I only needed these pictures whenever I felt lonely – R’s story
My Story has started so long ago I can’t really remember the date. The beginnings were ‘innocent’, just interest in sexuality. It got discovered once by my mum and was quite a shock for her, but as she was struggling with dad who was drinking, all soon went to normal.
I have visited various sites in the internet. Starting just with cute photos of girls my age and then slightly older women, spiralling out of control to some cases of extreme body piercings and modifications, which absolutely terrified me, but at the same time were strangely attractive.
Then I met a lovely girl and everything went normal. For a couple of years – 4 and a half to be precise. As we have started to drift apart due to just a boring, every day monotony of work/home/studying, I have realized I am checking cute girls again.
I didn’t think this was a problem, so I never bothered to erase my browser history, in trust no-one checks it anyway. Well, it happened. Yesterday I have been caught red handed. Lots of tears from both of us, and lots of uncertainty. Why? Shame, breach of trust, our protected little world. Me having two faces. I have admitted everything I have done behind her, when she went to take a bath or something.
My addiction wasn’t appearing to be constant. I have realized I only needed these pictures whenever we had an argument, or I felt lonely. I do realize it’s completely selfish and wrong, but still, I wasn’t and I probably still cannot control it. I am selfish at other times as well.
I promised her I will do something about it, and I hope writing here is the first step. I plan to visit my GP and seek some sort of therapy from there as soon as possible. I am a foreigner and I am unsure if NHS can do anything about it, let’s hope so.
Thank you R for sharing your story here, and I do hope that you found it helpful to set down your thoughts and feelings in this way.
After consuming so much ‘vanilla’ porn, many of us are drawn into more fetishistic territories. We might find it icky and obscene, but such material can be irresistibly titillating. This especially applies to internet porn.
When the pursuit of porn becomes an obsession, the internet always promises to surprise us with scenes and images beyond our usual boundaries. I’ve spoken to guys who found themselves trying to ‘out gross’ themselves; it became part of their compulsive search for an online fix or buzz.
This reaction of curiousity and shock also reminds us of our early experiences of porn, and revives the thrill of exploring forbidden realms. Just as we hid porn from our parents, we continue to play with the risks of getting caught by a partner or boss.
So just as you have described, it’s often about resorting to old sources of distraction from the daily grind. The habit is a coping mechanism, a source of escapism that we discovered at an early and impressionable age. It is a selfish habit, and one that no longer serves us very well at all, but the internet makes it so easy to keep revisiting.
Breaking the habit means gaining further insight into your relationship with porn, and counselling can certainly help with this. It will help empower you to make different choices and manage your emotions more positively. I wish you every success.
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I know how emotive and frustrating this whole issue is. It’s...
Hello R,
I read your story and I could relate to many features of what you shared. I had a long struggle with my use of pornography (especially online porn) and I also eventually recognized that I used porn to avoid feelings of anger which I found very very difficult too express to anyone around me, I used porn to escape from my fear/s of being rejected by the opposite sex. Fear of rejection is still a big issue for me to this day because I was rejected when I was so small. I did porn as a comfort & as an escapism without realizing at the time.
You had your reasons for needing & using porn, however I want to tell you is that just because you used or have a problem with porn that doesn’t make you a bad person. I now see porn in a different light these days, to me porn is just an effective form of pain relief or a kind of anesthetic, its a way to numb something deeper because we cannot handle it or its become too painful. In other words porn is only a symptom of something else deep down, porn is not the root cause of the problem.
**Please note: My father was a GP for many years, GP’s are not mental health professionals and most GP’s will not know that much about the nature of a porn problem. However, a skilled counselor or therapist will certainly be able to help you. I gained much benefit from counseling. I wish you well and hope you find the support you are looking for.
Here is a what appears to be a bit of a paradoxical statement, I suggest that porn itself is NOT the main problem for the vast majority of people who struggle with a porn problem (porn obsession, porn habit or porn addiction call it what you will). The use of porn to a greater or lesser degree is only a symptom of something else deeper in a persons emotional life, if we assume porn is a means to an end.
Then porn can be thought of a kind of pain killer, a powerful anesthetic, a means to numb ourselves against something else that’s so painful its hard to face (to feel emotionally), such deeper issues might be something we already are aware of which we know about consciously or perhaps an issue that might be more deeply buried in our unconscious self (outside of daily awareness).
Using porn to numb ourselves out actually paradoxically prevents the very healing we might need in order to find inner peace with ourselves. Or to put it another way until you stop numbing out & face your deeper pain porn will only add to your pain & keep you stuck. Porn only keeps the deeper wounds open, porn keeps the wound suppurating longer. Stopping using porn is like allowing the puss to finally come out and then the wound can start to heal over.