Can relate. Not to the Christian morals but regarding the abstinence thing. I mean we not doing this to become monks, no? (Apart from the monk mode faction, maybe :3) We be doing this to be no longer numbed out and have the opportunity to connect to partners. As much as youtube holds a lot of good and bullshit advice, too: take what you can find, make what you don't find, survive. There are no points granted for looking stylish or sophisticated. We must be brave explorers with brains like ours. Regarding to cruel part: Might sound counter intuitive, but as a first step, try and accept the fact that you sometimes are cruel to yourself. Make that a thing to not beat yourself up about when it happens. Watch the behaviour, try to reduce it and then watch some more. Changes will be really really small at first, the trick is to not sabotage them when you see them, but just keep watching. That stuff is easier when you go from self punishing mode to curious, semi detached explorer. Take (another) science trip to Your BrainLand tm! If that makes sense.
Yes, abstinence is hard, and not absolutely required for recovery from P addiction. Thanks @dark red drifter vessel. I agree that progress often starts out very small at first, but a little progress over a long period of time can lead to great things. It's a bad habit, being too hard on myself. And I shouldn't be hard on myself about being hard on myself. I've been doing okay. I've thought about what you said, and how I can M to just fantasy so I might not have an extreme case of PIED. That may be true, but I checked at Your Brain on Porn's article on PIED and it says to try M to sensation only. I tried that a couple times recently, including today, and I couldn't get an erection without fantasy. I think P is still in my brain and in my fantasies, I think my fantasies have women like I used to see in porn, and definitely has ideas that I've read in porn. (I used to M to a lot of written porn, which may be even more destructive than visual porn for me.) I'm 44, is it possible I'm just too old to get erections without some good reason for it? I am thinking I need to be mostly abstinent and have a woman help me rewire. I'm even also thinking that I should go ahead and FM regularly if I can't be abstinent for many months at a time, and I can't eventually have sexual activity with a woman. At least today's fantasy was relatively moderate, just of me sleeping around and having sex with young women (not teenaged girls). Status update As far as NoA I think I haven't seen any nudity since last post. I FMOed today and it may have been inspired by some moderately sexy music videos (I should just listen to the audio) and the idea of listening to an ASMR partially for sexual purposes. Edit: I am over 4 years clean! I should get myself something.
4 years that's impressive! IMO if you can FMO then you don't need to worry about ED during sex. ED would then come from being nervous and not from porn. However since you know it works with fantasy then you have the option to use that to get started during sex as well, like a barbecue lighter.
Thanks! I really should get myself a cake or something. Yeah, it makes sense, but I'm real skeptical. My F is definitely influenced by porn, both in the fictional bodies I imagine and the storylines, and I don't get hard no matter how hard I flog my member without fantasy. It may be that to cure PIED I have to go without A (arousal), nudity, F and most M for a long period of time. I think I'm not going to attempt that now, and I'll FMO semi-regularly instead. Status update Today I remembered some movie nudity I saw like 16 years ago. I looked up the movie, and I had the idea, even the temptation, to look up its nudity. Fortunately I didn't, but the temptation was the strongest temptation to look up nudity on the WWW that I've had for a while. Of course it was a movie so they picked someone extremely sexy, and my Christian ass will never be able to look at or enjoy images like that ever, though that should increase enjoyment of my wife a lot. And I'd actually be able to have sex with my wife, instead of just drool over a strange woman on my TV screen.
Status update One hour later... I did an FMO, and I reverted back to the fantasies I used to have while looking up P regularly in the past. I had hoped I had left those fantasies behind forever, and I feel ashamed now. Well, I prayed about that and related issues, like PIED. I am not sure what I will attempt to do in the future: To FM or not to FM.
Maybe I am too much of a defeatist in these matters, but: Your gonna want things. Don't hate yourself for it, human condition ain't a flu you can tough out, but well, a condition. I'd rather have ye ponder the mechanics of wifery getting than hatin on yerself for having a brain that will be looking for the sexy until the suns burn out.
Thanks for your blunt post. What do you mean the mechanics of wifery? Like trying to get a wife? Anyway, I agree that I shouldn't beat up myself for looking for lustful and sexy images (of real people or pictures). Status update As I posted last night, I experimented with FMO. I didn't like the experiment or its results. I have read that cuddling after sex increases the bonding chemicals between a man and a woman. Afterwards I felt lonely and wanted to cuddle with my blankets, like a post-coital bonding I believe. I didn't enjoy that feeling, and I don't really want to bond with anything that's not a trustworthy wife. It wasn't horrible, but I don't really want to feel that way ever again. I've talked a bit on this journal about a "Good MO". It's when I MO with only one fantasy or porn image in my mind at a time, and it's just an emergency sexual release. I think it might be okay for me to do that every 1-3 months. I think I might recover from PIED if I do that. I feel better without M anyway, so maybe I'll have the willpower to attempt that.
Sorry, I have tendency for weird phrasing. Yep. I'd rather have you dating and/or meeting people. I understand you wanting a safe, committed relationship. But the only road to that will be thru meeting women and giving them the chance to prove their trustworthy, eh?
Some say that the fetishes can be reversed but that never worked for me. They're still there but with time I think about them less and less. Also I notice that when I'm very stressed I'm more inclined to turn to that heavy fetish stuff in my mind. It's the stronger painkiller and sometimes it can serve that purpose to exceed what is good for me, such as working longer than usually.
Yeah, I should go to church. I am hoping to get into society more, and quitting P and M has helped a lot with the self-consciousness. @BackOnTrack thanks for letting me know. I'm not sure my fantasies are fetishes, and I think I'll be able to forget about them mostly. Status on NoA I've been doing better for NoA in the last month or so. I even removed titles with nudity from my "Continue watching" line on Netflix. Why didn't I do this sooner? It seems so obvious now. I guess I was unconsciously hoping for an excuse to resume those titles and see some nudity. I seem to be watching a lot fewer sexy music videos, and even skipping ones that make me think of sex. I'm still thinking about sex a lot, and I feel like that'll be a hard habit to quit. So, with NoA and trying not to have F and only MOing every month or two or three, I think I have a plan for recovering from P addiction and PIED. Maybe I should seek a wife, I'm not sure, At least getting out like going to church is probably a good idea.
Status update Later that day (yesterday) I went and did an FMO. It was a more limited fantasy than usual, but based on a real person, an ex-girlfriend, who has since died. Maybe that's not much better. I didn't get the feeling that I wanted to cuddle something (or someone) after MO, though. Maybe some M won't hurt me. I think I've run out of willpower for refraining from M, though, so I might have no choice except the occasional MO. I've had the temptation to do some more M today, which I think is the chaser effect from yesterday. Also I had the idea today a couple times of going to my old favourite porn site. I still have the idea from time to time of going to that website and finally paying for an account, as if I owed them that much after 20 years of using their site for free. Of course that's a really bad idea, but it keeps occurring to me.
Status update I've done okay with not looking at sexual media. I looked up a celebrity once, which used to lead me down into PMO, but did not look at cleavage or any sexy body parts. I FMOed again. I feel like I could have resisted it if I really wanted to. I don't feel as bad as I did a few days ago when I wanted to cuddle my blankets, but I do feel somewhat bad. I read a Christian web page about masturbation and, considering that and how I feel right now, FMO is probably not a good habit. I also read that sexual fantasy seems to be the key here. My brother, who's pretty liberal, says that fantasy M is fine so long as you don't imagine anybody real. I can see that reasoning, and I also think that anything I shouldn't do in real life I probably shouldn't fantasise about either. So, I think instead of trying to quit M I should try not to have FM of real people or anything that I can't or shouldn't do in real life. I think that will stop about 90% of my M and make me feel a lot healthier and more confident. For example, right now I'm not confident enough to go outside or interact with anyone. It may also help me rewire from P and cure PIED. I was going to say something else here, but I forget.
Hm, fantasy is one thing I don't think is too bad. I have to say tho, it takes time until I do no longer feel the impact porn has on what I fantasize about. But normally I get back to a place where I am okay with the content if my naughty thoughts.
Okay. I think most or all of my fantasies are mostly or partially porn-inspired, whether visual or written porn. I think that fantasy isn't good even if it's unrelated to P. Status update I watched a TV show with a beautiful teenaged girl, but I've seen no sex or nudity on TV (or elsewhere) recently. So, NoA is working okay. I tried an MO without F today, but I quit just before orgasm after I found I couldn't do it without F and would have to come here and report an FMO. I think my willpower is basically exhausted from years of fighting for a better life, fighting sexual temptations, and from ADHD, which seems to disable the willpower. It would probably help if I talked to a shrink about ADHD, maybe I'll bring it up next time I talk to my doctor.
Status update Yet another FMO with some porn-inspired fantasy. I don't know why I'm acting up like this lately, I think I haven't exposed myself to much sexual imagery. Maybe I just don't like the full prostrate. I've been researching ADHD and how it's really easy to deplete your willpower. Maybe my willpower is reduced because I've been trying to exercise more and eat less lately, but I don't think so since I think this was happening before that. FMOs seem to have no very bad effects, compared to PMO. I still prefer they were no fantasy MOs, though. I'm not driven to solve this problem like P since it seems nowhere near as harmful. I prayed about it, maybe that'll help. (Usually I get some kind of response for prayers.)
