fedupwithporn
Member
Dear Journal,
Day 2
This is my first post on the forum and my first time seeking help for my addiction outside of working with my therapist.
I started watching porn at age 11. It started out with me using my mom's computer to look at pictures of women's breasts, a concept that was new and very exciting for me. But things escalated quickly when I got my first laptop computer in middle school. I wanted to see actual images of women's naked breasts and not just the covered images I could find on youtube, so I typed in that fascinating new word I had learned about--sex-- into to google search with the safe search settings turned off and I ran into this all-access pass known as Porn Hub. It was so exciting and it felt rebellious and secretive and I remember seeing those women that didn't look like any women I saw around me in my real life and thinking that they were goddesses because they were so beautiful and so arousing. I remember specifically the first porn video I ever watched, still clear as day in my mind, it was a video of this babysitter posing for nude pictures on a trampoline in someone's backyard. She was super playful and fun and flirtatious with the camera and really physically attractive and I remember specifically not only masturbating to her gorgeous body but also feeling very powerful knowing that someone that looked and acted like that was paying attention to me and looking to fulfill my desires. It was a feeling I had never experienced before and it hooked me really hard. In the following years, I would rush home from school to try to get there before my mom got home so I could squeeze in some time for porn. It was the best thing in my world. I remember feeling guilty and weird about how morally ambiguous I felt about watching porn but it was never enough guilt to keep me from watching and masturbating.That feeling of guilt carried on for many years until eventually when I was around 15 or 16 that feeling of guilt went away and I felt no qualms about watching porn. That opened the floodgates to my porn use because now I had no constraints on my usage and I just thought It was a regular part of expressing my sexuality.
I used heavily from about age 15 to age 18 and I wasn't conscious of the problems that it brought but looking back on it now I see how it held me back. I had always been a shy kid, I was anxious about the future, I was often pretty spacey and I never really rebelled or formed a sense of identity. I just followed what my parents did or what my peers did and always tried to please other people so as not to have anyone dislike me. But when I was anxious or overwhelmed or feeling disempowered, I would use porn to help me escape to a reality where I was the boss and women were idealized and all for my pleasure. This really kept me from reaching out of my box too much to make friends, it made me super nervous and shy and quiet around girls, and it kept me from trying new things that were too risky. I didn't realize it but I was becoming dependant on porn to get through life avoiding all the hardships. Finally my senior year of high school I started to branch out, make some friends and focus on athletics and in the process of improving myself I came across some information somewhere talking about porn addiction and the downsides of porn. I realized that porn was holding me back especially when it came to forming real relationships with real girls that I liked or even just wanted to be physical with. So I resolved to stop using porn many times and failed many times.
When I went away to college at 18 I had my first girlfriend and my life was changing rapidly in many ways. I resolved to give up porn again, and I actually succeeded for about 3 months, which is the longest to date I've gone without using porn. I soon realized though that the desire for control was burning inside of me and I felt like I needed porn to feel the power. So with no support systems, I caved eventually and started using again. My use got worse and worse over my college career and I started to notice that I wasn't even enjoying porn anymore, I was just using it to escape my stressful reality. That's when I got really scared and decided I needed to make deep-rooted changes if I was really going to beat what I began to see as a gripping addiction. As college went on I have faced a lot of mental health struggles. During my sophomore year, I struggled with heavy depression and now I face really overwhelming social anxiety. I have been receiving help and treatments from a really great therapist but only recently did I have the courage to tell her about my porn addiction and now I'm on a new path to fighting my addiction from the underlying causes. I see that my mental health and my porn addiction are strongly linked. When I use porn its bad for my mental health and keeps me from doing the things I need to recover and because of strong anxiety I often use porn to escape my reality. It's a deadly cycle. Now I'm 21 in my senior year of college. I want to beat this addiction and reclaim (or maybe claim for the first time) control over my life. I really want to use this forum to journal, get advice, and find someone to hold me accountable to my goals. I'm hoping that having this community of fellow people who have been affected will help me maintain the strength, courage, and love that I need to make it through the hardest times.
Day 2
This is my first post on the forum and my first time seeking help for my addiction outside of working with my therapist.
I started watching porn at age 11. It started out with me using my mom's computer to look at pictures of women's breasts, a concept that was new and very exciting for me. But things escalated quickly when I got my first laptop computer in middle school. I wanted to see actual images of women's naked breasts and not just the covered images I could find on youtube, so I typed in that fascinating new word I had learned about--sex-- into to google search with the safe search settings turned off and I ran into this all-access pass known as Porn Hub. It was so exciting and it felt rebellious and secretive and I remember seeing those women that didn't look like any women I saw around me in my real life and thinking that they were goddesses because they were so beautiful and so arousing. I remember specifically the first porn video I ever watched, still clear as day in my mind, it was a video of this babysitter posing for nude pictures on a trampoline in someone's backyard. She was super playful and fun and flirtatious with the camera and really physically attractive and I remember specifically not only masturbating to her gorgeous body but also feeling very powerful knowing that someone that looked and acted like that was paying attention to me and looking to fulfill my desires. It was a feeling I had never experienced before and it hooked me really hard. In the following years, I would rush home from school to try to get there before my mom got home so I could squeeze in some time for porn. It was the best thing in my world. I remember feeling guilty and weird about how morally ambiguous I felt about watching porn but it was never enough guilt to keep me from watching and masturbating.That feeling of guilt carried on for many years until eventually when I was around 15 or 16 that feeling of guilt went away and I felt no qualms about watching porn. That opened the floodgates to my porn use because now I had no constraints on my usage and I just thought It was a regular part of expressing my sexuality.
I used heavily from about age 15 to age 18 and I wasn't conscious of the problems that it brought but looking back on it now I see how it held me back. I had always been a shy kid, I was anxious about the future, I was often pretty spacey and I never really rebelled or formed a sense of identity. I just followed what my parents did or what my peers did and always tried to please other people so as not to have anyone dislike me. But when I was anxious or overwhelmed or feeling disempowered, I would use porn to help me escape to a reality where I was the boss and women were idealized and all for my pleasure. This really kept me from reaching out of my box too much to make friends, it made me super nervous and shy and quiet around girls, and it kept me from trying new things that were too risky. I didn't realize it but I was becoming dependant on porn to get through life avoiding all the hardships. Finally my senior year of high school I started to branch out, make some friends and focus on athletics and in the process of improving myself I came across some information somewhere talking about porn addiction and the downsides of porn. I realized that porn was holding me back especially when it came to forming real relationships with real girls that I liked or even just wanted to be physical with. So I resolved to stop using porn many times and failed many times.
When I went away to college at 18 I had my first girlfriend and my life was changing rapidly in many ways. I resolved to give up porn again, and I actually succeeded for about 3 months, which is the longest to date I've gone without using porn. I soon realized though that the desire for control was burning inside of me and I felt like I needed porn to feel the power. So with no support systems, I caved eventually and started using again. My use got worse and worse over my college career and I started to notice that I wasn't even enjoying porn anymore, I was just using it to escape my stressful reality. That's when I got really scared and decided I needed to make deep-rooted changes if I was really going to beat what I began to see as a gripping addiction. As college went on I have faced a lot of mental health struggles. During my sophomore year, I struggled with heavy depression and now I face really overwhelming social anxiety. I have been receiving help and treatments from a really great therapist but only recently did I have the courage to tell her about my porn addiction and now I'm on a new path to fighting my addiction from the underlying causes. I see that my mental health and my porn addiction are strongly linked. When I use porn its bad for my mental health and keeps me from doing the things I need to recover and because of strong anxiety I often use porn to escape my reality. It's a deadly cycle. Now I'm 21 in my senior year of college. I want to beat this addiction and reclaim (or maybe claim for the first time) control over my life. I really want to use this forum to journal, get advice, and find someone to hold me accountable to my goals. I'm hoping that having this community of fellow people who have been affected will help me maintain the strength, courage, and love that I need to make it through the hardest times.