u/Legal_Willingness_53

I am 34 (in the US) and mother is 68 (lives in Chile). My sisters and I have known that she struggles with mental health issues, mostly addiction to all sorts of sleeping pills. We have also dealt with her continuous health issues since childhood.
This past December I went down to Chile, partly because she was spiraling out of control. All of us knew she was taking too many sleeping pills, but she claimed she was having bad Alzheimer’s. During my time in Chile (my home country), my sisters and I made a Google doc detailing her many diseases, and the three of us had the collective epiphany that: nobody can have that many health issues in that short a time. We had really believed all of her issues up to this point, but looking at 30+ diseases in about 30 years was just too much to believe. Sciatica, migraines, hyperthyroidism, broken bones (in an extremely sedentary person), asthma, allergies, cataracts, arrhythmia, Lyme disease, Parkinson’s, Guillain Barre, loosing tooth, heart strokes, kidney issues, etc, every single year something else.

January was a tough month coming to terms with tearing down lies from my childhood: a) my mom was a present mom (wrong, she was a sleeping body but otherwise she was either high on sleeping pills or she was more the center of attention because she was constantly sick.) b) she had problems but she was essentially good (I do not know if I can go all the way and call her evil, but her soul was lost when she was manipulating emotionally her children to go along with lies, and that is disgusting to me.)

About 8 years ago I became I aware of how anxious I am. This January I realized that some of my anxiety may stem from this manipulation. If the person that you love the most is constantly weaponizing their fragility to gain your full attention, you cannot feel centered. This behavior multiplied by years is like lodging anxiety deep into the marrow.

Right now, my sisters and I have to actually help her (all of us live far away) financially and emotionally. None of us want to continue taking care of her because, even if it makes sense at the end of someone’s life, it makes no sense if it has been our pattern since childhood. Some of my first memories are giving my mom massages because she would cry because of back pain. Even if there was never a sexual boundary crossed, the reversal in this relationship where the child is constantly playing caretaker for the adult, in both physical and emotional needs, feels disgusting and I hate her for that. I hate her for manipulating me. I hate having to play good kid and calling her now that she is actually struggling (she almost died three weeks ago but survived being in a comma for two weeks). However, my sisters (and some of my mom’s siblings) and I are carrying this burden forward.

For the better part of my life, since 14, I have watched porn to soothe my anxiety, knowing that I generally feel worse afterwards. Sometimes it is a moral judgement, if I have spent too much time or I have gone to watch things that are violent/misogynist within the mainstream. I am 34 now and married. I think around 2016 I opened up to my wife about this “bad habit”. During the pandemic I discovered for myself exhibitionism, and that was a new drug. Three years ago I “graduated” to pay for escorts, always exhibitionism as I have been afraid to ever give any disease to my wife and for some reason, I just want to be seen and hear them saying stuff to me. Having said that, last week on Wednesday I read some of the SAA green book, and in particular, reading about that progression from porn to more intense experiences broke my denial for years. I always told myself “it won’t happen to me” , but once I was there, I kept telling myself “this is the last time”. That very Wednesday I told my wife about my activities and to my surprise she was quite empathetic. Three days ago I attended my first SAA meeting and, this is my first week in a long time without having watched xxx, without exhibiting myself, without looking for escorts.
Contrary to what it may seem, I do want to explore my sexuality, but I feel like I need at least a year or five of intense focus on this kind of inner work in order to feel safe again with myself. I would like to discover what is that I really like at the end of this road, because I have been feeding myself mainstream xxx for too many years and after years of it, it messes up what i believe I want.
The people at the SAA meeting where kind, and I am looking forward to exploring this part of myself in this way. I thought giving into my darker impulses would fulfill me (I have more sex positive friends that are sort of fighting my latest u turn) but I know in my body that, whatever I was doing to soothe my anxiety was amplifying it.

Lots of love to everyone here, there is a whole community to support you.