I can’t take it anymore.

Hi, last year I had a trigger with my little cousin that made me spiral. Then that thought lead to another and lead to another thought and another one and so on and I've been feeling stuck (with ups and downs) over a year now. I hit rock bottom in July/August and that lead me to going to the psychiatrist. I am taking meds now, but I still feel bad. It doesn't take as much time of my life anymore but it is constantly back there in my mind. It's the feeling that I'm ignoring and undoubtable truth that soonest or later will come out, or that rejecting, or that I'm resisting. That's why it's been impossible for me to do ERP, because I think it's going to make me want to touch myself and if I do I'll feel bad. And then it feels like I like the thoughts, not only physically (groinals) but mentally??? It's like a brain fog that I can't tag between pleasure or confusion. And that thought leads me to thinking about the alleged "non-offending" ps and if that could be me. And that thought leads me to think OH MY GOD I can't BELIEVE I am a girl in my twenties obsessing over this I can't believe this is my life.

It’s like my brain is doing everything in its power to convince myself and also justify an attraction to teenagers. I hate myself. I don’t want to be this person, but what if I don’t have a choice. How do I get these thoughts out of my head permanently. I feel like my life will never be the same if they don’t leave forever. I can’t tell what is a real desire and what OCD is trying to convince me is a real desire. I can’t do this every day for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone, or I don’t think I do but how do I even tell anymore. This might not even be OCD at this point, I can’t separate my thoughts from OCD thoughts I think because I’ve had OCD for so long so it all just feels like me. Maybe it is me. TMI but I haven’t pleasured myself in like a week because my libido is so low now, I don’t want to do it with these thoughts.

(Long post warning) Hi, I’ve been struggling with severe OCD for six years now. it started in 2019 with my theme being getting sick/emetophobia. it devastated my life. I almost didn’t graduate high school from it. I remember washing my hands for three hours one day until they were nearly bloody while crying and asking why I could not stop doing it. I remember id have to write and rewrite sentences when I did my English homework and that’s why I nearly failed that class. I remember how I would spend up to thirty minutes to an hour pacing the halls of my apartment while my mom was asleep until I neutralized the thoughts about throwing up and I could finally go to bed. I don’t know when it happened, but my theme switched. Sometimes in late 2020 or early 2021, it switched to POCD. It started with a single thought, and I focused on it and it’s been my theme since then for four years. It has been absolutely destroying me. I feel so disgusted and lost and just tired. My compulsions are severe now. I thought they were bad before, but now they’re ten times worse. I can’t eat, drink, change my clothes, walk, or even do things on my phone normally. I’ve developed so many mental compulsions that it’s so intricate and complicated yet at the same time I’ve done them so much that they’ve become normal. An example I have is if im putting on a shirt and I have a “bad” thought, I have to take it off and put it back on two more times (that’ll make it 3 times I put the shirt back on - odd numbers are my safe number). I have to have a good thought on the third time otherwise I have to take it off and put it on two more times to make it five times I put on that shirt. If not that then I just put on a different shirt because the original is now tainted with my bad thought. I can’t open apps on my phone. It’s with the numbers again. If I open TikTok once while having a bad thought - I have to close it and open it two more times and so on. Sometimes I do it up to 30 times. So I just don’t do things usually. I don’t turn on the TV because I know I’ll redo it. I don’t open a book or grab it off my shelf because I’ll have to repeat the action. I can’t even lay in bed without getting up and redoing it even if im exhausted. I just feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do. I feel disgusting and even now my minds screaming at me that I am dirty and what I think is true. I just wish I was free of this, I wish I could just live my life. I’ve wasted hours and days because of my compulsions. I mask it so well around my friends. I don’t do them in front of anyone or I’ve learned to hide it well. But when im back home alone, it goes haywire. I just want to live again.