New here, been lurking for the last few months, and today I am 90 days free from PMO. I wanted to share my story, and hopefully give other people hope, much like the hundreds of posts I’ve read myself that helped me through this. Sorry for a long post.
I’m 33 years old, male, and I first discovered PMO around 13/14 years old. PMO became a staple in my life, mostly off/on in the beginning, but eventually became a daily “habit”. My “habit” was only around 30 minutes of P almost daily, once a day was all I needed, IF I could. There were many days, sometimes up to a week or two at a time where I was unable to do my daily deed. I never thought I had a problem, as I always said to myself, “well I’ve gone a week without it” but never realized that I was destroying my brain.
I remember the first time I had sex, somewhere around the age of 18. I didn’t even finish, it didn’t even feel good to me. I thought it was odd. Since then, with ex girlfriends or one night stands, I would rarely finish, and I could go for a LONG time, basically until I got tired or was asked to stop. It got to the point where if I wanted to finish, I had to go into my mind and envision myself watching P. I stopped waking up with erections, sometimes I couldn’t even get one while being sexually active. I knew it wasn’t right, but I didn’t stop PMO, as I didn’t know the damage I was doing/had done. To me it just felt good, almost like a short escape from reality or something.
PMO had eventually become something I felt like I needed to do to get through my day. I would always be thinking about when I could or should do it. Sometimes I would even be somewhere like work or at the gym already planning when I would do it, what site I would go on, or what I would search for. I didn’t understand until now how pathetic this behavior was, even though I kept it to myself.
Almost a year ago, I started to see video ads on Youtube, random social media posts, etc, about P being bad for your brain. I was curious, but didn’t look into it, as I didn’t think it was affecting me. (Helloooo, red flag). My current girlfriend found that I had been watching P on an iPad we share (guess I forgot to delete the history that day, whoops). She confronted me about it, we got into a big fight, and I admitted to her that I had a problem with PMO, and she told me it was either her or P. Out of frustration, not wanting to lose my relationship, I said fine, I will quit….easier said than done.
The first week was easy, then I started to get the anxiety, depression, brain fog, etc, it was bad, and I didn’t understand it, as that had never happened to me before in life. I had just gotten over a bad case of Covid, and chalked up my symptoms to be a spin off of Covid, hell even my Doctor thought the same. I almost quit a position I hold in a job that I love, I had dark thoughts that I had never had before, I didn’t understand what the hell was going on. After about 2 or 3 weeks, I started with PMO again, this time being better at hiding it from my girlfriend. It helped me feel better, and that’s when I started to realize maybe I should stop, but I kept going. This lasted for probably 6 months, until this past February, when one day I would finish PMO and feel disgusting. I then knew I needed to change. I went to Google, found this page along with many others, and finally understood that I didn’t have a habit, I had an addiction, and I needed to quit.
I set a goal for myself of 90 days, the typical amount for most people. This was my 90 day journey:
Days 1-7 : Easy, I was determined.
Days 8-14: Heavy brain fog, heavy anxiety, slight depression, awful urges. I expected this, so it was easier to push through it. Terrible flat-line as well.
Days 15-40: I started to feel good, my girlfriend noticed I was happier. I was still anxious, had some depression here and there, but finally started to not think about PMO as much. I had sex with my girlfriend for the first time since quitting (I know some won’t agree) and it was probably the best, and shortest (lol), sex I had ever had.
Days 41-50: Anxiety came back BAD, depression kicked in again, I struggled real bad and had some bad urges, but I knew I had to push through it. Slight flat-line again.
Days 51-80: I felt amazing, I rarely got anxious, I was almost never depressed, I was always super happy, I stopped being lazy and always wanted to be busy doing something. Hell, I even finally started to wake up with morning wood again.
Days 81-90: This was by far the best streak ever. I was so happy, PMO almost never crossed my mind. I knew I was approaching my 90 day goal, and felt so accomplished! I also reminded myself to not let day 90 be a placebo effect, and that I needed to keep it going past the 90 days.
90 days! 90 days free from the evils of PMO! Some days I get sad, thinking I wasted years of my life with PMO, but I’m still so thankful for this website and many others. Just because I hit 90 days doesn’t mean I’m done. I want to keep going, I enjoy this feeling, I enjoy knowing I overcame a monster that had grown inside of me for years that I never understood.
If you’re reading this, and are struggling, don’t quit. You can, and will, conquer this.
You’re going to have those bad days, like I did between days 40-50. A huge help was coming on this forum anytime I had a bad day, and seeing that I wasn’t the only one who struggled halfway through the first 90 days. Reading others success stories helped me out big time. You need to understand you’re rewiring your brain from years and years of garbage, it’s going to take time. Just know this may not be a complete fix from any anxiety/depression, I still know I will get that here and there because that’s life, but it’s not as bad as it once was!
Thank you for listening to my story, and thank you for this amazing community.
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