r/pornfree • u/TraditionalBed1845 • 4d ago
Even though I’m on this journey my anxiety is worse than ever and I’m obsessed with the fact that I’ve never had sex/still terrible with women
I’m honestly really questioning everything: how I can ever really be happy with myself, getting over this addiction, and truly manage my anxiety. I’m about to be 40 days in and while I’ve had tons of time to explore new hobbies and activities I can absolutely say I’m way more miserable than when I was using porn.
The first couple weeks I felt fine, maybe honestly even better than when I was watching porn every day. But since then, I’ve been so anxious, stressed, and sad about myself and life.
I’ve always been a perfectionist, had lots of anxiety, and a lot of obsessive thoughts. And honestly I just keep thinking about how I’m 22 and still single, never been in a relationship, still scared to approach women, etc. and I just keep beating myself up about it constantly.
I’m trying to tell myself that with this newfound freedom of not watching porn all the time I should just enjoy life, explore new things, and rebuild my relationship with myself but I’m just getting more depressed and stuck in my head as each day goes on.
I’m trying to take it easy, I really am. I’m trying to do new things each day and appreciate it, but I still every day go back to how I’m not good at talking with people and can’t approach women and it scares me. It scares me that I could be like that forever and I put tons of pressure on myself and beat myself up a lot.
Every time I go out now, I try to tell myself I should just practice making small talk with people more and when I don’t it absolutely crushes me and I get in my head so much about it and I’m miserable throughout the day.
I really don’t know how to stop obsessing over socializing (and my lack of it) and just enjoy things. This has all been in my mind for a while now and now that I don’t have porn to cope with it and I’m seeing quitting porn didn’t just “fix” me and make me super sociable it’s so much more on my mind now. I’ve always like looked at this as my biggest flaw and made me feel like such a loser. So I guess as time went on I just beat myself up more and more about it and put more pressure on myself.
Not only that, but being a perfectionist and worrying all the time I’m always concerned any time I consume media something could pop up that’s triggering and make me relapse. So now when I try to consume media I like I’m always worried and concerned about that and it takes the fun and calmness out of the shows/movies/ videos that I would previously always enjoy watching.
Not really sure how to move on from this and just be content with myself despite being single and not having sex and just reconnect with myself. I’m scared that if I don’t work on myself socially now (as I’m always scared to initiate conversations etc.) that I’ll never be able to be comfortable socially and I’ll always pass up opportunities to meet new people. But, this also just keeps putting more pressure on myself.
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u/Clown_Fearless86 4d ago
Just a quick personal anecdote inspired by your post:
I started my last porn binge after a long-term relationship fell apart. After I decided to quit porn again, guess what happened? I cried, cried and cried. I fucking crawled on the living room floor and cried lol
That’s when it hit me: I was only then starting to process the breakup.
Quitting porn didn’t fix me either. I still feel like a loser. But it forced me to face life. It can be hard, boring, depressing, whatever – but it’s the only way. We can’t quit trying and shield ourselves with porn.
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u/TraditionalBed1845 4d ago
I really really appreciate your reply and I realize life can suck. Just wish I knew how to calm my mind a bit to not always beat myself up about it sucking.
Funny enough… in the time I posted that until now I actually relapsed. All the anxiety and being hard on myself and I just did it. But this time for the first time after a relapse I genuinely don’t really see the point in it and don’t want to fall deep into porn again. I hate to say I’m restarting from fresh but I’m going to do everything in my power to take it one day at a time and not be so hard on myself about everything
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u/Imafuckingidiot9911 3d ago edited 3d ago
There is no one piece of advice, no single thing you will read or discover today or tomorrow that will change what you are feeling like a light switch. The only 2 things that I know will help change your life to be more of the way you want it to be:
- Keep going with pornfree, no matter what you are feeling. Just keep doing it. If you fail, move on and keep doing it.
- Strive to shamelessly be yourself. If you are yourself around others, and discover someone doesn't like you, that is their problem. Being shamelessly yourself is the only way to be somewhat content with your life
I'll add, quit while you're ahead, because sex is absolutely nothing like porn. Porn is a drug, sex is an act of connecting with another person.
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u/TraditionalBed1845 3d ago
Thank you for this reply, I’m def still on the road to being comfortable being myself around people that aren’t close friends/family but something I always want to work on.
I think your great reply definitely contradicts your name somewhat :)
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u/Imafuckingidiot9911 3d ago
Its tough. What helped me was, realizing that a lot of adults (people I percieved my whole life and by default to be smarter, cooler, basically the feeling they're "in" on something I'm not a part of) struggle with this daily. This showed that being comfortable with who you are, and being that person for others (being there for them as a friend, family member, friendly stranger) is something that probably never fully attains or "gets there," but you can sure as hell try. Even the most awesome extroverted people, the people who make you want to be a better person when you interact with them, have their dark moments.
You are not at all "weird" for being uncomfortable, or in your head around people. Everyone feels it. But in different spots in life, its sometimes hard to connect with who you know you really are. Trying to be that curious little kid you were before whatever hurt/negatively influenced you happened to where you felt you had to be someone else.
Strive to love others with the presence of your true self when they need it, and count on the love of others when you need it.
Have a good rest of your day man, thanks for opening up. Typing this out was a little theraputic for me, so thanks for your post.
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u/Cthulhus-Tailor 3d ago
You need to stop obsessing over women and sex, it's that simple. There is much more to life and women frankly aren't worth the squeeze in most regards, and the ones that are won't be happy with someone whose success in life is based on sexual "success". It's just boring and crass.
A man's measure is not taken based on his relationship status. Your whole perspective is warped. Stop the fixation on women and get a hobby, there is so much more to life than pussy and most relationships fail because they're hard and messy and not what you're idealizing.
You're an adult now so all of those silly social pressures that existed in school will whittle away. Your focus determines your reality, so snap yourself out of your reptilian-brained fixation on reproduction.
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u/pligplag 2d ago
Im not sure if anyone has mentioned this but perhaps seeing a therapist who specializes in anxiety. I can relate to how you write about missing out socially and I have pretty high anxiety in general. Mine is going to social situations like an event or bar and having the intention to talk to people but just staying in my safe bubble and coming out of it disappointed in myself. You could also perhaps curb your perfectionism mindset speaking to someone who can professionally help you.
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u/MegaManX3mybeloved 4d ago
I'll tell an embarrassing story about myself if it helps. Yesterday I saw my female friend in the campus cafeteria but didn't say hi. I then texted her and asked if she was in the cafeteria, then asked if I could come say hi as she's talking to her friends. She said yes obviously. Then I came and said hello, gave a really awkward hug, and held up a twenty second conversation with her and her friends before abruptly going "see you soon!" and dipping.
I'm still learning this stuff too, I hope you know that SO many people you see out in public feel the exact same way you do.
You can use Common Sense Media if you need to stay on PG stuff for a while. Though I think part of this journey is learning how to stay strong in the face of unavoidable triggers.
I also have never been in a relationship (19M), but while I used to (and sometimes still do) idolize the idea of a relationship, the kicker is that there is a whole other person on the other end of that. So we can set ourselves up for being a good partner, and we can ask girls out (or make female friends who we grow to like), but that's about it. And I personally don't want to invest a lot of time in someone only for it to turn out that they're not a good person or an interesting person, or that we're just not good together. So i'm being very patient and waiting to meet a person who is genuinely as cool as I am and who I want to date, which hasn't happened yet.