P.A.W.S. - what are they, cure, duration

Yesterday I fell off the wagon. Absolutely gutted. Feel terrible - ie physically terrible. Anyone that wants details, check my journal. I'm just so sick of this sh*t man. I hate P so much. Just keep going guys, keep going and don't look back.

 

Do yourselves all a favour. Take a sleep test, just once and see what the results are.

 

A year ago this month is when my addiction was at its worst, between June and the beginning of November. I wonder if there's any correlation with that and me having some recurring symptoms now, with PAWS resurfacing hard.

I wake up in the middle of the night, hot flashes and anxious. No heart palpitations though. Just dread. Takes about 20-30 mins to shake off with meditation.

I'm experiencing body vibrations/pulses again, anhedonia, fatigue, low stress tolerance. It's pretty wild lol.

I wonder how long this phase will take.

 

This might sound a bit crazy but I wanted to share this in case it possibly helps somebody. I'm closing in on 19 months of retention, recently got out of flatline, and had an involuntary ejaculation earlier this month. However I still have a few minor lingering symptoms of PAWS. This weekend I gave myself an enema for the first time, hear me out.

I practice intermittent fasting and with rare exception I take one shit in the morning after my workout and before my shower. Although I'm regular I would never have an easy shit, there would always be a bit of a struggle. I've never had an enema before but I decided to try it figuring I was probably backed up in the tailpipe. I got one of those syringes and used only warm water, no solution or laxative.

It was unbelievable to me just how much crap was accumulated inside of me. Unbelievable in the literal sense of the word, I could not believe it. It took me awhile but I finally flushed everything out. After I was finished it hit me how empty my insides felt for lack of a better term. I had been living life with all that crap hanging out in my guts that it became my default.

It's been a few days now but I'm not lying when I say my quality of life has gone up a few notches from doing this. Not only do I feel better but my morning shits pass much easier now. I'm going to include enemas semi regularly now as part of my routine body hygiene maintenance.

The reason I post this here is because my sexual energy has become much more potent after doing this. Maybe cleaning myself out unblocked my root chakra allowing the energy to flow freely.

Sorry if all this was TMI but this has changed my life for the better in a very short time.

 

For sake of transparency I have been relapsing for the past month. I am on dating apps and have been dating girls/sex/mo. I am not 100% healed so no idea what Im doing, but the problem is going for so long during PAWS is just crazy without fully seeing the reward.

Want to be clear, Im way better then in the beginning (I think) but still have PAWS symptoms. I need to get another 6 months streak going

 

Just want to say one of the biggest shifts or differences, is the type of thought patterns, constriction of the system, inability to think, is the main difference between monk mode and having sex/mo

 

Definitely. Relapses are more about self-awarded indulgence than real necessity.

 

Would love to hear some additional data from someone like @Don Quixote or others who have fully healed.

But in my recent relapses, for example I literally can barely think about abstract, complex things, which obviously is a common complaint here. But I play chess, and my elo score has dropped 400 points since relapsing, for emperical evidence.

I wonder if this regression is due to the fact my brain still hasnt healed.

So Don, now your healed, can you have sexual activity without associated negative consequences in computational ability?

 

Hey @Don Quixote , at which month in did your libido come back?

Thanks.

 

@Don Quixote can I take a quick moment to just say thank you for your contribution to this thread. I think I for one have been searching for fellow rebooters who have 'stayed the path' and now 'live to tell the tale.' I think it is safe to say that you are a pioneer in that regard, thank you!

If I can toss my hat into the fray, I have been rebooting for a total of 23 months now, and fell into the "rewiring trap" which involved meeting someone in an attempt to fix my PIED. What was not clear, is that those of us with severe symptoms would be knocked back into flatline after each and every orgasm. This happened to me at months 7, 12 and 19 of my overall reboot. Making me 23months Porn free but only 5 months MO free.

My question is: do you believe that individual orgasms have a significant effect on the recovery timeline. A 2 year streak with no relapses seems to be the sweet spot for those who fully recover from PAWS. Next month will count 24 months for me, with 3 orgasms. while the morning fatigue, headaches and crippling anxiety have greatly diminished. The anhedonia, brain fog, PIED and general mental sluggishness still very much exist. In short, any idea if those of us that have suffered single relapses/setbacks are looking at a reset of the PAWS journey too?

Thanks

 

Very wise words man, nice post. Thank you for your continued contributions!

 

All these are wonderful and signs of real progress!Well done and great going @Don Quixote!

Thanks for sharing.Best wishes.

 

Its funny you mention wet dreams, I actually had a wet dream this morning. While I feel a lot better right now (potent feelings, motivation, mental agility) I am bracing myself for the drop in energy while hoping it never comes.

"Letting your horniness lie to you" might be the perfect way to describe one of the most prominent traps while rebooting. It really did take falling into this trap for me to realise that the best method is to focus solely on rebooting and bettering yourself.

Another question from me if that's ok - I know you mentioned previously that you noticed morning woods became regular. Can you remember approximately when you began to get consistent morning wood in your recovery timeline?

Also would you say the first 2 years of your reboot, despite being shorter streaks, gave any substance to your latter 2 years streak?

Thanks again

 

I'm just reading this out and realising how much will power it takes to go through a 4 year recovery and not give up.

I cannot help but think how much it sucks that after a 2 year journey with the odd orgasm here and there, I still may have another 24 months until I can potentially begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It just feels as if the world is going by while I stand still, PIED in one hand and PAWS in the other. It was when you mentioned that you had to acquire a new brain through this journey, that I realised a) how much damage I have done, b) no matter how much reading, writing or brain training I do, my old brain is gone. I think its that revelation that hurts the most, more so than losing my erectile function. That statement made things even more real than they already are.

Thanks again @Don Quixote, I appreciate you coming back for the rest of us. I think your search for love instead of lust is something that all of us (myself included) need to pay attention to.

 

Thanks for this Don. I actually havent had sexual intercourse yet, as my pysche feels torn in the same ways yours does. I have downloaded the apps, and have MO'd for the past month, somewhat compulsively, I will get back on another streak, going to get rid of my phone, as at this stage in the game, the pull to just use the apps is strong. I hadnt fully recovered, I would say 70-80% if I had to put a marker on it.

But yeah its a complete mindfield isnt it, crazy how I used to live in that place, and it is addictive for me, more addictive then porn I think - the chase of girls

 

@Don Quixote I remember you talking about how screens started to make you feel flatline-y. Can you describe this phenomenon? I think I'm starting to get some of that when I play video games.

 

Probably you still have some reboot left to go through. Our brain unwired to rewire back to homeostasis.

 

I am currently going through the same thing. After 1 hour gaming or watching a film, I get what feels like a tension headache, my head starts to throb. The only way around it has been to cut out video games/films altogether.

 

Starting to wrap my head around the fact that this could take longer than 24 months for me. Maybe I've written the words down before, but now I'm sort of internalizing the concept psychologically. I could be wrong, of course I could be wrong (I hope I am), but that's just what my mind has been up to the past couple days. It's been preparing itself for the day after month 24, when I'm still sitting in my shabby apartment with a lifeless dick hanging between my thighs.

Very much excited for all of this to be done, but I need to release some of this sludge that's been building up in my psyche. This process is god damn motherfuckin' brutal, and I'm not happy with it. Below the surface, I'm more content with my life than ever before; but at the surface, there is a cataclysm. It's this weird thing where I'm not chemically happy in the moment, but I'm very much close to content at the core. I like myself, most days. That's not something I could say before all of this happened.

For me, the addiction wasn't just a phenomenon that was created from the ether. It was hatched in a fertile lab, and was given ample amounts of time and fertile, juicy soil to grow in.

Whatever. Fuck the wax philosophical shit. I just want to move the fuck on. Don once said that there wasn't any phase of recovery that was easier than its brethren. That's ringing very much true to me. It's like the Mad Men horseshoe concept: open at both ends and hard all the way through. Day 600+ ain't easier than day 148.5. It's all difficult, and each day you will think about how odd and horrendous your life is, and you will ask the gods how they could allow this to happen. It's such a backwards reality to live in. You suffer almost every day, for years, and have almost nobody in the world to share your suffering with. I've stopped telling people what's going on because no one truly believes me at the level that I would like. Even therapists try and breeze over this shit.

I understand, too. If this didn't happen to me I'm sure it would be really fuckin hard for me to wrap my head around someone blaming their severe depressive symptoms on an addiction to porn. Whatever. As I said, I need to stop philosophizing. Jesus. I'm just at the point where I'm keepin' my head down until the finish line. Wherever it happens to be.

Good luck to all of you. Takes a lot of strength to endure this crap. Will probably be the toughest thing any of us will ever have to endure, aside from the concept of death (loved ones, your own mortality).

 

Just an update of this and marking to @Redemptionisrequired who asked the question.
Since past 30-32 days ,I have had 7 wet dreams.I never had these many wet dreams.Initially they were not that affecting but recetly since past 2 1/2 week they are affecting me.And I'm going through severe intense withdraw symptoms like fatigue,mild brain fog,loss of concentration and intrest in general,back ache,pain in feets and ankle joints ,sleep inadequacy ,etc.etc.Specially the activities going on in my head are hell .Like something is happening ,making ,shifting and rapid mood swings.

I have learnt to cope with them all but it feels pathetic to go through all this.Hope it gets milder day by day.