TLDR; I’m 19 years old and have a bit of a masturbation and porn addiction. I use mastication as a way to cope with negative emotions and boredom. It’s gotten to a point where I’d rather spend hours masturbating and watching porn rather than take care of my responsibilities. I’ve noticed I’ve become very unproductive and lazy and my self esteem has been dropping. It’s becoming an issue with my life and I feel I’m really struggling with this.

I’m 19 years old and as the title states, i have a bit of a masturbation and porn addiction. I didn’t even know it was really an addiction until I was 17. I mean I always though of masturbation as a normal thing and it was pretty normal for someone my age to look at porn.

I’ve been looking at porn since I was 9 years old I believe. It started off as mostly fascination because I could never really get access to that stuff as I’m able to now. But then I was really interested in it and started using it for pretty much “enjoyment” purposes. Although, I didn’t start masturbating until I was 11. I remember I would look at it pretty much every chance I got. When my mom got a new iPod, I would lock myself in the bathroom to look at it. I would stay up late to watch it on my aunts laptop whenever she let me use it. I think maybe it was mostly still fascinating to me at the time and thrilling because I knew I wasn’t supposed to do it.

I can’t really say when it really became an issue for me. I know at some point, I began using masturbation as a way to cope? Whenever I was anxious, sad, needed help sleeping, or feeling numb, I would turn to masturbation. It wasn’t really for personal enjoyment or anything anymore and I would do it whenever I was feeling boredom. That was one of the biggest issues because I would spend hours (literally) masturbating and watching porn in my room or in the bathroom instead of taking care of my responsibilities like school work or chores. So I ended up doing a lot of things last minute because it wouldn’t get done. I felt it was making me feel very lazy and unproductive.

I couldn’t masturbate without watching porn either. When I was 17, I realized it was an issue after I went on a binge for a few months. I was in a pretty bad place mentally and emotionally and I would use it to cope. I would do it 4 times a day for a few hours. It was worse during my breaks because I had a lot of time to do it. When I realized it was an issue, I turned to NoFap for help. But I failed a lot and still do. I turned to the subreddit a few months or weeks ago and got a lot of support. But I’m still struggling with this. I think maybe I need therapy or something? Because it’s getting to a point I feel it’s really interfering with my life and my responsibilities.