So I made it to 90 days in hardmode after many failed attempts. The first 45 days were like hell, then it became much easier. You need like 3 months of time to learn yourself a new behavior. The difficulty was not in abstaining from watching porn, the difficulty was in abstaining from masturbating.
After 2 months you really start to have rocksolid erections again. It’s such a pretty sight to see that it still works as it should. At such moments all you want is to explode, but you know that all it will lead to is disappointment. Lately I experienced more and more strong fantasies about real girls, and nice feelings as well. I’m not sure if it are still urges.
I also experience more mental clarity and less depression. For me it’s a slow but upward going process, that probably needs a least another 3 months of no PMO. I’m in doubt about giving my self a nice orgasm in the coming days without porn.
LINK – 90-day report
A FEW DAYS EARLIER – The Long Recovery
Hi guys,
I just met with my psychiatrist. He is specialized in the whole porn-addiction subject and met many clients before. He listened to my story. When I asked him how long it would take to fully recover, he said that it could take years in the worst case scenario. That was a message I didn’t expect to hear, because most of the people here think it’s a matter of months.
I think that the whole 90-day challenge can be misunderstood quite easily. 90 days is just a small start for many of us, not the end of an addiction that was there for so many years.
Another important point: Many of us are very depressed, some even suicidal. It’s a very common symptom of heavy porn-use, so nothing to be really worried about. However, sometimes a person becomes a PMO-addict because he is depressed, not the other way around. If you find yourself in that situation, you need much more treatment, because you have an underlying depression. That’s when you really have a problem.
For many guys, quitting pmo will also remove the depression.
DAY 168 (LATER)
LINK – It could take years….
Not to make you feel bad, but according to a psychiatrist I just met it could take years before your brain functions fully normal again after quitting porn. Then I’m talking about hardcase addicts masturbating multiple times a day for years (someone like me :D). It makes sense to me, because guys like Gabe Deem (known from yourbrainonporn.com) also needed up to one year or more to fully recover.
We’re not only talking about the time you need for PIED to go away, but also the depression, which is a common side-effect of porn addiction… It’s still not quite clear whether porn causes depression or the other way around. I would say that in my case porn caused the depressiveness.
I’m almost half a year without PMO now. I feel better, and I can definitely say that my erections are getting stronger and better each week. Also, the desire to watch porn is almost gone (that’s the best part!). But psychologically there is still a long way to go. Hardcase addicts have fucked up their reward-system in such a way that it needs a long recovery…
I will see you guys in 6 months for another report 😀
UPDATE – 300 days clean!
Hi guys,
Short intro: Heavy addict for 10 years, fapping 10 times a day for hours and hours. Became very depressed during those years. How do I feel now? More relaxed. But I gotta admit, I still feel very depressed every now and then.
How do I know I am recovering? I feel it in the brain. It’s a very relaxed, warm feeling. Probably higher levels of dopamine or brain-rewiring? It feels good. Depression not gone though…
UPDATE – Report for hardcase-addicts…
There are some very popular topics about nofap and depression. Are they linked with egother? Is there some kind of correlation? This is what I have to tell about it:
I was very depressed for as long as 10 years. Fapped multiple times a day for hours. I’m a year in now doing nofap and it’s slowly going away. Feeling happiness out of the blue sometimes, it’s crazy. It was impossible for me some years ago to find a job, because I was so depressed that i couldn’t stand any people or stress. I didn’t want to speak to people, because I was completely numb. Just wanted to be alone with my laptop. That has been improving quite a lot.
But remember, it can be a very slow process. For me it is, and i’m still not fully cured. It’s simply a brain thing. It can cure itself, but when you started at 15/16 like me, it will need lots of time. My brain simply stopped producing dopamine for things like finding a girlfriend or having a job. That’s why I would feel very anxious/depressed around girls/colleagues. It’s a horrifying feeling. You just don’t want to be there, but home alone. Only porn gave me some relieve/happiness, for a very short time. It can completely fuck your brain up so terrible you cannot imagine.
Some people say that fapping to porn is just a symptom of depression. That can be true. Everyone has to find out for himself. For me it was the other way around. My depression was a symptom of PMO’ing every day. And that depression can become pretty dangerous believe me. So I’m very happy to have found out about nofap/ybop. In extreme cases like mine, it can save lives. And remember: nofap for me felt like it didn’t help at all. There wasn’t any progress at all for 9 months or so. Example: last week I went to the supermarket. Normally I would feel a little anxious. This time I was experiencing a very comfortable warm feeling in my head that lasted for hours. Believe me, nofap helps, also after 9 months of no progress at all.
I think that many guys quit nofap because they think it doesn’t help after some weeks or months. They will start watching porn again and think they’re just depressed so why not watch lots of porn then?
But when you watched porn for years and years for many hours each day, it isn’t simply cured in a few months or even a year (although after a year you will feel much better). Your brain has to change it’s reward system from porn to normal things like work and crazy sex adventures with real girls instead of porn-actors or hookers. Believe me, such things do need time. In some cases lots of time.
All sorts of things will start improving after some time. To give an example, my overall hair growth has accelerated it’s pace dramatically. Normally I would only shave myself every 10 days. I already have to do it every 3/4 days now. I also have way more hair growth on my arms and legs now on places that were never covered. Probably due to better testosterone-production. For me it is so simple. Porn fucks you up in ways you cannot imagine.
Ofcourse I also had terrible PIED and PE. Those have already gone pretty much away. I also gained halve an inch in dick-size, which isn’t bad either, but not very important to me. Not sure whether or not my Premature Ejaculation (PE) is cured yet, because I haven’t had sex in over a year now (and when I had sex, it mostly was with prostitutes).
So don’t give up. This is like recovering from a serious alcohol or drug addiction. It will easily take a year or more to fully recover. That’s why I’m a bit skeptic about all these guys reporting huge benefits after some weeks or even days. They probably weren’t addicted in the first place, or just lucky to find out about nofap relatively quick.
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