This is going to be a long one. There will be no TLDR at the bottom, but my report will be broken into sections so you can pick and choose what’s relevant to you. This post is NSFW, but nothing will be redded out, so if you don’t read the red parts, don’t read this post. Though it’s not too explicit. Some of what I say will only be relevant to male fapstronauts, but I hope there is something of use to ladies here as well.
Flatline: I started this 90 day period because of erectile dysfunction. I was actually flatlining a little before I started, but I kept masturbating because that was just a habit I had developed. Flatlines are a mixed blessing. No-one comes to nofap looking to castrate themselves, and that is exactly what a flatline feels like. Of course, it’s easier, since you don’t find yourself tempted as much, but it is a strong blow to your self-esteem. Understand, that if you are here because of ED, your sexual self-esteem isn’t that high anyway, see this as the world getting darker before the dawn. It will pass. I didn’t believe it would pass, I actually bought a subliminal messaging tape to help it pass less naturally. The tape did not help. Nofap did help. But still 90 days later my experience of erections is very different to what it was like when I was masturbating. I get morning wood, but not every morning, haven’t had it every morning since I was 19. I only noticed it getting better about 55 days in, I was sitting next to a beautiful blonde girl on a train. Our legs were touching and my arm was up around her seat, because I was stretching out as I like to, and she was leaning back into my arm. Strong erection for the duration of the ride next to this stranger. Remember that erections are good things, and even though they might be uncomfortable at times, like when you’re standing up to get off a train, they are not a problem. They are biological proof that you are a sexual being. And if you stick with nofap, your natural biological behaviours will return to you.
Flatlines should be seen as an opportunity. Hard as it might be, just ignore the flaccidity in your pants and focus on yourself. You have extra time now, which brings me onto the next section.
Treating yourself: When you masturbate, you are giving yourself pleasure. When you do loads of press-ups, take cold showers, bang your head against a wall to get some sexual thoughts out, you are hurting yourself short term. Only short-term though, these things can all be good for you (don’t recommend the headbanging). But it’s important to remember that you are healing yourself, not punishing yourself. Treat yourself well. Find something you’ve always wanted to do but didn’t have the guts to try, and do it. For me it was taking dance class. Maybe you do plenty of stuff to treat yourself well, keep it up, but make sure it’s the right kind of thing. If you’re going to replace one addiction with another, make your second one a healthy addiction. Whether it’s trying yoga, meditation, dancing, sports, painting, writing, photography, whatever it is make sure you enjoy it. See that you are giving yourself pleasure in a way that will result in you feeling good and having a better life, rather than giving yourself pleasure in a way that leads to a short-term ejaculation and temporary high.
Temptation: You will face temptation. Even the flatliners who feel like nothing sexual will ever excite them again, you will be tempted. I have learned ways of fighting temptation on here. Deep breaths, into your belly, at least 10, will reduce your sexual excitement. Cold showers will help here, at least short term, but if you’re facing repeated temptation, you may have to take more than one. Going to this reddit and just reading around can help, or posting something asking for help. You may end up refreshing the page 20 times in a minute in the hopes of reading a response, but at least your mind is partially distracted there.
The Real World: The real world may seem different to you, not too long into this. It did for me, I read one description where the guy said it was like seeing the world in HD for the first time. Experiences do become brighter and your senses feel more alert. But just like watching an HD TV, you naturally start to feel like that’s how the world is, so you don’t notice it as much after a while. The sex you are attracted to may become more attractive. That’s how it worked for me. I went from being an OTT perfectionist to finding the flaws in attractive women as things that enhanced their beauty rather than detracting from it. It got to the point where I found attractive women on TV and adverts to be lacking in some way, rather than the other way around. Unfortunately, this is experience has dulled somewhat recently, although part of that is my fault.
Fucking Up: There are two types of fucking up. The obvious one, failing to keep your commitment and having to reset your counter and the less obvious one. Doing something inadvisable, that won’t help your journey and may lead you to fucking up, but doesn’t entirely. I avoided the obvious one. But early on, I listened to a song that was the soundtrack to a porn scene I quite enjoyed. Put that scene right in my head. Listening to the song was an inadvisable fuckup. But I got over it. Lately, I’ve done something more inadvisable. Getting complacent after about 70 something days, I went on an anonymous chatsite. If you’ve never used one, you’re not missing anything. On video chat it’s 95% men masturbating, but I used just the text. In my fapping days, I used to go on this site with a lot of other males, looking for a female (or someone who claimed to be female) of a reasonable (legal) age to have a sex chat with. Now, that wasn’t at all my intention when I returned to this site. I was just bored and wanted to have a normal chat with some people. If you’re looking for normal chat, this is not the site to go to. Anyway, I made it very clear I wasn’t looking for sexual chat with anyone, but sure enough, it started going that way eventually. And I wasn’t strong enough to just disconnect and not go back. So for me, that was a pretty major fuckup and I feel it has set my recovery back somewhat. But at least I learnt a lesson. Remember, it’s not just porn sites to avoid, it’s general sites that you’ve used in an unhealthy way, for some of you, that may be facebook, youtube, craigslist, etc.
Telling People: I haven’t told anyone I know personally I’m doing this. Which is kind of weird, because I was very open about my masturbation habits in the past. Except with family. But I do think it can help to tell someone, I just don’t have anyone I feel close enough to to really get into it with, I nearly told my mother when I was a little drunk one night, but I sobered up. Not that it would have been so bad to tell them, but they are my parents. Not my therapists, I don’t have to tell them everything, but I do appreciate that some people benefit from being very open with their parents. At the end of the day, it’s a judgement call and it’s up to you. Don’t be surprised if you get some negative feedback from people, despite this place rapidly growing, this is not common.
Cult: This is in many ways a cult. I don’t mean that as a bad thing. I don’t think anyone’s going to lead a mass suicide where everyone jumps off a bridge strapped to several hard drives of porn. Christianity started out as a cult, and look what a dominant role it plays in the world stage today. For better or worse. Cults are not necessarily bad things. But understand you are part of a community that does not have full scientific backing, and you are taking some things on faith. You are enticed to come here short term, 7 or 30 or 90 day trial periods, and many just stay on after that. That’s fine, this is largely a great community, but don’t be shocked that the world doesn’t appreciate us like you do.
The Community: I have become less and less active in the community as the days have gone on. I see this as a good thing, a sign that I can handle things on my own. However, it does help to go back now and then and remind myself of the problems I had and why I came here in the first place. There are a lot of you, with a lot to get off your chests. Many posts are therefore ignored. But not as many as I would have thought. A post never stays relevant for more than 2 days, even if someone says they will report something later, they almost never do. These things are acceptable. What I don’t understand in the community are the downvotes. I can understand if you don’t like something, but that is not grounds to downvote it. Downvotes should be for posts that are irrelevant or pornographic, not ones you have a personal issue with. Otherwise you’re just trolling. If you have an issue with a post, comment and make your reasons clear.
The badge. As you may have noticed, I do not broadcast my badge. This is because I ordered it about 7 days in, and they put me on the day I applied rather than the date I entered as my start date. Bastards. But I think it’s actually a good thing. I noted down important dates, 30 days, 45 days, 60 days and 90. For the rest of the time it actually helped me not to think of what day I was really on. Better to not make it a big deal, but I understand there’s some pride attached to the badge. Whatever works for you, but if you’ve struggled before, maybe worry more about yourself and less about your badge.
Activity vs. Passivity: “I’m so confident”, “I have superpowers”, “I can talk to people socially”, “I feel better about myself” – these are all typical experiences of nofappers. One thing about expressing themselves this way is that they have experienced these things passively. That is, they started nofap, and these things just happened for them. If that happens for you, great. But there are many things on this journey that you may have to work on. If you struggle to talk to people, nofap may help on it’s own, but reading some self-help books or just getting out there and practising is going to force you to actively improve it yourself. The confusing thing about actively changing your life is where do you give the credit. For example, I quit the gym before I started nofap but I’ve been working out more than I have done in a long time. Now I could say this is because of nofap, or I could say this is because I have chosen to actively work out. It really doesn’t matter, the important thing is that I’m working out more, I like to feel that this is my doing, and nofap doesn’t hold me back in this but I’m not going to give it much credit either. You should experience both things. Find something you want to work on, and work on it. Later on, you may find you have other benefits you weren’t expecting, that just came passively as a result of nofap. For me it was seeing the world differently.
Superpowers: Let me be clear, confidence is not a superpower. But I can understand why it feels that way. You sleep better, wake up happier, and enjoy life so much more with confidence. My immune system also appears to have improved, but don’t be surprised if you’re not suddenly the most confident guy in the room. You can improve your confidence separately to nofap, simply by adopting confident body postures, you make yourself feel confident. I have a link to a great TED talk on this in part two. And Smile. You associate smiling with happiness, so smiling naturally makes you happier, more relaxed. And you should be happy, you are working incredibly hard on improving yourself, you deserve to feel good about that, and about life in general.
Blue Balls: After a certain amount of days, your penis may become extremely sensitive, especially if you’re going on hard mode. I’ve done my 90 days on hard mode, by circumstance rather than choice. It may get to the point where simply touching your dick is a kind of edging, and you can accidentally bring yourself to the edge, whatever your intentions. Odds are, at some stage in your nofap journey you will experience vasocongestion (blue balls). The only way I’ve found to get rid of it is by taking a cold shower, and cupping my hands, catching the cold water and just forcing my genitalia into it. It is not an ideal cure. It isn’t comfortable and fun, but neither are blue balls. Cold showers can help in general, but there are better posts on that I’m not going into here. FYI, vasocongestion can affect women as well, affects the clitoris, labia and outer third of the vagina according to my internet research. Which also confirms that cold showers work as a cure for women also, guess we’re not so different after all.
Wet Dreams: Wet dreams are natural. Messy, but natural. We are meant to get rid of older sperm to make way for fresher swimmers, that is how we have evolved. However, doing this we kind of learn to associate ejaculation with failure. Some people here aim to go the whole time without having a wet dream. That is their decision, and it is possible with willpower, but it’s probably not that healthy. Remember, the main reason yourbrainonporn.com advises us to go without masturbation, is so that we’re not tempted to look at porn. Pornography, specifically the high speed internet porn, is the problem. Ejaculation is not the problem. Yes, you lose a few nutrients in an ejaculation, but you can replace those with a good diet and some vitamins. Yourbrainonporn.com is very clear that wet dreams are not a failure. But, some people see wet dreams as a trigger for masturbation. I don’t get that personally, I wake up in a sticky mess the last thing I want to do is ejaculate again, but these people see that they’ve ejaculated so they figure they may as well do it again consciously. All I can do is refer you back to my part on Temptation, there are ways around it. FYI, I had 3 wet dreams in 90 days, day 58, day early 70’s, and early 80’s. Weirdest dreams as well, completely non-sexual, and ejaculation in fairly embarrassing places such as sitting casually on a bus.
Part 2 – http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/1lrrqf/90_day_report_part_two_farewell_and_links/
Goodbye: I am leaving this community. Yes, that does mean I am going to start masturbating again. No, I don’t feel the need to masturbate, I feel I could easily go another 90 days, but that was never my intention. I am trying to learn to become multi-orgasmic, that involves edging. This 90 days was to cure my ED. I feel it is largely cured, though I haven’t had the sex to prove it yet. I do not intend to look at porn ever again. The only porn I am tempted to watch is a sexual program about giving women orgasms, run by pornstars, with video-demonstrations. I have avoided it thus far because I would see it as a failure, and I think I’m still inclined not to watch it, no matter how curious I might be. So, my masturbation is going to be very different now. It is going to be lubricated, and focused on my own pleasure, I will try my best not to fantasize, but just focus on the pleasure I’m giving my penis and myself. If you get to the point where you can’t continue anymore and you’re going to give up on nofap, I’d recommend masturbating this way.
Question: How long did it take to cure your ED? Have you…tested it yet?
Answer: It has not been tested as of yet, and I’m definitely not back to my teenage days when a mild breeze would do, but I felt confident in my ability into the days in the late 50’s. But understand that I didn’t masturbate to online porn until I was 18 (shared computer out in hallway), and even then I often preferred my imagination and memory, and didn’t get addicted till I was about 21. They say the time taken does correlate to the age you started with internet porn and years of use. Some people take 5 months or more, but I had faith I would be done in 90. I will probably find out this weekend, I have a fun date lined up.
Links: to websites, products and nofap comments I have found useful during this journey, I do not get a commission on anything:
Working out – http://www.hundredpushups.com – Free, Learning how to do 100 pushups in 7 weeks. Great way to build fitness without having to pay for an expensive gym membership. I’m sceptical about the 7 weeks though, I spent 4 weeks on week 5, but regardless, it is great training.
Temptation – http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/1itc0r/your_ways_to_stop_yourself_from_relapsing/ – nofappers giving their advice on how to beat temptation
Cold Showers – http://wakeup-world.com/2012/04/11/ten-health-benefits-of-cold-showers/ – Article about benefit of cold showers. Plenty of advice available online and from other nofappers on this topic.
Losing the Brain Fog – http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/1ih1tt/reversed_attraction/ – My experience 30 days in about the lifting of the brain fog, thought I’d plug it again, it was such a revelatory experience for me.
Picking Up Women – http://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358 – Best book I have ever read on attracting women. I know plenty of you guys go to r/seduction or want to learn some PUA tricks. I have been down the pickup artist path in the past. If you choose to learn this stuff, remember to set rules for yourself for what you are and are not willing to do to get women into bed. I have a sister I love very much, and it helps me to understand my own moral compass by thinking, if I heard a guy was trying to use this technique on her, would it piss me off. And if it’s a typical PUA technique, odds are, it would piss me off. Not that there’s anything wrong with typical flirting, but PUA puts a strong emphasis on pretending to be something you’re not. Nothing about Manson’s writing made me feel bad or unclean about using it, unlike a lot of other PUA material. This book won’t teach you any real tricks, but it will be so much more useful than that, and it’s a lot cheaper than most material out there. It’s about being honest with your intentions and with yourself. Just try to ignore the spelling and grammar mistakes. Not entirely related, but here’s a great scene from Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIi7unlcsTQ Yes you’re probably not as sexy as Javier Bardem, but the one thing you can’t accuse him of here is dishonesty. The man knows what he wants and goes for it, women like that, and Mark Manson’s book does help you to think like that kind of man. Much more useful than learning a bunch of terms about knowing how to neg etc.
Improving your Body Language – http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.html Interesting talk about how your body language affects your life.
Self Help Meditation Process – http://www.amazon.com/Presence-Process-Healing-Journey-Awareness/dp/0825305373 – I bought this for a kindle after another nofapper said he was experiencing long erections after going through the meditations. I was desperate to get out of a flatline at the time. The long term erections have not been my experience thus far, (although I have experienced shorter ones when I got distracted and started fantasising in week 2 during a meditation) but I do feel better and more aware of my presence already. Be aware, this is a tough course to go through with, and it requires commitment, I’m only on week two myself, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt.
Multi Orgasmic Lover – http://multiorgasmiclover.com/?hop=bensnblest – Costs about $67. I really hate these fucking sales videos. Always the same shit, more complicated than you really need, limited time only pushy selling tactics you know is complete BS etc. But I do love this course. And if you want to skip the video and buy it, just reload the page. This is about becoming a multi-orgasmic man. You do need to masturbate on this course, I’ve been doing the practices without masturbating, but at some point, you are required to edge to learn it. If you’re already edging or you’re going to finish nofap soon, give it a go. If you’re planning to do nofap forever and ever, it may not be worth your time. I only came to nofap because of a bonus on ED on this course.
Goodbye NoFap, remember to treat yourself with respect and love, and honour your commitments. I will be around for the next few days just in case there are any questions or comments I should respond to. Beyond that, I hope I never end up in a state where I have to return to this again.
LINK – 90 Day Report, Part One (Very Long 3,000 words, but broken into sections for you)
by Bman331
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