Here is a story by a 42-year-old guy about ignorance, shame, fear, and about his big revival. The story about how PMO can bring your life to an end.
My marriage is dead. My 10-year relationship with a beautiful, smart and sexy woman broke up into pieces within days. There had never been a strong spark between us, our sexual life was tepid, if not boring. We had always been very good friends, sharing our deepest feelings, having similar views of life but never a wild sex. There was passion at the start, hugs, touches, kissing. There was a big love and happiness in the first years. But little sex and no sex near the end. We have two lovely kids, many people considered us a happy couple and were shocked to hear we split up. So what happened?
Once I had thought I’m no longer into sex that much. I had long believed it’s because I’m getting old so I don’t need it as much as I used to and there were more exciting things to do, and that sex was just a waste of time and energy. Last year I started having erection problems while masturbating. Again I put it down to the age issue. Before I got married I had plenty of relationships with girls, lots of good sex, also a few casual sex encounters with guys as I am bisexual. I was a party animal, socializing a lot, constantly seeking adventures, discovering new lands, working out, doing all kinds of sports, etc. This all gradually started to die out and I eventually became a couch potato. I put it down to the age issue, job-related stress, etc.
Six months ago I made up a list of all problems before my first visit to a therapist: growing anxiety, job-related stress, lack of energy, tiredness, nervousness, bad temper, diminishing confidence, losing sense of life, boredom, no sex life.
First Moment of Revelation
Every day the list was longer and longer until I came across the YBOP site and got SHOCKED. I had never realized watching porn and/or masturbating might be a problem, this looked normal to me that guys watch porn and masturbate. I qualified for almost all porn addiction criteria! How stupid and BRAINWASHED a man must be so as not to realize he’s been addicted to porn and heavy masturbation for more than a decade! I had masturbated regularly since I was a teenager. For fun, for pleasure, out of boredom, to release stress, or just to make myself happy. It became my obsession and slipped totally out of control when I started watching hardcore porn on high-speed Internet. I started experimenting with gay sex to see how it is, to have this feeling of a thrill and get adrenaline high. Life seemed boring, girls disappointing, fear of rejection skyrocketing, loneliness deepening. A few years later I met my wife but I didn’t stop watching porn. My addiction escalated over the last few years — I eventually watched mainly gay porn, violent, kinky, fetish. When my wife and kids were away I would spend days and nights on sex chats. I felt always drained and ashamed afterwards. My HOCD grew to a huge problem and I totally lost sense of my sexual preference. I started freaking out and kept asking myself: Am I gay? Am I a pervert? I would PMO on a daily basis, masturbating sometimes 2-3 times a day when my family was away. I wouldn’t fall asleep without PMO or at least MO.
After coming across YBOP I realized I am an addict. I deleted all porn-related accounts, disappeared from porn chats and deleted my Skype account. I told my wife the whole truth. She went mad. A few days later she kicked me out from our apartment, took away my keys and said I better stay out or she will call police and say I pose a threat to our kids.
Lucky me I was already in the third week of NoFap hard mode. That probably saved my life and gave me the strength to fight. Within days I lost everything — my wife, a place to live in, couldn’t see kids for several weeks. I was shit scared. My wife refused to help me, all she wanted was to pull me down to the very bottom of this shit and eliminate me from her life forever.
What if it was a gift?
The shock was so big and the awareness of what ruined my life so clear that I just flowed through 180 days without watching porn (I still struggle with my addiction to masturbation). NoFap touched off a series of changes that would radiate out to every part of my life:
1. Explosion of energy: endless string of new ideas and challenges. I have never been more motivated than I am now. I feel I can achieve anything I want. All things I always said “I want to do” I am carrying out.
2. Learning new things: started jogging, working out, playing squash, doing yoga, exercising every morning, went diving in Kenya and took up windsurfing in Greece.
3. Surge of confidence: have no problem to approach girls, talk to total strangers in the street.
4. I take a good care of my body: cold showers, healthy food, cut down on alcohol/coffee
5. My sexual preference has reverted to that of being turned on by women. I love their beauty, femininity, movements, just like I did before I was addicted to fapping.
6. Big emotions: I can laugh like crazy or weep openly, have this internal smile accompanying me every day, joy of life.
7. I stopped giving a shit of what other people think about me, I have changed my lifestyle, the way I dress.
8. My erections are rock hard and I have morning wood every day.
9. I love going out and meeting new people (either with friends or on my own); I am ready to go out every night and talk to strangers, for fun or to exercise my mental muscles. I started noticing girls are looking at me all the time. I went on a couple of dates and get laid after years of no sex.
10. I am feeling like a real man: dominant, setting the tone, strong, becoming a leader, making quick decisions.
Second Moment of Revelation
NoFap was just a beginning of my life change. I needed to look for reasons why I got hooked up. I read this incredible book “No More Mr Nice Guy” and discovered that over my entire life I had developed this Nice Guy Syndrome, which is primarily an anxiety-based disorder. Pretty much everything Nice Guy do or don’t do is to manage their anxiety — seeking approval, avoiding conflict, hiding thoughts, feelings, desires, and actions. I was unable to set boundaries and defend them.
Most Nice Guys believe they are bad for being sexual, or believe other people will think they are bad, so their sexual impulses have to be kept hidden from view. The Nice Guy’s sexuality doesn’t go away, it just goes underground. The more dependent a man is on external approval, the deeper he is going to have to hide his sexual behavior.
People get into addictions because they choose addiction as a means of ESCAPING ANXIETY. A sexually addicted person flees from intimacy and turns to fantasy, desperately wants to avoid dealing with rejection and failure. Pornography isn’t about sex. It’s all about shame and fear. You turn to porn because it will not reject you. You watch porn to escape reality. You watch porn to manage your emotions. You watch porn because you’re bored, lonely, stressed, depressed, angry, isolated.
To sum it up, I can now safely say that I’m a winner. I’m a new man. I am a FREE man. The Moment of Revelation was a wonderful experience. Habits can be changed, if we understand how they work and why we got hooked up. We are always the result of our own decisions. Wish you all good luck. You can all change your life, if you only want to.
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