so i have a question, before my real event ocd started, i would maybe get thoughts about the memory like once a month if that. after recovery, will it go back to being that way or will i always have the thought pop up

omg that’s awesome!!! i used to deal with hocd but now it’s gone and i’m back to how i was before it hit. so i’m hoping it’s the same with this theme

@ocdsvcks Thanks so much! Did you post yesterday (or the day before) about an event with your little brother and then delete it? I had something I really wanted to say about it, if it wasn’t you then I’m sorry haha but I have a masters in early childhood development and I was going to comment and say it’s extremely normal for girls to do that between the ages of 5 and 8. Not that it’ll help your OCD, but I think it will help the shame part to know that the behavior you showed at that age was extremely normal.

@Yayfortherapy yes that was me! i actually still have it up. but thank u so much oh my goodness. i felt so weird and icky about it. im pretty sure i was 7 years old although my ocd is now making me question whether i was older. but i’m sure it was under the age of 10. but thank u so much for this information it really helps ease my conscience.

@ocdsvcks Yeah, I guess that’s why ERP is the best thing for OCD, because no matter what I tell you, your OCD will still say, “yeah, but what about...” So I hope I didn’t make things worse by reassuring you but I just didn’t want you to have guilt or shame over a normal part of childhood development. Actually, in the comment I tried to post to your original post, I told you that I did the same thing on family members laps as a kid and sometimes I get OCD about that ? but kids don’t realize it’s sexual, it’s more like, “this feels nice so I’m going to do this.” Keep doing your exposures!!! You can get through this!!

@Yayfortherapy YES exactly. the only reason i did it was because i knew it felt good. but since it was my brother, i waited for when my parents weren’t home. ofc ocd is gonna twist that and make it seem like i did it because i was trying to molest him but i just didn’t know it was wrong at the time

@ocdsvcks Yeah! OCD sucks that way. So annoying. I’m really glad that exposures work. I student-taught second graders and it was like, A THING with the girls haha they rubbed themselves all over everything all the time! Super normal but of course it triggered my POCD!

@Yayfortherapy im so sorry :(( at least we know thats it’s ocd and we’re not like crazy molesters or anything lmfao but thank u so much for this information. i just hate that ocd has taken one small isolated incident and turned it into something it’s not. i would never do anything to harm my brother especially not in that kind of way. i guess that’s why ocd is egodystonic. but anyways thank u so so much for this!! good luck on ur recovery :))!!