Maybe you’ve been caught red-handed in your porn habit, and shame has sent you into hiding. You know you’re guilty as charged. You WANT to quit porn. But guilt’s evil twin shame sends you running right back to porn to medicate your pain – the vicious porn cycle Thomas Christianson describes below.
What if shame is secretly fueling your compulsive porn use?
Shame and Guilt. Shame and porn. How does someone break free from the grip of these unhappy pairs? Dr. Caroline Leaf, cognitive neuroscientist, author, and speaker, calls this the “shame spiral.”
Achieving freedom from porn also very often means breaking free of shame. Here are three key steps to deal with porn and shame.
First, identify shame and guilt in your story.
Consider the story of “Jenna,” an anonymous survivor of child abuse. (Trigger warning.)
Picture five year old Jenna, who’s in love with her daddy — sort of. She wants more than the whole wide world to hear, “Great job, sweetie!” Or just a simple, “I love you to the moon and back,” but she never, ever hears this. Instead, she both loves and terribly dreads being with her daddy.
Sometimes on daddy’s good days, he gives the best swing rides ever. He teaches her to ride her bike. Exploring the woods seems safe with daddy when he’s in a good mood. But the good days feel blurry…
When she starts learning to read, Jenna sees words backwards. She can’t even really explain what’s going on inside her head. All she wants is to make daddy proud, but she’s only four!
Instead, the blows come. Every time Jenna messes up a word, she gets whacked while sitting on her daddy’s lap trying her hardest to read. Sadly, that’s not the only time he yells and hits.
In fact, pretty much anytime she’s not perfect, that’s what happens. Violent, loud, scary anger erupts.
No wonder Jenna runs and hides when daddy gets home from work. She’s not sure what she might have done wrong or how she messed up that day.
But she does mess up in some way. Every single day is filled with her mistakes. So much shame!
Some days her anxiety is enormous, even when she hides. Jenna KNOWS precisely what she’s done wrong that day. She had a rebellious moment and broke a rule on purpose. She was angry, too. And the guilt mixed with shame makes her sick to her stomach.
For Jenna’s entire life, she’s carried the inflicted shame — shame she didn’t deserve — of never being good enough to please her dad. She’s often felt less-than and broken. Never good enough.
“Guilt says, I have done bad. But shame says, I AM bad,” explains Ted Shimer, author of The Freedom Fight.
Shame and porn. Shame and guilt. Shame and fear. These entangling webs are often tied into another web called trauma.
Not surprisingly, Shimer identifies shame and trauma as two of the six underlying root causes of addictions, including compulsive porn use.
Medicating feelings of shame with a dopamine high from porn use is a vicious cause and effect cycle. Often victims of sex trafficking or porn actors also experienced childhood sexual abuse or other forms of child abuse.
The shame that fuels compulsive porn use is even more excruciatingly painful for you if you’re a trauma survivor.
“Shame makes people feel like they are unable to change because of an inherent personal flaw,“ Shimer also notes.
Next, release your “shame identity” which blocks your path to freedom from porn.
One young man who is only known as “T” recently shared his story of recovery from compulsive porn use with Fight the New Drug. He spent six years — from ages 12 to 18 — trapped and feeling worthless and full of shame over his porn habit.
“If I didn’t have parents that were so supportive, out of sheer shame and a painfully keen understanding of the judgmental and apathetic nature of people towards pornography addicts I would never have gotten better. Because I hated myself for it so much.” ~ T.
Share your story with someone you trust.
“T” credits his recovery to his parents who helped him win his fight with porn. Unlike many, his parents did not use his shame and porn use as a weapon against him. Instead, they gave him beautiful compassion, educated themselves with scientific research, and provided loving support.
And how did Jenna break free from her crippling shame identity? Mentors showed Jenna unconditional love along life’s path. Over time she recognized her shame triggers. Friends spoke up and named the roots of her shame with her. “You do realize that’s abuse, right?” Little by little she’s shared her story with a few trusted people in the safety of therapy.
Abuse is not your fault, but the inherent shame it creates tells you otherwise. You may need help realizing that. Healing rarely takes place in isolation, and doesn’t look perfect.
Perfect is an impossible standard, after all — unless you’re talking about perfect love which casts out fear.
“Reach out to someone you trust
and tell your story….
Shame cannot survive being spoken…
and being met with empathy.”
~ Brené Brown, PhD, expert on shame and author of several books including The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are .
5 tips to break free from shame and porn
After working for 30 years as a neuroscience brain researcher — including the study of neuroplasticity — Dr. Caroline Leaf offers some helpful tips based on brain science. Here’s a very brief summary.
1. Name your shame to defeat it.
Dr. Leaf calls this embracing your story. What makes up your story? What memories bring you shame? Take note of these. Naming your shame is a painful but necessary part of creating healthy new connections in the brain.
According to Dr. Leaf, shame creates neurochemical chaos in your brain. Shame also causes toxic stress in the human body. Dr. Leaf is convinced that shame is an underlying cause of the spike of early deaths in the past 40 years from preventable diseases.
She notes that the only way to truly get past shame is to identify where shame intersects with your personal life story. Then you can root it out purposefully.
2. Foster a forgiveness mindset.
Forgiveness has two parts — forgiving yourself and others. You’ve messed up. Everyone has. Owning up to your mistakes is the only way to overcome them. When you’ve wounded others, apologies are painful but powerful.
Others will have hurt you, too, perhaps in almost unforgivable ways. Honesty creates healing pathways in the brain. They were wrong! By stating this, you can release yourself from their power over your life. Forgiveness doesn’t require a restored relationship with an abuser. Instead it allows you to let go of shame.
While this sounds so simple, you may need the help of a therapist or a very trusted friend to walk through your wounds with you. Talk therapy is legit. Here’s the gist of how a mental health therapist might use talk therapy:
“… talk therapy may simply serve as a safe place to discuss feelings and emotions triggered by daily stressors, a medical illness, relationship issues, grief and loss, or the impact of a specific trauma.”
3. Recognize that breaking the shame and porn spiral takes time.
Most people quit in the thought detox process at about day 4, says Dr. Leaf. Instead, creating new, positive pathways in your thought patterns may take about 63 days.
Shame and porn use have both trained your brain and created a brain rut. If you persist in identifying your negative thoughts and replacing them, you can climb out of the brain rut! Even better? You’ll begin creating healthy pathways in your brain. Real freedom is possible!
4. Understand the body’s fight or flight mechanism is connected to shame.
Your brain is trying to protect you from further hurt and shame. According to this Harvard School of Medicine article, just the thought of facing stress often activates this mechanism in your brain:
“When someone experiences a stressful event, the amygdala, an area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the hypothalamus. This area of the brain functions like a command center, communicating with the rest of the body through the nervous system so that the person has the energy to fight or flee.”
5. Employ accountability as a proven shame-fighting tactic.
Consider bringing an accountability partner into the loop instead of shame spiraling down into the darkness of porn. This tactic creates a safe place to run from shame and porn. Love and encouragement trumps shame!
“Perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment.”
Real freedom brings you into the light of safe accountability to a safe person. Even having one person cheering by your side makes the fight bearable. Imagine having a small community of safe partners!
The Ever Accountable team cheers when we get notes or customers share their stories:
“I would say it has been 100 times easier to stay away from pornographic websites. My relationship with my wife has grown so much since taking the step to let her know my struggles and to put up safeguards like Ever Accountable.
The shame I once felt is gone …” Jason
No more shame? That’s real freedom. But, again, you can’t do this journey alone.
Overcoming obstacles to accountability requires trust and action steps.
The very thought of trusting someone this deeply and becoming vulnerable might be one of your hardest first steps out of the shame spiral.
Here’s what we’ve seen work over and over again – opening up to an accountability partner.
Choosing the right accountability partner often bolsters your self-worth immensely. Accountability may be one of the most positive experiences of your life.
It’s time to take your heart in your hands and offer it to someone you trust.
So, where do you start? Make a simple list of the people in your life who care about you and are trustworthy and kind.
If finding this person is a struggle, you might find an accountability partner inside of a sex addiction (SA) recovery group. Or you may ask a trusted pastor or therapist for suggestions.
If you’re considering accountability, there’s nothing like putting your money where your mouth is! However, you can “try on” accountability for absolutely nothing with Ever Accountable’s free 14 day trial. We’re so thrilled to help you gain freedom from porn!
Rooting out and rewiring old shame and porn patterns in your brain is possible! The process of overcoming pornography IS hard work, but worth every ounce of effort.
[…] If you’re reading this and feel like porn has gained control over your life, do something about it. Talk to someone you trust, like a friend, or a family member, or your spouse. Take that first step in defeating the shame. […]
[…] Linda talks about this process, “As we worked with the women in our shelter to teach them appropriate relationships and behaviors somewhere down the line their lightbulb moment comes. They suddenly realize that they were actually a victim of sex trafficking. That is a bittersweet moment. Healing can begin as they identify their trauma.” […]