Timely Snap Decision

Last night I saw a program on Edging (Orange is the New Black), and after a bunch of related search clicks it brought me here. I think this is a timely event, because I have been suspecting that I have developed a mild pornographic addiction. I say mild because I don't masturbate as much as I used to, but I still continuously download and collect but rarely watch. I'll download all these videos, then go on Pornhub for actual use is what I've done lately, it makes no sense. My collection is not large by any means, maybe 5 or 6 gigs of videos, and so much of it unwatched. But I've always been a collector of things, and my preferred porn is images to collect, so I have a healthy collection. Using my phone I can easily kill 1 or 2 hours while bored. I also found I was irritable and tired when I spent hours looking and searching for what I like. I do what I call clean ups, deleting old or unwanted pics, and a week later I'm sitting with all these new images I can't possibly use. Pictures have stopped working for me lately, but I still collect them.

My girlfriend broke up with me about 3 weeks ago, we couldn't get together during the week, so the weekends were filled with marathon binge sessions, and as the weeks went by I've started to feel drained emotionally and my libido was starting to wain. Those issues are something separate, but I think it is important I address any underlying issues I have with sex, and I'm sure this will help.

Obviously after the break up I had zero drive, but it's starting to come back now. Looking at porn now just makes me feel lonely and desperate, which is one of my main reasons for doing this. Also as something completely normal. I was single for a long time, and used to taking care of my own desires. When you do that for a long time you develop little rituals, and my rituals have turned into an addiction. The ex girlfriend kind of threw that out of whack, so now coming back to it I see how unhealthy it is. I do think masturbation is normal, but I keep finding myself doing it out of boredom, then feeling like garbage afterwards. So I think it is time I try the middle ground.

I'm doing this as a detox. I feel like the wiring in my brain is starting to get really bad. I've always believed in progression, the stuff that turned you on 2 years ago is different from turns you on now, and it almost always goes to harder and harder stuff. I think that if 18 year old me had to see that stuff I've looked at he would not be happy, maybe even a bit sick. I get disgusted with myself and it's bringing me pleasure. I guess I've just gotten myself lost down the rabbit hole a bit, which so easy these days. If it exists, there's porn for it. I just want to find my way out for a bit.

Cheers.