I don't know what to do anymore.
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m new to this sub and wanted to ask for help, or maybe just vent about something I can't handle anymore. I've noticed there are a lot of genuine Christians here. I am a 19-year-old male. I’m using an AI to translate my text into English, so please forgive me if there are any mistakes. I’ve struggled with pornography and masturbation for as long as I can remember. Almost three years ago, I started dating my girlfriend. She is a woman of God now. We are currently "steadfast" in our Christian walk. Honestly, I haven't been able to see a future for myself lately. Our first year together was turbulent and pretty problematic. In the second year, we started truly drawing closer to God and getting serious about our faith. But I’ve always had this struggle. I don’t remember exactly how it was at the beginning, but I made up my mind to stop, and I actually succeeded at one point: I went a whole year without porn. I still had slip-ups with masturbation, which I’m really not proud of. I wanted to be stronger, but I just don’t know what to do anymore. Times have been tough lately: she’s dealing with family issues, I’m dealing with mine, and I’ve been facing a lot of pressure from others regarding marriage. I believe about two weeks ago was when things hit rock bottom. I relapsed on purpose. I did everything I wasn't supposed to do. I have a serious problem with my eyes—with lustful looking. For years, I accepted that looking at women's bodies was just normal. When I started dating, I began fighting against it, but I couldn't win. It’s been years of daily falling down and picking myself back up. But as for porn and masturbation, that came back a few months ago. I have to take a few crowded buses to get to work, and most of the time, the passengers are predominantly women. And I just couldn't handle it. I really tried: I would stare at the bus ceiling, look out the window, or put on headphones to listen to worship music, but I still failed. The guilt and the constant giving-in destroyed me. I would arrive at work completely stressed out from fighting and losing that battle the entire commute. Stressed out by problems at home, I would open the company computer in an isolated corner and start searching random things. Over time, those searches escalated, and before I knew it, I was looking at explicit porn again—fictional characters, women, unrealistic bodies. Everything had come back. I talked to my pastor, and later, to my girlfriend. She already knew about this struggle of mine, but that was back in the beginning. Afterwards, I had managed to fight it off for a while, but this relapse over the last few months has been much harder. I told her about the first slip-up, and it was awful. She was angry and sad, and even though I knew everything she was already going through, I still did that to her. I felt terrible. I wanted to be with her, but I didn't have the heart to put her through that kind of pain again. Then I fell again. She seemed calmer that time, but I know how deeply it truly hurt her. And then, a little while ago, I messed up one last time and told her. That was the last straw. I did exactly what I wasn’t supposed to do, and I knew exactly what I was doing. I did all of it without a single thought for her, let alone for God. It’s been hard ever since. A few days after that, I got sick and spent five days at home, just thinking and talking to God. After those five days, she asked me to meet up and talk at a park. I was exhausted and lost. I didn’t pray before leaving the house, and my mind was completely blank and filled with fear. On the way there, I vividly remembered every single relapse from the first to the last: on the bus, at the terminal, and at the bus stop right next to her. She looked upset and I was desperate, looking all around just to distract myself, and I looked exactly where I shouldn’t have. I was anxious, torn between two voices: "YOU ALREADY LOOKED, IT'S OVER, FORGET IT. YOU ALREADY FAILED, THERE'S NO HOPE LEFT. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE, JUST GIVE UP AND ACCEPT THIS SIDE OF YOURSELF." and "DON'T DO THIS, YOU ARE WITH HER, YOU CAME HERE TO MAKE UP. GOD IS WATCHING YOU, ARE YOU REALLY GONNA DO THIS TO HIM? YOU DON'T NEED THIS, RESPECT THESE PEOPLE." In the end, I felt like an actor. We went to the park, talked, and got back together. Since then, the sin of pornography has been easier to fight. I’m not saying it’s gone, but I’ve been fighting harder against it. Sometimes I still "half-fail"—something pops up, I close the app, block it, run away, but the desire stays trapped in my mind. However, the sin of masturbation seemed to return with a vengeance. I’d find myself alone, get desperate, and do what I shouldn't. Even on church days. But the worst part of all has been my eyes. I’ve been trying to fight this alone. About two weeks ago, right after that meeting in the park, I went through an entire week of complete mental torment. The sin of lustful looking was deeply embedded in my mind, with those two voices fighting the entire time. When I finally managed to talk to God the day before a youth conference, I wrote down my sins, begged for help, and confessed everything. I felt renewed, but deep down, I was still struggling. I didn't fast; I just prayed and read the Bible. Once I got to the conference, I started falling again. I was doing well at first—I started praying, I was talking to God and feeling excited—but after a while, it started. In front of me, next to me, up on the pulpit... everywhere I looked, I saw things I shouldn't, looking where I shouldn't. I feel like a total hypocrite because of it. I left that conference more broken than whole, remembering every single time I looked and gave in, every thought, every image of a body that stuck in my mind, all while I pretended not to like it as I tried to fight it. I started out asking for God's help, but after a while, I felt so bad in His presence that I gave up asking for forgiveness. I feel filthy and unworthy, and I know I am. I wish I had the strength to go back and ask for forgiveness, but I'm just living a fake gospel, going to church and pretending everything is fine. Every single day my mind wanders to that dark, dirty place and I can’t seem to get out. I try to ask God for forgiveness, but I can't even remember everything I've done. It's been days of unconfessed sin. I just see myself sinking deeper and deeper. When I go to sleep, I have anxiety attacks that only stop when I cry out to God for help, which finally lets me sleep. I wake up and I don't pray. I spend the whole day looking at things I shouldn't and fighting my thoughts, sometimes managing to talk to God, but then quickly falling right back into the pit. I'm pretending to be someone I'm not to everyone else, but deep down, I am desperate. At church, I can't connect with people; at work, I'm unproductive and reckless; at home, I help out, but I pick way too many fights due to complicated family issues; and with my girlfriend, I am the biggest fraud in the world. I look into her eyes, I take care of her, but deep down I am horrible. I'm just pretending to be a good person—someone who looked at another woman without her knowing, and whose mind is filled with filth and garbage that comes and goes daily. I'm not moving forward because I know I need God to take control of my life, but I don't even have the nerve to face Him because I don't even remember all the things I've looked at anymore, whether on my phone, computer, at work, etc., nor what I thought or said, because I have no self-control. I'm taking my stress out on everyone and myself, saying worthless words, and falling deeper and deeper into despair, completely lost on what to do next. It has been weeks since I’ve had a single day of genuine peace and, honestly, I don't see a path to repentance anymore. I know God is forgiving, but I can't seem to feel true repentance anymore. I want to change, but I don't remember the purpose of things anymore. I don't remember my reason for living, and sometimes I just feel overwhelmed by everything around me. I don’t want to hurt her anymore, I don’t want to be a bad son, I don’t want to disrespect God, and I don’t want to treat Jesus’ sacrifice like it’s nothing. I can't take it anymore. I am desperate and lost. I hope God pulls me out of this, but I don’t have any strength left. I’ve already told my pastor about the situation, but I couldn’t bring myself to be completely honest about everything. He told me about 1 John 1:9, but I'm being stubborn and placing a burden on myself that I don't know how to carry. I don’t feel deserving of forgiveness, nor deserving of anything else. My mind is full of physical and bodily comparisons, my thoughts only imagine dirty things, and I see myself running in circles, not knowing what to do. I can't fight it anymore, and every day I fill myself with wrong thoughts and unfaithful glances. I don't know if I managed to be fully honest about everything I've been through and am going through, but that's it. I cried a lot these past few days watching a video that touched me deeply, because it was about exactly what I'm experiencing. I work mostly with women, and that has been a problem for me too. I believe 98% of the people I work with are against Christianity, and I have to listen to mockery about the gospel throughout my entire shift. I can't move forward with marriage because I don't feel worthy of her, and I can't move forward with anything else because I'm not living the way God wants me to. I'm lazy, and I don't put in the effort I should, neither for my home nor for my walk with God, my responsibility for the future, or family worries that aren't even mine to bear. Thank you to everyone who reads this, and please forgive the long text