My Story & The Physical Effects of 15+ Years of Addiction

Buckle up, this is a long one.

I have been addicted to sex, pornography and all the perversions within it for over half of my life now. Starting at an insanely early age, I was always drawn to sexuality, taboo topics and just the overall "forbidden" nature of it all. When I was only six or seven years old, I was exposed to pornography on a semi-regular basis, and it probably stemmed from there: although I technically lived with my parents, most of my time was spent at my grandparents' house because Mom and Dad were always working... this household I was raised in during my younger years was a household of two "good ol' boys" (my grandpa and my uncle) who were womanizers, and a grandmother who didn't do much to keep me from being exposed to that type of mentality. I'm not playing the "victim", I am my own person. I've just never openly spoken publicly about that experience in my life and felt the need to let it be known.

As I got older, I started to find different means of finding pornography; my uncle had a "hidden" chest of Playboy magazines that was in his room - he frequently kept one out for me to look at when he knew I could do so without being caught. I would also sometimes go to work with my Mom, who worked at the public library, and there I would surf the early internet for nude photos, hentai and any other porno-related material that tickled my fancy. We didn't have internet at my parents' or grandparents' home, so I would take three or four floppy disks with me to save the images I found and take them home with me. Being creative from birth, I would use MS Paint to create fake porn sites with the images I found at the library... I would also draw pictures on my own - I was a fairly good artist even then, so it became a hobby of mine when I was alone. This was still very early on for me, probably age 8 or 9 at this point.

This continued on until we finally got dial up internet at my parents' house at around age 14, where I would use Kazaa and later Limewire to download full porn videos and the like. It was around this time that I started dating girls, usually my age but sometimes a year or two older than me. It was always an awkward situation in my early dating days, because I didn't fully understand what a "normal" relationship was. I always treated them great in the early years, and through my highschool years I had many long term relationships but I could never quite calm down when it came to sex. I was never a problem kid, I didn't get in to much trouble, but I was labeled a "bad kid" because I was so horny all the damn time. When I got older and was in my late teens I began to struggle to be committed to one girl and always found myself cheating on them with several others both in person and online... I thought that's what "cool people" were supposed to do, because the men I grew up around (except my dad, really good guy) were always being unfaithful. Again, not a victim, just explaining where my mindset came from.

During my highschool dating years, I had to be mindful of when I could watch porn and get off to it while ensuring I didn't overdo it and not be able to perform well for my actual partners. It was a delicate balance that I did well early on, but struggled with by the time I was in college. I'd developed a taste for much kinkier things by now that your average girl doesn't enjoy unless she's in front of a camera making money for it. Because of this, I was starting to have trouble maintaining an erection... Back then, porn addiction and sex addiction weren't really mainstream topics, so it never really clicked with me what was happening. I thought there must be something wrong with me - I'm out of practice - my antidepressants are the cause. How did I "fix" this? By doubling down on porn and masturbation, hoping it would "strengthen" my erection (why couldn't someone have intervened and told me about keggles? Fuck!).

I continued down this path into early adulthood. At this point in life, I knew I had a problem but had absolutely no grip on it. The biggest concern I had wasn't fixing the problem - it never even entered my mind - it was to HIDE my problem so people didn't see me as a freak. During my first long-term relationship, I moved into an apartment with a few friends and when my girlfriend wasn't there visiting me, I was either locked in my room watching porn on my laptop or worse, I was bringing other girls over. Eventually my friends got tired of it and had an intervention - they wanted me out of there, because they didn't like what I was doing to my girlfriend, and they hated having random girls up every few days... It was my first REAL low point with this. This ended with me having a breakdown and while my girlfriend was helping me load my furniture up, I confessed what I had been doing to her. Amidst this confession, I told her what I had been exposed to in my childhood, and of course that made her forgive me. It seemed like manipulation at the time, and I think I even thought that's what I was doing... But she was the very first person ever that I had told that to, and it was surreal and felt good to admit it to someone despite the situation. Long story short, we were never the same after that and despite me being in love with her and us enduring many hardships together, we went our separate ways. She was better off without me.

During these years I was somehow able to get promoted at work multiple times. Promotions, failed relationships, falling deeper into the void of porn addiction, sex addiction and semi-soft erections mixed with constantly "leaking" when I was even slightly aroused filled my early 20's years. Age 23 comes, I'm officially the big boss at the office... Me. The guy who was grumpy anytime someone was in the office with me because I couldn't sext with the girl who lived across town or I couldn't watch the video I'd downloaded onto my crappy little Windows phone in between calls or meetings. I would never wear khakis to work - only black pants - to hide the inevitable blotch that would appear on the crotch of my pants from leaking all day.

I met a beautiful, soft spoken girl around that time. Very quiet, very polite and extremely smart. Her attention she gave me mixed with our similar hobbies interests made me believe maybe I could fall in love again, and I did. I was still a mess, though... But she was naive, hadn't had many boyfriends and now she was involved with me, the absolute last thing she needed in her life. I knew this at the time but I lied to myself and said I could change for her. I tried, but not hard enough.

Things between us got serious very quickly. We would meet up for movie dates or just hang out around town a ton, and occasionally talk on the phone when time allowed. Eventually I found myself alone with her in my room, and it was go time. We made out for a good bit - she looked amazing in a purple dress she wore just for me, makeup was great but not overdone, her eyes were her eyes which was one of her best traits... Nothing. Not even semi-erect. Of course, she got upset because she thought it was her and began trying very hard to turn me on, which in turn made me feel even more awkward about the situation. Not a great first experience for us.

The relationship progressed however, and I was able to perform very well albeit with the anxiety in the back of my head that I may lose interest. I had to go away for a few months, so she stayed at the house to house sit my dog while I was gone. My evenings after a day of meetings were pretty routine - jack off to porn until I was sore, play my video games for an hour, see if I could get one more orgasm in for the day, then talk to her on the phone before going to bed. I mentioned she was a smart girl a few paragraphs back, right? Well, she found my stash of porn on my computer.

I get a phone call at around 2pm or 3pm one day, a few hours before my meetings were up. I check my voicemail after it stops ringing, because she knew I wasn't available until around 6pm, so that told me something was up. I turned my phone volume as low as I could and started the voicemail - my suspicions were right. She's bawling, barely understandable and begging me to call her back because something was "very very wrong". Past girlfriends had always known I was a sexual being, and I had told my last long term girlfriend a bit about the porn addiction, but this was the first time my "tastes" and "likes" were on full display for someone to see. All my guilty pleasures, my kinks, my fetishes were right there in her face. It easily topped my last low point, and it was an absolutely awful feeling. Of course, I called her back and I essentially confessed to her that I was a porn addict. She didn't understand. No one does, unless they themselves are. I felt so bad for her, and of course I was afraid everyone would know what a freak I was ... But, out of love, she kept it to herself.

Against all odds, our relationship continued though it was different. She was depressed, I was depressed, anytime I couldn't perform for her she knew it was from guilt or from being "worn out" beforehand. I've had intimacy issues ever since she found my stash - even now - almost ten years later. I still feel exposed. Strangely, we are still together despite these hardships, but over the years we have become less and less physically active. Being the person I am, I cheated on her like I did every girlfriend before her, feeling guilty all the while but not manning up and stopping. Though there were other girls, the lack of intimacy with her also lead me to double down on porn even more than before as well. It was having more of a physical toll on me at this point.

By age 24 or 25, I would frequently have a rough, scabby patch of skin on my penis from frequent dry masturbation that I would have to wash off before having actual sex. I would have swollen glands on the left and right sides of my shaft from masturbating so furiously without lubricant and it would take hours to go back to normal. It was very bad, and it made me antisocial and depressed moreso than before. I was trying to wean off porn and sex at this point, and I wanted to be a better person for my girlfriend and myself. I actually visited this website in 2012 or so and made it a few months with only one or two masturbation sessions the entire time... I felt like a different person, and I got erect at the sight of normal things rather than smut, pornographic fantasies.

I fell back off the bandwagon. Hard.

I had a new job, a better one albeit more stressful and had to go away for a few more months. The girl I met years ago, the one who discovered all of my flaws and secrets, was still with me. She was bitter now - very short spoken, mean-spirited and she had lost all interest in taking care of herself physically, mentally and hygienically. I'd tried to break up with her over the past few years beforehand to salvage what was left of the old, kind-hearted girl I once knew but I just felt too bad to go through with it. I always thought she would be better off without me, but she would beg me to never leave her each time. I didn't want to leave her, but I didn't want her to keep hurting either.

I was depressed going into this new job. Months before going out of town for training, we had had a party with some friends. She and I had been doing better and we were excited to get everyone together. A few hours in, it was clear she had been drinking heavily and ended up confronting me about my problems in front of everyone before slapping me and running upstairs. There were a good ten or so friends present, and they all just looked at me shell shocked. Needless to say, she wasn't doing as well as I had thought. Who do you talk to about this type of thing when your girlfriend who may as well be your wife is the one you can't talk to about anything? I still haven't talked to some of those friends since that night.

I spent my evenings at my hotel doing the usual, but without video games in the mix anymore. I would lay in bed, mindlessly dry stroking myself and bringing myself to the edge but denying orgasm. One day in particular, I got back to the hotel room early. The guys wanted to go out for drinks that night, but I was "sick" so I stayed in my room. I was blank - I felt no happiness at all and knowing I was the cause of so much pain to so many people, I didn't want to be around anyone to put a mask on. I went to my "comfort space" and pulled out my penis, beginning to stroke it while looking out my hotel window at the sunlight. I zoned out and next thing I knew it was pitch black outside -- I had been dry stroking and edging for close to six hours - nonstop. Something felt off... The tip of my penis was very very tender and sore, but not like normal. There was no scabbing or the like, and it burned like hell to the touch. Probably just needs a break, right?

I got up, stood over the toilet to finish myself and could not for the life of me bear to touch myself anymore - the stinging sensation was horrific and to this day one of the absolute worst pains of my entire life. I urinated instead... The burning continued and I had to power through the experience, but even after that something still wasn't right. My urine wasn't coming out in a strong stream, and continued to dribble out after I felt like I was finished. It was terrifying.

I spent the entire three months of my training enduring this pain. I would fly back for a few days every other week, during which my girlfriend begrudgingly would take me to doctor appointments where they would all diagnose me with infectious prostatitis and give me a Z pack which didn't help in the least. On top of being at a new company, learning new things with people I don't know and having this insane pain that I had to hide day in and day out, I knew what a toll it was having on her. I hated myself more than I ever had before up to that point. Rubbing against the material of my boxers would cause a sharp pain to go through me when I walked. Pulling my penis out to urinate was murder when I would be standing at a urinal and of course I would have to hide it. Having a bowel movement would create muscle discomfort for hours afterwards, feeling like my prostate was going to explode at any moment. I couldn't drink to numb the pain - alcohol would immediately cause my urethra and prostate area to burn literally seconds after taking a sip!

In time, over several months it slowly got better but it never fully recovered for me. I eventually got back to a point where I would masturbate occasionally, but it would hurt to orgasm and sting afterwards, sometimes for close to an hour. Ironically, this helped me become more alert and energetic as I wasn't always looking at or thinking of porn or women in general, but the trade off was that I couldn't walk for long without the tip of my penis starting to hurt or burn, or even sometimes have the meatus swell up around the tip. During the next couple years I would gradually get back into the rhythm of having intercourse, and for a time it was all but normal aside from still having a trickling sensation after urinating or having painful orgasms. This was short-lived, however.

In the last two years or so, I have done very little in masturbation or sex. My girlfriend and I are doing much better, and I'm working on making up for all of these awful years I've given her up to this point. During this time frame, I've begun to have spells where the entire head of my penis is so tender to the touch that I feel sick when anything makes contact with it. About 40% of the time when I urinate, it leaves a very painful stinging sensation that can last up to five minutes. When I climax, it sometimes leaves me doubled over in pain after from a sharp burning that runs up through my penis into my pelvic area. There's always a "not quite right" feeling in the tip and head of my penis, almost like a BB is stuck in the urethra, that serves as a constant reminder to what an awful person I have been most of my life... And last but not least, I get this very hard to describe sensation in my sinuses and throat more often than not that lasts anywhere from 48 hours to an entire week after having an orgasm. I literally get sick from having orgasms or sometimes just from getting aroused and "leaking" a bit.

I have read up on something that is called "Post Orgasm Illness Syndrome", but who knows if that's what I have - I've seen urologists and none can really provide an answer. The best I've gotten so far is a cystoscopy appointment for a few weeks from now, which I am horrified of and even then it is doubtful that I'll ever be properly diagnosed or cured. I am a prime example of what serious porn and sex addiction looks like, and what the dangers that come along with it can truly be. I am Karma in all but name, as all I have done over the years is reminded to me constantly through the daily pain I endure.

For all I have just shared, I hate myself beyond words. I resent my family for letting me be exposed to what I was exposed to as a young child and continuing to leave me there even after knowing how bad that household was. I hate the things I've done to people, I hate the legacy I've left for myself up to this point, and I hate that it took permanently damaging myself to figure out what a piece of shit I have been my whole life and make a change. I feel no happiness anymore - I always feel bad even after not masturbating for a week or more. I yearn to turn a new leaf and to reinvent myself. I don't know if I can find the energy to do it now.

I only hope that in time, my body repairs itself and symptoms do not continue to worsen to a point where I die from complications or have to have some serious procedure. In a way, I'm thankful that these issues have helped me finally start to kick my addiction, but now that the "fog has lifted", I really want to live a normal life. After spending half of my life hurting others and myself, I want to spend the rest of it doing the opposite and making up for all the things I have missed out on due to being so obsessed with bodily pleasures. By joining this site, I hope to fully stop masturbating and having sex completely for as long as it takes to repair the parts of me that can still be repaired.