Hi Arnold, first: I feel you. That is a heavy emotional load you are carrying. Speaking as a porn addict in recovery myself, I completely understand.
I’ll be direct: don’t visit a prostitute. It will not make it any better and it could easily make things worse. It will cause you to sexualize the act of paying for sex, which will make sex with your unpaid, romantic partner, actually less arousing for you. This happens all the time in sex addiction recovery.
Like you, I struggled with porn throughout my teens and for more than two decades afterward (I am now 39). I am doing well now with over 3 months of uninterrupted sobriety. It has been a long journey and for me, where I am now is from a combination of therapy, sex addiction recovery group work, relationship counselling with my wife, prayer (I am a deeply spiritual person myself; the same results could come from meditation or mindfulness for people who prefer those though), and medical support for my ADHD and my depression (the medication combined with coaching for these has been transformative).
I do not personally believe I had to wait more than 20 years to get sober. Knowing what I know now, I believe I could have easily done it as a teen or in my early 20s, if I’d been conscious of the problem and taken action - like you.
Going to the gym is fine - but keep it balanced, you also need time to socialize! Isolating is a problem. You may be naturally introverted, but whether you’re introverted or not, you need some social connection; all humans do. Explore connections and social interactions (pairs, small groups, events, museums, etc) and find what feels comfortable for you.
Seeing a sexologist may help - it’s worth a shot! - but it’s also worth checking out a sex addiction recovery group to learn about getting sober from “acting out” on sexual fantasies:
Fantasies are a problem. There’s an important line to draw, between noticing someone is attractive - which is fine, we notice, then we move on to the next thing we’re doing and within a few seconds the noticing is gone - and fixating / obsessing / fantasizing. Fantasizing is a problem because it dehumanizes people: it dehumanizes the person we’re fantasizing about, by turning them into an object for our sexual use (basically, making them into a vibrator to pleasure ourselves, and not a human who deserves respect and whom we need to put in effort to understand), and it dehumanizes us, by making us someone that objectifies others (which is not a constructive human behaviour).
Keeping your journal here on TS is a good idea. It helps to have somewhere to go when the thoughts start spinning in your head. I do that all the time. Getting things out in writing helps me see that they’re separate from myself, which helps me recognize I don’t have to follow these thoughts.
Another thing I might say is that you’re young and this is a time to go out and meet people, socially and romantically, and that may be playing a role in how you’re feeling here. Is there a reason you can’t go out and socialize? Is there something in the way of you developing a romantic relationship?
You say you feel some need to be perfect. Why? (That’s something to unpack with a counsellor, which actually may be more helpful than a sexologist.) I promise you don’t. What you do need to do is being someone walking through life and growing with the people around you. There’s not a place we need to “be”, to be ready for a relationship or a friendship. What we do in relationships is walk through life together, facing the ups and downs together, empathize with one another and taking time every day to ask how the other feels, and empathize non-judgementally. The relationship is a process, it’s a growth process, and that’s what it will always be. You’re never perfect and you don’t need to be.
How do you feel Arnold? What are you thinking?