I’ve decided to share my story about masturbation for the first time ever. I want to encourage those who are floundering. If you are going through something similar then this should bring hope because I’ve just made 19 days which is my highest streak since the first day I masturbated 17 years ago and I’m free.
Let’s set the stage. I’m 8 years old.
I go to the bathroom and use the hand held faucet to wash myself. It gushed with such force onto my nether bits and I didn’t stop because it felt so good. I didn’t know what I was doing but I quickly experienced my first orgasm. I kept going back with curiosity and it fueled an addiction that couldn’t be shaken.
Fast forward to 16 year old me.
I kept doing it for years and years. All the while hating what it made me and the thoughts that I had. I couldn’t focus on basic stuff because I was perpetually sexed up. Then I started exploring with real boys because the masturbation didn’t satisfy me. I thought that was the solution. And then I lost my virginity in unspectacular fashion. I was always chasing the next high. So I didn’t stop with the sex. I got into darker and darker spaces for the next 8 years. I loathed myself and reduced to self harm and substance abuse. I thought it was the way I could cope and at the time everything was ‘cool’. I am high functioning and I had a band because music was my career and we toured and I thought I loved the life I was leading. But I hated myself. Only in retrospect do I see how miserable I was. I eventually lost my voice and quit the band and fell into the recesses of clinical depression. I had to start medicating to bolster myself.
Skip forward to last year. I’m 24.
I met Jesus in Jan 2018. I learnt that he died so that I don’t have to die everyday to my sin. He rose from the dead so that I can rise up victorious. He’s given me the power. So I’m not letting go of it. Giving my life to Christ was the best decision I’ve made and it has spread into every corner of my being
On Valentine’s Day, Feb 2018, in a splendid show of self-love I quit my anti-depressants that I’d been taking after telling Jesus that if he wanted a fulfilling life for me, this was step one. What was once so difficult for me to even consider is now my reality; freedom from crippling depression. Boom. Restoration.
That’s just the beginning. I have since started and maintained an excel sheet of prayers. I can’t even begin to cover everything that Jesus has done in my life this year but I will try to summarize a few of the experiences I’ve had. One of the first prayers I prayed regularly was for my boyfriend to know Jesus too since he comes from a Hindu home. I wanted him to know the peace that I felt because he’s had a turbulent life and even though he did know Jesus at one point in his teenage years he was quick to be discouraged and give up. In July 2018 it happened. In an uncharacteristic act of confidence he raised his hand in the church to acknowledge that he believed too. He nudged me before he did that because we had talked about it even though he didn’t know that I was praying hard. Since then he has grown in leaps and bounds. We’re still together and going strong. Boom. Restoration.
At the beginning of the year I had quit my previous job because I didn’t agree with some of the esoteric spiritual stuff that they were doing and I couldn’t design the marketing collateral for this stuff that I didn’t believe in. After I quit, I decided that I wanted to be a freelance designer who is able to make enough money to live, AND save. So I asked God to give me a steady stream of great clients and he gave me this crazy good job at a corporate firm in April 2018 that checks all the boxes and then some. I get paid really well, I enjoy my work, I learn so much and it’s work that I believe in. Boom. Restoration.
I also quit smoking in August 2018. I picked up the habit in college and that was 8 years ago without respite. Today I am cigarette free for 148 days. An additional benefit is that my boyfriend took a cue from me and quit too. Both of us have stopped drinking too since it triggers the urge to smoke. Boom. Restoration.
A prayer that I had made since 2018 new year’s night was for my relationship with family. I wasn’t the model daughter and had way too much of my own agenda for as long as I could assert myself. I didn’t respect my parents or honor their contribution to my life. Clearly I’d needed healing from many wounds and I resented them for the time they put into charity work instead of me and I felt neglected and didn’t want to even live under the same roof. I had moved out in October 2017. But in 2018 I changed so much that the family restoration happened almost by default. I did pray about anger from both parties and I saw it all melt like wax before God. Now my relationship with my parents’ has turned full circle. I voluntarily share life with them. Boom. Restoration.
Another prayer from new Year’s night was about music. That tale deserves it’s own thread but to cut a long story short, I had been riddled with fear since I stopped singing in 2015 after losing my voice. Honestly, I had given up. I had quit my music teaching job and the band that I toured with. I stopped playing the guitar or writing any music. I was also curating and managing artists but I just dropped everything. However, this year God gave me a word that I will be a musician. I didn’t believe it, mostly because I was skeptical of the source. But then God sent another reminder through a friend and this time I prayed about it. And I kept praying. Soon I saw many little affirmations for restoration of music in my life. I began to sing again. And to write music again. I’m so excited for what God has in store for me. I have a hope and that’s more than I could have said a year ago. Boom. Restoration.
Fast forward to today. I’m 25 and I’ve just completed 18 days of No Fap.
I joined the forum in November 2018 but I have wanted to quit for much longer, as you know. The highest I have ever gone before this is about a day or two since I started at age 8. I struggled to see self worth and struggled to value myself even after Jesus, but I didn’t give up. I kept on reminding myself of the truth of what Jesus did for me. And it’s been transformational.
Over the last few days I shamefully edged by going on chat rooms. But I realised that I didn’t want to get my self worth from there. Instead I found myself telling the men on these chats about my story. And it always resonates. People want to be free. That’s why all of you are here. It’s a struggle and a powerful journey of self realisation but it’s well worth it. I’m done with chat rooms and with porn and with the masturbation that kept me enslaved. This is my war cry. I’m victorious and I speak that victory in my story.
There is hope, fam. There is restoration. You don’t have to waste away. Just stay true. And I’m praying for you, especially the friends I’ve been privately talking to on the app.
I’m at my best friend’s wedding and it’s busy so whatever comments you leave, I’ll respond later. But feel free to chat. I’m open to conversation.
And I’m also nervous about saying all this. I think I could have written it better. Proof read it two more times. But I’m just posting it because the essence stays the same.
I’m free, you can be too.
Yours truly,
dkpt8h