Daily Journal - Day After Relapse

Hello!

Today, June 1, 2020, is my first day of rebooting. I'm a little scared. And honestly, very anxious. I have viewed pornography ever since I was 10 years old and I am now 22 years old. I feel like I don't know my true self because its been such a long times since I haven't viewed pornography. I'm scared of failure or that this won't be as beneficial as I thought. But I want to keep trying. I want a better life for myself and help everyone else on this forum. We're all in this together!

SHORT TERM GOAL:
1) Go 10 days sober
2) Go 3 months sober

June 3 Update:
I am three days sober from everything. I'm pretty happy about my progress through these last couple of days. Yesterday was very interesting because I was able to get a hard on thinking about a girl that I physically knew. However, I didn't want want my brain to wander off about about things that I have learned from pornography. Also, I did notice a new potential trigger. I thought about one of my exes and how I was treated in the relationship. Honestly, I've reached out to her to just be friends, but nothing has really come out of it. She has taunted about her on-and-off again relationship, but the feeling of loneliness was a trigger to turn back to pornography. I began to feel like no one likes me or even cares to acknowledge how I feel. Honestly, it wasn't a good relationship for me but the loneliness makes me want to huddle into a small hole of shame and guilt (for being nice to a person who won't reciprocate. It sometimes makes it easier for me to fall into pornography to escape the pain. I know that I will have to face that challenge in order to beat pornography. But other than that, I'm happy I've been able to go another day sober.

Hi, samsonite!

Welcome and best wishes for your reboot! It demands courage from yourself to enter in such community and share your experiences, so be proud of that. And to solve the questions you have about whether rebooting is beneficial or not, I would encourage you to read the amazing material available on Your Brain On Porn website.
In my case, just to mention, I'm gathering many benefits since I started rebooting 45 days ago. Even amid pandemic lockdown, I'm feeling so much more lively and I it feels like my brain is getting each time more sensible to positive events, even the little daily pleasures as having some nice food etc, so I recommend rebooting to everyone.

Good luck and till the next time!

Hello!

We are all afraid, the important thing is to act in spite of that!
We are here to support you!

Samsonite377 said:

Hello!

Today, June 1, 2020, is my first day of rebooting. I'm a little scared. And honestly, very anxious. I have viewed pornography ever since I was 10 years old and I am now 22 years old. I feel like I don't know my true self because its been such a long times since I haven't viewed pornography. I'm scared of failure or that this won't be as beneficial as I thought. But I want to keep trying. I want a better life for myself and help everyone else on this forum. We're all in this together!

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Hey, I started on June 1st as well (yesterday).

Do you remember the first time you masturbated? How good it felt? Now imagine having that same feeling every time you have sex.

I don't know if you have other reasons for wanting to do this. I'm doing it because my life has tanked since masturbating excessively, and I'm wanting to rebuild my energy which I've lost. Pre-masturbation, everything was incredible. Intelligence, clarity, able to manifest things with ease.

Find a solid reason to do this, and it may help overpower any doubts you have about the journey.

Do you have any targets or milestones you'd like to achieve i.e. 7 days, 2 weeks, a month, 3 months?

I started watching pornography at 10 years old but have been masturbating for as long as I can remember. I don't even remember the first time. It feels like it has always been a part of me.

The main reason why I'm doing this is for spiritual reasons. My second reason is because I don't want my addiction to negatively affect any future relationships. Third reason is to feel physically and mentally healthier.

I have never gone sober for more than 10 days. I would really like to hit that milestone first. Then I would like to hit the three month mark and eventually give up the habit indefinitely. But it feels very hard. I've tried sooo many times.

Hey Samsonite,

Great you're here, it's good that you have your reasons clearly defined. That's something to hold on to and remember in difficult times! The shit thing is that for most of us porn entered our lives in an early stage and shaped our expectations and views. Try to remember your own good parts, and keep in mind where you want to end up without all the porn.

It helped me to write down all of these things by pen and paper a lot. Also, what was a really good one for me was to make two seperate lists. List 1: All the reasons why I don't ever need to go back to porn (examples: destroyed my marriage, messed up my brains, unable to have decent intimacy because of my brains, I'd be supporting an industry full of violence, human trafficking / exploitation, child pornography - yeah the teens category is messed up - and a couple more), List 2: All the reasons to keep hope on beating this addiction (examples: brain change is possible, forgiveness in God is possible - depends on your own beliefs though - regain a focus on life, hopefully improve our marriage if it survives). I've wrote the reasons a lot more in-depth for myself but it definitely helped me. Just have a read through those lists occassionally and remind yourself of why you're doing it.

Additionally what has helped a lot for me is that people I care about it know about my situation. My wife found out, that's still the most difficult situation. However I also talked with my parents and brothers about it and they provide support as well. I understand that it might be difficult to share it with people you know, but I definitely think it's too difficult to do this alone.

Anyways, all the best of luck Writing a journal helps a lot, also take a look at others' stories!

Samsonite377 said:

I started watching pornography at 10 years old but have been masturbating for as long as I can remember. I don't even remember the first time. It feels like it has always been a part of me.

The main reason why I'm doing this is for spiritual reasons. My second reason is because I don't want my addiction to negatively affect any future relationships. Third reason is to feel physically and mentally healthier.

I have never gone sober for more than 10 days. I would really like to hit that milestone first. Then I would like to hit the three month mark and eventually give up the habit indefinitely. But it feels very hard. I've tried sooo many times.

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You're right, it does feel like it's always been a part of me/you. They are good reasons to quit. Intrigued about your spiritual reasons (Don't have to share if you don't want to).

With the 10 day goal, is there anything you enjoy that you think maybe would be good as a reward for hitting those milestones. I read a success story once, where someone set their milestone goals, and each time he hit one, he'd buy a takeaway, and have a fun night.

I think a bunch of us have tried so many times. I've tried more times than I can remember, but this time, I'm in a corner, with nowhere else to go. I've tried everything in my life, with no success. The best times of my life, when everything went my way, when a mere thought of what I wanted manifested into real life occurred, was my pre-masturbation days. NoFap is the last roll of the dice. It's the only thing I haven't done successfully. Now is the time to change that.

I totally get what you are saying. I've realized that my anxiety comes from knowing that I've missed out on life. I know that if I never viewed pornography, I would have probably done better in school, at work, or in my past relationships. You would think that knowing I've missed out would give me the motivation to get up and make a change. But it feels like it has had the opposite affect on me. My brain wants to tell me that since I've missed out, I will continue to miss out and I might as well give up. I guess these are negative thoughts that I'm having about myself. Did you ever experience those feelings?

Samsonite
"My brain wants to tell me that since I've missed out, I will continue to miss out and I might as well give up. I guess these are negative thoughts that I'm having about myself. Did you ever experience those feelings?"

damn dude I totally get you. I get so depressed sometimes thinking of what life wouldve been if I hadn't gotten into this shit. I feel like I wasn't able to develop into the man I was suppose to be. I try not to think about it too much and that's why Right now I feel extremely motivated to heal myself. good luck on your journey bro

Samsonite377 said:

I totally get what you are saying. I've realized that my anxiety comes from knowing that I've missed out on life. I know that if I never viewed pornography, I would have probably done better in school, at work, or in my past relationships. You would think that knowing I've missed out would give me the motivation to get up and make a change. But it feels like it has had the opposite affect on me. My brain wants to tell me that since I've missed out, I will continue to miss out and I might as well give up. I guess these are negative thoughts that I'm having about myself. Did you ever experience those feelings?

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Absolutely, I do experience those thoughts. I used to masturbate instead of applying for jobs at the time, or sending a text to meet up with friends. I know full well that masturbation affected one of my exams for my degree. I feel like I've missed out on so much, but I look at my age, and think there is still time ahead to experience new things, and experience them with clarity, and emotion. Of course, in previous attempts at Nofap, I've had thoughts of 'just fap now, and you can do 'x' later.' Of course, I fapped, and didn't do 'x' later, due to a lack of energy. I think of missed opportunities years ago. Now, very few opportunities come up for me at all. I'm partly doing this for law of attraction reasons, believing that my lack of energy is why I'm unable to manifest what I want, when in previous times, a thought would manifest into reality.

There's a reason why some material compares porn/sex/masturbation addiction to cocaine addiction.

I'm 29, and still see myself as having lots of time to experience life to its fullest. I have to write off my 20's, and live my 30's to the fullest. You're 22, with the rest of your twenties ahead of you. So much of time to live and experience the joys of life. Recover now, and make your days of youth a time to remember!

I've had another successful day. I wasn't able to post anything yesterday because I am visiting my family for the week. Being with my family has helped me to get my mind off of porn and focus on having a good time with them.

Yesterday was my hardest day. I had some thoughts in my head like: "I've worked hard so far so I can have a relapse as a reward." However, I was able to stay on track and keep firm on the path. Honestly with the time that I've been spending with my family and studying for an upcoming exam, I haven't been able to do much reading on porn addiction. I've just been taking one day at a time with my own willpower. Some benefits that I have noticed in these past couple days is that I'm able to sleep A LOT better. When I wake up in the morning, I feel a lot more refreshed. One thing I noticed is that I encounter potential triggers when I download social media apps such as YouTube and Instagram. I re-downloaded them yesterday just to check up on the world, but I had some triggering moments. I deleted them and will try to stay away from those sites for a minute.

Today is Day 5 of being sober!!! My goal is to hit 10 days.  ;D I'm so happy that I'm halfway there!!!!!!!! I don't know maybe we should all have a virtual party in the chat to celebrate LOL

Samsonite

that's badass man, congrats! and yeah I totally agree with you on the triggering social networks. For me Instagram was the biggest temptation, lost of arousing material. Facebook has some but at the moment I can handle it. Right now I'm on my 17th day and it's been a weird one, lost of brain fog. Anyways this post is about you haha keep it up brother!

I just wanted to give you some encouragement and tell you not to let your ex keep you down. Women lack empathy for men completely and today?s day and age women have free-reign for treating men like crap. You should never try to confide in a woman for the most part. Most of them just do not care and will look down on you for the weakness. This might annoy some people, but it is the truth. But it is great that you are thinking ahead about future relationships and how p would definitely hurt them. P destroys love.

I relapsed REALLY bad on June 6 and 7. I was at about 6 days and I took a stumble. Honestly, I feel like I've fallen so many times, I don't even feel discouraged or sad. I'm just kinda like: "I've been through this before, I'll get through it again." I went back to work today and I was able to go through another day clean. I want to pick myself back up and get going again at 10 days. There's no time to feel sorry for myself.

it's alright man, just make sure you learn something from the experience. What triggered you and how can you Avoid it? this is not a life that you or I want, you can do it bro, don't let it get you down, however make sure to take it seriously

Just acknowledge it's happened, and start again.

What I'm also doing at the moment is saying to myself, 'is masturbating going to improve my life?' The answer is always no, because my life has been utter garbage ever since I've gone chronic with PMO.

The next question I'm asking myself everyday is: 'will not PMOing improve my life?' The answer is 'I don't know.' The vast majority of people say it does. Only a handful say it doesn't, but I suspect they were never chronic PMO'ers to begin with. Nevertheless, it's an unanswered question for me, and one worth answering.

Just an idea to help in your journey.