POCD / In tears at family gathering/fear of touching? Any advice please. 34 y/o male. Have been suffering with POCD groinal reactions, ROCD, scrupulously, etc for many years. Does anyone fear that they are trying to touch or rub against people? Sometimes this thing will happen where something will provoke me to move my body (like turn around or move out of the way of something) and I’ll worry that what’s actually happening is that I’m trying to rub against someone. This happened last year at a party I was at where a woman walked by and I moved away to let her by, but was really worried that I had actually tried to touch her. The same thing happened again today only with my 11 year old niece. Having POCD, I have had horrifying groinal reactions/false arousal around her. God, I hate this disorder. I would never dream of doing anything inappropriate to her. OCD has been a terror to me for the last few family gatherings. I think something got my attention in the line to get food from the kitchen counter and I turned to get out of the way. In the split second that it took me to turn around, I heard one of the kids in our family (couldn’t tell if it was my niece or nephew) approach. I am really, really worried that I had an impulse to rub against my niece in this split second. I was horrified. I would never ever under any circumstances try to do something inappropriate to my niece, but I’m worried that my body just did it on its own. Turns out, it was my nephew standing behind me and I didn’t even touch him when I turned around. I am relieved that I didn’t bump into him, but I can’t help but wonder - what was my intention? Did my body really move to touch what I thought was my niece? Anyone relate?

Hi NOCD community, I was hoping to get some advice from fellow sufferers. In December we welcomed the first baby into the family, my beautiful niece. Since then, my POCD has been awful, which I know is probably very normal. Last week, in the middle of a very high stress day in my family, I was changing my niece and as usually happens, I got intrusive thoughts about awful things people do to babies when changing them. The thoughts were so harrowing to have as I was also changing her at the exact same time, and I felt my hands just quickly want to finish patting her dry before putting her nappy on, and for some reason, my heart dropped with that hand movement, because I was afraid that I had acted out the awful thoughts in my head, in a moment of mania because my morals, values and heart do not align with abuse of any kind, especially to children. My niece is my everything, and I know I would never want harm to come to her in any way, shape or form. I love her endlessly. I am having therapy, but have only had a couple of sessions. But, I cannot shake the 'what if'. I am tortured over trying to remember what it was I did that made my heart drop, but I can't, and its getting fuzzier and fuzzier the more I try to remember. Could anyone offer any advice on this please? Thank you.

Let me start by prefacing that I developed ocd as postpartum ocd after having my first child. I had harm and pocd. I had it on and off for years and then it just eventually went away completely for many years until recently after a stressful life event. Now that it’s back it again targets my children but now my grandchildren also. It’s been horrible and makes me pull away from them. Last night my 6 year old granddaughter threw up in the car when my daughter was about to take her home so my daughter brought her back in the house and asked me to clean her up while she cleaned her car. I had some anxiety about it because of my ocd but I couldn’t say no to helping so I opened the bathroom door and my granddaughter was standing in her underwear waiting for me to clean and dress her. Everything was fine and normal but then for some reason, I have no idea why, I looked down at her chest area. I immediately got so upset and didn’t know why I looked there and now my ocd is saying it’s because i’m a monster. I tried to tell myself it’s just normal human behavior when someone is standing there naked that you look where you shouldn’t simply because it’s just there in front of you but I feel horrible. I don’t feel any inappropriate way about her or any child but my ocd is saying it was inappropriate. Has anyone else been through this?

POCD I was holding my nephew, he's a newborn, and he was getting hungry so he started squirming around and grazed my chest (yes I was fully clothed). Of course, that caused anxious groinals.. It didn't feel bad in the moment just very very anxious feelings, and without thinking, I was holding his head still right there and I was moving it closer in that spot (at least felt that way) to make the feeling continue I guess. It felt like an urge because of the groinals. It was such an anxious all over my body feeling. I was so anxious and triggered by that feeling. It's like my groinals were so intense I automatically leaned into them? So I ended up having another groinal. After that I put the baby down and realized what had happened. Did I just hurt my nephew without consciously realizing it till after? Is this OCD?