Been triggered by a picture of a child

[eglantine6]

Ive been doing well, my ocd goes from relationships to worried about being a peado and many other stuff. Last night I was on netmums browsing on it and an advert for nappies came up and it was a picture of a baby with only just a nappy on laying down, i had a thought quick get off it or i will get horny!! so I got off the website.

WTF why did i think that? it is disgusting and totally against who I am. I feel awful. I cant stop thinking about why I thought that :(

[MyNameIsTerry]

A trigger for an intrusive thought. You have the POCD theme already as you say so your subconscious will be looking for associations to that theme in your OCD and flashing up the possible connections to your conscious mind to say "is this an association?" You react with fear and take action to avoid/push away the trigger, this feeds back to the subconscious to say the response was fear, which is expected, and it reinforces the need for those thoughts & associations.

You didn't think that. Your subconscious said "what about this?", you reacted with "shit!!!"

Your subconscious will compare your POCD intrusive thoughts to those inner values, the ones that are the complete opposite, and it can't find an appropriate action for the thoughts so it sends them off to conscious brain for decision on what to do. So, reacting this way only further proves such thoughts are the opposite of character, ego dystonic as they are called.

The more you react and flee, the more it reinforces the need for them to be there. Just like how panic reinforces the need to panic again in the future. The more you stop reacting like this, the more the subconscious says "oh, conscious brain didn't care, I won't bother again then".

This is an example by the experts:

http://psychology.tools/intrusive-thoughts-brain-metaphor.html

Intrusive thoughts are looking for maximum effect. They pick on your weaknesses. Having POCD demonstrates a strong moral connection to children, I believe. Most of those I've spoken to on here about it have been doting parents, committed teachers or some other form of child improver such as a coach. All people who care very much about kids.

http://psychology.tools/cognitive-model-of-ocd.html

Just to add, here is the cycle of OCD:

Can you see that you consciously reacted with the thought you may think or feel something that you regard as disgusting? Then you took action to escape?

[SLA]

Exactly what Terry said.

Your over-sensitive and paranoid subconscious saw a potential threat to your well-being and morality.

You reacted to it like it would actually happen, and then panicked.

I've been doing a video series about my experiences, and I talked about this recently in a video. The Most Important Thing I Learnt About Anxiety (http://bit.ly/2dfFqvb)

Maybe check it out too, and see if it helps.

I went through lots of similar worries.