I will make it -- Looking forward to taking my life back

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Also I realized my cortisol is through the roof. Sleep quality has been very rough past few weeks and my heartbeat is actually thudding faster just doing nothing at night which I'm virtually certain is affecting my arousal levels (believe it's scientifically proven). I think there's some inner anxieties / turmoil that I need to externalize, going to spend some time journaling all of this out. Also going to make sure I don't skip exercise as that's one of the best ways to reduce stress. All this will be good for me, now I have a plan of attack
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 362 -- Definitely feeling some porn like urges, these are not natural urges. I can clearly tell. Definitely not strong urges (that's the benefit of being nearly 1yr porn free!) but I can tell there's the 'addict' brain trying to get me to masturbate. The reason why I think is that I've been overdoing MO

I've decided officially, I'm going to do 90 days no MO starting on my 1yr anniversary. It's the next step in my healing. Shoutout to @Blondie for persistently mentioning it (finally got through my thick skull) that the best thing for me is no MO at all for a big stretch. I've never done 90 days no MO despite staying off porn for nearly a year.

I'm going to take that 90 day period to churn that motivation / extra semen energy into a couple big parts of my life including 1) exercise and 2) long, self reflection (including journaling) -- I guess it's not unlike a form of therapy really. The common thread / main goal is to improve myself holistically during that period because I really do want to start dating again in a real way. I want to be a man I can really be proud of. I'm happy to have gotten this far in the reboot but I realize I need to kick this mother up a notch and take it to the next level

Porn is a problem no doubt, but it's opened the pathway for me to solve the other things I'm not quite happy with in my life. This is a God-given opportunity for me to really, really self improve. I'm starting to get hyped for this process
 

Androg

Administrator
Admin
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Day 362 -- Definitely feeling some porn like urges, these are not natural urges. I can clearly tell. Definitely not strong urges (that's the benefit of being nearly 1yr porn free!) but I can tell there's the 'addict' brain trying to get me to masturbate. The reason why I think is that I've been overdoing MO

I've decided officially, I'm going to do 90 days no MO starting on my 1yr anniversary. It's the next step in my healing. Shoutout to @Blondie for persistently mentioning it (finally got through my thick skull) that the best thing for me is no MO at all for a big stretch. I've never done 90 days no MO despite staying off porn for nearly a year.

I'm going to take that 90 day period to churn that motivation / extra semen energy into a couple big parts of my life including 1) exercise and 2) long, self reflection (including journaling) -- I guess it's not unlike a form of therapy really. The common thread / main goal is to improve myself holistically during that period because I really do want to start dating again in a real way. I want to be a man I can really be proud of. I'm happy to have gotten this far in the reboot but I realize I need to kick this mother up a notch and take it to the next level

Porn is a problem no doubt, but it's opened the pathway for me to solve the other things I'm not quite happy with in my life. This is a God-given opportunity for me to really, really self improve. I'm starting to get hyped for this process
Good luck! Men often report that they feel more attractive to women when they slow down masturbation. They also feel more attracted to women, of course. Happy hunting!
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
You got this @First_step_thousand_miles. I think you're going to see some great improvements over the next few months!

Keep killing it man and just believe in the process. It sounds cheesy but it's true.

Best
Thank you my man. Really just a big breakthrough / realization, the urges didn't feel natural. As I was driving home from work, several times I noticed the urge (not natural) to go masturbate. Wasn't super strong but could certainly feel it pushing me to do it vs. it happening more naturally. I think these little signs indicated it's the porn pathways rather than the natural urge, which also really explains the arousal levels not being as high as they should be. I think I've done some damage here in past few months as I haven't used porn or even looked up sexual images even, but did read a ton of random stuff on reddit that was sexual and I realize now I reactivated some of those pathways. It felt subtle at the time but now I shake my head.

All going to take time to heal and would only accelerate with no MO. Really, really love and appreciate you for how you kept mentioning this point to me multiple times as I finally got it though my head when I capitulated on the no MO. Going to get into the right headspace and abstain for 90 days. And afterwards, I'll keep the MO cadence reasonable vs overdoing it
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Some more musings which made me realize the issue. Why was it that I was able to get hard just to the idea of kissing a semi-clothed women for such a long time, but now when I MO I need to recreate much more graphic scenes? Why was I in the past able to MO without overly focusing on body parts specifically but now I need to fetishize them more? Why do I need to now insert more porn-like words into my MO fantasies? And despite all of that, I'm still not as hard as I was in those multiple times in the reboot when I felt I was essentially being cured?

I've done some damage to my pathways with subtle fantasizing I've entertained in my head a bunch over past few months and the random stories I would read online that now I realize basically activated fetishes / porn-like stuff (I didn't realize it because it wasn't exactly erotica / porn / images but it had that same mental effect that I can now recall where I'd get semi-hard to it -- not out of natural lust but out of an artificial one).

I can only purge this by going no MO. I'm blessed to have this realization and I'll tackle this head on. I know I have been posting some kind of sad stuff on here for the past few weeks, I can't tell you how grateful I am to multiple folks that have born with me through it all including @Blondie @SmokenMirrors @Ezel @Androg and others. I'm reached a new level of understanding here and I'm ready to tackle things more positively and move forward. I've been given a bunch of tastes of life after porn (with multiple amazing stretches of MO's and feeling genuinely attracted to a girl for more than just her body) so I KNOW this is working. I just need to make the necessary changes, I know I'll get there
 
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