It feels like my OCD has latched onto something else now. All of the things I generally did on the internet in my teen years. It's always about my teen years since I guess I still am a teen. The OCD is beginning to mainly target porn videos I watched and other horrible things I remember seeing whether it'd be on youtube, Twitter, instagram, facebook, and even adult sites. Or at least the wrong sites of all of those things. Usually, when these terrible things come up, they are usually trending, whether it'd be someone dying, a crime, or something disturbing for the average person. I remember seeing things like these and being disturbed in the moment, but I was able to move on at he time. Now, everything is coming back. It's all hitting me at once. It's repeating left and right and I always worry whether or not because I've seen videos like those, it'll mean something about me or target my likelihood of things. Twitter had it the absolute worst. There I found someone being blown away by a shotgun, a hit and run from actual camera footage (I really don't know how people find things like these and I don't want to know. Even safe meme pages I follow now show things from cam footages in the outside world), beastiality, CP accounts, and worrying if I've seen damaging content on those adult sites. With the limited knowledge I had when it was me and my porn addiction, I always assumed that content uploaded to porn sites that were accessible all had consent in them, besides the obviously illegal videos like ones with children in it. I feel like a terrible person for being into porn for as long as I was. I feel bad that I was accidentally exposed by it. I feel bad that I felt like it was something people had to look at in order to fit in and understand what life would be like growing up. Most of all, I feel confused. I'm always confused about sexual things. I'm confused about my sex life, what I want in a girl, and I'm confused if it'll even happen. I'm also confused about all those videos I've seen. We're they all consentual? Legal? Safe for the people who participated? I don't blame viewers of material that can be scattered all over the place, but when it comes to flat out threathening videos and pictures that can be found behind the scenes, I blame the ones in possession to sharing non verified content, especially if they can get somebody hurt. But I'm feeling so awful because I may have watched people get hurt and not realized it until it was too late. I'm not certain of the past or the future when it comes to these things. My OCD wanders like a roller coaster when trying to figure out all of the events that are real, fake, detrimental, life changing, or hurtful. But, I do know this: Browsing all of this social media is a both a bless and a curse. Much like life itself, there's a good and bad in everything. Nothing is perfect, as much as we want them to be. There's the mistakes, big or small, and there's the fulfillments, big or small. All I know is that continuing on, I don't want pornography in my life, and I don't want to try and figure out everything all at once. And that's okay. I just want my mind to let go. Let go of everything. Let go of the past. Let go of the worries. Let go of the predictions. Just to relax for once. I don't know where we'll all end up in the future, and that's fine. Only the present matters. And that's all we can control.

How to I find the grey area in all of the things I basically listed? When it comes to the porn I've seen I could never be sure that everything that I've seen was of consent, I can only hope to assume that it is. Before this year for that matter, I never used to think about these things. I was never bothered constantly by the constant scanning for perfection when it came to thinks because life just isn't person and I have to accept that and make the best of things. How are you do certain that answers to OCD would mean absolutely nothing if true or false? I agree in the sense that knowing won't get rid of OCD and the way it can jump from one theme to another. I will say that OCD has taken a toll on my self compassion and has done nothing but increased my anxiety and depression. If you can recap everything you just said and keep it short, that would be nice of you. Thanks for trying your best to help.

Wow. You weren't kidding when you mentioned grey areas. I suppose they really do mean a lot and ocd tries to strip that away with the concept that is black or white thinking. I guess for the most part when browsing videos or doing anything for that matter it solely had to do with curiosities more than it did knowledgeable intent. I feel like the majority of the videos I seen all came down to which videos I would like and which videos I would not like. And I suppose everybody on this planet has seen things that they didn't like and it gave them some sort of impact. I know for a fact that I didn't know that sexting could be a bad thing when I did it. I know I didn't intend to hurt anyone while doing it, and I believed that it was something I could do while growing up with all the hormones. I guess when I look at it like that, it doesn't seem bad. Maybe not bad at all. Maybe what happened to me is smaller than what it feels like. Maybe it's OCD magnifying the event more than it should be. It's always nice to talk to adults about stuff like this. Adults that pretty much get it all. So as long as I see grey areas in things and block out the black and white thinking, things will get better along with self compassion? Sounds about right

@BigGip09 Why would sexting be a bad thing? It kind of seems like your OCD is contaminating anything and everything sexual with guilt and paranoia and you're taking those feelings seriously. It's definitely good to have self compassion about your choices and grey areas are a great way to do that. Hopefully you'll ultimately be able to apply the grey area thinking to where your OCD is telling you that your normal behaviours are/were wrong, too.

@Scoggy Well you are 100% right about one thing: My OCD targets everything mixed with sexual activity and guilt. It's a crushing combination for me. It only goes after the mistakes I made within sexual things. I don't think sexting is a bad thing, but law says it's not allowed between two minors which I along with many disagree with. I haven't done it for years and I don't plan on returning to it. I take those feelings seriously because it may mean something towards how insecure I really am about my sex life. Which, surprise, I am strongly. But I'm trying to have self compassion and grey areas with everything.

@BigGip09 That's a grey area right there it sounds like. Minors sexting may be technically illegal where you live but it happens all the time on a daily basis, it's one of those in-principle laws that nobody really cares about other than overbearing parents because it doesn't cause any harm. Most teenagers wouldn't grow up, hear about that law and then be ashamed of their behaviour and call it a mistake and try to give themselves some compassion about their mistakes. I know exactly where you're at with this mode of thinking because I've had the exact same experience- not with a sexual theme but about past teen behaviour in general. Years feeling like shit about it, then learning to give myself self compassion, but in some ways giving myself that kindness for my mistakes without bearing in mind that my brain was actually overblowing the extent and severity (sometimes way out of all proportion) of the things I did, did me some damage. I grew more self compassion but a lot less self-esteem and got preoccupied with feeling that others wouldn't be willing to accept me like I was trying to accept myself. The reality ended up being that what I consideres my 'mistakes' are actually by and large completely normal things nobody else would even feel weird about, let alone have to learn to forgive themselves for. I just really want you to bear that in mind, it's important.

@Scoggy So what I should bear in mind is that the mistakes I'm worrying about, even with the risk, happens to a lot of other people, in this case on a daily basis. Here's the thing with the sexting though: I honestly do agree with you in the sense that it shouldn't even really be illegal because lots of people not only do it but it's considered normal. But OCD rarely tackles this constantly and makes me feel guilty for it even though I shouldn't. So I guess the self compassion would help. For months I've been feeling absolutely terrible about this one thing that's happened more than once, but I only really did it because I didn't know where to start with my sexual feelings, so that I thought, was an option. But, just as I say this, feeling confident and comfortable that it's just my OCD and not the real thing, it will come back to somehow prove me otherwise with the heavier, stronger doubts when it shouldn't. Is that normal?

@BigGip09 Basically- don't judge everthing by the worst interpretation the most judgmental, unreasonable person ever might decide to have of it, and then internalise that judgment as being the way you ought to view the thing/yourself. I've learned that the tendency to do that is a habit which is actually designed to make us feel safe. Like, if we tiptoe around and adhere to the viewpoints of the most aggressively judgmental people, then in a sense we are safe from less judgment. "Nobody can hate me more than I hate myself". That's about safety. You seem introspective and I'm very confident you can find the courage to develop opinions and even asserive self-defence which opposes that oppressive, negative viewpoint.

@BigGip09 Yeah, speaking from experience it's definitely your OCD and probably your inner critic too which make you feel guilty for things other people say are normal. OCD, being the doubting disorder, is going to come back and make you doubt, you're right. The key when it does needs to be response prevention- refusing to reassure yourself that's it's OCD/run though my logic/ruminate and go over and over this topic etc, no matter how much you want to. I've also found that honestly the more work I do on self compassion and making being decent to myself into a new habit, the less strongly/often irrational feelings of guilt seem to happen. It's just a matter of proving to my brain that it's safe with me and that I won't spend my time berating myself.

@Scoggy Wouldn't OCD make everyone a little introspective by default, though some more than others? I want the ruminating to stop and some sick part of it feels like it makes me feel safe. I'd be safe without having to drown in my own thoughts. What do you mean by assertive self defense against a negative viewpoint? You mean the negative viewpoint I have right now?

@Scoggy So the sexting, even though it's illegal and the risk of accidentally running into overly disturbing content which has happened to me, the overreaction to that is OCD and I'm not a horrible person in need of a punishment? Did you do the self compassion whenever OCD thoughts got way too intense for you? Or did you just sit there letting the thoughts go? How would self compassion even work in my case? You said that when I sexted as a teen, it reminded you of a teen mistake that made you feel a very similar way. What do I do about this? Is it different or is it all the same towards self compassion?

@BigGip09 Sure, OCD made me more introspective but I don't mean in terms of rumination, I mean that you can see where your own thinking processes are going wrong and the feelings involved and are good at laying those things out. I've seen a lot of people on here with very little insight and who can't really grasp the ideas of self compassion or grey areas as tools to help them quit the addiction to compulsions. I totally agree that rumination is so damaging but makes us feel safe, that's why it's so hard to quit. :( I meant against the negative viewpoint that you've been kinda internalising yeah, the one where you're the worst person in the world and an unforgivable person. Do you think that the guilt you feel about doing something technically illegal but normal and harmless is probably OCD? Do you also think that everybody who uses the internet or watches porn and thus runs the automatic risk of seeing something they find disturbing or society considers immoral, is a terrible person? Like we discussed, there are grey areas, probabilities and open questions here, but most people, on balance, find that the benefit is worth the potential of harm. Whilst, just like with Facebook and fake news, there is debate about how great a risk of harm we should allow, but I've never heard anyone claim that anyone who uses Facebook is a terrible person because they might accidentally share some fake news which ultimately influences an election or something. Those debates are generally about the people who run the sites and laws decided by different countries. If anything were to be mentioned about the people who share that stuff, the most that could be said is that those people are flawed and made flawed decisions. We don't talk about the people because they're just being people, and everyone knows that people are flawed and just make their best guesses about whether an article is true. If there is a problem there, the people sharing fake news aren't it, it's the algorithms, misinformation journalists etc which allow it to be shared at all. The US is pointing to Facebook and the Russian bots deliberately promoting the fake news as being the reason that election was influenced. They aren't hauling every Facebook user who ever shared a piece of fake news up in front of the supreme court for undermining free and fair elections. You have to make up your own mind about your values and beliefs, but I can tell you that the vast majority of reasonable people who do not have OCD, do not consider that technically running the risk of seeing something illegal by being on a porn site, is an immoral choice, just like how driving a car and thus inherently risking being in an accident isn't considered an immoral choice. Those two things are extremely similar, they only feel different to you because for you porn is tainted with intrusive feelings of guilt, and you tend to look to make the facts justify the feelings so that you can know what the threat is. But your threat alarm is going off 24/7 and sending you these feelings. Taking the alarm seriously enough to delve into your ruminations/searching for answers and reassurance instead of ignoring it, is only making that alarm go off more often. I do self compassion with as many things as possible in my life, as often as possible, including non OCD things. I think cultivating it in general (there are a lot of videos and articles on how to do this) will prevent your intrusive feelings of guilt from feeling quite so intense/urgent/convincing- once you feel you're a decent person, the OCD doubt that you might not be one just feels like much, much less of a threat.

@BigGip09 To be straightforward, with your guilt about sexting I recommend you process the emotion until it's gone, and THEN have a think about the grey areas and self compassion stuff which led you to say a little while ago that maybe it's not so bad. That's what works for me. If you just argue with the OCD thoughts with logic about self compassion, it can help a bit but ultimately doesn't stop the guilt and anxiety from coming back once again. That's because you're still treating the guilt emotion as a threat which needs to be neutralised, especially if it's irrational. But that's the wrong way to approach the emotion. It's just an emotion. It's mostly a physical, physiological feeling- it's not a fact, and when you have OCD it's not even a good indicator of facts. I extreeeeemely strongly recommend a book called Letting Go by David Hawkins. It walks you through how to process emotions without rumination/compulsions, step by painstaking step, including suppressed emotions and huge backlogs of emotions which seem to be persistent in your life (like guilt), with many example scenarios to help you to get the idea. It has some woo-woo at the beginning of the book which you can just as well skip, it's not really relevant, just the guy's personal beliefs, and the woo-woo doesn't take away the value of the method in the book. And I say that as a major skeptic/materialist. I can't recommend it enough, it changed my life. When I feel a strong emotion along with a worry, I do the method in the book as described. It can take hours, and the first time I did it with guilt, it took almost 2 days. It was intense, but essentially ended with a transcendent feeling of peace which is one of the most validating experiences I've ever had, I felt somehow extremely loved, and I came out of those 2 days with a radical shift in perspective. It's available as an ebook too I think, I 100% recommend to get it and do what's in it ASAP. I didn't even know I had OCD when I first used it, it's not technically an OCD book yet it fits beyond perfectly to the intrusive, overwhelming emotions experienced with OCD.

@Scoggy So after doing the exposure, it made me feel more relaxed than it did anxious or scared. I enjoyed it like I used to and most of my worries went away during it. At one point when watching the porn, I sort of got this strong feeling that my worries didn't matter and I could easily disclose them as soon as they came up and even after, the thoughts didn't really approach and they still aren't. I don't know if those feelings meant something since they were in the moment, but I do know that how I feel about the OCD does change depending on my mood overall. If I am in a great mood, the thoughts are not there and I can enjoy myself. I don't think I'm doing any compulsions and I'm also not anxious or feeling like I'm in the need of doing any. I just feel very relaxed, and comforted after the exposure that I gave myself. I'm definitely going to look at the book one way or another. It sounds very helpful and it feels like something that can change my life. Or at least the way I think. You've also changed the way I think about porn in some ways in the sense that everyone watch it and there isn't much wrong with watching it.