Striving to be better (journal)

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Deleted member 29199

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Day 1: Clean (No PMO)

I had temptations, urges, mind tried to rationalize why I should engage in this behaviour but I manged to go through it.

I was also having headaches, the whole day I couldn't concentrate. In the evening it got some better so I managed to do some work.

Called a friend and spent time with family members. Honestly one thing I realized during all this is how much discomfort I feel being around people. I did knew I had anxiety going into crowds on my own. But today I realized just being with a friend and talking to them, laughing together feels weird. Strange I know. I felt like this in the past too but wasn't really able to put it into words. I've been so out of touch with people that doing normal things with them feels strange.

Also I wanted to give a shoutout to every member on here who's going through this. I read many stories in here and also visited ybop. Also I checked Gabe deem's (who founded this community) story. I won't recommend going to youtube to watch it tho as it could be triggering. But it's nice to have people around with something similar (not that it's a good thing). It just makes it easy when u understand you're not the only one going through this.
 
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Deleted member 29199

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Day 2: Clean (No PMO)

My mind kept drifting to those thoughts and images. I managed to control it but it was overwhelming sometimes. I also felt a bit frustrated all day.

One more thing I realized is that I'm somewhat insecure about my body. I'm kind of short and skinny. And people close around me constantly pointing out how skinny I am doesn't help.

I also realised my mind will put weird things into my head which I may over read into. As someone who has taken OCD meds in past I think I know where that comes from. But if anyone else goes through this I'll probably advice, Don't do this. It probably means nothing. But just ur mind making things worse. As I'm someone who used to use porn also to escape negative emotions sometimes this is one another trick my mind plays on me to make me react to it.

PS- i probably will reach out to a therapist in the future haha
 

ladysudan

Active Member
Day 2: Clean (No PMO)

My mind kept drifting to those thoughts and images. I managed to control it but it was overwhelming sometimes. I also felt a bit frustrated all day.

One more thing I realized is that I'm somewhat insecure about my body. I'm kind of short and skinny. And people close around me constantly pointing out how skinny I am doesn't help.

I also realised my mind will put weird things into my head which I may over read into. As someone who has taken OCD meds in past I think I know where that comes from. But if anyone else goes through this I'll probably advice, Don't do this. It probably means nothing. But just ur mind making things worse. As I'm someone who used to use porn also to escape negative emotions sometimes this is one another trick my mind plays on me to make me react to it.

PS- i probably will reach out to a therapist in the future haha
Keep going!🙌
 
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Day 3: Clean (No PMO)

Felt restless, fatigued and miserable.

Realized that my social anxiety is real af! Now even going out and watching people, being around people is literally giving me anxiety sometimes. I sort of want to lock myself in my room and disappear from facing the world. But I felt a little bit better from evening.

I came across an interesting post from the partners of rebooter/addicts section in the pinned post. In which @stillme said some interesting things which was an eye opening moment for me. Because I realised the physical problems is the least the porn induced on me. The real problem or the real damage it did to me was how it made me disconnected and disjointed with the world. How it disturbed my thought process. How it destroyed my interpersonal relationships. And how i didn't had any empathy or care for anyone. I'll write more on that maybe later! Rn as of logging in this. I don't really feel good. But yeah I'm going through this.
 
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Day 4: Clean (No PMO)

Flashbacks still happen of something I read or saw in past. Sometimes mind again starts bombing me with images related to porn. But I'm not giving it much thought to it than I should.

Removed the how tough it is mindset. Just remember that it's a good thing you're doing for yourself. I'm better of without those 2D images on my screen. Or anything really. No plans to watch movies or tv shows for sometime too. That's all I have for today. Now get on with ur work lol!
 

Chuckles

Active Member
My advice, take it or leave it:
Get a good, concrete plan going. I'm happy/proud of you for your progress so far. With this current clarity, really stop and ask yourself what the struggles are going to be, and how you're going to overcome them.
Write it down! Don't just hold the idea in your head, that makes it way too easy to bargain or move the goalposts later.
What good habits are you forming while breaking this bad one? Eating healthier? Getting a new hobby? Etc?

I'm a huge advocate for physical exercise. Pick something reasonable that you'll actually do, and commit to a concrete amount of it. ("I'm gonna work out more." and "I'm gonna start running 10 miles every single day." are terrible goals. "I'm going to ride my bike for at least 30 minutes 3x a week" Is a great goal)

Good luck!
 
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Deleted member 29199

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My advice, take it or leave it:
Get a good, concrete plan going. I'm happy/proud of you for your progress so far. With this current clarity, really stop and ask yourself what the struggles are going to be, and how you're going to overcome them.
Write it down! Don't just hold the idea in your head, that makes it way too easy to bargain or move the goalposts later.
What good habits are you forming while breaking this bad one? Eating healthier? Getting a new hobby? Etc?

I'm a huge advocate for physical exercise. Pick something reasonable that you'll actually do, and commit to a concrete amount of it. ("I'm gonna work out more." and "I'm gonna start running 10 miles every single day." are terrible goals. "I'm going to ride my bike for at least 30 minutes 3x a week" Is a great goal)

Good luck!
First of all thanks for the effort u made to guide me/write this. Now to ur questions and suggestions,

I do write down my thoughts or things that I think is important in the notes section of my phone. I use this journal to summarise up the whole day about how I felt and keep everything in a decorated manner as my personal journals are a bit of a mess. Also I think posting my progress here somewhat helps me in feeling accountable.

Now speaking of struggles, the biggest struggle has been the flashbacks and random thoughts related to porn. Also having now dumped all social media and youtube I realised I don't have much to do in my phone. Which is good but also frustrating. I haven't even touched my laptop in a few days. This is the only place I really spend my time on beside talking to some friends on the important socials.

Anyway about the thoughts, I try to shut down them asap. Being honest sometimes I do realise how these are pointless which makes it easy to ignore them. One of the biggest reasons I realize I kept failing till now is that I always entertained these images or thoughts somewhat which always resulted in a relapse. I can see my dick working properly when I think of porn but it shuts down as soon as I remove those thoughts. I'm not letting it down me tho. I've done this thing for too long to expect it to go away in a few days. I do get short morning woods but idk. Honestly I don't have any intention of getting involved in any thoughts sexually even if it's about some pretty girl I saw on streets. Life seems quite easy when you're not thinking of sex all the time haha and I just like it this way for now.

Now addressing the thing about forming habits. Currently for 2 months I will be busy with studies because of exams. So it will be hard to commit myself to something else. But I guess you'll be glad to learn I've been eating healthier for the past 2 days and dumped the junk food. I even exercised yesterday and plan to continue it. I do smoked a bit much than i did in the past but I'll keep it in mind not to do it from now on when I hang out with friends. I'm supposed to kill this habit, not replace it with another one which could be way worse.
 

TryingHarder

Well-Known Member
Anyway about the thoughts, I try to shut down them asap. Being honest sometimes I do realise how these are pointless which makes it easy to ignore them.
The thoughts or urges or whatever you want to call them are really difficult to ignore at first. But, trust me, it gets better as time goes on.

One technique a psychologist taught me has really worked: be an emotions inspector. Collect your thoughts and imagine yourself as some kind of inspector inside your head. Emotions will come down a conveyor belt, and it's your job to inspect and examine them. You're not feeling these emotions, you're just examining them.

"What the hell is that? Anger? What's that doing here?"
"This looks like embarrassment. How did that happen?"

That may or may not help, but during my porn addiction, 99% of the time I was experiencing some kind of negative emotion that led me to PMO. I wasn't horny; I was angry or frustrated or sad about something. By examining the emotions, it made them less powerful.
 
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but during my porn addiction, 99% of the time I was experiencing some kind of negative emotion that led me to PMO. I wasn't horny; I was angry or frustrated or sad about something. By examining the emotions, it made them less powerful.
This is so relatable! I know this has happened with me whenever I felt discomfort or some strong emotion I would go do PMO in the past to shut down the intensity of what I was feeling to keep me in sort of numb state so I didn't had to care. Lately I have realised how it affected me as any time I'm in these kind of situations there's a sexual tension in mind. Sometimes I've tried to identify this sensation I'm feeling and realized it's just negative emotions. Not a call for PMO. But if one does things like me it's easy to confuse one with another.

There's also this strong correlation between porn and disgust. It didn't happened till later when I realized I had a problem with porn and it was just disgusting to see but I didn't knew any other way and was just lost. Didn't knew what to do. Trying to quit for the past year feeling this way didn't help. But now that I'm aware I try to identify these feelings for what they are and let them pass as a normal person would do (i don't really know what normal is like but let's make an assumption). Anyway I will also keep the trick u told me in mind when something like this happens. Thanks!
 
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Day 7,8: Clean (No PMO)

Had my exams yesterday so didn't update the thread.
 
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Day 9: Clean (No PMO)

Had the strongest urges in this reboot period . I sort of want to sleep all day. Mind feels like a complete chaos. Had a dream last night where I felt like I relapsed only to open my eyes realising it was a dream.
 

Chuckles

Active Member
Yeah the first few weeks really got into my head too. Insomnia, flatlines, crazy horny times, balls hurting for no reason.
Keep at it, you'll feel better before you know it. Stay occupied, stay on target!
 
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Ok if anyone is reading this thread I'm gonna throw a weird question around here.

While going into shower today I noticed my left testicle was quite bigger than the right one. It was also hanging lower than the right one. The right testicle was sort of more put together. While when I touched the left one it felt as if it has contents inside it?? I don't really know. Sort of confused about this.

Sometime after the shower I checked again and the difference between size has gotten smaller but the left one is still bigger. Is this normal? Should I worry?
 
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