Does Porn affect your Mental Health?

Porn and mental health have a close knit connection. Most people who are addicted to porn have mental issues. The issues may be minor but they are there.

A person with proper mental health won’t see porn as something worth watching. Addiction to porn in most cases is an escape route from existing mental pain.

I struggled with porn for many years until I learned that it was a result of emotional abuse I went through when I was a child. After discovering that, I began working to heal from the childhood trauma I had suffered.

The more I healed, the less thrilling I found porn to be. Eventually, I got to a point where my mind healed from the past pain. And it was at that point that porn became irrelevant to me.

If you are careful, you will notice that you don’t get the urge to watch porn randomly. The urge comes at specific times and after specific occurrences.

In my case, I would get the urge to watch porn when I was disappointed by something. I was once running a business and on days that I would not get the profit that I expected, I felt a strong urge to masturbate.

Read Also: Life after Quitting Porn and Masturbation: How it Feels

The most common trigger I discovered that leads to masturbation and porn is failure to connect with people. I can remember a million incidences where I found it difficult to connect with people and ended up masturbating and watching porn when I returned to my house.

The loneliness that was eating me was the most common factor that pushed me to watch porn. I would feel so drained mentally and I didn’t see any other source of happiness except in porn.

The other strange realization I made was that if my mind was deeply disturbed, it would require me to watch hardcore porn to cheer up. Normal porn could not cheer me up in such circumstances.

The sad part was that the very porn I was watching was preventing me from connecting with people. I would constantly feel the urge to isolate.

No matter how hard I tried to stay in the company of people in an attempt to avoid masturbating, I would find myself drawn to the privacy of my room.

Porn and the desire to isolate

For most people that I know who struggle with porn, they like isolating themselves. I have also heard many stories on the internet where porn addicts were asking how they can connect to other people.

From my experience, children who didn’t get emotional connection from their parents are more likely to be addicted to porn. Everyone craves to feel loved and cared for.

When we miss such emotions, our minds push us to find consolation elsewhere. Porn is normally the destination for many people who struggle with keeping emotional connections with others.

The first reason being that porn is cheap. The internet is full of pornographic material. There are unlimited websites that offer free porn content and they can be accessed easily.

For other addictions, there is a financial requirement. You won’t find free beer on the internet. Marijuana and Cocaine are not cheap.

Secondly, porn looks harmless. Almost every other addiction will show physical signs in your body but porn seems to be ‘clean’. In fact, there is a good number of people who don’t believe in porn as an a addiction.

To them, porn is just a way of exploring their sexuality. But the reality is that porn is a silent killer. It eats up its victims from the inside and teaches them to remain silent about it.

Read Also: 7 Secrets only Porn Addicts Know

There is also barely any law that considers watching porn as a crime. Other addictions have restrictions in the law but porn seems to have escaped their attention.

This factor makes porn more appealing to many people looking for an addiction compared to traditional forms of addiction.

Thirdly, porn requires no emotional connection. Since most addicts struggle with connecting emotionally with other people, masturbation gives them an opportunity to ‘sleep’ with girls without any emotional connection.

People who masturbate turn objects into people and they ‘have sex’ with them. Sex dolls don’t need any convincing before you ‘have sex’ with them. That is what victims of porn addiction want.

In a previous article, I mentioned how people addicted to porn will prefer to sleep with prostitutes over their wives for the simple reason that their wives demand an emotional connection while the prostitutes only care about their payment.

What to do about porn and your mental health

If you suspect that your addiction to porn is a result of psychological problems, seek the help of a therapist.

Get a therapist who is specialized in dealing with addictions to help you dig into your past and find the root cause of your addiction.

In most cases, porn is a cover up of an emotional gap that developed sometime back. You may put up a fight against porn but you won’t succeed until the day you tackle your psychological pains.

In another article, I mentioned how porn is a problem of the mind; fighting it demands that you change your mindset.

The cycle of mental problems and porn addiction gets worse every time you indulge in porn and masturbation. If you do it for too long, your mental state will deteriorate to a level that you don’t see the need to fight against the addiction anymore.

Start acting as soon as now to reverse the effects that porn has created in your mind. Don’t allow yourself to die from within.

You can get inspiration from my story of how I overcame porn. Life is better when you are free from porn addiction.

You will be able to relate with girls and your relationships will flourish. If you normally struggle to get into a relationship, once you beat porn, it won’t be hard to get a partner.

There are a million reasons to motivate you to say no to porn. Don’t wait any longer. Start now.

All the best!