Recovering self-esteem in a relationship

Welcome to the community.
Thoughts like these usually diminish in time. Maybe now that you have a gf the change has brought them back to an extent? Sometimes just giving these things voice, as you have done here can help take away the strength they have over you. If they do pop up from time to time try not to focus on them, even in a bad way, it tends to give them strength, like a song you hate getting stuck in your head. Acknowledge it is there then turn your focus to something else, of your with her, maybe on her eyes, how she looks at you.

 

@f565656f welcome to the NoFap community, we are glad to have you here. There are plenty of triggers in your post, even for me after a year of active recovery and sexual sobriety. I too fell into the trap of watching too much interracial P. While I probably don’t need to say it, P is just poison for your mind. It normalizes behaviors you seek out and makes that taboo seem acceptable, or typical. It’s all a lie. I can say during the frequency of tormenting images and replaying P videos in my mind has subsided significantly, it used to be a regular occurrence and even traumatic for one dedicated to recovery.
What I don’t see mentioned is what other steps you have taken in recovery beyond abstaining from P. Cutting yourself off from the poison is great, and admirable if you were able to do this on your own accord. The PA mindset can be all consuming for some of us and there are many ways it can affect the thoughts and actions of a PA. These are all behaviors that have to be recognized, changed, or short circuited. I challenge you to find some mindfulness in discovering these, and make those changes in your routines, habits, patterns to circumvent them and retrain your brain to promote new pathways that don’t involve them.
With that out of the way. A couple of things I can think of that have helped me are grounding techniques. One simple and discreet one is to touch your partner when consumed by the images or triggers. Feel the love flowing from you to them, and let the tainted thoughts melt away. Secondly, you may have to find distracting words that when said out loud automatically conjure other thoughts to clear the bad ones out. “Polar bears” is one that usually does this for instance. Hope these techniques help, and that we see you around more and hear of the progress you can make.

 

Any time. You're not alone.

 

@f565656f I may get banned for saying this, but I think it's important. Race mixing would have been extremely rare throughout human history. When it did occur it would have been mostly after a war where one racial group was conquering another. All humans are instinctively disgusted by seeing race mixed couples. MRI studies have shown that even the most liberal people have the disgust region of their brain activated when shown interracial couples. I suspect this is especially true when the women are of the viewers race. In most countries of the world race mixing is either illegal or very taboo. Only in western Europe and countries composed of majority western European descended people is it tolerated (even celebrated?).

OK, so why would you watch something that activates an ancient human instinct of disgust? Unfortunately, disgust and shame can enhance the high from porn. It seems that porn that causes anxiety intensifies the experience. Gary Wilson mentions this in one of his talks . I learned this first hand when I was helping my then girlfriend report and deal with a r*pe that had happened to her before we met. This was my first girlfriend and I was extremely attached to her. Whenever I thought about what happened to her I would literally go into a trance. I was filled with rage. One time I even threw up. At some point I started to deal with the stress and rage by watching r*pe porn. I was horrified and disgusted by it but my anxiety only heightened the intensity of the experience. I had never been interested in this genre of porn before.

All this is to say I'm sorry for what you're going through. Maybe understanding the psychological mechanisms involved will help you move past the shame. As far as size of your "equipment" go it's likely that the difference between whites and blacks is either greatly exaggerated or non-existent. Studies that show large differences are based on self reported estimates. Here's a study based on different methodology (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1464-410X.2005.05238.x). On top of all that I think obsession with penis size is just a sign of our overly sexualized and fallen society. Focusing on penis size or any other part of the male or female body is a big part of the pornification (objectification?) of sex. Maybe try to think about the erotic and intimate aspects of sex with your partner. Think about how it connects you with your partner and how much you love each other. If you can try to focus on your feelings for her and less on your own performance.

I hope this helps and I hope it doesn't get deleted. Like I said these were some things I needed to get off my chest.

 

I don't think you'll get banned for saying that, but you should be criticised. You make a few claims that you believe to be universal, but without backing them up. Race mixing was not rare throughout all of human history. You also provide no evidence that everyone experiences disgust at seeing mixed race couples. One thing to remember is that in every mixed-race couple are two people who are not disgusted by this. Many others, not in mixed-race couples, do not share your own prejudices and individual responses. It doesn't bother me, for example.

Please don't use the details of somebody's particular struggles with porn as an excuse to spread poorly informed and racist ideology.

 

Funny it's only sudo science in the west. Here's the first study I found on the disgust response https://phys.org/news/2016-08-bias-disgust-mixed-race-couples.html . There are many more if you're not satisfied. It's a subconscious response that is your brain telling you your tribe is being conquered or in danger of being conquered.

If race mixing wasn't rare in history there wouldn't be races today. Just think about it. The only opportunities for race mixing would have been events like Genghis Khan conquering central Asia or viking raiding your village. We are still cave men. We just live in a modern world. Funny enough, that is why porn is such a problem today.

Also, I don't appreciate being called prejudice. I have been in many interracial relationships for example something a prejudice person would not do. I work in statistics and it was seeing data on these issues that brought me to the views I hold today. I'm not prejudging anything. I'm coming to conclusions based on data and experience.

 

I'm just going to point out that you mis-spelled pseudoscience and leave it at that. These ideas do not deserve my attention. We all have prejudices, and when they are called out we can either reconsider them, or defend them.