kiwi rebooter
New Member
Hi everyone,
I've never posted on forum or commented on anything apart from Facebook so this may not be the greatest post but here it goes:
Just over two weeks ago I failed to get it up for the second time with the same girl who I'd liked for a while and is really attractive. Blaming it on performance anxiety I left disappointed and ashamed. The first thing I did the next morning was PMO........twice. After I'd calmed down I took to Google and Youtube and before long started hearing stories from brave individuals who went through similar experiences. I came across Gabe's videos on Youtube which in turn pointed me to this website and Your Brain On Porn which was great to educate myself on the issue of PIED.
I did the home test and realized I REALLY struggled to get it up at all without looking at porn or fantasizing of porn. It was suddenly clear that I had a porn addiction problem, which surprisingly I'd never considered or thought of as a huge problem. I decided to stop porn and masturbation immediately and I'm up to day 16 now (early days, I know).
I started PMO at the age of 11 (dial up internet at the time but became high speed before too long) and after starting high speed internet let's just say a short viewing session for me would be an hour, and several hours at a time was common especially on weekends. About a week into my reboot I summoned the courage to tell my best mate what I was going through, and he was really supportive and a lot of things made sense to him too. I have now chatted to a couple of people about it and I found most often dudes with healthy porn habits were looking at it less frequently than me and feature far shorter/efficient sessions: I was abusing it, and have a habit I needed to kick.
I lost my virginity in my early 20s shortly after leaving my church I grew up in, where I was a believer in "no sex until marriage". This meant I had over a decade of hardcore porn before my first full sexual encounter with a real woman. Even after I lost my virginity I was rarely motivated to pick up women in bars/clubs, which left some of my mates puzzled but I always put it down to being a bit introverted and preferring just drinking hard and going to bed. I have never been in a steady relationship so I would say my sexual experience is fairly limited. When I think back to those previous sexual experiences I remember always having to work a bit to get a full erection with a girl, and often I was so desensitized that I couldn't reach orgasm with the real thing. I can conclude that I've always had some form of sexual dysfunction and this latest incident where "it" didn't work at all was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's sad to think that I've still not experienced the full pleasure of sex at its best and I've lost many good years and several really good girls.
So now I am a couple of weeks in to my reboot and I've been using this and some other websites as support and have some close friends who are supporting me too when times get rough. So far apart from the obvious cravings, the negative effects have been highly varying mood swings (this is unlike me) and the incredible shrinking penis on a lot of days. It is very tempting to go "testing" to see if ANYTHING will turn you on when in this state......bad idea. In fact I've just come off a "test" where I checked out some visual material with nudity to see if it would fire me up. It sure did, but I didn't touch myself at all to it, and instead I created this account and started this post so I can take this thing a bit more seriously.
I'm excited for the future. If anything, I have much more spare time without those long porn sessions and in the last couple of weeks I've gotten a new tennis club membership to get back into weekday sport, set up my untouched-for-years guitar rig to work on some music again, upped the gym/fitness work, and caught up regularly with friends I don't often get to see simply by being the initiator. And last week I booked a 7-week trip to Europe (September/October) which is the sort of thing I'd never normally do because I lacked motivation to be adventurous or passionate about anything while addicted to porn. I don't expect this reboot to fix all of my life problems, but I know that the way I've been living my life needs to change. Whatever benefits come with that change, I'll take it.
I'm still in touch with the last girl although communication has dropped significantly since the last episode. If she ever wants to have another go I will be honest and tell her everything - she can freak out and think I'm a nut or appreciate the honesty and the fact I am doing something about it rather than having another failed attempt. The bottom line is, she is not a priority any more, and I am focused on getting my life back on track above anything else.
I've written more than I've planned, but basically feel free to reply if you have any questions/comments - I apologize for the rather disjointed write-up. I really appreciate what these websites are doing, and it's nice to feel part of this community without which I would feel like I was in a very lonely battle. Best of luck to all you guys and gals out there
I've never posted on forum or commented on anything apart from Facebook so this may not be the greatest post but here it goes:
Just over two weeks ago I failed to get it up for the second time with the same girl who I'd liked for a while and is really attractive. Blaming it on performance anxiety I left disappointed and ashamed. The first thing I did the next morning was PMO........twice. After I'd calmed down I took to Google and Youtube and before long started hearing stories from brave individuals who went through similar experiences. I came across Gabe's videos on Youtube which in turn pointed me to this website and Your Brain On Porn which was great to educate myself on the issue of PIED.
I did the home test and realized I REALLY struggled to get it up at all without looking at porn or fantasizing of porn. It was suddenly clear that I had a porn addiction problem, which surprisingly I'd never considered or thought of as a huge problem. I decided to stop porn and masturbation immediately and I'm up to day 16 now (early days, I know).
I started PMO at the age of 11 (dial up internet at the time but became high speed before too long) and after starting high speed internet let's just say a short viewing session for me would be an hour, and several hours at a time was common especially on weekends. About a week into my reboot I summoned the courage to tell my best mate what I was going through, and he was really supportive and a lot of things made sense to him too. I have now chatted to a couple of people about it and I found most often dudes with healthy porn habits were looking at it less frequently than me and feature far shorter/efficient sessions: I was abusing it, and have a habit I needed to kick.
I lost my virginity in my early 20s shortly after leaving my church I grew up in, where I was a believer in "no sex until marriage". This meant I had over a decade of hardcore porn before my first full sexual encounter with a real woman. Even after I lost my virginity I was rarely motivated to pick up women in bars/clubs, which left some of my mates puzzled but I always put it down to being a bit introverted and preferring just drinking hard and going to bed. I have never been in a steady relationship so I would say my sexual experience is fairly limited. When I think back to those previous sexual experiences I remember always having to work a bit to get a full erection with a girl, and often I was so desensitized that I couldn't reach orgasm with the real thing. I can conclude that I've always had some form of sexual dysfunction and this latest incident where "it" didn't work at all was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's sad to think that I've still not experienced the full pleasure of sex at its best and I've lost many good years and several really good girls.
So now I am a couple of weeks in to my reboot and I've been using this and some other websites as support and have some close friends who are supporting me too when times get rough. So far apart from the obvious cravings, the negative effects have been highly varying mood swings (this is unlike me) and the incredible shrinking penis on a lot of days. It is very tempting to go "testing" to see if ANYTHING will turn you on when in this state......bad idea. In fact I've just come off a "test" where I checked out some visual material with nudity to see if it would fire me up. It sure did, but I didn't touch myself at all to it, and instead I created this account and started this post so I can take this thing a bit more seriously.
I'm excited for the future. If anything, I have much more spare time without those long porn sessions and in the last couple of weeks I've gotten a new tennis club membership to get back into weekday sport, set up my untouched-for-years guitar rig to work on some music again, upped the gym/fitness work, and caught up regularly with friends I don't often get to see simply by being the initiator. And last week I booked a 7-week trip to Europe (September/October) which is the sort of thing I'd never normally do because I lacked motivation to be adventurous or passionate about anything while addicted to porn. I don't expect this reboot to fix all of my life problems, but I know that the way I've been living my life needs to change. Whatever benefits come with that change, I'll take it.
I'm still in touch with the last girl although communication has dropped significantly since the last episode. If she ever wants to have another go I will be honest and tell her everything - she can freak out and think I'm a nut or appreciate the honesty and the fact I am doing something about it rather than having another failed attempt. The bottom line is, she is not a priority any more, and I am focused on getting my life back on track above anything else.
I've written more than I've planned, but basically feel free to reply if you have any questions/comments - I apologize for the rather disjointed write-up. I really appreciate what these websites are doing, and it's nice to feel part of this community without which I would feel like I was in a very lonely battle. Best of luck to all you guys and gals out there