Jump to content

My POCD Story - I need help. (Long post)


Recommended Posts

Hi guys,

First time poster, long time reader. I've thought about doing this for a while now as there's not many people i can talk to about this. Its funny because when I put my thoughts on a page i become aware of how stupid it is, but the way this disease makes us all feel is no laughing matter. 

For a bit of background i developed health anxiety shortly after my mum passed away, and i believe that this was the onset of my ocd. 

After numerous doctor appointments, blood tests, and eventually an ultrasound i managed to get over it. It didn't really last. Shortly after this i had a lot of ******** with family going on. Ny sister moved out, i found my dad trying to hang himself, and i had developed a porn addiction. 

As a result of this i got a pop up which scared the life out of me. The pop up stated that i had been watching, in my words horrible taboo internet stuff. I was confused and terrified. My porn use was problematic but my tastes were incredibly vanilla, i wouldn't even know how to access the stuff they were accussing me of watching for **** sake.

As it turned out, it was a complete scam, and a virus on my phone, this was a wake up call that i was maybe watching too much porn. I also found myself going in my head over and over that there was absolutely no way that i, in a million years would ever, ever watch child pornography. However, the implication was stuck in my head. This was my trigger. 

So i mentioned my porn addiction, i decided i wanted to do something about it, i went on wikipedia and learned about escalating porn use. I was horrified to find that porn addicts can in certain situations turn to cp despite them being horrified by such a thing before hand. This added fuel to the fire, and thus began the checking. 

This went on for about a year, and this was before i had any inclination about ocd. If i was out and about in the town i found myself (im so ashamed to write this) i found myself staring at girls to try and figure out if i was attracted to them. I felt like such a ******* pervert, i can remember walking through town and just checking constantly, and most of the time there was nothing, but other times when i got, what i hope, is false attraction i was absolutely distraught. I can remember staring at one of my sisters class photos from primary school for hours, trying to work out if i was attracted to any of the girls in the photo. Likewise when a girl would appear on TV, sometimes i would also change the channel if i seen a girl on TV. I would look up young actresses, and clips from films, and when doing my checking rituals, i would get horrible groinal response. Sometimes a full erection, which made the fears all the more real.

Any family gathering which included younger family members i dreaded and wanted to stay away from completely. At this point i had come to the conclusion that if i was a pedophile, the correct course of action was to kill myself. It was the right thing to do, is what i told myself. If i was a danger to anyone the right thing to do was to take myself out of the equation. I nearly did too, after i caved and performed the ultimate test, checking ritual. 

I masturbated. I reasoned there was absolutely no way i could get myself off, and well i was wrong. Despair and self hatred washed over me, my fears had become reality and i had become what o feared most, there was no going back from this. 

After a half hearted suicide attempt ny dad referred me to a therapist for a 6 week course in cbt. I was doing my usual checking rituals when i came across the article that may have saved my life tbf.

There in big, bold letters was POCD with the explanation of it being the irrational fear of becoming a pedophile. I read through the article and seen all the potential symptoms and broke down in tears. It was bang on. 

My therapist was a lovely lady. However as far as she knew i was just suffering from anxiety. There was no way that i could sit and tell her that i had ocd that caused me to believe that im a sexual deviant. This was confirmed when i posed the idea of ocd and she started hitting out with hand washing analogies. 

Anyway since then I've been put on 30 mg of citalopram. Things have been up and down. Mostly up to be fair. Im in a college course i like now which gets me a lot of freelance work, i also do a lot of meditation and yoga which helps a lot. I read the book polarbear wrote as well as pure by Rose Bretecher. Bot were really good. 

Things recently though, haven't been as good. I always think back to how i masturbated to check and if that was crossing a line. I feel disgusted every to e i think of it. Ive also falling back into the trap though of reading forums, checking and all sorts. It should be noted, that in the nearly two years ive had this, not once have I had a sexual fantasy about a child, its mostly women my own age, or at the least two years younger, I'm 22. I was also worried about boys and girls at first but now it's just girls but feel just as disgusted as I did 2 years ago. Lately though I feel like im back at square one, especially after seeing how someobes true sexualirt can awaken later in life. I'm just not sure if after all this time. 

Maybe I got it wrong. I hope not, but if I am then Ill see myself out. 

Here's hoping eh

 

 

 

Link to comment

Hi garfield and welcome to the forum.

I think the number one thing you need to realize is that true pedophiles don't sit there and ruminate over their condition. People with OCD do. I imagine you spend a lot of time in your head, trying to figure out if your a sexual deviant or not. That is the biggest sign of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that you can have.

You can rationalize with yourself that all of the things you've done in the past two years are evidence that you are a pedophile but from where I sit they are all signs that you have OCD. As you know, Pedophile OCD was the bain of my existence for about 35 years. I got to the point where I was convinced I was a pedophile. I did checking compulsions like crazy. I've talked to many people with the same OCD theme and have heard all about their checking compulsions.

This is a nasty, nasty theme. For many people, the thought of being a pedophile is worse than being a murderer. Emotions run high and the doubt and anxiety this theme causes is truly awful.

It is unfortunate that you met up with a therapist who didn't know her head from an ostrich when it came to OCD. Anyone with any amount of experience with OCD knows all about your theme and there are many therapists out there who could help you out immensely. Don't give up. Try to find the right therapist and get yourself back into therapy.

Know that you are not alone. There are many of us out there. As disgusting it is to talk about this theme, you need to be able to communicate your thoughts and feelings. This is a good place to do so because we understand what it's like to be in the throes of OCD.

As with all forms of OCD, the path to recovery is paved with no compulsions. Most of your compulsions are mental, but not all. You tend to avoid kids when you can. When they are around you, you check to see if you are attracted to them. Those are two compulsions you need to work on. You need to get to a place where you can be around children without doing any checking. Letting yourself be and trust that nothing is going to happen.

On the mental side of compulsions, you no doubt ruminate mightily. You sit there and think about pedophiles, what it's like to a pedophile, whether what you do qualifies you as a pedophile, and on and on. This is the tough part of stopping compulsions. It's simple, but it's terribly difficult to do. It is what you need to work on, though. You first (from a cognitive standpoint) have to give yourself a break and take a leap of faith that what you are dealing with is OCD and not pedophilia. Allowing yourself to have a mental disorder called OCD sets things up for you to grab hold of therapy and start doing what you need to continue on your journey to recovery.

Believe it or not, you are on the road to recovery now. You may have had a setback, but you've already taken steps along the journey. There will be blips. As you read in my book, I wholeheartedly accepted that all of my problems were due to OCD, except the pedophile thoughts. It took me more than a year to accept that the thoughts were caused by OCD and all my checking compulsions over the years were because of this devastating mental disorder.

Take care.

Link to comment

Hi polarbear,

I apologise for the late reply. Its good to hear from you and that makes me feel a bit better. You're book was a big help to me and helped open my eyes a little. I keep wanting to do a censored version of this post for my blog, maybe not mentioning my theme and focusing on pure o in general, but the prospect of it is terrifying.

I have decided that for my end of the year project I would like to do a documentary about pure o. I'm a filmmaker and I feel like this would be the best way to express myself. I think it would be a good thing to do as ocd is so misunderstood, the only thing is getting people to open up and talk about it. I know how difficult it is.

 

Link to comment

A lot of people with OCD have trouble talking about their obsessions. People with sexual/pedophile obsessions are more loathe to talk about it. It's not a topic you bring up in nice company. At least people don't think they should talk about it openly. Because of that, the world for the most part doesn't know the depths of depravity that OCD will venture. And sufferers end up feeling alone.

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry for writing here, i just don't want to open a nee thread. I also do have an ocd theme related to being a pedophile, i also check underage girls from all ages and the worst thing is that i find some of them cute even if they are like 12-13-14, like really cute but not in the sexual way cute i just want to hug them sometimes. I cant tell if that is a normal urge for a 17 year old male. 

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...