Porn Addict Wanting his Life Back

My journey with porn and masturbation addiction goes as far back as me being around 5 years old, possibly even younger. I didn't discover porn until around 9 or 10, but I was masturbating much earlier than that. Back then I thought it was a form of tickling myself.

My Dad did hide his own porn collection, but the problem was that he was:
A) Not very good at it
B) I'm was a very nosy kid who poked his head in places where it didn't belong

I found his magazines and would sneak a use when he wasn't around.

Fast forward to when I was around a sophomore in high school. I vividly remember being bored of the reading assignment for English class that I had, and then I remember "hey, I have broadband internet access in a private room, and there's unlimited porn that I can just hide again at the click of a button."

It started pretty tame with lesbian and straight porn. But then I discovered hentai. Then I discovered furry porn. Then I discovered incest. Then I discovered bestiality. The only place where I've driven an absolute hard line was child porn, and thank the lord above that I've stuck to my guns even in my darkest hours of escalation. I once tried looking up staged rape porn, but my brain went "no, this is wrong, stop it right now", and I haven't looked back on that decision since.

What's even worse? I also have Pure-O OCD. When I started having images and fantasies that I KNEW weren't normal even at my young age, I'd go to my Mom balling my eyes out, only for her to tell me that my thoughts were only that. Thoughts. And that I would never act on them.

Fast forward today. I'm 31, and I've masturbated twice today, trying to cope with something that I've posted in a different forum. I feel that I have no future, and that even if I manage to put together a solid life, my past would just come back to haunt me ostracize me form society. I feel that all my fears have essentially come true.

I'm looking to start therapy to at least try and get my addiction under control and also learn to cope with having a life ruining secret that could come out at any time. I look back on my life and think "how did I become this?" I was a good kid. I did all my school work with As and Bs, I've treated everyone I ever met with kindness, and I love animals. How did I become this shell of myself? Is this what life is going to be from here on out? After all the fighting for my future that my Mom had done for me for all 31 years of her knowing me?

I sincerely wish I never grew up with the Internet. Maybe then I'd be normal.

I would not be too hard on yourself. Many people have different addictions and live a so called normal life. It is good you are going to get the help you need. I too have had different forms of addiction too and have learned to live and deal with it.