My story,

 I was born in Nottingham, England, son of a no hoper dad, and a mum who is best described as a fucked up dyspraxic. As in despite of her failings and the huge ways she messed me up, she did in her own way always love me.

I had a lonely and sad childhood as far back as I can remember, one early clear memory is of walking to school, making up songs which made me feel so bad that I’d cry.

I don’t know how to explain the abuse and the neglect I felt back then, it was just normal, I know I was neglected, poverty and my mum’s basic inability to take care of herself ensured that. Being made to be involved in my mother lies to the social to get disability benefits, being confused by what was real in how she suffered, and what was fake. Either way I could have been looked after more, I shouldn’t have had to be a parent for my sister, cook, clean and entertain her. I shouldn’t have had to experience having a bell rung for me like some kind of servant to get her tea while she was playing backgammon with her sometimes fuck buddy/ disposable friend who despite his own pervyness was probably a lot of the reason I ever saw anything wrong with the way I was raised. It was strange tho to say the least to have someone you respect to a degree, joke about and insult your mother behind her back in attempt to be on your side, and also use her for sex.

I guess my mum was probably always weird around me sexually, making light of sex (which has in a lot of ways made me put more on it then otherwise), being ‘Greek’ as she called in her atitude to what’s ok to talk sexually about with your own son. Then there’s more direct stuff like being excessively naked around me till an older age when I was obviously uncomfortable with it, making me check her privates rather then seeing a doctor. And the very start of my issue with porn, her friend that I’d mentioned before had brought around hardcore porn, orgies that kind of thing, I knew it was there, not exactly hidden in our living room. I unsurprisingly was curious and watched it. She found the tape in the player, and when I was uncomfortable about being caught with it, as is normal, her response was to sit me down and make me watch it with her, like it was just TV. I wasn’t allowed to go, and this felt wrong. That’s what a lot of things in my childhood felt like ...wrong.

So that’s the nub of mu childhood except a vague disturbing memory of possible sexual abuse when on a holiday. This lead me to being a really angry and destructive child, I dug holes in walls, set fire to the toilet door, got found sitting in a ring of fire, you know the usual healthly kid stuff. My family sought help for me at this point and so I had a child councillor, who after listening to my story recommends boarding school for me.

 Which was probably a huge saving grace for me as it got me away from that, but why did no one ever explain that it wasn’t me at fault, I felt sent away like a bad thing, not saved from a bad thing. Along the way tho I did meet a teacher Mr Tyler, who saved me from anger, and was the best friend I could have had at that time of my life.

I was also caught at primary school with newspaper cuttings and soft porn bits, which got me in trouble and I had the talk from school. In fact from this point in my life I was always looking for nudey women newspapers discarded by the road, random ones etc.  And I also damaged and reinforced my belief that I was broken by experimenting sexually with my sister, fortunately she was never comfortable with this and it didn’t go far. And experimenting with the dog which went too far.

Around 15 or so we got the internet at home and I quickly fell into watching insane amounts of porn. I’d get in from work, and I’d be doing everything @ once, gaming, chatting, and watching porn. In only short time porn became the primary thing I was doing even gaming which I love to waste time on became a distraction more acceptable to me but not what I really wanted to do. I’d browse video after video until I fell into masturbation, then carry on watching more and more until I’d masturbate again and round again, deep into the night even tho I’d have to get up for work. Meeting my first girlfriend at 18 – 19 didn’t really make much differnance to the amount of porn I watched, I’d normally be just as happy to stay home and not meet up with her or my friends and watch porn and game instead.

Then came the best time of my life, I met my wife Tess, and I was lost in her love and it saved me, probably from killing myself from my depression, I won’t lie at first while we had a distance relationship, I still watched some porn, but I’d prefer to chat online to her, and I honestly at this point wouldn’t have believed porn to be an issue. Even tho even before Tess I saw porn as a form of using women and if I’d been asked I’d have said I thought the industry to be immoral. Then it got even better Tess moved in with me and then we all moved out of home, as I had no internet I didn’t watch porn at all, we had a lot of sex which was wonderful, and talked deep into the night, and slowly, I thought at least I was getting better, happier, but under all this I wasn’t more caring about myself, I just found someone who loved me utterly, needed me and I clung to her like a downing ship. This became clear when we got the internet and I was back to watching porn, got caught and swore of it, I didn’t want her to feel ugly and unloved so I promised, it meant nothing tho. I don’t even think I meant it myself back then after all it was only porn, not like I was cheating or anything. I think this lasted around 6 months or so. However long it was, what happen next is that she got pregnant, and while at first I was only positive about this, we moved out and away from my family, my friends and I fell apart. I soon fell into a depression and driven by my low esteem of myself as a Dad to be and a good man, I started watching porn again, sneacking off in the dead of night to watch it when I thought I might not get caught.

 From then on up till now I have tried again and again to stop watching porn under my own power, or by solving other of my issues like depression, guilt from my childhood, getting counselling, CBT, confessing and failing over and over, all the while eroding everything that I cared about, everything I liked about myself or was passionate about. Gone was my spirituality or quasi science dreaming or using my hands to make stuff, fix stuff.

Tess understandably was hurt over and over by this, and she even almost left me to see if she really had feelings for another man, but I persuaded her to stay, with notes and promises. Even tho even as she was going I was back at it almost as soon as she left the door. From here I just continued to get worse, my feelings as a parent came out time and again with my son, poisoning my love for him into anger and lack of control.

We moved back south again and nothing changed except Tess becoming more and more isolated from me, she fooled around with another bloke and I had a breakdown, told her about what had really happened with my sister, and I thought it would be over, but she stood by me even then and that’s when I first tried to get help, I had relationship counselling, personal counselling, CBT, all in a short space of time and yeah it helped of course it did, I had no more secrets no more guilt, but I never accepted that I had an addiction. Not even a little.

And so it’s carried on like that, I’ll get caught and I’ll stop for a while, feel better. Or I will stop myself, and feel better for a few weeks, few days whatever. But it’s always been there waiting to take control again, to become that other me the one that I’ve been for more of the last few years. I feel nothing; I care about less, dispassionate, withdrawn and driven by guilt, shame and the inability to be honest.

That’s how I’ve hurt her the most, with all the bullshit and lies.

It came to the worst last year, I got a delivery driving job for dominoes and I managed to hack into the GPS smart phone, hated myself for it but carried on anyway. I started to use it more and more, finding places at work without cameras to use it, stopping after a delivery to watch a video or two. Then I was more and more driven to watch porn, until uncaring for how stupid I KNEW it was, I started to search for videos while actually driving, bearing in mind I’ll diss people from texting and driving. So the obvious happened, due to lack of sleep and doing a porn search I lost control of my car and drove off a large embankment, down a massive drop into a field. So I’m there in this field, cars a write off, and what’s the first thing I think about? Better clear the search off the phone so the police don’t find it and Tess find out... what’s wrong with me, I mean really, the rest of the day passes in a blur of me especially convincing myself that I can’t tell Tess, that I don’t have to. That it’ll be too much for her. That I’m not telling her to be kind or protect her, what bull.

Of course the result of this was that my porn watching got back to being worse not better, Tess fell into anxiety, I fell into guilt, she got past it, I felt guilt. I tried every method and excuse, reminded myself of all the promises and wedding vows. Blocked the internet on my phone, set up net nannies, used eBooks instead of porn for a bit, bought another sim card, used proxy servers to get around the net nanny. Stopped it all and just fell again. Then I got caught and I pray this is the last time, but I don’t have faith in myself, can’t have faith in myself! I know it’s a lie I’ve known since last time I tried SAA.

Tess told me that that enough she can’t deal with it anymore so porn is my problem and she doesn’t want anything to do with it, and I can do whatever as long as she doesn’t have to know, but in return if she wants to flirt online then she will to and I have no say in this. That hurts but I love her so I have no choice but to accept it, it made me go into a porn spiral for a while, until we had a massive row because I told her I had to know if she loved me or we’d have to separate, that I couldn’t do both. But I will if there’s still hope, I will deal with my hurt and my paranoia and trust her to know herself and keep fixing myself knowing it might be too late. It gives me panic attacks at times but I also refuse to hide away in porn and games so that probably makes it harder.

 So I will do the only thing I can to and accept that I’m powerless and do anything and everything to make the program work for me. I need it to work, and this even surprises me I want it to work, I don’t want to be nothing anymore, I want to be me, but it’s scary as I’m not sure who that is, I’ve never really been a good version of me for me, I’ve done it for other people, or to survive depression like a stubborn animal, be a better dad, lover. But I don’t know I’ve ever done it for me before. It’ll be a new journey and a scary one at that