Hello fellas!
I know it is a while ago since I published the second part of this detailed long story about my life prior to NoFap and all the frustration, desperation, loneliness and sadness that my former PMO-lifestyle led to in the long run. It has taken some time to write it all down since I had to dig deep and profoundly into my former (and younger) self and analyze as to why I pursued such a self-destructive lifestyle that almost ruined my life towards my late 20's. Much of it probably had to do with me being young, inexperienced, unknowing about all the side-effects of PMO and not having many people talking to (about my concerns and life-issues at the time), not even my parents since they were arguing a lot during that time-period and I simply didn't want to bother them about my problems when they had theirs, plus my younger siblings to take care of. I have also tried to put as many of my thoughts into words as possible so more of you can hopefully recognize yourself in it and many of the issues you might currently be struggling through yourselves.
The PMO-world I grew up in was also of the slower-pace kind since internet was really in its infancy and the browsing only limited to pictures since the streaming-speeds were incredibly slow back in the day.
But, I am also very grateful that I didn't grow up with the high-speed internet porn options that many young men do today as that will take a much longer time to reboot from than the slow-porn I grew up with. Although my habits never progressed to the extreme over the years, it was still enough to break havoc on and ruin many parts of my life.
However, below is the link to the first two parts with the continuation of the story below. It is quite long reading so kudos to you if you manage to read through the entire thing.https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...iled-version-part-1-of-4.272980/#post-2494651
….No one is free from any of these ailments, or influences from this sickly, modern, fast-paced world and me and my family (and the families of my classmates) was no exception to the rule, despite some economic and material advantages. Hence, my addictions of choice then became pornography, computer-games, exercise, and food. Despite being slim and in good shape during the entire time (since I was practicing several sports, one of them at semi-professional level later on), the regular exercising, especially running, was something I needed to do so I could get my endorphins going, so it soon became a compulsion and addiction in itself. Taking just one day or two off almost made me shake and cry from the withdrawal symptoms I felt when being inactive and resting.
I remember when me and my family came back from an Easter trip (I think it was in 2006 at age 18) at which I had been taking a whooping 2-3 days off due to the long travels. I was literally shaking and sweating that entire day in school because of the withdrawal symptoms I felt from being inactive only for a few days.
Many years later, when I finally started to step down from the elite-ventures, I realized that it was my own ego and identification with being a runner/athlete that had made me miserable in the long run. For all those years, I looked at myself as that runner and athlete only and hence made up an identity around it. If I wasn’t a runner or even that very fast runner, I was essentially nobody besides it and hence nobody at all which caused me a lot of unnecessary existential and emotional pain over the years, all of it self-inflicted of course. Especially rough were the times where sickness/illness and recurring aches and pains prevented me from running and workout as usual because then, I had no other identity to cling onto. Hence, those resting/recovery periods were mentally the toughest ones because those were the times when I tried to imagine and fathom what a life after running on that level would be like. It was hard to do then but later on (around age 30-31), I became more comfortable with the thought and nowadays, I am almost completely detached from all of those identities, expectations and out-of reach goals.
The only senses of identity that I do still have are of course the natural ones that can’t be changed or altered, no matter how hard I try. Such as my heritage, race, ethnicity, culture and nationality. Many people try to pinpoint those as something inherently bad and the cause for many conflicts worldwide and although I would give the critics partially right on that point, I do also consider them as important for building strong societies and communities worldwide where the tribe-members feel a sense of belonging and that they are part of something bigger than themselves. Those who abuse and misuse their ethnic and cultural belonging in order to hurt members of other ethnic groups are still not the majority of them and are probably in big physical, mental and spiritual imbalance overall. I find the biodiversity of people and animals worldwide to be something truly amazing and something that is worthy of preservation, whether it be peoples and/or tribes from the Europe, Asia, Africa or any of the Americas.
However, other than that, I am just striving towards becoming the healthiest, sanest and most enlightened man I can become and becoming PMO-free was a huge part in propelling the journey in the right direction. Although that is a project that will never cease or end during my lifetime, I still feel a huge sense of satisfaction and gratitude in that endeavor and unlike before, when I was being that arrogant, smart-ass, wise-guy most of the time, I nowadays feel humble and encouraged if I am proved wrong about something. Not only because it teaches me that I’m not infallible (and can be wrong sometimes) but also because it expands my knowledge and perspectives as well.Apart from PMO:ing a few times a week which was a pleasurable activity (at least for most of those 15 years), I also loved eating, especially in large quantities and certain foods like fast carbohydrates (pasta, rice, French-fries, pizza, potatoes, cakes and pastries etc). I was notorious for my huge appetite and gluttonous habits but little did I know at the time that it was actually a compulsion, craving and substitute for handling my emotions in a more constructive way. It was only thanks to my fast metabolism and heavy exercise routine that made me stay on track from gaining weight. Nowadays, I wonder if I had the precursors for metabolic syndrome during those years due to my floppy blood-sugar levels.
Still, I had some issues with acne and oily skin where no part of me could have guessed it was diet-and lifestyle-related. It wasn’t until my early 30’s I finally got control of this compulsion as I bumped into intermittent fasting by accident after feeling like crap during most of the summer (of 2019) where I was eating too much and too often (which made me gain some weight for the first time ever). Nowadays, I only eat 1-2 meals a day and going for 20-24 hours without food is no problem anymore since my current diet is keeping the blood-sugar at low steady levels throughout the day.
However, in order to compensate for the last remaining feelings of isolation, lack of social connections, a girlfriend and intimacy I felt much of the time, I turned to PMO which became just as good of a friend as the exercise and the food I was gorging. It was so comfortable and effortless plus the excitement of knowing what was going to happen next as soon as I got home and alone in front of the computer. Just the thought of the upcoming sex-scenes, the female body-parts, the beautiful actresses, the novelty and swift interchangeability of new great looking women all the time made me feel enchanted to say the least.
But I am not sure whether this habit would have become so established and compulsive hadn’t it been for a few traumatic events during my adolescent/teenage years that really shook me up and made me just wanting to withdraw from the world. A world that I enjoyed being a part of and at which I had looked at so joyfully and positively just prior to these events. A world that was full of good and great people with lots of potential and opportunity within if I just scanned through it well. It might sound new-age spacy and naïve for an adult, but for a child that had been quite untroubled by few of the brutal realities in the world until then, those thoughts were overwhelming most of the time.
But, during and after these events though, the world had almost in an eyeblink become a grim, dark and hellish place with which I didn’t want to get involved more than necessary so my cynical and misanthropic mindset took over and headed me into withdrawal and isolation instead.
Little did I know that these two, three prolonged moments/events would scar, plague and hurt me for years to come (where PMO was my temporary friend, relief and escape of sort) and bring me much unneeded and pointless pain, grieving, frustration, grudges, pondering, self-destructive thoughts and dwelling. The constant dwelling on my past and the subconscious notion that something must be wrong with or weird about me is what would keep me on the floor for almost a decade and a half. Just to let you know what I am talking about, following events were the ones that scarred and haunted me for years:See AlsoBC, AD, CE, and BCE: Meanings and Differences Explained - CalendarrFas-Top Vs. Softopper Cover and Topper: Which One To Pick?50+ most common abbreviations for text in 2024A Guide to Your Wedding Anniversary YearsFirst, when I was twelve years old (in 2000), me and my cousin were sent by our parents on a summer sports-camp in England (in West-Sussex I think) where I was playing tennis and he was playing football for about two weeks at a boarding school that was temporarily remade into a summer-sports camp for kids like us. The acute home-sickness I felt right upon arrival was crushing, especially when mine and my cousin’s room was located in the opposite end of the restrooms. The scary (and somewhat older) Russian kids at our floor didn’t make it much better but nowadays, I really understand why they appeared so scary, rough and stone-faced. This was not even a decade after the fall of communism and the amount of misery, material scarcity and decline they probably had experienced in its aftermath was something I couldn’t fathom or comprehend as I had grown up in a world of safety, plenty and abundance in comparison.
Anyway, those Russians didn’t cause me any trouble at the time (despite the cultural differences and their strong group-mentality and resistance to hardships) but they did frighten me at times for sure. The experience regarding the tennis-playing was actually okay since one of the instructors was Swedish (and thus someone who spoke my native language when my English wasn’t that fluent at the time) and the weather wasn’t too cold, wet and terrible for being England. That summer in Sweden has been terribly wet and cold overall so I had very low expectations regarding the weather.
The terrible part of the experience though, started only after two, three days as some of the French and Belgian kids there (a few years older of course) started to pick on me every time I walked by, followed by some laughing and cursing words in French. At that point, I really started to think something was utterly wrong about me and hence saw it as the reason as to why they picked me as their victim. At the time, I hadn’t grown very tall yet (although I would in the following years), looked a little geeky with my glasses and had a weak posture and body-language overall that signaled insecurity and submission which is why I think they picked on me and a few other people.I will never forget the day we went on that daily London-trip by bus when I was about to grab one of the seats in the far back (next to my cousin) when suddenly one of those older (and taller) Belgian kids grabbed the collar on my backpack from behind and pulled me (almost lifted me) away from the spot and I had nothing to set against him, neither physically or verbally. At that moment, I felt like the abject, exposed, vulnerable and helpless that I had probably been during my entire life and the remainder of that trip was destroyed before it had even begun. Close to Trafalgar square, I did at least manage to find a phone-booth (this was before mobile-phones were a common tool) and make the only phone-call home during that trip but of course, my parents were at a party that night and the babysitter for my siblings was the one who answered. So typical when I needed my parents’ calm and comforting words more than ever. Because, back at the camp (which was on the countryside), there was no visible phone-booth nearby and the camp’s telephones didn’t work that well because the landline broke every single time I tried calling for some reason. It would take me a few weeks after the arrival in Sweden before I dared telling about the horrifying experience for my mother and of course, she was stunned.
The experience itself was not only the beginning of my declining confidence and self-esteem that would haunt me for over a decade and a half but also the beginning of fapping itself (as a numbing and escapist refuge) and although it would take another six months before I started with it regularly, there was still a sense of shame, guilt and disgust haunting me after each time. It did for sure give me some temporary relief and pleasure many times but I still couldn’t escape that inner-voice or sensation telling me something about it wasn’t right but rather destructive and something I really shouldn’t do for my own sake.
For the years to come, I would be constantly pulled between that inner sensation and the voices from media, peers and other adults telling me it was just healthy, natural and evolving for me. Today, I know better and from experience that those inner sensations are rarely wrong and should be followed 95% of the times.
That’s one reason as to why I didn’t pursue it again for a few months until the beginning of the following year. Not only did I resume that destructive activity again but I also started to watch porn on the cable channels after midnight during some weekends so I could record it on the VHS-tape and have something to watch for a few weeks.
Although the events triggered feelings of worthlessness, geekiness, and alienation for years to come, they also made me push harder and brought a burning desire to become better than my former bullies. At least they taught me how to not be a pleasant and sympathetic person and I don’t feel any resentment towards them today as I know they have probably already had their fair share of karma along the way since.The second traumatic and gripping event occurred only three short years later (at age 15) during a monthly long summer-confirmation camp where two other confirmands were bullying me for the at least three of those weeks. Essentially, when no one else was around, they just stood a few meters away, looked at me for about 5-10 seconds (which felt like an eternity), laughed at me and walked away. Although it wasn’t more than that, it left some deep wounds inside which did hurt my already torn confidence and self-esteem even more. They really made me feel like the most undesirable, dorky and most useless person on the planet. Needless to say, I didn’t form any friendships during that camp (since I was quite timid and introvert already) but rather withdrew from the world and resulted to fapping instead. Today however, I don’t lament the loss of those potential friendships as they would only have been superficial anyway, as barely anyone during that camp dared being their genuine self with the fear of being alienated. Anyone but me probably and obviously, I paid a high price for that integrity, a price-tag and decision that I don’t regret to this very day.
That summer was also when I purchased my first porn-mag from a convenience store and since there was a lot of shame, guilt and embarrassment attached to that pursuit itself (and rightfully so), I put on my sunglasses and cap and waited until there was not a soul in the store. It was an expensive pursuit as well since it cost me almost 100 SEK (about 10€) of my pocket-money but at least I had something to fap to during the family vacations when there was no one left in the room.
I remember the year prior in the Austrian capital of Wien (Vienna) when those free adult-movies were rolling on one the hotel TV-channels and how enchanted and excited I felt while watching those vastly exaggerated, faked and ployed movies on. I was seriously thinking that if sex in real life was even nearly as pleasurable as it looked like in those movies, I would be in heaven and above when that real day arrived. But as we all know, the moving pictures in porn who look so pleasurable and loving is not a good portrait of reality in any sense. It is all a pretty façade that ruptures fairly quickly when you knock on its surface.
The same old PMO that only kept on lowering my confidence, self-esteem and only brought loneliness, feelings of guilt, alienation and misery into my life.The third and more prolonged event that wrecked my confidence and self-esteem, while propelling the PMO-habit was my dreadful Gymnasium (or high-school) years between grade 10-12. The entire day-to day life and reality at school was nothing but a theatre play of sort where very few people were their genuine self and those few who dared maintaining their integrity paid a big price, usually in the form of alienation, ostracism and in worst case, outright bullying. Although I experienced the first two which was quite a strenuous and painful experience in itself, I did at least barely manage to dodge the last one thanks to my clothing (I dressed quite fancy and formal), status as a good athlete/sports-man and residential address on the class-list.
Despite that, I much rather spent time with the geeks than the popular kids, simply because the former had some integrity compared to the latter, plus they had other interests and values in life than partying, drinking and chasing phony status and approval. I was sort of a geek myself for being such a sports-freak and thus didn’t even try or make an effort to fit in amongst the popular kids. I saw and felt quite early on (almost on the very first day of the fall-semester in grade 10) what their world view, little bubble and fake world was like and instinctively felt it wasn’t something I wanted to be a part of. I did early spot the horrendous effects of binge-drinking amongst youth our age and the broken, insecure people behind that confident façade. That’s when I decided that I didn’t want to be a part of that and destroy my health, confidence and athletic-performance in the process so I rather paid the price of being one of those weird teetotaler-dudes during my High-School years. Instead, I resorted to PMO as a stress-relief after another rough and exhausting day at school was finally over. Days during which I didn’t only have to deal with haughty, phony and unsympathetic class-mates but also had to deal with practice after school, lots of school-work (especially in Mathematics, physics, chemistry and French) and the hour-long commute into the city with the mass-transit system on crowded trains in the morning. When I had finally been eating dinner and done some more school-work, I finally got a few minutes of PMO:ing and reading some book before going to sleep. Apart from the few friends I had at school (and from earlier school-years) and the time I got with them, PMO was one of the few highlights in my life at that point which tells you a little about how sad and broken I felt much of the time.
With my parents arguing a lot and about to separate at the time, I sometimes felt like the loneliest and most exposed person in the world. Having lots of pimples all over my face and dental-braces didn’t make this time-period worse but rather a bigger hellhole than it actually needed to be. I sometimes felt like the women I watched in porn were the closest I was ever going to ever get to a real girlfriend, let alone a physically attractive girlfriend. Little did I know that my current PMO habits were only drawing me further away from those prospects.
To this day, I don’t understand how I could cope with this lifestyle for three long years and still have such high energy during most of the time. If I hadn’t been PMO:ing during that time-period, I would probably have been a superman or something, hehe.Luckily, I rarely got bullied for having a rich dad (since there were plenty of kids with those in my hometown and hence not an unusual sight), just getting asked the question sometimes from random kids my age that if the rumors were true almost killed me. The rumors being my dad belonging to the 100 richest/wealthiest men in Sweden (which he wasn’t by the way) and that I lived in one of the “Castles” which was slang for the dozen or so biggest mansions in town. Just being asked those questions and what my dad did for a living were essentially killing me emotionally and spiritually. Not only because the behavior and manners to just ask such question straight out annoyed the hell out of me. But also because money and personal finances isn’t something that Nordic people (especially not Swedes) ask and talk about in a manner that direct as it is considered very impolite and distasteful to do so. But also because I knew many of them just wanted to kiss my butt (figuratively speaking) and be friends with me because of my rich dad. In that way, I was on my guard every time I heard that question coming up and soon, I learned to sift out and distinguish what people were fake and who were genuine.
Although that sixth sense saved me later on from acquiring fake friends, getting involved with the wrong kind of people and absorbing twisted values and priorities about what actually mattered in life (such as true/genuine friendship, love, family, hobbies/interests, nature and spirituality instead of materialism, possessions, money) it landed me in a great deal of loneliness during that time.
A sense of loneliness I used to self-medicate with PMO as that did make me feel better temporarily. Those years between the ages of 12-20 were overall quite a lonely time as there were very few genuine people my age and older in my hometown. People who like me, were a bit odd and had different priorities and outlooks on life than most but who were also genuine, had good intentions, actually loved their livelihoods and who had a positive impact on the community overall. They were not in a majority but still present and I will never forget the positive energy they emitted and that partially made me stay afloat in a quite lonely day-to-day life and also made see things from an entirely different perspective.What also fascinated me about them was that they seemed quite spiritual and not so materially oriented as most other people in town. They didn’t seem to have the fanciest cars, biggest boats, or latest fashion (although they could easily afford to) but seemed not to crave these possessions either as they were more than happy with what they already had. Their presence made me subconsciously think that you can live a thriving and meaningful life without lots and lots of material possessions and fake friends at your side. These people didn’t seem to have a need for others’ approval as well since they felt no need to prove anything for anyone. But, it was also these people who were in the line of fire for all the pettiness, superficiality, projections and baloney rumors that the insecure, spiritually empty and self-obsessed toxic sheep in the neighborhood spread around like wildfire. Fortunately, they were usually not too hurt by that pettiness since they were already quite tempered and used to it than most (otherwise they wouldn’t have gone their own way like they later did).
Hence, the presence of these characters made me feel less odd, strange, lonely and alienated in the crowd which was otherwise the standard-feeling/sentiment of mine at the time. Especially at school where I had very few close friends and those I had didn’t belong to the cool and popular group either but looking back, it’s nothing I regret or would have made different since most of those cool, popular kids later on developed very destructive and degrading habits (such as drinking and drug-abuse) and fake friendships that were based on conformism and fitting in, not on integrity and acceptance of one’s differences. Many of those so called “friends” of theirs who would later abandon them as soon as the going was getting tough which I already could sense at the young age of 13-14. To this day, I am very happy to have trusted my gut-feeling and instinct at the age where you struggle to find an identity and a community to fit into. A community that was something bigger, better and more real than the invisible and silent community of porn-users masturbating in front of the screen.
Despite being lonely much of the time, I did at least get a few friends during that time with whom I developed genuine friendships that are still standing to some extent since I keep in touch with two of them.
But, I managed to earn a fair amount of respect due to my skills in sports (both ball-sense and athletic strength) where I kicked almost everyone’s ass due to my endurance and physique that kept me going when everyone else was standing still, huffing and puffing while trying to keep up with me. But, I was also very stubborn, bullheaded and short-tempered at times which partially kept me going when things looked grim but also gave people a reason to provoke and play mind-games with me since I lost it quite easily.
As a result, I was constantly over-reacting to peoples’ petty behavior and mind-games that they were constantly playing on me to get me out of balance.
Especially in the sports I was playing at the time (primarily Ice-hockey, tennis and later on track/distance running) where team-mates and opponents alike played mind-games with me in order to provoke, piss me off and bring me out of balance. Unfortunately, having a short fuse at the time as I had, I mostly gave in to their petty tricks and became that type of John McEnroe copy they loved to poke on. It would take several years before I finally gained back control over my thoughts, feelings, temper and destiny which has helped me a lot since people’s petty behaviors don’t affect me much nowadays. I can only lament their lack of consciousness, awareness and purpose in life. Nowadays, I know that only people who are frustrated, out of balance, don’t know their purpose or where they are going in life behave in such a petty way and I can only lament their pettiness.......To be continued soon
