Porn Bandage Not Bondage
A situation recently came up in my life to help me realize that for most of my porn addiction I was using porn as a bandage for my wounds.
I had two really great big giant wounds in my life.
The first is my sisters emotional and physical abuse of me. My sister is 9 years older than me and after my dad died my sister told mom that mom was not punishing me enough, and then when mom did not agree with her my sister took it on herself to make me suffer because an 11 year old who lost his dad obviously needs more pain in his life.
The second great wound of my life is that after dad died all the men in my life abandoned me. Heck I haven’t spoke to my dads brother in over 15 years, the pastor who preached my dads funeral said at the funeral that he would be there for me, and he never was. Heck he was my pastor all my life so I figured being a complete stranger to your pastor was normal and healthy. All the men at my dads funeral who said they would be there for me were not. Only one of my dads friends did not completely abandon me (He helped me put brakes on my car once, and took me hunting once, he never said he would be there for me, but he was to some degree)
Added to that was the fact that in middle school I was the kid everyone made fun of, but looking back I think every kid was the kid everyone made fun of. Turns out 12 and 13 year olds tend to have abysmal people skills, and yet at that age you are very impressionable so you believe the other idiot 12 and 13 year olds.
I went to a Christian high school and I thought I was not well liked, but a few years ago I went to my ten year reunion and found out that everyone looked up to me in high school. Turns out that in high school we all thought we were losers but in hindsight we all looked up to each other, we were just better able to express it as adults than as teenagers.
I step into adulthood and get a dead in job that makes me miserable, and other things don’t go the way I thought they would.
For years and years I was miserable, and yet looking at porn made me feel good, and masturbating gave me a high for at least a few seconds. Yes I felt depressed afterwards, but at least it kept me from thinking about all the other problems I had no way to deal with.
The reality is that I had no idea how to deal with my problems so I put a porn sized bandage over my problems. It was like having a deep cut and so I used mud to stop the bleeding. Sure it felt good for a moment but over time it made the wounds worse.
In all honesty I could not get any help at the church I grew up at. Too many people knew my sister so when I tried to make my relationship right with her by pointing out the utterly sinful stuff she was doing she would just say that is how she is, when I brought other church members in on it she said I was lying so they stayed out of it. I needed help and got none and that made the relationship worse.
I asked so many men at the church, where I went, to disciple me and they all refused.
But then I changed churches, years later than I should have, and told my pastor about my sisters abuse of me, and started getting good council there, and healing. Then I started telling my new pastor about the neglect of the old church and started getting healing there. Then my new pastor started discipling me and 15, 20 years worth of wounds started healing.
After getting the counseling, discipleship and guidance I needed, I finally told my pastor about my porn addiction and have not looked at porn since. I think one of the reasons that I have not looked at porn in 3 years is because I removed the need for porn to bandage my hurts by having a right biblical relationship with my pastor.
It is right to share your suffering with another Christian. See Romans 15:1, I Corinthians 12:25-26, Galatians 6:2.
When you have a right relationship with other Christians there will be healing and restoration. See James 5:16, and Galatians 6:1.
Porn is not the only bandage we use to cover our wounds. It could be any addiction. It can be food, video games, money, sex, adultery, smoking, alcohol, drugs, homosexuality, transgenderism, even exercise. Anything you use to cover a wound that does not heal the wound is your addiction.
Many times people talk about their super powers after they give up porn. They don’t have super powers, they are just not putting mud over a wound anymore. They are simply not crippling themselves anymore. If you have two men with a broken leg and one puts a stent on his leg, he will have super powers compared to the guy without the stent.
I guess I wrote this to tell you how amazing my pastor is. Because God put my pastor in my life I no longer needed to put a bandage of porn over my wounds. What would it take for you to expose your wounds to somebody? I know some people reading this have much worse wounds than I do, but God’s word has the answer to healing your wounds in the local church.
If you are reading this and thinking you could never share your suffering at your church, then according to I Corinthians 12:25-26 there is already a schism in your church so you should either fix the schism or go to a church where there isn’t one. I say this because all of us need to get rid of the porn bandage.