ROLLING over in bed after running home from a university lecture, Veronica Randolph felt a wave of shame.
The committed churchgoing Christian, 26, had found herself watching porn – for the sixth time that week. She was trapped in a cycle of secret indulgence that left her hypersexualising everything – even the men praying in the pews beside her.
Veronica Randolph says stress from college left her addicted to porn for five years Credit: SWNS
Despite being raised Christian and intending to abstain, Veronica discovered porn in primary school, when she saw boys in her class on a website Credit: SWNS
In fact Veronica, a social media influencer, intended to save herself for marriage and even attended her church’s abstinence group.
But behind closed doors, she was leading a double life, and driven by the pressures of college and unhealed trauma, found herself in a spiral of porn addiction.
She tells the Jattvibe: “For me, I think the addiction was caused by unhealed trauma.
“It releases dopamine in the brain to give you good chemicals – but it can be extremely destructive.
“At college I wore so many hats and it was a never ending cycle of stress – porn was the only thing that would help reset my nervous system.
“I always knew it was a problem for me because I felt the shame, but I didn’t know how dark it could be.
“When you have a deep reliance on that content, it affects you psychologically and emotionally.”
Veronica grew up being aware of porn, but didn’t watch it much herself until her late teens.
She described having spent six years of her earlier adolescence in a heavily Christian group, where abstaining from sexual activities was promoted.
She started engaging with porn and masturbation soon after leaving the group, despite feeling shame for doing so.
Then, after the breakdown of an unhappy relationship, coupled with a difficult family situation aged 16, she was left with “unhealed trauma”.
So aged 18, when she first attended university, watching porn and masturbation became her coping strategy.
“I don’t think it was very dramatic where I was so addicted that I needed it three times a day and couldn’t go without it.
“But I found my life was a never-ending cycle of stress.
“My triggers to watch porn and masturbate were being tired and stressed – and that’s literally what college is.”
She began using it as a coping strategy in the evenings, after coming home from dance practice.
From the age of 18, she used porn and masturbation as an escape Credit: SWNS
After several years, in 2023, aged 23, Veronica realised she was stuck in a cycle, chasing dopamine Credit: SWNS
She still attended church, and found it was harder to control her feelings there too, although she knew it was frowned upon.
Veronica, from Denver, Colorado, said: “At night when I finished practice, I would get the urge to watch pornography and masturbate.
“It got to the point where I couldn’t be friends with men platonically.
“I had this deep reliance on the content, I’d be sat in church imagining the men naked while they were sat next to me.
‘I hypersexualised everything’
“I hypersexualised everything.”
After several years, in 2023, aged 23, Veronica realised she was stuck in a cycle, chasing dopamine.
“I never lost the conviction in my heart of wanting to stop, I had shrugged my shoulders, but I had never been proud of it.
“I really had believed pornography and masturbation were the only things that could release dopamine for me.
“That’s what kept me in the cycle so long.”
She spoke to friends about her situation, although never fellow churchgoers for fear of judgement.
She says: “I realised a key element is that, I grew up in a church, where there is a lack of education for women on how to understand yourself sexually.
“At the time, all I thought was that these acts would make me feel good, and in the midst of my stress I only cared about feeling good.
“It was escapism, the reality of escaping my pain.”
She began to change her habits by abstaining, with a view to saving sex for after marriage.
She began to educate herself on what a porn addiction stems from, and started speaking out with others about her experiences.
Last year she started attending therapy to help her overcome the underlying traumas which contributed to the addiction in the first place.
In a previous relationship, she described how she had discussed her wishes with her previous partner, who had been on the same page as her.
She says: “He knew about my history, and was pretty well informed about my struggles with a porn addiction.
“But I think porn in all forms is wrong. I try to abstain because I think it’s a dark thing.
“I still struggle here and there, recently I’ve struggled because my house flooded the day I had bills to pay, and I was in hospital three times in February.
“At moments, I did fall back into my patterns.
“As a Christian, that is hard to talk about, because the Bible is a grey area when it comes to masturbation.
“I recently went on a weight loss journey to get away from releasing dopamine in a sexual way.”
She adds: “I try to be a beacon of hope for Christian women, now, when my flesh says ‘jump’ I don’t have to ask ‘how high?’.
“I don’t want to be a slave to my flesh and my sexual desires, and I’m in control of my own actions.”
