u/CorrectTadpole9997

Hey folks,

Lifelong insomniac here, fluctuating in intensity. Currently sleeping four hours before my brain starts buzzing refusing to fall back asleep.

At this point, after wasting time trying to relax into it, or reading a book and getting more and more frustrated at still being too awake, but not awake enough to focus on what I'm reading, I tried a different approach...

I sat up on my bed, and decided to meditate. I've been trying to meditate anyway during the day, regardless of my insomnia, so I thought "why not now then!?"... at 5am.

Put a timer for 30min, which is more than I usually manage; 20min is usually my go to.

Well, turns out that acted as a sort of workout. The last ten minutes were hard work! My brain was trying to zone out consantly, almost admitting that it wasn't that awake afterall, but I did my best to remain mindful instead.

Once the timer rang, I fell back into bed, and felt not only relaxed, but also surprisingly tired again, and managed another 2hrs of sleep or so.

Not bad!

Not suggesting this is a cure. Just throwing this on here as an extra tool that may benefit some people.

Hope it helps 🙏

Went out for the first time in ages two nights ago. Managed to get someone's number, and we've arranged to meet on Frday for a 'coffee', initially... He then didn't take long to make his intentions clear.. sent some photos too without me asking... I'm not gonna worry about it tainting my Hardmode Nofap.. but fuck!

Every hour has been a struggle since then.. Trying not to fantasise and think of the pictures he sent, but especially at night when half awake.. the mind wanders into fantasy mode.. I hadn't planned on making any new connections for months, to make the reboot easier.. Sod's law...

4 more difficult days to go 😓

Anyone else? Started hardmode about a week ago and it's happened every night. Unsolicited sex dream, from people I know and who I definitely don't wanna have sex with.. two nights ago was a relative. Like wtf.. Why does the brain do that?

I'm gay, and every dream has been with a woman, so definitely not my territory.. Last night's dream was the closest the dream got to bein 'ok'. I was still heavily coerced, but almost gave in to it cuz 'why not try'...

So weird...

So mini back-story just for context: I have severe PIED, introduced to high-speed porn from a very young age (8-10yrs old), and then decades worth of bad sexual experiences due to PIED.. Performance anxiety through the roof... I even struggle to fantasise about having sex, without a negative thought interrupting the fantasy within just 3 seconds.. with a sort of "well, no chance in hell you'll stay hard anyway.. so you can forget about that fantasy, you're just gonna have to use your hand to try and get hard"...

Been on hardmode for just over a week.. and although I know I'm nowhere near done with reboot.. anticipating months of it ahead... my brain just randomly tried luring me into fantasising about an ex-partner while I was distracted.. and 5-10 seconds into it.. not only did I start feeling aroused, but the fantasy was only positive... no negative thoughts or images.. no performance anxiety reality check..

It feels like a tiny win... but that just made my day.. I don't know if anyone else suffers as badly from PIED and/or performance anxiety.. but if anyone can relate, I hope this'll cheer you up and give you hope...

Best of luck to everyone!