Porn escalation has blurred the lines of arousal in my brain

I want to share something which I realized about myself - both as part of my recovery process but also as a warning to others.

Like many addicts, years of PMO abuse has led me into various subtypes of graphic content. With each new deviation I would get a temporary thrill, akin to that which I felt after first stumbling into porn when I was younger. Back then of course I was just watching typical vanilla stuff, but over the years this changed as I "escalated" into different fetishes.

I have done a few nofap challenges, and at the end of each I kept thinking I could sort of "go back" to how I was. Like just become a casual viewer of porn and have the occasional PMO release without it being a big deal. Ok so here's the problem. I now realize that the massive amount and variety of porn I've consumed has changed my brain so that this is pretty much impossible now.

No matter what I start looking it, my "porn brain" soon wants something more edgy, more graphic, more taboo. The vast majority of this content is nothing I would actually want in my real life, but in the abstract state of PMO where I'm chasing that old dopamine rush, my mind seems to seek out all kinds of fetishes that I later feel just awful about.

I feel that at this point my brain will never return to its pre-addict state. The damage porn escalation has done in the form of blurring the arousal centers of my brain will probably never fully heal. The unnatural pathways are in there now, and all I can hope for is that they may fade with time if I refrain from ALL porn.

I still believe I can mostly recover - but I'll still have to learn to live with the scars that are left. It took me many years to get this way. Don't let this addiction go on as long as I have. Try to deal with it early before your brain/body arousal system gets muddled up like mine did.