The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

harpoon

Respected Member
So i failed. PMO after 8-days. Why? because i'm an addict.

Those 8-days were something else tho'. The first 4, terrible, all the classic w/drawal symptoms. The last 4, great, ran a 10k race in under an hour, an odd feeling of happiness returned, things were looking up.

Then yesterday, my alter ego - the depressed self indulgent jackass shows up. W/in a couple of minutes of PMO the good feeling went away, and panic set in, impending doom, palpitations, headaches, i never felt anything like this, my stomach even hurt, i didnt sleep a wink. For most of the day i've had intrusive suicidal thoughts - hell has returned.

So, why write a post? Maybe just a log for myself, and in a few days when i feel good, just read this for some inspiration.

Why did i fail? Because i was depressed and that's always been my solution to feeling down - look at porn.

But, all is not lost, i saw some light at the end of this tunnel, and it felt great. So I'll start again.

Neway, if your struggling w/ porn w/drawal symptoms today, take it from me, stay strong, the grass isn't greener on this side, in fact there is no grass, just pain.

All the best.




 

TheGuy

Active Member
Hey Harpoon.

We hear you brother, we've all been right where you are. Don't beat yourself up it will do no good and keep sharing your journey with us, it will half the difficulty.

In the words of Rocky, its not how hard you can hit, but how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.  That's how winning is done.  So keep moving forward.
 

womble

Member
Start again mate. Do not give up, trust me in the last 26 days I have had some of the best sex I have ever had, all down to no more porn. I am on day 44 now, and to be honest I am still struggling with some the symptoms you are getting, but over time they do become easier to handle. A friend of mine started about 20 days ago and I have seen him have the same problems. Like me by day 10 he wanted to try real sex, else he thought he might just as well go back to porn, trouble is he does not has a girlfriend, so he just hired one :) I suppose we all deal with things in different ways. But without real sex I think I would have been back on the porn myself by now. Although I am still getting this terrible low the next day after real sex  :(

Keep posting you log, as I found myself it did help that there were other who were reading it.
 

harpoon

Respected Member
^ thanks for the replies. I'm glad that day is over!

The thing I've realized from this blip, is that there is no half-in with this, it's all-in, fully committed to change. It's tougher than i expected, but I'll keep punching ;)

Cheers


 

womble

Member
harpoon said:
^ thanks for the replies. I'm glad that day is over!

The thing I've realized from this blip, is that there is no half-in with this, it's all-in, fully committed to change. It's tougher than i expected, but I'll keep punching ;)

Cheers

It is tough, I spent day 5,6,7,8 walking about my garage as I could not settle to do anything. I now know exactly how many of my paces wide and long my garage is :)

I have never blipped yet, thought about it, but not gone there yet. But keep punching mate, it is worth it trust me :)
 

TheGuy

Active Member
I agree, its easier if you are all in; Resolve!  When those unhelpful thoughts come up, resolve smacks them down like using an atomic bomb as a fly swat.  This also makes me wonder what other stuff I'm doing that is unhelpful but I don't realise it.  Awesome work moving forward.
 

harpoon

Respected Member
So i set myself a goal of seven-days, and i'm pretty much there :) Next goal is two-weeks, a day at a time.

Maybe i'm lucky that i smoked and quit because quitting cigarettes is very similar to quitting pmo/mo - a sense of loss, boredom, cravings. The thoughts of never smoking again seemed unrealistic to say the least, but days turned  into weeks, and weeks months and eventually you just stop counting.

The best thing i've found is to keep busy, run and run and run!


 

mickey777

Member
Its tough and I am a newbie to this so please take my advice for what it's worth. Keep your eye on the goal. It's good that you are setting mini goals for yourself.  Tell yourself that you want out of this vicious cycle. Tell yourself that you will be rewired in 90 days and this will be behind you.  It's only 3 months. Keep at it. Best of luck.
 

harpoon

Respected Member
^Cheers 4 reply

My first goal is 1-day, if I make that,  a week will b easy.

I was starting to feel the benefits (clean 10-days recently) so maybe this time...
 

harpoon

Respected Member
So, 3-days clean  :) and here's what it feels like for me...

Day 1 - I felt good, but strong urges to go and pmo, I resisted and didnt sleep a wink

Day 2 - I felt ok, but slightly anxious, sleep...whats that

Day 3 - My mood altered between being depressed and very anxious to happy and cofident. I'm not getting any urges to pmo

Day 4 -  I feel like s***. pmo isnt an issue when feeling this way. I made myself go and participate in a 10km run, I felt amazing once I got going, and felt great for an hour afterwards. Fell asleep on the couch in the afternoon. Sleep at night was crap

Day 5 - hard to believe that this is my life. Feel like an ostrich would just pulled his head out of the sand and is surrounded by a pride of lions - anxious ;)

I've realized and its prob pretty obvious that the more intense the porn binge the longer it takes the mood to stabilize.

Just keep moving forward is all I can do, the depression generally lifts for me between day 5 and 7 so nearly there.

All I can say, and this is a reminder for myself : FORGET ABOUT PORN AND LIVE YOUR LIFE



 

harpoon

Respected Member
Just an update on my progress....

I've achieved my 10-day porn free goal, 100%, clean, so happy with that  :)

The last few days have been good, I'm starting to feel the benefits :)



 

harpoon

Respected Member
I haven't updated my progress in a few days. here's whats happening...

Day 11 -

Yesterday was great. My anxiety was nonexistent and i felt content and happy  ;D

Day 12 -

I'm all over the place today, I  felt very down for most of the day.
My anxiety is still pretty much gone, but I'm starting to get urges and finding it difficult to refrain from viewing porn. I feel like I'm in a trance.

"I've wasted so much time on this. Where have the years gone? Who have i become? Whats going to happen? I'm terrified of failing. I hate this." - my mind.

Don't get me wrong, things have improved, but today feels like a step back rather than a step forward.

Cheers


 

Mikel

Active Member
Hello Harpoon,

First of all you're doing great, keep it up. Secondly, I think it's just the withdrawals 'talking' to you. We're at a similar number of days and I too, feel a bit all over the place with my emotions. In that I'm up and down throughout the day. I'm guessing these are the hard days for us to get through before it gets easier. Try not to think of all the days and missed opportunities you have wasted, I know it's hard and it sometimes pops into my mind but there's simply nothing I can do about that now. Just focus on having a future without porn and excessive masturbation a day at a time and a beautiful future awaits us way beyond our grim shameful pasts.
 

harpoon

Respected Member
Thanks for the reply and the words of encouragement  Mikel  ;)

This website is great. Some days it's the only thing that keeps me porn free.




 

TheGuy

Active Member
Harpoon awesome work man.  We have so many similar thoughts and feelings about PMO.
Great work on recovering from your relapse man.  I made it to 30 days and then I got into a bad mood and relapsed a week or so ago.  Its those moments of vulnerability that we have to keep preparing for to ensure if we feel bad and want to PMO and give up on our self we have a way of giving our self a couple of days to recover and feel good again without PMO.
Great work man!
 

harpoon

Respected Member
Had a great day yesterday, no anxiety, i felt great.  Didnt sleep a wink last night and feel the total opposite today. I'm tense, don't want to leave the house, intrusive thoughts are returning, its fn' relentless



 

womble

Member
harpoon said:
Had a great day yesterday, no anxiety, i felt great.  Didnt sleep a wink last night and feel the total opposite today. I'm tense, don't want to leave the house, intrusive thoughts are returning, its fn' relentless

Keep fighting it mate. I am on day 76, and I am having to fight like a tiger to not go back. You need to find out why you are finding it so difficult. If you are happy in your life you will find it easy. I found getting through the first 12 days hard, but I found what I needed in my life and then porn did not enter my head. Now I need to find that again and soon otherwise like quite a few I see on forums like this you just relapse, then start again, then relapse, and start again and so the circle continues. The key is to change the parts which cause you to want porn, then quitting it becomes easy. Trouble is it not so easy, or sometimes it is not possible to change the parts that cause you to want porn. So until you change the things you can change and sometimes you find the impossible you just have to keep fighting.
 

harpoon

Respected Member
Thanks Womble  ;)

I've used porn for quite awhile and mostly at night, so by removing porn I'm finding getting to sleep difficult. I'll keep fighting though, who knows tomorrow may be a great day!
 

harpoon

Respected Member
22-days!!! I never thought I would see that  ;D

I had a couple of really good days, which were preceded by a couple of good nights sleep, so I believe SLEEP to be the key here.

I understand why it's called a reboot - you need to retrain your brainwhich is a slow process imo

My mood is maybe 5/10 which isnt bad
 
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