The new one around

Hey all,
My name is Lars.
For years now, I am struggling with ED, which I now know seems to be PIED. I also struggle with lonliness (alone since I ended a toxic relationchip in 2012) and the phases in which I feel depressed grow longer and come more frequently. I have gone through some medical examinations, confirming that my ED is not a physical issue, so I went to psychotherapy. What we basically found out is that I seem to have social anxiety based on a very low self esteem. All in all the therapist couldn't really help me apart from giving some tips how to approach women or people in general and telling me to go out more often. In the end I felt more introverted after the sessions, than I felt before.

I started watching pornographic content very early, I was just starting to hit puberty. I can't really tell how often or excessive I consumed it but at that time it seemed normal to me. I did not have any issues with my later sex life, so I continued. It has come to a normal behaviour for me to masturbate to porn at least 3 times a day, I never knew that it is actually really bad for my health. I did it most and foremost when I was bored or felt lonely and let me tell you, apart from working, there is a lot of time in my day for loneliness and boredom.

It was just a couple of years ago when I heard about research gathering more and more information and proof to the destructive and addictive nature of porn. I felt really ashamed and did not want to know anything about it, I avoided/ignored the topic as good as I could. It took some time to admit to myself that I might have a Problem with my consumption of porn and that it might be the source of my low self esteem, my loneliness, my anxieties and my ED. I recently found the courage to read about this topic and gather some knowledge and was shocked how well the symptoms matched to what I am experiencing. I know, that it is a spiral of low self esteem resulting in loneliness resulting in social anxiety resulting in ED resulting in low self esteem and so on, but further than that, I now understand the biochemical aspect of all of this.

After I read about what is actually happening to me, I started reading about what I can do about it. I learned, that I am not alone with these issues and that there are people who found a way to get back a certain quality of life. Their stories are what motivated me to get started with the recovery myself, because I certainly want my life back.

So I set my goal to do a 90 Days full PMO reboot. I started about 2 days ago by installing the K9 Software and have not come in contact with any adult content or any sexual activity since.

I have never been a Forum-Person but I hope to get a good start here.
I hope for your support and try to give whatever I can to help whoever is eager to take the same journey.

If you'd like to get to know me further, please send a message my way! I am always up for a good chat and happy to get to know you!

Until then: Have a nice evening/night/day!
Lars