- Date posted
- 1y
POCD, HOCD, anxiety & confusion
I think I have suffered from some forms of pure ‘o’ OCD for a while now, but I am not sure as they come and go and change with time. At the moment I cannot stop obsessing over the thought that I must be a pedophile, despite having no desire to harm children and no attraction to children. Now even the thought of the word ‘children’ or the sight of them makes me feel anxious and on edge that I will for some reason harm them or everyone will know that I am a molester even though I am not and would never want to be. I also cannot stop trying to look into the past to see if I ever behaved inappropriately around children and testing/bargaining with myself when there are children around to prove to myself that I am in fact normal. It is very hard to focus on anything, so sometimes performing weird rituals like counting to 8 and not stepping on the cracks helps to soothe me, but I have resorted to harming myself at worse moments. Also, when I was growing up, I thought I had sexuality based OCD or anxiety because I was terrified of being a lesbian. I would try and bargain and explain myself out of the idea that I could be gay, and try to find evidence that would prove to myself that I was straight. However, I have since accepted that part of myself and dismissed it as denial, but now I am experiencing similar anxiety levels with this suspected POCD. Now I am afraid that this means I am not truly queer, or even worse, that it is not POCD and I am in danger of becoming a pedophile in the future. However, when I was anxious over my sexuality I think I did on some level know that I was attracted to women, whereas I don’t have a clue where these thoughts that I would harm children have come from. However it was a while ago and I can’t stop obsessing that they are the same thing; these thoughts are extremely distressing so I don’t know what to do.