I know I shared my story before, and people may not be interested, but I need to get this all off my chest (again.) I am struggling because I remember when I was younger working at summer camp I had gotten semi-erections (I guess the proper OCD term is groinal response but I didn’t really have bad intrusive thoughts then) when playing with some of the kids. It only happened a few times, and I have done enough research ad nauseam to know that this can happen to someone, and I do accept that. However, what is scaring me now is that all of the times it happened it was a male child, and I am convinced now this means something. I know I have/never had any desire to hurt a kid, and when I told my therapist this she did not show concern, said all the usual stuff (it’s just a reaction to something on your body/ hormones/anxiety) all of which I agree with, and yet I am stuck here. I truly hope someone on here takes the time to read this and respond, it would help me immeasurably. I know seeking reassurance is bad, but just hearing that I’m not being judged can help tremendously. Please don’t think I’m a sick person.

I’m afraid that it means something perverse, like it’s a “pattern” cause it happened all with the same gender.

Oh no I was trying to say they are not you. Sorry!

@sillybilly Oh no worries! Sorry I got a little panicky. So you don’t judge me/think I’m some kind of pervert?

@figuringitallout This is a reassurance-seeking comment. Why would it matter what this user's opinion is?

@Louw I know it’s bad to ask, I just can’t help.

@figuringitallout You can help it assuming your therapist has taught you how to do ERP?

@Louw We just started working on this issue, and it’s been hard with the quarantine to do nitty gritty work, not meeting in person. But I did beat this once before!

@figuringitallout I'm seeing my therapist over video too. How did you deal with compulsions to confess and get reassurance the last time?

@Louw Hmm. Honestly I kind of just...got reassurance a few times that really helped and that somehow gave me the strength to do the work. Its that initial fear that something is wrong with me/ being judged that prevents me.

@figuringitallout Your OCD is being kinda sneaky here to say that it "can help tremendously" to hear people tell you they don't think you're a bad person, in a way which tries to frame that as separate from a harmful OCD compulsion and make people feel it's ok to give you reassurance or feedback which you analyse for evidence about their opinion of you or prompt them for it. I don't buy that reassurance is uniquely the solution to your current difficulties. It actually seems like you "solved" your OCD the last time by collecting enough reassurance to come to a conclusion about it and then dragged your mind away from it, hence all it took was for a new memory to come up to bring back the whole OCD doubting cycle in full force. If you want long-term relief, you need to tolerate the anxiety of not only not ruminating but actually not having an answer which feels satisfying to you. Or this keeps happening. Loads of us have OCDs which involve fears of being judged and we all question whether our fears are true and we're awful people. You confessed your guilt feelings and obsession and asked people to answer your root fear-questions about whether it makes you "some kind of pervert" or worthy of judgment. You clearly have already heard plenty of outside perspective on the topic from your research and your therapist that says things like "it can happen to anyone" etc, which you say you have accepted, so this was truly canvassing for reassurance, not for actual perspectives- which I think is further illustrated by that comment to sillybilly directly asking for reassurance. I'm sorry I just don't believe that you're the one in a billion case where reassurance helps your OCD. It seems much more plausible that it helps you avoid it. Also this is going to trigger you, but if during these times when you were younger you actually didn't have intrusive thoughts making you over focus on your genitals while playing with the kids then your semis weren't groinal responses, they were semis. They're not the same thing. There are plenty of reasons for those too, as you probably know, including the fact that men get erections frequently throughout the day to keep blood flow going, it's your autonomic nervous system and literally even happens several times a day to people who are in a vegetative state. But arousal can also cause them. We don't get better from OCD by constantly reassuring ourselves that our fears can't be real because we have OCD so it's all OCD to the core. We get better by learning to live with not knowing for sure, not digging for answers and point blank refusing to reassure ourselves or ask others to reassure us.

@figuringitallout And that includes learning to process our feelings of guilt and shame and fears of judgment, and to live with not having answers to or reassurance for those feelings, or concincing ourselves that nobody would judge us. ERP done correctly gets you to habituate to the anxiety of the whole topic. Not just to habituate to the anxiety of not ruminating on it after deciding that you know the answer based on reassurance.

@Louw That was definitely a triggering statement. I do know it wasn’t necessarily a groinal, it was just a semi, which is why I’m so upset. It feels like it means something evil.

@figuringitallout I'm not going to give you reassurance about that topic. I was pointing out that the OCD term for all semis isn't groinal response like in your post, it was an odd misconception. Groinal response is its own beast of somatic hyperawareness and checking compulsions which some people do struggle with for years.

@Louw I do appreciate you clarifying that, it’s actually very helpful.

@figuringitallout Try to consider what I said about reassurance and OCD being sneaky. I know you felt that it got you to a place of being able to get your mind off this obsession and cope better, and that's valuable. Getting your life back even for a while feels good. I just urge you not to rely on that same method this time. The only way to truly get out is through, you'll become a more all-round resilient and emotionally healthy person if you can treat this by processing feelings and learning to live with the uncertainty in full without trying to neutralise parts of it with avoidance or intellectualisation via reassurance seeking or constant research. Feelings can't hurt you or make things come true or control your actions. They only want to be felt. Then they'll go away again.

@Louw That was really wonderfully worded. You’re absolutely right. I think I’m going to read what you wrote to my therapist!