42 days into hardmode, and wow.

Hey guys, like the title says at the time of writing this I’m 42 days into nofap hardmode (no porn, no masturbation, not orgasm, and no exceptions) and my goal is to completely refrain from it permenantly. Simply put, (maybe a trigger, idk?) no more orgasms, naked women, no more anything sexual until I’m married, with the woman I love, having a happy life.

What can I say?

• It’s hard. It felt impossible at times.
• It’s easy. There were times I was faced with the desire, and had no problem saying no.
• Sometimes I feel considerably worse going hardmode than when I PMOd.
• Sometimes I feel undescribably better compared to when I used to PMO.
• Sometimes it tests your will, and REALLY makes you wonder how badly you want to stop.
• Sometimes you know exactly why you want to stop, and nothing can change that.
• It tests your relationships between friends.
• It builds new relationships with new friends.
• There are times you wake up and wonder why it even matters whether you PMO, or not.
• There are times when you wake up and PMOing is something you confidently know you’ll never do again.
• There are times you deny that PMO was a bad thing, and question how much harm it really did.
• There are times when you look back and see how much harm PMO had really done to you, and realize how important it is that you stop.

In the end, however the same thing keeps you moving: you know why you stopped, and you know that relapsing will do nothing other than delay, and/or remove that reason from your life. The thing that drives me forward is knowing failure is simply not an option. Why?

I’m not doing this for how I feel. If I were, I’d never have stopped PMOing because it felt good. I’m doing this, instead, to remove a toxic addiction from my life before it’s too late, and to fix the damage already done by it.

Making it 42 days is huge for me. I come from a background of 6-7 years of PMO (since I was 10-11, I’m almost 19 now) where 5 years of that was daily, if not more than once per day. Even when I didn’t PMO daily, it was at least every 2-3 days I’d PMO. Not once in 7 years have I broken 10 days, let alone 42, despite my efforts for the ast 4 years. In fact, toward the end, the harder I tried to stop, the worse it got.

I will say it is worth it. Since I’ve stopped, there are so many benefits that it makes it completely worth it. To list a few: Depression. I’ve started feeling again. There was a time the only thing I felt was that release of endorphins, other than that the world was just gray.

• Confidence. I feel more and more confident on who I am, and how I feel every day. There was a time that I was afraid to start conversations because I didn’t want people to judge me.
• Desire. I finally have a plan, or a want for a plan, in my life. I’m not going through the motions hoping I end up successful anymore. Instead, I’m working to achieve goals I set, and actually WANT to do this.
• Desire (the other kind). While PMO is a no-go, I finally have a sexual drive that’s becoming healthier on the daily. Morning wood is a thing for me now, and on top of that I have one almost every night, too. Before this the only time I’d really have one was when I’d stimulate it. On top of that, I’ve also started feeling something toward girls rather than, “cool. A girl. I want to watch porn now.”

Among so many other things, these are just the most prevalent that I see in myself. Like I said above, it is worth it.

 

This is the exact thing my post argues NOT to do. If your urge to PMO forces you to do something In order to avoid it, (such as going to a public place) are you really in control? Are you really free of its hold?

No, you aren’t. You might not be PMOing, but you’re still at the will of your urges. You still run away from your opponent, rather than fight. You can’t win a war through retreat, sooner or later you have to make a stand.

Sooner or later you have to overcome your fear of your urges to PMO, and learn to conquer them. You have to face them with confidence, and beat them without running. If you’re afraid of your opponent, you expect defeat on every occasion.

Why do I compare it to what I do? It’s the most accurate way. Our fight against PMO is that: a fight. A war. We cannot fear our urges. We cannot run from them. If we run from them, we still are not in control. If we fear them, we have already lost even when we’re winning.