New to NoFap. Just the fact that this community exists gives me hope

Hi Everyone,

New member here from Orlando. I signed up a few days ago and I have been reading and getting ready for today.

As of midnight EST, I am committed. Its only been 40 minutes but it feels like taking the first step climbing Mount Everest and even though I am motivated right now, I know that things are going to get serious and rough very soon.

The past month has been very self-awakening. I don't want to write a novel on my first post but several non-critical and what I would consider "trivial" events started a chain reaction that escalated into a personal nightmare and brought an unexpected clarity and focus to my mind and life at a time where it seemed like there is no escape. Everything is still terrible beyond the things I share here. But this is the first time I feel like even though everything is bad...there is a glimmer of light that just lit up like a faint candle far far away that I can at least turn to and take a step toward.

My addiction started when I was 8 years old. I will write that story in a later post perhaps... Its actually not a bad or at the time "mentally scarring" event. Some might even consider it funny. I sure did. But it was the first tiny "pebble" that triggered and transformed into an avalanche as the time went on.

Porn and the conquest for porn has been in my life for more than 2 decades. In most cases without me even realizing it. Even during all of my earlier relationships, marriage and relationships after my marriage ended, the compulsive need to feed the addiction was always there. But it was always "the thing I do"...it was never important and I thought it did not affect my life besides:

maybe making me lose some hours here and there...

then perhaps skip the gym because I am working out my right arm today at home...

or maybe miss a deadline for a project.... (you see where I am going with this)

or cancel a date you really hoped for and make up and excuse so I can stay home and have some quality "self reflection period"...

watch the sexual dysfunctions that are clear as a daylight start happening and start destroying my intimacy with my girlfriend of 3 years and try to understand whats happening.

or maybe let it become the one thing that made you believe that it was a great solution to all personal, financial, social stress....better than the anti depressants, the mood equalizers and the Adderall I was prescribed about a year ago because somehow I could not function otherwise.

While all of this time not realizing that this addiction WAS the hidden cause almost all of the negative events.

The more I read and watched the member videos over the past few weeks and since I joined, everything started to click and it started to become clear while it was also getting so scary and exponentially daunting. Its almost like you had a lifelong illness that was to nicely hidden as a part of your being... and you go to a doctor and they explain to you how serious and real this is...then you panic...and then go thru the cycle of emotions.

A few days ago, I sat down an did a rough calculation of how much of my life I wasted to porn. My estimate on paper shocked and scared me. The estimated number was:

30660 HOURS

which is

1277 DAYS

which is

3.5 YEARS

which is almost

1/10 TH OF MY ENTIRE LIFE TO DATE

The numbers are depressing beyond my expectations.

It is like getting hit by a train to realize that. I am also shocked that I have NEVER even thought about making this calculation even once in my life before.

It is true that it takes about 5000 hrs put into anything to become a "master" at it. Which I believe and makes clear sense. Realizing the wasted potential is sad and currently takes me to dark spot.

As a "knee-jerk" reflex, I decided to delete my "porn collection". Its no different than seeing someone throw their cigarettes in trash. You just never know if they have 10 more packs at home. It means well but its for no use.

When I started the process of deleting of porn I accumulated, I had even more shocking awakenings.

Firstly, I am an entrepreneur and run several companies from our office. I have my private workstation on which I have everything work related...as well as this "collection". I update my computer every 2 years or so. That is usually when I "clean and start over". But once again, I have never looked at the numbers and the sheer amount of porn shocked me.

Hundreds of thousands of files....Taking up close to 4 Terabytes of crap (not GB). As much if not more in some cases as some of our workstation servers. Each picture, movie etc. saved "one by one and one click at a time" ...adding up to a mountain of realizations. I'm surprised that at this point I don't have carpal tunnel just from the task of using the mouse that much to save this stuff.

It took more than 2 hrs to delete everything. That wasn't the hours that I spent to find and clean the files...that's how long the process took for the computer to delete the files and folders after I clicked "DELETE". I was so shocked that I kept taking photos off the process not knowing what to feel...to laugh or to cry.

As much as I am approaching today, tomorrow and the next day with a positive attitude... right now I can physically feel the weight of the self-shaming and other new negative emotions that I have never felt before until now. Besides everything else, just the overall "waste" is beyond anything I ever imagined.

Its hard to even write this stuff but I hope today will be the starting point of a new life. I always tell people that I have 2 BIRTHDAYS.... The first one is my actual biological birthday. The second one is the day I became a US Citizen after wanting it since I was 4 and after moving to this county completely alone when I was 16 to chase my dreams. Maybe at a later time in my life I can look back and say that April Fools Day in 2019... is now my 3rd birthday. That is the day I realized how big of a fool I unknowingly was ... and started to do something about it.


I am going to stop right here. I am not used to online forums in general and this is still scary and uncomfortable for me at this point. I feel like I blabbered enough.

But just wanted to thank everyone who don't know me and I don't know them who hopefully will cross paths with me because of this community. I am always here to listen for hearing others' stories, realizations, experiences and the overall journey of their recovery is humbling and makes you appreciate the the person on the other side of the World that happen to have an overlapping side of them with you.

If you read this post. THANK YOU for letting me share this beginning day with you.

Mercury

 

Thank you very much.