How to overcome shame from recent relapses? (16M)

[glaze]

I started nofap about 7 months ago, I had been fapping daily for about 3 years before that. I consistently progressed throughout this year, and managed to only pmo four times in june and july combined. in the last week, however, I've relapsed completely. It feels like I've gone entirely back to my old ways. Out of the last 7 days, only two have been without pmo.

It's very frustrating because I feel like I've lost all of my hard-earned progress. I have almost no ability to resist an urge, and my dopamine-soaked brain is too numb to process any of the feelings that might be underlying my recent behavior.

I think one of my triggers is the shame from my recent relapses. I feel the temptation to lie to my accountability partners, and feel moody and disconnected from my familial relationships more than ever before.

I've been trying to be an example for my younger brother of how to live a healthy life with exercise, good eating, and overall freedom from dopamine addiction. And from his perspective, I'm doing just that: I don't use social media, play video games, eat ANY junk food, and have athletic abilities a physique that he looks up to.

However, when I look in the mirror after pmoing I feel so ashamed. I feel like I'm failing my younger brother, and all he is really seeing when he looks at me is a facade hiding my recent failure to overcome my addiction.

I've been exercising every day for at least 4 hours, and even tried to increase the amount I meditated today and took an additional cold shower today, and still somehow managed to relapse.

I want to drop all the shame that I feel about this last week, but I don't know how or where to begin doing this. Has anybody had any similar experience? I want to get out of this hole before I go any deeper.

 

[MrPriest]

It's all a matter of restructuring your perspective and how do you see it.

There is always going to be some degree of disappointment when you relapse, is a lost battle, but you have to zoom out and look at a bigger picture, let's say, you have relapses, across an entire year, 34 times, well....that makes having an average streak of 10-11 days... seems like little or no progress is there.

And truthfully, to fully heal, at a biochemistry level, it might be little, but is not neglectable, why?

Out of 365 days, you relapsed 34 times, meaning, out of 365 days, 330, you didn't PMO.

That is, out of the 100% of days a year has, 90.68% of the days of the year, you didn't PMO...

Compare that, to fapping daily, as you used to do... is undeniable progress.

It can be better? sure, should you aspire to longer streaks that allow more healing? sure.

Should you crush yourself and put you down yourself by shame? Absolutely not.

It's a process, a journey, an uphill battle, a daily face off against an undesirable behaviour.

We people tend to put more emphasis in our failures than in our accomplishments, there is always room to improve, and get better, but don't crush yourself whenever you fail, take each failure as a lesson to do better.

A healthy amount of disappointment, is granted, is natural, feeling terribly ashamed, and having severe negatives feeling towards yourself and your progress, does more harm than the failures themselves, be strict yet kind with yourself.

In the same way, the addiction and habit developed progressively, it goes away progressively.

You got this, it will only get better.

May god bless you.

 

[DevilMayFry]

It's also a very difficult journey. We're imperfect beings. We only have so much willpower, otherwise we're mostly our habits. Change happens overtime. It isn't a complete reflection on who you are. It just means you're human and it's human nature for our minds and bodies to struggle through change.

We see others and think it's easy, or that we have to be perfect as soon as we can, but we can only do so much. We don't learn and improve from effort. We learn and improve from falling. It is essential we fall and make mistakes.

 

[Deleted Account]

I completely agree with @MrPriest post. I can not tell you how many times I have tried to quit porn and failed. After each relapse I had just about every negative thought that you can think of. It was not until I changed my perspective to find the positives. As he said, look at the positives and not the negatives. As you stated you only PMO 4 times in June and July. That would be 57 of 61 days without PMO. Celebrate that success.

You have a pretty strong reason for wanting to quit porn and that is to be a good example to your brother. I would say the next time you think about watching porn and you are going to give in to the urge, think about how that is not the example you want to set for your brother. Say it out loud if you have to, "I'm not watching porn because I want to be a good example for (your brother's name).

 

[InappropriateUsername]

Don’t look at slips or relapse as a moral or mental failure. Look at it as data. Why did you slip? What were the circumstances? What were you feeling? How to prevent it? How to head off at the pass before you slip again?

Learn from it, don't beat yourself up--pun intended.

 

[tawwab1]

Think of your head as like an active war room with a round table with generals sitting all around. One of those generals has seen too many battles gone bad. He's seen what failure looks like up close. He's there to warn the other generals about what could happen if a battle is lost. To remind them of the seriousness of the situation. And he never fails to do so.

But sometimes when you lose a battle, this general gets too loud. And too obnoxious. He starts yelling over everyone else in the room. He dominates all the discussions. He won't stop mentioning your last defeat every chance he gets. And he's bringing the rest of the room down. Making everyone give up.

In that case you need to put your foot down and tell him to SHUT UP!

That general is your shame. Yes. We lost a battle. But now's the time to regroup and replan. Not to wring our hands over our last defeat. Silence that voice for now. There's a time and a place for shame. Not all the time.

Check out my essay in my sig on the topic, I've struggled with this for many years too.

Good luck.

 

[Deleted Account]

A real big step in your NoFap journey is when you realize that shame and unfettered frustration are completely unproductive emotions.

A giant leap in your journey is when you truly understand that all that you do, regardless of whether you succeed or fail, is all grist for the mill. The new experiences you make, the new books you read and learn from- both serve as an unconscious framework that will lead you to new insights in the future.