Afraid of Responsibilities

I've been there too. For a long time I thought it was just a "lack of motivation" on my part. I've blamed different issues in the past as well, things like my upbringing, my shyness (introversion), my porn addiction (which I now believe is a symptom rather than a cause) and of course thinking that I just needed a "spark" of inspiration from somewhere, then I would be fine.

I now realise that this is all complete bullshit. Inspiration and motivation are not causes of action, they are products of action. Ever sat in front of a math problem on a test, wondering where to start? You know you have to solve the problem, but you shy away from it because you're afraid of it? Yep, that was me. I now realise that the solution is to just start working on the problem anyway. That will cause your brain to shift from "what the fuck am I doing here?" to "okay, we have something to do, let's get into it!". Ever sat in your untidy house or apartment, not knowing where to start cleaning it up? Yep, I've done that too. If you start cleaning one section of one room, you'll soon find the motivation to do more.

Your example with the girls is an interesting one. When you're a man, more often than not women expect you to take the lead. Again, I think the best approach here is to start slow. Don't just grab her and fuck her like you've seen in porn -- porn is not real life. Just take your time, lots of gentle touching and caressing to get her warmed up, and things will progress from there.

 

I can see myself in this too. Porn is indeed just a symptom it will not fix the core of your problem, however it will set your feelings free. I believe that dealing with them will be extremely hard. Try and do it again and again. Actions will result later on in success. For me the only part I fear about recovery is telling family/real friends my toxic shamed past. I told my gf already luckily. I guess everybody on here has had an diffecult past (abuse, bullying, angry or diffecult parents, financial situations etc) because of these things we turned into ourselfs with our feelings. Yeah I can handle and fix this by myself. Surprise !! you can’t. Our body made a habit (addiction) to hide those feelings. Next to that your mind probably made a new life strategy “to survive” for example people pleasing so that less often you will get yourself in hard or angry situations.

 

And that's the real problem that porn (or any other addiction) causes. Around here we get way too fixated on the symptoms (things like ED), but we don't talk enough about the real problems. Porn essentially acts as a distraction from our problems by making us temporarily feel good in the moment, and therefore we don't believe there's anything wrong. In the meantime, we continue letting our careers and relationships slide away gradually, and by the time we notice it's too late.

We definitely need to stay away from porn, but at the same time we must also face our other problems, the ones that led us to porn addiction in the first place.