Age 23 – Less depressed & neurotic, think about girls differently

Background: I have done more than 100 days without relapsing. Started PMOing before I could ejaculate. I’m 23 now. At either junior year or senior year of high school, I was PMOing once a day everyday right before I go to sleep until a little less than a year ago which was a year after I graduated college with a bachelor’s degree.

If I couldn’t fall asleep immediately I would stay up for hours looking up P then MOing until I fell asleep. Had I known what PMO does to the brain when I was younger, I would have dropped it right then and there. Too bad I had no clue.

I’ve had girlfriends before but none would last for more than a month and I never got past second base. I’m thinking its because they just knew about the PMO…also what years of PMO has done to my brain. Yeah, it’s probably because of the latter but I can’t be sure.

Differences from before nofap to now:

  • I’m a little bit more aggressive when I actively flirt with girls. I haven’t been doing that recently because I haven’t been sleeping enough and I can’t flirt when I haven’t gotten my full night of sleep.
  • Girls stopped being smokin’ HAWT and became prettier. I don’t know how to explain it. I guess its a different type of attraction.
  • I fantasize about girls differently. Before it was just sex and what I would do to them but now I think about spending time with my crush and going on adventures with her. Really, I just think about having fun and wanting to share that moment with her or anyone else. Like if I go to a new ice cream place, I wonder what it would be like if she was there with me. I sometimes think about kissing her after a date right before I dropped her off at her house and I would get an erection. Thinking about just kissing would have never gotten me hard two years ago. I also fantasize about asking girls out on a date and how I would do it.
  • I exercise everyday. The Xs on my wall calendar represent days with no PMO AND days that I work out excluding Sundays because that’s my rest day. I’ve been clean on that streak too. My reason for going to the gym was because I wanted to impress my crush but now its just a part of the day that I need to do.
  • I don’t get depressed as often as I did. I still get sad but not as frequent and not bad.
  • Less neurotic. Before abstaining, I would over think everything I did when around a large group of people. When I didn’t get invited to a social thing, I would get angry and sad because I wasn’t invited and over think why I wasn’t invited. Now, I just don’t care. I would still like to be invited to an outing but I don’t think about it as much.

Tips:

  • Exercise. I lost a lot of weight by going to the gym. I think I’m down 30-40 pounds since March 1. It clears your head and makes you feel amazing after. Also helps when you want to relapse because you are angry.
  • Cold showers. Not sure what they do for me but I saw a bunch of people praising them so I decided to try it out. It feels great. I always have a cold shower now unless I’m coming in from the cold and need to warm myself quick before I get sick.
  • Say “And then what?” when you want to relapse. This helped me on my first month. I would get an urge and I would ask myself “and then what? What happens after?” My answer would ALWAYS be “Nothing. I get nothing out of it but I would lose so much”
  • When I would think about a P scene in my head, I would imagine crossing my arms to form an X and place that image above the P scene and I would automatically think of something else within 2-5 seconds. I don’t know why it works but it works for me. I still do that when my mind goes rogue.

Hurdles in chronological order (dates unknown):

  • Wanted to test out if I was “healed” after about a month of no PMO so I looked up some erotic pictures for less than 60 seconds and closed out. No MO.
  • For about a week I would touch myself right before falling asleep on my bed to get an erection but stopped as soon I was hard then fall asleep. Not sure why I did that. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count as edging but I’m not certain. I stopped doing that.
  • “Tested” myself again by looking up erotic pictures but like last time, closed out after less than 60 seconds. No MO.

General things

  • I learned more about myself during this 100 days than ever before. I thought I needed to travel the world by myself like in the movies to have a soul search but its cheaper to just stop fapping and take that time to just think about yourself. Not having brain fog helps a lot.
  • I’ve got a more positive outlook on life.
  • I told one of my best friends about nofap when he told me he was suffering from depression and ED about 2 months ago. He seems to be less depressed. I don’t know about the ED because I don’t ask him about it.
  • That’s it unless I can think of some other stuff later

The whole experience was amazing. I gave up something I thought I needed just to gain so much more. Best trade ever.

tl;dr This is my first post on reddit. Started PMO at or before 12-13 years old. PMO everyday to sleep. Clean for 100+ days. Ask yourself why relapsing is worth it. It isn’t worth it. You lose out on so much and gain absolutely nothing. I learned so much about myself and I’m happier. I’m also a little bit more muscular because I hit the gym everyday now.

LINK – First post on reddit after nofap for 100+ days.

by MintGum