Posted in response to “Straight Men, Gay Porn’ and Other Brain Map Mysteries (scroll to comments section below)
I was trapped in the pattern your article described and many would suggest that I have been repressing my true orientation. This article more closely describes my experience than anything else I have read.When self gratification did not provide the same thrill that it once did, adding an uncharacteristic element created some personal internal anxiety and injected adrenaline into an already stimulating behavior.
Both joy and fear can cause adrenaline, but whatever the cause the resulting chemical reaction is the same. We see this in the prevalence of horror movies. People do not so much like to be horrified as they like the chemical reaction or thrill it induces. It is just as likely my behavior resulted due to a direct conflict to my sexuality than due to a reflection of my repressed true feelings.
Repeating this behavior created a quick path to gratification. The fact that I could shift to some other stimulus for sexual arousal was alarming and suggests that we need to be cautious where we set our affections particularly in our hypersexualized society. Your article clarifies my experience and I have found that discontinuing this habit has lead to a complete reversal of this process.
I realize that others are threatened by this possibility and insist that everything should be embraced as an expression of our true self. I find that in other areas of my life that I do not always respond in agreement with my true feelings. Why would we expect sexuality to be any different? No one should feel threatened by the idea that we can affect our thoughts and desires. The danger lies in thinking we have no control.
I’m completing one month, three weeks and one day of no PMO. Today – thanks to everybody’s support, this challenge and the good habits, I can say that the HOCD doesn’t matter anymore. The thoughts and situations that gave me the spikes of excitement just don’t cause me pain anymore. In fact, their effects seemed to get even weaker as time passed. I remember one day being obliged to go into the backseat of my friend’s car – with 5 more people. And as a result, I needed to carry a male friend in my lap during all the trip.
It could have been the most frightening/spiking situation if the HOCD had still affected me. But it wasn’t. I felt no “fake sensations” as I would have felt months ago. Meanwhile, I got my semester results at university. I never got so many 10 notes (the highest note you can get, the same thing as an A+) as I got this semester. Read his history.
I went through a period of really bad HOCD (It was especially bad when I hadn’t figured out what it was yet!) and though it’s calmed down a lot, it still shows up from time to time. It’s at it’s worst just after a slip/binge.
Here’s his account after his full reboot:
Day 79 I want everyone to know that I’ve NEVER had successful intercourse with a girl. I tried 5 times with 5 different girls. Every single one was both embarrassing and devastating. The last failed attempt was the worst. I had abstained from pmo for 6 weeks, but fell back into it again. I would make it 2 weeks and then binge. This went on for around 2 months. Somewhere in there I tried having sex with a girl, I hoped since Id abstained from pmo for that 6 week period I would be able to maintain an erection. Nope. That freaked me out. I was abusing porn so much less, and it still wasn’t working. That’s when I decided no more. At that point I cut out everything; fantasy, TV, trash internet.
After 79 days, I finally had sex. It was AWESOME. No problems at all. My date last sunday ended up going until just a few hours ago lol. The girl is amazing. I was ready for more in the morning, but we had no condoms.
Anybody can do this. I didn’t even have any positive experiences in my past to aim for. I was going through this thing blind. The bullshit I dealt with is hard to put into words. Hopeless, sad, confused, jealous of everyone else because they had normal sex drives. HOCD plagued my mind. Seriously, even though a lot of my posts were positive and optimistic, there was always a nagging in the back of my mind that wasn’t sure. My HOCD is absolutely gone now, and I feel so much more comfortable around everybody. Even being around my best friends used to trip me out sometimes, but now it’s perfect. I used to be so scared and paranoid. Connecting with a girl has sorted things out in my head even more.
I didn’t have spontaneous erections at all before meeting this girl. I’d get a tingly sensation down there sometimes, but that’s it. AFTER having sex though, I get erections just holding her sometimes. Even just looking at her gets me going. So anyone worried about that.. don’t get too freaked out. I think some of us are just built differently and need an actual girl to really jump start the libido back to life.
But this works. Stop watching porn. Get out there. Keep your head up. I first started experimenting with abstaining last November. So it took me almost a year to get to this point. But I’m here. And I’m a new person now. It’s so f’ing worth it. Thanks so much to everyone.
Also, I slipped and pmo’d twice on day 69. That’s 10 days ago. It barely even phased me. So take your ‘relapses’ lightly. Honestly, I feel like last relapse helped me realize that I was ready to move on to the real thing. No I’m not saying go jack off to porn. I’m just demonstrating that relapses aren’t the end of the world [at least if they come after you are rebooted]. Read entire blog
I discovered this site several weeks ago when I was suffering through severe addiction to M/O, and going through severe depression and having to deal with HOCD. Now it has been almost 4 weeks of on and off rebooting. I want to update you guys on the progress. First off, I escalated to gay porn several months ago. It was really disturbing to watch, I hated it,. It was the reason for my OCD and subsquent depression. Now I am standing here today feeling almost like a new person. After nearly 4 weeks of on and off total hell, I made it through. At first I was a little skeptical about rebooting. But today, I can honestly say it has begun to fix my problem. The first success is I do not get aroused at gay porn anymore. I just don’t. I still remember how I used to. But I have gotten rid of those brain circuits. No matter how much shock and anxiety it delivers, I do not find it in anyway arousing anymore.
I never thought I would get to today. 4/5 weeks ago, I was contemplating suicide. This has saved my life. Now, when I was able to abstain from MO for around a week, I would be able to de-escalate to lesbian porn. I find old porn to be arousing now. When I relapse, I always relapse on lesbain porn. I still have problem with abstaining from lesbian porn. I still relapse every 5-6 days. This is the second day since my last relapse, I want to try to make it to next Sunday without a relapse.
I am also starting to get my libido slowly back. It’s not over yet. But I have conquered a part of it. I am going to tackle my problems one at a time, divide and conquer. I want to get my life back.
@20UK, thanks man, you were right. This was just an acquired taste, I managed to rewire just like you suggested by avoiding thinking and watching this kind of stuff. And it did go away like you said. Thank god.
TL:DR – I overcame HOCD, I understand a lot about anxiety related illnesses, no on can tell you who you are or who you are to become. There is a huge difference between anxiety and attraction. All of this will uncover something deeper than just the porn itself but realize that it is impossible to morph into something you are not, even if you somehow do, you are at risk for identity crisis. It really is simple, if you’re gay, you’re gay, if you’re straight, you’re straight. I’m finally going to delete this account but I will be here a few days to answer questions that anyone may have. I want to help others, because I know what this is like and everyone deserves to have help if they have a problem. See – post
I post extremely infrequently and have been but a quiet observer of the things that have gone on in these forums, but after reaching my goal I feel compelled to share with you my experience with the worst and possible greatest challenge I will face for a long time to come. My goal was to have successful, non forced, non drug assisted sex with my GF, and in that I succeeded twice after a long 177 day wait.
So, to begin I started going solo since about the age of 12 and actually reached a pretty bad HOCD habit at about 15. I kept it extremely secret and never got caught ever. It added to the excitement by being sure to never be caught. It was taboo, but from everything I could see in life jerking it was clearly a positive thing. Hence this went on and on. I dated in HS, but frequently they were religious and had reservations about sexual activity so lets just say I doing nothing but batting practice to some pretty seedy things on the Internet. HOCD is a bitch and screws with your mind
;