Detox

So May 15th was my first day in a long time that I went without porn.  I dont really expect that I'll have all that much trouble staying away now that I have a reason to.  There were several times in the past that I'd try and give up porn, but would eventually just be like "why am i doing this?"  But now that I've discovered so many other men with the same problem, and that have fixed that problem i think it will be pretty easy to stay on track. 

Keeping myself from fantasizing though? That may be a little bit more difficult but so far I've been doing alright.

Like I've said in another post, what has me worried is that my involvement in the BDSM scene is going to stop me from really making progress.  I almost never masturbate thinking about the stuff I do or see at the parties and think i can avoid doing so in the future but will just seeing people doing kinky things hold me back?  I dunno.  I can't give it up though, it's almost my entire social circle and the only thing i really have to look forward to in my life. 

So i guess this makes it day 6 and so far I'm doing pretty well at the avoiding porn but like I predicted I'm having more trouble at not allowing myself to fantasize or masturbate.  I haven't caved, but would start thinking about something and then have to remind myself to stop. 

Also, this extra free time is pretty nice.

So, one week down and I havent masturbated or had an orgasm.  Feeling pretty good.  I didn't really think that I was addicted to porn, I'd just conditioned my brain to need it to get aroused. I haven't opened tumblr or any of the other sites I'd typically use to get off.  I have still been checking Fetlife regularly to stay in touch with friends and introduced myself to a new girl.  I do check some of the pictures that are posted but I make sure there's not touching myself or fantasizing when i do.  But I dunno, could just seeing naked women regularly have a negative effect on my recovery?

I have woken up pretty hard a few times over the last week so I think that's possibly a good sign.

I had a thought last night that kinda frightened me. I've been masturbating for as long as i can remember.  I was doing it waaaaay before I ever had internet access, and fantasizing about various things has also been a part of it for as long back as I can remember. 

I really don't know what it's like to have an orgasm without fantasy.  I suppose if/when the reboot works I'll figure it out but it's kinda weird for me to think about.  How do people even do that? 

The hardest part of not allowing myself to fantasize is trying to sleep.  For years the way I fell asleep was by thinking about tits and lesbians and now I'm trying not to.  I still can sleep but every time i lay down I'm like....ok, how do i do this?

Anyway, today was a super productive day for me and I'm not sure if it's because the antidepressant I've been taking finally kicked in, or if because I have more free time without watching porn all day, or some combination or both, or neither, but either way i hope my new productivity sticks around awhile.  Also, I'm about to do some reading which i haven't done in FOREVER.

Ya know the trope where the evil genie grants a wish but there's a side effect that makes it useless?  That's almost how I'm feeling now.  I'm at a point in my life where women are kinda in to me, and I can't fuck them because of so many years fantasizing about it.  I'm not completely useless. I'm pretty good with my hands and oral but with someone new there's always that moment where they wonder why I'm not taking my cock out.  Mostly I've been telling them that the sexual side effect of the medication I was on hadn't gone away.  For a long time i thought that was the case but now i know it's not. 

There were a couple times today where I had to catch myself and stop myself from going to check out porn.  Still hasn't been too hard for me to stay away. 

I'm kinda scared that this will take 2 years or more.  I belong to a group where I meet a lot of women but it's just for people 18-35 and I'm 34. 

Just realized that as of today I've gone 2 weeks without porn or getting myself off. But that doesn't include time spent on Fetlife which i have definitely reduced.  Also, I don't go to any of the Fetlife groups that I found titilating anymore.  Mostly just check it for events now, but occasionally do look at a picture or two or check out some profiles to see if there's anyone i should message.  I think that's probably harmless and shouldn't affect my reboot too much.

Again the hardest part is trying to not let myself fantasize too much, which is getting a bit more difficult.  I had some trouble today when I was flirting with a friend that I've messed around with a few times before.  I started thinking about what I'd like to do to her, and see her do, and with who else and then just had to stop myself and make myself play a video game for awhile until the thoughts were out of my head.  It's also bad when I'm trying to go to sleep, like i mentioned before.  I need to find something else to think about as I go to sleep but naked women worked so well.  Maybe kittens? We'll see.

I woke up this morning fantasizing about some things and it was really hard to think about anything else until i got out of bed.  I didn't masturate but I did get really hard.  Even after that I had some trouble thinking about anything else.  I'm not sure if that was just a fluke, or a sign that my brain is getting desperate, or if it was a setback.  Gonna try and get better about not doing that anymore.

I'm mad.

I'm mad that I let myself get so dependent on porn.  Who knows how long it'll take me to correct that.

I'm mad that I didn't realize I was depressed and had ADD years ago instead of at 34.  Who knows what I could have accomplished by now if i had.  While i did manage (with a ton of help) to get a masters degree I only have a part time job and live in my parent's house. 

I'm mad about the years I wasted in an emotionally abusive relationship.  Although I honestly don't think i could have gotten my masters degree without her help.

I'm mad that it wasn't until i year ago that I realized what I was really passionate about. 

And I'm mad that I'm so far behind even the mildest expectations I had for myself.

So i finally got around to watching Gary Wilson's TEDx talk about porn addiction.  The part where he says that arousal addiction can look like ADHD, anxiety, depression, and OCD.  All things I've been told I have at one point or another. 

Could all my problems really be due to this one thing?  It sounds a little too good to be true, and it seemed like a lot of the studies were done with people who had given up porn, so of course they'd say it work just like people who practiced fletcherism claimed it made them feel so much better.

But maybe it really is.  While I didn't have high speed internet access until I was 17 I'd been masturbating from a very young age and had weird fantasies about what I thought sex was that whole time.  Also, ever since I was in elementary school they'd been telling me there was something not quite right.  One specialist said I had something kinda like ADHD but not quite.  Could that have been due to arousal addiction at that time?

What's frustrating is that if i start showing signs of improvement i won't be able to tell whether it's due to the rebooting or that i started taking Wellbutrin and plan to start on an ADD med soon. 

All I can do is wait and see and then experiment with going off the meds and and seeing what that does.

Not quite 3 weeks but I think that maybe I might possibly be seeing some minor signs of improvement. 

More encouraging signs today.  Just got an erection about 85% hard with *almost* no porn.  I did look at a picture of a friend's ass on Fetlife and only briefly.  Definitely feel like I'm on the right track now. 3 weeks ago it would have taken way more than that.

Having a period of weakness.  Avoiding porn isn't difficult but I started talking to a cute friend last night about our kinks and fantasies and I've had a hard time putting that out of my mind.  I haven't orgasmed but have gotten myself hard a few times.  Gonna try making more of an effort to stop that now.

Well that didn't last long.  I didn't end up having 2 orgasms and then spent too much time looking at images on Fetlife.  But I'm kinda counting it as a win still because despite having the site open I wasn't really fantasizing much when I did get off.  I really think it's a sign of improvement.  Gonna keep trying to get better.

So I did M today twice I think.  But again while I did do some fantasizing I kept it somewhat more realistic.  Plus I was able to O more easily, and not in the way I had to for a long time.  As I described in another post for the longest time I had to cross my legs with my balls between them or sorta behind me in order to O, but that's not the case anymore. 

So again, wasn't quite as good as I'd have liked, but more signs of progress. 

I'm just gonna say today was a bust.  I made the mistake of looking at the groups on Fetlife which lead to me searching through people's profiles and the pictures on them, and you can guess how that turned out. 

Lesson learned, stay away from the groups that are for specific kinks and only go to the ones that are for the local groups.

From now until August I'm down to 12 hours a week at work.  This has motivated me to try and find a new job, but the problem is that in my current position there's only a few parts of the job I'm any good at and a lot of parts that I suck at.  A full time position would certainly have a lot more of the parts that I suck at.  It's possible that I only suck at those parts of the job because of ADD, which I'm going to see someone about fixing soon.  But it also could be that it's not ADD and is actually the arousal addiction which i've seen often looks very similar to ADD.  Of course another option is that I really just do suck at those things and always will.  Or maybe could get better at them.  Or some other option.

Regardless, I'm still kinda freaking out about not knowing what to do with my life and I'm way too old to still be figuring this shit out.  I'm trying to find some generic office job but...i dont even know how someone does that.  I see postings on Craigslist and i don't even know what they're saying. 

Alright, I've got a plan for myself.  That always makes me feel at least a little less anxious about the future.

I've got an appointment on Tuesday to see about ADD medicine.  Hopefully it won't take too long to find one that works for me.  Once I do find one, I want to start learning computer programming.  That should make me more employable so then I can find a better job, get my own place, etc. 
I also hope that being able to focus will give me the attention span i need to learn rope bondage.  We'll see.

Speaking of which, I've been doing pretty well porn wise.  Spent a little bit of time perusing Fetlife, but no MO. I am getting a little irritated at myself for absentmindedly rubbing my crotch through my pants.  I think that probably needs to stop.  It happens a lot. 

Oh, also I've been playing my guitar more since giving up porn which is cool.  If I'm gonna be stroking something I'd rather it be my guitar neck.

So it's now been 4 weeks since I started my reboot.  I'll be honest.  It hasn't been going great.  I do think there's been progress but I haven't been nearly as good about avoiding temptation as I should be.  I've managed to avoid videos of sex, but have still spent too much time looking at images, and fantasizing.  That'll be my goal for the 4 weeks I suppose. 

On Friday I'm going to one of my favorite monthly parties.  Unfortunately it's only for people 18-35, and I'm 34.  I don't have much time left, and it makes this whole rebooting thing even more frustrating.  Surrounded by pretty young girls and .... you know.  I do enough freaking out about getting older without that.

I never cared for the idea of bucket lists.  It's not like after I die I'll be sitting up on some cloud going "damn, i wish I'd gone skydiving while I still had the chance."  But what I am worried about is the idea that I could live for another 70 years and never do anything.  70 years of being bored.  That's terrifying.  And I feel like in order to prevent that from happening i have to start building up some momentum now before my body totally starts falling apart. 

I need a decent job, i need to be able to fuck, i need to be able to concentrate and pay attention. I'm working towards fixing all of those things but god dammit i hate being so far behind. 

I started on Adderall today.  It was actually pretty great. I was able to motivate myself to practice my guitar playing and kept at it for about 4 hours.  I went to a munch later and felt more talkative and involved with conversations that I normally am, but not in an obnoxious way (i hope).  I'm looking forward to seeing how/if it'll help me out at work. 

I was bad on purpose and tried to get myself hard while it was still having an effect and no such luck. Of course. The evil genie again.  Sure I'll give you the ability to socialize and attract women more easily.....but you can't get erections during that period! Haha!

Oh well.  There's a chance that my body will adapt to it and I'll be able to again.  Also i could just skip a dose if I'm expecting sex.  And if not I can always try some different medications. 

Nothing's ever easy.