Update I think I successfully resisted looking up porn last night but early in the morning I looked it up again. Now I think it was because of stress. Like the Your Brain On Porn introductory article states ("4. Dysfunctional stress circuits"), I think the stress triggered a porn session for me. (I think the stress was to do with having to get my medication renewed.) It also didn't help that I was alone and awake at night, and one of the other common trigger causes that I can't remember right now. That said, I think I'll go look up some porn right now because I still have the stress, or I'm just alone and in pain.
Update PMOed now I think on a stress-related bender. Also I remembered that the other triggers from last time were probably thinking about porn and sleepiness.
Status update I was tempted to look up porn last night, but I refused the temptation by thinking about the nasty consequences that occur most of the time. (This kind of thinking doesn't work all the time, I eventually start ignoring it.) Anyway, no nudity or porn since last. I have been sleeping at strange times and having long and intense, vivid dreams almost every night. I don't know what is causing this but I do know a lot of us here get vivid dreams in the early stages of rebooting so maybe that's some of it. I had another midnight masturbation session recently, where I sort of wake up in the middle of the night (or early morning) and masturbate a little bit. It sets me back, I think, on rebooting but it's almost so involuntary I don't think there is anything I can do about it. I have also had more voluntary masturbation sessions where I almost reach orgasm, and I regret having those. Plan for quitting Internet porn I don't really have a plan for quitting Internet porn. My idea is to solve all the other problems in my life, especially emotional ones, and when porn is the last problem in my life attempt to quit it then. I can't see anything else working. In the mean time I will attempt not to consume porn or nudity, or do masturbation except for a 1-2 month 1-2 minute long release. Also, I could maybe move my notebook computer, the one I consume the most porn on, downstairs instead of keeping it in my bedroom below my bed. Maybe I ought to do this. The room I was thinking of moving it into has a lot of windows so there would be a lot of ways for people to see in and see what I am doing, so I don't think I will even consume Internet porn there. That's all I can think of typing up for now. [ Edit: added next section later ] Autism in order What I mean by the title of this section is that I think I have partially to solve autism before porn. I think they're related and I have to solve them both at the same time, but I think I have to solve some autism, some porn, some autism, etc., until I get one solved. It'll take a long time and I think I am going to do research on YouTube and the World Wide Web at large to see what sexualities people with autism have, and to see if there is anything unusual with them (seemingly more active sex drive, more vulnerability to addiction, sex addiction...). That's not very well written but it's all I have to say for now.
Status update I haven't been good lately. After a few days or a week clean I browsed porn almost every day. Just today I finally PMOed and it was for no good reason whatsoever. Triggers might have been: Real sense of failure for not attending my dietician's appointment today, I basically copped out Depression or shame after failing to attend my dietician's appointment and copping out Having an afternoon nap (sleep) Phony sense of accomplishment after doing some very minor chores today I don't have the energy or the focus to reboot now, but I did notice during my last porn browsing session that I kind of miss my old libido (or sex drive), as bad as it was. It's bad because it intensely drives me to have sexual relations with someone of the opposite sex, but I can never really have it. I can't have it because I have religious beliefs and principles and I probably have to be married first and my social skills aren't good enough even to date let alone get married. I also can't have it because I have PIED, which continuing to look at porn just makes worse. I don't know what to do.
Status update I have browsed a lot of porn and did a couple PMOs since last, but over the last few days I have been good. I am tired now and I am anticipating a gathering at my house tomorrow, with lots of social opportunities and I am nervous and mildly triggered to look up porn. I see now I have been letting myself get into too much stress so tomorrow I think I will relax all day until the party starts and take it easy then, too. That should be easy. Also tempted to look up porn because it's late and I've had a long day (for me). Maybe part of what's been stressing me out lately is that someone is having problems with a (computer) server and it's an opportunity to start working again because I know that stuff and can get paid for it. My new plan for quitting Internet porn is to keep turning down offers to look at porn and to have fantasies and to masturbate, and I guess I should really continue to keep posting here or at least somewhere... Actually that's not a good enough plan because I need default alternative behaviours and other things to do as a healthy alternative to porn, plus social exercise and eating right. And I just realised it, I am somewhat triggered by seeing some (female) nudity on television today in a TV show. Maybe I shouldn't watch that TV show. Good night, thanks for listening.
I'm going to stop posting here Though this is a very good forum, I think I am going to stop posting here because I think it will interfere with or ruin the recovery of other people here or myself. I don't think I should have joined and I think that I don't belong here. I am not really serious yet about quitting Internet porn, but even if I was I don't think this is the right discussion board for me. Too bad, I want to help other people, too, like Fiddler. Fiddler, stop trying to have sex with Polish women and get professional counselling and work on rebooting and social anxiety.
Recent status I found myself looking at huge amounts of porn and even morally wrong or illegal porn lately so I disabled the wireless Internet on my computer for a couple days. This did me good but I just browsed more porn again after I put it back on. I think I will disconnect it again and turn on the Internet for limited times only or something like that. Dreams of moving out I have an ideal of moving into an apartment and living alone. Once there I could control how much Internet access I have. I had the idea of having only dial-up Internet but I thought that wouldn't work and maybe I could just get slow, low-speed DSL. Then I could limit my porn consumption at least a little bit but still remain in contact with helpful things in the real world. I would also want to have TV, radio, books, borrow library books, a little DVD or home video. I would also like to hang out with friends or have them visit me, attend the movie theatre every once in so often, and sometimes go out for walks in parks or other nature areas, and practice computer technology things like computer programming. Rewiring with a woman I have found out from reading suggestions on Your Brain On Porn that rewiring with a real woman is helpful or even required for a reboot. I don't know how I will do that. Since I am a Christian, or at least have a Christian background, I cannot have sexual activity with anyone without marrying anyone and there are at least 10 very good reasons to not get married at this time (among them, I am addicted to Internet porn). Well, maybe I can find a way to fool around with a woman despite all of that. To be honest, I would like to fool around with a girl I have already fooled around with in the past. (Yes I know I just said I was a Christian or had Christian beliefs, but I didn't always practice them). I really don't think any of my ex-girlfriends would let me do that though. Maybe one would, who wasn't exactly a girlfriend but more of a mistress. But again, I am not sure I would rewire with her since she might be too hot to be realistic. I would still have to regain my social skills and improve them more and improve my appearance before I could neck with a member of the opposite sex. I think it might be possible but it still seems unlikely. Maybe I can take out an ad on some classified page or website, wanted, cuddly woman to fool around with a bit. Reason: it's good for my mental health. Or maybe I can find some way to broach the subject with any of my ex-girlfriends. Yeah that sounds pretty bad but I am not having any other ideas. Healthy fantasies I have also recently learned from Your Brain On Porn that realistic fantasies about girls (or women) can be really good for you! Actually I am going to do it intentionally all the time now, I'll call it daydreaming. Now, since the fantasies (or daydreams) are intended to be realistic I am not fantasising about sex 90% of the time. It's more like 2% of the time. In reality, I am fantasising about how to start a relationship or resume one and how to have an interpersonal relationship successfully, specifically with a girl. I am very sure that is helping rewiring my brain socially and as far as Internet porn. I should probably do it for four or five hours ever day. I have enough time. (Unemployed, no friends, can't cook well, hardly ever do chores.) So I'm going to keep fantasising about women or girls, even with a sexual context to it, and I think it'll help with social interactions and quitting Internet porn. Instead of triggering me to look up Internet porn or masturbate it makes me lie around in bed fantasising about talking with people and keeps me calm and happy. I'm sure this could only be good for me. Why didn't I think about this 10 years ago? </misery> Spreadsheeting I still haven't done this yet. My next idea is to make a graph of my masturbation use and record how much time I spend fooling around with my junk and whether or not porn is involved. I know I have graph paper somewhere but right now I am too unmotivated to find it. The main demotivator will probably be my self-imposed stress and strictness on filling it out regularly all the time, driving me mad. But maybe later I might find a way to loosen up and do it. After I do it on paper I might put it on-line for you all to see like you others do around here ;-). Reducing computer time Edit: This section added a day after. I have noticed others in this forum reducing or attempting to reduce their computer time. This is a really good idea and I should to be doing it, too. I actually spend almost all day on my computer, almost all my waking minutes except when I'm going to the bathroom or eating, or walking around. I don't have anything else to do. I can't watch TV, maybe I could play a video game, but I really need some kind of occupation. Perhaps I could practice computer stuff on an off-line computer during much of the day. What I really need is to move into an apartment and then I could read and do a lot of other things that I can't do in here. I made a list of things I could do. They are: Go on the Internet, watch over-the-air TV, read books on my computer, read paper books, maybe read books on an electronic reader, play video games on a console, play video games on a portable gaming platform, listen to the radio, listen to CDs, work on my secondary and elementary and self-taught education, practice computers in general, practice computer programming, work on my computer science education, learn poetry, get on-the-side employment helping people at home with their computers, go for walks, visit nature areas or parks, practice cooking, do chores, do work as a computer programmer either independently or employed by a company, talk to people I know over the Internet or the telephone, visit or be visited by a friend, go to see a movie in the theatre every once in a while. I can't do any of those things now except the first one, go on the Internet. I am not sure why this is, but it really does seem to be to do with the place I am staying at now. Anyway, after (and even before) I move into my own apartment and after I have all those other things to do I will have to limit or reduce my computer use, at least the time on the Internet. I think I find rigidity and structure like that quite hard so it will take me a long time to adjust to it. I should be careful with myself, but I can probably find a way. Maybe I can say that every day I can use the Internet for four hours according to a list of things I wrote down on a notepad, and also at another time I can use it for two hours for whatever I want (not including porn of course). Contacting the forum Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't post here anymore, but here I am posting, and I don't think I am doing any harm. Sorry if I am. Okay, I think that's enough posting for now.
Status update Yet another post to this journal when I shouldn't even be on this site. I've been looking up porn and masturbating with orgasm (PMO) two or three times a day for two or three weeks now. Actually, it could be a month or two. The only break was when I disabled my wireless connection on my computer for two days. I think I've become extremely and entirely addicted at this point. Fantasising I haven't been fantasising for a couple hours a day, obviously, but I have still been doing it and I still think it's okay to do. Living on my own I still think living on my own would help a lot with Internet porn, but whether it does or not I still have to move out because living with my stepparents is not good and really bad for me. I will definitely be able to take better care of myself living on my own and I will be able to do more things, including anti-porn activities. But I am extremely nervous about moving out on my own and am having trouble getting over it. I am also nervous about living on my own because I might do something even more perverted to do with sex, though that has never happened before. Making out with a woman I saw on Your Brain On Porn in two different places that it's basically impossible to rewire away from porn unless you have a woman to do some sexual foreplay with (fool around with). This is really bad to think about, but it's been an extremely long time since I got to fool around sexually with someone of the opposite sex. (No one the same sex either, in case you're wondering. I'm heterosexual.) And the last time I did it was very mild and I'm not really sure it counts. Actually I think the last time I did something sexual with a woman was over 12 years ago, which is awful to think about. Since I'm very religious or at least have a highly religious background I can't see myself having a sexual relationship with someone I'm not married to, although at this point I think I probably should. If I do, I would like to pick a woman I've already done sexual things with, but that doesn't seem healthy or possible... man, I'm lonely. Other than the criteria of being someone I've already had a relationship with (sexual or not), I have a couple other preferences that I don't need to mention, they could be triggering anyway. So I don't know how I'm going to do that. Marriage Here are some (very good) reasons I'm not going to get married anytime soon. In all they show why I might be experiencing extreme sexual frustration since it seems to be several years or forever before I can have sex. This frustration is almost definitely leading to me having depression and acting out in a sexual way with porn. I don't have the maturity to have an adult relationship I'm quite anti-social and probably wouldn't even want to have sex due to the relationship negotiations of it I have autism and my personal skills are still really bad I'm addicted to Internet porn I have serious anger issues I don't have a high school education or a job I can't even go outside without getting into trouble running normal errands so I definitely can't be a husband I have anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses that I haven't gotten treated properly or remedied I'm still too traumatised to function properly I'm interested in a woman and it would be extremely difficult or impossible to win her even if she wanted to allow me to try End of post Man that was a really depressing and revealing post. I probably shouldn't even have written it, but I'm going to post it anyway. I wonder if I can show it to the one girl that I'm interested in for a sexual relationship I mentioned above (where I say I want to marry her, not including the ex-girlfriends I mentioned).
It's not that bad for me anymore, but I still look up porn or masturbate almost every day. I have given up on trying to quit porn for now and I actually think this is a good thing. First of all, how did it help before? It didn't help before. Second of all, I am getting a lot healthier. Do you remember the Your Brain On Porn article called Masturbation in Captivity? It's about how no animal known masturbates in the wild, but this one very depressed and probably lonely monkey in a zoo does. The point is that masturbation seems to be linked to captivity, the idea or fact that you can't do what you'd really like to do such as go outside or court females. Well I usually can't and don't leave my own home and my bedroom is very small and I have my computer in it so Internet porn is omnipresent. It's a sucker's game to try to quit Internet porn like this. I do try to resist looking at sexual imagery a little bit, but mostly I don't even try, so I end up consuming a lot of porn. Interesting, it's not as severe as it was when I was most trying to quit in my awful living experience in a very small place I don't want to talk about. So I'm trying to work on other things, like getting out of my bedroom more, going into other parts of the house, going outside the house, walking down the street, going out further, etc. I am also trying to talk to other people over e-mail more and have other people come into the house and talk to me more, this will help me be less imprisoned. I should also make a website to help me express myself and let loose some of the pressures inside me. I have found out that almost all my difficulties with social interaction are to do with autism, not porn like I suspected. I don't really have social anxiety but I am still incredibly bad with people, unintentionally. So I am going to work on autism instead of porn for a while and see if I can try to recover (mitigate symptoms, become more functional and good with other people), and work on porn after that, or maybe even after I work on depression. I'm going to try to contact more people over e-mail, both male and female, that I used to know. I know I already said that in the last paragraph, but I think it's going to be extremely, extremely helpful to my recovery from trauma and porn if I get some more people to talk to. I think it'll be extremely helpful if I get someone to chat with and it will probably help motivate me not to look at porn, and also give me something fun and enjoyable to do rather than look at porn. It might help motivate me not to look at porn because I know that if I look at porn I ruin my social interaction skills for a few days as well as my conscience. So those are my plans. I did a tiny amount of computer programming self-education, which was good. I forgot about this. I wish I had continued doing it (nonsexual fantasies about girls and women). I'm also going to stay living with my parents. I'm glad I dumped all that stuff in my last post, about all my problems like anger and porn addiction. See ya folks later.
Status update It's bad. I'm looking at porn or masturbating every day. I usually masturbate after I wake up or before I go to bed, too. I don't even try to resist. One or two days ago I decided to try to quit porn again, agreeing with myself to try for one day without porn. Today I didn't even do that. I am not even really, seriously trying to stop myself from masturbating or looking up porn. I still have an extensive hosts file block list so I usually have to look up porn from a new site every time. I still don't have a way to leave Google safesearch on all the time, or install good context filtering that always works even on sites I've never been on before. I seriously need a break, though. I think my will may be broken partially from always fighting porn these past five or more years. It looks like my resolve to quit porn forever or just for one day actually reinforced my addiction and made me binge more and worse than usual. I probably need a break from not letting myself look up porn, or trying to not masturbate or have sexual fantasies. Regarding sexual fantasies, unfortunately I found a reason I always want to have sexual fantasies so much. I think I am narcissistic, or have narcissism as a personality trait. It matches my situation really well. I always want to have grandiose sexual fantasies but my superego disciplines me all the time for grandiosity in real life, so I'm actually basically a loser in real life because I never do anything. I have the vulnerable, defeated type of narcissism. I think it's supressed but it keeps wanting to come out in sexual fantasies (of multiple girls/women). I know that's not on topic for this group, but I believe I have found an underlying reason for some of my sexual compulsiveness. So that's something I'd like to work on, but on the second hand, I still think I just need some kind of environment where I get a break from on-line pornography, and maybe find some way to stop myself from masturbating all the time for no reason. Do you think I could get a girlfriend and just ask her to not let me masturbate? Or a male or female friend? It sounds weird, but I'm desperate. I'd like good filtering so I could block over 96% of porn and give myself a break from it constantly being on my mind. And then sometime later, after my mind has healed a lot, I could reintroduce availability to porn to resist it and rebuild my fortress against it. Then I could do an actual reboot as advised by the very good people on Your Brain On Porn. Anybody got any advice or commentary? Maybe I should join the main thread. I might make a new account. I don't want people who are members of this forum to be reading this journal. (So maybe I don't belong here.) Thank you.
The Autopilot is strong with you. I suggest you try mindfulness aproach. Become very curious about your relapse. Become a scientist. Ask yourself what is going on with your body? With your mind? How many tabs do you have open? Are the people in P scene enjoying themsevles? Is it a HD video? Have you relapsed to this P scene before? Are you in your room? Kitchen? Sitting? In bed? Are the lights on or off in the room? Etc. I am sure you will be able to make up some more questions. Just be curious about it. Don't judge. Like this shouldn't be turning me off. You are an unbiased observer. I remember this P scene. I was a little bit worked up because I didn't know what to think. That is fine. It felt liberating to be able to say - This P scene is confusing me. I don't know what to think about this. This is fine. I'd also suggest a detailed relapse journal. Where you piece together like plance crash investigator the relapse. Make a timeline. I learned a lot doing this.
Is that even possible? I thought part of being a narcist is that a narcist would never acknowledge that he is one. And even if true, your consciousness about it already changed a lot.
I'm so thankful you replied. I read everything you posted, but I have trimmed out some of it for brevity. I've never thought to analyse this too much. I can't even remember what I've been doing for porn the past few months. Anyway I know you're not telling me to tell you as much as you want me to try some detective work on my own. Yes, always in my room, sitting, in the same place at the same computer. I can't remember what sites I went on. I add sites to my block list every time, so I have to look up new sites every time I look up porn. I remember some of the content but it's just stuff I've consumed since near the start of my porn addiction in 2001. I don't remember if they're images or video or what type of video but I do tend to open quite a lot of tabs. Thinking about it has led me to the conclusion that I'm having a lot of problems because my room is small and very full of stuff and so are other rooms in the house, so I feel like I am trapped and can't do anything. So, in the time since you replied I wrote a list of rooms I'd like to be cleared out and I'm going to bring it to my parents and so work on my problems. Some other reasons for my relapse are things I don't want to talk about because I think it would trigger me right now. To be honest I used to have a binder with binder paper where I would keep track of all my P, M and O activity. I don't remember when I gave up , but it's clearly the thing to do next. I have paper but I need to get a binder. Thanks very much for posting. I didn't think anyone would, but I guess the "I give up" attitude of desperation makes it easier for other people to reply, or maybe it was the "I would do absolutely anything to not look at porn anymore" attitude that I seem to have now. It's taking away my entire life, wife (I haven't gotten married), friends, employment, adventure... pretty much everything.
I spent some time remembering some of the things I did and some of the porn I consumed and, for some reason, it made me think more about how to stop again. I think you may have restarted my no porn effort, No Destination. Either way, thanks a lot.
Yeah, don't write them here. But investigate them. Why do you think it would trigger you? Where does that come from? Don't stop with the curousity. Don't try to stop with the investigation because you are afraid of a relapse. Even if you do. You will learn more. I've learned more in the past few weeks with analyzing my relapses than the whole 2 or so years trying to reboot. I kept asking myself. Why do I keep slipping? Why am I self sabotaging myself? What part of me doesn't want to change? And the answers kept coming. The usual - because it feels good. Then after more digging more answers. And currently the latest revelation - I found out that I didn't accept myself as a sexual being. Just keep digging until there are no more skeletons in the closet. Don't write down I relapsed. After a relapse write down what happened. How did you get triggered? What happened between trigger and when you caved and started to watch and masturbate? How did the O feel? What do you really remember about the PMO session? Do you remember the scene that came before the scene you O'ed to? Write this down but not here. I have just a plain text file on my computer where I write this down. For general principles, write John Kabat Zinn on youtube search. Watch any of the presentations.
I always enter "private browsing" mode in my Web browser. I usually move the browser window to desktop workspace #3. I usually look up the same three keywords I've been looking up since I got addicted to Internet porn 20 years ago. I usually have to use use Google image search in order to find any content that will work because I've blocked over 200 hosts in my block list file. I wish I didn't have a "private browsing" mode, desktop workspaces, or even Google image search right now (but I can't think of a way to block it right now). I think it would help if I didn't have any of these things. I know you (NoDestination) said not to post these things here but I had to get them out, and I haven't gotten my binder ready. I have a lot of paper but I'm extremely picky about my binders. But when I do it should help me recover. To Thebeg: I have the useless type of narcissism, if I have it narcissism at all. It makes me small, angry and unable to take risks or due anything due to an overwhelming conscience (fear of getting found out as an egotist, narcissist, proud or asshole) and I am not effective at life. It's doing me no favours. It's sometimes called vulnerable, or covert narcissism. I believe I have had this tendency my whole life, or at least very early childhood. Since it's a different type and less severe, this may help explain why I may be willing to admit it (also see reasons below about where I spend a lot of time examining my life and trying to improve things). I believe I am stifling my narcissistic impulses all the time out of conscience (trying to be good) or the worry that someone will find out about my out-of-control egoism and tell everyone I'm a narcissist (see above) or a foolish, stupid, proud jerk. That last part, where I wouldn't get taken seriously ever again, would probably end all my attempts to quit Internet porn and improve my life in other ways, too, which would be devastating. I probably would have to live in hospitals or group homes for the disabled for decades more of my life where I would have problems from others all the time and not enough resources to tackle my problems. Now, living with my mom and new stepfather, I am probably getting the first chance to recover from my problems, including porno, that I've ever had. It's possible that the covert or vulnerable kind of narcissist is a different kind, and has a different origin. It looks to me like it's based on childhood injury, rather than the overt narcissist where the person is just never called on their bullshit in their childhood, or throughout their life, and is unable to handle it if it does. So it's probably a lot more possible for me to have healing. I just need to get rid of this nearly infinite sense of shame I have. I've been working on self-improvement for what about 15 years now, and I've always been a very logical and rational person, and perhaps I do have some good personality traits like an under control ego, and I've been working on trying to not look at porn for about 17 years now and I've learned a lot about myself and gotten good at introversion, so maybe that helped me be able to detect this less severe form of narcissism, where it's like I can't ever admit I was wrong. Also I've been trying to improve my life since I was about 15, so I've learned a lot of things about emotional health since then and I am very, very motivated to make improvements in my life. Reading about it on the Web helped, too. I have almost all the symptoms of a narcissist. I think my sense of entitlement or grandiose fantasies are 99% suppressed during the day and that's why I have the sexual fantasies I do, which are all about being the center of attention (and control) of a large group of female people. It also fulfills stereotypical narcissistic desires for admiration and "perfect love", which I see comes up a lot in the literature. That's all literally what all my fantasies are about. I think it's ruining my recovery from Internet porn by making it virtually impossible for me to function, and by giving me a hugely above-average urge to have sexual fantasies. The sexual fantasies always make me want to masturbate, which usually makes me want to look up Internet porn causing me to get set back in my recovery. But I think it's also interfering with most of my daily activities, and so preventing me from doing things that would help or be alternatives to porn. The stress level of this condition would most likely lead to relapse, too. It's just really bad all around. So maybe I should have posted to another forum about this (I should have posted to another forum the entire time), but that's one thing I think I've discovered lately that I can fix to help in my life or quitting Internet porn. Finis. Done for now.
Status I just MOed to P, and I have been doing that regularly for the past few days. I think the longest I held out was one day and maybe a half. I have noticed my biggest trigger is stress, just like http://yourbrainonporn.com/ says you'll get from "dysfunctional stress circuits", again caused by Internet porn addiction. Porn has almost become normalised for me because I'm not noticing the awful consequences of looking at it that I used to. Have I just gotten more used to them? Were they created by me feeling guilty and anxious about porn? Have they gone away because I've been doing something different? Anyway I no longer feel the motivation or gratefulness I did when I first found the Your Brain On Porn site, letting me know how to solve my life's biggest problem. I haven't gotten my bedroom any cleaner, though I did ask for a more normal bed, and I think this is one of the main causes of my stress. I still haven't found my paper that I was going to use for a PMO diary, nor a binder. I had decided to keep my door open all the time though, except when I was sleeping and I was really going to sleep. For a couple hours a day I did that, and of course I didn't look up porn when it was open. Maybe I'll get used to it. I think all my writing on here is selfish because I'm not doing that well to quit porn foo (which is where I got my bad username from).
Status update I think I'm a bit of a loser making these updates, but here goes, I may as well put them somewhere. In the hopes of becoming more likely to admit or acknowledge I have a pornography problem I've tried leaving the web browser windows open with all those tabs browsing porn. I don't recommend doing this for most of you people. This is somewhat triggering for me, but not much more than my current behaviour. (I have a list of triggers I'm going to write up below.) I usually end up closing all the tabs anyway. Does it help me acknowledge that I have a porn problem? Yeah, a little, maybe. In the hopes being more aware or mindful of my pornography addiction I've tried actually bookmarking some porn. About a week later (today) I deleted my bookmarks, though, which I wish I hadn't done at this point, just moved them. I have no idea where to store them, though. They don't fit in with my all my other bookmarks and I don't want my family or other people to see it. Anyway it's fairly clear that pornography for me is the fantasy of girls and women that look a certain way and are a certain way that's all about pleasing and gratifying me. It's absolutely self-centred. It's also possible it's because I'm really, really lonely, and that porn could be defeated by me having more (close) friends and family. Here are my current triggers for looking up porn: - stress over my relationship with my mom - stress over trying to get my room clean so it might help with my mental and emotional health, and especially with porn - stress over contact with other members of my immediate family - more stress with other family members - a lot of other worries to do with my living scenario and getting a life - pressure and stress to do with getting better from, nervousness and, well, stress Well that's about all for now, but I do want to admit something else that might sound strange to a lot of you: Porn and masturbation are very spiritual or religious experiences for me. I was raised very Christian and I was taught that sex was a huge deal... something to have a lot of reverence for, and was only to do with marriage. So I experience happiness, ecstasy, or even glee when I get to experience something sexual, and a lot of anxiety, pain and guilt along with Internet porn. Which, according to Your Brian On Porn makes the addiction all the stronger because of the strong emotions. It's also true that in the early 2000s, before I think I really got addicted to Internet porn, when I was desperately trying to stop sexual behaviour of any kind (I was single), I did an humungous amount of praying to God to try to stop every time I was going to look up porn, have a sexual fantasy or masturbate. Now, I don't know if you've ever prayed while doing sexual things but now that I remember it, it was probably quite a high, and addicting. About the narcissism. If I have it at all, I have the least convenient form (for me), the vulnerable or submissive type with the enormous conscience who never gets what he wants or his way. Also I probably have a fairly mild severity of it. Apparently this is the easiest type to self-diagnose because you're not intentionally grandiose all the time and it's so bad for you that it's easier to admit that you are wrong and might have a problem. It probably also helps that I have been working on mental health, moral improvement, Internet porn addiction, self-improvement, and many other things over decades, so it would have made me more likely to notice or admit such a thing, such as having a narcissistic side, which I think I have. I would like to get rid of it so I can just be normally assertive and more emotionally stable and more likely to have a woman, etc., and plus the strain of pushing it down and back all the time is taking like 50% of the energy of my life during the day and forcing my conscience to the breaking point. All that said I wish I hadn't mentioned anything about narcissism here. It's just that I thought it was driving my Donald Trump-like sexual fantasies. Now I think it's having an effect on the rest of my life too. Well, I'm going to keep trying to be aware and mindful about porn in my life.
Find someone you can discuss your addiction with. A friend, relative or professional. Reading through all your status updates pornography and compulsive masturbation is a vicious cycle going round and round and round. What do you really want to happen or change in the next year? and how are you going to accomplish it?
I still don't think I should be posting here and maybe I belong in a different forum. Thank you for being understanding while I post here anyway, because my story's already here and I'm not together enough to find a different forum, even if there is one. Great news! I have solved all the stressors in my last post. About living in a clustered living situation: Seriously, it was abusive how small and cloistered and full my room was, and my step-parents had a much larger room downstairs that they never emptied out and let me live in. It would have been much more appropriate for an adult like me. It was so small it was like claustrophobia, and with my mom being mean to me, showing me contempt, being unpredictable, not letting me sleep in a different room it was very harmful and cruel. It's no wonder I had more trouble refraining from sexual activity and pornography than usual. It was really bad. Some of the other rooms were full to the brim of stuff too, so there was really nowhere I could go, and after approx. six months my head was starting to spin and I was getting pretty desperate, and the outdoors had a lot of piles of stuff and I didn't feel right about going out into the neighbourhood, so I was quite stuck in there with my step-parents being mean and cruel to me. It sucked, it was awful, it was terrible. I realised it was a really bad idea, and I tried to move out, but I didn't have enough money for an apartment, and I still really can't deal with people, so I didn't know where to move to. I even started to think it was a good idea after a while if I could only get them to clean the house and keep it that way, and not be cruel to me on a daily basis and give me a bigger room, but none of that ever happened. It might have been okay if they had stayed away from me, gave me the big room on the main floor, and kept the house clean and well-running, and didn't show their contempt for me regularly and generally gave me my space. Giving me more Internet access might have helped too. There's just no way to describe how bad it was. My step-parents are crazy, and my mother is very abusive. It was more like having to live in a closet full of piles of someone else's clothes than living in the big house that they really have. I should have and could have had half the house to myself. I think I could have recovered a long way with that. It's more like I was abused, or kidnapped, or abducted or something like that. It was just so clustered and full of hoarding, and my step-parents were mean to me, too. Yeah, I'm a little traumatised. It will take me a while to get over it, but I won't if I can't go out regularly into a nice green and shaded area, with things like grass and trees around. I'm sorry to dump this out to you all. It's not exactly relating to addiction to Internet porn. But it looks like it turns out that my other life difficulties are making it impossible or extremely difficult to work on Internet porn, and as of about four months ago I decided that I had to work on my other problems, and restore my willpower somehow, before I could quit Internet porn. That I wouldn't even really try not to look at Internet porn or have sexual fantasies, although I would try not to let it get excessive. This has done a lot for my sanity and willpower, and I think my mental health over all. A previous post that made a huge difference to me said that it looked like my environment was the problem. It is, but other things are the problem too. I am going to try to work on the environment and other problems too. Thank you to that poster. It's crappy to live in a motel, and I want to live somewhere better real soon now, though I don't know what. It's possible I could make money helping people with technology problems, or privacy issues, and then I could rent a sizeable apartment or even a house. I would want to live at the end of the city until I get better with people, and I still would need to work on lowering my stress for day to day living (preparing food, cleaning my body, etc), but I think I could recover from my psychological difficulties that way. I probably need to do that in order to stop being compulsively sexual or to quit Internet porn. I have cut off contact with this step-parent and my mom. Yes, my sexual activity is compulsive, and it was before I met porn. I didn't know that most other people didn't have that, or even other members of this forum. My plan is to call a community help line and try to talk about my problems and mention sexual compulsivity in there. I think they will be understanding. I don't really know who else to contact or talk to about compulsive sexual behaviour or porn addiction. But thanks for your help.
