The longer I have had POCD the more sexual the thought become. Also, a new obsession is that I’m concerned about a certain age and it’s like 6 year old even though before all this I’ve been around my friend’s 6 year olds and even seen them almost completely naked and never felt anything (even though my brain is trying to distort that memory). Now even as I type this I have images of 6 year olds in a sexual way pop up and it’s making me feel like I’m actually full on attracted to them. I also have dreams and these images pop in when I first wake up and on. And it feels like I’m starting to like the thoughts which scares the shit out of me and they won’t go away. I’m terrified!...sorry I’ve posted a lot and I’m a bad place. I can not become a pedo!

Hey try not to do something that you'll regret man. I know someone who had POCD and looked that stuff up and it didn't help, it didn't give them total reassurance of not being into it, really it gave them another thing to worry about. Not to mention you could develop worse ancillary obsessions about going to jail. It's terrifying to not know something which feels so important. That's the same urge that drives the need to confess, it's all about checking and the hope that some action you take can bring you a final resolution to your worry. It really is one of OCDs worst lies to claim to you that there's something you can do, that you could dredge up some memory or imagine something, and it would be good enough proof against the worry that you could use it to dismiss the worry every time. I've been there before with feeling like I've finally done that, closed the case, settled it, nothing bad can happen now. But the thoughts still happen the next day, and eventually my mind comes up with a new angle. It's hellish. You could chase that white rabbit all the way to Wonderland. At some point you have to let it go. I wonder what could help you to let it go. Often, there's black and white thinking going into the way we think about our OCD topic, like ideas that noticing a momentary attraction to something in some contexts would have to mean internalising a stigmatising label, like the worst case interpretation of your experiences. No leniency. Or that black and white thinking can tell us if the fear was true it would be an utter, life ruining disaster, that a chain of terrible things would happen, ending with alienation and death. That's very rarely the case. Taking apart that chain of reasoning to see all the possibilities of the worst next thing NOT happening can really help, as we all tend to focus on the slim chance of the worst, because mulling over consequences plus being in our OCD has made those outcomes feel so vibrant and likely. As well as doing those things, we aim to get to the point where we feel that if the worst was to happen, we would be able to handle it. Stoic philosophy can help with this, as can learning about self compassion and developing a personal philosophy based in it. It can also be comforting to have people who, if the worst happened, would still be there for you. You can ask them to promise you, if you like. It can give you a lot of strength. So, we challenge the black and white, we challenge the catastrophising thinking that the worst will inevitably happen in a chain, and we find ways to develop confidence that we can handle even the worst catastrophic outcomes, and wouldn't have to face them alone. It's all about getting up the strength to do ERP instead of fighting the possibility. ERP won't make you absorb and believe it. It'll just bring those distressing feelings down to where you can do even MORE work on the stuff I've mentioned above, and eventually after consistently not doing the ruminating and checking compulsions, you get the clarity to really see organically that it's not black and white the way it felt and that it's not urgent the way it felt. You will be able to have confidence in your ACT, knowing that you'll act on your values and not abuse a child or watch CP, and you'll know that it's your actions and choices which define you. You deserve to get your life back, OCD is a torture nobody deserves. Be brave! There is no need for you to be thinking yourself into awful dark tangles like this. You're allowed to give yourself a break from needing to know the answer *today*, and just get a little space from thinking about it and trying to solve it. Do something you enjoy for a while and if you get the thoughts and urges to problem-solve, tell them "tomorrow, my man!". You're not neglecting them or being selfish. Nothing bad is going to happen in the meantime. You're just taking a bit of a break. You deserve a break when you feel this way.

And I constantly have urges to look up CP like all day long and I don’t want to give in