Age 22 – My desires in regards to woman have vastly changed

I’m glad I’m “free” of porn. I do not want it back in my life, its disgusting, vile, and I want no part of it, mentally at least. Physically, I’m still struggling.I never thought I would make it this far, the main thing that keeps me from relapsing is that I’m scared if I relapse at this point, I crash all the way to rock bottom so hard I can never get back to this.

Porn was how i coped. I started looking at it in the 9th grade and I’m 22 right now, I was 21 years old the last time I looked at porn. Parts of my life have improved, I’m no longer in a daze all the time, I’m a little bit better socially, I have a little better self esteem. Through this process I have had to deal with a lot of stuff. Most people when they attack this addiction, replace it with other things in their life, they go out more, pursue women, workout, ect. I can’t, I have some health issues that force me to spend most of my time at home, most of that time is sitting in front of my computer, because there is nothing better to do and I’m more productive.

Contrary to what a lot of people say, my life didn’t get better because I stopped looking at porn, don’t get me wrong, there are many advantages, but my main problems that pushed me towards porn were that I was so insecure I thought no girl could ever like me (or even guys as a friend), a huge amount of loneliness, and depression/frustration due to my health problems (which no doctor can seem to figure out, Ive been everywhere, at least I look healthy, even if I don’t feel it, most people have no idea how bad my health is).

However, I haven’t been able to find another way to cope, which means, quite frankly, things are very hard for me, and the drive to go look at porn is very high still, I’m better at talking to girls but don’t have the chance to meet many women since I’m stuck at home so much, I do school online, so I don’t see many people. I talk more to people online than in person. But enough woe is me, the point is, these problems didn’t vanish with porn,rather, porn was what i was using to hide them, so when porn was taken away, they all seemed to amplify, because I hadn’t been dealing with them, i still haven’t really delt with many of them, I still have self esteem issues, but Ive learned how to just ignore the inner voice and do whatever anyway, I still have a fear of rejection, but I just don’t let it stop me, I still am incrediably lonely, and I haven’t figured a way to cope with that yet so some days I just have a breakdown crying. The point is, it didn’t cure all my problems. I’m not going back to it, because I don’t want to be addicted again, and because I’m christian and think everything about porn is wrong,even evil. But that leaves me in a spot, and after 90 days, I’m kinda like “ok, so my brain is pretty much rebooted, now what”.

One thing I have noticed though, is that my desires in regards to woman have vastly changed. The type of woman I’m attracted to is very different. Where as before I was attracted to pretty much any and all women my age, now, many of the “hot” women I don’t have an attraction to, where as cute nerdy girls that some guys don’t look at twice are absolutly beautiful to me. My desires FOR women have changed, Before, the desire for a girlfriend was primarlly a physical one, even though I don’t belive in sex before marriage, I still wanted someone to cuddle with, or kiss. Now those desires are still there, but I also have a strong desire for the companionship, and quite frankly, I desire to love more than I desire to be loved, its no longer a purely selfish desire, because I want to make some woman feel like a million bucks. My sexual desires are different, instead of this giant urge when I see an attractive woman, its like its all bundled together now, the more I’m attracted to a girls personality, intrest, character, belifes, ect., the more sexually attracted to her I am as well. Instead of all my emotions being compartmentalized, now they all kinda flow together. Its hard to describe.

I’m not sure whats next for me, and I know the future will still continue to be a fight, some days, Its a miracle I don’t look at the stuff, but I don’t.

The only way I was able to do this though, was to set aside my pride, and put a program called “Covenant eyes” on my computer, once a week it sends a report to a friend with any flagged sites on it, after putting that on there, I didn’t look at porn again, and it forced me to develop my own self control, because there is NOTHING physically keeping me from pulling it up and looking.

i still struggle with fapping, sometimes to lustful images, or even pornographic ones. But the memories are starting to fad. I went 60 something days without fapping, but the last few weeks Ive had trouble going more than a few days. But I’ll keep fighting, and you should to!

LINK – 90 days, A report.

by anewman1999