We use pmo not because we are hyperhorny, not because we love sex, we all know that, we use porn to escape reality, to numb the emotions, as we addicts can't deal with our emotions, that's something that most of addicts know, but there is many scientific researches that say that childhood trauma leads to addiction, they say in short terms that an abuse makes a child unstable emotionally therefore he develops a coping mecanism, I'm not against that, it makes sense, and there is many scientific studies done on that, but what I am suggesting is, that there might be many addicts who did not have childhood issues, who were not subject to abuses, sure we were all somehow mistreated but not all of us were subjet to HEAVY ABUSES, when i read books about addiction, almost all psychologists and psychiatrists link it to childhood abuse, and even when you look at the reality of things, on this website for example, many addicts say they had alcoholist parents, some say they were bullied, some say they were beaten by their parents, etc.. But am I the only one who is struggling with addiction but has no childhooh trauma? not bragging, but my parents were good to me, I was never sexually harassed by anyone, i didn't suffer from extreme poverty, I wasn't physically abused, it makes me afraid, am I the only person in the world who is addicted but was never subject to abuse, wtf is wrong with me, or is it possible to become addicted even if you don't have any trauma, I AM CONFUSED
Are you sure you have no trauma? It might not even be what many would consider trauma but trauma on a personal level. In highschool I did everything short of begging to have a girlfriend. Nobody gave me a chance. After I graduated I looked at myself as complete dog shit. Between School and outside of it I was rejected by literally over 100 girls. When I started working I paid girls to do things with me, because that's the only way I thought anyone would. If I did try to get a GF I went for the LEAST attractive because I thought it was the best I could do. That's my personal trauma
Sometimes I wonder if I have sexual trauma that I can’t even remember from when I was a baby… maybe even trauma from inside the womb. Like, did my dad have sex with my mom while she was pregnant with me, and what if he was fantasizing about something degenerate? Could that have made an impression?
I don't know about that, but sadly I do have sexual trauma I remember. I've told this before on other threads, but I remember my first orgasm like it was yesterday. It was my old male cousin jerking me off while I had no idea what was happening to me.
I hope he wasn’t too much older as it becomes more perverted the larger the age gap. His older brother probably did the same with him so that’s why he did it to you. That must have made things harder for you to find abstinence (no pun intended).
He only had 2 older Sisters who are as gar as I know normal, so not sure where that came from and I think he might have been 3 or 4 years older
Maybe a friend then. When you think about it, all of us seem to have been introduced to masturbation in one way or another. Most of us didn’t discover how to fap on our own. How old were you?
You are not alone. I'm a porn addict that had a good childhood. My parents were good to me, my parents did not verbally or physically abuse me, I did well in school, I played sports, I had friends, we were middle class and lived okay, I did not get bullied in school, etc. In summary, it was a good childhood. The question is how did I become a porn addict? I was never great with women when I was younger. In high school I was painfully shy around them. In college I did not live on campus so I would just go to school and come home, or go to work at my part time job, so my interactions with people on campus was very limited. I can honestly say I made zero friends in college. Then in what I think of the prime years of hooking up, maybe ages 21-30, I had some job and money issues so I had to put the idea of meeting someone on hold simply because I could not afford a girlfriend. It was in those prime years I first turned to porn. If i think about it, I probably have been watching porn for close to 30 years of my life. There have been times, like when I have a girlfriend, or I am just not thinking about it that I don't consume porn but at some point I have always gone back to it. It was during the covid lockdowns that I really started watching a lot of porn, going through the escalation process of moving to trans and even gay porn, and even doing cam shows. It was then that I realized I had an addiction. It took a while, lots of journaling, lots of self reflection, but I believe the root cause for my porn addiction is boredom and loneliness. I found that I was watching porn when i was bored. If i had things to do, whether it was work, go to the gym, something social with friends, a family event, I was not watching porn. But if I had nothing to do and nowhere to go, I would turn to porn to pass the time. I have gotten more serious about conquering the porn addiction, and while not perfect, I am a lot better then I have been in the past and watch porn a lot less. Also I have gotten away from all the escalation porn. One relapse that sticks out in my mind, maybe 3-4 months ago I was having a relapse and turned to trans porn and it did nothing for me. No arousal, no need to jerk off, no need to find another video to use. In an odd sort of way it was good, because it showed me that I am healing and also prevented me from jerking off that day because my rational brain kicked in and said "what are you doing? turn this off and go do something."
If you see porn as a toxic way to express sexuality, then the question arises why the parents didn't educate children in such a way they would avoid every toxic way to deal with sexuality, because they knéw better. For myself I indeed was traumatized. No I wasn't abused physically. The abuse was emotionally. We can get traumatized by certain things that dóés happen, but in the same way we can get traumatized by the things that did nót happen. I was traumatized by the neglect of my parents, apart from the many many things they did do. And I know many, many children are neglected by their parents and seek and develop all kind of mechanisms to cope with this neglect.
No one uses porn, or becomes addicted, because of past trauma. It is a false contention, and a dark rabbit hole because now the problem is caused by something outside the addict. This is not to say an addict cannot have past trauma, every person on the planet who makes it to adulthood has past trauma, but the vast majority do not become addicted. Addiction, and quitting addiction is a small and simple thing. It should be conceived of as a small problem. Forget other problems in your life when quitting an addiction, focus first on quitting the addiction, make that your number one--even exclusive--problem and after you have fixed it, you will find fixing the other problems becomes much easier. Addicts are not good problem solvers until they have first fixed the addiction. Then they become good problem solvers. This addiction is very simple: we use porn to generate a sexual thought, the sexual thought generates a dopamine high; do that for a few years when you do not conceive you are doing it, do not know you are doing it; have never been told this is exactly what you are doing; and one day you wake up and find quitting is painful. We are addicts for one reason; we chose to become an addict, though at the time most did not know it was even possible. That is changing with education. Forums like this move far slower now than when it was first opened. But, always remember, you are the cause of the problem, you are are also the solution of the problem. Keep the problem small. Small problems require small solutions; epic problems required epic solutions, and finding the solution "epic" is one way the addction tries to tell you it cannot be fixed. Don't listen to it. It lies. Much love. W.
@ThePerspicacious All addictions are invented. All addictions are invented by us, humanity. Addiction is not a naturally occurring condition because it is not a successful survival trait. Addiction is an anti-successful survival trait. This is in terms of evolution. In terms of porn addiction, we really trace it to the invention first of the internet (say 1997), and then the invention of High Speed Internet Porn (say 2007). Porn tubes. While we, humanity, have always "liked" porn, it really was not until we invented HSIP, that we invented a means to use it to get hooked. We did not invent HSIP to allow ourselves to get hooked, but some of us (this includes you and I) figured out how to use it to get a non stop dopamine high. So, if we conceive of NOFAP as at an attempt at a solution to the problem, the solution came after people started to recognize there was a problem. Some people started to recognize they had a problem with quitting porn, as in having great difficulty not using porn to get a dopamine high, around 2007. I don't know when this forum started, but let's say around 2014. In 2014 through about 2020, a topic posted on this forum would get tons of hits, tons of reads, tons of feedback. Today, the forum moves much slower. I like to think that is because this and other forums have educated people to what prolonged porn use can do to the brain. I like to think that this forum and others like it have educated people that prolonged exposure and use of porn can cause problems, and, thus, they are avoiding prolonged exposure to it. If this forum represents a solution to the problem, less people are seeking the solution because, due to education, less people are experiencing the problem. It is a matter of perspective. You have been here since 2024. I recognized the problem in 2013. I have been around long enough to recognize that far less people are coming here than at the height of the problem. Thus, the forum is moving slower. This is actually a good thing. Less people have the problem, less people need the solution. Peace. William.
You made a great analogy but honestly I don't think that's the case,I think that the vast majority of the world are still not aware of the possibility to be addicted to porn, they think you can't get addicted to it like alcohol or drugs, you said the website users are less than what it used to be, but in the other hand, if you take a look at the statistics of porn websites, things are only getting worse, every year the hours of porn consumption are growing, the weird fetishes are also getting more common, if you asked 100 person 10 years ago what does pegging mean, 99% will not know what you are talking about, nowadays I see memes made about pegging and getting thousand of likes on facebook, that's just an example, 8 years ago i never heard someone talking about again the feet fetish, nowadays there is subreddits about the foot fetish and they have hundreds of thousands of users, I can be wrong, but I think it's only getting more popular and getting worse.
What I know: 10 years ago, a topic posted by a member would be on page 2 by the end of the day. I last posted on the Get Educated thread 15 days ago, still on page 1. Less people are posting here and the posters are posting less. I choose to view that as a good thing. True, more people are watching porn. But, watching porn, while only done to achieve a dopamine high, and was never a good thing, is not the problem, per se. The problem is becoming addicted to the dopamine high it brings. I would like to think that due to education, while more people are watching porn, more of them are aware that addiction can occur, and thus are avoiding the addiction. Knowledge is power, not perfection. We are and will always remain a flawed species. Just my thoughts. In 100 years we (humanity) can look back and have 20/20 on the problem. The concept of "Porn Addiction" is so new, we are really just at the very beginning in studying it as a problem. Peace. Will.
