clleaner version, without all the interrogation marks , in pdf :
http://www111.zippyshare.com/v/R8sLyRmH/file.html(I?m not a native English speaker. And I?m lazy so there are going to be mistakes.
Reading this won?t cure your pois. I?m just trying to prove, that I did get cured, and people in the same situation as me, can also get cured. If this is false, then I never had pois. But apparently I did, so here?s my post )
Hey everyone. I?m here to talk about my story, dealing with pois symptom for roughly 4 years, starting at 16-year-old and ending at 19-20. I manage to get rid of the symptoms with the help of a therapeutist/sexologist. I didn?t use any kind of medication, and It took me 1 year with her to get cured. It?s been 7 month I haven?t felt pois symptoms. the 6 months before that, I oscillated between positive and negative state , with an almost constant progression against pois.
By reading a lot of stories shared by people having this condition, I realized I was in the ?first phase? of pois. My therapeutist didn?t seem to be a specialist in this condition, but she dealt with a lot of patient having a specific relationship with their sexuality, like people suffering from erectile dysfunction, porn addiction, childhood trauma, etc.
Honestly, I feel like I could write a gigantic post about it, I have billions of thoughts about pois, but right now I don?t have much time and writing in English is a tough exercise for me. I?m going to try to explain how I manage to feel better, but it?s a bit tricky, since I realized things about my condition during the process of my recovery, not at the beginning. All this is still a bit confusing for me. I hope you?ll find some explanation in my post.
I?m not addressing this post to people who suffer intensely from pois, because I don?t know if I had the same condition as you. My symptoms were: fatigue, depression, anxiety, fogginess, and feeling like whatever, I would do, I couldn?t get out of it. However, I never felt flu like symptoms, so I wonder if this a step in pois which I can?t really help, as I didn?t live it myself. So, this most is mainly for the people who have the same symptoms I had, and maybe not for a too long period of time in their life (around 4 years). I think it?s also mainly for people who have or used to have a porn use or addiction .I am saying all this because I don?t know if I can cure anyone, but still think my story will resonate for some people.
. First, I?m going to talk about my story:
I watched porn every day from 13 to 16, and I tried to stop at 16 because I was watching more and more intense material, and I was using it way too much. I randomly fond the nofap subreddit, and I followed their guidelines without thinking about the possible repercussion it will have on my mind and body. I watched a lot of hardcore porn, male dom, rough porn in general. I didn?t really know why I was watching it, and I started to fantasize a lot on doing those stuff in real life with people from my entourage. By trying to stop I also abstained from masturbation, and that?s when I realized I was feeling a lot better 4 day after an orgasm, so I also tried for 4 years to abstain from masturbation as much as I could. I felt really different compared to the period I masturbated every day. I usually relapsed once a week or once every two weeks, usually the week end. Almost every time I relapsed with porn, and usually by binge watching videos for hours. The days after were always similar: fogginess, fatigue, mild or more severe depression, suicidal though, anxiety. I was feeling unmotivated, empty, and dependent from a strong emotion of sadness and vulnerability. The symptoms were getting more and more intense over the years; at the beginning it was making me anxious around girls, then around my friends, then my family, and then pretty much everyone. I don?t remember having any suicidal thought when I was 16, but 2 years after those though would come sometimes during the symptoms. The fatigue was more and more present, I had to compensate with sport and meditation to feel better. but I still had that particular feel, like having a weight which was making feel low, a weight I had to undergo every time I masturbated. The symptoms were the same if I masturbated without porn , but with less shame and guilt. However the anxiety , fatigue , fogginess and depressions remained. I couldn?t understand at all why masturbation would put me in a state like this.
20 months ago, I had an experience which made me realize that I couldn?t just abstain from masturbation for the rest of my life. I had to find a solution. I was working at a festival, it was my first big gig and it was really important for me. Because I had to feel good I abstained for a week before, as usual before any particular event. But I was so stressed that I had a wet dream the day before the festival. I felt like shit all weekend, didn?t enjoy playing at all, got depressed and cried, felt horrible around my friends, etc. I couldn?t stand it anymore, so I started therapy.
The therapy
I think that the point of therapy is to solve your personal problems with personal solutions , so I don?t really know how to resume what I learnt with her but I?m going to try to explain. We didn?t find the solution to pois , she found the solution to my problems , which resulted in POIS symptoms. She never really explained me why I felt like this , perhaps she didn?t know the exact reason , but she seems to know a lot on living sexuality in the healthiest way.
During my therapy, I was in a deep conflict with myself. I couldn?t believe I could get cured by therapy, because I read so many things about pois on internet saying the opposite. I saw a first psychologist, but it didn?t work, so I went to see a therapeutist/sexologist. When I told her my story, she asked me in detail the feeling I had after masturbation. She also asked me how I masturbated. That?s the first I changed at the beginning of the therapy: Reconciliate with masturbation.
My sexologist talked a lot with me about sexual energy. I realized I didn?t really have a clue of how sexual energy works and how to use it properly. I also realized that ?low energy? we feel after masturbation is an energy. It?s the proof that we have a lot of sexual energy, but we don?t know how to use it. What?s more, abstaining from orgasm for several days or week can build up a tremendous amount of sexual energy, which is released after orgasm. Releasing all that energy at once would result in a change of mentality and a change in your body chemistry. It?s been shown for example that stopping coffee gives you headache at first, because you get less dopamine and more adenosine. I guess that the way you masturbate has a correlation with the chemistry changes.
I also learnt about the difference between orgasm and ejaculation. I didn?t find the English term but in French, ejaculation is the ?orgaste? which happen at the same time as orgasm. She explained me that These are two different things, and it can be really healthy to dissociate the two in order to reach orgasm without ejaculation.
I told her about my porn use, that I considered myself addicted, and that I didn?t manage to stop. I told her about how I was feeling after masturbation. That?s when she started to talk about the sexual energy, and honestly, I don?t really remember her word, but it was something like this: you accumulate sexual energy when you abstain. Depending on how you use it, it can turn into something healthy, or it can just turn into sexual frustration, which can create stress, and anxiety. She finds it logical to have a wet dream if you?re stressed, because your body can?t cope with sexual frustration anymore.
So, I told her I was feeling bad after masturbation, so I tried as much as I could to abstain. She asked me if I knew why I felt bad after an orgasm, and I told her that I was feeling empty, like if I just threw out my energy of my body. She asked me if I was feeling any guilt toward masturbation, and I said yes, mainly because of the porn I watched. She told me that there was no reason to feel guilty after masturbation, because it was something normal and natural. She told me that many people think this is wrong and that fought can be deeply rooted in you, depending on your past, your family and education. Honestly , I think at that point I had almost forgotten that masturbation wasn?t wrong . I knew it was affecting me, so I considered as something wrong and bad, at least for me. However, she agreed that porn can create guilt and she told me that it will help me a lot to stop porn; she didn?t say porn was bad, she even said that it could be beneficial in some way, but that porn addiction could have a really big impact on someone?s sexuality.
She explained me a bit what happens in the body during sex/masturbation. When you masturbate, you take that sexual energy and you interact with it. Slowly, you interact with it more and more, to the point of orgasm , a point of satisfaction. She explained me that there is different way to reach orgasm and that influence a lot on your sexual energy. If you masturbate only in order to reach ejaculation , that means going quickly for example , you?re not going to accumulate enough energy , but ejaculation will take you energy; so if you lose more energy with the ejaculation, compared to the energy you build up during masturbation, you end up your masturbation with less energy than before.
So again, she didn?t really tell me all of this exactly like this. This is also my interpretation. I see it like this: orgasm give you energy, depending on it size (the bigger it is the more you get energy from it) ejaculation takes you energy every time, so you compensate with an orgasm.
Then she explained me, how to masturbate in order to build up a lot of sexual energy and feel satisfied and at peace. I can?t deny that it was a bit awkward to receive masturbation advice from a 40-year-old woman, it was a bit weird at first, but I got used to it.
So, she told me to try to masturbate like this:
Put yourself in a comfortable position. Try to relax, you can meditate before (works well). Control your breath; take deep breath, relaxed, don?t hold your breath at any moment, even during orgasm. Your breathing must stay calm
Have you muscle relaxed during all the session: don?t flex your legs for example. This is classic! I heard so many people doing that, and I was also doing it. Keep all your muscle relaxed. This will make the sensation flow in all your body. Don?t flex also during orgasm.
Masturbate slowly and gently. Like if you were making the most passionate love of your life. At the same time, erotize vaginal penetration (or the other ones) you can erotize the penetration going at the same speed as your masturbate, that?s better, and again, slowly. There really is no need to go quickly or aggressively. Have a soft grip, don?t squeeze you dick.
You can also move your hip as if you were making love. Your hand doesn?t move; your penis moves in your hand. Try to move only the hips, not the body. As far as I understand, doing this create a deeper connection with your body. And it?s closer to real sex anyway
You can also use oil to make it more real. It makes it more intense. I didn?t understand why she told me this, but I do it for time to times and I guess it help having more fun and sensation. I don?t really do it anymore but maybe it can help some people using oil regularly.
So, try to do all those things. Focus on the sensation masturbation gives you in every part of your body, focus on them. At some point you?ll feel orgasm coming up, at that point don?t start to flex, don?t change your breath, don?t start to masturbate quicker, just let it come.
Of course, don?t use ANY artificial stimuli (porn, erotica, Instagram, etc.) use your mind only! Thinking about romantic sex was useful for me, because bit by bit i went away from porn fantasies.
To be honest I never really masturbated like that before. it was really new, and really really benefic. Of course, everything didn?t change at first, but now I try to masturbate like this every time, and this is for me the most important action which helped me.
The rest was more about the mind and changing the way I was seeing sexuality.
So, after my first sessions she told me that I should masturbate again. She told several times that there was nothing wrong with, it, and I was in the age of doing it, that If I wanted to do it 3 times a day I could. I added my self one rule: as I used to feel better 4 days after orgasm, I always masturbated more than every 4 days, so I never feel again the feeling I used to have with abstinence. I think that helps a lot, because if you set up this rule, you don?t feel tempted to abstain again. I was confused by thoughts like ?today I feel like this because I?m on day 3? or ?today I feel differently because I?m on day 6! ?etc.
So I started masturbation again, and every time with the tips she gave me (breathing, moving hips , going slow , etc. ) I think it?s really important to do all the tips first, in order to really mark a difference with how you used to masturbate before.
At first, I was feeling really low. I couldn?t believe I was deliberately putting myself in this situation every day. But compared to before, the masturbation felt nicer, because of all the techniques she gave me. After I really felt tired and sexually satisfied, I didn?t want to do it again. I found it a bit recomforting to enjoy masturbation more than before; even though I considered it being harmful to my body , I could still receive benefits from it: orgasm were better , and slowly the feeling of deception and anger I could feel directly after orgasm were replaced by a gentle feeling of relaxation and fatigue that would easily put me to bed directly.
However, every day I felt all the symptoms; usual brain fog, anxiety, obsessive thought , fatigue etc. but as I considered that it was going to be the ?new me? , I considered myself as a depressed person more than someone who as pois. Day by day I tried to dissociate the fact that I masturbated with my low emotions. I tried to find the other problems that could be the reason of my depressive state. I knew that I had other problems in life, dealing with low self-esteem, anxiety, light ocd, trouble finding my sexual identity and dealing with identity crisis and existential crisis. For a long time, I considered masturbation as the reason for all those problems, because they were coming back at every ejaculation. But now that I was forcing myself to ejaculate more than every 4 days, I saw those problem more directly because they would never go away. I had to find an answer to all those issues in order to live the normal life I always idealized.
I started doing sport way more than before, and as I was feeling low every day, I didn?t really have a choice to exercise every day. Running helped a lot with the brain fog. Sport was giving me some positive though and emotions.
I kept seeing my sexologist, and I kept saying her I was feeling low because of masturbation, and she kept telling me no, and tried to find the reason why I was saying this. I was only saying this because of the experience of my past. She told me to get over it and think about the present. We talked more about my social anxiety, trouble talking to girls and people in general.
For the first time, I started talking almost normally with people, while having the pois symptoms. It was still the same thing: I didn?t have the choice anyway, I can?t wait 4 days anymore; If I want something, I have to take it, right now. I entered in this state: I have to get out of depression.
I think it took me approximatively one year. I kept masturbating frequently. I tried abstaining sometimes, but It put me in a state of confusion. It was tempting to abstain again, I was seeing it as a trick to feel good without doing any effort. But doing this was counterproductive because when I relapsed the pois symptoms would come again , more strongly. But trying it made me realize that the difference between the state of pois and the state of abstinence were starting to merge together. And I was starting to feel a bit less tired. The great thing with this Is that I was feeling the same every day, so it forced me to get a routine of sport, meditation and healthy life style. Before, I was mainly doing it when I felt the pois symptoms, so I didn?t really manage to find an efficient routine. That?s a big difference. Before, when I was feeling good, I just profited. And when I felt bad I did sport and meditation to cope with negative emotion.
Something which helped me a lot also is testicular breathing. It?s a Taoist technique, in which you breath ?with you testicules? : while you breath , your testicules are actually moving , up and down. I know it sounds absurd, but I checked in a mirror and I actually saw them moving. I learned it in several books talking about Taoism. It?s complicated to explain, and you have to know how to meditate and you have to understand some of the basic of the sexual energy, and the global energy in Taoist culture (or other) in order to practice testicular breathing. I felt like this technique is taking unused sexual energy, and make It flow again in your body. After it, I felt like I was stronger, like if I abstained several day. It was really useful for social events.
Taoism helped me a lot: they have a brilliant view on life. They?re talking about the ups and downs in life, that they exist and it?s unnecessary to fight them. the more you live closely to the cycle of your emotion, the less you realize it?s moving. It?s like looking a curved line really closely, so close that you see it as a straight line. When you?re feeling down, accept it and just live it, the cloud will always go away and will reveal that you sun is always there, it?s only masked by clouds from times to time, but it actually never disappears. You?re the sun, not the clouds in front of it.
I think that when you suffer from pois for a long time, and that you choose to run from the side effect of ejaculation by simply avoiding as much ejaculation as you can, you keep nourishing the idea that you?ll feel low after orgasm and you stay vulnerable from it. It seems to be official that there?s a chemical change after orgasm; raise of prolactin, lower testosterone etc. if you assimilate negative emotion toward this specific chemical change, those emotions will always come again when you orgasm; I think the body remembers, and when you orgasm you?ll directly consider this new state as negative.
As of today I can?t really say if I have brain fog, or if I?m particularly destabilized by the last time I had an orgasm (2 days ago). I?ve been in this state for so long that I don?t consider it as negative anymore; I took control of it, and the more I saw myself being positive during this state, the less it affected me. I think my body got used to that feeling again and now I?m capable to cope with it without thinking about it.
The thing is that I can?t really convince you to choose the path I took, I don?t really know if that could work for everyone. However, it worked for me and there are certainly people who suffered from pois for the same reason as me. Here?s a summary of the things to do:
-if you think you have issues toward sexuality in general, try to work on them, or give yourself elements which will help you solving them. I?m talking about: porn or sex addiction , feeling of guilt/shame because you masturbate or have sex , difficult experience with partners you had in the past which still have an impact on your life and how you see yourself right now. You can see a therapeutist to talk about that first and try to solve pois afterwards.
-Try masturbation the way I described it before in my post. do like this every time. Don?t force yourself to masturbate but do it when you feel like you want to release sexual tension. It will be easier to do it before going to sleep at first, so you will regenerate during the night.
-put all the things you usually do to cope with pois symptoms: meditate every day ( I found doing another session after masturbation was really benefic) meditation for me was huge. I make meditation without any apps, just me on a pillow, for 5-10 min every day. But I guess you already know the benefits from meditation.
I hope my post gave some info and maybe some reassurance on pois. I can?t really explain more how I got cured, there must have other factors which I forgot to mention or that I simply don?t realise. If you have any question feel free to ask me , and tell me if you disagree with me and why.
Cheers and good luck to all of you.
Carmack97
