hello everybody

I've tried NoFap for about six months. When I first did it was torture, but it got easier going on a streak. Despite my improvement, I haven't been able to break 12 days. This is a difficult challenge for me, given that I'm a teen in high school. However, I will try my hardest to beat 90 days this time. If anyone has any advice I would appreciate it.

For my background, I discovered P back in elementary school (probably third grade) after searching "naked people" in Google Images but I was too freaked down and didn't know what M was. I discovered how to M in fifth grade and in 6th grade my PMO habit was wild. Everyday after school I would watch a video to "reward myself". I probably PMO'd 5-6 times a week during this time. I didn't belong to any friend group, was miserable, but all I cared about were grades. That year felt easy to me so I decided not to change anything about it. I started feeling shame about it during 7th grade so my P usage went down but I still MO'd 5-6 times a week. 8th grade felt very stressful so I sorta went back to regular PMO. On my worst days throughout middle school I would PMO twice or even three times.

High school was a bit different. I still PMO'd 3-4 times a week up until January 2018 - that's when I completely cut P off from my life for the next sixth months. I had a very good feeling that none of my other friends were PMOing themselves. However, I found out how wrong I was when we made a group chat and started sharing a lot of details. The idea that my friends also had my habit unfortunately fooled me into thinking that it was acceptable to PMO when that's far from reality.

You could argue that I'm not a PMO addict since I only did it once a day, but I was super attached to NSFW reddit threads that gave me way too much dopamine. That felt like a replacement but I knew that it wasn't enough. My grades in school are still pretty good but there is always a few tests here and there that I flunked and that didn't felt awful. I tried to figure out how to study by buying books and researching online but my motivation was (and unfortunately still is) rock bottom.

At the moment, I am on a 6 day streak. I felt very stressed out about school and I knew that my dopamine levels were quite screwed up. I hate taking risks in life and that's something I want to change. I want to have the confidence to talk to people in my school, especially girls. I don't want to keep my childhood problem of frequently stumbling over my words stop me from talking to others.

Yesterday I took the challenge of biking 40 miles with my buddies. It took a lot of grit and mental toughness, and there were even times I felt like giving up, but I made it all the way to my house. I felt incredibly rewarded, and I instantly knew that NoFap played a big role in making the day so memorable. When my cousin came over for dinner, again, NoFap helped me talk smoothly with him. We had very invigorating conversations.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.