Introduction
I consider to have started my NoFap journey on September 2019, so it is almost 4 years in the NoFap journey. NoFap has lead to absolutely massive positive life changes for me and I thought I’d give something back to the community. Particularly I wish to give hope to those struggling with ADHD that there is massive potential for happiness awaiting beyond PMO and that you can do this!
I got an ADHD diagnosis at about 11 years old with symptoms present before puberty and PMO. My symptoms didn’t completely vanish after all the rebooting and healthy life changes I did, so I believe I have genuine ADHD, not porn-induced ADHD symptoms. I started MO around 10 years old and very quickly led to PMO (I used almost daily). In hindsight, I guess the PMO made my symptoms worse which ultimately led to the assessment and diagnosis. It was also suggested that I may have autistic traits, but I still am not sure. I think most of my visible “autistic” traits can be explained as indirect consequences from my ADHD symptoms. On to the story:
The years before my NoFap journey
Before puberty, I was an energetic kid who was social and interested in many things – though a bit unusual socially at times but I don’t remember caring that much about it compared to later. Once puberty hit, I found about MO and very soon after that, P. I remember watching P at about 10 years old. Gradually, I started to lose my energy and became more fearful in social situations and unconfident. I would mostly only get interested in things that highly aroused me: Video games; inappropriate talk and foolishness with friends; disturbing things such as horror movies, political drama and news; PMO, MO and thinking about sex and relationships; making, playing, and listening to music. Sure, I was interested in normal things sometimes but mostly everything else felt like such a chore at the time. I did find school interesting enough to be about average. Some things I was interested in – particularly the things I was good at – and some things not so much. I ended up going through high school with again average marks and to university in 2014. There I studied Physics, Chemistry and Computer science. People always said I was a smart guy and asked for my help in the things I was good at but I never managed to put in enough effort needed for me or focus well enough to get the highest marks. I do feel like I really tried though.
I spent most of my free time during my years in school on the computer either PMOing, playing video games (alone and later with my friends from high school), watching Let’s plays, surfing the internet for memes, politics and other highly arousing or intellectually stimulating stuff. I rarely went out during my free time unless it was with a small group of my friends and we didn’t go very often to interact with other people. We sometimes did though and it was very painful for me. I joined a band in high school and I stayed in it till I was about halfway through my university studies. I quit because I wanted to focus on my thesis and coming master’s studies, and because the band “leader” wanted to get serious and start to make money with the band. I just wanted to have a good time with my friends so I left.
I did eat a lot of junk food but also lots of real food too, so I wasn’t really malnourished, maybe had a little extra sometimes but I didn’t really get fat either. Only sometimes exercised when I got inspired or obsessed, but rarely.
Social anxiety back then
Social anxiety was always there since starting PMO and actually progressed to the threat of and actual panic attacks in high school. I would mostly get them on public transport and when eating in public. They went away and came back once in a while, even in university and even in small degrees after major relapses after successful reboots.
I didn’t really have any reason for these symptoms as I didn’t have any major trauma like abuse or anything psychological that could explain it. Well, the social anxiety made me a target for slight bullying by strangers and sometimes peers which didn’t really help the situation. Though the bullying and discrimination was probably objectively pretty mild, It was extremely painful for me. I used pride and wrath to cope with the pain: I judged my bullies harshly while praising my “moral virtues” of never bullying anyone and being a “decent” person. I fantasized about different, often brutal vengeance scenarios. This probably contributed a lot to me turning into a wrathful and prideful person for quite a while on the inside. I never questioned my anger or my prideful feelings. I just kind of took them as an intrinsic goodness at the time.
I was kind of put to the side in most social circles and could only bond one-on-one or in very small groups, which went almost always well. People thought I was a fun guy to socialize with, but I had difficulties with larger groups as I would kind of shut down, be silent or awkward, and not able to be myself due to the social anxiety.
Another thing I struggled hard with was massive mental pain from any sort of perceived rejection. I would look at the faces of passing strangers and from any hint of disapproval, fear or rejection of me (most often probably misinterpreted by me) I would feel severe pain from it. I made massive efforts to make sure this wouldn’t happen: I would work on my posture, control my walking speed and try to relax my mind and face. These helped somewhat in the reactions of people passing by, but I was not able to force it all the time, especially if I was having a negative state of mind that day (which was very often).
First relationship
At about 21 somehow, I managed to get into my first relationship which lasted 2 years. I had no issues with ED or PE really at the time, sometimes DE. We moved in together and got a cat. Similar interests, love was present, lots of sex from the start but I still PMOed from time to time. Slowly, the sex turned from loving to just using the other for pleasure (even from her perspective). The relationship dynamic was pretty intense sometimes with occasional quarrelling and arguing. My confidence did not rise due to being in a relationship that much at all even though I considered myself pretty happy with it. I still had terrible social anxiety and it actually got worse: I would be very reluctant at one point to even go take out the trash because I was so horrified about running into someone on the way. I had a few jobs at university and also worked at a warehouse for a few months of each of those jobs while studying at the university. I got a beginner IT-related job while I studied in the university and from an outsider’s perspective I seemed to be doing well.
I went to therapy for the social anxiety and tried SSRI medication, and I was actually getting a bit better, but I didn’t heal fast enough so I guess the relationship ended because of that. I moved to my parents’ place to finish my studies.
Discovering NoFap
In autumn 2019, I just one day sort of spontaneously became aware after a PMO session, that I felt low on energy after finishing a PMO session. I started googling about this and eventually stumbled on “The great porn experiment” video by Gary Wilson (R.I.P). It made a lot of sense to me and I started researching like crazy from the Your Brain On Porn website and checking out the testimonies from NoFap forums and many other sources. I was very skeptical about a lot of things I was hearing in these communities (and still am to some extent) but tried to reboot anyways.
There was a lot of research for maybe about 2 years from the start of my journey and I started to make a lot of different experiments on myself. I decided to simplify my life as much as possible to be able to make connections without outside influences or other things that I do interfering or leading me to false conclusions.
First reboots, benefits and beyond
I don’t remember how long it took to do my first reboot but I remember it being the hardest thing I’ve ever done and probably the worst period I’ve endured in my life (but it was worth it). I don’t even remember all my symptoms though I know there were many of them, mostly mental. All I remember is just feeling very low in general for very long for no outside reason. Every day was different. Obviously I had terrible cravings and such but I guess keeping my mind occupied and exercising is what got me through it. I did my reboots in Normal mode with some abstinence from O eventually. I was seeing my ex after the breakup (we tried to remain friends) and having sex from time to time so I didn’t really succeed with pure hard mode at the time.
Slowly, I started to experience great changes in myself: more energetic, confident, no longer having cravings to use P. People started liking me more and vice versa. Social anxiety lessened significantly but it took more rebooting for it to completely vanish and develop the fearlessness and the “not giving a care” attitude for any social mistakes. I did not use any psychological tricks to gain these qualities. They literally came just from successfully abstaining, exercising, and living my life healthily. Every time I would slip from abstaining from P (and to some extent O from M or sex), I would start to lose these benefits. Lack of exercise also makes me kind of low but doesn’t affect me as much as lack of abstinence (though not exercising makes abstinence more difficult for me). Other benefits were: more success in executive control for attention regulation, more awareness, increased mental capacity and memory, brain fog removed (this never returned actually), clearer thinking, more precise with speech and more.
After rebooting I took NoFap even further and started doing ascetic practices and retention which boosted my benefits and effectiveness even further. But this goes maybe beyond the scope of this story, so I’ll not elaborate too much on that. Short version of that: Managed my longest streak of 223 days without porn, found great bliss, extreme effectiveness at work, I got promoted, had two long-term relationships, and later ended up choosing celibacy.
Conclusion and some thoughts about ADHD/autistic and obsessive-compulsive traits
I took a look at my journal from start of 2020 and noted that it was my ADHD, hyper-logical attitude and obsessiveness that helped me to manage my first long streak of about 180+ days: I would spend a ton of time reading e.g. YourBrainOnPorn articles and other books/articles related to the NoFap/retention topics, reading people’s stories, being excited and obsessing over everything NoFap, doing rigid logical thinking on how the brain works and analyzing my emotions in a logical, almost robotic view sometimes. I lived with my parents during the first long streak so most things were pretty constant, and I was not stressed about outside things and could think clearly. Later I moved out to live alone for 2 years and crashed due to social isolation, relationships and too much ascetism, and slipped back to my PMO ways. I moved back to my parents to recover and am moving soon to a commune for the first time with people I know to no longer be socially isolated. Things are looking good for me and I am quite happy once again but I still have gone back to PMO a bit too much and am here to get back from it. Recently I thought spending too much time here obsessing about NoFap things is not good for me, and I still do think that is the case, but I think I should let myself be obsessive as I did before, to get a good streak going and then continue my life with minimal obsessiveness.
Those two more long-term relationships I mentioned within the past 2 years were in many ways awesome but they weren’t NoFap enough for me to be happy. Furthermore, I would obsess like crazy over the girls when I started to become interested in them and it wouldn’t cool down with the obessiveness the longer we knew each other. Any rejection from them was extremely painful, and I would be careful not to upset them. I could basically only be immune to those problems when I managed to be without orgasm for 1+ month but the relationships also suffered from the misunderstandings caused by my ADHD symptoms. They would misunderstand my lack of attention and daydreaming as not caring about them and what they have to say even though I cared about them immensely. No amount of communication was enough for them to believe it on an emotional level.
I had decided that I don’t want to use ADHD medication, so I will have to deal with those symptoms my whole life. Luckily, my first streak of 180+ days showed me that I can be immensely happy, secure, effective and blissful when celibate and surrounded by friends or family, so I have decided to commit to that life. I don’t care about the social issues caused ADHD symptoms when retaining and can manage them better when celibate and not obsessing over things (especially relationships and sex). Perhaps with ADHD meds, relationships could work well, but I believe the meds limit my spiritual progress, which is more important and pleasurable to me than being in a relationship.
Hopefully my story helped somebody. Good luck with your own journey! Feel free to ask me questions. I intentionally left some things out to not feed my compulsion with making this post perfect too much.
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