I want to share my story in case some of you are going through the same thing. Especially new parents who are suffering with POCD. About two years ago my mother had caught her father fondling my nephews genitals.. now I’ve gone through my share of trauma such as sexual assault and almost being molested so when my mother told me about what her father had done to my nephew it broke me... the reason being is because bad things shouldn’t happen to children it just shouldn’t! Thus, it made my hatred for pedophiles and child molestors even bigger. The hatred was so big that my OCD decided to use this hate and fear against me it started feeding me intrusive images that I didn’t want to see, it made my anxiety sky rocket to the point where one day I gave an intrusive thought so much thought and meaning that I thought “what if its real.” The intrusive thought began like this it was a simple black and white image of a hand passing by someone.. Everytime I’d go back to analyze it it would change it went from black and white to it looking completely real, then it turned into a hand passing by a toddlers crotch, then it turned into my hand passing by my nephews crotch. At this point it scared the living hell out of me because I knew it wasn’t real however it gave me extreme anxiety and then my ocd started playing the doubting game “well what if it is real it gives you anxiety it must be real.” I lived with my ocd constantly telling me “I was a sick fuck, a pedophile, a child molestor, and that I would go to hell for what I did” but what exactly did I do? I didn’t even remember that occuring? I couldn’t remember yet I was able to see these images in full detail, why? That’s when I decided to try NOCD out and my therapist got me through it with exposures as well as ultimate acceptance of uncertainty. The fact of the matter is OCD scares us and makes us think and feel as if certain things are real, if it didn’t feel real it wouldn’t be ocd. I guess what I’m trying to get at is the way I handled this situation was I looked at it from both sides. Okay let’s say my hand slightly passing by whom evers crotch occurred what was the intent behind it? How is that any different then my hand passing by slightly on someones hand leg or crotch when passing by a huge crowd? Because that happens to all of us. We don’t intend to touch others when in a huge crowd but it happens. Now we can look at the other perspective which is it didn’t happen at all and it’s just an intrusive thought created based on my hatred of pedophiles and child molestors. The point I am trying to make is ocd will use anything that is important to us and distort it because it wants to ruin our lives it wants to bring fear and doubt into our lives! After two years of therapy and overcoming as well as still recovering from my ocd I can finally say that I no longer believe my intrusive to be true. I know that it’s not real however from time to time it does in fact pop up and bring fear and guilt into my life but I have to constantly use my skills I was taught by my NOCD therapist and understand that one it isnt real and if it where real it wouldn’t be what my ocd makes me feel and think it is. The point I’m trying to make is if I can overcome and recover from POCD so can all of you!