Well, first of all, I think I should talk a little about myself. I have been a passive user of this forum for quite some time, and I recognize that without what I have read and learned here, I would never have gotten this far. I am usually quite reluctant to participate actively, but I think I owe it to this forum, and above all, I hope that this post will help someone, or that at least someone can learn something from my mistakes. So I will try to structure this post, to facilitate its reading.
BACKGROUND:
I am currently 44 years old, unhappily married with one son. From a very young age I suffered mistreatment (physical and psychological) and beatings by my mother, a chronic depressive person with suicidal tendencies. My childhood was a living hell, and I was always a sad child without friends. I don't remember any girl ever even trying to talk to me, so around 12 years old I started with porn, at first with magazines, and later with videos and movies.
My adolescence was horrible, alternating arguing, crying and yelling at home with bulling and abuse from my schoolmates. I became a shy and faint-hearted teenager, without any friend. Since the beginning of the Internet, back in my 14-16 years, I already masturbated looking for perversions on the net.
Since then, and until today I have used internet porn at least two or three times a day, usually a lot more. Every fucking day I have wasted hours and hours edging or just masturbating to porn.
SUMMARY: 44-year-old male with 30 years of intensive and daily porn behind me, including edging, compulsive masturbation, increasingly strange deviations and all the practices that in this forum are classified as toxic and negative. Depressed, suicidal, socially incompetent and with erectile dysfunction with real women. A lost case with my dopamine receptors burned and crushed by three decades of constant porn.
SYMPTOMS BEFORE THE RESET:
* Social insecurity, inability to make friends, lack of interest in making contact or simply talking with other people. Stage panic, to the point of ruining my career as a scientist.
* Disinterest in real sex, panic of failing in bed with a woman. Sex is stressful for me, more like passing a test rather than the pleasurable experience it is supposed to be.
* Tiredness, lack of energy, and total lack of motivation to do anything (apart from watching porn, of course). Even the basics (like cleaning up, or even making my breakfast) require huge amounts of willpower to get done.
* Depression. Life is gray, sad, empty and meaningless. I have become an atheist (which curiously I see as a positive). In recent years, the only thing that made me smile was the idea of throwing myself on the train tracks when I returned each day from work. For me, life is nothing but a sentence to be served.
* Fed up even with porn. Right from the beginning, thirty years ago, I started with deviant porn, to the point of being unable to get turned on by normal sex. But the tastes of my later years pass the line of the sick. To this day, masturbation is not as pleasant as it used to be. Even so, I have suffered from "compulsive masturbation", masturbating at work or even while driving!
* Erectile dysfunction. My first attempt at sex (and my first kiss) was with a prostitute at 21 years old. I was so terrified that I failed miserably. Since then, performance with women has always been variable. When I had sex, I have never been able to get turned on with my partner, and I had to imagine porn fantasies to be able to fulfill in bed.
RESET. BENEFITS, OBSTACLES AND PROBLEMS OBSERVED.
The first week has been hell, with constant temptations to go back to porn, anxiety, depression, and brain fog.
The second week has also been very hard, with greater depression if possible, until on the 11th I reached the flat line. From there, everything has been much easier, to the point that it has taken almost no effort to keep going, especially the last few weeks.
Here I should note that the reboot was not as optimal as I would like, due to the following problems:
* Sport: From the first day I joined a gym, to take advantage of my free time, and with great effort I managed to go every day. From the second week, all gyms were closed due to anti-coronavirus measures. Sport in discarded. I cannot report any effect here for this reason.
* Social life: I am Spanish, but I live in Germany for work reasons. Because of the language, the mentality of the people and my own introverted nature, I have no friends, acquaintances, or social contacts. I tried to meet new people, but because of the anti-coronavirus measures, everything is closed. Social life is discarded.
* Rewiring / Relationship with the opposite sex: I live in a matrimonial prison where sex is non-existent. For personal reasons, under no circumstances would I try to rewire with my wife, and due to anti-coronavirus measures, contact with other women is impossible. Rewiring is discarded.
Considering the antecedents and the obstacles exposed, I didn't really expect any real effect ... but I also had nothing to lose by trying. Still, in just two months I have already noticed the following benefits:
* Increased mood. From the 30th onwards, my mood has become "normal", which compared to the usual "suicidal bitter depressive" just a month before, is already a big step forward. Suicidal thoughts have disappeared in this second month.
* Decrease in social anxiety: In the last month I have noticed less fear of talking to people. Sometimes I even wanted to chat a bit with other people, which has never happened to me. I have also noticed a greater tendency to confront people when conflict has arisen, rather than shy away from problems as I have done so far. This is a subtle change, I have not got super powers or anything like that.
* Energy: The last month I have noticed an increase in energy. I leave my job still with energy, when it is normal for me to leave exhausted. Even on my days off I used to be exhausted, unlike this last month.
* Libido: I'm still not attracted to women without involving porn fantasies. I guess it's too early, I'm too burned out, and I also don't have any contact with women. Even so, the wet dreams have appeared again, and the tone of the fantasies has dropped quite a bit.
RELAPSE.
The relapse has come on the 60th day. After a month of confinement due to coronavirus, I found out that the measures are going to continue for another month. The idea of being locked up with my wife and my son for another suffocating and endless month, with no gym, no contact with other people, no bars, no restaurants, no cinemas, no friends, no beers (which mostly happened to me, due to the language barrier)... Well, I just fell apart. Porn is one of the few things that gave me pleasure in life, and as other users have written in this forum, it is like a curtain that stuns you, and that hides the absolute emptiness that is your existance.
In just two days of relapse, the suicidal thoughts and depression have returned. Life is empty and meaningless. I am exhausted again as soon as I get up and the desire to talk to anyone has disappeared, in addition to arguing even more with my wife.
I am writing this so people will think twice before making the same mistake as me. It took me two months to get all those benefits... and only two days to lose them.
ANNEX: VIAGRA AND SIMILAR.
One point that I think is interesting is that I have repeatedly tried Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra. Usually they have not worked, and I have not achieved erections (or any attraction) with my physical partner, BUT, when I return home and put myself in front of the computer, the same pills that failed half an hour before have produced erections of hours, to the point to be painful. And without taking any additional doses.
My experience is that these drugs artificially maintain erections, but do not help to achieve them. They do not work on libido, and without interest in your partner, there are no erections, and therefore they do nothing.
On the other hand, I have seen the side effects. Due to panic of failing in bed, sometimes I have taken so much that my lips have darkened, and if I get an erection, orgasm is almost impossible. Personally, I do not recommend them, at least until the initial problem has been solved: that of being attracted to real women, and not with pixels on a screen.
To finish, I apologize for the length of the post. I think people should see that there are not only success stories in this forum, and that it is normal to fall from time to time. But above all I want people to see that even in extreme and hopeless cases like mine, in just a couple of months positive effects have already appeared. That there is a light at the end of the road, however hard it may be, and that if someone like me has started to recover, anyone can.
Thanks to all the participants in this forum, for the help they are offering to people like me.
BACKGROUND:
I am currently 44 years old, unhappily married with one son. From a very young age I suffered mistreatment (physical and psychological) and beatings by my mother, a chronic depressive person with suicidal tendencies. My childhood was a living hell, and I was always a sad child without friends. I don't remember any girl ever even trying to talk to me, so around 12 years old I started with porn, at first with magazines, and later with videos and movies.
My adolescence was horrible, alternating arguing, crying and yelling at home with bulling and abuse from my schoolmates. I became a shy and faint-hearted teenager, without any friend. Since the beginning of the Internet, back in my 14-16 years, I already masturbated looking for perversions on the net.
Since then, and until today I have used internet porn at least two or three times a day, usually a lot more. Every fucking day I have wasted hours and hours edging or just masturbating to porn.
SUMMARY: 44-year-old male with 30 years of intensive and daily porn behind me, including edging, compulsive masturbation, increasingly strange deviations and all the practices that in this forum are classified as toxic and negative. Depressed, suicidal, socially incompetent and with erectile dysfunction with real women. A lost case with my dopamine receptors burned and crushed by three decades of constant porn.
SYMPTOMS BEFORE THE RESET:
* Social insecurity, inability to make friends, lack of interest in making contact or simply talking with other people. Stage panic, to the point of ruining my career as a scientist.
* Disinterest in real sex, panic of failing in bed with a woman. Sex is stressful for me, more like passing a test rather than the pleasurable experience it is supposed to be.
* Tiredness, lack of energy, and total lack of motivation to do anything (apart from watching porn, of course). Even the basics (like cleaning up, or even making my breakfast) require huge amounts of willpower to get done.
* Depression. Life is gray, sad, empty and meaningless. I have become an atheist (which curiously I see as a positive). In recent years, the only thing that made me smile was the idea of throwing myself on the train tracks when I returned each day from work. For me, life is nothing but a sentence to be served.
* Fed up even with porn. Right from the beginning, thirty years ago, I started with deviant porn, to the point of being unable to get turned on by normal sex. But the tastes of my later years pass the line of the sick. To this day, masturbation is not as pleasant as it used to be. Even so, I have suffered from "compulsive masturbation", masturbating at work or even while driving!
* Erectile dysfunction. My first attempt at sex (and my first kiss) was with a prostitute at 21 years old. I was so terrified that I failed miserably. Since then, performance with women has always been variable. When I had sex, I have never been able to get turned on with my partner, and I had to imagine porn fantasies to be able to fulfill in bed.
RESET. BENEFITS, OBSTACLES AND PROBLEMS OBSERVED.
The first week has been hell, with constant temptations to go back to porn, anxiety, depression, and brain fog.
The second week has also been very hard, with greater depression if possible, until on the 11th I reached the flat line. From there, everything has been much easier, to the point that it has taken almost no effort to keep going, especially the last few weeks.
Here I should note that the reboot was not as optimal as I would like, due to the following problems:
* Sport: From the first day I joined a gym, to take advantage of my free time, and with great effort I managed to go every day. From the second week, all gyms were closed due to anti-coronavirus measures. Sport in discarded. I cannot report any effect here for this reason.
* Social life: I am Spanish, but I live in Germany for work reasons. Because of the language, the mentality of the people and my own introverted nature, I have no friends, acquaintances, or social contacts. I tried to meet new people, but because of the anti-coronavirus measures, everything is closed. Social life is discarded.
* Rewiring / Relationship with the opposite sex: I live in a matrimonial prison where sex is non-existent. For personal reasons, under no circumstances would I try to rewire with my wife, and due to anti-coronavirus measures, contact with other women is impossible. Rewiring is discarded.
Considering the antecedents and the obstacles exposed, I didn't really expect any real effect ... but I also had nothing to lose by trying. Still, in just two months I have already noticed the following benefits:
* Increased mood. From the 30th onwards, my mood has become "normal", which compared to the usual "suicidal bitter depressive" just a month before, is already a big step forward. Suicidal thoughts have disappeared in this second month.
* Decrease in social anxiety: In the last month I have noticed less fear of talking to people. Sometimes I even wanted to chat a bit with other people, which has never happened to me. I have also noticed a greater tendency to confront people when conflict has arisen, rather than shy away from problems as I have done so far. This is a subtle change, I have not got super powers or anything like that.
* Energy: The last month I have noticed an increase in energy. I leave my job still with energy, when it is normal for me to leave exhausted. Even on my days off I used to be exhausted, unlike this last month.
* Libido: I'm still not attracted to women without involving porn fantasies. I guess it's too early, I'm too burned out, and I also don't have any contact with women. Even so, the wet dreams have appeared again, and the tone of the fantasies has dropped quite a bit.
RELAPSE.
The relapse has come on the 60th day. After a month of confinement due to coronavirus, I found out that the measures are going to continue for another month. The idea of being locked up with my wife and my son for another suffocating and endless month, with no gym, no contact with other people, no bars, no restaurants, no cinemas, no friends, no beers (which mostly happened to me, due to the language barrier)... Well, I just fell apart. Porn is one of the few things that gave me pleasure in life, and as other users have written in this forum, it is like a curtain that stuns you, and that hides the absolute emptiness that is your existance.
In just two days of relapse, the suicidal thoughts and depression have returned. Life is empty and meaningless. I am exhausted again as soon as I get up and the desire to talk to anyone has disappeared, in addition to arguing even more with my wife.
I am writing this so people will think twice before making the same mistake as me. It took me two months to get all those benefits... and only two days to lose them.
ANNEX: VIAGRA AND SIMILAR.
One point that I think is interesting is that I have repeatedly tried Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra. Usually they have not worked, and I have not achieved erections (or any attraction) with my physical partner, BUT, when I return home and put myself in front of the computer, the same pills that failed half an hour before have produced erections of hours, to the point to be painful. And without taking any additional doses.
My experience is that these drugs artificially maintain erections, but do not help to achieve them. They do not work on libido, and without interest in your partner, there are no erections, and therefore they do nothing.
On the other hand, I have seen the side effects. Due to panic of failing in bed, sometimes I have taken so much that my lips have darkened, and if I get an erection, orgasm is almost impossible. Personally, I do not recommend them, at least until the initial problem has been solved: that of being attracted to real women, and not with pixels on a screen.
To finish, I apologize for the length of the post. I think people should see that there are not only success stories in this forum, and that it is normal to fall from time to time. But above all I want people to see that even in extreme and hopeless cases like mine, in just a couple of months positive effects have already appeared. That there is a light at the end of the road, however hard it may be, and that if someone like me has started to recover, anyone can.
Thanks to all the participants in this forum, for the help they are offering to people like me.