A Cautionary Tale

This is gonna be hard, but I have to tell this, so that maybe someone will wake up and open their eyes…

Porn has ruined my life. I am sure of it now. It’s poison for your body, mind and soul. It’s so insidious because it plays with your basic, natural instincts, and on the surface level it seems unavoidable. I mean, sex is good and natural, right? Well, I don’t know, because I’ve never had sex. I’m 41 by the way.

When my dad died when I was 10, I was completely devastated and traumatized. I’ve receded deep into myself, and became very isolated and lonely. I’ve not had any male authority figures in my whole life, and this is why I never grew up to be a proper man.

I was always super shy and anxious. Girls seemed like creatures from outer space, beautiful, unreachable. I could never talk to them, anxiety would make my body go into panic mode, so needless to say, I’ve never developed any relationships during my formative years, because I was so lonely and scared and depressed. Girls, in my mind back then, were only interested in strong, active, adventurous types, which I wasn’t. I was living within myself, reading, painting, basically in a fantasy world constantly. My mother wasn’t available to me emotionally, she couldn’t replace my dad, a male authority figure. So I was growing up weak, not manly at all. There’s no way girls would be interested in someone like me, at least that’s what I thought.

Of course, that’s where I’ve discovered porn. Literally same day I got internet (a dial-up back then), I got hooked. I was looking at the pictures then, there was no way to download movies back then. But I was hooked already. This was the fantasy world I was looking for – endless stream of incredible beauty and attraction, hours and hours of masturbation! What could be better, right???

Years went by, I’ve developed severe depression and anxiety. There was not a day that I didn’t experience at least one panic attack. My school friends and university friends were living their lives, having girlfriends, having kids etc. But not me. In my mind I was the way I was because I was cursed, because my dad died, because I was ugly (I had a broken nose for many years). By the time I was 20 I already had developed severe porn addiction, without even realizing it. I even thought it was normal for any guy my age. I would masturbate up to 3 times a day, every day. I’ll spare you graphic detail, but my room was not in a good state because of my habit.

I did go to a psychotherapist. It was group psychotherapy at first. It didn’t help at all, because I couldn’t open up about anything. Most depressing thing for me was the fact that I was still a virgin, so I was lying about this fact. I could not admit this to anyone, it was too shameful. That was my big mistake. Had I opened up about my porn addiction back then, maybe something would’ve been different.

Years went by, I left my country and went to another one, because I felt like I needed to change my environment, I was already getting quite suicidal and hopeless. And of course, I was spending most of my time dreaming about intimacy, connection, true love, something I’ve never had, and watching porn. Internet had improved by then, so non-stop movie downloading was taking place. My sexuality was becoming twisted also. I wanted new porn, different porn, I was getting bored very quickly and easily. I had almost completely lost any interest in real life girls and women. My sexual energy was drained and spent on porn exclusively.

I was 27 years old. I could not stand the fact that I was still a virgin, so I decided to visit an escort. I didn’t really want to, but I could not accept the fact I was gonna be 30 and still a virgin. Nothing happened – I could not perform! What a surprise, right? Reality was finally dawning upon me, yet still, I didn’t do anything about it. After my 5th visit to an escort (I couldn’t perform all previous times, too) I said to myself – enough of this farce. My final “intercourse” lasted 2 minutes – I could only get hard for 2 minutes, but could not keep the erection at all. The look on the lady’s face said it all – what a complete failure. This destroyed me, and next few years my life were spent in complete isolation and depression. Work, home, work, home. No friends, nothing.

When I was 30, I was already contemplating suicide. What pulled me out of it, was LSD. Now, I’m not going to glorify it, but in my case it helped me a lot. While sitting in the forest thinking about killing myself, my mind was transferred beyond itself, and for the first time, I could rationally see myself from the outside perspective. I understood, at that moment, that there’s more to life than what I thought there was. My depression was lifted for good few years after that, and my life became much more interesting. I made more friends, became interested in topics like religions and spirituality, mythology. I was finally feeling like I could go on, you know.

But I was still severely lonely. I was 35, and had never kissed a girl. I was constantly thinking about my lost years, my dad, all the girls I was in love with but never having had courage to even talk to them. Severe depression was creeping back in.

My porn usage cycle was as follows – one week of non-stop porn downloading, masturbating, and feeling extreme shame and guilt about it, then deleting all the porn and trying to “quit”. Sure enough next day, after deleting everything, I re-download everything again, and cycle continues. This has been happening for years now, to the point that I see no light anymore. I did finally go to a psychoanalyst and told everything about my problem. Sadly, I don’t have money to continue seeing psychoanalyst, so I only had few sessions.

But my biggest problem was yet to come. At work, I finally met a girl, who liked me. Years of loneliness and self-exploration moulded me into a pretty weird character. I have several hobbies I’m very good at, I’m very well-read and could be considered very interesting to talk to. My sense of humour is very dry and sarcastic, and some people appreciate that a lot.

Long story short, it didn’t work out. As soon as our relationship turned sexual (at least I had my first kiss, finally, at 37…), I simply didn’t know what to do, and I was afraid to tell her everything, in fear of losing her. But I lost her nonetheless. I feel like I’ve betrayed her, because she left her boyfriend for me, she was in love with me, at least for a short time. This story left me shattered.

Remember, in the background of it all, I’m still using porn.

Then I discovered weed. Smoking weed was even more insidious habit. It’s a perfect drug for me, because it enhances sensations and especially porn so much. Being high and masturbating – this is what I was doing for at least 2 years straight. My porn preferences became completely messed up – I was even watching trans porn AND gay porn, while being completely straight in real life. My brain fogged up completely. Every day I was crying, then masturbating, then crying again, thinking about ending my life more and more. I started having intrusive thoughts, various nasty, ugly thoughts, almost obsessive compulsive, disturbing thoughts. My own inner dialogue consisted of nothing but insults towards myself – “you pathetic scum, worthless loser, fucking idiot, kill yourself now, get rid of yourself, you’ll never be loved again, you don’t deserve anyone, you will always be a loser”, et cetera.

So now I’m 41, older than my dad when he died. My life is at a crossroads. I’ve achieved nothing of value, I have no family, I only have few friends that live in another country anyway. I’m trying HARD to quit weed and porn.

I’ve been porn and weed free for about a week. I don’ know if I can manage it. My life is completely empty and I’m depressed more than ever. I am constantly thinking – what’s the point in living another 30-40 years (if lucky)? It’s a life sentence to me. I’ve never had actual sex, I don’t feel like a man because of it. And because of that I don’t feel like a human who is of any value.