Day 31. Wohoo I made it to one month!
Today i’ll be flying and will be on vacation for 2 weeks. Usually some of my relapses occur when I’m on vacation. The shift in environment and geographical location always psychologically gives me thoughts like “it’s a new place. You dont know anybody here. Nobody knows you. Just let loose and be free. It’s your time to relax and chill. No need to be so rigid and tight. Drop your guard just for this period”. Either it’s the demons or it’s the addict in me.
Yesterday i was was thinking that as addicts, we may have become schizophrenic, and have 2 personalities, the sober self and the addict self. The addict in us will try to deceive the sober self with all sort of thoughts like “just one peek, it will not hurt” or “are you really strong, prove it by looking at just that one photo” or “you’re really sad today, you need a fap release”. While the sober self in us leads to forums like this, knows that pmo is harmful and tries to fight the addict with thoughts like “No, i know this pattern, i shouldnt go near my pc this time” or “just today, i must not fap” or “i have no time for this, must work on that goal i set the other day”. The issue is who wins every time.
I’m reminded of a story of an owner of two roosters, one red, the other is brown. The owner said to his son, “let’s make a bet. I’ll let this 2 roosters fight and i’ll predict who will win. If i’m right you give me 10$, and if i’m wrong i’ll give you 10$”. The son agreed. So the owner set the roosters to fight and predicted that the red one will win. And he was right. They did it again the next week and owner voted for brown and he was right again. They did it for the third time and the owner was right again. So the son asked, “why do you always know who will win, dad?”. To which dad said “Here’s my secret. Before the fight i choose between the two who will win. Then i feed it with food and i will starve the other one”
Moral of the story: The “self” you feed the most, listen to the most, will grow stronger and will win the fight. By pressing on with nofap, we starve the addict in us. The longer streak you go, the stronger the sober self becomes. Our goal is to be fully sober and totally remove the addict self,
This diary has been really useful for me. It’s so refreshing to find someone who is self aware of himself but doesn’t whip his back like a masocist with ridiculous expectations. Im grateful that you have opened yourself up to us even though you have a fear of rejection, very brave and inspiring. Perhaps I will write my own diary now, it seems to be very effective at keeping you introspective. I think we are at our weakest when we let the addicted voice in our head feed our delusions, so long as we are aware of our problems and are making a genuine effort to quit pmo then there is always hope. Good luck and thank you.
Good work brother I am focusing on 30 days hopefully I will be there soon, holidays usaully helps me because your focused on having fun with your family good luck my friend.
Day 38. Still on vacation. Everyday me and my family are usually outside. Everyday is a trigger day for me as i see good looking people outside. And everytime it happens i just beat myself in frustration. “Why am I like this? When will I change? Will I ever change? Will there ever be a time when I’ll no longer think this way? I’m so tired of this already”. That makes me sad actually. That thread of hopelessness. I want to cry it out till it’s all out of my system.
Hopelessness is not a good place. Because when you feel totally hopeless, you give up and you give in. Come to think of it, hopelessness is a statement of "I will never be…"s or "I will always be…"s . I will never be happy for the rest of my life, I will never get out of this mess, I’ll never find someone who’ll like me, I’ll always be like this, i’ll always fall. It’s a faulty conclusion that leads to wrong decisons, actions and lifestyles. You and I have to constantly disagree with it, challenge it and prove it false. Is it really true that there’s no way out of this, is it really true that if I try 1 million ways I will still not succeed, is it really true that I will never ever change and this is set in stone and i have no power to change my self and my life? The Never’s and Alway’s are logically easy to debunk, just one example that it’s not true is all you need. and the whole statement crumbles into falsehood.
The thing about hopelessness is that it’s a statement concluded from the past, past experience, past failures AND it is being projected into the future. It’s ridiculous! Just because x and y happened in the past doesn’t mean that x and y will still be there in the future. One single action/event can change the future altogether (based from watching x-men time travel movies ). Who knows the future 100%? Do we? No one.
But the future is up to us to create. And that’s the key, for hopelessness comes with it powerlessness. Get back the power. Change the future. So note to self: I CAN change, I WILL change, I have the power to make it happen, don’t get tired, don’t give up, there’s an end to this, if I keep on pursuing this I will eventually achieve a breakthrough, I have succeeded in other areas of my life and I can do the same in this area as well.
I remember once when i was doing nofap cleanly(hard mode) for 20 + days whenever i go outside in a crowd of people
All i see was only round asses and boobs. Although there were man too but i could only see beautiful girls and women. It was a dope feeling. Hahaahahaa.
Just enjoy the view man and let the feelings flow without acting on them.
Day 42. While in the hotel, I was watching one movie played on cable tv. It was an old scifi 1980s movie, and thought that this type of movie is probably safe. But there was one nude woman and nude men on the scene. Not sexual and not explicit. I just let it pass. I dont consider this as relapse because its not porn and i didnt watch that movie with that intention. But i’d confess it has triggered me and my urge is at 8/10. It’s dangerous. That’s why I’m writing this post.
I’ll backtrack a bit. Before i was watching that movie, i was just waiting for my wife to prepare our food. I was lazying around. I initially planned to do some brainstorming for our family finances, but i procastinated. Why was I procastinating? I was a bit off emotionally, i’m feeling Im not good enough and im worried about the future and was in regression after meeting some persons for the past few days.
My willpower was eroded with negative emotions and it led me to indulge a familiar pattern or sequence of events. Resisting these emotions are hard. It’s always been for me, and i think almost everyone of us has this as well, that there’s a battle to fight the negative emotions before the battle to fight the sexual urges. If you lose the first battle, you’ll lose the second one.
Note to self: you must learn to fight the first battle well. And if you have a hard time with your emotions, be extra cautious and more strict in your discipline to avoid random browsing or consumption of any media because you’ll never know what you’ll see these days.
Day 51. Came back from vacation. Long time havent done any journal entry. I feel like if i dont i will give in. Self instropection and exploring more just have effect on my psychology in terms of keeping relapse away.
Lately, I dwelled on how my pmo addiction had blossomed as a result of this relationship with a friend in the past. He introduced porn to me and we got close enough, we became very open to each other and time came when we had to part ways because he’s moving out geographically. It plunged me to severe depression and separation anxiety. And i was hooked to porn ever since, like some never ending cycle of depression relapse depression.
Now, I realized I had always been “regressing” to that past and havent really moved on (search John Lee Regression in youtube). So the past few days, I did some imaginary conversation with him about how I’ve been affected by the events and all other things left unsaid. I know it sounds weird, but I’m feeling a bit better now. I felt that some amount of daily depression has left me. Which makes me feel getting to full freedom from pmo more possible.
Just want to say here, that dealing with the roots of our anxiety/depression, maybe through therapy or techniques can help empower us more in our nofap journey
You simply tell everything I feel. The only difference is that I am primarily afraid of being fooled and manipulated and my family is still in harmony.
Great to learn you have made so far into this journey. I would just say that if you don’t let your guard down, you will never look back ever again into the abyss from where we have chosen to flee. Just stay strong sir we are with you!!
