Just want to survive
- Thread starter Believer
- Start date
downhillfromhere
Well-Known Member
Hey Believer, welcome to the forum!
It’s a great choice you’ve made coming here. People will respond soon enough if you give it some time. Check back and update your journal whenever you need to, it’ll help sort things out in your head and people can give you advice based on what you’re experiencing.
The panic attacks and depersonalisation sound like it can’t be easy. Is it a possibility for you to see a psychiatrist in order to talk about that? It helped me a lot personally when I was at my lowest regarding social anxiety.
When did you first start using porn, and have you been using it for many years? Don’t be afraid to tell your story, it might help you figure out things like why you started in the first place.
It’s a great choice you’ve made coming here. People will respond soon enough if you give it some time. Check back and update your journal whenever you need to, it’ll help sort things out in your head and people can give you advice based on what you’re experiencing.
The panic attacks and depersonalisation sound like it can’t be easy. Is it a possibility for you to see a psychiatrist in order to talk about that? It helped me a lot personally when I was at my lowest regarding social anxiety.
When did you first start using porn, and have you been using it for many years? Don’t be afraid to tell your story, it might help you figure out things like why you started in the first place.
Hey @downhillfromhere. Thanks for the reply. My story: I started with porn at around 17. My reason was escape, I was caught in a very difficult position, where a conspiracy from others had almost destroyed my years of hard work, something like, you are a noble priest who wakes up one day on a scaffold for killing an innocent child. I continued on and off for next years to again "escape". Finally around age 21, it had become too much to bear. I was unable to sleep. I didn't know of the addiction model then. I somehow realised masturbation is my prob so I cut back and I was recovered in next 3-4 months. My recovery made me over confident. I started my grind again, this time to longer and harder and even harder sessions of escalating porn. It became so bad that I remember that orgasm after which my body almost went into this panic and since then I could never recover. I continued with same for next 2 years and when I almost realised, suicide is my only option, I found YBOP. With great great difficulty I tried to cut back on porn, mt struggle started last year in December. I make streaks of 7-10 days, then break. This time I want to "just survive 90 days" I don't hope for a cure, I just want my anxiety to end. I am a part of SA group but there, people have no idea about PIED, hence looking for a support group here.
downhillfromhere
Well-Known Member
Thanks for sharing, Believer!
I know you said your reason was escape, and I’ll assume it still has been the reason for continuing with porn the last couple of years. But is there anything that has changed in your life since you were first able to recover? Anything that might contribute to driving you towards using?
I ask because I think it’s important to think about why you might be using porn, if it’s seeking comfort, numbing feelings or escaping like you say. Try to pay attention to what you’re feeling right before you decide to use porn.
Also, are there any steps you could take today that might help you reach your goal of 90 days? If you were to go to extreme lengths to recover, go into this with everything you’ve got?
I know it’s not easy. I’m currently on day 12, previous streaks were 24 days and almost two months before that. I’m still figuring things out. But I’m really benefiting from this forum and the people here, I hope you’ll stick around.
I know you said your reason was escape, and I’ll assume it still has been the reason for continuing with porn the last couple of years. But is there anything that has changed in your life since you were first able to recover? Anything that might contribute to driving you towards using?
I ask because I think it’s important to think about why you might be using porn, if it’s seeking comfort, numbing feelings or escaping like you say. Try to pay attention to what you’re feeling right before you decide to use porn.
Also, are there any steps you could take today that might help you reach your goal of 90 days? If you were to go to extreme lengths to recover, go into this with everything you’ve got?
I know it’s not easy. I’m currently on day 12, previous streaks were 24 days and almost two months before that. I’m still figuring things out. But I’m really benefiting from this forum and the people here, I hope you’ll stick around.
As you asked about usage on last couple of years, I'd say it is more about hopelessness and frustration. As I had told you, I had recovered once, but then the second time I put myself into this, I tried everything that I had done before, but this time I failed and I kept going back because of frustration, shattered hopes and a kind of resentment to harm myself thinking that what good is this life if I can't get my thing up, if I can't have a girl and so on. These thoughts still haunt me and drag me back, but since I have improved a little bit since I started, I can keep going for a few days until my symptoms make me hopeless and frustrated again. I am trying to address this.
TryingHarder
Well-Known Member
The only way this will work is if you cut porn out of your life completely. Do whatever it takes to break up the usual patterns in your life that lead you back to porn. Spend time with friends, leave your mobile device in your car overnight, go for walks, do a jigsaw puzzle, learn how to play an instrument, get a porn blocker - whatever it takes.
Read this article about tools for change and read this article about rebooting basics.
Hey Believer. Congrats on 4 days. Like TryingHarder mentioned, eradicate porn completely; obviously no porn visits, but also eliminate sites such as reddit, and Instagram model pages as sources.
While you may have a porn problem, try to also work on the root problem. You mention how you use porn as an escape; what if there was nothing that you needed to escape from? I don't know what your problem might be but just try to find ways to make it better. You may think that's impossible but really try to think about it and figure out something you can do to help yourself help you.
While you may have a porn problem, try to also work on the root problem. You mention how you use porn as an escape; what if there was nothing that you needed to escape from? I don't know what your problem might be but just try to find ways to make it better. You may think that's impossible but really try to think about it and figure out something you can do to help yourself help you.
This is day 6 in progress. However, I have an update for you guys. So my observation is that I have constant anxiety and head pressure and it feels like a painful neck and some obstruction behind the nose. But when I work out, I literally feel something moving/expanding inside my head. Once that expansion happens it feels absolutely awesome. Similarly when I run fast or do something that increases my heart rate a lot, I get the same feeling. However, after some time this feeling goes away and I return to head pressure. I have cut back on porn, but I can't look at anything sexual because it increases my anxiety even further. I have severe ED. What do you guys think, is it PIED or something else? If you are going to suggest venous leak then what about my painful neck and head pressure. As I said I want to get rid of the mental symptoms tham anything else.
TryingHarder
Well-Known Member
If you're only on the first week of your reboot, most likely your ED is PIED. Be patient and be strong: a good reboot will take 90 days. At the moment, ED is the least of your worries - like you said, it's the mental symptoms that you really want to overcome. As far as that pain in your neck, probably see a doctor about that one.
Oscar40
Active Member
how old are you?
From what I read in your posts, your problems have nothing to do with PMO, but rather, you are a person who is getting ideas in your head, which are only generating anxiety and paranoia (hypochondria).
That should not be the purpose of the reset. The purpose of the reset should be the opposite: you find people here who reassure you, not people who make you anxious with their posts.
Don't compare yourself to anyone here. To start reboot successfully. That is my advice today.
Oscar40
Active Member
Very good advice.
Yes, that has nothing to do with having seen porn before. That's absurd.
You have given him good advice. That's the idea.
Oscar40
Active Member
Not necessarily. I still watch porn (very little, very occasionally every 6 months or every 8 months), however, my PIED totally disappeared.
Well, although I make it clear that I started PMO very late in life: I started at almost 25 years old, even without internet at that time, I watched it on VHS, and I am currently a 40-year-old man. Perhaps for those reasons, nowadays I use it sparingly and it doesn't affect me.
I am aware that this does not help, but my example is just a separate and exceptional case.
Oscar40
Active Member
I said the same thing a long time ago, and yet, look at me here calmly with my normal life and 100% cured.
This is nothing but paranoia my dear friend, hypochondria and paranoia. Mild or severe PIED are cured by reboot after a while. To cure PIED you just have to rest from all forms of sexual stimulation.