Hi people,
This is gonna be a long story. I just logged in on Facebook and saw Reddit come by, and thought, hey, I haven’t been there for a while and decided to take a look here. I deleted my account because since the 13th of October, I know I’m clean for life and after a while in this streak, I decided that I was done with Reddit and NoFap / PornFree. I was already gone from NoFap and I decided that I felt that visiting here had a lot to do with staying in the struggle and that I needed to take some time off from Reddit and the internet in general.
Alright, so here it is. A short summary of my life first. Growing up until the age of 12, my life was a breeze. I was a happy kid. Then my parents divorced, the relationship with my father, which was very close before, almost disappeared although he was still around. I started watching pornography and started masturbating at the age of 12-13 and very fast, my mother found out, and she EXPLODED. She made me feel so incredibly ashamed about looking up nude pictures of women, I became instantly ashamed of being sexual.
Although maybe listening to my mother would have been a smart plan and quit watching pornography would be a better plan, I, of course, the young kid that I was, didn’t get any girls nude and I wanted to watch women nude to say it in a decent manner. I think you guys know what I’m talking about haha.
Forward, I kept watching porn. I never had very odd tastes, but I did had extreme shame issues around being sexual. So much that I couldn’t even talk with a girl while being sober when I was interested in her. While I was a very confident kid in general and was a pretty cool kid at my middle school (high school in the USA). I wasn’t a star but I was very well liked because I’m a pretty good guy to hang around with and I treat everyone with respect.
I smoked loads of weed, smoked cigarettes, drinked quite a lot of alcohol because I liked to go to pubs and clubs. Only here did I have the confidence to become romantic with women.
Few years later, around the age of 18, I was almost ready to go to the university to start with a bachelor degree and I was still a virgin (still am by the way, but I’ll come to that later). OCD kicked in. And because I always had issues with women, I got HOCD. A form of OCD in which you are so incredibly scared about maybe not being straight (or gay, if that is what you normally identify with). And it was not that I was homophobic and I had issues with being homosexual, but just an incredible amount of fear surrounded that subject.
Then there where around two years of hell. Until I found Your Brain On Porn and was amazed by all the knowledge I could absorb there. And finding out about HOCD. It was a fucking miracle. I finally started to understood what my issue was. That I seemed to have HOCD (I use that way of writing on purpose) and didn’t struggle with my sexuality.
So I started NoFap. And I relapsed. Hundreds of times. Why? Probably because I was scared to become an adult. To start relationships. To get hurt. To walk in to the big large scary world. To get rejected. To face my fears. To accept that I’m not all powerful and that life can be pretty though, while I used to live in a bubble without worries because I got by so easily in life.
I had some solid streaks, and my confidence started to build. I became happier. Lost depression. Started fighting the OCD problems. Started taking care of my finances. My relationships with friends and family. Going to the gym. Eating and living healthier.
And most importantly, I started to accept that sexuality (in general) is a good thing. I quit porn (at least, I tried at first) and masturbated to just feeling and maybe fantasizing a bit about girls I know and could sleep with. Just facing the fears that pop up during masturbating and becoming more comfortable with masturbation and sexuality in general did wonders for not relapsing. I mean, I used to get aroused very easily after a while and couldn’t handle that. I felt very sexual and energetic and wanted to masturbate. That was what I was conditioned to do. Wanted to release the load? Just fire up some porn and go.
This was very good to do. And then finally, on the night of 12th of October, I felt desperate because I still had a boatload of issues. I started praying and had a horrible night. Most horrible night of my life and felt rock bottom. Didn’t close an eye and had a lot of pain because of a rotten tooth. I won’t say it was God, of course, but that night something changed.
Since that night, I quit pornography and cigarettes and haven’t had an issue at all. I think I finally understood that I was at a low point and was completely done with it.
And so I started to face the fears that I have. Not going back to porn or cigarettes to relieve anxiety, but facing the fears and actively building confidence.
Masturbating from time to time, but also not having an orgasm from time to time and feeling that energy and just talking to people while feeling VERY full of sexual energy. That was horrible at first but facing those fears made me much more confident.
HOCD is also almost completely gone. I faced the fears. I started treating the condition. Accepting that I might be gay. That sexuality is not something very clear cut, as one of the articles that helped most wrote. That sexuality is a healthy and normal thing and that the anxieties will leave if you don’t focus on the anxiety but on the thing you are doing.
And now, I finally dare to say that I’m a confident and grown man.
I feel at ease with who I am, with my scars and fears, and my confident points and strong points. I learn to accept the issues I had with relationships and women and now I am far less scared of women. I’m very serious about finding a good wife, having a good marriage and being a good parent because of the issues I had after the divorce of my parents, but I’m finally becoming more free sexual. But I also don’t care that much about never having had a serious girlfriend.
It’s all alright. And that I can say that with confidence and ease, while just having written about all the issues I had (and as you can see, that were more then enough, although my life was much less worse than this post makes it seem), makes a solid case for why finally being pornfree is easy.
Yeah I’d love to see some women naked right now, again, just saying it in a decent manner. But feeling sexual and wanting to see women and actually going online and watching porn is a completely different thing. I now learned myself the self-discipline that I needed to achieve what I want. And although I’m not perfect and still struggle in enough areas, I made it out.
TL:DR: You don’t have to read it. This is partly just writing my story here because this place helped me so much and writing about my story feels good. And partly because I hope that people that struggle right now can relate and know that it will be alright if you continue working. DO NOT GIVE UP. There is light at the end of the tunnel and that light is bright, my friend.
It has taken me a long time to get out of the dark and in to the light. And sometimes I still drop back a bit from time to time and still have some bad periods when my flatline enters back. But overall my mood is increasing and is very good.
LINK – A story about having faced my demons and now, finally, clean for 137 days without much effort
by vnnwlkr1
UPDATE – Finally beat HOCD and anxiety
I’ve had serious HOCD and social anxiety issues for a long time. For many years, my social life (and with that, my complete life) was seriously lacking because of HOCD and social anxiety. I couldn’t enjoy making friends, being with people, talking to people. It was a hell for many years.
I can not say that it will go exactly the same for everyone here. I’m not a specialist in this field. But I’ve been working on pornfree / nofap for around 2 years now. This last year, I’ve barely watched any porn. I do masturbate however (so no NoFap here). I’ve started to live healthier. Exercise a lot. Read more. Found new hobbies and I enjoy old ones more. Put myself in a lot of uncomfortable situations and kept my focus on what I was doing, not the anxious feelings. I put myself out there every day to become better.
And this week, very incredible, was the first week in my life that I enjoyed so many social encounters. I’ve talked with a lot of different people this week. And I enjoyed every one of them. This is probably the best week of my life.
I didn’t buy anything. I didn’t made huge steps in my professional life. I didn’t found new hobbies or interests. No, I felt healthy for the first time in many years.
I feel good. Damn, it feels good to say that.
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