Hi forum. I had a million sentences about this in my head earlier but I'll probably forget a lot of the things I wanna say on this first post but hey, not the end of the world.
Started watching porn pretty much from the beginning, since I was a preteen probably. There've been some month-long or so periods here and there where I stopped, but the big picture is.. I never really stopped. I'm not really sure when I realized I was addicted.. even when I did realize I didn't really see it as a problem because I know the vast majority of guys look at porn.
I'm 21 years old and in college (last year of college). I have no sexual history, never had sex with a woman or really done anything at all with a woman. Feels bad. Feels extremely lonely and I also feel like a loser and a failure when I think about it. I think until this year I was sort of lying to myself, telling myself that yes I do want sex and a girlfriend would be nice, but it's not terribly important to me. I don't know what happened but sometime this summer it just dawned on me how lonely I am and how much I want sex and intimacy with a woman. It feels really horrible especially because of the time period my life I am in (college), and also the time period I will very soon be leaving. It passed by and the only thing sexual I did was watch porn. My future's still pretty uncertain and that will only bring more problems and distractions, this was the perfect time to explore sex and I missed it. I know mentally and emotionally what I really want... it's just that my body doesn't agree and I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about...
Rewind 3 years ago to my first year in college because I suck at flowing my thoughts properly... anyway... this is when I realized I probably had PIED. I went to see some doctors and they didn't find anything physical and I'm otherwise pretty healthy.
So what happened over the 3 years now that I knew that I had a problem, did I stop? Nope. I can't really tell you why, I can only speculate... first, I sort of "forgot," or convinced myself that it wasn't real and it was just my anxiety and depression (I have a lot of both). On top of that I wasn't making an effort to meet girls anyway so it's not like it was directly affecting me. So I continued to watch porn regularly. Every once in a while I would "remember" but then something would happen, like I would open up to a friend about it and they would convince me that it's not real, or I would re-convince myself that it's not real. Despite this I would still occasionally (or even frequently) say that I want to quit porn but I never did.
This year: I reminded myself (again) that I really do have a problem. Incredibly resilient porn addiction that I have tried to beat time and time again and failed time and time again. I don't know how many times I've tried and failed, it seems like hundreds. I put a lot of my focus on thinking about it and how I want to stop this year because I want to be able to be.. well.. hard. PIED has destroyed my confidence, I have no motivation to even try to talk to any girls because I know that if things progress into sex then I probably won't be able to have it. It's not just the obvious symptom.. like everyone else with this problem I want back all of the things porn took from me. My freedom.. confidence.. to not feel guilty anymore and instead to like myself.. to think of sex as how it's supposed to be thought of and not how a decade of porn has conditioned my brain to view it.
I had no idea about this site or that so many people had the same problem as me and there are actual terms for it like "rebooting..." all news to me until a few days ago. I'm hoping that maybe support from here and maybe just knowing that I'm not alone will help me in this because I know it is probably going to suck.. I am dreading the reality that this will not happen overnight because I feel so inexperienced, empty, failureish, etc that I wish it could be fast and simple but I know it's not. I feel like I'm going to be alone forever and before I know it it's going to be "too late."
Tomorrow will be day 3 no PMO. I'm not really sure what quantitative goals to set... I obviously just want to stop P forever but obviously it's easier set than done. Maybe I'll just count the days and see where it goes. Or I guess 30 days no PMO as an initial goal. I think I can do it but I always tend to think I can do it and then fail so we'll see what happens. That's about it, wish me luck I guess.
Started watching porn pretty much from the beginning, since I was a preteen probably. There've been some month-long or so periods here and there where I stopped, but the big picture is.. I never really stopped. I'm not really sure when I realized I was addicted.. even when I did realize I didn't really see it as a problem because I know the vast majority of guys look at porn.
I'm 21 years old and in college (last year of college). I have no sexual history, never had sex with a woman or really done anything at all with a woman. Feels bad. Feels extremely lonely and I also feel like a loser and a failure when I think about it. I think until this year I was sort of lying to myself, telling myself that yes I do want sex and a girlfriend would be nice, but it's not terribly important to me. I don't know what happened but sometime this summer it just dawned on me how lonely I am and how much I want sex and intimacy with a woman. It feels really horrible especially because of the time period my life I am in (college), and also the time period I will very soon be leaving. It passed by and the only thing sexual I did was watch porn. My future's still pretty uncertain and that will only bring more problems and distractions, this was the perfect time to explore sex and I missed it. I know mentally and emotionally what I really want... it's just that my body doesn't agree and I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about...
Rewind 3 years ago to my first year in college because I suck at flowing my thoughts properly... anyway... this is when I realized I probably had PIED. I went to see some doctors and they didn't find anything physical and I'm otherwise pretty healthy.
So what happened over the 3 years now that I knew that I had a problem, did I stop? Nope. I can't really tell you why, I can only speculate... first, I sort of "forgot," or convinced myself that it wasn't real and it was just my anxiety and depression (I have a lot of both). On top of that I wasn't making an effort to meet girls anyway so it's not like it was directly affecting me. So I continued to watch porn regularly. Every once in a while I would "remember" but then something would happen, like I would open up to a friend about it and they would convince me that it's not real, or I would re-convince myself that it's not real. Despite this I would still occasionally (or even frequently) say that I want to quit porn but I never did.
This year: I reminded myself (again) that I really do have a problem. Incredibly resilient porn addiction that I have tried to beat time and time again and failed time and time again. I don't know how many times I've tried and failed, it seems like hundreds. I put a lot of my focus on thinking about it and how I want to stop this year because I want to be able to be.. well.. hard. PIED has destroyed my confidence, I have no motivation to even try to talk to any girls because I know that if things progress into sex then I probably won't be able to have it. It's not just the obvious symptom.. like everyone else with this problem I want back all of the things porn took from me. My freedom.. confidence.. to not feel guilty anymore and instead to like myself.. to think of sex as how it's supposed to be thought of and not how a decade of porn has conditioned my brain to view it.
I had no idea about this site or that so many people had the same problem as me and there are actual terms for it like "rebooting..." all news to me until a few days ago. I'm hoping that maybe support from here and maybe just knowing that I'm not alone will help me in this because I know it is probably going to suck.. I am dreading the reality that this will not happen overnight because I feel so inexperienced, empty, failureish, etc that I wish it could be fast and simple but I know it's not. I feel like I'm going to be alone forever and before I know it it's going to be "too late."
Tomorrow will be day 3 no PMO. I'm not really sure what quantitative goals to set... I obviously just want to stop P forever but obviously it's easier set than done. Maybe I'll just count the days and see where it goes. Or I guess 30 days no PMO as an initial goal. I think I can do it but I always tend to think I can do it and then fail so we'll see what happens. That's about it, wish me luck I guess.