I did it, I reached day 90 of a PMO-free challenge. Considering my fapping history (25+ years on every medium you can imagine, in 30 countries, in every situation, even in public) it’s a nice feat and I want to take a moment to acknowledge that feeling of pride.
Now, what do I see in the future? I’ll slowly convert to a 90 days hard mode while continuing towards a 180 and then 360 days PMO-free. We’ll see how many Hard mode streaks I can do in these timeframes. Now that I’ve managed this personnal record, I don’t plan on letting meaningful sexual encounters out of my life (if I can ever materialize them in the physical world) since I know they are something I want for the future.
What happened in this last streak that wasn’t there before? I’m not sure what changed, but I know what I’ve consciously done to make it work, so let’s get to explaining this., shall we?
Spreadsheets for Good
I’ve discovered NoFap in the early days of 2016 while engaged in an introspection phase to change my life paradigm. I’ve tried a few challenges that failed and taught me a great deal about me every time.
On may 6th, I realized my PMO urges were basically coming without warning that I could identify and lacking the energy I simply couldn’t stand and face them. I also realized I couldn’t remember the last couple of weeks’ thinking or feelings, which could’ve helped understand the whole process. So I started an observation spreadsheet. Sounds boring and it was at first, I was monitoring my Energy, Morale and Struggle (-10/+10 spectrum), Urges (daily count) and PMO (yes or no).
After a couple of weeks, the graph was starting to show very interesting trends and cycles and I learned to read my addictive behavior in these different variables. Every evening, instead of going to NoFap forums and write another of my infused yet boring journal posts, I’d fill my spreasheet and take a look at my life graph, trying to understand what was happening in regard of current feelings/thoughts or previous events. It was a very internal observation process where I left feelings and thoughts run wild like I discovered a new species (as we do).
In this period of time, I decided that my life was too empty and dull for my liking, and that I’d start consistent scheduling of outdoor activities, meditation, reading, sports, social interactions and friends/family helping. Some were daily goals, other weekly goals. The point was to put something in my life I was proud of, that I’d fight for and that could *maybe* enrich my experience by doing it in the long run. Yes, I started hacking my own brain with the seed of change, the idea that instant gratification was a lie and that being in something for the long run was tough but worth the shot.
I wasn’t even trying to muster my strength to battle the addiction. I simply let it happen, watched as it happened, and kept a record of the ins-and-outs (no pun intended). This taught me a lot about my behavior and its clockwork precision, of course. But it also had a unsuspected effect of tremendously helping to passively sabotage the instant gratification act. As I watched myself act, I sort of became more and more aware of the cold, the empty and dehumanized being that I was. A few months earlier I had the same realization at a philosophical level – but this time it was an in the flesh feeling. I didn’t hate myself for it either, I forced myself not to. I pushed myself through the binge nights and bleak desperation, with the single thought that I was soon going to take care of things, and do it well.
The seed of change
The month of June was incredibly filled with binge, extended P use and shame. When I look at the graph today I’m like “Seriously?”, but it’s there, the record is there, and it’s real. During the very last days of June, somehow, the pieces must’ve clicked together. I still wasn’t trying to resist any urge, but strangely for this filth filled times, there just wasn’t any. I knew this feeling, I’ve had it many times in my life already : The short sensation that the last orgasm was still there with me and that I’d never need another one, that I was filled to the brim with physical bliss and that I’d never let it go. Usually a couple of PMO-free days later I’d suddenly relapse and binge frantically to fill myself again with pure bliss. So I knew what to expect, in the form of an abrupt comeback that would be simultaneously terrible and beautiful.
This time, it didn’t happen. Everyday I kept coming back to my spreadsheet, filling it with “No PMO” and ever increasing Morale and Energy levels. Still, I KNEW it was coming, the great relapse. It never came. The urges were close to zero, the Struggle was gone. What was that? I asked myself.
After 10 days, I had a very bad migraine (I used to have a lot of them, chronic ones, totally incapacitating) and I felt like crap for 30 hours, a useless piece of meat lying in bed. Something swept over me, the urge to give myself a treat, a moment of extasy. Fortunately, my mind was strong at the core this day and I didn’t rush to the computer, nor did I setup an elaborate fantasy. I decided that I could please myself physically if I found ways to do it without artificial or imaginary stimulation. Sure enough, the sensations were here and I had a great time with myself and O’d, just to crash in the wall of my fear that I’d never get out of this mess if I couldn’t resist the urges. Shame was everywhere for the rest of the day.
From the next day on, I continued the monitoring, meditation, self-fitness, running, swimming, reading, and connecting with people I’ve left on the side for years. The seed of change slowly started growing, reinforcing my self-esteem day-by-day, and offering ever more support for the difficult times to come.
The Not-so-Hard Mode
And boy did the difficult times come. Restless days and nights. Rushing thoughts. Trembling hands. Bestial mood. Dreams made in heaven where I basically lived in a world of sex and woke up with the strongest urge I’ve ever felt, a compulsion to masturbate my life away, so dreadful it scared me away from acting it out. And the constant fear of seeing this happen right before my eyes. All of these carefully intoxicated-brain orchestrated feelings that I knew I could stop in a simple flurry of clicks on my laptop. Earlier in the process I had decided against a P blocker on my computer : Despite the potential danger of random exposure and limitless online availability, I felt like I needed to KNOW my victory against Porn was a personnal achievement on my own ressources (the NoFap community being part of it), and I didn’t want a blocker to tarnish it.
So there I was in the hallway of the challenge house, almost there by mistake since I didn’t even say “June 29th will be the last time I watch Porn ever!” (the date doesn’t sound right for that kind of announcement). Since I already fucked up the Hard Mode part of it with my migraine-soothing MO, I decided that I would try and have MOs. Why not – I knew it is supposed to slow the rebooting process but rather slow than none was something that resonated in me. I would try and limit them to when it would be absolutely unbearable to not please myself. I called it the Not-so-Hard Mode.
I’ve read what’s to know about MO during a reboot, about fantasy issues and possible Chaser effects. So that’s where my efforts really kicked in, that’s where my strength was needed. At that point (after 15 days), I had flashes of P over my eyes every time I blinked ; every time I put underwear or went peeing I had to use meditation tricks to avoid enjoying the touch on my penis. It was scary, that’s no way to live, being afraid of yourself like that. When things got out of control, I went for a quick MO, and the graph now shows a nice once a week distribution – which wasn’t controlled in any way, it’s just how it happened.
And the living is easy (Summertime)
By then summertime was in full swing, and by my place it means a lot of sun, a lot of sea, a lot of foreigners in vacation eager to get as much sun on each body part, a lot of being outdoors, friends visiting, everybody being in a good mood, people living their easy lives.
Fortunately for me, my meditation was starting to get real solid, and though I didn’t impose myself a strict zero-tolerance policy over “looking at triggers”, I managed to control my gaze, my thoughts and keep the urges out of sight.
A friend visited me and had me learn to juggle, in public places, for the sake of meeting new people. It was a crazily hard thing for me to do (not mentioning I don’t juggle), but it worked so well that I had a boost in confidence that kept me floating in real-life-interactions-induced bliss for weeks.
When this faded, I plunged in a dark hole of misery and fatigue (mostly because I was mentally exhausted from having someone to take care of all day long for a week). Down there, I’ve endured the most insane invasion of P I’ve ever had. My days were a constant struggle were my brain was screaming for its fix, my body was aching, my nights were viciously filled with the wildest of my fantasies, playing over and over and over in my head and before my eyes. I thought I was going crazy. I thought the end of my heroic streak was closing in. I thought I coudln’t resist. I thought I’d lose the fight.
The Challenge
That thought actually challenged me. I looked at my graph, my spreadsheets, my progress, and thought : “It ain’t over till it’s over – Bring it on.” I must’ve believed this deep in my core, because my brain stopped screaming, my body stopped aching, my nights cleared and there was calmness in me as the storm was receding. This lasted days. Weeks. A month.
Sure I still saw the urges coming. Sure I had these torrid flashes when catching the sight of a gorgeous girl in the street. Sure I knew what I’d get if I “just got online and…”. But the challenge I had voiced kept the temptation at bay. My strength and dedication and thoughts could then be directed somewhere else and I thus reinforced my meditation, my sports, my socials, my introspection, while fighting the odd tenacious urge here and there.
At that point the very thought of P was starting to look like a distant memory – you know what it’s about but can’t quite recall how it used to be. It started to feel strange, even alien. Something that couldn’t be associated with me, surely these blurred memories of a tall and athletic guy in his best 30’s fapping his nights away were some sort of mistake.
It doesn’t look like much when I say that, but when this kind of feeling truly shows deep inside, it’s of tremendous help the next time I had to muster any energy to fight an urge or a thought. It might be what psychology calls positive reinforcement – the better it goes, the more armed you are and thus the better it will go next time.
The Road Ahead
The last month was a mashup of different ups and downs that have nothing in common with the previous periods of time. It’s like I’ve entered another era of my life, like something has been left behind, like some weight fell from my shoulders. I started reaching out to girls I wanted to connect to on a deeper level ; I’ve even exploded in love for one after we shared a delicious weekend with other friends ; I’ve started to put long-delayed plans into motion ; I’ve opened to a lot of different issues in my direct environment and I’m more and more trying to look up forward to the road that’s ahead.
My inner fearful child says I’m trying to go too fast too soon, and I might crash hard, risking to lose all progress made thus far.
My inner challenge monkey says I’m doing great for someone that’s attempting a complete change of life, and that the time is now, tomorrow might not happen.
Since the challenge monkey helped me make the most persistent change so far in a direction that I wanted for my life, I tend to listen to him and cheerfully accept his challenges.
Since the fearful child contributed to keep me in an addicted state of shapeless being for decades, I’m mostly telling him to shut the fuck up, while reining down a little bit on my expectations (but don’t tell him, I don’t want him to know).
I realize my brain isn’t fully rebooted. Yet I’m not done and I’ll get there.
I realize that my personality will always be at risk with overstimulation especially during depressive episodes, hard times and exhausting events. Yet this is the life worth living, the one we choose to. Not the one where we end up doing what this intrusive friend comes uninvited in our lives because we’ve always let him do so, so he’s at home in our life, to the point where we don’t.
Next stops in the Success section will be :
- 90 days Hard Mode*
- 180 days Not-so-Hard Mode
- 180 days Hard Mode*
- 360 days Not-So-Hard Mode
- 360 days Hard Mode*
* : That’s if my efforts in courting these ladies are unfruitful. Otherwise I won’t let it pass for the sake of Hard Mode. This might seem like a big “fuck you” to the entire rebooting process, especially since I’ve kept some MO in my life during these 90 days. The goal is to kill the overstimulation, return to real life sensations and thinking, get closer to the real and further from the fake. While Hard Mode might help us big time recover the brain’s factory settings faster, I believe a physical interaction with another human being might do even better in the form of anchoring ourselves in a positive and enjoyable reality. (Just my own present mindset, this is subject to change without prior warning ^^)
Meanwhile I want to find a job I believe in, finish therapy (not a porn-based therapy), find a girl who likes me and that I like, move in a new place, travel to more countries/cultures I’ve never encountered before, develop a social project I have with a friend, start volunteering in a local addiction support group.
If you’ve read this post this far, you probably either were curious to see what the kicker would be, or you genuinely have it in you to purposefully withstand painful episodes in exchange for the chance to learn something that might prove useful to you in the future. And if you read me properly, you know that this probably was the most important key to what I’ve been trying to accomplish during the past half-year.
While I’ve gotten into detailed account instead of extracting the wisdom behind it, I do hope that if you’re reading this, it will bless you with something more than just the anecdote of my story. I hope you will get inspired (that doesn’t mean copying mindlessly) and will be stronger on your own way.
Peace
LINK – So I get to post a 90 days milestone – No PMO, some MO.
by TheFutureMe
UPDATE – So it’s been a year : proud and strong
Hi fellow Fapstronauts, I wish you a very nice new year – may your efforts light up the path and lighten your burdens!
I’ve had addictive behaviors regarding PMO for 25+ years. I won’t get into the details here, but the headlines are :
– Associated with social isolation and anxiety
– Associated with extreme delayed ejaculation
– Associated with a general lack of sexual/intimate partners
– Associated with generalized depressive patterns light enough to not raise any concerns anywhere besides “character issues”
– Otherwise fully functionnal… if this still has any meaning after the previous list.
I’m here today to share with you that latest milestone. One year ago, I’ve started another counter, another challenge that previously only got me so far as 128 days. I say “only” because what’s happening now is so much bigger. All i can wish for you is that you get there too. And I trust you will !
This time I got to 370. A year. It’s still counting. Though to be honest there’s nothing to count anymore – that “everyday is day 1” feeling is long gone, and P is not an option, not anymore than drinking 17 litres of brandy in the evening would. Not appealing at all besides the occasional “hey, could be fun” thought, which wears out effortlessly in a second, thanks to the knowledge of consequences and the values I’ve come to build around those practices.
During this time I’ve not watched P or P-subs, intentionally or not. I’ve covered my eyes when friends teased me with explicit content, turned my gaze away when nudity appeared on screen, etc. Not in a prey-like move, but rather in a confident self-preservation gesture similar to blocking rather than dodging. Full disclosure, I was not on hard mode – so over the course of the year I M’d exactly 20 times. Which is about the amount I use to do in a week, about two years ago. Some might say it’s a small achievement compared to Hard modes, and I truly understand that statement. But I figured that reducing the frequency was the way that worked with me, that I could maintain for extended amounts of time last year. When I M’d it was 95% waking up from a terrifyingly sexual dream, in the middle of the night, and decided to delve into the feeling. Twice only I sought physical relief by focusing on the physical sensations (and making sure I wouldn’t fantasize or visualize), and immediately regretted it big time.
I didn’t seek to just stop P or M, that I knew I could. What I wanted was to truly change the underlying foundations of my PMO habit. Let me explain that bit.
You see, when I started NoFap i was like many of other fapstronauts. Angry at P for being so mean and so damn attractive. “Damn you Porn, you’re so evil, you wreak havoc in my life, go away”. Then after looking my habit right in the eye I taught her who is in charge here. But as you may have experimented yourselves, this is often hard won, and lasts until the next bump in the road. Like many here as well, I figured that this habit didn’t come out of nowhere. That I called it into my life and let it stay, like this overstaying friend you agreed on sheltering for a week a year ago. That many people use P for their entertainment and aren’t hooked like I was. Just like you don’t feel threatened when you grab a beer with friends, like an alcoholic would.
If you’ve followed me there, you might think that these concepts alone are easily understood, that they’re pretty obvious, and that they don’t do the heavy lifting alone. And you’d be right! During this period of time I’ve started a few activities that helped structure my life differently : that’s right – CHANGE. If you haven’t figured this out yet, I strongly suggest you start considering your life as being built with some rotten bricks (PMO) and that maybe those walls need replacement. Not being afraid of change may be a hard step to take, and to be fully transparent, I was still afraid a few weeks ago when I started to change something else in this life – and asked a girl out (for the first time in decades). So don’t fret when you start laying the foundations of those new walls – they don’t have to be perfect at first, they just need to be different from what you have now.
Among the steps I took to change, I started a new education project which will take me to a new profession in a few years ; invested more time into activities that I wanted to develop like sports, photography, reading, walks, hikes, social events ; meditaiton ; writing ; etc.
Those weren’t just a list of things to pass the time, what they all had in common is the NON-INSTANTANEOUS GRATIFICATION. For some I had to invest heavily in a short period of time, for others I had to invest small efforts regularly, etc. And this, friends, is really where the cycle of PMO got dismantled. It got broken before that, with the NoFap challenges that showed me I could very well live without fapping to exagerated sexual action 10 times a day. But the real dismantling was the realization that the more I invested myself in something that couldn’t be instantaneously reaped, the more I enjoyed the benefits of it over longer periods of time, thus would try to repeat the experience and improve it.
Additional benefits of this way of thinking is I trust myself more and more, which started a beneficial cycle: more opportunities, more energy to materialize them, etc. And the more this process takes places, the easier it is to say “Not a chance” when a P-related thought comes into mind.
I remember a few days ago, thinking rather sexually about the woman I’m currently dating, that the little voice that used to speak so loudly to my broken willpower was completely quiet. I can still hear it whisper tiny fragments of “hey.. it’s me… remember the good time you had when…”, but I face it with a sympathetic smile and go “Sorry but.. Not a chance, Not interested ” just like I would on a street vendor with her fake jewelry or cigarettes.
Thinking forward I suppose I’ll stop recording the 10 indicators I used to record daily on a spreadsheet (willpower, energy, morale, P flashes, urges, etc etc) and just concentrate on living this new life. I’ll come regularly here to keep in touch with the community, the outstanding efforts that many of you provide for free everyday to improve the life of others who share the same affliction. I’m starting to date a fine woman with whom I feel very much aligned and safe, and I trust that, on top of the 370 P-free I’m here to share, the P&M-free streak I’m on now (46 today) will only grow – can’t see no reason to MO without my partner now anyway. I feel like the worst is behind me and I can fully enjoy what’s here and now. While keeping an eye on the pesky thoughts and the bumps in the road of course. Should they arise, it would be an other opportunity for growth and learn.
There’s a process in psychopathology that make you go through a certain amount of linear states when faced with a traumatic experience (be it big or small), and I guess I’ve arrived for quite some time at the adaptation step – when you’ve integrated the details of your past experience, the trauma itself and you’ve found solutions to deal with it on a daily basis. It doesnt mean that the trauma is gone or rendered harmless, but that you’ve done the work to grow around it in something that wasn’t possible before nor without it.
It is a time of opportunity and discovery, an exciting perspective that doesn’t fail to amaze everyday. There’s a wish I’d like to seed in the universe today, and that is “May all of you experience relief from the burden that is PMO, and may you be proud of it for the rest of your days”.
Thanks for reading this far into my wall of text – May it inspire you like so many others did to me in the past two years!
All the best to you all, and may 2018 bring you the courage to take a step further than wherever you are now. There are no missteps when you’re going forward.
UPDATE – 500 days porn-free
Here it is, the NoFap counter maximum and incidentally, the arbitrary goal that I’ve set for myself on January 2nd 2017. I suppose I should be hosting a party or something, because when I look back at the path that led me here, it wasn’t exactly straightforward. I’m talking about the addict mind of course, of 25 years of compulsive and destructive use. But I’m also talking about the tortuous paths that we must face when trying to counter those deeply ingrained behaviours.
I’ve made a post on an earlier milestone that pretty much summed up what tools I’ve used, from mindset to mind tricks to exercises etc, so I won’t be repeating this. If you’re interested, you can lookie lookie [HERE].
Those 500 days are a P-free mark. It hasn’t been monk mode at all, nor do I think that this time of my life could’ve harboured such effort. P-free was the max I could do, and I’m grateful that I could do that much.
(For full disclosure, I’ve spent the past 200 days probably M’ing once a week or every 10 days maybe, to nothing that physical sensations – as little fantasy as possible, and definitely no reference to anything related to P I’ve ever watched. I’ve had a girlfriend too, so definitely O’s too)
Where do I stand today regarding P? Well, as a recent experience showed me, I’m still prone to P’s influence. Or more accurately, the hungry P-addict-mind in me isn’t dead and can still rattle my mind suggesting this or that, when specific triggers happen. You know them too: hunger, anxiety, loneliness, tiredness. The famous “HALT”. It’s easy to brush off those faint ideas though, and literally anything makes it go away (something as simple as looking out the window, for example). As opposed to 500 days ago, I don’t feel threatened when I see a sexually charged image, and in some cases, I’ve even been able to enjoy the sheer beauty of the images (ads in the streets, a movie scene etc) without even feeling that tingle which used to say “oh boy, I’m so gonna masturbate to that later on. Wait no, actually let’s get something more exciting”.
An interesting development (that I really wish you to witness by yourselves when the time comes) was the transfer of any kind of PMO urge onto other things. Compulsive running, compulsive gaming, compulsive movie binging, compulsive working, compulsive social networking etc. I think I went through all the possible exaggeration that avoiding P can provide, always to release that tension. With the right kind of look at what’s happening, trying to understand it an observe, you can spot extremely interesting patterns on your own use, thoughts, behaviors. For example, people believe it’s sexual energy that needs to be released through P, well it’s funny how this so-called sexual energy easily shift/merge in something else entirely – What if it wasn’t of sexual nature in the first place? In my experience, the more sexual tension there was during the day (encounters, thoughts, etc) the less I was prone to urges and P influence – it wouldn’t make any sense if P urges were generated by sexual energy then.
When I had those sexually charges encounters (always as a gentleman and very respectfully) those were the bright days. The dark ones, on the contrary, were full of HALT, generators of tension, leading to urges. The tension comes from the underlying fabric of your life – frustration, anger, pain, relationships, money, projects, friends, family, dreams, work, hobbies, whatever else. Pay attention to this and be honest with yourself when observing this happen, the cravings shift from one thing to the other, you’ll see it’s very weird. If there’s a sufficient source or tension in your life (you’re not monks so there must be), it grows and can break you if it’s not released somewhere else.
Why this tension finds it’s easiest release in P use, is mostly because of the general appeal that sex has ever had over our lives (after all even the cutest young mom says innocent stuff like “hey, we’re on Earth to have babies”) ; let’s not forget the widespread availability ; the growing market which pushes tailor-made products right in front of our eyes ; the relative secrecy in which people use, making it easier that a plain sight activity ; the feeling of doing something natural or at least not extravagant (like ingesting synthetic chemical products in your bloodstream or nose) ; the fact that most males talk about it as a joke, normalizing it. But some other people with different morals and/or culture might find a release in other forms of addictive patterns: gambling, drinking, violence, substances, gaming, …
In truth, we all start that journey thinking it’s P we’re fighting, P and all its evil. Only to realize, after the P influence is gone, that something else took it’s place – a little less potent maybe, because while fighting our P use we’ve fought some of your tension sources. And to be honest that can be a bit discouraging at first. But then it’s time to realize that it’s a real epiphany, a real chance to make deep transformations in our lives and in turn in the ones of people we share it with.
I’m proud to be able to say that I got that far without P. Wouldn’t have imagined that a year and a half ago. And that’s not the end, because of everything you read before. My life is lacerated with the wounds that I inflicted myself with P over those decades: flimsy sex life, tepid relations, distorted women image, fractured self-esteem when realizing all this.
Thanks to my efforts and thanks to NoFap and the community, I’ve set sail for a different continent, where I may what I want and need.
Today I’ll switch my counter to PM-free, because I want to work on the tendency I still have to want to ease the pain with an M. This instant gratification isn’t what I want in my life anymore – well I could use the instant gratification but not the terrible side effects…. – and I’ll set my new goals accordingly. My record was 108 days PMO free a couple of years ago, so there’s no reason I couldn’t do it again. I will though leave O out of the equation, because I want to meet somebody I can have a healthy relationship with, in order to restore a fair image of a woman’s body, persona and intimacy. A recent experience tells me this won’t be easy, and that despite being free from the hobby of watching P, it will be long to restore these things.
Let’s go for 30 / 60 / 90 / 150 /300 / 500.
I wish you all the best in your endeavours and hope that my experience can inspire/help you. Remember, when you get to that objective you’ve set for yourself, there are two things to keep in mind:
- Be proud. You should, because no one else than you was involved in this. You carried it everyday and won. People might have helped, but you alone did it. Wear it like a badge and step on It to…
- Go further. You shouldn’t stop there, resting on your trophy. A thing that kept us being under influence for the complacency of knowing full well in which situation we were but preferring that to trying to get out of it. Until consequences happened. Am I right? So get out there and fight. It’s your life, your only one life.
And to finish this, let’s just dive 2000 years back, with something that’s widely misunderstood, the famous sliced sentence by Roman poet Horace: “Carpe Diem”. We’ve all talked to some hippy who lived by that “Seize the day (and pretty much fuck everything else)”, well it’s not at all what it means in full :
carpe diem, (quam minimum credula postero)
Make use of the day, (put very little trust in the future)
i.e The future you want is prepared today.
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