Background, age 20 After reading about this stuff, I almost immediately knew it was what had been affecting me. I had failed intercourse 3 different times, with 3 different girls. Wait.. 4! lol. As you can imagine, this totally blew my mind. Devastating. I was fairly drunk for 3 of those 4, and I happily blamed the booze. (How could I have been so blind?) But now I know better. For the record, I started looking at porn around age 13. So that’s 7 years.
Anyways, I couldn’t get past a week for a while. Hell, even a couple days was tough. There were a lot of slips. And those are inevitable. I eventually got to 2. After I slipped again, I was furious with myself, and I decided to put my laptop where I couldn’t get to it. I left it at my dad’s house. It had to be done. Once I got to a month, I would allow myself to have it back.
I went through a period of really bad HOCD (It was especially bad when I hadn’t figured out what it was yet!) and though it’s calmed down a lot, it still shows up from time to time. It’s at it’s worst just after a slip/binge.
My first attempt at rebooting went almost 8 weeks, and then I relapsed. Then, for two months, I couldn’t get past two weeks. I had to stay offline for a while to get going again.
Day 44 I’ve made it to day 44 now, and I don’t intend to stop. I’ve been through highs and lows like crazy. STILL flatlining. And that’s the worst part about all this. Having no libido is a direct trigger for my HOCD. When I do get my libido back it will be cherished like a freakin’ superpower. At this point, other than the no libido, I feel ‘generally OK’ to ‘good’ most the time.
In the past when I tried abstaining from this stuff, I still allowed myself to fantasize and really check out girls on TV/internet. In retrospect, it was just another way to check my libido. I’ve avoided that as much as possible these last 6 weeks. I think one of the keys is to not really ever check. Just let things happen as they do.
Day 46 I’m still feeling pretty good. My mood has really stabilized over the past couple weeks. The last bout of depression was some time ago. Still waiting on my libido though. It gets more frustrating by the day. It’s absence is the only thing causing me grief. There have been a few times in the past 40 days where I woke up with really really strong morning wood. It was epic each time. That’s it though. Zero morning wood for the past week. This inconsistency, even though expected, is torture!
Day 49 Today I’m feeling frustrated with myself. I haven’t been out of the house this whole weekend. It’s stupid really. I expect all this stuff to just change for me, yet I refuse to change myself. I know what would make me feel better: interaction with people, yet I clam up and stay inside instead. Because it’s safe. I feel like there’s all this new potential inside me. But it’s just getting ignored.
Day 56 This is the longest I have ever made it, and I don’t plan on stopping. I feel good. Very rarely do I slip into a depressed state, and if I do it is short lived. My libido is definitely returning. I can feel it kicking. I don’t think it’s 100% YET, but I have urges to be with women, and seeing them in real life turns me on. And when I say turned on, I don’t mean I start getting hard. I just get a feeling in my groin. A good feeling. I used to think I had to start getting hard in order to prove my attraction, but I don’t think that’s right.
Day 64 Bleh. This is the first time in my life that my social life has become almost nonexistent. And it just happened to be during the same time I decided to kick this habit. First time taking off school . First time with low interaction job. I have a couple male friends I hang out with, and I’ll see their girlfriends from time to time, but I haven’t had one-on-one time with a potential mate in 2 months now. I had a couple before that. One almost escalated to sex, but I lost my erection when I got a condom out. (Maybe a week after a binge).
Day 67 I’m still flatlining. Sparks here and there but nothing amazing. I have noticed myself become a lot more optimistic over the past few days though. I don’t care if it takes 200 days until it comes back. I know it’s there and it’s just a matter of time.
Day 68 Last night I had a dream where I was getting intimate with a girl. No sex, just making out and feeling up. But in the dream I remember how easily I got an erection. It was pretty cool. This is the first time I’ve dreamt like that in quite some time.
In some of the reboot logs, I remember talk of being able to get erect just thinking about a girl. While that would be nice and maybe I’ll have that at some point. It shouldn’t be a deciding factor for if I’m ready. Like what happened to some others here, I think it’s going to take the actual closeness and intimacy of a woman to get me going again.
Day 79 I want everyone to know that I’ve NEVER had successful intercourse with a girl. I tried 5 times with 5 different girls. Every single one was both embarrassing and devastating. The last failed attempt was the worst. I had abstained from pmo for 6 weeks, but fell back into it again. I would make it 2 weeks and then binge. This went on for around 2 months. Somewhere in there I tried having sex with a girl, I hoped since Id abstained from pmo for that 6 week period I would be able to maintain an erection. Nope. That freaked me out. I was abusing porn so much less, and it still wasn’t working. That’s when I decided no more. At that point I cut out everything; fantasy, TV, trash internet.
After 79 days, I finally had sex. It was AWESOME. No problems at all. My date last Sunday ended up going until just a few hours ago [Tuesday morning] lol. The girl is amazing. I was ready for more in the morning, but we had no more condoms.
Anybody can do this. I didn’t even have any positive experiences in my past to aim for. I was going through this thing blind. The bullshit I dealt with is hard to put into words. Hopeless, sad, confused, jealous of everyone else because they had normal sex drives. HOCD plagued my mind. Seriously, even though a lot of my posts were positive and optimistic, there was always a nagging in the back of my mind that wasn’t sure. My HOCD is absolutely gone now, and I feel so much more comfortable around everybody. Even being around my best friends used to trip me out sometimes, but now it’s perfect. I used to be so scared and paranoid. Connecting with a girl has sorted things out in my head even more.
But this works. Stop watching porn. Get out there. Keep your head up. I first started experimenting with abstaining last November. So it took me almost a year to get to this point. But I’m here. And I’m a new person now. It’s so f’ing worth it. Thanks so much to everyone.
Also, I slipped and pmo’d twice on day 69. That’s 10 days ago. It barely even phased me. So take your ‘relapses’ lightly. Honestly, I feel like last relapse helped me realize that I was ready to move on to the real thing. No I’m not saying go jack off to porn. I’m just demonstrating that relapses aren’t the end of the world [at least if they come after you are rebooted].
Day 105 Just wanted to chime in and let everyone know I’m still chugging along. I’m in my first real relationship since high school now. (The first one with sex.) And it’s pretty stellar.
My goals have really been shifting lately. For so long all I worried about was porn. Before I was worrying about porn, it was worrying about girls. There’s so much else to focus on now. So many other goals I want to achieve. Now that I have a girlfriend, it’s very easy to see my growth as a man.
In my last relationship, I was a needy, insecure mess. It’s the complete opposite this time. I feel very solid in my identity. Now that I’m comfortable sexually, it’s kind of tough when I’m around ladies. I want to hit on every single hot girl I see lol. But I’ve grown pretty close to my girlfriend, so I bite my tongue. I’d always been good with women, but the whole ED thing beat the crap out of me psychologically. Now there’s this new trust in myself that is very empowering.
School is going well. It’s much easier to focus and get homework done.
Sexually, I’m finding it tough not to want sex ALL the time. This is something I’m working on. My girlfriend seems to be comfortable having sex 2 or 3 times a week. I find myself pushing for it every time I see her. I believe all the porn made me think she’s ready to go 24/7.
Hope you’re all staying strong!! I can’t say enough how much things have changed for me. Stick with this.
by checkitout
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