To start, Hello. I feel that typing this out will be therapeutic for me. There’s something about wanting to type all I have inside my head to try to clear the gunk left behind cause of my PMO addiction. I’ve been reading materials on this subject. I found NoFap on Reddit, and found a couple of books on PMO, specifically “Your Brain on Porn,” and “The Porn Trap.” Then on one of the forums a came a cross another book by Soaring Eagle: Rebooting as the best Remedy, translated by NoFap user: HMHU. It’s a great read. As I began to read that book it literally touched on the majority of my personal struggles with PMO. Honestly, I have really never tried abstaining from PMO for a long period of time. Mainly, I didn’t I had a problem. I read the health benefits, and the fact that it’s a normal thing for men to do. Except, that there’s a dark side to PMO which took me down the rabbit hole into other things. Things that I have been ashamed of for years. I’ve fallen into the deepest and darkest depression ever. My brain is constantly foggy, my concentration is non-existent. Memory retention is shot, especially my short-term memory. I’ve lost purpose, drive, relationships, jobs, and the biggest thing is self-belief. I’ve blamed my depression on all the things stated above. I began to wonder if I got involved in my PMO addiction because I was depressed early in my childhood, or did my depression start because of my PMO addiction. I’m beginning to realize that my PMO has been the biggest factor in my life. I’ve been dealing with my PMO addiction for over 35 years. I’d have to say that my curiosity began in my childhood, into my adolescence, and then into my adulthood. I have to say that my PMO addiction ruined my existence. It caused me to have ED in my teenage years when I began to be sexually active. Then I got married young, and affected my marriage which it led to my divorce. Then it spiraled from there. Some seek drugs, and/or alcohol—I seek’d out porn. That was my go to mental and physical drug of choice. Along the way I’ve lost self-respect, self-belief in my existence. I lost marriage years ago because my PMO was better than having relations with my wife. Then when I was single again, I saw every woman I met with porn goggles. In my mind I saw women as sex objects, which is hard not to do. I had better sex with some of these women if I imagined them as the women I saw in porn. It’s crazy how the mind works. Anyhow, I’ve been unable build a relationship because of my PMO. I’ve felt that I can’t be of any value for these women. I’ve had issues with PiED so many times I’ve lost count. I’ve gotten to the point that it’s made me become emotional because of how broken I feel. My depression has taken me to the brink of suicide. I’ve felt that the only way to end my misery is to end my miserable existence. Then I think, “Ok, one more day.” I can keep on going and going, but who’s going to read it? Haha. Anyhow, to end this intro I’ve lost more than I can ever imagine. As I stated before, I lost my marriage, and have lost other relationships, and potential relationships. I’ve lost jobs, I’ve lost money, I’ve lost connection with people, I’ve lost my sanity to an extent. I’ve lost the years of being a better Father to my kid, a better sibling, and a better son. I’ve cheated myself from a life I could’ve created for myself but not fulfilled because of my PMO addiction. I don’t know if my life is salvageable. I’ve lost a lot along the way. Everyday is a struggle to go on, it really is. But hey, I guess, I’m here so I’ll keep on chugging’ along. Finding NoFap is a start. Doing the challenges is a start. As of now, I started my No PMO challenge for the next 30 days, if possible. I started Nov. 1 , Then I’ll take it from there. Well, thanks for reading and good luck to all of you.
Hi nachoooooo and welcome toNofap! Love that movie btw! gonna download it again right now! Maybe there were things happening previously to PMO that were unpleasant in your life? We all have a root cause, even though it might not seem clear initially. I think this is part of the recovery process for top end long-term moderate/severe users, where it's been going on so for long that PMo appears to be the biggest problem, and yeah, definitely, in ways it does seem that way. But for me at least, I've found the unfolding is a process of self-introspection that has revealled the true root cause of my pmo-ing and other avoidance behaviours as simply being the result of me being pushed away by people throughout my life. In respeonse to all that pushing away from others, I learned to push my true core self away from my true core self. I have been consistantly been pushing myself away from myself throughout my life by using drugs, alcohol, pmo, smoking and other OCDs. They have all been my dysfunctional way to avoid myself and push my true self away from my true self, just like so many people in jy life pushed me away. I'm not saying that the roots to your story are the same as my story. Not at all. But I am wondering if there is just a little more to your story, behind pmo that is. I realise that PMo becomes the main stopry because of it's overwhelming presence in our lives. It's a given. But for em at least, it's not the biggest factor. It just seems that way. This idea really hit home after reading 'The Porn Trap' by Malzt and Maltz where they explored a few indiiduals histroies where those people finally realised that porn has nothing to dow ith their problems. It's an interesting read. Anyway, welcome to nofap. I'm interested in learning more from you. Warmest
PeacefulmindFearlessHeart, Thanks for reading my introduction, and your response. I’ll get into writing about some personal things. I apologize if it’s all over the place. That’s how my brain has worked for years now, Haha. You’re correct about unpleasant things in our lives that trigger an escape from our reality. I’ve definitely gone through digging deep into my own history to find out why I went down the path I did of PMO-ing. Fortunately, I was never physically or mentally abused. I did grow up without confidence as a kid. Being of the Latino culture maybe affected me in a certain way. What I mean by that is that I grew up feeling less-than my counterparts. It’s just something I realized I had in my household. My parents had no confidence and felt less than because of the culture and language barrier. My own story is that I was an extremely shy kid growing up. I remember feeling inferior at a young age; even though I had no idea what being inferior was at that stage of life. This fat-kid, Latino kid, liked girls, and I was attracted to white girls, specifically. But those girls didn’t like this fat-Latino-kid. I can laugh about it now. Remember that new version of the movie “It.” That fat-kid that likes the redhead in their group. Where she thinks he’s just adorable but not her type? That was my kind of experiences, haha. As I analyze my past I also recall growing up with 90% of female cousins. So it’s possible that being around them made me much more curious about females. As I stated in my introduction, this curiosity into sex started in my childhood. In adolescence is when my urges skyrocketed to the the ether of so PMO pleasure that I was hooked, and have been hooked for so many years. I know that I’ve completely destroyed many aspects of my existence. It short—It sucks, it really-really sucks. Because I’ve been in this mess for so long that I can probably go a year without, and I don’t think I can reverse so much of the damage I’ve cause my mind, body and soul. Don’t mean to be a downer about it, haha. But I’m willing to attempt to salvage what I can. Well, that’s all for now. I hope I didn’t bore you.
