Still Figuring things out

Hi, my name is Mr Nancy (of course that isn't my real name, I borrowed it from the people of the gold coast, Anansi, the spider god, a teller of tales, a trickster and spinner of lies)

I am currently a week and two days into a "rebooting" challenge. The reason why I am posting and signing up to this forum because I want help in changing my life. I have in the past masturbated with porn every day. While I have tried to cut this down to once a week, this has failed.

I feel like I need to share something, maybe this will help me through the urges I am feeling due to a sense of loneliness and slight intoxication. The worst period of my life was during undergraduate studies at university. I was for all intensive purposes a great student, I got my work in on time, it was of high quality, and I was always studying. At the same time, I did not engage in the Students Union. I was the president of a society I did not attend; I had invitations to go out but didn't, opportunities to work in a field I had up until that point wanted to be in but didn't take. I was slowly spiralling into a miasma of anxiety manifesting as Emetophobia (fear of vomiting). I also had a girlfriend in my second year who was crazy about me whom I mistreated, due to my own deteriorating mental health.

All this combined to me cutting myself off from my housemates who I viewed as my enemies because they would not pay bills without my poking, they would not clean to my high standards. Anything less and I would not be able to cook and eat. I would masturbate to feel good; it was the only thing that brought me pleasure because I was such a mess I would worry about going outside.

I have gotten therapy for the anxiety, but it still affects me to this day. I have also never fully gotten over the habits of PMO that I gained while I was caught in that cycle.

My anxiety was nothing new. I have always been anxious shy and pessimistic. I once had no friends for a year in primary school (not exaggerating) where I would pretend to be in my favourite show (Digimon Adventure) where I would sacrifice myself for the rest of the DigiDestined and die. I have also been awkward; I am still not used to my size, I am quite tall and gangly and have not fully mastered my body. Similarly, I find it hard to make friends, and for the friends, I do have I constantly second guess why they are friends with me in the first place.

The main thing that motivates me to reboot, is because I am approaching my late twenties with only one sexual encounter, the girlfriend I mistreated, that was a few years ago. I suffer from serious anxiety, issues of self-confidence and confusion. I don't know anything about myself; I don't know if I am gay, straight, asexual, bisexual, pansexual. I know I don't want to be ruled by my sexuality, I don't want my urges to affect the way I treat people. I don't want to be in the position I was as an undergraduate and as I approach the start of my postgraduate PhD I want to be able to start good habits that see me through to a stable sense of mental health and create a strong supportive base of relationships that don't have to be romantic. I want to be able to share my thoughts and feelings without feeling embarrassed about my inexperience. I don't want to feel cut off from the rest of humanity which seems to have everything figured out, able to form close relationships with relative ease.

I want to be better, but to be better I have to share even if it is embarrassing and it leaves me in a vulnerable position. Again hello my name is Mr Nancy I am into my second week of "rebooting", and I have never told anyone the things that I have told this thread. Please be kind; the internet is dark and full of terrors