Fractured Mindset

I loath myself yet I have a 3.5 GPA.
I may be a millennial, but don't identify as such

Jacking it to porn became an escape from personal issues I wasn't aware I had, but in the end only made them worse.

I'm here for the extra motivation and hopefully more self discovery.

My story-

Preface:

In middle school, I had no sexual interest. Sex horrified me, and had no romantic inclinations. I remember in 8th grade me and some of my classmates discussing turning off google safesearch. I eventually figured out that even putting in one word with safesearch could bring up results in google images. I never clicked on them, but I would go back. One day, using the word "free," one result was entitled Free Hentai. I decided since this wasn't "real" I'd click on it despite me being in an anti anime phase.

High school and college:

Long story short, I kept going back, and found out I could save images on my 3ds. I'd been very unhappy 6-8th grade, but the euphoria of orgasm made me feel great. This also made me want a girlfriend- but that wound up not happening. Back then, I wanted to be a video game programmer, and was saving these images as a reference for a game I'd end up making. I later found "furry hentai," and this eventually became my main focus. I remember I did save some some real porn images as well, but I mostly went after the cartoon stuff.

Before I get to my biggest regret, I just want to explain that during this phase, not only did I have mood and energy increases, but my grades with the exception of math shot up. I don't know how to classify my problem. sure I did it a lot, but still went outside, do my schoolwork, watched tv, and played video games. but considering what was to come, I just don't know.

NOW, the hardest part for me. As another quick preface I will say I grew up in a traditional Christian household. My parents weren't strict, Church was a normal weekend routine, but things like ghosts and homosexuality were considered inappropriate (for instance, when I saw trailers for "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry," I thought the joke was that two men got married. When I was twelve, I thought it was [of my own accord] that premarital sex was illegal. And, I was taught that porn was degrading towards women). So obviously, my cartoon porn would not have sat well with my parents. But what is my serious regret that still plagues me to this day? Well... what happened was I saw a Gameinformer article that (Elder Scrolls V) Skyrim would allow gay marriage. So I decided that this would be part of my game. The biggest twist was that I only went after gay furry porn. AND to be clear I'm not gay. I used to be against gay marriage, but I don't think it's wrong anymore even if I'm not completely comfortable with it yet. As for my gay furry porn, I would go back and look at those as well.

Time went on. I made some printouts of straight hentai and furry hentai. Suffered some anxiety that my parents would find it in my room, even though they never did (hey, I only almost got caught once). In the most Ironic twist, my sister had to go in for some serious therapy (I don't remember what it's called specifically, but she was gone a for a while). and my best days of my freshman year were when my parents would go visit her and I'd have the house to myself for a few hours. Porn and video games. It was the life.

I'm not entirely sure why exactly, but but dealing with some friendship rejection (which I'm actually glad happened) and probably me going on with the porn too long made me lose my pleasures. I was actually going to try to draw both gay and straight images, but I only ever got as far as printing them out and eventually burned them. BUT... I can also confess to one of my greatest successes. I took that sd card with all the images on it, put it into my Mom's camera, and I FORMATTED IT. Sure, I'd go back and found out my Playstation Vita was a better platform for porn viewing and downloading, but this marked a serious change. When I reached orgasm, I'd actually delete the pictures. And that was my Sophomore year routine. Take a remission, relapse, delete the pictures, repeat. Except it pretty much became the furry stuff. I don't remember when I lost interest in the game, but I kept going.

Now... I don't know if this counts as overtly religious or not, but the next big change was sometime at the end of my Sophomore year. I was at Church, I forget what the pastor was talking about, but a line from the book "An Invisible Thread," which I'd just read in school flashed through my mind. It was something like "if you don't leave there will be serious consequences." and I stopped. Sure I couldn't get the images out of my head, but I stopped.

And guess what? It didn't even last a year. When I watched "A Clockwork Orange" for the first time, the final line resonated with me even though I got it wrong. The line is "I was cured all right," but I heard "I was back all right," and that mindset brought me back. I retained the images for a short time (and it gave me a motivation to get up early to save my porn images), but I wound up back to deleting them again. This continued into november, when I had a brief remission but came back after Christmas. By the beginning of my senior year, I started having wrist pain. Though I'd only go at it once or twice a day, not every day, and not always with porn.

The change I don't get happened in February of my senior year, where I started only going after the gay stuff. Why, I don't know. and this continued through the rest of the year. Though 2015 was the time where I got an addiction sickness. It was the worst during the end of high school where I'd go in, do my routine, delete the pictures and then try and walk it off. There, I'd feel sick and that I needed to go back to the images. The pleasure wan't that great either. It did get better eventually, but during my first semester of college, I'd go for walks around the city and images would flash into my mind and I'd want them.

As a 2016 new years resolution, I swore off masturbation and the porn. The masturbation only lasted a little over forty days, and the porn sometime late June early July before falling back into my old habits.

Here's another weird religious thing- I made a promise to not look at porn on Christmas day or Easter Sunday. and while at this point my job had pulled me out of Church, I had kept myself to it despite me having doubts about religion and myself. BUT... one reason I now can't say no completely to religion is one porn incident. I forgot it was Easter sunday 2017, and went to a Furry porn site. And in less than a minute I got bored and left. I realize this isn't a religious group, but still, that's stuck with me. But it was the same old same old for the most part. I started seeing a therapist partially for the porn thing, but still have yet to disclose this part of my life (please note I've realized I also have other issues with myself and my life that I wasn't acknowledging). I hoped that would get me to stop. But as usual it didn't last, though I made a point not to do it on therapy days. There was no hope in sight.

THE SURREAL STORY OF THIS LAST YEAR OF COMMUNITY COLLEGE:

So, you remember how I mentioned not having a girlfriend? As of last summer, I started thinking maybe I should try, but where I don't know. I had an interest in a girl at work, but that wasn't going to happen because we didn't talk, I knew practically nothing about her, and I think I may have purposefully tried to show her I wasn't interested. Long irrelevant story short my interests changed to again to a classmate, and for the first time I got the idea she wanted me back. But didn't really do anything and still had some porn viewings. This all changed on November 1st, where I had a camera I wanted to show her, she wasn't in class and I saw her later and she saw me but didn't seem interested in me in the slightest. This freaked me out internally, but luckily, I had my two other classmates in my video class with me go location scouting so I was a least distracted until I was by myself. And the only way I managed to calm myself down was to tell myself I'd go after her that next class. So I kind of did. First I showed her the camera, then the next class offered to loan her a movie (she said yes), and eventually went out shooting (still photography) over thanksgiving break.

But before I continue, you may be asking what does this have to do with my sad hypocritical porn problem? Well I'll tell you. When I made the choice to go after her, that WAS my motivation to stop. Masturbation slowed as well, but picked up when things got stressful.

Well, despite poor planning, that shooting was another great day that week (I saw Dario Argento's "Suspiria" with Claudio Simmonetti's Goblin playing the soundtrack live [though I missed the meet and greet]), but She told me she was thinking about not finishing her degree and enrolling in the Berlin Photography institute. And despite me seeing other potential problems with her and being emotionally confused afterwards, I wound up still wanting her. After this things fell apart. On thanksgiving, I updated my computer, and the restart login window didn't give me my regular background. It gave me a gay furry porn image. It freaked me out internally. I wound up jacking it in the shower to compose myself. As for the girl, She was sick the next week of class, and though I did ask her "if she wanted to do something like we did over thanksgiving break this Christmas break," she said she wanted to but couldn't because she was going to be in Milwaukee and Berlin. But we'd kind of have another class together next semester (a combined course), so I knew I still had a chance.

I guess she forgot I told her about the combined course because she was surprised to see me. and as of my second week, a conversation with my therapist prompted me to finally tell her I wanted her. Though by this point I was starting to have doubts that she really wanted me. So I was going to tell her next class but it got cancelled. And then I was finally going to tell her the next class two days later. She showed up five minutes before class started but I at least told her I had to tell her something alone. And finally the next week I managed to catch her, "tell her" what I thought and get told she just wanted to be friends.

My fear for this scenario was that I was cut free, I'd go back to the furry porn. and inevitably I did. AND AGAIN SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENED. I wasn't nearly as interested. Held up for a month, then In February went back but I know why- it was because I worked 5am -1:30PM, had way too much sugar, and crashed from exhaustion doing homework. I was a little more interested this time but still not excited.

So yea, that day this past february was my last day looking at any sort of real problematically pornographic material. The images still come to me when I jack it in the shower, and I've recently had the feeling that I'll go back, but I haven't. I don't think I can quite reduce masturbation because one, it helps me not go after the images, and second, though I shouldn't for my wrist, I am getting a bit more satisfaction from it even if it's not as good as when I started. So yea. Here I am. I finally put this out there in the world. Hopefully when I get more of my other issues worked out I can finally tell my therapist about this. The porn still occasionally comes back to my dreams as well. In fact, the dream I had two nights ago has me worried I'll return. But so far I have not.

I just feel alone because of the specificity of what I've done is. I never really got into video stuff, I got into stuff that isn't my sexual orientation and I don't know how to feel anymore, I pretty much got into cartoon stuff, and seemingly had my problem beat until I got rejected for the first time. I don't know what else to say. I've grown numb to hentai even though it's been a long time since I laid eyes on an image. Can this happen to me with furry porn? I just have to wait and see. One last religious story: I did recently agree to go to Church with my parents one night I wasn't working, and got a flash that "everything's alright." Though I'm still not completely sure on religion and I'm not forcing my beliefs on anyone, there's things like that that make me wonder. Both existentially, and where this porn journey will take me next.