Relentless Observer
Active Member
First, I want to thank everyone on this forum so far in sharing their stories. Second, I am going to simply state where I am at now, and I am interested in the responses of anyone in this community, particularly the really long rebooters who have experienced anything similar to this. One day when I feel fully recovered I shall post my full story.
I am now 25 years old. I started watching P at age 10 and increased the intensity of videos up until age 14. I quit at age 14 for a few reasons, among them being because I was scared how much time I spent watching porn when I had the opportunity to watch (no smartphone or laptop at this time). So, I stopped watching porn until I was 17 and a half years old. When I started watching again at 17.5-years of age I immediately started where I left off in intensity and began scaling up intensity. Now, I had a laptop in my room, and a few years later I got a smartphone. If not immediately, I was back to watching P sometimes for hours a day, edging until I found just the right video. Often, I would M several times a day. Of course there were days I didn't watch P, but it was usually on my mind.
Starting up porn again felt crazy--my body buzzed and shook and I craved the experience. Soon after starting I got afraid again at just how much time I spent watching porn and how hard it was to find the right video to finish my session to. I tried cutting back on my porn consumption so many times without success. It didn't take long before I was convinced I was addicted to porn. I tried quitting so many times, rarely going more than a few days at a time before the thought of porn set my body shuddering and buzzing, or the phsyical feeling of a need for porn hit me--often in sleep, which meant I couldn't sleep and eventually gave in just to try to get some sleep. Even if I went to exercise, even if I fell asleep, I could come back exhausted and suddenly feel the buzz or wake up and feel the intense desire to watch P and to M.
However, something changed when I was 22. I began to have sessions of P and M where I would start to lose hardness of erection...and progressively this required more and more stimulation and more video-switching. Then, I began to take much longer to initially get hard. I noticed at this time too that I just didn't really get physically aroused by girls actually around me in life... This progressed and I saw a urologist and he told me I am fine, it is all in my head. I didn't know about YBOP at this time or any of these communities, but I still had assumed I was overstimulated by porn. I suggested this to the urologist and voiced my concern that I couldn't control my porn usage even with this fear that I was hurting my erectile health. He told me porn is completely healthy, I need to stop beating myself up.
So, I continued with progressive symptoms--now including very weak ejaculation (practically dribbling) and small load-- for 1 year until I basically couldn't get more than slightly hard even to hardcore porn videos and constant stimulation. However, even this little arousal was more than I had around women. I finally told myself, "even if porn is supposedly healthy, I worry that beating my meat and ejaculating soft isn't good for my sexual health."
It was so tough to abstain from P, but I expected that positive changes would be rapid. After 47 days without noticeable change I frantically searched the internet and found the book YBOP...I ordered it and read it. I found Reboot Nation videos on youtube. I read so much of the YBOP website...wishing i had found it all sooner. However, this made it so much easier and made my commitment so much stronger.
However, it has been almost 500 days now and my experience is largely indecipherable to me. I started getting weak MW around 250 days in...and started getting some stronger responses (up to 70%) with fantasy and stimulation, so I tried M'ing a few times through this process. Each time I feel I then am dead dicked for weeks. Then, it seems like erectile quality slowly creeps up, I try M'ing again...and repeat. My MW is not very strong and is maybe 3-4 days a week now.
One other thing: throughout this I have had a girlfriend and dated two girls. For the most part after 250 days I have been able to get some response through kissing, but I only ever felt a few strong responses. With the girlfriend we did try some Oral and touching...but i still only had erections of around 75% to 80%. I haven't really gotten to try since breaking up with her, but I don't feel particularly strong responses when trying to get intimate with girls.
Long story short: I have had a few relationships with girls, but never had penetrative sex for a few complex reasons and the desire to emotionally bond with someone before having sex.
Now, I miss the comfort of regular, strong erections.
I think my P history has affected me and I think abstaining from P has been something necessary in my life; however, I am worried that the few positive changes I have seen are taking too long. At this point I am going to try to minimize fantasy and elminiate M as well.
Any thoughts are welcome. I know some other men have been going through really long reboots and I am not the only one, but most accounts seem to show men recovering very quickly compared to me and I hope particularly to hear from some of these really long rebooters.
I am now 25 years old. I started watching P at age 10 and increased the intensity of videos up until age 14. I quit at age 14 for a few reasons, among them being because I was scared how much time I spent watching porn when I had the opportunity to watch (no smartphone or laptop at this time). So, I stopped watching porn until I was 17 and a half years old. When I started watching again at 17.5-years of age I immediately started where I left off in intensity and began scaling up intensity. Now, I had a laptop in my room, and a few years later I got a smartphone. If not immediately, I was back to watching P sometimes for hours a day, edging until I found just the right video. Often, I would M several times a day. Of course there were days I didn't watch P, but it was usually on my mind.
Starting up porn again felt crazy--my body buzzed and shook and I craved the experience. Soon after starting I got afraid again at just how much time I spent watching porn and how hard it was to find the right video to finish my session to. I tried cutting back on my porn consumption so many times without success. It didn't take long before I was convinced I was addicted to porn. I tried quitting so many times, rarely going more than a few days at a time before the thought of porn set my body shuddering and buzzing, or the phsyical feeling of a need for porn hit me--often in sleep, which meant I couldn't sleep and eventually gave in just to try to get some sleep. Even if I went to exercise, even if I fell asleep, I could come back exhausted and suddenly feel the buzz or wake up and feel the intense desire to watch P and to M.
However, something changed when I was 22. I began to have sessions of P and M where I would start to lose hardness of erection...and progressively this required more and more stimulation and more video-switching. Then, I began to take much longer to initially get hard. I noticed at this time too that I just didn't really get physically aroused by girls actually around me in life... This progressed and I saw a urologist and he told me I am fine, it is all in my head. I didn't know about YBOP at this time or any of these communities, but I still had assumed I was overstimulated by porn. I suggested this to the urologist and voiced my concern that I couldn't control my porn usage even with this fear that I was hurting my erectile health. He told me porn is completely healthy, I need to stop beating myself up.
So, I continued with progressive symptoms--now including very weak ejaculation (practically dribbling) and small load-- for 1 year until I basically couldn't get more than slightly hard even to hardcore porn videos and constant stimulation. However, even this little arousal was more than I had around women. I finally told myself, "even if porn is supposedly healthy, I worry that beating my meat and ejaculating soft isn't good for my sexual health."
It was so tough to abstain from P, but I expected that positive changes would be rapid. After 47 days without noticeable change I frantically searched the internet and found the book YBOP...I ordered it and read it. I found Reboot Nation videos on youtube. I read so much of the YBOP website...wishing i had found it all sooner. However, this made it so much easier and made my commitment so much stronger.
However, it has been almost 500 days now and my experience is largely indecipherable to me. I started getting weak MW around 250 days in...and started getting some stronger responses (up to 70%) with fantasy and stimulation, so I tried M'ing a few times through this process. Each time I feel I then am dead dicked for weeks. Then, it seems like erectile quality slowly creeps up, I try M'ing again...and repeat. My MW is not very strong and is maybe 3-4 days a week now.
One other thing: throughout this I have had a girlfriend and dated two girls. For the most part after 250 days I have been able to get some response through kissing, but I only ever felt a few strong responses. With the girlfriend we did try some Oral and touching...but i still only had erections of around 75% to 80%. I haven't really gotten to try since breaking up with her, but I don't feel particularly strong responses when trying to get intimate with girls.
Long story short: I have had a few relationships with girls, but never had penetrative sex for a few complex reasons and the desire to emotionally bond with someone before having sex.
Now, I miss the comfort of regular, strong erections.
I think my P history has affected me and I think abstaining from P has been something necessary in my life; however, I am worried that the few positive changes I have seen are taking too long. At this point I am going to try to minimize fantasy and elminiate M as well.
Any thoughts are welcome. I know some other men have been going through really long reboots and I am not the only one, but most accounts seem to show men recovering very quickly compared to me and I hope particularly to hear from some of these really long rebooters.
