I feel like I am going insane. My ocd has never been this bad before. I’m waking up every morning with extreme dehabilitating anxiety. I am gagging and using the restroom all of the time. My pocd has reached an all time high. I work in a law firm and read a very disturbing case involving child abuse and child pornography. Ever since my world has been twisted upside down. I feel like the line is so thin. Like anyone can cross it in a split second and their world can be flipped upside down in an instant. I have a daughter of my own and that night after having read that story at work, my intrusive thoughts and feelings were at an all time high. I was changing her diaper and had intrusive thoughts which I knew was going to, givin the triggering and emotionally draining day I had. I quickly pushed them out of my head and then what happened next is some what of a blur because I have spent the last five days ruminating it over and over and over again in my head. I was trying to get her to lay down in her crib and she kept standing up. I was gonna lay her down in a way that required me to maneuver her with one hand and that one hand would be in between her legs, over her clothes and her diaper. I see people carry and handle their babies like this all of the time but I always avoid it. This time I didn’t. I fought the compulsion to move my hand. Because it is in fact, not a sexual thing at all. But in my mind I had it made out to be. I remember moving her super quickly in that fashion and immediately feeling guilt like I did it in a malicious sexual way. Even though the movement itself is not sexual at all, because it has been in my mind forever as a sexual place I’ve always avoided it. I was attempting to fight the compulsion and now as a result because I didn’t move my hand, I feel like I have done something horrible. I feel so guilty. All because of a quick 5 second movement. I keep imagining me without my daughter, going to jail, her not having me, my family disowning me. I can’t handle the immense amount of emotional distress I am feeling because of this event. I keep feeling like I could’ve moved her in a different way, why did I have to move Her in the way that required my hand to be between her legs? Was it me trying to somehow act out on the intrusive thoughts I had previously? I am so torn apart by this. I would never ever intentionally hurt my baby. Ever. My biggest fear is her being abused. In an attempt to stand up to my ocd and desexualize that specific action, it has launched me into the worst ocd episode of my life.

I began struggling with pocd about 3 months ago. I’m the mom of two boys ages 3 and 7. Soon after that theme started for me, I discovered I was pregnant which was a surprise. At some point I latched on the the “what if I acted on my pocd fears and that is how this pregnancy came to be.” This led to me exerting all my energy to figure out if that was true, checking my memories ect. I began feeling like I had a “memory” even though that memory is very vague and details of it sometimes change when I try to recall it. Anyway, I’m struggling a great deal by now thinking I’ve acted on my pocd fears and now I’m carrying a child of incest. I get thoughts such as “what if I was half asleep?” Ect. And maybe that’s why I can’t remember it clearly. I’ve even gotten to the point of contemplating terminating this pregnancy because I just don’t know how to make it through with these thoughts. I feel like I will have the baby and something will be majorly wrong with it. Eventually tests will be run ect and all of my fears will turn out to be true. Then I will be separated from everyone and everything that I love and have to live out the rest of my life in a prison cell.

Lately my ocd is latching onto my children. In my opinion, for me, this is the most painful and most debilitating theme of ocd. My daughter asked me to help her wash and rinse the shampoo from her hair while she was in the shower because she has thick hair and sometimes she has trouble shampooing and rinsing it all out. A normal, common task for me. At some point I caught a glimpse of her private area and my ocd immediately tried to make me believe I looked intentionally. I know I didn’t and I know I do not think of her or any child in that way but now my ocd has me questioning myself. I was just doing what I always do so I don’t remember at what point I saw it. Was I reaching for and looking down for the shampoo when I saw it or was I reaching up to her hair and saw it as I looked up? Did I look due to just normal human tendency to look where we know we’re not supposed to and if that’s the case does that make me horrible? I’m driving myself insane trying to prove I do NOT feel or think that way about her. I don’t want to live if this is how my brain works. Ocd is evil and this is the hardest kind of intrusive thought to get past. 😩

Please someone shed some insight I am in pure panic mode and might go check myself in to a mental health facility. Well guys.. the other night I was giving my 1 year old a bath. Everything was going great. I wrapped him up in his towel after the bath, took him to his room and put him on the changing table for a clean diaper and pjs. I recall thinking during this interaction how well I had been doing with my ocd the last few days. I then decided to face a fear of mine and glance at my babies diaper area, something I avoid at all costs. Again just to face a fear, I had zero ill intent. This made me uncomfortable. Next as I went to put his diaper on and this is where my memory gets fuzzy. All I know is that I purposely allowed my hand to touch his diaper area. There was literally zero thought behind it I just did it, I don’t know why. I will say I am certain I DID NOT DO THIS WILL ILL INTENT!! I would NEVER!! But I made a split second choice and let my hand touch. I didn’t even think through the action it all happened so fast. I feel absolutely horrible, disgusting, like I don’t deserve to be a mom.. I swear I didn’t do it for any sexual reason whatsoever but I still feel so awful I can’t live with myself right now.