tl;dr the only hub that I visit now is GitHub
I managed to live a single year without PMO (not including my child years. It didn’t strike me back then that urinating is not the only activity that penis could participate in). Hooray! I’m going to celebrate my birthday on 2nd July, but I feel like it’s an early birthday present for me. I sincerely thank you, the Universe!
Bumpy road
Phew. It’s my third attempt to NoFap. My first attempts ended up at about half a year mark as I found it impossible to resist my urges. This time I found more strength in me and I was able to top my longest streak. I started my journey about 3 years ago. I remember feeling completely shattered in every way I consider possible: emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. I found my mind so scattered that I felt like Rayman trying to collect all the looms. From the very beginning I was working hard on undoing my self-abuse. In fact I was working so vigorously that I had to deal with some major breakdowns along the way. I reminiscent the road to be pure madness at times. I found myself frequently suffering through the recovery. Today I see it as an integral part of the healing process. Now I feel being enriched by happiness, and I believe that my previous experience helps me to accept and fully embody it.
As of lately I was going through some emotional states that I’d encircle as the spiritual crisis. I think that I wasn’t in align with myself, and I consider this to be the major source of my issues. I’m constantly working on reinforcing my sense of well being and I already see great results. I think that I’m no longer suicidal. I now see my depression mainly as a defense mechanism. As far as my awareness goes, I perceive that it clicks when I get overwhelmed with negative emotional states. I now live my life accompanied with a wonderful sense of happiness. I feel that I have finally managed to pierce my armor of numbness! Sometimes I feel my emotions so vividly that I can’t help but cry out of sheer joy. Despite some challenging moments that I was required to get through, now I simply adore being alive. I wasn’t even remotely wishing for such a marvelous outcome and it has totally blown me away.
Your mileage may vary, although I have recently noticed that my acne slowly gets better. I see major improvements over the course of past couple of years. I didn’t aim for getting rid of it, so I see it as a nice surprise. I’d ascribe it to general shift in my lifestyle. I consider it to be an indicator that I’m on the right track. I think that it keeps improving as I keep on taking more extensive care of myself and I’d recommend just that. I still get occasional outbreaks, but I see the trend to be rather positive.
Staying occupied
I think that learning how to apply sublimation was crucial to my recovery. I found it useful to spend my freshly attained energy on things that I consider productive, like doing work for my uni. For some time I was the best student in my faculty, so I think that I did really great!
Since my childhood I dreamed of becoming a game developer. I have already put some hours into fulfilling this wish and I believe that I’m going to achieve that in no time! Lately I felt repulsion for my PC, but fortunately it has passed. For a rather lengthy moment I was forced to put it astray and work on enhancing my other qualities. I start an IT internship next month and I was afraid that I’d be incapable of attending it. It would undoubtedly break me, for a couple of reasons:
- I have discovered that I love money.
- I will be working part-time, which would possibly leave me less drained.
- I don’t give up easily.
- I simply love to code, despite it being hard on me.
- But mostly money.
I have armed myself in adequate amounts of faith, therefore I believe that I’m going to be just fine!
Things that helped me
While work might be crucial to my survival, it isn’t the only factor that keeps me on track:
- Video games – For several years I couldn’t find any real interest in video games, an activity that resonates with me so much. My destructive patterns disallowed me to enjoy them, but during this reboot I found courage to revive the hobby. I think that it was superb idea. I decided to review every title that I’d manage to finish. I’d recommend this approach, as it learns me how to constitute my opinion more freely. It also tremendously improved my English skills. I’m doing my best to verbally comment what’s going on the screen and soon I have noticed that I started to speak with less hesitations. It makes me feel that I spend my free time properly, so I perceive it as a win-win. I think that I have recently received a call to focus more on this hobby, so I’ll hopefully explore it even further.
- Positive attitude – Prior to becoming a fapstronaut (I can’t get enough of the term) I was full of grief and straightforward hate. I decided to aid this by nourishing myself with love and it has lifted me to great heights. I came to a conclusion that I’d most likely benefit the most from almost solely focusing on myself. I started from expelling any negative thoughts that were undermining my self-esteem. Then I started to slowly cheer myself up. I was whispering some warm words to myself, like “I wholeheartedly love you!”, “don’t you give up!” or “you’ll do even better next time!”. I didn’t expect it to have such tremendous impact on me. It has reliably reinforced my positive inner voice as I started to slowly starve the grumpy one. I was also gently guided by Corinne Zupko’s elaboration on ACIM – the whole new possibility that I’m yet to discover in depth. I think that it helped me to percolate me sense of faith up. Soon I started to notice that tides have turned. The sun have risen, and from now on it shines as bright as I remember it . My taste in music have shifted from black metal to more soothing sounds. Heck, now I wonder if Slime Rancher is an appropriate game for me as I’m concerned about ways slime are handled. I still love violent titles, although I feel prompted to put them away. If you didn’t already, why don’t you make yourself a treat and go check OwlBoy? I was amazed by it’s calming beauty and it offered me some peace when I was wandering through tenebrous moments. Maybe you’d find it uplifting, too?
- Assertiveness – I’m working vigorously on my soft skills as I see how great I feel while developing them. Some guy from the /r/anxiety Discord channel recommended a source of self-help modules and I’m grateful that he did! I have discovered that I got assertiveness wrong the whole time. I mistaken it for aggressiveness and I was more than happy to re-establish my point of view. I feel how wondrously it enriches my personality. It provided me with some key CBT concepts – now I know that it’s up to my will to change any thought patterns that I find obsolete and unhelpful. I have experienced many benefits associated with implementing this style of communication:
- I stand up for myself and act in a way that I respect, which boosts my self-esteem. I also find it complementary to rebuilding my confidence.
- By focusing on expressing myself at the time, I found myself not building excessive amounts of resentment.
- By being less preoccupied with other people, I feel that I’m less anxious.
- (Finally!) I slowly regain my temper.
The website is run by Australian government. I don’t think that it could get more credible than that.
- Cold showers – I was skeptical at first, but I decided to see what’s all the fuss about. Soon I started to get used to them. I do them first thing in the morning, so I feel that they enable me with easier time waking up. I did some research and from what I understood they can work miracles so I totally see why they get so much praise out there. I think that anything that boosts one’s personal well-being is worthwhile, so I’m happy that it can have such great impact on you!
- Meditation – When I was starting my NoFap journey, I read a comment on this subreddit that recommended to try meditation. As I got more skilled and experienced with it, I stopped considering it a good idea. Back in the days I was like “well those Buddhists are all so chilled. They may be saying along the lines something about ‘dark night’ crisis-like event, but those meditation guidelines look so temptingly approachable, what could possibly go wrong?”. Let’s say that the sense of atrophying void full darkness doesn’t particularly enrich my resume. From time perspective I reminiscent this emergency as fun, but it by no means ascribes my giggles. I suspect that I unleashed some long buried issues and it broke me big time. I had to step aside from meditation for a couple of weeks to collect my thoughts. During that period I focused on earthly affairs, and then I started to slowly reintroduce my spiritual practice. Now I do it only from time to time as a part of my hygiene regimen, and simply because I know how to use it to salvage some joy. I barely ever sit on a cushion anymore. I’d rather practice walking meditation. Despite all that I consider it to be a great self-help tool. It opened me up to spiritual realm and I can’t be more grateful for that.
(In)famous last words
I had mixed feelings about sharing this testimony. It required me to unbury parts of me that I consider hideous, and prior to writing this I wished them to remain hidden. Given that this subreddit offered me some help when I needed it the most, I decide to give back to the community. At first I was thinking about creating a throwaway, but I came to a conclusion that posting this testimony from my main account would hold me a bit more accountable. Composing the report was a challenge to me and I’m happy that I managed to publish it.
I have a vague sense of what my future might look like, although I’m going to continue to improve myself during extended monk mode. Taking into consideration that I simply adore self-sufficiency, I think that I’m going to dive into sustainability. I’m feeling uncertain. I hope to gift you with another testimony next year, written by future me who would hopefully feel even more successful than he is now.
Stay positive!
LINK – 1 year report
by izdwuut
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