First a little about me, I'm 20 and in college.

I have been jerking off ever since I was a young kid (maybe 6/7), back then I didn’t know what it was I just new it felt good.

My story really starts when I got my first laptop. I was 12 – just hitting puberty. I didn’t have a filter on it and I soon discovered porn. I became hooked. It became almost a RITUAL of mine, I would watch porn (and jacking off) almost every single day not even aware it was going to ‘take over my life’, have a huge negative impact on me or that it was even a sin. As I got older (around 13), the usual videos didn’t ‘do it for me’ anymore. I needed something more erotic. So began looking at more and more explicit porn.

At the same time I was very isolated lonely and depressed (circumstantial reasons) this lasted from the age of 13 till the end of high school. I think this made me tern to porn even more as a form of escape.

Then I was off to yeshiva for the year. I met new people and made friends and totally change from being depressed to very stable happy and normal functioning (physiologically speaking).

As well as this in yeshiva I learned SERIOUSLY how important it is to stop watching porn and the negative effects it was having on me. I realised it was sucking the life out of me. Simple normal things which people get pleasure from I realised that i didn’t and never had. Making me question my sexuality. Making me shy, depressed…ect. Was going to effect my marriage one day.

So I decided to make a serious commitment to stop. WOW this was a harder challenge than I thought. I have gone cold turkey more times than I can remember. The longest I have lasted for is around 2 months whilst I was a counsellor on camp this summer.

I have a filter on all my devices but there is ALWAYS content I can find when I get that feeling creeping into me which makes filters almost useless.

I have come to the conclusion that i needed to post, I feel isolated and hopeless and need others advice.

thanks for reading

Welcome! Reaching out is really important and you'll see that there are others, like me, who also struggle with not watching gay stuff. For starters, it does not mean that you're gay! C"V!! It might mean that you have ssa, and there are deeper issues that cause it such as loneliness, lack of healthy self esteem, etc. Keep on posting! You've definitely come to the right place for chizzuk.

Welcome,

Thanks for the share.
You are amongst friends here.
it is nice that you mixed the actin' out with the loneliness and other feelin's; that's important.
We must realize that this addiction of sorts could be simply a solution to other stuff goin' on in our life.

Lookin' forward to hear more.

b'hatzlachah

Welcome js!
Nothing to be embarrassed about here. Thanks for sharing your struggle.

Welcome! Thank you for sharing your story. It gives me inspiration on how we can struggle against this Yetzer Hara.

The filters are useful for blocking out things that the internet wants to bombard us with. Like you wrote, they can't save us from our attempts to outsmart them. We have to outsmart the Yetzer Hara.

Keep writing, and share with us your successes (and otherwise).

I don't know if anyone can outsmart the y"h, but certainly, for those of us who are addicted or very close to it, there's a good probability that we will not outsmart him.
Can we outwork him? perhaps; and then we will place it in God's Hands!

b'hatzlachah

WELCOME!

Check out the GYE Handbook and Skep's tips


I echo Cordnoy, I don't think I have ever outsmarted the yetzer. He is always outsmarted me!

welcome
you are a hero!
stopped without GYE!
carry on
one day at a time is the name of the game
may hashem lead you to sort out your hurtin soul
but for the meantime the danger is imminent, so keep it strong

WELCOME! That was quite a share. You seem VERY ready for real change. Stick around and learn (and clown around) with the chevra.

There is a lot of great stuff to learn and great people to meet.

Many people who were in your situation or worse are sober today.

Keep posting!

I fell today...

I had an essay due in today, I hadn't started and so the pressure was really on.
Whilst i started writing the essay 'the feeling' started creeping up on me. I could not push it away.
I didn't have the time to ignore it and fight it off, i needed to write the essay.
So I fell (as quickly as i could) and then went back to writing my essay.

I have finished the essay and now i feel terrible and hopeless!

I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

I keep on failing, I don't have control over myself.

First and foremost kol hakavod for being honest it shows your serious
2) you didn't lose any progress made during the last 21 days and
3) the yetzer harahs game plan now is to get you down and out with arguments like now that you reset anyways why don't you fall a few more times then you'll really do it etc. forewarned is forearmed
4) the best way to make sur it doesn't happen again is to analyze what led up to the fall for example stress or a certain place etc.
and most of all know that hashem loves you just the way you are and now that you fell it was pre destin as a test to see how and how long it will take you to dust off and onward March

Hatzlacha

I found your other thread.
once again, sorry on the fall.
Looks like stress can be one of the causes.
what can we do to alleviate that?

b'hatzlachah

Welcome Jay!!!

Stick around and keep on posting help is on its way. Don't let the fall bring to fall off gye or give up c"v.

Sharing and posting is a great way to start your recovery.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!

Just come back to GYE 5 years on and saw my post... really upset to see I have made zero progress, in fact, things have worsened. 

I have started dating and getting worried it really will affect my marriage.
Feeling a bit hopeless. 

Wow! Welcome back. I see that I welcomed you then as well. Have you tried any methods of stoppin' since then? How was college, yeshiva? How are you otherwise?

Godspeed