u/SabrinaRewired

Rough night. Vivid dreams, the sexual kind, the kind that leave you unsettled instead of rested. Barely slept because of it, and today I'm just... low. No motivation, foggy, going through the motions.

I know dreams aren't relapses, logically I know that. But it still leaves this weird residue, like my body's confused about something my mind didn't even choose. Doesn't help that I'm running on fumes either, everything feels harder when you're this tired.

Not really looking for advice today, just needed to say it somewhere. If you're also running on empty for whatever reason, you're not alone in that.

Most of what I see on here about dating and recovery is from men, and honestly it makes me feel a bit invisible sometimes, like this part of it isn't supposed to be a "woman's problem" too. Well for me, it is. I've been single for over two years, and dating hasn't been easy.

Went on a date recently. Felt good in a way I haven't in a while, let myself hope a little. The next day he said he text saying didn't feel attraction.

And the thing is, some quiet part of me wasn't even surprised. Addiction spent years telling me I wasn't really worth wanting, just worth using for fifteen minutes at a time, and some of that never fully left, even a year and a half into recovery. I already think I'm not attractive most days. I know my depression makes me flat sometimes, harder to be around, and I've started to just assume that's what people see, before they even get the chance to see anything else.

So when he said that, it didn't feel like new information. It felt like confirmation of something addiction had been telling me the whole time.

I know, logically, one person not feeling a spark isn't a verdict on my worth. But logic doesn't always reach the part of me that still hears that old voice, the one that never really thought I deserved to be chosen by anyone real. Some days I don't know how much of this is the depression talking, how much is old addiction shame, and how much is just true.

I don't like to talk about this part much, but I think its important to be able to confront and expose this part of my journey.

At the worst of it, I was watching porn for 8+ hours a day. Not exaggerating, just genuinely losing entire days to it. I stopped going to the gym, something that used to be non-negotiable for me. Work deadlines started slipping, the kind of thing that never used to happen as I pride myself on being reliable. Eventually I lost that job. I became distant with my partner without even fully clocking it was happening, just slowly not really there even when I was in the room, and a few months later, that relationship ended too.

After that I mostly stopped leaving my apartment. Days would go by. I wasn't really tracking time anymore, there wasn't much reason to. My life had fallen apart and my brain was just paralyzed, unable to do anything about it.

The moment that actually broke through was something very simple. I was going to wash my face, I looked at myself in the mirror, really saw myself, and I didn't recognize what was looking back. That's when it actually landed, not as a thought but as something closer to fear. I was afraid of what I had become.

I wasn't sure about sharing this part of my life, because it's not the encouraging part. But I think skipping it does a disservice to anyone reading this who's in the middle of their own version of it right now. You don't come back from a low point by pretending it wasn't low.

If you're there right now, days blurring together, not recognizing yourself, please know it is possible to come back from exactly that. I did. So can you. 💛

Since I started my recovery journey last year I started keeping a journal to write out what that little voice in my head, the addiction itself, does say to me. The reason for this is to occupy myself with writing/typing, and also laying out those thoughts and reading them back allows me to process the thoughts, see how the addicted part of my mind tries to trick me, and ultimately take power away from that voice. Here is an example of one I wrote a few days ago.

>"You have been doing so well, you are in a better place mentally and happier in general. Probably you can begin to enjoy porn responsibly. You can have a healthy relationship with it. Besides, you're not even the person you used to be. You've done the work. You understand your triggers now, you're not going to just spiral like before. One time isn't going to undo eighteen months of progress. You're stronger than that now, right?

>It's not even about the porn anyway. It's about proving to yourself that you're in control. That YOU decide, not some rule you set for yourself over a year ago in a completely different headspace. Rules can change. You're allowed to update them.

>And honestly, everyone else seems to manage it fine. Maybe you were never actually 'addicted,' maybe you just had a rough patch. Normal people watch porn sometimes. Why does it have to be all or nothing for you?

>Just this once, to test it. To see how it feels now. If it's bad, you'll know. You'll stop. You always find your way back anyway."

Of course at first it can sound very convincing, it doesn't sound like a threat, it sounds reasonable. It uses my own progress against me, "you've done the work" as a reason to undo it. That's the part that scares me most, it's not stupid, it's clever.

Writing it out instead of just hearing it took the power away. Once it's on paper it stops sounding like truth and starts sounding like a sales pitch.

Anyone else do something like this?

For years, I was addicted to porn. I didn't want to call it that, "addiction" felt too extreme, too ugly. I told myself it was normal, harmless. "I've got this under control." I didn't.

I also struggle with depression, the bone-deep, soul-crushing kind of numbness. Work deadlines piled up, messages went unanswered, and honestly, I didn't care if I disappointed people. I was already disappointed in myself.

Porn became my escape. Fifteen minutes where I didn't have to feel broken. Those fifteen minutes turned into hours, more often than I want to admit.

The shame afterward was suffocating. I'd sit there, screen still glowing, promising myself I'd stop tomorrow. But tomorrow always came with that same voice: "Come on. One more time. You deserve this."

And I listened. Over and over. I never told anyone. I wore a "happy mask" and pretended I was fine, because I was convinced that if people knew the truth, they'd leave — just like I would've left me, if I could.

Eventually, I cracked. I couldn't keep drowning in the cycle. I started reading other people's stories online, people who got it, who didn't judge. And for the first time, I considered that maybe I wasn't broken beyond repair.

So I started doing the work:

• Blocking the sites
• Writing down my triggers
• Sitting with the feelings instead of escaping into them
• Finding ways to actually fill the time I used to lose

It was brutal sometimes. I'd go days, even weeks clean, and then out of nowhere that voice would creep back in: "What's one more time?" But little by little, I stopped believing it.

I still fall sometimes. I still struggle with depression. But I didn't stay stuck.

Recovery isn't perfect. It's messy, frustrating, slow. But it's real. And these days, when the voice whispers, I know it's lying.

I'm not free yet. But I'm freer than I've ever been.

If you're in it right now, feeling trapped, you're not alone. It's possible to change, even when it feels impossible. And it's worth every fight.