This is the longest I’ve ever gone without porn since I discovered it many years ago. Even during my longer NoFap streaks I never went this long without at least watching some softcore stuff or hentai which would then–big surprise–quickly escalate again.
It feels amazing, but it’s also very scary. It’s scary because I begin to notice significant changes in myself I had never thought about. I started this thing because of PIED and low libido with my wife, but it’s no longer just about that. I have no idea why this is happening, and whether it’s related to porn at all or if I’m just imagining things, but it’s big.
So what’s happening exactly? I’m glad you asked.
About a month ago I made this really long post after starting again. I talked about my fetishes and my sexuality, and while most of it still holds true, I think I must revise my conclusion. Those fetishes, they disappeared. I mean, of course they still exist as a trigger, but they’re not on my mind anymore, not all the time. With the exception of one single fetish, and that’s actually one I like and have fun with in my real sex life, all the other stuff went poof. The obvious porn-induced ones just went away, and the ones I have a slight real-life interest in are still there, but they don’t bother me anymore. I refuse to believe that my brain really rewired itself in just one month, but something definitely happened.
Second, I always considered myself an introverted person. It’s not that I didn’t like going out, but I always liked being home alone, relaxing by myself. Being out with others depleted my batteries and being home alone recharged them. Now … not so much. Going out, being in groups does not only not deplete my batteries anymore, I think I might actually be on the way to needing this more and more. When I sit at home for too long now I feel like the ceiling’s about to crush down on me. I couldn’t spend a whole day home anymore. I just couldn’t. I need to go out now for a while every day, do a little socializing, and then I can come back and relax again with a book or a video game.
My interests also changed. I’m a big manga fan, for example, and I used to enjoy reading erotic stuff. I’m not even talking about porn but about erotic comedy for instance. I don’t really like that too much anymore now. If something has erotic elements, that’s fine, but if those are the main focus of the manga and it has little to offer besides that, it just doesn’t interest me that much anymore. I find it boring now. The same goes for video games and books. It’s like I’m much more interested in real life than fiction, and all this stuff I’ve read and then fantasized about is now stuff I want to have first-hand and not in a story.
The next one’s a little personal and involves people around me, so I’m keeping it vague and won’t go into details. I could never feel to happy for other people’s relationships, if you know what I mean. Whenever I saw people being lovey-dovey or when someone told me about their new partner and how great they were, or how much they’ve fallen in love with their crush, I’d just go “cool story, bro,” and tell them to fuck off in my head. I didn’t want to hear it. It made me, for some reason, jealous because I didn’t feel this way. Just yesterday I was in one of those situations again and this feeling of jealousy didn’t turn up.
The last one is probably the biggest of them all. I don’t have any urges to watch porn. Like none at all. You’ve read right, and I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me because I can’t believe it myself. When I started this, judging from my experience with NoFap, I expected to get crazy intense urges around week 2, fighting myself from flatline to flatline until I would finally cave at some point and give in, you know this. Nope, doesn’t happen. I mean, if I come across a trigger, I do get an adrenaline kick and maybe an endorphin rush, and yes, I might have the urge to masturbate, maybe even to some concrete fantasy (which I try to avoid as much as possible), but never, not even during my weakest moments in this streak, did I have the desire to watch actual porn. One time I even clicked some link in /r/AskReddit and went to a porn site because I didn’t take a look at the URL before clicking … nothing. I just closed the tab and was done with it. There wasn’t a second where I tried to argue with myself to stay there. It didn’t even trigger me.
There’s more that I haven’t quite figured out yet. Maybe I can talk about it next months.
Of course there’s also the other more obvious effects like more motivation, more self-esteem, etc.
I don’t know why this is happening or what is happening exactly but it scares me. It scares me because I am afraid that I could’ve had all those things ten years ago when they would’ve made a huge fucking difference in my life. There’s some other stuff that Pornfree cannot cure that is however somehow tied to all of this, and maybe ten years ago that would’ve gone away as well. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great and better late than never, but I went through so much shit because of one or more things on this list (some of which you can read about in my super long post which I’ve linked above if you’re interested) that I have this awkward feeling of having wasted the most important years of my life and damaged myself more than I could’ve ever known.
I don’t know if this is actually directly related to porn at all. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s just a side-effect of what’s really happening or maybe I’m just imagining this. But what I take away from this experience is that I never ever want to go back there again. I am more motivated than ever to keep this going not for a number of days or months or even years. I want to keep this going for as long as I live. Porn is off the fucking table forever.
Thanks for listening and stay strong, people!
Duck out.
LINK – A little over one month in and I’m starting to realize some things.
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