I have just about had it, I cant go any longer like this, I have to stop this year

Hello everyone. Its time I try this for real this time. Please excuse any bad grammar as I'm not a very skilled writer.

A little about myself I guess. I am currently 20 years old. I come from a culture and religion where anything relating to sex is taboo. So when I first got exposed to it at 7 years old, it was like a whole new world for me. But I didn't really get into it then. At that point I just knew it existed and it was definitely interesting.

3 years later at 10 years old, I got a new computer with high speed internet, and a lot more privacy despite the fact that I shared a room with my sibling. While he was away most of the time, I would start discovering new sites until I found my way to porn sites. It was then I got hooked. Everyday I couldn't wait to get home from school to watch porn. And since my brother usually came home later than I did, I had a lot of time. Thus began my relationship with porn and masturbating.

I guess its best to also mention that when I first started watching porn, I would watch straight porn. But I realized I was looking at the guy more and was more attracted to the guy. So thats when I found out about gay porn, and thats the type of porn I have been watching since. I never really knew too much about or understood sexuality then, but I remember that even before porn I always kind of had an attraction to men. I guess porn was my way of exploring that.

I would watch it at each and every chance that I got. Early mornings, late nights, weekends, off days. It really started to become a habit. At that time I felt bad about it because I was religious, and in my head I knew that watching porn, let alone gay porn was against my beliefs. I would often pray for the urges to go away, but of course I continued watching it. Over the years I would eventually grow distant from my religion. I started to be more comfortable with my sexuality and then I started to not feel bad about watching porn.

It really became a bad habit once high school started. I would watch it whenever I was supposed to be working on my homework. It really affected my performance at school and my grades would be below average. Also I would choose watching porn over physical and social activities, like sports, gym and hanging out with friends. This really made me socially awkward and increased my anxiety. I was also starting to get really depressed at this point and my way of coping with it was to watch porn and masturbate. I ended up not graduating the year I was supposed to and I had to take an extra year to complete everything, because of porn.

It also started to affect the way I was thinking. Even if I'm not watching porn, I'd think about sex all the time, at school, at work, when im outside, during a test. I would sexualize every guy I would see and meet. Thinking of them as objects instead of human beings. It destroyed my own self image and self esteem too, I would compare myself to the good looking porn stars and feel like shit.

It really became a vicious cycle. I would watch porn, think about porn, fail at some aspect in my life, get more depressed, and watch more porn. I would start to have suicidal thoughts because I felt like a worthless piece of crap. And still, I would watch porn to cope with these thoughts.

Every effort that I have tried to quit was fruitless. I tried deleting my porn links/files. I tried to use other things like Netflix or YouTube to counter my urges to watch porn. But I would always find myself back into it.

After 10 long and painful years. I'm tired of watching it. I'm tired of being addicted to it. I'm tired of it affecting my life. I wanna do something about it. So I have made the decision to start NoFap, hoping to get my life back, if god willing.

As of writing this, its been 2 days since I have not watched porn. I know its nothing but its worth noting. I haven't accessed any porn sites and I have deleted all my porn files and links. However it has been very hard because my urges are creeping in and I am very tempted to watch it. I even want to watch it now. I also have random sexual thoughts that I dwell on, wanting to masturbate, but I try to stop and I haven't touched myself since.

I know this won't be easy, I know I'm gonna relapse at some point like how I almost did today and feel like I cant do this. I know I'm gonna feel like even more shit once I stop. But I guess the only difference now from before is that I am committed and willing to do anything to quit. I want to start doing more healthy and productive things in my life so I can be happy in the coming years, because no way I am happy with the way I am right now. This is my one of my big goals for this year, and I want to accomplish it.

So thats my story. Sorry for the long read, I was just getting everything out. I know I can't do this alone. If anyone can provide help with my situation that would be so great, and since I am new to NoFap, any information about what goes on from here and what to do next would be appreciated!

Thank you.

 

Thanks man, I am trying. I'm gonna keep on trying.