My Friend's Suicide

Hello all,

Some of you may have read one of the first posts I made on here, titled "Tragedy Motivated this Reboot". The tragedy was in reference to my friend who took his life after being caught with cp. I wanted to make an update on that thread and encourage all of you to take your reboot seriously. It's my friends story from my perspective. It's long, I know, but it's been eating at me for weeks, so bear with me.

My friend was a guy with a nervous personality and a huge friendly laugh. He was the type of person that if you needed help, he got there before anyone else, and was one of the last ones to leave. He was incredibly strong. He did his sit ups with a 40 pound bag of cement on his chest. He was incredibly talented. He did beautiful portrait photography. He was industrious and could fix anything. If there was a tool I needed to work on something and I couldn't find it at any store, I'd call him and he'd have the tool. Though he had all these strengths, he was emotionally quite fragile.

Through the years I never could put my finger on it. I would talk with him, and he would seem both near and far all at the same time. Like he wanted to connect, but something was holding him back. He'd come to our friends get-togethers and laugh with us, but always with this uncomfortable nervous energy. If I asked him a personal question, he would evade it. If I pressed any, his shirt would soak with sweat and I would change the subject just to give him a break.

After his arrest, many friends cut him out of their life immediately. In the local newspaper it was sensationalized in many ways. He'd never touched a person inappropriately. He'd never been inappropriate in his words either. Yet, he was portrayed as a child molester and a danger to society. The comments people made in the news online were horrible. I felt someone needed to reach out to him so a friend and I began to visit him.

When we got there, he looked fearful, like he was waiting for us to attack. We both opened our arms and hugged him and he cried like a child. He invited us in. My friend was a computer programmer, so there used to be electronics everywhere. The police had stripped his house pretty bare in search of any cp as evidence. We sat down to talk and some things became abundantly clear to me really fast. Even after his arrest, he called his porn collection his "little habit". He said, he didn't mean anything by it, it was just something he did to pass the time that slowly got out of hand. He was denying the depth of his problem.

Slowly, some other friends started coming to help him out. It became clear that even a thorough police search wasn't enough. He started inviting us over to be there with him while he burned old magazines and broke CDs to clean all of it out of his life. He started looking back at his life and how he started with just your basic run of the mill porn. It wasn't enough, so he got harder and harder materials. Because he was a programmer, he had found ways over time to amass large amounts of cp undetected. He was in his late forties to early fifties. His parents had died and he had had a fight with his brother and stopped talking to him. He'd never married and wasn't even really dating. Rather than seeing this as a problem, he just sunk further and further into his addiction. He covered his tracks well for years until he was finally caught.

The police came and arrested him at work in front of everyone. He was immediately fired. A few friends and I came at regular intervals to visit him and encourage him through prayer, Bible reading, and most importantly, the extension of our friendship. He went from being defensive, to minimizing his problem, to seeing quite clearly the scope of it. When he went for his indictment hearing, all of the materials he'd amassed were laid out clearly in front of him. Some friends were waiting for his phone call after the indictment to see how it went. We found out later that it went poorly. The prosecutor was looking to give him life in prison. My very emotionally fragile friend could not handle it. He went home without calling any of us and took his life.

I tell this story to get it off my chest (which feels relieving) but also to challenge you nofappers. We cared deeply for our friend. He was not alone. We supported him. He was only willing to see the scope of his problem when the court laid it out in front of him. He lived in denial until the consequences required he face it. Friends, there is NO reason to wait that long. If you are coming onto this website, understand this. My friend had a packed memorial service. The brother he hadn't spoken to in 9 years came and grieved their arguments. He said none of those things mattered now. Porn is a prison that robs us of happiness, forgiveness, relationship, health, and fulfillment. It is also progressive. My friend didn't start out watching cp. Over time, by fear and isolation he addictively fell into that cycle.

I don't care that my friend was looking at cp. I don't judge him. I don't hate him. I am however, very very angry with him. He took himself away from the people who cared most for him because porn had told him he had to live in the shadows. Fellow nofappers, that is why I've decided to lay this thing down for good. Use my friends story as a cautionary tale, or a catalyst, or whatever motivates you. But don't let it tell you the lie that you are completely alone and irredeemable. It just isn't true.

 

agoodfuture, you are not overstepping anything by encouraging me to turn to my faith for comfort. Thank you for the good words.

 

I have no idea if he was sharing it or not. But, from what I heard from people who know law, just getting cp from others online falls under the legal definition of "Pandering". Pandering in obscenity is a third degree felony. There is a 3 year prison sentence for a third degree felony, and I believe he had 120 images or videos. So if you multiply 3 times 120 it equals life.

That's one of the things about porn that bugs me the most. You start off with an amazing dopamine kick, and think, "This is great!", but you've got to go for more extreme stuff to get the kick you're looking for. Before you know it, you are looking at things that would repulse you in real life.