My story of escalating need opinions and help

B

bold.dusk

New Fapstronaut
Hello everyone,

My question relates to escalation, and how I am to move away from my this past self. I have always been hidden from speaking to anyone about this. Never talked to my therapist(s), councillors, friends or family. I guess the reason why I am posting my struggles with porn here is because people don’t know me and I won’t loose anything by posting it here I guess.

I first viewed porn in my teenage years, I won’t go into to many details. But I wanted to mention that majority of my time with porn was filled with anxiety, shame and excitement all bundled into one. I was raised within a Christian family, baptized and confirmed. I have strong integrity for my parents and their values. I knew at the very start by viewing porn I was going against my values and morals and created this dilemma of knowing I shouldn’t do it but it gave me a way to escape my shame, anxiety’s and just life.

Flash forward 5 years when I was 18 and I was starting to noticing myself going towards more risky behaviours to get that dopamine rush. I started to escalate. I escalated to viewing porn that was forbidden and I could have gotten into trouble by the law if I was caught. I was ridden with pure shame that I never knew was possible. I failed, I failed god I failed myself. If I ever told any one the true nature of what I viewed I would loose my connection with them. I would be seen as the worst person ever to them. I have never forgiven myself for this part of my life and I still to this day don’t feel I deserve to continue my life because of how far I went and what I viewed. I currently believe I live for my family to continue supporting my friends and coworkers. Take that away and I don’t feel I deserve to live.

This behaviour lasted about 5 years, and would pop up every now and again. Often occurring when I was anxious from school, stressed, bored or tired and just needed an escape. However, once I started to become busy I started to move away from this behaviour I found a way to forget, but not forgive myself. I tried a relationship that ended badly and was never something I should have pursued I was only interested in having someone to make me feel less lonely.

Recently, a life event had occurred for me to become isolated, alone and bored. Never stopping from viewing porn I noticed my risky behaviour reoccurring after about a 4 year hiatus. I did not reach to the same forbidden porn I had viewed when I was 18. But it was within the same realm. While slipping back into this behaviour I was reintroduced into the feelings that was brought from viewing the content. It is a mixture of a rush, knowing what I’m doing is wrong and against my views, anxiety, after my “high” the shame and depression flooded in.

I am looking to get both your opinion and your take on my battle with this. Do you truly believe I deserve to forgive myself? If so, how? I have listened to many porn free podcasts about forgiven myself working with the shame. But I feel mine is not a everyday story. I went to a area where many would never go. I can’t come to forgive myself for doing that. I can’t accept that I should be forgiven. I am looking for your view on this.

Currently, I have been 4 days without porn and masturbation and it’s been good. I did unfortunately slip up and realized that it was caused because I wanted to feel that rush of doing something risky. I learned from this and am trying to find alternative ways to release my need for this. Trying going to the gym and working on yoga/mindfulness. But at the core it’s the issue of how can I be forgiven. How could anyone forgive me for what I viewed and how far I went. I just don’t see how god or anyone would be open to that idea if they knew the real me
 
Welcome. It took courage to post here and tell your story. I hope it eased your burdens somewhat to do so. First I would like to say that you were created by God, you are his loved and treasured creation. His love is absolute - it is nothing you earned or can earn. He loves you unconditionally. And if you believe in Christ, then you know your sins have already been forgiven and paid for. All this from a not so religious guy. You are created by God and in his image, and God also created sex and sexuality. It was not meant to be hidden and treated as dirty and shameful. But all those teachings or pressure about purity and sinfulness and lack of true sex education, can get messed up in our sexual template and we can turn sex into something is wasn't meant to be. From something that brings us to emotional connection and true intimacy, to something isolating and shameful. God has already forgiven you and if He has, you should forgive yourself too. You started a path to honesty and connection by posting in here. I would encourage you to continue down that path with connection in other ways, e.g. join a NoFap group or SAA group where you can voice out loud to another human being(s) who has been on the same or similar path and is supportive and non-judgmental, get with a therapist who can help you process through all the guilt and shame you are feeling, find a church or religious group that will help you with moving forward and not in a shame-based way (I mean after all, aren't we all sinners), read to educate yourself on this issue and to seek personal growth (a couple recent ones I've read that I would recommend are Unwanted by Jay Stringer, and Going Deeper: How the Inner Child Impacts Your Sexual Addiction by Eddie Capparucci), listen to podcasts (puredesire.org has lots of great podcasts under the Resources tab, as does Matt Dobscheutz and Porn Free Radio [www.recoveredman.com]), find that friend or mentor who can and will truly listen to you, etc.

I know how down you must be feeling which comes through in your post, but please believe us, you are good, you are loved, you can overcome this and lead the life you want to live. You can do this and you are worth it.
 
bold.dusk said:
Hello everyone,

My question relates to escalation, and how I am to move away from my this past self. I have always been hidden from speaking to anyone about this. Never talked to my therapist(s), councillors, friends or family. I guess the reason why I am posting my struggles with porn here is because people don’t know me and I won’t loose anything by posting it here I guess.

I first viewed porn in my teenage years, I won’t go into to many details. But I wanted to mention that majority of my time with porn was filled with anxiety, shame and excitement all bundled into one. I was raised within a Christian family, baptized and confirmed. I have strong integrity for my parents and their values. I knew at the very start by viewing porn I was going against my values and morals and created this dilemma of knowing I shouldn’t do it but it gave me a way to escape my shame, anxiety’s and just life.

Flash forward 5 years when I was 18 and I was starting to noticing myself going towards more risky behaviours to get that dopamine rush. I started to escalate. I escalated to viewing porn that was forbidden and I could have gotten into trouble by the law if I was caught. I was ridden with pure shame that I never knew was possible. I failed, I failed god I failed myself. If I ever told any one the true nature of what I viewed I would loose my connection with them. I would be seen as the worst person ever to them. I have never forgiven myself for this part of my life and I still to this day don’t feel I deserve to continue my life because of how far I went and what I viewed. I currently believe I live for my family to continue supporting my friends and coworkers. Take that away and I don’t feel I deserve to live.

This behaviour lasted about 5 years, and would pop up every now and again. Often occurring when I was anxious from school, stressed, bored or tired and just needed an escape. However, once I started to become busy I started to move away from this behaviour I found a way to forget, but not forgive myself. I tried a relationship that ended badly and was never something I should have pursued I was only interested in having someone to make me feel less lonely.

Recently, a life event had occurred for me to become isolated, alone and bored. Never stopping from viewing porn I noticed my risky behaviour reoccurring after about a 4 year hiatus. I did not reach to the same forbidden porn I had viewed when I was 18. But it was within the same realm. While slipping back into this behaviour I was reintroduced into the feelings that was brought from viewing the content. It is a mixture of a rush, knowing what I’m doing is wrong and against my views, anxiety, after my “high” the shame and depression flooded in.

I am looking to get both your opinion and your take on my battle with this. Do you truly believe I deserve to forgive myself? If so, how? I have listened to many porn free podcasts about forgiven myself working with the shame. But I feel mine is not a everyday story. I went to a area where many would never go. I can’t come to forgive myself for doing that. I can’t accept that I should be forgiven. I am looking for your view on this.

Currently, I have been 4 days without porn and masturbation and it’s been good. I did unfortunately slip up and realized that it was caused because I wanted to feel that rush of doing something risky. I learned from this and am trying to find alternative ways to release my need for this. Trying going to the gym and working on yoga/mindfulness. But at the core it’s the issue of how can I be forgiven. How could anyone forgive me for what I viewed and how far I went. I just don’t see how god or anyone would be open to that idea if they knew the real me
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Your story is similar to many other guys on the forum. In fact I have also seen a escalation in porn behavior. What you need to understand is that reflecting on what we did in the past will not change it whatsoever. Instead we must focus on changing our present so that our future can be good. And yes you must forgive yourself. How will god forgive you if you dont forgive yourself? There is a famous saying: "depths of oppression create new heights of character". If you recover your porn addiction, you will be a huge inspiration for others facing same problem like yours. And you can even help them recover their addiction. Making a account on this forum was your first step towards recovery. So now just dont look back. Keep moving ahead. I wish you my luck!!
 
Your story looks familiar to me. I have been living with this since I was really young, but I've struggling with it since a couple of years. Realizing that there is a problem is part of the solution. The forgiveness, - and I hope that as I write this, it works for me too - can only be given by ourselves. If someone who you really love and appreciate fails on you, and deeply regrets of it, wouldn't you forgive them? Wouldn't you be able to take off their pain with your forgiveness? Well, we must think of ourselves like that, like someone we love, even tho if we hate ourself sometimes. Our life is all we have, and we don't wanna have an inner fight all the time. The next step, is like someone said before: change your present so you can change your future. The past will be just lessons to never fail again.
Sorry por my poor english, but I hope that it works for you, because when I reed your story I felt like if I was telling it to myself. If you regret of the pain you caused to yourself, then you are the only one able to forgive and keep forward.
Keep moving. Keep it up.
 
Use a porn blocker. If you don't need your computer/mobile devices(i.e. if your work/study doesn't require you to have admin priveleges or anything else apart from a Word/E-mail/General Internet) for work/study, you can block your devices for a period of time. You do not need anyone else to do this for you(i.e. to keep your password). There are sites you can use, which will send you an e-mail in a future date. You should just be able to check your e-mail. And that device will already have porn blocked.

Because I work in IT, in the past I had been able to always bypass my porn blockers. Not anymore. It's impenetrable. Only choice I would have is to buy another computer etc, which I wouldn't want to spend the money on, and would be ridicilous since I already have computer.

I find, when I do this, it is such as relief, because it is impossible to view porn ANYWHERE! Set yourself to recover your password, a month, 6 months or even a year in the future!
 
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