To our POCD sufferers: You're welcome here. I'm so sorry if any of you saw that other incredibly ignorant post and were hurt by it. I'm not a mod but I know and have seen since I got here that you're heard and valued and totally welcome here. Your suffering is valid, you don't deserve any of the stigma you feel whatsoever, and you're not going to have to face that kind of treatment everywhere outside of OCD communities. They were a *particularly* ignorant person. You'll be able to share your stories over time with people you trust, anyone who loves you will put in the effort to understand, and in the meantime we are all here for you.

Once someone related their attitude to calling people with harm OCD murderers, they seemed to give up on the tack that POCD is particularly special. But seems that letting anything he finds triggering as a child abuse survivor even exist here is unfair on him, so those people shouldn't be welcome. The bent on twisting it into "glorification of trauma" was even more bizarre. Clearly this person is still dealing with a lot of their own shit and felt they needed to lash out. I think sometimes when PTSD has got you bad, you don't have any compassion for yourself let alone any to spare for others.

@Louw You're right actually. Lashing out is usually a symptom of serious inner turmoil. I just hope they learn how to channel those feelings more appropriately.

Thank you Katie!

Ahh, not my theme, it just needed to be said. <3

I have a copy of it on my clipboard but the posts are gone now I think. 'Pedophilia is not a normal OCD thought. Feeling attracted towards minors is not normal in any cases. Get serious help or go to prison don’t post on this app is not for you at all.'. He kept saying that it was his opinion about POCD because it's ok to judge an OCD and then changed it that he was just talking about paedophiles. Maybe he realised it wasn't fair

@ally.bo.bally We are avoiding sharing the comment further. Doing so just prolongs the hurt feelings and conflict

@NOCD Advocate - Katie We should know what comments are being censured so that we can judge them for ourselves.

@Vieira da $$$ilva???? Let's not go down that path please. Let us judge at whose expense? Some people can get seriously hurt by words. From now on, let's let the moderators and health experts assess what is acceptable and what isn't.

@ally.bo.bally The post did not refer to anyone specifically. Believing that it was directed at you is am example of the personalization cognitive distortionhttps://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions/

@ally.bo.bally Those feelings are valid and real. You deserve to let them dissipate so you can move on. No matter how much I've insists, checking will not give you long lasting relief, if it gives you any at all

@NOCD Advocate - Katie Ack *OCD* not I've

@ally.bo.bally Take a deep breath, you are having a big ocd attack! OCD attacks this post because you won’t know the content of the post and will be in uncertainty. But you can do some erp about it ! Sit with uncertainly. I know it is so hard but you can do it. What will it change if it was about you? Nothing! This was a guy who no nothing about ocd. He was not knowing some kind of truth Search on YouTube « ocd attack »there are some great meditation video to deal with it! I am sure you will feel better soon with some erp

@bebrave❤️ Know* not no

@NickC Thank you but no. Health experts are not infallible; in the very recent past my being transgender and a lesbian were officially classed as psychiatric disorders. Finding ways to make sure that people can choose not to see hurtful comments is reasonable, but making it so that we can’t know what the comments were even if we want to is not. This is not about the content of the hurtful comments, which I agree was indeed terrible and misguided, but about our ability to have some checks on how our OCD- healing space is moderated.

@Vieira da $$$ilva???? If that's the case, then the community has already spoken. His comments were flagged several times yesterday and many people both with POCD and without POCD complained about his comments, so they were removed. You missed it.

@NickC That’s dodging the point, which is that we should be able to know what moderation choices are being made on what comments.

@Vieira da $$$ilva???? Why are you fighting with me? I told you, they deleted his comment because people complained about it and flagged it several times. Not because they just felt like it. You want them to repost it again just so you cna see it? What about the people who don't see it today. Should be reposted again tomorrow? What the hell is the matter with you?

@NickC There is nothing the matter with me. Please check yourself. I have no interest in fighting with you. I am saying, as I have been from the beginning, that we should be able to see what comments are being censured *if we desire to*, so that we know what moderation decisions are being made and can decide for ourselves if we agree with them or not. This can be done in a way that does not needlessly expose hurtful comments to those who do not wish to see them. This is undeniably a relevant concern: the video just posted by McGrath in response to people’s anger over the comment, for example, didn’t even mention what the comment was about. That we are here to process through and heal from OCD does not make us children to be lorded over by moderators with no transparency. Their decision was undeniably correct this time around, but that doesn’t mean it always will be.

@Vieira da $$$ilva???? We are on the same side here. Please, you have to understand me. There is a risk that, if we make the comment available for people to choose to see, as you are suggesting, there is a greater chance that people with POCD, or otherwise, will self-harm by using the comment to test themselves or seek reassurance about whether or not they are really pedophile. This is OCD afterall. We all harm ourselves everyday by reading articles about pedophilia, psychopathy, homosexuality or whatever is related to our OCD theme just to test ourselves. If we make the comment available to see, there is a risk that will happen. But this is supposed to be a safe space, so we can't let that happen. Unfortunately, moderation must be done this way, by trusting the people running the app and immediately removing things soppted by the community. Do you see why now? I'm not trying to fight here and I'm really sorry doctors have treated you the way they have. Psychiatry has historically been a very oroblamtic field when it comes to homosexuality and transgender rights. I'm sure it still has a long way to go, but I really hope this doesn't make you completely distrustful of the process.

@NickC I understand that, but “safe spaces” for anxiety are impossible, and are not a good reason to make moderation here completely opaque and impossible to keep track of. People can easily use all sorts of posts & features on this app to seek reassurance, to check, and so on - and then they can switch to their browser and use Google to access an unlimited supply of material for doing the same. Seeking completely safe refuges from anxiety is likely to feed the anxiety, as it turns into seeking certainty and narrows the world that our brains mark out for usas safe enough. When my OCD gets bad, it starts telling me that I don’t have OCD at all. I could easily start using nearly every post on this app to check for the truth of that OCD theme. There are safer and riskier social spaces, to be sure, but nowhere is 100% “safe,” and I don’t think we should seek for this space to be freed from any danger or trigger at all. Hiding offending posts behind a tab or something, maybe moving them to a special moderation zone, and telling the offending individual off, or banning them if they’re engaging in continual hurtful behavior, is enough.

@NickC I hope we are on the same side - we should be. I came here to object to the moderators’ way of operating, not to pick a fight with you.

@Vieira da $$$ilva???? I'm sorry, but we will have to respectfully agree to disagree. I believe we should be trying to keep safe spaces as safe and anxiety free as possible through quick and effective moderation, and that's what we should be trying to achieve for anyone who needs a safe space for their illness, whatever it may be. I'm sorry you don't feel that way.

@NickC Not at the expense of having some control over our own treatment we shouldn’t, no. So yes, we’ll have to disagree.

@Vieira da $$$ilva???? Absolutely.