Almost 60 days free of porn, my story

Hey I am new on this forum. On Sunday I will have gone 60 days without porn, and 18 days without masturbating and I haven't felt this good in a long time. I just wanted to tell my story about quitting porn, what it has done to me and how far I’ve come now.

I am not sure when it started, but maybe I was ten or eleven when I started to masturbate? Porn wasn’t far away, and a friend I had then showed me my first porno movie. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I only knew that masturbating was exciting. Then later we got channels at home and I started to watch porn at night. After a while I also started to masturbate to it. It was nice and I liked it. I am not sure why I started. I only know that I was kinda lonely as a child and I also had social anxiety. I am pretty sure that got worse after starting to watch porn.

After I started watching porn I was pretty much masturbating everywhere I could. When I was 15 I found that porn was easily accessible by the internet and a whole new world opened up to me. At that time, you could only access small clips at 15 sec or longer. I used to make my own playlist of the best ones, and always getting the best one to end the whole thing with. It got compulsive real fast. I continued with it all through my youth and my twenties, never trying to stop. It just got a part of my daily life. All through my life I have been experiencing anxiety and depression, and I am pretty sure that most of it was happening after I started watching porn and during. I mean I had some anxieties before that but they were never as crippling as they got after a while. I was also living in denial and thinking porn didn’t have anything to do with. I didn’t even think I had a problem. It was natural, it was something all boys did.

During my twenties I continued, and the compulsions got worse. I started to plan when I was gonna masturbate to porn next and was really looking forward to it. Every time, mostly that is, I came down hard after that and didn’t really feel all that well. I was always overdoing it and taking longer than I needed, because I just had to get that perfect video to end it with. This continued all through my twenties. But when I reached 30 years old I started noticing my depression coming back. January 2013 I crashed hard, and my depression was crippling me in all modes of life; Socially, studying, my health etc. I also stopped getting hard. It was not fun at all. It almost went as far as me going suicidal. But when I noticed I was going in that direction I went to a psychiatrist. All throughout that year and before it I tried finding quick fixes, like stuff being wrong with me physically, because I couldn’t bear it being mentally. When I went to the psychiatrist, it got better and all through that year I worked hard, but not really letting past be past. I didn’t once take responsibility for my problems or the porn addiction that was taking over my life.

During 2014 I was working on starting a feminist party with a lot of people and I started to really get engaged in the work we were doing. I have always been an advocate of these things, I just never realized. My values had always been good and very rock solid, and they got even more strengthened from joining this party. I still continued with porn, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I was in denial. I didn’t have an addiction. I did however always say I could stop if I wanted to. And from 2015-2016 and onwards I was always trying to quit. Never quite reaching beyond 1 month. Then I relapsed, and one video wouldn’t hurt. I then said that one more and more couldn’t hurt and I was back to it. This continued on till the summer of 2017. Here I had decided I was finally going to quit. This summer has also been my worse experience with anxiety. Flaring up over every little thing. I had never experienced this kind of anxiety. It was taking over my mind and my life. Making me isolate myself more and more, thinking I liked it like this. Only seeing a few friends and thinking that was enough. Quickly I found out that I was wrong.

But back to the porn. I became member of a site and I downloaded all the videos I wanted. I was gonna end my porn addiction by watching as many as I could, still even if I didn’t want to. I thought that was the best solution. But it didn’t work. It just made me worse. Then in September I crashed for the second time in my life. Crashed hard. At the same time, I hadn’t watched porn in a while. But I tried it once more, but that just made it worse again. During the end of August something started to happen to me, I started getting intrusive images and thoughts. They were about women in porn situations, walking past them on the street, but I also saw kids. This really really freaked me out and I became convinced I was the worst person in the world. I started to talk to my parents about this and they had to calm me down every time explaining these was just thoughts and not reality. I knew that in the back of my mind, but they were so intrusive and came at the most inopportune time, that it was hard to handle. So, I started to fight back at them and then it only became worse.

During this time, I found yourbrainonporn, and watching Gary Wilson lecture about porn addiction opened up my mind. I started to read about rebooting, the benefits and what I could expect. It opened me up to a new world. A world where I could finally get rid of this crap. I have now been reading a lot about it, and I am ready to really do this.

Now soon two months later I have been free from porn, and around 16 days free of masturbation. The two last weeks have steadily become better. The intrusive thoughts are still there, but they are more manageable, and I have become better at just letting them pass. Still they come in fragments all through the day. I still also see pictures and get intrusive thoughts when I am walking out side, but I don’t panic much anymore. I have also been experiencing panic attacks for at least a month, since the end of September, but they are gone. I have become a lot better at calming down just before I feel they start, and then they stop before they develop. I still semi-freak out by my thoughts and porn induced pictures, but I overall feel much better. My head is clearer, I am more social, I talk a lot more with people around me. I feel really happy at time, but my mood is more stabilized than it has ever been.

I have always tried to find out what was wrong with me. Because I have been thinking that for a long time. Trying to better myself, finding myself, all so I didn’t have to be the person I was. Compulsive need to better myself. Now I have found that I just need to be myself, and that is the best me I can be. I am happy with that. I have started reading more, doing yoga a couple of times a week, started excersising more, need to start eating more healthy, writing down positive memories instead of negative ones, not focusing to much on those. Generally trying to be the best one I can be. And it’s working.

The pangs of anxiety, moods swings, crying a lot of the time, panic attacks and generally feeling like a fucking horrendous person have been taking a toll. This have made the two months a living hell, but the decision to quit porn has been firm. I haven’t relapsed, and I know that I don’t need porn, and that if I start again I will feel like crap. It’s just not worth it anymore. I want to live my life to the fullest and experience all the things I didn’t want to when using porn. I have slowly but surely started to put things behind me. I am going to see a psychiatrist now in a weeks time. I feel like my life is finally starting to get together. I am 35 now and I started porn when I was probably 12, so I probably have been doing it for 23 years. That's a long time, but finally it's behind me.

My anxiety isn't gone, but it's not as crippling as it used to be. i still haven pangs of anxiety now and then, but now it's just stemming from my porn addiction, I don't see it much in my regular life anymore. There is still some work ahead, but I feel quite ready now.

 

So, maybe this one belongs more in the introductory section? I wasn't sure.

 

Thanks, it's been a long journey. I neglected to mention that I am now 35, so it does show that it's not too late to start rebooting!

 

You're right, it's never too late!

 

I am so happy to hear that my story resonated with you. And yes you are right, you are not strange. You are just a person, just like me, addicted to porn and now starting to right that.

Best of luck you you to, can I do it, you can too

 

Thank you for those kinds words, I really appreciate it .

 

Nice . I am not too fond of having my birthday in the middle of the summer, but it is what it is. If you know who Yngwie Malmsteen is, then he also has birthday the same day. I was quite proud of that once since I saw him as a great guitar player. He is still good, but I am not too fond of him. A little, but I seem to mention small tidbits like that. Though always great to meet people that has birthday the same day .

Thank you, to you to as well. You're best is all you can do. I believe in you, and it's worth to know you believe in yourself; that's what's most important .

 

Thanks and same to you, same to you .

 

As you probably have seen, I now read your story, and yes it sound similar to mine. I haven't been doing the nofap and no porn for so long, and even though I have been reading a lot about it, I am not sure about the having sex part. But if that doesn't impact the no porn progress your doing, I see no harm in having sex.

It was inspiring to read your story as well. Yeah the positive stuff had to become a part of my daily life. I have always been very insisting on other people being positive. While I myself have been way more negative than I thought I was. Always going down on myself for doing this and that, and always focusing on memories I thought was negative while not really embracing life and embracing the good times I've had. And even though I might not always think so, I've had way more good times than I think I have. I've just subconsciously decided to forget it.

I also wish you the best of luck !

 

Thank you for the kind word, and I am glad my story resonated with you.

Yeah, what I've learned, but still struggling with, is that even though there are lot of denial and negatives in my story, is that even if I don't recognize it, there has been some real growth in there. Started thinking more positive, looking lighter about my future, don't see the doom and gloom in most everything anymore, the anxiety that was there before is almost completely gone, now the anxiety that is still driving the addiction is there. I just need to find what connects me with my real self and something that makes me not slip into too much negative and deep thought. Still work in progress, but I can feel it being different almost each day, there is always something positive I miss because I focus too much on the negative still.