Recovering from your boyfriend's porn addiction

When you're 16 and your boyfriend tacks pictures of naked girls above his bed, you shrug it off as typical.  

You may not like it, but the culture insists it is normal, and therefore to be expected and accepted.  You can't keep your hands off each other, and the sex is great, so what's a few dirty pics when he's obviously crazy about you.

A few months later when you don't want to have sex one night and he starts holding you down and forcing you, you forgive him because he did stop eventually, after all.  When he sulks on the end of the bed and becomes uncommunicative, you start to feel bad for him and tell him it's alright (huh?), feeling somehow responsible for his shame.

When he turns 19 and takes a road trip to the full nudity strip joint he can now get into, you get pissed that he goes despite how you feel about it, but shove your loathing down because society says this is a rite of passage.

When you're 19 and he barely wants to have sex anymore after living together for only a year, you figure it's because he's depressed, and for sure things will get back to the way it used to be in due time.

When you have to go to bed alone with no affection every night while he stays up late and watches porn, you know it's sick that you listen at the bedroom door to hear what he's watching, but can't stop yourself from needing proof.  

When you find out a bunch of your mutual friends lied to you when they said they were going out for drinks but were actually taking him to a strip club, you wonder how many other betrayals there have been, and what all has been done behind your back.

When he blocks you from leaving the room during arguments, holds you down despite your screams, and chokes you until you can't breathe, you realize how naive every girl is in thinking they have a chance of fighting off a guy.  You stay because you blame yourself for your own temper, somehow believing you deserve it, despite the fact that you never once hurt HIM.  

When you're told that you're a crazy psycho bitch for going through his things, 99% of you knows that people who have nothing to hide hide nothing, but your self-worth is so low that you buy into the emotional abuse.

When you're 20 and he keeps telling you he's saving up for a ring, but you come across hidden stashes of money in a box of nasty magazines, you try to tell yourself that of course glossy sex objects are not more worthwhile than marrying you, not really believing it at all.

When you're a cute 125 pound girl who jogs every day and keeps herself up for a lazy sloth who stays skinny without so much as ever working up a sweat, you start to question why you can never measure up to the images he pleasures himself to, while he walks around feeling great about his own body.

When you get so disgusted by it all one night that you box up all his treasured collections and make a trip to the recycling station, but his loser friend helps him fish the magazines out of the public recyling kiosk the next day, you realize exactly how precious this shit really is to him.  You remember the night you were so sick you couldn't move from the floor outside the bathroom, and he stepped over you like some animal, refusing to bring you a blanket.  You try not to get bitter that you took care of him every time he was sick and secretly feel like the most worthless human being in the world calling someone from an hour away to take you to the hospital because your own fiance doesn't give a shit about you.   

When you buy a computer for school, you try not to be angry that he's now spending more time with fake women on a screen, because admitting that someone would choose to get themselves off every day rather than have a relationship with a live human being is a little too...humiliating.

When he wants you to look the way the porn actresses look and tries to make you feel like a frigid prude when you don't want to engage in painful sex acts in order to fulfill all of his fantasies, you hate his fucking guts but can't help questioning if you're so boring in bed that "normal" sex isn't good enough anymore.  

When he stops going places with you in favor of staying home to touch himself, you silently fume to yourself over doing every fucking thing in the household with no help while someone values jacking off more than they value time with you.

When you swing around the block one day after leaving and quietly sneak down the hall of the apartment building only to spring in unexpected and catch him watching a revolting video, you attempt to drag him out from under the desk where he's trying to unplug the computer, but he overpowers you in his desperation to hide what he's doing.

When he lies to your face repeatedly and promises to stop but only gets more skilled at hiding his stash and clearing the cache,

you finally get that there's one thing he thinks is worth fighting for in this relationship, and it's not you.  

When you find incest porn of two preteen sisters molesting each other on the computer YOU got with YOUR scholarship money, you are horrified at the thought of what kind of sicko you have been sleeping with, and can't help thinking, "For every mouse you see, there's 20 you don't."

When you finally accept that you will never respect yourself if you continue to stay with this person, you move out with the last shred of dignity you have left, embarrassed that you have to call your dad to help because he keeps throwing out all the boxes you bring home to move.

When he tells you he's addicted to porn and seeing a counselor because he wants to be a better man, you willingly play the part of the fool, trying to make it work so that the last 7 years of your life will not have been a waste.  

When he puts zero effort into changing but keeps trying to make you have sex, you feel somehow guilty but still can't go through with it, because the thought of his touch now gives you the creeps.

When you stay at his place one night and find multiple personal ads and sex profiles on adult friend finder websites, you decorate his apartment with all of your findings and cut off all communication, realizing once and for all that you have to trust yourself and your own instincts above anyone else.

When you print out his sex profiles and take them to his workplace to tape up in the breakroom so that everyone can see the bastard for who he really is, you let the chick at work dissuade you (and regret it the rest of your life).

When you find out months later that he's not just a disgusting pervert, but also a thief who stole thousands from his company, you feel mortified to have spent so many years with the lowlife just because you were afraid no one else would love you.  

When you spend the next 10 years struggling with your lack of self worth and end up in relationships with other emotional abusers who demean and berate you, you tell yourself that it must be something wrong with you, and give up on being loved because you never feel good enough for anyone. 

When you look back at the detached way you wrote your own story as if wishing it wasn't your own, you know that most people will think it's absolutely fucking stupid to be so bothered by porn, because they haven't lost their own sex life to a bunch of videos and magazines.  

When you think about the person you would be now if he had never come into your life, you vaguely recall how warm and loving you used to be before some selfish fuck treated you like shit, knowing all the while that it was your own choice to keep sticking around for more.  

When you realize you've written about being undone by your boyfriend's porn addiction instead of recovering from it, you think of all the times you've heard that porn is harmless, knowing the damage is yours alone to deal with.

Suicide Notes: A Final F!*# You to the World...and to Select Individuals

I guess the only thing good about coming across old suicide notes is still being alive to read them.  It’s painful to relive the sentiments expressed to people, especially if the emotions were never resolved. 

I am nothing if not methodical, as evidenced in my painstakingly thorough suicide note catalog.  There was the note I wrote to my parents, for when they found out.  There were the notes to my (two most significant) exes, whom I perceived as having “ruined my life.”  I say note(s) because there most certainly was not just one.  No, I really had a mouthful to vomit on the two of them.  There was even the note to my former boss; not so much a suicide note, perhaps, as a crafty letter of resignation.  This was in the batch of outbox letters: sent, never to be taken back.  What’s done is done, what’s said is said, what’s humiliating will forever more be.  The embarrassment’s enough to shame a person into death-wishes all over again.

Two years later there were more notes written, stamped, addressed ... but never sent.  Thank GOD.  Because the only thing worse than having a mental breakdown is living through it to face the humiliation of all you’ve said and done.  Truly.  The second round of letters were reserved for ex-friends who had let me down and failed to be there for me, and even former colleagues whom I felt had a hand in destroying my career and my self-worth.  The picture becoming clearer and clearer here: anyone and everyone who I could blame for the state my life was in (almost) got a piece of my mind.  If I was going to die, I wanted people to feel bad about it. 

There’s a saying that, “90% of the solution lies in accurately defining the problem,” and the clarity that coincides with composing one’s final words brings the tree out of the forest, so to speak.  What better way to really get down to the nitty gritty of what’s bothering you than to lay it all out with no one to talk back to you, defend their actions, or invalidate your feelings? 

In my final summation of things, I glimpse a person who pins responsibility on every single person around her ... but not herself. Countless hours have burnt up in fury at the wrongs that have been done to me, while the worst have been done to myself.  “We may be the product of our past, but we are not victims of the past unless we choose to be.”  I am the one who conceded that others’ appraisal of my worth would have ultimate bearing on my destiny.  For all the hurt I may have wished to inflict with the anger that consumed me, the only life I destroyed was my own.

“Holding onto resentments is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” 

No truer words were ever spoken.

My former profession placed a lot of emphasis on the symbolic acts of closure: burning items that tie us to the past, or releasing balloons into the air with our feelings written inside.  My personal method is the shredder, because I latch onto documentation.  There’s some sort of perverse gratification to be found in re-reading old love letters, old hate letters, old crazy letters.  Up until two days ago, I was still hanging onto a few, perhaps in case I was to regress and decide to actually send them. 

The fear of someone else coming across the psychotipapers got the better of me, and I finally took action to destroy the evidence of my lunacy.  It was hard at first, because of the catharsis of purging all those emotions once again.  The hurt and betrayal remains locked inside, after all, never expressed to these intended targets.  What if I want to relive all this again, I thought.  Even more difficult to demolish were the last “I would die if I lost you” letters from my first love (more accurately described as my first hate). Possibly because it was the only remaining proof that I once mattered to someone? 

In the end that little machine ate the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Then I tied a few of those paper shreds to a shoestring and invented my cat’s new favorite toy; from pain came someone’s joy, at least.

Letting go is an act of surrender; where something in us clings to the past, holding on at all costs, we employ the discipline required to give it up ... a contradiction of sorts.  The harder it is to let go of, the more we obviously need to in order to move on.  And it’s long past time for me to move on.  Like they say:  “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Reading over the admissions in this post, it remains difficult for me to discern if it’s extraordinarily ill or extraordinarily human.  

Penelope Trunk tackles the suicide of Bill Zeller

And I’m glad.  There will be enough talking heads spouting their opinions, doing more harm than good. 

Case in point: A teenager in small-town Iowa committed suicide last July, and the local news anchor condemned the act on air with a stern reproach: “Suicide is never the answer.”  As though he could scare away suicide with his disapproval.   Of all the things to say, KWWL chose to render judgment rather than extend compassion. 

Perhaps I am uniquely sensitive to such remarks, having been suicidal for quite some time ... but isn’t that the point?  Scoldings convey reproach, instead of any sort of understanding or empathy. “If you’re hurting, there is help.”  A thousand other axioms might have actually been helpful in reaching out to others in pain.  Suicidal people chastise themselves enough without others chiming in.

So I’m glad that Penelope wrote about his death, because she can speak from a place of courage instead of fear.  Having experienced sexual abuse, she’s endured much of the same trauma.  When you’ve actually gone through terrible things, you know better than to say all the wrong things to people in genuine pain. 

I’m also glad Bill Zeller publicized his last words.  In so doing, he gave the public a glimpse into the despair that leads to suicide.  People will judge him regardless, but at least it won’t be for someone else’s version of why he did it.  

I understand, even though I don’t.  I can’t pretend to have any concept of the agony he endured over the course of his lifetime.  In a perfect world, he wouldn’t have been shamed into silence for his feelings.  He could have spoken his truth looking forward to compassion and understanding instead of condemnation.  But that is not the world we live in.  It is a world where people feel it is easier to die than to be looked upon with the stigma of mental illness.  It is a world where people internalize the hatred of everyone around them and pull the trigger.

My comment on Penelope’s post:

"He couldn't stand the idea of how the truth would cause people to think differently of him.  Was that really his own distortion, or did he accurately internalize the stigma that would befall him?  We, as a society, let him down.  Something is backwards if you can be honest in death, but not in life.

The sad part is, the shame and hiding reinforces the crippling alienation (when in fact, sooooo many people are hurting).

The sadder part is, people will pretend to be compassionate and empathetic towards Bill Zeller NOW, when they never would have in real life.  Same with all the publicized gay teen suicides over the past year.  GIVE PEOPLE YOUR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE WHILE THEY ARE ALIVE.

Not a single thing he wrote seemed "crazy" or even "abnormal" *given what he has been through* - I guess I share your amazement that more people do not succumb to suicide given the trauma life inflicts on so many. 

Those who are suffering cannot speak their truths for fear of the condemnation of others - just look at your last post!!!  People cannot even conceive of the kind of despair so many go through.  They are the sort who judge suicidal people as selfish...all the while their only concern being how the death affects THEM.  Hmmm.....

When I write about trying to come back from the brink of suicide, I sure as hell don't do it with my name attached.  Would I ever work again (will I anyway, LOL), is there a snowball's chance I could be a legitimate member of society ever again? 

I almost killed myself 3 years ago.  And 2 years ago.  And last year.  There are a lot of days I feel as Bill did; the pain and darkness have been intertwined with your very being for so long that there's just no way out.  Most days I don't see a way back from all that has happened.  Your courage to keep trying gives me hope.  I have tried to "get help" but not found the kind I really need.  It's not as easy or available as everybody thinks ... and even if you DO get real help, that in itself incites revulsion in some.  Is it any wonder that people feel trapped and hopeless?"

Secrets kill. 

Unemployment … and the downward spiral.

When I decided to be done with life, the job was the first thing to go.  Buh-freakin-bye.  And let me tell you, there’s a moment of pure, blissful emancipation inherent in the simplicity of the decision to not – ever – return to the place or the people that have led to your demise.  In my case, I think it was my first real act of rebellion in life.  A resounding “NOPE!” to life’s ceaseless demands and ‘musts’ and obligations. 

At the end of the day, you always have options.  Yes or no [or in Shakespearian terms: “To be, or not to be,” as Hamlet stated with slightly more eloquence than me].  If you spend enough of your life as a doormat, it’s possible to forget that, in fact, no one can *make* you do anything.  You have to decide for yourself if your life is going to be what YOU want it to be, because this isn’t a dress rehearsal.  And that’s the Sartre in me speaking…..

You actually don't have to white-knuckle it until you hate your life so much that you want to kill yourself to *finally* start saying ‘no’ to the psychic vampires who would be content to suck the very soul out of you.  There’ll be other victims around the corner for them to beat down to a pulp.  So decide it’s not gonna be you. 

   

   

Between a bullying boss, a degrading attack on my being, and a sudden personal abandonment, it was as if a switch had been flipped: I was just -done- with it all.  Tired of doing things I didn’t want to do.  If there was never going to be anything more to life than jumping through somebody else’s hoops, and going through the motions of an existence I can’t even stand, I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.  Why stick around so other people can tear me down and rip me apart; how long are you supposed to bend over backwards doing for others, only to get crapped on in return? 

And so, on what was to be the last night of my life, I composed a bye-bye letter of resignation to my bitch of a boss.  You know, the sort of thing everybody secretly wishes they could do, but which you shouldn’t even *think* about doing if there’s even a smidgen of a chance you’re going to have to live with the consequences (HELL-O, take it from me).  The mature part of me is, of course, ashamed of such childish self-indulgence.  And then there’s the smug part of me that bubbles over in self-satisfied hysterics just thinking about that slore checking her inbox that next morning.  There are times in life when people get exactly what they deserve.  It just happened to be her time to be humiliated in front of HER colleagues in the same manner she liked to dish out.  Karma’s a bitch (and yes, I’ve certainly gotten *my* come-uppins, so don’t worry about that). 

So in my case, you could really say I brought on this whole “unemployment” situation mySELF, so boo-hoo WTF are you crying about, you moron?!?!  Yeah, yeah, I get it: there are bazillions of laid-off workers who – through no fault of their own – have found themselves unable to support their families.  Believe me, I have immense compassion for everyone in that situation.  I don’t want anyone’s pity, nor do I expect anyone to feel bad for this mess I have gotten myself into.  I screwed myself, and I know it.  It wasn’t the smart thing to do – but then, do you honestly think a suicidal person is in a rational frame of mind? 

But regardless of the circumstances that lead to unemployment, I’d wager the emotions are pretty much the same once you’re swimming (err, drowning?) in it. 

It’s humiliating.  You feel like the scum of the earth and start to believe that everyone is thinking what a lazy, worthless drain on society you’ve become, and how easy it is to just go out and get a job if you’re willing to work hard.  You’re desperate to prove your worthiness to civilization by jumping back into the swing of things … if only you COULD.  If only someone would give you the chance.  “If only _____ would happen, I could get it all back on track,” you think to yourself.  You feel ashamed of yourself (even if it’s not your fault in the slightest) because, after all, if you really wanted a job bad enough you would be working, right?  That’s the message from society.  

Well, if you’ve never been unemployed, you need to keep your damn mouth shut, because you have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.  You don’t have a clue what it’s like to suddenly feel powerless over your own life and feel sick with uncertainty in the pit of your stomach.  You couldn’t possibly know how disconcerting it is to find yourself at the mercy of factors beyond your control, blowing around in the wind with your future up in the air. And you sure as f*** don’t know the existential dread of waking up wondering, “Where in the HELL am I going in this life, and WTF am I going to do to survive?”   

Next, your disparaged soul sets about to the task of job-hunting, a process my (former) friend Singlutionary at Unabashedly Unemployed once described as: “demoralizing and dehumanizing and just shitty in general. It would wear down even the strongest person into a blubbering pulp.”  She always did have a way with words. 

Alas, that friendship was another casualty of my erratic, suicidal behavior.  It really bites to glance in the rear-view mirror and catch a glimpse of all your ugliest self has left in its wake.  Especially when your destructive fight-or-flight antics cost you those precious few in life who ‘get’ the floundering groundlessness of life for the simultaneously unattached and unemployed.  Add it all to the list of things that can’t be undone…  

Back to my point: There is a peculiar desperation unique to long-term unemployment that can easily culminate in surrender.  Truly, you reach a point where it literally becomes absurd to fill out the three thousand and fourth employment application, and you are absolutely convinced that you will never be a productive member of society again … so why bother to keep trying??  Then you awaken wide-eyed for the next 3 weeks and frantically search the job boards until your eyeballs blur over and roll into the back of your head.  Until you ditch the pointless effort, crash, and take refuge in your bed for a week … only to revive the panic cycle once again in a few days.  I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, yet I know there are millions in the same boat as me.     

Never in a million years would my younger self have believed that I would end up 27 years old (then 28, then 29, then 30….) and unable to get back into the workforce.  That a lifetime of striving and hard work and straight A’s would amount to nothing.  That 7 years of college and scholarships and 4.0’s and summa cum laude would bring me to: a dead end.  In one fell swoop, I rendered my entire life’s work null and void.  No one cares about the decade of solid employment with a strong work ethic; all that matters now are these “gaps in employment” I’ve got to account for.  Try conjuring up the confidence to make it through an interview after you’ve flushed your career down the toilet … good times.  References?  Don’t make me laugh. 

Thing is, I didn’t intend to be here dealing with all of this.

I’ve spent plenty of days wishing I would’ve just gotten it over with, because it feels like a trillion miles on this journey just to get back to the place where I was barely hanging on to begin with.  And that absolutely terrifies me. 

So, yeah.  Being a disgrace unto yourself certainly feeds into all the pre-existing suicidal impulses.  Unemployment is a fitting companion to the severely depressed, because your feelings of worthlessness can be reinforced on a daily basis!  

A few months ago, I purged the utter despair of my unemployment into a little ditty: 

Seasons of Hopelessness - "Rent" theme song: The economy tribute version

On Shame.

This evening I commented on a post from my kindred spirit Suzanne of The Invisible Prison on the topic of "Shame and Setbacks." As usual with Suzanne's posts, I felt like she had somehow gotten into my head and was writing down everything I think and feel on a daily basis while fighting not to succumb to the weight of wanting to just give up.

Depression assassinates your former self, and substitutes an imposter that might look a bit like the old you (though admittedly less well-groomed), yet bears little resemblance to the person you once were. What remains is a sham of an excuse for a human being. A fraud. And it's hard to feel proud of being THAT.

Nearly a year ago, I divided a paper into 2 columns entitled "Who I Used To Be" and "Who I am Now" (give it a rest you cognitive behaviorists ... I know those headings are misnomers & that who I AM has not fundamentally changed). It was hard to swallow. Self-loathing oozed from my pores. What I was looking at was the result of internalizing the hatred and cruelty of others. My new "characteristics" seemed to scream, "If everyone is going to treat me like a worthless piece of garbage not worthy of respect...I may as well become it!!"

It looked a WHOLE lot like surrender.

My full comment as posted under "Shame and Setbacks:"

"i - literally - can't even tell u how much i relate to everything u wrote, ESPECIALLY paragraph #4. i get SOOOO ashamed and disgusted with myself, i regret any commitment i make when i'm feeling a little better, because inevitably the time comes and i just don't want to go out and be a member of the human race.

what i hate most: this is the complete opposite of the person i used to be. the dependable, responsible one. the one you can count on. now, i don't want anybody to count on me for anything, or i will disappoint them AND myself.

grief/loss on top of depression is what put me over the top 3 years ago.

ur right, it all becomes one and the same; a big blur of pain.

i'm filled with fear at the moment, because i accepted a job the other day. just a part-time seasonal gig. it's the only interview i've made it to recently; the others have been no-shows and, like u, i just can't even deal with how bad i am making myself look so i usually don't cancel. i end relationships because i feel like all i do is let people down. i HATE this. i hate myself for being like this. anyway, i am afraid i can't even handle this dumb job or the possibility that - once again - i won't make it out of bed in the morning to get there and the self-loathing will overflow once again...

‎"There are four ways you can handle fear. You can go over it, under it or around it. But if you are ever to put fear behind you, you must walk straight through it. Once you put fear behind you, leave it there."

grief is misery; sometimes u gotta just lean into the pain instead of resisting it because "What we resist persists." eventually, if we're lucky, we come out the other side...

it is hard to try and show yourself the same compassion that you would extend any other person in your situation. i mean, really: ARE u a horrible person? do u deserve what ur going through? i can think of some pretty terrible people, and i doubt u fall into that category."

As I wrote before in this post about the revelation I had the night in Nashville when I came close to annihilating my existence on this planet ---

The question I have to answer every single minute of every single day: Who is going to win - the people who have treated me like sh*t in this life, who don't give a damn if I live or die - or the people who love me [and...am I one of them]?????

Hatred is a strong sentiment, after all. To wind up in the category of people so despicable as to deserve hatred is really quite reprehensible. I feel ashamed. Not just of things I have done, but of who I am. My very being.



"I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be"