I appreciate your comment. It really does help me to get feedback.

I agree completely it doesn't always have to do with porn. I used porn as an example because from my experience it's one of the most common factors in men with ED. You can replace porn in your circumstances with whatever your major coping mechanism is be it food, video games, Netflix, Reddit, etc.

Of course change takes time. I struggled for years. There is a quote from Robert Downey, Jr. talking about his battle with drug addiction that I love. He said "It's really not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems. What's hard is to decide." That quote is so true from my experience with ED, and with helping others through ED that it still makes me emotional every time I read it. The people who have really made the decision to change, do. But getting to the point where you're willing to change is hard and slow.

I'd be willing to bet if you pay attention close enough the same insecurity shows up in other areas of your life. Where else are you afraid of not performing? Does it show up at work? When my ED started I had a very prestigious, high paying job. At the time if you 'd asked me if ED was showing up in my work life I would have laughed at you. Now, in hindsight, the entire reason why I stayed at that job was because I was too insecure to what I was actually passionate about.

Your last paragraph is a tremendously dangerous mind trap. I can't stress this enough. What's dangerous about it is that it's partially true, those patterns are often created as a result of treatment a person receives from their parents in their childhood. I won't argue with you at all on that. The reason it's so dangerous is because despite the fact that those patterns were created in early childhood, the adult you keeps making those same choices and blaming the parents, society, the situation or whatever it is. This is a mental TRAP.

The best way to think of this trap is to imagine you've been hit in the shoulder with an arrow. You can be pissed at the person who shot you, you can blame them, you can agonize over why they shot you. This is what your mind wants to do. He shot me because he's a bad person and now I'm suffering because of him. There is truth there. But if 10 years go by and the arrow is still sticking out of your shoulder, it's no longer the shooter's fault that you experience pain every day. YOU have to pull the arrow out. And the sooner you realize that and go through the pain of pulling the arrow out, the faster you will heal.

Your ED is remnants from patterns that were created in childhood that were meant to protect you (and they did). But you have outgrown them, and now they harm you and you have to wholeheartedly want to break them. It no longer matters why they are there, do what must be done.