u/Certain-Food-903

I think I'm experiencing my first flatline but it feels terrible. I have absolutely no libido, no interest in anything (to the point that my days are just blurring together), and no emotions. I've been dealing with depression for a while, but this is the deepest, darkest place I've ever been in my life. It's hard to internalize anything or even hold my eyes all the way open.

With the clarity I'm getting from getting over this problem, I'm beginning to see a lot of the flaws in myself that have gotten me here in the first place, but I don't really have the energy or motivation to do anything about them. The clarity hurts a lot because I'm beginning to really see how much time I've lost to this addiction and how different things could have been. I wanted to stop in 8th grade and I'm only now managing to do so at 20 years old.

I feel like my younger self is welling back up in confusion at what has happened to me. I never meant to become a creep, I was raised better than this. I just was depressed and at the time, porn seemed like a relatively harmless solution, minus the shame.

I'm not going to return to my old behavior no matter what but life feels incredibly confusing and empty right now. Between this and covid, it feels like I've been wormholed to adulthood. Just wondering if the flatline is supposed to be this unbearable.

During my first semester of sophomore year in college, I experienced extreme stress and had a couple of anxiety attacks, and noticed that things started getting pretty strange afterwards. It started with me feeling pretty depressed and overwhelmed. I felt like my social intuition was impaired and I would often try to avoid people. I didn't experience hallucinations, per se, but the world started feeling very fake to me, like everything was empty and 2d.

I also noticed changes in my speech. My thinking was so unbelievably foggy that my usual speech patterns and sense of humor seem to have been interrupted. The rhythm of my speech was impaired and I would often stumble over pronunciation or speak in a rapid or jumbled way. I became paranoid that I was going crazy, and started naming the parts of speech to each word I was saying and touching things and looking at them closely to make sure they were real.

I fell into a state of anhedonia and felt so hyper self-aware that I couldn't really focus on anything. I spent a lot of my time walking around campus, sitting in the shower with my head in my hands, or drinking with people on the weekends.

The thing that really worries me is whether or not the thoughts I had constitute delusions. I often felt extreme shame and would experience thought spirals. During these spirals, whenever I would hear my roommates laughing I would assume they were laughing at me and would get angry. I also experienced extremely cluttered, racing thoughts and was afraid to try and quiet them, feeling almost as if by doing so, I would cease to exist.

The most distressing thing was feeling like I was the only person alive. Even though I was around other people, it felt like there was an invisible wall in between us, and it seemed like I had lost any ability to feel social empathy. I didn't really have emotions in general, and there were many moments when I needed to cry but couldn't feel sad.

From what I've read, much of what I experienced sounds like derealization, but I'm afraid I experienced psychosis, and am having trouble trusting myself to make good choices. ​The one thing that comforts me is that I was very distressed by the way I felt and was constantly checking reality and worrying about having psychosis (which I'm told you don't usually do if you actually have it). I definitely had some very strange and cluttered thinking patterns, though, and basically had no executive function.

I was exposed to porn for the first time when I was 12 years old. I didn't really know what I was looking at, but I came from a religious household and had very high standards for myself. I didn't like the way porn made me feel, and kept resolving not to do it again. I would relentlessly beat myself up for using it each time I relapsed (which originally was probably 1-2 times per week) because I didn't understand why I couldn't stop.

I didn't realize it was normal for people to become sexually curious, and in my mind, the fact that I couldn't stop using porn meant I was an addict. Oh how wrong I was. I had no idea how much worse it could get. It became an especially nasty habit during covid, but I was still somewhat in control of myself.

Around sophomore year of highschool, I started burning out due to undiagnosed adhd and used porn to cope with the difficulties of the day. I would get home and explore the internet for hours with no concept of what it was doing to my brain or how much time I was wasting. I started losing interest in hobbies and eventually would just spend my time at home on porn or video games. Unfortunately, I unwittingly directed that "hyperfocus" aspect of adhd into porn. I also remember being literally afraid of going to bed without looking at it. In hindsight, I think I was using it for its emotional regulation and dissociative properties.

Despite the burnout and porn use, I got good grades and went to university, but never made the social connections I wish I would have in high school. I simply had no desire to make friends, and I didn't know how to ask for help. I had to take a semester off because I finally reached my limit and the burnout became severe. I pretty much lost all executive function and felt super anhedonic and, of course, porn was the one thing I had access to that would provide even a shred of pleasure. I didn't even enjoy doing it, but I wasn't in a state where I could stop.

During my time away from college, I've finally made immense progress towards healing. The things that really kept me from overcoming my addiction were shame, secrecy, and learned helplessness. I tried and failed so many times to quit that I didn't really feel like it was possible, but I've successfully proved myself wrong.

I'm on a 50 day streak right now, and have only relapsed a few times since January. I can't even believe how messed up my mind was looking back. I completely lost sight of who I am, and truly believed that life would be worse without porn. The voices of addiction that have been driving me for so long are quieting down more and more by the day, and I feel a growing sense of genuine trust in myself​. Best of all, I'm not haunted by mental images of the things I've looked at anymore.

Part of me, rather than being proud of myself for quitting, is disappointed that I didn't do it sooner. I feel the child in me that I've been quieting for so long welling back up and I break into random crying spells. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that this happened to me. Still, I feel lucky that this is coming to an end while I'm still young.

A huge part of healing for me has been replacing my chronic self-shame with understanding. I was a kid when I started, I didn't know any better, and I fought like hell before I finally let porn win the fight. I respect my younger self for trying so hard, even if I was trying in the wrong ways.

I'm definitely discovering that the depth to which I am able to build emotional bonds with people is drastically increasing now that my brain feels somewhat desexualized, and I find a lot of value in having female friends now.

I do feel a bit resentful toward my parents that they didn't notice anything was wrong with me. In all fairness, I was too ashamed to reach out to anyone, but I feel like something about me should have seemed off. They're only human though.

Rip my porn addiction 2018-2026, may we never meet again.

Sorry this is so long, but writing it was therapeutic.

I've had undiagnosed ADHD for my whole life, and gradually went from being a hyperactive and creative kid to a silent, depressed adult who's ashamed of himself. Even when I began to suspect I had ADHD after burning out, I had imposter syndrome about it, believing I was simply trying to shift the blame of my failures away from myself.

I've always gotten intense interests (drawing, writing, music, language learning, video games) where I make a ton of progress in the span of a couple weeks (to the neglect of my daily routine), but then simply stop practicing the second my attention shifts to something else, leading me to feel kind of like a "jack of all trades and master of none".

Anyways, I had a severe burnout and derealization, accompanied by intense self-shaming and finally got a diagnosis. My doctor just prescribed me a low dose of adderall for the first time and its like everything has gone silent. My internal chatter and intrusive thoughts are much quieter, I have much less brain fog, and I feel much more aware of myself. I just watched an ant crawl across a book on my desk for like 3 minutes. I even notice being more articulate when around other people because I stay in the moment and remember things better. Wish I would have tried this before a childhood of self-shaming and burnout, but it's better late than never.

I worked really hard in high school to get good grades and be successful, but I didn't realize how hard I was masking ADHD symptoms. I had a major burnout in college and had to move back home, and after months of bedrotting and switching between dissociation and crying spells, I don't really know how to get back on my feet.

I feel ghost-like when I'm awake and completely frozen any time I have to do a task. My working memory was already bad but it got so much worse after the burnout that everything is just blurring together. I'll set something down and immediately forget about it, or start a journal and forget about it, or tell someone something and then tell them again because I forgot I did it the first time, etc. I'll space out and aimlessly wander around all day. I genuinely feel like an 80yo with dementia even though I'm 20. Is this common for burnout or do I have another problem. If anyone has experienced this, what can I do to fix the problem?