21 Year Old Trying To Recover From Addictions to PMO

I first heard about NoFap about 5 years ago and joined up, but it was a complicated experience from what I remember, so I'm trying it again now!

My Purpose:
I am a member of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints and I am trying to overcome my addictions to:
A. Be free from addiction and gain my self-control back, along with many other things
B. Become worthy to go on a mission and share the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world
C. Share my experiences/successes/hope with others and make the world a better place

My Timeline:
I've been addicted to sexual activities since about age 8-10.
I began recovery from my addictions in February, 2014.
I have been clean from cutting and self-harm since January 28, 2015.
I have been clean from pornography use since the end of November, 2018.
I continue to have an addiction to masturbation and orgasm-ing at least once a week.
I struggle with depression, anxiety, and rare suicidal thoughts. I've never really had much of an opportunity to see a professional about these things, and I've never been officially diagnosed. Depression and other negative character traits began somewhere around 6th-7th grade.
My last usage of:
P: End of November, 2018.
M: 3/25/2019
O: 3/25/2019
Longest Streaks:
P: 4 months (Current)
M: 1 month
O: 1 month

My Beliefs:
1. Pornography is destructive, addicting, and is a plague sweeping our society. It leads it's users to commit often-serious sexual misconduct and act inappropriately. It is a sin and deteriorates and eventually destroys true, meaningful relationships.
2. Masturbation is destructive, addicting, and is a gateway to pornography use, whether imagined or viewed. It is a sin and will ultimately lead to many physical, mental, and emotional instabilities, unhealthiness, and isolationism.
3. We can try to overcome our addictions by ourselves, but it may take longer than utilizing help from others, or may not even work.
4. Success requires work, work requires sacrifice, sacrifice requires effort, effort requires determination, determination requires a decision to do something, a decision to do something requires hope in the end product, hope in the end product requires faith that it will be good, and that requires some serious soul-searching.
5. Addiction surrenders your freedom to choose. It controls you, not the other way around. It can make you do things you don't want to do when you least expect it.

My Goals:
1. No masturbation or orgasms for at LEAST 3 months, end-date hopefully being before July 2019.
2. Be worthy to go on a 2 year mission, fill out paperwork and conduct interviews with integrity and honesty.
3. Return from my mission, get engaged to my currently-serving Sister Missionary girlfriend
4. Get married to Her in the Salt Lake City, Utah Temple!!!

Discourses:
Pornography use has changed my view of women in general from being beautiful companions into objects to have sex with and lust after. It's almost a daily struggle to make the effort to change that. Porn and Masturbation together have chained me to their habits and it's taken me years to first of all recognize that all that was wrong, and secondly that I needed to change, and HOW to change it. PMO has made me socially awkward, isolated myself from others, made me uncomfortable around women, has shamed me into even more use and abuse, has made me lose the trust of loved ones especially my girlfriend... It's made me feel absolutely depressed and lonely, always craving more and more, never being satisfied, has made me feel like I can never be enough for anyone, partner or otherwise, and has utterly destroyed my social life. It's made me hate myself for being unable to control myself, which has led to a lot of self-image issues as well. I've decided to quit Porn, Masturbation, and Orgasm because of all these negative things that have occurred, and because I believe they are sins and I want to feel clean spiritually as well. I want to be happy, and have healthy relationships, feel good about myself, confident and in control of myself. It's been said once, and I'll repeat it again. Porn is the hardest drug out there, and I've done it. I've lived the consequences of use and abuse. I'm still suffering from it's effects, years down the road. I've been going to LDS Addiction Recovery Program group meetings every Sunday since February, 2014. I've worked with a couple different sponsors, all except 1 that I have currently has failed to follow up with me, almost at all. The 1 that I currently have really only has pornography experience, and since I'm doing alright with that, I'm more looking to get help with my Masturbation addiction.

(WARNING: May contain triggering content. Read the next section at your own risk!)
How it happens for me:
I typically act out (using MO) once a week, sometimes twice. I've got a fuzzy blanket I absolutely love (I love fuzzy things) but I also use it to masturbate... Uses are almost always while in bed, before sleeping, in the middle of the night, or right after waking up. Rarely are uses done in the shower.

What I've tried to stop myself:
Wear lots of clothing to bed
Go to bed early
Pray
Watch YouTube videos to distract myself

Here's some songs basically describing my life/views:
(WARNING: May contain triggering content. I'm a very emotional, music-based type of person. Watch at your own risk!)


Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this platform, to essentially blog about my fight with addiction and character weaknesses. I hope to help and be helped where possible! Cheers and good luck to all!

 

Another Discourse:
I also met with a psychiatrist once or twice in the last year, and after talking a little* bit about what's going on with me, my beliefs, and goals, he literally said "well just have sex and that should help". Most helpful advice I've ever gotten. NOT. It seems that most everyone I've ever met has been a terrible listener, maybe because people these days just listen to respond, and not to listen. Anyways, had he listened to me, he would've caught on to my belief in not having sex before marriage, and tailored his advice to that as well. That's also why I'm glad this platform is here, so that I can just get ALL of my thoughts out, and don't have to worry about someone interrupting and throwing their 2-cent advice in in the middle of my explanation of problems!!! That really grinds my gears when I'm not finished explaining my situation and someone's already jumped to a conclusion. Gah. I haven't been seeing that psychiatrist anymore mostly because of work scheduling issues. I'm always working when he's available, and my work schedule during the day can vary from "being off early" to "being off really late" and that just doesn't work with making appointments that if you set and don't make it to, they penalize you and charge you anyway. Plus getting time off in my company is a giant hassle because my boss is super strict with it.

 

About my current sponsor...
I currently have a sponsor in the LDS Addiction Recovery Program. I've had some before within that group, to no avail. I don't want to seem like I'm ragging on my current one too much, but I do want to express my concerns with Him. He has no experience (as far as I know) with overcoming MO, just P. And currently, I need the majority of help in the MO category. I'm about 3 months clean from P, but MO is a weekly struggle still. I go to ARP meetings every Sunday night, and see my sponsor there, and chat with him about things usually. He's an old guy, we also occasionally call once during the week, but I also have trouble with that because I live with my parents and I'm not comfortable talking about anything relating to these issues within earshot of them, or when I'm with my friends. My parents are very controlling, manipulating, and don't really help, so I keep them at arm's length when it comes to my personal life. Anyways, the usual response I get from my current sponsor when I tell him that "things haven't been so great" is that I need to kick it in the butt and get past it already. WHICH I TOTALLY GET AND UNDERSTAND, but at this point and time it's not beneficial to me to just keep repeating what I already know, as far as purpose is concerned. It just makes me feel bad and feeds my tendency to beat myself up even more. I've got social anxiety and I'm very not good with confrontation either, and don't really know how to politely tell him that I need something more, more than likely from someone else. Suggestions would be very much appreciated!!!

About me!
I'm a total nerd, I love tinkering with things, and I definitely like destroying things more than building them. Although I grew up with Lego's, some of which I still won't get rid of to this day, so it's kinda a love-hate relationship. heh. I'm BIG into music, specifically Rap, Hip-Hop, Electronic (and sub-genres Happy-Hardcore, Hardstyle, House, Dubstep, Bass... [major basshead]), Indie, Some rock, and almost no country, there's very little country songs that I will accept to listen to. I'm big into computers, specifically gaming and security. I eventually want to be a paid-hacker, called a PenTester. I like to longboard, although I currently live in a small town with rough roads and almost no clean sidewalks, so I'd have to go way out of my way to another city to even do that. I eventually want to get into Motor Sports, but I've been cursed with front-wheel drive vehicles for the first 3 vehicles that I've owned so far... Lord help me try to hide my stupidity in the work truck from the public. Like I said, I'm big into electronic dance music, and I've been to raves before in my local area, but the quality has drastically decreased over the years it seems and the price has gone up so much I just don't quite make the effort to go anymore, even though I really really want to just to have a good time. I occasionally find myself trying to party by myself at home with what little equipment I have. I use to work out a lot when I was in High School, but ever since joining the work force, I've felt so debilitated by my jobs that I've had almost no desire to go to the gym, yet I keep paying them every month xD Seems insane, I know... Maybe one day I'll figure it out. I've definitely gained some unwanted weight and flab, but I think my current job works me enough to keep me from going full-fat mode. I'm a very strict grammar guy, so I apologize in advance if I seem upset when I encounter posts/threads containing blatant misuses/failures of grammar. ... Even though this apology is kinda pointless and invalid because those who would potentially be offended by my disgruntle wouldn't even see it..? Derp. I'm not very adventurous with food either, I guess my taste buds just decided to like certain foods and dislike others during puberty. My body rejects things it doesn't like, I guess. Lame stuff. Trust me, I've tried to try new foods every now and then. It sucks, and just ends badly.
-Relationships and Home Life!
I've never really had great friends, they've all been flaky and untrustworthy. The person I'd consider my first true friend is my current girlfriend, whom I've dated since October 20th, 2016 until she left on her mission November 28th, 2018. I'd also consider her my first good relationship lol because all my past girlfriends have just been absolutely crazy and messed up, the relationship was always toxic and degenerative. As for my family, my father is a truck driver so we've moved A LOT. My mom pretty much just does side-jobs or house-wifey things. Both my parents have abused me, my father physically, my mother mentally and emotionally. Needless to say, we don't have great relationships. I've got one older sister, but I'm basically solo growing through life. It seems like it's been that way a long time now. I've almost never had people to rely on consistently besides my current girlfriend, so if you suddenly take an interest in me it really does mean a lot haha (as long as you're not involved with the government, BEGONE BIG BROTHER!!!) If that doesn't tell you anything about my political views, (or maybe lack thereof?!?!) then I'm not going to go into a tangent explaining it here... that's just too much. No.
Link to my on-going journal: https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/21-year-old-does-hard-mode.219709/page-2