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Hello, I don't know if I should post this or not but I don't know what to think of this. I was reading a comic and the characters seemed attractive to me, the problem is that while I was reading I saw that the characters are 15 and I am 17. I don't understand why they seem attractive to me, I don't know if this is proof that I really don't have OCD. I want to cry I don't know why these things happen to me.

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It is all OCD. You are fixated on a nothing. That's what OCD does. It takes a nothing and makes it out to be the worst thing possible.

How many times have you looked at that comic to gauge your reaction? Testing, a compulsion. Or conversely, avoid it altogether? Avoidance, a compulsion.

Lastly, why wouldn't a 17 yo find a 15 yo attractive? I'm almost 60. I can find teenagers attractive. It doesn't mean anything, unless you allow OCD to give it meaning.

This is exactly what OCD does. Take a few deep breaths and get on with your day.

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I told my brother what happened and he told me it was normal, then I asked my friend the same thing and she told me it wasn't. For me it is not normal either. I stopped reading the manga so that makes me feel calmer.

56 minutes ago, PolarBear said:

How many times have you looked at that comic to gauge your reaction? Testing, a compulsion. Or conversely, avoid it altogether? Avoidance, a compulsion.

Well first I noticed how I felt when I continued reading it, then I avoided seeing the characters. I know maybe I've done some compulsion. But the problem does not stop there, I felt a groin response and I continued to feeling it after finding out that he was two years younger than me but I also started to feel uncomfortable.

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2 hours ago, anthu said:

I already talked to my other friends and they told me it's normal, it's still uncomfortable for me anyway. I'm felt sorry for my reaction.

@PolarBear response hits the nail on the head with that one. What you did though after that was compulsive reassurance seeking. You asked your brother if that was normal he gave you an answer. OCD wasn't satisfied by that answer. You asked someone else who gave you an answer and OCD is still not satisfied.

 

Remember too groinal response only becomes worse the more you are fearing it happening as your putting more attention to your groin and also that groinal response is just... A response.

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8 hours ago, DRS1 said:

@PolarBear response hits the nail on the head with that one. What you did though after that was compulsive reassurance seeking. You asked your brother if that was normal he gave you an answer. OCD wasn't satisfied by that answer. You asked someone else who gave you an answer and OCD is still not satisfied.

 

Remember too groinal response only becomes worse the more you are fearing it happening as your putting more attention to your groin and also that groinal response is just... A response.

Thanks for answering.

 For me it's still ugly, I stopped reading another comic because I also realized that a character was also younger than me by two years.

 

I don't understand how I won't give importance to the groinal response if they are still there even though I don't want to, my only way to remove them is by changing my position or filling my mind with "stop".

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1 minute ago, anthu said:

Thanks for answering.

 For me it's still ugly, I stopped reading another comic because I also realized that a character was also younger than me by two years.

 

I don't understand how I won't give importance to the groinal response if they are still there even though I don't want to, my only way to remove them is by changing my position or filling my mind with "stop".

You sit through them. They are uncomfortable but only if you are making meaning out of them. Don't change position and don't repeat stop in your head, that doesn't work long term.

 

Sit with the groinal response and let it be there. Continue to let it be there and be bold about not doing anything about it. Also think about how contradictory OCD is with this. I'm sure you've had arousal at other times you didn't exactly want to and what did you think of them? Did you change position and repeat stop in your head then?

 

Point is, if the other times you didn't do these compulsions then how is now any different? It's a sexual response, it is utterly meaningless. I get it feels real but take the risk that maybe it is why your getting aroused or maybe it's just a normal response you can't control and just sit with it.

 

Bit different for me but I was told in therapy sit with it and just let it be there until it became too noticeable. I'm not well informed about what the equivalent exactly is but taking a guess, if you start to feel very noticeable lubrication/wetness in that area then you could excuse yourself at that point to go do what you need to do to clean anything up and then return back to what you were doing.

 

That was probably a horribly medically inaccurate description of that so if anyone else that has a better understanding of that could clarify that, that would be great.

 

The point is the same though. You can sit with the groinal response. If I could sit with it, you can too!

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1 hour ago, DRS1 said:

I'm sure you've had arousal at other times you didn't exactly want to and what did you think of them? Did you change position and repeat stop in your head then?

I did those two compulsions at other times where I didn't want to have them either.

1 hour ago, DRS1 said:

. I get it feels real but take the risk that maybe it is why your getting aroused or maybe it's just a normal response you can't control and just sit with it.

I don't understand what you mean, from my perspective I felt uncomfortable and I had a groinal response because of the situation, it really wasn't something I liked, although it felt real.

Edited by anthu
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1 minute ago, anthu said:

I did those two compulsions at other times where I didn't want to have them either.

I don't understand what you mean, from my perspective I felt uncomfortable and I had a groinal response because of the situation, it really wasn't something I liked, although it felt real.

Okay so the way you have thought about it is a bit unhelpful for you. So the main thing here is that it felt real because OCD feels real. Arousal feels real even if you didn't ask for it to happen or if the sexual response cycle was kind of started with a faulty signal i.e. being really anxious. You can't control whether or not you do or don't have arousal. Just like intrusive thoughts or images you don't get a say in that so what needs to happen instead is changing how you think about arousal in the same way you need to change how you think about intrusive thoughts and images. You had arousal. That's it. That's the whole thing. But... you had an intrusive thought/anxiety in that situation which then led you to believe that what happened was wrong in some way and then you went to do compulsions.

 

The main thing is here is you should be able to see the pattern now. You did these compulsions at other times when you didn't want to be aroused in general. By doing that, what you did was reinforce to OCD that having arousal at any time that isn't exactly when you want it to happen is a problem and a serious one that needs to be fixed with compulsions. Attempting to control arousal to precisely only when we want it is futile. It's simply impossible, it's just not how the human body works. What is a better way of trying as a first step is the next time you have arousal that wasn't when you wanted it, don't do the compulsions in general. I mean that not specifically for the intrusive thought related ones but just in general. Let the arousal be there and just experience it. I like to say experience it since its out with your control. This is an incredibly unhelpful belief as its something OCD is using to keep you trapped. Learning from a non-intrusive thought perspective that its okay to be aroused when you don't necessarily feel like its the right time to be aroused will help a lot with the next part of this.

 

Try after doing that for a while either re-creating the situations physically like reading the comic again and if you experience the arousal just sit there. If OCD tries to question it, don't stop reading the comic, continue despite what OCD says. If it feels real that's great, OCD makes everything feel real so that really isn't something we want to get trapped in by. We don't need to listen to OCD.

 

Another alternative is to bring up other situations in your imagination where the groinal response has happened and exaggerate it and let it be there. It's okay for arousal to happen, even at unfortunate times. I don't know if this makes any more sense, hopefully it does but that's all I can think of to say.

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3 minutes ago, DRS1 said:

Okay so the way you have thought about it is a bit unhelpful for you. So the main thing here is that it felt real because OCD feels real. Arousal feels real even if you didn't ask for it to happen or if the sexual response cycle was kind of started with a faulty signal i.e. being really anxious. You can't control whether or not you do or don't have arousal. Just like intrusive thoughts or images you don't get a say in that so what needs to happen instead is changing how you think about arousal in the same way you need to change how you think about intrusive thoughts and images. You had arousal. That's it. That's the whole thing. But... you had an intrusive thought/anxiety in that situation which then led you to believe that what happened was wrong in some way and then you went to do compulsions.

 

The main thing is here is you should be able to see the pattern now. You did these compulsions at other times when you didn't want to be aroused in general. By doing that, what you did was reinforce to OCD that having arousal at any time that isn't exactly when you want it to happen is a problem and a serious one that needs to be fixed with compulsions. Attempting to control arousal to precisely only when we want it is futile. It's simply impossible, it's just not how the human body works. What is a better way of trying as a first step is the next time you have arousal that wasn't when you wanted it, don't do the compulsions in general. I mean that not specifically for the intrusive thought related ones but just in general. Let the arousal be there and just experience it. I like to say experience it since its out with your control. This is an incredibly unhelpful belief as its something OCD is using to keep you trapped. Learning from a non-intrusive thought perspective that its okay to be aroused when you don't necessarily feel like its the right time to be aroused will help a lot with the next part of this.

 

Try after doing that for a while either re-creating the situations physically like reading the comic again and if you experience the arousal just sit there. If OCD tries to question it, don't stop reading the comic, continue despite what OCD says. If it feels real that's great, OCD makes everything feel real so that really isn't something we want to get trapped in by. We don't need to listen to OCD.

 

Another alternative is to bring up other situations in your imagination where the groinal response has happened and exaggerate it and let it be there. It's okay for arousal to happen, even at unfortunate times. I don't know if this makes any more sense, hopefully it does but that's all I can think of to say.

I understand now what you mean. Thanks.

But I just want to clarify that this situation is not really something that I wanted. It was awkward because he was younger than me, I don't want to seem like I agree with the sensations I had

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1 minute ago, anthu said:

I understand now what you mean. Thanks.

But I just want to clarify that this situation is not really something that I wanted. It was awkward because he was younger than me, I don't want to seem like I agree with the sensations I had

Be careful not to be looking for someone to tell you that because it wasn't something you wanted that your not a bad person as that would be a compulsion. Stop trying to hold onto that logical approach because OCD is an illogical tool, and that's a light way of saying it. I get what you mean though. It seems like if you let it be there and don't do the compulsions then its just as bad as agreeing with it. However, that's just another OCD fallacy... thought-action fusion where the logic from OCD is you had a thought, that's just as bad as the thought being true... except it's not. These things are the way that OCD lures you in to the cycle but you don't need to buy into it. By not doing compulsions, you aren't agreeing with the logic of OCD, you are going in accordance to your own values. Did you value reading the comic? If so why stop that just because you had a groinal response. Remember the sexual response cycle is separated from your values. It isn't aware of them so you can't reliably use the logic of "if I have the arousal then that means that I'm a bad person because that means I got aroused to reading a comic book that had a character that was younger than me". It's flawed logic.

 

There is no badness coming from experiencing arousal. There is no badness coming from reading the comic book with a character younger than you. The badness of it is coming directly from OCD's failed logic and its need to get you to do the compulsions. Put it this way is there a problem separately to do each i.e. is it a problem to have arousal by itself? Is it a problem for you to read a comic book by itself? No? So what's the difference in this situation... there's one answer and there's only one. You had an intrusive thought and OCD latches on and off it goes taking you into compulsion cycles. What this should show you is you don't need to do anything. Both things in isolation were acceptable but both things together was unacceptable because of OCD. The solution is to stop the compulsions, not control arousal or avoid reading the comic book.

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18 minutes ago, DRS1 said:

"if I have the arousal then that means that I'm a bad person because that means I got aroused to reading a comic book that had a character that was younger than me". It's flawed logic.

But a certain part is true, I felt a groinal response when I kept reading it even knowing that he was younger than me.

I know what you mean, to leave the feeling there and continue with what I was doing. But what happened was that I felt those sensations when I saw the character, it wasn't that I confused the situation

Edited by anthu
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10 minutes ago, anthu said:

But a certain part is true, I felt a groinal response when I kept reading it even knowing that he was younger than me.

I know what you mean, to leave the feeling there and continue with what I was doing. But what happened was that I felt those sensations when I saw the character, it wasn't that I confused the situation

You felt a groinal response and kept reading it despite knowing that the character was younger than you... and? That was good, that was doing ERP. There's nothing wrong with doing ERP. You seem to confuse this thing of you got arousal when you saw the character as if it means anything. It doesn't. It just doesn't.

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21 minutes ago, DRS1 said:

You seem to confuse this thing of you got arousal when you saw the character as if it means anything. It doesn't. It just doesn't.

Thanks for helping me. 

It feels like an excuse, how else would I interpret it?. I'll talk to my psychologist to help me understand this more.

Edited by anthu
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10 minutes ago, anthu said:

Thanks for helping me. 

It feels like an excuse, how else would I interpret it?. I'll talk to my psychologist to help me understand this more.

That would be a great idea to talk about it with your psychologist. OCD is making you think its an excuse but its not and no problem. We are all on this forum because we either are struggling with OCD, living with it or completely recovered from it. I needed a lot of educating before I could really approach "groinal response" differently which is something I worked quite a bit on with my psychologist during therapy.

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