Life after paraphilia

Hi. I'm new here. I have a voyeuristic paraphilia. I have had it for 30 years, but I never knew what to call it. I did know that I was different and I knew that it was imperative to hide my behaviours.

I went to university where it developed. I got a degree and I had been successful in my career. I married and I had two children who are now teenagers.

Over the last few years I entered very advanced professional education, and ultimately I was successful.

However my paraphilia exploded in intensity, I went to the wrong websites breaking the law, and I was caught and convicted. I was 'outed' with blanket front page coverage in successive regional daily newspapers, on national network television, on the radio, and lastly on the internet where the postings remain for everyone to see. I lost my jobs, I lost my career, I am a pariah in my community and have had to leave and settle elsewhere. My family have had to endure the condemnation and judgement of our community and continue to do so. My wife stayed with me for 18 months but has now asked me to leave.

My paraphilia involved continuously and compulsively utilizing mainstream pornography to masturbate, up to 5 times a day when I was younger. With the advent of the internet porn become stunningly easy to obtain. Like an addict, I needed increasing exposure and longer periods to achieve a climax. Towards the end I was taking whole days off work and spending easily 6-8 hours in a dissociative state endlessly viewing porn, and now some of it was illegal, before I could climax. Then I was OK, I could walk away and I would be fine until the cravings came back in a day or two as they always did.

I am now on medication, being an antidepressant (SSRI), and I have monthly psychology sessions. My cravings have gone in the main and what remains I can control with behavioural techniques from the psychologist.

Shortly I may have a chance to get back to my career, but it will never be the same as it was. People will never see me in the same way as they did before.

My lession, is this. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with your family. Be honest with your community. Are you in control of your paraphilia, or is it in control of you? As a whole person you should be in control. Is what you are doing illegal? Will it become illegal? Is what you are doing hurting someone else? Could it escalate to hurt someone else?

If your answers are yes, you have a problem. Admit it. Face it. Bloody well deal with it.

Some people are not bothered by their condition - ego-tonic whilst people like me hated it but were psychologically unable to reach for help - ego-dystonic.

We can all be in different phases regarding motivation to change. But change must happen. Either you do it yourself in your way or change is forced on you from the outside - like me. And it bites.

I see on some threads people worry about what may or may not happen, what someone will or not think and I see people who are not motivated to change. If nothing changes in your life, then nothing will change. The airforce has an expression - ODAAT: One Day At A Time. That is how you change a paraphila.

I have a lot I can say from my own painful lived experience, and its not over yet. I am happy to share my experience if it can help people so let me know. But don't piss me about and don't judge me. This is not a pretty story, but it is my story.

Hello, Baderr! I'm glad you came to this forum, maybe people will find your story and advice helpful.