Age 19 – 1 year ago I was a borderline-depressed socially anxious shy guy with no dating prospects

1 Year Ago… I was nearing the end of my first year in college. I PMO’d close to every day. I seriously wondered what could possibly be so wrong in my life that made me so unhappy. By random dumb luck, I heard about reddit and randomly found /r/nofap on April 24th. I looked over posts for about 30 minutes and immediately joined. It all started making sense…

Here I am exactly 1 year later, and I can tell you in full confidence that nofap will change your life. My life is proof in itself. I was a borderline-depressed socially anxious shy guy with no dating prospects watching my life go down the toilet right before my lifeless eyes (worst part was it was getting harder to care about my life going to shit).

I then found nofap. I went 133 days on my first try. 60 on my second. Since then I’ve averaged about 1 month streaks.

Now I’m accomplishing my goals left and right and can’t be stopped so long as I keep myself on track. Life is getting better everyday. I actually feel happy when I’m not super stressed out (I stay as busy as humanly possible). I’m taking leadership opportunities, being incredibly social (relatively speaking), getting involved with things I always wanted to do, and overall just GROWING. That was the main problem while on the PMO life-cycle, I was in limbo. I couldn’t improve myself because I had no will to do so. Everytime I’d prepare the best laid plans, I’d procrastinate and get nothing done. Now, I set my goals, make plans, and get to work. I understand what it takes to win and actually get started.

For those of you struggling and needing guidance or general advice, there’s a lot of tips that get thrown around in here but I’d like to share the one’s that have always seemed to end up netting me my biggest streaks in the past year.

  • Like I said above, get as busy as you can possibly be. Boredom results in relapse. (I would know, it’s happened over basically every break from school I’ve had when I “relax” and get lazy). Even if you find it hard to get started on things, I did for a while, build up to being busier and busier. You’ll find the longer you go in nofap streaks, the easier it’ll get to stay busy and improve yourself.
  • Actively try to IMPROVE YOURSELF. Nofap itself isn’t a cure, it’s a catalyst for change. It’s the push you need to get truly started. Go out of your comfort zone. Talk to people if that freaks you out. You probably know of many ways to improve yourself if you’re on here. Get started!
  • Take it one day at a time. It can really help when you’re brain is trying to persuade you to give in. Everyone can make it one day. It’s all about going one day 90 times (consecutively). That being said, also get a counter so you can surprise yourself when you get far. I have one on my phone’s home page and I’m always surprised when I start to see it getting to larger numbers. This brings me to my next point,
  • Be so busy leading an awesome life that you almost forget PMO exists. This is how I get consistent streaks. I forget about nofap until I need it. Then I’ll try to help give back to the community for a while until the urges disappear again.
  • Finally: DO COLD SHOWERS! Every long streak I’ve gotten I’ve been doing cold showers. I can never seem to get past a month or two if I’m not. It builds willpower and it makes you healthier. Just do it, it’s meant to be uncomfortable.

Thanks for reading my cakeday post! If you all ever want guidance from someone who’s been through it and is still going through it, just send me a message! Anyway, love you guys, stay strong! Here’s to a year of striving to be PMO free

LINK – 1 Year Ago I found nofap and joined reddit! Have my story in honor of my Cakeday

BY – JustChillaxin


 

UPDATE – The Elusive Day 200…

After 2.5 years of attempting nofap, and a longest streak of 133 before my current one, I think I’ve finally just about done it. I figured I’d share my story so far for anyone who’s interested.

Before starting Nofap, I was just another PMO hermit. I was a freshman in college who would stay in his room not looking to socialize at all and would only go to class. I mostly hated talking to people and didn’t enjoy parties too much. Like anyone else, I wanted a girlfriend and sex, but I didn’t even know where to start for either. I had fairly bad social anxiety, I wasn’t doing well in classes, had next to no friends, and I started to wonder what I was doing with my life.

Luckily, I found this wonderful subreddit and instantly started on my 133 day streak. It was difficult, but it was probably the best time of my life. I gained most of the famed superpowers, saw massive improvements in my life, friends started popping up, and I actually enjoyed talking to people again! And this great time in my life only lasted until the end of my first streak — when I was sent into a spiral of relapse after relapse.. Like most fapstronauts, I finally had to work through my addiction to gain the benefits once more.

For the next year and a half, I would get pissed at my addiction, go several weeks, several months if I happened to get lucky, gain some confidence, but I would always end in the same pit of despair after a relapse and binge session. I was somewhat back to old habits, I didn’t manage to keep many new friends, most of the time I didn’t feel like socializing, and the whole time I continued to feel lonely and like a sack of shit for never having had a girlfriend despite how much I would’ve like one.

And there were several girls I did meet during this time. Eventually, they’d all move on from me, because I had no idea what I was doing, I would take way too long to make any sign of moves on them.

I felt for the longest time like I was incompetent with women and friends, and because of this, I felt I was an incompetent human being. I knew it was bullshit, but that didn’t change the fact that it was deep down what I felt.

But then something changed and I realized what I wanted to do with my life! ..halfway through college when it was nearly too late. When I started taking new classes that intrigued me and gave me something to hope for, I found a renewed vigor for life, and started my current streak. After that, it just seems like everything started falling together. I understood my urges after so many years of trying, I was starting to make more and more friends again, I was doing well in classes and gained some momentum, and I was truly being myself.

And then, out of nowhere, I landed myself a girlfriend. It was everything I had hoped for and I was finally no longer lonely, just happy. With all of these factors, and 90+ days under my belt, I thought I was indestructible. Then my best summer so far started, I met a ton of new people, explored new places, tried a new job, and everything was going fine, except that I heavily overinvested in my new girlfriend over the course of our long-distance relationship that summer. So when we finally reunited, I was in over my head. She rightfully dumped me, and left me a bit of a mess as a result.

That was just over a month ago. That was ultimately the final test of my determination for this new streak. Would I fall back to old habits after losing what made me so happy? Or would I choose to work through the pain and ultimately come out the other side a new, better man? Well the rest is in the counter, I decided I’d had enough of this shit, it was time for a permanent change.

And here I am. I truly feel like a reborn man. Social anxiety almost completely gone, confidence restored, and I feel like I can finally be myself now. I don’t even consider P anymore. When the occasional urge crops up after a sexy scene in a movie or something, I can confidently say: “That isn’t me anymore.”

I’ve got myself another girl, and this time I’m making sure to do it right, by being myself and realizing that I don’t actually need a girlfriend, I’m doing this because I genuinely want to get to know this girl better and see where we can go.

So I figured I’d close off with a couple tips I could give to others from my years of trying.

  • Make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons. Do it for your own sake. That’s the only sustainable path.
  • Find out what causes/when you get your urges and do something about it. It makes it a lot easier.
  • In fact, practice with yourself and drill down what to do when urges strike. The easiest thing I’ve found is a simple trick of the mind, quickly distracting yourself from the urge by rejecting it completely from any considerations. If you can do this, you’re gonna make it far. If that’s too hard, start by distracting yourself with other things, like a cold shower, or a book or something.
  • Reward yourself. Go have fun. Distract yourself from PMO by leading an awesome life: so go out with your friends whenever possible. If you don’t have friends, find a hobby that will make you some. Mainly, just get off your ass and do something.
  • Make the ultimate goal of nofap to be yourself in the most pure form. It isn’t about not fapping, it’s really all about becoming the better version of you that you were meant to be: the actual you, the you that doesn’t even think about P at all anymore. The you that is everything you want to be.

And with that, thanks for reading my post! Feel free to ask any questions as well, I love giving back to the community that helped me change my life.