I have finally made it to the 90 days! 😀 (Well almost ;)) At the start I really never thought it would be achievable, it seemed so far away. Now I feel like I will not masturbate ever again or at least in a long time. It has been such an amazing journey, with many ups and downs, so I want to share it with you guys. Hopefully you get inspired to keep on continuing.
I’m 22 years old and had been fapping for quite some time, usually once a day. At some point I saw someone mentioning this subreddit in a comment section. I thought it was a funny idea, but I did not really pay much attention. Then in the same week I saw someone posting the yourbrainonporn website somewhere on facebook. Now I looked more into it, and got interested, especially after seeing the TED talk. Was it really affecting me this much? I used to have thoughts about what amount of masturbation was actually healthy, but always rationalized it with the thought that probably everybody did it on a regular basis. So I said to myself ‘what the hell’ and started it as an experiment.
My life was actually not that bad at that point. I had good friends and did not have very much problems with being social towards others. I could get fairly easy through college with good grades. Still I felt quite hollow inside, especially when I would be at home on myself for longer times and be stuck with gaming for hours. These were the moments I would masturbate the most. I would get really lonely and depressed. When I was with friends, this feeling faded, but usually it got back when I was back home alone again. I also had very low esteem when it came to girls and was quite insecure in general.
So I started my “experiment” in October of 2013. It started off easy; I was motivated as I actually started to feel some benefits after a few days (or was it just a placebo?). But after each time I just didn’t have the perseverance. I kept relapsing after about 10 days, then later after 5 days and it became worse and worse. At some point I felt like I would never get there and wanted to quite the whole nofap thing. I actually did, but came back after a week or so. I had made the realization that I was actually addicted to porn and masturbation and could not stop as simply as I had thought in the beginning. I had felt some of the benefits and wanted to have the self-control to make my own decisions over my porn habits. This resulted in several good streaks in the 20s and 30s, but I still was not able to push myself past the 30s.
In this streak of 90 days I did something different than the previous streaks. I was able to withhold some of the strongest urges I always got around the 30 days. This was probably the toughest part of this whole journey, but once I passed that I felt I could overcome every urge. After that everything became easier, and I actually made it without much problem to this day. So my advice will be to really push you past these urges. The stronger the urge is you vanquish, the stronger you’ll become and the easier it will be.
I find it really hard to explain what the actual benefits are. There is the usual stuff many people mention, as more confidence in general and with girls, the increase in motivation to do stuff, the time you save etcetera. But I also feel different in some way, which I find hard to explain. I sometimes feel like a whole other person. Much more alive, much more happy and enjoying life much more. I usually was anxious in many situations. This has changed. I feel very relaxed nowadays. I still care about a lot of things, and I still overthink a lot, but it just doesn’t affect me as much anymore.
My success with girls has changed as well. I have never had a girl friend or sex either. Until now this has not changed, but I feel different towards girls. I used to ignore almost every girl in the streets, but now I look freely around and have much more eye contact. I’m able to step up to a girls in the bar now. I feel good about myself, and see that girls are actually attracted to me. I have also asked a girl of which I had a crush for a long time out, although with any success. But it felt like such a big achievement that I do not really care anymore. At least I never have to wonder anymore. I see a bright future ahead for me when it comes to girls, which was completely different half a year ago.
At first Nofap was really something I needed to get past urges and get inspired, but now during this streak I feel like I was in control more and more. I can get past it without the help of nofap. I want to thank everybody who has supported me (although probably in an indirect way as I’m a real lurker on here) and for posting all the inspirational posts. Now it is time for me to say goodbye to this community and reddit. I’m ready to live my life to the fullest! 😀
Ps. what really helped me was quitting the biggest part of my gaming and redditing habits. I now have much more time to be social and other much more satisfying activities.
LINK – (Almost) 90 day report – Get back to living a real life!
by salamdir
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