OCD Youth

idontknowwhattodo said 3 years, 11 months ago:

this is going to be strange for me, i have only properly told a few people about what has been happening but i know i need to get help. im going to keep it short, so its not too annoying to read, so hopefully some of you guys can relate to this or be able to help a bit (please).

oh, by the way Im a 16 year old cisgender female, and who knows what my sexuality is (just for a bit of context)

– i havent been diagnosed with anything, i actually find therapists and psychologists intimidating (rooting from past experiences).
– this started during lockdown, and had never been a worry until i saw something i did not want to see on the internet. and then i watched a black mirror episode about a p*dophile which did NOT help the situation at all.
– when i was around 11/12 i used to have quite severe intrusive thoughts, and would have to tell my mum every single one because i would feel guilty otherwise. i never went to the doctors about them, and they ended up sort of stopping after around 6 months
– anyway, the present issue regards children. i have always loved kids and actually dream of becoming a teacher some day (well, i did. not too sure about that now considering my current state). i volunteered at a kids club, which was really fun and NEVER had any sort of attraction to any of them. even when i was playing twister with these two kids, and one touched me inappropriately, i felt very uncomfortable and tried to tell them that this behavior was not right. they may not have intended it like that, they were like 7, they need to be told these things but i definitely did NOT have any feelings then. i only felt uncomfortable
– so, what i have been telling myself is that i would have known before if i was attracted to children, right?
– AND i have always felt like i should protect them, not the opposite. i find child abusers disgusting and, if there is a hell, they should definitely go there.
– i told my mum about these, but is was months ago and she was worried but sort of angry because she didn’t understand why i was worried about this. she said that she would have noticed by now if there was anything weird about me and left it at that. i dont want to stress her out.
– after a few months, it became unbearable and i had an argument with my mum and i went to stay with my nan for a couple of days. instead of schoolwork i was looking on this website to find answers. by now i was numb. i had had so many horrible thoughts that i was not feeling anything when they came, so i was worried about that.
– i saw a post about testing, and i thought that if i tested, i would be able to reassure myself. i was so wrong. i didnt look up anything illegal, that would be disgusting, so i went on my primary school website to look at the gallery. i had had groinal responses before but this one was bigger, i think its because of worry that i was really attracted to them. i want to clarify that i was not touching myself, just sitting. i turned away from the screen and thought of adults, there was no change in the feelings. i had horrible thoughts like ‘this is your only time to be who you truly are’ and stuff telling me i was attracted to them. i can’t figure out if those thoughts were me or not. i also didnt feel anything afterwards. it took me a few days of thinking about everything to properly panic about it. now its what i think about most of the time.
– i also had horrible dreams about the fear of being attracted to children
– i did a lot of research to try and reassure myself
– sometimes when i get the groinal responses, i have to wave my hand, as if im waving the thought away – if that makes sense?
– i also sometimes repeatedly say things like im not a p-dophile over and over again in my head. it helps a bit. but i feel like i ‘copied’ this from someone on the internet who has pocd who said they do it. but it still reassures me, ad=nd distracts me from the thoughts
– i feel like a fraud a lot of the time, because im mostly the ‘nice’ one in my friendship group
– a lot of the time i feel like im lying to myself.
– i cant look at a child and think aw they’re cute, without thinking omg am i attracted to them
– i see them everywhere! its like i never noticed them until i acquired a severe fear of being attracted to them
– i worry about other people thinking im one, this one worries me a lot because in my head i think why would i be worried if im not one??
– i cut out anything sexual (hate that word) from my life for a while, so there was no chance of me getting stressed out about intrusive thoughts
– i constantly think about the past, like did i do that weirdly? or was that thing i did as a kid predatory?
– i also worried about being attracted to my family for a while
– i get worried about going to hell sometimes, even though im not religious
– am i faking liking women too? thats something i think about
– what if i manipulate everyone around me to think i am a good person

im sure theres loads more i could list.

this is actually sort of long. sorry about that. hopefully we can help eachother out

abocd said 3 years, 11 months ago:

I believe you have OCD. What you are experiencing is what I experienced, and what many many others have experienced.

It is not a nice thing to go through but it is a medical condition which is treatable. Part of the treatment is letting all these doubts wash over you without engaging them, it will feel like you are on fire but know that the flames go out eventually if you leave them alone.

I would recommend that you see a health professional with experience with OCD. The primary tool for overcoming OCD is a type of CBT called exposure response prevention (ERP) – basically sitting in the OCD fire until the flames go out. I would recommend the book 'Overcoming Obsessive Thoughts' by Purdon and Clark, this book helped me a lot. It goes through an ERP treatment programme. Know that although ERP is very challenging, it is short term pain for long term gain. 

By the way, your groin is lying to you, I spent years distressed because of my twitching groin, do not listen to your groin at all, you are feeling sensations in your groin because you are hyperaware of it due to your belief that groinal sensations mean something – they mean nothing. 

I say this for your knowledge, not reassurance. OCD loves reassurance and it fuels the fire. The way OCD subsides is by no longer adding fuel to the fire. Challenging intrusive thougts, battling them, actively avoiding them, these all treat the thoughts as though they are a danger to you – but they are not at all dangerous, they are just thoughts. Practice sitting with them, let them stay a while and go as they please – like clouds in the sky. 

OCD latches on to your fears and uses your own intelligence against you, you will never argue your way out of OCD, it cannot be reasoned with as it will always find a 'what if' so the way to deal with it is to show your brain you are not bothered by the thoughts by not engaging with them. The way to overcome OCD is quite counter-intuitive – by allowing the thoughts they fade in to the background along with all the other mental gunk everybody in the world has.

The difference for us with OCD is that our fear response, which is a normal brain process, is heightened and gets set off by thoughts as well as real world threats. Our brains are designed primitively to allow us to run away from predators, which is useful mechanism to have, but not when the 'Tiger' is the thoughts your imagination is creating. It goes back to thoughts (and all that goes with them – emotions, body sensations etc.) are not dangerous, but because we have reacted with fear to them in the past our brain is always on the lookout for these 'dangerous' thoughts and the we become hyperaware and trapped within ourselves. It always goes backto thoughts, any thoughts, even the most ghastly thoughts your imagination can come up with, are not dangerous and will never be dangerous. The way we show brains that something is not dangerous is by exposing the brain to the feared thing without reassurance or any other coping mechnism. It is like people who have phobias, the treatment for them is to be in a room with spiders, or whatever the feared things is, and let the fear response die down as the brain becomes used to the spiders and realises they are not dangerous.

I'm also not surprised this bout of OCD came about during lockdown as OCD is a chronic condition which flares up during times of stress which COVID and lockdown have definitely caused.

I wish you all the best, know that things will eventually get better. My OCD was severe for several years but I didn't know it was OCD I just thought I must be a terrible person, so I know the mental torture of it all. Stand up to your OCD in the same way you would stand up to a bully 'Yes i hear you OCD but I'm not listening to you, I have my life to live' – and give yourself a break!

abocd said 3 years, 10 months ago:

Yah it can be hard to tell the difference. Meditation can help to change your relationship with thoughts so you are not as attached to them, and you are able to observe thoughts without engaging with them. Once you are less attached you'll find it easier to tell what is ocd and what isn't. The headspace guide to meditation on Netflix is a nice introduction.

yup Racism is a hot topic for ocd at the moment. You can have obsessions about literally anything, usually about what is of most relevance to you at the time. And this goes back to you will never work your way out of ocd, it is about relaxing in to it, identifying it when it appears and giving it little or no attention. If you engage thoughts of a particular theme you will start to be on the lookout  for them and you may start to think they are significant because you are having them more often and they are triggering a bigger emotional response. But thoughts are just thoughts, and emotions are triggered by thoughts. Given how random and bizarre  thoughts can be they can trigger unpleasant emotions, but just because something feels bad doesn't mean something bad is happening. It is just a reaction to a random meaningless thought. 

Yeah I'm grand thanks, it's a hard time for everyone at the moment but we're getting there