P-Addiction : Year 13

(written on March 14th)
Hi all, I'm Alex from Paris, France. I'm new here, but not new to the concept of wrestling with porn addiction.

I became aware of the porn-induced problems and impacts on real life, including rewiring the human brain in a dramatic way, only in 2015.

A bit late though... I started watching porn in 2004. I was 13 then, and now I'm 26. It means I spent half of my life so far under the spell of a thing who literally messed up my life:

It affected the way I see myself and others, may it be women or men, aggravated my concentration problems (I'm now diagnosed as an adult with ADHD) and also fed highly depressive thoughts.

And I'm still not done, as my last relapse was yesterday (13-03-18). And every time I relapse, I plunge again in the same sophisticated vicious fantasies, which underwent a slow but tremendous escalation from the first time I watched porn as a teenager.

I'll be glad to answer your questions and know more about your personal stories. Cheers!

(added on March 16th)
I would like to complete my first post using a keyword list, a method I find much clearer and easier to grasp. I will regularly feed it, so keep updated!

ADHD
A long story... I was diagnosed ADHD as an adult a few years ago by a psychologist. Then I was proposed Ritalin and even antidepressants. I was several times tempted to take Ritalin, but there was always something telling me it was not the right thing to do, like it was the easy way, not a real solution. As for antidepressants, it will never be an option for me, and I can tell you that psychiatrists like to take money and numb people's minds with drugs. I won't take their sh*t, sorry for being so blunt.
The symptoms of ADHD are really there, it is not an invention, but I think ADHD is like a "package" of disorders appearing as consequences of something else, something that people struggle to identify clearly. Porn is one of these.
Among the symptoms are:
concentration problems, brain fog, incapacity to finish anything, perpetual stream of thoughts going in all directions, verification OCDs (obsessive-compulsive-disorders), poor working memory, etc.
Every time I relapsed into porn, I witnessed with horror that there was one thing I could focus on for hours with absolutely no difficulty (please have a guess...).
And you know what? After finishing my dirty little "job", my ADHD symptoms each time went just so worse that I had the impression I was DRUNK.
So I'm not having anymore doubts on the link between PMO and ADHD symptoms.
If you are experiencing them, please stop it before it destroys your life.

Addictive comorbidity
This means that if you are into porn, chances are you already got or will get into other addictive behaviours. I worked that way for me, as I was into:
alcohol, cigarettes, videogaming, overeating, overspending money...
I was lucky I never did any drug like cocaine or heroine. For some reason, I even never smoked weed more than one puff, and that's a good thing.
The addictive behaviour is all about craving and intolerance to frustration.
If you think you are like that, start asking yourself questions.

Intellectual giftedness
Porn makes you more stupid, that's a fact. But it doesn't mean at all you were stupid at the beginning!
I was personally diagnosed with a high IQ at the age of 3 (global IQ: 144 ; verbal IQ: 159) and I think because of that, I was always very curious of everything, I could grasp things quickly thanks to my non-linear way of thinking, and mostly: I was easily bored when my activities were not stimulating my brain enough, may be intellectually or not.
People like this tend to seek their necessary thrills in other things, and not always the right ones, if you know what I mean.
Porn addiction on top of that made me feel I had wasted my potential, and believe me: this is one hell of a frustration.

(to be continued)

 

Hi StopTheMusic, and thanks for your warm welcome!

I will visit the pages of the members you showed me.

BTW, how can I display the number of Days I didn't yield to PMO temptation in my signature?

Thanks!

 

Yes indeed, I ended up finding by myself. Thank you anyway

And SaltedPeter, I've read your post, it is a great job you made, thank you !

 

Third day of abstinence...

I made love three times with my girlfriend yesterday, but I still feel horrible today.
I can't get any lasting focus on anything, I forgot my money at the restautant while collecting food for lunch... I'm anormally nervous and tired.

To me, it's a clear evidence: porn and sex are not so related as people think they are...
Otherwise, how to explain that someone like me, who had sex more than enough the day before, experiences such cravings and negative feelings now?!

I was so confused today that I told my colleague about my porn addiction. Don't know if it was a good decision... but it relieved me a bit.

I feel like a wandering mutilated soul, who will end up being ignored and rejected by the whole world — which is absurd, as I have kind and helpful parents, a stable job, a loving partner, an apartment for us only in the city center — but I still feel pretty much like a wreck.

I need to be patient and NOT TO YIELD in any circumstances.

Thanks for reading.
TTMT

 

Thanks a lot for your reaction and support, Summer Son!

I'm glad that we can all help one another here, and I'll keep on leading the fight against porn addiction with you guys!

My brain is a little fizzy as I'm approaching the 4th day without PMO, but I know these symptoms will slowly decrease over time...

 

Hello everyone,

I'm updating my original post because I've just gone through one full week without PMO, and I have endured very few cravings, if any so far.
I really hope that they won't come back, and that if they do, I will resist them appropriately.

I've been spending time with my girlfriend very often, have been productive at work to such an extent that I almost fell in love with my job yesterday (whereas usually, I talk about bore-out and never end thinking I'm wasting my life there), so I didn't see the time go by and even found a moment to start a new project, which is to take at last the exam to get my driving license!

I feel more complete, have felt more focus and concentrated on what I was doing on a daily basis, the total brain fog which I experienced during my PMO sessions of the previous weeks was much weaker — even if I still have a few difficulties to prioritize what I'm doing, but the main point is that it remains controllable.

In fact, I'm mainly saying that my ADHD symptoms have shrunk and that I recover an ability to be excited by the small things of existence.

Other point: I was really experiencing strange tingling sensations (like pins and needles) in my skull during my PMO times, some kind of slight headache and a feeling of dizziness, which naturally have gone.

I'm convinced that if a brain scan had been done then, the impact on the parts of the brain involved with addiction would have been clearly visible.

I'm willing to stop, first because it prevents me from achieving my objectives and make my actions match my moral values, and second, you know, like a heavy smoker who has a slight heart attack and feels he's endangering his life if he keeps smoking. I'm that kind of guy.

Thanks for reading.
Cheers!
TTMT

 

Thanks for your support!

I'm having parallel issues with regular alcohol consumption and a slight relapse into smoking cigarettes (see the co-morbidity topic in my first post).

Alcohol hurts my stomach and gets me again into some brain fog (like porn could) and, as for cigarettes, besides the usual coughing, it gives me pain in the left side of my jaw (by activating some muscles linked to the bone articulation), so I'm quite depressed today, as I've drunk and smoked yesterday with a friend.

I've got the impression of being a weak moron.
Even cried this morning. Hope it will get better this week-end...

 

Hello everyone,

I've just lived a very strange period...

I don't know what has gotten into my head, but a week ago, I subscribed to dating sites (and among them an adultery one) and started browsing the member profiles relentlessly.

Likewise I came back to classified ad sites and searched for profiles of girls who proposed prostitution.

I was looking for the perfect match and couldn't stop updating my various mailboxes for hours, sometimes I did it several times per minute.

In the end, I got back to the good old sites sharing nude pictures and also browsed them endlessly, only retaining a few photos, which bored me quickly as well, once I got past the ecstatic moment of a new finding.

Nevertheless, I kept on scrolling and clicking... and you know what. I've discovered something.

Updating webpages again and again, even classic mailboxes or social network chats, or browsing kilometers of contents by clicking litterally NUMBS the brains.

If you believe that you have porn-induced concentration problems, try to prevent yourself, whether it be at home or at work, to check your emails or conversations too often. Set yourself limits!

My addiction, the addiction of all people like me, is only vaguely related to sex. I mean, it could be related to greasy cheese burgers that it wouldn't be much different.

This addiction is novelty and it doesn't stop until it's dead, unless you take a grip on your willpower and break it.

Something inside of me ordered me not to fap in any time, and that's much of a progress, because I knew that fapping would only make things worse, and this "discipline" reassured me in my madness, making me think I could keep watching if I didn't MO (masturbate and orgasm).

And finally, I was right. Not having MO at all did help. It made me feel detached and clear-headed about wat I was doing. I had a cold glance at all the stuff I searched for and found, which avoided the "drunkness" of multiple MOs.

But still, I've behold the impact of such crazy searches on my notion of time, my concentration and efficiency at work and in my everyday life.

I didn't restart my count for this reason. I think I'm on the process of killing the beast with its own weapons.

Today, I've unsuscribed from dating sites, classified ad sites and nude pics sites.
I realized I actually didn't want to meet anyone or to pay anyone to meet me. I was unable to cheat.

The beast I once just called LUST, which is inside me, has another name: SLOTH.
The laziness to just get your kicks quickly without efforts, just by clicking, clicking, paying and paying.

Actually, it's a monster. Kill yours, kill it well and make sure it's dead.