fap without porn: rediscover personal feelings and fantasies

hi guys! I'm an Italian guy, pls don't expect a perfect English from me
however, I'm really motivated to share with you my personal story about my wrong relationship whit porn. I think It's a good choice because together there are more possibilities to discover what's inside this addiction that we share, moreover I feel less alone in sharing my feeling about it. I hope to stay in the right section, if my contents are not for this section pls tell me.

let's start.

in the last 5 years,
I have developed a strong addiction to porn for various causes. I was very inclined to use them before, during high school. But the last few years are the ones I want to focus on. They were really hard, without realizing it I tried to solve the bad feelings I felt in the family trying to respond to the needs of my mother, my sister and my father. I took on many responsibilities and I lost myself. I am a medical student, now in my senior year, so I also had to study in the meantime.
I suffered from depression, deep sadness and when I masturbated those feelings I felt were the only thing that made me forget all the worries I had. For two years I made the mistake of not talking to anyone, actually keeping everything inside and not letting my deep discomfort come out. I was feeling lonely, porn really became one of the few stimuli that could get me distracted by all of this.
Although I had a girlfriend aged 16 to 18(I haven't been in a relationship for years now)
I have always had problems in relating in a healthy way with girls, pornography in adolescence has also been for me what I could not satisfy in reality and this has worsened in recent years because the addiction became stronger.
There were days where I even masturbated 10 or more times a day. It was really the only thing that gave me satisfaction. I started a psychotherapeutic course and in recent years I have tried many, I started as I believe many people in this forum not to masturbate for a defined number of days. Guys it's a wrong thing in my opinion because, we need to practice auto-eroticism, thanks to that we discover what we like about our sexuality. Porn for the way we use it definitely interferes with living our sex life well.

Let's go back to today, thanks to my psychologist and a lot of efforts I can live masturbation better, especially without guilt. however I am linked in a dysfunctional way to porn, I still spend hours there and continue to masturbate despite not feeling anything and my glans burns; so i'm trying to give myself some gradual time goals. Now i am trying not to use porn for a month ... for now i stop here, what is your experience with porn? you also think there is more to bind us in a morbid way to videos and images?

 

I'm happy with your answer. What I learned in psychotherapy is precisely to value your feelings, especially those we don't like, we usually tend to ignore. In doing so, the effort to take into consideration these bad sensations not only don't chase us anymore.... but they tell us that something about us. I would love it if in my thread everyone shared how they feel about using porn and maybe find out together what use porn has in our lives.

 

If I can afford to give you a tip...touch your limits, after how many days or hours do you go into depression? So you give yourself small goals that are tailored to you. As soon as you feel overly depressed feel free to use porn. If you find it difficult to respect the small goals you have set yourself try to distract yourself, do something else! Obviously it is always better to ask for the help of a specialist!

 

I absolutely agree with you, it's not the porn itself but the way in which we use it and how much they limit our emotional, social, working relationships etc ... this is why in my opinion abstaining is not a solution because for everyone of us has an intrinsic usefulness.
I am very happy with your point of view, as many people practice abstinence on this forum

 

In my opinion it's ok to fantasize about porn, it's still a first step. I don't doubt that distancing efforts must be made and they must be small steps, remember that for you who have always used porn and for you those images are your world. That's okay for now, you can't undo what you've done all your life can you? obviously I want to say that everything I say is my point of view, I like to give advice also in relation to what I have experienced. there have been times when giving up the urge to see porn was very difficult, but slowly this need is becoming less and less strong. in this thread I want to share with you any changes on my sexuality, I want to get to prefer a relationship with a woman!

 

what I mean is: masturbating without porn and finding porn images in our fantasies is ok because is a habit. it is a habit and like all habits do not end overnight, especially if there is much more of the pursuit of pleasure. For me this worked (let's not forget the psychologist):

small steps at a time that took me(after 3 years) to enjoy what I fantastic.
it takes time and effort to do, nothing is invented like all things, if you disagree you are not required to write in this thread

 

Hi guys how are you?
I give you a little update on how it is going.
I took a 5-day vacation, so I didn't have the opportunity to masturbate for about a week and on my return this made me very happy because on my return I would have felt so many sensations. the evening just before doing it, I was happy and from this contentment I started thinking about anything else such as looking for my sister and asking her how she was. I felt it as a duty for her. this often happens to me, when I feel relaxed or happy I start worrying that something is going wrong, I get very angry with myself and I get sad, in a nutshell I am afraid of letting go. anyway, I managed to focus on my masturbation and believe me guys.... the fantasies were really real!!, they looked like movies, I could hear my friends'(girls friend ) voices and unlike the fantasies let's say "post porn", the pleasure was centered on me and not on her, on how to penetrate her.
In the end I was really satisfied. after an hour, shaking ig's home to my usual I saw a half-naked photo of a friend of mine eee .... an incredible impulse started, an automatic thing that led me to thoughts like "come on one more time , that's okay "guys I reused pictures to jerk off. let's reflect on this thing: the first ejaculations with the images are pleasant, the problem becomes later .. continuing despite you are losing sensitivity and you feel you don't want to do it anymore. more than anything else I felt guilty because I would have to use them on the day I set out.
Now I am able to stop, as I write this post I thought ... what remains is a sense of guilt for having done it and that's it, for the rest I liked using the images (NB: I don't use porn videos anymore, only rarely , there are Italian telegram groups where many girls of my age are shared ... in my opinion these things are much more dangerous than the porn itself) and I wonder how much, FOR ME, this porn addict that I think I have is an obstacle to relating to a girl? have I built a castle? really if I didn't think about it I would spend hours every day without getting tired .... maybe not ... guys the truth is that I'm afraid of letting myself go in the relationship with a girl, I'm afraid of being manipulated, devalued for who I am, I'm afraid to be hurt or abandoned, fear of not being accepted for who I am
....
maybe this is the role that porn has for me ... an excuse? I will only know by living ;
how are you with yours addict???