Neveragains journal (+the part from the old forum)

Day 9.

Christmas holyday is over and from Monday to Friday I’m back in Germany for my studies.
Just two days go I wrote somewhere that it is amazing, that I don’t feel any urges anymore and this for about two weeks (exactly the time during which I was at home, happy and relaxed)
First day back here, alone in my room, far away from my girlfriend and the people I’m used to and back are the urges, almost as hard as on the first day.

This clearly shows me that a healthy mind and body doesn’t need porn.
I was happy and relaxed as never before -> I didn’t need porn
Now back here, I feel that something is wrong. I have to figure out habits here which make me happy. Some rules which make me feeling good and relaxed in my everyday life. I feel stressed out but I don’t know what it is (porn, not eating enough, not cleaning up my room… are just the signs that something is wrong). I think I will have to spend some time just figuring out what I can do to improve my situation here. I hope that once I feel awesome here the urge to watch porn will disappear again too.

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Goog luck, I hope you find the way to solve your bad feelings.

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This is just a short hand summary for me to keep track of what I wanna try. It helps me to stick to this plan when I commit to it here in front of everyone. I will update this list every time I got a new idea, so that, in the end, I will have a complete list of things that helped me. (if it is possible I will color code the things that helped and the things I’m just trying out)
@Taher is it possible to use colors? (maybe I just didn’t find it)
Also at some point i will updated my thoughts about how to get clean (they changed quite a bit) and also explain the tactics I’m using.

Some of them will only work for me since I sometimes have a bit wired triggers :sweat_smile:

When urge occurs

  • immediately standing up and walk around

Short term urge prevention (basically removing everything that triggers me)

  • no phone on my desk
  • doing only one thing at the time
  • structuring my day
  • no YouTube! (except if I have to look something up for my studies or if I wanna watch something specific)
  • music only via Webradio
  • keeping my room tidy

long term urge prevention (new mindset to get rid of urges for ever)

  • Allow time to feel bored
  • To do list
  • summary of all achieved points every evening
  • “do nothing” meditation
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I’m feeling it! Somewhere deep inside but it is slowly going to come out.

I guess many of us know this: We do wanna feel good we are rubbing our nuts off but even after 2 hours of fapping we don’t feel good nor satisfied nor like if we accomplished something.
Since ■■■■ didn’t gave me that feeling of accomplishment I tried to do as many things simultaneously as possible to feel as if i really did some work. (typically I was watching a YouTube video, a twitch streamer, a ■■■■, masturbating while learning for school and I felt bad as soon as I stopped one of the “activities” :nauseated_face:).

Now, I told my self to do at max one thing at a time. This leads to a huge panic of not being productive. A panic that it is a waste of time not doing 10 things at the same time. This panic makes it pretty hard to change this habit but I have to force my self.
To cure this panic, I started to write a Todo List (large on my white board, so that I can see it all the time). Not only with things that I have to do but also with things I like to do. More like a list of things I could do and should do at some point.
Every evening I can take a look at the board and can see how many things I really accomplished. And somehow my body starts to notice that this feeling is really what it wanna have. Not the “I’m productive and do a lot of crap” but the “I really reach my goals and it feels damn good”.

It’s really hard to explain that feeling since I haven’t felt it in years. I completely forgot that it is there.
While watching ■■■■ I didn’t watch the clips. I opened one, clicked through the whole movie in 2 seconds and went to the next one. This craving like drinking salt water and just getting more and more thirsty. Never satisfied and always on the search for the perfect moment, the perfect clip. One the other hand with my ToDo list it feels like my body relaxes and is just happy with what he did. I’m not lying in my bed thirsty for more achievements. I feel thoroughly satisfied with what I did this day.

There are sometimes even brief thoughts like “why should I wanna waste time watching ■■■■ if I could do something from my list”. That’s exactly the thought I was hoping that it will come into my mind. Now it should just change from staying for 1 second to staying 1 minute, 1 hour or a whole day in my mind!

obviously its by far not as good as I wanna have it yet. The old habits, trained for so many years, are pretty strong and it kind of hurts to change em because I feel like I could loose something but I’m positive than it will make a huge step toward my final goal. NeverAgain ■■■■

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It feels so good to read this, that I can tell you for sure.
I know this feeling. The point where you start to appreciate small breaks of doing nothing in between times of productive work. The point where you realize that if you do three or four things over the course of 10 hours a day, you actually get more done than if you hop from one thing to another, always feeling scared of not doing enough, thus destroying the concentration you need to accomplish even the tiniest goals.
In my current state I’m far from that, but thanks for reminding me of the taste of the water up the river. Makes me wanna row a bit faster to get there :wink:

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You are welcome to row besides me! unfortunately I’m not that far upstream.

I really hate my brain at the moment. As you say the tiniest thing distracts me. I know what should be good for me and there are good moments. But I just can’t break the wall. My habit-mind is just so damn strong :sweat:

Lets try to have nothing on my desk except what I’m working on. Maybe that works better

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FUCKING WEAK PIECE OF SHIT!!!

for 5 days I thought that I have the perfect solution. I didn’t feel the tiniest urge. It was absolutely great!
But now I realize that I completely forgot that I still have to fight this stupid shit! That the urge can come out of the blue and I have to be always ready for it.

I still think that my method really helps me to accomplish the long term goal. But I have to remember every single day that it is not over at all. The feeling today was similar to when I watched ■■■■ after my 40 days streak. I felt too secure. I thought that there won’t be any urges anymore which made me weak. I realize that it was just waiting in the dark for a weak moment of mine.

But I won’t let this happen again! from now on I’ll be always ready. You won’t get me anymore! I love my girlfriend and you won’t destroy that like you did so many other relationships!! I’ll fight for my girlfriend with my life!!!

Also I don’t know why I never installed a pornblocker on my phone. Now I think I don’t have a single device left where I can access ■■■■. (I forgot all the passwords for my pornblockers :sweat_smile: )

So urge you see, I am ready. Try it again and you will go down. You will break on my mind!! You had me long enough!

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This evening is going to be tough. I’m in my typical relapse mode.
I don’t feel really good, I’m not really motivated and I feel tired. In addition I would like to watch NFL the whole evening. Which means that I will sit in front of my computer the whole night.

Sure, I could circumvent the whole problem and just not watch the games but I will try to face my urges (which will definitely come). I will face them and beat them. Tonight I’m going to be a winner!

Goal for tonight: No relapse and focus on the game. Don’t watch twitch streams or YouTube besides the game (which is typically the relapse chain. something is boring -> open YouTube and twitch -> nothing is happening there either -> open porn -> feel like crap).
But I will do it differently tonight. If the games are not interesting I will do something else like reading a book or learning for the exams

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Good luck! Be brave! We are are with you!

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Stay strong. If urges get too strong and you open a browser, jump right into the forum and let us know what you are thinking! You don’t have to face this alone

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You can do it man. It’s incredible how precisely you described my relapse chain. It’s exactly as you mentioned and I’m in the same state of mind you are today. This post gives me motivation to survive tonight without relapsing.

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thanks a lot for your support. It’s great to have you here.

My room is tidy again and I did watch the game without porn. I did watch some twitch from time to time but much much less than I did the previous weeks.

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Similar to the situation two months ago when I started this diary I’m sitting here, crying because I feel like I can’t handle this. My brain is screaming in fear.

As almost every day I came home and immediately opened twitch and YouTube. As always I spend 3 hours clicking through the most useless and uninteresting things. Knowing that I should and would like to do something else. But as always, the thought that the next clip could be a very good one and that the next clip will make me happy kept me bound to the never ending stream of bad clips.

Why am I doing it this way? I think my brain knows that it is save there. It doesn’t have to handle emotions. It doesn’t have to do anything. It can flee from everything that COULD happen in the real life and it can flee into a world where it KNOWS what will happen next.

What do I pay for this refuge? I feel the clock ticking more and more. I feel the stress all the tasks waiting are applying on my body and the longer I’m not doing them the more it stresses me and the more I HAVE to continue watching. I DEPEND on the internet to calm me down.
Somehow there is a huge fear that keeps me from doing stuff I like. For the past weeks I tried to regulate my twitch and YouTube consumption but it never worked. I came to the decision that there is only one solution. No twitch and YouTube at all. If it has to be I will download apps which block these two sites too.
Each time I’m speaking this thought out tears are rushing through my eyes and the fear grips my heart tight. My mind realizes that it now has absolutely no place left to hide. I took away the porn, the masturbation and now all the hiding places on my computer. There is one path left and it is facing what I fear. Facing what is hidden somewhere in the real life. I have to find what I fear, figure out why I do it and come at peace with it. I can feel (and the tears are always the best sign) that I really found a weak spot - a really fundamental problem.

I hope I can handle this. I’m so thankful for all the support from this community

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It was a really tough evening. It’s surprising how similar it feels to my nofap start again, now that I removed YouTube and twitch too. I have hard cravings (not after porn but after any computer activity in general and even now, just getting up and heading to university I feel the pull.

I even dreamed that the cravings were unbearable, so that I did watch porn.

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Similar to me. But I’ll stop now with mobile, and start working. Have a great day Federer :wink:

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Sometimes I feel like a small kid which has no idea what it is doing or what it should do.
Every now and again I have a “brilliant” idea how I can quit my addiction and full of vim and vigor, I start with it. But then after the slightest breeze, I doubt my solution and my mind is already trying to figure out why it isn’t working.

As one of the fellows today said: I spend so much time, energy and effort in finding “the best” way. The one that just works. Searching for methods to prevent urges. I’m searching for rules, triggers and so on and the whole time I feel as if the solution lies right in front of me but I just can’t see it :sweat:

Maybe I should toss all the rules, ways to live and solutions away, start anew and just ask my self “how do I wanna live?” “What is important in my everyday life?” (of course I don’t toss the no PM/YouTube/twitch rule)

At the moment, every day is mainly dominated by what I have to do. I come home and know that I have to learn. I waste too much time sitting on my desk doing shit, getting urges and cravings because I feel bad, stressed, and fearing doing nothing and wasting time.

Maybe I should rearrange the way I’m living completely. Why not thinking about which things I would like to do and then arrange the things I have to do around these instead of filling my day with things I have to do and if I find some “free” time pushing something in that I normaly like. I’m not a lazy person an I really love my studies. So, it wouldn’t end in me just sitting around watching TV. This night at 1am I caught myself thinking that I have to stop studying because I said that I have to read in my book everyday. I made even something I like to something I have to do. This definitely can’t be the right way to do it.

As always this topic is not only for me. I appreciate every advise, tip, hint or critic (and will at least consider them :wink: )

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Interesting :slight_smile: I struggle exactly with the same problem of beeing terrified by what I have took upon myself. It feels like I am trying to cross an ocean on a canoo without having ever been at sea :smile:

My biggest problem with these endeavours is that I keep setting goals for myself which are just sheer impossible to archieve. And I clearly do fail them and then I clearly feel like shit and beat myself up beacause I did once again, fail.

It seems to me, that you could relate to that :wink:

As I have written some times I guess I am also having some therapy with a phsycolgist which has really helped me to see things from a different point of view. It has helped me to take away some pressure and some pain ■■■■ and PMO put on myself.

What I have been doing in the past months since the beginning of the year is practicing what we could call allowance.

So this means, that if I am upset with the time I spend on youtube I do not try to cut it out completely and for an indefinite period of time, because I know myself and I am surely not going to keep it up. Instead I installed an extension which helps me monitor the time I spend on youtube and after a periond of time that I can set freely it blocks the website (youtube) for the rest of the day. It is really effective and it works for me pretty well :wink:

And not to the big topic, ■■■■ and PMO. Here as well I (and my psycologist) are trying to practice some tollerance in order to boost my chances at succeeding. As you can imagine the idea of never again watching any ■■■■ is pretty daunting and I did not succeed at it and probably will never succeed. So instead of this, we tried to establish a realistic amount of ■■■■ which is allowed in a year. (Please dont lynch me or don’t ban me from the forum, I pled to my freedom of speech and thought :stuck_out_tongue:). My number for this year is 21. Which would be a pretty amazing result!! (considering the fact that I have already spent 3 of these opportunities).

What does this do to me?
1-. it does not make pornography something prohibited or forbidden (and so making it more intereseting and more appealing)
2-. it takes some pressure of my shoulders of needing to be able to not watch for my entire life (a huuuuuuuge amount of pressure in my case)
3-. it deminishes the importance of conusming ■■■■. Because it is not something I see as a devillish part of me or some part of my brain gone rogue, instead I see it as what it is. Something 80% of the male population does, and something which has always been done and which will probably always be done (and that makes it kind of “natural”) :slight_smile:
4-. it does not associate pornography with failure. So that I can keep my self esteem and self respect up also after consuming ■■■■. Which is a huge problem of mine, always beating myself up after consuming pornography.

So this reply also got a little bit out of hand but I hope I could help you a llttle :slight_smile: What do you think? What do you all think?

Love my friends :kissing_heart:

Yea that’s a huge problem. I had that some years ago. I set my self huge goals and was only satisfied if I finish it perfectly. I had to learn to acknowledge every tiny goal you achieve. Everyday we achieve so many small things but we just take them for granted. It really helps to reward yourself every day for every tiny thing you did.

Also, a huge task is not only 1 goal. You can always break up a huge goal into many small ones and reward yourself for every single one.
Some time ago I wanted to start dancing tango since I felt very lonely. (I’m the typical “sitting on the bar and tap the music with my feet” kind of dancer :joy: . So, I guess I don’t have to mention how I felt trying it.) I went to the course for about 8 weeks and then quitted even though I loved it, since it still stressed me out completely. But is that a fail? I don’t think so. I think it is one of the biggest accomplishments in my last few years.
(And I decided some days ago that I wanna retry it now that I am mentally stronger then one year ago and signed me in for the next beginner lessons in two months :relaxed: )

I recommend that to everyone who has the chance to do it. Many times I thought whether or not I should ask my therapist for a new appointment (had some therapy about two years ago. I think I will write her if she works on Saturday - the only day where I’m at home. Since I don’t wanna go to a new one)

I think it is a good approach which could work for many personalities. But I often feel the need of someone telling me the opposite. After about 2 weeks of no pm I get the feeling “I did so well, I can give myself a small reward, just a peak. And I’m sure it isn’t as bad as I think”

Maybe I can try the opposite and accomplish a voice in my head which kicks my ■■■ when I think “it surely isn’t that bad”

Thanks a lot for your replay :grinning:

Had a relapse today (had it earlier that day. Even before writing the topic above but I wasn’t in mood to write about it)
I guess I relapse a bit more often recently since I don’t really care about the timer but I’m more interested in finding ways to get my life back. I feel that soooo many things are changing in life in a very positiv way even thought I relapse every two weeks or so.

  • I dare “new” things or things I’m scared of. For example last week at the annual competition at my local gym I did a minor job but one I had to do in front of the whole crowd. When the organizer asked me to do it I immediately wanted to say no. But I did it. I felt the sweat dripping by the thought of standing in front of everyone. But after the start it felt awesome. And I’m still so proud of my self and it feels so good.
  • I registered my self for a tango beginners course next month. I did that before but stopped after a few weeks out of fear. If your city has this offer too try it out! The first time I did this, no one brought a partner with him. So, everyone just changed partner all the time during the class. It was great to help with my sozial anxiety.
  • In general I just feel more balanced.
  • I hate porn! A few times I opened a porn page looking for something I like, but I was always disgusted by what I saw and closed it again.

Yea, sounds nice but why did I relapse???
The last four relapses all were because of cam girls. Somehow I just wasn’t able to not enjoy it. I just really liked it and I didn’t find enough negativ things to say no.
Same today. I thought that I just enjoy it and there is nothing bad in doing what I enjoy.
This really is the last big problem I have. The only thing that triggers me. But I think I do have a solution:

Today I thought that if I watch it, I could also listen to my body before, during and after watching.
I think I have to go a bit far afield for the solution. I was always disgusted by the people drinking too much at partys, vomiting, feeling sick the whole next day and still enjoying it. I thought they where just a bunch of idiots.
Today I found out that what I do is exactly the same. Sure, during watching I do enjoy it. But what happens then? At some point my dick begins to hurt but I continue and at some point my dick vomits (my orgasm after 3hrs of M definitely doesn’t feel like it does while having sex, so I think the word fits pretty well)
After that I feel bad for at least 1 day. And still my brain says “when is the next time??”

I finally found the negativ part of cam porn. I behave like this “idiots” drinking every weekend.

What is my goal for the next days/weeks?

  • I have extremely strong feelings against excessive drinking. Now that I know that porn isn’t different I just have to transfer the feelings I have towards drinking to PM. Because it is not different. If this works out I should be able to reach high. I’m positive that this could change everything
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Yes, I do have urges. I do wanna feel good. The weather is really bad -> I don’t get any sun during the day. Then have to study in the evenings. Everything frustrates me. Especially that I still feel like crap from fapping 1.5 days ago. Like a stupid hangover

I do wanna feel good but masturbation is not an option at all. All the time I remember the analogy to drinking. I know it is is not an option. Even though I have one of the strongest urges it’s extremely easy not to fap