Negotiating with My Inner Child About Porn

I notice my inner child really wants to watch porn because it gets a temporary need met — the need to feel seen, validated, and loved.

Even though it’s completely illusionary, those needs are temporarily met. For a moment, something in me softens. The ache quiets. But it’s fleeting, and I know now that it comes with a cost. Still, negotiating with that part of me has taken a long time.

Sometimes I even feel shame just for having the urge.

But I’ve realised shaming my inner child does nothing. It makes it worse. It actually intensifies the drive — the wounded part of me feels rejected again, and the shame spiral begins. Trying to fix that pain just leads me deeper into darkness.

So now, I’m learning something new:

Accepting that the need is 100% natural.

The desire to feel loved, held, noticed — that’s not wrong. It’s human. And my inner child learned long ago (around age 9 or 10) that this was a “safe,” private, immediate way to get that need met when nothing else was available.

That coping strategy is deeply imprinted. So of course, it still kicks in when I feel alone or unseen.

But here’s what’s different now:
I’m no longer powerless.

I now have the capacity and awareness to get those needs met in healthier, more sustainable ways. Through connection. Through soothing routines. Through deepening my relationship with myself. Through small, steady movements toward others.

Even so, in the moment — when the limbic brain floods with chemicals — it’s hard. It feels urgent. But that’s not love. That’s the body trying to solve a wound it never had the tools to process.

I think this is a similar dynamic to what happens with drugs, food, or other addictions. As Gabor Maté explores so powerfully: it’s never about the substance. It’s about the pain underneath.

This is mine.

This is my lived experience.

This is what I wrestle with.

This is what I’m working on.

And this — right now — is the work.

To build a healthy relationship with myself so that, one day, I can open to a healthy relationship with someone else. Not a perfect one. But a secure enough one. A real, reciprocal, safe-enough bond where both of us are willing to grow.

It still carries risk — but the more secure I become, the less likely I am to sabotage something beautiful out of fear. The less likely my inner child is to try and “save it” by falling back into old patterns.

Because now, I know this:

Even misguided behaviour was born from a need to feel loved.
And I’m learning to meet that need — not with illusion, but with truth.

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