POCD thoughts are getting stronger

[bobfish]

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since my last post and the good news is that that's because my OCD has, up until now, been fairly under control. However, in the past few weeks, a completely different theme from my usual contamination fears - fear of being a paedophile - has been really troubling me, and despite my attempts not to engage with the thoughts and to resist compulsions, I feel that things have been steadily getting worse.

I find it very difficult to stop the 'checking' - even when I know that, for example, I'm not sexually attracted to a 10-year-old that I see, my brain keeps conjuring up an image of the child over and over again, despite me repeatedly dismissing these thoughts, and I often end up eventually giving in to the checking after my brain has come back to the same question countless times.

Another, perhaps even worse, problem is how I feel when I see certain teenagers around the age of 16, possibly 15, when I guess they're beginning to look like adults but still have a very youthful appearance. The truth is, I don't know if the attraction I feel is just OCD - I think there may be some genuine attraction. I confided in a counsellor at uni, who pointed out that at the age of 20 it's not necessarily an issue, or uncommon, to find a 16-year-old attractive (this is blatant reassurance, but she wasn't an OCD specialist and we were talking about a bunch of different things) - but again, my brain has a tendency to constantly conjure up an image of a 16-year-old that I may have found reasonably attractive, over and over again. This is the worst feeling right now, because sometimes, for a brief moment, I feel a strong feeling of something - lust, maybe? - and possibly even a reasonably strong groinal response. And this happens every single time my brain re-imagines the teenager, and for a split second I feel good as a result before the feeling is replaced by disgust and often severe anxiety.

What I try to keep telling myself is that, even if I am actually attracted to someone that age, it doesn't make me a monster and I certainly shouldn't feel so severely disgusted with myself. I'm definitely not planning on being in a relationship with such a young teen, and I haven't viewed any illegal images. But I've somehow dug myself a deep, deep hole and I can't get out. I find solace in the fact that I still find some people who are 18+ attractive - but another thought that keeps plaguing me is that maybe I'm more strongly attracted to 16-year-olds than my peers - sometimes that's how it feels.

Later this week I'm going back to uni to help out with a Year 11 (age 16) residential, which I signed up to before these thoughts got so bad. I know they need me there (and I'm getting paid), and so I'm going to go, despite a large part of me not wanting to. I hope I can get through this without feeling too awful, but I am kind of dreading it.

Is there anyone on this forum who has overcome these thoughts successfully, or anyone who can give me some advice, or even just some encouragement? I don't see a way out of this anytime soon...

[dksea]

@bobfish Sorry to hear you are going through a rough patch. I know its difficult but hang in there.  Its understandable that you are upset by this, of course you don't want to be a horrible person, so your natural inclination is to fight against even that possibility with everything you've got.  But OCD sets an impossible bar for us to meet so that fight can be never ending if you fall into the trap it sets.  As long as you keep fighting the same way you are now, you'll just dig yourself deeper and deeper into OCD's trap.  You want the thoughts to stop so you can move on, but until you move on the thoughts will keep coming.  If you want the thoughts to fade away you first have to stop responding to them.  You have to ignore them like a little child throwing a tantrum.  They WANT your attention, if you don't give it to them eventually they'll give up.  If you have the thought, tell yourself "so what, its just a thought".  Having a thought does not mean its what you actually want.  People have unwanted thoughts all the time.  People have thoughts about things they don't like all the time.  In order to not like something you have to have had a thought about it in the first place.  

So you had an image pop in to your head about a young girl? Tell yourself, so what.  Maybe you liked the image maybe you didn't.  Again, tell yourself so what.  These are just thoughts, they happen for a myriad number of reasons.  You could spend the rest of your life finding teenagers attractive, maybe not your ideal situation, but it could happen.  You could also spend the rest of your life never ever having an inappropriate relationship with one.

Consider the following, do you find adult women attractive?  I'm guessing you do.  When you notice a woman who is attractive does that make you a rapist?  Of course not.  Yet you are falling for OCD's trap of equating the mere possibility of finding an image of a teenager (a thought) as proof that you would choose to act in a certain way.  You don't do that towards other women, why? Because you are in control of your actions and you separate thoughts from actions.  You need to apply the same cognitive model here.  You need to break the OCD cycle of thinking.  

[bobfish]

@dksea Thank you so much for your kind words! (Just to clarify, I'm a gay man, but everything you've said still stands, of course.)

So, the residential has now finished...

Overall, it went much better than I feared it would! I was definitely thrown in the deep end - due to the thoughts I've been grappling with, I've been kind of avoiding young teenagers as much as possible recently, so this was definitely helpful in forcing me to confront my fears, especially since I was assigned a group of students to mentor, which meant that I had to have close contact with them.

I tried my best to curb my ruminating, which I suspect is what has primarily been reinforcing some of the 'feelings of attraction' I've been getting. It wasn't always successful. I think I did pretty well at postponing rumination at the very least, so that I didn't do it in front of the kids, but when I had a chance to be alone it was often difficult to stop the thoughts. Several times (when alone) I had intrusive thoughts about one of the more muscular / physically fit 16-year-olds, and on occasion actually had an erection, which really freaked me out, but I somehow managed to pull myself together - that was probably the most difficult challenge I faced. Another problem was that occasionally I'd catch myself obsessing about a boy who I probably would've found very attractive back when I was 16 - repeatedly asking myself questions like "Do you still find them sexually attractive?", "Is it OK to think that they're very good-looking if it's not sexual?" etc. It was hard to break out of these cycles, and I occasionally had to make an excuse to leave and just take a breather.

But on the whole, despite several bouts of very intense anxiety that I somehow managed to struggle through, I made it through the entire programme - and actually enjoyed myself! I even received some personal positive feedback from teachers and students, which was incredibly heartwarming. Obviously my OCD is still very bothersome, but I am genuinely really proud of myself for not letting OCD completely stop me from doing things that I've always loved, e.g. mentoring and leading.

I know I'm still going to struggle with these thoughts and feelings for the foreseeable future, and I may need to use these forums again at some point, but at least I've proved to myself that, despite the OCD, I can still function normally, and even have a good time!

Edited July 11, 2019 by bobfish

[dksea]

2 hours ago, bobfish said:

Just to clarify, I'm a gay man, but everything you've said still stands, of course.

Ha, apologies, I made an assumption I shouldn't have, but yes swap the genders and I think it all still applies.  Though I can imagine as a gay man, the idea of being a pedophile or labeled a pedophile is particularly difficult to deal with given much of societies falsely equating the two things.  I truly am sorry for the bulls*** you have to go through in that (and other regards.

3 hours ago, bobfish said:

Overall, it went much better than I feared it would!

Thats great, and in my experience usually what happens!  Its a good reminder that fear is about possibility (often not understood properly even) not guaranteed reality.
 

3 hours ago, bobfish said:

Several times (when alone) I had intrusive thoughts about one of the more muscular / physically fit 16-year-olds, and on occasion actually had an erection, which really freaked me out, but I somehow managed to pull myself together - that was probably the most difficult challenge I faced.

Its socially awkward, but remember, many thoughts and involuntary physiological responses aren't things you can control.  As a dude, trust me, sometimes you get an erection.  And as someone who has worked with teenagers its also not unusual to notice when they are physically attractive.  Age is an artificial limit we have placed on ourselves as a society for very very good reason, to govern our choices and protect people from abuse and mistreatment.  We respond to it with the higher functions of our brain as we should.  Its what sets us apart from animals to a degree.  But parts of our brain are still like those of animals, they respond instinctually and automatically.  Fortunately they don't control our actions, thats what sets us apart.  So long as you choose not to act inappropriately, it doesn't matter what thoughts OCD confronts you with, you are not a bad person.  They are just meaningless background noise.  Lets say I had a coworker who I found really annoying.  Maybe the way they talked annoyed me, or they had annoying habits.  I might have angry thoughts towards them all the time.  I might even CHOOSE to have negative thoughts about them, like imagining them being hit by a bus, or imagining punching them in the face, etc.  Even choosing to have those thoughts doesn't mean I would actually DO those things, or would be happy if it happened.  It would be terrible if my coworker was hit by a bus, even if I don't like them!  It would be wrong to hit them in the face just because they annoyed me.  The thoughts are just that, thoughts.  Its how I choose to act that matters most.  You are choosing to act appropriately and choosing to act in ways that help these young people.  That is what you can control, that is what matters.  These thoughts?  Back ground noise.  The more you ignore them, the more you say "yeah whatever, no big deal" the better off you'll be.  If you catch yourself noticing that someone looks attractive and you think its not a good idea to focus on that, no worries, shift your focus.  Having had the thought isn't a problem.  Dwelling on it is probably not a good idea because it will just lead to more anxiety.  If you find it difficult to stop noticing or stop ruminating, understand that that is normal.  It takes time to change your behavior, especially things like rumination.  Do your best, keep at it and in time things will get easier and easier.  You'll get to the point where you barely think about these thoughts, when they happen they'll be brief and pass by with you barely noticing.  You'll be able to focus on living your life and judging yourself by the actions you take, not random stray thoughts you have.  Do your best, keep at it, and look forward to getting better.