How to not be defined by my past?

Well you haven't always been an ambitious person so don't try to appear like you've always been 'the man'. Nobody cares about someone's past anyway as it is about the present. So there's no point in even talking about who you were before. It's also good to keep some secrets as this will make you a little mysterious. You are an ambitious person now, so enjoy life, keep growing and never look back. The only reason to look back in the past is to learn from your fuck-ups

I used to be a deadbeat porn degenerate as well, insecure as fuck, scared to talk to girls, scared to look people in the eye etc. Does my girlfriend know this? NOPE, but she loves me to death because of the person I am today.

 

It’s on your mind
Let’s be real most of the people out there using porn. why would a woman you marry will care about you doing that years earlier.

Even if so she will appreciate you doing the change. A woman should accept you as you are don’t try to appear as something

Past is past just acknowledge it don’t let it make you fall it’s what made you itself today overcoming what you did in life.

I can feel you though social related I think about past experience in social and it makes me fall because it seems like I just meet the same people in different bodies. Hate that feeling.

 

The way not to be defined by the past is to process it.

They say "you are what you eat" and of course that applies to the information we consume with porn and the internet in general, but the nice thing about information is we can reframe it even much later. Recognizing it is a part of an addiction process rather than who you are is one of the best things you can "do." This is a point some people have come to appreciate in the 12 Step recovery world. Instead of saying they are an addict, many will qualify it and say "recovering addict." Needless to say the additional word 'degenerate' really doesn't add much understanding or compassion and in that sense is likely negative rather than support you in getting better. But to go back to the digestion metaphor, it may be that you absorbed a lot of it, but you can sort it out in that process and eliminate part of the past experience.

So going forward, there are two things: One, which most people seem to try is to fill up on good healthy stuff - but notice that still banks on the absorption only, and people try to do a lot of it. The problem with that of course is many of us have had a lot more of the negative in the past and it's going to be a slow process to just take in as much of the positive as possible and it's just limited by time.

The second thing, which I don't see that many people really doing is re-create yourself. To be fair creativity is not easy, people don't know what to do and feel much better about the more obvious things and resort to the approach of filling up on positive stuff, but if we stop and think about it if we get good at not just seeing the positive from a situation but also being able to transform it, that's obviously a great skill to have. For example if someone struggled with this addiction and in the process learn enough about psychology and maybe even goes to school to become a psychotherapist, that's obviously a positive in the big picture. And though it won't feel nearly as good at the beginning and they won't know all that they would after grad school at least it's clear on a conceptual level this struggle could have been the motivation to develop that deeper understanding.

As a side point about being afraid the woman you will meet finding out about your past, there are people who understand even if it isn't fully. I'm starting to see someone (after a LONG time, I'm in my 50s) but they are also in recovery. Some people who have been around different kinds of addiction and maybe even people who are addicts in their life (many grow up with parents who are, even if it's other addictions) get that and you're going to be better than people who are not even trying even if things are not perfect yet. BTW even people who are pretty together may be into porn, I don't know if women just don't tend to talk about it in co-ed groups but I was surprised one saying they do this one time and of course we see women on a forum like this. Anyway it's not like you have to only date people in recovery only but it helps when people have some understanding of how hard life can be with psychological challenges.

In closing, maybe the thing to do is to not try to put the past behind us and forget about it completely, but know it so well that it just doesn't have power over you anymore. Because when you know it that well you know all the tricks and what can go wrong and you can do something new in response.

 

I agree. Making it look like you've always been ambitious is trying to make out you're past was different to what it was. It might be a good idea for you to make peace with your past. The best way to view your past is to see yourself doing the best you could at that very moment. Don't judge yourself, just accept it's something you used to do.