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Isabella

Date posted: 3y

I feel terrible. The porn I watched from ages 12-16 was disgusting, I feel like some sick sexual deviant. I don’t have the courage to tell my therapist what exactly I watched out of fear that they’ll confirm that it’s not ocd and my fears are true. I did tell them talk a little bit about my obsession with porn and we did erp for it but my fear is still so strong. I’ve seen people obsess about the same thing but I always feel like what I did was way worse.. :( I just don’t want to feel this way anymore when I’m doing good my fears seem so irrational and stupid but when it gets bad it feels very real and that my life is over.

Warrior25

Date posted: 3y

OCD sucks. That's for sure. It's hard when we have a flare up. One thing I can tell you is that since you feel bad for what you watched you need to forgive yourself. And before your brain tells you that you are bad or horrible understand that you can forgive yourself. Is not a feeling or something magical. It's a decision to let go of what you did and do something different now. Actually is more of a lifestyle. Usually when we struggle with OCD we look for reassurance but I can tell you that it's ok if you feel bad for what you did but now it's time to let it go again by forgiving yourself. Doesn't mean you won't struggle but it will get better and better the more you practice. Don't let the thoughts and anxiety pull you down. Don't argue with the thoughts except maybe tell yourself once: "I forgive myself for that" and go do something good for you or someone else.

Isabella

Date posted: 3y

Thank you that response helps a lot, I have a hard time forgiving myself because ocd convinces me I’m a monster/that it means something about me, or that I’d do it again. It’s even worse when ocd makes me doubt it’s even ocd… I’ll try not to argue or engage with the thoughts, it’s hard not doing compulsions with a theme like this because it feels like I have to figure it all out or else I’m in danger.

Warrior25

Date posted: 3y

What you wrote at the end hit me. We OCD people have a tendency to have a hyper inflated sense of responsibility thinking that we need to solve and figure everything out immediately. Believe me I'm an expert on that. The problem I have come to understand is not the anxiety that makes us feel in danger but our relationship with it. I once heard someone give advice saying that we should recognize that the anxiety is present like a person but you aren't going to engage with them. In fact he said to laugh about it and say things to the thoughts like: "yeah, sure. That's what you think? Fine. You aren't going to pull me down." And move on. It sounds simpler than what it actually entails but with practice it gets better. Try not to obsess doesn't mean try not to think about it. That's counter productive. It's more about recognizing the clouds in the thought and focusing on something else. Like the clouds in the sky let the thoughts move and focus on a different cloud. Hope this helps.

Isabella

Date posted: 3y

Thanks again, that helps

nightrain23

Date posted: 3y

I was addicted to porn from age 9-19. And I also watched some fucked up shit. I can’t get this pictures out of my head and I probably never will. There is a reason they are 18+. You can’t cope with this when you are too young... I learnt that to late. I would recommend to stop watching porn. Like to completely quit it. This makes a huge impact and can help to fight OCD. OCD makes you obsessed with things and when you get obsessed with porn you get addicted and then it’s so hard to get out of that circle.

BigGyro09

Date posted: 3y

Completely agree. I've seen some pretty terrible things myself that I unfortunately remember to this day back when I was about 13-18. It absolutely sucks that basically children get caught up in something like this like me, you, and OP has and it's a struggle to get through the day when shit like that comes up in your mind. For me personally, it makes it super difficult to enjoy a healthy sex life because I can't help but tie it all with that putrid filth. I would not only consider porn to be this generation's version of drugs, but a serious addiction that can really hurt people. It can hurt the expectations of people, hurt performers, children unfortunately get involved, people lose money over it, escalation happens, etc. Yet people just accept it like it's no big deal. Really sucks.

Isabella

Date posted: 3y

I’m so haunted by it, my brain harasses me with intrusive images of the porn and it makes me want to puke.

BigGyro09

Date posted: 3y

Just know you aren't alone whatsoever. I have 100% the exact same obsessions you have and it can feel really discouraging and scary as fuck to try and talk about it. I was around that age group when it all started myself. Best thing I would say you can do is to practice letting things go, which at times, for me feels impossible. Because of being exposed to porn that early in my life, I can't help but associate any kind of sexual topic with it. It's always there and when it activates, I get really disgusted. Just the thought alone of what I've seen when I were much younger is enough to throw me off for most of the day. I just wish educational systems and parents were a lot more direct on the topic of pornography. It's serious and the stage of adolescence is dare I say the most important process of a human being's life. They're making the difficult shift from childhood to adulthood. It takes quite a bit to get through and to get hooked on something like porn or any drug for that matter only makes a lot of things worse. I often feel lots of shame when I remember the things I've seen. But I also try to remember why I turned to porn in the first place: For most people it was used as a coping mechanism to "escape" from the problems I had faced when high school began. That only made things EXTREMELY worse since it did nothing but boil up those feelings and those problems and add insult to injury. It's not fun looking at people as objects like social media loves to portray any chance it gets. I try to remember that at the mere age of 14, I knew absolutely nothing about sexual topics but wanted to know. There's not a day that goes by where I wish a trustworthy adult could have warn me and others about such things. In short, just know that you aren't alone. You'll get the support you need to get out of this. The fact that we feel bad about these things says something about us. It says that we want to try and forgive, prevent, and let go of these hurts. It takes time though.

Related posts

Wessers19

Date posted: 24w

Could being exposed to content as a kid affected me in this way?

Trying not to seek reassurance, but rather connect the dots on my OCD and possible reasons as to why I am the way I am. I have severe OCD (or at least I hope I do) mainly surrounding POCD. I've had symptoms of OCD the majority of my life but this theme has come up more recently. When I was a kid, and i'm talking 6-7, I was first exposed to some really gross adult content online. It was introduced to me by a friend of mine around the same age of me. I saw some really disgusting things that a 6-7 year old should definitely not see. This was not a one time occurrence, as I had been exposed to taboo topics online years to come after that, such as the same friend introducing me to Omegle... And i'm sure you can imagine how that went, theres a lot of genuinely disgusting human beings on there. Coming back to the reason for making this post; is it possible to early exposure to this content could be one of the reasons I struggle with POCD? It genuinely scares me to death because you hear that real p*dos dealt with simular situations when they were kids, so thats kind of making me feel that this could be more than OCD, and I could be a genuinely bad person. My POCD feels so real, that at times i'm fully convinced its not OCD. Sometimes I can't even distinguish the feelings of attraction between a younger person and an older person, except for the feeling of anxiety and fear. Its really hard to explain without going into detail, but it just feels so real. Some feedback on this would be great, thank you all.

Brigitta

Date posted: 22w

OCD takes over me

I feel like one of the worst things about ocd are the disturbing images or the ‘little movies’ that replay in your head over and over again. I have the worst sexual images with one of my family members that actually so bad that I can’t even look in the mirror. And it’s even worse that I have a lovely boyfriend and I’m so disgusted of myself that I feel like I don’t deserve him and I feel like I can’t be with him because of these thoughts, even he is the most precious thing in my life. These sexual images are so horrible and what makes it even worse that in these pictures I always see myself as someone who enjoys it. I know how to deal with this anymore. My mind is trying to convince me that that I actually like these images and thoughts and this is the hardest part, that I’m doubting myself. These images pop up in my head so naturally that I always question myself if I actually don’t like it why it comes so naturally or how can my brain picture things like this if I don’t like it. It’s getting worse day by day. It’s in my head 24/7, can’t concentrate on anything else, I can’t eat because I’m constantly throwing up. And my mom has to sleep with me every night because I’m so disturbed by my own mind. My parents know that there’s something wrong with me, they think I’m depressed but sadly It’s not something I can talk openly about with them. I’m seeing a therapist next week but I’m genuinely scared to open up about these thoughts that I’m having.

Northern_Dow...

Date posted: 21w

Real Event OCD is a different breed (18+)

Being exposed to taboo p*rn as young as first grade ruined my life and now ocd is making me pay for it. I have so much guilt for being a child/teen and looking at taboo stuff, and it was all fictional or anime or whatever but it was still so so gross. and I didn't realize It because I had been used to it at so young 🫠 I think what haunts me most is when I was a kid/young teen (like 12-14ish) and didn't have access to p*rn I'd imagine stuff similar to what I'd seen in the art. I can't even believe I'd imagine scenarios involving kid characters or whatever because it had been so normalized to me and I assumed it was normal since it was fiction. I'm 23 now so it's been a decade since I've done anything like that and I've never had the urge to since but still. I've NEVER been attracted to kids or had any urges or anything ever, even when I was addicted. The thought makes me want to vomit, I'd rather die than associate anything sexual with kids/minors and I think people who groom or assault kids are vile. But I still feel like the fact that I imagined stuff similar to the things I read sometimes when I was young is proof I'm a p*do. I don't think people would believe me if I said I'm not. I just feel like I don't deserve to live or that if I do, I'm living a lie. I know 'I was a kid too' but even when I was 13/14 I read/imagined stuff with characters younger than me because I thought it was normal. I'm so disgusted. I've had this theme for so long I'm starting to wonder if ocd is right. I feel too ashamed to tell my therapist.

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