When do the withdrawal symptoms end...

Alice0820

Member
Today is day 30 of my porn and masturbation withdrawal. I was hoping my withdrawal symptoms would be over by now but they seem to still be hanging around. The last 3 or so days I've been depressed and anxious and I'm having trouble concentrating. I woke up today and my whole body felt like I was beaten up. I"m not sure if that's a withdrawal symptom, but I haven't been exercising lately so I figure it can't be from anything else. I love to read self help books but I can't even bring myself to read one more less the 3 or 4 chapters I usually read each day. In fact, I barely even have the motivation to read my fiction books.  I'm unemployed right now and need to find a job but I can't find any motivation to do so. The worst part is because of depression (and maybe lack of motivation from porn use) I never really learned what I wanted to do career wise and just jumped around from job to job doing whatever sounded good at the moment, but with no real goal. It's time for me to figure out what my passions are but I can't even think of any. I'm hoping the symptoms don't last too long and that things get better soon. I can't even have sex until I find someone to date, and I no one wants to date someone my age who lives with her parents and doesn't have a career yet. It's a tough situation.
 

offaxis

Active Member
It's hard and painful.

I think how long withdrawal goes on for depends on how long and to what extent you used. Stick with it though, your brain will try all sorts of tricks to get its dopamine hit again.

For me, personally the worst withdrawal was around 3-5 months and after ending hard mode reboot. I felt very depressed, had difficulty getting out of bed, going to work or functioning really. Even now I have days which are not great. Difficulty sleeping too and physical pain. At points I felt suicidal quite strongly.

It doesn't last forever but that doesn't make it easier. I felt the intensity is going down a lot with time.

I kept trying to do small things every day. A bit of meditation, journal, exercise, reading - whatever. Those little things are actually big victories when you're feeling and craving porn. Distraction and getting out socially to see friends, go for a drive, nature etc. Anything you can to get out of a normal routine. Some days you will achieve very little but other days more. Above all be kind to yourself and love yourself. It is a really tough and rough time you are putting yourself through but a better place is at the end.

Peace.
 
Hey keep your head up Alice, you sound just like me a few months back. In fact if you check out some of my earlier journals you'll find that I struggled with severe low energy and motivation for a couple weeks at one point; got so bad I even wasted money going to ER and they said I seem perfectly fine, but it was really because I was getting no sleep for about 2 weeks straight. Now obviously I'm a guy so I don't know exactly all of the physical pain of reboot but I understand we deal with the same withdrawal symptoms and that's all your dealing with here. Hell in at month 11 and still dealing with em, but they get easier to manage and come and go in severity.

Me personally I've had tension headaches and cluster headaches that happen all day almost EVERY DAY since April, just had to deal with it. Hopefully your not going through this alone though, I eventually told my immediate family and that makes it so much better having someone to help you when withdrawals seem unbearable.

And don't worry about dating too much right now, and forget that nonsense about living with your parents! I'm almost 30 and so do I but its not a big deal. Society wants people to feel bad for things like that but it's not even serious. Sometimes I look at peers on FB and I feel life is passing me by or I screwed up because I'm broke and struggling with my life but later I realized that nobody is perfect and everyone has battle they fight even if you don't see them.

So please cheer up, your going to get thru this; Reboot Nation is here for you!

Ps: maybe you can find a reliability partner here if you haven't already. It does help to share with a buddy. Me and mine we even talk over the phone and text when we need to.

God Bless
 
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