Hi i have an addiction basically to not just porn but also sometimes perving on younger girls on youtube, on which i have seen 'subtly' indecent images unfortunately: i think it's very unlikely many of these girls know what they are displaying. I've been doing this since i was 17, i'm 18 now and i'm ashamed of myself, ironically i'm disappointed in youtube as well for allowing varying forms of nudity of which there is probably no consent.

I tried to stop it, i managed for longest two and a half months at one point, before briefly returning. I just wanted to move on with my life, and forget it but i cant when i keep punishing myself for my previous mistakes. It seems the more i punish myself the more i feel a need to return to my bad habit, and repeat it. I'm certainly having trouble truly forgiving myself.

Its really getting me down and i dont know what to do, i'm so confused

Thats why i'm here can anybody help me please?

it sounds like you are feeling guilty more about the temptation than what you are actually (or not) doing. Do realize, we aren't judged on our temptations, only by our actions. For example, Jesus himself was tempted in the desert by satan. He never sinned, but he was tempted. Being tempted is not a sin. It is something that is "there" kind of like the wind is, and has nothing to do with us personally with how "good" or "evil" we are. Our entire lives on the fallen world is vexed by temptation, but this torture will not exist in eternal life to come (because there will be no evil for purposes of temptation to exist).

I have a problem with something very similar, the temptation has never left & is something that formed in Childhood. If temptation is like the wind, i was born on a rocky edge where the wind would blow very hard on me. Things improved once I realized that there is no guilt when it comes to temptation, the temptation itself is not a sin it is just an unfortunate mental/physical by product of something that happened to me when I had no choice in the matter. It won't go away till I'm with the Lord. Until then, I expect him to have pity and mercy on me and to give me the strength to not be victim to it.

The sin itself comes from allowing myself to enjoy it and giving myself to it. I know if I see or think about it I will quickly be abandoned to that thing it will "take me away" with it. So I physically keep away from the thing & avoid it and if I know there is an opportunity to look I do not look. I tell myself it is a physical thing and without thinking about the temptation just say to myself "I have a problem with X, I am not allowed to look at X" after not looking for a long time and blocking it if it comes up I began to find it easier not to think about X anymore, until I could do the same thing with my thoughts and say to myself "I am not allowed to think about X" and forced my mind on another subject whenever it would come up. Then that became so simple 2 not have it causing me to sin.

Ask the Lord to help you to form non arousing ways of thinking about the thing If faced with the subject. Ask the Lord to make you see things like He sees things. A good sobering thought is imagining that person seeing your thoughts about them on judgment day. I believe everything we think about people will be made obvious to them on that day without any secrets, so in my mind I say "i'm sorry" to them and ask God to forgive me. Its not so easy to escape in fantasy any longer if you can think of life this way. The lord said & God said, treat your neighbor as yourself. Fantasizing about them and using their image to pleasure yourself is not something they would like you to be doing if they could know about it. We must ask God to forgive us for this ignorant selfish behavior and the strength to stop sinning that comes from Holy Spirit that God wants to help us with.

Physically, the less you look at it or think about it the less the nerves in your brain are connected to be able to form the pleasure reaction. It's like how a river can cut through the rock (like the colorado through the grand canyon hopefully things are not that bad yet). Think of the water as the sins related to your obsession. If the water keeps flowing that way it is going to make a deep ditch & will be very hard to change or stop. But if you divert the water to go another way or cut off the water supply altogether it will no longer be a ditch there and it the ditch will eventually fill up with dirt and not be a place for the river to flow anymore.

Don’t punish your self. This problem is due the phase of your age. Every teenager does these mistakes. Inspite of punishing promise to yourself, you will not repeat it again.