I’m 22, discovered masturbation extremely young, before I even really understood what I was doing, and then began a path of porn addiction from probably about age 11-12. My entire teenage life was spent telling myself that I’m an introvert, that I should stay inside, that women won’t like me, etc etc. I had extreme body image issues as I was heavily overweight.
My anxiety was crippling, I could not go anywhere alone without some innate fear that people around me wanted to harm me, even eye contact made me fear for my life. I never sought after any help as I managed to hide this quite well.
Around age 16 I was my heaviest and most depressed. Full of life on the outside and absolutely dead inside. I was just over 110KG and about 5’7 which made me the ‘fat kid’ of my year level at school. Thankfully I was never really bullied due to my ability to get along with everybody and attending a good school but the knowledge that I was the fat kid was bad enough.
I started working out and lost 30KG in a year, became one of the gym junkies of my school and reached some popularity and confidence due to this. My anxiety and depression lifted in the short term and I was starting to see social changes.
Despite this, I got a girlfriend at 17, lost my virginity, and thought I had life figured out. It was only about 6 months before another depressive episode which led me to quitting gym, spending 6 further unhealthy months in a relationship (my fault, not hers) and finally ending it because of a desire to see other women, being depressed, and being totally lost in life.
I quickly fell into another relationship, probably the best one I will have ever experienced, however still after a year of living with this amazing woman and 2 years of dating, I felt the need to see other women and moved on.
I realised at the start of this year that I had an incredible pattern forming in life. Enormous high’s and even lower lows, all stemming from sexual thought and frusturation. Anytime I had my life figured out, sexual desires got in the way of living and things crumbled down. My last girlfriend did everything right, and everything in her power to make me happy but I once again just went into the introverted, shell of a man that I knew too well.
We lived together for a further year after the breakup in a large share house, and in January we finally parted ways as I moved in with another group of friends.
I stumbled upon a TedX talk titled ‘The Great Porn Experiment’ and my life changed. This was in January.
It took some time to convince myself of what Porn had done to me, but after being on this subreddit frequently it all made sense.
At the start of February I decided enough was enough. I had tried to go on a date with a new girl, but as usual for me suffered from ED which consistently has shattered my confidence. I blamed myself and sought after Viagra to solve this, but even that didn’t work. Even my ex girlfriend couldn’t get me erect for the first 3-4 times that we tried to have sex, so any one night stand/new person had no hope in hell. Between Girlfriends I had tried to have sex probably 3 times before my confidence was so low I couldn’t bare the thought.
A rough breakdown of how things have gone:
Week 1: No real urge to masturbate or watch porn, which was strange as I’d watched porn at least once a day since I was 11-12 and up to 3-4 times a day if I had the time. No mental changes.
Week 2: Noticed urges of porn coming back, especially the whole ‘come on man, just once, it’s ok’ but stayed strong
Week 3: Flatlined like a MOTHERFUCKER. Felt my anxiety and depression reaching the heights I knew too well. Started to consider just fapping to feel good. Stayed strong
Week 4: Hang on… I woke up today with.. motivation?? Morning Wood??? I’M Smiling?! Even my work colleageues noticed that I had a new buzz about me. By this stage I had told nearly everybody around me what I was doing in regards to Nofap, with little to no understanding/care they were amused to see that it was having a noticeable effect.
Now from there on is a blur to me, because my life has genuinely changed entirely. There was flat weeks, high weeks, but most of this time was reflecting upon what I was achieving.
3 Months: My anxiety is now almost non existent, my depression seems to have subsided (although, as a lifelong thing I feel like I will never fully escape this.. and I don’t expect to).
I’ve had a huge urge to socialise and meet new people again, so have been going out clubbing etc quite regularly. Have for the last 4 weeks in a row had the confidence to bring a woman home, which is something I never thought I’d be able to do.
The strange part about that? I’ve changed NOTHING in my life apart from Nofap. And these girls are approaching ME! Yes, no crazy pickup lines, no confident drink offers at the bar. They are approaching ME. And the only thing that I can put that down to is a visible change in how I carry myself in public. I am assuming that previously I’ve held quite a hunch, quite a distant, unappraochable kind of body language and now, with the new confidence that I’ve found, I must be doing something different.
I’m getting along better with my friends, I’m stressed less, I’m motivated in my job, my hobbys. I’m sleeping better, it’s all really quite insane.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I have superpowers, but I’m certainly experiencing life differently to how I ever have. I do feel like I have a new lease on life.
I am definitly looking at sex differently though. After a few weeks of ‘picking up’ I’m totally over it and really do just want to focus on myself and wait for the right person to come along. I feel that now with Porn out of my life, that I know how to handle a relationship and could make it last as long as I’ve always intended. This is HUGE for me to say because sex has always been at the forefront of my mind and desires.
Nofap has really only come with one downside, to me. And that’s time lasted in the bedroom. When it comes to penetration, I’m flat out lasting 20 seconds when previously could last for 20 minutes.
This isn’t proving to matter much as Foreplay is always big for me and I’ll always satisfy my partner in some way, but being young and having everybody else around you thinking that ‘lasting longer is better’ definitly makes it a little shameful when you can’t do the same.
Did I relapse at all? Yes once, about 2 months in. I was sexting a prospective date and before I even realised what I was doing I had ejaculated and felt quite ashamed. But also, didn’t really care as I had accomplished so much and was being directly stimulated through conversation with a real woman.
But fellas, I really can’t stress enough how badly you need to stick with this. I’m somebody who’s nearly cheated dozens of times because the ‘grass is greener’ life was what I always wanted. Instant gratification via porn addiction is the fucking DEVIL. I have thrown away a fantastic relationship due to what porn has done to me, and even knowing that I could go back to that I don’t want to because the damage is done. She deserves a lot better than what she went through with me, and I needed to learn from that big time.
I’m happy to answer any questions, even privately if you don’t want to ask here.
I cannot stress enough… STOP. MASTURBATING. TODAY.
TLDR; Gave up porn and masturbation after about 10 years of addiction, have managed to solve my performance anxiety, talk to more women, almost entirely remove my anxiety and have motivation to be alive and social. All after 3 months.
LINK My Genuine 3Month Nofap Experience
By AHound95
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