What Came First?

There’s a theory in the addiction and recovery field called the chicken or the egg. You’ll want to ask yourself; are your habits causing you to have poor mental health or did you resort to these sexual behaviors because you already had poor mental health? 

Addiction and Mental Health

It’s important to dig deep into this and think about how and why your sex or porn addiction started and when it started to negatively effect your quality of life. Sometimes it’s obvious like having a diagnosis of mental disorders, loss of control or struggling with repetitive behaviors but other times the symptoms can be subtle like lack of sex life or a sexual dysfunction. 

Poor Mental Health Can Cause a Sexual Addiction

For some addicts, they struggled with past sexual abuse, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, or other mental health issues and started using pornographic content, sex or masturbation on a regular basis and as a way to escape those feelings. It’s the brain’s way or self medicating. 

A sexual Addiction Can Cause Poor Mental Health 

For others, their symptoms started gradually overtime and as the compulsions got stronger, their sexual behaviors started affected their mental health. Compulsive use of sex, porn and/or masturbation can cause serious havoc on brain activity and ability to cope with every day activities. Signs of porn addiction though can vary and sometimes the symptoms are not enough to be classified as an actual addiction. 

Quitting Isn’t Going to Solve the Root Problem

If you fall into the first category, meaning you were suffering from mental disorders before your porn or sex addiction then it will be really important to understand that and know that by just quitting sex, porn or masturbation, you will not automatically start to feel better and in fact you’ll just be up against something so strong you are bound to relapse unless you start working on treating your mental health issues at the same time as this course.

Quitting Can Help Your Mental Health

If you fall into the latter, meaning your masturbation, sex or porn addiction caused you to have poor mental health then your mental health should improve once you kick this behavioral addiction.

Not Sure?

If you are unsure, then I recommend waiting until after the 30 days is over and if you have not engaged with your behavioral addiction for 30 days and you still feel bad emotionally or mentally then you’ll know that you will need to see a mental health professional.

Reflection on Your Life and Relationships

Take some time to think about how daily life was before you started feeling the compulsions. Not necessarily when you first started but when it started to become a problem in real life or for your intimate relationships. Not like when you first masturbated but when masturbation turned into an issue for you and you started to feel a loss of control. Users of pornographic material won’t see it as a problem at first but there is typically something that happens that will make the user realize that the unhealthy behaviors are becoming a problem. 

Know The Effects and Why It All Started

For some people it might be a gradual thing like depression getting stronger and the compulsive behaviors increasing whereas others it might have been a single instance such as a rape, sexual trauma and so on. And like I said before not everyone turns to sexual activity because of something bad. For many of you, everything could have been just fine and this is just something that started. The important thing is to know.

Retraining your Brain

Once you start to know you can start to retrain your brain. This can be done through many different avenues such as therapy, counseling or self-help. Most people find a combination of many different things to be helpful. For example, taking a course here at CSPMA in addition to therapy for mental health can have huge advantages. 

Counseling and Therapy Can Benefit

Getting the right help is important for not just the mind but also the physical body too. Having poor mental health can cause things like a sexual dysfunction, hypersexual disorders and a sexual addiction. People tend to look for ways to help with mood disorders by engaging in things that feel good but this can ultimately lead to addictive behaviors such as impulse control disorder. Some people turn to drugs and alcohol which develop into a substance addiction while others turn to sex, porn or masturbation which turn into a sexual behavior disorder. If you are struggling with a mental health disorder please talk to a mental health medical professional. 

Don’t Trade One Addiction for Another

Some people may use drugs and alcohol as a way to move past a sexual disorder. Trading one addiction for another is not the answer. You don’t want to go from porn addict to having an alcohol addiction. Or one who struggles with sex or masturbation to then have a substance use disorder. While it’s common for people who struggle with both, pornography addiction and substance use disorder, it’s important to get help for both at the same time. 

Treatment

You do not need to have an official diagnosis to get help. If you are in distress and struggle with pornography addiction or sex addiction you can start right away. Your treatment plan should be unique to your own self and should include ways to help your personal relationships, sexual relationships, your physical health, and any mental health conditions or negative effects you are having.