I want to start by saying this is going to be extremely long, but I’m really in my feelings tonight and I need to share with someone. I am a 20 year old female. When I was 7-8 I was molested by my sister who was about 12 at the time. I won’t go into detail about what she did, because it’s not what is important here. I thought there was something wrong with me because it felt good to me. I used to ask my family if the world ended, if all kids would go to heaven. I used to pray that the world would end because I thought if I grew up to be an adult, that I would go to hell. I finally told my grandma, who told my mom. They told me that it was normal, every kid does it, and we were just “experimenting”. I was never put into therapy for it or anything, and looking back this is exactly where my OCD started. I remember overhearing my mom on the phone talking to someone about how “gay people go to hell” (I just want to say that I do not believe this. I am a Christian but I completely support the gay community). After I heard this I went up in the bathtub and just laid there and cried until my grandma got home because I thought what my sister did to me made me gay. I thought I was going to hell for what she did to me. I soon became a severe germaphobe. I would touch something and then all day worry if someone touched it who had some serious illness and I was going to die. I also had severe separation anxiety from my mom. She would drop me off at school and the principal would have to come outside and drag me into the school because I would scream and cry. The next few years I had a lot of thoughts of “I know I didn’t do (insert any bad thing possible) but what if I did and just don’t remember?” I try not to blame my grandma and my mom, but sometimes it’s hard. I always wonder how different my life would have been if they would’ve gotten me therapy at a young age. There was suspicion not too long ago that my sister’s husband may have molested my nephew. My grandma was in the middle of fighting for custody of my niece and nephew, and I wanted to talk to her attorney and tell him about what my sister did to me. I thought it may help the case (because my family agrees that they wouldn’t doubt it if my sister wasn’t involved in molesting my nephew as well) but then I realized I would be harming my grandmas case by telling her attorney about how they didn’t do anything for me as a kid when it happened to me. I’m sorry about the length of this, but I just really needed to tell my story. There are only a few people in my life who know about this.

TW: themes of sexual abuse, exploitation, etc Hello I am feeling a bit distressed today. I realized I have pretty “sex negative” views which I feel like many stem from OCD and trauma. Some of my feelings are good and I would argue most stem from a healthy place but I feel like they impact my life and emotional state on an unhealthy level. For example feel VERY strongly about CSA, rape, sexual exploitation of any kind, unethical sex etc. I have a strong pattern recognization ability and see how so many things people deem as “sex positive” (porn, onlyfans, casual sex etc) have a net negative effect on society (abuse, cheating, stds, etc) I think a good amount of the population agrees with these values so I don’t feel alone in that but I feel like I spend so much time being sad over these things. I used to listen to a lot of sexual music growing up (mainly mainstream pop like Ke$ha and Rihanna) and then in my teens I listened to a lot of rap. I noticed how this made me sexualize myself growing up which makes me very uncomfortable and sad. Another thing which makes me sad is how so much of the population was exposed to pornography at a young age. I recently was at a estate sale and there were old playboy magazines and this man was showing his son who looked to be about 9 the magazines and it made me so uncomfortable because that’s grooming and abuse. I didn’t know what to do so I just said “ew” but I still feel guilty I did not do anything more. I just don’t know how to cope with these feelings. I am also Catholic and the abuse crisis has deeply impacted my ability to practice my faith. Two priests whom were close to my family got exposed for sexually abusing children. This is a big reason I have not been able to go to confession (which leads me to being unable to receive the Eucharist, which is a big deal). I constantly obsess over the fact I won’t be able to tell who is a sexual predator and it brings me great distress. Also, sexual music, sex scenes in movies, sexual jokes etc all make me deeply uncomfortable. Hearing about my friend’s sexual lives also makes me very uncomfortable and sad for them, in a way, if I deem their experiences unethical. I feel very upset when people sexualize themselves. I also hate when I experience sexual feelings myself and often find myself wishing I was asexual even though I wish to get married and be a mother. I feel judged by society for being a “prude” “puritanical” etc which feels incredibly invalidating as a lot of my trauma involves exploitation under the guise of “liberation” I don’t really know where I’m going here I think I just want to know if anyone feels similarly. I don’t find many people with views and feelings similar to myself. A lot of people online who I feel like my views overlap with (other Catholics, radical feminists, etc) have views which stem from a lot of judgement and hate whereas I feel like I just want everyone to be safe and happy. I think a lot of my feelings stem from my trauma but obsessions from OCD? For my other forms of OCD (contamination, harm, etc) I feel like exposure therapy helps but I don’t know how I’d go about exposure therapy with this then without further causing more distress. I feel very nervous opening up with anyone about this theme. If you read to the end thank you so much❤️‍🩹 I am sorry if this post was triggering at all to anyone else I just didn’t know where to go to open up about this :(

I think I know what honestly is what caused my OCD. I’ve never told anyone this but I have to if I want help. When I was either 10 or 11, I think 10 I was at my family’s thanksgiving dinner. Around this time I discovered porn and got addicted. I would watch porn and read erotica. Because of this I guess I wanted to experiment. I feel absolutely horrible just thinking about this but I was playing around with my little cousin, he was around 7 I think and I remember we were playing chase or hide and seek, and I grabbed him and hugged him (something I never done before), and got a boner. I did this for pleasure. That’s all I did that was sexual but I feel so horrible. I try to give myself grace as I was only 10 and didn’t know the consequences of something so disgusting. I keep thinking “what if I went farther and hurt him?”. I talk to him sometimes and he seems comfortable with me and I think he doesn’t even remember this ever happened and just thought I hugged him for some reason all those years ago. I am NOT attracted to him at all but I think this incident and remembering it when I was 14 has caused my OCD such as POCD for all these years. I am 18 now but I feel absolutely horrible. And now it’s even worse because I have been invited to his 15th birthday party in Mexico. I’m traveling all the way to another country just to be near him! Obviously I know I won’t touch him or be innopropriate with him. But what if he has felt uncomfortable with me all this time? He seems fine with me and not uncomfortable around me but still. If I feel as if I go to this trip, I am a horrible person. I don’t know what to do. Am I a horrible person for what I did and continuing to be around him? I remember reading Reddit and Quora stories of similar people who felt horrible and people told them to not feel bad as they were only children and they learned and now know that was wrong and that to not tell anyone as it could only make things extremely awkward.Please help. I know COCSA is a very serious topic that harms people and I feel like a horrible perpetrator now.

This is my first post on this app, though I made this account back in late September of 2021. I grew up in a toxic environment, and was mentally abused by my parents, included being taken advantage of because of my autism. I’ve been suffering from OCD as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a child, I’ve sometimes had thoughts that scared me, and I’d often try to find ways to calm myself down. I’ve had thoughts over the smallest and silliest of things, but as time went on, these thoughts suddenly became more violent, like wanting to step in front of moving car while waiting for the bus, or grabbing a knife on the dinner table and using it to stab a family member. Even thoughts of death and what happens afterwards scared me. Aside from being afraid of a kids horror show for a while, OCD did bother me at points in my life, but they never severely crippled me… until my teenage years. Throughout my teen hood, I would very occasionally suddenly imagine fictional child characters being SA’d. I would also sometimes imagine children getting injured while noticing them sometimes. I didn’t know why those thoughts popped up into my head and they would weird me out, but I would be able to usually push them aside and not think about them too much… but it got worse after I was dropped out of high school without my consent by my parents. In March of 2017, I was at a gas station when I saw a child and imagined doing a disgusting action with them. It freaked me out immensely and sent me into a panic attack. I was able to calm down from it shortly after, but I think it planted a seed into my brain, and it would launch a horrific attack on me the very next month. Me and my family were driving around a town for a special occasion when I had the worst OCD attack I’ve ever had. Every child I saw, I imagined doing something disgusting to them. I was having a full blown panic attack and it honestly felt like my mind itself was being sexually assaulted by this horrifying thoughts. This incident scarred me mentally, and to this day, I’m still afraid of being around anyone younger than me. I tried researching what these thoughts could mean, and I found out about these being symptoms of OCD. After talking with a psychiatrist a month later, I was diagnosed with OCD. For a while, I thought I’d be okay from that point. I thought I could conquer this on my own… but by early 2018, I was still struggling. I eventually came out to my older sibling and parents about what I was dealing with. They thankfully didn’t ridicule me, and did help me with getting a therapist. The first visit with my therapist went alright, but I was an emotional mess after finishing the session. The next time I went in however, I was seen by someone else because my therapist was out. The man I saw honestly felt condescending, and he basically made go to a group therapy session. The group therapy didn’t help in the slightest, and with more toxicity developing in my family afterwards, I stopped going after the group therapy. I did see my therapist at least once I think, but that was it. Ever since 2018, I was silent about my OCD. I was just hoping that someday I’d be free of my shackles both from my mental illness and my toxic environment. Two years later though, a friend (now partner) of mine heard about my family’s living situation and wanted to help get me out of there. I first visited them in 2021, and thankfully I stay with them for the most part. That being said, I was still worried about opening up to them about my OCD. I did talk with them about general OCD from time to time, but never got into P OCD… until last year finally. I opened up them fully about it, and both they and their mother told me that they weren’t upset, and that they understood where I was coming from. I think that genuinely helped me out, and I don’t feel as anxious as I did before. Just yesterday, I finally talked about my OCD to my older sibling (they’re super supportive and understand our parents toxicity). I was genuinely nervous about telling them for a while out of fear of them either abandoning me or ratting me out… but they understood. They were accepting and didn’t ridicule me at all. It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders… and honestly, I think I might have the courage to speak up on this app finally and hopefully find a therapist who can help me. I’ve been suffering with P OCD for over 8 years now ever since I was 18. I just recently turned 27 a few days ago. I’ve been suffering in silence for so long due to trauma, fear, and PTSD. But now, I think I want to take a step forward and get onto the road to recovery. It most likely won’t be easy and it won’t happen overnight, but I feel relieved knowing I have people who love and support me, now that I’m in a better environment.