I hope this story help you overcome your porn addiction. I shared it with some friends and it had an impact on their own personal struggles and even helped a coworker reach out to his son. I hope it can be of some assistance to you too! Best of luck!
I am not a practiced writer. So I apologize for the choppiness of this.
The last six weeks have been the hardest weeks of my life.
I forsook all comfort that I’d grown accustomed to. My home. My bed. A kitchen. A desk. A computer. PORN. And it has been the single greatest event of my life.
I have been reborn. Out of mediocrity. Out of over-consumption. Out of stagnantion. Out of wasted time.
I spent most of my life’s free time watching porn. Lesbian, Anal, Group, Hardcore. It was all I knew. All I really, truly practiced. I knew this. I hated it.
I wanted to be an artist. An engineer. A philosopher. I wanted to write and draw and read and cook and learn what nice things were and what it was to have good taste.
I was insecure. Confident on the surface only. Intelligent but not creatively expressive. I saw what others had. And in my continual failure to recognize that in myself I grew to fear them. To envy them. Jealousy consumed me. I thought, “who the hell am I compared to THEM? These people who do and create and learn and have such spirits!” And I took these thoughts, and I went to sleep. I went to work. I got home and watched porn. I suffered the same mental crisis and went to bed. I did this for years.
That all changed six weeks ago. I found a subletter for my room to save cash due to an uncertain job future. I threw myself into a situation where I couldn’t watch porn. I couldn’t waste time. I couldn’t deafen the voice in my head that grew from a whisper so incomprehensible into a roaring torrent of pain and regret and loathing.
I snapped.
I was in a relationship. Probably, no surely, the best girl I have ever found. Loving. Trusting. Faithful. Spiritual. With a laugh and a smile that haunts me now. I lost that. I destroyed it. Poisoned it. I became a monster. Insecure. Suspicious. I saw her friends as threats. I projected my own insecurity, my own pain, my own self image onto her.
Needless to say. She left me.
Earlier that day I had resolved to change myself. I made lists of what I wanted. What to do with my time. Identified the true nature and cause of my unhappiness. I wasn’t her. It was me. Me and my lack of motion. But it was too late. I spent the next few days in a daze. I walked around for 17 miles on a Thursday afternoon. I had called in sick to work. I got drunk. I went from sad to angry to happy to sad to angry and back and forth all over again.
I made a list
Write. Draw. Read. Walk. Boulder and work out.
It’s worth mentioning here that all of my active friends at this point were busy with their lives. It’s all I’d surrounded myself with. I didn’t know what to do with my time or who to spend it with.
I worked out. I slept.
I did this for days. Work. Workout. Walk. Read. Write. Doodle. Every day. I read a book in four days. I wrote letters I didn’t send. I screamed in my car. I drank more water. I took vitamins. I kept working out. I kept writing. I kept drawing. I made notes to myself. “Smile.” “You are a good person and people like you.” “You are going places and living your life.”
I saw myself changing. I learned to stop negative thoughts before they became nightmares. I was more positive. I was happier. More confident.
I’d gotten a place by now. And even though I’d set up my computer, I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting at it. I just wanted to walk. To do. To create. My mind was restless with adventure.
I applied to the peace corps. I made new friends. Reconnected with old ones. Made my bed daily. Learned to fold clothes properly. Talked to strangers. Read.
I have never been happier. But it came at a great cost. And now I live every days honoring that cost. Not only for myself. But for My parents. For my friends. For my loved ones.
This life is my apology. And my thank you. And my ambition will carry me into God knows what sort of adventures, but I will always be looking ahead. I will allow myself no more excuses.
I am proud. I am positive. And I am growing.
By Anonymous
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