Time to get better

LoyalLincoln

New Member
Hello everyone,

I'm a 24 year old Catholic male and I've struggled with porn and masturbation for most of my life. It started sometime around 2010 I think, I was 12 and my dad had just set me up with my parents old desktop computer. My parents loaded that desktop up with all kinds of web restrictions, but never told me why. I was home schooled all 12 years and yes I had friends, but I was also VERY shielded. To 11-12 year old me that was a game, beat the restrictions without getting caught, and I did. (My parents were just this side of tech illiterate) Of course I had no idea porn existed, but quickly discovered it when I was researching sex related things. I also never got the sex/puberty talk, anything leading up to it, or resembling it. I was instantly captivated by porn and shortly thereafter I figured out masturbation. I was hooked.

Now here I am, 24 years old, having fought it for years, I've been making a huge effort to finally eliminate these things from my life. I have a close friend (Call him Hawk) that I'm open with and check in with. Tomorrow I'm going to meet with a therapist. I have Covenant Eyes on all my devices with Hawk as admin. As a Catholic I believe that porn and masturbation are not only unhealthy, but also gravely wrong. So far I my longest streak with porn is 59 days which I'm on right now, and 45 days clean from masturbation. Except I masturbated today and I feel really terrible about myself.

My biggest trigger is loneliness. Today was my first day with a therapist. I filled out his questionnaire and we went through it. He went down the list, anxiety, stress, family, work, friends, etc. Then we got to loneliness and the floodgates opened. I broke down and layed out all the pain I've been carrying around. He counseled me on it, and gave me some homework. That's all I've got tonight.
 
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