In the summer of 2005 (during my freshman year of college), I accidentally engaged in masturbation. By 2006, my thoughts had become filthy. In 2007, I started experiencing anxiety—I was afraid of this, afraid of that. Even if a small red spot appeared on my skin, I would get extremely nervous. (I had similar skin conditions in my freshman year but didn't think much of them.)

In June 2007, I began to worry that I had a serious illness, so I went for medical checkups everywhere, but all the results came back normal. From that moment on, my nightmare began. (In the past, when I thought I had symptoms of an illness, I would just wait and see if they actually developed and wouldn’t worry too much. Logically, since all my checkups showed I was fine, I should have been even less concerned this time.) But I kept asking myself: I know I’m not sick, so why can’t I let it go? Why do I keep obsessing over my internal organs all day long? Why has my mental resilience suddenly become so weak?

I started to give up on myself, and as a result, my masturbation habit worsened—I was doing it nearly every two days, sometimes even twice in one night. By the time I was in my senior year, during the winter break of 2008, I started feeling dizzy and lightheaded in crowded places.

In July 2008, when I started looking for a job, my masturbation frequency decreased, and my mental state seemed better in September and October. In September, a classmate called me and advised me to socialize more with my colleagues to avoid psychological issues. At that time, I felt confident and told him it wouldn’t happen again.

From the time I started working until November 2009, my psychological problems came and went (usually appearing when I masturbated frequently). I remember that during the October 2009 National Day break, I returned from visiting my classmate in Shenzhen, and my masturbation habit became even worse. As a result, my mental health deteriorated—I became terrified of people, afraid of their voices, their hand gestures, their movements. Eventually, I became so weak that I ended up in the hospital.

At that time, I didn’t realize my mental problems were caused by masturbation. Later, I read about the harmful effects of masturbation online and finally understood that all these consequences were a result of my habit. It wasn’t until August 21, 2011, that I truly decided to quit masturbation!

My Regrets and Reflections The reason I indulged in masturbation without restraint was:

I read online that masturbating two or three times a week wouldn’t harm the body.

I set a personal standard—I told myself as long as I didn’t experience lower back pain or physical weakness, it was fine. I never considered that masturbation could cause psychological problems.

This is my painful experience with masturbation. The idea that masturbation is harmless will ultimately destroy you. If you haven’t started, please don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t even try it! Masturbation is like drug addiction—it’s easy to get hooked.