So my POCD started because I had the misfortune of running into a drawing depicting a child being raped (granted it was just a video game character and not an actual real life child) but now I feel like my brain is telling me I enjoyed looking at that and even I can’t tell whether or not I did. I’m just so ashamed and I wish I never saw it. Soon after that I was constantly trying to reassure myself I’m not a pedophile, that I don’t enjoy the thought of children being sexually abused, or that I’ve never been sexually attracted to a child, etc. My thoughts never leave me; I’m stressing out about this literally every hour, minute and second of the day.

POCD has been the worst thing I've ever been through. I feel like I have always sort of experienced it but not to the degree I do now. I used to plan being a mother to a beautiful family. Now I don't know if I'll ever have children at the risk of having a girl. I used to have intrusive thoughts that would make me feel weird but I could just move on from them. That was until I had to babysit my niece and change her diaper. I want to throw up thinking about it. I got a horribly strong groinal response and I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand why it was happening. It bothered me all day that day and later on I did the disgusting deed of testing myself. I regret it everyday. It's a horrible compulsion and it haunts me. I tested if I was getting off to the thought of her. And of course there was stimulation because of the groinal response. But I hated doing it. I just felt like I had to be sure. After that and since then I haven't wanted to be around her. I stopped planning being a mother, I stopped watching cute baby videos like I used to enjoy because they trigger disgusting intrusive thoughts. After a while I stopped being intimate with my boyfriend and haven't done anything with for months because the thoughts take over and make me feel like I may enjoy the deed more if I was thinking of children. I worry that maybe I do enjoy these thoughts and I'm just denying it. I wish I could be sure. I feel so disgusting and ugly, I've never hated myself this much. It takes over most of my days. I wish I had never changed her diaper. Some times in moments of clarity I am so sure that I'm not a predator, but when I am vulnerable OCD sneaks back in and tells me I enjoy my thoughts and that I should think them. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming that I have to test. I wish I could stop. It ruins my entire week. I feel like a monster. I want to love my life again. I miss life before this. I feel so hopeless most of the time and I can't imagine a way out. I'm scared to start therapy because what if I found out I am a monster? I can't live like that. I won't. I want to cry and scream. Am I alone in this?

Trying not to seek reassurance, but rather connect the dots on my OCD and possible reasons as to why I am the way I am. I have severe OCD (or at least I hope I do) mainly surrounding POCD. I've had symptoms of OCD the majority of my life but this theme has come up more recently. When I was a kid, and i'm talking 6-7, I was first exposed to some really gross adult content online. It was introduced to me by a friend of mine around the same age of me. I saw some really disgusting things that a 6-7 year old should definitely not see. This was not a one time occurrence, as I had been exposed to taboo topics online years to come after that, such as the same friend introducing me to Omegle... And i'm sure you can imagine how that went, theres a lot of genuinely disgusting human beings on there. Coming back to the reason for making this post; is it possible to early exposure to this content could be one of the reasons I struggle with POCD? It genuinely scares me to death because you hear that real p*dos dealt with simular situations when they were kids, so thats kind of making me feel that this could be more than OCD, and I could be a genuinely bad person. My POCD feels so real, that at times i'm fully convinced its not OCD. Sometimes I can't even distinguish the feelings of attraction between a younger person and an older person, except for the feeling of anxiety and fear. Its really hard to explain without going into detail, but it just feels so real. Some feedback on this would be great, thank you all.

I feel like a really terrible person right now, I keep replaying this, and no matter what I can’t remember what happened, it’s like my brain is purposely not letting me think about it. Without wasting any more time, I’ll get into it. Basically, I was at Walmart, and looking at cards with My Dad, I saw anime ones, took pictures of them for my sister, even ones that were anime kids, because I did my best to ignore it, so I looked at a Hunter x Hunter card, I stared at the black haired kid, being all like “ I’m glad I’m not having any thoughts about this, I’m glad I’m having normal thoughts and not thinking anything” I felt happy, then as soon as I looked at killua (white haired kid), everything collapsed. I don’t know what happened, my brain won’t let me remember. But I’ll give bits and pieces. I think that I had false attraction, and something in my head, said “oh, I wouldn’t mind being attracted.” “He is attractive, and I’m attracted to him.” “I remember a girl thinking he is attractive and he is” “ It’s not wrong to be attracted” “ I don’t care about his age” .. something along the lines of that, and now I’m panicking super hard, because I’m worried if I said those things, I feel like I ruined my life that I’m a pe//do and deserve nothing, idk what to do, I feel terrible… I remember when I was having the intrusive thoughts, I was panicking and was worrying, but it kept playing out, and I kept hearing things talk, it was drawn out too long, that now I feel convinced that I was saying those things, I tested it too, and I can confirm that I didn’t say that, but why am I still not convinced? I know I wouldn’t say those things, I was hoping the complete opposite would happen. My brain kept making me feel like it wasn’t wrong and it was okay. Maybe that’s why I’m so convinced I did that. I’m just spiraling super bad right now, I don’t know what to do or what to think, I don’t know if I said that or not… even if I did test it, I genuinely just feel like I said it, and I wanted it, because I still feel uncertain, I still feel like I said it, part of me just wants to be like oh I did and so I can move on, not because I agree with it, I just don’t know what else to do… I’m really scared.