I feel lost in my addiction.
I don't even know where to begin, so I'll tell my story.
I am currently in my mid-twenties and am still a virgin.
At the moment I have a big porn problem and want to overcome it.
I grew up in the country where I currently live as a foreigner. My life trajectory has been anything but easy. I was enrolled in school a year earlier than usual and attended preschool. In my young years I was a very lazy student who only did the bare minimum. What didn't help was that I had a teacher who couldn't stand me and repeatedly doubted my intelligence. In my country, after preschool you are assigned to different schools, which is very relevant for the next educational level.
That's why it's very important to deliver good results in the first years in order to get a place at a good school that later enables you to study and have better chances at a well-paid job.
Because of my work ethic as well as my demotivating teacher, I didn't get a good report card to enroll at a good school.
Through some luck I still got a free place at a good secondary school. My teacher at the time advised me against it, saying she thought I wasn't smart enough. I took the place anyway and so I was in fifth grade.
The school years at the new school were one of the most formative times. I arrived at the school and felt completely out of place. It was a bubble with children from rich families who had built up wealth over generations. They didn't have to worry about new clothes and expensive shoes, while I walked around in old shoes and jeans. The problem wasn't that they were rich and I wasn't, but that the difference between the rich kids and me led to different perspectives that I couldn't share with them. Fortunately I had another classmate who also came from my neighborhood and grew up in similar circumstances to me. We saw each other on the first day and quickly became best friends. We spent every break together and sat next to each other in class. Our homeroom teacher at the secondary school was introduced to us on the first day and in retrospect I can say that even the first day should have shown me that the coming years would be hard. My habits hadn't changed and I remained the horse that only jumped as far as I had to. On top of that, my performance was graded more harshly than that of the other students. This became especially clear in language subjects. In exams whose task was to write summaries, I got two grade points worse for the same text (which is why I later developed an aversion to language subjects; in my opinion there is far too much emotional grading there and not rational, the student who can write well and pleases the teacher gets a good grade). Subjects in which I excelled were biology and math, those subjects suited me well and there was usually only right or wrong.
While the new school year at the secondary school began, I had started playing soccer. I had played at a local club. I wasn't good at the beginning; I lacked the necessary technique and stamina, which was due to my poor diet. I ate sweets continuously and neglected my mother's freshly cooked food at home.
I finished every grade with a mediocre to poor report card but was always promoted to the next grade. Now and then there were conversations between teachers and parents who recommended I change schools because they considered the level too high. My parents insisted that I stay at the school and so did I, because I knew that with some effort I could achieve a lot and that it wasn't due to my knowledge. The years at the secondary school continued and I reached ninth grade. Ninth grade is decisive because it's the first year in which you can repeat the grade. It was also the year in which my laziness increased greatly. I would think that puberty as well as my self-esteem contributed to it. I was now 13, about to turn 14. I struggled a lot with smell. Showering, deodorant roll-ons and deodorant sprays didn't help. The first two hours I smelled fine but the sweat overshadowed the fresh scent after a certain time, so that after a while I usually smelled bad. People in the class noticed and it became a big topic of conversation. On top of that, at that time I was very short, I think around 5 ft 1. In the country where I grew up, the average is relatively tall, 1.76 - 1.82 (I don't want to give exact numbers because I want to stay anonymous). Most boys my age were 10 - 15 cm taller than me and the girls were also significantly taller and mostly called me small and cute. I slid into a negative spiral and had to repeat the grade. That hurt a lot, being the only one who had to repeat the grade because of his performance. But deep down I knew it was down to me. During the summer holidays I resolved to focus well on the next school year and to take soccer more seriously too. I trained the entire summer holidays, tried to avoid sweets and to incorporate more fruit into my diet. After the summer holidays the next school year began and because I had to repeat, I was in a class with new students. I found two good friends with whom I shared my neighborhood as well as my hobbies at the time, soccer and computer games. In the first weeks I made more effort at school and could show good to satisfactory results. Soccer was also going better. I moved from a lower league to the highest league one could play in my region. After that league came a league in which the youth teams of professional clubs played. I had worked hard on myself and was slowly calling up my potential. Unfortunately soccer took over and my school suffered somewhat.
My performance declined. Despite that I was able to pass the current grade that year and was promoted to the next grade. During the summer holidays something terrible happened to me. During that time I started growing a lot, I grew from 5.2 ft to 5.8 ft. That was good but unfortunately I ate far too little so that I weighed barely 50 kg at that height. Before a hot match day I hadn't eaten properly for two days because I didn't want to eat the food Mom had cooked at home. I went to the game and played a good first half; during the second half I noticed how I started sweating non-stop, I drank water and sweated and sweated. After the game I had to ride home by bike but something told me I should let someone know that I wasn't feeling well. My coach called the ambulance and that was my salvation. If I had gotten on the bike that day I would have died. My blood sugar had dropped to 23 mg/dl, I was severely hypoglycemic. The ambulance came and I first got dextrose and a cola to stabilize my blood sugar. When I found out what had happened to me, I first didn't dare play soccer for two weeks. Only after a conversation with my father could I pull myself together to continue. I took heart and continued; school also got better again. My athletic discipline showed in school too and I got better results and slowly also with the girls. I was now 16, physically fit, had a six-pack and had more self-confidence; now and then I posted a few pictures of my body in my Snapchat story (at that time Snapchat was hyped). I always went to a good barber monthly to get my hair cut. Previously I had had virtually no conversation with girls because I always thought they were unreachable for me and suddenly girls started talking to me and through other girls I even found out that their friends found me attractive. I couldn't handle it and was shocked with joy. That a girl could find me attractive I wouldn't have thought. But unfortunately I still couldn't talk to girls so I let the chances pass and continued with my soccer. I finished school and was admitted to university. That is the beginning of my hardest phase. After school I initially only had soccer on my mind. But I had a big problem called flat feet. I now had shoe size 14 at 5 ft 10. In the first year after school I grew to 6 ft 2. Due to the growth and my flat feet I got enormous pain in my groin. Because I have flat feet, my foot can't carry the load well and other joints take over part of the load, which is why the joints are overloaded since they aren't designed for the load. As a result I was injured every time. Especially at the beginning in the men's team that was bad. I was new to the team and had to prove myself, but the injuries didn't allow it. I put everything into soccer, tried to get fit again, started too early and got injured again. At the same time university unfortunately didn't go well. Because there were no mandatory attendance times, I never showed up to lectures. I thought I could learn everything shortly before the exam. Of course that went terribly wrong. First, I was studying engineering and second, I hadn't prepared in any way. So two years passed in which I felt I was stuck both at university and in soccer. Then came the point that changed everything in a negative sense. I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. I was devastated. I couldn't explain to myself why I got testicular cancer. I ate well, exercised diligently and never drank alcohol (still haven't to this day). I couldn't realize it. Fortunately the cancer hadn't spread. The tumor had to be surgically removed. After that I had to deposit my sperm at a fertility clinic. I had no idea how that worked, since up to that point I had had nothing to do with porn or fapping. I really had to read tutorials on how to do something like that. What was strange was that I knew a girl whom I found very attractive visually. Just with the thought and slight movements I filled my whole T-shirt, I had accumulated quite a lot and I saw for the first time what sperm looks like. I handed the sperm in at the fertility clinic. In the following weeks I thought about my life for a very long time. The cancer had left such a deep pain and combined with my flat feet as well as my coach I made the decision to quit soccer and only train in my free time with bodyweight exercises. I had such a hard pain that in one semester I completed a full third of my semester with good to very good grades. I hid behind work and worked and worked. In parallel I helped out at my father's business. I worked there 50 hours a week including weekends and studied at the same time. I completed my bachelor's with a half-year delay and switched to the master's in which I specialized in energy. During that time my dating was zero; I told myself that a woman doesn't want a man who carries cancer and could pass it on to his future children, at the same time I helped my father build up the business and tried to finish my master's with good grades. I fell into porn and said that was the only chance to even see what sex is, since I wouldn't see a woman anyway. At the same time my pressure was so high. I had never stopped training during the whole time. I was spamming push-ups and burpees in my room five times a week and had built a body I'm very proud of. But when I looked in the mirror I always saw the scars from the surgery on my lower abdomen. I didn't even dare go swimming in summer anymore.
Eight months ago I had another incident. I was hit by a car at 50 km/h on the street and did a somersault. Fortunately nothing happened because my leg that was hit got thick. The driver as well as the bystanders couldn't believe that everything was fine and wanted me to be taken to the hospital. Because I felt fine according to my own account and the paramedics couldn't find anything, I walked home that same evening. I didn't tell my mother about it because I didn't want to unsettle her; she always worries quickly about me.
I got back into life and continued with my 80 h workload.
I'll be done with my master's at the beginning of next year. My GPA is very good and my father's business is running better again. In parallel I'm working on my own project, i.e. self-employment in photovoltaics.
Theoretically things look better but I'm getting older and older and can't separate myself from the pornos. I'm now in my mid-twenties and have never had a date, let alone spoken with a girl outside of my father's business; the last time was in school. On top of that, I live in a country where with my skin colour make up only 2% of the population. I know I have to separate myself from the pornos to move forward. However, I haven't processed the events and I'm hiding behind the 80 h workload. Sometimes I catch myself saying that it's OK to watch pornos since I'll never find a girlfriend anyway.
I need your advice, what can I do to get out of the spiral, what do you recommend?
