As you can probably see from my counter I have had quite a streak recently. I wanted to know how it feels and find out if I can do it. Also I had quite a lot of other issues which most of you guys here know so well, like social anxiety, lack of energy, even mild depressions. Well nofap helped me a lot (though not entirely) with it. It means even more to me, cause it was all hard mode. Well... till yesterday. So far it seems like a success story. I figured out two important things: 1. Nofap isnt some magical cure to all your problems. If you have a problem, deal with it. Nofap doesnt make you a better person, you have to try to BE one. But Nofap is a good start, and definitely can help. 2. Hard mode for a longer period of time is not really healthy, you are in a state of constant oppression of your sexuality, and your body and mind are starting to adjust themselves to not getting anything sexual. Which is a bad thing because you lose all your sexual drive, which is IMHO an important part of human driving force. And it comes with a lot of other problems, some of them were those that made you start with nofap in the first place. Well I have had a bad experience recently, which made me think of what nofap is and what it isnt. While it may be interesting point of view to some, it can be a quite a discouraging to a lot of folks here who need some motivation. People need to be motivated, i know, because this forum helped me a lot. I dont want to discourage anyone, but i want to discuss this a bit, and mostly I feel a need to talk about all this with someone, who understands. So maybe PM me if anyone interested and so kind, or if it would be ok, we can discuss it in this thread, which can be flagged or something. I dont know.
Of course it's one of those things that will make your a better person. I think he's trying to say that, you can go for 12000 days without PMO, if you spend your day laying in bed doing nothing, you won't be any better. poeta, congrats for your 108 days ! I'd like to know a bit more of what you think when you say that "Hard mode for a longer period of time is not really healthy" ? Doesn't your lack of sexual energy means your brain is rebooting ? I definitely think that, at some point in the nofap challenge, you have to show your brain that something else exists ( ; try to kiss, have sex, anything...) because stopping PMO is one thing, but this is abstinence. There's something else waiting for you now I guess
I have to disagree with that, to me, NoFap did came as a magical cure to my problems in some ways. NoFap did not make my problems disappear suddenly, but it gave me the motivation to deal with them, and I dealt with them. I think this is what it all come down to : motivation, and NoFap is what gave me the motivation I needed to become a better person. To me, NoFap wasn't a part of improving myself, it is what triggered my desire to become a better person.
I dont think of hardmode or NoFap as oppressing your sex drive. I made up my own words to use to think about sex drives or thoughts because I think this culture teaches us to associate sex with lust. Plus any "suppressed" drive tends to get let out in wet dreams, which has zero of the the side effects of PMO or MO, and makes you feel relieved.
Nofap alone doesnt make you a better person. It can give you the push, but you have to walk on your own. Otherwise you are sitting at home, alone, not jerking off - whats the difference? (ive been there)
Of course NoFap makes you a better person. Just the simple decision to quit porn makes a mile of a difference to ones overall wellbeing.
By longer period I mean more than 90 days or so (another thing I found out that this counting of days is far from accurate - you are not really rebooted the minute the day 90 strikes, thats silly, also everyone is different). The way I feel it, is that it has little to do with rebooting, it was like my sex drive is slowly fading away. I think its because your brain and your hormonal system is getting used to it. If you did hard mode, you know how hard it is. You have to deal with all those impulses and urges, which didnt get smaller, just different and more manageable (because I learned how to deal with them). And I dont see a problem with that. We are humans and this is a natural part of our life. But by going hard mode for so long we are trying to avoid this natural part. And that i think is unhealthy. Certainly it can work for somebody, I believe that. But it is not for everybody, i see a hidden danger in that. And by sex drive I always mean this raw, powerful energy, that makes you feel strong and confident (probably has a lot to do with testosterone). Not necessarily anything sexual.
Well, you're right I guess but I'm sure you need to go for the real thing now. Abstaining from PMO for 90+ days is clearly good for your brain, to help it forget about it, but rewiring won't be complete unless we have sex (or at least kiss, cuddle a lot, things like this). IMO there's nothing unhealthy about abstinence from PMO but there's nothing useful too, if you don't go any further. Stopping PMO itself means nothing once you've made it to a certain point.
Why would you want to MO again anyway? It will most likely push you down the Coolidge slope again back to where you started. If you can control it, however, then go on and do it. But masturbation in itself is a pathetic and useless activity for an ambitional human being. Having sex with your own hand is like having an expensive supper with candles and flowers in a 5 star restaurant - alone.
I agree the sex drive is natural and necessary. I also think it's tied to the desire to connect with other people. That drive doesn't have to be filled with just having sex. I think that's the difference between repression and redirecting. Repression is trying to kill the drive. Redirecting means using all that energy from the sex drive to fuel creativity, help others and give back to the world instead of always taking. At least that's what I try to do now.
Okay, in a nutshell I think that no one should impose their view on anyone. People have different value systems. Personally for me I would MO without P because P is highly addictive unlike MO for me personally.
My method is to view no P whatsoever. I'm trying (successfully for now) to curb my MO. And I am having sex with my partner when the time is right. I am doing everything I can to avoid M during sex. I am taking incrementally longer periods of abstinence from MO. I'm only allowing it by prearranged time slots. So far I have no compulsions to go back to P at all. I feel like a healthy sexual being who is there for my partner. Mind you I am only three weeks into this, but I feel healthy and in control. I'm not having the desperate periods of self doubt and agony that I read about here. The fact that I am a mature adult of 57 helps. But don't write me off. One month ago I was fapping at least daily for over an hour at a time to porn. I was ready for this, and NoFap gave me the support that I needed to recognize the mechanics of porn addiction. Thanks for all of the interactions that I've had with you all, be they agreement or challenge.
Hmm, you say that, but you have used porn 3 times in 5 days. Surely, this binge would be much less likely if you hadn't been getting dopamine rushes from continuing to masturbate.
Your talking about feeling depressed because of nofap. Maybe your not over the flatline yet? If you are clinically depressed, then ofc nofap wont help you to overcome that depression alone, you need to put in more work than just nofap. You say you suffer from social anxiety, that alone can cause feelings of depression. So yes nofap might not have been the cure for your feelings of depression, but there might also be some other cause to your feelings of depression beside nofap. Now might be the time to go out and try to have real sex like you said you just did.
No. That was one of the reasons I STARTED with nofap. Also I realize that depression might have been a strong word (even though I put "mild" before it). A couple years ago I was really (clinically) depressed and it really isnt no laughing matter. What I am trying to say here, is that it helps me to think about nofap as an impulse to change yourself, rather than a cure. And that you dont have to be so hard on yourself. One more month of abstinence doesnt make you better. Understanding this really helped me. Also nofap has brought me a couple of other problems, but I will probably talk about it later when I figure it out.
I agree. The NoFap Mythology (stories of how some people seem to get magical confidence and motivation boosts after a week of not wanking and immediately lose it after relapsing) tend to be confusing to those who aren't subjected to that much placebo, or maybe just aren't that much addicted. For me, personally, nothing really changed with 90 days of abstinence. I was just prouder of myself because masturbation was primarily a moral issue for me (nothing to do with God). And my mind felt freer from all that filth accumulated through constant shower fantasies and porn sites. This alone may act as a stimulant for making new relations with women (like you somehow know this is now the time when you actually deserve meeting a new chick), but I wouldn't expect a significant increase in boldness like you were permanently on high or something.
Life is a process. Between birth and death, you are constantly changing. You are never "finished", you are always in transit. I found that abstinence from porn, masturbation, any kind of "casual sex", and orgasms at all, is just a FIRST STEP, it is like openening the door to a new life. In the first weeks and months, you feel a boost of self-confidence, which comes from the fact, that you have changed something in your life, out of your own inner motivation. However, after some while, this settles, and your "porn-free-life" becomes your new stage. As I see now, the next step is to go towards your very own goals in life. Your own ideas begin to center. You set up your very own set of rules, and you some how become the center of your own world. Examples: You set up a company with your very own products. You set up your very own home and family. --- Etc.
Yeah, the abstinence is just a step forward. It's an accomplishment of what you always instinctively wanted to accomplish but were still swinging between doing it and not doing it, for many reasons. I call it achieving an integrity of will, where you become more certain of who you are and who you want to be. This certainty alone strengthens your spirit indeed, where you (re)gain control over yourself and can now use it to progress further. To spend something you first have to possess it. To spend your energy and efforts, you first have to be in absolute control over your actions and thoughts.
