Hello, my name is Jessica, and I’m addicted to porn

blog may 21

By Jessica Harris | Guest Blogger | Founder of Beggar’s Daughter

For years, I wished I had the guts to say that. More than anything, I wanted to find freedom. I needed someone to help me, and I knew that, but I was convinced I was alone. I was a teenage girl struggling with pornography and masturbation. No one was talking about that.

I first encountered pornography when I was 13. I hadn’t gone looking for it. It found me. Within weeks, I was hooked. The next four years dragged me deeper into the toxic filth of immorality. It wasn’t an occasional thing; it was an everyday thing. It was an every spare moment thing. It was a stay-up-all-night-so-I-can-do-this thing.

No matter what I tried, I could not stop. I printed off pictures and burned them. I changed passwords, vowed, promised, told myself not today over and over again. None of it mattered. I might be able to muscle through a day or two, but eventually, I would fall. I was stuck, and I knew it. I felt like a freak.

To compensate, I became a hyper-spiritual church girl. I led in the youth group, competed in Christian talent competitions, taught Bible lessons, and went on missions trips, camps, and retreats. I kept trying to convince myself that my addiction wasn’t a big deal. All it did was made me feel like a hypocrite and left me even more ashamed of my silent struggle. I began to pray that I would get caught.

I did.

My first year of college, I sat across from the dean of women as she discussed the internet history report that sat between us. Its many pages represented hours of diligent searching for pornography. We know this wasn’t you, she said. Women just don’t have this problem.

I was crushed. What was wrong with me? I went back to my dorm room and gave up. From my dorm room on a Christian college campus, at seventeen years old (not old enough to legally view pornography), I became someone else’s pornography.

My definition of beauty shattered. My understanding of my own worth was destroyed. For years, I had watched women give their bodies to men, and I was following suit. I became his toy – granting his every wish.

It left me feeling so empty, dirty, and broken. I was, and still am, a virgin, but even that seemed pointless. Something I had protected fiercely for years, I was giving away freely to a nameless, faceless stranger. This was the purpose of women in life. We existed to serve the sexual needs of men.

Thank goodness, I was wrong.

Months later, I sat in an all-girls meeting at a different college. At the end of her presentation, the dean of women said, We know some of you struggle with pornography and masturbation, and we’re going to help.

That sentence alone brought so much hope. Someone finally knew. Someone knew I was here! I didn’t have to start that conversation.

Maybe you’re one of those women trying to figure out how to start that conversation. You struggle with pornography, masturbation, lust, or fantasy, and you think that God has given up on you. You think that there is no way that He could ever love you, no way that you can ever be free, and no way that you can ever do anything meaningful.

Let me tell you, you are wrong. Jesus came for women just like us – women so tangled up in sin that we can’t even face ourselves.  You are not alone in your struggle. Quit trying to convince yourself that you are. Know that even if the world, your family, or your church doesn’t see your struggle, God does. He knows your struggle and the pain it is causing you. I promise you this: there is hope, freedom, restoration, and healing in the love and grace of Christ.

My name is Jessica, and I’ve been redeemed.

Please visit Jessica’s website for additional resources – Beggar’s Daugther. And “like” her facebook page to stay up to date with the amazing things she is doing.

Tomorrow Jessica will write for us again! So please check back!

P.S. You are enough.

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