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I just did something awful


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This sounds to me like a checking/testing compulsion → And this can feel very subtle, without you formulating it directly in your very intention. More like a feeling where you think you have to do so: It's basically, in its essence, something like "What does happen if I keep looking at them?".  A compulsion to reduce your anxiety in the hope, that you don't feel anything, while looking at them.  

You know that you wouldn't do so, if you wouldn't have OCD about this topic, right? There are people who happen to have intrusive thoughts while they masturbate for example and "continue" out of a checking compulsion, like to check if they actually like it or not. 

It's still OCD. It's stupid. And contextualized, it's nothing awful or something like that. It's still out of your OCD.  So what can you do? Exactly like snowbear said! Don't actually go on with the compulsion to check, test or trying to understand, etc. by "engaging with the intrusive thoughts" → This means DON'T react to them. And you always do and only that it is the whole problem. 

And no, this doesn't mean you're an awful person or something like that, but just that you need to stop doing compulsions. That's it. Nobody was hurt. Nobody was whatever. It's all in your head, and you need to stop engaging with all these "What If's...?" in your head. 

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Thank you, @discuccsant

But this is what worries me:

4 minutes ago, discuccsant said:

More like a feeling where you think you have to do so: It's basically, in its essence, something like "What does happen if I keep looking at them?".  A compulsion to reduce your anxiety in the hope, that you don't feel anything, while looking at them.  

It happens as a feeling, yes, but it's more like an urge or a desire, it feels like I want to engage with it not because I want to reduce my anxiety but because it feels like a desire

It's the same with wanting to have thoughts on purpose if I see anything remotely sexual, which can be about parents, younger brother, pets and random strangers. Again, it feels like a desire. In both cases, in that moment both my mind and body want the thought and want the incident to be prolonged. I tried to explain this to my therapist and we even did some exposures regarding this but I don't think it made sense to her when I said I want these things. 

This is why I feel like there's something wrong about me. I try to control my behaviour but I still have these desires/urges and I end up doing things that I shouldn't. And even worse, I only feel bad for doing them, or feel regret and shame, after it happens, not before or during. 

 

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You know why you do these compulsions? Because you are obsessed about being a potential pedophile. And that's why you are completely focused on this topic. You associate children not with something cute, innocent or annoying, like anybody else, but you associate them as something very dangerous. Something so dangerous, that it leads to your destruction. At least that how it feels for you. Now look: What do people do when they are cautious about something? They are like constantly on watch! And whenever you see children, you get into this "DANGEROUS"-mode, where you constantly check for the danger. And yes, it can feel very subtle. BUT: You have OCD, so it's 100% related to some kind of compulsion and nothing else, even if it feels "real" or whatever. 

As I said, you have to take the leap of faith here. 

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I just saw you providing additional details regarding thinking about your parents, pets, strangers and so on. You see how it has nothing to do with actual desire, but that the feeling only comes, because it simply being something sexual? Stop making these stupid associations, that it means something horrible. No. It just means, that you are a sexual human being, like anybody else on this world. 

Do you really think you have the desire to have sex with a tree, if you would imagine some scenario like this, even if you feel some kind of initial "sexual feeing" or whatsoever? I doubt that. I REALLY doubt that :)

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1 minute ago, discuccsant said:

You see how it has nothing to do with actual desire, but that the feeling only comes, because it simply being something sexual?

I do understand that. What I don't understand is the desire to carry on with the thought, or bring it in on purpose despite being extremely disgusting. If it's okay, I'll give an example. Let's say my dad and younger brother (he's 10) are playing and being cuddly together, dad sits on the sofa and then brother sits on his lap. I'm right next to them, on the other side of the sofa, and I'm starting to see this scenario as a sexual one - I don't know how but it happens. I'm starting to get an arousal and a few seconds later I feel that I'm enjoying it. Instead of accepting that it's just a thought and feeling and moving on, I have this immense urge/desire to keep looking at them and making very, very dirty scenarios in my head. I do for a fraction of second, the arousal gets stronger, the feeling of enjoyment gets even more overwhelming, and the urge to keep thinking about the scenario increases. So... it feels like a fantasy. A fantasy of my dad and brother. This desire is very hard to control. Maybe it's because it's a real desire? I don't know. 

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Cora listen, nobody knows the exact reason for why this or that → You're bringing up new examples, over and over. They are in their essence all the same: OCD. Why do you always take the worst possible meaning of everything? How about: "That's weird, I guess I just like sex" and NOT "I really like my brother being...". Like, why do you always interpret everything in your head in relation to actual pedophilia? Maybe you can just try to see it that way, that this situation reminded you of sex and because you like sex and because sex feels good, you like the sensation. THAT'S IT! We do stupid associations with things. That's how our brain works! 

And you need to understand that thoughts are just what they are in their essence: thoughts. 

Look, I do have an example from my OCD, which took a lot of time to overcome for me: 

My wife once prepared some food for my daughter (she was like two years old) and I had to move the chair she was sitting on to the table, where my wife put the food on. I had to hold the chair, where her groin was, because it was a special chair for toddlers. So I obviously tried to avoid it holding it there, because I had OCD and intrusive thoughts about touching stuff inappropriately → I couldn't avoid though, though. There was no other way to carry that chair. So "I went through" and in that very moment it felt like, as if I "liked it", as if I "wanted it" or as if my intention was off. And it felt "satisfying" to hold it there. And all of this was like completely impulsively, spontaneous, without giving it a second thought in the very moment. I just did it. I just hold the chair there, despite the thought.  

I was completely horrified once I moved the chair there and the situation was over. I was like done, because instead of saying to me something like: 

- "Ah, just an intrusive thought in the very moment I had to move the chair"
- "Don't know why I felt like that, maybe because I felt like as if I do something forbidden due to my obsessions, which gives me a weird sensation"
- "We just associate this area with something sexual, that's why it felt like that and not because I actually like my daughter in a sick kind of way"
- "Maybe I just associated it with something inappropriate, because of this and that" 
- "I had to move the chair anyway and nobody would have noticed something weird or was hurt by this"
- "Weird moment, I'm not going to ruminate over this stupid thing, because that's not how my morals are"
etc.

Like, I had A THOUSAND of possible explanations and reasons, why it's not a big deal. Guess what? Just like you, I took a completely nonsense moment as a proof, that I actually am a pervert, who harmed his daughter by moving the stupid chair from a position, everybody else would. And all of that, just because I had an intrusive thought in this very moment, I had to move the chair. I struggled with this for like a whole stupid month! A MONTH! I couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. Lost all my libido. I was like in a state of madness. I didn't function as a husband, father, friend and colleague anymore. Nope. Not only that, but I was like dead. Non-existent and stopped working as a whole.

Today I see this moment, and I'm like: What the hell was I thinking? Who cares what I felt in this very moment? Nobody was hurt, I didn't have any bad intention, I did have OCD obsessions about not wanting to touch people inappropriately, no matter whom and thus, I had a completely distorted view of reality, where every touch was like sexual, bad, inappropriate, not good or simply wrong. I don't care about it, man!

And Cora, I do have A THOUSAND of INSTANCES like these. Even "worse ones". This example is just one. I had situations like these with friends, when I touched them randomly under the table with my feet or when I accidentally touched them. Likewise, it has happened when my mom was giving me a hug. Then it has happened, when I cleaned up the room of my children, and I hold a stuffed animal from a weird position, when I tried to put it back in its basket → I was hyperaware of HOW I touch things, of HOW I feel at the moment when I touched the thing and of all the sensations, feelings and intention when I touched things. I was hyperaware of how close people are to me. The higher proximity, the worse the intrusive feelings to every thing. 

I only allowed myself to touch things if it was ABSOLUTELY necessary. I was obsessed over it! And like you, I ALWAYS took the worst possible explanations, to beat me up over it, when an incident happened. Over and over again. The newest incident, replacing the second newest, I started to felt guilty about. A never-ending cycle of torture and hell. 

Then I changed myself, because everybody was giving me reassurance, I was feeling like: How is it possible that they still love me? That they still see me as a good person? And then I stopped the compulsions. And then I tried to question my obsession. And Finally, I questioned my interpretation of things. A that's how I saw everything of it for how it was: Stupid OCD, lying to me by making me catastrophize everything that happened, while in fact, I was like an angel, who would have NEVER EVER done something like that, because of how wrong it was for me. And you're exactly like me, you're just so obsessed about the worry of being a pedophile, that you take everything and interpret it the WORST way. AND YOU NEED TO STOP THAT! The reason you do that, is because you don't have 100% certainty that you aren't. That's why you take these incidents as "evidence" against you. 

Stop that! Stop asking for EVERY SINGLE INCIDENT for explanations. I can't give them to you every time. You come up with "new incidents", which to me is like always the same in its essence: You're afraid that this or that means, that you're a pedophile. And I'm saying to you, like anybody else: No. Stop giving it that meaning. It could mean anything, but with 100% clarity not this, because of how afraid you are of this.  And to be honest: I don't know how to answer your incidents differently. They are literally always the same. You see details, we don't: It's always the same. You take something and then derive from that the worst possible meaning for yourself. 

Over and over again. Just like I did. Like others did. Your and mine story, Cora? They are nothing special. 

 

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@discuccsant, thank you for sharing all of this with me. And I'm sorry you struggled so much. 

I do agree that out stories are similar and even though it's in a sad circumstance, I'm glad that I'm not the only one dealing with this. 

But there are still things that separate my story from yours. While I do very clearly see how in your case it's OCD, I struggle to see how it's the same for my case. But you are probably right, I just have to take a leap of faith. 

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Cora said:

@discuccsant, thank you for sharing all of this with me. And I'm sorry you struggled so much. 

I do agree that out stories are similar and even though it's in a sad circumstance, I'm glad that I'm not the only one dealing with this. 

But there are still things that separate my story from yours. While I do very clearly see how in your case it's OCD, I struggle to see how it's the same for my case. But you are probably right, I just have to take a leap of faith. 

 

 

Of course, our stories are different, because every human being is different. But in its essence, it's just the very same thing: OCD. I also said it multiple times, but a lot of moms with newborns suffer from very similar intrusive thoughts, like we do/did. And why? Because OCD likes to attach what we worry the most about. While I hate rapists and sexual deviants and I don't want to be associated with them, you are disgusted by pedophiles and don't want to have anything in common with them. Moms on the other hand always fear that they might have harmed their most beloved thing in the world: Their babies.

Our obsessions are different. Yes, you're right. I think mine were "worse" from a quality of life point, though, because it was about everything. Human interaction was a torture for me. I remember being worried that I might have raped my wife, when we had sex and I did a minor movement, without asking her. Or that I might have sexually touched my adult male cousin and therefore cheated on my wife, when I grabbed him at his bottom out of a silly gay joke - which we always did out of fun. It just got more and more silly. But I somehow just started to question every thing I did, because I had this distortion of reality going on in my head. You also have this, and you need to accept that, before you can actually see it.

So OCD likes to attack on us things, we fear the most and thus, our OCD begins to torture us with all these "What If's...", creating doubts over doubts in us and in end, having us in its grips. The more compulsions you do, the worse it gets. Simple as that. You're not alone. Look at me! And no, Cora. I also couldn't see the OCD in me. Like having OCD about having OCD. Questioning my diagnosis, as you do. That's how it is for everyone. Everyone in here questions if they really do have OCD, because of how real it feels. All of them take the leap of faith, that something is wrong with them. That's literally what our diagnosis are for: Giving us like a certified proof. And you have that. Now the next steps are up to you. 

 

Edited by discuccsant
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8 hours ago, Cora said:

Why am I not able to stop these incidents when I'm aware that they are happening and that they are wrong? Why do I carry on with them despite knowing I shouldn't?

Oh my gosh you do like to dramatise don't you? (We need a 'drama queen' emoticon :dry:)

They are not 'incidents'.  :no:  Talking about this to yourself in that way keeps you thinking that any of this is important when it isn't.

You're obsessing over meaningless moments, meaningless thoughts and actions. You give them meaning they don't deserve which turns (in your eyes at least) these nothings into 'somethings'.

It's not the 'incidents' you should be trying to stop. Your aim is to stop giving the moment any meaning. Stop obsessing about it as if it mattered.

Part of the meaning you attribute to them is 'these thoughts are wrong'.

That's a problem.

Because no thought is 'wrong'. All thoughts are just thoughts. Meaningless in themselves.

You can carry on with these actions if you want. Nobody has ever told you not to. They are meaningless, harmless and of zero importance.

It's only in your mind, how you think of them that they have any significance. That also includes 'the worst ones' you haven't told us about. We don't need to know because NONE of it is important, deviant, bad or damaging.

They are thoughts.

And feelings which arise from your thoughts.

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even though they have a perverted, depraved foundation/intention? 

That's like saying every drop of rain that falls is evil because it once passed through a black cloud. :dry:

 

Next therapy session you should talk to your therapist about the way you assign meaning to your thoughts and feelings, and how this makes insignificant things seem terrifyingly evil to you.

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I think what snowbear just explained to you, is the actual core of what I'm trying to tell you the whole time - you make all these nothings, into somethings. 

I shouldn't have referred to these nothings as "incidents" in the first place, because as snowball said, that in itself is giving them some kind of meaning. You should just dismiss them, because it's all in your head and how you interpret these moments. You can always choose to not give them any meaning and thus, making it not only objectively meaningless, but also for your subjective perception of them. 

I like to give examples, so here is one - which is actually something I've seen a sufferer suffering from: 

"If I would be single, I would definitely fall for this man, because he looks super hot" → "Oh god, what was that thought? Did I just cheat on my husband in my fantasies? Does this mean I could cheat on my husband, if a good-looking guy was right here? Would I cheat on him, and I was just lucky enough to not encounter a guy like that in real life? Yes! I'm a cheater! I would cheat on my husband! Help!"

Do you see how ridiculous this conclusion and interpretation of this is? Do you see how something so pointless got blown up into something like cheating?

Now guess what you are doing the whole time. 

Edited by discuccsant
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4 hours ago, snowbear said:

Next therapy session you should talk to your therapist about the way you assign meaning to your thoughts and feelings, and how this makes insignificant things seem terrifyingly evil to you.

Absolutely.  We've talked about it a lot but what do you know about the need to have absolute certainty and the role compulsions have in maintaining the OCD cycle?

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On 01/07/2022 at 12:06, discuccsant said:

This sounds to me like a checking/testing compulsion → And this can feel very subtle, without you formulating it directly in your very intention. More like a feeling where you think you have to do so: It's basically, in its essence, something like "What does happen if I keep looking at them?".  A compulsion to reduce your anxiety in the hope, that you don't feel anything, while looking at them.  

You know that you wouldn't do so, if you wouldn't have OCD about this topic, right? There are people who happen to have intrusive thoughts while they masturbate for example and "continue" out of a checking compulsion, like to check if they actually like it or not. 

It's still OCD. It's stupid. And contextualized, it's nothing awful or something like that. It's still out of your OCD.  So what can you do? Exactly like snowbear said! Don't actually go on with the compulsion to check, test or trying to understand, etc. by "engaging with the intrusive thoughts" → This means DON'T react to them. And you always do and only that it is the whole problem. 

And no, this doesn't mean you're an awful person or something like that, but just that you need to stop doing compulsions. That's it. Nobody was hurt. Nobody was whatever. It's all in your head, and you need to stop engaging with all these "What If's...?" in your head. 

Hi this sounds like me. I've beaten myself up for years for feeling that in the moment I tested or checked if I'd act on my fear and then I messed up and it ended up backfiring on me and making me believe I've done something wrong and that I'm a bad person that's acted on their unwanted urge. Unfortunately testing to see if you would do it or trying to prove you wouldn't causes more doubt than ever! I wish I hadn't reacted to it in those moments but it was attacking me so I'm sure if it didn't get me then it would have got me soon after! We can't go on living in fear :( I'm struggling today :( 

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Ultimately thoughts are not going to hurt anyone. Even the worst intrusive thought imaginable can't hurt anyone, other than the person who had it stressing over it maybe.

I do think that paedophilia is in the news a lot these days, one effect of which is inevitably that it will enter people's consciousness more in one way or another. It's like the opposite of "out of sight, out of mind".

Intrusive thoughts... are what they are. They're never pleasant.

For many people the goal of their intrusive thoughts is to be as distressing as possible so as to get their attention and try to make them do this or that (such as a repetition). If that is the case for you then communicating to your mind that they are distressing you is a pretty sure-fire way of ensuring that it keeps creating them.

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