I’m 26. I quit because I realized it was affecting my life adversely. I started when I was around 11. These days I don’t come here as often. In the beginning, about 3 years back, I was on here all day. I am finally able to say that I’m on a Nofap streak. Physically and mentally. In the beginning I used to fantasise a lot while on a streak.
If you ask me how I did it, I can’t explain it to you properly. WHAT happened was PMO sort of lost its importance as a problem for me. There were far greater worries and issues by the time I started this streak. I wasn’t even aware that I was on a streak until a month into it.
If you ask me for tips I don’t have anything more to say than what you know already. Buy if you are addicted like me, know that it will take time. Nothings gonna happen overnight. There isn’t gonna be a that one last relapse after wich you give it up forever. Thinking that way makes the successive relapses that much harder. But believe me it will come. You might not realise it. It’s not like you flip a switch. It’s rather gradual. Some time into a streak you will realise you haven’t relapsed mentally or physically. I wish you all would find that day.
LINK – Checking in.
Ive been a fapstronaut for over 2 years. I was very active in the Sub at the beginning. My conviction and efforts were also very high. Fighting PMO then was a constant battle that was always lurking in the back of my mind. I would read countless posts looking for new ways to fight it, sometimes I would devise my own. It was very difficult to abstain when I started NoFap. Both the physical and mental battles where difficult, and I would fail every so often. I should mention that I was addicted to PMO, and am not doing this for an amusement.
My first real progress was when I quit PMO for 6 whole months. A few wet dreams happened during this period. But, I was only able to physically abstain from it, mentally I was still fantasizing. I should also mention that my perception of male female interactions were very skewed. This coupled with the fantasizing stopped me from making any real progress. But in my mind I was happy and very Proud that I could stop PMO for that long. But in reality I was just fooling myself.
After this run, I relapsed and pretty much didnt care about it. I went about my old habits all in. But one change was the feeling of guilt. Pretty much every session led to feeling guilty. My social life took a great hit from this. This opened up a few other addictive habits too which were under check until then. I was sinking to new lows during this period. However I didnt put in any effort to stop PMO. During this time, I lost the physical need to PMO. It became a pure habit. I was doing it not because I wanted to, but because I had always done it. It became ritualistic. I quit my job during this period. I was sad, depressed and had a whole lot of other mental issues that kept worsening. I continued like this for a long time.
I was staying alone during this time. Then I moved in with my family. I made up a decision to better myself. I joined the GYM and started working out. During this period I was able to stop PMO for brief periods of time. However soon I would relapse. To be frank I was not giving it a 100% effort. This continued on for a few months and the excercising really helped with my confidence. And then around 2 months back I was able to completely stop PMO. No physical urges, no mental fantasizing. I was surprised, because I had no idea how it happened. I should mention that I started medication for schizophrenia around this time. If any of you ask me how I did it, I wouldnt know what to say to you. It just stopped like a switch was flipped. I think it was because I had bigger worries to focus on.
So my advice to any of you would be to passively try abstaining from PMO. Instead of trying to fight it head on and making it a huge thing, try acknowledge it and ignore the feelings that come with it. For me the importance of PMO reduced due to other problems in my life and i was eventually able to ignore the urges. Now i take it for granted that I would be able to abstain even when I get urges. I was finally able to break my habit, but it happened without me realising it. The key difference between then and now is I am not scared of the urges anymore. When I was actively fighting it, the urges would make things a lot more worse and I would be constantly aware of it. Now a days the urges pass through.
I just wanted to share my journey with everyone. I know I havent said much that is really helpful. All the best to everyone else and I hope one day you can say you are free from PMO
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