Then after 5 days, it all went away, completely. Since then, I've been flat, numb, nothing. Occasional sparks of sexual spirit, but also a kind of glum, flat, nothingness. I wouldn't say depressed, because I'm optimistic about the future, and I'm happy with the path I'm on, and committed. But more like empty, null. Girls that I was desperate to get with a week ago, now I don't even feel like texting. I almost feel hostile, angry. The prospect of sex is not appealing.

I think my brain has accepted that I'm not going to be jerking it, so it has stopped the cravings. On the other hand, it doesn't realize yet that porn is no more, and so it still is not allowing me to get excited by girls in real life. I think that's going to be a very gradual process, and I'll probably get intermittent flashes of horniness and arousal, and then absence again, as things gradually rewire.

I'm super-excited to be at day 10. I never even knew there could be a day 3! I thought it was physically impossible for me to not jack off that long. And actually the porn is at day 16, because I stopped looking at it a week before I stopped jerking it.

[Week 3] Earlier today I was getting pretty impatient with the lack of progress in the resensitization department. I mean, it's only been a once a day habit, right? Why am I taking so long to get over it? But then I did the math. 20 years, 365 days a year, most of those including P - that's more than a staggering 7,000 PMOs. Now I see why it's possible that I have some habituation to get over.

[Week 4] Still getting the occasional REALLY STRONG flashback to some of the appealing images from P days. At first I was annoyed that a side effect of this process is getting these flashbacks and annoyed at having to resist them. Then I realized that it's not a side effect - this IS the process. Every time you successfully resist, that takes you one step nearer to being free of them. That's how progress is made in this crazy game.

Been driving a lot - late night driving has been one of my solaces in this crappy process. When I come home and I'm full of horn, I get in the car and drive for a couple of hours - on a twisty road, up in some hills, occasionally just on a freeway. Doesn't really matter. Just sitting there a little preoccupied seems to soothe me somehow. Anyone else do this?

[Week 5] I was in such a good mood today. I literally don't think I have been in such a good mood in 7 years. And I don't mean because anything particularly great happened, but just for no reason at all. It's been so long since I've had that buoyancy. I used to have it, and I haven't seen it for 7 years, and had more or less got to thinking maybe life is inherently gloomy and uninteresting. Historically, I've been a very positive person, and the last 7 years have been so weird because it felt like nothing I did would make me feel cheerful inside. Patches of joy here and there, but always short-lived. Today, finally, I was socializing with people, chatting with people because it felt good to connect, to commune. I've missed that so much, and I only realize how much now that I've had a taste of it again.

I'm 100% sure the problem was the PMO thing. Quite simply, it made everything else boring. The M by itself was bad enough to make me lack-luster since I was 18 probably, but the broadband P I think finally killed any chance any real-world stimuli had of capturing my interest. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but not that much. I've been going through the motions of being sociable and interested for the last 7 years, knowing how it was supposed to look, and doing it because I felt like I should, but all the while not giving a shit inside.

So yeah, the last few days, I've been getting little dribs and drabs of positive emotions, like when you think you feel a drop of rain every now and then, but you're not sure. Today was the first day where I had a mood that was really sustained and didn't disappear after a couple of hours. More like 8 hours and I'm still feeling it. I'm sure there will be lows again (not to be negative, but I've seen the neurochemical pendulum in action for long enough now to know this), but right now, this feels pretty damn good....

Stay strong, everyone. This is totally worth it. It may not be the only piece in your puzzle, but if you've been doing PMO, then it almost certainly will have been having major unsuspected effects.

[Week 6] A milestone reached the last few days. I actually feel back to normal. I'd got so used to feeling craving, or sad for no reason, or unbalanced, or anxious, or massively horny, or completely dead, or combinations of any of these at one time the last 40 days that I'd forgotten that I hadn't always felt that way. Then 3 days ago it all just stopped. Just like that. In my journal two days ago, I wrote "Wow - I feel what I can only describe as 'normal' today". That feeling has stayed with me, and none of the craziness has returned.

Now, just because the craving is gone doesn't mean that I've healed my brain yet. It also doesn't mean that I am safe from relapse! I've been fighting hard these last 6 weeks against the beast, and I've shut it out, but that doesn't mean that it won't come knocking subtly at some stage and try and get in again. I need to maintain lifelong vigilance. My motto: Real women only. For good.

I'm still pretty drained by the whole experience, physical partly, and massively mentally. I'm going to give myself a week or so of brain convalescing (maybe I'm being a wimp, but I really feel like I've been through something), and then I think I'll feel restored enough to start pushing myself again in other areas of life, which have pretty much been on hold the last 6 weeks.

[A couple of days later] Really depressed today. Angry, bitterly critical of the paths I've taken in life, and where I'm at now, and of my abilities to go forward.

While I've eliminated a false pleasure from my menu of options, there is nothing there yet to replace it, because the other options still lack much power to please me. Also, I'm pretty mentally tired after all this PMO resistance, and I don't have the strength to be buoyant today. But the cravings really have gone - I feel level headed, just "level headed grumpy" today.

I guess the other thing bothering me is that there definitely was a very significant improvement at the end of week 6, and I thought that meant all this bullsh*t was over. Apparently though, it just meant the crazy period was over. Now it's replaced by sexual frustration combined with a dull, missing ache, that's making it hard for me to be winning with women, I suspect because I'm communicating an inner sadness.

[Week 7] "Stupid glumness - 50 days and still missing PMO" To miss P for a few days, fine. But to be missing it 7 weeks later - what a baby! There's also a second fear - that maybe the glumness is nothing to do with the PMO, and it's just that my life is f*cked. Except that I don't think it is, but the fear is still there, because it seems like a rational explanation for glumness.

So, those two demons combine and taunt me. One says, "You baby! Fancy being glum because you're missing your P!" Then the other one says "Or maybe it's not the P! Maybe you're just a loser and you're glum because you can't get a decent life together!" Back and forth between them for hours at a time. So I try and prove them both wrong. I go out and meet women. I can hear myself talking to them, aping buoyancy, aping inner feelings of success and normalcy. But the second the performance is over, the dull monotonous drone is back. Glum.

[A few days later] Mood swings: