This has been on my mind a while. I wonder if there is any correlation between problems with porn and mental health issues? Personally, I suffer from mild depression and anxiety and sometimes use porn to relax when I'm stressed. Would be interested to know about any of you guys/gals who do the same thing, or have other issues you would be willing to talk about? Would you consider HOCD a mental health issue for example, or something else? Discuss.
Ya studies are just scraping the surface all I can say is an explosion in campus rapes is directly related to porn viewing
The way I see it is porn is often a symptom of these issues, but I can definitely see it being an indirect cause as well. As the person above said, it can be a chicken and egg situation. If porn actually dramatically affected your life and makes it harder to accomplish things or sexually function, that in itself can cause depression/anxiety etc so you could argue porn causes issues that lead to mental health issues. But then that begs the question, if porn caused the mental health issues, then what caused the heavy porn use in the first place? There's probably still an issue there even if its not necessarily a mental health one, whether thats loneliness, sexual frustration, escape, whatever.
Thanks for the responses everyone! Got more than I expected. Will try to find the time to reply individually soonish.
A young kid that isn't taught how to deal with his emotions properly finds a way to soothe them. In my case, my father always told me as a young kid "stop crying, toughen up" "get over it" "are you a sissy" he didn't know and still doesn't know how to be a man or a father and communicate properly. He just screams and tells like an immature kid. This causes me anxiety, and then the rapid onslaught of porn use caused my depression. Fuck my dad. Death to him.
Studies linking porn use to poorer mental-emotional health & poorer cognitive outcomes What do experts tell young guys suffering from ED (the good & the bad) Studies linking porn use or porn addiction to sexual dysfunctions, lower arousal, and lower sexual & relationship satisfaction The Effects of Porn on the User
There is a solid correlation between pmo and mental health, a ton of research is now available to read on that now. It causes the very things you used it to relieve, that is the illusion of it. It makes you want to use it to escape from the very problems it causes, hence we all tend to go around and around in the quit - relapse loop. It truly hacks our brains, more equivalent to a trojan horse. Depression, anxiety, social anxiety are the classics, they are the most common that I see here, including having suffered with them myself and seen great improvement from them while on a streak.
There’s a strong connection between porn usage and mental health. Sometimes as a coping mechanism, other times causing shame and sometimes a complete cycle of that. It’s basically a drug. Stats and data have been posted above by other likeminded users. Feel free to check them out. But I will say this; even quitting or avoiding PMO can bring out feelings of anxiety, depression, OCD, general negativity (in some cases, misanthropy/agoraphobia), but that is all apart of the healing process, normally aggravated by the level of attachment you might have. I’ve suffered from some of these mental afflictions at one point, and it all can be traced back to P. My OCD especially got worse when I wanted to quit. I became obsessive about quitting, developed nasty intrusive thoughts and even been in states of despair. I saw the straight up facts about P, and I wanted out. I’m currently healing from PMO, and it’s a long road ahead, but it definitely correlates with poor mental health.
Sorry for taking so long to respond to everyone! Thanks for the input. Do you find that it actually helps you, or is it, as others have stated, an illusion? I have noticed that once I put aside the objective pleasure of the orgasm itself, PMO doesnt really make me feel any better unless I'm truly horny, as opposed to feeling negative emotions. As a genuine release, I guess it works? But using it to soothe negative emotions doesnt work long term. You think so? I was not aware of any "explosion." Is it really getting that bad? Interesting that you say caused by, not symptom of. You believe PMO outright causes mental health issues as opposed to exacerbate them? Seems like this effects a lot of people. This makes sense. I've noticed that excessive PMO amplifies my negative emotions, my anxiety and stress etc, but also dulls positive ones. The effect also seems to stack. Honestly? One or two PMO sessions has very little effect on me, but after three or four I'm feeling it, after more than that I'm fucked. Makes sense. It seems like these things feed off each other. You turn to PMO for relief but it makes your existing issues worse and adds new problems on top. Thank you for your experience. This makes a lot of sense. Childhood traumas can definitely effect this sort of thing. Thanks to both of you for the information. Very interesting. I find it interesting that a lot of you are saying similar things. Seems like we're arriving at some sort of consensus. This also makes sense. That withdrawal can kick in and make you feel worse, and that can lead to a cycle of resetting and streaks where you dont really get anywhere. Myself, I'm trying not to be too OTT with NoFap. I find it helps to forgive myself if I mess up as opposed to treating it like making a mistake is really severe.
Mmm, I guess they fuel each other. I think that pmo will make it worse. It's like what came first the egg or chicken.
I guess it is helpful when there is a negative thought repeating endlessly in my brain. Porn is seductive and can push aside all other thoughts. Sometimes the thoughts don't return for a while if they can be pushed aside. I'm not claiming it is a good solution of course. The medicine of porn has some bad side effects.