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Topic Title: POCD keeps coming back every time, but stronger
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pensive said 3 years, 9 months ago:
// Content warning for p*dophilia-themed OCD!! If you don’t want to see that stuff please don’t look at this //
Also, sorry if this is too long to read!! this is just a big vent tbh,,
So, for context, I’ve known that I’ve had OCD for a while, I’m 14 and I think it’s been around for quite a long time. My earliest memory of doing a compulsion was when I was still a young kid, and tapping the top of my bed with my stuffed animal for hours on end until it “felt right”, and other physical compulsions that would take up hours of my day- but I couldn’t help doing them.
I’ve had other types/themes of OCD, such as religious themed OCD (praying as a compulsion), (I don’t know the name) the type where you perform a physical compulsion such as tapping or turning off a tap/light switch for ages and ages until it feels right, etc
POCD has only just started to bother me more and more in these past few months of 2020, before that it was a little quieter and I could handle it (I was mainly just super aware of how I acted around children and I didn’t want to come off as creepy, etc). Nowadays it mainly focuses around looking at children or pictures of children to see if I feel aroused or any sort of attraction (which is something I need to stop doing as it only makes my OCD stronger, duh, but I’m stupid and sometimes you can’t help yourself with compulsions :/ ), and avoiding/scrolling past videos with children in them (because I’m stuck at home most of the time since- y’know- quarantine, and other compulsions like that. You probably get my drift.
Yesterday, it seemed like after several on-and-off periods of this it was finally going away because I was taking all of the steps to make the intrusive thoughts and images feel unimportant, but then I went outside to the shops with my mum, and I don’t know if it was because the environment was crowded and loud, but I couldn’t focus on just letting the intrusive thoughts pass by without a second thought about it. In fact, I was actually planning on doing an exposure by pointing out every kid I saw in town (advice taken from a youtuber who covers OCD and Anxiety, I forgot his name but he definitely knows what he’s talking about), and I was doing pretty well at first, but when I got to one of the more crowded areas of town I wasn’t able to stop myself from ruminating about whether or not I was attracted to the kids I saw, etc etc. which made my anxiety skyrocket tbh
at one point I felt like I’d just completely given up, I was walking through one of the shops with my mum and I saw a young girl, and then I started checking to see if I was attracted to her even though I kept telling myself to stop (as I knew this was a compulsion and it’d ultimately tear down all of my progress that I’d made so far), and at one point my anxiety had risen so high that it felt like I actually was, so I couldn’t stop checking and checking to see if the feeling would go away. By the time I left the store I was pretty much quietly hyperventilating under my mask, but I tried to calm myself down with stuff like “you only felt like that because you were checking so much, doofus. that only happened because you willingly let your anxiety levels rise by doing a compulsion like an idiot” etc, even though it sounds like a dumb excuse or something.
At the beginning of the day, I felt great for being able to get outside for once and I just let the thoughts slip past, but as the day went on it felt like I was just magically attracted to every kid I saw, even though I have no history of pedophilic tendencies or being weird towards other kids (in fact, quite the opposite- for quite a while I’ve literally never cared about kids lmao, I’ve only really ever wanted to interact with people my age). This is probably TMI, but I’ve always been attracted to older men and women, even since I was younger. Not like, middle-aged old, but older than me at least. Like, I’d have stupid teacher crushes and crushes on people in higher school years (“grades“ if you’re in the USA) than me.
Even if I don’t care about kids that much, I’ll still go into protective mode when I’m around them- like when I was in year 6 (5th grade) we had the job of going to the lower school and taking care of the little kids and making sure they didn’t get into fights with their peers and stuff during break and lunchtime, and I’d always be kind to them and make sure I wasn’t over-stepping my boundaries (although I’ll get the occasional dumb false memory stuff/doubts, which do terrify me, since I was a strange kid and I’d have a little trouble interacting with people, especially people my age, so I’m scared that I said or did something that was weird or unnecessary, but I know that I most likely didn’t initiate any weird stuff, I was fairly quiet and I just wanted to make sure that the kids were chillin and having fun during their breaktime).
but yea, back on topic because I’m kinda writing out my life story here oops
so I got home and I felt pretty terrible, and I couldn’t stop ruminating at that point. I was thinking about stuff like “what if pedophilia can develop while I’m still young, since I’m not 16 yet? what if it just developed today because you wouldn’t stop thinking about it? if I go too deep into my own thoughts, will I slowly become one?”, and even as I’m writing this, due to bringing back the memory of me taking care of those kids at my school in year 6 (5th grade) I’m just thinking “did I do anything weird back then? I hope I didn’t, that’s gross.”
I honestly can’t stop ruminating, that’s one of my worst compulsions. I don’t really wanna look for reassurance and stuff, but does anyone know how to deal with this stuff? It’s really getting to me and I hate it. I just wanna go back to crushing on adults, this is messing with my brain and it’s stupid.
I think I hit a bit of a backdoor spike yesterday but I knew what that was and I was able to deal with it, but I’m scared that this whole situation means a relapse or that i’m gonna suddenly become a pedophile or something >:/
Help is appreciated, but I don’t expect anyone to reply right away !!