wow I cant believe I'm doing this. here goes then.....I do not know exactly how typical this is but i started being attracted albeit in a very light way at a very young age, I'm talking four five. i still remember wanting my kindergarten teacher to pick me up/ around six i started with some very light form of M just like applying pressure and stuff. as i started to get older eight nine and ten it developed into the real thing and basically became a habit whenever i would read which i did plenty as a kid i would act out. it totally became part of my life i couldn't really imagine not doing it. i still remember finally getting wind that it might be assur and literally not knowing how to understand how such a thing which i felt i had no control over and was just part of life could be assur. my childhood and especially by my preteen years were full of fantasizing  and i didn't even think about stopping it. as i got older and went through mesivta i finally tried to get hold of myself here and there but to no avail and generally treated it as a lost case. through this tekufa my struggle mainly was just M not so much P in the typical sense bc i was a little different and was just as attracted if not more to clothed individuals so even a regular movie with a little love could be a problem for me. also because of that all the extra tznius that frum women have over non frum didn't help much and probably was worse. when i was a little older one  elul i took on myself to stop on shabbos i dont remember exactly why i may have been inspired by the iglei tal in hakdama who i think connects shabbos to shmiras habris. anyway almost to my surprise it worked! the next year i looked into the hole inyan more and i finally got the guts to talk to people about it. there was an older bachur i was close to who was known as the best bachur in yeshiva a huge metzuyan and oived also. much to my surprise he had struggled with it also. i went to rebbeim one of them really scared me which he probably shouldn't have but at the time it worked I really took on myself to be done with it. and i was for about a year and a half it almost became not a nisayon for me. then came a rough tekufa in my life.  it wasnt just that it was a bein hazemanim that i was home and had access to poorly filtered internet. bc i was pretty strong at the time. the reason was that i had suffered really throughout my life with a lot of emotional distress.  i had a big episode at the beginning of that year which had left its mark already but this time especially was really bad. i believe it is this that caused me to to start suffering from some form of ocd/anxiety that manifested itself with certain thoughts of kefira that i couldn't get out of my mind it was a torture beyond words i cant explain what its like when ur own mind turns on you but those who know know. under this pressure i succumbed. at first i managed to get it somewhat under control and when this tekufa was over i would say i was resisting for about a month at a time. at this time in my life i also had a lot of sipuk i was in my rosh yeshivas shiur and baruch hashem we hit off i became a real talmid and he showed me that he appreciated me and i would say the high level of sipuk i had helped not mess up too often. then however i went to EY. i do not know exactly why but there i completely went under probably because i was a lot more out and about and there were a ton of frum women around which as i mentioned could be a full blown turn on for me. and i was back into my habit of doing it multiple times a week. this continued when i came back to america but with time this got worse in two ways. number one i finally fell into more serious P real and AI. also even worse bc i always have access to my phone is that i fell into call lines put together with the fact that im dealing with a personal struggle of a different nature which has been very difficult and affected my learning i find myself at a pretty low point now. i look back at my peak years when i was on fire in learning i had tremendous sipuk i was from the top few guys in my shiur went to brisk the whole 9 yards  and barely messing up and now i go to seder without much interest ( i will say baruch hashem that he even in this time has given me number one really good chavrusas despite my not being as involved as i have been in the past. this has kept me at least somewhat involved which has been a lifeline. number two hashem has given me really great friends who love me and i love back which is the only way I think I'm still hanging on) i don't feel in control of myself i can sometimes spend a whole night doing P or miss minyanim bc of it and i can do M multiple times an evening, my concentration by davening is almost nonexistent i used to say tehilim and feel a close connection with hashem and cant say i feel it now. and honestly i have tried so many times in the last few years that i really have a hard time convincing myself that this time can be it. i feel like a certain dryness as if I'm almost just joking around because i cant be serious about stopping and deep down a certain voice that says u don't really have the self control. yet paradoxically as i write this and also as I'm on my second day clean with my new gye mentor i am hopeful for a breakthrough. just by joining this chashuve group i feel inspired as i mentioned. i do feel like if i can just get into a position of strength with lets say fifty sixty days clean it would be a whole different situation. is rare however in the last few years that i ever got to even thirty and basically never past that. so here's my tefila that this should be the time that i break through with your help and the help of hashem. thanx for reading!