Age 32 – (Female) Rebooting is working to clear long-standing fetish!

I’m a bit more than 50 days into nofap. WAY longer than I thought I could make it. I’m more than making it. The urges to M are few and far between now, which is freeing up energy.

For the first time in my life, I can sleep in a room where some friends are. I can go to sleep listening to an audiobook. I’m getting my mind back, and my time!

Also, some stuff has happened in my life lately that, before, would have brought this addiction into full swing again. I have actually been around some very strong triggers — not on purpose, but by necessity. It seems like the thing I had the fetish around is being decoupled from m and o, and from excessive fantasy. It isn’t all perfect. But man, is it better!

This is a huge relief. I’m a female who has been struggling with a fetish for as long as I can remember. I’m learning that the fetish had lots of emotional significance, and that it got tangled somehow with sexual feelings and fantasy.

For the first time, I can notice the emotional import of that thing that used to be a fetish. And I can sort it out, accept that the thought of it still brings some sexual activation — but it’s no longer leading to sexual behavior.

So, I’m amazed this week.

Another unexpected result of nofap that might seem more mixed, but that I think is good: Doing nofap has highlighted other problems in my life, stuff I didn’t realize I needed to deal with. Disengaging from all these behaviors has made me take a look at the yucky feelings that I’d been figuring were porn and m-related. There are some real problems in my life to be solved.

Reminds me of a line that I heard at an SAA meeting a long time ago: “If there’s a smell in my kitchen, I can M to distract from that. But there will still be a smell in my kitchen!”

I’m finding all the smells. Some of them aren’t as easy to get rid of as I would have thought. But I’m approaching them as directly and honestly as I can.

LINK – Rebooting is working to clear long-standing fetish!

by HopeSong