Feeling remorse over masturbating to taboo stuff

Hey everyone,

I'm a 26 years old male and I'm feeling extremely guilty over what I've done.
I've started consuming porn as a teenager. Most of the times I masturbated to 'normal' porn, sometimes however I was masturbating to so called 'jailbaits' (eg. girls under 18). I always tried to justify my actions by telling me its just natural to find girls attractive once they have developed breasts and pubic hair but I started to feel really bad about this once I got older. I even saw 'actual' child porn, but found it disgusting and did not masturbate to it.

At some point I felt so guilty that I've talked to my girlfriend about it. She was very understandable and said that she knows I'm not attracted to children and that I should just put it behind myself. I tried to stop doing it but I found myself masturbating to jailbaits a few more times since then.
She broke up with me some months ago because of other reasons, and it feels like my guilt has reached insane levels. I'm constantly thinking she broke up because of that. I'm constantly thinking about what other people (especially my family) would think about me if they knew what I did.

I'm avoiding this kind of porn now, but I still feel really depressed about this issue and also that I lost the love of my life.
On the one hand I tell myself to just shrug it off and don't think about it anymore. Never do it again and you''ll be fine. I regret what I did but I can't change it.
On the other hand I feel like what I've done is unforgivable. That I can't be happy anymore because the remorse will never leave my mind.

Do you have any advice for me?

I think when one is within the same age bracket it is (unfortunately) not so uncommon i.e. 16-year-olds searching for 16-year-olds. However it is illegal for a very good reason due to the potential exploitation involved. As someone who had a relationship with a 16/17-year-old when I was a few years older I'd like to say that I no longer feel remorse some 10 years later, but that wouldn't be true.

Firstly, I'm glad I feel remorse since, however bad it feels, it ensures that I'd never do something so selfish, stupid and morally abhorrent again. Since this is the most important thing, any level of discomfort or pain on my part is clearly worth it. However, I am better able to live with remorse some 10 years later... I'm able to sit with painful, upsetting feelings more and accept that even if I am a "bad" or "tainted" person or even under some definitions a child rapist (the survivor rejects that framing and it's complex in my mind being I'm a British citizen, but the fact remains that under some ontologies it is the truth) it doesn't mean I'm not a part of the universe as much as trees, rocks, mosquitos, plastic bags etc. Whether I or anyone else likes it or not, I am a human being so I'd better get on with being a human being. I had to offer my ex- the opportunity to press charges if she wanted, in order to feel okay with continuing as a human - she said that she felt there weren't any charges to press and that she'd gotten over the relationship anyway, so I've had to leave that there. However much I feel punishment is a right of society, at the end of the day it's the individual's right that is more important.

I personally don't think you did anything as wrong as actually having sex with or committing statutory rape against a kid of that age. Meditation does change things a bit. But it was certainly wrong. But that doesn't mean you are a monster. You're a human who did some #######5 things. I would advise trying to get into a daily meditation routine. I've honestly find it helps but it takes discipline and a tedious amount of repetition! It probably won't do very much the first 50, maybe 100 times... but slowly over years you'll find it works. You have to be patient and have faith. I'd also recommend looking into organisations like https://stopitnow.org/

I hope this helps a little. Good luck.

-Sprock