I need help breaking bad habits.

Spoiler: mentions of cp, in case you missed the tags

Hello. I compulsively seek out cp for masturbation fodder. I am not attracted to children. My theory is that I have come into this preference because I cannot be satisfied with standard taboo pornography. The wrongness and badness (shame, maybe?) is what fuels the drive to use this material to derive pleasure.

I don't want to continue to do this, but cannot seem to stop. I am afraid that continuous access of this material is going to get me in legal trouble. I don't want to speak to my therapist about it, either.

Again: I am not a pedophile. I have no sexual attraction to children. I have a compulsion to view cp during extended periods of self stimulation. I want to be better than this.

 

Is it actual pictures of real flesh and blood children, or simulated, or drawn?

I think if the first one, maybe trying to "step down" to either of the other two would be sufficient? To me personally, the most important thing is making sure that you can satisfy whatever is driving the compulsion without anyone being hurt. If you're looking at drawn loli or shota porn, or computer simulation, no actual children are involved, but if you're looking at picture of real kids, a real child had to be violated to obtain that.

I would also note that from everything I've heard from people with compulsions, self flagellating for having the compulsion does not generally actually help in treating it and can often make it worse. Try to avoid framing it as a moral issue but that a medical/mental health one. I feel primarily your first goal should be ensuring you aren't harming others, and your sources are legal (for your country anyway, if you aren't living inside of the US; I know some places are even more strict on what they consider illegal to posses and will include simulated or drawn sources which would complicate things). Another thing to keep in mind is addiction isn't usually dropped: most often you have to find something safer to replace it. A smoker for instance doesn't just have a hard time because of the nicotine cessation, but also because smoking offers an oral stim, a finger fidget, and/or is often part of a daily or social routine. To address changing the habit, you will likely have to address changing the routines around the habit as well, and replace it with something different.

 

Unfortunately, it is incredibly illegal actual- factual CP. Mainly viewing various blogs on Tumblr that post the images without tagging. It's an actual search for it every time. Like a puzzle or mystery to unlock before getting there.

So if I can just re-train brain to deal with cartoony images, maybe there might recovery?

 

That's a good start. And while you're at it, report any of the blogs with the real stuff you do find.

Try to identify where your habits and rituals are around the seeking out and viewing. try to identify what it is you're getting out of the viewing specifically. See if you can recreate it with something else. You're basically trying to retrain your brains dopamine receptors. My experience starts and ends with mild substance abuse habits (nicotine, alcohol, etc) so I'm sorry I don't have any advise more specific to this situation, but there's a lot of commonalities in addiction. It may be that you will need additional help from someone trained in the field. If you're uncomfortable bringing up the specifics with your therapist, you may be able to frame it more generically (a porn addiction) and still get something useful out of discussing that.

Good luck!

 

any guesses as to how tumblr is "dealing with" the CP problem?

I have never distributed or engaged with anyone. Never liked any posts or shared any posts. Do they track who has viewed certain posts or blogs or whom you follow? I did make the mistake of following something like 20 blogs that in turn followed people that followed people that posted content I was seeking.

Frt: I have not engaged with that blog in almost a full month. I have deleted it, in fact. And the material in question has not been consumed in the same span of time. I guess "volcel" month has been a success? I don't even feel compelled to do the thing anymore really. Especially with shit getting busted.

Progress, I suppose?

 

Definitely progress! That's good to hear, please keep it up.

As to how tumblr is cracking down, they appear to just be deleting blogs that might potentially have deleterious content. No word on what they do for blogs where it's confirmed. Given that tumblr is tumblr I highly doubt they have keeped or recorded any logs of deleted blogs that never hosted content in the first place.

 

Tried prison?

 

this is kind of shitty to say to someone actively trying to seek help and stop

 

I’m aware but that’s also a pretty messed up felony

 

Legit fuck off with this. If you're actively looking up and collecting cp to get off, no matter how much you ~totally aren't attracted to children~, you're committing a serious fucking crime and are actually a danger to society.

Turn yourself in, get put on a registry, and seek help somewhere where you won't have access to child porn.

 

Yeah I think you've more than earned being put on a sex offender registry, and if you're worried about being compelled to do things having external authority checking on you can only help!

 

sockity mcbadsock, posting here after over a month of silence to say "i stopped looking at cp! no really! now how do i make sure i don't get caught for it?" is.... a bad look

like. i have a lot of issues with how people treat sex offenders, and i hope you get better and don't harm children anymore but

i'm not interested in helping you hide it

 

If you had even the most basic level of regret for your actions, you'd turn yourself in and would have reported every single one of those blogs to the authorities, not followed them, jesus christ.

 

Like, okay, I've been trying to think about why your follow up post makes me so uncomfortable and I think I've got it. Here's what I wish you'd said:

Like. I still don't approve of that, but it frames the same information differently - your post is just about covering your own ass, and details about improving are an afterthought. Which I find deeply - offensive? unsettling? distressing?

Like. Actual fucking children were harmed and at no point did you do anything even minimal, like reporting those blogs. And now you're worried about getting caught.

 

like. you'll notice i was the first and only person to hit agree with rats - i didn't think fuckers comment was helpful, and i don't like that people are saying you should turn yourself in. imo that's not a good idea

AND YET

dude

your op. *waves hands vaguely* discomfited but appreciate you trying to stop, like lizardlicks response. your final thing?

just. actual, real children had to be harmed.

Spoiler: pedophilia

i think i'm so offended by this because I LIKE PEDOPHILIA. i mean, obviously bad, yes. real children, bad. but it's a staple of almost all my favorite fics, i look at loli and shota, and i get off to it. i have intrusive thoughts about actual children! sometimes my brain goes "you know real child porn exists. wouldn't you like to go find it?"! in fact that was my reaction to your op which is why i never responded

and yet

the one and only time i ever encountered actual factual cp, i reported it

and so i am just. very very personally offended that you couldn't even do that much, and are primarily concerned with protecting yourself and not THE ACTUAL REAL, LIVING CHILDREN who were harmed in the making of the content you got off to

 

Friend, I'm telling you this as someone whom has had a couple of clients who had this type of proclivity while I was a practicing psychologist-- you absolutely do need to confide this with your therapist and trust their judgement. I disagree with the "if you can't stop". You absolutely need to confide in them, period. You've crossed a very dark threshold that you shouldn't have to begin with.

I have had to have serious talks with both of these clients, and yes, by law I did have to report one of them for consuming pornography of real children, but there are ways to actually turn yourself in for treatment. There is treatment, even if that means you do have to deal with the law. What you've done is a felony, a very, very bad one, and the fact that you consumed this specific type of pornography rather than like what Idiome does, you need to take that as a sign that you do not have hits as under control as you might think, about a month of abstinence or not.

This isn't out of any lack of compassion. This is me saying I would like you to get better, and you having escalated to seeking out material that's of sexual abuseof real flesh and blood children is not something you should brush off, even if you have disengaged from that material. You need help this forum cannot and should not give you. You need professional help. And you need it now.

There is treatment, but you need to say something about it, and you need to say it ASAP. Call your therapist, tell them it's an emergency, tell them you have the potential to be a danger to others and that you need to see them as soon as possible. Your therapist will know how to help you. Trust that. Do not let this spin even more out of control than it already has, please. Get yourself the help that you need, and do it quickly.

 

personally, i don't trust this person. the way they describe their problem, it sounds like they are more motivated by fear of the consequences of their actions than the immorality of the actions itself. seeing as getting help would have them facing the consequences of their actions, i find it unlikely that they would seek it on their own. however, they still pose a considerable threat to children if left unchecked.

i'm of the opinion it would be a safer bet to go above their head and dox them, if that is possible given available forum admin tools. i don't like risks, and this person is a risk.

 

Yeah, no. This is one of those crimes where I straight up don't care how shit the authorities can be.

 

this person's safety shouldn't be your primary concern. any outcome where they still pose a potential threat to children should not be encouraged.