Example of OCD spiral. Automatic Thought Record.

Got triggered and I tried to do an OCD homework, but I failed: when writing the "automatic thoughts" I fell to an OCD cycle and ruminated and reviewed the triggering episode. But I will try to abide to the objective of the homework itself, which is doing the challenging part. This is what an "Automatic Thought Record" is supposed to look like: trigger (what set you off?) -> automatic thoughts (what is OCD saying?) -> challenge (what is an alternative to the distorted thinking?) Automatic Thought Record: Trigger [What set you off?] I saw on instagram a reel of girl playing the violin and I noticed that her chest area was unusually big, and I got triggered by it because I couldn't tell the girl's age because the video was quite blurry but was very suspicious that she looked young, that's what triggered me. I really wanted to be reassured that she was an adult. I don't think I felt any attraction, I was immediately worried because I saw the two things at the same time: the fact that she looked young but that you couldn't tell clearly and the fact that the chest area was noticeable. Automatic thought [What is OCD saying?] You noticing the chest area means that you're attracted. Also you can't quite understand the age of the girl, so you need to find a way to know that to disproof this fear so you can feel okay again. All the things that I did wrong: 1. I compulsively looked at the girl trying to figure out her age, looking for characteristics that disproved my fears and confirmed she was like my age. Was also trying to avoid looking at the triggering area but I couldn't help noticing it. At one point I compulsively stared at it, trying to see if I was attracted. 2. I needed to verify the age, couldn't let the uncertainty be there. Found out she was fourteen in a post where she clearly looked that age and there wasn't any noticeable triggering element, looked very different from the first post I saw. Got triggered a lot more by this fact. Wondered if I could have been actually attracted when I first noticed the chest area. Or if I noticed just for itself and without any ulterior ill intentions. Tried to reassure myself and practice uncertainty. Wondered once more if I would have allowed myself to be attracted if she were an adult but with the same physic in the video. Second trigger that it's refraining from moving on, all the thoughts that I had: I had an unwanted terrible association that I feel a monster for even thinking about it. I don't want to write it, I feel like a ****, it feels unforgivable and a proof of my fears. In the video where you couldn't really tell her age, the green colored dress and the blurred face's head shape reminded me of an adult-video actress that once wore a green dress. Does this association means that I se&ualized the girl? If I think rationally about it I know that these two things are different and my emotional reaction two each of them are different and that the one that I'm really attracted by is the adult woman and not the young girl. If I think rationally I know that this association happened randomly and not with ill intentions, because I found an unwanted similarity. I don't know if it was unwanted, it become later because it triggered me, but it was a similarity that came out randomly, with no moral attachments. But what in my head makes me feel all the more creepy and gross is that the association initially started because of the noticeable chest with the green dress, that is what I think prompted me to think about the other adult woman, so it must have been an association of some kind of se&ual nature, right? Did I like watching that girl? Did I look for her age because I WANTED to be attracted? Is that why I made such an association? Because of this association happened I feel more triggered, and I'm afraid that when I'm going to see a video of that adult actress I'm going to think about that association and that I'm going to like it. I don't want it to be this association at all, but it didn't feel like an irrational one, it was a believable connection, the similitude in my head was there and I didn't want it to be similar but it really does. Maybe if I check again I can disprove this association but once it happened everything that I did felt like it was corroborating the association, like I didn't think the head shape would be similar but when I checked it felt like it kinda did. After reading a segment of the "Mindfulness Workbook for OCD" I came to the conclusion that maybe that association happened because I saw adult characteristics, and the association was limited only to that part, it didn't correlate with the fact that she looked young, those are two separate things, in fact the young part came in later to confront the unconsidered dangers of that association. What happened probably wasn't even an association, I was just reminded of that adult woman from the green dress, and then when I got worried about it the association happened, and I got all the more triggered when I noticed that the head shape was kinda similar, and then I spiraled trying to confirm and deny the evidence and a lot of things that I said in this paragraph are not real but conditioned by OCD. 4. On second watch, how could I not know she was young? You could tell she had a small face. Maybe I wanted to reassure myself so much because I noticed the chest area and I couldn't tolerate that because she looked ambiguous at first so in order for me to be okay with having noticed that chest area was for me to look for adult characteristics, and to grab on to that hope. Also it's probably because there were times that I thought a girl looked a bit young but was actually an adult, and maybe I was hoping that it would also be this case so that I could go on with the day without obsessing about the episode, de-triggering myself. Challenge: Ignoring all of this. Not engaging with it and moving forward having uncertainty. Accepting this triggering episode in all of its aspects. Maybe yes maybe not, uncertainty in this case means winning over OCD, even if you feel bad about it. Realising that I'm overthinking and blowing things out of proportions, nothing really happened, I'm just exaggerating because of OCD. After considerations and worries: 1. After reading this OCD book I'm aware that all people have postpubescent markers and that is normal to notice it, noticing doesn't mean having se&ual desire, but because of OCD it mutates into something sinister by the subsequent analysis from OCD itself. 2. It bothers me the fact that I found the young girl's age ambiguous and that I didn't realise sooner 3. I was so uncomfortable in all the scenarios of this one episode, because I needed to check instead of just being okay with it, which is what the people I'm scared of being actually do. So I know that I'm not attracted to young girls (and I don't want to be). That's a fact, because it sent me in a spiral. If it was an adult instead I woud have felt comfortable and wouldn't have obsessed about this one particular episode for like 2 hours. 4. Obviously the association that happened later triggered me heavily 5. Fear of instagram analytics misunderstanding why I looked at that video many times, and the fact that I clicked at the tagged profile and the orchestra account to find informations about the age. 6. When writing this I had images in my head of the young girl, but I didn't "mind" it, I didn't realise they were appearing in my head. Were they actual intrusive images or just memories? And it they were memories, was I not paying attention because I liked those images or because of the effects of this (half-assed) session of ERP not making me care? The truth is that I will never know because OCD is the doubt disorder, but the chances are that is nothing like what I'm scared of it being. 7. Needing to move on from all of this without the reassurance of a second party.