An acting out feedback loop

Sexually acting out “gratifies” several old behaviors and old tapes, especially when done alone, with pornography.

I get to ramp up anxiety to “feel something”;
I can confuse anxiety with anticipation, and set myself up for problems becoming sexual in a real relationship, thus causing further feedback about my competency;
I can use this as an excuse for not meeting real women;
I can use this to actually feel sexual pleasure without becoming fixated on performance or gratifying a woman’s needs and pleasures in a real relationship;
I can use this to try to bury anxiety, boredom and other emotions, like alcohol used to do;
I can justify what is still left of my dad’s old tapes about sexuality in my head;
I can beat myself up emotionally.

I never had big issues with the “addictive voice” or anything like that when I quit drinking. And, though I had occasionally tried illicit drugs above marijuana, and done more than try with various over-the-counter stuff my last years of drinking, I didn’t have problems there, either.

BUT, I got all that with acting out. And I can justify it won’t kill me like alcohol.

• The ultimate problem, being the acting out:
• Fear of sexuality;
• Perhaps some degree of disgust with sexuality I still haven’t tapped, whether from the overt sexual abuse by two male family members or the covert sexual abuse by the “woman of the house” getting ready for work in various states of undress in the bathroom, and more.
• Excuse making, to justify a “fuckit switch” or otherwise giving up;
• Not living in the moment;
• Not wanting to be patient;
• Not wanting to “face” me or “work on” me;
• Not being me.

Patrick Carnes says this all links to "trauma bonds."