My biggest fear is subtly molesting my daughter. Like not outright and blatantly, but like subtly. if that makes sense. Like taking advantage of diaper changes and baths for my own quiet sexual satisfaction. That is my biggest fear/obsession. My biggest compulsion is avoidance of washing her in the bath. My therapist says to wash her deliberately and slowly with no mental reviewing or thought suppression, or avoidance or anything. He even suggests purposely triggering groinals. I haven’t had the courage to do any of this. However the other night, I did. I thought I was going to wash her without any avoidance. But then my brain said “ooo yes take advantage of this situation. You can use this to get any weird urge you may have had in the past out of your system” and I didn’t have any anxiety about this thought, and I continued to wash her regardless. I feel terrible!!!! I’m overcome with so much guilt. I feel like these thoughts were the motivation behind my action. Where do you draw the line? I am so distressed.

oleanderr

Date posted: 5y

hi! im not a professional but i wanted to say a few things! i feel your intention was different than your intrusive thoughts, i mean thats how intr thoughts work anyway. you were continuing washing without avoidance as your therapist suggested, got a bad thought and ignored it based on what i read im pretty sure that all you did was succesfully complete a suppression of your compulsion :0! theres no need to feel guilty about it while the thoughts we may get are terrifying its a good thing to be able to not feel as anxious about them since that helps with learning to deal with them a ton. when i was researching POCD i even came along a video that said that one of the exposure exercises could be pretending to agree to your thoughts like "ok sure" or outright calling yourself a p*do. im not sure how this works exactly but i have a feeling that it either gives less power to them or confuses the brain, because if you're a bad person you wouldn't have intrusive thoughts about being bad, that would be contradictory

Freemeofocd

Date posted: 5y

I appreciate your response so much. I guess in my heart of all hearts I know it was just another more complex way of ocd trying to trick me. But it just feels so real. I didn’t really ignore the thought. I feel like part of me agreed to it or something. And the thought didn’t feel so intrusive. I felt it coming on and I didn’t suppress it. Which is what you’re supposed to do, but I also feel like in a sense I lost control in the moment. I just feel like the thought cane from me! Normally if it came in I would just be like no way, I’m not gonna wash her then. So in a sense, yes I succeeded in not performing a compulsion. But my ocd is convincing me I got to do something I’ve always secretly wanted to do or something. The thought popped in “think of a groinal” and I did!!! I felt like I couldn’t suppress it. I didn’t feel in control of my thoughts. The only thing I’m in control of is my action/ and I feel like in this case my action should have been to stop washing her. Because I continued, isn’t that horrible??? I feel like I basically acted on an urge. I feel like my worst nightmare has come true

oleanderr

Date posted: 5y

@Freemeofocd yeah ocd is very hard when it comes to this. and you're right you cant really control the intr. thoughts. not the When you get them part at least, only how to deal with them afterwards and i know its hard to believe but you aren't a bad person at all. when an intrusive thought comes while you're doing a mundane thing, theres nothing wrong with continuing to do it because the intent was not evil from the start, nor did it change because of a bad thought

Freemeofocd

Date posted: 5y

I feel like in this instance there is no uncertainty. I feel like the thoughts were there and then there was also an action. It’s not just “thoughts” when there is an action involved as well. This causes me so much distress.

Freemeofocd

Date posted: 5y

I feel like normally I would have uncertainty about my “intention” or “motivation” but because those thoughts came into my head and I didn’t dispute therm I feel like the intention and motivation was clear 😔

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