So Alone, So Sad

Hey everyone, im 33 and I can barely get on with my life anymore.
Since covid i've relapsed into a nightmare of pmo addiction. I have quit twice in my life sucessfully and recovered completely. I never thought this would be my life again. And it's been so much worse this time. I've lost most of my hair, my beard is turning grey and thin, im in constant tension and pain. I've spent over 8000 on sex workers just to try to act out the fantasy that people will actually accept and like me. All of this is things I couldn't even imagine happening before.

I had a horrible breakup with a girl who told me she loved me and sent me off on a vacation i was taking with 10 pages of love notes. Only to break up with me via text two weeks later. She never even told me what was wrong, just a bunch of lies I guess she thought would spare my feelings. I got mad at her and she told me it wasn't her fault that I was upset, that I just cared too much...this was the only woman I have truly loved so far in my life and I felt so stupid and ashamed and worthless.

PMO and anxiety had always crippled my relationships and kept me back from experiences with so many awesome and beautiful women who liked me. I was terrified of women and didn't know why. Each time I quit I felt so much better, happier, and my sexual thoughts actually felt healthy and natural. Now I'm a total mess. No one in my life really cares. I have always tried to be there for my friends and none of them make an effort to reach out to me. I tell them that my life is falling apart and i'm having mental breakdowns and they never even bother to send me a message or ask if i want to come do something.

My mom can't handle any more stress and doesn't even believe it anyways. She for years insisted that i didn't have a porn addiction and I didn't have any hair loss. That it was me "reading stuff online and thinking it was real". Or that it "is real, to me!" Everything is always my fault apparently. I told her about all my experiences with it in my life and she still won't accept it. She tells me i just have adhd like her. No one seems to realize how bad things are, no matter how much i tell them. I've pleaded with friends to help me, they do nothing. I feel like my whole life has been wasted on these people and myself.

I was always a gifted student, top of the class, good-looking, funny, masculine, talented and adventurous. Now I'm balding, miserable, angry, boring, scared, and the porn keeps tormenting my brain with all these ideas of escaping. I could have had anything I wanted if someone had just realized how strange it was that I was so scared of women and just tried to help. Instead I had to do it all myself and now that life is ruined.

I can't emphasise this enough: NO ONE TAKES PORN SERIOUSLY. Only therapists who see man after man like me come in with these horrific stories even come close. Porn is the number one health issue of today. It is destroying the life of countless young men and everyone acts like it's just a theory. It's pathetic. There are even more people addicted now then when I quit 12 years ago. But the stories are the same. It's an epidemic and if someone had just told me when i was a kid that porn even had a chance of doing any of this, I never would have started in the first place.

My muscles are always all twisted up. I try to play drums, bass, do the things i love and i end up in pain and with porn flashbacks shooting through my brain. My friends live their lives without me. I should have come back to these forums years ago but I just kept telling myself that it would be over soon, that i just needed to get back on the horse. Goes to show what loneliness can do to someone. Thanks for reading this and good health to all of you.

 

Thanks Toziko. You're right and I totally understand that my mom can only deal with so much. But I really wish that she could have just been there for me instead of making me feel like I only had my computer to depend on.
I've never even told my friends about the porn. too embarrassed. But I've told them that my life is falling apart and that i'm having mental breakdowns and everything else. They just are useless. They can't get themselves to actually think that maybe they should do something FOR me, like you would when someone is having a health crisis and they can't take care of themselves or they are miserable. I've always tried my best for them. I think if i see them again i will just say thanks for helping ruin my life guys, and then maybe knock one of them out .

 

They will not. The anger is not helpful except in making me focus on how much i need to change and get healthy. It's not that my friends are bad people, they are just not very good at being friends. A true friend is someone who you can rely on and who will try to help you when you need it. These people can do this, but don't. I know what you are saying and you are right but I need to get this out. I feel like if I was to tell this to them, they would just say I was overreacting. I even saved one of their lives...TWICE.

 

They are no longer my friends. It's not their fault that i have a porn addiction, but the fact that my life is as bad as it is now means that there was a total failure in my social support system. So it is not okay for me to continue with them.

My plan against my addiction is to remind myself how shitty my life every day when i wake up (seems to be the only thing that snaps me out of my catatonic fever-porn trance that i seem to wake up with every day), Start working out again (i had to stop because i was having panic attacks and couldn't get off the floor), post here, try to find a job that doesn't involve customers or computers, and hope to god that my hair survives all this. I'm not worried i won't find a partner. I'm worried that I won't look good bald and ill have to settle. Which is depressing to me because I know when im cured I won't be happy being with someone i'm not that attracted to.

I'm also pretty terrified about PAWS. I never had this before but some of the stories people have are terrifying. It was a real hurdle to staying focused on the long term i think to imagine that I would not even be okay after 4, 5 6 years of sobriety!