My Journey until now: A fapstronaut since September 2016

Hello everyone,

some of you may know me already, but I doubt that most know me who read this post. I want to tell you my very own story, summarizing my ups and downs since I began this journey.

I started this journey in September 2016 on Reddit. I was quite active on reddit, more or less. I am not sure exactly why I joined NoFap, I forgot it to be honest. I had many reasons, but I think (like most people here) I joined NoFap in the hope to get a girlfriend. It is a wrong reason to join NoFap, but I will tell more on that later. I downloaded an app called RTribe for my phone. I was active for some days there, and then the app created a group with some people who were trying to quit this devilish addiction. I met many people, and mainly the contact ceased after a few days. I met someone though, a italian-german who is studying law. And who would have thought that: We became really good buddies and until now we are more or less every day in contact with each other. We both had many ups and downs....

I want to point out the major changes NoFap had on me. I am talking from my own experience.

1. I became insanely confident. I am still really confident, and I have to say that it is a slow progress. But I can assure you: Anxiety is linked with PMO. When I PMO I also became really anxious (mostly, depending on the type of relapse I had). After a relapse I would sweat and become really nervous if I would talk to e.g. many people in front, hold a speech or talk to a girl. After a few interactions this would stop and never occur again.

It cannot be random coincidence that I am so comfortable and confident when I do NoFap. I want to say one thing: Drugs do have different effects on everyone. At the end, all drugs are harmful and PMO is, in my opinion, and according to many studies as well (yourbrainonporn) also functioning like a drug, that is why it is so addictive.

1: NoFap increases your confidence (a lot!) I am insanely confident compared to my past. In the past I was afraid of talking to people, strangers, girls and I stuttered a lot, because of anxiety. Thanks to NoFap this became complete history!

2. My stuttering ceased to exist. I cannot believe this, but my stuttering was severe ~5 years ago, then it became better and better. I had to push myself beyond my limits. I cannot believe that I actually stuttered in the past, but I did. When I relapse, I would get a occasional light-stutter sometimes. It was really rare, but it would also go away after a few days. This is linked with the first point.

3. I became really athletic. I started working out regularly. After a relapse I would always loose motivation to work out for many days, sometimes even weeks to come. Keep that in mind!

4. I got many new productive hobbies. Before I did NoFap, I would just play games. I will list all of my new hobbies which I acquired since I started NoFap:

• I become an official football referee, to earn some money. Currently it is paused because of my many exams, but I intend to resume it shortly afterwards.
• I started visiting the gym really often, weightlifting. I already experienced some nice gains and there are way more to come!
• I started reading many books, including self-help and also nice fantasy like Game of Thrones. Currently on the 4th Book!
• I started studying way more than before. You cannot call this a hobby, but I think it is appropriate to list it here.
• I also started doing YouTube Videos. I was really nervous on my first videos, but now I can do it without any problems. I also paused that (which was a mistake) and now the activity of my subscribers is quite low. I am currently on 4,5k subs and 2,3mil. views.

5. I made many new friends and more people do also want to hang out with me. I simply do not have the time, I have to admit to hang out with all of them, but it is still good, nevertheless.

Well. Where am I right now? I had many ups and downs and since 2 days I just feel myself sad. It is normal to have intense emotions, and I think that this is one sign that I am healing successfully. I had many long streaks. I had +-5 streaks of +40 days and my best streak was 80 days of NoPMO. But I would always do one little mistake which would increase my urges and lead myself to failure and relapse.

How did I fail most of the time after long streaks? It is simple: If I got confronted to sexual material (ads on tv, or some webpages etc.) I would exploit that moment and keep looking to that. That is one way, or I if would get heavy and intense urges I would not deny them, I would also exploit that moment and keep the urges alive in my head. And then? I would get, exponentially, more and more urges. I would start looking up videos with YouTube where "hot girls" worked out or many other sexual videos, e.g. "kissing pranks". I would either orgasm and release semen without touching myself (the effects of PMO would be far lower here) or I would go to the toilet and have some dirty PMO sessions. (The effects would be really severe in this case)

I remind you: Everything is porn which stimulates your brain. Even if it is a "harmless movie" and if you see half-naked girls or girls in tight yoga pants on movies etc. etc., then it is porn. It is soft porn, but porn.

I can surely tell one thing to you: At one point you can watch these movies without becoming triggered. I was like that. But you have to abstain for months, maybe even for years so your brain can fully rewire. You will develop an iron will, eventually.

I will continue my journey here with all of you, together. NoFap will become my lifestyle forever!

Victory will be ours!

 

@tylerirish Thank you, brother! It has been also a nice journey with you until you, but you are right: We just merely began to crowl and there is a long way to go and there is much to do! Let's do this together, brother!

@diogo431509 Maybe, brother! What happened to your older accounts, why did you stop using them? Also my YT Channel is nothing big..... sadly I was inactive in the last 2 months and the activity went really down, but that's life!