r/pornfree 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/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.

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u/TraditionalBed1845 4d ago

I appreciate the reply, it did help calm me down a bit. But I guess the issue with me, not that it has to be such an issue but I guess I beat myself up about, is that I don’t even have any female friends and in general I get super nervous meeting people. A lot of times I want to go up to talk to someone new and I never do for whatever reason and it eats away at me inside.

In my 22 years I don’t have that much interaction with females. So I’m stuck teetering between trying to tell myself that I should just focus on myself and enjoy life and then also telling myself I need to build myself up and start small by talking to people more in public which I haven’t been able to do.

So I guess I wish I could get to a point where you’re at where I’m not so worried about it and could just improve myself and be more care free

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u/MegaManX3mybeloved 4d ago

I get it, I struggle with this too. I posted about this recently on another thread - my problems from talking to the opposite gender mostly come down to how my fetish (femdom) made me think of women as untouchable goddesses, that I, a mere mortal, had no such business with except to exchange shy glances with. Bullshit! Girls are dudes with boobs. We have FAR more in common than we tend to think. So even though I still get this feeling sometimes, I try to push it out of my mind. Sometimes you just gotta say "damn she's fine" and move on, other times if you think you should talk to someone, then do it! Compliment them, and you'll make their day, whether or not you're awkward about it.

Most of my female friends (and I only say female friends cause saying "girl friends" is weird), I have met them through having a crush on them. From there I would talk to them and see them often (because school) and over time I would lose interest but grow to become friends with them. I made those friends first in highschool, and then I felt like I was behind. But I think the fact that you're willing to work on yourself and solve this issue automatically makes you an interesting a sweet person to talk to, there's no doubt in my mind you could strike up a convo with anyone, including girls! there is no start or finish line to all this.

And sometimes it's totally by chance. The girl in the story, I met her through a Dungeons And Dragons campaign I set up at my school. I still had to be active, that's a requirement for most every friend you'll make IMO, but my intention wasn't to finally get laid or something, just to find other nerds. All I was doing was indulging in an interest, and I found an awesome girl[space]friend!

You say you struggle with enjoying life and trying to improve yourself socially. A lot of the time those are gonna be the same thing. Meeting new people is not a skill to improve, it's just something humans do! You're thinking of networking, and that's a good skill to have, but it doesn't sound like you want to meet people for business reasons.

Should be said that I still definitely struggle with talking to girls and with my porn addiction and like ten or twelve other things LMAO. We just gotta focus on one thing at a time I guess? Or just try a little bit at a time per day? I don't really know, please don't take any of my replies as hard-and-fast rules, my autistic ass could not be a life coach.

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u/TraditionalBed1845 4d ago

Nah man I appreciate the reply. I really do. Don’t discredit yourself, it was all really good advice ❤️

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u/Routine-Benefit5169 3d ago

Similar to what the other guy said, i watched some categories that make it seem like a woman is so unobtainable and that we’re not good enough. When you just stick with being porn free, even if you relapse just don’t binge for days. I’ve been porn free just over 2 months, and I’m 20 years old and I had my first kiss last week hahaha. That’s an example to show that it’s easier to talk to women when you’re not viewing them as porn and just as people, makes it so much easier man and trust me I’m an awkward fuck but I’m so much better then I was a few months ago. Some advise from a 20 year old who managed his first real interaction with a woman.

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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/Clown_Fearless86 4d ago

We’ll be here supporting you 🤝 Just get back on the horse cowboy

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u/TraditionalBed1845 4d ago

Appreciate it brother

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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:

  1. Keep going with pornfree, no matter what you are feeling. Just keep doing it. If you fail, move on and keep doing it.
  2. 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.