Hi DoneAtLast,
Thanks for your comment. I think the issue you found was a semantic one, and I apologise for my lack of clarity. Allow me to clarify what I meant. When I said I've outgrown porn, I don't mean that it's because I'm now with a woman. The background to my P addiction is that for many years I was suffering from extreme depression, anxiety, and was being mercilessly bullied at school. I also suffered from abandonment issues because I was sent away to boarding school from the ages of 8-13, and so believed no one loved me or cared for me. Then my parents moved to a different city. I didn't fit in well at the new school and everyone hated me, and I already had very low self-esteem. So, during my teenage years I found porn, having my first PMO at 15 when my parents got high-speed internet. At the time, it served its purpose. It was an escape from my day-to-day; the fact that I had no friends and no one to turn to about my depression and anxiety, and it was escape from the reality at the time that I hated myself and wanted to die every day. It numbed me out to the world and took the edge off the depression at least.
Between the ages of 19-21, at university, I began to take an interest in personal development and meditation. I realised I was addicted to P when I found yourbrainonporn.com and realised it was a thing. Until then everyone had always just talked about it like it was normal. I managed almost a year clean from porn but went back to it after I broke up with one of my exes and moved to another country. Five years later, I'm here trying to get clean again.
When I say I've grown out of porn, what I mean by that is that porn once served an important purpose to numb me out to my day-to-day which was full of abuse and basically like a living hell. But it didn't make me happy, in fact it added to my problems, and once I realised that, that was when I grew out of it. Porn will never fulfil me or heal that trauma from my younger years. In fact, watching porn is like reliving that trauma over and over again, when in reality, I've overcome so much and can genuinely say I'm now a very happy, contented person. So, I've grown out of the need for P due to the work on myself that I've done, due to finding my spiritual path, due to meditation, having some great friendships, and many many other positive healing factors that have all contributed. Having a wife whom I deeply love and is my best friend, is an added bonus, and I know that now, my life is not just about me anymore. Now, it's about us. This means that I owe it to her, not just myself, to be the best version of myself that I can be, and to love and to cherish her 'until death us do part'. I know that my capacity to be a great husband will only improve once I kick this habit. Also, when I have kids, I would like to be a role model who can talk to them openly about sexual health when they're old enough, and speak from my experience of having overcome this addiction.
I don't think that P is just for single guys. I think P, like any other drug, is initially used as an escape from something, whether that be trauma or something as simple as boredom. For me, it helps to remind myself that my trauma is over, and that I don't have to keep numbing myself out. For the first time in my life, I actually want to feel everything fully, not just escape into the world of PMO.
I hope that makes sense.
Peace,
- Adventurer
