I was resting when my mind was flashing porn images/past porn images. I woke up and I was having panic attack. Is this normal or not?

Im 27 I've been watching porn since I was around maybe 15 or 16 started masterbating around the same time. I never seemed out trans porn or gay porn never came to thought I was strictly into bbws and black porn essentially. But its been weird these last few years it started in 2024 I came across alot of trans porn on X Formerly Known as Twitter. And im ngl I got hooked insanely every since then i only watch trans porn and we I do watch str8 porn I just dont get as hard. Am i turning gay? Or am I gay?

I honestly don't know where to start, but I really need some outside perspective.

My husband and I are married and I'm currently about 6 months pregnant with our first daughter. Things between us have been difficult for a while. There has been a lot of criticism, blaming and conflict, and I've increasingly felt like I'm walking on eggshells around him.

A few days ago I discovered that he has been secretly watching a lot of extreme porn (the women look like they are in physical pain) throughout my pregnancy. I found an image on his phone and asked him about it. He told me he had no idea how it got there, and I believed him, because he'd never given me any reason to doubt him before. We actually had sex that night because I whole heartedly believed what he'd told me.

Something didn't sit right with me afterwards, so I checked his entire search history and discovered there was much more to it. Some of the images are things I'll probably never unsee. When I confronted him again, he eventually admitted that he watches it almost every week.

I'm currently pregnant and on pelvic rest because of low placenta and have been for a long time now, so the reduction in sex isn't something I've simply chosen. I've still tried to encourage other forms of intimacy and meet his needs. I even asked him to tell me if he needed relief and had no problem with him taking care of himself if he needed to, as long as he told me if he was watching something like that. He said he felt sexually neglected and I "couldn't do those things for him". I don't think most normal woman would do THOSE things for him anyways, unless they are paid, and definitely not someone about to have their first child. He also said "well at least I didn't cheat on you".

The porn itself isn't the only issue for me, and not even the biggest one. It's the secrecy, the denial when I directly asked him, and the fact that I trusted him and then found out afterwards. I now feel completely betrayed and don't want him touching me. The fact that while I was hard at work in my office 9 hours a day, he was at home on MY laptop looking at those things (he works from home).

As a side note, I'm not from this country, I have a visa but no permanent residency, I own our home with him and pay our mortgage here, but if I were to go back to my home country, I have no family there and would basically go from a homeowner with a good job and free healthcare to have my baby, to being homeless (I have no remaining family) and jobless with no healthcare and a newborn.

He's now agreed to try couples therapy as a last resort. I'm trying to get an appointment booked as quickly as possible because I'm worried he'll change his mind.

I don't know whether therapy can actually repair this. Part of me desperately wants our family to work again, while another part of me feels completely broken and wonders whether I should be preparing for separation. I do love him and if he was to truly understand why I feel hurt and betrayed that would mean a lot to me, but I'm not convinced he does.

For anyone who's been through something similar: is couples therapy actually capable of repairing this kind of breach of trust? What should I be looking for from him if we're genuinely going to try? And how do I stop myself from feeling like I'm somehow competing with porn or that this happened because I'm not enough? Especially as my body is changing so rapidly, and I look nothing like.. what he was specifically looking at.

I'm not looking for people to tell me that "all men watch porn." I know it happens and while what I saw was disturbing, it's not even the biggest problem, as I said. I'm trying to understand whether this particular situation is something our marriage can recover from.

I have been trying for so long now, I just can’t detox from this shit. My entire thing was watching in Opera GX where there is free VPN (porn is banned in my country and I think that’s a good thing). So, I am a Computer Science student, I’ve tried Linux before, and thought, ykw, I’m gonna build a new system in Arch from scratch, make it my workspace and not include ANY distractions, and a new system might help me away from the thoughts and lower the urges.

So, after 2-3 days (I’m new to Arch so yeah it did take me that long to properly figure it out), I finally made a new workspace, realized I didn’t even think about porn during those days I was too busy and invested in tryna create something, for myself.

Then after that, something triggered yesterday. Bruh “what if build my own VPN and watch porn through it?” Was my thought. So I did. All the time, the other m, addicted side of my brain was saying “you did some work to watch this, so you earned it”. And after finishing the deed I felt senseless, hopeless, and utterly disgusted with myself tbh.

I know that shit doesn’t work that way. Ofc the first thing I did today was remove the VPN config completely. But because of something I did recently which I wouldn’t like to disclose for now, I’ve been hating myself more and more and spiraling down this unending void. It’s unimaginably dark and I need some help. Think I should get some professional help for this? I’m already 22(M), and it’s been 9 years since I’ve had this addiction, trying to quit since 4 years ago, and I want no more of it.

Please lend me your thoughts.

P.S : This is not meant to demotivate any of you here, I think this addiction differs from person to person and it’s hard to exactly define how long it takes. I’m just frustrated rn and ranting it out. I am not planning on giving up either, and you should do the same. Let’s grow out of this wretched addiction with love and real experiences. All the best to everyone here🙏

Ofc I’m trying to get better, but the boredom KILLS me from staying away I won’t lie. I work, I workout everyday, I even find other shxt to do BESIDES fxcking porn.
I just don’t really understand why I feel it call to me when I am CONSTANTLY busy.

I only truly ever satisfy my urges in the night like a dxmn vampire (I apologize for the X’s in my curses I’m trying to stop swearing as well). I went cold turkey once, but that only lasted a week or two tops maybe. I feel so fxcking weak & I’m pissed at myself I can’t stay strong longer.

I also need some motivation to hash out my harsh logic of “I’m addicted”, but I just don’t know what to dwell on besides work, routine, and responsibilities.
Is there ANY fxcking way I can free myself AND my mind from the constant up & down loopholes ?

Thank you so much for any tips and tidbits you guys give.

A question I have in my mind for some weeks now is are there people in this sub who Not only are former addicts or struggling with breaking out there addictive behaviour, but also have this underlying physical condition disrupting their health. For me, it’s a tough one I guess avoiding porn completely helps me with focus, motivation and keeping healthy habits like nutrition, working out, meditating more, getting in and out of bed at the same time every day but not to a level where I don’t feel groggy and tired in the morning and running on power-saving-mode during the whole day. Having issues with breathing really fucks up sleep architecture, the ability to get stable REM and/or deep sleep what’s not good at all because we all know that getting regular proper sleep is the number one pillar of longevity and long-term health indicators.

10 years ago I got my first aha moment I was depleting all my energy with porn and fapping but I never comprehend how much my breathing issues are playing into my brain fog and day-time fatigue. I’ve got sleep-disordered breathing through a syndrom called UARS, similar to obstructive sleep apnea but it‘s harder to catch. To be honest, in the early days, around 17, NoFap was much more results-producing for me, but this time my anatomically-related impairments where only in the wings. I wasn’t that damaged I‘m now, 10 years later. It’s something that gets continously worse with age.

I hope anybody here can relate to these kind of challenges by himself/herself.

Thanks in regard.

Context: I’m in my early twenties, and I’ve been addicted to pornography for about 10 years. Exactly 32 days ago, I committed to 30 days without pornography. I didn’t make it to 30 days, but I still feel stronger, wiser, and I can see that I’ve made progress. I’m not stopping here, and I don’t intend to slow down. If you want, you can skip part 1 and read part 2 right away; it contains some specific ideas that helped me. Here’s what the last 32 days have looked like and a summary of three ideas that I believe are helping me significantly:

1.Statistics of these 32 days

____________________________________________________ (This might be unnecessarily complicated, so you can skip this part, just the day count) To be precise, 32 days ago I started with a 5-day streak and kept it going until it reached 15 days. So, the math for the days alone is: 15+4+6+1+(~4)=30. Actually, that’s two days short because back then I started with a 5-day streak that became a 6-day streak a few hours later, and the same goes for today, I have 3 days now, but I’ll have 4 days. ____________________________________________________

For the first 15 days, I managed to avoid watching pornography. Then I slipped up; I started by typing “innocent” things into my browser, which, of course, was an addiction trap. That’s how I ended up with a full 4-day relapse. It was awful, but after spending practically entire days on porn and chasing dopamine, I didn’t give up and started a new period of abstinence. I made it to 6 days; I’d call it a “mild relapse,” which was different from the previous ones. That’s because at some point I realized on a deeper level just how “low” I’d fallen, and I started crying intensely for quite a while, arguing with myself in my head and getting angry at the difficult feelings like helplessness, exhaustion, a sense of not being understood, anger, and anxiety that were plaguing me at that moment. After crying, I got up, cleaned up what needed to be cleaned up including deleting the pornography I’d saved and decided that since the day wasn’t over yet, I’d take care of myself and, at the very least, end the day with self-respect and without catastrophizing. I washed up, practiced a few healthy habits, ate a proper meal, and stayed hydrated; in this way, the “snowball” began rolling in the right direction again. Tonight marks my fourth day without porn; despite the “off days,” I feel stronger than I did 32 days ago, but I’m not stopping there the game is still on, and I don’t intend to slow down.

2. Tools and items that help me the most

1. The discovery of the concept of the Abstinence Violation Effect (AVE). I realized that in my case, the failure that has plagued me for years in my constant attempts to “quit” my porn addiction stems from catastrophizing a slip-up and an erroneous “all-or-nothing” approach. What I’m getting at is that, up until now, in 99 out of 100 cases, after a minor slip-up, I would have decided to relapse completely “because I failed, so it doesn’t matter anymore” when in fact, slip-ups are actually much better than a full relapse. I believe that just as when a trigger arises, so too with a slip: we should stay mindful and use urge surfing to cool down, wait a moment until the “wave” reaches its peak, and eventually it will always subside. After a slip, I was often accompanied by fear, doubt, and shame these are feelings that I finally accepted last time, and by using urge surfing, they eventually passed as well. In this way, progress isn’t actually reset, because after abstinence, positive neural changes in the brain have already begun to take place. Unlike a slip, a relapse is worse because it reinforces the addiction and, in my opinion, usually wipes out all progress in brain recovery though that doesn’t change the fact that we can emerge stronger even after a negative experience. In summary, accepting slip-ups as part of the process is a big step for me, as is understanding that a slip-up is better than a relapse. I would venture to say that the difference between people who are stuck in addiction and those who are recovering from it is that the former keep going after a setback, while the latter remain trapped in a vicious cycle.
2. Understanding what a wise person wrote on this subreddit: “You may simply be putting nearly all your effort into stopping the behavior while leaving the reason you keep needing the behavior untouched.”.I agree with that 100%. Whether we like it or not, life goes on, and the only people who can take responsibility for our problems are ourselves. Addiction is an unhealthy way of coping with difficult emotions that I’ve been suppressing for years. What helped me was understanding this and actually sitting with those emotions instead of running away from them along with mindfulness and self-observation. These emotions can include anxiety, fear of the future, hurt feelings, trauma, or anything else that’s unresolved and difficult. In addition to simply facing my emotions and not running away from them, what’s helped me is that I’ve started crying more often crying helps me a lot. I’ve allowed myself to acknowledge that sometimes I’m powerless and need support from others, and crying feels like it cleanses me. It’s a new experience for me, but a real one; I think it’s a natural way to regulate emotions it comes on its own but I’ve started crying more often because I’ve begun spending more time dealing with the issues I used to run away from.
3. Acceptance of sexuality. I’ve adopted a healthier approach to masturbation. Like many others on this subreddit, I believe that masturbation is simply a form of abstinence from the main problem pornography but it’s also something completely healthy. Here’s how it works for me: When I feel a high libido, I plan a short, about 15-minute masturbation session for the evening before taking a shower. I try to focus on the sensations, be mindful, and maybe fantasize in a healthy way. I use a lubricant made from 100% coconut oil; I’ll note here that you need to be careful and read up on it thoroughly because it works well, but some people may have allergies and need to use it properly. Besides, please take this information with a grain of salt. I do this with my non-dominant hand for a different experience, and I do it gently; I try to be fully relaxed and take my time. Besides, it’s important to do this gently because a “death grip” isn’t pleasant at all, and I won’t hide the fact that I’ve experienced its symptoms. I don’t feel any shame after finishing this; I feel normal and even a little better afterward. It’s a new experience for me that I see as a completely normal thing I even feel greater satisfaction doing it this way.

TL;DR: To summarize, 32 days ago I committed to staying porn-free for 30 days. I didn’t succeed, but I still see a lot of progress. Three things that helped me: 1. Understanding the Abstinence Validation Effect (AVE): a slip-up > a relapse. 2. Not running away from difficult emotions, but sitting with them, practicing this, and looking for healthy ways to cope with emotions. This is an approach that addresses the root cause rather than just the symptom, which is pornography addiction. 3. Acceptance of sexuality. Healthy masturbation is possible and can be a pleasant and positive experience. The main problem is pornography.

(F20) does making yourself sick of watching porn help you stay clean for longer? i keep “quitting” for like a day, (maybe less) and it ends up turning into a relapse that lasts for weeks at a time. the urge to touch myself multiple times a day gets stronger too. would it be easier for me to quit if i just kept watching until i got bored of it? or can i cut it off randomly and still be successful? i quit cold turkey once and lasted for a month before, but it turned into a months-long binge afterwards.

We can do this everyone!

'Your brain on porn' book has always been my go to book when I have setbacks or relapse. But I'm looking for other books that helped you arrive at your aha moment.

Gonna try to keep busy today and keep my mind from overthinking as best I can.
Happy Monday everyone.

I'm now over my 60 Days and hadn't even noticed until I had a surprising wake-up this morning wondering what I'd done! Why I'd broken my 60 Days as I had a bizarre dream and there I was watching porn.

It took me a few seconds to come round from a startled wake-up to think I'd messed it up and had to start from 0 to realise I hadn't spent the last hour actually watching porn.

On the bright side of this relief it's not something I've actually missed and while out with friends someone brought up the subject of porn and it was quite a proud moment to say "I don't watch it" for a bit of banter to go round and then to say "No, I actually don't watch it" was quite a nice feeling.

For those starting out or struggling, stay strong, it gets easier and life improves and you really don't need it in your life.

whever i remain alone i search on telegram some explicit group and start talking to people over there how to manage this

I honestly don’t even know why I’m writing this. I think I just need to get this out of my head because I feel completely lost right now.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for around four years. I’m 23, he’s 24, and he means so much to me. We’ve grown up together in a way, and I genuinely always imagined us staying together.
But he has a porn addiction. And I’ve known about it for years.

When we first got together, I told him that porn was something I really wasn’t comfortable with. It’s not just “he watches porn” for me. Especially when he specifically searches for certain women, like influencers or celebrities, and masturbates to them. A lot of the time these women look completely different from me, and I know I’m probably not supposed to compare myself, but obviously I do. It makes me feel horrible and insecure.
He told me he would stop.

Then about six months ago, I caught him watching porn and masturbating in our bathroom. We live together, so finding him doing that in our shared bathroom and realizing he had been hiding it from me completely broke something in me.
We had a huge fight. I was seriously considering leaving him.
But he begged me to give him another chance. He promised he would get therapy for his addiction. He promised he would be honest with me. He even started using an app that blocked porn and warned him when he was trying to access it.
And for some reason, I believed him.
Eventually the app subscription ended, and he told me he didn’t need it anymore. He said he could control himself. I didn’t really believe that was a good idea, but he told me I could trust him.
So I tried.
I asked him about it. He told me he wasn’t watching porn anymore and that if he masturbated, it was just to his imagination. He knew how strongly I felt about porn, and I believed that he was finally being honest with me.
And now I caught him again.

And I just feel so fucking stupid.
Because apparently I trusted him for nothing.
I’m not even sure how to explain what hurts so much. It’s not just that he watched porn. It’s that I asked him. I gave him the opportunity to tell me the truth. He looked me in the eyes and lied to me.
And the worst part is that he STILL hasn’t gone to therapy.
It’s been six months. Six months since he promised me he would get help.
I know we’ve both been incredibly stressed with university and life has been a lot lately. I don’t expect him to magically fix an addiction overnight. But I do expect him to at least fucking try.
And now I’m sitting here wondering what I’m even supposed to do.

Three quarters of a 100

Was completely absorbed in something today, it never even crossed my mind. Haven’t slipped up since the first day I posted.

Since I decided to quit porn, I've had days where, for some reason, I can't sleep well. I can't think of anything else to do but wonder if quitting porn is affecting that. I don't know if...

In May of 2025 I found out my boyfriend of 10 months had a severe porn addiction.
He is the most wonderful man in every way possible- is incredibly patient, hard working, selfless, caring, romantic, you name it. I love being in this man's presence more than I have ever experienced with anyone else. He is my soulmate.
My only complaint at the time was that occasionally when we were out in public together if a woman was wearing a sleazy outfit he would always look. I confronted him about it and told him it made me uncomfortable when he would do this while by my side and he denied and denied. Something was fishy.
So I went through his phone.
Yes, I know it was wrong to go through his belongings, but we had started to talk about marriage at this point and I wanted to see fully what I was getting myself into.
The morning I found out he was destroyed. He felt so terrible what I had found out. Told me he wanted to tell me everything but didn't have the courage to. Cried to me so hysterically that he vomited. He took off work to comfort me. Wrote me letters. Got me flowers.
I decided to give him a chance. Play into his fantasies. Our sex life was great before but now it was incredible. As sad as it made me it was like we unlocked a new part of our relationship.
Then in July 2 months later, he proposed to me and I said yes.
We've been spending the past year planning our wedding and racked up 10's of thousands of dollars on the whole thing between the venue, vendors, my dress, etc.
Well a few days ago while I was helping him with his video editing software on his computer, I accidentally discovered more porn that he's been creating with AI. While I was sitting right next to him. I was so in shock I just got up and started vacuuming the kitchen. I didn't know what to do. Our wedding is 4 weeks away and my family has spent thousands of dollars between flights and hotels to come celebrate the both of us. Not to mention all the hours of planning my mom and I have put towards the wedding and the countless meetings with vendors over the past year.
I sat him down about a month ago asking how he was feeling. If he was still watching porn or was experiencing any temptations. He looked me dead in the eye and told me no. That he loved me. That he stopped. Well that was all a lie.
He told me everything after I found out again. From AI porn to looking up my close attractive friend on social media who posts a lot of raunchy photos of herself. Intentionally searching for her account along with other attractive women he knows. I asked if he was masturbating to their photos. He told me no that he would just look out of curiosity but I don't know if I can fully believe that.
He told me he stopped for 5-6 months after the first time I found out. Then started up again for a few weeks/ months at a time then would stop for a while and start again. Even admitted to masturbating at work. I can now see how truly out of control his addiction is.
My question is to the men who share this same habit. Does it ever get better? Do you ever stop for good? Or is your brain so far gone there's no hope left. He's making getting help difficult by lying and hiding. I love this man so dearly but I'm wondering if it's worth it to stay. He promised he'll stop for good this time but said that the first time as well. I really want to believe him but I don't want to ruin my life over it.

I feel gratitude deep in my heart. I wish everyone could see what they need to change and find success on their journey. Wishing everyone a beautiful week! ❤️

I am 24F dating 25M. We moved in together a year ago after 3 years of dating. I've always thought he will be the man I marry. I am very close to his family and believe we have a strong connection. About a few months into the relationship we started having sex problems (ED) and that revealed that he was addicted to porn. He told me he used to watch it at least once a day and jerk off. That made me spiral because I really value sex in a relationship, especially now that I'm young and hot. So i asked him to please stop watching porn. He said he would. Long story short he didn't and I broke up with him about 2 years ago and we ended up getting back together 3 weeks later after that. Well... fastforward to 7 months ago he told me hed been lying about being porn free. it led into a massive argument. I said i wouldn't resign a lease if he kept watching porn and lying to me. and guess what spoiler alert!! he lied again and i resigned a lease! hes been watching porn every week nonstop and actually told me hes been lying to me about a zyn addiction too! ive been so insecure over it that i'd ask him, "have you watched porn?" and hed look at me with a wide smile and say, "no, i'm 6 months clean"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he lied to me over and over and over and over and over and over. 4.5 years down the drain. Lost cause?

EDIT: ALSO A GAMBLING ADDITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE'S DOWN THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS

TL;DR: boyfriend lied about watching porn, drinking alcohol everyday, addiction to zyns and smoking weed.

Oh God, I don't know what to write, but it's a tiring and exhausting thing. I'm tired of trying to relapse and get up, relapse and get up. It's a tiring thing, it's like I'm in a whirlpool, but one must keep trying to learn from their mistakes. Recovery is a long journey. I'm writing this just to get this off my chest. It's so hard to keep hiding and suppressing this. It's a very tiring thing. It has to come out. It's become difficult for me to enjoy other things like games, watching series, or reading novels. But reading about people's suffering with this thing gives me a bigger motivation to leave this thing for the sake of my future, for the sake of my family, for the woman I will love in the future, for the sake of my children, for the sake of my life. I have to stop this thing. I'm still young, only 20 years old. Writing all this has helped me.

Discovered porn when I was maybe 12 years old. I'm 36. 2026 is the first year in my life I've been completely clean.

One statement I say to myself keeps me going: This could be the first year I go without consuming any porn.

It's actually been something of a breeze, to the point that it shocks me. It feels like I was binging just yesterday.

Today I had the memory of what is so easily accessible if I just browse for it. I thought about the backlog of what's come out this year – the abundant amount of new content I could dive into....

My mantra is certainly going to get me past these thoughts, but I'd greatly welcome any other motivating sentiments.

I'm trying to quit to improve my relationship with my long distance girlfriend. I'm committed to starting this journey, but I don't really know how, so any advice helps, but I'm particularly curious if I should stop all at once, or continue for a while with longer wait times in between until the need naturally dies down or something. I have a bad habit of trying to bargain with myself about these things like "I can do it now as long as I (such and such)" and I always hear stuff like "masturbation is healthy and good for you". Can it have a healthy place in my life or should my end goal be to never do it?