Hey there, guess most of you who are around now don't know me, but I started my journey almost a year ago. I wrote about it quite extensively, which can be found here (http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=4771.0). I have been away for a while, since I felt I wasn't dealing with porn addiction anymore. I probably will elaborate some more on this, but that will have to come later. Edit inSo ok basically my story is that I found YBOP and YBR around November last year, started on here in December and have almost entirely porn-free ever since. I found YBR because I wad encountering severe ED, which was a problem in the relationship I was in at the time. My story is the one similar to a lot of people on here. PMO since a young age due to the internet, often multiple times a day, without an erection even. This lead to bad ED, which I ignored, since most of the time it was with girls I didn't really care that much for, and I drank heavily in general on the nights I picked up. The relationship with that girl ended a month after my reboot, due to my ex-girlfriend moving back to her home country. That sparked a month of extreme anxiety for me, but I however kept away from MOing. Ever since I have been hooking up with girls occasionally, but always encountered ED. I stayed almost entirely clear of P for the last year, apart from a couple of testing moments, which I shouldn't have done. (I honestly felt a rush of dopamine to my head at those times, very unnatural..) I was almost as strict with MOing, but I have allowed myself to release approximately once every 7-10 days over the last couple of months. Having said this all enter my extreme anxiety today and over the last couple of days.Edit out Day 1 I'm have been having a hard week. I just saw the movie Thanks for Sharing and that combined with the events in my life over the past week, have pushed me back into the greatest anxiety I have felt in the last half a year, if not longer. Coming out of the movie and going home, at first I was thinking about writing something in a document as a journal, but then I thought why not do it here. So the last couple of months, up until next week, have been good to me. Great friends around, going to uni to get my grad degree, grades were good, so a happy me. Enter a girl three weeks ago, let's call her M. We hit it off, saw each other a couple of times, kissed once, and thing were looking great. This girl is the first girl I liked since I had to break up with my previous girlfriend, about a year ago. (I will elaborate on this in my revised intro, but for now I just have to put my thoughts on paper.) Due to this all I was walking on the clouds and shitting rainbows. She had to go away for a week, but we stayed in touch through chat and texts, and everything was looking great, I haven't felt that happy all year. Enter last wednesday. I already knew she just came out of a bad break up and wanted to take thing slow and I was and am fine with that. But on wednesday I got a message form her saying he didn't want to see me anytime soon, since she needed her space. I was shocked, I didn't see that coming at all, or maybe I just didn't want to see it coming. She wanted to stay in touch, and maybe try again later. In the beginning I understood here and tried to be emphatic, which worked for me as well the first two days. Then the drop came along, I felt like someone just kicked me off cloud nine into a very dark place. I only wanted to stay in bed, listen to melancholic songs and just feel sorry for myself. Because I needed an outlet I met up with friends talked about it, but I couldn't let go. I tried to message her, but I felt she stopped responding as quickly as she did before. I felt left out. This freaked and still freaks me out, I don't have to be with her in the romantic sense right now, but I just can't have it if people are too afraid to let me be close to help them. I recall this characteristic of myself from previous relationships as well. I felt lonely, dropped and even thought about calling a girl I used to have a casual fling with, but I don't really care for apart from having sex. Or at least sort of. Thing is that ever since I rebooted back in December last year I still haven't regained the ability to get erections straight away. So that was also a reason why I was fine with just going slow with M. Not being recovered from having ED has been a source of anxiety for me ever since last year, most of the time I was occupied with other things, that were looking up, so I didn't really have to pay attention to it. Now however everything I feel anxious about is coming together at the same time. Not being sure about my future, romantically, career-wise, friend-wise, and even location-wise is just freaking me out. I haven't felt as tense as I am right now in a year. I drank two cups of coffee this morning and now at 3pm local time, I still feel like I am on a crazy caffeine high, that almost feels like someone slipped methamphetamines in my drink or something. Weirdly enough my head is quite clear though at the moment, and that is why I am writing all of this down. To have an outlet and also trying to assure I'm not taking this to M directly and let her deal with it, since that would only drive us apart even further. While writing all this though I haven't set still for a single second, because I simply can not relax. A funny feat as well is that I noticed that I think in English while thinking about all these issues (I'm not a native English speaker), which tells me that these kind of thoughts are connected to the English speaking part of my brain, which makes sense, since all the girls in my previous serious relationships were native English speakers and maybe even the journaling I did over here, in English, attributes to that. I still feel it is weird however. I am not sure what to do now. For the moment I think I am just gonna drop the college work I had to get done today and go for some exercise, followed by some yoga and meditation, trying to get out of my head and get my senses and especially my body calmed down. On my contact with M, I send her a message today, asking her how she feels today, nothing too special. But haven't had a response in 3 hours, although I can see that she saw the message. Which makes me feel even more like failure on the one hand because I can't keep my distance, but on the other hand that she doesn't trust me enough to let me in her personal space. Writing all this down is making me releived that some of it is out now. I might post some more thoughts later, but for now this is it. Enjoy your day and, if so, thanks for reading. Edit inAfter writing this down, going for a run, and doing some meditation, I feel a lot better now. Thank god for that, because I was in a very dark place when I got back home and wrote my story down on my laptop. So I hope I don't have setbacks as big as I had earlier today and hope I can just focus on my own life and see relationships as attributing to my life and not as necessary for my life. That would make my life and the life for the people around me a lot easier. If anyone has questions about my journey so far, just let me know! Edit out
In short my story so far So ok basically my story is that I found YBOP and YBR around November last year, started on here in December and have almost entirely porn-free ever since. I found YBR because I wad encountering severe ED, which was a problem in the relationship I was in at the time. My story is the one similar to a lot of people on here. PMO since a young age due to the internet, often multiple times a day, without an erection even. This lead to bad ED, which I ignored, since most of the time it was with girls I didn't really care that much for, and I drank heavily in general on the nights I picked up. The relationship with that girl ended a month after my reboot, due to my ex-girlfriend moving back to her home country. That sparked a month of extreme anxiety for me, but I however kept away from MOing. Ever since I have been hooking up with girls occasionally, but always encountered ED. I stayed almost entirely clear of P for the last year, apart from a couple of testing moments, which I shouldn't have done. (I honestly felt a rush of dopamine to my head at those times, very unnatural..) I was almost as strict with MOing, but I have allowed myself to release approximately once every 7-10 days over the last couple of months. Having said this all enter my extreme anxiety today and over the last couple of days. My feeling a couple of hours after my first post in a long time After writing this down, going for a run, and doing some meditation, I feel a lot better now. Thank god for that, because I was in a very dark place when I got back home and wrote my story down on my laptop. So I hope I don't have setbacks as big as I had earlier today and hope I can just focus on my own life and see relationships as attributing to my life and not as necessary for my life. That would make my life and the life for the people around me a lot easier. If anyone has questions about my journey so far, just let me know!
Hey Veni, try not to worry too much - I'm still experiencing ED as well. It has vastly improved, but us young guys need plenty of time to get better. Good news, too, is that I've seen the light!! I've had consistent rewiring with my girlfriend recently. We went on a 50 day streak in August and I have never felt so good - I was having the best erections of my life and my libido was fantastic! I had an orgasm and it sort of became toned down from there on out. I kept having orgasms, even when erections were tough to get, and that slowed me down. I've also experienced a good amount of anxiety in my reboot, too. Inexplicable anxiety - I've noticed this to be a healthy part of my reboot! Maybe the brain rewiring or going through drastic changes - dunno! Either way, it was important for me to have. My point is try not to be too worried about ED and just keep living!
Cheers guys! gameover, my ED in general keeps me from having general intercourse, so ED is not really an option. Since the last time that happened I have only be in bed with a girl, who insisted the use of condoms, which is fair, but simply not doable for me right now, ED-wise. So I only got oral and/or handjobs, which I did not PE from. Problem with this girl however is that I don't really care for her that much, so I stopped seeing her. fugu, I'm happy to see you're doing well. The thing was not per se that I'm getting anxiety from my ED issues, at least not as much as I used to. I just felt really boxed yesterday, because of things weren't going my way, ED was just a small part of that. And yeah I guess we completely fucked up our bodies from a young age onward, which we are now paying the price for. It was probably as well the prospect of dating a girl I actually like, which in a way triggered some sort of premature ejaculation of dopamine, which got me on a high, and the drop made me so anxious. So I guess I might see that as progress, since it shows I do care for girls, maybe even a bit too much at this point.
Day 2 I'm not sure whether I will be journaling daily, like I did most of time in my previous journal. I will just use this journal to write my thoughts down, and not everything has to do with PIED, PMO, PE or so. Today I have been feeling a lot better than yesterday. I feel more sane and more in control, and am able to see the little things that bring me joy. Furthermore I was able to be quite productive and plan my day so far, in other words I didn't really get distracted from anything, even though I was sitting next to my laptop all day. I kind of feel you can truly alter your state of mind, this however does not mean that I can be happy all the time. I actually don't even want to be happy all the time. Being somewhat melancholic can actually be really important to me, because it helps me reflect. Anxiety however is something different, since it feels like you are being encaged, no matter what you want to do. I just hope I keep the free feeling I have now for the next coming days, and especially continuously. I am fine with some peaks and troughs during the day, but the rate over interchangeability has simply been too high the last week.
Day 6 I've been thinking about my state the last couple of weeks and the last year, and the word I keep coming up with is ownership. First of all in how to deal with the porn and masturbation cravings, for me it is important to acknowledge the cravings you have and think about them, and make sure that you deal with them yourselves (I know that a lot of people are using filters and stuff, but I think this just makes it harder to treat the root of the problem). As long as you do this, you start to understand the cravings better and also are better capable of dealing with them. I haven't had real cravings for porn for quite some time, but do have some masturbation cravings every now and again, which I sometimes do not stop. I am not sure whether this is because I am not strong enough to not M, or whether it is because I believe I simply have to release every now and again. When it comes to what happened with that girl, A., over the last couple of week, I am far more relaxed now. Talked with her for a bit a couple of days ago, and things do seem to be cooled between us. I am not sure, whether that is because she wants to keep a distance for now, dealing with her own issues, or whether that ship has simply sailed. I however can see it now as a possible opportunity, instead of a necessity, which really helps me, since I can focus on more things. This again to me is explained as taking ownership of your feeling. Acknowledging that the feeling is there and give it a proper spot. I really do believe that since starting rebooting I experience feelings stronger and this is amazing on the one hand, but also hard to deal with if it where to be disappointment. (See my first post for instance.) Going through all this does give me benchmarks though for future situations, which will make it all easier for me to deal with it all. Apart from A., there has been some other stuff with girls going on last week. I went out with a friend last Friday, just to have a good chat and fun really, but in the end we both ended hooking up with two girls. She came back to my place and we cuddled and talked for a bit, but didn't have sex. Something I more and more feel like I'm cool with, but on the other hand it scares me that my libido apparently is that high, because I didn't even try. The next day I got booty called by a girl I slept with a couple of times some months ago, and this time I did have libido, but I though it would be smarter not to go there again. (She wants something more serious, and I just don't like her enough.) On top of that I found out that the girl I dated a year ago, and basically was my motivation to start my reboot, is dealing with mental issues, just broke up with her boyfriend, and on top of that she messaged me last weekend that she misses me. I still care for her, so I feel I can't be there for her. (she lives abroad, and that was also the reason for our breakup.) On the other hand I was surprised that I dealt with it quite easily however. Most probably since I already dealt with something difficult just before and therefore are in a good place to deal with this kind of stuff. Again it tells me that I'm owning my thoughts and feelings, of course I can't control them entirely (and am really glad I can't), but I do feel there are not running away with me. So that again, is progress for me.
Its good your still pulling girls and doing all the cuddling and that. The masturbation urges for me are more intense then ones to look at porn as well. I don't think I will ever turn down sex haha good on you though if you weren't keen.
Haha, I played around with the thought for quite some time, wasn't that easy for me as well tbh. The problem I have with masturbating is that the belief it is that bad for you isn't as strong as the with porn itself, I guess.
Hey Modus, haven't seen you around in ages, how is life? I'm doing pretty ok, I would say. Day 14 Over the last week I have been very balanced and I'm really happy with it, grad school is going great, I have fun with friends etc. On top of that I hooked up with a girl last weekend, whom I had a nice click with. Ended up at my place and talked, cuddled, but nothing too sexual, which is nice. I still talk with her on FB every now and then, and I feel that I really like the attention. Weirdly enough I don't have any libido, while I have the feeling of blue balls. Haven't been MOing in over 10 days now, but that's nothing new, so curious to see why I feel I feel such a tense feeling down there. I also did some research and I feel that part of my problem might be a over tensed pelvic muscle. So I have been trying to meditate, relax some more lately, trying to relax more. I tend to be pretty tensed and so are my muscles in general, so I think this will be good for me.