I’ve been masturbating since I was about 10 or 11 (couldn’t even ejaculate then). It was when I became a teenager that dial-up internet became available.
I would remember masturbating to porn that would slowly download and I would wait about 3 minutes just for one picture to be completely seen on the screen. Soon after that, high-speed internet came out and I was overwhelmed with what I can find on the net. As soon as I would view explicit material, nothing in the world would stop me from dropping my pants and beating it and this could be done up to 6-7 times a day.
As time went on I felt a sense of insecurity with myself. It was like I always felt people were talking about me and that there was this inner voice talking to me in the back of my mind constantly affirming negative things about myself. It was a nightmare. I really don’t know how I made it this far in life. I guess it was pure perseverance and that I had some kind of hope that things would get better but I didn’t really know what was wrong with me.
My porn use escalated during my 20’s – 30’s (I am now 31) and I firmly believe that this had a negative impact on my self-image because I was never really good with girls and I was pretty shy. I swear that I was invisible during my college days. I mean I felt that nobody would even know I was around. There were definitely some psychological issues. I would also use porn as an escape. I would masturbate to some pretty nasty porn around 2-3 times EVERY DAY.
Anyway, I don’t want to get into how much porn and masturbation ruined my life. There are a lot of other negative consequences and even situations in my life that resulted from PMO. We all know that and been there ourselves. However my case involves more an expression of thanks and gratitude for Gary Wilson, his wife, and his website Yourbrainonporn.com. What I mean is that we should give the utmost gratitude for him and his diligent research and hard work in creating his website and ultimately creating a realization that porn and masturbation is degrading our society in a way that a disease destroys a human being. If it wasn’t for him, I truly believe that the “NoFap” movement or any other form of abstaining from PMO wouldn’t have been born or at least not be as big and there would still be thousands of us living in the dark.
It wasn’t until I came across his website that I thought PMO is fine and that everyone does it. I always thought that there might be a chance that PMO was detrimental to me but I was never really able to make that distinction until I was browsing an odd subject and luckily stumbled across yourbrainonporn.com. At that time I felt like I was living in a cage for most of my life and someone just suddenly came and opened the door. I was literally freed. As soon as I studied the majority of resources (e.g. the videos) on that website I stopped masturbating to porn considering all the harmful effects it caused for me in the past.
In terms of recovery, I went 73 days no PMO on hard mode (I’ve also experience the flatline for most of these days) and then relapsed on a nightmare of a day. As I was relapsing and viewing porn I felt a sensation in my brain that I’ve never felt before. It was like some “static” feeling revolving in my head. It sounds psychedelic but I was not delusional. I am convinced that it has to do with what Gary Wilson was explaining about dopamine and neuro-plasticity and the re-wiring of the brain. It was like the weirdest thing and after I was done another feeling of disgust came over and I felt like garbage.
Since then I have stopped completely and now at 125 days (soft mode) I feel like a new human being. The relationship with the wife has also improved (which almost ended up in divorce and is another story in itself) now that my erections are rock solid with only touching or kissing and I don’t even remember that ever happening with any girl ever. I couldn’t even get it up at all before I stopped PMO and sex seemed like a second job to me. Now I look forward to it.
All the benefits that I see posted on forums like increased energy, confidence, more social, enjoying things more, etc are all things that I reap. Not only that but I have this new found desire about personal development. I meditate every day. I am reading books like the Slight Edge, Think and Grow Rich (which is one of the best books ever written and also has an entire chapter on sexual transmutation), listening to motivational audio and doing other things I’ve never imagined of doing.
I’ve become more religious and know that God is responsible for my new life. I am also infatuated and become increasingly interested in the brain and what it is capable of. The list goes on and on. The feeling that I get when I think about if only I had stumbled across this when I was in my late teens is so regretful that words cannot describe.
However, I am still grateful that I found out now and I plan to reach out all who can stop this addiction. What I would like for everyone to take from this long post is that the word of this disease called porn and masturbation needs to be spread to the entire world and with people like Gary Wilson (who again was an intervention in my own life) this can certainly be possible.
We have to treat this as important as researchers proved that smoking causes cancer. The worst thing about it is that the majority of people do not know of the harm that it’s causing and therefore awareness of it not only a must it’s inevitable. The smallest thing we can do is tell our friends or loved ones but on a large-scale basis and through communities like Nofap, we can ultimately bring a realization to the world of the harm that PMO causes.
LINK – Life completely changed thanks to one little view of his website (long post but worth it trust me)
by greatness05
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