Another day along the path towards… hmm, a good question, towards what?
If I was writing a list of things I hope to achieve by rejecting porn and PMO, I think towards the top of that list would be:
It’s been a difficult journey that’s brought me to this point in my life, except I didn’t see how uncomfortable a ride it had been. Trapped in my own ‘comfort zone’ of using porn to cope with stress and the difficulties of life rather than facing them, I used to think I had done rather well to have survived. Perhaps the thing there that tells you that I was not really living is the use of the word ‘survived’; life is about survival, at it’s most basic level, but it can also be about living and thriving, leaving a legacy that means you are remembered after you’ve shuffled off this mortal coil. If the book of your life was a double-entry accountancy book, I would have a lot more entries in the columns that leave me owing than I would in the columns that leave me in credit. I want to turn that balance around if I can, and maybe it has taken me realising I was so far ‘in debt’ to need to address the issues.
Redemption is defined as clearing a debt, regaining one’s freedom, and the latter is possible, even if the former may not be. My actions mean that there will always be people who view me negatively, with whom I have no creditworthiness, and that is something I will just have to bear. I hope I can demonstrate through my actions that I have changed, or am changing, by turning away from the aspects of my character that were hardwired by childhood emotional neglect and then reinforced by adult addiction. Freedom comes at a price, and my freedom from those destructive forces will need to be earned on a daily basis; today I visited a couple of my old ‘haunts’ but turned away, able to recognise that what they offer is not real. It is a fantasy, but fantasies, or the desire to make fantasies real, can cause irreparable damage, and so it is with me.
‘An expectation of obtainment of fulfilment’
That sounds laudable enough, doesn’t it? Even as I typed the words, I realised that what I should be scrubbing off the list if ‘Hope’, and replacing it with…
Hope is good, and you always have to retain hope, but what really makes the difference is having belief. Belief is “a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing”, and I have to believe in myself, to trust that I have the strength to overcome and the wisdom to know what will lead me down the right path, and more importantly, what won’t.
For anyone on the same path that I am on currently, seek help in the right places. That may well mean therapy. It’s not a cheap option, by any means, but this is your life you’re talking about, right? Your one shot at being on this earth. Are you going to continue wasting it, hurting people, hurting yourself? It’s a tough route to take, for sure, but self-improvement through therapy is the best investment anyone can ever make. You can gain skills and qualifications, but changing the way you think, the way you behave and the way in which you subsequently treat others as a result is potentially the best thing you can do. Sadly, it often takes reaching a point where you realise you caused a great deal of harm before you can begin to turn things around, but it’s never to late to try because, hey, it’s only the rest of your life, isn’t it?
Love
Who doesn’t want to be loved? Even those of us who have been programmed by their early experiences to believe that they are unlovable are worthy of love and want love, but those negative self-beliefs given to us by maladapted caregivers and negative life experiences are hard to shake off. Cognitive-based therapy, or CBT, teaches you to look for the evidence that counters your negative self-beliefs, but it’s often true that when that evidence is of neglect, abuse and rejection, CBT can end up reinforcing the negativity. Having someone who loves you, or a therapist or person who believes in you, someone who will listen to you without judgment, is a sound foundation upon which to build. A key to this is allowing children to experience their emotions and being there to comfort them, to reassure them and to help them understand what they are feeling. When children don’t understand what they are feeling and their caregivers won’t validate their emotions by being there for them, children find maladaptive ways to cope with their emotions.
My own experiences have their origins in this sort of experience, albeit not one that was deliberate. Sadly, harm is still harm, and overcoming it is something that is much more effectively achieved when you are still a child than when you are older. The good news is that it’s still possible, that leopards can change their spots, but it’s changes on the inside that matter more than those on the outside. Neuroplasticity is the way in which the brain changes, and although it’s harder when you are older, it’s still something that you can achieve.
Some of the changes to my brain have already taken place in going through withdrawal, something that was detailed in ‘Your Brain on Porn‘, which I can’t recommend highly enough if you are going to attempt to quit using porn. All of the types of changes my brain experienced were laid out by the late Gary Wilson in his book, and being prepared for what you are going to face is hugely important; you might feel as you go through withdrawal that the grimness of the experience is worse than the thing you are trying to quit, but stay determined and know that nothing good was ever achieved easily.
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