I would never guess
It’s crazy to see how the emotional lockdown I’ve been dealing with for so long actually started. It all traces back to one experience from my childhood, one that I buried for a long time. I was maybe four years old when I first had physical interaction with girls my age. It wasn’t sexual, just innocent and playful touching and kissing - something that felt totally natural.
Then came the response from the adults around me: I was grounded, and I was never allowed to see those girls again. No explanation, no understanding of why, just a complete shutdown. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong, and honestly, I don’t think I even realized there was anything wrong with it. It felt like affection, like a natural part of being human, but that wasn’t the message I got. The message was that any kind of connection, any kind of intimacy, was something to be avoided.
That experience planted something deep inside me, something I didn’t realize was growing until much later. It wasn’t just that I was told “no” - it was that there was no room for understanding. No one explained what was appropriate, what was safe, or why boundaries existed. I wasn’t taught to respect boundaries, I was just taught to shut myself off when things got too close. The result? I learned to lock down emotionally. I unconsciously started treating intimacy as something that was dangerous, something to push away when it got too real. It didn’t matter that I was naturally drawn to affection; I was conditioned to fear it, to suppress it, because the only lesson I got was rejection and shame.
As I grew older, I didn’t even realize how much that emotional lockdown was affecting me. When I had romantic feelings, especially as a teenager, I pulled away. Even when there was clear physical attraction, I couldn’t connect emotionally. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to - it was that I couldn’t. I was afraid of what might happen if I got too close, so I didn’t let myself. I distanced myself from real emotional connection and didn’t even realize I was doing it. And that fear wasn’t just random. It was the product of years of conditioning, where intimacy was linked with rejection and emotional shutdown.
Whenever I would get more intimate with a girl, at some point, my mind stopped processing what were were doing. If she got naked, I would just not look at them, not touch them, not kiss them. I worked on this while I was in a relationship, but I still had a lot of trouble which led to mostly unsatisfying sex.
It’s only recently that I’ve started piecing it all together. This wasn’t just some random fear: it was a learned response. I built walls because I thought that was the only way to protect myself. I thought I had to keep my emotions locked up, especially when it came to intimacy, fearing the ones I love would be taken away if I engaged (without realizing this was the real reason).
I used porn to avoid that emotional trigger. Now that I'm over 3 weeks going without porn, my frustration built up internally, making me realize there was something missing. The inner void was talking to me. I started to work on it. Eventually, I sensed how much I missed kissing while being intimally involved. I started seeing that porn was an escape - a way to satisfy my lust without the emotional triggers. Since no one ever reprehended me for masturbating or using porn despite being caught in the act, porn felt like the opposite of intimacy. It felt safe. That's why it replaced intimacy for me.
Of course, It didn’t give me the emotional connection I was actually craving. The more I dug into this, the more I realized how deeply this emotional shutdown was rooted in that one childhood experience. Understanding this unlocked my heart in a way that was previously chained down, and I finally feel like I’m able to process the emotions I’ve kept hidden for so long. Now, it’s about re-learning how to embrace intimacy the right way, without the fear, without the walls.
On a weird and funny side note, I probably have a much higher dopamine spike when I have fully finished intellectual realizations than through any sexual means.
image https://pixabay.com/pt/illustrations/nuvem-pontos-agulha-fio-pintura-5879038/