genericname4403's journal

I decided to start a new thread because "New here!" didn't seem that appropriate anymore after half a year. I linked to the original thread. I will try to post here at least 2 times a week, maybe more...

Now let's briefly talk about the last days:

Thursday, 7.1.
The flatline is still very real, had problems to get up. The first day of university and not sure how it will go with my current shape. In the first lecture my performance was definitely subpar. After I slept in a 2 hour break I had I performed pretty well in 2 of the courses after that. But the worst was still to come, an assignment which had to be finished on Friday and which I didn't even start yet. When I came home I read to the tasks in the first 1-2 hours (I planned that I would need like 6 in total), but after that I had no focus at all, and this is meant very literally. Me and the guy with which I worked together ended up copying solutions of other people, and I am ashamed of myself for that, but I feel really empty overall and it is more shocking that I am not ashamed much more. There were times when I used other people's solutions when the other person and me first worked together and he corrected some mistakes or using other people's solutions on one little task after having thought of it myself and not finding the right ideas, but it was like a bit of help, and I first read through it to understand it, and then copied it. First I tried to understand it and then write it down, but I couldn't have one clear thought. I just copied it, defeated. Not as much enraged or ashamed, but defeated and done with the world, at least for that day. This never happened to me before, and I could always trust my thinking ability to serve me well, I always was the kind of "good student jerk" that didn't let other people copy, but only giving them clue for clue, so they had to figure something out by themselves. I would have deserved not to get the solutions and I now wonder if I should just not have worked on the task instead of pretending I did. It would not have been a huge deal, because there are a lot of these assignments and it wouldn't have had significant drawbacks. I think I didn't want my partner not to get points for a task that was my job, and I was probably also fearful of the unfamiliar situation of bad performance, the pride is still deep inside me.

I won't always make them as detailed, but today I somehow have to write out what worries me.

Friday, 8.1.
In the first lecture in the morning a friend of mine said that I look exhausted. If it is significant enough so people talk to you about it, it has to be bad. Both lectures I wasn't really performing as well as I'm used to, but for the flatline standards I now have to adjust to, it is at least acceptable. When I came home, I ate something and then went to bed again. In the afternoon, I went playing chess (this is my outlet for the achiever/competitor aspect of my personality, because chess might be about many things, strategy, calculation, memoritation, but after all, it is mainly about winning). In a small blitz tournament I lost to my main rival, if I am even allowed to call him like that because he outperforms me enough lately that it isn't a real rivalry anymore. I won all other games, but one player that was on the verge of winning forfeited because he had a real tournament game coming up. The good thing about the evening was that there were 4 refugees from Syria which were new and interested in chess, and I had the opportunity to feel like a good person again. Together with another player we played some games and clearified the rules to those who weren't as familiar with them yet. They were really thankful. When I was back home again, I was feeling terrible. I went to bed quickly, because right now it just seems to be the way that on every high there follows a low.

Saturday, 9.1.
Woke up late, and spend the entire morning (if you can still call it morning) either being in bed or meditating, sometimes I was changing between the two. I was getting calmer which felt good, but unfortunately, after eating something, I couldn't quite get back into it. I turned on my computer and had some kind of YouTube binge, where I watched videos that were generally useful and enbroadening, and still easy enough so I wouldn't need to be in good shape to get the most out of them, but I still think that it was some kind of excuse because I felt tired of doing nothing, although resting the mind will be essential to overcome that crisis. My decisionmaking which was pretty good the last two days (it doesn't seem like it from what I wrote but I feel like I managed the bad situation better that I thought I would) but this day I was not consequent enough to do nothing the entire day. Tomorrow I won't be able to do so, because I have to work on some assignments, and next weekend I will have an invitation which could result in me getting a scholarship, so no restday either. I will try not to worry about all the events coming in too much and take it decision by decision, but it won't be easy.

Things I also want to talk about:

Install and removing habits and relations to other people:
I have noticed in the last months that I would sometimes think negatively about other people because they were engaging in a habit that I was trying to get rid off or not to get into, the inner monologue would go along the lines of: "He is weak because he does X (for example constantly checks his phone during lectures)", "Hopefully I won't fail like this guy", "I don't want to be around this type of person" and so on, and it is surprisingly difficult to stop this inner monologue, when you try to have this voice stop you when you want to engage in such an activity yourself. Basically, because the human can relate to other humans so well, he will (at least in my example) impose his inner voice used to control his actions on actions of others as well. I have even seen this with motivational speekers and so on that almost hold slight grudge against those who don't try to use their potential or are OK with being "average". It is probably necessary to soften the inner voice as well not to become the bitter judge of other people's lives, but how to combine this with changing yourself? This will be an important question I will have to face.

Emotional numbness:
I think I can accept this right now as it just seems to be that way when transitioning from PMO to non-PMO, but I feel I have to face those emotions to really cure myself, and I'm not being able to. This isn't the biggest of my problems right now, but I wanted to write something about it nonetheless.

Motivation issues:
This is the worst of all at this point. For example that scholarship I might get, I have to prepare some kind of presentation for it and I'm not sure if I will get it done. Not a lot of effort, but first of all, I don't know what to present about (I have to prepare a discussion and my slightly arrogant but maybe justified opinion is that if the topic is simple enough so you can explain it in such little time and people can discuss about it, it either is just everyone stating their opinion, no meaningful discussion or no meaningful topic). It would be great to get the scholarship not only for the money (which would also be good) but one will also meet a lot of people that are more likely to be more similar to oneself than the average person, and I tend to socialize better with those. The problem is that I can't present myself as inspired, motivated and productive person, when I am currently just not that person. The timing for the selection seminar seems very unfortunate. In university, it is the same. I am not even motivated by the fear of failure anymore because of the indifference towards most things.

It is hard to interpret signals from your body:
Sometimes when your body signals you to stop, that should be the time where it is most important to go on, and sometimes, going on will make it worse. To me, it feels hard to tell which is happening when. October/November last year I was in a state of mind that would tell me to go in until the signals to stop are much stronger, but I was motivated back then. It also put me into stress and while it had some merits, the method was not very refined. Another method I then used was to go as far as possible without having the feeling of being stressed. I can't really evaluate how it worked because there are always so many other factors playing in. As the mood swings became worse, I only did what was immediately necessary, top long-term-priority (which was and still is resting), and what I felt I could do without changing my mind about it in a few minutes and quitting it with frustration. I still don't know what is the right approach and this will also be a key question of the next days, weeks, maybe even months.

To post some good news beneath all the struggle, I am somewhere around 60 days PMO-free now. I am close to breaking my all-time record (from a time when I wasn't even introduced to P), and the hope for a better life keeps me going. Right now urges are not one of my main issues, but I have to be very careful so I will be prepared as soon as they come back.

Kind regards,
genericname4403

 

On we go!

Sunday, 10.1.
Unproductive day, somehow felt like I was a group I was working with down by performing worse than I'm used to. There is a good thing about this state of tiredness which also bears a curse in it. It is OK to think about goals minimalistically, take the rest you really need, and you are really thankful for every little "wave of energy" increasing your motivation, although they don't happen that often. I'm not quite sure how I want to get back into it once I am out of this powerless state. In the evening I reflected and meditated multiple hours, which was very very good, I needed that. It didn't really boil down to a fundamental insight but it increased my understanding in many, more subtle points. I once was a fan of the "work as hard as you can"-mentality, which was inspiring, because it was such a straightforward way to shoot for your goals, but also seemed rather one-dimensional and over-actionistic to me, as I've always been more a thinker than a doer. Maybe those are excuses, but I can't imagine myself happy in a life where I am "doing" all the time, applying willpower when it doesn't work anymore and going on. It has a bit of a taste of racing through a beautiful landscape that you could appreciate as it is, and if not planned correctly, like solving mini-issues all the time that keep coming up and not seeing the broader picture. If the process of improvement you achieve is fulfilling for you, then go for it. But otherwise, I don't see the point. If the path is the goal, it doesn't matter if you are a few steps ahead, so why force yourself when you aren't in the right mood?

Monday, 11.1.
Better than yesterday in terms of productivity, but still far off. I think I have crossed the deepest point of the flatline and I don't know how to handle it. Today I had some time and also some energy so I could at least have tried to be productive, but procrastination kicked back in. This time I have to beat procrastination. NoFap alone doesn't fix anything, it just removes one of the barriers, so I should be able to fix it now, at least that's what I am hoping for. The continuous swings of productiveness and tiredness are also very annoying, I can't find peace with the state I'm currently not in (either it is lazy and a procrastinator, the reason why I can't enjoy this high, or it is stressing and the reason this low is as bad as it is, by burning all my resources). Good priorization will be key. If I learned anything from my reboot so far, then it is that you can't plan ahead in times of rapid mood swings. I will need to take it decision by decision. Today my decisions were not good at all, no workout, trying to work and giving up almost immediately. So frutrating not to be able to do the things you said to yourself or others. I shouldn't give others guarantees or promises in the next time, because I'm just not sure I can do it. Now, in the evening, I'm not sure if today's earlier hours were just the exception and I was just getting deeper into flatline and/or depression. A complete lack of motivation ended my last reboot, and it could happen again. I see myself drifting back into nihilism again, and I haven't found a weapon against it yet. Right now there are few urges, I will keep going if I can. I want to write something now that lifts me up a bit but can't think of anything.

Would appreciate any feedback,
genericname4403

 

Ugh... don't really want to write about all of the last week right now. Had its ups and downs but in the end I am stuck.
Today I feel like I'm stuck. I am unproductive, it is like having mental blocks. If I make a goal for myself I am so used to failing that I don't even try. I know this is not true, but sometimes it feels like one can only choose between discipline or disappointment to take the joy out of one's life.
I think I can "survive" the day without a PMO-relapse (although this one is the hardest in the last few weeks), it would be very bad to give up ~70 days (~20 hard mode). There were times when I fought this by becoming disciplined, and I always couldn't do it for too long (>2 months), it was burning me out slowly.
I feel like I was in this stage before multiple times, and in other stages too. I don't know how to break out.
Probably I should go back to being disciplined, but right now I don't know how and I don't know if this would make me happy.

Hoping for better times,
genericname4403

 

I don't know, I've got a few hobbies and I like them a lot. The issue right now is that I have too little time to do too much work, and that can be motivating for a while but can also be frustrating. I am switching back and forth between these, while in reality, I should find a way to be productive in a more sustainable way.
Today was somehow a start, but the day isn't over and there is more to do. Let's see if I can follow it up. The most difficult thing about investment is that you don't know if you will get something back, and there are always doubts.
My favourite hobby is playing chess, if I work hard I may find the time to get back to regular practice until March.

 

I earned the free time I have available now. I finished an assignment that is due every Friday on Wednesday evening/night instead of Thursday evening/night. It still cost me sleep et cetera, but it is much better because you feel less stressed and it is a good thing to be able to set personal deadlines.
The urges today are stronger than ever, I feel like I want gratification and my addiction immediately cries PMO. Although I am >70 days in, it is by far not finished and one streak of mistakes can cause lots of trouble. I feel like I have learned to deal with the urges though, there is always that reflection reflex, "Thinking before doing", it is really helpful once you installed a good habit. Let's see if I can keep my productivity, I want to feel like the person I want to be, and it will mean a lot of work to get there. But for now, I should probably sleep, it has happened too often I overestimated myself in "highs" and neglected important things such as sleep, meditation, workout because I felt so strong I didn't really need them. Well, learning is mostly about mistakes.

 

Most urges in a looooooong time. Probably thought about relapsing over once an hour. Didn't do it (yet), and I think I can stay through it. Very unproductive day in general, I am not quite sure what to do.
I think I will keep self-searching and the reboot going to day 100 or so, and if nothing changes until then, I will see a psychologist to check for depression. It is neither a constant thing or very intense, but there is consistently at least one day per week where I can't do anything and don't feel like doing anything, sometimes two, sometimes even three.
I am very inconsistent about good habits, and I consider creating some commitment device system to at least do my half hour of workout and meditation per day. I don't think too high of commitment devices because you essentially resign making it without one, and you could make yourself go through a world of hurt without any benefit.
I am not sure if the things I strive for today would make and/or keep me happy if I had them. I feel some kind of inner brokenness and I don't know what the root of it is, what should be tackled, and what features are only symptoms.
Today I am also somehow pissed off at these forums, the community can be really great, but it is also sometimes a bit of a circlejerk. I sometimes can't take the amount of agreeing on controversial statements, and the claims and wild theories about PMO and NoFap.
I could pretty much say anything bad about PMO and good about abstaining and no matter how false it is, I am sure there would be a lot of people agreeing, because of the sheer amount of people that want it to be true, that want to scapegoat PMO as the one cause of all evil and want the reboot as quick fix for their life problems. I shouldn't be annoyed at all by that. Sometimes I feel like it wouldn't make a difference to tell them. Sometimes I hate people, not in the sense that I want something bad to happen to them, but in the sense that I just don't want to deal with them. I don't want to be that rude. I'm not sure if I am making progress in regards to people.

 

18 1/12 years old. I am almost on one month "challenge-mode" (which is hard mode, so no edging and P subs, plus succeeding at extra challenges).
While it was only hard mode until a few days ago, I was so annoyed of not being able to workout and meditate consistently that I will consider the challenge mode as reset if I don't do my 30 minutes per day. Today I had to force me to do this (I woke up later than I should so I had to do it in the evening, which is not optimal) and this might already work. I hope I can use my pride as commitment device. I will post here if I fail the challenge-mode.
From then on my plan is to increase the difficulty of the challenge-mode in around 2 weeks, to tackle another habit I'm not making progress with, maybe something about my sleep schedule or my eating habits.
To me a big challenge will be to accept my own mistakes. For example I missed a meeting today because I thought it was at a different time and my entire day was ruined. I should be able to go through situations where I made mistakes upright and confident, focusing on how to avoid it next time rather than punishing yourself.

 

Really depressed today. Worse than before. Might search out for treatment soon. Have to reset my hard mode, yesterday I ran into P subs and was a bit to curious for my taste so I need to be consequent and reset the hard mode. No stimulation or sex scenes though, just nudity, so I hope it won't delay the progress too much. The regular mode is over 80 days now. On the positive side, I did workout and meditation for 6 consecutive days, that is also a record.
I'm having some doubts, something tells me that my life is worse now than before NoFap and it is probably right, however, I think my possibilities to make further changes have increased. In the last few months, there wasn't one week in which I didn't feel terrible at least 2 days. This is clearly not what I want.

About how I lost my hard mode: I burned all will power early in the day (after some tough loss I had to control myself every few minutes not to despair) and in the evening I didn't have any control anymore, I also ate more than I wanted and stayed up longer than I wanted. Luckily I did my workout and meditation before it. And it seems my barriers for a "full relapse" are big enough now that it is not really considered an option even when my will power reservoires are empty.

I don't know what the day will bring, or the next weeks altogether. I have important exams in a few weeks and if I wrote them in today's constitution, I wouldn't pass them for sure. I have no motivation right now and my brain works very slowly. I hope everything works out fine nonetheless.

Sometimes I lose hope because why would something work that never worked? If I failed to stop procrastination every week, what will it make different the next ones? I might spend my entire life with the problems and bad habits I have now. But I will try to prevent that.

 

Close to day 90. I failed to do my meditation on thursday after 10 consecutive days and it sent me back. I have some feelings of hopelessness, and my depression is not getting better. I doubt I can expect anything more from NoFap, good to have that PMO habit somehow in control, but my life isn't any better than before. At this point I have accepted I am in a depression, but I am still too afraid to tell people. As I get used to it, I might be able to in a few weeks.

 

I feel like I can't fight anymore, I'm so done. I'll just try to outlast stuff. I'm fed up with imposing my will to my body, the harsh control, the sadness accumulating inside me, surpressed and eating me from inside.

 

About today:
Today I made progress in terms of acceptance. I had a totally unproductive day, and remained warmhearted and compassionate towards myself. It might be the best path for me to address acceptance and self-worth first.
A common tip is to fight depression by doing something, so you will feel better. I think it never worked for me because I missed some of the necessary foundations to make the method work. I wouldn't be able to stick to long-term plans because I my emotions were behaving too much like a rollercoaster. If I can establish self-worth independent of results I might be able to make the hardest moments less bad, and from then on move in the right direction slowly.

This might have been a randomly occuring happier day I wasted with being less productive, but it could very well be the beginning of something lasting and helpful.

NoFap and too high expectations:
About NoFap, I really shouldn't let my anger out by blaming the method. Yes, the flatline hit me hard, but what did I expect? I came here with the expectation to be out of the PMO addiction (or at least the hardest part of the addiction) after 3 months, and now on day 93 (I will just declare it is, although I am not sure if I counted correct, it is rather 93+-2, but I don't want to add "around" and "approximately" every time), I am not addicted to PMO. I've had few other benefits, but if you expect too much you will be unsatisfied. Actually, the brain fog is better and as soon as I'm out of the depression my life could go into an interesting direction.

A few remarks about most of my posts in this thread being rather sad and/or pessimistic:
I just tend to have the most desire to write out what I'm feeling when it is the worst. Not sure if it should stay like that but generally it is a rather good form of emotional release (although apparently, few people will read it). On the other hand I might be clinging onto the bad mood if I always perceive myself as unhappy, so I'll try also to write here sometimes when I feel better (like today), to have some sort of balance.

About being >90 days:
Many people post in the success stories after 90 days, but I won't just yet, because I don't feel like there is enough improvement yet so I can be a good example for others to try NoFap or to follow my steps in some way. I would be happy to be able to confidently post there.

My toughest inner conflicts:
Right now one of the toughest inner conflicts is the one between "active recovery" and "taking breaks". Basically, the one side wants me to do something to recover, and the other one wants me to take a break to recover. Right now, I think a combination of both is necessary. It is especially important to make confident decisions, and not feel guilty for taking breaks. But if I only relax, my mood doesn't get better and work piles up. The best way would be to have some kind of release of any mental and psychological barriers and then just recovering in an active way that you don't force upon yourself, but that comes naturally. Let's see if it works.
Another inner conflict is how to proceed with my sexuality. I have stopped PMO and that is fine, and again sometimes I feel like if I don't start at least some contact with women, why would I ever, and that it can't be healthy to lock up the drive in yourself. At other times I am happy to be single, think that sex on its own wouldn't be satisfying and worse than abstinence and that it is unlikely to find someone, why bother, especially that there are things with much higher priority? I could still overthink it when I dealt with depression.
I mostly prefer the second alternative, but still, I'm not sure.

That's it for today.
Much love,
genericname4403

 

Today I wrote an exam and it was terrible. My mood wasn't influenced that much, but a few hours after it, it became very bad.
I don't believe that events determine your mood, the neurochemistry sets up the mood and then you find a reason how you could link it to the events that take place in your life.
After the last few days which have been great moodwise, it sucks to be beaten down again. I will try to let my emotions out, it worked out well last week. I could write about how I feel, but I don't even want to.

 

I understand how you feel (at least to an extent). I just had a really bad day - relapsed twice and zero productivity but just in the last half an hour I forced myself to imagine being happy and the instant effect on my mood is incredible and extremely empowering. I know I'm in no mental state to be teaching other people how to think but if you try just pretending to be happy after a bad day it might work for you too.

 

Pretending to be happy doesn't work for me generally. It is not that I'm in a bad mood because of a bad day bu the other way around. I think depression is hard to understand if one doesn't have it, I even have problems to understand after a few days without symptoms.

I'm not sure if I relapsed Sunday, it was very weird. I definitely did M->O, but it was when I was almost asleep and I was not conscious enough to realize what I was doing, and I can't remember actively deciding to ignore my rebooting process. The same thing happened once three months ago at the beginning of my reboot, and there I decided not to count it, so I won't this time. I had a bit of a chaser effect but it wasn't all too bad.
Does anyone have experience with this or knows what it means?

On the positive side, today I finally managed to tell my parents about my depression, this was clearly the next step in fighting it. Next will be to inform a few of my friends, visit a psychologist, and implement a few lifestyle changes.

I am still fearful that it will take a long time to cure and I will have to pick up the pieces of a shattered life as soon as I'm out of this state of mind. I barely passed the first exam I wrote this year (this is way under my standards normally), and I don't even care.

 

Today morning I felt bad, and I decided to exercise even if I didn't want to do it at all, and it slowly became better. Also wrote an exam today, I was not in best shape because my sleep was terrible and I couldn't focus, but it the exam was rather easy so I could work my way through slower than usual and with more mistakes than usual, but still. It was more than enough time so that's fine. I hope it turns out pretty well.

Tomorrow I have to hand in a report and although there is still some work to do, I'm confident I can do it.

Yesterday evening the same kind of half-relapse occured as Tuesday. I swear it isn't on purpose. Probably most of my dreams are about PMO/sex topics, I forget about most of them directly so I can't tell but I'm probably lucky I can't. It is really worrysome, maybe I'm confining my sexuality in some way and now it is so strong I MO in sleep...
On daytime I am now >100 days without full relapse, and it is much easier than in the beginning.

 

I can proudly say I won my first battle against depression today. I was in a good, motivated mood with plans for today, I already exercised in the morning (it does help, even if it is not a quick fix). Then suddenly, I felt how my smile disappeared, my mood went worse and my drive disappeared. I forced myself to meditate (wasn't easy at all and I had many breaks inbetween. As I made a little progress, I became more confident, no longer feeling helpless, and meditated further and then went outside for a few minutes. Now it is much better.

This probably won't work every time, but this time it did. The problem was that my thinking went into the "Let me alone, I don't want to do anything" direction so cooling it down was the right decision. When I'm desperate, I should keep in mind, that I learn more and more about the techniques to deal with problems when problems occur. Sometimes it feels like progress is impossible, but it surely isn't.

Today morning I had a lot of sex drive and while it can be annoying, this is also a healthy sign, so I will count that as something positive. Let's see how the day countinues.

 

I'm feeling tired right now, but otherwise it is fine. I'm not sure if maybe MO once weekly or so would be a good idea, I will post a separate thread about that question soon.

 

Strong urges, want to give in somehow but I see the consequences in front of me. I'm just not about that life anymore... PMO isn't truly an option.

 

I feel so hopeless today. I don't want to do anything. Tried to workout but I couldn't do it. 112 days and my life hasn't improved. I know it is the wrong answer to it but I feel like quitting the reboot.