Hey, guys! I'm a 26 year old guy who has tried several times to quit PMO. I relapsed today which tends to make my thoughts unclear so I hope this is readable. I'm gonna lay out my experiences with PMO and what I'm hoping to get from nofap. I've watched porn from about 12 years old till now. When I first watched porn I looked at straight porn and thought I was straight because I did find girls attractive. But maybe that was just me not knowing that men were an option. I'm not sure if I looked at gay porn first or was attracted to men first, but I do remember looking at a boy in my 7th grade class and thinking he was really attractive. By high school though I know was looking at gay porn and stopped looking at straight porn. Got my first real heavy crush on a guy in high school too. I identify as gay now though. Regardless, I do often wonder if maybe there is some heterosexuality within me that I've "suppressed". I'm wondering if nofap will reveal some buried straightness within me lol. If it doesn't then that's fine. Sometimes I think I'd like to try being straight because gay dating is just horrible. No one wants an actual relation and if they do then they want an open relation which I'm not into. I know straight people sleep around too, but I can't imagine it's anywhere near the level of gay people. The stuff I've heard from other gay men and experienced while around them is simply astounding. I don't fit in with the heavy sexuality of gay culture. Even though I have a PMO problem, I believe that sex should be between 2 people in love. I have pretty conservative views about sex compared to other gay people. I've gone on dates with men and just been disappointed every time. Porn was never a problem for me back then though. It was only when I turned 19-20 that it started to be a problem. I spent a lot of time watching porn. I got much more in fetish porn. I started getting bad headaches after PMO and it started to really make me feel super fatigued. I had trouble concentrating afterwards too. I felt like I couldn't formulate my thoughts properly. I didn't think anything of it for a while, until a friend told me that he had realized that he was addicted to porn. I laughed it off because I thought that wasn't possible. But eventually I discovered nofap and realized that my friend was right. I'm also wondering what nofaps effect will be on my fetishes. I've developed some really intense fetishes. I won't go into them in depth but they revolve around dom/sub fantasies mostly. However, if I think back perhaps I have always had these fetishes. I'm hoping in the least that they will subside and stop popping up in my head throughout the day. The biggest things I'm hoping to get from this are my time and energy. I spend anywhere from 1 to 8 hours jerking off whenever I PMO. Usually it's around 4-5 hours. But that's crazy! I could be doing so many things with that time. Even if I was just watching a movie, that would be a better use of my time because at least I wouldn't feel so drained afterwards. I'd also like to get these images out of my mind. I can remember certain images from when I first started looking at porn and they sometimes still pop into my head. I saw those things years ago it's crazy that they are still in my head. I'm hoping this is the last relapse for me. I want to rid myself of this.
A person's understanding of their sexuality can change over time. For example, I didn't realize that I'm bisexual until I was 26. I hope you enjoy your time here on NoFap.
Hi. Welcome to forum! Make sure you create a personal journal thread in Reboot Logs section and blog there on a regular basis. As well as just generally be active participant in various forum discussions. I recommend this to everybody new here because it's the major thing that helped me when I was first starting. Just lurking on forums, reading and learning is great. But it usually is so much more powerful to engage. It helps to keep us motivated and accountable when we are active part of community. And keeps this in front of our minds so we don't forget about importance of it and slip away in our old habits. Sharing is also therapeutic. This is a major reason why AA meetings work so good. But that was developed before internet era. These days we can get most of the same benefits online through communities like this. So don't underestimate the power of active participation. I would also like to suggest you to look into mindfulness meditation. It has helped me personally tremendously to learn how to deal with urges and triggers. It takes a while to get good at it and notice results, so you need to be consistent with it, but once you do it's very powerful. It has been used by sages for thousands of years to deal with various issues of the mind. And in recent decades the science is also catching up to what ancient sages have know for centuries. Meditation these days are widely used as very effective tool by psychologists for treating addiction and by neurologists for supporting recovery of the brain after physical injury. Plus it is generally a great exercise for the brain the same way as jogging is great exercise for the body. You gotta make sure it is proper mindfulness meditation though. "Mindfulness" meditation where we just focus on breath is more like a concentration meditation instead. It works too but differently and not as powerfully in my experience. Real mindfulness meditation however trains you to accept your urges by understanding the nature of them by observing them, not just suppress them by concentrating on something else instead. It makes you comfortable with them. And once you accept and become comfortable with them there is no need to get rid of them, so there is no need to PMO. Only reason why we PMO is because that urge, that itch in our crotch is uncomfortable, we wanna get rid of it. And then after PMO we have our release. Or we simply want pleasure. And inability to have that pleasure makes us uncomfortable. But if we accept that we can not have pleasure then resistance is gone and there is no reason to PMO. Acceptance and mindfulness is the key. Check out this Ted talk on acceptance and mindfulness practice, it gives a good idea of what's it's about when it comes to philosophy. The mindfulness practice as described by psychologist in a the video can be used by itself but ideally should be used as supplementation to your daily sitting meditation. Sitting meditation I personally practice and recommend to people is as explained by meditation expert in this YouTube playlist. If you don't like the monk or want other method there is this awesome smartphone app called Headspace for guided meditations. Wish you lot's of strength and success in your reboot journey!
