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New to NoFap, 14 days in.anotations of benefits so far.

Discussion in 'New to NoFap' started by soapboxer, Jun 20, 2018.

Reset if M'd but managed to stop? (No P, no O)

  1. Yes reset

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  2. Keep

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  1. soapboxer

    soapboxer New Fapstronaut

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    I wanted to introduce myself as I am new to this community. I am usually a lurker in forums, but this time I feel this is important for me to share my motivations, difficulties and my progress so far.
    I'm 29 years old and I had heard about NoFap thru reddit , but never gave it any real importance. I started NoFap as another "discomfort challenge" to see if I could add it to my depression antidote habits.

    So a little bit of back story.
    4 years ago I moved abroad with my ex girlfriend to start a new life together. They were fantastic times where I had a winner's mindset (or so i thought) and was accomplishing a goal I had finally reached with my SO. Things were great the first months but I quickly had difficulties making friends and making sense out of the country. Slowly, I got depressed, and hopeless. After a year I started struggling with suicidal thoughts and did not get motivation or pleasure from anything. I escaped thru videogames and PMO and was constantly looking for validation from my ex.
    As you can imagine, things didn't work out between us and we broke up after 3 years. After the breakup I moved into my own apartment, hoping to get laid a lot now that I was single, but my addictions overpowered me and got worse. My depression was so bad that my family couldn't recognize me anymore. They intervened on a skype call and basically begged me to come back home. So I did.

    I came back home, and was confused with everything, my friends were all gone and everything had changed in the city. This led me to have increased social anxiety, as I feared I would not make any friends again, and that I would never "catch up" with the current culture and would become a recluse or freak. I did not leave my house for weeks.

    To cope with the cobfusion and pain, I tried to change myself in so many ways. I tried to lose weight, shave every day, clean my room, dress well, make friends, meditate, yoga, reading. But all efforts into making better habits only lasted about a week or ten days and I relapsed constantly. This only got always felt like I carried a dead and numb feeling inside. Every failure to "turn my life around" only got me more depressed and confused.

    My dog died, then my dad died a few months later. I was stranded in a place full of people that I used to know, my relationship was over was and I couldnt find a job. I started smoking cigarrettes and started getting heavily into PMO, about 4 or 5 times a day, gaming and smoking weed, getting into LSD to "kick me out of it"
    During this period I still made an effort to put myself in difficult situations that got me out of my comfort zone, camping with minimal gear, cold showers, etc. Something that would help me "snap out of it" nothing really stuck with me. Everything I teied had only short term effects. I had trouble with my mindset and self deppreciating talk, constant shame and anxiety. I'd find myself questioning everything compulsively and putting an insane ammount of pressure on myself to "get better". Always anxious to find out what was wrong with me, overthinking the simplest things. For example: I'd arrive at home and try to open the front door using my work keys. I would notice this and instantly beat myself up thinking "I'm not present enough" and "I'm a slave to work and maybe I live at work in my mind". Shit like that.

    Still, I persisted at trying to make good habits, like making my bed, always having a clean room, started a garden and I slowly started to gain momentum. With the garden I wanted to prove myself that I can be responsible and able to hold a commitment for living things that depend on me to survive. I stopped eating my fingernails, and things started slowly changing. Now the garden has grown and is becoming a place for others to enjoy.

    14 days ago I started NoFap as a novelty challenge and didn't give it much importance. I am not sure if it was the combination of making my bed everyday, garden, clean room, getting rid of my gaming computer and NoFap, but I have seen and felt strong changes after the first week or so. Even my mindset is changing.
    When before I felt like a powerless dude, plagued by indecision, today I feel something along the lines of "ruthless". I have no time or patience for excuses or obstacles in my way. I wanna smash shit thats on my way. I kinda feel like a train.

    So here are some of the things I have noticed so far:
    -Increased Idontgiveafuckness (able to brush off negative comments or thoughts)
    -Increased confidence
    -Improved posture
    -Increased presence
    -Decrease in anxiety (way less overthinking)
    -Increase in malice and cruelty
    -Better sleep, waking up in a good mood
    -Increased pragmatic mindset
    -Colder with people (less invested)
    -More egoistic
    -Noticed having positive inner talk and thoughts
    -Able to express my anger
    -Ocassional desire to get into a fight and enjoying it
    -Thinking about sex a lot
    -No difficulties getting up in the morning

    My goal is to be able to have more discipline, power of will and something to be proud of. I want to be able to cold approach women and to revive my dating life. I want to push my comfort boundaries and be able to establish my list of rock solid good habits that keep me in a good state of mind so as to permanently keep myself away from anxious or depressive tendencies.

    So It's been 14 days, but I'm not sure I should count those 2 M times as a reset, as I didnt include P, but fantasized, I didn't O and actually got myself to stop, and think long term.
    What do you guys think? Would you consider it a reset?

    Thank you all and nice to meet you
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  2. Hi. Welcome to forum!

    You determine the rules of your reboot. If your rules was not to masturbate and you broke it then it would make sense to reset. Or you might not reset if you feel it might have negative effects on you. It's You who you are accountable to. We are here to support you on that and encourage you.

    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!
     
    soapboxer likes this.
  3. soapboxer

    soapboxer New Fapstronaut

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    Thanks a lot Serpent, it's good to be able to share this.
    I decided I wouldn't consider it a reset.
    After writing my first post and waiting a couple of days it became clear that my goal was not to O, and keep everything for 90 days.
     
    Deleted Account likes this.

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