I have a question for everyone: What's one thing you would take back in your life if you could? If you could redo one thing in your life out of all the days you've been living, what would it be? For me, I think it would be my discovery of pornography. It ruined my perspective on romance, ruined the majority of my adolescence during high school days, I acted on impulses and imitated things I saw in adult content, and to this day I still hate pretty much all of what has to do with it. On the other hand, I'd really like to know what other people's answers are to this question. I'm curiosity, maybe this could be fun. It could be refreshing to talk about something that isn't out OCD worries or compulsions.

18+ only Aside from anxiety and intrusive thoughts, which to be honest I'm not as bothered by them like I used to be, there's something else that bothers me just as much, if not more than those things combined. That bothersome thing is pornography. It's been a bother in my life ever since I first discovered it when I was very young. It's always been messing with me. It's like this dirty secret that I engage with and I honestly don't know why I still do to this day. It doesn't help me. I feel bad about it every single time. It amplifies my anxiety and the other day it hurt a friend I deeply care about. The thing is, I've talked about this previously on here, so I just appear like a broken record. At this point, I'm addicted to it I don't want to be, but I am. This is something that takes advantage of your mind. Even if you say no, your mind won't. Worst yet, it appears everywhere in many forms. I feel so dirty. Everytime I end up relapsing I just feel horrible. Horrible due to the fact that this is associating with who I am, even though I don't think it aligns with my morals nor my goals. Not even close. I also feel like this stumped my social development in my adolescence. I understand that teenagers get all wonky with hormones and it isn't like I had a roadmap with going through high school, but pornography definitely made things more difficult. A lot of risky actions were made, bad decisions, and regretful imagery that to this day still messes with me from time to time. I thank God for the days I'm not being distracted and disturbed by those kind of thoughts 24/7. Today, I still think that's bothering me. Another thing that makes me sick is how easily extreme and zany videos can be even when you're not looking for those kind of things. I can Google one thing and it will either give me the opposite or something completely different. Unfortunately, this can include very disturbing things that I wish I wouldn't have seen. This is the only thing I feel so much shame for and I just want it to die. I don't want to deal with it anymore. Yesterday's relapse was one of the worst ones in a long time. I just don't want to keep dealing with this stuff anymore. I wish it were as easy as picking it up, and throwing it out, but the urges and the thoughts and the visualizations come back.

This is about pornography addiction. Back when I was still greatly suffering through it, I remember watching videos I shouldn't have when I was a lot younger. It genuinely did have an effect on my well being and it made me act out in ways no kid should. No kid should be exposed to these things for that matter. I keep focusing on this one time where I made a taboo search about all something and it had the word "lil" in it. After I did this I just started crying badly because of how much of a problem this was for me but now I'm getting thoughts that are saying I did this because I wanted to see kids and that's really scary because I don't want to do that. I really don't want to believe that and I would not want to do that to myself. I didn't see anything inappropriate when that happened from what I remember but I just want stop thinking about these two sides of the event. I think I was around 18 at the time. Something like this also happened when I saw this really disgusting playlist on YouTube that had children in it and creeps saving videos. I couldn't believe it to be true so morbid curiosity came in and when I went through them they were very real and it was very disgusting. I remember freaking out about this so much and I couldn't calm down for that night. It was terrible. I hated that so much. What really scares me about that is before I found this I was watching videos that were fine but just when everything was coming to an end that playlist came up in the midst of it and it made me feel absolutely disgusting. I just hate how much porn messed up my life and I wish I could take it all back. I still get haunting memories of it every single day one way or the other and I'm never at peace with it fully. It always messes with my mind and I can't let it go because of uncertainty. I also hate that through my addiction, I've seen very questionable content without even trying to look for it, which I can't stand. I hate that shit so much. I make specific searches that I find reasonable but even still bad things show up regardless. I just feel disgusting about this completely and it's one of several things that has always kept my self esteem very low. I don't know what to do.

this is a genuine question i have bc when i was younger and had no internet restriction me and my friend stumbled upon on it and ever since my life has kinda changed. and i feel like it’s altered my mind even though i had stopped thinking or watching it. a little girl shouldn’t have seen anything like that and that’s why i became addicted and it’s so unfair. can anyone relate?