M, 21. years of pessimism. 90 days journey begin.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

 

Hey there buddy,

First of all, I want to congratulate you for being on here even though you have a rough past. You're on your way to success! I'll try to answer your questions as best as I can. I'm a social worker in real life and I study psychology. This controversial question you brought here, we call it Nature versus Nurture debate in psychology (what you are born with versus what you develop with your social environment). Most psychologists will tell you that at some point, you can't change what you are. I'll explain why I am totally convinced that this statement is WRONG.

What you experiment with other human beings is pretty much social anxiety. You are afraid of what others will think about you, you tend to not respect your responsabilities because you don't want to be judged. Those are signs of social anxiety, and I can 100% feel your pain. I used to suffer from this and it almost lead me to suicide. But guess what, I can ASSURE you that you can get through this. Social anxiety is caused because there is something harmful you maintain in your life that you are not able to let go of. As soon as you are in peace with yourself, social anxiety disappears. For some people, it might be anger, pride, seeking vengeance, etc. I've seen a guy who's been unable to forgive his father for what he's done to him. After years of hard work, he finally managed to forgive him. Guess what? His social anxiety was gone. In your case, I am 95% sure that PMO is what you're not able to let go of. You lost control of yourself and in my honest opinion, as soon as you will stop PMO, you will notice that your anxiety will slowly go away and that your life will get better. You are maintaining unhealthy habits and it does affect your self esteem, your confidence, your feelings. You are not in peace with yourself at the moment because of PMO. In my case, as soon as I stopped PMO, 2 days after, social anxiety was gone.

As for your other question, let me get this clear. No matter who you are, no matter what you have been through, no matter what peoples tell you, no matter where you're from, if you decide to change and that you are determined to change, I can 100% assure you that eventually, you WILL change.

What you can change :
- Your thoughts
- Your behaviours

What you can't change :
- Your physiological responses
- Your emotions

Hey, guess what? Your thoughts and your behavious interfere directly with your physiological responses and your emotions, so YOU are the master of what you are and what you feel. If you decide to change your thoughts and your behaviours, you will become what you want to be. You said that you've been told you can't change because you have a stubborn kind of personnality. Well, I think this is a plus for you. Stubborn personnalities are known for having HUGE amounts of energy. It takes SO MUCH energy to be stubborn. Your problem is that your energy is focused on unhealthy habits, thoughts and behaviour. Use your all energy on positive habits. Some people have less energy than others. This is not your case.

I've seen so many social workers tell me that at some point, people can't change. This is SO wrong. What's the point of thinking like that? Basically, you've had a rough past, so you're stuck with it for the rest of your life and you can't do anything about it? Bullshit. Have you ever noticed that everyone who succeed their life are the ones who have suffered the most and that have had the roughest past you could ever imagine? Why so? Because they learnt how to stand up and fight for their happiness. You have to change your minding and be 100% convinced that if you want to change, you can change.

As for your question about personnality, there is a part of it that is born, we call it disposition. You are right, we will rarely see an introvert person become an extrovert, but this person can turn into an ambivert (both at the same time). Although, don't forget what I've told you before; no matter introvert, extrovert or ambivert, you can control your thoughts and your behaviours. The alcoholic can choose to stop drinking whenever he wants to, no matter if he has grown up in an environment with a lot of alcohol in it. It doesn't matter. It might be harder, but it's totally possible. Same thing goes for the pedophile who's been sexually abused. That guy can choose to be driven by his lusts, or he can choose to be the one driving and fighting his lusts. This is what we all do here, we learnt how to control our desires so we're not driven by then. Notice how we ALL feel better after stopping PMO.

You are lucky enough, because you have found why you are struggling with your life. A lot of people struggle and they don't know why. Now, you have to make a choice. Either you keep on drowning or you stop PMO and you will eventually shine. The path will be hard, but if you have the will to do it, there's a wonderful life waiting for you, buddy. If you learn how to turn all the pain you suffer from into something healthy, you have no idea how far you will go. And that being said, it will be WAY faster than you expect.

Good luck!

 

That was really useful information Phyzik. It rings bells with me because I have recently broken free from the pains and chains of social anxiety and I credit coming off the porn and compulsive masturbation (as well as general behavioral and lifestyle choice changes) most definitely with this development. Camplum, I would recommend checking out a book by Norman Doidge called 'the brain that changes itself'. It gives really positive insights into the malleability of the brain through neuro-plasticity and challenges the historical paradigm that the brain is fixed and static. Emerging science indicates this not necessarily the case and how good is that! We can exercise our brain just like we can our bodies!

 

Do not give up dude. I suggest that you read more information about how PMO affects your brain. It will give you motivation. Then, get rid of everything in your environment that might trigger you (pictures, videos, magazines, facebook, youtube, etc.). Write down a sheet a paper with things you can do when you have an emergency urge (cold shower, push ups, text an accountability partner, etc.). Read up as much success stories as you can, they will give you amazing tips and motivation.

DO NOT GIVE UP!

 

I hope you do well on your journey man. If you need any support feel free to message me on here if you need to. Feel free to talk to others on this site, there are people who are happy to help man. Good luck!

 

That book is really good! I just wanted to say that I'm in the same boat as you, I'm breaking free from social anxiety... I used to do noFap a couple of years ago, and felt the same benefits that I'm feeling now, but the problem back then is that after a while I convinced myself into thinking that porn was the only problem and that it was ok to continue to fap just without looking at porn. Then I got into the habit again (just without the porn) and suffered the concenquences. Now I have learned that while quitting porn is important, it also really important to not masturbate too often, for the sole reason that it is an incredibly self centered act, and doing it too much will make changes in your brain towards more self centered behaviour that affects every other area of your life.

It took a lot of time before I really realized that this abstaining from porn and fapping is alot about doing less things for ourselves... and I think when you stop feeding the ego with so much pleasure, it can really make your anxiety better cause anxiety is really all about the ego.

 

Hey thanks heaps Magor that is really good to know that you put two and two together and found a way to mitigate the anxiety. Its just what I needed to hear right now! (just relapsed). I have only made partial progress thus far but am finding staying away from the cumpulsive and addictive stuff does absolute wonders for improving the anxiety- I even was able to come off medications for it 10 days ago- thats how sure I was in my capacity to deal with this in the right way (behaviours, actions) rather than relying on something or someone else.