I’ve always been introverted, even as a child. I’ve always been trying to belong, to be accepted. Then I started watching porn at around the age of 9. What first started purely out of interested and curiosity, quickly developed into a full blown addiction and from what my parents say, that’s around the time I started stuttering, or at least when it became noticeable and a problem for me. I can’t point a finger with accuracy obviously, but what I do know now as a 24 year old is that my porn addiction and stuttering create a devilish spiral I have yet to get out of. The addiction, which I also know to be a coping mechanism, shatters my self esteem, which makes me even more anxious in social interactions and causes less-fluent speech, which on the other hand causes more pain and distress, which leads to more reason to escape from reality, thus a greater urge to give in to the addiction. If that’s true now, who says it might not have been like that from the start? Who knows.