Self Esteem Issues From Prolonged Porn Use

Hey everyone,

I appreciate you taking a read; note that while some of my comments sound like boasts I'm only trying to illustrate my issues in more detail.

Yesterday I relapsed after six months of being PMO free and boy was it was a great ride. I felt far more in touch with my true feelings about women after developing HOCD type symptoms, which overwhelmed my psyche for years (I started watching porn at 11). The reason for my relapse was I've been trying to also cut out masturbation entirely. After the fourth day, I started to have femboy fantasies which was the primary sub-genre of gay porn that I use to watch. Masculine men don't turn me on at all; I actually find them to be revolting in a sexual context. Whenever I'd jerk to that type of porn I'd enjoy the rush of looking at something so taboo but when I'd E I'd just feel this deep sense of emptiness. At one point last year I acted out and had sex with an actual femboy and I had never been more catatonic in my life after the act. In November when I quit porn after a short couple weeks the homo fantasies subsided drastically and I've just masturbated solely to women; with the occasional femboy fantasy but those have been very rare. Part of me is totally accepting of an aspect of my sexuality being drawn to dominating femboys. It isn't something I want to act out in reality but an occasional fantasy is something I'm more than willing to accept about myself.

My reason for wanting to quit M entirely is I feel it’s getting in the way of me pursuing women. At times I feel as though I use M as an avoidance tactic for approaching girls, due to self esteem issues that I think are pretty deep rooted. Although these feelings I have about myself seem very real, I'm also quite aware of them and their origins so I'm not walking around clueless about why I feel the way I feel. My father wasn't very involved with me once I started to enter adolescence and when I asked him about sex at the impressionable young age of 11 he told me to go watch porn, and there began the worst addiction of my youth. The types of porn I would watch inevitably escalated, like it has for many of you, and my parents were not available to go to for help. I tried to get my mom to understand what I was going through but those discussions were too strained and ultimately, painful for the both of us. Around the age of 12 or 13 I had been watching a gay porn vid (I would switch back and forth from straight to gay, gay to straight to test my reactions) on my dad's phone and like a total idiot, forgot to delete the tab containing the video. Weeks later he was going through and deleting the hundreds of tabs he had left open in the Safari app and eventually found the video. He asked me after shoving the phone in my face "What the hell is this?" After the shock settled in and my face was as blank as my mind, I simply responded with "I don't know...I watch porn."
"NOT ON MY PHONE YOU'RE NOT!!"
I was sent out of his room and he called my mother back where they proceeded to talk for roughly two hours. I took a seat on the couch and waited. The only light on inside the house was the lamp on the table next to the armrest. I felt deeply, deeply ashamed. Eventually my mom came back out and in an inappropriately peppy tone told me "Goodnight sweetie!" Neither of my parents ever addressed this with me to this day; it's as if it never happened...to them.

My father was also very effeminate in his mannerisms. Not gay but not the masculine force a father should be for his son to model himself after. I felt resentful and embarrassed by my dad and never had kids over after I entered middle school. They rarely asked why either. He never gave me advice or asked me about my confidence or self esteem. He never spoke to me about girls or taking ownership. Physically he was present, which I guess was better than nothing, but he certainly wasn't present in any sense outside of providing for our family.

Flash forward to freshman year of high school: my porn addiction was at an all time high, I had started to experiment with drugs and alcohol to numb the pain I felt internally from my rampant HOCD, and my friend group was increasingly consisting of kids who were not functioning well either. Further into the first semester, I started to sneak out of the house at night. Often I would go and come back before they'd rise in the morning but I was also caught plenty. My parents would ask me if I was having gay sex (which I wasn't) and kept asking me, even after I had told them repeatedly that I wasn't gay and I was struggling with this pornography disorder. After a string of HORRIBLE therapists who claimed to have (H)OCD training I gave up on seeking treatment. Things continued to worsen at home, at school, and with my porn use.

I felt utterly hopeless.

Years later I'm now 21 and virtually porn free. My relapse yesterday was the first time I looked at porn in six months and I'm very proud of the progress I've made; all of which has been without any outside help from anybody. I now plan to go the rest of this year and beyond completely PMO free. As I've separated from porn, I've naturally desired sex with actual women more and on the surface this should seem like no real feat. I'm 6'5, white, blonde hair, "hung", and very muscular and toned. Going to the gym was huge for me in quitting porn, smoking and other substances. However as much as they're chalked up to be: looks don't matter nearly as much as people feel and say they do. Confidence is truly all that matters to women, wherever you pull that confidence from is what matters for you as a man. I'm having a real difficult time identifying where I can pull my confidence from after such a miserable past in my formative years. The worst years are far behind me but I still feel like I identify with that sense of despair and isolation that I felt as a teenager. Pussy isn't all I'm focused on either, I have strong career goals which I'm pursuing with great success and that definitely boosts my sense of self worth but in the back of my mind there is always a lingering self doubt and inadequacy.

Any ideas on how to get through this? Should I quit masturbating entirely and start approaching women and just not give a fuck? Harder said than done.

Thank you all for reading and at the very least I hope this was entertaining.