15-year Struggle Must End

Welcome to the community man.

I myself am new, and have already found this site to be useful in finding methods and comfort in dealing with bad habits of mine. Conquering these head on seems difficult at first, but you are already taking a big step in doing something about your problem. It won't be an easy journey, but I hope you find useful resources in making it a successful one. It'll all be worth it man, hang in there!

 

We are struggling with similar things. I'm a Christian (latter day saint) who struggles with PMO and homosexuality. I started masturbating and looking at porn when I was 13. I had a guy friend who was interested in bisexuality molest me a few times. That just completely turned on my sexuality. He was a jerk, but the only guy "friend" I had. I used to watch straight porn, but found the men looking much more attractive. I just googled for gay porn thinking that maybe there might be a few sites. HOLY COW! I got hooked. I joined my church when I was 15, and stopped looking at porn cold turkey. I struggled all of my adolescence with homosexual thoughts and desires. I started to use porn again when I was 23. If you can believe it, my upcoming wedding with my sweet wife stressed me out so much, that porn just appeared on my screen. I don't know why I googled for things I shouldn't have, but each site brought further questions/ideas, until I had blatant gay porn in front of my eyes. Since I've been married (4 years), I've struggled with porn two other times. I've always struggled with masturbation. I started attending a 12 step program Nov. 2011, and learned a lot about myself. I had developed a lot of false beliefs that I never knew about. It was all subconscious stuff that I learned from the way people treated me, and the way I accepted things. For instance, one false belief I developed was I need to be masculine, but I'm not masculine now, and never will be able to achieve masculinity. I felt I had never had success in making friends with guys in the past because I wasn't masculine enough. I also developed the belief that guys will love and respect me, if I please them sexually. I think that idea was started by my childhood friend. He was the only guy that tolerated my company outside of school, and when I stopped letting him use me, he stopped coming over. I have created other false beliefs, but I think you get the picture. Now, when I have strong urges, I try to think about what I'm really feeling. Usually, I'm feeling isolated. I feel my hardships are so unique, no one can ever understand them. When I have that kind of feeling, I desire intimacy. Not sexual, but emotional. I wish I could share my feelings with someone, and that person will want to spend time with me. My false belief says I need to please that someone sexually to "earn" their desire to be with me. Now, when I feel urges to find porn, I realize my mind is going through this, and it is now easier to resist the temptation. I don't deny that my body desires sexual gratification through homosexuality, but I am beginning to understand that is a secondary desire. The itch my consciousness is trying to scratch is the itch of loneliness. I still struggle with masturbation (like, 2x a month), but I have been porn free since the end of August, beginning of September. I can see new people as people now, instead of seeing new people and immediately imagining them as porn stars. I'm not perfect, but things are much better now than they have been since I was 13.

 

Joey,
thanks for your honest and detailed post. this is my first time here and i was really helped by reading your post. i have a lot of similiar history and feel better knowing my struggle is not alone. i have also found good friends and what i guess we would call "bad friends." some i brought on with my own stupidity and blindness and others found me. i am trying to beat this thing and it has been a struggle since i was first introduced to it in jr high school. i was so nave in so many ways. i felt so uncomfortable about talking about it to anyone i just kept it inside and felt like i was going to explode from the pressure of "being a good boy" and all the guilt i felt when i fell and gave in. when i first saw a boy doing it in the boys shower i had no idea what he was doing nor that it was wrong by church (lds) standards. i asked a friend what he was doing and he laughed and told me. i began trying it and at first was just something to do until it really started to feel good as i physically matured and i enjoyed the "exotic" feeling and comfort it brought. then i found out the "factory" was not to be played with and i was confused. i tried to stop and couldn't. this struggle went on for years and the guilt just piled up.
soon after it started to feel good, i had a neighbor boy (only child) who was in high school that coaxed me into his home and his room to look at cool sci-fi models and was "tricked?" into allowing him to take my pants and shorts down and i guess you would say molest me. i felt guilty for doing it yet thought about allowing it again because it felt in a weird way good. i was very scared and self conscious about the entire events. i did not feel i could talk to anyone about it so until your post inspired me for the first time ever to disclose it. it feels empowering. thank you.
i don't want to bore you or others reading this post so i'll leave it here. i would like to talk more about it with you or others interested. i have allowed access to my email address if anyone wants to chat further. thank you so much for inspiring and encouraging me to finally put it into words and share. this has felt so good.
so happy to have found this site.

 

AtWG

Glad to hear you are ready to get a grip on your own life and better it by giving up to God those things that bind you and cloud your heath and well-being. Your journey will not be easy yet if you really dig in with a determination to succeed and listen to and share with the wonderful people in these forums you WILL win the fight. It is a good fight and well worth it. Doors of heath and happiness will open to you as you forge this new YOU and be sure to keep God a part of it as he will help you as you do all you can do. He is the equalizer - he will not do it for you yet will be there to help and support you as YOU take the steps necessary to reach your goals and move away of the sins that bind.

DO IT DUDE!

 

AtWG (good acronym, FDB)

Reading your first post, I kept thinking, "This guy is just like me...like a little too much like me." Then I read your post, Joey, and was thinking, "This guy is a lot like me." Guys, you don't know how much this warms my heart to read that I'm not alone. And I want you both to know that you certainly are not. Nor should you ever despair.

A brief synopsis of my story is, I was exposed to porn when I was very young (probably 7 or 8), by a neighbor boy a couple years older than me. It really didn't do much for me beyond the thrill of something that I inherently knew was wrong - after all, I knew that seeing women naked was a big no-no, since my parents had instilled it in me from a young age, having three sisters. All the porn the neighbor kid had was just naked women - very naked. Yet, one day while we were flipping through his dad's stash, we came across some gay stuff in the back of one of the magazines. Long story short, he said we should try that, and we did - at least we did what young boys could. Looking back on it, it was really innocent, but it set the stage for the next 15 years of my life.

I didn't really think anything of it, until I hit puberty. I didn't even know what gay was or felt any attraction to men until I asked my dad one day what a homosexual was. When he told me, I felt awful - recalling what had happened years before. When I started masturbating, it was like it all made sense, recalling those images, that experience. That's when the porn started. I started looking at the local library. That was awkward. Then I got brave enough to look at some at home, with dial-up. That was better, until I got caught. My parents certainly weren't prepared for that talk. That's when I became a pathological liar. It wasn't the only time I got caught, and it wasn't the only time I lied to my folks, saying it wasn't a problem, and that it was just a phase.

I knew it was wrong - I too am a Christian, and I believe what the Bible says on both subjects. As I grew in my faith, I had small victories over it. Yet, I couldn't seem to stop. Sometimes, I even justified it as "Well, at least I'm not objectifying women." In high school, I fell in love with one of my best friends - a girl. At least, it's what I thought was love. Turned out that I was just the nice guy, used as her fill-in between boyfriends. But I learned through that experience that I could never find love in the arms of a man. Yet I still fought the recurring sexual attraction to men - at least, men online. I knew it stemmed from my experiences as a child, and I grew angry, resentful, even hateful because of it. At times, I even questioned God. Saying, He would never do this to one of His children.

Basically, I succumbed to the rationalization that I'd always struggle with it, and that my wife - should I be blessed with one - would just have to understand. But I also succumbed to the idea that real sex with my wife would "cure" me. After all, I was (still am) a virgin. On long stretches of going without porn or masturbation, I'd strongly desire women. Yet, I would regularly find myself going back to gay porn. I also knew that I had poor self-esteem. I'd struggled with my weight since puberty, and I was never the athlete or atypical alpha male. Yet, I still liked doing guy stuff - shooting guns, playing Xbox, and working outside. I just spent life confused. Never attracted to any real man, dating a few wonderful, beautiful women, but always finding myself in front of my laptop, turned on by something I knew was wrong.

I tried praying. I asked God for help countless times. Sometimes, it seemed to be working. I went a year without looking at porn. Then my roommate in college acquired a stack of Playboys. I hadn't given up masturbation, but I hadn't done porn for a long time. Part of me kept screaming, "This is wrong", but I listened to the other part of me that said, "Well at least your jerking off to women." Well, the Playboys were just a gateway. It wasn't long before I was back to my old ways. It didn't seem to matter how hard I prayed for God to help me. I told my best friends about it, and while they were supportive, they never really offered help - not that I went out of my way to get it. It didn't seem to matter how many times I tried to install a filter, listen to a sermon, or look for support groups. I just seemed stuck.

Last May, I went to a men's church retreat with my dad. I only knew a couple other guys that were there. I knew they'd be talking about purity, but I locked it down, and said, "Nope, not going to open that wound up." One of the guys that I knew that was there gave his testimony. He'd been married for years, been a upstanding Christian, yet he still looked at porn. His testimony made me uncomfortable. First of all, I thought he had some serious balls getting up there and saying that to a room full of strangers. Second, it was kind of the realization that I could never hide my secret from the woman I would marry. Plus, it made me realize that it wasn't something that you just "deal with". But the way the rest of the retreat was presented was kind of eye opening for me. It was presented from the angle that you don't have to be chained to your past, your problems, even your addictions. We could be free from it the sins that bind us. Basically, Galatians 5:1 is the whole basis of the retreat. That was huge for me, but I wasn't about to declare to a bunch of guys that I had deep issues. So when I got home from that retreat, I hit my knees. I repented, asked for healing, and prayed for my future wife. Life was good for a while. Then, the crap started trickling back in. I cried after I'd finished PMOing the first time after the retreat, a few weeks later. But I kept doing it intermittently. Yet something was different. The idea seemed good at the time, despite me know it was wrong, but after, I felt empty. I felt like I'd just wasted my time. And I felt like repenting immediately. This went on for a while. I even started a quasi-relationship with a girl from work. I went to the retreat again, this time as a server. I listened a little more intently to the teaching on purity. The guy speaking said, "That stuff you're hiding in the dark corners of your heart; you need to drag that sh*t out into the light so that the mold and other crap that's been growing there can get burned away." That was eye opening. Yet, again, I didn't open up to anyone. After that retreat, I had a define the relationship talk with the girl from work. I'd been lusting after her, despite my secret life, and I wanted to know where this was going. She basically told me that she couldn't see herself with me long-term and that we should just be friends. I had envisioned that talk ending much, much differently. I was mad, sad, and a whole range of other mixed emotions. So I retreated, back to my laptop, that wouldn't judge me. Back to the life I hated, but thought I could control. It was a bad deal. I got in deep. So when I was asked to serve again at this men's retreat, I had mixed feelings. I felt like a hypocrite, but at the same time I felt like I should be there. So the leaders asked us servers to fast for three days and spend time in prayer. I'd basically talked myself into just praying for the guys that I knew who were going for the first time and that it would be a great experience for them. What I didn't expect was that I had a very literal come to Jesus meeting. I don't remember an audible voice or a particular defining moment, but in that three days, I felt God basically telling me, "I'm glad that you're praying for these men and this event, but I want to talk about you. I want to talk about your addiction, your hypocrisy, and your unwillingness to let go of your past. I want you to know that you can't do this on your own, and that you need to let me carry this burden - that's what I'm here for." Pretty sure I was like a puddle on the floor for those three days. I was broken. I got to that retreat, and the floodgates opened.

When I got back, I opened up about my addiction to porn with several men who had attended. I also sat down with my parents, explained everything that had happened to me, and asked for their forgiveness for lying to them for so many years. What they told me is so indicative of how great my God is - they told me that there was nothing I could do that would make them love me less. What a burden that was lifted from my heart. Last May, after I'd shared my journey with one of the leaders of the men's retreat, I was asked to give my testimony at the next one. Now, I didn't delve fully into the details that I did here, but I was brutally honest, and even vaguely mentioned what had happened with the neighbor boy. It was terrifying, yet extremely liberating. Since my encounter (which is what the retreat is called, coincidentally) with the Lord, the song Redeemed by Big Daddy Weave had become my anthem. At the end of my testimony, I told the guys that I was much more comfortable singing in front of people than speaking (I'm in my church band, and music is huge for me). So I just busted out in song, singing the bridge and chorus from my anthem. I had my eyes closed the whole time, tears running, filled with the Spirit. I opened my eyes after I hit that last note. Standing ovation. Yet, the old me would have been prideful. This was all God. It was all for His glory. I can't tell you how many men came up to me in private later at that retreat and said they'd had similar experiences as I had, and that my testimony had touched them. It was so great to see how God had used me - a person I myself had thought nearly nonredeemable.

 

...

I won't say that life since then has not been without urges, or even without porn, but I see now how the devil works against me, and preys on me when I'm weak. Even when I've succumbed to the urges, I've never felt so empty. There were even a few times I got physically ill after I was finished. It's becoming clearer and clearer that it's not worth it. It's not worth it to me, it's not pleasing to the Lord, and it only hurts my future wife. I've gotten pretty close with the Man upstairs with this, and I'm thankful that there is a community here that supports those looking to break the cycle. I know He put me on here for a reason.

And AtWG, FDB, and Joey - your boldness is commendable. I shall keep you both in my prayers.

(I honestly didn't mean for this/these post to be so long, but I'm pretty sure that writing has replaced fapping for me...)

 

WOW Speedster!
That was sooooo awesome! Thank you for sharing! I am close to tears for you, me and all those here. I am so emotionally moved by your posting I'm at a loss for words. Sorry this post is so scrambled. All I can say that really makes sense right now is "AMEN!"

 

Congratulation mate for your braveness, it takes courage for opening and spreading the naked yourself in front of people and God. I am sure that you are in good way to recover and healing from PMO thing and finding beautiful godly wife. Of course like all of us you will have urges(because nature of addiction and fact that the devil is a father of lies and he will do anything to bring us back in dark) but with love from God, your family and friends it will be much easier to resist.
God bless