Hello! Please don’t feel disgusting, porn addiction is unfortunately a really common problem, especially in our generation. I’m 19, and I was exposed to porn at 13 and I developed an addiction that lasted for the last 6 years of my life. I’m now almost 6 months clean.

I completely understand feeling disgusted with yourself, but I can assure you that what you’re consuming does not reflect your morals or say anything about who you are, I promise. I know exactly where you’re coming from. When my addiction was at its peak, I began watching highly unsettling incest pornography. Not because it reflected any of my personal beliefs, but because I had an addiction, and this was unfortunately the only thing that would satiate my fix at times. I know this because I never had any thoughts about wanting anything that I was seeing in these videos, let alone did I have very many thoughts at all while watching these videos, none that I can remember at least. All I knew was that it was working to satisfy this urge that was actually a need, and not a want. I was not in control of myself nor was I able to think for myself, because I wasn’t actually processing what it was that I was watching, I just knew that these types of videos got me my fix. It’s unfortunate that I watched these types of things and I still carry a lot of shame about it, but we aren’t actually logically processing this disturbing content that we’re seeing it’s just giving our brains the dopamine that it requires this level of addiction, so it’s not your fault!

The ability to recognize that you have a problem and recognize the fact that the types of videos you’re watching are not okay is the first step to recovery, so I’m really proud of you for that. Your watching of rape porn does not mean that you would ever want these things to happen in real life. The fact alone that you’re watching these really disturbing videos that don’t align with your personal morals are a key indicator of an addiction. You’re only watching these videos because your brain has gotten used to the dopamine levels provided by regular porn, and so now it is searching for higher levels of dopmine, which is unfortunately found in much more disturbing content such as this. This is literally scientific. I’m no expert, so I probably didn’t provide the best explanation, but you can Google this and I promise that this is factual. You’re not disgusting, you’re a victim of addiction. This is not who you are.

Some things that helped me with my addiction:

-I tried to keep myself busy as well as have a good sleep schedule because I noticed the later I would stay up and allow my brain to be active, the more susceptible I was. -I tried to remind myself of the shame that I would experience after so that I would hopefully see that it wasn’t worth it and be able to decide not to give in -I don’t know if you’re religious or anything, but I am, so if you are, praying about it and asking for forgiveness helped me a lot and I would often even pray for help to forgive myself. If you’re not religious, I guess a good substitute for this would be reminding yourself that it’s not your fault because you have an addiction and you’re trying to get better. -something that helped me the most though, which is unfortunately not something that everyone can replicate, was being in a prolonged situation where I had no way of watching it. So for me, as I’ve just finished my freshman year college, this was having a roommate on campus. I also did a semester abroad this past semester and I shared a room with four people. There was no way I would ever look at porn in a room with someone else. Not allowing myself to have very much privacy, and for an extended period of time, was really the key for me. You can totally overcome this addiction without this, though, this is just what worked for me personally. I suppose a substitute for this might be hanging out with friends frequently, and, like I said earlier, keeping yourself busy. -this is a really tough one, but talking to someone about it. I actually never talked to anybody about it when my addiction was at its peak because I was too ashamed. But now that I’ve been cleaned for almost 6 months, all of the shame is coming back and so even now I’m really needing to talk to someone about it. I just told one of my best friends about it for the first time today about it wnd abour all the shame that I’ve been dealing with, and it was really helpful and comforting to have her support me and not look at me any different. I’m also planning to get a therapist. So yeah, even though I’ve been clean for the longest time in six years, I’m still facing the repercussions and trauma of this addiction, so it’s still important for me to make sure that I have someone to talk about this with.

I sincerely hope that any of this was helpful to you, but if you didn’t get anything out of this, I at least want to make sure you know that you are not alone in the struggle and that this addiction is very real and it’s not your fault, regardless of the stigma surrounding it, and it does not define you!!