Strong anxiety with hot flashes (6 months without PMO)

I'm more than 6 months 'hard mode' and this is my first try to abstain from PMO. The last few days are very difficult, I need help, because I don't understand what is going on...

The last 3 years I suffer from depression, I used to take SSRI for almost 2 years, but quit in March 2017. Must say antidepressants doesn't helped me much. Beside being porn addict myself I spent almost 15 years in porn business running adult websites, watching porn all day long, because this was my 'job'.

It all started on Monday. All day I had strong muscle pains and on evening started to feel anxiety followed with hot flashes, diarrhea, sweating, frequent heart beat. At night I was waking up every 15-20 minutes, anxiety, hot flashes, sweating, dry mouth and extremely fatigue. And it's so odd, I just lie in bed, feel no emotions, no anxiety, no depression, head is very clear, but feel strong pressure all over my body, especially chest, can't find place to feel comfortable. And then the pressure starts to dissapear, but is replaced with strong anxiety, 'brain fog' and hot flashes. And it repeats numerous times during the night.

On Tuesday I felt very weak, spent all day lying in bed. Next few days were better, but yesterday I got hit by anxiety and hot flashes again. Physical symptoms are the same, but somehow less severe than on Monday, but this time I feel very bad mentally, hard depression and very strong anxiety.

During my reboot I never had such anxiety and hot flashes symptoms before. And I'm more than 6 months 'hard mode'.

I don't know what to do... I have no idea if this is related with reboot process or my depression just got to the 'new level'?

Can it be something hormone related (like females gets during menopause)? I'm 41 years old and maybe this is triggered by long abstance from orgasm? I didn't had orgasm since July 2017.

The worst thing I'm lonely, no family, live alone. Feeling hopeless and scared.

Have you experienced something like that?

 

I'm much better now. It's hard to say what was the exact cause of this. Personally I believe these were PAWS related. I started to take medication and the symptoms subsided, but I was still getting them when experiencing heavy stress or had flu. I think this is how my nervous system reacts to physical and psychological stress, it became very sensitive after I abstained from porn. And the next week there will be 2 years after I quit PMO.

No... I used to take sulpiride to reduce the somatic symptoms, but I don't take them anymore. I still take antidepressants (I started to take them few weeks after I wrote that post).

 

For me the 'bottom' of reboot was around the time I wrote this post (6 months of 'hardmode'). I went to psychiatrist and he prescribed me antidepressants. When I started to take them my depression became even worse. The worst was in spring 2018. Then it slowly started to improve, but it was very uneven process. Now the depression is almost gone, I usually get it only if I have a strong stress or get physically ill (like having flu, etc.), but it doesn't lasts long. Overall it's much better when it was 1-1,5 years ago. As for anxiety, it's more difficult... Back then I was getting anxiety for 'no reason'. Now I know the reasons well and it's more like an 'exsistential anxiety' that is related to my childhood traumas, the fear of death and illness. And anhedonia, I would say it dissappeared about half year ago, so about 1,5 years after I abstained from PMO. But I think the big impact on anhedonia was that I was able to find the activities that gave me pleasure and replaced PMO.

I have read many posts on this forum saying that PAWS can last as long as 2 years after quitting porn and from my own personal experience I can say this is a very reasonable time frame. The most symptoms I had (especially the somatic symptoms) are gone now, but my nervous system is still very vulnerable. But maybe this is inherented, my both parents had a very sensitive nervous systems, so I'm not sure it's still PAWS related. Maybe I'm just a sensitive person and after I abstained from PMO I don't have an easy way to escape from stress and traumatic experiences anymore and still learning how to deal with this.

 

No, I have been very consistent with my reboot, no relapses... I didn't tried to achieve any specific time frame like 90 days or 1 year without PMO. Initially I didn't even had a clear plan, I just abstained being curious to see what will happen next.

I think when you constantly watch porn and masturbate you put yourself in a permanent sexual hyperstimulation. When you abstain and go 'hardmode' all the sexual triggers goes away and you experience the libido loss. At the moment I don't have much desire to have sex, but maybe this is because I don't have any sexual partner. But I believe libido will come back with time, it's temporary.

Paroxeti*e and mirtazapine. I don't plan to quit antidepressants anytime soon as I don't feel that good and still experience some depression episodes, but in much milder form than it was 1-1,5 years ago. Actually depression is the worst thing I experienced in my life ever, so I'll do anything not to get back where I was. I think it's still too early to quit medication for me.

So I feel very much the same. When I experience stress I fall back into depression and anxiety. And I feel very hopeless then, like I want to run away from all this but there is no place to run and hide anymore. So all I can do is just go through this and expect the negative feelings to subside after some time (and actually they does).

It's hard to give you a good advice as I'm still learning how to deal with this myself. What helps me is to have some activities that gives me pleasure and keeps me engaged. For me it's my work that I like a lot and find some relief there. Another thing is psychotherapy, it helps better understand and deal with the core mental issues. Even it's not easy and I usually feel worse after each psychotherapy session long term it provides the possitive results.

Just be patient and persistent, falling back into PMO won't help you, it will just delay the whole process. Personally I can say that after 2 years of abstinence I don't have any desire to get back to PMO, I know where I will end as I already was there. I see abstaining as foundation to build my new self, my life and I see lots of positive results. And even if I still face a lot of mental issues I have a feeling that I'm moving the right direction and I want to continue.

 

My nervous system collapsed back in 2014, after strong inflammatory of the leg. I never fully recovered after this. In spring 2015 I had a surgery and after it I started to feel very bad mentally and physically. I was feeling like I'm losing my mind. I was diagnosed with depression, but I'm not sure if this diagnosis was correct. I started to take antidepressants and my mental condition became even worse. In 2000-2013 I was running porn sites and all these years I was getting lots of symptoms that are described in this forum as 'withdrawals'. But my symptoms were mostly physical. I didn't had depression back then. Now I believe these somatic symptoms were the consequences of prolonged dopamine overstimulation, because I spent years watching porn all day long, it was my work... I started PMO at 14 and it lasted until I got 40, so overall all my life as adult I was engaged in porn (or erotica) one or another way.