ULTIMATE POKEMON CHALLENGE | JOURNEY TO BE THE BEST

Day 1!

 

Still Day 0. I'm better than this. Need to pull myself together.

 

Starting my pokemon journey!

 

Day 2 complete. I'm being very careful for this part of the streak.

 

It's been a while since I last posted. I am on day 7 no P, no MO. I was in the psychiatric hospital for 5 days, which helps stay clean when you cannot have your electronics, and you are checked on every 15 minutes. I had a psychotic break, and I realized I had been experiencing a subtle delusion for a number of months to cope with trauma from childhood as well as stress with finishing undergrad and starting grad school. My mind created two other personalities to cope. I don't dissociate or anything, I am always conscious of them and when I am switching, but I think that pornography helped me deal with a lot of my issues, and I have figured out a way to cope through working on a couple old novels, one of which I started when I was 13-14 years old, and the other which I started a couple years back. I am not going to say the characters names as if I did and I publish, then my anonymity would be gone. However, I picked these personalities from my writings over the years as they were safe. Did not realize I was doing it, but now I am aware and healing. It will take a lot to reintegrate my mind, but I have a wonderful treatment team.

As my mind was cracking these last couple weeks, I spent 5-6 days binging pornography for between half an hour to two hours a day. I failed a homework assignment and an exam, and then I was hospitalized. I also realized that my sexuality is not healthy and my sisters' are not either. They blame our mom for that, but I am not sure.

While in the hospital I was going through "withdrawal" from pornography and I really wanted to masturbate, but we had very little privacy. One time, I started to, but I could not even get to the edge of climax, I could not feel anything. It was as if my penis was not even apart of my body. It was hard, and that was about it. So after a few moments, I gave up, and then they called to let us know the next group was meeting so I relaxed, my horniness went away and I lost my erection. I had both my therapist and you all in my head as I battled whether to MO or not. In the end, I could not even start MO'ing beyond starting to touch myself. One thing I would like to make clear to myself, all of you, and especially my psycho therapist and sex therapist, is that I want to MO on my terms, if I MO at all, and I am not sure if my terms even involve MO. I don't believe in semen retention or any of that, but I do believe that a healthy sexuality for me involves no MO. When I MO, I think about pornography I have seen, and then I crave the "real thing". My therapist does not understand that, but I see him tomorrow, and I will make it clear to him. that while M'ing can be part of a healthy sexuality, I am not sure it is for me. I know my mom would get upset when I was young when she realized I was M'ing in the bathroom. and I think that jaded me away from MO, however, I also believe that once I deal with the trauma from childhood around sexuality, I may not be interested in MO.

While I promised not to talk much about MO or even PMO when I returned on November 1st, I realized that I had to clear the air and be honest with you all. I am not morally opposed to MO, I think it is fine for some people, but I am personally opposed to it like many of you and I need to make that clear that if I MO or not, I want it to be my decision, not NoFap's, and especially not my treatment team's.

Anyway, God bless ya'll.
Best,
Mathman1994

 

Day 8
Feeling kinda horny I guess. No desire to view, and some desire to MO, though I realized that I will probably have trouble doing it once I even start, and so I will try some other strategies to relax.

I journaled a little bit last night. Mainly reviewing entries from the hospital and creating a summary to discuss with my therapist. I left all of my other journals and a couple books, at my apartment when I came home from the hospital, so I could only journal in the journal I got in the hospital. I also was able to read a book I have not read in over a decade. Murder with Mirrors was the first Agatha Christie book I ever read, and I figure as a lot of my issues stem from around the age I first read the book, I would try to get into that mindset to help me deal with that trauma.

Anyway, short checkin today.

God Bless you all!
Best,
Mathman1994

 

Day 4 complete!

@Mathman1994 I can't imagine what that must be like; I'm sorry you had to go through all that. Good job getting help from other people to work through those issues. Hope you're doing all right now. Whatever else happens, hold on to your belief that you'll be a better person without PMO. I think you're absolutely right.

 

Day 11 - Pikachu @aricking

Life is going pretty well. I am caught up on notes for my classes, and still have a day and a half to get ahead on work. One of my best friends had a dream that he had to go on a journey of 52 weeks no sex, masturbation, and any other way of sexually acting out including viewing. He asked me to join him on the journey and as I am not expecting to be sexually active anytime soon, I agreed. My therapist need not know that I am giving up on MO for a year or more. Right now, I cannot even O without P or certain pornographic fantasies, so MO seems pointless at this point anyway.

Left my journals at my apartment when I can home to my parents for Thanksgiving, so I have not been able to work on them, and I have not showered in two days (though I plan to shave and take one tonight). Language practice has been off for a couple days too and I have not gotten out of bed right away since three days ago. However, until last night, I have not been on YouTube, and I only plan to spend Fridays on Youtube, if even that in the future. YouTube has a lot of triggering videos and the clickbait on videos can feature scantily clad women to draw in viewers and that can be triggering, so I avoid YouTube.

My mindset has been so much better since getting out of the hospital, and I believe that though NNN failed about halfway through, I can make it the rest of the way and even stay clean permanently if I do not become complacent.

Anyway, hope you all do well.
Best,
Mathman1994

 

Day 10!

 

Two weeks clean today. 6 days to Charizard

 

Day 15!

 

Day 2 no P
Day 1 no MO - Ratatta

 

Day 0!

 

Day 0 - Rattata

It seems like every time I go on YouTube in the evening, I PMO soon after. I think I need to quit YouTube for now if not permanently, as it leads to nothing good. There are some economics videos I like to watch, but if I do that, that is all I can do. I need to avoid binging as a pornography addiction is basically a dopamine addiction and a hit from YouTube is similar to a hit from PMO, though it may be in lower doses. So no YouTube (unless it is early in the day and no binging).

I am feeling a little depressed as I finish my classes this semester and wrap up work for a month. I met this really nice woman from India and a couple months ago, she actually gave me her number without me asking. I don't know if something will come out of this, but we have plans to hang out over break.

Best,
Mathman1994

 

Day 3 complete. I had a hard fall over the weekend. Let's all of us figure out something concrete we can do to help improve. I'm going to leave my door open more often. @Mathman1994 Coincidentally, I was talking earlier today with someone irl who's going through the same struggle. He told me how helpful it was to reduce his time on YouTube. That sounds like a good goal for you.

 

I have been on Day 0 since Monday and now it is Friday. I seem to make it almost to 24 hours and then I relapse. On day 1.5 no P, and day .5 no MO. I set my global counter to midnight last night as even if I had not MO'd, I have been feeling really shitty. In part because of PMO, but not entirely. I am just trying to figure out my life which is hard. I will be day 1 in about 11 hours, so I just need to stay strong for that, then rinse and repeat taking it one day at a time, and at this point, one hour at a time. Hell, if I can tell myself that I can make it the next minute and a half without P (when I am having urges and not at work like right now), then I just set a timer and keep doing that until the urges go away.

I got up at 5am today and then washed my dishes and laid back down at 6:30AM until 9AM. So in total, I got about 8 hours of sleep. I have seen some things talking about splitting your sleep schedule into two parts. Going to bed about 9PM getting up at 2-4AM, staying up until 6-6:30AM and then going back to sleep until 7:30-9AM. I have seen studies that that works really well for people who struggle to sleep through the night, and who are wide away during the early hours. That way they can be productive at those early hours in the morning while still getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night.

I don't know if that is for me, but I can usually get up for 1.5-2 hours and then sleep for another 1.5-3 hours after that. I am not sure how it would work, but I go on break in less than two weeks, so I can start trying it out before I return to work and school. Maybe it will change my recovery schedule as well.

Best,
Mathman1994

 

I'm back now. Haven't posted in some weeks. Day 4 today. Life is objectively well but trying to stay with God throughout everything.

 

Day 7 complete! Working on the mental process of reframing as well as the awareness that I am not going through this alone. God is with me.

 

Day 4 - Have not posted since day 0 (whoops!)

It is about a quarter to 5am here and I slept for about 3 hours. Normally I get insomnia when I miss my sleeping med, but I took that last night so I think my thoughts were racing. I could not focus enough to meditate at first, so I played Yugioh until 1:30am and then I was able to do my sleepy time meditation and fall asleep. My family's Christmas party was last Saturday and I invited my best friend and until recently, romantic prospect (she did not want to commit to a relationship). I had invited her months ago thinking I would be introducing my girlfriend and the love of my life (and I know that is big to say, but everyone else sees our compatability), but that fizzled out. Anyway, I thought, no big deal, she is still my best friend, and I have started to move on. But then yesterday (or maybe Sunday), Mom told me that Lexie lights up when ever she sees me and that nobody else can understand why we are not in a relationship when we clearly love each other. I don't know what to say? I am not the reason, and everyone knows that, but I fail to understand why Lexie does not seem to know that. I told her I was moving on because she would not commit, but realistically, two months later, I am still madly in love with her, and I know she feels the same way, so I am not sure what I should do to make this happen? What can I say to get her to see what everyone else sees? That I see? I know she feels the same way, she has basically said so, so why are we not well on our way to the rest of our lives? (Note: these are rhetorical questions, not looking for answers from the forum).

Anyway, I was on a binge until Friday when I finally got my act together, though my active recovery did not start until yesterday as yesterday was my first day in two weeks that I accomplished most of my recovery tasks (that is, exercise, reading, meditation, cold shower, journaling, etc). I feel good despite 3 hours of sleep, though I need about 8-9 hours to fully rest (as do most people), so hopefully it is an early night tonight. Semester is almost over, and I am incredibly ready, so I am preparing for finals, and then it is the winter holiday, and then my Master's exams and the start of the next semester. But before I get ahead of myself, it is Tuesday, the last day of classes before finals.

Best,
Mathman1994

 

I was Day 9 and a Pikachu for just a bit, but I fell again today. It's okay--I am capable of building another streak. I missed a couple days of cold showers, not sure if that has too much to do with it, but it's a place to start my recovery.