Dear Nofappers, It's night time here, and I've been thinking long and hard if I should write this message. My life has been going out of control since about as long as I can remember. Progressively so. I started PMO-ing when I was about 14 years old. My parents, my sister and I just moved to a new home, on the other side of the country. Away from our old life, away from the city - to the countryside. Back then, the reason my parent's told me for moving was the fact that they wanted a big garden, a house close to nature, away from the city. Later, I found out that this was only a small part of the reason. The main reason was that they wanted to get out of the Evangelic, Pentecostal, sectarian church that was suffocating them. I knew that church for my whole life, back then. Almost all my friends were from the church, and I was a firm believer of its teachings. When we moved away from it all, my parents had their crisis of faith, and believed that they raised me the wrong way. At least, that's what I think. Because, to my feeling, they completely stopped raising me. They left me free, free to do what I want. Never having had any sexual education whatsoever, soon after I started to explore my sexuality and got interested in girls; I basically became a masturbation / porn addict straight away. Never getting any girls at school - I fought my loneliness and low self esteem by masturbating on nearly every occation. Fantasizing about girls from school that weren't interested about me, or pictures of naked women that I copied from some friends. Most of the day, I was isolated in my room, watching P or chatting with girls that I found on dating sites or on msn. When I got my first phone I used to call with girls a lot and have phone sex, camsex, whatsoever. In real life - no girl liked me. I felt rejected all the time. They even once passed a paper in the classroom where every guy and girl would give eachother ratings on the body and face. I received devastatingly low ratings from all the girls. Back home, I quickly hid in my room and started my destructive behaviour. I was, and still am, a very sensitive, caring man. Music (piano playing) and composition is my main talent - I started composing my own tunes on the piano when I was 7, and though I wrote a lot of songs as a teenager, they were very depressing and often got overshadowed by my extreme pre-occupation with PMO. As some years went by I started smoking tobacco, marijuana, and I still do to this day (quitting for countless times and relapsing). Just before I finished (never graduated, just quit) high school I met this wonderful girl who I went on to have a relationship with. A couple of months after we met, I went on and moved out of my parent's house, back to the other side of the country, to go and study music. I was around 18 years old. The relationship with my girlfriend lasted for about 1,5 years in total - I totally screwed it up. I cheated on her with a girl I met on the internet. Being so ashamed of myself, I ended the relationship - but feeling so lonely and depressed - begging her to take me back. I told her that I cheated on her, and I never saw her again. This was also the time I went to my first therapist. During my study, which lasted 6 years in the end, I got aware of my bad habits, especially my porn addiction. Porn, sex, the need of sharing the bed with as many girls I could find to fight my loneliness and emptiness resulted in an enormous stream of bad relationships, me emotionally hurting others, hurting myself, drinking loads of alcohol, taking medication (stimulants - prescribed for AD(H)D, like dexamphetamine - and depressants like lorazepam to calm my anxiety). The PMO went on and became worse - sessions of 10 hours straight or more were not uncommon. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, my best friend died at 19 years old. This shattered my world and I became bitter. Also - my arm got injured (I got it operated, but that made it worse, and it's really bad to this day, it will probably never go away) - being a piano player this strengthed my depression and my need to escape from reality even more. These things combined with marijuana, tobacco, really bad eating habits and the medication resulted in experimenting with more stuff - all to get as far away from reality as possible and creating my fantasy world where I was wanted, loved - where digital girls craved me and where loneliness didn't exist. I went on and graduated from the music school (with the help of some very dear friends and teachers that allowed me to do it in a special manner considering my injury / handicap) when I was 25. That was 5 years ago. I'm 30 now. In the last five years I've seen countless therapists, been diagnosed with countless disorders, been to many addiction clinics (never got hospitalized; no clinical rehab, only intensive ambulant care - to this day I still don't know if I should, I'm so ridiculously afraid of that). Never got to quit PMO for more than a week - but hating myself for doing it every day. Now, since a year - I'm a piano teacher. Since 3 months, I do it fulltime. Although I came a long way compared to a couple of years back, (being really depressed, having no job) it's hard. I hardly sleep. I eat bad. I'm still addicted to lorazepam and to dexamphetamines. I cut down my alcohol use, but still smoke a lot of tobacco and smoke 1 or 2 hash joints every night. And most importantly.. I'm still a porn/sex/love addict. I feel that this is my core addiction all my other addictions revolve around. Nowadays I can hardly get an erection anymore. Especially with real girls. I don't feel anything below there. But, unlike many PMO-ers, this isn't my biggest concern. My biggest concern is that I'm 30, and my body feels so weak.. so broken. My chest burns all the time, my heart rate is a constant 100 bpm+. I need to quit my addictions - or basically I'm dead. At least it feels this way. If not physicial death, it's psychological, emotional death. I came to this forum because I know porn/sex/love-addiction is my main problem. I came here, while listening to Allan Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking and I came to the conclusion that I need to stop. But if I want to have any chance on living a happy life - I have to quit all my addictions, not just smoking. Again. Like I tried for countless times before. But this cannot be another failure. I'm afraid this is my last chance. I'm so tired of failing, and so tired of this life. Tired with hurting myself every day, physically and mentally, abstaining from healthy habits and real self-realization. I cannot not quit porn and just give up smoking, or for that matter any of my addictions. It's just that - stopping masturbation and porn are the hardest things I ever faced. I get so extremely lonely and depressed. I'm so, so afraid. And so afraid of failing again. I don't know what to say anymore. It took me an hour to write this. I hope it's not too long, and not to much of a chaotic mess. I hope you try and relate to me and help me. Please help me. I desperately need it. Deep within, and in essence, I'm a caring, loving person. I just took many wrong turns in my life. Thanks for listening. Take care.
Thanks for sharing that; I read all of it. It seems that what's behind your problems is loneliness. That seems to be the reason why you're addicted to PMO. You have an attack of lonely thoughts and you run to PMO to try to fight back. PMO just makes you feel empty, though. It will take you farther than you'll ever want to go and it'll cost you more than you'll ever want to pay (figuratively speaking). You have to recognize that indulging in PMO is only going to make matters worse. Try to avoid spending time alone with your computer. Do something productive in your community. I used to volunteer at an animal hospital and when I was doing that, I never felt a desire to view pornography and masturbate. Give it a shot. When you're keeping yourself busy, it's a whole different ball game. You're not likely to view pornography when you're helping your neighbor at gardening or baking cookies for your friend who is sick.
Thank you for reading it all, drac16. And thank you for your advice. I'm feeling really tired at the moment - I will reply longer soon.
