This is insanely confusing

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.

fyi: [x] - feared identity So I've had OCD for a while now and even though I'm on a different theme than I was, I find that I sometimes feel indifferent or numb to an act that is completely immoral, especially after desensitizaton and learning that there is nothing that I need to do about the thoughts. I even ask myself "What if one of my friends turned out to be [x]?" and instead of immediately saying "I'm completely cutting ties and never looking at them the same way again" I'm like "..that wouldn't be great, I'd stop talking to them but also encourage them to get help.". Pure OCD for some odd reason made me feel empathy for even the worst, most evil people - not that it excuses their actions, or makes them any less evil, but then it also took that and made me panic about it: "What if you're becoming antisocial?" "What if you're on your way to degeneration?" "Why do you not care as much as you used to?" "Are you corrupt?" "Are you [x]?" "Only [x] would feel empathy for [x]." "Are you justifying these actions?". I feel like it is concerning, it does feel like I'm ignoring something that goes against my values, or that I have lost all values and I'm just a bad person. Especially when I get arousal nonconcordance or GRs: "Maybe I'm just traumatized, maybe I'm okay" turns into "You're okay.. with what? With becoming aroused by these things at all? Have you lost your mind? What's next, you're gonna act on these thoughts and say "Oh I'm traumatized?"", and I don't know whether it's logical or not. When I started with sexual intrusive thoughts I immediately found them disturbing and horrifying, and now after ERP and just living with the disorder for so long I'm almost numb... it feels terrible. It feels like I'm justifying or have become legitimately okay with untolerable, horrible behavior, and I feel like that says something about who I am really. I feel like that makes me dangerously close to acting on the thoughts, or that the thoughts were an indication of some repressed desire all along, even when I know there's no evidence towards that... or is there? Pure OCD has convinced me I'm in denial about something horrible many times before, mainly by utilizing my reaction and moral stance around the intrusive thoughts. I still feel like "If I panic when I have these thoughts, that means I'm not [x] and I'm fine."; "If I'm disgusted by the idea of acting on these thoughts, then I'm fine"; "As long as I don't respond the wrong way to the thoughts, I'm fine".. so what happens when you're told not to react to the thoughts at all? Or on the other hand, not to try and analyze a reaction? Panic. Cognitive dissonance: "Something's wrong, I'm not reacting how I'm supposed to". At the end of the day, I really hope I'm not [x], I really do. I can't imagine not only living with the title of [x], but also with the insane levels of distress that title would cause because for all I know, I'm not really [x]. But I could be, like I don't know if I'm not, and even though I'd rather not be [x] I have to somehow accept uncertainty I guess. That's what I've been told to do - but I feel like it's backfiring. I feel like I'm either a) recovering and meta-obsessing, b) I'm still in poor insight OCD and I'm not actually [x] c) I'm [x] and in denial / having OCD about a real issue Speaking of insight, it tends to come and go but it's been poor for most of the time, even after I learned about OCD.

s-ocd rant/vent I just wonder if any of yall relate to this, it's tough I literally just don't know. I'm pretty sure I was aroused by taboo thoughts, I don't even know if they were intrusive or not, and sure I know I have OCD but this is too far. Like, I don't know if I didn't enjoy the thoughts, and it feels like I may have. The arousal feels persistent and sometimes normal thoughts get caught in the mix leading to real attraction only to immediately become replaced with intrusive thoughts, forcing me to check and panic. I can't tell real attraction from fake, I don't feel as anxious or disturbed as I was due to ERP, and now there's this? Like what is going on? I'm completely confused and also really concerned because it feels like a real issue. Like I may actually have paraphilic disorder in general and not OCD. Have I acted on anything? No, but I'm horrified I might and basically end up cursing myself for the rest of my life, like I'm navigating a minefield. And I only really start worrying after these episodes happen / when I get the chance to do a compulsion? I've been struggling with S-OCD for so long that it feels like it must be something else now ESPECIALLY with these sorts of symptoms. I feel horrible with this, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, and I wanna do everything in my power to prevent this from NOT being OCD. I haven't been engaging with sexuality for so long (out of fear) that I can't even be certain of my likes/dislikes, and where even healthy situations and thoughts feel dangerous, like my mind is permanently tainted from all the bad thoughts that I've had. Sometimes I feel like the intrusive thoughts arouse me more than the thoughts that I genuinely desire and it's tragic - I guess the way it works is the thoughts I want were associated with anxiety of an intrusive thought appearing, and then once it does I start monitoring, ending up with me feeling something sometimes but again, why is all of this happening at all... no normal, rational, moral, safe person would go through this, at least in my eyes. And sure, I've had low / poor insight in OCD before (especially with harm OCD), and yes, I've been in paranoid delusion before but this is just too real. Like idk what other way to put it, it feels too real, and ignoring it feels like denial. And you don't wanna be in denial about being a pervert (in any way) hence all of these compulsions. But then there's the fact that I do have some interests considered odd, but the key is that they're consensual - what OCD (hopefully) is making me afraid of is things that are either morally questionable, don't align with my identity or are outright disturbing. It's so weird - I don't want to have paraphilic disorder / attraction to immoral things, but at the same time I feel the obligation to make sure I'm safe and moral. The worst thing I can imagine happening is not only me being attracted to something immoral, but then acting on it or worst, hurting someone because of it. It's so damn distressing and shameful. And best part? I've lost that distress over time via ERP which is supposed to help, but now it's led to this backdoor spike (and hopefully nothing else). If a magic ball could tell me whether it's OCD or something else, here's how I'd react: "You have OCD. You'll be fine" => best ending "You have paraphilic disorder. You need treatment for something else" => I'd break down, genuinely, like I would just lose myself, I am so horrified of finding this out yet at the same time the urge to figure out whether it's one or the other is crazy - but that assumes both could be the case, and obviously I want only one outcome to be true, so what's the point? You know, I feel like there must be thousands of posts like this on OCD forums. I feel like I'm kinda repeating myself like a broken record, not gonna lie. I've been here before, just with slightly different symptoms. I feel bad for everyone else here with Pure O, hopefully we can make it out of this, and hopefully I'm one of y'all and not some complete degenerate using "OCD" as a catch-all.