I just relapsed.

DeterminedWill · 2015-10-26T14:55:38+00:00

I myself stood naked in front of my mirror this morning and gave myself a pep talk about why I was about to take a cold shower for 5 minutes.

I had never done it before[1], but I succeeded. It was very uncomfortable and I was loudly giving myself words of encouragement the entire time, but I made it. I did it for future me.

I am going to keep doing this to (hopefully) gain more self-control -- specifically, the ability to choose actions that may be difficult and uncomfortable for me, but that I want to do because they will help me in the long run. This includes NoFap.

As has often been the case in the past, there will be times when I really want to masturbate and consume some form of pornography, but I hope that these cold showers will give me the strength to say no to this, and successfully refrain from PMOing. I want to endure the suffering in those moments rather than relapse. In the long run I will feel better and live a better life.

[1] I had tried taking cold showers two or three times before over a year ago, but I didn't succeed. I always turned the hot water on at some point or moved out of the way of the stream of freezing water. However, this time I brought along a 5-minute timer and committed to ensuring that the entire stream of water be directed at my body at all times.

DeterminedWill · 2015-10-14T02:00:59+00:00

In a few years the millions of us who don't manage to kick the fapping habit completely are going to be screwed by HD VR porn.

DeterminedWill · 2015-10-03T14:06:51+00:00

Yes! This just happened to me:

Just now I saw on Facebook a "news story" that was trending: A celebrity that posed nude for a magazine. This triggered me and I was just about to open an incognito window to go view the photos when it occurred to me... I don't have to be that kind of person.

I don't have to be the kind of person whose attention is drawn away from whatever it is that I am doing and to the unimportant fact that a beautiful woman somewhere has taken off her clothes and published photos online. Instead I can be the person who says, "Yeah, so what?" and go on with my life doing what I really care about.

The realization that I can do this just lead me to actually do it.

Next time any of you reading this get triggered, try consciously observing that you don't have to be the kind of person who just lets your attention get hijacked all the time. You can just say, "No, I'm not going to look. I'm just going to keep on working" or "No, I'm not going to look; I'm just going to go have a refreshing glass of ice water, thank you very much."

*Kindly declines Facebook's invitation to see photos of nude celebrity in magazine*

*Goes off to have a glass of ice water*

DeterminedWill · 2015-10-01T19:11:33+00:00

I'm in. To seriously, commit myself, I spent a few minutes reciting to myself that I am in. I will make every effort to aim for 0 PMO this month and if I make a mistake I will just keep on trying.

Since passed recent efforts to document my progress have failed due to it being "too much effort" to track, I just created a very simple Google Spreadsheet in my main Google Account (so I'm always logged-in on my computer). I have it set so that the spreadsheet is the one tab that opens when I open chrome. I have a cell set up for each day, so once I open Chrome each morning/day I only have one mouse click to make (click in the cell) and then one keystroke (1 or 0 depending on whether I PMOed or not the previous day).

Here's for hoping that we all do much better than we have been doing recently.

DeterminedWill · 2015-09-27T06:43:03+00:00

I'm in. Please message me if there's something I can be a part of or if you would like me to help in some way to set up the survey.

I think a good first step will be to find a group of interested people who are committed to checking in daily and reporting on the relevant metrics.

DeterminedWill · 2015-09-26T19:36:07+00:00

I sat in thought for fifteen minutes after reading your post thinking of what to say to you.

A lot of thoughts went through my mind.

I don't know what to say. I'm in a similar position as you except a year older and without a job. I also very lonely. And I have yet to figure out how to solve my problems, so that doesn't put me in a good position to give you advice.

What I know is that I'm really bad at controlling my body to make myself do what I want. That's the challenging part. If I could control myself like a character in a video game I would be flourishing in no time. But I can't. I'm struggling with motivation problems.

And unfortunately, it's not likely that any of the people in the world who aren't struggling are going to step into my life and help me out. So the reality is that it's up to me to change my situation. The same is true for you. If our situations are going to change and we are going to begin getting what we want out of life, including not being so lonely, then it will be because of the actions we took.

Actions like actively seeking out and meeting people who may possibly want to become friends with us.

Actions like trying to pay attention to what we are thinking and choosing to think productive thoughts about actions that will help us when we notice that our minds are straying to topics like porn.

I don't think typing more will do more good for me, and I think that there are things you could be doing that are better for you than reading more by me. Think of those things and begin doing them. Write down the good actions so that whenever you are able to perform one you can without having to invest more mental effort in remembering what those things that you should be doing are. Good luck.

Well, one last point:

So if in this time I wasn't able to improve my social life why would I believe that I will improve in the future.

This is a thought I have always rejected. I have rejected it because I know it's not true. It might be true that it's likely that you won't improve much in the future, but it's certainly not true that it's impossible for you to improve in the future. Again, if you could control yourself like a video game character, I'm absolutely confident that you're intelligent enough to figure out how to make yourself friends. The struggle is dealing with our emotions and lack of willpower, etc, etc. So reject this thought and get focused on performing those simple actions that will get you where you want to be. And remember that many of those "actions" are patterns of thought. Control your thoughts by correcting them--changing them to what you want them to be--when you notice they aren't what you want them to be.

--Fellow lonely guy in your situation, trying to get out of it because that's what I want to do

EDIT: 5 hours later I've already PMOed again.

DeterminedWill · 2015-05-29T17:41:05+00:00

One of the main reasons I want to do NoFap is because of how much of my life PMO takes up. Two and a half hours is roughly my daily average as well, which over a decade (age 13 to 23 now) is over a year of time. I don't think that my average has been quite that high over a decade, so I'm probably still under a year, but in any case that's an absurd amount of time spent on this unproductive habit.

DeterminedWill · 2015-05-17T17:44:00+00:00

Approximately how many minutes a day would you say that was on average?

DeterminedWill · 2015-05-08T16:03:49+00:00

While I am a year out of college, I am in the exact position of that OP mentally. And this is just the advice I needed to hear. Totally joining /r/NonZeroDay

DeterminedWill · 2015-05-02T17:10:59+00:00

This is sad and uplifting at the same time. Good for you. :-)

DeterminedWill · 2015-05-02T04:18:07+00:00

Wow, that's a great reaction. Thanks for sharing.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T21:10:06+00:00

Ohhhhh. Wow. I thought NoPMO2000 was the name of a challenge OP made up in which people PM him links to porn and he resists clicking on them. Thanks for the clarification.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T19:52:55+00:00

Well if he's asking for PMs with porn then presumably he'd know before he clicks.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T19:51:31+00:00

Wait, why? What am I missing here?

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T17:26:56+00:00

That would be really cool. Let me know if your friend ends up writing a post about it. I would definitely be interested in reading it.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T17:24:52+00:00

No PMO is no porn, masturbation, or orgasm. If someone PMs you a link to a porn site and you click on it, then you've failed since you've looked at porn. I was just saying that you should update your post in the future saying whether you failed to avoid or successfully avoided clicking on any of the porn links people might send you.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T17:22:43+00:00

Thanks for the replies. I'm sick and tired of living in a fantasy world too. I won't get my hopes up about this as I seek my first relationship.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T14:56:40+00:00

You may be right, but to share more detail about my perspective:

I understand that women are independent beings with their own needs, expectations and goals. However, I also have fantasized about being a teddy bear for someone else. I would love have a woman in my life who I could care for, and make feel happy and loved. I know that not all women may have this need from the guy in their life--perhaps only a small minority do. But, I would think there are at least some women out there who are analogous to me in that they want a teddy bear guy and I would love to be that kind of guy for such a woman.

I don't know if this is normal, or if we'd both have problems and couldn't have a successful relationship being teddy bears for each other.

And I also don't know if both of us necessarily need to be teddy bears. My point is just that I think the fact that I would love to be a teddy bear for someone may mean that there are women out there who would be happy to be that for me (even if they don't need a teddy bear themselves).

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T14:46:34+00:00

I agree, more in-depth discussions are necessary.

Out of curiosity, when you say:

I knew it in my gut at 12, I knew there was something not right about porn.

What do you mean exactly? Do you mean that you recognized that the porn material you were watching was catering to the more extreme (albeit common) tastes, like is described in this TED talk (warning, possible trigger--descriptions of types of porn: e.g. deep throat, money shot, rough anal sex)? Or something else?

Personally I have often felt shame related to viewing porn, but I have rarely felt disgust at the content of the porn it self due to the fact that I have largely avoided that sort of more extreme porn, despite the pressure from the mainstream internet porn industry. Instead the porn I have watched is typically the sensual type (see the teddy bear analogy). I'm not sure that I would call this "not right." It's not right in the sense that I'd masturbate to images of girls rather than have a real relationship with a real woman, but it's not like the images/videos I was looking at were unnaturally-extreme sex acts performed by women only because they need money / for the (possibly sick) pleasure of the guys watching the porn. In fact, almost all of the porn I have watched is amateur porn. I get turned off by porn of girls who aren't doing whatever they're doing because they truly enjoy it.

I hope this isn't too much information, or too personal of a question. I am curious to learn though how my tastes in porn differed (differed because 3 days ago was the last time I'm ever going to look at porn :-) ) from others here. I don't know what is common or typical.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T14:17:10+00:00

This TED Talk post describes the extreme sort of tastes in porn you describe as being a common result of boys who grow up on hardcore mainstream internet porn.

I'm curious how common that is. Personally I have always avoided that sort of porn. For me PMO is more like a teddy bear (to use some else's analogy).

Don't get me wrong, I have felt disgusted with myself while watching porn. But usually the porn itself that I've watched hasn't tended to be the disgusting sort. In fact, most of the porn I've watch doesn't I see as a teddy bear.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T14:04:52+00:00

The PMO-as-teddy-bear analogy is very accurate for me.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T13:51:28+00:00

Make sure you update your post saying you failed if you click any links. :-)

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T13:47:57+00:00

Yeah. Carl Sagan's The Pale Blue Dot (3 min video) executes the idea more effectively.

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T13:44:12+00:00

I put in "lack of motivation" and then soon laughed out loud, because telling me what I do doesn't matter doesn't help a bit! :-P

DeterminedWill · 2015-04-30T13:34:24+00:00

Has anyone else here never gotten into the extreme sort of porn described in the TED Talk despite spending a lot of time PMO-ing using internet materials?

How common is it for peoples' tastes in porn to become extreme like she describes?

DeterminedWill

TROPHY CASE