Sounds great to me! Man gas yourself up this is YOUR journal! Be your biggest fan and supporter. Take care of yourself and you will attract the right people around you and when you are ready or think you are close to ready to rewire or connect with a real girl go for it! Ill follow your progress mate!
Great work Don. Whilst being free of PMO is undoubtedly making a difference, I think it goes beyond that. You're making progress because you're actively working on improving multiple areas of your life (as opposed to purely focusing on abstinence). Keep building on this to improve yourself physically, emotionally, perhaps even spiritually. It reminds me of a paragraph from the Recovery Nation workshop in which the author makes the point that addictions are a symptom of our struggles, rather than the cause. This is what he said: "Addiction is not keeping you from living a healthy life. It is not the reason that you are struggling. Even the consequences of your addiction are not the reason that you are struggling...though it is easy to perceive them as such. No, your addiction and its consequences are merely symptoms; the reason you are struggling is because you have yet to learn how to manage your life in a healthy way. It has been your life skill deficiencies that have fueled the 'shortcuts' you have taken to manage your emotions. Shortcuts that provide immediate emotional stimulation (which is good); but to the detriment of your long-term health (which is cumulatively very, very bad). When these shortcuts become ingrained as your primary emotional management strategy, you can consider yourself as having an addiction. But note: it was not the addiction that triggered the life crisis...it was the lack of healthy life management skills that triggered the addiction."
As ever, I appreciate your support forlorn. I think you're right to be honest. I imagine that whilst it's possible to get this far by simply abstaining from PMO, the journey would much slower, but also harder. By building in new habits like exercising, I've managed to create new channels for stress relief, or coping mechanisms if you will, for the times of difficulty in which I previously couldn't cope. I'll keep working away (although I did destroy a large McDonalds today as a reward). That quote reminds me of the revelation I made when I did the dopamine detox, which funnily enough you recommended doing! P is not an objective enemy - if anything it has been a crutch. If it were not there, something else would have taken its place. I suddenly lost all hatred and disgust for P itself - I realised that it was simply an outlet for my frustration and inability to cope so it made no sense to hate it. I realised that if I could monitor how many acts of instant gratification I engaged in, I could reduce the likelihood of escapist behaviour. Resultantly, there has not really been close call in this reboot. I've just started my new job this week. Mon-Wed were super stressful and I would have undoubtedly PMOd to help cope before. Now I accept that I don't feel great that day, and that I will feel better tomorrow. I much prefer this to feeling numb and no emotion at all.
Wow I really cannot overstate how intense these relapse dreams are. Last night I could even feel the dopamine rush
Hey UK Don. I've finally caught up on reading through your posts and I have to say you've made some amazing progress since you've started. Especially in your response to Forlorn, where you recognise P is just a crutch. I'm hoping to get to your stage soon enough. I feel super inspired by your journey and thought you should know. I'm rooting for you!
Thanks for reading my journal and your kind words! I doubt I would been able to get this far in a reboot without this forum, its so cool that we can all take inspiration from each other's journeys through openly sharing them. I'll be following your journey!
10 weeks PMO free. The past week was kind of stressful. I think the combination of starting a new job, and injuries preventing me from working out or running left me pretty anxious. This was most apparent on video calls when meeting my team and colleagues, I would get more anxious than I have in a while which I doubt would have happened if we were meeting in person. Also, since Thursday I've loosened my diet (food and booze) as not to be too tough on myself after a challenging week. I've exercised strict discipline up until now, and will enjoy doing so again from tomorrow morning, though I think having a break from it now and again is healthy. I'm pleased to also report that I have still not even come close to viewing P. This is of course something I will not compromise on and I'm feeling good about my progress. That said, I've noticed an increase in dopamine seeking behaviour such as checking my phone pointlessly when struggling to focus. I'll leave it in a different room tomorrow when working.
Finding life pretty stressful still. Had some urges earlier this week but didn't come close to acting on them. I think it's just taking me a while to adjust to the working life, especially as I don't really like working from home. Also exercise feels harder than it did before letting the shackles off last weekend. Just gonna keep at it I guess and hopefully I'll get used to the new job.
Had a great relaxing weekend, and even though I’ve eased off the gym I think it’s been good for me - I’m even stronger now. I’ve got a good feeling about the week ahead. 11 weeks down too
When intrusive thoughts are triggered in my brain I can still feel that rush of excitement and that pull towards femdom and PMO. Then, I take a step back mentally. It's a weird approach but hear me out - I imagine myself actually PMOing, in my bed, in my room, by myself. It makes me feel sick to my stomach, and also quite sad. I've never felt this before and I think it's because I can now see through the enticing premise of a PMO-induced dopamine rush. I feel sad because of the damage I've caused myself through my destructive behaviour, yet I understand that it is/was not my fault. I just wasn't equipped with the right skills to navigate some aspects of life, and was not educated enough on addiction to understand that I was developing one as a child. Before, satisfying my craving was a priority in order for me to survive the situations I found myself in. Now, however, after working hard on creating positive habits and rebuilding my life, I am better equipped to face more challenging short-term issues. It is through these small positive actions that I find myself in positive spirals, and through these that every single day I am actively ensuring my long-term life plan will one day come to fruition. All from simply focusing on what I am doing right now, today, one day at a time. I think my change in perspective towards all the small actions I engage in every day (both positive and negative e.g. relapse) has been a bit of a moment of enlightenment, yet it also feels like something I already knew. Perhaps it is only through experiencing it that I have been able to truly understand the enormity of the consequences of every action I take. Either way I am resultantly learning to love myself.
Felt so much more confident today at work in comparison to the past 2 weeks. Hoping this is going to continue!
I feel good, but I am checking this forum too often. My brain is beginning to seek the mini dopamine hit connected with alerts on here quite frequently. Going to depart from here for a while.
Today is the first time in a long time that I've had proper urges. It's been about 3 weeks since my last wet dream so I think it means I may have another one coming. I think another reason though is that I shaved my pubes yesterday - it sounds weird but now that I'm circumcised it I'm getting more stimulation from my dick rubbing against my legs and nuts and its leaving me with a semi lol. I'm coming here to write as an outlet as it's leaving me kinda frustrated. Work is also irritating me: I keep arranging calls/meetings with people in order to progress with my project but they keep on cancelling minutes before. It's leaving me with nothing to do and is making me look bad to my manager as I'm not completing much, yet I cannot go any faster if my teammates are going to keep bailing. Not much I can do and I understand that, but I cannot help feeling pissed off about it. It's also triggering feelings of procrastination, as if I'm not tackling the most important aspects of my life which I've talked so much about doing.
Better on the urges since my last post, but definitely feeling horny. I know it’s because I’m about to have a wet dream - looking at previous ones this streak I’m overdue one, and my balls are seriously aching this morning so guessing I nearly had one last night. This has left me in a bit of a predicament. Tonight I’m staying at a mates house with a couple of other mates. I’ll be sharing a bed with another one of the lads, and obviously if the nuts were to finally release tonight it would be far from ideal. That said I refuse to MO. Fingers crossed I suppose
Sorry for being amused at your potential misfortune, but the description of your predicament did make me chuckle. I had a nocturnal emission a couple days ago (a weird sensation but preferable to a voluntary MO). For me, it was just mildly inconvenient. I did wonder if my wife heard me rummaging through a draw in the middle of the night trying to find fresh boxer shorts. How's the job going? Working from home isn't such a bad thing IMO. I know you miss out on the social aspect of things....but just think of the time you save traveling each way. And being able to dress casually (unless you're in Zoom/Teams meetings all day).
I'm glad you it amused you! It made me smile as I typed it too - all was ok in the end luckily, though I am still frustrated so hoping for a release soon. The job is ok, thanks for asking. It is no longer stressful, but perhaps too much so. Joining a company online is quite a weird experience as I am not getting the small opportunities to meet my team, whether that be at the office coffee machine, or at the pub after work. I've simply been given a vague project to lead and implement within the next 4 months by my manager in a company in which I am new too, so am still trying to get to grips with. I think I would appreciate the extra guidance and direction that I imagine physical meetings and chats would provide. I feel this is particularly true for a recent graduate like myself. Often when trying to book zoom meetings with team members for the sake of introductions, I am blown off as the meeting commences due to their other priorities. Resultantly I lose focus quite frequently at home because I do not have a busy schedule as it is up to me to fill it up with relevant meetings and discussions to develop my project. That said, I appreciate the fact that I am paying significantly lower rent, do not have to commute, and am working in a company with a relatively relaxed and flexible culture. I think I have a lot of learning to do when it comes to being more assertive and direct in the workplace. Thanks niskanen! The journey has been long and has recently become more challenging again, which is a subtle reminder of the progress I am yet to make. I am learning more about myself again. Throughout my adolescence I think I have mistaken my lack of confidence (in some situations) and insecurity driven anxiety as slight introversion. In actual fact, I think I often found it easier to be by myself and do little as a result of my PMO addiction, because as so many have said, it fills a void. Reflecting on my time at university and the recent weeks working from home have suggested to me that I actually do gain energy from being on the company of others; I'm a more social being than I ever thought. I need to learn to maintain a more fulfilling social life even with coronavirus restrictions in place, and while working 9-5. It's very easy for me to get up, work all day / get distracted at home, run, play sport, make dinner, watch youtube, go to bed, repeat. This is a much improved routine in comparison to my old one, but it's still not where I want to be. I believe my earlier posts during this reboot provide good evidence of this too. This has been my last 'student' summer, and I was meeting up with guys and girls frequently which undoubtedly helped my reboot through filling the void. In particular, just 2 weeks into my journey I felt further from my PMO addiction than ever before thanks to being surrounded by other people and spending a lot of time with girls. Fast-forward to today, and it has been weeks since I was even in a social situation with a girl who doesn't have a boyfriend. I really think I need to change this in order to progress further, as female company in the real world is essential for rewiring, and serves as the ultimate reminder of how unfulfilling a life of PMO is - it shifts me into a completely different mindset. Now the question for me is how I go about doing this with the current social restrictions in place.
