Hey all! I'm new here and excited to start on this journey. I'll be doing PMO for 30 days to start, and hopefully if that works out I'll be able to continue indefinitely until I find that woman I want to marry. But I definitely want to be done with porn for good. A little background info on me...I don't know if any of this is really relevant or necessary to share, but I figure that maybe getting it all out there will help make it more present in my mind? And I love the idea of community with anonymity so, why not right? It all started when I was pretty young, probably like 13 or 14ish. I grew up in a family atmosphere that was mostly normal but VERY conservative with sex, like they'd change the channel at anything remotely suggestive, even commercials. They also never had the talk with me. I once saw a book hidden in their room that was supposed to help parents break the news but they clearly chickened out because it never happened. So I really had no idea how it worked at this point. I was at a sleepover with a friend who also had no idea and we "pretended to be gay". Neither of us were(I never even had a period where I questioned my sexuality), we were just being stupid(and quite honestly homophobic), fully clothed but dry humping. Eventually I went too far because I didn't know what was happening, and there ends the story of the worst "you never forget your first" story of all time lol. As you might expect, there's no way to tell that story to anyone, much less your conservative parents. So I just didn't, and of course masturbation came soon after that as a result of my confusion. In these days I was still disgusted by the idea of porn, so I just looked up pics of women in bikinis. But eventually youtube happened, and I'd very slowly get a bit more extreme with what I watched. At some point, this led to watching lesbians, and I'd say that 95% of what I watch now involves that kind. I assume this is because I've never been in a long term relationship, so seeing guys in the video leaves me with a subtle feeling of jealousy, knowing that it's never been me? Idk if that's it but it's my best guess. In any event, I'm sick of it. It's a time waster, it obviously has negative psychological effects, but worst of all for me is that I'm treating women as nothing more than objects for my consumption. This obviously leads, at some point, to viewing women in the real world like that, even if it's to a much smaller extent. That, above all, is what I want to do away with. Outside of sexual desires I 100% view women as equals, and I'm tired of this one aspect of my life making me a hypocrite. I also look forward to all of the other benefits like more confidence around women, free time, etc. Sorry for the giant wall of text, but I feel like I had to lay it ALL out there because I often justify this crap to myself mentally by saying things like "well at least you don't look at the hardcore stuff", "you only do it once or twice a week", and I want to be done with the excuses as well. So there it is! I'm excited to start and also to help others on their journey as well.
Hi @zoraktothefuture, Porn and Masturbation does bring harmful effects mentally and physically. People who addict to P and M usually have brain fog, less strength, less respects, tiredness and so on. In my culture, people believe that P&M also bring misfortune. I recommend you to create your journal in the forum and come daily to write down what you experience on the day. This way can help you to figure out your strength and weakness. Once you clearly understand your condition, you will know how to improve yourself on quitting P&M. Moreover, you could read success stories in the forum too. You will learn the improvements and challenges from successful people who have kept P&M away from their life. Here is one. Here is a YT vid explaining the science behind PMO. Hope to see you have a bright life. All the best
Welcome. It's very common to view lesbian pornography, but I'm glad that you want to stop. That's half the battle right there. Now that you know it's wrongful to look at, you can start the process of recovery.
Welcome brother. Im practicing this NoFap thing just a couple of weeks ago and the changes are pretty nice, as the life for now is bored as shit without P. But definitely it makes positive changes. I hope you find here some of the stuff you need to keep going forward.
Hi. Welcome to forum! Make sure you crate a personal journal thread in Reboot Logs section and blog there on a regular basis. As well as just generally be active participant in various forum discussions. I recommend this to everybody new here because it's the major thing that helped me when I was first starting. Just lurking on forums, reading and learning is great. But it usually is so much more powerful to engage. It helps to keep us motivated and accountable when we are active part of community. And keeps this in front of our minds so we don't forget about importance of it and slip away in our old habits. Sharing is also therapeutic. This is a major reason why AA meetings work so good. But that was developed before internet era. These days we can get most of the same benefits online through communities like this. So don't underestimate the power of active participation. I would also like to suggest you to look into mindfulness meditation. It has helped me personally tremendously to learn how to deal with urges. It takes a while to get good at it and notice results, so you need to be consistent with it, but once you do it's very powerful. It has been used by sages for thousands of years to deal with various issues of the mind. And in recent decades the science is also catching up to what ancient sages have know for centuries. Meditation these days are widely used as very effective tool by psychologists for treating addiction and by neurologists for supporting recovery of the brain. It is a great exercise for the brain the same way as jogging is great exercise for the body. Check out this Ted talk, it gives a good idea of what's it about when it comes to philosophy. As far as practical side of it there is this awesome smartphone app called Headspace for guided meditations to get you started. Wish you lot's of strength and success in your reboot journey!
Thanks for all of the recommendations and advice, everyone! I used to post on forums all the time, I now do it very infrequently since I workout a lot more. So it'll be a bit of a challenge finding the time to check in, but I do realize that a very big part of this process will be continuing to follow up, journal, and help others. Otherwise it can very easily be out of sight, out of mind, and next thing I know I'm on some website I shouldn't be.
