Yeah, it's about time I stopped fooling myself. I haven't gone through a full relapse really, but it does say in my counter that I will reset if I edge. And that I did. I found myself fantasizing about sex every now and then, at an increasing frequency and while I never acted on it, I never really tossed the thoughts away like I used to. I just thought to myself "Just a little fantasizing doesn't really count." But about two weeks ago, I'm pretty sure I went a bit further than that. I can't fully remember because I was pretty drunk but yeah, gotta own up to it. I have to say I still don't really think this counts but I need to reset because if I just ignore this I'm worried it might get worse and I'll do it more often. And I think edging is retarded. Also, I've recently had a few nights where I couldn't fall asleep for hours because I felt so goddamn horny. That hasn't happened to me in months. I've talked with my girlfriend about this and I'm considering giving in to the urge at extreme times. Writing this down sounds stupid as hell. It sounds like a stupid idea. But then again, staying awake until 3am when you have to get up at 6 is stupid as hell, too. I'm not taking this lightly. I'm not being naive. I'm putting a lot (maybe too much) thought into this. I won't give in to urges easily (and I actually haven't felt any need to do so in the past weeks) but exchanging one stupid thing for another doesn't make sense. And sometimes other things are more important than NoFap. So yeah, my "set of rules": No P. No MO, except if I get a seriously bad case of blue balls or go through intensive insomnia. Feel free to comment on any of that. But please don't assume I'm merely letting my urges lure me back. I'm well aware this might be a part of it, but it is a minor one here.
I love the honesty man! It is not easy resetting your counter, I've done it many times for porn substitutes. I also like how you are defining what a relapse is for you, I've done the same.
uhm no man just get rid of those ridiculous loopholes... There are a lot of things to do if you have insomnia... P,M or O is not on that list at all (quitting caffeine, better diet & exercise are on the top) And having made it to 400 you should know that the "pain" of blue balls is really just a discomfort that your brain blows out of proportion, that it's brought on by tricking your body into thinking it is going to get an O soon, and if you clear up your mind the discomfort will dissipate in a couple days. Stay strong brother!
Thanks for the replies! Maybe I should've made clear what I meant by "seriously bad case of blue balls". I'm not talking about feeling a little uncomfortable in the crotch area, I can shove that aside easily by now. I'm talking about actual pain. A while ago I went through three really terrible days because I had made out with a girl and got all worked up but had not gotten any release. The whole thing ended in severe pain when I tried to pee after I had something like half an orgasm while sleeping and some cum had gotten stuck halfway through my dick. THAT is what I mean by a seriously bad case of blue balls and I'm not going through that again. As for insomnia: you're right, there are lots of things to do instead of MO when I need to fall asleep. Like I said, I'm not going to take this lightly. I will try everything else before jacking off. I'll read, I'll walk around the house, drink something, hell, maybe even smoke some weed but MO has always come with a 99% chance for me to fall asleep afterwards. That won't work though if I feel guilty afterwards for breaking my rules. So I want to include this in my rules for extreme cases of emergency. I actually doubt it's really ever going to happen but still. Honestly, I've been feeling a bit different about the way I implement NoFap in my life now. I noticed that in some cases I feel weird about my own sexuality. Repressive. Sometimes I blame myself for having sexual thoughts and hate myself for them. That's not what I came here for. I wanted to finally feel content about my sexuality again and somewhere along the way I remember feeling exactly like that but it seems I passed that point so I want to loosen everything up a little again. See, I want to deal with MO the way I deal with eating meat. I'm a vegetarian. But there are very rare cases where I do eat meat. For example when I'm offered traditional food in a foreign country, I'm at least going to try it. Or that one time when a friend of mine ordered an extremely pricy tuna pizza and only ate half of it and the rest was going to be thrown away. Those are cases where other things are more important and I don't feel bad about it and it doesn't make me go back to eating meat on a regular basis. I realize that eating meat is not quite the same as MOing, since it doesn't neccessarily come with the addictive potential but I have a feeling it's possible. As long as it feels right to me and I feel confident about it.
Before I say anything, I want to tell you that I respect you so much for the length of your recovery. I have never had any real insomnia or blue balls, but I have had difficulty falling asleep due to horniness. I want you to know that I would not judge you if you decided to MO to deal with the horniness and fall asleep. There are definitely much worse things you could do in stead. I want to share an experience I had that I think relates to this and what I have learned from it. Once I started exercising very regularly and I was very proud of myself. In fact I was pretty cocky. I also had pretty good control over my PMO and I had a long streak of abstinence. But one night before a very important event, I found myself M'ing in my sleep. It had never happened before, so I didn't know how to react. I just let it go on and I was pretty much half-awake and half-asleep while M'ing. I eventually ended in O, at which point I was awake and in control. The next day I woke up and felt confused and guilty. I had an special event that day that I had been preparing for, and I was miserable the whole day. When I reflected back on what I could have done differently, I thought that if I had just prayed (or meditated) with some emotional honesty, instead of keeping my emotions bottled up, I could have had the mindfulness to stop myself from O'ing that night. Lately when I have had trouble sleeping due to horniness, often during stressful times in my life, I have sat up in bed and just prayed (or meditated) for a couple minutes, trying to look inside and be honest about what was bothering me. I have found that this usually calms me down and helps me give in to my tiredness and let the sleep slowly creep over me. In the beginning of the prayer, I would also tell myself that, after this prayer (or meditation), if I still felt the urge to edge or MO, then I would be resigned to allow the urges to take control. Knowing this helped me pray very sincerely because I really wanted to find an alternative to edging or MOing. I have had times when I eventually gave into MO’ing, but I felt much less guilt and emotional baggage because I really tried to purge myself mentally beforehand. But most of the time this practice has helped me to fall asleep. You are the first person I ever shared this with. I hope it can bring some comfort to you. I also understand if this is unacceptable for you, as everyone is different.
