I relapsed last night. Here is the cycle of how I did it (I won't say "how it happened" because that would be using the passive voice, I want to assume responsibility) 1. A comic video mentioned a certain sex act. 2. I went to look up the sex act on Wikipedia. 3. On that Wikipedia page there were nude pictures. 4. Since I did not entirely come upon those pictures by accident, I reset my counter. 5. I then thought, "well, my counter's at 0, and I'm in that space between attempts, so I might as well look at some porn while it's at 0. 6. I went to look up some fetishes I've seen before. 7. I got into boards discussing depraved shit, but I rationalized that since I was not looking at images, it wasn't porn. 8. Then looked at porn and PMO'd. 9. Thought, "well, I've fucked it up now" and looked at porn for a long time. 10. Woke up with tons of stored up sexual tension and MO'd. 11. Reset my counter this morning. The banal, even boring part was that *none of the porn was new*. It's all shit I've seen before with new faces. And it wasn't boundary-pushing, it didn't even feel transgressive, it just felt boring. This is that phase of the addiction cycle where the drug stops working. Where it's not fun or defiant any more, it's just blah need fulfillment. And, as always, after I MO the porn looks boring and dull.
I know the cycle you described all to well. I relapsed that way too many times, but I also managed to break the cycle more often than not. The mistake was taking step 2 of the process you described. You couldn't control the things mentioned in the comic video, but the moment you chose to check the clearly sexual stuff that had been mentioned you opened the door to a relapse. Doing that we invite the urges and that's counterproductive to our goals, obviously. The solution is to realize the steps that lead to a relapse and stop the process as soon as possible. The moment our mind tells us to check out something clearly sexual in nature under the guise of "educating" ourselves on the topic we have to realize that our brain wants us to start down the path to PMO by taking small steps. We can't take that fist step, we have to resist it and kill that thought before it becomes serious.
Glad to see this realization being expressed, it means growth and change are happening. A painful process, yes. No one said growing in life is painless or easy, but I am here to give you a hug if you need. I myself am going through growing pains at the moment unrelated to PMO. I am learning how to be humble and unafraid to reach out to someone when I am struggling or lusting before I relapse, also watching my ego and pride, for as they say pride always comes before the fall.
Wow, big hugs from me as well. This cycle is so difficult to break. I came here looking to how to handle the urges and jatar your message was what i needed to hear. We are not alone, but we know to fight. Keep Fighting.
@brainrenewal .... thanks for sharing this. I can totally relate. Too many times, my descent back into PMO has started with something innocent, like going to a web page to "educate" myself on something. Sure enough, one thing always leads to another, and I find myself right back where I started. I don't know how old you are, but I'm in my mid-30s, and I think I'm finally reaching a point where this s*%t just ain't funny anymore, or fun for that matter, as you stated above. Our brains have been so accustomed to the dopamine rush that it's like they go on autopilot as soon as we think there's even the slightest possibility of that "high" we experience as soon as we start thinking about/looking at something even remotely sexual. I too have slipped as of late, even though I had been doing so well lately. In fact, I haven't been on this forum for a while because of my slip-ups, for fear of ridicule, and my not wanting to admit how poorly I've been doing lately. At the same time, I know this is a journey for all of us, and I know that as long as I don't beat myself up too badly for slipping up, it will be that much easier to get back on the horse. This PMO/MO addiction is not an easy thing to conquer, but, like they say, take things one step at a time. Good luck to you on your journey ... and all of us for that matter!
I can't stop. I keep waiting for the K9 temporary password to expire (it's supposed to expire in 24 hours, it's been 24 hours already) and I already burned the password I reset it to but it keeps letting me use the temporary password! WTF!
That's usually when I ask for help, when it's no longer enjoyable or I've reached the bottom of the barrel, or I'm crossing moral and legal boundaries to find a fix. If it felt good all the time, I would probably always do it.
Dude the simple, bitter truth is, it just exists in your head. Wake up, real sex is nothing like that fetishes. It is nothing more then an imagination. Your imagination how good it must be and what it feels like and what it is like - it is just your brain going in overdrive. Porn does only exist in your brain. You may look at moving pixels on a screen and hear the sound, but the feeling and imagination what it must be like and everything else, is just in your head. Always remember - the only thing that really gets laid in porn - is your mind
That's a good point Pureheart - that' there isn't even a real world equivalent to it, because the effect of P only exists in the mental space. Without going into detail, I once had a sexual experience with a real woman which fulfilled a long-held fantasy that I had fed through P. I thought that the experience would be mind-blowing, I had built up such anticipation. In the end it was...blah...just sort of mechanical...even though all the details were in place. It's not that Porn was reproducing reality, it was that there was no reality to which it refers - even having the real experience in every detail in person was not as intense as it was on the screen. It's all a mirage.
jatar good point as well - that we don't need to be "educated" on porn any more, I've already been "educated" on it enough and nothing I see satisfies. I need to be educated on living a wholesome life and on recovery techniques. When the thought arises, I just need to kill it, and talk back to the rationalizing mind which is just the dopamine center craving that I maintain its current abnormally hypersexualized state.
