I'm starting to think PMO isn't the main issue... (ADVICE REQUESTED)

Hi guys, I'm well on my way to beating my previous longest streak (75 days) and will almost definitely reach my ultimate goal of 90+ days during this streak. When it comes to NoFap things couldn't be going better. In my social life I'm spending more time with friends than ever and in my education I'm taking real steps to course correct a shitty year and work towards a career I enjoy. My diet is better and because I now exercise a lot more I am healthier physically too. However, despite all these objectively positive things I've achieved in the last few months, there is a question that keeps lurking in the back of my mind, and I'm going to need to ask for help to answer it;

"Why is it that, despite all the progress I have made, I still feel terrible so much of the time?"

I'd say, at an estimate, that I feel perfectly fine over 50% of the time. I even feel really good some of the time as well. But, and here's the kicker, the rest of the time I seem to suffer from a cocktail of mental and physical symptoms that I'm pretty much convinced have little if anything to do with NoFap. These symptoms are as follows;

. Extreme tiredness regardless of how much sleep I get.
. Intense apathy towards things I usually enjoy.
. Crippling boredom but a lack of drive to do anything about it despite wanting to.
. Almost total lack of desire to be social.
. A sense of horrible loneliness that sometimes gets so bad I cry over it.
. Sporadic bursts of strong emotion, both positive and negative that throw my mental state at the time completely out of whack.
. Feelings of failure and hopelessness that objectively dont align with how my life is actually going.

I spent a lot of time thinking this was just a flatline and perhaps part of it is but I think it goes beyond that, I genuinely think that this has been a part of me for a while and it was only when I stopped self-medicating on porn that it came into clear focus. I can literally go from writing my super positive 60 days update post to crying alone in my bedroom for no reason in the space of 48 hours. I'm sorry but NoFap or not, and regardless of flatline, this cant be normal, it just cant be. I would greatly appreciate any advice anyone can give me regarding this.

 

You do have a point with the first thing, I've been doing well on NoFap and it doesnt seem like I'm progressing with it anymore, the first couple of months were great but now I feel like I'm standing still. I dont think this has much to do with my problem though, and as someone who isn't religious I dont think praying would help me.

 

Thanks for the advice. I've tried discussing it with people before and I always feel better for a while but it usually crops up again later. My problem with it is that its a catch-22 kind of situation; When I feel like I've worked up the courage to talk to someone, I'm usually in a positive frame of mind and cant properly articulate it, meanwhile when I'm suffering from the symptoms I'm too withdrawn to do anything about it, so I cant win either way. I've started writing a journal to keep track of good and bad days and to try and pinpoint wtf is causing this, but so far it seems more or less random.

 

Cheers for the advice, I've been trying to pinpoint the root cause of this problem for a while but haven't had much luck. With regards to therapy or any kind of professional help its sadly not feasible at the moment, I'm at uni in my final year and dont have the free time to properly commit to it. What I can say is when I get like this I cant shake the feeling that I haven't "earned" the right to do things I want to do because I think on some level my mind doesn't want me to be content for extended periods.

 

Thanks for the kind words. I'd like to believe that this is just NoFap but if anything all NoFap is doing is making it more clear that the underlying issue exists separate from my PMO problem. I felt like this before and used PMO to self-medicate, now I dont do that and obviously thats a good thing but I still cant shake the feeling this is one issue a reboot wont fix.

 

Cheers, I'll take a look.

 

I had multiple tests a couple of months back for a different issue, and I was deemed perfectly healthy, so I doubt its anything related to that. Thanks for the advice regardless though.

 

I'm still going to continue with NoFap because it has helped me in other ways, I just think that, based on the evidence I can find, that this current problem has been illuminated by NoFap, not necessarily caused by it. At the same time I dont think PMO is whats caused it either, the issue seems to be unrelated, although I might be (and hope I am) wrong. Regarding what you said back in your first post, I seriously doubt I will end up on any kind of drug, I'm just looking for ways to sort myself out without having to go that far.

 

Well to be fair you could look at it in one of two ways.

I've always had a good memory, and when I cast my mind back the past 1-2 years I can see quite clearly that I've had feelings like this and have suffered from these symptoms that whole time, meanwhile I only started NoFap this January. When I map out whats actually happened in that time my problems align much more closely with me starting my degree than they do with NoFap, leading me to believe its the problems I've had with my degree in second year that are triggering this, at least partially. This is also made more feasible to me when I consider that, even with a 90 day streak nearly done, I still feel like this. If PMO did play a roll in this issue it played the roll of self-medication, but it wasnt the PMO that was the sole trigger.

On the other hand it is possible that excessive PMO finally caught up to me around the same time and it triggered it, setting off the chain of events. I cant really provide objective proof that this isn't the reality but like you say its hard to know for sure.