I was 15 years old when I learned what sex was. I saw a student in class masturbating and I was thinking, “What in the world was this person doing and why is no one else saying anything?”
When I had my first experience of masturbating I remember I had such shame I didn’t know what I did or if it was wrong I didn’t know that it was wrong and I just remember this all encompassing shame like I had betrayed God. I remember wanting to cry. I had never felt that way. It was as if my innocence was taken from me.
After that moment I became a slave to masturbating and porn. I could not stop. I watched porn 2 to 4 times a day for 16 years. I remember always feeling afterwards that I hated myself for doing this and wanted to stop and always telling myself this was the last time. But the feelings were too strong I could never overcome it. I was truly a slave. I hated the way it made me feel about women.
I remember before that experience of my first experience of masturbation I was never that shy around girls and was pretty social around them. But after learning what sex was I could never even talk to a girl anymore because I feared what would happen sexually. I hide and avoid girls and became a outcast. When all my friends were getting at that age when they were interested in girls I became the old man out because I couldn’t put a sentence together and feared even looking into a girls eyes. When I would see a pretty girl I would look at her as a object, a sexual object and I hated it. It made me selfish and a kind of guy that I despised. I tried my best to avoid them and not look at them but the urges were to great so I would go back to pornography.
So began my isolation from society because my friends wernt interested in hanging out with me because I wasn’t good around girls and at that age its all about how many girls you know. So began staying by self. This caused me to get really sick mentally. I was diagnosed with severe depression and paranoia. I can attest that was because I stopped socializing and became antisocial and replaced socializing with negative news stories and gravitated to pain almost as if I was addicted to pain. And the root cause that got me into being antisocial was porn.
Something special happened to me in October of 2010 I took communion at Catholic church. I was not Catholic and didn’t know I was not suppose to take Communion although I am Orthodox Christian. From that point on I went 9 months without looking at porn or masturbating. Previously I couldn’t go a day without masturbating or looking at porn. I had a relapse because my addiction came back. Though I didn’t look at porn I did look at R rated movies which were just as bad.
Then I went on Church retreat in October of 2011 and I decided I couldn’t masturbate during my time at the retreat otherwise I would be a hypocrite. So I went a weekend without masturbating then I decided I will go another week, then another week.
I can now say I haven’t looked at porn or dirty movies or masturbated since October of 2011. Now I don’t look at women as object but I see them as a creation of God. I don’t have thoughts of trying to sleep with them or taking advantage of them. I am more social with girls and others. And my depression and paranoia are pretty much gone and under control. I have no one to thank other than God. Previously I was under the impression that masturbation/pornography was necessary because guys would just go crazy because they have that need and they have release it someway. But now that I see with God you can be cured of this addiction and slavery I have come to the opinion that to prevent the snake from biting you must stay away from the snake and let God destroy it.
I hope other who believe there is no way they can quite pornography please use my story as an example of someone who got healed from porn addiction. I know it is a constant battle and I can never return back or my addiction will return.
-D
