What's up guys? Here's a little about me: I'm a 19 year old student--I don't necessarily participate in any extracurricular activities and now (during summer) don't work so I really have a lot of free time. I've been watching porn ever since maybe 13 just out of curiosity. But pretty early on, maybe about 14 years old I was watching materials out of my sexual orientation which has escalated ever since until now. I discovered YBOP maybe 3 years ago just on accident and have since been trying to knock the habit (though not that hard). About 1.5 years ago I joined another forum site, and so by verbally writing down my problems and progress I was much more committed to it. Basically I think I have many symptoms of porn/masturbation addiction including depression, social anxiety, cloudy thought process, and most definitely HOCD. For those who don't know HOCD is when you constantly have thoughts in your head that you might be gay for whatever reason--but I know that I wouldn't want to be with a guy. So my goal through nofap is to kick porn forever and fapping hopefully too (but I don't know any other way to relieve myself until I get a girlfriend...which is far fetched considering my social anxiety). And by the end of it I hope to have relieved all of those symptoms I listed and hopefully kick out HOCD too. One thing about HOCD though is that I still have the thoughts that I might be bisexual (I know I like girls...I just don't know if I really like guys too or if its the porn); so if I never grow out of HOCD then that'll be that, at least I'll know what the porn has done to me. Long intro post lol. I hope to take place in the weekly meetings a couple times, I find it helpful to share and hear other people's stories and relate to them. We are all here for the same reason.
Are you exercising? Socializing? Spending time in nature? All those things help relieve anxiety. HOCD guys often have rough withdrawals, so get plenty of support during your challenge. An Accountability partner would be good. You can do it.
Hey there dogwood. ^^ I do exercise a bit, I recently got a pull-up bar to keep me occupied (a couple months ago actually) and have been using it almost daily. I do socialize but only with my friends; the anxiety comes in moreso when I'm around newer people I don't know. (I'm largely an introvert in most cases) I hike once in awhile with those friends/sometimes family. I would go out more and exercise more too if I didn't babysit 24/7 and had my own car. Oh and also I'm not big on the popular sports, mostly because I suck at them and never really properly learned how to play them growing up lol. What kind of withdrawals have you heard of? I saw that forum on accountability partners, I'll check it out. Thanks for your input.
