Intrusive Thoughts POCD?

[Slsheeba567]

So I’ve been dealing with POCD for a while now, and have only recently started to open up to my therapist about it who reassured me I’m not a pedophile, and I merely have intrusive thoughts. Well she told me to accept the intrusive thought and move on with my day whenever they come on. Yesterday I had one and did as she said and didn’t fight it. But then I started to.... have a groinal response?? It lasted for about an hour and I woke up this morning and have been dealing with it all day, and I’m freaking out that I’m a pedophile again now. The Lexapro has lessened by ability to worry and have anxiety, which worries me even more because now I’m scared I don’t care that I have these thoughts, which were one of my biggest coping mechanisms from before because it reassured me that as long as I was worried about these thoughts, it meant I wasn’t really a pedophile because a real pedophile wouldn’t worry about the thoughts. Please help, I’m scared and this weird groinal feeling isn’t going away.

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's not just that a real paedophile wouldn't worry it's that they would enjoy them and engage in behaviours relevant to paedophilia.

I've beaten my intrusive thoughts and I can tell you from my experience that I still get intrusive thoughts, they just don't bother me anymore. Considering many of mine were violent thoughts does that make me a psychopath? Why would it when I shrug them off and don't display the behaviours of a psychopath?

If you couldn't learn to not be panicked by these thoughts wouldn't that prevent recovery because your responses would continue to reinforce them via the obsessive-compulsive cycle?

Inform your therapist of the groinal responses. They are well known in these themes. It's also documented that some even masturbate but it's too relieve the uncomfortable feelings due to the stimulation and then they experience shame & guilt because they interpret it wrongly as engaging in a fantasy. This may not happen, I'm only saying this so you understand how unusual these sexual feelings can seem to reassure you that it's known in OCD and to encourage you to tell your therapist so they can help you.

[Slsheeba567]

Are you sure I'm not a pedophile? I keep testing myself and thinking about adult men and children and measuring my arousal responses, and I think it might be higher when I think about children. Please help, I'm so afraid, I don't want to be a pedophile, I would never hurt children, so why does this keep happening?

[MyNameIsTerry]

Your therapist is a trained professional and they don't think you are. That's all you need. But everything you say has OCD written all over it and you have other OCD themes that reinforce that connection pointing to anxiety e.g. The prion worries.

Testing is a known OCD compulsion that just creates more problems. You can't guarantee same response and you will experience times where you lack the fear response. This deviation from your expectations will cause you more anxiety as you will see it as a confirmation. Sometimes you can be tired and your body just doesn't respond in the expected way. It happens to people who test like this.. I've seen it many times on here and you all do the same things and fall into the same traps.

Your anxiety can't change your deeply held morals & schemas. It also can't force you into a sexual preference. The latter is something that those struggling with HOCD, POCD, Trans OCD, etc are all terrified of. Think about it from outside of your situation, think of someone with HOCD worried the will start to find their own gender sexually attractive (or a gay person worried they will find the other gender attractive). They will have much the same thoughts about attraction issues to you so what would you say to them about their thoughts?

Anxiety can greatly affect libido. Some of us just don't want sex anymore, no longer see attraction in anyone just as someone depressed no longer sees any enjoyment in anything anymore, some can't function physically, etc. Once you start to recover this all bounces back. It's just being overwhelmed by the draining nature of our thoughts and remove they have a chemical impact on our bodies that are linked to other functions.

Also, there is the issue of obsession. You start to experience the obsession being more important and so your body is responding to such testing and is less willing to do so outside of it. Just like how the HAers can make their bodies experience symptoms of diseases they fear. It's a focus problem. It will change back as you pull yourself out of this theme. Again, I've seen this plenty of times on here.

Do you have any connections to children? The reason I ask is that intrusive thoughts tend to seek out our worst fears. Those with stronger moral opinions towards protecting or developing children can experience these thoughts of harming them as a theme whether it's abuse or sexual abuse. POCDers on here have often been parents, teachers, other child workers or even protective older siblings.

It's the worst thing imaginable to them and that's why anxiety has seen this as a weak point to exploit. It requires a negative reaction to reinforce itself via completing the obsessive-compulsive cycle. It knows it won't achieve that through choosing things that you don't care about.

[Slsheeba567]

Actually, I don't really have any connection to children at all, no nephews or little sisters, etc. I did happen to take an early child education class in my sophomore year of high school, which is around the time I think the POCD started. I remember we were learning about child abuse and the teacher made a remark that really stuck with me, she said, "Does anyone know the average age when pedophilia starts? It starts around late teens. There is a chance at least one of you in here right now is already thinking of molesting children." I didn't have anxiety yet at that time, it would hit next year, but I've been dealing with OCD since I was a child, so I started getting intrusive thoughts whenever I saw the children at our program, it was horrible. I let it go though, and it went away, but it came back when I started getting panic attacks and anxiety hit. I do want to have kids one day, but I don't completely adore them, so it kid of confuses me why I would develop POCD.

[MyNameIsTerry]

That was nice of the teacher! I would have replied "maybe it's you sir"

I guess they mean based on statistics. But statistics aren't specific. For instance, the number of people in your class will not match the ratio of cancer sufferers.

I think most people would find that teacher insulting. It's an inappropriate remark to make in my eyes. I would have said "x number of teachers in Y abuse children too, maybe someone in your faculty is doing it right now" and they might think twice about these types of comments.

Your subconscious latched onto this because it was a scary moment just as panic attacks become about situations & places. It's just further counter evidence that you are not what your fears say as a comment can't make you want to do such things. And then it got built up by your reactions to those intrusive thoughts when you saw children. POCDers often avoid the subjects of their fears "just in case" and this compulsion only reinforces the cycle by incorrectly validating a fear.

It doesn't have to be just in those with strong morals towards children, it could be strong morals in general. If you have a strong sense of justice & responsibility it could be that abusing a child is one of the worst crimes to many people. It's a very emotive subject and many may react more to it than say a murder of an adult.

[Slsheeba567]

I definitely do have a strong moral compass, I feel guilty over every little thing, or I did before I started taking Lexapro. For example, if I was unintentionally mean to someone, I feel horrible about it the whole day, like someone punched me in the gut. So it makes sense why I have POCD, I guess, because in my eyes, child molestation is the worst thing you could ever do. People say to accept the uncertainty and say, "If I really am a pedophile, so what?," but to me, I wouldn't able to live with myself if I really was. I would end up killing myself to protect the children, because their lives matter more than mine.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I expect anyone who goes through themes like this would think about self harm. I know others who have said this. Sometimes it's said because they feel they couldn't live with what could be done and the consequences of it on their loved ones and sometimes it's said to protect those they could harm.

We do some much thinking about possible scenarios to mitigate against them. This is negative thinking because we are again giving importance to the "what ifs" and catastrophizing follows.

There are many techniques and the one you mention of agreeing with the thoughts is one aimed not at agreeing you are what you fear but a way to neutralise these thoughts, pulling the rug from under them by sending back a positive/neutral response rather than the negative in the process (and the relevant Amygdala in the brain expects).

It's similar to what I learned in Mindfulness, to accept thoughts as thoughts and they don't have to have meaning so I can choose to let them go.

So, try to look at it as a way to dispel thoughts, it's not that you really agree you are what they say. It's just a diffusion technique.

[Slsheeba567]

I just can't stop thinking and worrying about it. I wake up and my heart is pounding, and I think about it all day, and go to bed worrying about it.

[Slsheeba567]

Please help, I keep testing myself and I think I'm getting aroused when I shouldn't.