What do you think caused your addiction?

What does cause my addiction?
I actually masturbate once per day and watch porn daily (until 02 of October, actually), but only for maximum 30 minutes.
There are also exceptions: for example, if I am very busy I do not masturbate, while if I don't have anything to do I can also do it twice a day. But on average, I used to do it daily for maximum 30 minutes.

The problem is that I normally do it daily, and it gave a contibution in my very low self esteem in seduction. I am 22 and had no sexuality at all, apart masturbation

 

For me, fapping became an escape from real life... the more I fapped, the harder real life became... so I would want to escape it and fap even more.

 

For sure I think most people here can say there was an initial reason we first accessed P or started M, but what I'm not surprised about is that a lot here are saying that PMO was a way to cope (even though its not really coping, more covering up or ignoring) with issues they had.

I had a very screwed up family situation since I can remember and I was in denial about it. My dad was distributing P videos (which led to the cops coming my school to interview me once), he also turned my mum into a prostitute as well, then add domestic violence to that, against her and me. So even before I found M and then eventually P I had a significant trauma that also unfortunately led to me having a low image of women, to the extent that I really didn't see as an issue for me when I first accessed it. When I found out about M it became excessive from the get go, it wasn't just experimentation with my body when I think back, I was doing it to self medicate myself for the chronic depression I now know has developed by then. There's something not right about a kid as young as 10 going through such trauma that early and the resulting depression.

Eventually I found P through magazines and videos but it was not excessive but what was worse for me was when the internet became more widespread and faster. Eventually getting my own laptop for the first time sealed my fate, not having to worry of being found about by anyone. Also more issues and traumas I think led to it increasing more.

Overtime its been the classic progression, first M, then excessive M, then the switch to P because the imagination is not enough anymore, then excessive P because I needed more hits and finally accessing extreme P because other P was not giving me the hit anymore. I think in the end I am the only one to blame for letting myself sink so low, the other factors were just what triggered it or compounded it more.

 

Absolutely this for myself as well, no matter how many problems we had, it was also the reality of life we couldn't take, which involves problems just like anyone else. The key of recovering is to access that reality again, to not run away or escape from it anymore.

 

Exactly so true.... It's really great that we can discuss it here too - there was no place before.

How can a problem be fixed if it's not even discussed?

 

I also repressed that side for a long time. I was afraid of intimacy I guess. And also afraid that I would do something wrong and then be shamed for it, because that was a frequent pattern when I was growing up. Do something "wrong" - get publicly shamed! lol, gotta laugh about it.

Fortunately I didn't have broadband growing up. Instead I would fap to almost ANYTHING. I didn't get a "modern" P addiction until my mid-twenties. Then more shame and intermittent social anxiety fuelled it.

 

I started with porn first before I even knew about masturbation. I remember I used to go to family freinds house all the time and they had the late channel where they would always watch porn. That's what got me addicted but then I got a computer for my own and my sister used to use my computer and then I found on the history a porn site. So I started to watch it then started to click on other videos and yeah that's when I discovered online pornography. Having a tough high school life and battling depression really excelled this addiction to where I was doing it at least once a day but usually twice or more. But I am glad to see the errors of my way let's rid ourselves of this forever.

 

For me, it happened young. I discovered M at the age of 7. My first encounter was at 7 years old with a 14 year old neighbor girl who took advantage of me and abused me sexually for a year, so I believe that I thought it was normal.
I was raised in Catholic school, and the older I got, the more curious I got. It also didn't help seeing the girls wearing skirts every day, especially the older I got. No matter what any one tells you, catholic school can be dangerous for a young kid with a curious mind. Seeing the girls becoming more flirtatious, wearing their skirts much shorter than they should, especially in HS. I wasn't very popular in school, especially with girls, so I just used PMO as an outlet. I used to MO just to thoughts of the girls before I discovered P. I discovered P with my cousin at 10 from a pop up on his computer. I didn't go out seeking it until later on in life around 13 years old because it mixed with my love of technology. I was a computer nerd so my parents started to lack in monitoring because they trusted me. Having a computer in my own room from 13-20 when I lived at home only made the addiction worse. When i was 21 I moved out and was single for 2 years, so it just became a daily "ritual." I was always terrible with girls until I lost over 50 pounds and started working out. That's when I found my sex life was drastically damaged on my first sexual encounter at 23. My brain was so damaged by P that it made my first sexual experience awful. I went through a lot of ups and downs, and managed for a while to make it okay, but i was single again from 24-26 so I went right back to it, until I met my fiancee at age 26. I abstained for 3 months and saw a vast improvement in my sex life. Then, 1 week away for a business trip, I was home alone, and relapsed. It's been up and down since. Recently relapsed after another 2 month streak, so I know I can do it. It's an ongoing battle.

 

I grew up before the whole high speed internet thing. I just found my self attracted to girls, I couldn't keep my eyes off the cute ones and always wanted to peek up their skirts or down their shirts in middle school. So, when I found my step dad's porn mags it was everything I could have wanted. Naked girls! Without being aware of the physiological processes going on in my brain, I simply knew that looking at naked girls was awesome and it was all I ever wanted to do.

The only moral standard I had by which to judge my actions was that of the society I lived in, which as far as I could tell condoned my actions entirely. So, I adopted the American mindset and it felt good, so I did it.

Perhaps as I aged and continued, there were some more complex psychological reasons behind my inability to quit... but I think even then it was mostly just plain old selfish hedonism.

 

Same

 

I don't think there was just one reason:

- As a kid of about 8 years old I hung around with my best friend, he constantly talked about sex - I may have been vicariously affected?

- I was a shy, anxious, lonely child I did have friends but only a couple but as I got older I wasn't allowed to play with them by my Dad (one of my childhood friends died through alcoholism).

- Elements of domestic violence in the immediate family - violence one side of the extended family and alcoholism on the other. The alcoholism has now permeated my immediate family.

- P was used to groom me as an adolescent.

- Whenever I saw P I was instantly and powerfully drawn towards it - don't yet know how or why this happened - over stimulation perhaps?

It's a good reflective question Sadgirl

 

...at the age of 16, a high school g/f one year younger than myself introduced me to the fundamentals of sado/masochism behavior
upon dissolution of our relationship there was no one to continue acting out on this ultimately leading me to media portrayals of via books, VHS and written materials...

 

Estando solo es muy dificil especialmente cuando eres joven. Por lo menos estaba duro para mi.

 

I got addicted when I accidentally found it in December 2011 through a website pop up ad when I was searching for a game online while I was home alone. I looked at porn secretly for a few days after that and then I abruptly quit it just like that. Then 2 years later in December 2013, I started M and used p subs (really disgusting psubs that I'm too ashamed to post here) and then in January 2014 is when I officially started PMO, using porn while masturbating for the first time.

 

It was more like a new-found very enjoyable experience. Got hooked on it without knowing the consequences at the age of 15. Now completely quit PM with 18, still struggling to avoid/stop/banish wet dreams.

 

Hi @Sadgirl,

I think it depends on the PA age, environment and when they started. In the 70's and early 80's, porn was banned in my country, so getting it was a. REAL thrill! The banning made it more desirable and arousing. Masturbation to a banned substance even more so. Scarcity of product made us binge completely when we did get it, and the person with VHS porn tapes was considered a hero. Added to that was the complete lack of insight regarding it's potential to be addictive and related harm it caused. With our new government, porn was unbanned, and flooded into South Africa on a huge scale. Movies, TV etc all started having nudity and soft porn Now, the initial tastes we had seen, became a full on buffet, and many over-indulged! Then came the internet, and the rest is history...

Hindsight is always 20/20, and my regrets for getting involved and utterly addicted to this crap is massive, and it is only when I stopped tthat I started seeing just how prevalent it is. It feels like the more you fight porn, the more it is visible, but almost 6 months without, so there is hope.

 

I think my addiction came from loneliness and stress. I have loving parents but I do not have any proper friends. If I do not keep things in check I can live a very stressful life so... loneliness+stress=urge to watch P. I think watching P with pornstars who I find attractive and sensual is almost a way to compensate the loneliness in my life. I have never had any sexual interacrion with a girl before. The closest I have got is pecking a girl on the hand when I was about 14 and pecking a girl on the lips a few times when I was like 9 so I have literally had no proper experience. I think Ming to P is a way to make up for that and explore things that I have not experienced in my life.

 

Having fetishes before the internet came along.... and then the internet came along. Simple as.
(and possibly being quite shy and introverted and getting a massive rush off of the positive feelings domaine brings)

 

I definitely started to M before I had access to online porn. I remember being somewhat sexually aware or curious from the age of 9, pretty much since i was abused by an older boy which i wont go into detail. But this person was also the first person to show me porn from a magazine or newspaper..(Daily Sport) In all honesty though i believe my problems may have developed regardless of my childhood experience. Being an only child, somewhat shy but not lonely, had lots of friends but also never really talked about girls and growing up was terribly shy around them. Rather than breaking through that barrier i just got more and more into porn and the internet for me when I was 15 opened a pandoras box/can of worms. I don't believe I would have done so much damage had internet porn not been around. Even having a girlfriend for 5 years did little to stem my compulsive behaviour around porn. Later on, class A drugs just made it even worse. I think the issue essentially is that porn use thrives in secrecy, at some points we use it to 'escape' reality other times we use it as a way to reward ourselves or just to feel good for the sake of feeling good but there is a cost to it which often doesn't reveal itself until many years later. Not talking about it i think only adds to the problem and growing up in sexually conservative societies where we have a 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' attitude to sexual behaviour problems prevents people from reaching out, or even from realising there might be anything wrong at all, because no one has brought the subject up with them directly. It doesn't really matter to me today 'what' made me an addict, i don't think it was any one particular event. I'm just grateful that I no longer do the things i used to do and have an element of control back and dare i say a more finely tuned moral compass. I've sat with many people who are addicts, mainly drugs, but the thing that i realised is, anyone can become addicted to something given the right circumstances. The only real way to ensure that never happens is to be firm in your resolve to always say 'no' despite other peoples comments, pressure and enticements and that is difficult especially for people who are young and want to impress.

 

That is so true and also applies to masturbation without porn.
The secrecy is increased because people are very bad at discussing it so the problem just doesn't get fixed... and instead can get worse.

I was masturbating daily from an early age due to loneliness and wasn't actually aware that I was doing myself bad damage... I had never even heard the word 'masturbation' ... I just assumed it was harmlesss but it wasn't... I was too young and doing it too often.

Now I am 34 and not much has really changed - people STILL don't discuss porn and masturbation, probably because it has a triggering effect at the beginning... luckily we can talk about it here and sort stuff out : )