2 years and 2 months...in peace

I have fought pornography since the first times I started to watch it im my early adolescence. The first days all seems great and I remember feeling that somehow I belonged to the culture of the "fast-food pleasure". After some weeks I started to feel a huge void and emptiness and masturbation to porn was not giving me the same sense of gratification. It was like a monster was growing in me and a monster that always was eager for more. I tried to fight back, but it was never easy. I was weak and felt lonely and depressed. Then I started to build some strategies to try to avoid falling always in the same addiction. Every time I had come up with a new strategy, the monster would come up with a more deviant kind of porn to try to fool my senses. The monster kept winning. Some days I would feel hopeless, thinnking the monster would always win, that I was too weak, all excuses to let my inner self to feel good with all I was doing. I would kept relapsing, and I would get very angry with myself. Angry and depressed. Then I would start the re-building process all over again, I was over one month without doing anything wrong, two months, three months, and then I would relapse again. It was very frustrating since I was thinking that I was losing all the effort I had been doing for a gratification that would last for 5 seconds. It didn't seem fair to me and it was not. Adding to this, I was and I am Catholic. So it seemed that I was living a double-life. I was going to mass, I would pray daily and then I would relapse. It did not seem logic.

I started to talk with some friends who were also having troubles with it. They gave me awareness but most importantly they gave me hope. I started to run away from the computer. When my parents would leave the house and I would be left alone, I would know that this would be a big moment of tension. So I would take a deep breath and I would go watch some TV. Even if my mind was not in the tv, and was on the porn I was not seeing, my body was far away from the computer so it was easy to avoid the dangers of masturbation. Then everytime I would fall in love with a girl, I would get an extra reason for not doing it. I thought that this girl that I loved would not like me if I was PMO. So I was doing it most for her than for me. The problem was that if this girl would break my heart (which happened a few times) I would feel depressed and I was left without any reason to continue my endeavour, and so I would relapse again. Then I started to fight for myself, I would get off the bed early, I would meditate for 15 minutes, then I would pray a bit, then I would go to college, and days, weeks, months have passed. I got my longest streak: one year and three months. I was happy, and talkative, less anxious...with more friends. Then I started to get weak again, I would ask what is wrong with a little bit of pleasure? It is just one time. I browsed some porn sites but none of them seemed to be appealing. I thought the scenes were all the same, the videos had nothing new. I felt distant from that, I would not care for porn anymore. But then an even devious thing appeared, that was Chatroulette. The first time some friends told me about it, I found it harmless. Ok I like the concept of knowing different people around the world. I have made one true friend. But suddenly I started to see girls in Bras offering themselves, and my brain got a new click. It seemed much more real than porn and had that component of "hunting" down the prey. I would let myself go with it. Trying to find a girl in a bra started to be my goal. I would feel guilty for doing it since I was thinking, this girl is so lost as I am, and she must have a father who loves her and that would do everything to protect her, and I am here careless, and being selfish getting pleasure of the suffering of others. I would battle against this feeling most of the times. I would feel a huge repentment after masturbating in this context, greater than with porn. With porn I was just hurting myself, with Chatroulette I would be hurting another person too. But I sticked with it for a while, the rush was so great that I could not find any defenses. I would give up all my prayers, I would try to abandon my spirituality, I was a slave of pleasure. This phase lasted for almost two years. Sometimes there was no girl in a bra so I would go back to porn. Suddenly I felt that my old defenses to porn were being softened by the search I was doing in Chatroulette. I had already seen so many man as me looking for girls, that I found myself worthy of pleasure. So I would go to a porn site and I would "finish the job".

More than one year ago, I went to the doctor, because I was always a very anxious person and I started to block in the middle of conversations. I could not talk. I was finishing my college degree and I was going to start looking for a job and I was not able to do it in these conditions. Like I would feel my brain was a blank full of anxiety. So the doctor made me do some analysis, and we found out that I had a metabolic disease. This disease would make my muscles to contract sometimes involuntarily. I would get tired very easily and I started to search for some information about the disease. I started to see symptoms in the internet and I would get very scared. The symptoms ranged from heart failures to being tetraplegic, to being blind. I was afraid and I was revolted at my life. So I stopped to go to church, I stopped to pray, I was Godless. I was like that almost the entire summer of 2014. I asked why me, why me? Then I started to see purpose. I started to see Love. The first time I told this to a girl which is very dear to me, she embraced me tightly in her arms. And for moments I felt secure. I started to rise up, with babysteps. Then I went to the next appointment and I asked the doctor if the symptoms that I have read were true. He said yes, but at this time of my life (I am 25) they were very unprobable, since my growth has already stopped. I started to do lots of gym, lots of swimming, I felt reborned. I started to talk with a priest every week, I started to pray every day, I started to go to mass more than once a week. I started to help the homeless people, to talk to them. Lots of things started to happen, I would feel this huge will of living. I started to not care about masturbation at all, all the void was fulfilled by a greater Love. I started to pray, and pray and pray. And all the bad thoughts got away. I started to take some anti-anxiety pills and I started to see the results. I am calmer and more peaceful, because of the pills and from the abstinence of masturbation. I am now 6 months without doing it and I dont feel the need of doing it. I just feel this great joy of living. Seeing the Love in everything there is, even in the ore ordinary things of daily life.


“There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.”
S. Pope John Paul II

God Bless You

 

Thanks, very appropriate image. Sometimes we just need to change the perspective, to change our life. I deeply appreciate your support. If you need some help, do not hesitate in asking.

 

Let´s start helping you!

 

Thank you so much! Inspiring words indeed.

 

Hey dear friends of NoFap,

I have been somehow away from the site. I guess I am starting to collect the benefits of my streak. I have been out more often and I guess I feel stronger now. I made it through here, and my objective is to keep going, with small steps. Being patient is key in order to not loose your emotional balance, to walk by your mood swings without being harmed. I have some ups and downs, but the main trend is upwards. I feel this is like a long-term goal, that you can't foresee what is beyond the horizon, you are just grasping what is in front of your nose.

This is a difficult path, but I am sure it is the right one. I hope you all find the peace you are looking for. I am praying for all of you who are fighting for chastity.

I have met amazing persons, with amazing stories here. I feel humbled and touched. Thanks to all of you.

 

Hey, I am now over 9 months without PMO. I have really good days, but others not so much. I guess it is like everyone's life.

I feel that the urges are getting weaker, and they linger for less time which is good. But sometimes I get very dirty thoughts and very dirty dreams. I don't know why, maybe it is because my brain is subconsciencely asking for porn, but I at the moment I don't feel any desire for watching it. I think I have watched so much porn during my adolescence, that I had my dose for my entire life, and I hope so. Although today I woke up with a tiny urge, but I am not giving it too much importance. I just need to pray to be peaceful again. I am not going to feed the monster with any trigger. I'm not going to ruin my streak for one day of silly desires...

 

Hi guys,

Today was rough. I had a very bad urge. I really thought I would not gonna make it, that I would relapsed and had to do all over again. Luckily I was saved. A fapstronaut "took me way" from the dirty thoughts. This day I will keep it in my mind to know that we must be humble and guard our eyes. Luckily nothing happened, only thoughts crossing my mind. I have to be grateful and find strenghts to carry on the fight. I am stressing about lots of things, and this is my ultimate trigger. Thank you for your help.

 

Guess it is time for an update:

I have been far from NoFap for some months, so it is time to update my journal.

I don't PMO for almost 1 year and 2 months now. And for the last 3 months I haven't had a single urge, which is cool. I have been reflecting a lot about what is true Love, and the way porn and masturbation give us a distorted perception on how we should relate with each other. I know now that we try to come out with a substitute for Love, and the closest thing we can find sometimes of feeling loved is to seek the instant and self-gratification that PMO guarantees us. But that is not Love, in fact PMO is exactly the opposite of Love, since the most perfect demonstration of Love is to give selflessly to others, and what PMO does is to objectify other people in some kind of way, or at least, objectifying your body. Other times PMO just work as an escape where we want to run to when we want to forget our own frustrations, when we don't want to cope with reality...for some years I was there and I did not want to admit it I had a problem. I was in denial, but I started to accept that my life wouldn't change if I was going to keep running away from problems. This was one first step to revert all the process. Now I am not counting the days anymore. There were times it was difficult, but in those times I had the right persons to help me. I don't know if bad times will come again, but now I am just grateful cherishing this peaceful time I am going through. I feel that I respect my body in a different way, and I can respect women in another way too, and I think this is the most valuable thing we can gain by abstaining from PMO, seeing other's people dignity.