Hello, I'm new here!!

Howdy, my names Donii. I have POCD and I frequently fear that I might harm any kids around me, so much so that I physically stay away from them sometimes. I obsess over these thoughts that go against my morals, they don't show up all the time but when they do, I can't stop thinking about it and then I get distressed and try to remove myself and do something to distract myself those thoughts. Like watching porn to try and replace the person I may be thinking about with someone random, or If the thoughts aren't too intense, I imagine the thought as a picture and burn it. I often fear that I am a pedophile even though those are the people I hate the most, just thinking about hurting kids and making them cry, makes me want to cry. I'm in therapy to help me with these thoughts and I've learned that I have these thoughts because of what happened to me as a child, I was exposed to a lot of sexual content as a kid and even explored things with other kids, I'm coming to terms with the fact that kids being curious about each other's bodies is normal although it shouldn't have happened at all. I always think about what happened back then and I think it's definitely linked to the way my OCD brain sees children, it's like I get reminded of what happened. Besides that, I have a whole nother thing about my grandma that I don't feel like getting into right now because this is already very long, but I hope that I am accepted here, I don't have a place to talk about these thoughts without feeling like a monster so I'm hoping this is where I can truly talk about it all.

queend

Date posted: 50w ago

Hello Donii, we see you and you are so welcome here!♥️ I am a fellow ocd sufferer, especially with POCD. I am taking medications and seeing a therapist at the moment. I would like to share a reply which I wrote to a fellow sufferer's post about POCD, so thought this might help. Also I have a son! "i see you dear! it must have been really hard for you to deal with these intrusive thoughts and the shame that is tied to them. i see you and i am so glad that you reached out and shared your struggle with us. first of all, i want to tell you that, i've been through the same thing. you are not alone, i am here sitting with you and holding your hand! breathe with me. ♥️ my dear friend, i want you to know that you are a wonderful person. you being kind to others is such a gift to people even if they notice it or not. believe me, i can't express how desperate i was to even see the cashier at the market smile at me so that i can remind myself that i am worthy& and i am not the person who my intrusive thoughts say i am. i want to thank you as a fellow ocd sufferer for showing kindness to all those people. secondly, i want to remind you that the nature of our intrusive thoughts is that they are ego-dystonic. meaning they attack what we value most. you are saying that you just feel horrible and uncomfortable by these thoughts, and this tells me that what a caring person you are. you care for the kids' well-being. how much we need people like this in the world. our intrusive thoughts target what we value most, so i see that you actually value kids' well-being, and as a mother this makes me very happy♥️ what you have done as a child cannot be judged as evil/bad. if my son who is a child would do a such "evil" thing, this would never change the love i have for him. he is my son & he is a child & he is innocent & deserves all my love no matter what. he is a child of God. children don't care about rules nor boundaries. they just want to discover. this is the nature of children. humans can't change nature. innocence. no human being can judge for what you have done when you were a child. because children don't think like adults. so you can't judge innocence with evil. i see a 22 years old young adult who values kids well-being and would protect them. i would feel safe with you looking after my son for this.♥️ we really need people like you. you are great person and i am so grateful for you!!!" it was this. maybe you can find something from this to make you feel better. with so much love, queend💗

Fatima M

Date posted: 50w ago

Your not alone , I’ve experienced this with ocd

BigGyro09

Date posted: 50w ago

Hello and welcome to the NOCD community! I'm glad to hear that you're in therapy trying to sort all of this out. I have a lot of similarities to you when it comes to your experience with OCD, and unfortunately, exposure to pornography. Sadly, on average, people's first exposure to pornography these days are quite young, with no such knowledge of readiness to understand what's really going on, including myself. The average age is 13, but it could be younger. You shouldn't be blamed for what happened to you here. Not at all. Children and teenagers are going to be curious about things all the time, and unfortunately, there are bad things that can get mixed up with some things like this. I too have a hard time with POCD, and one summer, I worked with children. You could imagine that it's something that I really didn't want to do. Despite all of the intrusive thoughts, awful feelings, worrying about my actions, and making a few mistakes that still sort of bother me, I was praised for my work for the most part despite some exhaustion and being in my phone. You aren't a monster to me. You're a good person that unfortunately went through some bad times that have affected you long term. Again, those experiences are not your fault. I hope this helps. I hope you're able to give yourself grace and compassion for the rough times of dealing with these intrusive thoughts.

niknicole

Date posted: 24w ago

POCD

Okay, so I was exposed to porn at 9. My older cousin came over to the house and asked if I could keep a secret and stuff and then he showed me porn. I got addicted to it ngl. I would watch it whenever I could and would always think about it when I wasn’t home. Because of this, I started reading mangas on this one website and I was still in elementary school when I started reading these I think, either that or middle school. Anyways, there was this one about these kids who did it and I was like oh I’m the same age as them and all that you know so I didn’t think much of it. I would still read it up to when I was in high school but I wouldn’t like read it often, I would just read it because I was familiar with it and it felt like I was still their age for some reason, like I didn’t see them as kids you know, it felt like they were my age. Oh my god, that makes it sound even worse. When my POCD started, I stopped reading that story because I was it terrified me so a little before I turned 18. I keep going back and forth on whether or not I’m actually a pedophile or not. I don’t know if it’s because I was exposed to that stuff so early and my cousin would constantly talk about sex when he was with me. I thought it was so normal to be reading and looking at that stuff. I didn’t realize. I’m scared that my nephews are going to be exposed to that so early like I was. My POCD mostly targets my nephews and now I’m scared that I’ll do the same thing to them and show them that stuff (I never will) or that I genuinely do like that stuff. I feel like throwing up while writing this. I just don’t want to be one. I’m sorry if this triggers you or if this seems like I’m seeking reassurance and maybe I am. I genuinely don’t know right now. I think I just needed to get this off my chest because I’ve been worrying about it for awhile.

Kay_buni

Date posted: 20w ago

POCD has taken over my life for the past years.

POCD has been the worst thing I've ever been through. I feel like I have always sort of experienced it but not to the degree I do now. I used to plan being a mother to a beautiful family. Now I don't know if I'll ever have children at the risk of having a girl. I used to have intrusive thoughts that would make me feel weird but I could just move on from them. That was until I had to babysit my niece and change her diaper. I want to throw up thinking about it. I got a horribly strong groinal response and I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand why it was happening. It bothered me all day that day and later on I did the disgusting deed of testing myself. I regret it everyday. It's a horrible compulsion and it haunts me. I tested if I was getting off to the thought of her. And of course there was stimulation because of the groinal response. But I hated doing it. I just felt like I had to be sure. After that and since then I haven't wanted to be around her. I stopped planning being a mother, I stopped watching cute baby videos like I used to enjoy because they trigger disgusting intrusive thoughts. After a while I stopped being intimate with my boyfriend and haven't done anything with for months because the thoughts take over and make me feel like I may enjoy the deed more if I was thinking of children. I worry that maybe I do enjoy these thoughts and I'm just denying it. I wish I could be sure. I feel so disgusting and ugly, I've never hated myself this much. It takes over most of my days. I wish I had never changed her diaper. Some times in moments of clarity I am so sure that I'm not a predator, but when I am vulnerable OCD sneaks back in and tells me I enjoy my thoughts and that I should think them. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming that I have to test. I wish I could stop. It ruins my entire week. I feel like a monster. I want to love my life again. I miss life before this. I feel so hopeless most of the time and I can't imagine a way out. I'm scared to start therapy because what if I found out I am a monster? I can't live like that. I won't. I want to cry and scream. Am I alone in this?

POCD

Wessers19

Date posted: 6w ago

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.

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