Porn destroyed my arousal

Hi there! Nice to meet you all. I'm very happy to have found this forum to get some company on this problem we all have.

I'm 23 years old male suffering from porn addiction.
I've been using porn since getting my first portable device in 2012. An 4th generation iPod touch. I started streaming porn since then. I don't recall if i ever have done it before but i guess that was the gateway to this fast internet porn world. I was around 12 years old myself and started to PMO every night to fall asleep. I guess it was also the same time I discovered masturbation. I've always masturbated to porn since.

I would say that pornography didn't impact my every-day life or my sexual life, but it would be a big lie. It destroyed my expectations on real sex and intimacy. Also, on the level of arousal that I could get from the real world and real experiences.

I didn't see it as a problem until this year.
I've always had this problem that I would hook up with random people and would be a great experience the first time, but the second, third and so on I couldn't keep attracted to them. It was weird cause I always assumed that I had a low sex drive related to my depression that would make me get bored of people after getting satisfied with them and only hook up like 2-3 times a year. I couldn't get aroused with the same person twice in a short period of time. If I let things cool down, I would get aroused again but in a short time with them it would always happen, no matter what I tried.
Around 2-3 months I met the most perfect person to my eyes since and I was head over heels for them. But the problem persisted. The first time was awesome, and the other person felt it too. But the second wasn't a match in arousal and sex drive and the third and fourth got really awkward. I didn't get aroused a bit even though I knew that I really like this person. Everything ended and I was beating myself up for it.

I started looking around and found information about the effects of pornography on my brain and everything made sense. I discovered this forum and a lot of other resources and read the book YBOP. And came to the conclusion that I have PIED and other issues all related to porn like getting bored of the real person after being satisfied with them and wanting to get something new like I would always do while I edged watching porn and open a lot of tabs in a short period of time to get the perfect scene.

I've chosen to do NO PMO for a couple of months till I get better. Hope to do a 90-day hard mode. I want to never look porn ever again in my life and only limit myself to feel pleasure and arousal trough others.

I haven't PMO since 10/10 of this year and I'm currently on 40 ish days. The third of November I got aroused to a twitter explicit video and count that as a relapse cause I knew all along what type of video was I didn't stop myself. I don't really want to count days but that's the truth of my current streak.

I hope you're all okay and accompany me in this Journey. I will keep a Journal in the correct place of the forum, but I wanted to introduce myself first. Nice to meet you all. Feel free to ask me anything I'm happy to help anyone on the same situation. We're all in this together.

Cheers, Axxitnas.

 

Hi! I feel you. I've done some embarrassing things just to get aroused or not lose my arousal in the moment so don't feel alone in this.
The withdrawals that I've encountered so far are:

• Trouble sleeping (insomnia, interrupted sleep, not feeling rested, etc) I'm still facing this.
• Feeling lethargic. Everyday gets a little bit better
• Brainfog the first few days and trouble concentrating.
• Low libido and low arousal. ED? PIED? My dick feels dead. Sometimes I get random boners but the first two week I was deep in a flatline.
• Blue balls. I can't even ride my bike some days. It sucks.
• And a few others that may be related to my depression. Like low motivation, and not being interested in anything.

Hope it helps!