- Date posted
- 6y
- Date posted
- 6y
It’s horrible / hard / frustrating but we need to take it 1 day at a time. I can go weeks feeling great and living a “ normal life” then the affects that POCD had / has on me we outweigh the good and positive days massively. I know I’m a good person but this terrible shit is something I have to live with 20% of my life ! I wish it would fully go but I don’t think it ever will and I’m trying to accept that.
- Date posted
- 6y
I just don't know how to handle this in a way where other people won't be convinced that we're disgusting in disguise. I know people with POCD aren't bad people. I know they don't ever contribute to the suffering of any child and all they contribute to is their own shame and self-loathing, because they keep getting lied to by their own brain that IF THEY DO THIS FUCKED UP COMPULSION - THIS TIME IT'LL BE DIFFERENT AND YOU'LL FINALLY GET YOUR ANSWER. I wish people knew what it was like to live feeling like youve done every heinous crime on earth without even having comitted a crime once.
- Date posted
- 5y
I have recently moved on to this theme and it really helps to know others have had compulsions similar to mine. I went to therapy for HOCD after being undiagnosed for most of young adult life and I’m mostly able to take a step back and look at HOCD for what it is. But with POCD I feel like a monster. Once when I was really struggling with it I felt the need to check after having sex with my now husband by pressing down on my groin. My initial thought was to calm down and try to “expose” myself to the idea of sexual touch with the thought of a child. I could barely do this for more than a few seconds before feeling sick to my stomach, but it haunts me. I feel disgusting, like the fact that I even had to test myself to try and make myself feel better (I know, I know, this was a compulsion during a rough time, I TRY to give myself a break but it’s hard), is sickening. My husband is aware of all of this and loves me and tells me that’s not who I am, but sometimes it’s hard to believe. We just started trying to get pregnant and I went off my medication to reduce any risks and it’s been, needless to say, incredibly tough. I just want to say thanks for posting this - it’s good to know I’m not the only one.
- Date posted
- 5y
I've had way worse symptoms than you. You should not feel bad at all.
- Date posted
- 6y
I understand what you mean, but it’s what you think and what you know ! Forget others and what they think that’s just fueling the obsession and making it worse. Need to stay strong and the goods will outweigh the bads
- Date posted
- 4y
This is an old post but I relate to you so hard man. Because of my (hopefully) OCD and other problems, I’ve been inspired by music that’s helped me to make music that relates to and comforts people through hard times. It’s my dream, to write lyrics that are with people when no one els is. I wanted to mention how I was influenced at first if I ever was interviewed about it. Initially I thought “I’ll talk about it just not mention the P part” then “I’ll talk about it but just say I had OCD” then I changed to “I’ll say I dealt with stuff” and now I’m too scared sometimes to continue with my band. I have an irrational fear that somehow my therapist would be bribed or the media would somehow leak my medical stuff and everyone would see it’s no one would care about the OCD part just the P. I’d be slaughtered and my life destroyed
- Date posted
- 3y
I’ve had a re laps after 2 / 3 years on this shit topic, I hate it but I know I will get better. Just got to stay positive / active and get support from family / therapists. We will all be ok
- Date posted
- 4y
Hi Anonymous, I just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing with this? Does my most recent POCD post sound similar to anything you’ve dealt with?
- Date posted
- 4y
I just recently realized I had all the symptoms for this. I guess I've also realized I've had some type of ocd growing up as well. When I had my first baby, I had a lot of complications in the pregnancy. When he was born, he was diagnosed with a genetic condition. Because of this I went through extreme depression and anxiety post partum. After his birth I started having images of hurting him and POCD related thoughts. I searched online and found out that a lot of women after giving birth would have intrusive thoughts of hurting their babies physically, sexually and so forth. Knowing this information made me feel less alone but definitely did not stop me from over thinking and doubting myself. The first year of his life I hid my thoughts and depression because I was scared that he would be taken away specially since he is a special needs baby. Second year of his life I was doing my best to get some type of therapy but all those therapy sessions did was express my emotions which was good but didn't help at all in the long run. Now he's 2 and a half and I'm still in this journey. I would never want to hurt him, or any child in the world. It is absolutely disgusting to even have to doubt yourself, this is the effect on this condition so we just have to learn to adjust and learn ways to make it better long-term. Now I'm pregnant with my second baby and can't wait to have them both and love them with all I got. Sometimes I do think that ocd has only triggered to me in things that I care about the most, my children, my health, and overall family. It's crazy how your mind can turn on you with the things you love most in life..
- Date posted
- 4y
It’s crazy how undiagnosed this is and the lack of knowledge behind it. 1 in 20 new moms suffer from postpartum ocd. That’s a lot isn’t it.
- Date posted
- 4y
I've never got diagnosed with POCD but I'm pretty sure I have it. It started like two months ago and it driving me crazy. I feel disgusting and like I don't deserve any good although I'm a great person!!! I've never hurt anyone and I always try to be best version of myself to others. I've told to 4 friends about those thoughts (two of them experienced the same thing) and they all excepted me and gave me the support I need. They all understand that I'm not a pedophile and that I wouldn't harm anyone. they believe me so don't give up guys! There are some good people you can talk to.
- Date posted
- 3y
This is old but how're you feeling now?
- Date posted
- 3y
@luckydawg Did you ask me? I mean, I feel a lot better,like A LOT. so.. that's great but it's still there, the thoughts and the feelings of anxiety But a lot less, thank God...
- Date posted
- 3y
@bluesapphire Ayy that’s me, I’m generally very empathetic and I try my best to treat people the best way I can, I wear my heart in my sleeve and I love showing love and helping others. But now with my pocd and what my compulsions were I just feel downright terrible. I am only thirteen and I didn’t even know it was ocd when my pocd started and my compulsions only lasted a week, so yeah, intrusive thoughts and images are no longer there but the guilt sure is! Anyways how are you rn? I know it’s been years but if it’s possible I would really like to know how you are!!
- Date posted
- 3y
hey anyone in this comment section have any good coping mechanisms? i need something to help i can’t keep going on like this.
- Date posted
- 2y
My compulsions have been haunting me so badly. I have done the deed to my thoughts to see if that would make me feel something and I feel so disgusting that I’ve completely stopped doing the deed all together. I didn’t know I had ocd when I did this and it was a past compulsion I had w my hocd. I feel like a horrible and disgusting person because of this. I don’t know how to forgive myself. I just want someone to tell me I’m not a bad person even though this happened. God I just wished it didn’t happen at all, and that I knew how to handle this earlier
Related posts
- Date posted
- 14w
(Possible TW; mentions of taboo sexual topics.) Hi, I (22M), have been suffering with OCD for many years now since I was a kid, and I suffer with POCD in particular as one of my main themes. On top of that, since I was young I've also had quite an excessive use of porn, which led to me to watching or reading quite a lot of different taboo porn/hentai and erotica. I engaged with a lot incest content, and when I was younger and going through puberty, I (unfortunately) even looked at a lot of animal hentai/erotica too (most of it being fake obviously, but I did seem some real stuff too which also aroused me. This is another main theme of my OCD, and I should stress that I very much regret, and I haven't interacted with such content for many years, nor have I felt the desire to, and the fact that I ever did makes me feel very disgusted and ashamed of myself). Now, groinal responses are one of the parts which I struggle with most, mainly because the feel incredibly real. Often times, my brain will create these very graphic and detailed sexual thoughts, surrounding whatever taboo theme, (it doesn't matter really; I struggle with pretty much all kinds of themes you can think of lol) and a lot of the times, I try and let the thoughts just pass without freaking out or reacting to them, but it feels like the longer I allow the thoughts to sit in my mind, the higher chance I have of becoming "aroused". For instance, if I have a sexual thought about a close family member, and simply let it happen, it feels like my brain focuses on the taboo aspect of it and tries to make the thoughts seem more detailed, or "erotic", and it causes an intense erection, very similar to how it feels when I look at any kind of "kinky" or taboo porn. Obviously this makes me worry even more, because it makes it feel even more real which only makes me question myself even more. It's like there's a disconnect between my brain and my body, because no matter how horrified of these thoughts I am, and how much I want to avoid any of those topics, my body feels like it's on a different page altogether, and becomes aroused, and sometimes even more intensely than it is with "regular" arousal. Another example is through my years of excessive porn use, I looked at a lot of (again, fictional) incest porn, a lot of which was centered around mother-son relationships. In all honesty, I probably do have a bit of an incest kink, but only between people who AREN'T my real family. I don't fantasise about my own family members, instead I usually just imagine made up, fictional characters. I'm so worried that now I've created an association within my brain between that topic and arousal, because of two reaons; One, I even experience arousal when I see people recalling real events of incest (I should mention that through the posts I've seen, it was all between consenting adults. Not that it makes it necessarily much better, but I thought I should clarify). Even though it seems to arouse me, at least physically, I try to do my best to avoid such content because it just feels wrong given that it's real. Additionally, my brain will throw intrusive thoughts at me of my own real mother, and it feels like it causes this same "taboo arousal" that the porn itself does. I do not want to be aroused or attracted by mother in any way, so this in particular is quite bothersome for me. So my question is, is it possible that over the years of watching different kinds of porn, I've trained my brain to become aroused by "forbiddeness" or taboo aspect, and THAT'S why I feel physical arousal from my intrusive thoughts? It feels like in my mind it makes sense, because as I mentioned before my body seems to react to ANY kind of sexual taboo, even ones I never had any interest in at all (enter POCD). But at the same time, my mind is trying to convince me that I'm just lying to myself to make myself feel better lol. I'm trying to look for reassurance, but I would like to know if anyone has any information on this kind of thing. I'm not currently in therapy as right now I simply don't have the funds for it, but I am working on finding a therapist as soon as possible. I apologise for the long post, and thank you all for any help. :)
- Date posted
- 13w
This is really hard for me to post and put out here, I'm not diagnosed with OCD, I just recently started talk therapy. But when I was a child my mom speculated because I had OCD. Because I would have compulsions from intrusive thoughts that always stemmed around SA. Everything for me gets stuck in a record player and a spiral and I can't stop. This is a really concerning and disturbing one, so I thought I would warn again if the topic seems too much for many people. I just recently learned about false memeory OCD and its the only explanation I can come up with right now. I've never shared an intrusive thought out loud but this one is too much. I have been in a really intense spiral lately, where I keep having these extremely vivid memeories of me sexually assaulting people not in my body like I'm sleep walking. It's extremely disturbing and I've convinced myself I have this sort of alter identity or a sleep disorder that is violent. Ive looked up a bunch of disorders like that. I asked a few people if I sleep walk but they don't remember me ever doing something like that, but what if they somehow surpressed a memeory too? I want to bring this up to my therapist, but I have been afraid to because it is so much and a spiral that has lasted for the course of months now and I have ruined my mental health and relationships because of it. I am extremely paranoid that everyone is lying to me or plotting to hurt me. But not because I think they are bad, but because I believe I deserve it. It got to the point where I now have memories of people trying to tell me I am creepy and that I had done things to SA them, along with memories of people talking while I'm not in the room about it. And I genuinely can't tell if it's real or not because I swear they are actual events that I just never put too much thought into in the past or completely dissociated from. (My main response to anything too much or difficult is to dissociate.) It's actually concerning me and the people around me because if it's true then I don't think I should be around society. I don't eat right, I'm too afraid to sleep without my door locked, I am unemployed with no sense of direction out of highschool because of it. It all stemmed from a surpressed memeory , witch who knows is real now, where my ex calls me and tells me I assaulted him, and that he was going to get me back, and that he had spread explicit photos of me. Now I genuinely feel like there is evidence to back up this because he brings up all my coworkers I had at the time, and I have memories of them making strange comments to me. If I somehow assaulted this guy without having an ounce of social awareness of what I was doing was assault then I feel like I absolutely deserve every ounce of mental spiral that is consuming me and worse. And I don't know how to stop this. And I'm afraid if I tell my therapist she might put me in a hospital and my family just doesn't have the money for that, and neither do I as an individual. The guilt would consume me. But I'm pretty sure I have no choice at this point. Because anouther "memory" resurfaced where I took a nightmare I had a long time ago and somehow turned it into me being Sexually assaulted by my father this time, and now I can't look at him or my family without absolute disgust. And I have "memories" of my family trying to talk to me about it but I completely forgot the event and processed it like a dream. I can't tell if something really creepy is actually happening or not but I'm starting to think it is because the way my brother acts around my family is weird but it could be my paranoia and the fact I have been freaking out everyone around me with my mental health. Either way I need to tell a professional because if I DID hurt my ex seriously, I need to take every ounce of accountability. But I don't wanna confess to a memory I don't even fully understand myself. I thought about contacting him several times and asking him if I have ever caused pain, but he blocked me and I feel like that crosses boundaries he has clearly set. Also I don't want to put this mental crisis on any other people, because my family is already freaked out enough. After writing this all out I'm starting to believe I really should force myself to tell my therapist no matter the consequences, I just feel like I need to admit this to a someone to get over my fear of saying it all out loud. Because everyday and every night I keep being plagued by these unwanted flashes of either me being hurt or me hurting other people In really disturbing and terrible ways. and it feels completely real with like context I've made to back it up. Am I unconsciously creepy? I'm just afraid I've become my worse fear and I was it without knowing my whole life.
- Date posted
- 6w
I'm going to preface this with: I just wanna vent a bit. Maybe show you a piece of my and many others' experiences. I just need feedback, not even reassurance. This is what some of if not most of my days look like. I keep asking if it's just OCD. I've been stuck researching and ruminating, anxious, trying to figure out whether I'm having OCD or going into the territory of sexual deviation. My thoughts involve multiple taboos and also fears of sexual abuse. I just can't tell sometimes, and I'm scared. I keep asking myself whether OCD hasn't changed my morals, why I'm desensitized to the unthinkable, and I feel like I am beyond repair. I've read about everything from arousal nonconcordance, to groinals, to even false attraction - and I'm not sure if it isn't just all cope to deny a real problem. Did I get desensitized when it came to Harm OCD too? Sure. Was I panicking? You bet I was. But it once again feels like OCD has gathered enough evidence to make me anxious again. It all feels too real, like too much. I've been anxious for the past few hours just stuck. Pure O is a living hell - if it still is Pure O. I keep looking into my past, asking myself "Does this increase the risk of me being a pervert?" "I've heard childhood trauma can lead to paraphilia - what if that's happening?" "I was exposed to NSFW at a young age - oh my god, what if I end up being a r*pist?". I question every decision I've made, my reactions and behavior, I look for symptoms to confirm or deny whether I am a sociopathic deviant. I avoid certain situations because I fear getting the intrusive thoughts, experiencing attraction or straight up finding out I'm someone I don't want to be (even though all of that sounds absolutely insane and irrational). Whenever I see a trigger, I immediately start checking if I'm feeling something. I can't even look in the general direction of it because I'm afraid I will feel something. I tend to physically avoid triggers. Sometimes I feel like people around me can sense my OCD and look at me because of it, then stay away from me from sheer disgust. Sometimes I'm afraid of even my own imagination - it's very vivid and detailed which would be a great thing.. if I didn't have OCD to use it against me by giving me mental images of the most disgusting and abhorrent scenes imaginable. I'm afraid of doing art because I feel like I'll lose control and draw something deeply disturbing, or somehow uncover some hidden truth about me in the process. It really sucks. I can't be the only one in this, right?? I can't be the first person on planet earth to have gone through this exact torment? You guys, I just need advice / support. Please, to anyone who's gone through something similar, feel free to share your experiences. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, seriously.
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