I distinctly remember the first time I ever jerked off. I was 13 years old at the time, early in 8th grade. I can pinpoint the time perfectly because it was right around the time my parents got divorced. Its not that I blame this all on them and their decision, its just that the two events are tied together in my mind and give me a time frame.
You see, growing up my family never had cable. In elementary school, while other kids were talking about shows like Dexter’s Lab and Samurai Jack, I always kept silent. I was always pretty bitter about that actually. I did watch The Simpsons every single day though. In fact, sometimes when the reception was really bad, my dad would be nice enough to go outside and turn the antenna with a monkey wrench.
Well, after my parents split, my dad moved out and got his own place, and with it, a subscription for Direct TV. I know now that he was doing it to gain favor with us kids, but at the time, I was super stoked. All I had in my bedroom was a futon mattress on the floor and a small television set that sat on a milk crate. Life was good.
I watched everything. I mean everything. It felt so good to watch South Park, or too stay up late for Adult Swim. It didn’t take long however, until I discovered that late at night, on Cinemax (and a couple other channels), they had softcore porn. Up until that time, I had only seen the female body in movies, and the occasional google image search for Pamela Anderson nude or something. Needless to say, I was pretty happy. I love you, Dad! Satellite is awesome!
Of course, until then I had never masturbated. Obviously I knew what it was, but I wasn’t really sure how to do it myself or even if I was capable yet. I hadn’t even hit puberty. In the beginning I just watched it. I just wanted to see boobies. Keep in mind, this was softcore too, so all you saw was a lot of tit grabbing and the occasional landing strip. I’m grinning like an idiot thinking about how ridiculous it all was. I can actually remember how easy it was to get hard in those days, how fresh my mind was!
Naturally (in the most literal sense of the term), one night while watching such programming, my hand found its way around my pecker. Instinct took care of the rest. I knew what was going to happen, but at the same time I didn’t, you know? Ah, so exciting. It was great. Really, it was great. I can remember the room and the experience perfectly, but strangely enough I can’t actually remember the porn I was watching. It doesn’t matter though. All that matters is that this was the start of a 10 year long addiction, an addiction that would take its toll on nearly every aspect of my life.
Maybe you’re wondering why I’m telling you this story. Well, like many of you, I have been battling with depression for a long time. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the source of it, when it started and why. For a while I thought that this fapping habit was the crux of it all, and that this event was the cornerstone of my long-lasting inferiority complex. So many days and nights I drowned myself in shame, disappointment in myself for being weak, for wasting so much of my life. So often I wished I could go back, start over and do everything differently.
I’ve asked myself a lot too, am I hooked on porn because I’m depressed, or am I depressed because I’m hooked on porn? I guess its a chicken-or-the-egg thing. If anything, its the former, because I personally think the seeds were planted long before. The fact is though, is that I don’t hate myself for it anymore. I was just an innocent kid that fell into a trap. Society is always changing, and each new radical shift presents itself with new dangers. We (millennials) are basically the first generation to grow up with such access to porn.
My point of this whole thing, is just to say, don’t be so hard on yourself and don’t dwell on lost time. Love yourself. Shit happens and you just have to keep moving forward and do your best.
I feel all the benefits… the confidence, lack of brain fog, etc. I plan on finishing this story and will talk more about it as it comes. I am 24 and used porn for 10 years.
LINK – 7 Months Clean
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So yesterday I posted a story about my first experience with fapping (https://redd.it/4wcwnx). Really, it was a reflection. It was a way of getting out thoughts that I’ve held inside for a long time. It was a look at an event that led to me being the person I am today. Am I perfect today? Hell no. However, I consider each day a step towards that ideal self that I aspire to become.
Well, I suppose that some of you want to hear the personal changes I’ve witnessed. The “superpowers” that abstaining from wacking off has afforded me. Do I have them? Yes. All of them. They are real. However, In order to understand them I believe you have to see the development from beginning to end.
When I was sixteen I got my first real girlfriend. I’d had some awkward, short-lived experiences with girls in middle school, but this was the first time where I had a girl who I actually liked and spent genuine time with. For a while I was really happy.
First off, I must say that this girl was amazing. She had these big, shiny blue eyes and wavy black hair. She was a dancer too and had a great body. Not only was she beautiful but she also had the personality to match. She had a great sense of humor. She had great taste in music and movies. I loved just talking to her because I could really be myself, you know? The thing that really sealed the deal for me, was how adventurous she was. We used to skip school and venture off into the city and explore. An important thing to note though, is that she was older than me by a year and much more experienced than me. I was, without a doubt, head-over-heels in love with her.
Eventually, it came time for us to have sex. My mom and stepdad had left for the weekend and left me the house. I remember the weather being overcast and raining slightly. We were laying in bed together in my room, watching a movie. You couldn’t have asked for better conditions. Its really too bad.
Unfortunately, at the time, my PMO habit was in full swing. I just couldn’t help myself. The worst thing too, is that I didn’t know it was a problem, and that it was causing so many other issues. I was getting into the more intense stuff at this point too. I believe there was always a part of me that knew it was a bad habit and that I should cut back, but I honestly never gave it a decent effort. I was going 2-3 times a day without thinking twice.
My dick just would not cooperate. I tried and tried. After a while we were able to have some sort of sex, but it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I was devastated. I wanted to make this girl happy, and show her how I felt about her. I wanted to show her that she was the sexiest girl I’d ever seen. Instead she felt the opposite. She felt humiliated and unwanted.
It all started to unravel from there. The insecurity was more than I could handle. I knew she began to look at me differently. It wasn’t long before we broke up. At this period of my life, those critical mid-teen years, I was a giant pussy. I literally did nothing good for myself, nothing at all. I was shitty in school, I didn’t play sports or exercise, and I was becoming a prick to the real friends I actually had. At this time in my life, I was at the lowest I’d ever been. I had lost the girl I loved because I couldn’t get hard for her. Those days were just constant, non-stop fapping.
Strangely enough though, I got another girlfriend shortly after. Actually more than one. I am very lucky in that, despite all of the loser traits I was exhibiting at the time, I was still managing to attract women. Pretty ones, too. It was always the same though. It would be time to have sex and I just couldn’t get it up. Naturally those relationships were failures. This same pattern actually continued for a few years. Every time that I would fail to have sex with a girl, it would take longer and longer for me to gather the courage to try again with a new girl. There were so many too that I just had to let pass me by. There were so many that I know showed interest in me, but I wouldn’t respond to their advances. I just couldn’t risk it. The shame and embarrassment that followed a failed attempt was just too painful.
What this all led to is well, after a while, I began to just accept it. I believed that I was broken and that I was not a fully functioning man. You see, I actually had no idea that my PIED was really caused by my porn habit. I had no idea that other guys out there were experiencing the same thing as me. I thought that I was some sort of freak that would never have a normal sexual relationship with a woman. It was hard to deal with.
Of course, I am a tenacious bastard and knew that there was nothing to lose by trying. I knew that I would never give up. I just realized I had to compensate. I knew that sex was not everything in life. I was going to show to the world that I was still a man regardless of my limp jimmy. I was going to show them not by the amount of women I laid, but by my individuality and strength of character. I’d be damned if I was going to walk around with my head hanging low, like some sort of sub human. Day by day I shed the beta personality.
One thing I didn’t mention is that I am an artist. I have been from a young age. At this point I began to take it very seriously and actually began studying it at my city’s community college. I became very dedicated and used it as my outlet, which is something I recommend to all of you. I actually had a lot of great experiences at this point, once I just let go. I was really putting a lot of effort into my classes, and by the time I graduated, I was known throughout the school and respected in the artistic community. I even won an award, which to this day is an accomplishment I am really proud of.
Despite all this personal growth, I was still spanking the monkey quite a bit. I was making strides in my life, but there was still the big, black dog of depression following me, looming over me. I was battling it every day, and I was using porn as medicine. It would still be a couple years before I learned that the medicine was actually the disease.
My lesson though, from all of this, is that even though I had this horrible weakness, I still kept on going. It was like swimming against the current, or playing with a medicine ball. The difficulty I faced actually made me emotionally stronger. Once snatch stopped being my goal, I began to find fulfillment in other things, meaningful things. What I’m trying to say, is don’t live your life just to get your dick wet. Live your life for you.
LINK – Months Clean, Pt. 2
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