Unbusting my balls

I'm a 22 year-old college student that first started watching explicit content when I was less than 10 years old. My introduction to porn was strange from what I can remember. It started when I was introduced to a website with videogames by a kid next door who was a few years older. The same website had games and puzzles that featured sexual images, drawings and acts. As a curious kid I was drawn to it, and revisited it frequently until my parents began monitoring my computer usage and blocked similar sites. At that point I had also seen pornographic content and voluntarily browsed it.

I forgot about it until I turned 11 and got my own laptop, on which I had free reign to browse whatever I felt like. This was also the start of an internet and videogame addiction which I now - a decade later - still struggle to deal with. I have fond memories of that time, but it was largely downhill from there.

Throughout my youth I would alternate between browsing, playing games and PMO. I saw no issue with it until I felt suicidal at 18, surprised by how miserable and empty I felt. I now know through reading some literature on PMO, videogame and internet addiction that failing to controlling these urges was what had lead to my steady decline. I had to feel the bottom of the pit to realize how far I'd fallen down. I lacked meaningful relationships with friends and family who I ignored at every turn. I lacked a healthy self-image, a result of neglecting my physical and mental health for years. I lacked satisfactory hobbies, chances to pull me out of my comfort zone and learn to love life. It is only after spending several years searching, finding and making these things my own that I realized that I was still miserable. Less so, yet enough to push me in other directions such as this forum. I also began visiting a therapist in the summer of 2019 and stopped when I enrolled again. We spoke about poor academic decisions and how ashamed and depressed I felt. I felt hopeless, the more I introspected, the more it felt like a war on all fronts. A war that was doomed to fail.

I felt myself making poor decisions again in the winter of 2021, so I started visiting a psychologist again - which I still visit to this day -. PMO hasn't been discussed and I'm glad I can do it here because I have been dreading bringing it up personally.

I am still a young adult that is encumbered by the choices I have to make. I have let myself fail out of college once before and after enrolling again I want to do everything I can to prevent it from happening again. After reading more I realized PMO and the poor impulse control it wires into your brain was part of the problem. I first figured PMO was a problem after recognizing Performance Anxiety when I lost my virginity in spring of 2019. It was the second most embarrassing situation in my life and for a while I lost my confidence as a man, something I had been working on for months from scratch. I continued to struggle with dating, working out, supporting healthy habits for a few more years. It is only through picking up "Your Brain on Porn" again that I realized. Every step of the way I underestimated the chokehold that PMO held me in. Now I firmly believe that kicking these urges to the curb should receive more attention than other things I'm trying to adjust in my life. That's why I'm here writing about my experience at length, and I vow to continue doing so daily. I might fail, falter or break my streak and I accept that as a possibility. But I won't accept that as the end. Not anymore. I want control over my life.

My goals are to stop PMO, remove PA, build confidence and support healthy sleeping and fitness habits. Alongside nurturing a place and moment of reflection in my life which I have been consistently distracting myself from.

A lot of big words for sure, so I will now back those up with results starting today. I'll do my best to provide triggers and thoughts, what I thought went well and what could been done better.

Here's some quotes that have helped me keep focus in the past:

"Every determination is a negation."

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there." - Yogi Berra

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." - William Blake
 
Day 1

I noticed that triggers for PMO include accessibility to the internet, as if unconsciously linked to eachother. Urges are at their worst when I wake up or go to bed, so I will put my phone back to the opposite side of the room. This helps me get more sleep as well.

I also think I can limit exposure to provocative content by only going online when I have to. What could help that is by defining goals and perhaps timers to remind myself and check up on myself whether said goal has been reached so I can promptly do something else. I will experiment with planning an activity right after so I don't suffer idle time and start browsing out of boredom.
 

Chelly

Member
The beginning is always the hardest, accepting that it is a problem.
What has helped me is limiting access to technology, cell phones and computers.
I'm going out more, with real people and this has helped me a lot.
It is very important to stay focused because this walk is daily
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Day 1

I noticed that triggers for PMO include accessibility to the internet, as if unconsciously linked to eachother. Urges are at their worst when I wake up or go to bed, so I will put my phone back to the opposite side of the room. This helps me get more sleep as well.

I also think I can limit exposure to provocative content by only going online when I have to. What could help that is by defining goals and perhaps timers to remind myself and check up on myself whether said goal has been reached so I can promptly do something else. I will experiment with planning an activity right after so I don't suffer idle time and start browsing out of boredom.
That's correct. In the beginning, minimizing the chance to find triggering content is a must. Using internet and technology for the necessary things could help. A lot of us waste a lot of time online not necessarily doing something productive but also making triggers easier to find, they are all over the internet and I hate that shit. But also, very important is thoughts management. Porn is not only visual, it's also imagined because we store memories of porn in our memory.
 

Chelly

Member
Os gatilhos de memória são realmente os piores, como podemos lembrar nos momentos mais inapropriados possíveis.
É muito difícil não ceder.
 
Day 2/30
I'm hoping to be 30 days bust-free, so far so good. I'll be marking that at the top as well from now.

I'm noticing urges when I'm waking up and when I'm bored. I attribute the first problem to morning wood and the second to dopamine exhaustion. I grow bored rather quickly because of it unless I am actively involved (mentally and physically) with an activity. Having focused on such activities today helped immensely, but I saw myself drifting off if I didn't have a clear or well-defined goal. My solutions for procrastination helped here too. By operationalizing tasks and constantly adjusting, I'm finding it easier to stay focused because I'm thinking about both doing the task but also how to best complete it.

Lastly, I almost forgot to move my phone like I said I would. When I went to bed I mustered all I could to get up and put that son of a bitch in the other side of the room. I could then fall asleep and when I woke up I was in my bed significantly shorter than usual. Now I'm a bit anxious about maintaining that measure, because I've failed doing it in the past. I felt quite mindful today as I took notes to expand on later in the day and write his report. Looking forward to giving this habit the middle finger tomorrow as well.
 
Day 3/30

Thinking about porn a lot at night. After having PMO'd before bed for years I assume that's normal. It also feels like PMO is the only way to silence those thoughts thanks to post nut clarity.

I also find myself thinking about watching porn rather than masturbating. Thinking about it, I get it. It's a feast for the eyes. I know I'm a visual-focused person because of my interests. They include things like art and animation, which makes it easy to handwave looking at artificial porn by saying it's just another past-time instead of the obsession it really is. In fact, I believe I've wrongfully convinced myself of the former because artificial porn and art have two different functions in my life. One is to get rid of urges, release dopamine and relax, the other serves as creative inspiration. I'm glad I can make that distinction now. Watching porn doesn't serve any purpose but to excite you, and in my case to confuse me on what my goals really are. The ironic thing is, searching for and looking at porn doesn't relax, like at all. It turns me into a neurotic sex demon until I nut. The state of calmness afterwards feels relaxing, only compared to the crazed scrolling and clicking seconds before. It's not real relaxation, it's not real calm, it's just as fake as the tantalizing shit on screen!

To build further on that, I grab my phone while watching shows or movies or when hitting a wall when I try to focus. I believe that is my brain telling me:"Not enough excitement! Alert! You're bored! Kick up those dopamine levels or you'll notice how bad you feel!"

I've been dependant on dopamine to regulate my emotional state. After I bust I feel a significant numbness to it. I don't only use PMO to affect my emotions. I can't help but endlessly browse, watch videos and shows or movies which I know for certain I wouldn't give a rat's ass about if I wasn't deregulated. That also includes videogames but since I bricked my gaming laptop and refuse to upgrade my old rig I'm stuck with a new regular laptop -which is perfect, mind you-. Now games are out of the question but using my laptop to do work or focus? Still very fucking hard to do.

A possible solution to that is to put myself in other places to have this sense of "social control". I'm getting a hold of some friends this semester to organize study/work sessions. That would be around half a month from now.

I read somewhere that moving furniture around helps too, which seems plausible if my room weren't as small as Harry Potter's under the stairs.

I honestly feel embarrassed, stressed out and depressed as fuck acting like such a zombie. I am certain I have psychosomatic headaches because of this. I loathe the effects this constant lethargy has had on my life. A whole decade it has been so.

Onwards to day 4.
 
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The beginning is always the hardest, accepting that it is a problem.
What has helped me is limiting access to technology, cell phones and computers.
I'm going out more, with real people and this has helped me a lot.
It is very important to stay focused because this walk is daily
Yeah it never dawned on me it was a problem until I recognized the symptoms in YBOP and thought:"If I swear PMO off now how confident am I that I will stick to my word?" The answer being 'not very confident' made me realize that it was a problem.
 

Galatians51

Active Member
Hey welcome to the forum, looks like you're already making a ton of progress.

I read your posts about internet access and totally agree. Have you considered getting a phone like gabb wireless? It's a "smart phone" with no internet connectivity (not even wifi). I know for myself I tried keeping my phone in a different room at night or not next to my bed, but it was so easy to fail at that it never worked for me. Having a phone with no internet solved that problem for me, and then I can use the internet only when I actually need it on my computer for work or whatever. It takes some getting used to, but for me it has been one of the best decisions i've made and really helps me control my internet usage.

Do whatever you can to make it the first 30-40 days, for me it got way easier after that - meaning that my brain finally chilled out and stopped begging for porn at every trigger.

keep up the great work
 
Hey welcome to the forum, looks like you're already making a ton of progress.

I read your posts about internet access and totally agree. Have you considered getting a phone like gabb wireless? It's a "smart phone" with no internet connectivity (not even wifi). I know for myself I tried keeping my phone in a different room at night or not next to my bed, but it was so easy to fail at that it never worked for me. Having a phone with no internet solved that problem for me, and then I can use the internet only when I actually need it on my computer for work or whatever. It takes some getting used to, but for me it has been one of the best decisions i've made and really helps me control my internet usage.

Do whatever you can to make it the first 30-40 days, for me it got way easier after that - meaning that my brain finally chilled out and stopped begging for porn at every trigger.

keep up the great work
Thanks for the positive words, I appreciate it.

As for the phone, I'm reluctant to switch because of the easy of use many apps I have provide. Besides I don't live in the US. I'll look into EU alternatives if I notice myself failing to put my phone away, you make a solid point.
 
Day 4 (I forgot to upload this from my notes yesterday)

Still swamped with depressed moods and headaches. Headaches absolutely kill my motivation, which I usually regain after working out. Just raising my heartrate is enough to make me nauseous and churn my stomach. Sleeping well and timely is a contributing factor. I've built the habit of sleeping between 2-4 am and waking up past 12:00. It makes me feel like a waste of skin and it also curbs my appetite, which drops my energy even lower as I then usually only eat at 3 or 4 pm.

The reason I postpone sleeping is because of how dreadful I feel in the deafening, silent darkness. I feel like knocking out my awareness as much as possible. I am aware this is just anxiety rearing its head. Guilt, shame, regret, sadness, loneliness, stress, unresolved feelings... They're the boogeyman, the dark pile of clothes on the chair in the corner, the sound you can't place...

I'm going to start setting an alarm for bedtime again. It worked in the past but just like moving my phone away from bed, I forget it once and I'm back to wondering why everything feels wrong.

I now wake up tired because of having to silence the phone alarm instead of instantly snoozing it or turning it off. I believe it will make it easier to go to bed earlier in the long run as I build up a bit of a deficit. It tanks my willpower and makes me feel horrible, but it's a necessary sacrifice to fix my sleep schedule I think. An added benefit: if I wake up through an alarm (not naturally) I have no PMO urges whatsoever because only sleep is on my mind.
 
Day 5

Didn't have a single urge today. Strange, considering there were multiple things that could have triggered me. When I thought about PMO today I thought "What if I were to do it right now?" And then I felt absolutely nothing, no urge or sensation. Like my brain didn't understand what I was trying to conjure up. I still felt down today, and I only expect it to become worse before it gets better. I think exercise may be the saving grace here. I look forward to it tomorrow. Alarms are set and phone will be moved away after I post this.

(I'm going to reflect on why/how I forgot about posting day 4, I believe it's tied to an exam I had and how that was on my mind but I'd like to prevent losing conscientiousness like that in the future)

Still going strong.

Brassballs707 going dark.
 
Day 6/30

Still no urges. I believe I haven't sufficiently been triggered. I went for the exercise like I said and would feel better if I didn't sprain my wrist. Even if I do get an urge, I legit won't be able to (P)MO the next week because my wrist hurts like hell.
Unintentional self sabotage for the win! I don't recommend hurting yourself though haha!

Onwardssss
 
Day 7/30

I had urges in the morning but distracted myself long enough until they vanished. In the evening I contemplated doing it, I looked at porn. I felt myself getting worked up afterwards, like I was a starving lion in the savannah looking at a wounded bison. I'm surprised by how powerful that urge is, pushing me to lose control. The only thought in my mind was "I can't do it because I don't want to kill my streak." I wanted to do it, I was annoyed I couldn't do it.

This shit is tough man. I wish everyone luck kicking the habit and regaining control.

I'm also still putting my phone away and setting sleep reminders. It's helping tremendously.
 
Day 8/30

I'm embarrassed to say I PM'd while resting. I felt maddeningly aroused, like primal level. I think I just felt so comfortable my mind went to it and I had no willpower to resist. I'm very fatigued so I understand why it was hard to steer clear. Having my phone nearby was part of the problem so as long as I'm not expecting a call I think I should start leaving it somewhere out of immediate reach.

Going forward.
 

Jos

Member
Day 8/30

I'm embarrassed to say I PM'd while resting. I felt maddeningly aroused, like primal level. I think I just felt so comfortable my mind went to it and I had no willpower to resist. I'm very fatigued so I understand why it was hard to steer clear. Having my phone nearby was part of the problem so as long as I'm not expecting a call I think I should start leaving it somewhere out of immediate reach.

Going forward.
Keep going forward. All the best
 
Day 9/30

No PMO, no urges. I believe it's related to being home alone. I read here somewhere that some was triggered by the closing of a door, I can now relate. As long as I am focused on something and am not home alone, there are no urges.
 
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