8 months ago I posted this, my 75 streak day post about the changes in my life since I started abstaining. A lot has changed since then, and I think it’s high time that I make yet another post. Before everything, I want to thank this subreddit with all my heart. I have never seen a place on the internet as kind, supportive, friendly and helpful as /r/NoFap.
Seriously, I have no idea how that even happened, but it seems like all the good people around the world just gathered here to be helpful and friendly to each other. Everyone of you, from mods to the most average poster, you make our days better, you are all brilliant people, an example to how internet discussion boards should look like. This place is too good for the Internet.
So, to recap my previous post for those who haven’t/don’t want to read it, it was about 17 y/o me, who enjoyed porn as much as the next guy, but suddenly realized that he’s shit at life and porn might be the plug that’s keeping him out of happiness. Turns out, it was. Over 75 days of NoFap, I felt increased confidence, happiness, self-respect, discipline and willpower. Today, I celebrate 333 days since I started abstaining. I’m a few months shy of 18 now, and I started NoFap in August 2015.
I don’t know why, but it’s really hard to gather my thoughts together today and write a decent post, so I’m just going to zig-zag a bit, I hope that’s okay with you:
I feel absolutely magnificent. Not foolishly-happy, but happy enough that I can fix most of my problems without panicking. The happiness is still here, and it’s, just like last time, still through the roof. Sure, I have bad days, I have moments when I want to punch everyone in the face and just lie on my bed all day, but that’s part of the deal – I’m more extreme in my emotions. My senses aren’t blinded by porn, which dulls the feelings in our body to allow senseless lust take over. When I’m angry, I’m more angry than before, but when I’m happy, I’m euphoric.
My willpower increased even more. Last time, I mentioned that I worked out from time to time – now I’m doing it every morning, no exceptions. It doesn’t need to be a full 2hr workout, but at least 30 minutes of muscle training already makes a difference, if done every day. Now, it doesn’t feel painful when I do it right after waking up. I don’t feel 100 Earth gravities dragging me back to bed. Yes, I still feel that I could be better if I just went back to bed and continued sleeping, but fighting against the laziness urge is so much easier now. It’s no longer a defensive struggle, it’s an offensive front-line raid.
It has become so much easier coping with fears and anxieties. As the beautiful /u/gallagher222 noticed, PMO does shut down your fears and lets you choose the easy way out of the pain. I did not, and I hope you don’t as well. Don’t choose the easy way out of problems. Don’t escape problems – fight them. Come to problems and tell to their face that you’re not going to give up and live with them. You’re going to fight them willingly. This is something I started feeling in my 200-250 days of NoFap.
Self-respect is also increasing all the time. Just don’t get it over your head, because you might just become an asshole, like I had for a short time. I became overly confident with myself and appeared as an ass around my friends and classmates, when in truth I just felt great and didn’t want to hide it. Self-respect must come with a sense of humility in terms of boasting, talking over people and other asshole things.
Something that I was really worried about, and something that even my NoFap-induced willpower couldn’t really cope with were 3 “relapses” that I had. I succumbed to masturbation 3 times this spring, and I’m still angry while writing this, my whole body wants to go back to April and tell April-me to quit my shit.
Fortunately, after 300 days of NoFap, it’s no longer about NoFap. Just like a train, once it gains enough inertia, small stones will not stop its movement (but come big boulders and it will halt nonetheless). Although I felt like shit for a day after the “relapses”, my confidence and willingness to continue only increased. I wanted to escape the demon that I let back in so much, that I probably became a better man in those few days than I did in a month before. I am not encouraging anyone to self-induce a relapse just to get strugglin’, if you can hold it, keep holding it, but for those of you who have relapsed after your wonderful x day streak, don’t let that shitty moment in your life take over your plans! So what! Will some puny relapse stop you from achieving what you struggled for the last year? NO! It will not! You will not start from scratch, you will rebuild yourself stronger and better by using your existing power that you gained to fight the urge that you have now. This is exactly why I refused to reset my counter. It’s no longer about “days since last fap”, it’s “days being a better man”. I refuse to go back to nil after a relapse. I want to continue building my life, be better for others and myself, and I will not let a relapse stop me and return me to ground zero.
On another note, I still don’t have a girlfriend, as I haven’t met a girl that I would want to date for a long time and that would love me. But that did not discourage me. I still have confidence to ask people out on dates and hangouts, and I absolutely love it. Truly, it has become a sort of perpetuum mobile for me, a perpetual motion, where asking a girl out gives me confidence to try asking another girl out if this one fails. What I started to realize is that it’s not about immediately trying to find the person you love as fast as possible. It’s about actually having meaningful conversations and great times together with people you enjoy being with. I still want a girlfriend nonetheless, but it’s not my main goal right now.
Also, I have started to meditate and focus on my work a lot more. I’m in 11th grade now, but I finally know what I want to do after I graduate, and I’m working on that by doing projects in my free-time, going to uni classes for preparation, something I wouldn’t even think of 2 years ago. I can see the road ahead, and the further I go, the less ‘unknown’ there is to uncover.
I really have a hard time expressing my thoughts today and I don’t want this post to become a literal ego-fest that it looks like right now. I truly hope that you could understand what I wanted to say and I hope that you could take something from it. Don’t forget, you’re all amazing, brilliant people and I love you all like I never loved an internet community before. Although I don’t know any of you personally, you bring me so much hope and you are absolutely amazing.
Best of luck!
Oh, and here’s a great song to start your morning/day/evening!
LINK – 333 Days Without Wanking – A Retrospect
EARLIER POST
75 days without PMO. I’m still going strong, but I found just the right time to express my thoughts and tell you my experiences. English isn’t my native tongue, mind that.
I hope that you all aren’t already bored of similar posts and I hope that this isn’t too redundant or boring. So, let’s begin:
I started fapping when I was 13 years old, just like probably most of you. I’m 17 now, so internet porn was already blooming with all its infamous glory. That’s the way I chose to the bottom. I wasn’t a complete addict, at least relative to some other success stories from around here, but I didn’t mind stroking my lute every 1-2 days. Weeks and months passed and I completely ignored any changes in my behavior or social skills, thinking that my life is exactly the same as it was before, now with only more pleasure. It was when I was almost 16 when I started worrying.
It suddenly clicked to me that maybe what I’m doing isn’t exactly right. It felt…wrong, out of place. Sadly, I could not bring myself to end it, the triggers were everywhere around me. Whenever I tried telling myself that this is the last day and I will stop, I would drag myself painfully for 2-3 days until once again succumbing to porn and reversing back to the starting point.
My moving point was probably a sudden realization that my social skills aren’t the best: I wasn’t a loner, or a complete loser, but I just couldn’t seem to get around girls. Everyone else around me were relaxed and funny, and that’s what the ladies liked. My jokes (at least to me) seemed more than silly and my every try to man up and talk to a girl was met with extreme retaliation from my consciousness and going back to the classroom and never seeing the girl again. This is when I started worrying that there must be something I could change. I am generally optimistic, so I decided to find a way to improve myself.
I started working out, thinking that my body will somehow charm the girls (pretty much all other guys that are talkative with girls are buffed or in a sport shape). Welp, that didn’t work out. Apart from obvious health improvements and increased stamina (that I wasted on porn), it was just as hard to talk with girls as it was before.
It was last Spring when I found out about NoFap. I was extremely desperate then. And I mean it. Spring always bring the lovers out, every girl is happier and generally life seems to focus more around love and relationships. And I was alone. Again. I almost couldn’t stand myself that I will have to spend yet another long summer with nothing but video games, internet and same old “bro” friends. I wanted something more mature, I wanted to be like all the other guys and enjoy my life to the fullest – and at that time I honestly believed that life can only be enjoyed when you have a girlfriend. That is when I evaluated my progress, my tries and this is when I started thinking that maybe porn has a part in this too.
This was the moment when I started to do some heavy research on porn and brain, lifestyle and so on. Over days, I was fully motivated to begin changing my life to the core. My motivation to change impacted my stance on masturbation. Common were the days to get 5 or even 9 day strikes. This also impacted other things in my life: I started waking up an hour earlier and working out, I started being friendlier and happier in general, started worrying less. In other words, it takes just a little effort to change the way your brain works and improve your day-to-day conditions, but you must be willing to do it.
During the summer (which was, of course, spent alone) I got an even stricter working out schedule, I started pointing out my social/conversational problems and fixing them. In early August, I realized that whatever I try to do, I still can’t reach more than 10 days of NoFap. I was so angry at myself that I started some non-stop emergency/motivational sessions to help me change my thinking when one day I hit the goldmine. Porn is the real culprit, the real cause of all this. Ditch porn, and you’ll ditch the rest too, if you’re willing. Surprisingly, it worked. I set myself a goal: “Get at least 20 days of NoFap before school starts or you’re a loser.” Sometimes harsh goals help me move forward and it helped me this time as well. I almost relapsed twice, but on the 1st of September I had a proud 24 days on my calendar and I felt great. This is the moment I realized that I managed to get my life back on the fast lane.
Fast-forward to today.
- My happiness levels are often over-the-roof,
- I am rarely depressed,
- I feel funnier, feel more relaxed,
- My energy is leaking out from me, I sometimes feel that I could explode if I wanted,
- I feel more comfortable when talking with people and,
- Most importantly, I feel relaxed when talking with girls. I look them straight in the eyes,
- I keep the conversation going, I feel no fear at doing it.
NoFap and willpower is a very powerful mix and it does work. Trust me. If someone says that they felt nothing after ~100 days of NoFap – that’s because they never believed in it, they never truly wanted to change. If you want to change, you not only have to have a counter badge set with numbers ticking, but believe it inside yourself. Struggle to get better, actually try. Most things in life take just a little effort to happen, but people decide to throw them away just so they can be lazy again.
It’s late evening now. I feel energetic as if I drank 8 cups of coffee. I feel so happy that I want to dance (putting aside the fact that I never learned how to dance), my emotions are radiating from me. I still don’t have a girlfriend, but a few days ago I asked a girl out on a date. It was my first time doing it. She gave me a suggestive eyebrow raise and said that she’ll think about. I am not afraid of the answer, whatever it might be, because it’s all about the adventure. I literally feel powerful after asking her out. I have never felt more confident in my life. I already have a plan to ask a few more out next week if this one isn’t successful.
Trust what people say in this sub, guys. NoFap works miracles. It starts with porn and masturbation abstaining, but ends up improving the very basic parts of your everyday life, makes you enjoy life so much more.
LINK – Thank you all! I am a completely different person now!
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