this is urgent... i really need help to clear my anxious mind

Firstly, congrats on not relapsing no matter how many triggers you've faced. What you are experiencing is totally natural. Your brain has been shaped by porn so you still have a porn outlook on even the little things and your brain tries to find anything to substitute your porn usage since it's so used to it.

The best way to deal with triggers, I find, is to mentally stop them immediately. Whenever, my mind started to wander or fantasise, I bring it back to attention.Try to think of something else or look away if you're in real life. Do anything to stop thinking about it. Because, if you let the little thoughts build, they snowball and get bigger and bigger and eventually they will be too big to handle. So stop them quickly.

The best solution is time, unfortunately. You can't cure these triggers in one day. Slowly, over time it will get easy but you have to push through and dig deep! One thought that helps me is to think about how difficult it is right now. Think about that fear you have. IF you relapse now, you will have to go through that same urges and fear again so might as well conquer it now.

Stay strong brother! You got this!

 

Even if they were relapses, would you stop doing NoFap? I think sometimes we get so obsessed over what is/isn't a relapse that we miss the whole picture. You are going to face little setbacks here and there. A little bit of edging, a little bit of fantasising, but at the end of the day it isn't as bad as binging porn.

I would say while you should be tough on yourself, you can't get hung up on these little past transgressions. Overall, if you haven't PMOed you are doing a lot better than before. Don't let these little things make you think "Well, I took a picture of my penis. That's a relapse. Might as well watch porn" . I think your mind is trying to trick you a bit. It wants you to feel like you've failed, so that it makes it OK to watch porn. But don't listen, you've done amazingly so far. Keep it up.

 

No. These aren't good habits mind you and will set you back a little bit so I recommend you try to stop. But it is no way near a full relapse. A relapse is watching and masturbating to porn.

 

If they are triggers for you, then yes. These things are not triggers for me in any way. I have different triggers. You may get to a point where these things stop being triggers for you as your brain returns to normal. At that point you don't need to avoid them any more since they won't trigger you.

 

A little bit of fear is good thing and normal. You do need to fear relapsing in a way as we are trying to avoid PMO at all costs. Maybe after you are triggered and you feel the fear and you don't relapse, congratulate yourself mentally afterwards on not relapsing. That fear stopped you from relapsing.

But I don't think you need to fear the little things. You should fear watching porn and masturbating but these little things that are not relapses you shouldn't be too worried about. You are still improving.

As I said, the best solution is time. The longer you continue this journey the more accustomed you will be and the less fear you will have.

 

Why do you want to do these things if they give you fear and negative emotions? Surely, it is better to avoid these things entirely if they make you think about relapsing.

 

I don't hug a pillow when I sleep. It's not that crazy. But if it helps you sleep, I can understand. Maybe try to hug the pillow only using the top half of your body so there is no contact with your lower half? Or try at least to stop rubbing against it.

 

I understand.Everyone's journey is different. If doing these things helps you not PMO then continue doing them and don't feel any fear at all. Just continue not watching porn and masturbating and you will recover. Hope you succeed!