Fighting For Love

forestwater

Member
Good luck with your reboot! You're right that the "rewire" part of the reboot can be tricky; on the one hand, it is hugely helpful to be able to rewire with a real MPS (member of preferred sex). On the other hand, the whole "men using women for their own sexual gratification" thing is a big problem in society at large, and it's especially prevalent in porn. It's important not to go from one form of sexual objectification to another. Anyway, all the best to you.
 

canguro

Active Member
Hey man, I didn't read through your whole journal as it is a lot of text and I am not very active any more on the forum, but it looks like your doing good! How long till you watched porn the last time? I really hope you are able to get rid of this bloody pest for good. You are a good guy and I really appreciate that you are active against sexual exploitation.
 
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Deleted member 26092

Guest
I agree that you have to be on yours toes while using the internet. Good job. Regarding your half cheating thing with music covers, I would watch out for that, too. I have developed and quickly abandoned similiar coping mechanism like browsing news sites and youtube thumbnails. Our brain releases hormones when finding new potential partners and images. Ultimatly, the only solution is to try to abstain from the internet as a whole as much as possible and focus on real life activities.
 
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Deleted member 22651

Guest
Hey mate, its good that youre taking time to reflect on things and you are aware of where you want to improve but the negative self talk never helps. We all go through life differently and we have our reasons for being the way we are and doing the things we do, beating yourself up about it wont do shit.

I've read a couple of self-help books and follow a lot of "success" pages on my socials, one key message that tends to pop up is changing your mindset. Its cool to acknowledge your areas of weakness but the nest step is to turn it into positive self-talk. You might not believe it at first but tell yourself long enough that "You are amazing" "You are helpful" "You can achieve this and that" and eventually you will. A few years ago I started my sales career and I was shit, I listened to positive affirmations and took active steps everyday to get better and improve. Sure enough a few months down the line I was a top 5 performer in my office of 60.

When I started my journey to kick porn out of my life, it was hell, I didnt really want to stop. Once I changed my mindset to a more positive one telling myself "I dont need porn" "I am better than this" "Theres more to life than porn" a lot started to change. Its never too late to take the steps to be that person you want to be, that person you know you can be.

Do it for you

You can do it bro!
 

Not a Rabbi

Active Member
I agree that a "higher cause" is really important, as well as having a community. Sadly, many people who don't have a built-in community or higher cause (like religion, culture, etc.) will latch on to things that are meaningless and/or actively harmful. It sounds like you feel passionately about fighting sexual exploitation and music, both of which are great higher causes.
 
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Deleted member 22651

Guest
I can agree with most of what you said, when it comes to religion, I grew up christian but at around 15y/o, I only went to church for the friends I made there and to keep up the image for the family. I eventually stopped going but I always found that most religions have a lot to teach about life in general if you take out the "holy" aspect to it, so I consider myself to be spiritual and do what I can do be good person.

For career, as much as I like my job, I don't feel like its my true calling to do what I do so in the mean time, I work on the skills I need to jump into the IT industry soon where I feel like my work will add value to others.

To me, patriotism doesn't make sense. I've lived in a couple of different countries in Africa and Australasia, third world and first world countries. reflecting back on that, I realized that its the friends you have who make the experiences better or worse, focusing on bigger things outside our control makes it all more complicated (plus you could never get me to fight for any country, for almost any reason). Like @Not a Rabbi said "It sounds like you feel passionately about fighting sexual exploitation and music, both of which are great higher causes." and I agree
 

forestwater

Member
I got the impression that they weren't really considering the concept of masturbating without porn. A coworker even told me that he doesn't think that he'd be able to masturbate without a visual aid. I'm not surprised by these sorts of revelations, and they're further proof to me that I need to help fix these issues
That used to be me (not being able to masturbate without a visual aid, or at least a very graphic written one). I was convinced that that was my immutable nature, that some people could get off to sensation but that I simply couldn't. Only after I started this reboot process did I discover that I can in fact MO without any kind of visual/written/imaginary aid.

It's wild what we think is our unchangeable nature, but that is actually the direct product of the habits we have trained ourselves on, and thus is completely reversible. I wonder what other aspects of my life are the same way.
 

canguro

Active Member
@ActivistNotWacktivist
Hey man, one thing about your figure!
Your ribcage won't go away from excercising. There are no muscles in front of it, that could hide it. If you don't want your ribcage to be visible you will habe to gain body fat. But srsly, my ribcage is visible, too, because I am pretty lean, but at the same time I am pretty muscular. Don't stress to much about your ribcage. Press some weights so your pecs get bigger, do pull ups, so your back gets wider. Thats more important that the ribcage. ;) But as you are a thin guy, be aware that you have to be in a caloric surplus to gain weight, either muscle or fat! So always watch out that you get more than enough calories, thats most important for us hard gainers. Eat as much as much as you can without eating too unhealthy.

Stay strong my friend!
 

TakeActionNow

Respected Member
@ActivistNotWacktivist thank you for your writing and powerful images
I can feel the struggle you are going through.
please dont be so hard on yourself.

It is good that you are a thoughtful and introspective person.
This gives opportunity to direct yourself and mind towards more effective knowledge and solutions.

Recognize that PMO does lead to negative thinking and behaviours
It strips people of energy and focus and lets them wallow in themselves and self pity
It creates entitled, needy and demanding personality that are never happy with whatever they are blessed to have

Successful or not, rebooting is necessary to restore one's balance with self, nature and reality

I encourage you to find alternative forms of interest or passion or goals.
Right now it seems reading sexual articles form one of your interests.
Ask yourself why
Ask yourself what benefits or harm it brings to you
ask yourself what personal goals do you have
ask yourself what you should spend your precious time on to better be able to attain your goal.
 

I may have underestimated, not to mention my other speech imperfections...
Hey man, is that a drum kit I see in the background there? When last did you play that? And thank you for sharing on video as well - what a powerful and vulnerable way of sharing. What a cool idea. Keep it up man - and don’t let those substitutes get into your head. They’re so evil to someone who is just (re)starting their fight against porn.
Lucky number 13 right? This is your time.
 

Not a Rabbi

Active Member
Well done on the self-reflection and the overall progress! You're completely right that going for casual sex won't help anything. Before I ever had sex I felt like I would have this massive change when I finally did, and society encourages that idea. After I "lost my virginity," nothing changed except now I could say that I'd had sex. That was it. I still wanted to PMO the same amount--maybe even more--and I was just as lonely and had the same issues.

Here's my two cents (feel free to disregard or disagree, just my experience): if you want to stop masturbating, you have to resist fantasizing as much as possible. It always leads back to the same place, sooner or later, especially if it recalls imagery from porn or p-subs. You can redirect fantasizing about sex if you have something else that you can fantasize about, like if you're working on a project that excites you or you have life dreams you can focus on. I often try to do that before sleep when I would normally fantasize.

Also you look fresh dude, nothing to worry about... if a woman is really worth it she's not gonna be worried about minor bodily imperfections. (Especially physique or other stuff you can't see with clothes on.)
 

Not a Rabbi

Active Member
If you don't mind me asking, do you want to have your first sexual encounter be with someone you just met?

Obviously, if you MO'd 30% of the last 30 days, you're not meeting your goal; but can you compare it to how your habit used to be? I'm sure there's progress. If you're like me and you used to MO multiple times a day, even if you're falling short of your goal now, you can reflect on how far you've come.

Good call on taking a break from the news. These days it's upsetting by design (gets a lot more clicks that way).
 

W4tchmak3r

Member
I also use the black sweatshirt one that I posted here recently. I have a some specific ideas for other photos, one of which I won't be able to carry out until at least this Thursday, but I don't feel like I need my whole hypothetical arsenal of pics to begin this endeavor. Taking these photos has put my opinion on my attractiveness (or lack of) in limbo; at this point I feel like it's mostly a mindset thing.
Damn dude, sounds like you're making some great changes! I can 100% agree with you that attractiveness is such a big mindset thing. Different people find all sorts of different people and body types attractive, and perhaps the most universally attractive quality to have is earnest self appreciation, so good on you for taking steps to put yourself out there!

Best of luck with going forward with your licence! And also that autism/asperger's dating app sounds like a fantastic idea. A great thing to keep in mind with dating apps is just to be patient. Often we expect to meet people straight away but sometime's its just luck how these things work and someone really genuine is absolutely worth taking your time for.

Your picutres look great btw, love the Cajon pic hahaha. Definitely pop in one of your drums/you playing them in there girls love that sh*t hahahaha. Including your genuine interests in dating apps is a fantastic way to meet real people... even if my best 'selfie' was what caused a girl to swipe on me initially, it definitely wasnt the reason anything substantial happened after that :))

Have a sick weekend dude!
 

W4tchmak3r

Member
you’ve come such a long way dude, loving this progress that you’re making and the positive attitude you’re choosing to take in a lot of your self relfection. Also you’re getting some great pics, the one with your mate looks especially good for a dating website IMO :)) keep up the great work!
 
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