90 Days on Hard Mode: An Honest Experience (Long and thorough) (self.NoFap)
Well, I just hit 90 days. It's been and up and down ride with some expected and outcomes and some unexpected. BACKGROUND Age: 24 Height: 5 '6º Weight: 130 lbs Status: In a relationship
So I think it's important to point out that I've never had a PMO addiction of any so rts. I have a girlfriend who I've been with for just about three years (our annive rsary is on Sunday). She goes to school about 50 miles away so we'd have sex rough ly once or twice a week when I was able to visit her. I think it's also important to mention that at the time we were in a polyamorous relationship and had been f or almost a year and a half. There were periods in my life where I would masturb ate once a day and then periods where I might go two to four weeks at a time wit hout it. This may strike most of you as odd, but I never watch porn ± ever. I just never fell into that habit. That being said, my results might differ greatly from those who have suffered fr om decade long addictions. Regardless, I still felt taking on the 90 day challen ge was something I had to do. A number of synchronicities were popping up in my life that were pointing towards this direction. I dabbled with the challenge in the past and previously went somewhere around 45 days without PMO. During the pe riod I was still having sex, however, and I noticed my sex drive climb dramatica lly. On one hand that was a good thing, on the other hand it wasn't because it mad e sex seem like something designed towards an end goal. Get it done quickly and over with. So that wasn't what I wanted. I knew I needed to rewire my brain to the point that the end goal of sexual release was no longer present in my mind. It simply wouldn't be a driving factor in my life anymore. I knew I had to take the l eap and dive all the way in. FIRST FEW WEEKS The first week was no real problem. I'd gone a week before so it didn't have a major impact. However, I can safely say that after about six or seven days there is a noticeable increase in energy. I imagine this is attributed to increased testos terone levels that peak after about a week. The way it felt reminded me of being an overactive annoying kid again. You just constantly want to move and talk a l ot. The mind is really quick and spews out jokes like it's on crack. The next day, however, this fades. I've found that it's really easy to be annoying during this pe riod, especially if you were a bit awkward when you were a kid (or still are). T he best way to go about dealing with energy is simply to observe it and enjoy th e fact that it's there. The less you talk the better. Having energy is all you nee d. Once it's there it's like you've got an aura around yourself. Simply enjoy it. Don't let it control your actions or you'll come across as a fool. Unless you're just supe r witty and awesome, then go for it. Of course in addition to this my sex drive made a noticeable increase. I found m yself becoming aroused relatively often. Especially before going to sleep and af ter waking up. During the first few weeks I'd often have visions that my girlfrien d or other beautiful women I'd never seen before were sleeping with me (this was o ften in a hypnagogic half dream sort of state). However, throughout that time I never gave in to any sort of temptation. I merely observed the sexual energy and let it be. After these initial changes several other things happened. It's difficult to say w hat's attributed to the celibacy and what's a result of other changes in my life. Ev erything is interconnected so I can't say with certainty ªnofap is the sole cause of
these effects,º but I will describe the differences I noticed during this time. CYCLES OF FOCUS From what I could tell my mind and body seemed to be cycling through various dif ferent areas of focus in search of an outlet for the increase in sexual energy. I first noticed this after about a month or so in and I realized I continuously alternated between various obsessions. They occurred as follows ± each lasting fro m several days to a week. 1. Increased sex drive - Numerous sexual fantasies and visions as I described ea rlier. 2. Increased appetite - Dramatically increased appetite and craving for high pro tein foods. All of a sudden I felt strong cravings for peanut butter. I have a v ery healthy diet, so I wasn't nutrient deficient in any way. This was new and I ac tually put on about eight pounds in about two weeks, which I've never been able to do before. 3. Increased compassion/love ± I really wanted to be around my girlfriend. There w as a lot of loving warmth and connection going on between us during this time. I never saw her as a sex object, but the sexual identification was beginning to d windle away and our friendship was growing stronger as a result. 4. Increased social drive - I suddenly had a strong desire to be incredibly soci al. Note that I wrote increased drive not skills. I felt I wanted to be more soc ial, but this isn t to be confused with becoming better socially. Becoming bette r can be a result of being more social, but you just don t magically become a be tter public speaker or what have you. Anyway, I went out a lot and tried to make a bunch of new friends during this ti me. I work on a computer so during work I was really active on facebook for this period. There was an urge to connect to everyone. I should also mention during this period I went out to raves several times. My o ther job is to shoot and produce videos of musical events so I'm already around da nce music culture a lot. Thus I'm used to seeing and interacting with a lot of wom en who are barely wearing anything. I went to one party during this time where n early every single girl was extremely attractive and sociable. I talked to and g ot hugs from a lot of them. It's safe to say that that night consisted of some of the strongest temptation I'd faced up to that point. I resisted though and suffere d a painful night of blue balls and very little sleep, but it was worth it. You power through. [CONTINUED IN COMMENTS]
28 comments share
all 28 comments sorted by: best [±]Suri_403 days[S] 10 points 10 months ago [CONTINUED] I should also say that I've never been the type of person to enter random hook ups . When I was younger I was pretty socially awkward and terrible with girls. Hell , I still am sometimes, especially after a large coffee, but I've since improved a
lot socially and don't have an issue at all with interacting with women. However, for the first time a girl I'd just met ended up making out with me. Honestly, I d idn't enjoy it. It was weird and random and felt dirty. Plus I was becoming even c loser with my girlfriend (remember we're in an open relationship) so it was starti ng to feel more unnatural. All of these increased social skills that can potentially result from the increa sed social drive seem to be what this community refers to as ªsuperpowers.º I have t o say that the "superpowers" don't last. From what I observed the ªsuperpowersº are no thing more than the results of your brain cycling its attention through what to focus on as it reroutes sexual energy. In other words, you're no longer taking up space in your brain thinking about sex all the time (and expelling prana if you believe that sort of thing) so your brain now has all this free space it doesn't k now what to do with. It's like cleaning up your room. All of a sudden there's a whol e lot of free space and you feel like something needs to be there. This brings m e to the next cycle I noticed. 5. Increased imagination - There was a period of about a week where my imaginati on was extremely active. I was getting all sorts of crazy ideas and visions and even felt as if I were seeing things for a day or two. This was really strange, but like any of the other effects, can be channeled if used effectively. After these cycles (each of which wasn't permanent) things seemed to level out and arrive at a new home. At about day 45 I suffered the strongest urges up to that point. I pretty much experienced three straight days of arousal and an entire w eekend of blue balls. It was painful and extremely annoying, but I dealt with it and powered through. That s one of the most important lessons. Just power through. It doesn t matter if it hurts. Once I was over that hump though it was as if something clicked. Something insid e said ªyou've succeeded. Congratulations. It will be easy from here.º And it was. Eve rything leveled out and felt normal. The focus ended up settling on a general in crease in creative output. I had just started a new job around November and was extremely focused on succeeding in that department. Other than that I became obs essed with producing music and my own creative pursuits. I'm still in that phase r ight now, which has lasted over a month. The last 45 days I've had very little sex ual arousal at all and haven't thought much about sex or women at all. I've been mai nly focused on myself. Here is where I begin to notice the negative effects I think cutting out masturbation is a good thing. Cutting out sex, however, is n ot (unless you have a problem with it). Let me remind you that these are the res ults I experienced for me. Each person has his or own subjective experience. I a m just being honest with my own. The reason I think this can be potentially negative is that I've started to feel s omewhat robotic. My theory is that when you completely remove any sort of sexual energy from your life you also remove the human aspect of yourself. You become a creative machine (I could see how people like Tesla and Mozart were creative g eniuses being completely celibate). But you risk the danger of no longer feeling like a man. I could see how if you re a major PMO addict then the outlet of sex ual release is more emasculating. However, if you don t have a problem with it t hen cutting is out is what is emasculating. In general, I think a healthy balanc e of sex (not masturbation or porn) is the best option. And primarily sex with s omeone you love. I d say that about this once a week is the ideal situation for a man. Any more and it can become addictive and any less and you can become robo tic and feel androgynous.
In some ways I may have felt like more of a man (mostly during the beginning), b ut it's largely determined by your surroundings and circumstances. The type of per son you are is going to completely determine your results. If you continue to be social and interact with women during this process then you will notice a gener al increase in your feeling of masculinity. However, if you spend a lot of time alone or working then you're going to notice an increase in feeling like a robotic worker bee. Maybe you might feel some of both. Or some days you'll feel like one and some days you'll feel like the other. There is no guaranteed outcome for this process. The only thing that's guaranteed is that you're spare attention is going to go somewhere and where it goes is going to determine everything. This can be bad or it can be good. If you've spent years as an addict it's probably going to be good. You have to MAKE it good though. Merely going celibate is not a superpower inducer. It simply takes away your kryptonite. It isn t a bad or a good thing. It s kind of like a psychedelic experience. If y ou do it surrounded by people you hate and go in a sewer you re probably going t o have a terrible experience. However, around people you love with good music, g ood food, a beautiful setting, and plenty to do you re going to feel great. The result is completely up to you and your circumstances. Why do I think being completely celibate can be overall a negative thing for men to do? It's because we need that sexual energy to feel alive. Once you start remo ving that from your life it becomes more difficult to relate to women. You're like ly to become less passionate as a person because the main source of passion in m ales is cultivated through sexual desire. Even if subconsciously or inadvertentl y. Attracting a mate is the primary reason our subconscious compels us to improv e as human beings. Once we remove a mate from the equation (ie. Not caring about women) then we seriously overcompensate other areas of our lives in unnecessary ways. For example, I spent a large amount of time attempting to be social or re ading or working or whatever. I became more obsessed with these abstract materia l things or self improvement in ways that really didn't matter. What did matter wa s my relationship and the friends that I have and simply enjoying life for its s imple pleasures. The excess drive to make MORE friends, be MORE creative, work o ut MORE, and just in general be MORE all stems from a desire for companionship. Once you have someone in your life that you TRULY care about then none of that s tuff matters. It's just fluff. It's good to be creative and social, but it should by no means take over the things are truly important in your life. Now this is only MY result. I am aware it will be vastly different from others. I experienced this result because what the 90 day journey showed me is that my i ncessant attempts to improve myself are borderline absurd. I'm already in a great relationship and have great friends and a great job and everything I could need. Why am I trying so hard to be better and achieve more? I can afford some faults here and there. That's not meant to sound pretentious at all. I'm just kind of a se lf improvement freak and so my ultimate lesson was to take it easy chill out. Ma sturbating once in a while probably isn't going to kill me. I should also mention that during this time my girlfriend and I became even closer. Odd considering we didn't have any sex at all. So close that we actually reverted back to being comp letely monogamous. Something neither of us thought would happen for a long time. It's amazing how much this experience connected us. All that being said, I think I can say that I felt at my absolute best during th e first week or two when I was still feeling aroused but resisting it. I disagre e with the idea of avoiding any arousal or triggers altogether because I think s trength only comes when you're resisting against something. When there is nothing to resist there is no payoff. However, when you're faced with an obstacle (like a raging boner) and you say ªnah, I got thisº then it's as if a light switches on. You s uddenly feel an increase in power and confidence. So what I really enjoyed was a
ctually intentionally turning myself on and just observing and feeling the energ y. My technique was to meditate and only imagine something arousing. No body con tact at all. Pure imagination. Feel it. Then let the feelings subside. After thi s I felt awesome. There was a lot of sexual energy, but a willpower that was abl e to keep it under control. THAT made me feel like a man. Not being aroused at a ll and just going about my daily life (even while making improvements) made me f eel like a robot. CONCLUSION So I think what I really learned from this experience is that nofap isn't going to give you one specific result. The results are greatly varied and completely dep end on what kind of person you are. If you're someone who's gone through years of ad diction and chronic masturbation then it's going to be extremely healthy for you. However, if you're like me and never really had a major problem with it, it might actually harm your sexual energy. Regardless though, you will still learn someth ing great about yourself and it will be worth the challenge. Even if it's not what you expect. I didn't expect these results. I expected to feel superpowered. Inste ad what I got was a realization that the superpower has already been there the w hole time. I just needed to wake up, quit trying so hard, and appreciate all the great things around me.
Suri
P.S. I know this was long, but if anyone has any questions feel free to ask and I ll be glad to help.
