Sex addiction, also known as hypersexuality, is defined as a proposed diagnosis for people who have an "excessive" amount of sex and feel distressed as a result. Sex addiction may not be an official mental disorder and most people would not take anyone seriously when someone says that they have a sex addiction, but I will say that it is just as hard to recover from as a drug addiction would.

I understand how being a sex addict would affect how someone thinks, how someone perceives themselves, and how it can affect someone's relationships with others because I am a recovering sex addict.

I will admit that I am still pretty embarrassed to admit this because nine times out of ten I will not be taken seriously when I tell people. Most people would just laugh right in my face and tell me that there is no possible way that anyone could possibly help me. Many say that this is something that I can control and this is something that I choose to do.

But here's the thing: I do not want to be in this cycle over and over again. All I want is for this cycle in my life to stop.

This addiction started when I was 17-years-old when an old friend of mine (who also ended up being my abuser) introduced me to pornographic videos. I never watched porn before then because I was unfamiliar with what I would be getting myself into and was too innocent to look it up in the first place. Once I started watching it, I could not stop. When I would watch these acts on these websites, I would constantly masturbate to what was going on and imagine myself in those situations and would want nothing more than to just have sex.

That's all I wanted, just sex.

It started to leave me depressed and gave me a different perspective on my body and myself because of it. It has ruined a lot of friendships that I cherished. My sex addiction has even led to masturbating several times to a close friend that I never wanted to think of in a sexual manner. There have even been times when close friends would talk about their sexual experiences and would make me even more depressed, but I would say nothing because I understand that everyone can talk about whatever they want to talk about.

Even the times when I have had sex felt like some of the longest moments of my life, and after it was over, I would not even feel like it was a good sexual experience. The only times I thought I had a good sexual experience was turned against me and the other person ended up lying about me and stabbing me in the back, which made them not good anymore. What's most difficult is trying to recover, since everyone keeps telling me that it's on me or that there is no way, but I'm trying every day to recover and improve myself and my relationships in the process.