In my 90 days without PMO I haven’t come yet to grasp all the positive effects of this, but maybe it’s because I haven’t yet completely recovered from a break up three months ago, or maybe there is something else. I’m still somewhat depressed about this relationship, I loved this girl very much and I was really sure at the time, that she was the one for me and that we would end up building a life together.
Something inside me tells me that in some way she maybe still is… Then one day she says, that she still likes me very much, but not in a romantic way anymore, that maybe I’m not what she needs right now and that we should part ways. This came as a shock for me, because we had been together for almost 4 years and we always had this easy going relationship, we were always very much honest with each other, cared much for each other deeply and had very similar tastes in life. However, if I were in the same exact spot as she was three months ago? I would have said to myself the same things she said to me. Why? Because I wasn’t myself.
I was always prone to depression and anxiety, and general lack of confidence and decisiveness in life. Mainly due to the fact that I never knew exactly what I wanted to with my life. And she dumped me because of this. She and me met in my first year of college, in a time where I was starting a new life and I was somewhat content with it, and when I met her and we started dating, it was the first time in my life that I felt truly happy. And that brought out the best in me which made her fall for me. But with time the doubt started surging up again in my mind, and I started to fall in my old state of mind. And there was always something there which I recurred often, Porn. I started watching pornography regularly when I was 15 years (I’m 25 now), sometimes twice a day and there were days were it was more than that.
Altough I can’t say for sure that I was a porn addict, right now I can’t say either that I wasn’t, and it didn’t affected my life during these years. I remember times where I was studying for like an hour, then would pause to PMO and couldn’t study afterwords anymore, I felt depressed and very mellow, and this was very regularly! I also sometimes remember days were I would PMO before being with my girlfriend, and later on when she wanted to hump my brains off, I didn’t felt like it, or if I could perform it seemed like I lost my passion for the act (in spite of this, there were times when we lived together that I would go a week without fapping, but I always returned to porn). This I believe affected our sexual life. One of the things she also complained in the end, was indeed the lack of passion in our romantic love life.
So, in the end, when I reflect upon it, maybe this break up was just the awakening that I needed. It made me think about my life and myself. Maybe I am a dopamine addict in order to escape my life. Three days after our break up, I started Nofap. I relapsed in my tenth day. It was my first failure. I felt very depressed afterwards, but it made me commit that I’d never want to feel that way again and wanted to turn my life around for good. So you may not believe it, but these 90 Days were achieved in only my second streak, and they led me down a spiritual path which I feel is changing myself making me a happier person.
What I feel changed in me in these 90 days: – I’m starting to feel more confidence in myself and caring less about what others think about me. – I feel less anxious when talking to people, specially women. – I feel more adventurous and wanting to do things I always wanted to do, but never could bring myself to do them for some stupid depressing reason. – My hope – Altough I have many fears, now instead of running, I just face them. – I can make better eye to eye contact.
What I did: – No PMO – Started reading Buddhist and Stoic philosophy (and more philosophy in general). – Started Meditating a lot more regularly. – Investing in improving my guitar playing. – Spending more time with friends. – Seeing the documentary series of Joseph Campbells’ “The Power of Myth” helped me alot. – Focusing on finishing my MA in Archaeology.
I have also come to realise, that we don’t need anyone to make us feel special, we must see it in ourselves. When we are happy we will attract special people to our lives, more people will want to be around you if you are happy, because you project this happiness to other people’s lives. I have to admit that I mainly started nofap for the women factor. And why was that? Because I was just dumped and needed validation. I wanted validation without looking inwards and trying to change myself. This would just create a vicious circle. But right now I realise that this should not be the primary factor, the primary factor should be to change myself. If the women come as a collateral good, but your main focus should always be you and your life.
And to do that, what matters most I guess, is to never give up. Even if you don’t know what do with your life, it matters to not stop moving, try new things, have new experiences, discover new interests, never stop improving yourself to become a better human being free from whatever shackles that are holding you, don’t give up to your dragons, be nice to people.
I writed earlier in the post that Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth” helped me a lot, and the reason for this, is that he has a theory called “the hero’s journey” or the “monomyth”. He realised that around the world all civilizations had myths involving a young hero who has to go through an adventure. In this adventure he has to pass through many trials and tribulations, but in the end he always achieves victory, and returns home changed and transformed. For him this was the “mythification” of what we as humans must go trough during our lives. This made me realise, like Campbell said, that we all are this young hero, we all are in our own “Hero’s Journey” , in some way or another, and the objective of the hero’s journey is to slay our dragons (Fear, depression, anxiety, whichever it may be that hinders you) and become your true self by doing it. We all have a great potential inside ourselves that needs to be set free, we just have to slay our dragons.
I read so many reports since I started nofap and they all helped me so much in not giving up, that now I feel like I must post mine here to give back to this community. I would like to start with a reminder though, that Nofap Superpowers aren’t real. And they aren’t real because they’re not superpowers. They are the real YOU.
Follow your bliss people of Nofap!
LINK – My 90 Days Report (Superpowers aren’t real).
By s0ultaker
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