Psychology today article - childhood trauma and masturbation

Great article. Thanks to my psychologist im aware that my compulsory masturbation habbit developed because i have her rbullied for years and lacked any support from my caregiver (mostly my mom).

 

I think my life just always sucked.

 

My compulsive masturbation origin is similar. I was relentlessly bullied at school, my dad was hardly ever present and my mum was dealing with a lot of her own shit that made her essentially useless for emotional support at the time (she's a lot better now thankfully). There are extra elements but now is not the time for my life story!

As the article said, I turned to masturbation to self medicate. There's nothing really relevatory in this article for me, I knew most of this stuff already, but having it recognised by a professional is comforting. I don't think I can ever return to "healthy masturbation behaviours" though, at least not for years to come. I will have to watch myself for a while, potentially until I die.

 

• "These emotions do not go away. Rather, they create an inner turmoil that demands self-medication, and without access to therapy or support, the wounded child may turn to addictive behaviors or substances to control the feelings."

Props to you to seeing yourself in that way, part of understanding yourself is seeing yourself as you are especially in the most difficult times in an uncritical way. The article really points to being able to appropriately sit with feelings instead of just acting on them. I've had a really challenging time in life understanding my emotions and where they came from as part of needs, as I was never taught or guided through them by my parents and other adults, or even friends. One exercise I've been doing is just stopping whatever I'm doing when a thought or feeling comes up that I don't immediately recognize and just sit with it, not even trying to understand. Its been helpful just learning to experience an emotion and not having the reaction that I have to physically do something. A lot of times that will go away, or change or something that has bothered me recently will pop into my head. Its interesting seeing how automatic a lot of my reactions are.