I'm in love for the first time, and I'm terrified PIED is going to ruin it

Here's a giant text wall of erectile dysfunction word soup that I don't expect anyone to suffer through, lol. I'm just putting it on the internet because writing this in a random file on my computer feels useless. At least SOMEONE might hear my pain. And it'll be a place to post updates and keep myself in check since the public can see this.

I have always had low self esteem and wasn't the most attractive guy in the world. In high school, I liked girls, but none of them liked me back, so I turned to porn and online chatting in the old AOL chat rooms and MSN chat rooms. Very quickly, I developed some fetishes and went on my way, masturbating all the time to orgasm, thinking everything was fine and that if and when I get a girlfriend, I'll 'just have sex with her and then not need porn anymore. Simple.' Riiiight.

Finally, by some absolute miracle or lightning strike or something, I started dating a girl when I was 20 (around 1999). We were off and on, it wasn't a very healthy relationship, but I was attracted to her and we had sex and it was fun and I was able to orgasm with her, but still, I would go home after a session with her and masturbate to porn too, and I would think the porn was 'better.' I would also watch porn on off-days when I wouldn't see her. With porn, I knew EXACTLY what I liked and could immediately go right to it and get off in literally 5 minutes if I needed to. I was in total control. (Not really though, quite the opposite.) With real sex though, it was different. I couldn't just instantly switch to a new girl if something wasn't perfectly working, etc. So after dating off and on for a few years, she was moving out of state and we thought 'hey, we should have sex before you leave,' so we did, and I couldn't orgasm. I felt so defeated, and I think it was porn induced because everything was just 'different,' being with her. With porn, I'm at a chair, with my shirt on, watching scenes, sometimes the same one over and over, using only my hand with a 'death grip,' but with her, I had to take my shirt off, felt self conscious, I was in her bed, in a different position, sometimes standing up naked with an erection, etc. So after I didn't orgasm, I knew I didn't satisfy her either, and my mind started swirling with negative thoughts. 'I'm such a loser. I can't even perform the ONE FUNCTION a man is supposed to do. No wonder she doesn't like you. She's going to have sex with someone else who's going to be 100 times better, etc.' We had sex one more time after that, and again, due to anxiety about the first non-orgasm, I didn't orgasm again, and at this point, it became a full-on obsession. I could not. stop. thinking about this issue. I thought that while porn is ruining me, it's my only option for orgasms now. So I continued to watch porn and chat.

I am shy and awkward, so any time I have sex, it's a monumental event in my life. Anytime I'm remotely near the possibility of having sex, my mind goes into an anxiety-fueled frenzy. Hours beforehand, I'm thinking 'oh god, I'm going to have sex tonight, don't blow it dude, come on, don't be a fuckup.' With masturbating, I NEVER think about it beforehand. I just do it whenever I have an opportunity. I wish I could be that way with real sex. Just be 'in the moment.' So over the years, again, by various miracles, I have had a couple of one night stands, and every time, I'm obsessing about my performance and lack of orgasm far beforehand, and my mind is just a swirling mess and then inevitably, we do start having sex and next thing I know, I'm thinking about my erection, and I just lose it, and become another guy on their list of bad sex experiences.

I had sex in 2011 with a girl from work, and while I was able to maintain an erection, I could not orgasm. So here I am, still, 10 years on from that one actual girlfriend, and this is still on my mind, just getting worse. All this time, I'm still masturbating to porn perfectly fine, and still going into online chat rooms to communicate with real people and discuss my extreme fantasies. Sometimes I would just give up on the idea of ever having healthy sex and I'd just absolutely binge on porn and chatting. Sometimes 5, 6, 7 times a day.

I didn't have sex after 2011. Nothing even remotely on the horizon. Just porn and chatting. Giving up on real life.

Then, suddenly, change happened this year, in 2020. I reconnected with a girl from high school who I am absolutely crazy about and she's crazy about me. I love every single thing about her. We're both empathetic, are very open about communication, we talk about everything, and on top of all of that, I think she is absolutely beautiful. She's cute sometimes and smoking hot other times...She's funny...ah, I've just fallen totally in love for the first time in my life. The only issue is that she lives across the country, so we don't get to physically see each other that often. She wants me to move in with her, so I'm looking for a job out there.

She has had a very healthy, fun, sex life. Before we reconnected, she was in a bad relationship, but was having great sex, and they were doing it every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Then she met me, stopped what she was doing, and got out of that relationship. She knew it wasn't good for her. She loves sex, so part of me feels pressure that now she's waiting for me to come satisfy her.

We talk about sex all the time. And I mean ALL THE TIME. She loves sex so much and is very casual about it. She will just bluntly tell me (or text) 'I wish you were here so we can have sex.' Literally, exactly like that. Or sometimes she'll be like 'I wish you could bring me some lunch, but when you come in, I jump on you to hug you, you put the food on the counter, and we forget about it and you instead carry me to the bedroom, rip my clothes off as fast as possible, and we just have sex instead.' It's crazy to me to think I'm even in this situation. She's so out of my league when it comes to sex. She listens to sexually-explicit music all the time, likes WAP by Cardi B., likes Positions by Ariana Grande, etc. Any sane, heterosexual male would absolutely love this girl, she's awesome when it comes to communicating about sex. We talk about little fetishes and fantasies, things we want to try...everything. She likes to roller skate and doesn't sext me, but sends provocative images and stuff. This is all unprecedented to me and I can't seem to calibrate my mind for this.

I tell her I'd love to be doing all these things, having wild, crazy, fun sex all the time, and really, I would, however, in my head, I start thinking 'oh god, you're going to F this up man, she had a partner that was awesome, and now she's with you? Mr. Loser? You're going to totally F this up.' So, after talking about sex so much, I went to visit her at the end of October and about 5 days out leading up to my visit, I stopped porn completely. I couldn't stop my obsessive thoughts though. On the flight out there, I thought about sex the whole time and how I'm going to mess it up, and sure enough, we had sex while I was out there and it was...BAD. I was flatlining and just not interested physically. In my head, I was so into her, I wanted so bad to just...F her brains out, but I couldn't make my penis do it. My mind would not stop with the anxiety. We cuddled in bed and I would get hard, but then I'd overanalyze everything and think 'omg dude, you're hard, don't lose this,' and of course, thinking about it like that, I lost it. I lasted 30 seconds before I gave up and told her it's' not going to work and then I cried in the bathroom afterwards. I'm not kidding. I literally cried. This is the text I almost sent her from the bathroom (but saved in my notes):

"10/25/2020 10:00 am
I?m a complete fuckup. You don?t even know how many times I tell myself that. It?s like out of a movie or something where someone is just standing in the mirror telling themselves how dumb and stupid and ugly and worthless they are. I?m sorry. I know make it worse by saying this shit and telling you, and I know you said there are things that are better left told to other friends, but I don?t have any other friends, and especially none that I could talk to about my problems like this with. You are my best friend so I don?t have anyone to turn to about shit like this, I?m sorry. I?m trying not to let my mind go into a frenzy thinking about everything, but fuck, this is just really important to me and I can?t help it, it consumes my mind...I?m fucking crying over here dude. I?m so sorry. Fuck man. FUCK!"

She is very supportive, but still, I can't help but feel like a defeated loser whom she's going to make fun of when she eventually just can't deal with it anymore and ditches me for someone else who's amazing in bed.

When I got back home, I decided, stupidly, to 'just check' and see if I was totally broken, and I masturbated to porn 3 times in 2 hours and I had strong erections and reached orgasm every time. One of the times, it only took me about 5 minutes to reach orgasm. It's most definitely not a physical issue. It's all psychological. There was even a time after that where I had literally a 15 minute window to masturbate, I hopped on my laptop, went into a chat room, talked to someone, and went from totally limp to orgasm in no joke, 5 minutes. I know this because I looked at the clock. I also masturbated within a little window of time again while looking at a picture of her and having a porn scene going next to that. I will watch the porn, get involved in this fantasy, then switch to checking her out and including her into the fantasy. I don't know if that's good or bad. Probably bad. I have got to stop the porn, chat fantasies, and the anxiety. With masturbation, I'm in total control as long as I have some stimulus. I can't masturbate without porn or chatting, but when I have those things, I can control everything perfectly and make it last as long as I want or as quick as I want.

So I really suspect this is porn induced with anxiety on top of it. I had a session with a sex therapist today for the first time in my life too. I want to beat this so bad, this new girlfriend means more to me than anything.

I have never been in love in my life and I keep telling myself 'this is it. If it doesn't work with this girl, are you really going to wait 40 more years before finding someone again?' So I get all this pressure and anxiety going. I'm visiting her again in December and I haven't stopped thinking about our last bad sex experience for 10 seconds and I know I'm going to obsess over it for the next month. I'm just so terrified that I'm going to lose her over this. She means everything to me.

Today, November 5, 2020 will mark the day that I last watched porn or chatted. Wonderful things rarely happen for me, and they are ruining one right now as I type this. I appreciate the community here and it's nice to talk about it, but ultimately, it's in my own mind...I have just got to stop these obsessive thoughts somehow. Thanks for reading if you made it through this crap that is my life.

Hey Nick - Welcome. Thanks for telling your story. I have to admit, it pains me to hear the way you talk about yourself. Tearing yourself down, calling yourself a loser and a complete fuckup, saying that wonderful things rarely happen for you. From where I'm sitting, it seems like the relationship you should really be worried about saving is the one you have with yourself. 

Easier said than done, though, right? I mean, you've probably been saying these things to yourself your whole life. But if you want to have any hope of recovering from PA, you need to challenge those self-critical thoughts and start investing in yourself big time. Loving someone else, being in love, even having a great sex life won't solve this puzzle. You have to solve it from within.

The good thing is that you've found your way here, and there are plenty of people here who can support you on this journey. Wishing you lots of luck, friend.

Welcome Nick. You're not alone in any of the things you've described. Porn is attractive because it is fake. It's an escape into fantasy with real physical consequences. It takes time to "reboot" your brain away from all those chemical-seeking pathways that we establish over years but the good news is those pathways ARE changeable. You are not broken. The "death grip" and anxiety and all those things are things that are hurdles you can get over. This forum is full of incredible people with great insights so use it as much as you need to. I look forward to hearing about your progress because by being here you've made that huge first step. It will be difficult, sometimes incredibly so, but it's so worth it and it does get easier.

^

What LetItGoAlready has said... I don't think I would have managed a more piercing message.  Start figuring out this complex web of learning to love yourself.  It's extremely challenging, but in the end you'll be providing a better place for yourself and for others.

Where to start?  If you have the means, you can consider therapy even if for just a few sessions.  Psychotherapy suffers from a law of "diminishing returns" but it's just as well good news as that means that the most useful and helpful part of the process is generally in the first 5-6 sessions.  If you cannot go this route for whatever reason, then writing out how you are dealing with these strong emotions is a way to gather knowledge and understanding of yourself; and you can do this right here.  Finally, there are 'listening-line' community organizations (probably close by where you live) that train volunteers to take calls from anyone who might feel the need to 'talk about things' in order to cope with anxiety or stress.

Wishing you the best!

Hi LetItGoAlready, TheNorman, and Leonida, thank you guys for the responses. It means a lot to me.

Yeah, me and my girlfriend talk every day and while we're talking, sometimes I get an erection and of course I start analyzing and lose it, and I just have to stop worrying so much about it. Or we'll be talking and I'll intentionally tell myself, 'hey you should try getting hard right now,' and I start to, but it's just weird because I'm consciously thinking about it. Sometimes in life, you're allowed to enjoy things for yourself and I think that's my problem. I can't believe I'm allowed to have fun with someone or something.

I have nervous excitement to see her in December, I'm just trying so hard not to put any pressure on myself. Somehow I have to make the switch in my brain. The part that's always been so casual and said 'hey, you should masturbate right now,' is now allowed to be just as casual and say 'hey, you should have sex with your girlfriend right now,' and at the same time the 'masturbation' part never once thought about losing an erection. Now the real sex part needs to rewire into that way of thinking too. I'm allowed to just enjoy myself and not overanalyze everything with her. It's just such a shock to my system.

Thanks again for the responses. Appreciate it.

I'll keep everyone updated on my progress and what happens in December. (Here I go again, already thinking about December which is exactly the problem. Stop Nick!)

Hi Nick - Seems like you recognize that you might be putting too much pressure on yourself to perform in December. Maybe you can lean into that a little. In addition to being compulsive P users, many of us here put pressure on ourselves to behave perfectly, which if you break it down has a compulsive basis to it. We are fixated on getting the result we want, the perfect result, and if we get anything less than that, we "throw the baby out with the bath water," so to speak. Sound familiar?

Try not to be so hard on yourself. You can't will your body to behave the way you want it to, so don't beat yourself up if it doesn't perform to expectations. This is a healing process, and it will take time to heal. The process may not go exactly how you want it to go (aka not perfectly), but as long as you stay focused on healing and getting better, you'll always be moving in the right direction.

Hi LetItGo, thanks.

So I'm at day 3 here. I have noticed I'm flatlining and have been for a couple weeks already. It was happening when I was with my girlfriend last. I'm seeing girls and I'm not even remotely interested. Like, there was a girl at the gas station today that was really good looking, but if she had just ran right up to me and said 'hey, you seem cool, we should hang out at my place right now,' I would've been like 'eh, thanks but no thanks.' This sadly, how it was with my girlfriend last. She is amazing, and every ounce of my brain says that I should be all over her, but I just can't make these two parts of my body operate together correctly.

I am also replaying porn scenes in my brain. I sometimes think 'well, maybe if I think of my girlfriend and try to imagine us in this one scene together...' but blah...That doesn't work at all, I don't know wtf I'm doing! Haha. I really have to get the porn scenes out of my mind.

I had an appointment with a sex therapist the other day, and she had some suggestions that...eh...I might try, but I think going 'hard mode' on NoFap might benefit me, so I'm trying that for now. She suggested I try a fleshlight, left-handed, with only my thoughts, no porn, and in a different room to try and get things to function sexually in positions that are NOT the way it always is when watching porn. With PMO, I'm always at my desk, at my computer, shirt on, etc. and it's become habitual, so I gotta break that habit. She also suggested getting some Viagra from my primary care physician so that in the event I use them with my girlfriend, I can get some positive sexual experiences under my belt, and it will push the negative, performance anxiety thoughts behind and I can eventually stop taking them. I guess that might work, but I don't know. Everyone's different.

My biggest problem I think, and I don't know if it's like this for others, but as whoever's reading this already knows, I obsess over it. I've been thinking about this, non-stop, all the time for the past couple weeks. 'Oh great, I'm one day closer to December, you're gonna F it all up again, I know you are, you're going to have ED the whole time with your girlfriend because you can't stop thinking about this...' and then come December, it's going to be 'oh, here you are, walking up the steps to her place, you guys are about to go into her bedroom right now and have sex, aren't you? How are you going to do this? Are you going to be a dorky loser this time, or be really good? Oh who am I kidding, I know exactly what you're going to do...' Blah. Haha. I'm trying to occupy my mind so I don't obsess.

Sometimes, I have moments of total zen when I'm just thinking about doing something fun with my girlfriend and then I think about how we'd start heading over to her room, and for a very split second, I feel good and relaxed. So, I know it's in me, I just have to not be so panicked and obsessive and think that this is some kind of important test. Getting there.

Anyways, Day 3 in the books. Looking forward to what the rest of this month brings.

I'm not a therapist and can't claim to be one, but the thing that has worked for me has been abstaining from porn and from thinking about sex as much as possible. It's a natural part of you (there's billions upon billions of human beings everywhere to serve as a reminder how natural). Porn is not sex. Masturbation is not sex. Using devices or your opposite hand or anything, to me, seems like a band-aid solution to a bigger problem. Porn hijacks your body and your mind, preventing it from doing its biologically hard-wired job. Steer clear of that stuff as much as you can. The idea of viagra to me seems like the only good advice in all that, even without taking it, it will put your mind at ease when the time comes.

Day 4.

Thanks, TheNorman. Yeah, I'm not too keen on that idea either so I wasn't planning on going that route.

I saw a picture on Twitter just now that normally would've sent me to porn sites. Not today though.

I'm trying not to think about sex at all, but my girlfriend brings it up so casually sometimes, so I can't totally avoid it. Trying not to think about it until December when I see her again. Back to the job hunt. I'm trying to find something near her, because she wants me to move in with her, so hopefully 2021 is a year of rebirth for me with a wonderful woman.

Thanks for all the support, everyone.

Was embarrassed to admit I relapsed on Nov 12 and just 'gave up' for the next few days. But I've started over. Again. I wish I could permanently and irreversibly block a website without some 3rd party app or browser extension. As a web developer, I can't believe that's not possible. I'm visiting my girlfriend in just over 2 weeks. I tried to set up an appointment for a routine physical before I visit so I could talk to my doctor about possibly getting Cialis or Viagra, but he retired and all of the other doctors are booked until January. I'd really prefer not to go down that road anyways, as it might not even working since this is strictly a psychological thing. When I relapsed, it took me all of about 5 minutes to PMO. When I was with my girlfriend last, I was flatlining. Definitely there is something going on with my brain and P. When we talk, sometimes the topic of sex comes up and I get little tinges of an erection, but I ruin it when I start thinking about it and about my ED. I have another appointment with that sex therapist on Thursday. Not much to tell her except that I still have obsessive thoughts about ED which in turn causes it which just makes me more obsessed which...

If all else fails, we're supposed to do tequila shots together, so maybe that might help calm my mind. Or make it worse. Who knows.

Anyways, back to the drawing board. Day 0 with a max of 17 days before seeing my girlfriend next on Dec. 4th. Blah.

EDIT: Was able to schedule an appointment with a primary care physician for my physical next week. Will see about Viagra or Cialis.

Hi Nick-Sorry to hear about your relapse. I share your discontent with 3rd party apps and browser extensions. I have tried many over the years but I found a way around all of them. In the end, I decided that third party apps and browser extensions only served to intensify the thrill of the hunt. They presented a problem, a puzzle that needed to be solved. And the rush of solving the problem/puzzle and getting the reward I was seeking made the thrill that that much more exciting.

You are probably already familiar with this solution, but if you're a Windows user, there is a way to block websites without and 3rd party app/extension using the Hosts file in the Windows/System 32 folder. I went one step further when I tried this a few years ago and placed a password-protected lock on the drivers folder, but that only lasted for so long. Again, like every solution out there, it's not without flaws and limitations. It's also reversible.

I know this latest setback was a disappointment for you, but don't let it throw your momentum. There is a tendency with a slip to give into black and white thinking. We tell ourselves "I fucked up and fell short of my goal, so why bother trying?" Don't give into this line of thinking. As the Chinese proverb goes "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."  We've all fallen short of our goals, but now is as good a time as any to re-commit to being clean and throw yourself back into recovery. Keep going, my friend.