Hello. I started my first nofap 10 years ago when i was 23 y.o. I was surfing a webiste similar to this one about overcoming shyness and other social and psycological disorders when i came across this one in a post. I starting reading lots of stories about the relation that probably existed between porn and low selfsteem anxiety and depression. And then somehow it really opened my eyes of an undeniable fact and possible truth. That porn isn't at all harmless or just a fun activity or distraction from real life things. It was on the contrary a huge deal that damages you very deep in ways you can't even imagine. So i try quitting that year with a relative succes for quite a time. But the withrawal symptoms and anxiety i felt was overwhelming. I hit rock bottom in my confidence troubles and thought i would never be able to engage in a healthy relation with someone again. I kept fighting it after that with many failing attempts to quit that disgusting fetish stuff and all that crap that is so extremely addictive. I looked for help because i was desperate i could never leave the loophole i dug in myself in a circle of quitting and going back to the addiction deeper. I had a friend in that time which was a key part in this journey in those years. I often talked to her about many psycological problems and we helped each other. But i kept getting frustrated for feeling trapped in the friend zone and never meet her in real life. She had a boyfriend that a kid. So i ended up breaking up with her. Last year i said after the covid pandemic that i had had enough of this destructive porn damaging my social life so i finally decided to quit for good. I reach many weeks without even looking at soft porn. I was finally seeing results.
Sorry i didnt respond. It's been quite a year honestly. I have this friend who's like a real pro with girl hooking. You know that kind of friend you sort of admire because he seems extremely succesful and he looks like the way to go to how to be a pick up artist. But in time i realised that just being passive on watching other's success is not the way to go. I myself have too much time to recover from past experiences where i could not think about actually trying to talk to girls but just throw myself in the creeps of feeling a hopeless addict and didn't deserve to be with a girl who loves me. So i decided i had enough of being the dog who just watches how some succesful guy talkds and keeps talking about being a super hooking power and instead try to go back to the basics and remember how i started all this. I was so miserable you just can't let go of everything and pretend you can be in a few days a super force of life. This porn addiction can very deeply affect you and from time to time you have to restart and think about what's the next step to be a better person
Basically it took me like 6 months to start to see real changes in my life. I was extremely shy in my teenage years. I couldn't have even imagined at all that a single variable of my life was the actual big cause. That porn consuming or internet misuse could have caused such anxiety and depression. I had no friends. Loneliness was absoulety overwhelming damn it. It really was in every aspect of it. I obviously can't say i'm cured but i can look at people in the eyes more and can defenietely control my irrational phobias a lot better now. But i still have plenty of work left to do
