A Better Tomorrow

[NewStart04]

August 13, 2019

Relapsed

I know this doesn’t look good, having relapsed twice in three days, but I think I have learned something important here. For me to be able to successfully recover, I need to focus on taking things day by day, focusing on the importance of each day, not procrastinating and not focusing too much on my thoughts.

By focusing on each day, I will allow myself to avoid getting overwhelmed by the big picture and make every day, regardless of the difficulty, more digestible and easier to cope with.

By not procrastinating, I will fill my day up with other activities and prevent myself from being idle, as idle hands are an addict’s worst enemy.

Lastly, by not focusing too much on my thoughts and preventing my rituals of reassurance, I will expose myself to my OCD fears, habituate to them, and change my response to these fears over time. I realized my OCD can often suck me back down the drain of addiction, and I need to focus on this problem as well to successfully recover.

I am sorry to have disappointed you all with my poor performance recently, but I am ready to get back in the saddle and show you all that I am more than what this addiction makes me.

I want to live a life worth living.

Take care

[Lero]

Sorry for the relapse, man.

When you relapse, you don't fail, you find another thing that didn't work. A relapse is an invitation to analyze the situation, see what went wrong, what mistake you made, what you were thinking before the relapse, what environment, circumstances etc. led to your relapse and so on. If you feel down after a relapse, it's normal. It sucks but, at the end of the day, people feel down from time to time. But don't allow yourself to go lower than that because you reach misery and a mind in that state is a great environment for the addiction to keep complete control over you. One day things will eventually click.

[NewStart04]

Lero

I have a history of making bad situations into worse ones. But I do have a say on how my circumstances change, for better or for worse. Thanks for reminding me of that.

I think I did a decent job of using analysis when it helped (using my experiences throughout the day to better decide how to fine-tune my recovery approach) and avoiding it when it was dangerous (i.e. when urges, moods etc. try to use it to push me down a darker path).

But at the end of the day, this is only Day 1. I need to remain vigilant. Thanks for looking out.

[NewStart04]

August 14, 2019 - Day 1

Urges: I didn’t mention this yesterday, but last night was quite the binge. I looked at porn non-stop for a couple of hours. Lots of videos, lots of images, edging, constant searching for novelty. Because of this, I was exposed to a lot of visual imagery, and this manifested today in a variety of flashbacks. That being said, I did really well with not focusing on my thoughts, as once they appeared in consciousness there wasn’t anything I could do about them. All I could do is change how I responded to them. No indulging, no lingering. Breaking the day into smaller pockets helped a lot, and I went for a lot of mini-walks (usually 15 minutes long), which also were a great help. One problem I noticed was that at nighttime, if I heard noises or thought I saw some movement inside an apartment or house, my focus would center itself on the visual/audio stimuli in hopes that it would catch something sexual. It’s really voyeuristic and invasive, and I found I had to snap myself out of these moments more often than I would have liked. I need to be more careful about this. Maybe I could bring some unplugged headphones and just put them in my ears to filter out the noise. The visual stimuli though…I think I just have to boost my mindfulness about it, because the walks are great and I don’t want to give them up (way better than dealing with urges inside).

Emotions: Sadness, anger, regret…you name it, I felt a lot of emotions today. I did my best not to obsess about them, avoided reassuring myself, and tried to have a clearer mind when they were amplified and felt like they were sucking me into a bottomless vortex. Sometimes I just had to sit with the intense emotional pain (there were a few moments), but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes. Habituation is a slow process.

Cognition: I wasn’t paying much attention to this today unfortunately, but I felt my concentration was decent.

Pain: As I said earlier, my binge session was a heavy one yesterday, so the burning was pretty pronounced. There was some sticking, but not much aching. I didn’t let it distract me too much, although it was painful at times. I am hoping that the pain will lessen a bit tomorrow. I think it should.

* Something positive / something I did well
I followed through very well with the three main points I recognized yesterday as essential for my recovery. I also got some nice feedback from my accountability partner, heard some great news about his continued success and breakthroughs, and it made me feel some sympathetic joy. It’s nice feeling connected, especially during this recovery process. I’ve been pretty isolated for years now, especially this last year…anyway, I want to get better and I want him to get better, and it was a nice touch to the day realizing that I was feeling some joy from the prospect of both, not just my own.

[Lero]

Good reflections, man. You are a step further.

[NewStart04]

Lero

Thanks. Day by day right?

[NewStart04]

August 15, 2019 - Day 2

Urges: Strong urges, but was on top of almost all of them. There were a few slip-ups, where I could tell doing an action wasn’t the best idea but I reacted in spite of my better judgement. One time was on the train, where a woman was sitting with her legs wide open and she was wearing a short skirt. I noticed it out of the corner of my eye, and my brain was telling me not to look no matter what, but after a few seconds hesitation, I glanced at that area for a second (didn’t see anything FYI). Thankfully, I was able to avoid looking at her after that. There was another time on the train where I noticed a woman wearing short shorts across from me, and I was able to avoid peeking until she stood up to get off the train, which was when I glanced at her exposed thighs for a second or two. I need to get better at managing my responses in a short period of time. Aside from these incidents, I was PMO free with no fantasy. I still had a few flashbacks from my last relapse, but I didn’t indulge in them.

Emotions: Today was a roller coaster. I had am some really intense pockets today. I took them head on for the most part. It’s insane how devastating emotions can be. I need to habituate to these feelings, otherwise I feel like I won’t be able to make the progress I need. I feel so weak at times without my emotional crutch.

Cognition: Concentration was difficult. Felt like my thoughts were all over the place. Confusion present, but was able to make it through the day.

Pain: Definitely less than yesterday. Less burning, some aching, but not too attention grabbing.

* Something positive / something I did well
Bearing the pain of today’s intense emotions without running away into fantasy.

[NewStart04]

Quick question: Are there any PMO trackers that I can use on this site? I have started using one on YourBrainRebalanced and was curious if I could do the same here.

[Pete McVries]

https://www.tickerfactory.com/

[NewStart04]

Pete McVries

Thanks for the link. Slow and steady.

[NewStart04]

August 16, 2019 - Day 3

Trigger Warning: Start
Urges:
Today was tough. Strong urges popped up throughout the day, and this wasn’t helped by the fact that it is summer out here (read really hot and humid), so our female clients were wearing clothing that revealed more of their chests than normal. The first session I had with a female client had her bend forward a few times, drawing my gaze to her exposed cleavage. I wasn’t trying to stare out of horniness, but I kept finding my eyes on that part of her body before I was truly aware of what was going on. After a few times of this happening, I doubled my mindfulness efforts and was able to consciously direct my gaze to her face so that I didn’t have to worry about this. The next session was difficult because the client this time around was a bit bustier and thus more distracting. Unfortunately, I noticed that I was consciously looking at her chest, and at one point she pressed her arm into one of her breasts, which made it balloon out a little. This threw my urges into an absolute frenzy,  generating a scene in my mind of taking her on the table buck naked and aggressively having sex with her. This lasted for 2-3 seconds, and it was all me. I didn't realize it after the fact. I was aware of what was going on when it was happening. I then snapped out of this and redoubled my efforts. I was able to make it through the rest of the session ok, but this definitely shook me up. Later on in the day, I had another female client who, you guessed it, was wearing clothing a bit more revealing than usual. I noticed myself glancing for a moment once, but after that I kept myself in check.

Now throughout the day, my coworker (there are only 3 people where I work; more like 2.5 since one staff member isn’t full time) rebuffed all my attempts to interact with her, even though I was only trying to be moderately sociable and kind to her, taking into account that I will be leaving this job very soon and I wanted to mend fences with her somewhat since we have had a rocky relationship since I started working here. I thought things were going better between us, and we had just come back to work from vacation so I thought she would be in good spirits. She put on an affected air of kindness, but she always tried to cut the conversation short, passive-aggressively jabbed at me a few times, and was pretty cold toward me. I get that this is her prerogative (and I want to respect this), but it just made me feel really low and upset. She really put me in a bad mood, and this wasn’t helped by the fact that I kept obsessing about her attitude toward me throughout the day, going over our interactions repeatedly in my head to see if I did something wrong or if I could figure out some clue as to why she was acting this way. I am ashamed to admit it, but these bad feelings, combined with the obsessing over them and my urges throughout the day, made me have a flash of violent sexual thoughts about her in my head after I left work…...about taking her against her will on the office floor. This is not the type of person that I am, I think such actions are completely immoral and wrong, and this fantasy just amplified my negative feelings and made my obsessing even worse. On top of it all, it was feeding my urges. So I told myself I was obsessing, and remembered something Noah Church mentioned in one of his videos: the acronym HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired). In this video, he said that a lot of the time, if we stop to see what is behind our urges, we can often find one of these four culprits. I was tired (mediocre sleep the night before), and she did make me feel pretty lonely and angry (again, I understand this is her prerogative, doesn’t change the fact that it hurts though). I think this helped me break out of the obsessive cycle, and urges were not too bad for the rest of the night (though remembering the dopamine burst this reprehensible fantasy gave me poked at me a few times tonight). I hate how negative emotions like anger, anxiety and disgust can be paired with urges (or PMO) to boost the intensity of dopamine.

Damn, I want to write more about this, but I have now realized that I already wrote too much. I hope you guys don’t look down on me for this. Over the last few years in particular, I have had a few instances of sexual urges paired up with these downright awful and violent sexual images/fantasies. I promise this is not who I am, as I have never done anything like this to a woman, nor have I ever actually considered doing so. But when I do have these experiences, they really mess me up inside. They make me feel like a monster, which then makes me want to run away from feeling this way by fantasizing and looking at porn. I guess the one upside to all this is that I didn't take that route.
Trigger Warning: End

Emotions:
As mentioned above, I felt repeatedly snubbed by one of my coworkers, and I don’t think it was all in my head. This made me feel somewhat hurt, and it flared up internally a few times into anger. What really gets me is that I was authentically trying to be nice: no negativity, no meanness, just normal and kind human interaction, and she would either jab at me or cut me off from connecting with her at all, even though I will never see her again in a few weeks. I want to respect how she decides to behave toward me, but when I can tell she is intentionally trying to make me feel bad, it is so hard not to obsess over her behavior.

Anyone have experiences about OCD and PMO that they would like to tell me about? Like how much (% value maybe, or is that asking too much?) they’ve noticed a drop in OCD after a considerable amount of recovery time. I feel like these two have a symbiotic relationship for me, and I remember Gary Wilson mentioning in YBOP (twice I think) that OCD can make recovery considerably more difficult.

One thing I will say is that I have, over the last few days, been listening more to these really long ambient songs on YouTube, and they do seem to be helping. I sometimes have them on in the background when I read the forums, type posts, do physical therapy, or when doing other miscellaneous tasks. Before I would listen to YouTube, but I would constantly get distracted by having to look up new songs, by the transitions between songs in a playlist, or by getting too caught up in the emotions they make me feel. These ones however don’t ping my emotions too much, and they repeat without too many changes for 1-3+ hours, which has been helping me. I recommend trying some of them out for those of you that want to experiment with additional focus, relaxing more, or coping with overwhelming emotions.

Cognition:
Verbal fluency was ok, mild-moderate forgetfulness, thinking was somewhat slow, concentration a little fragmented.

Pain:
Not too bad, better than the other days since relapse. Moderate burning and aching here and there, but they didn't grab my attention for most of the day.

* Something positive / something I did well:
Breaking the chain of obsession around my coworker, even when all the negativity surrounding it felt like it was swallowing me whole.

Also, since I am leaving soon, I am letting the clients who I am meeting for the last time know that this is goodbye. One of them is this high school girl who got a little choked up about me leaving. I tried to be positive at the end of the session to ease her sadness, but she was a bit teary-eyed afterward when I saw her in the lobby. I got a bit emotional too (although I didn’t show it), and asked her if she wanted a hug. She dropped what she was holding, and she briskly walked over to give me a hug. It was a great feeling guys. I can’t describe it exactly, but it was nice. No sexual/perverted thoughts, no urges, just an honest exchange of feeling through physical contact. An expression of gratitude on her part and an attempt at easing her sadness on mine. A genuine exchange of human emotion. It saddens me knowing that I got sucked into an obsessive whirlpool of negativity after work, but at least I had this moment. At least I had that. I wish I had more moments like these. Maybe that's why my interactions with my coworker today bugged me so much. They remind me about this void of human connection that has been growing larger and larger over these past few years. They remind me of how a lot of my life has become a maelstrom of negativity: sadness, anger, irritation, regret, spite, depression, anxiety...the list goes on.

Sorry for the deluge of words today everyone. It felt especially cathartic to write down my thoughts and experiences today.

[Lero]

Fuck, man, you're killing me with the triggers. But yeah, I have the same problems.

[NewStart04]

Lero

Sorry about that. I made the trigger disclaimer red. Hopefully that will catch at-risk readers attention.

Thanks for reading through my essay length post.

[Lero]

Lero

Sorry about that. I made the trigger disclaimer red. Hopefully that will catch at-risk readers attention.

Thanks for reading through my essay length post.

I am kidding, man. I knew triggers would follow, don't worry. I didn't read everything, just a little bit and then skipped. Sorry for that, as I couldn't read your whole post but...

[malando]

Hi NS, no need to apologise for anything you said, or the length of it. It was an honest, well-expressed exposé of where you're at - and I can only commend you on your honesty and courage in examining yourself like that and writing it down. You are on the right track: becoming more and more aware of yourself and your inner workings. That's a good thing and that's what will get you to your desired destination. So thanks for sharing, man. Best wishes, M.

[NewStart04]

Malando

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your kindness and encouragement. I felt better after reading your post.

Take care

[CB]

Yeah OCD can be a big black pit some times.. I have also been having sexual, violent and many other obsessions and intrusive thoughts. One that’s been really bad the past year is after have watching sissy/shemale porn, I started to have HOCD, doubting my sexual orientation. That led me to have another bout of Relationship OCD about my gf of course. I’ve always had ROCD in my relationships. And I think pmo has been a big part in my OCD getting a bigger or greater grip on me. Because of the ADHD I tend to over react thinking Black/white about things, when for example having a hard time to get a erection I would be like, ”Oh no, maybe it’s true, I’m not into girls anymore?!”. Maybe you can relate to this, OCD has many faces. But it can really be keeping one from a sober life from pmo. Felt like I had to share a little since I know how difficult it is when these thoughts strike. Good thing though is that we scare ourselves because these thoughts show the total opposite of who we truly are, and they are just thoughts.

Hope you’re feeling better!

[mattdes]

Keep going man!!! I wish I had started at 31 . I'm sure I would have been cured by now. A lot of your story I can really relate to. We are all in this boat together. It's a struggle but let's get fixed together. Let's never take this boat again.
We'll fly in the future haha.

[mranoym31]

Continue on your path. I am still free of PMO even though I had a weak moment last night, I left the computer. Hope you can continue to do the same. Good luck! Stay strong!

[NewStart04]

CB

Thank you so much for sharing. Your post helped make me feel better. It really is nice to hear from someone who wrestles with this issue. All of our journeys are unique, but sometimes this uniqueness can make me feel more isolated and alone. OCD is this whirlpool that just keeps on spinning. I hate when it sucks me in and makes me lost in its unending cycle. And if it's not one obsession, then it's another. ADHD is another beast, but unlike OCD, I haven't really read much about it yet. Between these two and my addiction, I feel so broken and worthless at times...anyway, I am sorry to hear about your SOOCD and ROCD. I have never experienced SOOCD, and I am not so sure about ROCD (I have been single for years now so I can't really remember). If it's any consolation, all SOOCD cases I have read about ended in a complete reversal in SOOCD upon quitting porn for good, with rebooters completely returning to their original sexual orientation (straight or gay). So I think there's a lot of hope. Plus you are now 2 months+, so you're getting closer and closer to that goal line, regardless of where your journey has decided to place it. Ever heard of TAF (though-action fusion)? It is a cognitive distortion (a pattern of thinking that leads you to have irrational beliefs about the world) I came across in the book I am reading on OCD. With TAF, one tends to consider thought equivalent to action. You spend your time trying to figure out why you are having a thought and whether or not it means something about you...instead of recognizing thoughts as complex phenomena arising due to a variety of factors, many of which we won't and can't be aware of. You're SOOCD example reminded me of this. I am still a novice, but if you ever want to chat more about OCD, let me know via this topic or PM. I would be happy to try to pass on some of the information I have obtained from reading about this subject.

mattdes

Thanks for the support! Our recovery counters are at around the same number of days. Let's push through this together and look back on this addiction as a nightmare we used to live in. No more sailing through dark and murky waters.

mranoym31

As a fellow rebooter, I just want to thank you for not relapsing yesterday. You're showing the rest of us what successful recovery looks like every day you overcome the obstacles this addiction throws in your path. So thank you.

[NewStart04]

August 19, 2019 - Day 6

Urges:
Nothing too terrible today; however, whenever I spent time outside, it felt like my eyes were being sucked toward any female walking down the street, and it was really hard to get my brain to resist the pull. If my eyes fell on a woman, or if I heard a voice, I would get triggered really easily, and all the physical discomfort associated with urges would hit my body. I tried to stay focused on my walks, and for the most part I did. My eyes lingered on a few houses here and there in the evening, my addict brain hoping that it would get some nourishment through visual-audio voyeurism, but I think I did a pretty good job keeping it in check here too (with the occasional lingering gaze here and there).

I didn’t post for a few days, but they were full of some bad urges caused by some really stressful experiences that happened as well as an incident where I saw a busty woman nude from the waist above (no intentional searching; I looked up a search string with the word prone, and I got an image demoing what position a woman would take when getting radiology work done…this was brutal, but thankfully unintentional). As for the stressful experiences, I wish stress didn’t swing so me hard into urges all the time, but I know this is one of the brain changes that occurs in addicts, so I just have to push through and recover more if I want things to get better.

Emotions:
Yesterday had some great experiences but also some pretty rough ones, so my emotions were intense and varied. I wish I could deal with them better, but I got to remember that time is the healer.

Today was alright. Had that pervasive feeling of anxiety that feels like it’ll always be there in some shape or form, but the rest of my emotions and mood were manageable for the most part.

Cognition:
Didn’t pay much attention to it since I don’t have work today and I didn’t do much reading, nor did I interact with anyone (these three usually give me an idea of how my cognition is faring).

Pain:
The burning was strong today. I guess the healing down there has fluctuations too. I haven’t really talked about this much with you guys, but the damage down there is bad, and I mean bad. That being said, I know the first step to take is getting some considerable mileage between me and this addiction. Once I’ve done that, I will earnestly seek out a urologist and see what steps I can take. But for now, I try not to think much about that as it doesn’t help me with my current addiction problem and often ends up making me feel worse and crave more porn. Noticing changes in the duration and intensity of the pain are more helpful to focus on for the time being.


* Something positive / something I did well:
I kept myself occupied and got all my tasks for today done.

My accountability partner said he felt good today, and I was really happy for him.

[NewStart04]

August 20, 2019 - Day 7

Urges:
The morning and afternoon were alright, nothing too terrible. The evening hit me with a couple of sucker punches though. The first was when I went for a walk to cool down from some earlier urges. It was then that I heard some noise coming from a nearby house and instantaneously became a thrall to my sudden urges. I creepily stood next to the house, transfixed on any sound coming from it, my heart pounding, my stomach tight, the yearning tearing at my insides, and I tried to catch anything I could for a few minutes. It was maddening…at some point I came to my senses, and realized I looked extremely suspicious, and, more importantly, I was violating someone’s privacy. I snapped out of my trance and walked away, and after I remembered that I had suggested putting earphones in my ears when I go for walks. I won't forget next time. I don't want to endanger myself, nor do I have the right to violate someone’s personal space like I did tonight. The second blow was when I tried to tackle a task that is a source of some anxiety for me. It caused incredible urges within, and I tried to handle them with self talk because I felt trapped and paralyzed. But this didn’t help much. It dispelled a little of the anxiety for a brief interval, but actually made things worse, because I have been almost entirely free of self talk for close to a week (a great accomplishment for me), and I felt like I was giving into pressure and letting myself down. I still felt I could salvage my progress (because I hadn’t been talking for that long..maybe 5-10 minutes), so I took a few deep breaths, silenced myself, and decided that I didn’t have to finish this task right now, and that there was nothing wrong with trying again tomorrow when I am in a different state of mind. The third haymaker came when I was watching a movie. There was an actress whose beauty hit me like a thunderbolt, and my mind was tractor-beamed into thoughts of wanting her. I wanted her so bad. So, as some of you I think are familiar with, I played the slippery slope game for a little, and tried to look some pictures of her up online. Nothing arousing or sexual there, but that’s not the point is it. My brain was trying to trick me with its rationalization, and I fell for it. “It's not porn, it's not even sexual. Look, stop overthinking things and just look it up. Need some help? Let me give you a little dopamine spike…yea that’s good. Now look up a few photos of her. See? Nothing worrisome. Alright now, let's just see if there are any slightly more revealing pictures of her. How about bikini pics? That's not too extreme...” Thankfully, I got myself to end it there, but I can’t do this to myself from here on. I can’t play with fire. I’ll apply take 10 or something like that next time. Anyway, I am just glad it was another PMO free day.

Emotions:
I was alone and inside most of today. Depression, regret, and worthlessness were my companions. But, if I were to make an analogy, I felt like I was being swept down this emotional torrent while clinging on to a single log that was keeping me afloat. This log was the determination that at least I know I won’t relapse. I can’t relapse. I might have days like today where I feel adrift in a sea of hopelessness, but things will get better. They'll get better because I won’t relapse. And on days where I am feeling better, I can make more progress and build on what I want to become. I just got to take it all one day at a time. For now, I just have to endure the pain.

Cognition:
Focus was fragmented. Memory seemed somewhat poor. Not sure about the rest.

Pain:
Had some pockets of burning pain, but the rest of the day was fine.

* Something positive / something I did well:
- Turning myself back in the right direction each time I was sucker-punched by urges.
- Realizing that today is just one day so that I could deal with the suffering and hope for a better tomorrow, all the while being ok with not expecting it anytime soon
- Finished almost everything I wanted to do today, even though I was pushed close to the brink by my urges. It was hard getting back on my feet, but I think I was able to regain most of my balance

I feel exhausted guys. Show some love if you can. For all of you who have gone through hell today, I am sorry that I haven't said so directly in your topics, but it's terrible that you have to suffer like this. I just want all of us to get better and put this disease behind us once and for all. But for now, all I can do is hit the hay. Take care.

[Pete McVries]

I just skimmed through your journal because I don't have so much time at my hands at the moment, but you come across like a really good dude with a good heart. You know, like the high school girl felt when you had to say your good-byes. Things like that don't happen by coincedence. You are evidently appreciated.

Getting the addiction under control will most certainly not fix all of your problems but it will most definitely help you lay a foundation on which you can build a nice house. Rome wasn't built in a day, neither will you be able to beat you pmo addiction that quickly. Slow and steady, as you said.

About the trigger moment. Try to detect them as early as possible. That could have been a relapse. Been there, done that countless times. The sooner you stop, the easier it'll be to snap out of anything pmo-related.

Wishing you all the best!

[Lero]

Man, withdrawal could get brutal, I can't say it less scary. But you will survive. This withdrawal doesn't kill. It's not like, let's say, detox from alcohol or drugs. We are actually fortunate to experience an withdrawal that is not dangerous for us (but very painful in itself). The truth is that the withdrawal will go away but not too fast. My streak is 1 month and I am still not done with it. I still experience hard urges  It's hard but it's possible. There is no other choice for us. In order to quit this addiction we need to go through the withdrawal. And you know what sucks? You see, I've become addicted to something that I didn't even know it was addictive. I told myself: "What the fuck, man? Why do I need to suffer now for something that I did by mistake. I was not even aware of this shit! I didn't choose deliberately, I didn't say yeah I want to be a porn addict." But nothing will change the past, nothing will change the fact that the withdrawal will still come. Only those who are willing to accept the withdrawal and go through it will escape. The others will repeat in a circle for who knows how long. I like to see it in this way: If you give in and think about putting an end to the suffering with a relapse, you don't put an end to it, you only postpone it. It will eventually return. The withdrawal doesn't go away with a relapse. It goes away only with time. Time is the perfect medicine for our problem. And if you relapse and go back to day 1, you will make it back to another day with terrible withdrawal. The withdrawal comes back, it might not be the same day but days with hard withdrawal will still come. We should go through it once and be done with it. I have 30 days of porn sobriety right now and it seems like it has been a month with withdrawal suffering but actually only about 17 days had hard urges. The first 6 days were a breeze. Then day 7 (the same day as you) I woke up with a crazy craving for porn, I barely escaped alive. Starting with day 7 urges tortured me until my streak got to double digits (I don't remember the days) when I had about 2 days (?) without urges then torture again. Only the MO session from day 21 gave me a break of 4 days (in which I had flatline symptoms). Then since day 26 until today I've had a few days in a row with hard urges and craving for porn. It's hard, but you see, I had better days too. It's not a continous brutal experience, day in day out. Or at least it wasn't for me, I hope it won't be for you either. However, many days with brutal urges could come. There is nothing you could do than prepare yourself, find the determination to endure it and then one day you will be fine, you will look back and congratulate yourself for not giving in because now everything will be over and the pain will only be a distant memory.

P.S: About talking to yourself, I don't think you should worry about it. It's your "balance". It would only be a problem if you were not aware of it. Then you would be mentally insane.

[Lero]

About the trigger moment. Try to detect them as early as possible. That could have been a relapse. Been there, done that countless times. The sooner you stop, the easier it'll be to snap out of anything pmo-related.

That's what helped me during my current streak. I wouldn't have made it to 1 month without this. Stopping as early as the impulse starts and not escalating into looking for material. This is so fucking crucial, I'm telling you.