You Were Worth it

Chapter 5

Shinso tossed his phone on the bed with a groan. His 'friends' had been blowing up his phone for a few days, wondering when they were going to see him and his boyfriend again. He didn't know how to tell them what was happening. Hell, he hardly understood it himself. He wasn't sure if Kaminari was leaving him or just taking some time to himself.

The only thing he knows for sure is how miserable he is without him. Waking up every day and not seeing him sprawled on the bed breaks his heart. Of course, he misses watching him in the most intimate ways, but he misses more than that. The way he lit up a room whenever he walked in and smiled and clung to Shinso whenever he did something sweet for him. He missed him and absolutely everything about him.

Seeing how Kaminari had been hurting himself turned his stomach and destroyed his heart. He told him several times that Shinso's addiction was hurting him, but Shinso never realized the extent of it. Now, he has to face the consequences of his actions. The love of his life was gone, and if he didn't correct his behavior, he was not sure if he'll ever come back.

With tears rolling down his cheeks, he picked up his phone and opened his browser. He wasn't surprised when the tab he left open was porn. He dismissed it without a second thought before typing sex and porn addiction into his browser. There have been too many times he's known Kaminari was hurting because of his addiction. He doesn't want to hurt him anymore.

After scrolling online for a while, he decided it was best to probably see someone. Everyone was different, and he needed to figure out what was going to work for him.

Until this moment, he denied he had any addiction. Everyone always said he did, but he never considered it like that. Not until he realized he knew something was wrong with the love of his life, and he barely cared. After realizing and accepting it, he felt horrible. He was ashamed, disgusted, guilty, and depressed. He didn't want to live like that anymore, and he sure as hell didn't want Kaminari to live like that anymore, either.

After half an hour of scrolling, he found an addiction psychiatrist accepting new patients. His office is only a few blocks over, and he can get him in tomorrow morning, which was a miracle. Shinso was terrified that he would back down and change his mind if he didn't start immediately.

After filling out the online form for his insurance and setting his appointment on their website, he scrolled through the notes to make sure he had everything he would need for tomorrow. He had his insurance card and money for the payment. Those were the easy things he would need. The tricky thing would be the list of things he wanted to talk about or possible things that could have caused his addiction to begin with.

Shinso had a rough childhood. His mom died in childbirth, and his dad wasn't father of the year by any means. They lived in a studio apartment their entire lives. After sixteen years of watching his dad fuck sex workers and almost anything else that breathed, he started couch surfing and saving up as much as he could, so when he graduated, he started working full-time and had enough money to get him started with his own studio apartment.

It was around that time that he met Kaminari. He had already had a few boyfriends in the past and knew what he wanted. He thought he was being upfront with Kaminari, but he didn't realize the extent of his sex addiction. He never knew it was going to cause this. If he had known, he would have walked away. He wouldn't have called Kaminari after he left his phone number on his coffee cup at the café.

He would have done so many things differently. It might be too late now, but he wouldn't know if he didn't try.

He locked his phone and set it on the charging pad on the nightstand. Every part of him wanted to open his browser again and watch his nightly porn, but he didn't. He tossed and turned for two hours before falling asleep in the empty cold bed.

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"Are you taking any prescription medications?" Shinso's new psychiatrist, Cal, had asked.

Shinso shook his head. "No. I stopped taking my antidepressants when I was sixteen."

"Any particular reason why?" Cal asked while scribbling furiously in a notepad.

"I stopped living with my dad around that time and couldn't afford them. When I could afford them again, I thought I didn't need them," Shinso explained.

"How is your depression now?" he asked.

Shinso thought about it for a moment. It's been there, but not nearly as bad as it used to be. Now, it was magnified. Although, he knows why this time. "With everything I'm going through right now, it's gotten worse again."

"Does depression run in your family?" Cal asked while taking a break from writing in his notebook. His icy blue eyes locked on Shinso.

Shinso nodded. "I'm starting to think sex addictions do too."

"Did you have these impulses when you were taking antidepressants?"

Shinso thought back to when he was sixteen. He technically didn't have the problem until he stopped taking the antidepressants, but he was sixteen. Isn't that when teenagers started going crazy over sex? "I don't recall having them, but I did take them until I was sixteen. Why?"

Cal took a deep breath and set the notebook on the small table beside him. "When you have depression, the chemicals in your brain aren't where they're supposed to be. Addictions and other compulsive disorders can stem from the same reason. You still have a lot of trauma that I want to work through with you, but I want to have you go to the hospital for blood work and have you fill out a questionnaire."

"What's that going to do?" Shinso asked. He didn't really care what the blood work or questionnaire was meant to do. He just wanted to be better. He wanted to figure out what was wrong with him so he could live a normal life with the love of his life.

"The blood work will see if your body is functioning properly. Things like an unbalanced thyroid can affect depression. The questionnaire will help me determine what symptoms you have and what the best course of action would be," Cal explained.

Shinso closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was expecting to be overwhelmed, but not like this. He thought he would mainly talk about his childhood today, not blood work and questionnaires. "Do you think going back on the antidepressants will help?"

"Antidepressants are used for a lot more than depression. They can be used for sleeping problems, which you said you had. They could also lower your sex drive."

"It's not sex that's the actual problem, though," Shinso mumbled while leaning back into his chair.

"It could still help. Ultimately, I think working through the trauma and creating an action plan will help more. This could be a temporary solution while we work on the bigger picture. You spend how much a month on memberships?" Cal asked while glancing back at the notebook he was writing in. "Almost three hundred. That's a lot of money a month."

Shinso nodded in agreement. He spent more on subscriptions to porn websites than he did on his car every month. "I don't like prescribing antidepressants if I don't have to, but if there is a chemical imbalance in your brain, therapy can only take you so far," Cal explained.

"Who should I call to schedule the blood work?" Shinso asked while glancing at the clock to see their session was almost over. They didn't dive too deep into anything today, but he was ready to leave. It took a lot to come in, to begin with.

"I'll email you by the end of the day. You can make your appointment on the form and forward it to me. You can also schedule your appointments with me up to a month in advance with the online appointment form," he explained while grabbing a folder beside him. He opened it and pulled out the first page. "Your insurance will cover six hours a month. I would like to see you again this week and then twice next week. We'll do one session the third and fourth weeks of this month. We can decide what we want to do from there."

"Sounds good," Shinso replied with a weak smile. "Thank you for your time."