I'm going to start by saying that no, I have not beaten this yet. I've only come across this website, YBOP, Ted Talks video and Gabe's story recently and so many things have already started to fall into place. I'm not there yet but because of these sites, Gabe and Gary Wilson, I now know that this can be finished. That it can be over...and what an immense load of my shoulders and chest that is. Just coming in here these past few days has been a source of light and hope for me that I have never, ever experienced in my life.
I've been around the block before. I decided to quit porn back in 2012 after I recovered from a nasty knee injury. I promised myself to take my life into my hands and I knew that porn had to go because right before I got injured, I tried to sleep with a girl that was into me. I liked her and we got along. I remember making out with her in bed, and I was literally going over my favorite porn scenes and my "role models" and what they would do in my favorite scenes so that I can get into it. Yeah, you guessed it, absolutely nothing happened. I was absolutely mortified, and the years prior I spent struggling with HOCD, I thought this was the confirmation that I in fact preferred men over women. Anyways, a second attempt, a year or so later, with another girl. I liked this girl, she was sweet and funny and I was able to talk to her. She was the first person I opened up to about my fears and anxieties around sex. I had no answers because these forums, your stories, Gabe and Gary had not entered my life yet. I wanted so badly to close this chapter. To be free, to be with women confidently, to love and to connect and to care and be cared for, but I was immune to all of these things because my brain was infected....and I just didn't know back then...All I knew was that I had to look like a porn-star in order to be a man. I was overweight and felt very alone as a child, teenager and into my early 20's. I was on the sensitive side, resented my father and really hated my reflection. On a subconscious level, I resented all things masculine by rejecting my father all those years. Psychologically speaking, I was yearning for self-love & self-acceptance, acceptance & love from my father and a body and a penis (I developed small-penis syndrome) I could be proud of...some kids idolize athletes growing up...I idolized male porn stars. They were my father, my friends, they were me, all in one place...I looked for all of the right things, in all the wrong places. But even though I deleted all my porn, quit porn, I continued to masturbate on a regular basis, learned a lot about tantra and edging, circulating sexual energy...tried to become a superman-lover through self-practice. I thought this was it. I had changed and I beat it...but then more women came...more disasters. PED, not being present, worrying and self-doubt, performance anxiety. My brain, my body was sick and I had no idea...
I can go on and on about the many mishaps that followed, the struggles, the confusion, the tears, the "emasculating" moments. I'm actually smiling right now, thinking back because I now KNOW that I wasn't a freak, I wasn't broken, I wasn't into men, I didn't have a tiny penis, it wasn't my body, it wasn't my father, it wasn't the core of my soul...it was just my infected brain due to unnatural circuitry and that my friends, my brothers, is the closure that I had been searching for all of those years. Therapist after therapist...opening up after opening up...not knowing what the hell was going on, really.
So, just to wrap up I guess. Just the fact that we're all here. Sharing our stories. Possessing the answers to those questions we couldn't answer ourselves when we were lying there, naked and hollow in that porn-induced aftermath. When we had to look those women in the eyes, and be even more lost and confused than they were, to try and explain ourselves when all we wanted was to disappear. The fact that we have THIS right here, these forums, this knowledge, this POWER...it's everything....and I couldn't be more grateful, hopeful and this excited to embark on my new life.
Because I will die to that life. I never want to feel like that EVER AGAIN and just as painful and tragic as death may be, it must happen in order for the PHOENIX to rise. No matter how many times we relapse, no matter how tough some days may get...Just think of the PHOENIX, and how WE ALL have the potential to rise from that porn-induced life, which in truth...all it is, is fucking ash. Progress is anything but a straight line. Keep going.
N O M A T T E R W H A T.
God bless.
I've been around the block before. I decided to quit porn back in 2012 after I recovered from a nasty knee injury. I promised myself to take my life into my hands and I knew that porn had to go because right before I got injured, I tried to sleep with a girl that was into me. I liked her and we got along. I remember making out with her in bed, and I was literally going over my favorite porn scenes and my "role models" and what they would do in my favorite scenes so that I can get into it. Yeah, you guessed it, absolutely nothing happened. I was absolutely mortified, and the years prior I spent struggling with HOCD, I thought this was the confirmation that I in fact preferred men over women. Anyways, a second attempt, a year or so later, with another girl. I liked this girl, she was sweet and funny and I was able to talk to her. She was the first person I opened up to about my fears and anxieties around sex. I had no answers because these forums, your stories, Gabe and Gary had not entered my life yet. I wanted so badly to close this chapter. To be free, to be with women confidently, to love and to connect and to care and be cared for, but I was immune to all of these things because my brain was infected....and I just didn't know back then...All I knew was that I had to look like a porn-star in order to be a man. I was overweight and felt very alone as a child, teenager and into my early 20's. I was on the sensitive side, resented my father and really hated my reflection. On a subconscious level, I resented all things masculine by rejecting my father all those years. Psychologically speaking, I was yearning for self-love & self-acceptance, acceptance & love from my father and a body and a penis (I developed small-penis syndrome) I could be proud of...some kids idolize athletes growing up...I idolized male porn stars. They were my father, my friends, they were me, all in one place...I looked for all of the right things, in all the wrong places. But even though I deleted all my porn, quit porn, I continued to masturbate on a regular basis, learned a lot about tantra and edging, circulating sexual energy...tried to become a superman-lover through self-practice. I thought this was it. I had changed and I beat it...but then more women came...more disasters. PED, not being present, worrying and self-doubt, performance anxiety. My brain, my body was sick and I had no idea...
I can go on and on about the many mishaps that followed, the struggles, the confusion, the tears, the "emasculating" moments. I'm actually smiling right now, thinking back because I now KNOW that I wasn't a freak, I wasn't broken, I wasn't into men, I didn't have a tiny penis, it wasn't my body, it wasn't my father, it wasn't the core of my soul...it was just my infected brain due to unnatural circuitry and that my friends, my brothers, is the closure that I had been searching for all of those years. Therapist after therapist...opening up after opening up...not knowing what the hell was going on, really.
So, just to wrap up I guess. Just the fact that we're all here. Sharing our stories. Possessing the answers to those questions we couldn't answer ourselves when we were lying there, naked and hollow in that porn-induced aftermath. When we had to look those women in the eyes, and be even more lost and confused than they were, to try and explain ourselves when all we wanted was to disappear. The fact that we have THIS right here, these forums, this knowledge, this POWER...it's everything....and I couldn't be more grateful, hopeful and this excited to embark on my new life.
Because I will die to that life. I never want to feel like that EVER AGAIN and just as painful and tragic as death may be, it must happen in order for the PHOENIX to rise. No matter how many times we relapse, no matter how tough some days may get...Just think of the PHOENIX, and how WE ALL have the potential to rise from that porn-induced life, which in truth...all it is, is fucking ash. Progress is anything but a straight line. Keep going.
N O M A T T E R W H A T.
God bless.