I don't know what to do, can you help?

[Mellocean]

*Slight Rant*

I've been addicted to pornography for close to a decade now. As much as I try to abstain from it & pursue women, I've always failed. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to do? 

So far the options I've tried are:

- Abstaining from all technology for several days & failing after roughly a week, I've been trying this for years now.

- Buying a KSafe & putting my phone in there for extended periods of time. 

- Removing distractions on my phone.

- Deleting all my social media

 

It's starting to spiral out of control. While I was once doing slightly better after practicing masterbation abstinence, I now am doing even worse than when I started trying to remove porn from my desires.

For example:

- I now consider drawing hentai myself & possibly running my own porn website

- My fetishes are getting more impractical as the porn-viewing continues

- It's gotten to a point to where I'm fooling myself into paying for porn

 

The interesting thing is, I'm not generally disappointed with the content itself. I'm just annoyed & confused as to why I'm affected so poorly by it. It seems that when I view pornography, I seem to lose a lot of my self-awareness & I become a lot more egocentric than I'd like to be. I become more careless & bothered by inconveniences.

I've noticed when I have successfully abstained from porn for a good while; my confidence, my charisma, my self-esteem, & my overall sense of being becomes optimal & lot more healthy. I can more easily flirt & develop healthy relationships.

As a bonus, I get annoyed because I'm a very good-looking, smart guy. I have options, I just don't pursue them because my headspace is so cluttered & screwy from my fears & insecurities possibly due to porn use.

I've only been with about 6 or 7 women over my entire life (In my mid 20s) & while they were emotionally healthy, they didn't last more than a month each, if that. And that's my own doing. My point is that: porn is seemingly causing me countless problems with my self-development & it is furthering the halt in my immaturity with relationships. 

As I get older, I become more annoyed with this. I only have so much time to replace my bad habits. At some point, my habits will become a lot more concrete & I'll be more likely to give up out of discomfort. I want to fix this problem as soon as I can within reason. I already don't have that much experience with sexual relationships  or women in general. 

I don't know what to do. Right now, I'm considering selling my smartphone & just buying a flip-phone & an iPod shuffle.

My goal is to be finally unaddicted to porn. Any suggestions/recommendations?

[Gili Trawangan]

What I've found is that the more you focus on getting rid of something the more you strengthen it. Your focus needs to go into something else, NOT into trying to get rid of porn use.

What are you passionate about? If women is all you are interested in at the moment, start approaching them. Shift your focus from sex/porn to actually meeting women and learning how to flirt with them, take them on dates. You will eventually notice that watching porn makes you less attractive (you seem to understand this) and then you'll have positive and more natural motivation for stopping it.

Fill your life with things that you enjoy and/or want. And be gentle with yourself if it takes some time.

[Mellocean]

A little self-analysis from my first post:

I feel like if I wasn't judged so harshly by myself & society, I would have no issue with porn & might even have no addiction to it either. But that's too impractical to consider for society as of now, so something must be accepted.

How do I stop judging & shaming myself so harshly for something? 

Answer: By understanding WHY you're judging yourself. 

And how am I to do that if I'm in the very position that favors the downfall of its growth?  You see, my ego is an expert at delusion when it's entrenched in pornography.This is where it thinks its striving & happy, but it's all an illusion created by itself. How does it see past it's own delusion?

Edited May 14, 2021 by Mellocean
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[Mellocean]

@Gili Trawangan

5 minutes ago, Gili Trawangan said:

You will eventually notice that watching porn makes you less attractive (you seem to understand this)

I do understand that, I just fear the eventual outcome of the relationship with a woman whilst I'm still in the midst of trying to leave pornography. Pornography's got me all fucked up on what type of relationship I want. I've been told that abstention for several months to even years is what it really takes to regain your sense of sexuality & self-awareness. What am I to do with these women I'm approaching, if not to just disappoint them with my abstinent lifestyle?

[Gili Trawangan]

6 minutes ago, Mellocean said:

@Gili Trawangan

I do understand that, I just fear the eventual outcome of the relationship with a woman whilst I'm still in the midst of trying to leave pornography. Pornography's got me all fucked up on what type of relationship I want. I've been told that abstention for several months to even years is what it really takes to regain your sense of sexuality & self-awareness. What am I to do with these women I'm approaching, if not to just disappoint them with my abstinent lifestyle?

I personally wouldn't worry about that. I would try to have fun and I would be honest with the women, there are plenty of women out there who are not looking for anything serious. But that's just me.

So, having said that, I did mention you can focus on anything that you're passionate about. If meeting women right now is not it, then focus on something else. What are you passionate about?

Again, all I'm saying is that focusing on what you don't want is a recipe for disaster. And misery.

[EnlightenmentBlog]

9 hours ago, Mellocean said:

So far the options I've tried are:

- Abstaining from all technology for several days & failing after roughly a week, I've been trying this for years now.

- Buying a KSafe & putting my phone in there for extended periods of time. 

- Removing distractions on my phone.

- Deleting all my social media

Stop treating the symptoms and start addressing the causes. 

 

9 hours ago, Mellocean said:

I've only been with about 6 or 7 women over my entire life (In my mid 20s) & while they were emotionally healthy, they didn't last more than a month each, if that. And that's my own doing.

Why? What makes you choose porn over real girls? Investigate. There's a deeper reason you need to find. 

[Mellocean]

@EnlightenmentBlog Thank you, I can see I've been avoiding these options.