19 years old - horribly addicted - PIED

[rainforth13]

Empathy: I have had bad anxiety lately too, mostly from work among other things. I find myself using porn as a way to escape it momentarily but in the end I'm just compounding my own pain because then I get frustrated with myself for pmo-ing. Anxiety mixed with frustration doesn't go well. I was freaking out internally last friday night, and I wasn't doing anything but watching college bball.

You would think that this would fuel me to realize better in future situations but the reality is once triggered I go down the path that my brain knows so well in a hurry as we all do. This is tough because as soon as I am anxious my brain thinks to go to pmo-ing. I have to rewire my brain to something different (healthier hopefully) when I get triggered by stress. This takes time like d2222 said and it isn't easy but with consistent rewiring our brains will not resort to pmo-ing naturally.

Main thing is to not get down on yourself for relapsing, otherwise you're spiraling downwards in a nasty cycle. Break free of the cycle by not getting down on yourself and look to make the most of the rest of your current day as well as tomorrow better. When tomorrow gets here, make it better than the day before. One day at a time, one hour at a time. You got this!

[no94]

Thanks man, I agree. I can really feel the downspiraling to this nasty cycle, I had massive mood swings today and I was absolutely feeling like shit because of school. I didn't talk to my friends. I've had a few relapses like this and I know that this is leading to these feelings.

Now this is gonna be more like a note to myself:
I finally realized that something actually needs to change. I'm having a 16-page long journal on YBR I started about 1 year ago, with my longest streak being about 18 days.
As I described there, my life changed drastically to the positive side, thanks to the positive mood of these forums. They gave me the drive not to just break free from PMO but to better myself in all aspects. Lately I've noticed that I kind of stopped putting that much effort into bettering myself, I started becoming content with the way I am and settling for it, which is bad.
My drive for bettering myself suddenly sparkled again, yesterday. I got myself "Think and grow rich" and started reading it. I also finally want to get into meditation and various other things. I just need to step out of my comfort zone and not be afraid of change.

[no94]

Fuck my life. I've been trying to break free from this addiction for almost a year now and I still don't manage to go even 3 days. Even half a year ago I managed to go at least a week. I've experienced ED when losing my virginity and I still cannot get myself to stop. It only seems to get worse and worse.
All my principles, methods and reasons just vanish every time I relapse.

[rainforth13]

Man, I hear you! I know relapsing can really knock the wind right out of you as it has me so many times before. We're in a fight. (Cue heroic music.) We can choose to get back up or stay down. Getting back up will always say more about a person. Adversity, pain, and difficult times change and grow us, not when everything is going smoothly. Sometimes our selfish nature tells us otherwise because we think things need to go a certain way, our way, but we can't change the way things are, we can only change ourselves.

Believe it or not, I'm not the only one to ever say these things:

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. -Confucius

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again. -Nelson Mandela

Get up and keep going! Work out difficult situation, work through the pain and disappointment, quit feeling sorry for yourself or being hard on yourself when you relapse. It happens. To all of us. And stop relating your present situation to how you've done in the past too. Your current situation is not that one, I bet you didn't focus on comparing a past situation when you went 18 days that one time. All you can do is in the here and now so focus on that. Comparing will only make you feel worse anyway. All you got is here and now so do something about it!

[no94]

It's the time again where school really fucks with my life. The last three days I've been a different person, I was passive aggressive all day long, didn't respond to any of my friends other than nodding, maybe throughout the day my mood got better and I laughed and talked a bit with them, but basically I was showing my coldest side I possibly can. The (unjustified) reason behind this is that I've failed one important exam after another and if I do not manage to pass them next week, I'll have to repeat 2 semesters and basically waste one year of my life, not because of actually being too dumb for my school, but because of (lets call them) organisatory issues. But this is a different story.

I said "unjustified" reason, because after relapsing in the shower today (I broke my promise of taking my phone with me), I noticed, that all my life, I was wallowing in self pity ever since I can remember. When I was about 12 years old, I remember that everytime something bad happened I used to say, "why me?". Friends in school laughed at me then. I rarely got angry at something, only upset. On top of that I am not a person to enjoy a lot of attention and being in the center all the time, which leads to self pity even more.

I can't think of a single person to act like me when something bad happens. And there are bad things happening in life quite regularely. Some people seem to treat me like a "big baby", what makes me feel extremely immature. How often did I say to myself, "man, now I feel like an edgy teenager who's in puberty".

This led me to thinking that this may be the cause of my relapses and other uncomfortable situations in my life. I am 100% sure that this behaviour resulted in making excuses all the time. Boo hoo, I cannot go to the gym, boo hoo, I've got soo much school work to do. Look at me everybody, I am such a sad individual, everyone is so happy and all the bad things happen to me. Boo fucking hoo.

Fuck my life. I've been trying to break free from this addiction [...] and I still cannot get myself to stop. It only seems to get worse and worse. All my principles, methods and reasons just vanish every time I relapse.

Look at my previous posts here, and also at the posts on my journal on YBR, they're completely full of self pity. There is a line up to which you can state your problems, but in my mind and sometimes on these forums, I am clearly crossing it.

Argh fuck this shit. Not even the drive to have sex with a real girl couldnt keep me from relapsing. [...] Fuck I feel like shit I was finally starting out with a decent streak

Note that I am not a shut-in, antisocial guy (although I was on the way to become one). Over the last 1-2 years I improved my life in all the aspects I could, I have a lot of friends and learned a ton of social skills. This just seems to be a mindset that is deeply rooted in my brain.

I'm going to actively prevent myself from such thoughts now, also I'll be researching a lot on the internet to stop doing this. Thanks for reading if you managed to do it all the way until here. Maybe someone could recommend me a book on this subject?

[no94]

Slowly getting into it..

Past week or two were really rough because of school. But I managed to pass my hardest exams and now it's almost certain that this is gonna be my last ever year in school.

Also I rarely feel self-pity anymore because I realized what my problem was, and everything is going uphill in general. Finally.

[fcjl8]

happy to read your posts young man! I think it is so great that at your age with so much ahead of you that you are dealing with this addiction! Just superb!!

[no94]

Thanks!

I was drunk and I relapsed, and PMOd once more on the next day. But I made it to 5 days this time, I'm happy.

[Francois De Sade]

Keep going and stay strong! We are all in this together! Together we can make it

[Mart71]

happy to read your posts young man! I think it is so great that at your age with so much ahead of you that you are dealing with this addiction! Just superb!!

Indeed. Take it from us guys who have been using for decades: even though it feels hard right now, you younger guys can be happy that you learned about this now and you can make a change early in your lifes. I am almost jealous, since I lost decades of what could have been a good life, wasting it with PMO.

[Charlie Marcotte]

happy to read your posts young man! I think it is so great that at your age with so much ahead of you that you are dealing with this addiction! Just superb!!

Indeed. Take it from us guys who have been using for decades: even though it feels hard right now, you younger guys can be happy that you learned about this now and you can make a change early in your lifes. I am almost jealous, since I lost decades of what could have been a good life, wasting it with PMO.

Great thoughts and that is nice to hear.

Scary thing is, when I quit porn at the age of 21, I had already been using for approximately a decade. It's so readily available now!

[no94]

I'll try out the no-counter approach now.
Seeing how many days I'm off porn seems to have an influence on me.

[no94]

Slight trigger warning

I think that rewiring could take me way longer than I previously thought.
I just relapsed and I realized that I mostly only get off because of the "perfect scene", and the novelty of porn.
I remember 1-2 years ago, when I was visiting my grandma. A few times my parents and granddad used to leave to go shopping, and my grandma, ill, was lying on the bed in another room while I was on the laptop PMOing as fast as I could. These were my most extreme dopamine rushes, coupled with the adrenaline/risk of someone coming into the room every second.

This does not translate into real life and makes me worry of how long this process could really take. On top of that my penis needs to recover from all the deathgrip masturbation too, as I didn't feel anything when I had sex the first time.

[Charlie Marcotte]

Slight trigger warning

I think that rewiring could take me way longer than I previously thought.
I just relapsed and I realized that I mostly only get off because of the "perfect scene", and the novelty of porn.
I remember 1-2 years ago, when I was visiting my grandma. A few times my parents and granddad used to leave to go shopping, and my grandma, ill, was lying on the bed in another room while I was on the laptop PMOing as fast as I could. These were my most extreme dopamine rushes, coupled with the adrenaline/risk of someone coming into the room every second.

This does not translate into real life and makes me worry of how long this process could really take. On top of that my penis needs to recover from all the deathgrip masturbation too, as I didn't feel anything when I had sex the first time.

Don't get discouraged about the length of the reboot...I've been going for awhile now. Just make it a lifestyle change. It will start to sink in.

Us longrebooters do take more time, but get much much more out of ours reboots (because we were in so deep).

Keep going strong friend!

[no94]

Thanks a lot man!

Right now I'm going strong, no urges, and I beat my last urge by dropping on the floor and doing push ups.
In the past 1-2 days I've been lusting a lot after real girls instead. Like going crazy in my mind when I see a beautiful girl. And there are tons of them. My friends think exactly the same as me. Funny.

I've just recently had a few deeper thoughts about rewiring. I don't have a girlfriend and do not plan to have a long relationship anytime soon. Doesn't mean I'm bad with girls, it's more like the opposite of that. I mostly just make out with girls in clubs. Other than that, I sometimes hang out with girls for about 10mins in school but that's it.
I wonder how important it is to slowly rewire with real girls etc.

[no94]

Quick update: I had a few relapses over the weeks, but not that many as when I had the counter. I feel way better without it, kind of liberated.

I've rarely been to the forums but reading them sparkles my interest and reminds me of what I am actually doing here.

I'm not sacrificing porn but rather giving it up for a better life.