Broken beyond repair?

Hi there, so I've tried to quit PMO for over two years now, and I don't know... I've started to feel like I may be broken beyond repair, I've started with porn way too early in my life, around the age of 9-10 and I haven't stopped since, I turned 30 this year, I've been in a committed relationship for 8 years and it's been like 15 months since I've had sex with him, I just don't feel desire, the other day he started foreplay, he was really into it, and I felt like I was being molested, I didn't enjoy the feeling of his touch, it wasn't like that at first, I don't know, desire started to wear off about 5 years into the relationship, I haven't been able to go without PMO for more than 24 hours, and every time I feel worse and worse afterward but right before I go for it, it just feels like exactly what I need and I can't stop myself, I don't know what else to do, I ruined my life over this. It's been so exhausting to think I can quit and have an everyday failure...

Oddly enough I just made my first 24 hours with no PMO, it wasn't difficult, I guess I wasn't even thinking about getting here and that took off the pressure, but I did realize that my relationship has to be ended, but that's not a topic to discuss here. On a side note I've been trying to quit smoking cigarettes too, in January of this year I've learned that I live with HIV and my doctor suggested I should quit smoking to reduce the risk of getting lung cancer, at this point quitting PMO, quitting smoking and quitting my relationship feel about as difficult and it feels like a lot to deal with at the same time...

It all starts with a day, then 2 days, then 3. So congrats on getting to 24 hours - that's really something when addiction has got you.

Sorry to hear about your HIV diagnosis - I wonder if this might have played into your feelings around your addiction? Getting the diagnosis of HIV can be very hard for some people - and I can see why it could lead to not caring so much about the future or what happens to you, so quitting porn might seem less important for a while. I think that's a passing state though because unlike in the past, treatment of HIV is so much better and people live normal, and long lives now. So there is still every reason to work out all your issues and make your life as satisfying as you can.

I've been struggling and battling with this sort of thing for about 5 years now. While I've recently returned back to zero, I've definitely grown significantly over the course of the last 5 years. The important thing to remember is that growth is usually not linear. But I fully trust that you're capable of it, because this is the nature of life?to grow.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

@schiaffino89. I pray God gives you the strength to quit the smoking cos it will affect you faster than porn considering your hiv status. As touching porn, what actually drives you to it? for you to be doing it every 24hrs is really a strong addiction but i feel you need to get more busy and get more occupied . i wish i could really offer more help maybe if we talk more i can know what to suggest. Though  i suffer from porn too but not something i do every 24 hours...most times i go 3 weeks without thinking or watching porn...its a kinda cycle for me.....the addiction or desire becomes so strong towards the ending of the month or the beginning of  anew month or sometimes when i am so depressed or really broke. You need to know what triggers yours then we can know how do something to reverse that or to oppose it. hoping to read form you again.

Hey man. I?m sad to hear that you?re not doing well. I was struggling with this addiction back in 2018-19. Have been on this forum since 2016. Then took a long break. However, when I was active on here in 2018-19, you had commented on a couple of posts of mine. I was just reading my old posts and came across your comment and thought I?d see how you were doing.

So I?m extremely sad to see that you?re not doing great. This addiction takes a lot from you but I don?t think you?re broken beyond repair. Really unfortunate that you?re also diagnosed with HIV. I would suggest you still pick up your life and fight all these things, especially this addiction. If you fight this addiction you?ll have much more positivity in your life. Try to replace these negative habits with some positive ones. Take up meditation or swimming or working out. Whatever suits you. Irrespective of your HIV status, life is completely worth living.

You have a great partner too since you mentioned you?re in a committed relationship. Try to work that out. I?m sure he loves you. You just have to win your battle with addiction first for you to be able to see that you love him as well. I would suggest giving No PMO a good try. It really works and it can do wonders for your mindset if done seriously.

I hope you feel better. I?m gay too so I can understand some of the stuff that you?re going through. Please feel free to reach out if you?d like to have a chat. I?d love to see what I can do to help you. Don?t worry man. Keep fighting the good fight. There?s still hope for you and all of the other guys on here.

To quote the iconic Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey ?Don?t be such a defeatist dear.?

So after almost two years, I am back, not many good news except for the fact that I have my HIV status under control, undetectable since Oct 2020, dealing with HIV was way harder than I thought, at times I felt like I was worthless because of the virus, sometimes I still feel like damaged goods, I guess that has more to do with my self-esteem than anything else.

I still live with PIED and haven't been able to go 48 hours without PMO, but to be fair, I haven't really tried that hard, reading someone else's journal, I read that it is important to understand the root of our addiction, what causes it and what triggers me, after doing some thinking, I came to the conclusion that I do it to relieve stress, I am a very apprehensive person, I work in property management, so I spent two years with tenants yelling at me because their sink was leaking or stuff like that. Watching porn gives me an escape to a virtual reality where I don't think about anything else except for what I am looking at and well, we all know the mechanics after that. The amount of shame and self-loathing I feel afterward is extreme, I hate feeling like that, and I can't believe I still put myself through it every day.

I went almost a full year without sex with my boyfriend, I just don't feel desire and it doesn't have anything to do with him or my attraction for him, he's just not porn and my brain is fried causing me to not feel aroused unless I am watching porn. He has been very understanding about everything and supportive, which causes me to feel like I don't deserve him, but that's one of the reasons I want to recover from this, of course I do it for myself and my well being, but also for him, we deserve a healthy sex life.

I won't deny it, I've been very depressed lately, empty and tired of everything, the other day I sat down and thought about how I don't have any hobbies, when I started reading about finding new hobbies, the same question kept coming up "what do you like to do?" well, I like watching porn, but the whole point is to get away from that, honestly, I've never liked anything else, so I am in the quest for a new hobbie.

I guess the bottom line is that I've had this addiction for so long, that I no longer know who I am without it, and it's kind of hard to get to know yourself at almost 33 years old. I guess all I can do is keep fighting the good fight.

Thank you guys for reading my old posts and for your replies, I read them and they all mean a lot to me, if anyone reads this, feel free to leave any comments or words of encouragement, I have decided to post every day even if I relapse.

6 hours no PMO.

Hi man.

I just read your old posts. I am glad that you have your HIV under control!

I can feel you, as the reason or at least one of the reasons for watching porn is to relieve stress and to avoid negative feelings or dealing with problems. During that time, I am usually so sucked in the virtual reality like you called it that I forget about everything else. Then, I am feel ashamed like you do. But this is why it is an addiction. It is self-fed. You feel bad and what do you do? You go back to the stress/negative feelings reliever you are used to. Porn. I think that a solution might be to try to do something else like exercising when negative thoughts or negative feelings come again. Thus, maybe a new association in the brain can be established. Though I am not sure whether this should be done only when negative thoughts come and if one should try to feel the negative feelings.

I hope we will succeed. Let's try at least our best.

Have a good day, my friend.

It's been 24 hours since my last PMO, and the amount of stress and anxiety I feel is exhausting, because on top of quitting porn, I still haven't been able to quit smoking, but it's already been 28 hours without smoking (I was smoking 35 cigarettes a day...), I am wearing nicotine patches which are helping a lot. I wish they made porn patches lol, being such a heavy smoker and stopping so abruptly causes my throat to be really sore, I've been here before, it lasts for about a week and then I feel much better, it's like after surgery, you have to feel like crap before you start feeling much better.

I had a quiet day today, worked my normal shift, had dinner with my boyfriend and now he's in school and I took the opportunity to write here, and as I'm typing I realize THIS, RIGHT NOW would be a perfect opportunity to PMO, I'm home by myself, sitting in front of the computer, and I kind of feel proud that I'm here instead of browsing videos.

On another note, and because I still haven't found a suitable hobby to adopt, I started reading again, last year I read Red Dragon and The silence of the lambs so I started reading Hannibal, withdrawal gives me insomnia, so reading really does help me fall asleep, and my Dad always said, you will NEVER get anything negative out of reading, no matter what you read.

addict_but_I_hope said:

Hi man.

I just read your old posts. I am glad that you have your HIV under control!

I can feel you, as the reason or at least one of the reasons for watching porn is to relieve stress and to avoid negative feelings or dealing with problems. During that time, I am usually so sucked in the virtual reality like you called it that I forget about everything else. Then, I am feel ashamed like you do. But this is why it is an addiction. It is self-fed. You feel bad and what do you do? You go back to the stress/negative feelings reliever you are used to. Porn. I think that a solution might be to try to do something else like exercising when negative thoughts or negative feelings come again. Thus, maybe a new association in the brain can be established. Though I am not sure whether this should be done only when negative thoughts come and if one should try to feel the negative feelings.

I hope we will succeed. Let's try at least our best.

Have a good day, my friend.

Click to expand...

Hey buddy! thank you for your words, it's really incredible how much it helps to have someone on our corner, even when we have never met, you make a pretty good point, should we let ourselves have those negative feelings to find a constructive way of dealing with them? I mean right now, personally, I've been numbing them under an extreme amount of porn and that's pretty much the equivalent to living in denial, just because I use porn to avoid those feelings, doesn't mean they are not there, I think I should learn how to deal with that in a positive and constructive way so I don't always go back to porn.

I went to your profile to read about you and noticed you haven't started a journal, have you? if you do, I'll be happy to swing by so we can share our experience and support each other, I hope we will succeed too! =)

So today I am feeling a lot of anxiety and cravings, everything is triggering me, I tried to distract myself in social media and every time I see someone remotely attractive, I feel the urge, I even started watching P y M but didn't O. LOL I stopped myself and ran here to post something.

I really want to get this under control, but it's more difficult than I can explain. I've been doing lots of chores around the house to keep myself busy and distracted, today alone, I've done laundry and cleaned up the entire house while working from home.

I made it through the day with some P some M no O, I'm in pain now for not finishing, but I'll take it as my punishment for slipping.

Not a good day, a lot of anxiety and stress (if this post seems weird is because I wrote in different times of the day).

Overall I feel excited about doing this, but I am very frustrated and cranky...

Day 3.

I broke up with my boyfriend last month and of course, he moved out, even though, I am convinced it was the right decision for the both of us, it's still very painful, we were together for a little over 10 years, and I love him so much, we just lost our chemistry, mostly my fault for the lack of physical contact, I don't think I am very good at sex, and being addicted to porn didn't help, honestly, having sex with him seemed/felt more like a chore I had to do (because of all the prep it involves) so I was never really into having sex with him, anyway, that's what drifted us apart and towards the end, we were basically just two men living in the same house sharing expenses, neither one of us was truly happy anymore and I decided it wasn't fair for anyone, so I ended it.

That drove me (or rather I chose to go) right into a PMO frenzy because after work, I didn't really have anything else to do, or anything/anyone to stop me from PMO for hours, it's been a horrible month, I even started smoking again (I quit again 3 days ago, and it's also day 3 no PMO).

I have been so depressed for so many reasons, nothing dangerous, I am not suicidal, just demotivated, sad and lonely, I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I don't really have any friends, my best friend is my sister, and she lives in another city and she has 3 kids, the youngest is 1.5 yo. and she has a full-time job, so we don't really talk anymore.

I've been on Duolingo learning french for a little over 3 weeks, but even that has been hard to stick to, I just feel like I don't want to do anything all time, and I just really only do the things that I have to do as a fully functional adult, I work, go grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, I got a haircut today and I almost cried, the guy cutting my hair was talking to his friend the whole time, making jokes and telling stories and it made me sad to remember I don't have anyone like that in my life.

I don't want to sound like a drama queen, I am very good at accepting the consequences of my actions, and I am perfectly aware that my reality today is a result of all the decisions (good and bad) I've made throughout my life, it just sucks.

I am addicted to TikTok now, but I've been doing great at skipping videos that I know will trigger me, there are so many sexual trends out there now, but there are great funny videos that make me laugh, I'd hate to give that up, so I try to stay strong and when I see a shirtless dude I say out loud "trigger" and skip the video. I don't really use any other social media so I don't have many triggers there.

My main trigger is the fact that I don't have anything to keep myself busy that interests me or motivates me, and PMO was a "good" way to keep my brain busy and distracted from feeling depressed, but I do understand it's all a lie.

It's 11:24 PM, I'll read for a while and then I'll go to bed, hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

Go easy on yourself - the end of a 10 year relationship would be tough for anyone
You can look at this as a new start. A perfect chance to work on yourself and build some better habits
The pain will ease with time but you can come out of this a better man

Obviously it's easier said than done, but I would try cutting out TikTok too
Personally I think these sites/apps trigger the same dopamine reflex as porn, just to a lesser degree

Reddit has long been a big addiction of mine alongside porn (and often at the same time)
But I haven't looked at it for a couple of weeks now and it's definitely a positive change

You mentioned you don't have anything to keep you busy - why not take this opportunity to learn something new?
Could be anything - art, sports, musical instrument, some other hobby?
E.g. you mentioned learning French on Duolingo - why not sign up to a local French class?
Good chance to meet new people and make human connections while also learning a new skill

particularly_respecting said:

Go easy on yourself - the end of a 10 year relationship would be tough for anyone
You can look at this as a new start. A perfect chance to work on yourself and build some better habits
The pain will ease with time but you can come out of this a better man

Obviously it's easier said than done, but I would try cutting out TikTok too
Personally I think these sites/apps trigger the same dopamine reflex as porn, just to a lesser degree

Reddit has long been a big addiction of mine alongside porn (and often at the same time)
But I haven't looked at it for a couple of weeks now and it's definitely a positive change

You mentioned you don't have anything to keep you busy - why not take this opportunity to learn something new?
Could be anything - art, sports, musical instrument, some other hobby?
E.g. you mentioned learning French on Duolingo - why not sign up to a local French class?
Good chance to meet new people and make human connections while also learning a new skill

Click to expand...

Hi there, thank you so much for your reply, yeah, the breakup has been tough, but I do try to take this as an opportunity to get to know myself again as an individual and not as a part of a relationship, it's been rough so far, but I take it one day at the time and try to stay positive.

I think I know what you mean about TikTok, same effect different poison, and if I'm honest I do spend A LOT of time there, time just flies by scrolling down, I will take your advice and delete it from my phone.

I've thought about signing up for a French class, but sadly, money is a bit of an issue right now, and Duolingo is free, but thinking about it, I could probably find like a conversation club or something that doesn't require money, I will absolutely look into it.

I read your journal, and I can understand a lot of what you go through, I've been trying to quit porn for almost 3 years now, with countless relapses, we are on day 4 now and we have to let go of the relapses like you said, we have to go easy on ourselves!

Day 4 no PMO and smoke-free

Today was a day with a lot of mixed feelings, I woke up very depressed not wanting to get out of bed, so I stayed in bed until like 2-3pm, I ordered food and ate watching tv, then somehow something changed and I started feeling a little better, I jumped to my computer to start practicing french and did that for a few hours, I received a message from a friend sending me pictures of guys and a few voice messages describing the hot guys he's met recently, I only listened to one of the 4 voice messages, He doesn't know I am quitting PMO and about my triggers, so I guess I'll have to let him know so he can refrain from sending those messages that are definitely a trigger, I had to immediately delete the pictures to not get aroused.

As the day went by and because I wasn't doing anything important, I started feeling the urges to watch porn, so I got dressed and ran to Sam's Club to get cat litter and then Walmart for a few groceries I needed, that kind of took my mind off porn for a while, but on my way out I saw a very attractive man and felt aroused instantly, so as soon as I came home I came here, I am doing a lot of breathing exercises and I think I'll take a shower and get some reading to get ready to go to bed.

schiaffino89 said:

As the day went by and because I wasn't doing anything important, I started feeling the urges to watch porn, so I got dressed and ran to Sam's Club to get cat litter and then Walmart for a few groceries I needed, that kind of took my mind off porn for a while, but on my way out I saw a very attractive man and felt aroused instantly, so as soon as I came home I came here, I am doing a lot of breathing exercises and I think I'll take a shower and get some reading to get ready to go to bed.

Click to expand...

Hope you got through yesterday okay! Getting outside to take your mind off urges sounds like a great idea.
Thank you for reading my journal also - we have chosen a difficult path but the community here is definitely a big help.

Back again to day 0, March was a particularly horrible month in my life, I guess the fact that I'm no longer with the person I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with, kinda started getting real, I had a birthday, the first one as a single man in 10 years, and the plan was to go on a trip to the beach with him, and well, instead, I stayed home and told everyone I'd be out of town, I really didn't want to see anyone.

In April, I had family at my house and we went to the beach, the first time without him, making new experiences without him has been the hardest part, knowing he should be there but he's not anymore.

I tried dating (Tinder), but that DID NOT go well, I immediately deleted my profile, I only went out with one guy but it just felt so wrong on so many levels, I knew right away I was nowhere near ready to meet new people.

This month, May has been very depressing, I feel like my life choices have been so self-destructive, I have no idea how to begin changing them. And I feel zero motivation, adult life sucks, it's all work and paying bills and debt, I work from home and don't have any friends to hang out with or talk to, so I basically spend all my life stuck in my house with my cat. I'm freaking 33 I should be in the prime of my life and somehow I feel like my life is over, it's all done.

PMO has been very constant and aggressive, I actually injured my wrist.

I'm sorry for so much negativity, I know it's the last thing we need as a community, we are all fighting our battles, but I really needed to get it out, I hope it gets better.

Sorry to hear it's been a difficult time for you
I know it's tough to get motivated when going through difficult times, but if you can use this opportunity to work on yourself, it may be possible to take something positive from the experience
Stay strong brother