To live in freedom and without shame, we must do some difficult work. In previous blogs, I wrote about how a sex addiction impacts us physically, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.  It is so important to be aware of your unique vulnerabilities, name your own risk factors, and figure out your own experience of shame. When a sex addiction affects so many parts of our life, it is hard to know where to go to experience freedom. 

A good place to start is making a road map for the first step. One way to do that is laying it all out there through writing out your entire sexual history. This is not for anyone but you, so you do not need to worry about who is going to read it, whether it is grammatically correct or not, or what you need to protect. You can write it out in a journal or dictate through a voice to text app. You can break up your history into segments like 5- or 10-year chunks or into stages like childhood, adolescence, young adult, adult, etc. In this exercise, you are wanting to see how your experiences impacted your development to bring you into the person you are today. Here are some questions that can help direct your exploration:

 

  • What were my first feelings and awareness of being a boy/girl?
  • What did I sense from my parents about their feelings/attitudes toward my gender?
  • What are my earliest memories of feeling shame?
  • What was my family’s attitude toward touching, affection, and physical expressions of love?
  • How did school affect my view of my gender?
  • What was my experience of my first crush/infatuation like?
  • How and when was sex education and sexual development conveyed to me?
  • How did I feel about my body when it began to change from puberty?
  • How did my spirituality affect my understanding of my sexuality?
  • How did my race/ethnicity affect how I understood my sexuality?
  • What role did masturbation/sexual fantasy play in my sexual development?
  • How did I handle the internal and external pressure to become sexually active?
  • What were my early sexual experiences like? 
  • What was my dating life like? Marriage? If you’ve never dated or married, what has singleness been like?

 

There are many more questions that could be asked, but what is most important is that you are being honest and vulnerable with yourself. What you want here is to capture all of your sexual history so you have a clear picture of how this has impacted your life. 

The next step is to reflect on how you felt as you did this exercise. Were there feelings of relief, shame, hurt, fear, or anger? Were there things you did not want to write down? Why was that? Does remembering some memories/experiences affect you more than others? As you reflect on your experience of writing out your sexual history, the parts that still seem “hot,” as in still feel raw or painful to think about, might be the places that you need to go to find healing.

As you look back, it is also important to look forward. Despite what your story might have been, who do you want to be? Are you on the path to becoming that person? When painful memories pop up, what is the message that comes to mind about yourself? This is hard work! It is important to have the support of a group, a good friend, or a therapist so that you can have other voices to encourage you and point out your strengths and where you have grown. Self-compassion is also essential to confronting these painful memories and changing unwanted behavior.

After you have done this exercise, now what? Are you ready to take that next step? Take all that you’ve learned about yourself and bring it to a therapist or a support group. Remember, you are not alone. Finding support outside yourself will be essential in maintaining the change you want to make in your life. 

Gabriel Pfeiffer, MA is a Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate (LPCC) at Grace Counseling in Littleton, CO. He specializes in issues related to identity, sexuality, spirituality, anxiety, and depression. If this resonates with you, you want to know more about sex addiction, or know someone you care about that is going through this, please share these blogs or his contact.