Depressed and desperate, help

whatdo

New Member
First of all Hi!

I decided to share my story because I'm really at my wits end and hopefully you'll be able to share some advice.

I'm 38. Straight.

When I was 26 I developed HOCD which went untreated and it demolished my sense of sexuality, this led to depression. I haven't had a proper relationship in years, too insecure to have it, but I decided to combat HOCD and I might have done the dumbest thing.

I was already a heavy porn user quite far down the rabbit hole because I used porn for depression and to substitute for a relationship.
And it was suggested to me to tackle HOCD by watching bi/gay porn as a form of CBT therapy. I think you might guess what happened next. I got fucking turned on by it way more than regular stuff.

The upside is - my HOCD is pretty much gone now. The downside - this is pretty much the only thing that gets me going now! WTF!! I've never been and I'm not attracted to same sex IRL at all, so this bullshit turn on only exists in porn I watch which is super impulsive to begin with. But it does have an effect on IRL relationships because they don't come close to the stuff I watch and that's depressing. What's worse is that I read somewhere online is that once you 'open this door, you can't close it', so... is that it? Did I just ruin my sexuality forever and there's no coming back to how it was? I'm fully committed to dropping porn completely, I just need to know if this is going to work. In that, I know it may restore my true attraction to opposite sex but at the same will it make me not respond to that bullshit same sex porn addiction/attraction? Because whenever I succumb to that, there's only one fun moment about that and then it all turns into severe depression and anxiety, questioning myself and it's horrific.

Any help or input would be helpful, I'm seriously grasping at straws now.
Thanks!
 
I don't think you've ruined yourself forever. Apparently the brain has amazing self-healing properties, we just need to stop blasting it with super-normal stimulus.
 

WoundedSparrow

Active Member
Relax. Like you said, you know you aren't gay. The reason why gay porn turns you on is specifically because you've conditioned your brain to respond to it. Like with all other addictions, eventually you need greater amounts of whatever you're addicted to in order to achieve your high. For us porn addicts, this comes in the form of the novelty of endless sexual partners in endless variety.

Think about when you first started using porn: You likely were able to get off to "vanilla" porn. Over time, that morphed into a need to view things further and further outside the norm for you. That's the same as a heroin addict upping the dose. You had to find more extreme versions of what you were watching to get off. There are plenty of men like you who are 100% straight, but their addictions have led them to only being able to get off to gay porn because it's the most extreme kind available. The most outside-the-comfort zone porn there is.

You said the HOCD has disappeared. That's good. Your lust for gay porn will disappear too, but ONLY if you can allow your brain to recover. Much of my sexual OCD disappears too once I get clean. Your brain is neuroplastic. It will heal over time, but you have to let it. Keep your chin up, friend. It's not too late.
 
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