Normally I only lurk on reddit and never post anything, but I am writing out my story to prove you are never too far gone and anyone can eliminate porn from their life and cure their PIED if they experience it (porn induced erectile dysfunction for anyone that doesn’t know). This is my first reddit post so apologies if the story is all over the place.
Intro
I turned 21 earlier this year and had been watching porn daily since the age of 11/12. The first time I masturbated to porn was when I was around 9. Almost every morning in the last 5 years I used to go on NSFW subreddits, porn sites and hentai sites and would scroll for at least an hour until I found something ‘exciting’. This was almost like a ritual and obviously over the years my taste got more extreme, but I never thought anything was wrong with me and I was completely normal.
Experiencing PIED and realising that porn was the problem
I was 18 and I had an attractive girl giving me head for the very first time and I didn’t feel anything. I was completely flaccid even though I was turned on. We tried having sex and that obviously didn’t work either. I felt so ashamed and spent the whole night googling what the problem is. Deep down I knew that porn was the culprit, but I didn’t want to accept that.
Over the years, the same scenario happened and I would put the blame on anything but porn e.g. the girl wasn’t attractive enough for me, performance anxiety, I even thought that masturbation was the problem but it was okay to keep looking at porn. I bought Viagra and took it many times with different girls and my dick just wouldn’t have it. It stayed flaccid most of the time. If I were lucky enough, I would get a semi. During this time period I never woke up with morning wood, which I also never thought was weird. At that point I ran out of things to blame and I had to finally accept that porn was the problem.
First attempt at quitting porn
I first tried quitting porn when I was 20. Really, the only reason why I wanted to quit was to finally have sex with a girl. I still didn’t think porn was evil or damaging to the brain, I just thought I was unlucky and over consumed it. I had the wrong mindset, which doomed me to fail. I went 5 weeks without porn or masturbation (I was team nofap back then). However, porn was on my mind every single day. My brain convinced me that masturbating to porn was the problem and not porn itself, so I started peeking. By the end of the week of peeking I had already relapsed. Big surprise.
I repeated this cycle of quitting and relapsing many times. My PIED improved and I started having morning wood again, but due to my wrong mindset for why I wanted to quit, I relapsed as I ‘loved’ porn too much.
How I managed to quit porn for good
Back to April of this year, after one of my morning ‘rituals’ something in my brain switched. I was absolutely disgusted by the concept of porn. My mindset changed. I read a post or comment on this subreddit a while ago that described how weird the concept of porn is: you are masturbating to the guy fucking the girl you want when you watch a porn video. That concept stuck with me and must have manifested because after that I couldn’t see porn the same way. That day I decided to quit porn for good.
I decided to stop masturbating for a month, just to reset my brain and make sure I wouldn’t imagine previous porn videos
I didn’t count the days I was clean as I never wanted to go back to watching porn again. I didn’t want to be reminded of porn anymore. I remember I quit in April purely because that’s when the lockdown was already going on in the UK and it coincided with me quitting
I was filling out my days with hobbies and working out to keep my head occupied. As it was lockdown, I was inside 24/7 and I knew my brain would try tempting me to watch it out of boredom. I was playing chess and skipping rope when I was bored for anyone interested. When the gyms reopened in the UK, I went 6 times a week
I made sure to not look at any ‘soft core’ porn such as Instagram models. I went to the explore page of Instagram and blocked every single sexual image and Instagram model. That helped me a lot because now I wouldn’t scroll endlessly through sexual images on Instagram like I did with porn
Peeking is a loophole your brain gives you to relapse and go back to porn. I considered peeking the same as watching it. All my previous attempts of quitting ended due to peeking
Curing PIED and final thoughts
It took me 6 months of no porn for my PIED to be fully cured. I started getting frequent morning wood after 3 months. The first time I managed to be fully erect with a girl, honestly, I almost cried out of happiness. I never thought that day would come after being deeply addicted to porn. If anyone is experiencing PIED, it may take longer than 6 months or you may cure it quicker. As long as you quit porn YOU WILL HEAL.
Half a year is a long time but considering how much porn I consumed over the last 10 years, it pales in comparison. Nowadays, my urges to watch porn are very infrequent and not very strong.
Honestly, I feel so much better after quitting. My mental health has improved a ton. The way I view sex and women has changed positively.
This is a very long post so thank you for anyone that read all of this. Hopefully, it helps someone quitting porn for good.
LINK – How I have managed to quit porn (6+ months) and cure my PIED
by onewas
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