I have reached a point where I no longer actually want to masturbate, but I have nearly 0 self control due to the fact that my mind will make me watch porn and masturbate even though I don't want to. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say it feels like a possession. Sometimes I even argue against my own mind, telling myself that I won't do this crap, and it will quite literally argue back. (To a great extent, I feel like I am simultaneously my addicted mind and my rational controlling self, and that this is not some sort of schizophrenia but rather a form of insanity. Since I don't want to actually be my addicted mind, it definitely feels more like a possession that takes over my mind while I am observing, and less like schizophrenia or DID). This weird manifestation of my addicted mind will never actually win these mental arguments, but usually around once every 2 weeks (without fail), it will overcome my rational mind and just do it. It feels like being separated from myself and watching myself do these disgusting acts, or like I am drowning underneath a giant wave pounding me to the ocean floor. A year and a half ago, I would have simply felt like I was forced to do the stuff, and then willingly went along with it. Now I am being repideately 'mind raped,' even though I never actually give in. I would appreciate any help possible. I can't see a therapist since I'm still living with my parents but I would do it if I could. I need any help possible. I just don't know what to do any more. If I didn't have such an iron will I would be contemplating suicide. Thank you very much for reading. Tonight I accidentally saw trans porn so I hope you guys know how urgent I am.
If you're wondering, the way that I created my iron will was by watching 2 lectures on the existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, and fully adopting his world-view (except for the believing in God part, although I am an agnostic Deist) about the human decision making process, but just applying it to relapsing, suicide, and 'conserving a way to improve myself.' The lectures: Also recommend this one but I forgot if I watched it or not: I also bought his 2 most famous books but I haven't read those yet either.
I'd like to know what you have for blocking, but first of all I'd like to know your emotional state. What kind of feelings do you have in this 2 week cycle, I mean when you're not actually looking at porn. Are you depressed? Disappointed? Dissatisfied? Angry? Discouraged? Anxious? I ask because I think a thing that might have helped me recover from porn addiction was sorting out my emotions. What's your relationship with your parents? Good? Really bad? You can't go to therapy because of them, they'll judge you or give you some kind of consequences? In an ideal world I guess you could tell your father you were trying to quit a bad habit and it might be making you irritable. While you work on those questions, I'd like to recommend some practical things. Here's some things that helped me: Hosts file blocking my top 1000 or so favourite porn sites Copying that hosts file to all of my computers Blocking at the Wifi gateway for a few of my favourite websites, for some reason this only worked on my phone Installing the "private b-gone" Mozilla Firefox add-on, which would immediately close any private window I tried to open Trying to find some other things to do other than porn I know I can disable those things and get around the filtering, but just having them there helped, and I eventually did quit trying to look up porn.
I think maybe you should try and figure out the emotions or behavioral patterns that you notice when you feel like you’re going to slip again. If you understand what makes you reach the point of doing it then maybe you can work on identifying it earlier and holding back just another 10 minutes or hour or day. That and perhaps try finding a hobby, preferably outside of home, that way you almost force yourself out of the mental zone that is wanting to relapse. I guess more or less a change of scenery might help the urges come up less.
Well, I only live with my mom, and she first set up this app called 'Covanent Eyes,' when she first discovered my problem (to which she shamed me and said how disgusting I was and how she was dissapointed in me, of course), and I can easily find ways around it. Besides, when she first put the app on my device, she forgot to add it to our tablet, and so you can figure out what I used that for, although last summer I added it to the tablet. And of course we have a smart TV that she didn't block anything on, and whenever we visit family they don't have any porn blocking apps on their devices. What I am even supposed to do for my smart TV? I suppose I could add this stuff to my Grandma's computer. he really horribel thing about Covanent Eyes is that my addicted mind is constantly scheming to find ways to get around Covanent Eyes, even though I no longer want to find ways around it. I suppose Gen X parents just don't know how to handle kids with porn addiction. It really is sad. And regarding the 2 week cycle, I relapse nearly once every 2 weeks, then I feel like it's the end of the world and like I'm a horrible failure, and that combined with being hung-over from porn and masturbation doesn't help. After I relapse I usually try to learn from my mistakes and implement them, with the insane hope that the last time I masturbated will truly be the last time even though it never isn't. I have other mental illnesses but they aren't necessarily related to the cycle. And yeah, I'm just too scared to tell my mom about my problem because that would lead to me being way too undignified, or so I think. You know what, after thinking about it, I have made up my mind to add new blockers to all of my devices, including my Grandma's computer, my brother's computer, and to try to find a way to minimize my porn use on both my TV, my Grandma's TV, and my Grandpa's TV. Do you have any other recomendations for good blocking extensions/apps?
Is your mom a Christian then? Yeah, she probably doesn't understand that internet porn is an addiction to the internet, she's probably still thinking it's a sin. Sorry she said those things about you. I'd like to give you hope, I think one of the things that helped me quit was to decide, after each acting out, to do my complete best again to try to quit IP for good. And eventually one of those acting out sessions was my last! I hope, I'm about 3 1/2 years clean. I think you shouldn't tell your mom either. I don't think she'd understand, and it's probably best to tell people of the same sex about sexual things. Yeah, I'd like to help with filtering, but I'm not sure what worked for me will work for you. Let me ask you some questions. You say your addicted mind is always trying to find ways around Covenant Eyes. Can you try and catch your mind when it gets on that track and redirect it to something positive? I mean, I don't expect you to do it 100% right away, but even 1% to start with is helpful. Another question is coming about blocking. I used hosts file blocking, which isn't very comprehensive, but I did block my 1000 or so most-used porn sites in it. Now, it was easy to disable this blocking. (I'm a computer expert, all blocking is easy for me to disable.) But, I started to have this thought when going to disable blocking: "If you do this, this will mean that you're giving up on quitting internet porn, and that you'll be indulging and binging on internet porn regularly for the rest of your life, until you die. Do you really want to do this?" And that started to stop me, and blocking was really helpful to me. Does any of this sound like it could help you? I also installed the Private Begone Firefox add-on. For acting out I always started a private window, having this add-on helped me a lot, because the private window would always close immediately after I started it and I would realise what I was doing (acting out). Again, I could have disabled this extension but if I did it would have meant I wasn't trying to quit internet porn. Most of these things happened towards the end of my porn addiction. In the early days it may have been that just trying real hard to stay away from it was building up the neural pathways necessary for recovery.
I found some instructions here for MacOS computers. You can set an impossible-to-remember administrator password, too, and then try to hide the password from yourself. If you have a couple of second thoughts while acting out, these two things might stop you in time.
Well, it is on my Grandma's computer, so it's not like I can change the admin password because then she wouldn't be able to access her computer settings or whatever. Also I have tried that website, and the method didn't work. Many thanks for the help.
Well, changing things on your grandma's computer may be wrong, but if it stops you from looking at porn on it, maybe that's good. What problem did you have with the instructions? Don't give up. You just need to edit the /etc/hosts file any way you like and save it. Make lines like this: 127.0.0.1 www.pornsitehere.com pornsitehere.com 127.0.0.1 otherpornsite.com thirdpornsite.com At least you can block your go-to porn websites, the first ones you go to when you start to binge.
Hi SonofSeth, I use CISDEM on our desktop and put in the list of all the sites to block. But it is easy to disable. On my Apple Ipad I use Pornlocker and it is really strong. In both cases you pay a small monthly fee. But I decided that that was helpful since I was prepared to do that so as to quit porn.
Hey: I´ve felt a bit that dissociation not so strong like you, may be with meditation you could be more aware of these intrusive thoughts, and let them go. When i began my journey i found a porn recovery channel on youtube, Dr Trish Leigh, channel, she does sell a recovery program, one of the items that she use is neurofeedback, a fancy name for sound/images induced meditation, i was searching what kind of neurofeedback could be usefull, to deal with addictions and found that alpha waves meditations, are the best, i´ve been using this daily, it has helped me a lot to stay calm, and shut down urges, on meditation when porn images comes 'observe' them in your mind completely detached of emotion, and let them pass, same applies for urges.
My experience has really thought me that devices themselves could serve as triggers to an addict (like me). This is because once an addict come across any internet enabled device the first thing that crosses his mind is "porn". There was a time my smartphone was faulty, I couldn't get a new one, and I was away from my laptop for about 2 months, I only used a small phone for calls and text messages reading. Nothing like porn, or any urge came to my mind or thoughts at that period. My libido and motivations came back and I became sexually active and focused. But as soon as I fixed my phone, I slided back into "rock bottom" since then I can only go a week before giving in. Now I am divorced, disinterested in real sex, suffer D.E. and miserable. I don't even feel like man enough (how can when u can't even handle a woman sexually? Something that animals do easily). Now I am considering staying away from a smartphone for 2 years. Yes, 2 whole years! By that time my brain must have reset back to normal. There is really nothing too big to sacrifice in getting back your life from the shackles of porn. Maybe you should start considering staying away from internet enabled devices for some time. Just figure how to go about it, there must surely be a way.
Hi SonofSeth, We have all experienced what you have. You are not schizophrenic. Read Sex Addiction 101 by Robert Weiss and it tells you about the 'bubble'. That is the state we all get into if we get a trigger, give in, and then stop thinking. We continue watching porn even though our rational mind tells us not to. So learn a bit about addiction to porn from this book and you will understand both what is happening to you and what you can do to solve the problem.
Rebooting is all about getting your life together. Blaming it on some possession rather the underlying just delays progress.
