. It was quite hilarious situation, him being worried I'll die on him and me calming him down that I'm just having anxiety attack. Next time I got panic attacks, I just said to myself, f... it, if I die, I die, and heartbeat slowed down soon after. It's funny how strong can our mind over body be.
 
Fenix Rising said:
Panic attacks can look like you're having a real heart attack. My heart was racing +200 BPM and my blood pressure was 170 over 130 when I visited my GP. I wanted to get some anxiolytics to calm me down, but he rushed me to the hospital asap. It was quite hilarious situation, him being worried I'll die on him and me calming him down that I'm just having anxiety attack. Next time I got panic attacks, I just said to myself, f... it, if I die, I die, and heartbeat slowed down soon after. It's funny how strong can our mind over body be.
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It surely is, although, I am sure it's a lot funnier now than it was at the time! When I was going through a rough period, I developed a tingling in my wrists and ankles that stayed with me nonstop for several months. I thought I was losing my mind. Therapy was helpful in helping me understand what was happening. No one should suffer alone.
 
Fenix Rising said:
Visiting specialist won't do much for you. You'll be rushed into EM, get ECG test done and if everything is fine, you'll get anxiolytics and SSRIs. That's my experience. Totally not worth it.
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I completely agree. When I went to the doctor regarding this (although I was sure that my heart etc are okay), I had to undergo a long list of tests regarding heart, blood and what not. Everything came back 100% perfect. Then I was referred to a psychologist who told me that there is nothing like porn addiction and it is all in your mind. He gave me medicines regarding my anxiety/panic attacks which I don't want to use because they are going to give me another different kind of addiction.

I went to another psychologist as well and he told me the same thing that porn addiction doesn't exist. In my opinion, taking medicines to numb your mind is not healthy esp when we know that the problem is not because there is sth wrong with our brain (though in a way there is) but we are just recovering and our brain is literally undergoing physical changes. I think we should let it recover naturally and somehow survive this world in the meanwhile.

I have heard that meditation and physical exercise can help to tackle these withdrawals. I am yet to apply those.
 
winningover said:
I completely agree. When I went to the doctor regarding this (although I was sure that my heart etc are okay), I had to undergo a long list of tests regarding heart, blood and what not. Everything came back 100% perfect. Then I was referred to a psychologist who told me that there is nothing like porn addiction and it is all in your mind. He gave me medicines regarding my anxiety/panic attacks which I don't want to use because they are going to give me another different kind of addiction.

I went to another psychologist as well and he told me the same thing that porn addiction doesn't exist. In my opinion, taking medicines to numb your mind is not healthy esp when we know that the problem is not because there is sth wrong with our brain (though in a way there is) but we are just recovering and our brain is literally undergoing physical changes. I think we should let it recover naturally and somehow survive this world in the meanwhile.

I have heard that meditation and physical exercise can help to tackle these withdrawals. I am yet to apply those.
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I've found the best cure for this is to do tangible stuff with your hands, especially outdoors work. Old farmers who have done outdoors work all their life have been in the most perfect mental condition and totally happy with their lives when interviewed. Unfortunately, modern human has mostly moved away from such activities, be it chopping wood, farming the land or hunting. We are all glued to our screens inside our homes. No wonder watching high speed internet porn has messed up our brains when we don't use our hands (pun intended) and many of us lack the socialization aspect as well. But luckily there are other things as a substitution like drawing, gardening, knitting, playing a guitar, improving your handwriting, playing board games preferably with some friends and so forth. And if that's not enough, there's always the regular cleaning and physical workout. It all comes down to doing physical stuff with your hands.

And for the worst cure I regard mindless browsing to be almost as bad as watching PMO. It's not productive and shortens your attention span by reading snippets here and there and it increases anxiety and irritation. I do promote productive browsing, e.g. reading a long scientific article to increase your thinking process and attention span, but in general I've found browsing the internet to be one of the worst cures.
 
My current top list:

1.If you Christian already then you may find help reading Bible, praying aloud.

2.Avoid triggers, you have to make a trigger analysis about yourself on paper. Enviroment/tools, time, life situations etc, everything after you were pmoing, or places where you used to pmo, tools you used for pmoing. Avoid these as much you can. More you avoid triggers, less symptoms you will notice. At beginning it may takes days to become untriggered.

3.Avoid everything that can cause altered state of mind, hypnosis, meditation, breath techniques New Age/New Thought stuff etc. In my experience these techniques will not help your brain to love normal things, and in some cases they can be dangerous too. So if you goal to recover from PMO addiction I would forget them for good.

4. Reading aloud stories or anything, playing puzzles, playing boardgames, sudoku, calculating in head aloud, writing your diary on paper about your feelings, or what happened with you, hobbies etc. Make sure you do these offscreen. These are safe mental exercise in my experience.

5. Exercise, you have to sweat out addiction from your nervous system. Your goal should be find an exercise routine you can do nearly every day, for rest of your life safely. I do 20-30 minutes interval exercise routine after waking up listening radio, with 10-15 minutes isometric exercises routine before breakfast. If i got time I do isometric exercises for 10-15 minutes before all meals. As I said choose safest exercises, and progress slowly, if you hurt yourself you may can not exercise for weeks, and that big problem for an addict.

6.Avoid blue light 2-3 hours before sleep, avoid emfs especially in your sleep enviroment. Emfs can disturb your sleep badly, and slow nerve changes.

7.Supplements, if you decide to take supplements I suggest this site https://www.toxinless.com/ I found taking magnesium in homemade liquid form, and rubbing d3 vitamin oil over my skin the most helpful. Chlorella can be good if you got digestion problems, and MSM cream if you got burning muscle, skin feeling. B wise choosing chlorella / MSM cream seller, some of them sell you poison instead.
 
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Guys, if someone, especially a so-called "professional" tells you that a porn addiction does not exist your option is to walk the fuck out of there. Just like there are inept carpenters, dingbat teachers, moron doctors, and useless guarantees, there are also people with degrees in psychology and therapy who are as dumb as a bag of hammers.
I try to emphasize that I have been fortunate to have an excellent psychologist. She is not there to judge me or my actions.
I know I have been fortunate indeed to have such a psychologist. I know others did not share this fortune. But that doesn't mean they are all bad. If you have one you don't feel is the right fit for you, get another one. I have never spoken to a therapist who says there is no such thing as a porn addiction, but again, I feel I have been fortunate in those I have confided in.
 
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clapas said:
What do you think are the different benefits of endurance exercise, i.e. aerobic, vs. resistance training for PMO addition recovery and/or taming of its withdrawal symptoms?
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Aerobic exercise is better, because it releases endorphins, which trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine. Endorphins also act as analgesics and sedatives. It also boosts neuroplasticity (speeds up growth of new brain cells). Anaerobic exercise like HIIT, sprints, weight lifting is good for increasing testosterone and human growth hormone plus density of your bones.​
I include both in my weekly routine. 3-5 aerobic sessions (cycling, running, walking) and 3 free weightlifting sessions per week.
 
Fenix Rising said:
Aerobic exercise is better, because it releases endorphins, which trigger a positive feeling in the body, similar to that of morphine. Endorphins also act as analgesics and sedatives. It also boosts neuroplasticity (speeds up growth of new brain cells). Anaerobic exercise like HIIT, sprints, weight lifting is good for increasing testosterone and human growth hormone plus density of your bones.​
I include both in my weekly routine. 3-5 aerobic sessions (cycling, running, walking) and 3 free weightlifting sessions per week.
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Isometric or eccentric/concentric you think better, and why?
 
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