After a 150 day streak I had a brief relapse and am now back to being 90 days free from porn or masturbation. Having reached the 90 day marker, I have taken the time to reflect on where I was roughly 250 days ago.
I felt hopeless. I didn’t think I could be free from porn and masturbation, I was surrounded by influences in my life who also felt it was impossible, that men are wired to gratify sexual desires in the easiest form possible (porn, masturbation).
I felt lonely. I practiced intimacy with strangers on a screen, judging their worth physically and aesthetically. My habits behind closed doors seeped into my daily life in the way I valued women, as the poison spread I sexualised them in vile ways, and felt guilty for it. This guilt had a direct impact on the way I treated friends, and colleagues, I would prefer to draw into myself rather than reach out for companionship. My social confidence was being strangled and isolation is a strong killer.
I felt desperate. I could not count the many times that I tried to cut the plague that was injecting poison into my heart. Each time, my abstinence didn’t last long, I was discouraged. I longed to be free from my darkness, I longed to be normal. Despite my efforts, I just couldn’t commit. Until I joined a men’s group, and I committed myself to journaling daily on NoFap.
Although the men’s group kicked me off, NoFap is what kept me on track accountability-wise. Everyday I battled through urges, and everyday I wrote about how I conquered those urges, and it made me feel proud. It took a while before I felt like it was no longer a daily struggle, eventually it subsided into a weekly battle and then eased into every so often. Success has been empowering.
I feel free. I don’t have that empty feeling, post masturbation, realising I have been defeated yet again. I’m not a loser, I’m a winner. My thoughts are no longer strangled by that perverse poisonous ivy.
I feel confident. I can talk and joke with women confidently and not have the dark creeping thoughts influence the way I relate to others. I am back dating a girl that I dated when I was slave to masturbation, and the difference in how I value her is astounding. Our relationship is much healthier and I can feel proper love for this woman. She doesn’t know too much about my gripe, but I know she respects me as a man and if I were to restart my dirty little habit, that respect would dissipate.
I feel well. I’m normal again. I don’t have the devil sitting on my shoulder. That is so valuable to me and if you are a man or woman reading this I want to encourage you wholeheartedly to pick up the fight and stick at it. You may relapse, just as I did after 150 days. But do not be a slave. Get back up and fight for your freedom, fight for your sanity, fight for your life.
LINK – Where I have come from.
by Jharpeskie
;