Whom can you trust?

Hello, As you can see I relapsed yesterday and also the day before yesterday. I lost a 77 streak. I wanted to tell you because it was quite crazy and made me very thoughtful. You have to know that I never fapped very much. When I started with 16 I directly tried to stop. After that I fapped sporadically for half a year, before I stopped for 2 and a half years. After loosing that streak I joined NoFap.

This gave me the reason for some crazy rationalizing (as I see it now) the day before yesterday. I was like: You know nothing about your own sexuality, because you never really had sex or fapped for a longer period. All these people on NoFap talk about the effects of fap-addiction and the effects of quitting, but you know nothing about it. So I found it reasonable to make an experiment and fap frequently for a defined period of time (two weeks). Of course I knew that my dick was joining in the conversation, but it didnt bother me, because all of it made total sense. I really wanted to gain knoledge. About the social effects of fap addiction, mood-effects, refractery period, differences between PMO and MO, possible number of orgasms in one day, etc etc. It was a perfect justification. I also wanted to force myself to fap, even if i didnt want to.

So I thought carefully about it, went on NoFap, deleted my counter, didnt feel bad about it, and fapped.

Right after that (what did you expect) I thought it was a terrible mistake. I couldnt follow my previous argumentation at all. It made absolutely no sense. I thought i was taken in by some crazy and horny rationalizing and wanted to stop the "experiment" immediatly. But I didnt decide to.

And thats the most interesting part: In that situation I was like: "I cant decide to stop the experiment now, even though I absolutely want to, because Im not judicious. Ejaculation changed my mind completely". So I wanted to postpone the decision on the next day...

...Where the experiment made sense to me again, and I fapped. After that my mind was reversed again, but this time i decided to stop.

But the whole thing brought a question to my mind: Whom can you trust? The prefap-self, or the postfap-self? You read on this forum that you have to resist rationalizing, because it essentially only comes from your dick. But isnt the postfap-self also biased? I mean sometimes after I fapped I despised sexuality as a whole. And thats also something I dont want to do normally. I feel like I cant trust myself and that I dont really have a free will. Because its hard to know when you are in your proper mind.

Should I have decided to stop after the first relapse, or was it right to postpone the decision?

Your thoughts on the topic are appreciated.

Morrow

 

Hey, thank you all for your answers.
I think I learned a lot from the incident. But I still have questions.

Well, I actually thought about that. I knew that I would despise it afterwards, but it was my intention to ignore that feeling. Now I know that its very irresponsible to disregard your future-self in this way. But it isnt always is it? When I go to bed in the evening with the intention to get up at 6AM I HAVE to ignore the feelings of my future self, because if I left him free to decide, it wouldnt work. I thought in the same way when planning my "experiment". So, where is the difference? In both cases, the future self is considered driven by emotion, not by reason. And in both cases you THINK that your present self is more rational.

The same goes for Abels suggestion, Im afraid. I mean, you could also write down your feelings when you are to lazy to get up in the morning, and read it when you set the alarm to 6AM next time.

@peregrinnus: You said that the postfap-voice is a more trustworthy voice, but I think there is a problem with that. Because when you dont fap for a long time, you dont hear the postfap-voice anymore. It then only represents a very small part of your mental states. If you consider it then the only trustworthy voice, your average mind looses its trustworthness over time. And I wouldnt know how to handle that!

Im sorry if you have the impression that Im playing the devils advocate here. Maybe Im just confused. Maybe its just an interesting topic. I cant really believe that rationalizing in the form I faced it is made up only by the dick part of your brain, and that you have to ignore it completely. In the same way you could also condemn other thoughts that may seem rational. And that would negate your free-will completely and leave you paralysed. There really isnt a clear way for me to differ reason from emotion.

What I can tell is that these things get the easier, the more stable your mind is. And fapping is definitely a huge threat to that stability. But there are strong emotions on either side of fapping. And none of them really represent your normal, stable mind.

 

Man, if it were so easy, why would anyone relapse? I think when I am about to relapse the next time, it will be because of rationalizing. And then I will need arguments more valid than the one you mentioned. I will need to persist in an intellectual contest. Otherwise the rationalizing part of my brain will just win.

And last time I fapped I didnt feel very bad. I knew I did a mistake, thats all. Thats not enough to hold me back.