I want to share this story in the hopes that it will help others avoid the mistakes I’ve made. I’m not looking for pity or reassurance, this is just a thing that happened. Brace yourselves, this is long. In 2015, before I was diagnosed, I got pretty sick. (I actually had puss come out of my eyes and it was the worst.) I was taken to the hospital by my dad then I went in and was seen pretty quickly. While a nurse was taking my vitals, I mentioned to him that I do take pills to quiet my thoughts. He asked what kind of thoughts and I was completely honest with him. I told him of have thoughts of pedophilia. That was mistake #1. When he heard that, he reported me to the police. About 20-30 minutes later, a police officer came in to interview me. I had nothing to hide so I told him everything. That was mistake #2. That was a hard lesson to learn. But I won’t make that mistake again. After what felt like an hour, he left. I was discharged and returned home to recover. That day, I got a call from my work. (I won’t say who it is, but I hear Village People love it there.) When I arrived, I was called into an office with someone high up and a person from HR. They asked me what was going on, and since I still had nothing to hide, I obliged. That was mistake #3. After that I was summarily fired. I was distraught because I loved my job. But they decided to fire me because my job was working with kids. My mom and dad had to come pick me up because I didn’t think I could drive. When we got home, there were four or five police cars in front of the house. Someone asked if I was twicedouble and I said yes. They handed me a warrant and 15 or 16 police officers raided my house. They took all of our electronics, including my mom and dad’s even though I don’t ever touch them. They were looking for child porn but they weren’t going to find any. They held our stuff for a few weeks. When I got back my stuff, one of my good friends cut ties with me. (She worked at the school where I worked at an after school program.) Ultimately the police found nothing. I wasn’t arrested or brought in for questioning. My record was clear but I was ruined. At this point all of my symptoms were amplified 100 fold. The one good thing that came out of this was going to a psychiatrist, getting my diagnosis, and medicine. On a positive note, now, nearly 5 years later, I have the opportunity to work with kids again as a 1 on 1 behavioral analyst. I have a meeting with one of the supervisors on Tuesday and I think have a really good shot at getting it. So while this is a story of hitting rock bottom, it’s also a story of climbing out of the pit. I wanted to share this because I think some people here have concerns that they might be a pedophile. I’m here to say if you’re concerned about being a pedophile, you probably aren’t one. Pedophiles are certain that they are attracted to children, people with POCD are not.