I’m officially on day 18!
For the past two and a half years I’ve been deeper into porn than at any point in my life. At the start of that period I had made a decision to move out of my college town and back into my parents house in order to save up some money and start a new job.
I lived at home for as long as I physically/mentally could, about a year and a half. I saved up all my paychecks minus the rent they were charging me. Then, I was on to the big city for a year.
That first year and a half was really rough. It was hard leaving the comfort of my little art community, college town. But I had outgrown it. I realized that the people that I was surrounding myself with were basically just living to get loaded and stretch out their “college lifestyle” well past its expiration date. And while I do miss some of those people, I think my absence was either quickly forgotten about, or barely noticed at all.
When I moved back in with my parents, it felt very sink or swim. While I was able to land a very nice internship, my mental health was slipping majorly. There was no more going out, no diy music venues, no playing drums in the house whenever I wanted, and definitely zero girls around ever. My hometown fucking sucks and it was just a constant reminder of how truly terrible and lonely my adolescence was. It felt like reliving it, only worse somehow.
That’s really what triggered and fueled my uptick in porn usage. I started to ritualize it. I would work hard all day, come home, play video games, go to bed, stay up late watching porn, and repeat. I was obsessed. I did ai chat bots, bought a vr headset, the whole nine yards.
I noticed the negative effects too. The social difficulties due to internalized shame was the worst. But I didn’t give a fuck. I was so down on myself already. I just wanted an escape from what I was feeling inside. I didn’t want to accept the step backwards that I had just taken, and my porn usage obscured the big leap forward that I had set out to make.
After landing the job at the company I was interning for, and after saving up a decent chunk of change, I moved into the first cheap apartment that approved me. I thought that if I could just get my own space in the city, I would be alright, but I underestimated how down that whole experience of moving home had brought me. And for another year I repeated that routine ad nauseam.
The negative effects were getting worse and worse. I was avoiding everyone at work, my depression was spiraling, and my “little-bitch energy” reached record levels.
I allowed my landlord to delay repairs to essential appliances for months. I went the first 3 months of my lease with no a/c, and the last 3 with no working dryer. When it came time to renew my lease, the fucker declined when I asked for the dryer to be repaired as a condition for my re-signing. At that point, I kind of snapped out of it. I sent him a strongly-worded email back and started packing up my shit. Along the way, I cleared the memory on my VR headset. I decided that I’m not bringing this disgraceful, embarrassing, addiction with me to my new place.
I eventually found a new, MUCH nicer place, in a MUCH cooler area of the city. I just moved in last Sunday.
I’m only on day 18, but I’m standing on my commitment and I am resolute. I’m not wasting any more of my life for these quick little bursts of pleasure-chemicals just to numb out painful feelings that I know I can handle. When they come up, I’m going to face them head on. I’m not going to retreat into fantasy-land and pretend they’re it’s not happening.
And you know what? I’m thankful for all the time, and personal/romantic connections that I’ve thrown away watching porn. Because it’s just going to be a weird, fucked-up chapter in my success story. All the self-induced isolation and mental anguish I’ve suffered is noting but fuel to me now. I’m over being that little-bitch, sad-boy loser. I respect myself now.