When I was younger, about ten, I watched porn. A lot of it, actually. Idk how it started exactly, but I was a curious kid. This led to me playing doctor with my younger sister... I'd get her to touch me (not in my privates, just the rest of my body) and we'd laugh at each others naked bodies etc. I feel terrible about this later on. Complete shit. I even made her touch my breast one night while she was sleeping because I was curious what it felt like (I saw it on porn). I stopped though. My parents are hardcore catholic and I was afraid they would find us doing it, so I freaked out. This all happened when I was 10, and I regret everything now. I brought it up to my sister a few years ago, and she said not to talk of it again. She seemed weirded out and had no memory of what happened... my mother was even brought in and asked me if I did something wrong. I think she talked to my sister too, but none of us have ever brought it up again. I cant get over it though.

I hope I can. Not sure if I ever will. Do you have any coping mechanisms for it?

I feel the exact same way. Do you ever start projecting how you feel now about it onto your younger self, too? Like I'll start to think of the memories and picture myself as actually wanting to do those things and enjoying it and taking advantage even though that's not what happened. Truthfully, we can never know what our intentions were at the time, and that's what kills me. I feel like a rapist, one of the things I hate the most. I feel like I can never have a relationship because of it either. Ruins my sex life completely.

@worryqueen Yes exactly like you explain. I’ve even been afraid I was watching porn when I kissed my sisters cheek even though I’m 99.7 percent sure I can’t prove it and if I allow myself to go down that rabbit hole it will consume me. I have told my mom, my boyfriend, my psychiatrist, countless therapists & counsellor, my family doc and no one thinks it’s an issue because of the age but I still feel like it’s something I can never get rid of. Around that time too (a very dark year of my life, still 11-12, I found a sex toy in my house, my parents obviously and I tried it out (which I could literally gag about now) but I didn’t see it as bad for moral reasons I just knew it was taboo but didn’t understand fully why. Then when I started to realize it was stupid and horrible and wrong I was around 13 and started actually having real relationships and grew up believing I was incestuous. That is what has hindered my sex life, I’m scared to do anything unconventional like ever use a toy or even watch porn because I feel like it will be me proving that I am messed up if I chose to revisit that stuff in my adult life even though it is a normal aspect of adult sexuality I have trauma attached to it and I feel so wrong about it

@Harper Yeah it's terrible. I need to constantly be told that it was normal, that I didnt know what I was doing at that age etc but I'm too afraid to seek reassurance from my mom and sister because I'm afraid of ruining our relationship. I've only brought it up to one therapist, too, because I feel like when I talk about it I'll get thrown in jail. I feel like I'm not worthy of even getting in a relationship because I'm scared I'll blurt it all out and get rejected, or that I cant have sex with anyone unless I tell them what I did first. Surprisingly I have no problem with porn, but when people talk about rapists I can get triggered and start thinking things like "how can I go against something that I've been involved in?"

@worryqueen Me too, I totally feel for you ❤️ I’m sorry you have something you regret like this, although it is feeding into a compulsion I truly believe what you did doesn’t make you a rapist, to me it does seem fairly harmless. I didn’t want to tell anyone because I did feel like I would go to jail too, but I almost gave into suicidal thoughts and I have a child so I really pushed myself out of all of my comfort zones for him and tried to get immediate help before I did something drastic, although I thought it was going to ruin my life I didn’t really feel like I had a lot of options because I couldn’t live with myself basically and to my surprise no one was phased. Doesn’t make me feel any less better but I do feel like we torture ourselves as a form of self punishment. I have a huge fear that anyone I’ve confided in is secretly plotting to kill me now though, so OCD has a fun little way of burrowing itself one layer deeper once you feel like you’ve achieved some sort of inner peace

@Harper I'm glad you pushed for help :) my therapist also wasn't that phased by it and said it was completely normal. My mother had to keep telling me that I wasn't a bad person, and even my sister (the one I was worried I assaulted) told me it was okay. Funny how ocd can keep you latched onto something everyone else has forgotten!! How annoying!! And yes I kept thinking how my therapist might actually be taking notes and showing them to the police, or my mother. You can never get any peace with ocd, no.

@worryqueen Lol I loved this dialogue. I really did. It’s nice to see that it’s common to have been a really stupid currious kid. On another note I believe we as people need to realize how damaging porn is on our nation’s youth. For me ages 9-11, i was more interested with sex and the idea of it more than I am now. A 23 year old college athlete with tons of testosterone. I’m pretty sexually conservative. I don’t care for it as much. So when I think about that small time in my life as a kid I feel ashamed because like whaaaat. What does that stupid shit even mean to me? In reality it doesn’t mean anything. We gave our memories a meaning whenever we had our onset. That OCD keeps digging in our brain to find proof. It’s tormenting. Again, thank you both for this dialogue. I needed this. I was dying today thinking I was alone with being a weird and curious kid. In reality, we were kids ?‍♂️ and there is nothing we can do to change any of this. We gotta do our best to take away meaning from it. I don’t know, hopefully I’m making sense lol.

@Jayy0101 I definitely think porn can have negative effects on children. It either drains your sex life as an adult, or cranks it all the way up. And yes, ocd just has to latch onto the stupidity and curiosity of our childhood lol. It's so bizarre what our brains can make up, and overthink. You make sense, dont worry. Erp will hopefully do the job of taking away that meaning.

I try not to come on here and do these types of comments anymore but I have never heard anyone ever go through something so similar as me. I agree erp is the way

@Harper My real event OCDs are my trickiest themes by far, not least because when I get overwhelmed by strong feelings that something happened that I don't actually remember, I end up doing false confessions, suggesting worse versions of things etc. And then have the choice between explaining myself and looking like a crazy person and making it fresh in their mind again, or leaving it alone and just hoping for the best. I am the flakiest of flaky flakes.

@Scoggy ? yes, it’s really NOT funny but I am choosing to laugh because ... yup I have soooo been there before ?

@Scoggy Ahh I definitely relate to that one. You can never get the story straight in your head so you choose the worst version you can possibly think of!! And I'm not sure if i should be working on erp or forgiveness for ththis subtype. I've gotten mixed answers about...

Honestly I wish I didnt have the compulsion of reassurance because if I bring it up to someone, I'll get judged 90% of the time because it's weird to bring up but my brain tells me I have to so I dont feel guilty

Yeah but I've acted on the thoughts in the past. That's why I'm upset.

It's the past, but it's a part of me