Status update As far as NoA, yesterday I watched a movie with a lot of sexuality in it, though no nudity or sex scenes. Not sure I should have done that, in fact because of NoA I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have done that. Today I laid down for a while and at first I was thinking about constructive things but soon I was having sexual fantasies. I tried several times to stop, and I even FMed a bit. I think when I try to stop thinking about sex I think about sex more. I think I am afraid that if I stop thinking about sex I will lose my sexuality and sex drive, and I will lose all my efforts and progress at sexual purity and to end my sexual corruption. This is probably false, but I'm not sure, so I can't give up yet. I did have the idea of asking my brother to ask me why I wasn't married every few weeks and see if I can be motivated to get married that way. I also think that maybe the main reason I don't have a girlfriend or am not married is because I have low self-esteem and I don't think I'm worth much for a girl. And that's my overly honest share for today.
Status update on NoA I watched a movie that warned of "brief nudity". It was not brief. I decided that it was okay to watch a movie with a little nudity, and maybe it is. I noticed I was looking forward to the nudity, though, which makes absolutely no sense if trying for NoA or sexual purity. And then I predicted when it came up and I was still looking forward to it, and I looked at the women lustfully. I stopped watching the movie soon after, not a very good movie anyway. Kind of a C movie. Yeah, if I keep looking forward to nudity and pay close attention to it when it happens, I can't watch those movies or TV shows. Fortunately I have a lot of books, music, other TV and movies, video games and, well, work to do. Edit: I had some sexual fantasies just now, and got an erection. After a little while it made me feel passionate, which I think is a great sign. Even after 20 years of sexual misbehaviour I can still have passion for a girlfriend/wife figure.
NoA status update Today I had some fantasy in bed for, I don't know, a total of 20 minutes. Later I got out of bed but kept having the temptation to FM. Eventually I gave in to temptation and FMOed in bed. It was a short FM session. I still didn't get an erection without extreme fantasising. I had the idea to look up porn on my smartphone, but it wasn't a serious temptation. I am unsure what's going on, but it may be that one of my psychiatric medications, olanzapine, is getting less effective on me. I think the olanzapine normally makes me sleep late, makes me tired all day, and greatly lowers or eliminates my sex drive. But lately I've been waking up earlier, feeling less tired, and wanting to FM more. So maybe the medication is getting less effective over the past few weeks. Maybe my normal sex drive is returning, and I'm losing the unfair advantage I had over all you guys. Fortunately I'm still not tempted to look at porn. I seem to have left P behind. But I think I have to quit FM if I want to cure PIED and rewire to real women. I also doubt God supports me having sexual fantasies of things I couldn't do in real life (because they'd be wrong), and I find M to be a very dubious habit. Edit: I think it's not a good idea to try to seek a wife just so I can have sex with someone instead of M. Also, doing M makes me more self-conscious and less confident when socialising, so M is probably setting me back on finding a wife someday. Edit: I think one other reason I FMOed was that I was really busy (for me) yesterday and I've been under some stress. I probably still have dysfunctional stress circuits like it says on YBOP somewhere. I can't cope so easily with difficult things, so it makes me want to FMO. I still think I need to rewire my brain to get my pre-frontal cortex (frontal lobes) working again, including forethought, thinking things through, planning, and a really good sense of right and wrong. Maybe I should practice using my thinking to make decisions more, instead of my intuition or feelings. Edit: All that said about rewiring, I'm still doing a lot, lot better than I was when I was PMOing all the time, or recovering from PMOing. Edit: I FMOed again, and I'm reporting it here hours later, to be honest at least. I don't really feel bad about it, though, even though I don't think they're God-compatible fantasies or will help me recover from PIED and rewire from P.
NoA status update No serious temptations to FM today. Had a very small amount of fantasy. I think yesterday's two Os are holding me over. I don't think I checked out any females sexually today. I'd like to have a plan for dealing with M when I have no sex and I have a sex drive. I don't get nocturnal emissions (wet dreams), either, only very rarely, and usually only when I feel very safe and comfortable. I am unsure how rebooted I am. I definitely don't crave porn anymore. I seem to have forgotten about it. I don't even have filtering anymore and that doesn't come to mind, there's no temptation to look up porn. So, I'm definitely not miserably acting out and recovering from acting out regularly anymore. I think I'm probably a lot more outgoing and confident, and I have a lot more free time and less stress and guilt. I don't have the voice in my head saying "Look at just one porn picture, it won't hurt.". On YBOP it says that when consuming porn your frontal lobes are weakened and can only say to your mammalian brain, "I don't think we should be doing this, but I can't stop you." I am unsure if my forethought, impulse control, planning, moral centre have improved or not. I am not sure if my frontal lobes are recovered. Definitely my head is clearer. I think lately my thinking has improved slightly, and I think it might continue to improve if I tackle life issues one at a time and do my best to practice common sense and reasonable thinking to do with it. Perhaps playing chess with my brother will help, too. In all, I'm so grateful to be free of P, and I can't even think of going back. But I'm not sure in what shape my brain is in, and I still have PIED, so I think I might not be rebooted yet.
NoA progress update I am posting because I'm somewhat tempted to M to fantasy or a movie featuring a lot of nice-looking young women. After reading a lot of Reddit PMOLOL I realised I was tempted to FM because I am bored. I've been waking up earlier and I have no job or really anything I have to do other than chores, so boredom is or could be a major challenge. I have written down lists of things I can do other than go on the internet. Most of those items would be good for avoiding M, too. In all honesty, here are some ideas I have now: Practice piano or guitar Do chores Cook Watch wholesome TV and movies (and I mean wholesome for me, the movie I have on pause now seems wholesome but it has too many sexy girls) Learn and practice math Read the Bible Read fiction and other non-fiction Talk to my mom Of course, go out for walks Exercise Work on getting a job That's a good enough for now. Okay, I turned off the TV and the movie that was on it. The movie was The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, and I was mostly watching it to see attractive young women, who may or not be in form-fitting clothing. This is not compatible with NoA nor godly standards of sexual morality. Maybe I can watch it when I get older and I'm less sexually lustful for young women.
NoA update I watched a movie with a lot of nudity in it tonight. I kept thinking it would be over soon, and then paused the movie when finally it was too much. Then I resumed it and it was over soon. I kept watching the movie because I guess I was resentful of being unable to watch movies for adults. Then there was nudity later in the movie. Overall I think I'm okay, I didn't linger or leer at the women and I don't think I got sexually aroused, and I feel like the movie did me a little good, except for the nudity. Edit: There was more nudity towards the end, and I knew it might be coming, but I was looking forward to it. It's on a free streaming service, too, so there's nothing to cancel. Maybe I should just read more. Now I'm turned on, despite what I said earlier, and I have to de-excite myself for a while. Edit: Or maybe I don't like not watching a movie because I want to see nude women. I think the nudity helped turn me on because they had a young woman character with hair and face that I like, and a situation that I like too. I hope I don't remember it for very long. Oh well, most likely I just have to calm down and move on from this. Edit: I thought I should note about that the situation the character in the movie was in. She seemed to be a "troubled teen" and I was a troubled teen, so that hits a chord with me. I've even looked at porn hoping to find a troubled teen girl. Also the pain from my teenaged years was serious (and substantial) and helped drive a lot of my porn consumption. I think I got over that pain, or have it handled now, sometime in the last 10 years. It's probably one of the things that helped me recover from P.
NoA status I went and viewed an Instagram of an attractive woman (really attractive). This was probably where I started to go wrong. She had a lot of cleavage pictures and I scrolled down a bit, but later stopped. Still, I did myself no favours putting that in my mind. Now I want to think about it and get Aroused, which is counter-productive. Other than that I've been staying clean lately, no sexual images, no fantasy or not much of it, and no M. I hope I can keep up like this. I also hope I can figure out how to help you others quit porn forever like I hopefully have.
Hi nuclpow, Glad you don't think it is a hypomanic episode. As you say, it means you can't sleep, get lots done, are irritable or get angry, and feel very sexy and very tempted. I empathise. It is not at all easy to deal with. Are you on mood stabilisers? At SAA you really should share. Don't feel ashamed. We have all felt that way, and need to be open and honest with others who are addicted.
Yeah, I have bipolar, but I think I haven't had a hypomanic or depressive episode since getting on olanzapine and escitalopram. But no mood stabilisers, just other medication that seems to work. Thanks for the empathy. Yeah, I usually share in SAA meetings. Thanks for the encouragement. This week I should probably share about how I'm sex-obsessed and do things like constantly try to check out ladies' legs and chests in movies and TV shows, and even on a scene outside a building, hope I can look in and see some woman in a bra. However, on my last two walks in the neighbourhood I didn't look at anyone lustfully I don't think. Status for NoA I can still remember the sexy lady I saw yesterday, and I saw some of a sexy music video today but stopped watching it. Also, today I clicked on a famous woman's Wikipedia page and the profile picture had cleavage. I don't remember whose page now. But it was probably a small mistake looking at her article. Edit: No fantasy or M since last, I seem to be having an okay time being clean with that. Edit: Tempted to FM, but turned it down. I wonder if the temptations will eventually get too much for me. It would probably be nice if I got nocturnal emissions, too (wet dreams).
I wanted to share this image about addiction: Sounds pretty true, eh? When I was addicted to P it took over half or most of my life, but maybe not everything.
Status on NoA I saw two sexually arousing images today and I watched half a movie with some nudity and sexuality in it... The images were unintentionally seen. The movie had a brief cartoon nudity thing, but had further sexuality in the movie so I eventually stopped watching it (for now). I probably should have stopped watching it after the cartoon nudity, or after the first scene of sexuality... Maybe a healthy grown-up can watch a movie like this, but probably for a porn survivor it's risky. The streaming service I was using doesn't seem to have any content warning information, but maybe I should have checked Common Sense Media. I expected some sexuality but not a lot, and maybe that's why I was watching the movie anyway. At least I quit watching the movie (for now). Edit: The movie appears not to be in Common Sense Media's database. Edit: Maybe I should get into the habit of doing a Web search before watching any movie, "does such and such a movie have nudity or sexuality?".
NoA status I watched the rest of that movie, there wasn't much sexuality left. In retrospect there's no way someone trying to practice NoA should have watched the movie. I guess I'll just have to give up on a lot of movies, either temporarily or permanently. There's lots of other movies and TV shows on my paid and free streaming services. I did do a WWW search on two movies if they had nudity on them, and it turns out people are keeping track. The first movie got a 3/10 on IMDB for sexuality and nudity. Goodness, I guess a 10 would be straight porno. I guess I have to go for 0-1 movies. Edit: I am thinking maybe practicing NoA makes me notice women's attractiveness more. I remember 3 from my last grocery run and 1 from a non-sexy TV show. I have to keep this up, seeing real cute women is way better than drooling over somewhat naked chicks on TV. Edit again: I have women on the brain. I thought it was from me watching that sexy movie, Tank Girl, but usually that leaves me after half a day or something. I've been thinking about and noticing women for a couple days now. Perhaps this is a good sign, I am returning to desiring real women instead of electronic displays. Perhaps my sex drive is returning after about 17 years of perversion into internet porn. I don't know, but I plan to keep thinking about it and post about it later. Edit again: I just went and viewed some sexy pictures on the WWW, like I used to do before acting out. I think I've stopped now. Yeah, not a good decision for a porn survivor, someone trying to practice NoA, or someone trying to practice Christian sexual morality. I thought I'd try to see just some beautiful, non-sexy pictures of women, but I didn't get that far. Probably not a good decision there. I was thinking, just before looking up pictures, that I liked this state where I liked women a lot and was thinking of them more as people with beauty and personalities and less as sex objects. I guess I still do, but if my sexuality is going to be like this for the foreseeable future it's going to be hard to be chaste and not act out.
Hi nuclpow, you have been clean now for a long time, right? What do you think initiated these difficulties now?
Yeah, almost 4 years clean from P. I'm not sure, I had more interest and confidence to look at cute girls recently. Maybe my sex drive is returning (more about real women, less about fantasy or images). Maybe that combined with thinking about sex made me try to look up beautiful girls on Reddit, where there was sexy teen girls instead, not a good result. Fortunately I quit before much.
Status on NoA I haven't looked up any beautiful or sexy women since last, not that I think I can't look up beautiful women if it's not sexy. I had a dream with a lot of naked women in it, though I remember few details. I don't seem to be triggered from it. Overall things are going fine. I am thinking I did have a hypomanic episode, which is why I was waking up earlier, getting more done, and having increased sexual desire, but the medication I'm on made it less severe.
Status on NoA I haven't looked up pictures of women, done any F or any M recently. I did have a dream of naked women, but I can hardly remember it. I tried watching a movie, The Girl on the Train. I looked up beforehand if it had nudity, and what I read was that there was a short scene of backside nudity. Well, maybe that was for the other The Girl on the Train movie (I didn't know there were two of them). This movie had several nude scenes and sex scenes. I stopped watching it half-way through because it was too much. Maybe I'll have to double check the date on the movie when I look it up.
Well done for turning off the movie. Great to see how you're really in control and take action at the right moment, before the 'point of no return'
Thank you. I think I should be turning off the movie as soon as it has more nudity than I expected, or nudity of a different kind than I read about on the WWW. I doubt watching the whole movie will make me look up P, though. It may delay or make worse my recovery from PIED. I have been practicing piano a bit over the past few months, and yesterday I was able to play a few bars from the beginning of an advanced piece. I felt almost euphoric about that. I hope to keep practicing a bit at a time.
NoA status I finally saw a movie with no nudity or sexuality! I re-watched Jurassic Park. Lots of violence, some death, some swearing, but no sex or nudity. I feel relieved.
NoA status I've been doing okay. I watched some of Seven, a movie with horrifying images, but stopped watching it most of the way through. I also watched some of a Lady Gaga video, and then I remembered I was trying to practice NoA and skipped to the next one. There's some things I'm supposed to do in life, but honestly, I should probably try for employment.
