sleep

So I'm a virgin. The other day I was at a girl's house and we were about to have sex but I simply couldn't stay hard. A few days before we were in our school and she wanted to give me a blowie but same situation; thought I was nervous but then it repeated itself. I havent fapped in about 8 days now, which is when the blowie thing happened (tried nofap before and farthest I could go was like 4-5 days) and I feel like my libido has died since. I'm also depressed and have been for years but I had no problem with mantaining an erection before. This is probably one of the most frustrating things that's happened to me in my life and I don't know what to do.

Sounds reasonable. I think watching porn made me realize that that not might be the issue, although it might also be the case that the experience and my interpretation has turned me off of porn. Whatever, I'll still abstain, not like there's much benefit from it anyways I think. Not much I'd say.

@integral Just tried watching porn and I got hard but I kept getting distracted and bored, which usually didn't happen. Yeah I think anhedonia is playing a big part. As for the visualization, yeah I can, why?

@Osaid I'm scared of using porn because I think that's one of the things that might've caused the issue (porn-induced ED, been using porn for years now and it's the only sexual activity i know so my brain might've wired itself to only associate sexual pleasure with porn) so I haven't tried. Yeah, I'm a pretty nervous person around people. I suck at being fun. I think what you said about being reminded of that experience is true. It's been stressing me out for the past few days and it only became worse after I failed to get hard at her home. I was planning on abstaining from porn indifinitely, though I might try to watch it and see how it goes. I think it might be counterproductive though.

I've lived with some level of it throughout my entire adolescence and early adult life, though I'd say it's been a bit worse for the past couple of weeks. I'm socially anxious. Not as much anymore but still more than other people. I lost like 8 kg a few months ago because of loss of apetite. I live with my parents so it's usually just what they order or what I have at home; some mexican food like frijol con puerco or stuff like that, basically meat with soup. I'm not sure if it's because of the depression. It probably plays a part, although I've been very depressed before and I would usually jerk off to feel better, sometimes multiple times a day. What bothers me is that the ED seems to have started when the girl appeared.

Yeah for depression. Well, more than depression it's more like anhedonia; I get joy from nothing, everything tastes like dirt. Stressed yeah, got a new job, but I wouldn't say very much so. I would say my sleep has been decent lately. Sometimes my dick feels a little funny but not enough to want to fap. I forgot to mention, while I was doing the thingies with the girl I felt almost nothing. My answers makes it seem like it's the depression that's occasionating the issue (and it might be) but also take in count that I've been depressed for years and usually I could jerk off just fine. I also thought that it might be that I associated sexual pleasure with porn and so that's why I couldn't enjoy myself very much.

@Osaid No, I feel that my libido has died since I couldnt' get hard 8 days ago. I haven't fapped because I haven't felt horny enough. Well, I think that's the point at which it happened, but it might've been a bit before. Depression and all that.

So I'm trying to use it to achieve higher stages of consciousness but I'm not sure what's the best way to go about it. I've researched a bit and through experimentation I've found setting intentions beforehand effective, but I'm sure some of you know of other effective methods.

@SamC @flyingwhalee Thanks guys, helpful answers. I'm wondering on what kind of intentions I should set and how I should formulate them? Obviously I have my set of personal issues I want to work on, but with the general god of reaching awakening should I formualte it with words like "I want to reach awakening" or is it better if I'm more specific in the way I go about it? Or maybe I should just take it and surrender to the experience?

Pretty much everything about my life and personal experience feels meaningless/pointless. From the words and feelings I show other people to the things I study and do for work, everything I fill my time with. It just feels like I'm filling the emptyness with more emptyness but of course, you can't fill an empty space with just more empty space. I took 3 tabs of LSD throughout the past 2 weeks and I realized things about suffering and how most of it is an illusion, but the emptyness seems to have become greater. I'm not necessarily in emotional pain, I'm just really bored but I can't think of anything that's worth doing besides more drugs, though I think I should limit myself in this regard because I can see myself becoming an addict in the future if I don't limit myself. Thanks for any advice.

I understand that, but every time I try something new I get bored of it within 2 days. In 21 years of my life I've never been able to find anything I truly enjoyed. I honestly believe there's really nothing out there for me, because I've tried a fair amount of things. Right now I'm just looking for ways to cope with meaninglessness rather than trying to find something that's probably not there.

This is a thing that occurs weirdly often in my life. I'll give an example of what I mean by missing the most obvious solution; today I was having lunch with my mom and she mentioned something about a power-plant, I thought she meant something like a plant on top of a little generator that converted the light absorbed from the sun into electricity and I couldn't understand what she meant by that or how it made sense. After a few seconds of this I realized what she meant. Stuff like this happens for most explanations or indications thrown at me. What's weird to me is that the solutions I come up with are always more complicated than what was said to me, so is it me making simple things complex and in a way more creative or am I just being dumb? It also makes life a bit hard tbh unu

@Osaid Yeah, exactly. And most of the time I interpret it as the most far-fetched one, for some reason.

@Osaid I thought she was talking about a literal power plant. The point I was trying to make in distinguishing between lack of knowledge and misunderstanding is in that in lack of knowledge the confusion comes about because I lack some important information, whereas misunderstanding is due to already having the information you need, but misinterpreting what is meant. Like hearing the word "cigarette" and instead of thinking about a cigarette, thinking of a female version of a cigar because of the "ette". Does that make sense?

@Osaid A bit was lost in translation but originally it wasn't an uncommon term I didn't know or wasn't aware of, I just imagined some far-fetched alternative. Maybe my example wasn't great, but one of the things I wanted to explain is that whenever I misinterpret things I don't do it for a lack of knowledge but rather a misunderstanding of what is meant. And yeah the most obvious thing would've been to communicate that I was confused but I felt like I would look dumb asking because it was a pretty common word. Should've thought of this before publishing the thread but I think it would've been more appropiate to use the word "creative" rather than smart or dumb, it's probably dumb because it leads to worse outcomes than if i'd just understood the most obvious answer, but I also sometimes come up with some pretty convoluted stuff.

Ever since I was little I've had difficulty in social situations because my voice is too hard to hear. I'm sure some of this has to do with social anxiety and mental blockages like that, but my voice is also just quiet. I'm learning to project my voice right now through youtube videos, but i'd be thankful if people with experience tackling this problem could share some useful information with me. Exercises or breathing tips, anyone know stuff like that?

@JonasVE12 No, I dont think I could scream in public.

@JonasVE12 lol the fact that I'm reluctant to send you a voice message makes me think your previous messages was right

@JonasVE12 I generally agree with your messages and yeah, mental factors might be playing a role but knowing myself I genuinely think a bigger part of it might be just the volume of my voice. I know that most of the times when my voice sounds low I'm not speaking with shame or anything like that. Ill watch the tightness in my body though, thanks for the tip. Oh also about the energy, I'm not sure using more energy when speaking will help. A lot of times when I'm speaking too loudly (for my own standards) for too long my voice will become coarse and tired and I'll have to stop speaking for a bit. You probably meant energy in some other way but I thought that might be an important point regarding my voice. I'm not sure my problem is so abstract as using my voice with power or confidence, I think it's more of a simple matter of actually speaking loudly enough for other people to hear me.

I have the impression that at least the average relationship in my age group (21) is very short and produces more negative feelings than positive ones. It's kinda upsetting to me that people finish and start new relationships in the time it takes them to watch a series in netflix. Am I wrong to think that most relationships in the world are very shallow? I find the thought very upsetting, like it makes it not worth it to start one.

@Jodistrict what are some signs when they don't constent? Have you ever seen one not consent?

@Jodistrict have you ever seen them say no? I'm curious to know as how they interpret the toads consenting or not

How can you trust brain-made chemicals?

It's not inaccurate to say I'm a failure as a person. Any area in life I participate in I'm bad at, even if I've had plenty of time to practice it, I'll be worse than most people with little to no practice. Socializing, dating, understanding people, work, videogames, physical prowess and dexterity, whatever you can think of. I understand that no one can be good at everything, but is it really normal to be bad at everything? Is there something wrong with me? I feel stupid.