I'm struggling with pocd it feels very real and I'm at a point where I feel I need to go to confess to the police stuff I know I haven't done but have false memories of doing and I feel like nobody thinks like this and very alone.
I feel completely the same. You are not alone! I have a really bad period with my thoughts right now, but it has gone away before! It will get better š«¶
Thank you I've learned people with intrusive thoughts feel very upset by these thoughts and are often some of the most emotionally sensitive vulnerable people and really care. I catch myself crying at these thoughts and feel horrible about them.
@Anonymous Same. It's just hard to get out of that spiral and to not believe the thoughts. And you really have to make a choice to not give the thoughts time. And that's what I am dealing with right now. So it just gets worse. But I have gotten over it before, so I know I can get back there. It is just extremely difficult, because I tend to believe my false memory ocd right now....
It sounds like your thoughts are very intense. In fact, POCD is a really common OCD subtype, as you'll see from the many, many folks posting about it here on NOCD. It seems some part of you recognizes that these thoughts aren't real, since you're identifying as having OCD. Remember, the more you act on urges to do compulsions, the worse those thoughts are likely to be in the future. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who do not understand what POCD is, and so I would highly encourage you to be selective when you choose who to share the thoughts with, such as an OCD specialist therapist. Do you know about response prevention yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riKw294RZMw&t=63s
Ah I've been there...that insane paranoid fear where I feel I need to run to the police and confess all these things that "might" be true (acceptance of uncertainty). Of course it feels very real, that's because it IS terrifying and horrific, trust me I'm going through it. OCD sucks but it will not be your master. It will be hard, and it will take time. Healing from any mental illness requires sitting in the crap for a while...accepting what's there for now, no matter how terrifying it is. Trust me I've been in that same state where you are. This forum helps a lot, and listening to Dr. Steven Phillips on the OCD Stories Podcast was a lifesaver. Just don't give into your anxiety and start looking up everything you can think of to get help, it will ONLY make it worse. Get your information from good sources.
You are absolutely not alone, but I understand how isolating OCD feels, especially ātabooā thoughts. It sounds like OCD is being very loud for you. How do your normally approach those thoughts?
I cry about them most of the time. I also will watch news stories, Use the internet to look up cases of people who've committed pedophilic crimes and analyze it to be sure they are nothing like me which gives in to the cycle.
@Anonymous Do you feel up to challenging yourself to not analyze and look up cases?
@MichelleV - Yes and no because my therapist had encouraged me to also watch documentaries like Jeffrey Epstein Filthy Rich as ERP treatment. I tried to tell her about the Ian Watkins case which she didn't even know of which is the case that really triggered my ocd since his case was the most evil ever and I was into the whole goth scene and liked that kind of music growing up and to find this case out and one ignorant person said those into the whole rock scene love hurting children.
@Anonymous I hope you give yourself compassion and recognize that you are doing very hard work with ERP. The payoff will be so worth it.
@MichelleV - Thank you so much it definitely gets better and community can definitely help cause we all need someone to lean on to help bypass the stigma considering the world is a stressful place especially in today's day and age when things are so tough and there are so many of these real actual cases that have come to light with the scumbags who happened to be famous causing this topic to be so much more confusing but not use it as treatment but at least being able to come to treatment.
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?
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.
Please read this. Iāve had ocd pretty much a lot of my life but never knew what it was until my senior year of highschool. Iām 21 with 2 kids and i believe iāve had pocd a little bit before my daughter was born (which was 8 months ago). It made me start looking at all kids differently and i hate it. But it really started triggering me about 3 months ago. Iāve been thinking if iād intentionally touched or harmed my kids the wrong way, or any kids for that matter. This started giving me false memories (or at least hope they are). Iāve been having panic attacks, yelling at myself, punching walls, praying, and even thoughts of ending my own life. I grew up in a severe toxic household throughout my childhood and teenage life. Iāve never wished that on my kids since i became a dad. I wanna give them the life i never got. I look back my photos of my children and i feel like iām a complete fraud of a dad. I cannot look at my kids or be around them a lot of times. I canāt hold my daughter right. I canāt change their diaper when they need it. Even my son came and was hugging on me the other night while i was watching tv and i acted like a stranger to him. I can very little do this stuff sometimes because itās either i get relief or i push my thoughts as far back as i can. I get scared if i did something to not just my kids, but any other kids in the past. I have such a a great life and such a beautiful family. It was hard and stressful at first being young with a family but i couldnāt be more thankful at all for them. Iām just so lost and stressed right now that i just donāt know what to do anymore
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