POCD relapse after a long time of peace - could really use some comforting words :-(

[wanderer02]

Hey Friends,

After 5 years of peace from thinking I'm a pedo I could not believe that it's even possible that this horrific obsession can come back in full force but it did. I was completely over the obsessions and I laughed at the idea that I once even thought about this kind of stuff.

After watching an episode of law and order where child abuse was the main topic I suddenly started worrying about the possibility of me being a pedophile again and if I could be attracted to prepubacent girls. Suddenly it's all I can think about and I'm completely consumed by the fear of the possibility. It's like a stupid donkey tapping into the same trap twice but there is absolutely nothing I can do to change these fears or reduce my anxiety. I'm

The whole chain of reasoning and checking for gronial response started all over again after I've been there years ago and lived with the certainty that I'm in fact not a pedo and I never was for all this time now suddenly I'm completely terrified and barely functioning because of these ridiculous thoughts. I'm noticing every little girl on the street or on TV and it makes me Anxiety skyrocket. Before that I would never even think about it twice when I saw a pretty girl.

Before I had pocd I struggled with hocd for many years before. I used to check gay porn quite a lot at the time to determine if I had any reaction to it. I would even attempt to masturbate to gay porn and sometimes it would even work and I'd be horrified for days about my reaction. When the obsession shifted over to pocd I started doing the same. I'd look for pictures of prepubacent girls, mostly girls in swimsuits and I remember stumbling over some borderline pedo pictures in the from of child modeling images where little girls wearing bikinis would be shown in suggestive poses. I felt really bad looking at this stuff and when the obsession passed I never looked for it again in these 5 years since then.

I have a lovely girlfriend for many years to whom I'm attracted to without a doubt I never fantasized about prepubacent girls in any shape or form before the obsession and in the years after the obsession passed. How can I get so confused again?

Now I'm doing the same stuff again, looking u these pictures, feeling like a monster, disgusted by myself and feeling like I don't deserve to be alive because I'm actually looking at pictures of prepubacent girls in suggestive clothing. Effectively I'm looking at stuff that real predators look at and I feel like I'm no different from them. What worries me is that I don't feel strongly disgusted by the pictures or by little girls in particular so I'm panicking that this might be a sign that there must be some from of attraction that is real... 😕 my hands are shaking as I'm typing this but I should know better. If in fact I was a true pedo I would have probably known as soon as I started being interested in sex.

I'm absolutely terrified right now because I looked up these images and according to European law even looking at children in swimsuits posing suggestively or searching for child abuse related pictures alone (preteen model, child model etc.) can get you convicted for child pornography so I'm freaking out and it's making things so much worse. It mean I didn't look at explicit child pornogeaphy but clearly these pictures are intended for people who are at attracted to kids. It feels so horrible and I'm worried that my ocd will force me to compulsively look up even more pictures.... 😟

As a matter of fact I have always been attracted to woman my age and until this obsession I never had a doubt that I could be anything else than a heterosexual man attracted to mature women just like any other healthy person.

I feel like I committed a crime and that I should turn myself in to the authorities because I'm a criminal sex offender and that my life will never be the same again.
I know this probably sounds ridiculous but the more I read about pedophilia and the law etc. The more I regret what I've done and I feel like since I committed a crime and I looked up so many pictures of 'child models' the authorities are surely after me. Not knowing when they will knock on my door to put me into jail because it doesn't matter why someone looks up this stuff but only the fact that the person did!!

Anyways sorry for my rant but I really feel like a monster, ashamed of myself and disgusted by myself. I normally try not to seek reassurance but this obsession and what it makes me do and how it makes me feel is much worse than all the other countless obsessions I've already been through.

Thanks for reading and hopefully you can help me find a ray of light in this dark place I'm at.

---------- Post added 09-11-15 at 00:43 ---------- Previous post was 08-11-15 at 23:47 ----------

I know it's a difficult topic and it feels very lonely to be stuck with this kind of obsession. So any answer would be much appreciated.

[TomT]

Hey there wanderer,

As you dealt with this in the past im sure you know that the best conforting words will come from you and not from others, so give yourself a hug. On the other hand why it appeared again? Well there must be something going on in your life that is causing you stress, so take a deep breath and try to figure out what it is that is bothering you. Don't go back to the rituals do not google stuff, when you get the urge take a deep breath and do other stuff instead.

You are ok,pedophiles do not worry about becoming one, they just are. So relax.

Many blessings!

[wanderer02]

Thanks for your kind words Tom
Means a lot to me.

I'm going though a lot of change because of my job and I have some trouble with my boss who is really an awful person. So yes, things are chaotic and before I was jumping from one theme to another for a while. Harm ocd, schizo ocd you name it.. Now because of that trigger I'm back at pocd...

Im so angry at my brain... ��

My ocd keeps telling me that I'm just denying it because there is so much stigma attached to being a pedophile and if it was allowed I'd just be one but it makes no sense. If it was for my ocd I would be classified a homosexual, straight, male attracted to female children?!? Hahaha it sounds and is crazy! I'm not in the mood for jokes but this is just too much.

I'm just so worried that looking up these pictures for checking my response will have the cops go after me.. �� I would never forgive myself if that happend. Also the urge to confess my "crimes" makes me very anxious because it could ruin my life. On the other hand it's not even an excuse that I looked this stuff up because of ocd... I don't know what to do...

[TomT]

You see, you found the thing that is causing you anxiety so dont try to tackle anxiety but tackle that situation with your boss, try not to get so involved with him.

On the other hand, dont be so hard on yourself. Lately I been relapsing with anxiety and as I think everyone with Pure-O we have gone with every single kind of OCD like schiz-pocd-ROCD-etc. The thing is You know is OCD, you are not attracted to kids but you are afraid of that idea, as I am about thinking about coincidences o how reality works. So if a thought disturbs your calmness its is because they are not real.

I go again with this because ,for me its been ground breaking, do not focus on the anxiety but on the source, when you have this thoughts ask yourself, Why? and do this over and over again until you reach the core of it.

Anxiety is a response to a stressful situation, in our case it can be anything so knowing this gives you a powerful tool, it is not you but something that is disturbing you. Why this happens you might ask, well as my therapist says. Anxiety tries to distract your from the stressful situation providing a thought that will not really harm you but just worries you.

[wanderer02]

Thanks for your reply Tom, it really makes sense what you are saying and I've been through the same obsession 5 years ago; I should know all of this but somehow I am completely shattared as if I am dealing with it for the first time...

Aside from that I've made the mistake of visiting some Paraphilia Forum where true pedos speak about how they discovered their "orientation" and also the fact that that there are many of them which are not exclusively attracted to children but both, women their age AND children.

This makes everything so much worse for me because I yes, I am attracted to Women my age but MAYBE and right now I feel like that is true, i am also attracted to children!?!?

[Erp222]

You know the worst thing to do is research the topic (ie Forums). I'm as guilty as that for my theme and it ends up getting nowhere. You find something reassuring online, you feel good for a few minutes/hours/days, then you find a story that scares you, compare yourself to it, find similarities, repeat the process again. The problem is, you will always try to find certainty, but its unattainable. It sucks, but you'll never know 100%. But, you can live your life defined by your actions, not your thoughts. It sounds like you are going through this cycle over and over and it makes you feel like crap. You have to break the cycle.

Im much better at giving advice sometimes than actually doing it myself (i still use the internet for reassurance at times). It's all easier said than done :)

[wanderer02]

You know the worst thing to do is research the topic (ie Forums). I'm as guilty as that for my theme and it ends up getting nowhere. You find something reassuring online, you feel good for a few minutes/hours/days, then you find a story that scares you, compare yourself to it, find similarities, repeat the process again. The problem is, you will always try to find certainty, but its unattainable. It sucks, but you'll never know 100%. But, you can live your life defined by your actions, not your thoughts. It sounds like you are going through this cycle over and over and it makes you feel like crap. You have to break the cycle.

Im much better at giving advice sometimes than actually doing it myself (i still use the internet for reassurance at times). It's all easier said than done :)

It feels good to hear it from someone else and it know how it is with giving advice vs following your own advice :roflmao: it's really depressing because we have all the answers yet we fall into the same trap over and over again. That's where the bad wiringwiring in our comes in I guess.

I'm so stocked about my visit to the beach Yesteday, why would I keep staring at these little girls and distinguish between them in terms of attraction?
It almost feels like I don't really need to ask myself whether or not I'm a pedo but rather I need to deal with the fact that I am and ask myself why for a the largest part of my life I didn't realize that I was one all along...

I'm feeling awful about it.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Some paedophiles must be attracted to women as well as children or else we would never have had a case of a father (or mother) abusing a child or their child. Homing in on that as an argument for the possibility that you are one lacks logic because it discounts the fact that you may also NOT be one.

Consider what the WHO ICD-10 diagnostic manual states for Paedophilia:

Included among paedophiles, however,
are men who retain a preference for adult sex partners but, because they are
chronically frustrated in achieving appropriate contacts, habitually turn to
children as substitutes.

Examine the true facts. You have had these fears before and dealt with them. They have only been retriggered by a stressful experience and a trigger event in the Law & Order episode. There is a guy on here with GAD and he read about Jimmy Saville and his POCD started from there when he had never had it before. Whilst he doesn't look for anything as you have, he has been asking all the same questions of himself and saying everything you have here.

Think of another flaw in the argument. Would a true paedophile determine it to be OCD and then move on? No.

Another flaw. Would a paedophile look up the law and be worried about it other than because they may face arrest? No. Yet you are worrying about that as an add on to your worries over the actual core concept - whether you are one. They know they are paedophiles.

Looking at every girl on the beach, in the street or on TV is born out of several issues. One of them can be a need to check your response to determine it is still one of disgust in yourself. Another can be a need to check if you feel attraction prior to the onset of the disgust. It's really no different than people on the HA board who spend hours checking their lymph nodes.

I do think you should consult a medical professional here because your OCD is leading you into more severe areas. I really think you should stay away from forums where these people talk, not only because they are probably being monitored, but also because you could expose yourself to some pretty nasty people. Not all of them are going to be loners as paedophiles are known to operate in networks and they could try to twist your OCD to meet their needs whether that gives them some form of pleasure or for some other gain e.g. exploitative. They could post some very difficult links too and you could click on them not realising what you would witness. it is also possible that there are people posing on those forums to entrap paedophiles by luring them elsewhere or to give up their identities so please avoid them.

I really would question whether the people on those forums even know anything about OCD and on this basis you will be looking at ignorant discussions and you will look at certain key points and try to associate them to yourself. This is a big mistake. Confirmation Bias is a well known element of psychology and people with obsessional disorders look to confirm their own beliefs without looking to also disprove them.

I'm not sure when it comes to the law. The law will be enforced regardless as the legal position is always that ignorance is no defence. I'm sure you know this. So, should it happen, they will do what they have to do in terms of procedure but from there things become a matter for decision makers, and they will take into account medical reports.

I know this is very hard but this is not something you can change at this point other than to do your best to stop this compulsion. I know just how hard that is, I've had many and stopped the majority now, but in your case you have a more sensitive compulsion issue that could lead you into difficult situations. I don't normally find distraction techniques any use on OCD, with mine I had so many so close together that the distraction techniques would have ended up being whole day affairs! But in your case it seems you need something on the spot to take you out of that situation until your anxiety has reduced so that you are less likely to enter into a compulsion.

For a start I would say if you can add some blocking to your PC to try to stop this, it would be worth it.

The fact is, there are naked pictures of children all over the internet. Nudism for a start. I don't know how the law defines an image over another one since nudism is something that is even allowed at events in the UK thesedays and people do stand their taking photos of them...and yes, they do have their children with them. There was a feature in a programme on TV a while back where the police were there and had to tell people with cameras to leave as the nudists were complaining. Who knows whether some of those photographers were there for different reasons?

I guess what I am saying is that if you just typed Nudism into a Google search and looked at Images, they will probably be there for all to see. So, it's a complicated issue and probably one more for someone with a professional understanding of the laws that govern this.

My personal opinion here is that the police look for real offenders. They look for patterns of behaviour that gives them clues to people who are paedophiles and I would expect they have a full understanding of POCD in order to divide out the true offenders to follow them up.

It's obvious you have OCD, and not just an isolated form which only backs up the fact it is OCD. The worry about prosecution is purely secondary, the attraction element is really missing, but the fear about it all & what it means is present along with all the compulsions - classic OCD symptoms.