Might be a bit of a small essay but I’d like to share with you my experience. I’m a 26 y.o m btw. I agree with the general consensus of not replacing your habit with this subreddit, but using it at the start for motivation and as a reminder of the benefits.
My journey started on Christmas Eve 2018, I was back then unemployed, feeling generally low and had a lackluster attitude towards life, I wouldn’t quite go as far to say depressed but definitely heading towards that direction. The most worrying part was the apathy in day to day life, I knew I had to make some kind of drastic change to get my life back on track and to start enjoying it again.
Amazingly, I hadn’t heard of NoFap before and stumbled across a video on youtube, for me it was like a switch had been flipped and all the tricks my brain would play on me to get me to PMO were suddenly uncovered. I’d always subconsciously known it was unhealthy and my brains justification process was very strong, so initially i’d thought i’d test it, this was my first time trying it ever btw. I also went in with the mindset of this’ll be a challenge, don’t worry you can relapse on day 90 just to prove you can do it, I assume many other people on this subreddit have had that thought cross their mind. I can tell you now .. that is most definitely not the case, not after all the benefits I’ve experienced.
Around day 3-4 the urges got intense pretty quick, hardest was going to bed in the eve where it was almost routine and my body was fighting this, refusing to let me go to sleep as easily as it had in the past. Fast forward a week and the biggest gamechanger and for me – sole event that made me fully realise my dependency on PMO was on Day 11. The day went very normal, searching for online jobs and watching youtube etc, suddenly that evening I was hit with a super strong urge. It literally felt like my brain was working against me, trying every justification process (‘Its only 11 days .. you can start again’, ‘Its your first time trying this .. you’ve seen how normal it is for people to relapse’, ‘think how good it will be’, ‘you don’t actually have a problem .. this is natural’ etc. This went on for 30 mins, finally the absolute changing point was my brain visualising me crossing the room to grab the TP I kept on the other side of it, literally willing me to just give in, it genuinely felt like I didn’t even have control of my thoughts. Honestly, this part here made me more determined than ever and I used this as a focal point for the rest of my 90 days. I hope many of you others on this journey are lucky enough to experience such a clear cut moment of your body’s dependency on PMO.
The rest of my journey I experienced a few sneak attacks on random days but with the knowledge of my dependency and awareness of my body’s tactics, and with such a clear example, I got through to today. I would also like to join many others in condoning Instagram. I deleted the app at the start, but when having to go on (friends ask you to see a group picture etc), it would bring back old temptations and is literally soft porn, soft porn thats been edited so much it promotes an unattainable aesthetic. For me, super unhealthy and also a massive waste of hours which could be spent doing better things.
Now briefly for the part a lot of guys seem to be here for, and if this is part of your motivation then so be it. In the 3 months since starting NoFap I have also started talking to countless girls, slept with 3 and done other stuff with a couple. I will admit I believe NoFap did have an impact on this but it shouldn’t be the most important reason for doing it, I would relate it to my desire of trying to better myself that gave me the confidence boost I needed to get noticed more. My advice would be .. just think of how much you can better yourself and that should be motivation enough!
I’ve also picked up a few great new habits, cold showers, exercising more, feeling more confident in social situations, forcing myself to do stuff I wouldn’t normally do. It’s been great tbf!
Thanks for taking the time to read this, I’d also be happy to answer any q’s 🙂
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