Hello NoFap. I haven’t posted here in a VERY long time. First of all, I must thank this forum for being the stepping stone to my new life, which I am entirely proud of and happy about.
Background:
I was introduced to P at an extremely young age by an older neighbor (5 years older), which is sexual abuse. I must’ve been younger than 9, but I can’t remember exact age. This lead to me believing that porn was the coolest thing in the world, and made me always want to pursue things that people older than me would do. That brought a LOT of trouble into my life. Alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, you name it. But most of all, it made me want to pursue sexuality and treat it like the most important thing in my life. I treated many women like objects, I cheated on absolutely all my partners, I watched P morning and night, I pursued questionable online relationships, you get the picture. I felt that being liked and wanted by a woman was the holiest of holy achievements, I NEEDED it. I needed to feel wanted, and once I achieved that, I would lose all interest in the lady. Plus, I never thought of how I was introduced to P, and the things that happened around that situation, that were abusive and were destroying my childhood.
I LOST MY CHILDHOOD TO P.
I’m currently in a long term relationship, over 5 years. I cheated, lied, then stopped cheating. But I would watch P, and lie about it. Our sex life was completely ONE sided, and it was becoming less and less frequent due to the lack of actual intimacy. It was like having MO but with a human person instead of a screen, completely reducing my partner to an object I needed to achieve my goal. NOT COOL.
I started seeing P as a problem, and would talk about dropping it, but here’s the thing:
I ALWAYS, IN THE BACK OF MY MIND, WANTED TO FIND THE PERFECT FORMULA OF PMO plus KEEPING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP. I was always looking for the solution that included keeping P in my life, and having a relationship.
But that’s not possible, at least for us addicts.
So here’s my first piece of advice;
You must say, think, feel, and know deep in your heart, that you cannot watch P EVER again. You have to acknowledge this, and BE OK WITH IT. If you’re not, you need more help, more effort, more education, and more whatever else you can find to actually reach that point. Once you’re addicted to something, you will be an addict for the rest of your life. That’s why it’s so important to feel comfortable since day 1 with the thought of NEVER EVER watching P again.
I reached that point on february 13, 2017. My G/F was in the bathroom, and I grabbed my phone and searched for some stuff on a seemingly innocuous websites. I will not explain any details because it could be a trigger for some. It was for me. Anyway, she walks out, and I started acting all nervous and jittery, she asked me and I lied at first, but then I opened up and confessed. I wont get into the gory details, but it was a horrible experience to hurt her yet again with the same issue. We broke up, and I got on NoFap. That was my first positive decision towards dropping P out of my life.
I’ve been P free for over a year. Yes, there are superpowers, but I have some news for you: You’re journey does NOT end with dropping P. This is just the first step for your personal transformation into a HUMAN that treats other humans equally. This completely changed my life! I started to work on seeing women as people instead of objects, it got me reading into male chauvinism and its effect. I gotta tell you dudes, you MUST look into Male Chauvinism, and evaluate yourselves. Evaluate your past, your actions, and how it must’ve made women in your lives feel, because knowing this information will bring the responsibility of doing something about it. You cannot try to drop P without understanding what P means for women in the world. P treats women like toys for men to play and use whenever they want and drop when they don’t.
One of the major perks of dropping P is that unwanted sexual thoughts are greatly reduced, and urges stop being a hassle or a scary inconvenience. I think that I read and learned so much about P, male chauvinism, objectification, etc, that it helped me feel completely sure of myself that I wouldn’t slip. Since I FIRST took my pledge that 13th of February, I never relapsed, not once. It’s been 423 days since that day and I hold it in my heart like a badge of honor. And I’ve watched tons of sex scenes on tv, Game of Thrones, etc and have not relapsed, or MO’ed thinking of P or any sex scene I watched. Knowing what P truly meant in my life, and how it made me act with my loved ones and past partners, knowing what it does to my fellow fapstrounauts, and what it does to little kids around the world who are being abusively introduced to P at a way too young age to understand it’s damage, helped my be P free for good. You never JUST watch P, there’s a long line of consequences behind it for you, your brain, for women in your life ( wither you’re interested in them sexually or not).
The P Industry is full of ABUSE.
My second advice is; learn what an addiction truly is. Your brain chemistry changed since you watched P for the first time. You must read about how addiction works in your brain. Imagine that cocaine, or meth, or whatever, was free and available in absolutely everyone’s pocket, homes, work places, etc. That’s how serious of a problem P is. So you must not underestimate your challenge. P is one of the toughest addictions to beat, so DON’T HALF ASS IT. Go all out. It’s your life you’re saving.
Third advice; GO GET HELP. Get a psychologist or therapist to help you through this. This is not something to do alone. Also, open up to a best friend, spouse, etc. You need accountability, because you must’ve realized by now that you CANNOT TRUST AN ADDICTED BRAIN. You MUST have backup plans, and be READY for the inevitable urges that will fight your will to succeed. Getting help is a MUST, a KEY component to defeating addiction. I went to a lady psychologist, which helped me have a woman’s perspective. She was awesome, and helped me heal all the guilt from the pain I caused with P, helped me face the fact that I was a victim of child abuse, and helped me get on the right track towards being healthy and P free. Guilt is a MAJOR component of P addiction, so you have to face it and deal with it and move on.
Fourth advice; besides getting a psychologist to help you out, you should also consider what got you into P in the first place. My addiction began with a terrible incident that went on for years, and the worse part is that it wasn’t until my psychologist helped me, that I realized that what happened to me was actually child abuse, and not just a kid seeing something really cool that his parents couldn’t know about. I also started visiting a psychiatrist recently, and found out that on top of having ADHD, I am depressed. Being depressed, and having ADHD, defines a lot how you must work to beat an addiction. You must get to know yourself and how your brain is working in order to help yourself best. In my situation, ADHD makes me overfocus on things that stimulate my brain, because normal day to day input barely stimulates me. That makes me want to pursue dangerous out of the ordinary activities. And this is all well within the definition of symptoms of ADHD, so knowing this also helped me heal the guilt of pursuing P so much, my brain was functioning in a way that made P be that much more interesting, stimulating, and made me believe I wanted it so badly. Being depressed also worsens the battle against P because feeling bad about my life and circumstances, plus the changes in brain chemistry that come with depression, make you that much more vulnerable to relapsing to P.
YOUR ADDICTION IS NOT YOUR FAULT. YOUR ADDICTION IS NOT YOUR FAULT. YOUR ADDICTION IS NOT YOUR FAULT.
You have no idea of all that you’re missing out of when you have P in your life. Once it’s out, every relationship in your life will improve, and become deeper, SPECIALLY your most important relationship; your relationship with yourself. DROPPING P IS THE GREATEST ACT OF SELF LOVE YOU COULD DO RIGHT NOW, and trust me, you need lot’s of self love at this point. Google it, Pinterest it, find self love activities and DO THEM, work to make you feel good about yourself. But you must do absolutely everything you can you achieve it. I almost lost the love of my life, my life partner, best friend, co-parent of our beautiful pets, because of P. It scarred us both deeply, but it also brought us closer because we fought this battle together.
So, again, Thank you NoFap, you will forever be in my heart. Thanks to this website, and starting my reboot with all the information here and the wonderful help of this beautiful, loving community that is the forums of NoFap, I was able to change my life, learn about myself, and heal. So much has changed. And it will change for you too. Also, the days since your reboot are important, but that’s not all there is to it. Whether you relapsed 3 days ago, or been on the wagon for two years, what matters is that every day you’re growing, learning, and becoming a better human because you’re leading one of the toughest battles of your life. Never give up, never hurt yourself with negative thoughts because you relapsed, and always just love yourself. Give yourself the best. It’s your life.
I love you guys. I’d hug and kiss you all if I could. That’s how happy I am. I’m 34 years old, P free, a better person who is the most satisfied with his life he’s ever been yet, and it all began thanks to NoFap, and to deciding that I was comfortable with the thought of NEVER watching P again.
LINK – Day 423. The deep end of results, changes and advice.
by DonGiovanni
;