For me, porn is a way of dealing with anxiety - J's story

Submitted by a reader on Mon, 14/09/2009 - 17:26

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I began looking at porn when I was maybe ten (I now find it difficult to remember when many of the events in this saga occurred). I knew that I shouldn't be doing it and my hand used to shake with fear.

Eventually my older brother found out and blackmailed me emotionally, calling me a dog in front of my parents and addressing me as a pervert with a tone of such dismissal it shattered my confidence. I thought I was the worst person on earth, completely isolated from everyone else and with no one to talk to about my problem. It was I felt a crushing, secretive sin.

About a year later I started masturbating and the guilt carried over. I stopped looking at porn out of fear (for several years after, no matter what I was doing on the internet my hands would shake) for many years and I believed I was addicted to masturbation, something I thought no one did but me. Eventually I realised that masturbation wasn't "wrong" but the feelings remained.

I didn't go out on the weekends because I felt my soul was destroyed when I'd masturbate that friday. Every single week I would say I would give it up forever. When I finally started looking at porn again the guilt of masturbation accompanied it, but it was hard to feel that even as my usage of it escalated that I had a problem because of my realisation that masturbation was not an addiction.

The anxiety I now feel after masturbating to porn is so bad that I can literaly lose the ability to think properly, once or twice ending up on the floor for several hours paralysed with it. I like this blog because it's not about morals. It's about quality of life and while I am still an addict and whether I look at porn or not (always have been lately), I have seen glimmers of hope.

I have felt I am a good person and that I can have happiness, that I can have all the feelings and aventures everyone else can have. When I feel like looking at porn I try and remember this and sometimes a huge rush of tears will come out. Once all that built up anxiety is released I no longer need porn at that moment.

Porn for me is a way of dealing with anxiety and the addiction turned me into a deceptive person because I wouldnt address these true feelings, instead letting porn deal with them and then blaming my shame on it afterwards.

I am now almost twenty. Pornography is not the cause of my woes, it's a symbol for them, for problems that started long before I ever laid eyes on it. The problem is that porn buries those woes meaning that I dont process them like I should. We all deserve to be sad and to cry, that sounds strange to me, but sadness is a feeling that only comes when I feel a worthwhile thing had been hurt and so those feelings remind me that I am a worthwhile person.

Everyone who visits this site deserves and can have their own personal happiness. When we can't see that we can at least help each other address our feelings to stop us becoming more and more hurt by blinding ourselves with porn. I hope that wasn't to preachy.

Thank you J for sharing your insight and experience. And your words didn't come across as preachy at all. In my view, your comments are right on the nail, and many readers here will be able to relate.

By reflecting on how this habit makes you feel at many different levels, you've seen that glimmer of hope. We do use porn to 'soothe' our anxieties, but it always seems to result in further, more intense anxiety with added shame. We find ourselves locked into a painful loop of compulsive behaviour, and giving up porn just becomes an unrealistic ideal. We promise ourselves that we'll stop tomorrow, but it never seems to happen.

So a big part of breaking out of the loop is building on that precious glimmer of hope, so that we really begin to envisage ourselves free from the habit. How much more time will we have? How much better will we relate to people around us? How will this this new freedom feel every morning and night? As you say, what good emotions and adventures will follow?

Once we really get a taste of coping without porn, taking steps to quit the habit becomes a very real prospect. We're actually moving forwards.

"Sadness is a feeling that only comes when I feel a worthwhile thing had been hurt, and so those feelings remind me that I am a worthwhile person". This is a very profound quote; it exactly sums up that chink of light between you and your unwanted habit.

A recovery plan will help you to formulate new ways to manage anxieties and stress. In due course, the intense feelings of shame and guilt can fall away. The bad feelings have done their job by nudging you towards change; they'll serve no further purpose.

I wish you every success in building on the positive first steps that you have made.

Hello,

Thanks for sharing your story and as Jason has already said I didn't find it at all preachy, just so honest and I felt very moved because I could relate too so much of what you have said. YES! porn is paradoxical because it causes anxiety and much of that anxiety is the attraction of what is thought of as taboo or naughty (the very thing we are prohibited from suddenly seems extremely attractive) and yet as you so rightly say porn is a way to numb out feelings & emotional issues we haven't sorted out and that includes stuff from our distant past (it can be years & years ago like with your brother for example).

**I also agree that when I was able to allow myself to cry or grieve I felt much better about myself. Porn always left me feeling unbelievably bad about myself as a person. Sadly using porn really does ruin our self esteem or self confidence its one of the negative side effects or after effects.

**Releasing feelings is a part of reconnecting with ourselves after having used porn, starting to allow feelings again is part of the healing process.

**Just because someone has used or is still using porn doesn't make them a bad person.

**YES! I can tell you I think you are right & I agree with you. Every person has the right to find happiness in their own way. Everyone deserves a second chance in that respect. I have managed to become free from porn after a long struggle and I can say I am a MUCH happier person for this and I that I am far less willing to criticize others who remain struggling with the same process. All I can say is that if I can be free of porn then it is possible, I'm nobody special.

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I'd like to back up every point Alex makes here. It's certainly true that the taboo/risk element of porn adds immensely to the allure and anxiety. It makes using porn for escapism more of a buzz, but emotionally we pay a high price.

And just as Alex reminds us, freedom from porn obsession is ultimately available to us all.

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QTN:- What is anxiety??

ANS:- Fear & desire mixed together, we fear what we desire and desire what we fear. The end result is that we feel torn apart or feel paralyzed, or feel bad. Anxiety is like the rabbit caught in the car headlights frozen to the spot. With acute anxiety we feel unable to make satisfying appropriate choices that ultimately full-fill our deeper needs.

Alex

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Alex, that's a great definition of anxiety. Also, for me, that definition explains how a porn problem relates to intimacy. We all want intimacy, but at the same time, many of us are afraid of being seen for who we really are.

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Hi Margaux,

I think (& feel) that a very very large amount of porn usage relates to people who suffer from difficulties in dealing with intimacy. Or who experience have massive anxieties or massive fears around intimacy in relationships. The irony is that porn dependency could be seen as a way to numb out those fears & anxieties but unless you allow yourself to face those feelings then they are going to be a stumbling block to achieving closeness.

**Intimacy & identity are also very closely linked too but thats a whole different ball game as they say!!?

Regards Alex

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The dance of intimacy is a complex & beautiful one when we trust ourselves to take part in that piece of choreography, the time and the place must be right, the mood music and the rhythm all must be just so.

Intimacy = In Too Me See !! I will show you the core of who I am, in other words I trust you & feel safe enough with you to be fully myself without my shields up, without my defenses, I will allow you to see me at my most vulnerable (note I didn't say my greatest weakness!! as vulnerability is often confused for weakness by many men and this is why many men have a real problem with their own vulnerability they mistake it for some kind of weakness).

Alex

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Vulnerability is NOT weakness and should not be mistaken or confused with this.

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In a perverse way my anxiety is part of what kept me using porn. Its weird I know, & it doesn't make any rational sense (that's because your anxiety is irrational) but the cycle of desire, anxiety stroke fear, mixed with the adrenaline of excitement and anticipation. Masturbation, climax, come down followed by inner emptiness and feeling dreadful. Followed by yet more anxiety,etc and so it goes. Only until you can allow, tolerate and face up to those anxieties, release the anxieties can the healing process start to work. Anxiety is part of the key that fits the lock that lets you out of your own cycle of porn dependency, it is the power of anxiety & libido that makes us behave like moths drawn to the light bulb or flame of porn.

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Facing our feelings of acute anxiety, dealing with these feelings, & finding a way to release such anxiety is one of "THE" major challenges of getting free from porn dependency. Anxiety is one of the most powerful emotional states that keeps us locked into our habitual use of porn, its a forceful condition, & it's a key part of what re-enforces the repetition of our chronic pattern.

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