I just came across this thread and I thought about this for a while. I think I'll share my story on this topic with you guys as I feel Matters of Size and the PE community has given me purpose and made me feel so much better in the last few months since I began this journey. Just a quick FYI, this'll be a but of long posts with some slight graphic content.
So I suppose it starts when I was 9. Now this was the age when I first started looking at ����������� and falling down the rabbit hole of addiction. I believe this to be the turning point when my life was pretty much ruined for the next near decade. I lived at this time with my mother and father, I was a young man, and at that age you don't know anything about what's going on, what people are like, what real relationships are, but looking back now one thing is clear - my family life was not normal. I remember the arguments that my mother and father would have, my father was extremely aggressive when it came to these, he would never hit her, not once, but the hurtful things he would say and the way he would say them would send shivers down my spine. Often times my mother would get so upset and cry so hard she became a different person, saying things she would never say and screaming in a way no mother should ever have to scream. It's normal for parents to argue, it's a part of life, we all deal with it, but this type of behaviour isn't.
It was later down the line that I realised another thing that was going on, that being that my father was an alcoholic, and a severe one at that. He would get so drunk every day off that he had from work that he would act like a psychopath around us, staring into blank space and saying the creepiest things, it was fucking scary to a young boy. I believe this to be the reason I became to pulled in to this dark world - I wanted to block out these feelings of fear, of stress and of uncertainty, and just feel good for once. I would watch ���� several times a day, and would masturbate even more, I once jacked off 12 times in one day at the age of 12, all through the night like a fucking drug addict. Felt like it was the only thing that could keep me sane in an insane household.
As you can probably guess, as is customary with ���� addiction, this ruined my social skills and ability to talk to people. I was awkward, shy and stupid when it came to conversations. Every social situation I would walk into with astonishing fear, worrying that I would end up embarrassing myself for no reason at all. I was so painfully insecure, couldn't wear anything that I didn't think was somewhat slimming due to my sloppy physique, feared doing anything that wasn't out of my comfort zone. It was a nightmare, but this nightmare at the time was my normal, I didn't know any better, I thought it was just who I was and what I was born with, I thought that some people are like this and some people are like that, not true at all in my case.
Eventually my mother made a move and we left him. We stayed at a flat away from his and lived there for about 2 months. But my mother met up with my father again and agreed to come back as he made a promise to quit the booze and be better. We moved back, did things change? No. After 2 weeks it was already an absolute cluster fuck. He got drunk once, went to bed, got drunk again, went back, several times a day. He stumbled around the house drunk out of his mind, at one point nearly crushing my leg with his hand from falling over. Life was worse, and my addiction got worse. My habits got worse. At this point my tastes were shifting, even more twisted shit, at the age of around 12-13, chicks with dicks and all this garbage that a teenager should not be watching, let alone any sane adult. I begged my mother several times to just move out. I did this for months, it hurt man, it fucking hurt.
After a horrific night where we didn't get to sleep until 4am due to his prowling around the flat, the following day when my mum picked my up from school she had all our things and it was time to leave. She told me we're moving to a new place. I was so happy, it was finally over.
However bad habits die hard, and mine didn't die. The addiction to the most potent drug stuck with me throughout this time. It was my new normal, as if I needed it to function properly. I had no idea about the damage it was doing to me, but how could I have known? I was just a little boy. The next 2 years were tougher than normal, tough but fair, I started high school and my mother was working while doing a degree so get a better job to support us, eventually things got better, and we we're fine. But I never got better, still I was so painfully insecure about myself, I was awkward around girls, said the stupidest shit, couldn't make eye contact if it meant saving my life. I wasn't better, because I still had this demon lurking from within.
My life changed in 2021 when I got my first ever girlfriend during lockdown, I confessed my feelings to her and she reciprocated. We were together for 9 months. Now here's the real killer....I was hit with my first ever case of ���� Induced Erectile Dysfunction(PIED), one day when we were together I couldn't get it up to save my life, it was an absolute tragedy. She was very nice about the whole thing she reassured my the entire time "it's okay baby, it's okay please stop crying", what a fucking pussy I had become, I spend hours every week jacking off to threesomes and orgies unlike any other and now I can't get hard for the sexiest girl I've ever met? Who the fuck is this guy? It was at this point that I finally decided I would quit. I stopped right then and there, cold turkey, no ����, no jacking it, no nothing, the PIED situation was more than enough to motivate me to never touch the shit ever again, this was when my life changed.
After about 2 weeks I was able to get an erection again and after around a month I could have intercourse once more. My goodness, the bliss, the joy, how amazing this felt. Having sex with a mind clear of ���� with a partner you love is nothing like anything ���� can ever give you, trust me when I say this gentlemen. This is when I realised the damage that ���� causes over time, and I never touched it throughout our relationship ever again. We broke up at the 9 month mark, I took the breakup really badly as she said many hurtful things on her way out, spent the next several months feeling like a dumpster fire, it wasn't great, but I got better, I got stronger, I made it through.
Now I'm here, what have I got? Well let's see. I've got a physique that the top athletes in my college are get jealous of when they see my in the gym. I'm smarter than ever before and I learn more and more everyday. I'm a martial artist who's constantly told that he has some great potential and that he'll go places someday. I've found Buddhism and hope to one day have the right to call myself a Buddhist and live the mindful life. I make money. I have friends. But that doesn't mean that I'm without scars.........
I still have trouble talking to women, I think after so many years of simping and putting them on a pedestal that it's fucked with my perception of who they are. But then again I haven't had much luck with the ones I encounter, most of them are extremely rude to me when they see and don't give me the time of day before even knowing who I am, this does tend to hurt me, but at this point I'm used to it. It's like everyone around me is a normal person to women but when I'm around it's a different story. But it's no bother, I know that things will get better with time and that the more I improve myself the more I'll feel fulfilled with my life and what it brings me without having to worry about what others think of me. I know that I'm meant for great things and that one day I'll be something big, someone great, someone I myself can respect.
I think the take home message here is the importance of a father figure in the life of a child. One that can be a suitable role model for them. One that doesn't bring them constant fear and uncertainty. My father took his life last year after battling depression for over half a decade in his 40s. We didn't end it off on good terms, it was strange knowing that your maker was gone from the world never to be seen again. Do I feel angry at him at all for what he did? No. Honestly some days I wish that he was here still so that we could relive the actual good times we had, I still saw him weekly a few months before his death after we reconnected following my breakup, it was a nasty message that caused me to stop replying to him that separated us again. I wish he could see who I've further become, he saw me when I built my physique, but what if he saw me now? I'd like to see the joy on his face when he saw my fights in the ring, or the shock from seeing my further developed physique after another 2 years of lifting. Who knows, maybe there was still some light in out father-son relationship, I'm sure there was.
I love you guys, I love all the support you offer, the guidance and the free material on here that we can use to become better men. It's miracle work guys, genuine miracle work. I'm sorry if this was at all cringy or annoying to read. But I just wanted to share everything with you guys just to let you know that there is hope, there is always hope. Thank you for reading my story.
