Pervasive Thoughts

The thoughts you are having are not uncommon. Us addicts have polluted our minds with porn and we end up thinking of it in the most inappropriate of places. Sometimes they arise when we are bored... sometimes they arise when we feel some kind of negative emotion... sometimes they arise when we're angry... sometimes they arise while in bed during an intimate encounter. For many months my mind could not settle down... my mind had been in such an excited state for such a long time that when there was quiet/calm time then my mind wanted to search for something exciting. It took many months for my brain to normalize.

During my reboot I committed to finally get clean. I was a porn addict for over 25 years... I had accumulated a lot of pollution in my brain. I committed to not intentionally introduce any new images into my head. I committed to reject any flashbacks/urges/ or impulses and purposefully change what I was thinking about. I thought about the underlying feelings and emotions that I wanted to medicate with porn. I thought about the situations in my life that I wanted to escape from and addressed them. I had things handy to distract myself.

It is an EXHAUSTING process to stop thinking about porn. It seems like everything in my head was connected in some way to that black hole in my head. My wife told me 'to fake it until you make it'... I felt like a phony for many months. But eventually my new behavior started to sink in. I still have thoughts/flashbacks/ and urges, but I don't indulge in them and I find it easier to reject them.

 

It's a withdrawal symptom which is very common and normal. It's going to get much better in a week or two from now.
Welcome to the team!

 

Yes... has been happening to me last 3 days (since I started NoFap). Also I can't sleep, hands sweating and very nervous.

But I'm coping with it all and I know it's worth the effect. It is like my brain is asking me to watch porn, or reminding me of the porn I saw.

 

It could be this. Even if it's not, I recommend you read articles at this website to educate yourself.

http://yourbrainonporn.com/what-chaser

My husband struggles with unwanted P images, particularly in times of stress. He quit looking a porn 7 years ago but finally realized it still had a hold on him because he was MOing, fantasizing and objectifying women. We're doing a hard mode reboot and when that is done we have both committed to Os with only each other. See the links in my signature for info about FANOS and karezza, which have been so helpful to us.

 

Such intrusive thoughts are entirely normal in reboot process, (I personally call them Mental Fantasy Injections, as they seem to come out of nowhere ).

They are a part of P withdrawals: your brain is suffering from drop in dopamine levels and is trying to entice you to top the levels back up and is presenting ideas to you that it has historically noted will do that. It's important not to dwell on those thoughts as they provide a dopamine rush (thus can fuel the addiction), and also tend to erode discipline and raise urges.

Such mental fantasy injections are a hurdle that doesn't really go away although their frequency and efficacy does decrease the further into reboot one goes. It's useful to start practising reaction techniques now. Some of the common ones are:
(1) Stop Sign trick: imagine a big image of stop sign in your mind in front of the mental image that blocks everything out
(2) Internal shouting: repeating mantra to yourself, such as "no! no! no!", or "I am in control", "Go away"; some even use humor in their internal dialogue to diffuse the situation.
(3) Thought-chain transition techniques: have a few prepared topics that you like to think about. For me I think about work, sports and Jesus, make the conscious effort to begin thinking about the other topic and keep trying until your new thought chain triumphs and you're now thinking about that.

The big challenge with early withdrawals is that 'resensitization' (your brain's reactivity to sexual stimuli) tends to recover more quickly than your 'hyper-sensitization' (your brain's priority for sexual stimuli over all other kinds of stimuli) can dampen. As you resensitize, this means that you start to experience very high urges in areas that you previously might not have found very sexual: mental fantasy is one, ogling/gazing @ women in public is another, but the big one are the so called Psubs. e.g. you might suddenly start having elevated urges simply from watching a female news anchor on the news. Again, this is normal and unfortunately is part of the process of rebalancing our brain.

Wishing you best of luck. I recommend you start a journal and write in it daily. Simply collecting ones thoughts and being aware of our brain's behavior can make tackling this addiction seem so much more manageable.

The discipline and introspective skills that you develop whilst tackling this addiction also flow positively into other areas of our life.

 

Sounds great! FANOS is a good one to start improving communication now. It will help you with this.

Best of luck.