Chasing the Thrill; My Reboot Diary

[MichaelSanchez]

This is my first post in my reboot diary because I hope that writing about my feelings will help me on the path to rebooting completely. I want to get off this porn so badly for three reasons. Number 1; for the sake of my sexuality. Number 2; because I have a girlfriend now who I want to be with and whom I'm completely in love with. However, the porn has so numbed my attraction to actual people that I don't want to be with anyone as of right now. Number 3; I don't want to have to be with a guy for the rest of my life but this pornography has warped my mind so much that I associate any type of image of guys with pleasure and I feel like I don't even care, all I want to feel is this thrill and that pleasure even if it is for only a few minutes. Its sickening to think about but when I get this urge, its like I become a different person.   

I first attempted this reboot on Friday of last week, my third attempted reboot since May of this year. Its been a struggle ever since, on Saturday and Sunday my thoughts were absolutely nuts, my mind was inundated with images of any type of porn and muscled up guys which made my heart race faster than anything else since that is what I had escalated to and what had been giving me this thrill. Confusion has been tearing me apart since then and what I'm focused on now is killing off this sensitivity I have to any type of male imagery. Its funny because back in May when I attempted my first reboot, I had completely killed off this sensitivity and for the most part, I felt completely normal. Then, I got overconfident and I started watching videos of girls "booty dancing", completely sure that I could handle it. I then began to escalate once again and before I knew it, I had gotten back into watching straight porn and then ultimately, the gay porn once again. To make matters worse, since I had once identified as bisexual when I first escalated, albeit unwillingly, and created a dating profile on a website where I ultimately met my current girlfriend, I had used that to get pictures of guys which only fueled this addiction further.

I know the reader of this probably thinks, ''Well dang, he must be gay if he's doing all this'' but keep in mind, I had only done this AFTER I had escalated to gay porn on the misguided advice of my older sister. So what I've done is removed my profile from that site, installed a porn blocker and removed any and all traces of any pornographic material from my computer. I swear, this reboot will be the death of me because the urges, the replaying and the constant voices and thoughts of how much better I will feel after I watch porn or look up photos or read an erotic story, are making me truly question whether I am gay or not. Hell, some of these voices are even questioning whether this is truly a porn addiction or whether I'm just in denial of who I really am. I would much rather suffer be suffering from ED and physical side effects right now than these INSANE mental side effects of withdrawal. But regardless, I have to soldier through this, not just for myself but for my girlfriend whom I love and want to be with for the rest of my life. I'm sure that after I quit the porn for a few weeks, my thoughts will be returning to normal since this only began after I binged on porn for two straight weeks. 



This is now my second post, I've been at this reboot now for four days, my body is craving pornographic release and my thoughts are still pretty crazy, although now they've been slowly shifting from the HOCD to just masturbation and pleasure in general. I had one little slip on Tuesday when I just couldn't resist the urge anymore and watched a video of a girl getting groped. Although it wasn't anywhere near pornographic, it was enough for me to begin edging and I've been doing that at night,, when I'm half-asleep, ever since. Now I'm completely dead-set on trying to beat this. I've also recognized from that one little video slip up how quickly and unexpected escalation happens since that one little video made me want something more and when I thought of something more in my mind, it quickly escalated and escalated until I had arrived at the ''other'' stuff I used to watch. Ain't the mind a real b**** ?. The best way I can describe how I feel right now is like a drug addict wanting a fix, every part of my body, especially my manhood, is craving it and nothing except that seems to satisfy it.  From this point on, I won't let this addiction win, no more videos, no more searches, no more edging because this is now for my future. This is going to be a long four weeks. 

 

[noises1990]

Hey man! Firstly watch Gabe's videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0dDLWGMhUo, then you can read the articles on YBOP www.yourbrainonporn.com.

Secondly, chillax about the gay stuff... It doesn't necessarily mean that you're gay, you might have just developed HOCD (Homosexual Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). It's something that I used to stress about a lot too although I'm not gay...

My therapist put it simple for me: If you have romantic thoughts of men (kissing, hugging, touching), well, you're gay... If there's only sex images.... not so much.

Don't stress over it and research the whole HOCD thing... Mine didn't actually disappear until I had a wet dream with GIRLS, which means that my subconscious mind likes GIRLS, not GUYS as I used to fear and panic about.

Take care man!

 

[Androg]

http://yourbrainonporn.com/ask-us-iam-attracted-to-gay-transsexual

 

[MichaelSanchez]

Its been about a good two and half weeks since I made a vow to stop watching pornography and during this time, I've found my relationship with my girlfriend rapidly heating up and things are starting to improve slowly but steadily. I've had two relapses so far and I did have some minor slip ups earlier today when I read some erotic stories and went onto the dating site just to talk but I did end up seeing some of the old trigger photos which gave me some HOCD thoughts for a little bit. However, I didn't dwell on them and they seemed to fade away as a result. On Thursday, I went on vacation with my girlfriend and her parents for four days, I just got back on Monday night and almost every night, we did something sexual although when it all boiled down to getting to business, I just couldn't perform either due to the lack of protection and the risk associated with it or I stopped her because I didn't feel ready to lose my virginity which I think is largely due to my recovery at this point. She does know about my porn addiction, hell I'm very open to her about it and she's very supportive of me. 

The HOCD thoughts are nowhere near as bad as they were before but I still find myself inundated with images of gay porn and the other images at times due to my photographic memory, especially when I get horny. Its annoying and it does make me truly wonder about my sexuality and I do find myself performing the HOCD checking but only when I think about it does it happen. I know its just the dopamine receptors in my brain craving the fix that my brain won't let it respond to. Its like the effect is slowly fading away and its almost like the neurons in my brain are rewiring themselves and  slowly resetting my brain. My girlfriend means the world to me so I'm doing this for her because even though I'm 19, I could very well see myself spending the rest of my life with her. Yes, I'm that kind of a guy lol.

 

[MichaelSanchez]

September 4th. Today I woke up feeling like absolute shit, my mood has gone so far south its not even funny, I can barely write this post today let alone work on the three projects I have to do this week. I feel like I just don't care anymore and I suddenly feel completely indifferent to just about everybody in my life, from my girlfriend to my grandparents to even the cat. It seems the entire world has just suddenly begun to bite and won't stop. I just want to lay in bed and do absolutely nothing, just wither away and die. At the same time, my thoughts are completely nuts with the HOCD, this time they won't stop and they are progressively getting worse, now these thoughts are attempting to use the fact that I felt completely indifferent when I had the sexual contact I had with my girlfriend as a sign that I'm gay. Its like its just picking out things and using them to justify the idea that I'm gay. At this point, I don't even want reassurance, I feel so hopeless right now and a part of my mind feels as though this whole thing is just a bunch of b.s and that I'm just a gay guy in denial of his sexuality. My thoughts are constantly battling each other and this HOCD is winning. I just want to bang my head against a wall and beg for this to stop, I don't know what to think anymore, nothing seems to do it for me anymore. I feel like I should just give up since I feel as though right now not even a good porno would bring me out of this. I just want to break down and cry, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

 

[MichaelSanchez]

September 5th. My mood is several times better than what it was yesterday and I've made an important realization today that I think may be the key to trying to reboot completely. While I haven't watched pornography for the better half of two weeks now and I'm proud of that, I have been going on a dating website and searching for profiles of guys who have nothing more than images of their six packs on their profile pages to give me that same thrill that I had once gotten from pornography, this is seemingly the last piece of the puzzle !. The thing is, I realize this now because I noticed that the same images on the site that used to give me a massive rush no longer do the trick and were basically boring, I ended up trying to search for more images. So I've basically stepped down from watching pornography to searching for images instead and all the while, my love and attraction to females, however suppressed it is, is still there. My desire for pornography has seemingly dissipated by the way and I no longer feel the overwhelming urge to search up pornographic material, in fact, I don't even want to anymore.

A picture of a black guy with a six pack is ultimately what lead me into this spiral of porn addiction and HOCD and I realized today that when I couldn't find any new images, my mind simply gave up its search and turned elsewhere. Basically it turned to other things like the 5 page paper due on Sunday that I have yet to start on for my Corrections class, the 3 page paper due tomorrow for my Criminology class I've yet to start on and the Math exercises also due by Sunday that I have kind of started on. This has nothing to do with my sexuality or anything else, this has to do with my conscious side finally realizing that I was on a dating site for a freaking pornography related thrill ! If I can beat this one last battle, I know full well that I can beat this pornography addiction for good.

 

[PMOVictory]

You are doing great.

You are connecting a lot of dots and soon you will see the whole picture.
Glad you are identifying the triggers!
Keep on reading and educating yourself!

Your Journalling is great, keep on with it. This will also help you a lot in your reboot.

Stay strong and receive the blessing!

 

[MichaelSanchez]

September 20th. 2014. This was the worst relapse I've ever had and I just want to give up so bad right now. I admit that I had been cheating for the past two weeks just about to nude videos on Dailymotion. I think this is ultimately what made the thoughts even worse because a few days ago, they had become so bad that I was forced to do something that I'm so ashamed of. It all started out with a research project I was doing on the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer for one of my classes, so I was watching videos on Youtube and during one of the scenes with his victims where there was quite a bit of sensuality, I noticed I was getting an erection for no apparent reason. Immediately the thoughts were triggered and a few days after being tormented by these thoughts, I went straight to the gay videos and completely binged on them, this time it only progressed from guys making out to gay porn to straight porn to rape porn, just about all of the stuff I had been clean of for about 2 months. To make matters worse, my cousin's wife who is openly lesbian told me that she had always known I was gay and it just kind of snowballed from there.

I'm so disgusted by what I've just done that I don't even care anymore, I don't know whats real, all I know is that being gay or bisexual just doesn't seem like a natural thing for me personally, it doesn't make any sense because I've always liked girls my entire life. Most gay guys don't have sex with a girl and enjoy it but my cousin's wife just told me I've been in denial for years and that she's done all of that which has only made this even worse. I have no idea what I'm doing anymore, nothing makes any sense, I don't know what to do anymore. All I know is that for now, the thoughts have subsided but I know they'll be back and they'll continue to come back and I'll end up in this cycle again and again and again. I feel so damn hopeless right now, I just want someone to either drill this shit out of my head or just lobotomize me because I'm done with this shit. I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know whether I'm in fucking denial like my cousin's wife says I am or whether I'm just a very lonely 18 year old who doesn't leave his house, stays hooked up to a computer and has no contact with anyone whose mind is completely turning against itself.   

 

[PMOVictory]

Glad you are talking about all this and journaling it.This will most definitely help you to compartmentalise your thoughts and start to make sense out of it.
I don't know how religious you are, and I don't want to step on toes. However take it as you want, just know that I don't want to offend.THIS IS MY OPINION!
God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Sooo I don't think there is any valid reason ever to be gay / lesbian. IMO it is an excuse for wanting to do what you want. Sorry for stepping on toes!

When I still did porn, I would enjoy and got a huge kick out of watching gay porn, shemales, and pure plain just looking at dicks. Guys masturbating, Still pics of dicks, measuring myself up etc. I crunch now to even just share it with you but this is how far off I were. And guess what, I'm as straight as can be. Gays in real life put me off so much! IMO this is what porn does to a person, it alters your brain and thinking as one conditions himself by using it.
Adopt the porn is no option!
I hope this all will make sense to you!

Stay strong and receive the Blessing!

 

[MichaelSanchez]

In response to your post PMOVictory, I honestly appreciate the fact that you've shared this with me, I can understand how hard it is for someone to divulge something like that but I honestly feel a lot better knowing that someone else out there went through the same stuff I did. I honestly know this is just a really bad thing because of the fact that once I do all this stuff, my head sort of clears, its not besieged by these thoughts anymore and I go back to thinking normally for at least a day or two before they return.

This is MANY times harder than I expected it to be, its almost like a drug addict going through withdrawal because I've noticed when I don't feed the addiction, it goes NUTS with these thoughts and they bombard me constantly until I relent and then when I do watch it, something is triggered in my brain and I literally lay there and convulse for the better half of twenty minutes while my heart races out of my chest. It doesn't even turn me on, its almost like it triggers some sort of weird chemical in my brain that for a moment, makes me feel good. I honestly thought that if I got rid of the hardcore stuff, it would be fine for me to step down and watch these soft videos on Dailymotion but little did I know that when my mind gets bored with that, it will trick me as it has several times before. Just gotta pick myself up now and continue on. I'm a straight male and I have to remember this because if I take all this other stuff out of my mind, all it is a bunch of meaningless thoughts that are the byproducts of isolation and porn addiction.

 

[MichaelSanchez]

I last posted on September 21st of this year, its November 11th and I have to say, my story is somewhat mixed at this point. Its been a long struggle, some weeks are better than others and for the most part, my thoughts sometimes come with a vengeance and other times, they are completely faded. However, I've been making some pretty huge realizations about this situation. I've come to a major conclusion though and I was seemingly so blinded by the pornography and HOCD that I didn't even realize it at first. Those relationships and these thoughts that have continuously come back to haunt me with the images and things I did, are the result of loneliness and isolation and the fact that I dearly and truly miss my friends from high school, hell even thinking of my friends brings tears to my eyes just about.
I'm pretty much alone in this world without contact from anyone in real life and it seems that my mind has created this little fantasy world and allowed these thoughts to run rampant and consume my mind in order to shield myself from the fact that I'm alone, unemployed and pretty much stuck here until I graduate from this damned online college in the summer of next year. Desperation can make people do crazy things and the fact that I don't experience any of this stuff when I leave this household even for half an hour is a clear sign to me that none of it is true. I've also come to realize now that this porn addiction is not like that of anyone else on this forum for that reason. I bet most of you guys at least get out once or twice a week, for me, I don't have that option. It genuinely feels like having a split personality at this point but I know it will only get better from here so I'm holding out what little hope I have left between the intense cravings to watch pornography and the thoughts torturing my mind. 

 

[MichaelSanchez]

I've completely hit rock bottom today, the holidays have only brought on a greater sense of isolation and loneliness and now I've completely went over the edge yet again.  I've achieved what I've wanted this entire time, complete emotional numbness and a clear mind free from any HOCD thoughts after nearly 10 straight hours of searching for material, feeling nothing but the endless desire to want something more stimulating, the occasional wanting to puke when I watched the gay scenes and the occasional erection. I literally feel like a drug addict whose been completely strung out and to make matters worse, I think I'm finally starting to get ED since nearly nothing aroused me today except for me a mere moment when I saw the guys kissing in the first scene. I didn't even feel that pulse pounding thrill that I used to from this same material, I barely felt my heart beating or really anything, I seemed to do it because I wanted to feel something, other than this endless numbness, tiredness and overwhelming sense of boredom. I know I'm in desperate need of help but I feel like this is the only way out for me. When the thoughts come up, I use porn to make them go away and that only fuels the addiction further, oh screw it, I don't even know what fuels what anymore !.  Every single moment of every single day, these thoughts are here, tormenting me with my past and telling me I'm something that I'm not, I've done everything I possibly can, I've even accepted the fact that I might be gay but yet they won't go away, why won't they ? !. Is the isolation ?, is it the boredom ?, am I in denial ?, why can't I answer this !.

I know dang well four hours from now, these thoughts will start back up, analyzing everything and trying their hardest to convince me of everything but at this point, I don't seem to care, I think I'm slipping along this addiction and its gonna consume me, I just wish I had someone I could talk to, anyone who could bring me out of this depression and this and help me make sense of everything. The uncertainty and the fact I've done everything I could do to beat these HOCD thoughts seems to be driving this addiction, hell I don't even know if this is HOCD anymore, I'm no further along now than I was in August, for every step forward, I take seven back. I just want to be the old Michael again, the Michael I used to be almost a year ago to the day, the Michael who wasn't addicted to pornography and obsessed over it every single hour of every single day. I'm starting to go freaking nuts in this room !. I'm so into my own mind right now, I can't tell what is what anymore.

 

[MichaelSanchez]

Its been 4 days since I began rebooting again for the sixth time this year and I have to say, my mood cannot be any worse. Its another week until the end of my term and another 17 days until my 19th birthday, I'm hoping to clear out at least 24 days this time or make it to the New Year without any pornography, that includes the sexual videos I was watching on Dailymotion and Myvideo.d.e. My thoughts are running completely wild with the HOCD and at this point, I'm just trying to push past them. This is my first real withdrawal complete with a full on ED and I have to say, it fucking sucks !. However, this time, my girlfriend is by my side to support me and I'm doing it for the future of our relationship.

 

[PMOVictory]

Stay Strong Brother

It is not easy to reboot, but the reward is the best you can imagine, even better than the wildest dreams!

Maybe you should consider the following...

I shared it the forum with some other rebooters. I think this could be helpful to you as well.

"You already know what you don't want, and you know that it is affecting you in a bad way. Remind yourself of how bad it is and that the down side is far greater than the gain of what you want to accomplish.
Relate the bad to Pain.
And the good to Pleasure.
When the Pain is more than the Pleasure, it will be easier to make the transition to stay away from the pain.
If you still find it difficult to do that, imagine yourself a year, tow, five, ten, years from now, not making that change.
Will there be more Pain than Pleasure....?
This should motivate you and keep you motivated to make the right choices and stick to them."

Stay strong and receive the Blessings!

 

[MichaelSanchez]

Its Day 11 of my reboot and my mind is doing anything it can now to get the thrill its so desperate for, thank God for this major project which I have to turn in tomorrow, thats keeping my mind occupied at least for a little while. On one hand, my mind feels like a desperate prostitute wanting to get a sort 10 second rush from pornographic materials of any sorts whether it be pictures, words, videos or even profiles on OkCupid which are just about the same as pornography for my mind. On the other, I feel an overwhelming sense of calmness and relaxation that I haven't felt in months, like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I've come to the realization that my entire view of sexuality has been warped since every time I think of sex, I think of pornography and I'm coming to realize that pornography isn't sex for me, its a mental drug so I've decided to just block any and all sexual images whether they be from movies, from pictures, from words or anything because I need to start focusing on the REAL LIFE, not the fantasy of this computer. I'm slowly realizing that whatever I'm turned on by in real life is what I'm ultimately attracted to, whatever is on this computer is just that, its on a computer.

 

[PMOVictory]

Congratz, you have made a significant breakthrough in what you have realized... Thanx for sharing!

Stay strong and receive the Blessings!