I am a 24 years old male, grew up in a really fucked up family, full of narcs/ psychopaths, I had depression ever since I can remember, was abused physically, emotionally, sexually, tortured, beaten up, starved, you name it. Had suicidal thoughts, tried suicide a couple of times, was in an abusive/toxic relationship, I had an nonexistent social life, no purpose in life, playing video games all day, fapping 7-8 times a day or until my dick would go numb, and that lasted for years.
2 years ago, things really went downhill, I hit rock bottom and with that my addiction to games and fapping reached its peak, since those things were the only things that were able to make me feel a good emotion. Approximately 9 months ago I started therapy, I left my mother’s home, with whom I had a really toxic relationship, went to homeless people’s shelter and decided with the help of my therapist to start being independent and start a new life from scratch.
I was going to therapy, started going to the gym, started reading, but I wasn’t making much progress, because I still had shit feelings and the only way to push them away was to jerk, so I was still doing that. Then one day I was reading an article about alcoholism and how alcohol turns into a coping method, and realised how that applies to my case and how fapping is my coping mechanism, and that it’s a destructive one. Next thing I did was that I remembered a video about nofap, I watched it again, I came across this reddit and peoples posts here and how nofap changed their lives motivated me to embark on this journey.
I started no fap 5 months ago, for the first couple of months I used to relapse every 7 days, and with that my emotional state would go in a never ending cycle: first day of nofap starts with feelings of motivation, a sense of commitment and a weak promise to not fap again, after a couple of days I start feeling neutral, some benefits show up, most importantly having a clear mind and thinking clearly, and that obviously made me see just how fucked up of a life I had and how fucked up I was, so I’d feel depressed as fuck, next thing I know I’m watching porn and fapping to actors fake fucking for money, on a screen… I feel better, few moments later I feel regret, I feel even worse, then I promise myself to not fap again, and there goes the cycle.
one my 3rd attempt, the same happened, but that time I was just done with it, and I told myself this time, no matter how depressed I get, I am not going to fap so I feel better, otherwise I’m just going to never escape from that cycle. so that’s what happened, I felt REALLY shit for 3 days, I had to call suicide prevention line one day from how bad it was.
after a few days, I felt unusually better, depression was for the first time fading away, benefits of semen retention started to show up, deep voice, confidence, more sociable, social anxiety starting to become less intense, I started performing better in the gym the benefits were too many to count.
But you see, that isn’t the result of doing nofap, at least not for me, that was the result of cockiness, and inflated self-esteem, a sense of pride after for the first time not watching porn, for the first time taking control, and if you know anything about cockiness, is that it leads one to do stupid shit, so after my first 21 first days, I opened reddit, came across an NSFW post, and I told myself, how pathetic, look at the amount of control I have, I’m sure I can look at this stuff all day and not even think about fapping, so next thing you know, I’m on reddit checking nsfw stuff, things escalated and as you might have guessed, I relapsed.
I felt so fucking bad, I felt so much regret, I felt so disappointed in myself. but I learned something, and that is no matter how better nofap makes you feel, no matter how great you feel, no matter how long your streak is, NEVER FUCKING RISK IT. I took a notebook, ripped a page of and drew a calendar of 90 days, which I have been marking every day of, but I didn’t do just that, next to that calendar I wrote goals I want to accomplish by the end of those 90 days, and those basically are to improve my physique, to improve my social skills, to have friends, to read at least 3 books and to save money, and on the back of that paper I wrote my state at the moment, weight, lifts, social status, everything, with the intention of comparing myself to that old me 90 days from that moment.
Since that day, I have been on Napa ultra hard mode, no sexual content whatsoever, no Instagram models, no looking at girls on the street/gym/school sexually, yes, not exposing myself to anything that might excite me sexually, I have been going to the gym 4 times a week, working really hard, I have been reading a lot of articles, doing research, got myself in acting classes, I have been forcing myself to get out of my comfort zone and doing what I’m terrified of doing. I am on my 50th day, I don’t care if you think it’s a short time, it’s not the time that matters, it’s what you do during that time.
Now, to the part most of you are wanting to read, the benefits I have gotten from doing Napa, and my personal opinion on them.
*A clear mind: this isn’t necessarily a direct effect of Nofap, this is a result of not pushing your problems away and keeping your mind busy with fapping, porn, and whatever other addiction one can have. it is a result of having so much free time for your brain for it to start evaluating your current state, and that’s what leads people who are in a shit spot to experience almost depression from doing no fap. and that believe it or not, is a good thing, because being aware of your problems and how fucked they are, is way fucking better than pushing them away and living cluelessly, because that pushes you to either do something about it, or relapse and stay in the same cynical cycle, and I don’t know about you, but I only have one opportunity and a one life to make use of, and I’m not going to spend that surrendering to a feeling of sadness and a need to stroke myself so I can feel better and stay in my comfort zone.
* deep voice: that naturally comes from semen retention, it peaks at the 7th day, and that’s when you might experience the most effects of high testosterone, then it drops. but from my experience, the longer you retain, the more the semen retention start to build up and stay for even longer. Also, talking clearly, having a deep voice, in my opinion, is mainly a result of self-confidence, because if you have nothing to be scared of, and if you’re sure of yourself, if you’re not scared of how others react, then you are going to have no issue speaking out loudly, clearly and expressing yourself like a confident person.
*Confidence: Here I need to say something very important, DO NOT ASSOCIATE ALL THE BENEFITS YOU GET FROM DOING NOFAP TO THE ACT OF JUST NOT DOING PMO OR HOLDING YOUR NUT IN, yes, staying away from porn, especially if it had affected your views of sex and people, will help you recover from that. yes, not masturbating frequently, abstaining from that, semen retention, good nutrition, working out, does have a good chance at curing your ED. yes, semen retention will raise your testosterone, as your body’s natural reaction to not nutting (aka procreating, aka a biological need), your body tries to enhance you physically, appearance, hormones skyrocket, so you have a deep voice, your gains/gym performance increase, your skin gets better, your acne starts to disappear, all to make you look like a good enough person to mate with.
But things like confidence, social anxiety, depression, sadness, lack of social skills, Nofap DOES NOT FIX, it has to be dealt with via other things, YOU HAVE TO WORK ON IT, YOU HAVE TO BE WANTING TO CHANGE AS A PERSON AND BECOME A BETTER VERSION OF YOURSELF, that’s how you gain confidence.
in my experience, I have gained a lot of experience simply by setting goals to myself, challenging myself to accomplish things, even goals as little as telling myself today I’m going to say hi to the first person I see at the bus stop when I’m on my way to the gym, I do that and I’m like FUCK YES DUDE YOU DID IT, now next time say hi to two people. and so on, and that way, I am exposing myself to my social anxiety little by little, defeating it day by day, and at the same time gaining confidence.
same goes with gym. I started with no more than 20 kg dead-lifts, each week I challenged myself to add 5-10kg more, now I can dead-lift 160 kilograms, and along the journey I have gained confidence proving to myself that I can be a better version of myself, realising that I can accomplish far more than I ever thought, and at the same time, gaining strength and obtaining a better physique. So, if you combine steps like these in different aspects of your life, alongside fighting your addictions, you will obtain godly levels of confidence.
Social life: it has improved a lot, but it’s all because of the things I mentioned in the confidence section, doing nofap gives you that little push you need to start working on yourself. I currently have no problem whatsoever talking to strangers, sometimes it paralyzes me, but I always try to push myself to do it, I have a couple of friends, with whom I have healthy relationships, and I have a date this weekend, with a girl who asked me out.
Libido, morning wood, act..: I went from having a limp dick to having a normal functioning dick, I get morning woods, I get boners while I’m sleeping/taking a nap, I can get sexually excited by the least of things that have to do with the opposite sex, I am basically living the ankle pic meme.
Gains. gym, weight loss, strength, appearance: I started being a skinny fat, homeless caveman looking dude, to now a decent looking dude who takes care of himself and always looks for things he can improve. gym wise I am getting stronger session by session, I used to have injuries and aches back when I used to fap and go to gym, now all those injuries and aches are gone, I recover faster, gains are much more noticeable and I can stay on track with training program and nutrition and sticking to my calorie intake.
last few things I want to say:
don’t make the mistake of thinking that just holding your nut is going to make you a better person, that’s like saying hold your shit in so you take all the nutrients from your food, it’s just ridiculous. you become a better version of yourself by getting out of your comfort zone, in a healthy way, and exposing yourself to things that make you grow, just like how muscle grows as a result of being under tension, then life is just a gym membership with a really complicated cancellation plan (quote): you can be the person who goes there, stays consistent until they obtain the physique or goals they want, you can be the person who goes there to pass time and when asked they reply I have bad genetics, my body doesn’t grow, I am weak, you people are better than me, I am unlucky, or you can be the person who gives up and quits after a few days, and that’s basically being a living corpse.
Don’t set a day goal for yourself, if it works for you then great, I wish you all the best, but I think that the best way to fight any addiction is to fight it day by day, wake up on a morning, and simply tell yourself I am not going to fap today, if you get the urge, stay true to your word, I don’t care where you come from, I don’t care how long you have been addicted for, I don’t care how fucked up your life is, I am sorry for you but if you don’t take control and do something about it, nobody will. remember that and take control of your life, don’t let an addiction dictate the course of your life, don’t be a slave to something you can control and abolish, you might think that you can’t, but trust me, you reading this, You can, and you will, just fucking do it, don’t see yourself as a victim, don’t have the victim mentality, stand up, take control of your life and be the person you want to be.
and finally, I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT FUCKING EDGE, edging is basically getting an orgasm, and therefore fucking up the entire purpose of nofap, you are basically not doing anything by edging, you’re not dealing with your problem, and that’s even worse than PMO, because PMO is you doing something which you are aware of it bad effects on you and how its fucking you up, but edging my friend, is you thinking that its fine as long as you don’t nut, but you forgo the fact that you might be watching porn, you might have gotten a boner for peeking or thinking about something sexual, you forgo that you are still in the same addiction,
you are not letting your brain recover, and you are doing that thinking that it’s okay, and that is the worst, because there is nothing worse than being unconsciously fucked up by something your mind is tricking you into thinking it’s alright, it’s not alright, it’s the worse you can do, if your going to edge you might as well just relapse and start from zero. but you know what’s even better, just don’t fucking edge in the first place and fight the urges, I don’t care how you fight them, obviously don’t replace a bad habit with a worse one, but as I said, I dedicated myself so much to this that I had to call suicide prevention line to feel better, and I preferred that and endured the horrible feelings over edging or fapping, it doesn’t get worse than that, fapping or suiciding. if I can do it, you can do it
edit: my current goal is to stay like this until I have a real relationship with a girl and to not fap until I have an actual sexual intercourse, might take me a month, might take me a decade, I don’t care, I’ll do it
LINK – My experience/benefits doing NoFap ( long but MUST read )
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