Thoughts made during recovery, will they stay with you forever?

When I had a gf, I went like 1.5 years without pmo. My mind was pretty much fully healed. I also hadn't been "into" p that long... so recovery time depends on length of addiction.

Why does a person pmo? If a person's life is full of meaningful things, after healing from p and knowing why they don't want to do it, they normally avoid it. Relapse does not have to happen.

You have a good streak. But healing is still happening. You have gotten many benefits but long term healing, mentally and physically, is still ongoing. In the healing process, you're probably halfway complete. As you get to a year, and further, you'll forget more. Do I still remember some of the first p images I saw? Yes... but when you're involved in a real relationship, you start to have real emotional connection and feeling with someone, and this will start to give you more "fun" than p. The farther away you are from p, the less you will remember it. You're 25, you're doing well, just keep doing what you're doing!

ETA: It also depends on the genre of p you watched. If you were watching hardcore p and had various fetishes, it will take longer, because the difference between that and normal is a lot. If you watched vanilla p or p sub, that's closer to a normal relationship and will take less time to clean, imo. The most important part is replacing the p with something else. If you're avoiding p but nothing else gives you dopamine stimulation, then your body is longing for p. Find something that drives you and gives you natural stimulation - friendships, exercise, nutrition, career, anything.

 

Are you talking about thoughts of self harm?

You’ve had pressure, distress in your life. One of your go-to methods for coping with that distress was to numb it with PMO. Now you aren’t numbing it, so you’re feeling it more acutely than ever. Added to that, quitting itself can create distress.
You need to find ways to deal with that stress instead of running from it, pretending it isn’t there. With PMO, you didn’t even have to think hard about it. You didn’t need to know where it was coming from, you barely had to feel its existence and you zapped it with lurid fantasy. Now you’re going to have to figure out why you feel bad, and come up with a plan for how you’re going to deal with that. It’s a skill you’re learning late.
If you’re having thoughts of self harm as a result of NoFap, that’s your brain not recognizing any alternatives to your distress. Self harm is an expression of hopelessness. There are ways to deal with distress, though, ways that don’t involve PMO, or alcohol, or drugs. Staying hooked on a poor coping mechanism is not a good answer. Neither is letting thoughts of self harm burn a neurological path in your brain.

Figure out why you’re in distress. What happened? When did you start feeling bad? Why did that upset you? It made you feel something, maybe s about yourself. But feelings can lie. Is it true? If it is, can you do something to change it?

Don’t worry, you can figure this out. You can learn how to deal with these things.