Thoughts and Reflections on 90 Days

I’ve often seen on these site people say such things as “how do people get to 90 days?” or “90 days just seems impossible”. Although 90 days isn’t the end goal for me personally (more on that later) I nonetheless wish to share out of hope it will give encouragement to those wondering these things or similar. Those of you who follow my story will know that I wrestle with a fetish, but as I post this outside my journal and want this to be as relatable as possible, I’ll leave that element out and perhaps cover it in more detail in said journal later.

So how did I get to 90 days?

Well, first I failed for 9000 days.

I think there’s much more to be learned from my failed attempts than there is from my success, because first I want to reassure you all that it can take time. In my case, however many of my 30+ years I’ve been interested in women sexually. I had many streaks leading up to this milestone… some a day long, others a week long, occasionally a month. I even managed years of MO without P before a massive relapse. Sometimes between streaks I wasn’t even trying. Sometimes between these streaks I was going at it multiple times a day. The points is that progress isn’t a linear process. Sometimes we take one step forward and two steps back. For me these 90 days haven’t won the war… they are simply my best performance in any battle I have faced. I may lose again in the next hour. I may lose my resolve and completely lose myself to PMO again. As a Christian, Christ has ultimately won the war for me no matter how many battles I lose.

90 days isn’t the end goal for me personally… I appreciate the neuroscience behind the 90-days goal: that of rebooting the mind, so in that sense I still looked forward to it and I definitely feel ‘reprogrammed’ somewhat. So, I believe it’s an important and noble goal. But I’m not completely reprogrammed. For some people it might take more than 90 days and I may well be one of those people.

In any case, day 90 has been something of a sub-goal for me, as personally the end goal is a complete change of heart and attitude through the power of the Holy Spirit. I’m far from this, as even an hour or so before writing I was thinking about giving in and letting go.

I want to share some things I have learned or things I knew that have been reinforced:

It’s not as black and white as counting the days.

Reason 1: As I said above, this is an issue of the heart and how I fundamentally see women. The fundamental problem is that I don’t really want to quit, as as long as that is true in the smallest part of my brain, I am at risk.

Reason 2: The line(s) between did or didn’t P, M or O is more blurred than I had realised. I’ve seen this in other journals and stories too, leading to people questioning “what counts as a reset”?

• Since I was a child I’ve ‘fidgeted’ with my genitals in the same sense we might fidget with our clothes or hair, or in the way we do any other habit such as knuckle-cracking, etc – not out of sexual desire, just as a habit of fidgeting, especially in response to stress or anxiety. This is still an issue for me and my life of PMO reinforced it. I’ll catch myself doing it when working at home alone and stuck on a problem. Some might count this as masturbation, but I don’t because these instances are not consciously sexually motivated and the 90 days NoFap does seem to have helped keep it down anyway.
• I have caught myself grinding against my mattress or turning in my bed such that the sheets rub against my genitals and stimulate them when they are particularly sensitive.
• We can not look at Porn but there are still ‘Porn Subs’. For me Porn is tricky for me to define anyway as it’s a fetish I’m into and I don’t need sex or nudity to get off. Triggers show up all the time… how long or under what circumstances do I have to look at a trigger before I say I was motivated by lust? If it is, can I says it’s really any different from looking at Porn / Fetish Material?
• Even without P or M, however they are defined, I’ve still gone to town with my fantasies in my mind, which I’m not proud of. I can lie down and think of them without looking anything up or touching myself. Sometimes it helps the urges go away… but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

My responses to these observations:

• However I define success or failure, I believe my counter is still an accurate reflection of my progress.
• I have completed 90 days under a specific definition of those 90 days – but I should have been more clear on the definition from the beginning.
• So, perhaps I need to redefine what counts and what doesn’t. The line may be blurry, but I think I have experienced enough to make it more narrow.
• Based on this redefinition, I need new rules, new habits to enforce, etc. In other words, I need to update my strategy.
• I may reset my counter anyway and count on the basis of these new rules

The counter is useful, regardless.

• It encourages us to keep going, not wanting to destroy the progress. We have to be careful as this could be an excuse to not count a failure as a failure, and over time we become more and more laid back until we’re on PMO every day again. But this is where an earlier comment comes in: we need to ask ourselves if our counters are honest reflections of our progress.
• It encourages others. I learned this from an episode of Elementary, a telling of Sherlock Holmes’ story in which he is a recovering addict. He and/or Watson (I forget who) comment that his 1-year clean tokens are not just for him but for the other addicts too – they show others what is possible. I now feel a responsibility to keep my counter going up not for my own sake but for others. If I see somebody with a higher counter than me reset, I think it may tempt me to do the same or validate any instance thereof. I do not want to have this effect on others.
• It can still encourage others even if it is frequently at 0. This might seem strange. But my argument here is that if I do ever reset, I would have some comfort in knowing I’m not alone. Of course, I’d rather everybody else had high counters than have their counters comfort me! But the point is, 0, 90 or 500+, the counter helps us.

I think responses to this observation really falls in with the previous: In defining how I count, I have to consider the balance of accurate reflection of progress and its effect on encouraging myself and others.

Another key realisation is how loud the animal within is.

There have been periods where resisting PMO has given rise to pure anger within. Now that I’m active on this community, knowing I would have to journal about any failures is a very, very effective deterrent. The animal does not like this at all. When I’ve felt this deterrent kick in there has been a reflexive surge of angry adrenaline shoot through my system. I’m ashamed to admit it but this part of me feels angry at people simply for helping me. Of course, it’s not what I really feel as it’s just the animal within in a spurt of irrationality. But it could lead me to failure, and I need to be aware that its there and take its presence very seriously. I need to find a healthy outlet for it. Exercise usually helps here, but the real challenge is when the anger comes out while I’m working, unable to break for exercise and possibly already stressed with work issues.

The response here is that the new rules I set for myself need to cover all emotional responses I have to NoFap, or perhaps others too.

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I will keep my counter as is for now, and ponder my own responses more carefully before I consider how to redefine my goals. I have a holiday coming up, which will be a great time for such reflection.

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I wish you all luck in your goals, whatever they are, and however you define them. It's not just about the number. Just remember to be honest with yourself and others. We are all fallible – I may PMO in the next hour…. Who knows. The important thing is – each time you fall down – to get up, evaluate, respond, and press on. Remember you are not alone. We are in this together.