Hi, my name is Nick, and I'm a fapper

Geeze, where do I start, I've been living with the shame of being a 3-4 time a week fapper since I was in about the 3rd grade- I'm almost 24 now. For quite some time I have been struggling with this addiction, leaving it in the shadows, not even admitting to myself that I have problem. Often times it would be easy for me to rationalize my addiction, given the way it is portrayed as "healthy" within the media, and how it is almost socially perceived as an "every guy does it!" type of deal. I'm starting to confront the harsh reality of this situation by coming face-to-face with the fact that I have not had a girlfriend nor been with a girl in any type of sexual situation in years, and I am, in fact, a virgin still! I have had several close encounters where I have almost been with a girl, but got scared and chickened out, or I just flat out couldn't get it up at one time. I've kept all of this in the dark, even from many of my close friends, as I am deathly ashamed of it all.

I'm actually surprised at how fast I've come to the revelation that I have a serious problem- only several hours ago I decided to revisit "yourbrainonporn.com", after several times previously merely skimming through it but not delving deep in any the content. Although I still find the website to be overwhelming with the somewhat disorganized overflow of information provided, I decided to stick through it and read one article; after doing so, I have come to realize that my sexual, pornographic, and hyper-eroticized mind has led me to have all types of relational issues in regards to the opposite sex, and that I have an addiction similar to what a drug addict experiences (and I have been for two years dependent on benzodiazepines for anxiety, when I came off of it the sensations that I felt then are very similar to what I feel now; namely fear and panic).

This is a vital first step for me, I am grateful that there is a web forum for this, I truly hope that we all can use each other as a support system to direct information that may help others, and to provide a support system when one of us falls. If you read all of this, I sincerely thank you and hope you a speed recovery as well.

 

Posted this in my journal, am posting it here too

I have been keeping myself so busy lately, and I think its because of the NoFap. I have what seems like an unending amount of energy that needs to be expressed through creative means, at whatever cost. I look back on the day and think how productive I was- I trained a friend at the gym, I went and grabbed a bite to eat with my friends, and then went shopping with them; all in all I would say that I haven't been out this long with friends in a very very long time, most times I would just bail out and not even bother hanging out. I would more or less just plan my day around a fap session or two, have it drain all the energy out of me, and I would just sit contentedly on the couch or in front of the computer, not bothering to make myself worth a damn. I'm starting to see how much of myself has been held back because of fapping, and it almost makes me sad to realize that I've been missing out on so much of life because I never took it upon myself to quit jacking off. How many missed opportunities with women? How many lonely nights could have been avoided? How many lives could I have touched and made a difference on? Jacking off has allowed me to live in a numbed out state of mind where I contentedly move about through life, without much pain, but without much passion either. And in fact, I would argue that the numbed out state of mind is really one that IS in a lot of pain, just hides behind the release of masturbation to help quell it. I can't believe it took me more than half of my life of jacking off to realize that it has become such a problem. After these last few days it has become clear and the decision is now obvious: I have to quit PMO for the rest of my life, period.