All of a sudden, I feel really embarrassed and disgusted because of all the porn I used to watch in my teen years. Since late October, I've been trying to cut porn out of my life and thinking about it realizes how uncomfortable the things I used to watch make me feel now. I also feel like my rambling thoughts about inappropriate sexual themes are because of porn. I'm just trying to reboot my mind so I can think better and not get so caught up with sexual things. Especially in the mist of this pandemic. I hope nothing is wrong with me.

Honestly thanks so much for this. OCD loves to make it seem like things that happen to you don't happen to others and it makes you feel like the worst person in the world at times. Porn is totally normal and people that watch it are fine. However, I found myself no longer enjoying pornography at all and realized I was addicted to it long after watching so much of it. It got to a point where I felt like I did it not because I enjoyed doing but because I needed to. I'm also very interested to see how it'll change how I feel months from now.

@Anonymous I'm glad I have someone that I could relate to with something like this. Lately I've just felt guilty whenever I do watch porn and it activates more like a compulsion than it does a pleasurable activity. I guess masturbation with only one's imagination would be a different experience but for me I don't want anything to do with PMO as of now. I even get disgusted in memorizing the porn I used to watch whether it'd be the reaction of the people or the tone of the video. It's all overwhelming and with OCD it makes you feel like you're an incredibly shitty person for going through what in this case would be a human behavior.

YES I get exactly what you mean. When I was first exposed by pornography at a very young age (honestly before high school even got close) I had been phased by it with a shock. I didn't really have friends much and I was sheltered so I didn't have anyone to release any sense of dopamine or hormones with so porn, for many years was my answer. Growing up from that, I realize that porn is honestly disgusting. All it does is make money off viewers, performers, and it's categories. The fact that there's so many categories just proves that they don't provide any limits to how much someone could watch, especially if it drives away from how they first started out. It's so common to hear that people went from normal porn to way more extreme types of it just because they were bored of what they used to watch a lot of. It's terrible in my opinion. OCD on the other hand makes it seem like it's all your fault however and it makes you think you're the worst and you don't deserve any sense of love or recovery. It's a bully at this point. The last part about the swindling really hits home. Everytime I feel like I've conquered one problem it prepares itself to latch onto the next. Yuck.

Honestly I'm beginning to think my OCD started in my later years of middle school. I remember the first time I developed a kink in those years. At the time I was really bothered by it and didn't want anyone to find out. However, family members did and I got really really upset at that and I guess they just got over it. It used to bother me heavily but not so much now. What does bother me however is that pornography is able to give people false kinks like voyeurism, exhibitionism which I honestly thought I had, fetishizing groups of people, BDSM, etc. Porn can literally make one think that they have these kinks even if most people know they wouldn't act out such things. But it becomes a problem for younger viewers because they don't know that porn is seperate from reality. I guess OCD had latched onto things like these for you and I just because they would make us feel negative I guess. Like the mistakes I've made in the past for example.

@Anonymous LOL, the kink was pretty simple just a passionate love for feet that all started in the 7th grade cause this girl loves to wear her favorite flats and play with them. I guess in a way they were using their feet as some sort of communication, which from what I saw, definitely seemed that way. For some stupid reason I just couldn't help but watch. Not only that, feet seemed to surround me in that year, from students to teachers. I dunno what it was but it was a thing that just came up for me and my brain was all like "This is pretty cool. Also yeah I thought I was the only one with that. Like, for some reason "teen" is one of the more popular categories even though it ranged around 18 year olds at the limit. What's mind boggling is that the actual age for teens are between 11-19 I would say. It goes much lower than that. It's so odd. Porn used all of these categories as if they're nothing. They tell the mind that no matter how odd, how shocking, or flat out fucking disgusting, it's all nothing but a kink. Yeah, there is a way you could friend people on here in a way. You could follow them incase they post something and you could get a notification on it to see what they've shown.

@Anonymous Nah I don't think there's a DM decision on here. I'm more comfortable without it. What made me join this app is that I couldn't stand being with nothing but my thoughts and they just weren't making me happy. OCD was kicking my ass and I needed to see what was wrong with me. I'm glad to know that there was a name for it and having a community of people going through the same things really does make it weaken.

Guilty for things you didn't do, eh? I think that fits the definition for most OCD to be honest with you. And your mother wasn't 100% incorrect when she said guilt means you're a good person. She was right about that. When you feel bad about something or feel guilty for someone or something, it shows you're a good human. It shows you're meant to do good. Bad people like murders and rapists don't feel remorse for their victims at all. They're happy that their victims are either dead, scarred for the life, or simply don't care. Good people never get to that point.

Oh wow. I'm sorry to hear that actually. I hope you're doing everything you can to fight it and feel better tomorrow!