Wrestling with a fetish all my life

Day 99

Stress 3, Temptation 6, Motivation 7

I had a great run this morning I made it alone one of my old long-disance routes, so I do feel as though the issues I've been having at home are more to do with the fact that I'm running up hills there.

That said, the end of today's run involved a lot of stopping and starting, so it wasn't perfect, and I'm so incredibly tired right now... but it's a good tired! Tired for achieving something very positive, and tired because I can feel my legs using energy to heal themselves. I really do feel as though I could fall asleep at any second though!

Temptations were again tough but didn't give in to PMO. Walking baxck from the train station I deliberately took some of the back-roads where fewer people tend to go!

 

Day 100!

Stress 1, Temptation 3, Motivation 5

Wow, 100 days. 3 digits! You know, I wasn't anticipating this to the extent I anticipated 90 days. I think this is a good sign... number aside, recovery has become normalised to the extent that I'm not really thinking about the number.

No reason to get complacent though.

Today was full of mixed activities, and I felt extremely at peace. Walking in the morning, switching between meditating and memorising of Proverbs 7. Moved on to a coastal town in the afternoon and spent a lot of time reading by the sea (I'll come back to this) or just staring out at the sea itself. In the evening I caught up with some friends and had a great time doing so. Despite my introversion, good times like this evening are a reminder that I do need social life. I do value people and being with them.

Anyway, regarding my reading: I've started reading the SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION method (http://SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION.org/), having learned of it from @Roady's journal (thanks!). It claims that if you read it without skipping chapters you will be free from PMO. I'll be honest... I was skeptical at first, and to some extent still am, but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of what I've read so far (up to around chapter 6) resonates with much of my own story both in terms of events that have contributed to the development of my addiction but also in terms of various revelations and insights I've had both before and after joining NoFap.

It tells us that the real problem is FEAR.... fear of life without PMO. This I have written about before and a couple of readers have commented to have experienced the same. My fetish feels like part of who I am. It's the only way I know how to express myself sexually. I've been drawing Naomi most of my life and even though I aim to never draw her (tied up or otherwise) again I can't imagine life without doing so. I'm afraid of not seeing through some self-bondage 'ideas' I've come up with. I can't even imagine a life without looking at a woman with lustful intent. When I saw an attractive woman earlier today it occurred to me that even though I knew I would never tie her up or see her tied up, my flesh was uncomfortable with the idea of a world in which I could never even fantasise about doing so in my head. Whenever I consider the reality that I may never entertain my fetish in any way again, there is a noticeable, reflexive fear reaction - as though the amygdala is discharging a powerful electric shock throughout my entire body. So in summary, I certainly relate to the observation that fear is what makes recovery so difficult.

Another key point I relate to is that of brainwashing - society and the media has brainwashed us into thinking that we need orgasm; that sex is what defines us. Upon reflecting upon this point, it occurred to me that this point underlies two of my biggest problems in life: my addiction, of course, but also my frustration with respect to singleness.

Sex penetrates many aspects of life, intentionally or unintentionally. Advertising is an obvious one - "sex sells", as they say. The casting of attractive female leads in TV shows or in popular music bands is another. Peer pressure also - at university I felt as though it was expected that I was not a virgin. There's the occasionally observation that "person XYZ needs to get laid". There are so, so many examples and it occurred to me today that those occasions I remember are probably only a fraction of the true number I have encountered growing up.

See, I fear the embarrassment of a life of celibacy. That shouldn't be embarrassing. At all. Interestingly, I was about to write "embarrassment of being a virgin" but somehow writing it the way I did alerted me to the fact that I'm embarrassed by something which can be a gift to be used for God's glory (Corinthians 7) and even outside a Christian context, can be regarded as a respectful choice. I get scared that dying a virgin will mean there is something wrong with me - but this is a worldly view - and we must not be conformed to the way the world thinks (Romans 12:2).

This fear puts unnecessary pressure on my desire to meet a life partner. Wanting a wife isn't wrong in itself, of course, but I can't let fear of how the world sees me be a driving force in pursuing a relationship. I've known this before now, but reflecting today showed me that this and PMO share the same root problem: the fear of never experiencing orgasm again, an exprienced which society and the media have brainwashed me (and many others) into believing defines who I am.

This. Is. A. Lie.

If I marry, I want it to be because she shares my interests and callings, because I get genuine enjoyment from being with her, and because I love her. It cannot be because of any fear of what the world thinks or because of any pressure I perceive it to be putting me through.

So in any case, this book is good so far!

 

Day 101

Stress 2, Temptation 8, Motivation 5

Will keep today's entry short as it's late, but my eyes were all over the place today... wherever I went there were sights to be tempted by, and I honestly felt as though I could have made myself O without even touching myself. Thankfully I didn't.

On a more positive note, I got to catch up with 2 more friends, one of whom I wasn't expecting to see at all, so it was a nice surprise to be able to meet them.

I have made significant progress reading SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION. No significant revelations and I'm not entirely convinced by all of it, but it's nonetheless helpful reading and giving me a lot to chew on.

 

Day 102

Stress 5, Temptation 6, Motivation 5

Came home today, after a run around the river where I was staying (another old route of mine). Have been busy because of driving home and getting through misc post-holiday chores, so not much to report. I did fit in a bit of reading 'SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION' this morning, and some of my drive was used for Proverbs 7 memorisation. I can do most of it now

 

Day 104

Stress 5, Temptation 8, Motivation 6

Today was mostly okay, though I ended up overcome with strong temptations mid-afternoon. I was convincing myself to give in, but managed to resist. However a period of depression and anxiety followed this. When my mental state restored I again had a strong sense of the temptations acting like a poison in my mind, causing me to think differently and nearly justify a surrender to temptation. It's tricky to explain but I felt like I could physically feel the lies in my head.

I can't help but wonder if the chemical mess that my addiction has caused in my brain as I've grown older is at least partially responsible for many of the emotional things I struggle with (anxiety, indecisiveness, confusion over my feelings for people). Some thoughts here have been inspired by some of the SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION content, but I want to do a bit more digging into the neuroscience that supports these first (SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION is great, but severely lacking in scientific citation so far). In any case it doesn't change the fact that my addiction needs to go.

In general my thoughts pertaining to temptations and fetishism have been very confused today. I don't want to share them until I've worked them out a bit more, but please pray in the meantime, as God understands these thoughts better than I do myself.

 

Day 105

Stress 3, Temptation 4, Motivation 5

Thank you both With regards to both of these points, I do feel like I am starting to recognise how good life will be without the fetish. I have changed in some other positive ways during this journey, and I want more of that. If PMO is truly the cause of so many other maladies I've suffered throughout my life, then a life without PMO can only be a good thing. Despite 100+ days so far, I don't feel I can say I have a life without PMO yet because the desire to do so is still pretty strong at times.

Also good points here, thank you. I'm reminded of the 5 stages of grief:

• Denial - We can deny there's a problem. We can deny the temptation's still there when it is. I have lived in denial many times, though these days I accept that I could relapse at any time.
• Anger - When I seriously entertain the idea of cutting PMO (in particular my drawings and self-bondage) out of my life, there is a very noticable sensation of anger within me. The flesh has a knee-jerk reaction to the very idea.
• Bargaining - I'm always trying to work out some kind of deal with God and/or with myself to ease out of my habits. "What if I draw but don't masturbate?" "What if I spend some time tied up but force myself not to think about people?"
• Depression - A common reaction to denying myself my pleasures. This one needs no elaboration.
• Acceptance - This is the point I struggle to reach. I haven't truly buried my 'girlfriend' Naomi as there's still that part of me hoping for failure... I can lay her to rest but I can still pick up a piece of paper and bring her back to life in my drawings. I can always find things to tie myself up with. The internet and all the fetish material it has to offer is always going to be there. I'm not at the point of acceptance even though I want to be. I am still bargaining, still reacting in anger when I deny all of these bargains and sinking into depression when I don't give in to the anger.

But returning to the earlier point... I feel like that day where I truly bury this 'old friend' is close. The benefits of letting go and moving on are becoming tangibly clear.

 

Day 106

Stress 5, Temptation 4, Motivation 6

Morning temptations were so strong, almost like a burning sensation. Thankfully these subsided as I started my day.

First day back working (from home) wasn't so bad, though I feel that despite my efforts to catch up on things I have finished the day with more tasks than I started with!

---

I'm thinking of taking a temporary break from NoFap (the website, not the practice!) to allow more time for reflection on what I’ve learned and to meditate on things I need to do to further my recovery. It’s great here, helping others and of course receiving help, but the commitment to it sometimes becomes a chore. Yes – it’s a healthy chore – but I’m not finding time for other healthy practices which require more time but less often. Posting too much for the sake of it adds another commitment to the day and fragments my time; fragmented time makes it hard for me to think and focus on other tasks, which creates stress and puts me at risk of failure. This itself is one of the key things I’ve learned on my journey. It also needs a grander solution, i.e. a complete re-evaluation of my priorities, work method, etc.

It occurred to me that although I know various truths (e.g. the fact that no amount of PMO will ever be satisfactory, the fact that by giving up PMO I have everything to gain and nothing to lose), I take little time to reflect on them or drill them into memory. I need to identify all the truths and lies, rote learn them and meditate on them, as I do when I memorise scripture. Of course, I need to associate scripture with as many of these points as possible.

More generally, I feel I need to work on a recovery strategy / plan based on the truths and lies, with the caveat that all plans and strategies are useless without God’s help (Psalm 127:1: “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”)

I need to compile various lists, inspired by content from The Bible mainly, but also SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION method, previous discussions here on NoFap, and others. The lists I want to make are:

• Truths and lies
• Recovery goals and strategies for meeting them
• Things I’ve learned that I didn’t know before this journey (though this may be a subcategory of truths and lies)

In any case, if I do take a temporary break, it won't be just yet.

 

Day 107

Stress 5, Temptation 5, Motivation 7

This is very inspiring, thank you. It reminds me of Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”. It was pointed out to me recently that we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to understand topics such as the nature of demons, Satan, hell, etc., since although we need to be aware of the dangers they pose, it’s more important for us to be focussed on God, the Gospel, fellowship, eternal life, etc. We are commanded to be focussed on these things.

I’ve been more attentive to the pure things in my life lately – the friends at church, the joy of families with children, etc. When I’m with such people, my fetish just feels weird on repulsive (and indeed it is both of those things!). Time with loved ones has a sobering effect on me.

I will come back to this point, but first some reflections from today:

---

Following @Roady 's point about the death of an 'old friend', though I struggle to see my friend as dead and buried, it occurred to me that I can accept that it is dying, as if I have come to terms with the fact that the ‘old friend’ is terminally ill.

I have been reading a book about the development of the brain from birth to death. Yesterday’s chapter talked about Alzheimer's and how patients in a sense begin to regress back to birth – a sort of ‘last in first out’ process with respect to behaviours. Skills they pick up later in life are the first to go… towards the end patients have even been reported to suckle if a finger is placed in their mouth, and right at the end they assume the fetal position.

DiD & bondage trigger warning / possibly disturbing content ahead

As my fetish’s influence on me wanes, it feels like a similar process… almost. At first I was only interested in women tied up in specific ways, had no interest in gags or blindfolds or other aspects of the Damsel in Distress phenomenon. Gags soon became pretty much essential to getting off. My interests broadened over time but certain things still repulsed me… for a time… until I was getting off on those things too. There have always been limits, but they became fewer as the inner beast grew. I felt no shame about fantasising about being women I knew during my self-bondage sessions. Over time I became interested in more and more aspects of this fetish and when it was in its prime I could get off on a woman tied up in almost any way. I remember one day a scene came up completely unexpectedly and I rubbed one out almost in an instant.

That same scene isn’t that appealing to me now. In more recent years as I’ve taken the battle against PMO more seriously, even though I fail, what I consider off-limits are growing in number again. Last time I engaged in self-bondage, I just couldn’t bring myself to think about many people, if any at all. When I gave in to finishing my story about Naomi, I was able to draw without masturbating. I could finish a page, put the pencil down and move on with something else. I could sometimes look at my work and question ‘what on earth was I doing’? Fewer videos or scenes work for me, though this may be more because as my attention to detail has grown I’m more attentive to imperfections in the way a woman is tied or the distressing aspects of a scene (modern scenes tend to be more realistic). That’s no bad thing though… it reminds me that there’s no such thing as a perfect scene, and that my flesh seeks a lie. In summary, I don’t (and can’t) get off of as many things as I used to. So this old friend isn’t dead, but it is on its way out.

It’s not a perfect analogy though, since as I’ve mentioned before in recent years I also picked up some new things such as a sexual interest in ASMR and women in gym gear. And in any case, slow death of the fetish is no reason for complacency.

Where the weakening influence is caused by repulsion, this is something I wish to meditate on more to train my mind to be more repulsed. But, in keeping with @CPilot’s post and my reflections thereafter, reflections on pure things must come first and foremost.

 

Day 108

Stress 5, Temptation 5, Motivation 8

"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare." - Isaiah 55:2

The above verse relates to many of the truths I want to drill into myself. I will share a more general reflection on the group page also, but with respect to my own temptations:

• We do not need PMO
• PMO will never satisfy
• Where we spend time, money or effort on PMO, it is a complete waste for the above reasons.
  • I have never paid for fetish material online, though I have wasted a lot of paper in my drawings.
  • Drawing long stories is very time consuming; to a lesser (but still significant) extent online viewing and self-bondage sessions are also.
  • Self-bondage always leaves me feeling very tired after a long session, even if it is relaxing and pleasurable at the time.
• We must fill ourselves with good things.
  
  • As we have been saying in the past few posts... filling the empty spaces with what is pure; eating what is good.

 

Day 111

I would normally post towards the end of the day, but I want to make sure I get various observations from the past few days written down while they are still on my mind:

Mornings have been hard over the past few days, and I seem to have significantly less energy upon waking, making it tough to get started. I do feel like I’m slipping in terms of temptation too… ‘touching’ seems to be happening a bit more, but not quite to the extent that I would call it masturbation. I definitely need to focus on counting on days without touching though – only touching that region of my body for urination, cleaning or inspection for health reasons. Touching at other times, usually subconsciously, has on many occasions been the first step towards PMO.

One of the fundamental principals behind the SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION method is to get yourself in a state of mind in which you simply won’t want to PMO anymore (another Biblical principal – a change of heart and mind). I was part-way here anyway when I joined NoFap, but some recent realisations are:

• A successful resistance does leave some kind of pleasant feeling in my mind that I can’t quite describe. I’m cautious though because it could be dopamine released having had the impure thought that I have had to resist… the thoughts themselves are somewhat pleasurable, after all.
• As I woke this morning and struggled with that most difficult of times for dealing with temptations, I thought ahead to the hypothetical moment of giving in, all the way to O. Despite how tempted I was, the idea of self-induced O felt ugly. Not just the sense of disappointment and shame that follows, but the actual O - the pleasurable sensation in my gentials, the release of pleasure hormones in my head, everything.

I also noticed last night, looking at the recording of my heart rate over the past year, that on average it had dropped until I started this streak, but gradually risen after, supporting my theory that my streak and my underperformance on runs are connected. My theory is not that my heart is affected directly but that it’s an indirect consequence of whatever’s weakening my legs or whatever makes it hard to motivate me to push them up the local hills – it never feels like my heart is the problem when I struggle up a hill, but if my legs aren’t working as hard as they used to, my heart will not need to pump as much blood and therefore oxygen around my body.

 

Day 112

Stress 4, Temptation 5, Motivation 8

Three miscellaneous insights today.

Insight 1

Lately I've been feeling extra tired when I wake up, and generally fatigued. Didn't help that I had some extra prep to do for church today that I didn't manage to finish last night, and that my meal routine was a bit off yesterday too. Naturally, I woke up with strong temptations.

However, I don't remember when exactly, but I realised as clear as day that giving into temptation wouldn't make me feel better in the long run or solve anything at all. Of course, I've always known it, but I've never been able to actually accept it, at least not during a period of intense temptation. Resistance at such times is usually reluctant... today I genuinely wanted to resist despite how awful I felt. Giving into PMO just felt like a completely illogical think to do, more than it ever has.

Will it last? Who knows. But the SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION guide seeks to help us come to such revelations... one of its purposes is to get us into the firm belief that PMO just doesn't solve anything. PMO can't heal negative feelings... it only ever creates them (in the long run at least). Besides, I felt a lot better after church anyway.

Insight 2

Another revelation was regarding the fear of O'ing again, through M or through an intimate relationship. But I suddenly realised, while driving home, am I really trying to say that sex is all about O? Is it not more generally about connecting with someone - your life partner - intimately? Is it not more about giving them pleasure and not receiving it for yourself? P and M may give us O... but neither can possibly give us that level of intimacy or selfless love. In fact there's nothing selfless about it. PMO is pure selfishness. I've always had that fear that 'what if I can't get it up on my wedding night because of my fetish'? But is the wedding night, or marriage more generally, even about that? A motivation behind PMO - sometimes conscious, sometimes subconscious - behind PMO is that fear of never getting to experience penetrative sex with a partner in marriage, even if I do in fact get married but have disfunctional issues. But this is such a ridiculous motivation on so many levels. through PMO I'm trying to compensate for something that isn't even the core of marriage. It's about selfless, loving, sacrificial devotion. Not about orgasm.

Insight 3

I'm too hard on myself. Or rather, I don't trust myself enough. I am very self-disciplined, and I often say that self-discipline is different from legalism because choosing to do the former is in some ways an act of worship. To some extent I believe this is true, but only when it's necessary to do so because your heart and love for God don't drive you to do it automatically.

Prayer is a good example. I've been so focused on self-discipline to pray for 30 minutes each day because I don't trust myself to devote myself to prayer otherwise and let it flow naturally. But knowing I have to get my 30 mins in can become a stressor. Maybe it is time to let myself see if I can just stop and pray until those prayers come to a natural close, rather than not trusting myself and inflicting self-discipline? If I fail in this area then yes, I will seek to get back into the 30-minutes routine, as an act of seeking to let God create a heart in me that doesn't need to be disciplined, but kneels before him out of pure joy.

This is just one example of how I don't trust myself enough. I need to cut myself more slack.

 

Day 113

Stress 3, Temptation 4, Motivation 8

Had a really good hill run today Didn't make it up the normal route without stopping, but it felt easier than it has done recently and my heart really got a good workout. Still kinda buzzing from it!

It was also a bit cooler than it has been. I generally underperform when it's warmer, but recent leg problems somehow just don't feel as though they could have been affected by the heat. In any case, today's run was a good sign, but one good run isn't enough to be statistically significant.

 

Day 114

Stress: 4, Temptation: 5, Motivation: 5

Some reflections this morning:

DiD fetish parlance uses the term ‘full treatment’ to describe being tied up ‘completely’, i.e. both bound and gagged. When an actress or even animated character first gets the ‘full treatment’ it’s a big deal for fetishists. I don't like that I do this at all, but my mind automatically partitions women into 2 categories: those who have been tied up and those who haven’t. I often wonder if part of the reason I developed this fetish is because as I grew up my mind mistakenly associated the phenomenon of bondage with female maturity. It’s as though getting tied up is a rite of passage or sign of coming-of-age. As women grow older, they develop breasts and their bodies generally become more attractive sexually. For me a woman’s first bondage experience is part of that process, especially if she gets the ‘full treatment’.

We’ve spoken before of how cartoons may inadvertently influence to a child’s sexual awakening. Many heroines from around the 90s or earlier – including those from some of my favourite capture-prone characters - had very skimpy or at least form-fitting costumes. Children’s cartoons back then (and possibly now) weren’t shy about revealing the female figure, hiding as little as they could get away with at the time. It just so happens that in the cartoons I watched at least, these women also seemed to get tied up much more than the men. So, as I was learning about the ‘ideal’ female figure through these cartoons, the ‘full treatment’ became a part of that.

Another aspect of this – a realisation I came to this morning and the reason I’m writing – is that I’m turned on knowing that a women has had this experience – past perfect tense. Knowing a woman is in the category of having had the full treatment – that final stage of maturity in my confused mind – is in itself a turn-on, even if she isn’t tied up at the time I’m looking at / thinking about her. When I think about my own experiences of self-bondage, I similarly get off knowing that I have been through it too. Even though I am not a woman, I like to think of myself as among those ‘fully mature’ women who have had their full treatment experience – and the very thought arouses me.

I sometimes feel that something I’ve struggled to accept is that putting myself in the mind of the damsel in distress, both during and after my self-bondage sessions, is a form of autogynephilia. I get off from fantasising about being a woman, but one in a very particular situation.

---

Today has been pretty average on all accounts. However I seem to be finding both in an out of work that as soon as I got one task off my TODO list more appear out of nowhere... I'm treading water here.... keeping afloat but not really moving anywhere!

 

Throughout my streak there’s been a weakness I hadn’t accounted for: my reluctance to admit failure.

It’s hard to define P with what I have going on and as I’ve mentioned before the boundary is blurred, but I need to admit that even within the blurry area, perhaps I’ve been on the wrong side of it, to the extent that I’m going to count it as a reset with respect to P. My mind has been all over the place, with respect to temptation but also the sheer number of things I have going on and mentally I haven’t been in a good place the past few days. Right now life has too many inputs and it’s stressing me out dealing with them while also wrestling obsessive/lustful thoughts. I’ve been looking at some images ‘investigating’ my childhood experiences but frankly enjoying it too much. I also started trying to recover deleted files of old drawings which luckily don’t seem recoverable, but I have no idea what I would have done if I had found them. I was trying without really knowing why I was trying. I have to count all of this as P. I didn’t MO though, thankfully, and I certainly intend to keep it that way.

I’ve been reluctant to come on here and admit it for multiple reasons, including:
The main one relates to my opening sentence. I realise it would be my first time to fail in this journal… my first streak that I’ve been counting on NoFap has been a very good one, and that’s been harder to let go of as it grows… I can see it becoming easier to make excuses for things not counting.
I’ve been scared of what everybody here would think if I failed, which is ridiculous, I know. Partly out of shame, partly out of fear of envying those doing better than me. I’ve been comparing myself to others’ counters too much and worrying too much about what people think.

However, admitting failure feels surprisingly good, because now I know I can do it, and also I now feel free from the above two issues... free of the need to compare and free from the fear of what readers think. It's a good feeling.

There are also some other positives from the past few days.

I’ve finished SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION but I need at least one more read-through (more on that later). Reflecting on SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION and its goal to make us simply not want PMO anymore, I believe this relates to the idea of burying the ‘old friend’. I am still not there overall, but if I consider my problem as a group of friends, it has occurred to me that some are dead and others are not.

Essentially what it comes down to is that all aspects except fictional, cartoon women in bondage are ‘dead’ or as good as. However the urge to draw is still very much there.

• SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION’s attack on the porn industry has succeeding in killing my interest in fetish videos – those which are intentionally designed for people like me.
• I think this is true of actresses in TV shows and film but I probably won’t know until an ‘ideal’ scene comes up unexpectedly – such times are when I’m most vulnerable to this form of ‘P’.
• The desire for self-bondage feels very much dead, suddenly. It's too early to say for sure though. Perhaps it's more accurate to say my resolve to never do it again is incredibly strong right now.

And importantly, MO is dead... I just don't want to do it any more. The more I reflect on it, my temptations feel rooted in my drawing fantasies. I am tempted to draw but honestly not tempted to MO with it… but I acknowledge I could become tempted to MO once I’m in that zone. It is still a hazard.

It also occurred to me that the urge for this type of P but not MO contradicts one of the fears of giving up PMO… the fear of never O-ing again. I don't think this was ever really the fear. I can sense that I still fear never having sexual gratification again, but sexual gratification doesn't necessitate O. Sex is about relationship, and what I am struggling to internalise is that I will never get that through P, whether that’s traditional internet P or me drawing my fantasies.

Despite regarding MO as dead, I still have the issue of touching without necessarily masturbating. I need to address this. And of course, even if I keep this fetish in my head, the fantasies themselves are still a problem.

So in summary:

• I have reset wrt P.
• My urges are rooted in my drawings.
• My (irrational) fear is no sexual gratification of any form again
  
• Touching and fantasising are still issues.

I mentioned a few posts back that I need a break from NoFap to reassess and also focus on trying the SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION method at a slow, careful pace, because my first time through was fast but distacted. I was not concentrating as much as I could have. When I encounter a question or point that particularly challenges me, I will stop, think about it, pray about it, search for relevant scripture and really drive it home before continuing.

Even though I still consider my counter accurate w.r.t. MO I’m going to remove it while I reconsider how to define progress / define my strategy more generally. Or maybe I’m done using a counter publically… I think they are a good thing but maybe not the right thing for me now. My own temptation to compare myself against others is too great and makes this battle about the wrong thing completely. The counter is a distracting input, of which I have too many right now. It’s another reason to take a break. I don’t know how long for, but I certainly intend on returning, and at the very earliest after I finish doing the SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION method properly.

In fact making this decision shows me how important NoFap is to me, because I think keeping away will be hard! I value the input of everybody here and I want to help others too!

I will commence my break this at some point this weekend, allowing time to replying to any comments that might come up.