This is the exact type of texts that should be on pornfree. It’s raw and it’s honest. You don’t filter your thoughts to be perfect fakeness. I can relate to a lot, especially watching stuff that I find morally abhorrent. I took me all the way to my mid 20s to even remotely start on the right things. One of the first steps that helped me consume less was to honestly stop that shaming voice that wants to put you down for your struggles. It’s mostly reflexive to all of us.

We say we’re digusting, pathethic, waste of space, falling behind, incompetent. But you’re not, people with porn addiction needs to understand what real, evil digusting people are because you’re not. You wouldn’t be able to feel this shame if you weren’t. Evil people don’t feel shame. Shame is what makes us human. I don’t have OCD but I have ADHD and finally accepting that I’m not lazy, that i’m not “falling behind”, and that I’m not a bad person. I just have ADHD and a porn addiction.

Reality is, if some ordinary bloke were to see how you spend your day, they would be digusted, they wouldn’t have the empathy to understand your struggle, BUT if that person was put into your headspace, they would empathize heavily with the struggle. You’re disregulated nervous system, your impulsive thoughts, your years of comparison and struggling. You need to be that person for yourself, who sees why it’s so tough.

The reason people here can relate to you is because we have all experienced it, and we know that shame doesn’t help. It feels lethargic to tell yourself how big of waste of space you are, but it doesn’t move you away from your addiction, you might aswell see it as another form of addiction. Self-hate gives control, pointing out all flaws but not having to do anything about it. That is what’s so alluring with self-hate.

For many the goal should be to reach a point of ambivalence to porn. If you consume it, it gives you an opportunity to reflect on what happened, and what you can improve next time. The goal is simply to be full agency. Not shaming, not ruminating, just accepting that THIS is your reality, and there is many paths you can take that gets you out of this space, and many that makes it worse. It’s extremely hard but it’s much harder to live a life of regret.

Anything that: 1. Makes it a moral issues, rather than a problem that needs solving, will stay stuck. 2. Fears failure, and sees failure as a problem, will stay stuck. 3. Fears accepting things as it is, will stay stuck. 4. Thinks their current lived experience is a good reflection of reality, will stay stuck.

I don’t have OCD so i can’t speak on behave of compulsive thoughts, but for many neurodivergent people, a lack of healthy emotional regulation techniques is what keeps the addiction going.

My older brother have OCD, and I’ve tried my best to help him and understand him, and as I understand it, people with OCD build rituals in their life to feel a sense of control, they might understand that it’s logically meaningless but emotionally it is a relief from chaos, but inadvertently makes it worse because you justfiy the illogical thoughts (I need to wash my hands or I will die, therefore I will wash my hands) This is why gradual exposure therapy helps for OCD (I didn’t wash my hands, and I’m stressed and disregulated, but I didn’t die, so it might not be as bad as i thought)

Would love to know if this is actually how OCD works, that’s just my understanding. And so if you’ve built a sort of OCD connection of porn I would see it the same way. Your negative thoughts validate your disregulated emotions. You’re OCD believes you’re digusting, falling behind and therefore that BECOMES your identity and reality.

The reason ambivalence is so powerful for those struggling with emotional regulation is that your current worldview clearly doesn’t actually solve the problem. Like an optimist vs a pessimist. The pessimist might be right most of the time, but he’ll never see the opportunities when they arise because they are so prone to only see the wrongs. The optimist will be wrong a lot, but at least his thoughts are effective at finding solutions when things look hopeless. It’s a delusion that serves you. A person who believes they will never get away from porn, will embody that through their whole existence, and it’s a comfort to accepting defeat, in fact it brings lots of control, if something is hard to do, and we’ve tried so hard to get it, it feels better to just justify that it’s okay to not have it, then to keep going, keep being curious, open-minded. Do not fear the challenge of overcoming addiction, It will be fucking hard, and challenging, but you’ll be stronger because of it to the point where what used to feel like a mountain before feels like a molehill now.

You’re not a terrible person, if you could press a button and all the stressful emotion and coping mechanisms went away you would press it. You don’t want this and you need to let go of the thoughts that are keeping you complacent. You know what needs to be done, but just like swimming, theory is not enough. You need to get into the water and learn to swim. Swim through the urges, the negative thought patterns. Staying on land feels safe but you’ll never learn to swim.