Its been 12 days since my last fail and It's the third time that I got to this number of days, and it's really all because of you, because you helped me and lessend. But lately my life has gone to shit, and everything is falling apart and im starting to really get depressed. And when I thought what could be the reason I thought to myself: "maybe it's because I'm trying to stop my addiction, It's known that people that quit addiction specially people that try to quit drugs like heroine and cokein (that is very often comperd to masturbation) so maybe I need to continue with quitting mu addiction and it will stop" that is what I am still telling myself but it doesn't seem to get better. I remember it something very similar almost identical happend and it stoped when I masturbated and basiclly failed. My question is basiclly does anyone out here had the same situation that he got depressed from nofap? Should I continue and it will just fade away?
Withdrawal from anything is basically your brain telling you that you were better off before when that's not true. It took me a while but I figured out that PMOing again only made my withdrawal symptoms worse. I wrote a post on it yesterday take a look ^^ Don't worry it'll fade, just stay clean for as long as you can and you'll readjust, pick up some healthier habits like meditation to give you a boost
I've been there and felt the exact same thing. Your addicted brain is trying to convince you that you need what you're addicted to, that without it you'll be depressed. This isn't true. You just have to ride it out, the depression will lift. Be aware that relapsing is a cycle. As soon as you leave the porn-free zone in your head, you start noticing triggers that make you feel like porn might help. Your feelings of being low are triggers. So you start thinking that porn might be the solution to you feeling low. If you're not careful, you're going to find yourself looking at suggestive stuff, and then before you know it you'll have relapsed. And then you will feel even worse. PMO makes you feel better for a couple of moments, but then the dopamine disappears and your brain begins to crave it again. PMO is not the answer. There's a really good book I have by a couple of sex therapists (it's called The Porn Trap by Wendy and Larry Maltz) and they make the following suggestions for avoiding a relapse: STOP what you are doing and admit you have entered a danger zone - as soon as you find yourself looking at something that's even a little bit like porn, you need to tell yourself to stop GET AWAY from porn thoughts and materials - shut down the computer, change TV channel, get up and leave the room. Go and have a cold shower - it'll help. CALM YOURSELF physiologically and emotionally - you need to return to a normal state. Do some exercise, meditate, pray, talk to a friend. REACH OUT for help as soon as possible: ask us, ask a friend, talk to a counsellor REAFFIRM your commitment to recovery. Think about all the bad stuff that porn has caused you to do. Think about the damage you might end up doing to yourself or your family if you continue to look at porn. Think about who you want to be as a person - what your ambitions are, and how wasting time looking at porn slows you down from achieving those amibitions They also recommend writing down a list of triggers that make you vulnerable to porn, because once you know what makes you vulnerable, you can avoid them. There's a great list on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/32snqh/help_others_by_listing_your_triggers/ Be strong my friend, you can do this.
Firstly, for reference sake, I happen to be at that 2-week mark today. For me, 2 weeks is the classic time for relapse. The hills and troughs before two weeks are tough but there's this big hill at this stage that is different for two reasons firstly it is far enough away from whatever instigated this latest attempt at nofap to have become somewhat clouded and only half-remebered in our heads (forgetting too easily being a particular difficulty I have - a coping mechanism that only ends up fuelling the need to have a coping mechanism in the first place!) and secondly because after the first two weeks tends to be, for me, when a flatline sets in. This flatline is typified by feelings of lethargy, disinterest in life and disinterst in sex in general (though not necessarily a loss of the habitual thought of 'I need to masturbate/watch porn') - basically a depression of sorts. So my answer to your question is, yes other people have this happen and yes it will pass eventually. It's crucial to keep yourself motivated throughout this period, not just with nofap but with life in general as it is so easy to fall off the proverbial wagon here. More than keeping yourself motivated, try to embrace the feeling as it is perhaps the first evidence that abstaining from nofap is changing something physiologically within you. Nofap is like a black hole where you can't directly visualise it, only the effect that it's having on things surrounding it. You can't see your recovery you can only feel the effect that it's having on deeply ingrained pathways in your brain. So counterintuitively depression=good here. In short these feelings of overt unhappiness are only the artifacts of that part of your personality dying and it's something to be rejoiced rather than mourned. Something is happening as a result of your efforts and thank fuck for that!
I couldn't agree more with the previous responses and having been through the 'depression' myself I can safely say that you're not in this alone. It's not easy but you have to keep moving forward. Stick with it.
