Question about pure OCD: when I was younger, I had a lot of intrusive images of people I didn't like, like Tr*mp, Logan Paul, and others, so to cope I had to imagine the opposite person to kind of neutralize it (I had to search on google images of Bernie Sanders to feel better, I know, weird thing but I was really in politics at the time) Can that be considered a compulsion? If yes, has that ever happened to you? Right now I don't feel like that anymore, the intrusive images still trigger me and they do make me feel "impure" but they don't bother me that much anymore, I learned to ignore them as I grew.

I already wrote about this and you really helped me, but now I wondered?! During the erp, I look at a picture of that person with some grimaces that the brain sexualizes, otherwise I have incest ocd! The person is of my gender, I'm not gay otherwise. And then, based on those facial expressions, the brain creates sexual images in my head, which I often feel as sexual and mental arousel. It is enough to see the picture or hear the voice of that person! Based on the pictures it gives me the idea of ​​sexually touching myself on it and climaxing while watching. I feel an urge (I tried something like that a few times ago and now I'm afraid of it), and then the exercise is over, but I stay until I get the answer I want and the feelings that would calm me down, but that happens less and less... Have you had any experience, and is it a compulsion? how can I stay after exercise with that feeling of reality.. Thank you in advance❤️

so I’ve been seeking therapy for my OCD for a few years. The theme that I’ve been dealing with most recently is the fear of becoming a pedophile, which then has led to intrusive images of me doing things to kids.Which now is just causing me so much distress and 24/7 constant thought cycle. I am starting to not be able to tell the difference between thoughts that are wanted/ unwanted- the line has become some blurry and these things are starting to feel like someothing i want to do. My brain keeps telling me to just test these thoughts and the “maybe”or”i don’t know” isn’t working. This has become such a barrier because the second layer is that I’m afraid that if I just let the thoughts be there it’ll make me be OK with doing those things and the fear is what’s keeping me from actually doing something inappropriate. It’s also transitioned into intrusive thoughts and images of me doing something very disgusting to my dog and that when I’m cuddling with him I get the thoughts to just do it or try it to see if i am actually a p*do. it’s almost like the compulsion would be to do the inappropriate thing, even though I know it’s wrong just to see how it would make me feel. I feel like i can’t control these urges even though i’ve never acted on it. At any point i could just do it. I’ve never had these thoughts before up until about a year and a half ago when my friend‘s boyfriend got arrested for soliciting a minor then all these thoughts came to life.Has anyone experienced something like this and have any advice?

fyi: [x] - feared identity So I've had OCD for a while now and even though I'm on a different theme than I was, I find that I sometimes feel indifferent or numb to an act that is completely immoral, especially after desensitizaton and learning that there is nothing that I need to do about the thoughts. I even ask myself "What if one of my friends turned out to be [x]?" and instead of immediately saying "I'm completely cutting ties and never looking at them the same way again" I'm like "..that wouldn't be great, I'd stop talking to them but also encourage them to get help.". Pure OCD for some odd reason made me feel empathy for even the worst, most evil people - not that it excuses their actions, or makes them any less evil, but then it also took that and made me panic about it: "What if you're becoming antisocial?" "What if you're on your way to degeneration?" "Why do you not care as much as you used to?" "Are you corrupt?" "Are you [x]?" "Only [x] would feel empathy for [x]." "Are you justifying these actions?". I feel like it is concerning, it does feel like I'm ignoring something that goes against my values, or that I have lost all values and I'm just a bad person. Especially when I get arousal nonconcordance or GRs: "Maybe I'm just traumatized, maybe I'm okay" turns into "You're okay.. with what? With becoming aroused by these things at all? Have you lost your mind? What's next, you're gonna act on these thoughts and say "Oh I'm traumatized?"", and I don't know whether it's logical or not. When I started with sexual intrusive thoughts I immediately found them disturbing and horrifying, and now after ERP and just living with the disorder for so long I'm almost numb... it feels terrible. It feels like I'm justifying or have become legitimately okay with untolerable, horrible behavior, and I feel like that says something about who I am really. I feel like that makes me dangerously close to acting on the thoughts, or that the thoughts were an indication of some repressed desire all along, even when I know there's no evidence towards that... or is there? Pure OCD has convinced me I'm in denial about something horrible many times before, mainly by utilizing my reaction and moral stance around the intrusive thoughts. I still feel like "If I panic when I have these thoughts, that means I'm not [x] and I'm fine."; "If I'm disgusted by the idea of acting on these thoughts, then I'm fine"; "As long as I don't respond the wrong way to the thoughts, I'm fine".. so what happens when you're told not to react to the thoughts at all? Or on the other hand, not to try and analyze a reaction? Panic. Cognitive dissonance: "Something's wrong, I'm not reacting how I'm supposed to". At the end of the day, I really hope I'm not [x], I really do. I can't imagine not only living with the title of [x], but also with the insane levels of distress that title would cause because for all I know, I'm not really [x]. But I could be, like I don't know if I'm not, and even though I'd rather not be [x] I have to somehow accept uncertainty I guess. That's what I've been told to do - but I feel like it's backfiring. I feel like I'm either a) recovering and meta-obsessing, b) I'm still in poor insight OCD and I'm not actually [x] c) I'm [x] and in denial / having OCD about a real issue Speaking of insight, it tends to come and go but it's been poor for most of the time, even after I learned about OCD.