Fast forward to the time when I turned 16. There is a lot I could be writing about that time of my life, but I honestly don´t feel like it. There are other subs better suited for those kind of issues, and I want to keep my focus at least a little bit at this one topic. At the time, I used to masturbate more than five times a day. Either before going to sleep, whilst watching porn, or just at any random time during the day. When I was sitting at my desk, doing schoolwork, and I´d struggle with something, this has always been my relief.
Considering I had turned into a horrible student at that point, I struggled quite a lot. On some days I really overdid it. My technique might have been effective, but not exactly gentle. When my skin down there started to get really dry, crack open, hurt when touched and even became slightly bloody, I finally realized this was one of my problems.
A few weeks after my 16th birthday I was away from home for three days, because of a school trip. After having returned, I decided not to masturbate on that particular evening. That´s the exact same thing I did on the next day. And the day after that one. I had already not done it for three days, and I did not really miss it, therefore it seemed logical to try it further. Christmas was just around the corner, school was not stressful for those last two weeks, and after that, two more weeks without school followed. Everything in this regard went fine. At least for that time. Which is actually quite surprising, as it seems most people find the first few days to be very hard, whilst that absolutely was not the case for me. I cut out all PMO for nearly a month without even missing it.
But then shit went down. O damn, shit went down indeed. In early January normal life returned and I could barley take it at that point. Not only did I do worse in school than ever before, no, I also had the worst mood, spent more than 10 hours per day in bed, skipped most meals and on top of all this I had to resist the urge. Several hours per day were lost at times, just because I could not get a clear thought. All I could think of was this urge. I often ended up going to bed very early, even though I had already slept for most of the afternoon. That time was shit. Pure shit. Was abstaining from PMO the only thing bothering me during that period? No, it was not. But it added to the overall flavour of the time. I could go on for longer about how shitty I felt during that time, but the would not be any value in it (haha, as if there would be any value in the rest of what I write). It went on for nearly two months like this I´d say.
It was March when I finally managed to abstain a little more easily. At that point I was sure I wanted to carry on with this, after what I already went through it was not worth it anymore to start doing it again. But even though I did not masturbate, I could not stop myself from looking at pictures online. You know. That certain kind of pictures. To be honest I don´t really remember when I started looking at those things again, because I did not care too much. It was only in early summer of that year that I stumbled upon nofap for the very first time. My goals were just the things I set for myself overtime, as I never started out with huge intentions to begin with. Since then it was an on and off kinda. For some weeks I was looking at stuff, and for some weeks I did not.
But the less I looked at things the easier it was. One does really get used to staying away from those things, and the stricter you are with yourself, the easier it will be in the long run. After about half a year, it becomes completely normal not to masturbate, and the same thing goes for porn in my experience. The last time I was looking at certain things online, was in January this year probably, and since then it was the easiest time for all those 600 days I tried to stick to no PMO.
Yeah, that´s pretty much my story. Now, where does this lead us too: I am now 17 years old and am happy with cutting PMO out of my life. All it brought me was quick satisfaction, but in the great scheme of things it has absolutely not been worth it. I´d really like to tell you about the superpowers and stuff. I really do. But I can´t. These enormous effects, that some claim to have gained from this, just did not come true for me. To be fair, my life was just shit at the time I started nofap. Well, it is actually still shit, but that does not diminish my point. There is just too much going wrong in my life, as if this alone could have made the huge change.
Most of things I said here are probably quite unimportant, and for most also very uninteresting, but I thought I´d still share it. So far I have not found anybody who actually cared about me doing this, maybe somebody on here is more interested in it. Large parts of what I wrote could have easily been left out, but this is the full story and that´s what I want to tell. Many posts on this sub are probably way better written, and more inspirational than mine, after all there is not too many super positive things I can tell you about.
I have questioned my own journey several times, and am not sure what my opinion should be. Not a single relapse. Only a single try. Does this mean I did not actually have a problem, and just stopped it as I could have stopped any other behavioural pattern? I doubt it. Maybe I was less hooked than others, but I don´t think what I went through was particularly pleasant and easy… If you want something to take away after reading my post, it should be this: It is worth it. It might be hard. No, it will be hard! But it will be worth it. You have nothing to lose and even the most minor gain in quality of life makes it worth it in the end.
LINK – My story of 600 days
By HoggerFTW
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