Nice post you recommended, a great read. However, you still haven't answered my previous question above.
I am only left to assume you don't believe that depression is a side effect of quitting porn?
Okay. I already answer your question here:
Years of reviewing these forums, and years of therapists and health professionals caring for people that this becomes a problem for them (I mean using a lot of porn all day and practically every day) affirm that this content can cause depression.
In these forums we have been seeing that people even feel depressed after stopping use, however, anecdotal evidence from these forums at the same time confirms how one of the first symptoms that people manage to overcome after several months is depression. . Erectile dysfunction is the most difficult to cure, for what has been seen in recent years in the literature of these forums. It is not that PIED (Erectile Dysfunction due to Pornography and masturbation many many masturbation) is totally incurable, but the evidence is showing us that it takes a long time to heal, even many times more than 6 years go by and PIED still does not heal completely. The question that remains here is: underlying problems perhaps in these men? Who knows. Maybe yes or maybe no. We don't know yet for sure.
But back to the topic of depression:
Withdrawal depression is temporary but usually does not exceed the first 3 months. Of course there is a very high chance that kicking a habit as strong as this (I mean PMO) will cause some season of depression in men. However, this is one of the symptoms that tends to disappear faster. That's good. I am saying this based on the years that I have been reading posts in these forums. It will be almost 10 years now checking recovery forums and trying to quit porn too just like all you my friends.
Now, making this clear, let's analyze the case of our friend
@Scorpio1990 here:
If you look at his posts, he has improved, he has left the PMO, however, I see in his posts that he is too obsessed reading many other posts here and comparing himself to the progress of others. Last night I was reviewing all of our friend's posts and what I can conclude is that his depression is being caused by everything he reads in these forums, he spends a lot of time in them and is letting himself be carried away by a certain "hypochondria" if we could call it that . That is the reason why he feels depressed even after 6 months of overcoming his PMO habit.
That is the reason why, always in these forums, I have been advising men to try to live their process of leaving pornography away from comparing themselves with others. Spending too much time in these forums is also counterproductive. I'm not saying leave the forum forever. Of course not. But what I try to advise men is not to live just to obsess over the
REBOOTING. Life is much more than being aware of how many days I have been without PMO, how many morning woods I feel per week, how many erections I feel per day, how depressed I feel today, how much libido I feel today from dawn to dusk, etc... .. All this, is to be aware of nonsense guys. Really.
Conclusion:
Leaving PMO is quite a challenge. However, in my opinion, it would be much easier if you didn't focus so much on this and instead focused on the rest of how wonderful life is.
Keep a journal here, but don't log in here every day.
Share your experiences with others here, but please, if you see that reading posts from others here depress you, it means that this place is not for you for your health and it is better in that case that you leave here or that try to log in very few times here. This last one goes to you my friend
@Scorpio1990
