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Hello and welcome!

We are glad to have you as a part of our community. Here are some quick links to get you started.

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There are plenty of wonderful, friendly and knowledgeable people here to help you along on your journey to a life free of PMO. I wish you nothing but the best!

 

Hey Halpherisdusfrey, welcome on board.

I'd like to mention some things that crossed my mind while reading your post and also give some advice that helped me with the problems you are describing. I will try to make it structured and I hope that it helps you. I might copy a part of what I am going to write, rewrite it so it doesn't relate to you on post it somewhere else since I believe this is really important for everyone.

Analyisis
One very important factor of regaining control over your action is analyisis. When we don't have control over our actions, it is mostly due to subconscious mechanisms happening that we namely don't know of. So one important step is to understand oneself. What remains in the dark, can't be controlled. If there is something inside you that you separated from you, you cannot influence it very well. When it comes to the surface it can easily take action and take over, no matter how strongly we want to stop. Imagine a child that has needs and wants something. No matter how much the parent will use willpower and wanting, it cannot convince the child to do something out of it's heart. The child will either be rebellious or broken and learn to not listen to itself.
Well guess what. You have a broken child inside yourself that has wants and needs, too. So if you want to change your behaviour as a whole, you need to get to know this child.
This leads me to the next step, though there is no particular order to apply these.

Recognise the function of your unliked behaviour
We are all human. We all want to have pleasure, avoid discomfort, feel good, feel success, feel like we accomplish something in life. Society and parenting are systems that mostly don't satisfy those basic needs and drives we have as humans.
Maybe if the school system and parenting had been different, you would have made fulfilling experiences of accomplishment and would have gotten to know yourself and how to fulfill your needs. So, humans as we are, we search for alternatives to feel those things. We discover masturbation and it makes us feel great at first. We discover videogames and as a child it doesn't matter too much if we play alot as long as we get along with school. But then we grow up and realise that the things that we would like to do, we can't do them. Cause we learned to have quickly and easily accessibile pleasure.
So, knowing this, you could try to find out what function M and PM had in your life. I had a rough childhood and M was one of the little pleasures I could have. At school I wasn't able to do great even though I was smart and had the potential. What success did I have? I had videogames. And I loved them. And I had M. Where I could get all the ladies, in my fantasy and on tape. I was always afraid to take responsibility for my life. I was always making others responsibe. First I made society responsible for having such a bad school system (I still think it sucks ). Then I made my mother responsible for my bad childhood and the trauma and all the consequences (and yes she is responsible for everything she did, you can't expect a child to be a superhuman immune to abuse), but it is me who is responsible for how I deal with it. This was one of the greatest realisations I had. And before that, I would put responsibility to other women indirectly and directly. I always thought I have to find the right girl and if only someone were to see me and love me as I am, everything would be different. And I was keeping my old comfortable life by jerking of and getting high through that, not dealing with myself, my pain, my emotions.
Masturbation became one of the only things where I felt great, alive, dynamic, free. Isn't that deeply sad, but at the same time, very understandable? Facing where I came from?( Many people who didn't have the extremes that I experienced have the same issues though, in other, different ways, that can still be very heavy on their soul).
This leads straight to my next point.

Be compassionate with yourself and eliminate every factor that hinders you
You don't have to be ashamed. We all have our reasons for the things we do and have done. If you get to know yourself, you can start being compassionate with yourself, and only then. And if you encounter your little child, no matter what age, 9,10,13,14; Whenever this became a thing for you. You had your package to carry at that time. You needed something. You needed someone to take care of you. Show you how to get the things you want. Someone to be there for you. You can be here for yourself now. You can take care of yourself. Look behind the deeper needs you have and what hurt you had. You can grow compassion towards yourself. And decide to appreciate the mechanism for what it did. It kept you alive. You are here today. If you compare yourself to other people just think of two things: first, nearly noone wants to talk about the things they are ashamed of. So even if you think most people are better of, they really aren't. Second: everyone has had other experiences and circumstances. Maybe another person had a music teacher as a parent, and even though life may have been hard, they had an instrument and that would give them a lot already. Just this small thing, and maybe they never felt the need to PMO because of that. Or they had good friends. Or a good family. You know? They are not better. They are just like you. I am just like you. Just a bit different. Different circumstances, different choices I made. My mother was very irrational so I became very sensitive and analytical. Back at that time I did it in order to be able to read her quicker and know what she wants so I don't get rejected. That's what I needed to do to survive. And now I'm grown up and extremely sensitive and questioning everything. Because I was taught by my mother that not questioning things leads to suffering. Whereas someone else might've had slightly different circumstances and they didn't need to question so much but other things were more important. My point is: noone is better or worse, and you are not a worse person because you M, PM, or watch some weird ass stuff that conflicts your values. It has a reason. And you can try to find other ways to fulfill those needs. Get to know yourself. Start taking responsibility for yourself. But also don't be rude to yourself, don't be harsh. Don't judge yourself. Be patient, but steady.

I'm ending this here for now because I have to work now, but I will add another section to it and I will definitely post this somewhere else where everyone can see it as I believe it is valuable.
The next section will be
Resources
Resources are all the things that keep you balanced, that give you strength and power to move on, that help you feel fulfilled or anything near that. A resource might be playing an instrument, having walks in nature, having good relationships with your family or friends or a partner, some values that you can think of and really want to live. A resource may be sports, meditation, cooking, having a pet.
Those are all the things that give you a counterpart to masturbation because they give you balance. And being unbalanced makes you more prone to seeking fulfillment elsewhere.

Will continue working on this and then repost it. For today though, gotta have a chill evening

 

Yeah she is good I like the way she motivates

 

If you are not ashamed of your M, that is already really good. Though I think one can apply the same rule to your problem: Why are you ashamed of yourself when you don't perform that well academically? Is it because of everyone else having an expectation and you are trying to fulfill that to be more likeable? Do you believe that you are not good enough as a person if you don't perform well enough? You gotta think about that and be honest with yourself.
If you think that is has nothing to do with other people, but you are simply disappointed with yourself because you can't achieve and perform to your potential to be able to live up to your values, then I got some suggestions for you.
First, even though M has beneficial effects, too; It also causes a huge release of dopamine. Which causes dopamine receptors in your brain to be less receptive for a while. Dopamine is also responsible for your desire to learn and study. You gotta know: the brain is happy when it gets what it wants and doesn't see any need to give us energy beyond that. That's why many people live in a comfort zone and never get out of their mediocre unfulfilling lives. It's because it's just fulfilling enough, maybe they got their money, can have some fun sometimes, have their safety, and that's it.
I would suggest to you to try out and not masturbate at all for some time. Like 2-3 weeks and observe what happens.

Also, another big important factor is the "why". Why do you want to get better? Do you have a value, a heartfelt goal that you wanna achieve? Your brain releases alot of energy for you if you find something that you really believe in and really want to do it and have a good reason, a good "why". If you have something that your subconsciousness doesn't really believe in, your drive will come and go and you won't be able to sustain high productivity. This might need some reflection or even further help from according lecture (I know a good book for that).
If you want to study medicine for example but you do it only cause your parents want you to, then your brain won't perform that well. No creative inspiring energy, just you forcing yourself through, even though you might find it interesting or might even be good at it. But the real full potential comes when you do what you deeply want to contribute to society and learn for that. And again, dopamine plays a huge role for that, too. When you get curious about a subject and really want to know more about it and feel satisfied acting upon it, that is dopamine. If you numb down your dopamine receptors you might not even perceive this feeling, because learning is a way smaller dopamine feeling than orgasm.

If you have these two factors then that is a good foundation because then, whenever your urge comes to release your sexual energy, you will instantly remember " but I want to do this and that for xy, so I want to keep my Energy" and that will give you motivation to be disciplined. And then do all the things you can do now to get better at the things you wanna get better at.

You don't lose upon health if you don't M and put the sexual energy into creativity and your goals, and you got nothing to lose except a few orgasms, which you will eventually still have plenty of in your life.
Just my suggestions from my experience.

 

You have told me some important things now which let me reconsider my thoughts a bit. I want to explain in detail, why.

First of all, you told me that you already have a set career due to your dad's buisness. There is two important things to this: First, it is nice to have a save working place in the future with someone related to you, that will make sure you can keep the job.
The downside to this are the following things:

1. Your career life has probably been set early on by your parents, so you didn't really have to think about what you will become, further, you didn't even feel the freedom to do so.
2. Most likely, if you don't pursue what your parents want, they will be disappointed. That puts a lot of pressure on you. You are not living your life for yourself alone, but also for your parents (this is a really hard path and it is a path that puts a heavy weight on your soul).
3. What if you didn't want this job? What if there is something greater for you? You would not even allow yourself to think that, because you think/ or know that you would lose support from the people you love most, your family. That means that inside you, there is "ways" that you don't walk, because you are blocking yourself maybe consciously but also subconsiously.

So that is one thing. Pressure from family. (maybe you could add: and from society, because you need to have a job to get money and to not live on the street.)
Another thing is: You have a hobby, you like to express yourself artistically. Since it is the only other thing you do right now except from your studies, you think this is the only other possible way for you to pursue a career. But everyone knows: living as an artist is the roughest shit ever. Now let me tell you something. Only because it may be the only other thing you are doing right now, it doesn't mean that you have to make it your career. Being artistic is simply like speaking another language. A language of images, or a language of notes, if you play music. I'm playing the guitar and I love to express myself there, it gives life a new, different and bigger dimension. BUT. I would not want to make a living with it. Our society makes it too hard to do that. Maybe in 200 years when everything is automated by robots, and almost noone needs to work, then we will suddenly get a thousand jobs in arts and everyone will appreciate it, because the focus of society will have switched. But right now, focus is on capitalism, not arts.

Now about some more deep down personal stuff
And this might be really hard to realise. And I don't know if you even allow me to go that far. I will just write some hypothesis and give some suggestions, and you can see how and if it resonates with you, but you can also just ignore it, since it may change the way you perceive yourself.
Imagine this scenario:
A mother has a 13 year old child. In the morning, the mother wakes up the child. If she doesn't get up, she comes in again and reminds her that she has to stand up and get ready for school. She eventually stands up, goes to shower. After 20 minutes mother knocks on the bathroom door and reminds gently "honey, the bus driver is coming in 15 minutes, you have to get ready.". After the shower, she lays down in her room within the towels. Mother comes in, says "honey, you have to get dressed now" and the child says "I don't want to" - "Why not?" - "I don't know what clothes to put on" - "but look, you can put those on" - "but I don't like those" - "Which ones do you like?" - "They are dirty right now, so I can't wear them" ... The child gets up eventually and puts on some clothes it isn't that happy with. 5 minutes before she has to leave, mother reminds her to hurry up and go outside, and the child leaves.
Now, what do I want to show with this story? The mother has taken control of the child and takes all the responsibility for the morning routine. On a subconsious level, that will cause the child to believe that it is normal that way, and that it depends on the mother. In a way, the child will believe that it can't do the morning routine alone. If someone would tell the child, her mind would be blown and she'd say the person is crazy.
So even though the mother was nice and gentle, she caused the child to not believe in herself and also be dependant on the mother. Now imagine an overly protective mother: if someone bullies you, the mother always gets in between and tries to protect you. You will feel dependant and weak, you will believe that you need others to help you.

Now, to apply this to your scenario( and it's only my hypothesis from what I have read, I don't know you and I don't know if it is true):
You have learned that you are only loveworthy if you perform well and pursue the career your parents have decided for you. It means for you, deep down: The way you are is not okay. You have to be more. You have to do more. Only by doing something, only through "external" things, you deserve love and support.
This deeply rooted belief also causes you to see yourself differently. You say you are not a smart girl for example. From what I have read about you until now, I think you are very smart. That means I see yourself differently than you do. You might compare yourself with other students, who perform better, and therefor think they are smarter than you are. I can tell you, performance at school and studies doesn't have to do much with smartness. You can be the smartest person on this planet, if you don't do what you love you just won't perform that well. Or be the smartest person on earth but be incompatible with school system and first have to learn how to fit in, with unique learning techniques for example. There is many things that can let a smart person perform worse. Performance is not the measure, even if the people around you, family and society, measure through that. They don't know it better. They don't look deep enough to really see and understand a person. They are lazy in their thinking. "Good grade = good student". It's not like that after all. Good grades means = good at producing good grades. And I know that you want to produce good grades. Because you wanna do your best, but also because you have this deep wish to just be finally accepted for who you are. You were taught " if you only achieve that, then you will be accepted". It puts so much pressure on your tender soul.

And since you have learned, that the source of being likeable is "externalised", you also apply this to your appearance. You think if others don't perceive you as pretty and you don't see yourself that way, that means that it's normal that you will be ignored and that noone wants to do anything with you. Let me tell you something: You don't need to fit the modern view of "prettiness" to be likeable. There is a sad truth about how people will treat you according to how you view yourself. If you feel that you are spare, unnecessary, needless and a waste, then many people will feel that weakness.. and they are going to treat you accordingly. There is also a good side to this: If you manage to transform this deep down belief and feeling of yours, and respect yourself and find yourself very likeable, people are picking up on it as well and treat you accordingly.

To summarise:
At home, you feel pressure
At school you are not accepted and feel spare
If you look into the future, you see a set path

What a horrible cage, that you are in..
That is so much weight to carry for one person. You are trying so hard. You are giving your best. Look at all the weight you are carrying, and you are still standing, trying to improve. I believe you are a very strong person, to have come that far.
You know what I also think? That M is an island for you, where you can forget the cage for a moment and not feel it. It's a short trip to a land where none of the things matter. (maybe it isn't the time to push that island away. Maybe first you need to make the cage bigger, or get out of the cage. But sometimes even a bigger cage can already feel so much better. Because if you go hard on yourself and take away what's been mentally good for you, even though it has sideeffects and it numbs your dopamine; It still satisfies your need to be free and careless. I don't know if you should take that away from yourself right now. I believe M is not your problem. You even report that you do it so seldom. You can decide for yourself though, it is just my opinion)

If you resonate with all this, it might be pretty hard to realise these things. You might ask yourself "but what do I do now?". If you really feel those things, I would suggest you to get support from someone who will listen to you and understand you. A good therapist would be handy for that. You could work together on transforming your believes about yourself. You could tell your father that you feel depressed, because you can't achieve the best that you would want to. If he say's "bullshit, you don't need this" you can just say "please, if I am important to you, let me do this. Look how much I did for you. I try my best at school, I study electrical engineering to work in your buisness, please do this small thing for me that would mean alot to me."

There is always ways to find out of the cage. You can't do it all at once, though. You would feel terrible if you'd just stop studying all of a sudden and give a shit about everything. Gotta be kind and gentle to yourself and do it slowly, but steady.
Sidenote: getting out of the cage doesn't necessarily mean not going to your father's business. But maybe electrical engineer just isn't what fits your talents most. Maybe it does. But maybe you would want a totally different job at the same business. Maybe you would be a manager or a consolidater. Or maybe you would work on web design for the website of the company. There is just so many ways these things can be combined. But in order to find out which way is your way you need to get rid off the shackles that are put on you.

Also sidenote: you said that you are not giving responsibility to anyone.
But aren't you giving your fellow students the responsibility to decide whether you are likeable?
Aren't you doing the same with your parents? Don't you give them responsibility to measure how good you are and how loveworthy you are? Are you not giving them the responsibility to decide your future? And even if you don't see the direct causation: you might have adopted their values and beliefs, and now their voice is your own voice in your head telling you you are not good enough, not worthy, smart, that you have to do better.(And even if they are nice and kind to you. If they wouldn't allow you to do something else, if they put pressure on you, that will cause you to not feel good enough as you are. They might not even know this. Even with the best intentions they can cause it. Life is so complex and humans are so so sensitive..)



If you have any further questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

 

Dann. You're a really wise woman. I'm glad to see you don't see yourself in a cage, it sounded to me like that because you said that your future career is already set and that you have to force yourself to learn. That sounded to me like " others want me to do this and now I'm forcing myself through."
That's why I assumed those things.

Everyone has different tastes, and it is great that you value yourself and don't want to be mainstream. One day a guy will find you who values you, too. It's probably a thing everyone says, but it's also true; and you probably know that. Everyone telling me how many other people there possibly are just bothers me cause it doesn't change the pain one has

I wish you the best of luck to reach your ideal weight, to gain mastery of your mind and to be able to learn as you wish.
I have a book about effectiveness as a person, you might wanna have a look at it. Especially the sequal to it changed alot for me to tap into my potential. The first book is "7 habits of highly effective People" and the sequal is " The 8th way"
It gives alot of high quality information on how to become more effective and achieve the goals you want. You are really smart, so I believe you could understand and use those.
Just a suggestion though, since you are very eager, just as I am. Those books gave me all the important things that I need to know to become who I want to be and also to know how to be successful in modern society.
Best of luck on your journey;
Next time before I write hour long walls of text I will ask more things so I don't write things based on wrong assumptions
Thank you for the exchange though, was very insightful.
Peace

 

I didn't find my new girlfriend yet, but I'm already trying my best to be the man she would love to meet
It was a pleasure to help out. Thank you for all the compliments, gave me a warm feeling Let's hope we both find someone who deeply understands and sees us and likes us the way we are I really enjoyed this conversation with you, still smiling like an idiot

 

Hi @Halpherisdusfrey, all the best to you! If you want to join 'The Matrix' challenge click here ---> 'The Matrix' <---