I want the second chance for normal life

[Iwantthesecondchance]

After the last post, I do not have many news. The last week has been very passive and non-productive. Instead of concentrating on something constructive, I was playing video games almost all day long. Hardly applied anywhere. I noticed that as I play and attain goals in these online games, my real life gets ruined. I do not even think of my job or my health, I think of how I need to build my strategy around these achievements in the game. Even when I do not play. At the same time, because others get things done in real life, and I do not, I get disappointed and sad. In the last few days, I did physical exercises just once. Going to hit it now as well, maybe it will boost a bit my desire to do something useful.
I still do not masturbate, however, I watched instagram of my favorite pornstar. She does not have nude photos there, and she does not film anymore except OF, but I do not have subscription there, so I do not watch. I had an inner desire to see in her instagram that she was filmed in smth else, so I could find an excuse to watch porn and masturbate.
Also, this week my friends call me to a party for halloween. I do not want to go because I do not believe that I will be able to seduce a girl there, and I have to be honest, I do not like parties at all because I do not know how to have fun. So, if there are no girls, I do not care about clubs or bars at all. However, even if I go, I do not want that a girl to accept my seductions because I am afraid that if something happens, I will not be able to perform in bed. So, then, if I am lucky to seduce her, I will try to find an excuse to go to my own house alone, and then if she for any reason continues to show interest, just to ghost her because I am afraid that someone will learn about my problems.
Why don't I act normally? I cannot answer this question. I think the best thing would be to normalize my sleep, good habits, and simply to say to the guys that I cannot come instead of going there and spending all night in attempts to seduce a girl who I am afraid to seduce deep inside. And then to spend one week to come back to a better sleep schedule. Or simply to try go there and relax by spending time with my friends and not looking around for girls. But I think that I am obsessed with girls because I never had them.
Also, I wanted to get jacked all my life and I never did, but at this age it becomes really difficult, and recently I started to think that if I do not start now, it will be late afterwards, especially if I want to impress young girls with my body. I steal my own time from me by playing these games. But I am also obsessed with the achievements in these online games. Last night in my bed before falling asleep I was calculating how long it would take to get all achievements if I play every day a certain number of hours and I calculated around two years! And then I thought oh, if I am really consistent, I can give it a go! I am really insane!
I also think that one part of me posts here not to continue my journey, but to procrastinate and not get the real things done. So for now, I am stuck. I know what is beneficial for me at this stage (at least to some certain threshold), but I just do not have enough motivation and willpower to start doing it.

 

[Orbiter]

Though you have never explicitly said it, I get the sense in reading many of your entries that there is certain tendency to conflate issues in other areas of your life with rebooting in a way that might be ultimately undermining both.

Though there is a relationship between the two no doubt, I feel this 'I wanted to do A this week but didn't do it and life isn't great at the moment so why do journal or reboot or do anything else anyway?' gives the addict mind the PERFECT narrative to convince you to act out. I notice these also seem to coincide with some of your recent cases of acting out. Perhaps this correlation is worth exploring further.

Thankfully, you are so honest & articulate in your thoughts in your journal entries that this is plain to see. This is also why it's so important to continue to do so (and why I need to start doing the same!).

There is a life beyond this where you are healthy, rebooted, free of sexual dysfunction where you might just be flat for a few days and play some games. It will happen and we need to separate this from what we're trying to do here if we hope to have sustainable success with this.

Remember the key to solving problems is to break them down into small more manageable problems so they can be addressed. The opposite of this is to take our problems and add them together to make one giant impossible problem with no solution.

Just remember - don't conflate, seperate my friend!

Keep the course and stay strong, you got this!

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

@Orbiter Thank you for your insight, my friend. Sometimes people can better judge about a problem from outside because we are too obsessed with some thoughts that we cannot evaluate the situation correctly ourselves. I do agree with you about the idea that you have just brought. I am a perfectionist to a certain degree, and when I see that the things do not go the way I planned, I become really upset. But this behavior is very detrimental to success, because things usually do not go as planned. And even though I usually try to bounce back when my plans are ruined, after two or three consequences I give up. My failed exam is just another example. The exam was more than one week ago, but I still have not done anything since then.
So, I also need to work on my willpower and try to focus on long-term goals instead of the ones that are happening right here and right now. Maybe my video games with instant gratification are to blame for this impulsive behavior and wanting the result RIGHT NOW, but there is definitely a big area for improvement.

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

Some other thoughts here:
I compared myself with my friend, who I really love and admire, and I saw some striking differences between us:

• He does not let any failure ruin his motivation and desire to achieve his goals, so he says it was a good experience which taught me smth. Although I try to think the same way, I either do not try so hard or I am weaker in my character or too sentimental, I do not know, but I feel so bad after each unsuccessful attempt and sometimes I need weeks or months to recover and continue my journey.
• He also looks for a job, and while we started looking at the same time, I can see now a huge gap between us, because he is consistent and does not play games. Instead, he continues to develop himself while I play video games and spend a major part of my energy on trivial stuff. As a result, I do not have energy for something what is really valuable and important and lag behind after some period of time.
• In the long run, because he attains his goals of development, gets responses from the recruiters and does well in some other areas, he is self-confident and calm inside. On the contrary, since I have high expectations of myself but I do not comply with them over and over, I stopped believing in myself and my self-confidence is below zero. Also, the thought that I do not achieve my goals is always on repeat in my brain and I am always anxious and do not have inner peace of mind. Thus, I cannot relax when I am with my friends, and overthink when I just need to let it go.

Some people would say that I do not need to compare myself with others and that we all have our own ways in life. This is true, but if I would not compare, I would have probably never applied to any of the jobs I have applied. So, I think we need to compare, but just with the thought of taking some positive traits of other people and not blaiming or undermining ourselves for not achieving what the others did.

I should have stopped playing the games, but I think oh, this achievement is quite cool, I want it! Or I do not even like it, but I want my collection of achievements to be full. And I play the games so much, maybe 8-10 hours a day. A full working day for many professions! There is no recovery and way up with this number of hours wasted on video games... The excuse I give to myself is that I think that 'oh I wasted so much energy already, I do not want to let it disappear for nothing, so I need to continue.' But I do not think that I spent so much time, money and efforts on my studies, that I need to earn money to pay for living, that there is so much more to explore in this world and that there are so many goals in my life I literally cross over because of playing these games. I just do not get it why I do not have these thoughts in my head and instead I think about this useless achievements in games...

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

Here is what we have after the weekend:

• I still have not done anything constructive in terms of job search and preparation for interviews. Even though I do not have any interview so far, I do not want to be caught off guard and to prepare quickly with huge stress and anxiety. Obviously, I am gonna miss some important details and will not show my best version in an interview this way. I have not opened a computer for anything but social media, so the results on this end are really poor.
• I was able to be consistent throughout this week in sports and I realized how weak I have become. I tried to do the exercises for beginners yet I failed in every single exercise. These were body weight exercises for beginners and without any equipment, nothing difficult for someone more or less in shape. However, it became clear that I am not even a beginner, I am completely out of shape despite not being overweight. So, years of missing on sports and sitting at home in front of a computer or a phone left a trace behind - a trace of becoming so weak that I cannot do the simplest exercises. So, I have to go a long road before getting in shape. I just think that maybe it is one of the reasons of my ED (not the only reason obviously, I have a whole garage of bad habits). I was constantly in sedentary position, blood was not circulating through my body as it should have, and it affected the penis, too.
• I played all day long and even nights. Today, I had a deal with myself, that I would not go for two weekly rewards in the game, but will only take the bigger one, and will forget about the smaller one. It is a small victory, but what I dislike about it is that I did not go cold turkey. I could have done so much during the weekend, but these games drained my energy and free time completely. And it means that since there are also daily, bi-weekly and weekly tasks in the game, I will still do them. And that I consider playing for long time. If in future I am lucky to get a job, I won't have time for sports, games, my job, commute to the job, keeping in touch with my family and friends. I do not even mention girlfriend here because I am not comfortable with the ED to have a girlfriend. So I will have to sacrifice. Previously, I sacrificed my sleep and sports. In some periods of my life, games and porn had so much influence on me, that I sacrificed my girlfriend, friends and family as well. I do not want this to happen again. I want to be playing LIFE: to invest in the education, health and well-being of myself and people around me. To perform the daily and weekly tasks to become the better version of myself and achieve my goals - be it a career, my own business or relationships. But there is no instant gratification in LIFE, and in games you have the results so much quicker - so here is the trap.
• These days I was thinking how I can manage my time so that I play the game and also prepare for job interviews and send my CVs. It is sick. I lost so much time because of the game - I could pass some important trainings which are free of charge, and could improve some of my skills. But hell no, I only played. And just half a year ago I did not play at all. What happened to me again, why I lost control - I do not know. Maybe it is happening because of the stress that I do not have a job and falling behind in life, and that time is passing by and I still do not move, that I am at the absolutely lowest point in my life in the last 15 years or so, these all are guesstimates, but highly probable to be true.

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

I still check the website with the transgenders escort regularly, even though my will to have a meeting with one of them is much lower today. It has turned into a new addiction. I check where the one with whom I had a conversation and I refused to come in the end is located now. It is definitely a bad idea, since if she is again in my city, it will provoke some bad ideas again.
No more positive or negative news. Still in stagnation.

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

I realize now that one my habit was changed my another habit. Instead of addiction to porn and masturbation, I have now addiction to games.
I have so many things to do, to accomplish, to achieve, but instead, I play games all days and nights long. So, while I have a progress with PMO struggle, my life is totally destroyed by my another addictive behavior, and the progress from the PMO is absolutely diminished.
I perfectly realize what I lose because of this behavior but still continue doing it. I hate my life and myself.

Today I saw a lady with nice forms, and I had an inner desire to get acquainted with her and to seduce her in the end. But then I thought that I am not capable of doing something with her because of my ED, so what is the meaning of all of it? So, I turned around and went away. This understanding of my current situation made me very upset and disappointed with my life.
Plus, these games. I do not have the willpower. I am weak, both body and spirit, and I feel so miserable right now.

 

[SaveTheSoul]

I realize now that one my habit was changed my another habit. Instead of addiction to porn and masturbation, I have now addiction to games.
I have so many things to do, to accomplish, to achieve, but instead, I play games all days and nights long. So, while I have a progress with PMO struggle, my life is totally destroyed by my another addictive behavior, and the progress from the PMO is absolutely diminished.
I perfectly realize what I lose because of this behavior but still continue doing it. I hate my life and myself.

Today I saw a lady with nice forms, and I had an inner desire to get acquainted with her and to seduce her in the end. But then I thought that I am not capable of doing something with her because of my ED, so what is the meaning of all of it? So, I turned around and went away. This understanding of my current situation made me very upset and disappointed with my life.
Plus, these games. I do not have the willpower. I am weak, both body and spirit, and I feel so miserable right now.

Hi, I also share those problems sometimes. In my view, we need to give ourselves time to heal. Videogames are unproductive and addictive, but -and this is only my opinion- they don't cause the severe emotional, physical, psychological, and brain problems that porn causes. I understand the urge of wanting to fly before being able to walk, because I've experienced it many times. Be kind to yourself and learn to negotiate with that part of you who is struggling. My best wishes.

 

[Orbiter]

I have to second SaveTheSoul here. As the saying goes, perfect is the enemy of good here and you've admitted yourself there is a tendency for perfectionism. We're trying to quit porn & cure the PIED here, that's the number one priority right? Video games can be tackled down the road though I can't help but suspect that once porn is truly out of the picture, your compulsions to binge on things in general will lessen.

Just like the time a couple of months back where you were lamenting not taking better care of your body and not fulfilling your ambitions of physical health. I recommended start with one pushup, celebrate the milestone and move forward to two, than three etc. Even if you do nothing else of value during the day, you still made some progress in an area of your life and that's nothing to scoff at.

Let's start small and build here. We want progress, not perfection.

Re the transgender escorts sites I totally get it because, as embarrassing as it is to admit, a lot of my PMO binges start from there. A few things I had to ask myself:

Q: Orbiter, are you here to actually book an escort or are you here to look at the pictures & videos?
A: I'm doing some research so when my PIED is cured, I can finally fulfill this fantasy of mine. Maybe I'll do it again...and then again. Maybe I'll try a few. Maybe I'll find one with a heart of gold and have this secret affair on the semi-regular, maybe * insert multiple crazy porn fantasies here* etc. etc.

Q:...dude, seriously?
A: Okay okay I'm here to look at the pictures & videos. Though the thought of becoming an escort addict on top of everything else doesn't really sound great either...

Q: Okay so, can you control yourself from compulsively checking these websites?
A: Sure I can!

Q: ...really?
A: ...ok no not really.

And I think if we reach that point, it's probably time to block it. It's at the end of the day, just another porn substitute, nothing more. I think if we're honest with ourselves, we know it has to go.

Like we've said, it won't stop you from bypassing it if you really want to but it will stop you autopiloting your way into these websites.

End of the day, you know what's right for you better than anyone but that's where I got to and I wasted far too much time getting there.

Wishing you well on your journey today. Good luck with those push-ups too!

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

Thank you, @SaveTheSoul and @Orbiter.
About your suggestion to have a list of tasks to do, I decided to write it here in my journal because I will talk about myself, so do not want to spam your journal. It is very good if it works for you, so make sure that you always add some tasks and you have a busy calendar, so you know that you can do something productive and keep PM out of your focus.
I have an app where I add the tasks I need to fulfill during the day, exactly same tasks: write an e-mail, go grocery shopping, do laundry, make a phone call, etc. But it does not work for me, I just do not enter the app or look at all these things and postpone them to next day. Until it is already irrelevant to write an e-mail or go to a meeting, etc. Then I have an excuse to stick to my bad habits again.

Yes, you are right, guys, my perfectionism is my enemy. When I was younger and was working out, I looked at the big guys at the gym and wanted to keep up with them. I increased the weights too quickly and too soon and did not work on the technique of the exercises. I spent multiple hours at the gym thinking that Arnold Schwarzenegger was doing the same. However, I did not have a proper diet, sufficient sleep and rest, and worked full time plus extra hours almost every day. Also, my body was not used to the strain that I was putting it under. So, I was not feeling good after the workouts, or I had injuries instead of slowly progressing toward my goal. As a result, I never became jacked.

My problem now is that I do not have time for a slow recovery. I understand that it may take time to recover from PMO addiction, and that maybe I will never be totally free from addictions in general. But I cannot afford playing games so much right now, I have certain deadlines which I am not able to prolong. If I do not find a job now, there will be irreversible damage to my life.
I remember there was a similar period in my life, but with both PMO and games at the same time. At the time, I found a job, and obviously I had to reduce the gaming time. In three months, when the addiction was already moderate and not so strong, I was able to make a decision to delete the games completely from my phone, as it was an obstacle to the perfection at my job. Also, I fell in love with a girl, and I was afraid that she would learn that I play games. Somehow, after a certain age, I was always ashamed to admit that I still play games. I think playing games describes a person as not mature enough, maybe even weak from some sides.

About the transgender:
I visit the website especially with one purpose, to see where he/she is. I chose this particular worker because of her lower price in comparison with some others who grabbed my attention, and because of the crazy fantasies about certain type of physical characteristics, which developed in my brain throughout the years of porn watching. I do not look at the other models, nor do I look at the pictures on the website. If I learn that she is not far, I do not know what I will do. Probably, I will hesitate whether I need to give a call or no. And will put myself further into emotional stress.

 

[SaveTheSoul]

My problem now is that I do not have time for a slow recovery. I understand that it may take time to recover from PMO addiction, and that maybe I will never be totally free from addictions in general. But I cannot afford playing games so much right now, I have certain deadlines which I am not able to prolong. If I do not find a job now, there will be irreversible damage to my life.
I remember there was a similar period in my life, but with both PMO and games at the same time. At the time, I found a job, and obviously I had to reduce the gaming time. In three months, when the addiction was already moderate and not so strong, I was able to make a decision to delete the games completely from my phone, as it was an obstacle to the perfection at my job. Also, I fell in love with a girl, and I was afraid that she would learn that I play games. Somehow, after a certain age, I was always ashamed to admit that I still play games. I think playing games describes a person as not mature enough, maybe even weak from some sides.

There you go, just target it in the healthiest way possible. You can definitely quit both things, my warning was more about not punishing yourself too much about videogame addiction when you are still dealing with other stuff that is likely more damaging. Keep going!

 

[Orbiter]

SavetheSoul said it best. Maybe in hindsight I was coming on a bit too strong in my last post but yes, I think it'll be interesting to see after more time away from pornography how these compulsions change over time.

As for the transgender escorts thing okay I think I see where you're coming from here. I think my original line of questioning was somewhat flawed. Maybe rather than focusing on the specific nature itself of what we're doing, perhaps the better question is why we're doing it. What in our minds is compelling us to this behaviour and what are we actually getting out of it.

I'm curious because as you've already said, you don't have the money to engage in this and with PIED even if you followed through and slept with her, you might likely be physically unable to enjoy it. I'm just wondering, without all of that, what else is there in it?

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

For the couple of last days, I have noticed impulses in my brain, which I had not had for some time. These are not even thoughts, but more like commands or as I said above impulses, to masturbate and just 'release the stress'.
Have you ever wondered why people say this when it comes to masturbation? What is the connection between the two? Is there really a relief after that? I personally have never experienced it. Instead, I experienced shame, feeling of realizing that I've done something wrong just after I've done it and a number of negative thoughts. Moreover, I try to self-reflect, and, to me, 90% of cases of masturbation happen either when you are too excited about something, like you had an intimate situation with a girl in a club, it was really hot, but nothing happened this night. And then you go home craving for the continuation of the night, and you give it a go. Or you do it when you are under heavy stress, depressed or simply when you have nothing to do. Thus, if you try to avoid the peaks and bottoms, and live steady life but keeping busy at the same time, I think that the likelihood of masturbation and porn watching goes down quite a bit. However, no-one is secured from stresses in life, and clear thoughts and taboos about this specific area have to established by ourselves.
So far I am capable of continuing my journey, and I do not want to start over again and looking back thinking that oh wow, it was a 50 days strike, it will be so difficult to get there again... And of course, I do not have a mind of a winner who would say instead 'oh, if I made it 50 days last time, for sure, I will make it this time!' No, I am not a winner. If I were a winner, I would never ever be in this situation. But, I need to become the one.
For me, the best motivation now is that 'The time is ticking and I am not getting any younger, my productive time passes by. And if I fail now to continue my streak, I will steal the best time from myself. I cannot let that happen.'
However, I think that this motivation is not the best one, because it is quite stressful to realize it. Maybe I will need to imagine all the benefits that I might get and think that with every single day I am closer to them. But I do not know how effective this strategy would be.

@Orbiter this is actually not something I am proud of. I was thinking that maybe I won't be able to recover, and I am not able to perform. So, maybe, I need to try something new to stimulate myself. And it is something in between men and women because I am not attracted to men at all. I think it is the desire to get something new with the hope of getting new level of excitement as for drug addicts who try new drugs to get high because the usual dose of drugs is not sufficient anymore. Even though I am not a drug addict, I can clearly see now that I am an addict, too.

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

Have you ever had this feeling when you feel that you are a liar and that you try to deceive everyone around you? That you take someone else's place and you do not deserve to be here? That you need to be somewhere else less prestigeous and you are here only because you lie to everyone around you?
For example, in my previous job, I had this feeling because I thought that I was not capable of doing my job as efficiently as my colleagues. I had problems with delivering my thoughts clearly because I usually do not have clear thoughts about anything in my head. Also, I was not creative enough in finding solutions to the problems that we had at work. I would usually say that "Yeaah, we just need to live with it" while my colleagues would invent some ways to resolve the problem or find another way of utilization of our company resources. And even though my logical tests were good, I could not implement it in my job.
Why was I not as good as my colleagues? Am I worse than them intellectually? Honestly, I do not think so. I think that the main reason is that I am not self-confident, did not have my focus on right things, did not have sufficient rest and sleep and was always the people-pleaser not focusing on something that is really important to me. I think that it comes from the early childhood, because I remember that when I played football as a kid, I always shouted not to pass me the ball because I was afraid that if I lose it, the team would not be happy with me. And someone's criticism or thoughts would make me so upset. It should not have had such a strong influence on me but it always had.
And as I grew up, I did not get rid of these traits and still get very upset from failures or criticism. And maybe it is one of the reasons I do not perform very well. And that I feel that I am a liar.
Couple of days ago, I had a meeting with my friends, and it was really a good meeting. But I was thinking today, if you guys knew that the main hobbies of the last twenty years of my life were video gaming, masturbation and porn watching, would you still be friends with me? I am not sure. So I thought of myself as a liar that lies to everyone around him.
Our thoughts are so powerful. Someone is self-condifent and in couple of years he is so much ahead of competition because of his instructions to himself of constant self-improvement, think of Kobe Bryant.
And someone is always self-doubting and feeling down, and in twenty years he has not excelled in any of the areas of life, be it marriage and family, be it career, be it a hobby because he does not have one, be it business, or even simple relations with other people (to some degree) because he is not capable of expressing himself as he is quite reserved, pessimistic and does not have joy and positive vibes to ignite the conversation.
I remember Orbiter said about something that it was chicken and egg situation, so I think that healing and self-confidence are pretty much on the same page. You cannot be self-confident when you play video games all day long, watch porn and masturbate, and continually embarrass yourself and others, when you do not behave to your standards or above. And as you are not self confident you do not believe in yourself that it will be possible to get rid of my bad habits, so it is difficult to heal when you are not self-confident.
So, probably you should nurture both at the same time. Your behavior in the right direction will slowly build your self-confidence and it will give you additional strength to move forward.

 

[Blondie]

Hi @Iwantthesecondchance, I can understand you here.

You cannot be self-confident when you play video games all day long, watch porn and masturbate, and continually embarrass yourself and others, when you do not behave to your standards or above. And as you are not self confident you do not believe in yourself that it will be possible to get rid of my bad habits, so it is difficult to heal when you are not self-confident.

This really hit home for me, and it's something I think is completely true. The thing with porn addiction is that it's our great secret, thus we never allow someone (or anything else for that matter) to get to know us as we really are. Everything is a lie, or feels that way, even if it's not completely true. That's why I think so much of this is just not quitting, but finding something else to replace it with. Something that you can slowly become confident in. I've been reading a book call Atomic Habits, not sure if you've heard of it. It has some great insights into this stuff. Check it out if you haven't.

Best

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

@Blondie thank you for the practical advice. I have heard about this book but I have never read it. If I am not mistaken, it is one of bestsellers and highest ranked books in leadership, motivation, etc.
Yes, I totally agree with you, we need to substitute the bad habits with the good ones. Otherwise, we come back to our bad habits after some time. Also, there is no sense to change bad habits with other bad habits.
I remember I had a crush on a girl, who I put on piedestal straight away. She was 10 out of 10 in my imaginary world even though there were many red flags. I wanted to spend all my time with her, and was texting her 6 hours per day. I dedicated all my free time after work to her. However, she did not like me and rejected me in a month after our acquaintance. Suddenly, I had all this free time and did not know what to do with it. Luckily, at that time I started doing sports, reading books, etc. Unfortunately, I was not able to remain on that wave and have to start over again.
I do some sports but each time I make myself do it. I became so lazy that do literally nothing throughout days even though I am free all day long. So, it is time to cultivate new GOOD habits and remove some space for them by removing old habits or at least by reducing time allocated to them. I will start on Monday, I promise.

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

My idea was to reduce the time spent on games starting from Monday and to fill this newborn free time with good habits in future. Well, I can tell that yesterday was not very productive. I still played a lot. I was thinking that I gave promise here that I would start on Monday, and it was putting stress on me. So, around 21:00 I started applying to jobs and sent only 5 applications just to not break my promise. It is still more than for the whole last week, yet the idea is to work in the mornings and afternoons rather than before going to bed. So, I can tell that the start is not good, and there is a lot that I need to change.
And I already played a bit after getting up today and before writing this post.
Why starting from Monday? Because I wanted to get two achievements in the game that I play. So this is not cool at all.
And the main concern that I have is that I have to make myself do the things beneficial for my future and my health, but I indulge into things that harm me so easily. Self-development in my area of expertise, sending out CVs, doing sports, going to bed early, even cooking a meal - these are the areas where I want to procrastinate and do nothing. I wonder how it is possible to make myself love doing these things? That would be great! Instead of enjoying playing video games, watching silly videos and whatnots.

Yesterday I was looking for a particular motivational video in my instagram saved posts and because I do not structure it, I saw some of the posts with half-naked girls as soon as I opened the saved posts category. Still, I tried not to look at them and concentrate on the video that I was looking for instead. I think I managed it pretty well.
I still check the escort website occasionally for the location of that particular escort, but I feel that I get less turned on slowly.

 

[Orbiter]

I think first, if we take the 'progress not perfection' approach towards this, you have objectively done more in these areas than last week already and it's only the start. This is great so good job there!

I get it that it's not ideal but you're also quitting PMO under some less-than-favourable circumstances so don't forget that. Speaking of which, great job on being two (or so?) months clean under those circumstances. No small feat there!

These changes you're working towards I feel are big lifestyle changes for you and they're not instantly gonna feel great overnight, or in fact for awhile. Consider it an exercise of willpower and inner resolve. You may never come to love it, but the more difficult, boring, unpleasant things that you expose yourself to, the stronger the mental muscle becomes to doing things that suck and the easier it gets. Like exercise, it builds over time as long as you keep doing it.

Progress not perfection my friend. Keep it up!

 

[Iwantthesecondchance]

Thank you @Orbiter for the words of motivation and reminding me about the importance of steady progress. I am sometimes swayed towards perfectionism but in my case I think it is more destructive because I want everything and now and it does not work like this taking into consideration the limited number of resources that we have.

I want to apologize for always being negative and concentrating on negative side of things. Is it actually a big issue. Couple of days ago, I watched a video on the internet, where a guy told about an experiment, where in one working group they put a negative person and the second group was made of balanced or positive people. At the end of the experiment, the group with a negative person had the results 25% lower than the other group. So, negativity has a detrimental effect on our results. And maybe this is also one of the reasons why I am not productive. However, I am negatrive because it is the reflection of how I feel. And as I already described in the posts above, I feel bad because of constantly disappointing myself with my actions or inactions, with my life style, etc. I hope that once I improve it, my attitude will also improve and I will become more positive.

One positive thing that I noticed yesterday, and which made me think and hope after some analysis that there is still a bright side is that after the workout on my legs, I noticed a slight increase in the volume of my legs and that they are not so soft as previously. This is a very subtle difference, but I can observe a small improvement. Even though I was missing some of the trainings, I tried to be more or less consistent and now I can see the results. Of course, I am still very weak, and probably an average 13yr old kid will easily beat me up, but at least I am on a positive track.
Hence, I was thinking that if after 1-2 months of exercises, I can see some positive changes, it means that in the long run, there will be bigger progress. But, certainly, the changes are not eternal, and if I stop, all the progress will be gone. So, I need to continue.
And, with our bad habits, it works the same way. We have rewired our brains and have destroyed our bodies for the last two decades; it did not happen because of a single-time masturbation or one porn video. However, as soon as we stop, maybe this effect will gradually become weaker and eventually gone? The same way that we lose muscles after quitting from a gym, maybe we will lose these problems as well after quitting porn and masturbation?
Let us hope for the best and stay strong.

 

[Orbiter]

I think once you start to see those little changes, that's when there's proof and then there's fuel to do more. You begin to slowly prove the beliefs you had of what you couldn't do and couldn't be wrong and it continues from there. And of course there's always something that feels still out of reach, something that's just beyond because I think there's no end, there's no top of the mountain, there's no finish line once we start and thank god there isn't because if we theoretically reached it that would be the end. There'd be nowhere to go and nothing to dream for.

A problem of our predicament is we've wired ourselves to instant gratification. If we don't have it immediately, it's too much work, too hard, too hopeless and we give up. But we've done that for years and we know where it leads us. I think that's why, in everyone's journey here, we need to slowly mold this 'push a button, receive reward' mindset into one that's willing to do the hard yards to build a version of ourselves that we get true validation and fulfillment from.

But little steps for now. We may be still learning but we're on our way.

Keep up the great work!