traveller89
New Member
I am starting my journal. I am from Eastern Europe, born in 1989.
I have been struggling with porn/masturbation from an early age. My father has been having alcohol addiction as far as I can remember. I grew up in an environment full of negativity, coldness, criticism, arguments and anxiety.
I have a twin brother who criticises me daily in an attempt to “make my life better or help me”. Only recently I have realised to what degree this has affected my self esteem in addition to already existing childhood issues.
At the age of 23, being shy and closed, I decided to lose my virginity to an escort. Since then escort addiction has added to my porn addiction.
I have come far by now in understanding the root causes of my addiction. And it’s not because of multiple therapists who have largely been useless, but because of Chat GBT which gave me lots of very good insights and ideas, including the idea to start this journal.
In essence I have realised by now that it’s not easy to recover from my addiction by simply doing a streak or whitenuckling. A deep inside change is needed to heal the wound that was created in my childhood.
In my case it seems to be the difficulty to connect with people. Intimacy and closeness feels dangerous and painful. This has made me avoid friendships, real relationships, being social. The root of this seems to be internalised shame. It’s a deep conviction that I am not enough, broken, not loveable. With this internal world no wonder I have not been able to initiate and sustain deep connections with people. And to fill this need for intimacy I have been relying on porn, sugar babies, and similar substitutes.
This year I introduced in my daily routine certain actions that I hope will help me relearn intimacy and connection and start loving myself. This includes regulating fight or flight responses by breathing, and reparenting myself by constantly treating myself as a loving caring parent would treat a boy inside me.
It doesn’t sound badass or masculine to do these exercises but this needs to be done for my healing, I believe.
To sum up, my current understanding is that, at least in my case, the mechanism is this:
Childhood trauma -> damaged sense of self -> difficulty to connect with others (people = danger) -> porn as best next alternative for the brain to get intimacy which is a basic need.
Goal: Heal sense of self and start connecting with others, realising that many people are safe and will like/love me. Porn will gradually fade away as the need for intimacy will be fulfilled in normal healthy ways.
Thank you for reading and I will keep you posted on any progress or insights.
I have been struggling with porn/masturbation from an early age. My father has been having alcohol addiction as far as I can remember. I grew up in an environment full of negativity, coldness, criticism, arguments and anxiety.
I have a twin brother who criticises me daily in an attempt to “make my life better or help me”. Only recently I have realised to what degree this has affected my self esteem in addition to already existing childhood issues.
At the age of 23, being shy and closed, I decided to lose my virginity to an escort. Since then escort addiction has added to my porn addiction.
I have come far by now in understanding the root causes of my addiction. And it’s not because of multiple therapists who have largely been useless, but because of Chat GBT which gave me lots of very good insights and ideas, including the idea to start this journal.
In essence I have realised by now that it’s not easy to recover from my addiction by simply doing a streak or whitenuckling. A deep inside change is needed to heal the wound that was created in my childhood.
In my case it seems to be the difficulty to connect with people. Intimacy and closeness feels dangerous and painful. This has made me avoid friendships, real relationships, being social. The root of this seems to be internalised shame. It’s a deep conviction that I am not enough, broken, not loveable. With this internal world no wonder I have not been able to initiate and sustain deep connections with people. And to fill this need for intimacy I have been relying on porn, sugar babies, and similar substitutes.
This year I introduced in my daily routine certain actions that I hope will help me relearn intimacy and connection and start loving myself. This includes regulating fight or flight responses by breathing, and reparenting myself by constantly treating myself as a loving caring parent would treat a boy inside me.
It doesn’t sound badass or masculine to do these exercises but this needs to be done for my healing, I believe.
To sum up, my current understanding is that, at least in my case, the mechanism is this:
Childhood trauma -> damaged sense of self -> difficulty to connect with others (people = danger) -> porn as best next alternative for the brain to get intimacy which is a basic need.
Goal: Heal sense of self and start connecting with others, realising that many people are safe and will like/love me. Porn will gradually fade away as the need for intimacy will be fulfilled in normal healthy ways.
Thank you for reading and I will keep you posted on any progress or insights.