Hey trader. I try to spend 99.99% of my time not thinking about POIS. Trying to be happy. Living my life. This is why I barely log in to this website. I try not to dwell on anything. Sometimes I even forget that I have this problem! When I first came down with this issue I was a very happy person. I was about to get a girlfriend right out of high school. I could say I was a very nice, calm and spontaneous person who could joke and take a joke about anything and everything. Than one day... KaBoOM!!!, hit by the POIS train and haven't felt the same since. Now can you tell me what has caused that? A negative mindset? I don't think so. I was having everything in my life go as planned and was happier than ever... and than the guy operating the POIS train stuck his hand out, grabbed me and tossed me into one of his seats that we all (or most) of us are in. I've been riding this POIS train ever since and am waiting for it to stop so I can get off. I believe you can only think yourself so far off of this train, but in the end you are still one of its daydreaming passengers. Their is a real problem here unless you truly don't have POIS. Just as in any other allergy, my body turning red, itching, headaches, mental anguish, what have you... it is a physical reaction within our bodies. It has nothing to do with our own thinking. Sure we can make it better by not dwelling on it all the time. But the pain is real... everything that is going on is something that you cannot think away. I cannot think my skin redness to go away, only time can do that... until the next orgasm. This is why I have to take medication like OLE to help me along the way.
I understand your view of "thinking" better to make yourself better, but, having dealt with this for so many years I cannot simply tell my immune system or whatever it is to stop reacting to this orgasm the way it is. I have literally been down that path and the results are still the same, still POIS if I don't take any preventative measures.
But if it is working for you, than you should continue doing it. If you believe it is helping you than I hope you continue to feel better.
Hey Going less Crazy,
Thanks for the response. I have to be careful here, since I know admin does not want me recommending treatments or using members as guinea pigs. So I will simply respond to your post by just comparing your experience to what I have been discovering about myself, and try to point out some similarities and observations, etc. if you think it might have some effect on your life, you are obviously free to do whatever you want, but don't feel any obligation to start testing anything out. I am not and cannot be responsible for anything you do on your own. And I want to remain a member in good standing on this site because I think I have good things to offer, even if they only help just one person out there.
Having said all of that......
For me, a couple of years ago my therapist discovered a pattern of
perfectionist thinking which was really the start of my downfall some years ago. I wanted to get the perfect grades in school, I wanted to have the perfect internships and jobs lined up, I wanted to one day have the perfect girlfriend, I wanted to have the perfect muscular body. I wanted EVERYTHING to be perfect. When that happens, your life essentially becomes the opposite of perfection-- it starts to suck, because the harder you try, the more you see how you aren't meeting your perfect expectations, and the cycle continues into a perpetual state of misery, disappointment, and self hatred at your perceived failures.
You mention that you were "having everything in my life go as planned". That's exactly how I felt too. The problem is, life never goes as planned, and the best way to live is to have as few plans as possible, so that you're always living in the present. The way I have begun breaking this cycle of perfectionism is to start being OK with things not always being perfect. It was slow going at first for me, but it picks up momentum after a while. The more I accept things being imperfect, the more I start to want to just improve them so things go from "sucky" to "a little less sucky", then from "a little less sucky" to "OK" and before long they become good, and sometimes even GREAT. Good, and Great, are so much better and more satisfying than "PERFECT". Trust me on this one.
Again, this is what has been working for me. I can't speak for you, nor am I asking you to experiment on yourself unless you choose to on your own, but I have a feeling that my concept of this holds some truth that may apply to others as well.
You mention that you try not to think about POIS 99.9% of the time. You say you are "trying" to be happy instead. You "try" not to dwell. It sounds to me like you are doing what I did, which was avoiding the problem. For me, this was exactly the root of problem! It was tough to see it from the outside always looking in, but the solution for me seems to be to STOP TRYING TO BE HAPPY, and JUST BE HAPPY. That doesn't mean stress yourself further and ignore the "POIS". For me it meant the opposite-- do something I hadn't done before, which was to accept and embrace my POIS self, and finally be OK with feeling imperfect. One good exercise I've found to help myself embrace my "POIS" self is to remind myself of all the GOOD things I have going for me, like a good loving family, and I'm not a cripple in a wheelchair, etc. even if they're not easy to see at first. Again, I stopped TRYING, and started BEING. Big difference. To quote Morpheus...
"Morpheus: Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize just as I did that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path."You mention that the "pain is real". I don't doubt that at all. Some of my pain was/is real too. Everyone's body responds to stress, anxiety, and depression a little differently, but it definitely can lead to REAL, PHYSICAL problems. My problems became primarily digestive in nature. Acid reflux, anxiety burping, etc. I am still on medication for the reflux. When you are not gentle with your body long-term and not gentle with how you walk around the world all the time, and your mind is worrying too much 24/7, then yes, your body will eventually start to break down and medication is the only thing short term that can try to treat the symptoms and allow you to get some degree of control on things. But for me, I finally realized that only a shift in mindset, letting go of the worry surrounding all of this, would truly turn my life around and begin healing my body from the inside out.
And, my body is not healing overnight either. It's been a PROCESS. Once the mind is thinking in healthier patterns, each day a bit more, then the body follows suit over time. To quote THE MATRIX again, when Neo wakes up after failing the building jump, and his mouth is bloody...
Neo: I thought it wasn't real
Morpheus: Your mind makes it real
Neo: If you're killed in the matrix, you die here?
Morpheus: The body cannot live without the mind Like cornelius, some of my symptoms were accurate but misdiagnosed, while others are simply misattributed to "POIS". For instance, a depressed person might suffer from chronic fatigue, which could be resulting from a physical depletion of body resources. But it could also be the case that a large part of that fatigue is mental. The person has the physical ABILITY to get out of bed, they just don't "feel" like it.
Brain fog, on the other hand, is something I firmly believe is a grossly misunderstood concept on this forum. I really believe nowadays that what we have always referred to as "brain fog" and "poor concentration" really is your NATURAL, NORMAL mind and thought. Once I Accepted that, and accepted the perceived imperfection of it, and relaxed and got comfortable and just TRUSTED myself that it is my real thinking, then my world began to open up more and more.
It's tough to describe to someone how to OPEN your MIND, how to FREE your mind. A girl helped me out in this department. When I finally felt some real love in my life, for the first time in a long while, I was able to fully relax and let my mind do what it's intended to do-- think, not worry.
Hope this helps, and again, I am not telling you to try any of this on your own unless you want to, I'm just sharing my experience and trying to explain what I discovered and compare it to what you have told me.