i think i'm past the point of no return. I can't possibly justify what happened this time. I tested for attraction and I imagined a scenario and I think that I felt attraction or that I found it attractive. I can't tolerate this. I don't know what to do. I feel that this time was undeniable. I felt an immediate spike of anxiety.
Not trying to reassure you or anything but what you’re feeling is a groinal response and it happens to anything. Even when you imagined a scenario, your body is going to respond to it because it’s a sexual scenario, not because of the person you imagined it with. I understand what you’re going through and you’re not alone. The fact that you felt anxiety immediately means that you aren’t a pedophile.
Are you sure? I know I was afraid, I felt anxiety, but I felt as if I was attracted, it felt se&ual. I hope that was just OCD gaslighting me in a vulnerable moment, and telling me that I was attracted, like an inner implicit voice saying "you're attracted, this attractive" and making me believe I was, that it was true. It felt wrong what I saw. If I wasn't attracted, I'm afraid that I might have found it attractive on its own, or sensual. I can't tolerate to keep on living if that's what really happened. This triggering episode that happened the other day weighs heavy on my shoulders. It had sent me in a spiral during the night, I mentally crashed out, I felt like what happened was like an irreversible moment, a proof that I'm a monster in denial, but I kept myself together and tried to avoid addressing what happened. I hang out with my friends trying to forget, I had fun today, but eventually I need to confront it and figure out the answer to what actually happened that day. Is it really a chance that this is all OCD? I know that most of it was, my compulsive behaviour checks that out, but still, it could also be that I might have felt an attraction in my head, that my body felt attraction on its own even though I didn't want it, and I just realised that I was simply denying it. Or maybe it's because in order to check for attraction my brain tried to reproduce its idea of "sensual" and I just felt that it was sensual, but wrong and weird, and I wasn't attracted. I don't know. Maybe it's because it reproduce adult body's features? Was it though? I can't remember precisely. I feel like I'm grabbing at straws. This mental disorder is crazy.
I'm also afraid now that I might have felt anxiety only after, and that in that split second before I might have been actually genuinely attracted, that it was arousal-concordance, and only after realised how traumatically damaging and horrifying and life-ruining was what actually had just happened. I don't know. I don't think I can really replicate it one on one what happened to check what really happened, and more over I'm very afraid abt what I'm going to find out. That my doubts will be 100% confirmed to the point there is no space at all for uncertainty. This is unbearable. People are so lucky that they don't have to fight these type of demons. I'm so envious of my friend living a relatively normal life, but still normal.
sorry, to bother you so much, I'm spiraling. but i don't think i felt a groinal response, everything that i think i felt happened in my mind. I'm very afraid that in that moment I might have believed what I saw to be attractive, arousing. I'm starting to think that I was simply attracted. I'm thinking that i might have had some thought like "this is actually attractive, i never saw it this way, you can't deny it" I want to end it, or find a way to end this nightmare. I want to know for certain that I wasn't attracted. Edit: it just happened again, this time i imagined it vividly se&ual. I was afraid of feeling a groinal response. The scene was very se&ual. It's triggering me a lot that I imagined it, I think what's triggering me it's my ambiguous reaction to what I imagined. I should be triggered-disgusted and the fact it doesn't feel that way bothers me, the thing I'm actually triggered from is the fact that I might have found it attractive, that my fleeting brief emotion-reactions to that imagery are probably that of finding it arousing, but wrong. I should be disgusted. I'm about to cry.
@Nameless000 maybe it's because i'm expecting a certain unwanted response and my brain is simply reproducing it, but it's not genuine, hopefully. Ignore all of this, I'm just ruminating
what the hell? this entire day ive been trying to do ERP right? allowing the thoughts feelings, sensations be there with very little reaction, saying"oh that's a thought", "that's a feeling" don't care" etc. But it seems to be making it 100x times worse. Like its impossible to just"ignore" it, it feels so freaking real as if this was the truth, the doubts are real, the false attraction feelings and lip sensations are REAL and genuine attraction, feels ego-synotic, its impossible just to ignore or move on from it because I think I'm so hyperfocused on it all so it last the whole day. IDK right now it feels and seems as if I lost? like its not a what if but it feels factual like"I'm naturally gay, I'm gay" and it feels like normal and become ok with that. But I don't want that I don't want to be gay.
I’m struggling badly. I did something about a month ago which I now realize was probably testing, but what scares me is I feel like I liked it, which is horrifying. What’s even worse though, is after I did it, I was able to brush it off quickly and not be too bothered by it, as I was still very anxious on other thoughts I was experiencing. Now those thoughts are meaningless and THIS is what’s causing tremendous anxiety, but the fact that I didn’t feel anxiety about it after I did it seals the deal for me. I mean, did feel anxious and guilty after I did it, but I was able to dismiss it somewhat quickly, and I remember that memory came up a couple of times within the month after I did it but like I said, it hasn’t too hard to dismiss it. I really feel like it’s denial. The fact that I wasn’t that anxious about it and tried to justify it/dismiss it HAS to mean it’s been denial all this time, there just no way this is OCD :( Right now I’m anxious about the fact that I might’ve liked it AND the fact that I wasn’t anxious about it for a while. It is really just a torment to ruminate on, and I would never do that thing again, but the fact that I did it and felt like I liked it is beyond terrifying. I feel like I have proof now, I’m trying to figure out why I did it and what it meant, and why I wasn’t super anxious the following weeks after, I mean it WAS uncomfortable to think back on, but I feel like the fact I wasn’t super anxious about it means I was in denial or repressing my true self. I am so so scared. I’ve been worried about this for the past week and a half :( (This is all centered on the same theme btw.)
I know I'm not one. But there is one OCD episode that destroyed my life. September 2024 I was obsessing over attraction, and one night I compulsively imagined a sensual seductive scenario and I was shocked that a trigger could emanate the gaze of seduction and sensuality, and I thought that it was proof of attraction, then I think that for a moment that I felt like I was attracted, I think I self sabotaged myself into accepting attraction and I think like it worked. I still don't know if it was genuine attraction. I felt suicidal immediately later and thought about ending my life until I discovered on my notes that it was a "short moment" and I assumed that it was just OCD; but now I don't believe so. I have confused memories, maybe some are fabricated. I have different versions of what happened: 1. The attraction part was simply me perceiveing the objective seduction and sensuality look and instead of feeling distressed i felt that it looked seductive and I got shocked and that was what I thought it was attraction in my memory. 2. I was actually seducted and I'm in denial 3. I felt seduction but I wasnt seducted 4. I felt egosyntonic attraction and I'm in denial 5. It was a fabricated sense of egosyntoncness, it wasn't genuine attraction but a fabrication, it was a "dare" from the brain, a self sabotage hence why I felt suicidal. I asked an expert and she simply told me that what happens inside the OCD Bubble belongs only to OCD and it has no value, it is not real. And while it's true its entirety happened as a compulsion, as a result of testing an obsessional fear and doubt, I don't know if the content of what happened inside is simply not real. Like when I had triggering POCD dreams. I don't know if it's the same thing when I was worrying abt me being attracted to my mother and I compulsively imagined my parent coming to my bed and felt like I could do it, that I wouldn't refuse, like literally felt like it not hypothetically, maybe because it was a twisted version of it? I don't know. I lost my sense of reality a while ago. Different scenarios too happened where I felt like I could say yes or I was tempted over doing something I find immoral, all of them were a direct consequence of a compulsion but I don't know still, seems too easy. I fear that the human brain is complex enough to allow both things to happen, that is neutral enough to allow a grey area that I cannot tolerate.
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond
