POCD paying me a nasty visit again - need some advice from my trusted NMP Community

[wanderer02]

Dear Friends,

This board is my last lifeline when things just get too much and I appreciate it so much that some of you guys read my endless rants and help me continue my life. So thanks for bearing with me. I already feel ashamed that I post this stuff on here as I know how taxing it is for others to read...

in the past I've had the whole barrage of obsessions over what I am afraid is the longest period of 15 years now. To name a few it all started with Homosexual OCD (HOCD) which lasted a few years moving further to fearing to become schizophrenic/psychotic, solipsism OCD , various health obsessions and the list goes on... Many therapists already diagnosed me with OCD but I seem to believe that I don't have OCD and all of this is just part of who I am.
the one that seems to be upsetting me the most and that is largely "unresolved" is POCD - fear of being a ped... I don't even want to spell it out as it makes me anxiety spike instantly.

Somehow this obsession came right after HOCD and stuck around over the years with periods where I was dealing with it quite well and it wasn't bother me too much. In these periods other obsessions become acute and I mostly deal with one obsession at a time. Still POCD seems to be different from HOCD. While I was obsessing about being gay for years I was convinced that I am gay at the time but since the obsession lifted I know now for sure that i am not gay not even bi or anything in that direction. With POCD this seems harder because it is about females and I am attracted to females just hopefully not underaged ones. Before the whole HOCD and POCD thing I had a very strong and normal attraction to adult girls and never had any thoughts about kids or being gay.

So I came out of a very bad period of panic and extreme anxiety in the last weeks and during my weakest moment I was visiting friends and their 7 year old daughter was around while her parents were busy and I was outside in the yard with her alone for a while. She was playing around and I was sitting there minding my own business reading some stuff on my phone. While she was around I already felt that my fear was building up because I knew I was alone and I could lose control and possibly do something inappropriate and I started ruminating about If i am attracted to her. Of course nothing happened, i didn't even touch her.

All i wanted was her to leave and her dad to show up so I could reduce my exposure to these thoughts at the same time I didn't just get up and walked away because I wasn't going to give in to the OCD (you know that feeling when you know that you are going to spiral down into OCD) but I knew that I was going to obsess about it once I went home and boy I did. It quickly morphed into the terrifying idea that I must have done something to her and that my memory lapsed so I started reconstructing every minute of that period I was with her alone but I still don't get full certainty that I didn't do anything no matter how hard I try to convince myself that I am innocent and that all of this is in my head...

It's been a week since it all got triggered with POCD and I can't seem to get over the "false memory" or fear that I did something to that little girl. My rational brain knows that I didn't even touch her but the fear/emotional side of the brain seems to insist on telling me otherwise and I am falling deeper and deeper into the obsession by horrendous reasoning that looks a bit like this:

• - What if I did something and I can't remember and I damaged the child forever without even knowing. I need to confess to the police.
• - Once I confess they will investigate and ask the child if she remembers if I did something or touched her and since she is young she won't be able to remember or would even tell them that I did something because kids don't always tell the truth or can be pressured to say something that is not true
• - The cops will arrest me and hold me on grounds of my confession and if the child is not able to remember or the cops don't believe her if she tells them that nothing happened they will lock me up regardless because I confessed and they won't be able to understand that OCD caused me to confess.
• - I have no way of knowing if I really did something to her or not because I can't remember (or i am repressing it) and she is a child and won't be able to remember so I can never know for sure if I molested a child and I won't be able to continue living normally with that fear of having done something like that
• - The cops will knock on my door and arrest me for molesting the child and since I am psychologically weak I will kill myself in prison and that will be the end of everything.
• - I can't be trusted around kids because there is now knowing if I might do something because I am a predator
• - I am only afraid of admitting to myself that I am a Pedo because I fear the consequences of Law enforcement and that If there was no punishment for being a Pedo I would be living it openly and would probably would have never married my wife...

I could continue this list for another 4 pages but that won't really change anything. In the end all of this makes me feel like a monster that doesn't deserve to live and that I belong in prison so I am seeing the world through a very dark and depressing lense since this all came down crashing on me and I don't know where to turn and how I can ever respect myself and feel like I am a clean, guiltfree and deserving human being and that I won't end up taking my life. I am looking up prisons and country laws, lawyers and preparing for the worst, worrying that I won't be able to handle the pressure without confessing and ending up in prison for basically doing nothing at all.... how realistic is this? Seriously.. I hate my brain....

In short: I could really use some reassurance and calming words about this and how I can deal with the intensity of the feelings and fears in regards to the obsession.


Thanks for listening you guys are my Heroes and in the past I circled around for many weeks until I posted here and somehow after posting and getting some of your opinions I often manage to slowly calm down and slip out of the obsession just that this one feels like a bit too much and that I won't be able to get over it.. but don't they all feel that way? I don't know anymore...

[wanderer02]

Anyone advice on the above? God I feel like I'm annoying everyone with my problems....

[KK77]

Don't think you're "annoying" anyone but long posts and sometimes subject matter can be a bit daunting to some.

I think writing down how you feel regarding POCD fears can help release some of the immediate tension and perhaps make sense of all this. Your anxiety is obviously running high right now, which is why your mind invents scenarios and memory lapses when what you fear might have actually happened.

Mindfulness can be very useful in these situations. Allow yourself to think and feel without resisting. Be aware of surroundings and thoughts. The urge is to fight them and escape. Don't keep telling yourself you're not a "paedo". Understand that if you were this would show in your behaviour, as there would be little resistance between thought and action.

All this can help alleviate these intrusive thoughts but I would also consider psychotherapy to delve more deeply into untangling entrenched fears and behaviours.

It also takes courage to post on this subject matter and wish you all the best.

[wanderer02]

Thanks so much for mentioning mindfulness. I find it extremely hard to apply it especially with this type of obsession as it's so stigmatized and that makes it hard to bear as my usual ways to overcome an obsessions don't work...

[wanderer02]

Thank you all for your kind and encouraging words. I was doing a little better 2 days ago and I thought it would be a good idea to look up some stuff on POCD again to knock the obsession away and be done with (sounds familiar?) it did quite the opposite...

I found a post on some forum of a guy that is convinced that he has OCD but his ped feelings are not part of it so he claimed that his ped feelings are real and he must be a ped. People on that forum were writing in a way that made me very anxious because unlike here they were saying that he needs to find a therapist to keep him from offending and manage his attraction to children. Of course this send my anxiety through the roof and I am doing very badly as a result of this today... I am so frustrated because I am just not sure if I have POCD or if there are in fact feelings for children in that way and that I am just trying very hard to force this or blame it on ocd when infact i am a ped... :( :( I don't know if that sounds familiar to you but the feelings feel so real. I even tried looking up images of girls in swimsuits and measure my reaction to them asking myself If I would fall in love with a little girl and if I am reacting sexually. I would not look up real pedo stuff because I am terrified that when I do it will become obvious to me that i am a ped, also it is illegal.. Many write that they are straight up disgusted by the ped thoughts and I don't seem to react so strongly, I would not chose the word disgusted and so I am worried about why I am not so strongly put off by the thought and worry that it means that I am a ped.

I mean I've had almost every classig pure-o obsession under the sun. Starting from HOCD down to worries that i might have accidentally hurt someone without noticing etc. but the POCD seems to be always latent in the background and in the 10 or so years I've been dealing with POCD on and off I was never able to really stop checking my attraction to little girls so this worries me a lot. I had phases where I was not bothered by POCD and it was not an active obsession but the "spike" is always there when i see a little girl on a beach or wearing a short skirt. With HOCD I was convinced that i am gay and during that time I would have these spikes of anxiety as soon as I saw an attractive man but since i got over HOCD i don't even check or react to seeing a good looking guy. it is completely gone. Why is it not like that with POCD when I am not actively obsessing about it I still get the urge to check somehow. I take this as proof that i am infact a ped because if i wasn't the checking or initial thought should not be there and I should simply not even notice little girls in that way. It should follow suite along with my reaction after being free from HOCD.

I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could explain this because this seems to trigger my pocd over and over again over the years.

Thank you so much for your support!

[wanderer02]

Anyone,

[MyNameIsTerry]

- What if I did something and I can't remember and I damaged the child forever without even knowing. I need to confess to the police.

You are suggesting something so traumatic to yourself that you blocked it out. But have you heard of cases where this can happen and whether it was medically accepted? If not, that suggests the likelihood is not possible and I'm sure many real offenders would try it to lessen their case.

- Once I confess they will investigate and ask the child if she remembers if I did something or touched her and since she is young she won't be able to remember or would even tell them that I did something because kids don't always tell the truth or can be pressured to say something that is not true

That's why we have robust procedures in child protection aimed at ensuring this doesn't happen and beyond that we have courts who go through it all again and throw things out even the police get wrong.

The law doesn't try to prosecute on the basis of "we think it might have happened" and it won't work in court so outside of corrupt coppers this scenario of a child not knowing yet you still get arrested is just the mind searching out all possible risk scenarios.

- The cops will arrest me and hold me on grounds of my confession and if the child is not able to remember or the cops don't believe her if she tells them that nothing happened they will lock me up regardless because I confessed and they won't be able to understand that OCD caused me to confess.

You can confess to anything you want but if the police can't find evidence a crime exists you will be dismissed. They already do this due to those with mental health problems falsely confessing fantasies as well as those falsely accused by them.

Completely irrelevant to OCD, the police don't try people for crimes they can't find. They won't with OCD either.

- I have no way of knowing if I really did something to her or not because I can't remember (or i am repressing it) and she is a child and won't be able to remember so I can never know for sure if I molested a child and I won't be able to continue living normally with that fear of having done something like that

Repressing disturbing memories is a get out card for anything. I could have murdered someone yesterday yet have repressed it based on this. Where is the evidence? Merely anxious thinking or something that points to possibility?

- The cops will knock on my door and arrest me for molesting the child and since I am psychologically weak I will kill myself in prison and that will be the end of everything.

This is further catastrophizing, as is the rest really. No one can know until they are such a situation and then there may (hopefully) be support. But this scenario isn't likely anyway, it's just the train of thought catastrophizing takes us on.

- I can't be trusted around kids because there is now knowing if I might do something because I am a predator

Based on what evidence? What evidence is there in the whole of your past life to suggest you are a danger to children?

- I am only afraid of admitting to myself that I am a Pedo because I fear the consequences of Law enforcement and that If there was no punishment for being a Pedo I would be living it openly and would probably would have never married my wife..

I think this is because the catastrophizing you are doing is centred around you losing everything. Some OCDers spend more of this time worrying about damage to the other party and some it is centred more around their lives.

With my violent intrusive thoughts I determined the whole reason was because of loved ones. Some thoughts were violent towards my parents, who I would happily give my life for. But others were about total strangers who I would care a lot less about. I worked out that these were more about the consequences which were because my parents are the type who would feel utterly ashamed if the police came knocking. Yet again, it was about hurting loved ones when I probed deeper rather than hurting the stranger.

I think that's just how it goes with these thought processes which are aimed more inward.

I also think this becomes another stick to beat ourselves with, why aren't we focussing on the victim in our thoughts therefore we must be bad too for that.

---------- Post added at 16:14 ---------- Previous post was at 16:00 ----------

I found a post on some forum of a guy that is convinced that he has OCD but his ped feelings are not part of it so he claimed that his ped feelings are real and he must be a ped. People on that forum were writing in a way that made me very anxious because unlike here they were saying that he needs to find a therapist to keep him from offending and manage his attraction to children. Of course this send my anxiety through the roof and I am doing very badly as a result of this today...

We haven't seen the thread so we can't say for sure but many people think they may have OCD incorrectly since it's portrayed so incorrectly by the media. So, what's the say he isn't just a paedophile looking to make connections with other disorders? He may say he thinks it's separate to OCD but it opens up possible lines to pursue and opens him up to anxiety sufferers who may seek to support him when he doesn't belong on such a forum? A kind of trolling.

However, he could be a OCDer and a paedophile. You can have OCD and be a murderer. But their will be a divide between the disorders, a really big one.

It's impossible to say without seeking it but I think you should be very careful. It's not unknown for POCDers to seek out paedophilia forums to try to reassure themselves they aren't what they fear and this is a really bad idea. It's a bad idea doing it with a cancer/ALS type forum but at least there people will be more likely to respond in appropriate ways whereas these types of forums are full of predators and these people often link up to form rings. Their motives are vile, I worry when I see anyone impressionable, vulnerable or immature going near something like that as they are being exposed to often clever people who may seek to persuade them they are not anxiety sufferers. Not that I'm suggesting this is what you have done but I'm suggesting it's not unknown for "them" to venture into our circles for various reasons especially on less mental health focussed social media.

Also, people can give bad advice. They can make bad judgements. Some members from here have posted saying they have been told to get all sorts of tests after talking on physical health forums. In these cases they have been met with overzealous people insisting "you never know" when it comes to things like cancer when everyone on here is saying the exact opposite because the anxiety is understood, as are the cycles & thinking styles. In less mental health geared placed you can be getting advice from people ignorant of mental health, although to be fair many of them may have anxiety disorders due to their conditions so can be equally as educated.

Something that people always forget is the gaps. There was another POCD thread just like that on the GAD board this week. Then sufferer had periods in between where the POCD faded away. Now, if you really were becoming that monster you fear why is it you have periods where you aren't bothered? The subconscious might try to plant a seed in there about it being the "real you" but isn't it more likely it's because you are not anxious about it? Or less anxious in general? And not being bothered is a world away from wanting to do.

---------- Post added at 16:22 ---------- Previous post was at 16:14 ----------

I mean I've had almost every classig pure-o obsession under the sun. Starting from HOCD down to worries that i might have accidentally hurt someone without noticing etc. but the POCD seems to be always latent in the background and in the 10 or so years I've been dealing with POCD on and off I was never able to really stop checking my attraction to little girls so this worries me a lot. I had phases where I was not bothered by POCD and it was not an active obsession but the "spike" is always there when i see a little girl on a beach or wearing a short skirt. With HOCD I was convinced that i am gay and during that time I would have these spikes of anxiety as soon as I saw an attractive man but since i got over HOCD i don't even check or react to seeing a good looking guy. it is completely gone. Why is it not like that with POCD when I am not actively obsessing about it I still get the urge to check somehow. I take this as proof that i am infact a ped because if i wasn't the checking or initial thought should not be there and I should simply not even notice little girls in that way. It should follow suite along with my reaction after being free from HOCD. !

I know with my OCD I had compulsions regardless of anxiety. I think partly it becomes habit. Much of my anxiety was about touching, checking (mental checking too) and even when my anxiety reduced a bit I would still be doing it. The subconscious likes to learn from what it observes and likes to make associations to improve itself. Maybe in my case there was still a trigger to touch/check because the object was passed by?

I also know from my own recovery from all this and speaking to others that it's not as simple as do X, Y & Z and the whole obsessive-compulsive cycle disappears at the same time. A few of us have discussed on here how when you change your reactions you may still perform compulsions to a lesser level and how this requires further "dismantling" through not quite the same type of exposure work as it feels more like habit. Also, using exposure work to remove compulsions tends to lessen obsessions but not always mean they go away, it can just mean you have more control not to follow the cycle and some further work needs to be done on what is underpinning such obsessions e.g. core belief work.

Gaps are usually a good indicator, in my opinion, that the "on" periods are spirals.

As for why POCD seems to linger more than HOCD, maybe because it's more emotive? Maybe it's just so extreme? Maybe this or that. It's the same as asking why some people have HA and others don't. There may be events it relates to e.g. loved ones becoming ill or passing away. With POCD I've often observed it's people with a very strong moral code towards children e.g. parents, teachers, youth workers, etc. Interesting Steve Seay, a psychologist in the US who treats OCD, has articles saying exactly this and asks the question "I wonder why that is?..." in a way that poses the question to you that he obviously knows the answer too, because these are all clients that demonstrate the ego dystonic nature of these thoughts i.e. they think strongly about children.

Something to also consider is what some members have said to those fearing HOCD, what's wrong with being LGBT+? Nothing. It can be a major thing in your life but many in that community disagree. But there are so many factors involved such as family background, religious involvement, social aspects such as where you live, etc. These all add pressure that make fear greater in the person's mind. It's not that they think being LGBT+ is wrong in anything, it's just not what they want and they start to add on all the catastrophizing about how it may change their lives. I'm sure you know all this having been through and come out the other side. But perhaps in your mind POCD is a massive thing compared to being LGBT+, the latter being largely acceptable in many of our countries/societies, whereas being a paedophile is something to be detested in many countries where there is greater understanding of the rights of children. And committing an act is a potential life destroyer. It's a crime that is seen as with the worst, many people regard child molestation as worse than murder even though the law clearly disagrees based on how tariffs are allocated to offences. Much of the same can be said about adult rape, but with children it is seen as even more evil.