Does porn also affect serotonin receptors?

Fapped to porn since age 13 atleast, 15/16 it turnt into three times a day without fail every day some times more I think I PMO'd 8 times in one day before. I noticed things straight off the bat around that age funnily enough I lost interest in my hobbies around 16/17 I was a promising golfer and one day i just didn't want no part of it no more, I just started developing a general distain for life around that age.

The three times a day routine continued all the way up until I was 19. At this stage I was definitely in withdrawal but minorly it seemed. I started developing weaker erections around 18/19 and would ultimately in the end fap with a limp dick.

Found out about nofap in 2012 signed up to yourbrainrebalanced with the same username I didn't know anything at all about kindling. I thought the flatline was just a temporary thing that would be over before 90 days (how naive). So you could say I've been kindling prior to this recovery which I begun on the 2nd of october 2017. Although my relapses were spread out far and I would binge every now and again it didn't make a difference. I had glimpses of normality in some runs I have had over the years one or two days where it feels like I came out of a permanent flatline where life looked colourful and I could talk with at ease with anyone.

My withdrawal symptoms got progressively worse over time. My anxiety was like I was in constant fight or flight mode every day, no memory whatsoever, I could read the same sentence 20 times and still forget. I couldnt breathe properly when my anxiety was at its worst I had to gasp for air every five minutes. So many other symptoms apart from panic attacks which I never experienced.

I believe I'm one of the worst documented cases in general that we have on the forums. It didn't help that I hit withdrawal earlier on and that I didn't know the implications of it back then but I feel much better than I have done for a long time. But the progress has been painfully slow and in different waves completely. Totally non linear. Mostly it was shit up until 9-11 months then my anxiety calmed down a bit. I had crazy muscle spasms originally and muscle twitches I would literally twitch every 30 seconds now I dont have them anymore. I had a glimpse of libido last month for a few consecutive days and a week of solid morning wood and am now back to feeling completely flat its jars to put a word on it I mean I can laugh at things but my mind seems empty still like I'm still not grounded enough in the present.

I believe I will have one long flatline to be honest some guys have had two year flatlines on nofap and I'll be the same I think maybe longer. All in all I'm happy what I'm doing and damn proud where I'm at and am excited for what the future holds. Ive felt like shit for ten years living life as a zombie and have not lived to my potential. It's been painfully annoying and confidence destroying as well because I've been told numerous times I'm handsome and good looking by both men and women but because of all this crap I've had to socially stunt myself in a way.

 

Well im done with porn like 500 days ago and im never going back.
But sometimes i do masturbate on thoughts of previous sex encounters because im single now.
I mean i cant be that bad right? You are relasing just about the same dopamine as vanilla sex with a woman.

 

Thank you for your answer. Very similar story to mine. It took me even much longer to start taking my daily PMO binges seriously and try to do something about it. I'm also glad I found nofap and yourbrainonporn in 2015. I'm a slow learner and PMO literally ruined my social/professional life and give me PIED (I'm not so sure if I can blame it for depression/anxiety too), but what's done it's done, I have to look forward now.

 

No worries that was only a small brief description I will write a success story one day and lay it all out haha most of us on here have the experience to have a lot to say about it in general. Withdrawals are not spoken about too often on the forums I find.

That's exactly it. For me personally I never spent hours on porn. It was short intense orgasms over my favourite scenes 3 times a day. 5-10 mins max 15 and that still fucked me over massively. I definitely think it is the binging that does the damage. I still sit in disbelief sometimes and cant comprehend how porn has fried my brain as much as it did. I literally and probably like yourself can relate to harder drug withdrawals like benzodiazepines and the like. Its fucking crazy.

 

I think MO is way worse than sex. The similarly is losing fluid in both cases yet you losing more by MO'ING. And don't even forget about orgasm which the French called " the little death". I think orgasm dropping more chemical substances in our brain than p and m.

 

I used to think I could work my way up step by step to reboot till 90 days. This number was and still so popular that I used to put it on pedestal. Or I be like one more relapse wouldn't be so bad after 45 or 60 days streak. I have the potential too but pmo robbed me of it. I lost a potential girlfriend to this shit because of anxiety.

 

Its a very tough topic this.
I mean I used to fap to porn like 1000+ times per year watching the sexiest and kinkiest stuff.
The last year I fapped like 50 times to pure memories from women.
Also read this from the NoFap about section:

Many stop masturbating for a period of time, while others do not. To claim that all of NoFap’s users no longer masturbate is an inaccurate characterization of our website.

&

NoFap is not an anti-masturbation website. A clear majority of NoFap’s users and administrators alike agree that there’s nothing inherently wrong with masturbation

So in my opinion, the danger of masturbating is that it can escalade to PMO pretty quick.

I want to add aswell that I did a 100+ days hard mode streak. Then followed by another 100+ days of a couple of sex. And soon after that I only started to touch my dick again.

 

How are you now