PMO made me asexual. No morning wood, no spontaneous erections, no libido, no interest in real women for 6+ months. Mild depression (numbed emotions.)
For me, no libido and low emotional dynamic range have been equally as devastating. My life has always centered around PASSION.
Now, 90 days later:
Morning wood and spontaneous erections fairly consistently. I can self-stimulate a boner whenever I want.
I am having waves or a return of libido, but I am still mostly in a flatline, but it IS improving noticeably.
And, my EMOTIONS are returning! no emotions has been even scarier than this eternal flatline for me. Recently small things are more enjoyable, I am more empathetic and loving, and I can CRY again! This morning I read this news article on how this rescue team rescued this toddler from a car accident as she was essentially drowning in a car in a river, and I just broke down and sobbed like a baby for 2 minutes. I haven’t felt anything like that since before I started hardcore PMO-ing a year ago.
Recap: PMO made me emotionless, passionless, and asexual. 90 days later: still in the middle of recovery, but flatline, erectile health, and mental health are MUCH improved!
I kind of am concerned with the whole “90 day” mantra here. I think that worked years ago when nofap started, but as more and more young guys in their 20’s come, we will soon need to change “90 days” to “somewhere between 90 days and 9 months” for MOST people. I feel I am an extreme case and might take over a year. I’ve seen plenty of 2 year examples here.
PS, I have notices that zinc helps with my reboot quite a bit, which suggests that not only is testosterone receptors at play, but also the post-orgasmic prolactin surge, which might be over-accentuated in people with PMO-induced sexual dysfunction (zinc is a potent prolactin inhibitor).
[Additional comment]
We often hear “90 days 90 days!” but it can take much longer to have your brain return to baseline. I read a famous study on cocaine addicts, and their D2 receptors didn’t return to baseline until about 11 months.
LINK – 90 day report: long way from being healed, but definitely improved
by minivanman1
UPDATE – good news: you WILL recover, but it will almost certainly take longer than you think
when I was recovering, all I wanted to see was easy-to-read nofap benefits. So I will start with that and then go more in depth for those that want to hear more.
how PMO ruined my life:
- made me asexual, taking away one of the most important parts of my life.
- made me passionless, emotionless, and a blundering idiot with no drive, focus, motivation, or desire to achieve anything in life.
AFTER a 6 month reboot (wtih 1 weekend relapse about 2 months in):
- libido is quickly returning suddenly (felt almost NO improvement till month 5)
- I can FEEL again! Emotions are back, passion for hobbies is back, focus, energy back, brainfog GONE. Life again is in 3D, full color, with surround sound!
Now for a more in-depth analysis that with some suggestions that will help long rebooters:
I am 21. I have gone my WHOLE LIFE without seeing high-speed internet video porn, and hadn’t MO’d since I was 18. (for spiritual reasons, although I don’t identify with mainstream christianity or any eastern or new-age religions)
Last march I PMO’d for the first time. I went from ZERO sexual stimulation to having 4 hour-long 3-5 O’s sessions of watching the most hardcore porn. There was no transition for me. No nude pics, no vanilla stuff, just 0 to 100 mph in 1 second.
Within 3 weeks my brain was fried. Nothing could arouse me, not ANY kind of porn whatsoever. I could get an erection and MO fine, but the pleasure was gone (ejaculatory anhedonia), and the sensation in my penis was gone. I quickly became lazy, unfocused, and unmotivated to do much in my life. My dreams of becoming a doctor were all of a sudden just not there. All the things that used to give me pleasure in life were way numbed out and tuned down.
I had no idea PMO was the problem for 6 months. I thought maybe it was depression or a weird supplement I was taking for my anxiety. Then I found ybop and I realized PMO was the issue and I started a reboot.
Six months later I am FINALLY getting my libido back. Here’s a timeline:
- month 1: felt empty and asexual, with massive brainfog and minor depression and anhedonia.
- month 2: : felt empty and asexual, with massive brainfog and minor depression and anhedonia.
- month 3: started feeling better! then: 1 5-hour relapse. then: felt empty and asexual, with massive brainfog and minor depression and anhedonia.
- month 4: started feeling more energy, morning wood was coming back, emotions started returning, music started sounding good again, and the small things I loved I BEGAN to feel pleasure in again, but still felt asexual.
- month 5: around month 5, I quickly started recovering from the horrible 1-year flatline that PMO had given me. Women started looking amazing, I felt warm and happy around them, and I started feeling horny and aroused fairly often. Wet Dream O’s stopped immediately placing back into flatline. My emotions, passions and drive for life have inceased A LOT in this phase, probably because the same areas of the brain that control male behavior and sexuality also control emotions, motivation, focus, etc (the dopaminergic reward pathways like the VTA and nucleus abduccens)
For MONTHS I felt like I had surely destroyed my life and certain areas of my brain. “perhaps the sharp increase of stimulation didn’t just downregulate D2 receptors, maybe my dopamine cells just died” I thought. I hated my life for months. Life was like staring at a brick wall all day.
So remember: I felt change in my flatline until about 5 months into the reboot. The positive changes that seemed to precede the end of the flatline were: morning wood returning (never even had ED though), emotions coming back, energy and focus returned, etc.
A few tips: -Don’t take sexual supplements. Your sexual dysfunction is NOT due to a magnesium or zinc deficiency, nor a horny goat weed, maca, or ginseng deficiency. The damaged inccured on your brain is due to PMO. In fact, sexual supplements HURT my reboot, because they made me have wet dreams every 10ish days, and even WD O’s would immediately throw me deeper into a flatline.
-If you are young, ANY form of O is hurting your recovery, including wet dreams. This is a controversial thing to say, since WD’s are not really controllable. However, you CAN help reduce their frequency, at least in my experience, through: avoiding spicy foods and any stimulating foods (high sugar and fat), avoiding any sort of sexual stimulation (Even looking at non-sexual facebook pics at night would give me a WD!) and lowering stress before bed. These are the things that worked for me; YMMV.
-at month 5 I started wanting to spend time with girls again. I don’t know if I could have sped up my flatline remission by spending time w sexy women earlier, or if the desire only came AFTER I began recovering. I would SERIOUSLY try to socialize with women, even when you feel asexual, it might be just the thing your brain needs to “wake up” again. Again, I don’t know if the correlation between my desire to hang out w girls was causative or not, but “rewiring sped up my reboot” does indeed seem to be a common thing here.
-a possible exception to the “no supplements” thing. At month 4 I started taking CDP-Choline, and a month later is when my libido started coming back. I don’t know if they are related, but I thought I’d mention it, because CDP-Choline has been shown to UPREGULATE DOPAMINE RECEPTORS. D2 receptor downregulation is indicated in PMO symptoms (more info? go to yourbrainonporn.com).
If you are young, you WILL recover. Be it PIED, loss of libido, loss of drive and emotions, brainfog, minor depression, SA, HOCD, etc etc. We will all recover fully, but we need to ditch the whole “90 days” thing. That help up years ago when only older guys were rebooting. Now we need to accept it might take 6 months to 2 years.
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