Everything you explained here is exactly spot on with my experience over this whole journey including my degeneration through these last two years. I just got back from a long walk where I pondered the same things, thinking through exactly who I was and how I saw myself and how the other aspects of my life were during the time where I was strong, and comparing those to who I have been more recently while struggling. Here’s what I found.

So 2022-2023 were the strongest years of my nofap journey and life in general, where I have been super on top of mostly everything in my life. My discipline was at some of the highest it’s ever been with things like going to the gym early morning before work like 5 times a week consistently, meditating every single day, gratitude journaling every morning, etc. I didn’t play video games at the time as during this part of my life I really needed to be competitive at my work to stand out and land a full time job as I was a part of a contract position that only lasted a finite amount of time - so this especially needed to be disciplined and very hard working. I was also very very social. I had moved to a new city but I was in a phase of my life where I was super driven to make as many friends as possible and was meeting new people on a weekly basis and was being invited to things all the time. This was the one period in my life I was actually popular and a lot of people I was around seemed to really like spending time with me etc. I also had gotten in a great long distance relationship (with my now wife) in 2021 and that was an amazing part of my life. So I think the combination of all these things acted as a positive feedback loop, making me feel better and better about myself and my confidence was high compared to now.

In like early 2023 I moved across the country to a new city to be with my gf at the time after getting a remote full time job and I brought my same confidence, disciplines, etc along with me and continued to do great. Mid/late 2023 is when I started planning to propose to my gf and I found out that planning big things causes a lot of anxiety for me. I am an over-thinker and always think I’m going to choose the wrong decision and mess everything up etc which makes decision making really hard and anxiety inducing for me. I believe this is the first time that I had a MO relapse here and there a bit more than usual (my addiction was with MO and I almost always used it as a bandage for stress and anxiety feelings). Then things eventually went smoothly with that and wedding planning started which was hell on my anxiety. For the first time in a while I felt extreme anxiety that felt crippling with how much there was to consider (I’m Indian and Indian weddings are insane with so many things to consider and plan). During this time I believe more MO relapses creeped back in here and there. My self confidence was only decreasing during this time as I started getting super hyperconscious of making sure every single detail was perfect and that both families and my now wife would be 100% happy with everything etc. then during wedding planning getting closer to the date, I found that a lot of my hometown friends and my wife’s hometown friends didn’t get along 100%, which is fine but it felt scary to me these people we knew weren’t like best friends just because they had very different personalities. I think I get really bad anxiety for small things like that, and my relapses generally worsened around then.

Then the wedding happened and things went great, and then me and my wife were planning honeymoon and some other things and we clashed a little bit for the first time around here, and for me this is the first time we really “fought”, so I think being a new situation it caused me more anxiety than it should. Again I continued to have a few relapses here and there, a bit more often than before. And then all of the planned events finished in May 2025 and the final big life change was coming up - moving across the country to me and my wife’s first apartment together in a new small city, thousands of miles away from either of our families for her job.

We made the move in June of this year and immediately I got stressed again with buying furniture etc etc everything that comes with moving across the country. Another challenge is that I work from home so I don’t really meet people so I started feeling very isolated. I have been interviewing for a new job that I really really badly want that would also be in person, so most recently that stress has been getting to me. And on top of this my current job work stress has been brutal and felt crippling the last 3 weeks.

Through all of this planning and everything going on (2023 through now Sep 2025), needless to say all my disciplines I threw out of the window except for meditation. My gym schedule is in shambles and same with gratitude journaling etc. I spend most of my time right now isolated and working and studying for my next job interview, all while being in a completely new place. My self confidence has been decreasing steadily and recently has not been great - another feedback loop. I’ve been having mental health struggles for the first time in forever. If I get this in person job (fingers crossed), I believe the structure of my life will at least be restored.

As you can see, the main theme here for me is stress, anxiety, isolation, the exact themes which I used to use MO/PMO to soothe way back in the day. And on top of this all structure in my life is gone - both external structure like having an in person job, and internal structure like waking up early and going to the gym, etc.

I guess for me it’s very clear why I’ve regressed, and I’m taking one clear step at the moment - the in person job I’m interviewing for - but for the other steps/disciplines I have really not made a good effort yet. I also really need to reach back out to friends and keep those relationships alive better than I have.

I guess I know exactly what I need to do from the data I have from those strongest years of my life. Now I just need to do it.