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

Discussion in 'Rebooting - Porn Addiction Recovery' started by Fenix Rising, May 12, 2019.

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  1. AspiringVitality

    AspiringVitality Fapstronaut

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    Dave G 123 likes this.
  2. AspiringVitality

    AspiringVitality Fapstronaut

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    Dave G 123 and Freeddom_Taker like this.
  3. I been watching porn since I was 13 years old. I never had any problems with it until high speed internet porn tube sites and smartphone devices came out. I found Nofap in augustus 2013 after googling my symptoms. I found yourbrainonporn.com. I read about people having social anxiety, brain fog, insomnia, erectile dysfunction (PIED), depression, fatigue etc. Caused by their porn use. I maybe only watched porn for 15 min a day and finished it off, I never edged and never had multiple orgasms. I would not consider myself really addicted. I was just doing what every healthy sexual teen/adult should be doing (cough cough) Yet, I was suffering from all these symptoms and had no idea why until I found nofap.

    I started the challenge and did my very first 150 streak. Had pretty bad withdrawal for about 2 months. Mostly depression, flu like feelings and anxiety. I felt amazing after 150 days and felt 100% healed. All brain fog gone, social anxiety gone, general anxiety gone, insomnia gone fatigue, low libido gone, PIED gone, huge confidence, had succesful sex. The world had more color, girls looked amazing etc. Some people call it the nofap "SUPERPOWERS". My dopamine and endorphin system was working optimal again.

    I felt a total reborn person with an active mentality, good sense of humor and tons of energy and motivation. I was like a new charismatic person. Then I relapsed a couple of times and all the negatives came back.

    After many failed reboot attempts and relapse and withdrawal cycles, I managed another reboot 120+ days reboot and felt amazing again. I felt in touch with nature again and the rest of the positive stuff. AGAIN,

    I relapsed and this time I lost all motivation and started relapsing almost every week for a year and a half. Again I had enough, and now the withdrawal was a lot worse and also had more physcial symptoms. Again I healed after like 110 days. (And even had 2 small relapses during this streak, but I healed anyway.

    I relapsed again and some years have went by by now. And now had a period of 1,5 years of 1 week streaks, relapse, another 1 or 2 week streak, and then relapse. During this short streak and relapse cycles I felt kind of normal. No real withdrawal symptoms, other than insomnia, anhedonia, some brain fog here and there and flu like feelings. I only felt a bit anxious and empty after orgasm.

    Then came the period from april 2018 to august 2018. Thats when I lost total control. I binged relapsed and had long edge sessions every day, had a couple of orgams per day. I never really did this edging before april 2018.

    I quit again on 18 august and after 18 / 20 days SEVERE withdrawals showed up. The symptoms were much worse than on the previous withdrawals. (Not as severe as benzo withdrawal), but still mentally and physically disabling. I had to quit my job. I experienced no windows and only waves with 24/7 symptoms.

    This time I also suffered from very weird physical neurological symptoms. Body shaking, sleep paralysis, tremors, delirium, tinnitus, irritable bowel, severe insomnia etc.

    Also mental symptoms like anxiety, derealization, social anxiety and depression were on a whole other level. This withdrawal also lasted much longer than the last ones. Normally I was feeling fine after about 120 days, but with this last withdrawal after heavy edging, binging and multiple orgasms a day it took about 200 days before I started feeling a little better. But I was still suffering severe anhedonia, waves of social anxiety en insomnia.

    Since august 2013 I never even bothered to visit a nofap related forum before my severe withdrawal began in oktober 2018. So for me it's total bullshit this forum is what causes extra psychosomatic symptoms. It's 100% withdrawal and this forum was actually helping me by showing me I was not the only one suffering. I totally disagree with whysolong.

    Btw it's been 13 days since I last fapped. I felt horrible after the orgasm, social anxiety, insomnia, brain fog and even a bit agorafobia came back full force. But since a couple of days I actually feel pretty normal again. Does not mean I'm healed. No it's just the window and wave pattern that come with PAWS. Symptoms can always come back to bite you in the ass. I have experienced the window (feeling pretty damn good) and wave (feeling bad withdrawals pattern in many porn induced withdrawals)
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2020
  4. humbleone

    humbleone Fapstronaut

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    Theres lots of accounts of people completing NoFap fully recovering and then starting again into addiction.

    Has anyone managed to have a healthy sex life with a real partner after nofap?

    Also its crazy how little attention Darksekturs posts got when they were made, they literally speak to my soul
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2020
    AspiringVitality and Don Quixote like this.
  5. Ezpz

    Ezpz Fapstronaut

    Hmm what do you guys think about working while managing these symptoms.

    I have been trying to decide what the right course of action is as i'm stuck on a difficult decision. Symptoms are still quite heavy including social anxiety, fatigue and brain fog being the worst. I would be grateful for some advice that i could think on.

    Right now i'm working minimally due to obviously reasons and putting a lot of attention into self development on my time off, which is working right now. If i'm particularly tired or depressed etc i have no problems having a nap or what ever during the day. Since i don't work full time and run my own business i can do this while still making enough money.

    The problem i have now is that I've been offered a full time job, which is a huge opportunity and i would, under normal circumstances like apply for it and give it a shot. It has a lot of the things i'm looking for in a full time position. This would require me to do pretty well in an interview (many people will be trying for this job), though at the moment my social skills can be anywhere from okay to non-existent. The job itself is a leadership type roll and i would be having someone working under me. It would also be particularly mentally demanding in some areas, so my concern is that i will fall short of the job with my limited brain power (not always but on some days).

    I am torn between going for the job or continuing to focus on my recovery.

    Id be interested and thankful to hear anyone's thoughts:):D
     
    AspiringVitality likes this.
  6. Dave G 123

    Dave G 123 Fapstronaut

    My suggestion is to go for the job, because having to focus on the job will keep your mind occupied - and the terror of messing up should give you added motivation to stay PMO free.
     
  7. Go for the job mate. Being unemployed is shit and a recipe for disaster! I fully understand with the symptoms it will be difficult but better to be out and earning money.
     
  8. humbleone

    humbleone Fapstronaut

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    @Big Lebowski how is your current relationshiop to porn and ability to get a streak going? I would have thought cravings etc would be done for you now, but keep seeing your counter resetting. Care to give us more insight into what is going on
     
    AspiringVitality likes this.
  9. Well quite bad to be honest. Lot of stress last couple of years. I havent dealth with it accordingly recently but I am trying to get back on the wagon. It's dangerous because I havent felt no increase of symptoms at all. If I would of relapsed two years back I would of felt instantaneously like shit. But I think cos my anxiety is not as bad as it used to be due to limiting caffeine amongst other things it helps a little.

    Anyway were not perfect and I'm certainly not in any trouble so I'll be trying my best to really put some effort into some real recovery this year. New decade new goals and ambitions.
     
  10. I dont even crave porn anymore and havent done for years. The most intense cravings I have had is for nicotine and that craving is indefinitely more of a nusicane than porn. It's more ritualistic in nature with porn. Not even so much with porn nowadays either I love the sensation of cumming. That's always what I've chased really and porn was the devil for someone with low self esteem etc.
     
  11. Ezpz

    Ezpz Fapstronaut

    Thank you for your replies :)

    Yes i think sometimes we just have to go for it regardless of how we are feeling;):D
     
  12. Hisself

    Hisself Fapstronaut

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    Some of you may know that I’ve been struggling through nofap and paws for over 3 years now. I haven’t watched porn since oct 12 2018 and I’ve had long instances of abstaining 6-10+ months between relapses. This past December I finally felt my libido come back and I had my first 2 truly successful sexual encounters that same month. On the 23rd of December out of anxiety I reactivated Facebook and scrolled for some stimulating images which I found. I didn’t realize what I was doing at the time and logged off right away but it brought back paws symptoms worse than ever before. Total insomnia and panic attacks, racing heart, flatline, social anxiety, nightmares, confusion, suicidal thoughts, relapsed to nicotine and started taking benzos to sleep. The price of 20 secs of facebooking the wrong way. Since then I’ve gone to about half a dozen massages in an attempt to rewire. One girl in particular I found extremely helpful for this, super personable and caring with a very sensuous touch as well as being cute. I booked a consultation with Noah Church the other day and told him my story and we discussed kindling, first streak I was pretty much cured, each consecutive relapse confused my dick more and progress has seemed to be going in reverse. He suggested a few things and one of them was pro free masturbation. I’ve done this only once to orgasm since oct 2016 prior to his advice. 2 days ago I woke up to a strange wet dream where my dick was functioning oddly and that night I tried his advice and surprisingly didn’t find it difficult to reach o with lubrication and zero fantasy. This was laying down. I woke up today and although paws symptoms are still there to an extent such as racing heart and less confidence, low interest in attractive women.. I tried it again a few hrs ago but standing up to see if I could 0maintain an erection standing with lubrication, no luck for 2-3 mins so I started recalling memories of girls I’ve dated and it worked, I reached o within 10 mins. I then went to a massage and had precum I discovered after though no erection. At the moment I feel pretty good, better than I have since before the facebooking. My junk is also looking relatively normal now, not shriveled up and I feel like I could go again. Any thoughts on this, anyone else try this, and can I expect to be able to map these expectations to a real woman? Curious what everybody thinks about successful pornfree masturbation. After my first o with a partner in December it felt like I needed 2 days or so to have interest again. Could some progress have been kept and could this mean my refractory period might be shortening?
     
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  13. winningover

    winningover Fapstronaut

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    Yes, I have. You can read about it here https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/pied-cured-after-8-months.262149/
     
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  14. Thanks for sharing man.

    Too bad I relapsed again. (Because my porn blocker subscription expired because Paypal did not process the payment) I was too weak minded and I caved in after a big urge, and had 2 O's and edged like one hour. It's been 2 days since the relapse and I feel pretty good and slept well. Yesterday I felt really confident.

    What I'm trying to say is, that it's hit or miss with the symptoms. Sometimes the symptoms hit you right after relapse, sometimes a couple of days later, sometimes a week or even a month of abstinence. I now have and porn blocker that even puts Google and Youtube videos on safe mode and blocks search engine image searching. I will report back after 20 days if abstinence if flatline/withdrawals come back.

    I still stand by that porn causes PAWS, but sometimes the brain just reacts different to relapses and every streak seems to have a different pattern and symptoms.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2020
  15. parad0x

    parad0x Fapstronaut

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    Interesting posts above about what can set off paws symptoms.

    Im 4 months free of PM. I got really drunk recently and at 3am decided I wanted a hooker. Thank God none replied to my drunken messages and I fell asleep.

    But that set me off on a week off anxiety and depression. I'm just so god damn grateful it was so late and I didn't go through with it. But it must have triggered my reward system in my brain because I definitely had a "come down" afterwards beyond just a simple hangover.
     
    AspiringVitality likes this.
  16. Ezpz

    Ezpz Fapstronaut

    Sorry to hear of your relapse my friend. No doubt that you can get back into a good streak in no time :)
     
  17. From my experience so far, the harder we pmo i.e full blown relapses or binges, the withdrawals happen later than expected. I think it has to do with the feels good chemicals. Once they started wearing out, pain started returning.
     
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  18. Sorry to hear about your relapse, but you seem to have a definitive goal which is the most important thing after a relapse. I personally don't believe in porn blockers, but I admit that every time I've started up the private mode on my browser to search for something stupid on Google I'm more vulnerable in general since starting the private mode has been my jam for P sessions in the past. It's a kinda natural feel if you think about it, I've got so used to it over the years, so it has ingrained into my brain even if I don't intend to view P. Same thing happens if I come to home with the curtains closed and there's still some light left outside. Usually I've closed the curtains to fap, so naturally I get that feeling with the curtains closed.
     
  19. Anyone know why big Lebowski deleted his account ?
     
  20. AspiringVitality

    AspiringVitality Fapstronaut

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    Nope
     

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