I came across a website about this by chance while I was searching hard for a way to forget about porn. I’m Luca, I’m twenty-five, and I’ve been doing it since I was about thirteen, so around twelve years now. I have to say I think I’ve gone through every stage of this rubbish.
At first it was something new, something that was finally going to fulfil my teenage fantasies and make up for not having a girlfriend. Later it turned into an escape from problems at school and at home (big problems in middle school helped drag me into this little hole and into my interest in the subject), a way of releasing emotions. I should add that I’m a gamer, maybe not hardcore but not casual either, so I often sit in front of the computer. I alternated my emotional release between games and masturbating.
At the beginning it was once a month, then once a week, then even every day, especially in high school, between sixteen and eighteen. I was always wondering why I had no energy, why I so often had headaches (not every day, but still; there may be another reason, because I have sinus problems), and why I couldn’t concentrate. But the concentration part had already been picked up by assessments at school, before my problem started: they said I had trouble concentrating.
I often blamed it on staying up too long. In high school I was up until midnight, and three or four years ago even until four in the morning. Now I’ve managed to cut that down and I try to go to bed by one or two at the latest. What pushed me to change was that I was so worn out from sitting up at night that even after five to seven hours of sleep I got up like a wrung-out rag, unable to lift myself out of bed. There were even times when I woke up as if paralysed, unable to move, as though I was coming out of REM sleep, and only after two or three minutes could I move. And during the day my eyes kept closing.
Anyway, back to masturbation. Later it turned into an addiction, and I felt guilty every time I did it, because there was a short period, somewhere around twenty, when I could do it two or three times a day. (Another problem was, and is, that I’ve never had a girlfriend.) Many times I told myself I’d stop, but it did nothing; in the end I’d look at “the wrong sites” and you know what came next.
After a while and a lot of thinking, I stopped blaming myself and feeling disgust, because I decided there’s nothing wrong with admiring the female body, which fascinates me, or with sex and so on. Those are normal physical human needs, and there’s nothing wrong with them. THE PROBLEM IS THE ADDICTION. If someone drinks seven coffees a day, they’re addicted too, and it’s bad for the body. So in the end I arrived at the one truth: the problem is my addiction, not all that nonsense about it being wrong and impure, which only lowers your self-esteem.
There was a period, around twenty, when my fantasies kept turning more and more hardcore, but it never really turned me on. What always aroused me were innocent videos and seeing girls orgasm, not some hardcore stuff. And for about two years now I haven’t even looked at hardcore videos.
I should add that I’m a fairly normal guy who generally has no problems talking to girls; quite the opposite, I make friends with girls more easily than with guys. But I still haven’t had even my first kiss. Why, you ask? I think because, first, I used to be very shy, and second, now it doesn’t matter to me that much: I’m looking for the one, I’m looking for my place in the world, and I don’t intend to push myself where there’s no spark.
At one point I was also quite physically active (despite the porn problems): I danced ballroom and hip-hop, and I ride a bike, ski, snowboard, skate, rollerblade, even ride horses xD and so on. Maybe I wouldn’t even have gone back to masturbating if it weren’t for the problem with my knees two or three years ago, which meant I had to stop dancing, and I was already close to forgetting about it, ugh. I also didn’t finish university, which was another reason I felt bad, but that’s a completely separate topic for another conversation.
Over these many years I quit more than once and held out for a month or longer. Unfortunately I kept coming back, and now it’s harder. Even though I’ve had a small success and now do it sometimes two or three times a week, sometimes a week’s break and then twice in one day and a few days’ break again, or three days in a row and then a week off, so not non-stop, I can’t quit for a month or longer anymore. I’ve tried, but I always come back after about a week.
I think the main reason is that I’m simply turned on by the female body; I treat it almost like art :P Something stunning, so I’m practically unable to fend off the stimuli. Add to that that I’m a fan of games, and of Japan and anime, and you’ve got an explosive mix.
I don’t think I have problems with erections. Sometimes it gets so hard I can’t believe how worked up I got, although it was worse when I did it every day non-stop. But it’s true that I rarely wake up with morning wood, though it does happen.
The worst part is that for several months (maybe a year) I’ve been trying hard to fight this urge and I can’t. I want to beat it for the reasons I described above, but another one is the so-called uncontrolled thoughts. For example, you go to church, you’re standing there with nothing to do, and at some point, even though I don’t want them, the thoughts just flood in. For a while now I’ve been using a method: as soon as it starts, I begin shaking my head slightly left and right (tiny movements, almost invisible), close my eyes and yell at myself in my head, “shut up”, “don’t think about it”, and try to think about nothing, and usually after a moment it works.
I’ve even managed to change my brain a bit, because I think something dirty less and less often when I see a scantily dressed girl. On Sunday I was at the lake and didn’t think about it even once. Actually, despite the masturbating and porn, I rarely thought about it when I was around girls anyway; I simply have a lot of respect for women.
In general I have the impression that my brain simply demands that dopamine, and if it could get it some other way it would quickly erase all the porn images. But since it has learned that the image of a naked woman = I’ll soon get dopamine, it tortures me with those images.
I just don’t know what to do to stop going back, because my basic problem (now we get to the heart of it) is that when I’m sitting at the computer I often put my left hand you know where and just… how do I put it… I play. Take today: I was modding a game (installing fan-made changes) and after a while I noticed I was playing with myself, and even more if I happen to see something about women, something sexy. In theory I don’t feel like masturbating, but when I play with myself for longer, it turns into what girls call “the itch”, I can’t hold out, and I turn on porn to satisfy it. I tell myself I’ll just take a look to calm down, but it rarely ends with just a look; ninety per cent of the time I watch until orgasm.
FUCK! I want to end this, but I don’t know how to pull myself away from it.
A few days later
I forgot to add one thing. I think I might be getting headaches from trying to quit this habit, but I’m not sure, because there are three possible causes. One, sometimes I go to bed too late. Two, other times it’s too much sun or effort; yesterday, for example, the bike and the sun, I think I overdid it and my head hurt for half the evening. Three, when I sit at the computer too long, that happens too.
Usually it’s a pressing pain at the top of my head, a bit to the left but not completely, still the crown and a bit towards the forehead, as if something keeps drilling into my head on that side. Maybe many factors add up, plus my sinus problem, but I still have the impression it’s an effect of this whole porn thing, because my sinuses are much better now. And the computer? Sometimes I sit up late at night, at two I’m already collapsing onto the keyboard, and zero headache; I just go to bed and that’s it. So why does it suddenly grab me other times and last for hours?
For example, I recently came back from a few days in the countryside by the lake. I’d had a few days’ break from masturbating. I got home and did it once. The next day I went out on the bike because I had things to sort out in town, and when I got back, in the afternoon, my head started pounding so much I couldn’t concentrate. No fever, I checked. A moment earlier I’d had energy, and when my head started pounding I suddenly felt completely weak and dizzy. I took half a painkiller and it passed. And today I couldn’t hold out and did it again. I have a strong feeling these are the effects of those few days’ break from masturbation.
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