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[21] Long post of my not so bad story and situation I needed to write. May take 1/2h to read.

Discussion in 'New to NoFap' started by IsDisReal, May 29, 2016.

  1. IsDisReal

    IsDisReal New Fapstronaut

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    I am sorry in advance if this post is really long but I guess I need to write it 'all', even just for myself.

    I am 21 and have been watching porn for about 10 years (and being a lonely child often alone at home didn't help). I had this habit of watching porn every night, right before I go to sleep. I am now trying to quit porn for several months. For example, I didn't watch porn videos for about two months and a half during March/April/early May, however I would look at pictures/read 'sex stories' so this was not extremely better. I watched porn again in half May, and I feel like I getting back into the trap I never came out of.

    I want to stop watching porn and masturbating.

    Disclaimer : All I may say is true, and said because I believe this may be useful for an understanding. If it seems like bragging or rather the opposite like an over-self-blaming, I am sorry about the inconvenience but this is my life and my feelings. By the way I am French, so my English is not perfect (at all), I hope you won't feel too bad reading this haha.

    Okay so, getting to the point.

    Why am I doing this ?

    It has been recently 3 years that I am involved in a relationship.
    My girlfriend is, physically speaking, an easy 10/10, 11 would be a better mark. One could say this are love words, however no, they aren't. Every guy in her University wants to be seen with her, last time we went to a concert with about 3k people I had to fight 5 or 6 times guys who were actually trying to harm her (not talking about jealousy here right), well you get the idea. I, and probably you, have never seen a more beautiful girl in my life, yet I am a yes-life guy who goes to parties and have a lot of friends and all that stuff. By the way, I am speaking about her face + her body. She really is perfect.

    I insist a lot on this point because, well, she knows that every guy is looking at her in the street or so, she hear about some of her friend secretly in love with her or wanting to date her or sending her 'weird' messages and all that stuff every f*cking day without triggering it (she tries to avoid this as much as she can, because she looses a lot of 'friends' along this way). So she basically cannot understand the only guy she loves and sexually desires watches porn, which includes other girls naked, to have orgasms. This actually makes her feel really, really bad, because not only does she disapprove but as I said, she also can't understand.

    This also is a reason I cannot tell anyone about this, even my closest friends. I mean, nobody can understand that a guy like me (arguably 8/10, outgoing and charming, IQ of 135), dating a girl like her (10.5/10, same IQ, charming without trying) could jerk off watching porn, and not be able to prevent himself from doing this for more than 5 days.
    And every time I watch porn, I indeed think, afterwards, 'wtf man, your girlfriend is hotter than all these chicks, why would you do that ?'.

    Well, because I can't help myself from watching that sh*t.

    If still reading, the thought that I want to stop this for my girlfriend/relationship well-being may have crossed your mind. I'd rather say that I always wanted to stop watching (wider) P, but she is the reason I have a true motivation to achieve this. Indeed, yeah she's beautiful, but she is even more intelligent and has a more superb personality than she is beautiful. And I love her more than anything, so... Well change has to be made.

    Now that I spoke about my girlfriend who is my source of motivation and inspiration, I should talk a little more about me and my situation.

    Do I have any symptoms of addiction ?

    - I have always had a real hard time to focus on homework, which was not an issue in high school for example because I found it really easy and never needed to actually work for an hour straight, however I am now getting close to entering the real life (I just finished the French equivalent of my first year of MSc. so will be a worker in a year) and need to focus.

    - I have experienced, for a very long time now, to come very fast. I don't know the exact word (premature ejaculations ?) but so my problem is not I can't get hard, it is that when having sex, I just... Come really fast, which makes me feel ashamed, and unsatisfies my girlfriend, as you may imagine. This may have got me into the vicious circle of 'I am ashamed so I will just watch porn which makes me more ashamed and the next time I would come even faster because my confidence is so low' etc. Pretty pathetic.

    - I now watch porn mostly when I am bored : in France I live alone in a studio, so I may spend 7 or 8 hours straight in my studio before going to bed, and the power of the habit makes it hard to resist.

    - My libido decreased at some points, which also is a great issue, especially when your girlfriend is the girl every guy would like to have sex with, which makes it hard to explain.

    - A symptom I don't have : I am not into hardcore stuff. Not into 'professional porn' neither. Not willing to trigger so I won't be specific but all I look for is amateur, homemade things. Like, not only realistic, but real things. Professional porn disgusts me, I can't stand all the make up and the plastic everywhere. Even in homemade stuff, I am not into hardcore practices, because again, this does not match my own experience. These things just do not happen, unless under rare circumstances. Maybe that is because I know since I am 14 what real-life sex is that I don't get trapped into fiction (let's say I'm trapped into reality).

    - When a friend sleeps at home, I have no trouble not to watch porn. When I am with my girlfriend, especially on holidays (so it may be for 3 weeks like last year), I don't even think about porn (thankfully).

    To conclude on this, I am not super-addicted like others can be, P doesn't ruin all my life, I won't refuse to see a friend of mine to keep masturbating or so, but I still don't like to feel that much creepy and I just want to keep away from that awful stuff forever to become a better person. Deep inside, I still believe I can be a great person, but I am far away from this point at the moment.

    Did I ever attempted to stop and what were the results ?

    There was a time when I was younger (15-17 I think), I was in a relationship with another girl and I had set this rule that I would not jerk off after Tuesday/Wednesday, so that when I was in bed with this girl on Saturday or Sunday, I would be 'normal'.

    I sticked to this more or less, but then, between my relationship with this girl and my actual girlfriend, I dated a girl who was living hundreds of miles away, and really mean to me. This was the worse year of my life, and I had all these pathetic things coming up during this year : low confidence, no focus, etc. It might be important to say that I always have been considered as a person with a big ego. And this year brought me to light all my insecurities and I got into this porn trap during that year.

    Luckily, my girlfriend then came in my life and I learned a lot about me thanks to her. So even if this was a bit hard for her to understand that I watch porn (and keep calm when we talk about this), she knows I have put some efforts and I am willing to do better.

    I should mention that I met her at the end of that 'terrible year' of mine, so terrible that I had to repeat that year to get better results at my concourses. But the thing was I had to have one of the best schools if I wanted to stay close to my girlfriend (in a nutshell, the best French engineering schools are in Paris, where I come from), while I was far away from these schools at my first attempt. Well, the love I felt to and from her was enough to give my enough motivation to work my a** off from 8am to 11pm every day for an entire year (Christmas day included, holidays, you name it) to have the results I wanted to. And it just worked. I killed it. All this to say : when I talk about my girlfriend and our love I don't talk about it just like another relationship. She has been the source of all my successes these last three years, and I have never been that successful (also, it is hard to be that much 'successful' at high school), but even when she did nothing, I know that the willing to make her proud of me gave me superpowers. So I know I can quit porn because I have her. But I feel like because my bad habit is so deep and has been there for so long, it is really hard for me to stop, which explains my post here.

    So as I said I tried to stop watching porn during the recent months but I still had urges and had to read something or look at pictures to jerk off. This was a pretty good experience actually. Especially when reading, I did not have this shame feeling right after coming, I think this was because I was not watching but my imagination was active (guided but active). However, I watched porn again about two or 3 weeks ago and kept watching until now.

    Where am I now, what are my expectations and what is my strategy to meet them ?

    An important thing to mention is I am in Australia right now, where I have been for two weeks and will stay for three months (I am a research intern in a university here). This makes it harder to stop PM because I am 'alone', far away from my girlfriend, and it is really hard to resist some urges. I am lucky to have a gym in my building so I go to the gym 6 days a week (I have been into fitness for years now but not really seriously, especially because of my low appetite/ectomorph metabolism, which let me be look like I have some muscles, but I am still very light haha).

    What is good is that when I come back from uni, I go to the gym, and when I'm done with the gym + dinner + shower, it is like 10pm, and in order to sleep 8 hours I must go to sleep at 12pm. So I only have 2 hours left, during which I am exhausted and I can communicate to Europe, so I don't necessarily watch P and rather talk to my girlfriend, my parents, friends. Actually, I for example didn't watch anything between last Monday and last Friday. Without even seeking for it that much. What I mean is I wanted not to, but it happened easily, naturally.

    I am happy to see that I've been consistent with my workouts for two weeks now, and also with the food. I managed to go from a ceiling of like, for example, 100g pastas + 100g meat to 150/200G pastas + 250g meat + greek yogurt.

    Also, it has been a few months that I have been interested in self-improvements reading (which naturally goes together with quitting porn which would be a huge self-improvement), and now that it takes me about an hour to go to uni and another one to come back, I started reading in the metro, which I am almost not able to do when I'm home because of my lack of focus.

    These improvements give me some confidence and make me think I can do it, but I don't believe I can do this on my own, also maybe because of all the pressure I put on myself. I'm not complaining for this, this is my way of going ahead, however this cannot succeed every time.

    However, my problem is more when I am at uni. I have my own office, but as I am just starting it, I need to read a large number of research reports from guys whose 'basics' level are higher than my expert fields, so I find it hard to focus (mostly because I sometimes don't understand anything for 5 pages in a row), and I happen to just browse reddit all day long, which doesn't help (the boredom stuff).

    So, this is where I am right now. I have been wondering for months if I should try to enter the NoFap community/challenges, and, well, today is the day. I decided I would try the June challenge (PM-free mode because my girlfriend may come during June, otherwise it would obviously be hard mode), and hopefully I will keep away from porn for 90 days, and then forever.

    My strategy to help me during this trip is to keep being consistent at the gym. I read about the cold showers, I believe this indeed is a good idea to get more discipline so I'll try this too. Then I have a secondary goal which is work and work hard when I am at uni to keep my brain active and busy, but this is much less quantifiable than one day = one cold shower + a workout.

    Last words.

    To conclude I am actually quite happy to share my story, and I hope this community can bring me this thing I have always lacked on this topic which is an actual understanding and support. I just want to stop watching porn, feel trigger-free, and well just be balanced, loyal, unashamed.

    If you want to react, criticise, comment, ask questions, anything, give advice, please feel free to do it. I must have been unclear on a lot of points and I came here because I know you all can help me.

    Post Scriptum : If you read all this, well thank you, you're the real MVP. I read about NoFap-buddies, and this is also, I believe, a great idea. So if you're looking for one, and especially if you are in a similar situation (in a relationship), let's pair up. I will post on the accountability partner section anyways but this may be even quicker.
     
    Sleeping_Beauty likes this.
  2. letter

    letter Distinguished Fapstronaut

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    Hey, good to have you with us.

    Sounds like your main triggers are being alone and boredom. Here's a suggestion for you: while you do your reset, as much as you can, don't let yourself be alone. Do your studies in a coffee shop. Plan ahead to be with friends. Do whatever it takes to remove that part of the temptation. No excuses, you want out of this right? Find a way to make it happen.

    Perhaps you could invite your GF to come check out this site as well. If she reads some of the stories here it may help her come to understand this thing for what it is.

    All the best to you. Keep fighting. Cheers!
     
  3. IsDisReal

    IsDisReal New Fapstronaut

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    Hey, thanks for your answer. I've been busy lately so even though I read your answer on Sunday night I'm answering you quite late, sorry about that.

    I thought about your main idea which was "Don't late yourself be alone". I think this could really be a key so thank you for that. Moreover that will be quite easy for me to apply this principle since I'm in Melbourne CBD, so I just have to get out of my building and tons of shops/places/parks/people are a few feet away from me so I'll definitely keep that in mind.

    Thank you again for the advice and motivation. Cheers :)
     

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