I had gotten pretty good at living with the uncertainty of whether I was attracted to minors or not. However, now that I've opened myself up to dating it's becoming a problem again. I feel like it's something a prospective partner should know at some point, especially if they have daughters. I also question my motivation for finding someone I'm physically attracted to. In other words, I'm afraid of dating someone I don't find attractive because I think that means I'd rather be with a minor who I notice is attractive. I don't know if I made that very clear 🙃.

I was just out a few minutes ago and I saw this 9 year old kid, I felt what I hope is false attraction, idk if it was or not, I don’t understand what I felt, but I felt a need to look away but also a need to look to check if I was attracted or not, when I looked it genuinely felt like I was attracted, idk what’s happening but I don’t wanna be attracted to a kid, I’m convinced I’m a pedo bc of the amount of times something like this happened, I don’t know what this means, but I’m worried it’s not pocd, I’ve never gotten a diagnosis, but many ppl online said I did and I should see a therapist, i don’t know if I liked the feeling or not, but it made me have a feeling in my chest, similar to attraction, I’ve been trying to pursue a relationship with a girl my age, but this just feels so real, I don’t know if it was false attraction or not, It felt so genuine, now that I left, the feeling kind of dissapeared, but it felt like I was genuinely attracted to that, I can’t be attracted to that, I don’t want to be attracted to that, I think I’m just a pedo in denial, I feel like I’m writing all of this to try to convince myself I’m not a pedo even though I am, this feeling only happens sometimes when I see a female kid, Idk if it means something or not, but I don’t think it’s pocd, it feels too real for me, it feels like I’m actually liking kids, I really hope it’s false attraction. I don’t wanna be a pedo, I wanna be able to have a relationship with a girl my age. I don’t understand what’s happening, please help me. I can’t tell if this is pedophilia or ocd anymore. Edit: main thing is the feelings not the thoughts because it feels like genuine attraction, I also get urges to not look but to look at the same time, for me it’s mainly the feelings, they feel so real when I think abt it now I’m still getting those feelings, I’m so convinced that I’m actually attracted. It felt like real enjoyment, so I’m worried that I am a pedo bc of those feelings, I feel like I’m not able to pursue a relationship with someone my age. But this can’t have been ocd it feels to genuine, it felt like actual enjoyment.

I have no idea anymore. I guess this all started with me worrying about whether I was gay, then whether I was a P, then worried about being just attracted to teenagers. After that I started freaking out about not feeling “grown up” enough. Like “I’m an adult wtf is wrong with me for seeing someone who is probably younger and thinking they’re physically attractive. Then I started overthinking not finding older adults (like 30 or 40) very attractive. Like ofc I’m probably not gonna find them attractive, they’re not anywhere close my age. Maybe the desires are half real. Maybe as a 21 yr old young adult I do find older teenagers (16+) somewhat physically attractive. I still think it’d be weird to date one. Maybe that’s the normal reaction I’m supposed to have. If not, please let me know. I just don’t wanna do anything illegal one day and I’m super scared I will. I can’t tell if the fear is my just being afraid of the law though, in which case I might actually just be a bad person. I hate that my brain is just rationalizing thoughts now. I feel like I can’t do the ERP thing of “just accept that the thoughts are there but don’t engage.” Like what? How can I just think a thought that might be so integral to my identity and just ignore it? If it’s all true and I don’t like people my age anymore then I have to know and plan around that, that could change my entire life. I’m rambling, my b.

18+ TW! Involves sexual content I have learning disabilities which means im always going to be 3-5 years mentally behind from my actual age… when I was 14 I remember finding people saying they work with kids “attractive” and I remember mastu*** over a kid around 5+ but when I was 14 I was either mentally age 11 or 9. So I didn’t know it was wrong, and as soon as I realised I stopped. People say I was young and it’s okay but I remember finding people saying they even walked past a nursery “attractive” but I don’t know if this is even the right word. Maybe cute? Because I find different emotions hard to tell the difference between, so maybe it’s cute rather than attractive. I never ever had intentions to do anything to younger individuals, it was just me finding people saying they worked with them etc attractive… which my ocd now plays on, because my friend mentioned they were working with kids but idk if it was the real me or not but I genuinely felt like I found it attractive and it was giving my so many groinal responses which then made me feel genuinely aroused like I wanted to do things. This plays on my mind because my ocd will always say “but you did/do find stuff like this attractive” but this literally stops me from eating, sleeping or anything. I can’t break from my compultions because what if I do genuinely find it attractive. I don’t think it’s even attractive maybe it’s cute? Like I find it cute… but cuteness can give people feelings down there I guess. I think because if my learning disabilities I found it hard to know the difference between “attraction” and cute so I did stuff over it because it gave me that feeling down there but that could of been cuteness feeling. I just need some support on this.