Social Anxiety - is it P or O related?

I feel like you don’t lose the social anxiety improvement with sex, because it is a very natural thing to do.... whereas pornography use has a lot of shame attached to it.

When I have sex I feel like a human and normal... when I orgasm from porn I feel like a weird alien alien and guilty af.

Feel free to write back or PM me as I’ve got SA as well, but managing it a lot better than years ago!
Good luck, you’ve got this!!

 

I've struggled a lot with social anxiety in the past as well, to the point that I couldn't look people in the eyes or talk to people very well. I think the main culprit when it comes to the social anxiety absolutely is porn. The reason I say this is that there is a great deal of guilt attached to watching it, and it does on some sub-conscious level seem to affect your interactions with people, and it's because well...you feel guilty. And that's a perfectly natural reaction. Think about it from this perspective: a kid when they do something wrong usually tries to avoid their parents, and kind of tries to stay quiet. The same principle applies here. You're doing something that's generally a taboo in society as a whole, regardless of how common it is, and so you feel anxious that they might be able to see that somehow.

And PMO is a very draining thing. You don't notice how tired you are while you're on PMO until you stop, and then in my experience, you usually experience a sudden crash and feel really exhausted. The reason for this is that you're no longer getting that dopamine 'buzz', but you're still just exhausted from the sheer amount of mental and physical exertion that PMO requires. And in addition to that, PMO does have some effect on serotonin levels, which is responsible in part for the regulation of social interactions among many other things, and that could also contribute to this sense of being either more or less able to interact socially.

I hope this helps you to understand the culprit of this social anxiety that you're having.

Have a great PMO-free day! Stay strong!

 

Social anxiety is one of my biggest motivators for quitting porn, i definitely think your right about the guilt and shame but i also think a large portion of our anxiety could be caused by the physiological changes in our brains.. i dont know the exact science but im reading frequently about the negative affects on neurotransmitters and receptors which inadvertatently causes us to feel more anxiety.. I used to think my anxiety was due to my thoughts/beliefs/emotions but now im starting to think its just automatic response from my brain due to how out of sync and fucked up it is from porn.

 

I wish mine would improve. On this current streak I haven't watched porn but I have masturbated three times. I don't see that my social anxiety has improved at all really. It did get better on a previous streak but at the moment it's at its worst. I understand what people say about porn shame contributing but now I have this 'self improvement shame' thing going on where I just feel pathetic for trying to improve myself. I guess I don't have any self-worth so trying to improve seems ridiculous. My mind tells me it's futile. My mind tells me that suicide is the best option, unfortunately. Fighting against your own mind is the biggest battle you can face, I believe. I'll just have to keep fighting on.