Day 10 of no P –3 days no M/O.
Been feeling really numb and glum for the last 4 days, and had the vague feeling of having felt like this before once. I remembered today that it was after I broke up with a girl that I’d been living with for 2 years. I felt like this for several months.
But that doesn’t make any sense. This is just P, right? Just getting turned on then jacking off? Why such a strong emotional reaction? Then it hit me. I’ve been using porn for 20 years, and it hasn’t just been about getting turned on then jacking off. It’s been my solace when I’ve been disappointed, or bored or sad about something. It’s been reliable, private me-time that’s always been there for me, never failed me. Every time I’ve gone to it, I’ve found something that I could jack off to – it never let me down. Sometimes it was fun, the challenge of tearing through endless links, outwitting sites and trying to find their stashes of pictures. I felt like I was running wild through the porn wild west, finding the gold, the kill. And whenever I was lonely, it was there.
So I realize that it actually has been a relationship, and easily the longest I’ve had. If my brain can’t tell the difference between pixel pictures of women and real women, it probably can’t tell the difference between getting all the other feelings – reassurance, comfort, thrill – that porn has given me over the years and getting those feelings from a real woman. D’oh!
I’m going out, and I’m seeing, even talking to women. But first, I don’t have the sexual power yet. I did briefly, but it’s evaporated hopefully temporarily. And second, there’s like this weight in my heart that’s hard to shift. I know it sounds pathetic. But I really think my brain on some level thinks I’ve broken up with porn, and it’s sad about it. I’m going to kick my brain in the testicles so it knows to be strong and not be pathetic about it, but it’s also good to recognize where those feelings are coming from. Know thine enemy.
Day 11
Earlier today I was getting pretty impatient with the lack of progress in the resensitization department. I mean, it’s only been a once a day habit, right? Why am I taking so long to get over it? But then I did the math. 20 years, 365 days a year, most of those including P – that’s more than a staggering 7,000 PMOs. Now I see why it’s possible that I have some habituation to get over
Day 14
Days 1-5. Very horny, sexually frustrated
Days 6-11. Completely dead sexually. Very glum, low, sad. Give it 0/10.
Day 12. First day for a week I would call acceptable, as in, “I guess I could live like this.” Give it 1.5 out of 10, whatever that means
Day 13. Almost back to fully glum. Glimmer of optimism, so maybe 0.5 out of 10. Strong flashbacks to P (but super-strong. Maybe a sign of restoring sensitivity starting?)
Day 14. Feel considerably stronger somehow. Very sexually turned on by a girl I met. After seeing her, sexual tension, the urge to sex was through the roof. Would love to whack off, but I’m not going to Give things 3 out of 10.
I’d really quite like some sex, but I’d also really like to sensitize things to the max to find out what I’m really capable of, because I have no idea. I have never felt this sexual my whole life. By now I would have always dissipated the energy, either with sex, or a la main, as the French might put it.
Day 22
Well, I’ll admit that I never would have imagined it was humanly possible to go without M for 22 days. I feel like I must be in some kind of parallel universe, because an absence of daily M is impossible in the one I’m used to.
Day 15. 5/10
Day 16. 4/10
Day 17. 4/10
I had my first date since I started this on the evening of day 21. I think I had built it up really big in my mind, and I was really excited about it. I’ve been missing sexual life so much, and both body and mind were really happy to have some kind of sexual human contact after such a desert. Of course, the date was fine, but it didn’t turn out to be as massively amazing as I’d built it up to be. For a start, we didn’t have sex, though we did make out some (and incidentally I noticed much increase in my appreciation of it). But also, I think it was just messing with my body chemistry a lot after the long period of abstention.
Probably for the same reason I had such a high on day 21, I therefore had a big low on day 22. Disappointement, anger. I think my sexual brain was basically saying “What the hell?! I thought I was going to get to have sex yesterday! I thought things were going to be back to normal! I thought this craziness you’re subjecting me to was finally going to be over and it’s NOT?!!!” But it’s fine. My brain needs to recalibrate and realize that unlike with PMO, not every encounter with a woman is guaranteed to end in orgasm. It needs to reset expectations a bit, and this is part of that process. Painful, but necessary.
So, so far so good. Definitely noticing more sensitivity to female attractiveness, definitely getting the message that real girls are all there is sexually. Things a little rocky, uneven, but I think it’s an upward climb, so it’s all good.
28 full days no MO, 35 full days no P
My mood has been pretty good this week. However, I am impatient to get my libido back. My sexuality feels like a well-tuned car with no gas in it. I feel like it could go places, but there’s just no life in it. But this wilderness is something I have to go through – my libido is on the other side of it, so I don’t have much choice.
Day 23. 5/10
Day 24. 7/10
Day 25. 8/10
Day 26. 8/10
Day 27. 8/10
Day 28. 6/10
Also been doing lots of sleeping – feeling really tired sometimes even after a good night’s sleep. Hopefully another good sign that my body is forcing me to take a rest while it reorders stuff. Have had a couple of erotic dreams in the last couple of weeks, with those kind of weird quasi-orgasms, which feel in some ways like it, but no ejaculation.
31 full days no MO, 38 full days no P
I was in such a good mood today. I literally don’t think I have been in such a good mood in 7 years. And I don’t mean because anything particularly great happened, but just for no reason at all. It’s been so long since I’ve had that buoyancy. I used to have it, and I haven’t seen it for 7 years, and had more or less got to thinking maybe life is inherently gloomy and uninteresting. Historically, I’ve been a very positive person, and the last 7 years have been so weird because it felt like nothing I did would make me feel cheerful inside. Patches of joy here and there, but always short-lived. Today, finally, I was socializing with people, chatting with people because it felt good to connect, to commune. I’ve missed that so much, and I only realize how much now that I’ve had a taste of it again.
I’m 100% sure the problem was the PMO thing. Quite simply, it made everything else boring. The M by itself was bad enough to make me lack-luster since I was 18 probably, but the broadband P I think finally killed any chance any real-world stimuli had of capturing my interest. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but not that much. I’ve been going through the motions of being sociable and interested for the last 7 years, knowing how it was supposed to look, and doing it because I felt like I should, but all the while inside not giving a shit.
So yeah, the last few days, I’ve been getting little dribs and drabs of positive emotions, like when you think you feel a drop of rain every now and then, but you’re not sure. Today was the first day where I had a mood that really sustained and didn’t disappear after a couple of hours. More like 8 hours and I’m still feeling it. I’m sure there will be lows again (not to be negative, but I’ve seen the pendulum in action for long enough now to know this..), but right now, this feels pretty damn good….
Stay strong, everyone. This is totally worth it. It may not be the only piece in your puzzle, but if you’ve been doing PMO, then it almost certainly will have been having a major effect on you, and you will surely reap rewards from cutting it out.
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Added later
A milestone reached the last few days. I actually feel back to normal. I’d got so used to feeling craving, or sad for no reason, or unbalanced, or anxious, or massively horny, or completely dead, or combinations of any of these at one time the last 40 days that I’d forgotten that I hadn’t always felt that way.
Then 3 days ago it all just stopped. Just like that. In my journal two days ago, I wrote “Wow – I feel what I can only describe as ‘normal’ today”. That feeling has stayed with me, and none of the craziness has returned. I read somewhere that the craving chemicals may clear out of your brain around the 6-week mark. Well, that was exactly on the mark with me.
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