As always, thank you for the encouragement Redalc, it means a lot to me and I very much appreciate your prayers.
On day 14 today, which marks 2 full weeks free from PMO, and I'm really glad I made it this far. There have been some really really hard moments, sad moments, moments when I wanted to give up on rebooting in general, but I feel like I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel again. It's always been those first two weeks that are the hardest for me.
Been feeling some gains in motivation and confidence again which is nice. I still feel like fantasy just randomly happens intrusively sometimes when I'm with people which makes me feel guilt and shame and I lose focus. Like I sure as heck don't want to be fantasizing messed up stuff when I'm with people and it makes me feel so alone. That being said, I think I'm getting better at dealing with the reality that it'll just be there sometimes and I don't need to legitimize it, just need to understand that it's something my body is doing to remind me that "fantasy has led to dopamine release before so why not this time?"
Like I have said before, I definitely don't feel as mentally strong this time around, which is not fun but I also need to build that mental strength up by getting myself to do things when I don't want to do them. Things like exercising, reading, doing chores around the house, putting others needs above my own. These are things I want to become natural things but naturally I'm very selfish and want to do the easiest things like TV, Youtube, PMO, Video games etc, so when I do the harder things more and deny my own desires, my will power increases and mental strength gets better. Also just need to keep praying for healing and for new ways of viewing my own life apart from a PMO lifestyle. All that being said, I have grown exponentially from the moment I PMO'd on April 1st. I feel myself being much less attracted to the fantasies I would PMO to, and more and more my issue is growing into more of a lust/checking women out problem. Which feels much more natural and normal, like my sexual preferences are beginning to actually change back to the default.
Lastly, sex with my wife is still very challenging, but I need to keep going after it because I know it'll rewire me in the process, and will train me to really view that as my sexual outlet and obviously just help me love my wife better and grow my marriage into a healthier one. I feel more naturally attracted to her than before, but want to find the level of attraction I had when we were dating. Backstory time, when we were dating I was extremely attracted to her and would feel like an animal because I wanted sex so bad (I'm a Christian and we waited till marriage). Then because we kept getting close to having sex, we decided to forgo anything except for kissing for a year or so, maybe a little making out here and there. But during that time, whenever I wanted to do something with her we'd say no of course, and I'd get that sexual frustration out through PMO. As one would imagine, I think that really messed up my brain and associated all sexual release to be through PMO. I don't even think all the super messed up PMO use before that (ages 13-22) led to my sexual dysfunction, I think it was that year stretch where I just said "no sex with girlfriend? I'll just PMO later and that'll fix that" Except it broke me. I'm no doctor, but I really wonder if that's why I have PIED and DE. Anyways, that was an extremely long journal thank you to anyone who read it, but important realization for me that I forgot about.