POCD

I have had pocd as a recurring theme for the last six years and I have had OCD for all of my adult life. Saying that what you are going through is extremely difficult would be a huge understatement, but there is good news: No matter what OCD says that you are going to do, or it says what you" really want to do" , or even the extremely graphic images that it can shove in your mind, guess what....OCD can't physically make you do any of them. You are still in control of your body. Unfortunately you don't have any control over what pops into your mind, and when something pops into an OCD brain that alarms the owner of the OCD brain the thought/theme gets"stuck" If you havent done so yet,I recommend finding a counselor here on NOCD to help manage the illness. It would also be good to go and find a psychiatrist to see if they can help get you on some medication to help the therapy for easier. Also I recommend going and doing something that is calming that you enjoy (you aren't doing this to try to escape the OCD thoughts) to help you calm down a bit. Also watch what you are eating since caffeine and glutamate can effect the OCD, and also get regular good sleep. It is hard advice to take (and do, believe me) but you are going to have to sit with the feeling that uncertainty of the future. All we know is that you haven't hurt children from yesterday and the past. And as long as you don't use it to become a compulsion you can say "Im accepting the uncertainty that maybe I will suddenly snap on the thought or maybe I won't, I am in control of of what my body does, and I will not be hurting any children today. Definitely open up to your therapist, nothing you say will surprise them or have them judging you.

I have been struggling with the exact same thing with my own child. First and foremost I want you to know that you are not alone. I have also had a lot of quilt and shame. So OCD likes to latch onto the things that you value and care most about. So you have anxiety and shame because you value children. The MOST hardest part is excepting that you had these thoughts or images. The images and thoughts are horrible and go against everything you believe in. OCD can also make you feel like you enjoy these thoughts or images even when deep down you know that you don’t. The important thing is to realize that these are just images and thoughts. Nothing more. Nothing less. Everyone has intrusive thoughts or images regardless of the theme. (Harmful/sexual). I am very sorry that you are going this. At one point in my journey I was very depressed and did not enjoy my life at all. But their is hope and I believe that you will recover from this! I am still in recovery and enjoying life to the fullest today. I couple of tips I can give- -Most of the dialogue that goes back and forth inside your head will cause these thoughts to become stuck. Just try not to have the back and forth dialogue. -A lot of your compulsions might be mental compulsions such as avoidance of the thoughts or reassurance that your are not a pedophile. It’s important to not give these thoughts any meaning and have a non engaging response like “maybe, maybe not”. You can also come up with other non engaging responses that work best for you. -avoid excessive research of Pocd and pedophilia as that can also cause you to become stuck. - just a reminder that everyone has the same type of thoughts that you are having no matter how graphic or disturbing. Our minds can be really creative at times. -last but not least OCD can take control of your life if you let it. Each and everyone of us deserve a beautiful and meaningful life. OCD does not deserve the power to ruin your life and so I encourage you to remain optimistic throughout your journey and remember that this is a process. It may not happen as fast as you would like but as time passes you will get better. Remember these are just images and thoughts, nothing more then that. No matter how ugly the thoughts are the idea is to learn to sit with the discomfort of having these thoughts, but also continuing your day without giving these thought the attention that they don’t deserve. So again, you are not alone and with time and practice this too shall pass. I also would encourage you to maybe join one of the sexual content support groups. You can find those under the exercise tab. I hope this helps…. Remember you deserve a happy and meaningful life. Don’t let OCD take that away from you.

You are very welcome, something that will helpfully help you also is to remember that everyone gets junk intrusive thoughts. We just have really sticky brains with OCD and when something triggers the fear response, it repeats and repeats in our head to try to "save "us from the thing and ends up looping by trying to remind you(some examples: ) to avoid that thing, or that's probably contaminated and will kill you, or since you didn't check enough if the oven was off you will probably burn the house down and kill your whole family and it will be all your fault, this is the nasty game OCD plays, it will always out maneuver you trying to find certainly because while you are busy going about life, it is also busy, busy watching all the time for a chance to spike up

Maybe you will suddenly snap and become what you fear and loathe or maybe you won't. You get to decide what to do or become. I can't reassure you and feed your OCD.

I'm glad that I could help you look at OCD in this light, as I'm not clinically trained, I still recommend showing this to your therapist to make sure I haven't said anything that might contradict what she says.