Can I talk to an advocate who has gone through POCD and SOOCD

Yes that too

@ArtNinjaGirl Does your OCD ever constantly come at you for the things you did as a kid and you look back and feel really bad but it can also be accidents that happened months ago? That's me. I hate it. But I'm more calm now.

@BigGip09 Sometimes, and also from a few years ago

@ArtNinjaGirl Mine was just stupid shit I did as a kid, which is what my OCD is kicking my ass with. Other times it's other events that happened a few months ago. My OCD thrives on anything sexual, which has made me hate sexual things overall. I don't even like being turned on anymore because I feel guilty. How's OCD for you?

@ArtNinjaGirl I'm in pretty much the same boat with my OCD at the moment. When I was 15 I watched a video that I enjoyed watching that I didn't even acknowledge that was bad but was pretty obvious that it was. I didn't take into account of what was really going on in the video and only focused on the kink I wanted to feed into at the time, which is simply feet. What the video had truly contained is fucking disgusting and looking back I'm only just now realizing it since I haven't even thought about it ever since. I'm trying to get over that incident. And I'm still trying to get over the time I saw cursed playlists that involved children on youtube when my search had pretty much nothing to do with children. Give yourself a break, you didn't know it was wrong at the time but now thankfully you do. And you would never go back to it. It reminds me of the time I searched loli on a porn site, not fully knowing what it was, only to be fucking disgusted and filled with guilt after knowing what it is now.

@BigGip09 In a similar vein. My POCD manifested a few years ago after I had looked at some shota hentai. At the time I didn’t realize it was something I really shouldn’t have looked at. It’s pretty obvious now that I think about it. I was already in a dark place with OCD and I was terribly naive, but that still doesn’t excuse it. My OCD shifted from TOCD to POCD. It went away after a while and I had been living pretty alright for a few years, with SOOCD coming back every once in a while but not too strong. I had regained confidence in that no I was not attracted to that sort of thing. What I saw was a dark moment in my history and very stupid and I was determined to forget about it. And then back in November, I don’t know what possessed me to but I looked at one of those comics again. Just one. I had swore to myself I would never do that because of the grief, fear, and disgust it caused me. And now here we are.

@ArtNinjaGirl I'm really sorry to hear you're going through this still. Once again, don't be so hard on your naivety. It sounds like you honestly didn't know what it was and you've learned from that. As long as you don't make the same mistake again even after the first time you did it, you'll be okay. How is ERP working for you? Do you have a therapist? Sounds like we have the same repeated accident in very different ways. I've definitely seen fucked up shit I didn't want to see on the internet, whether it'd be simply browsing social media, on porn, or hell, even on tv sometimes. My only assumption is that you looked at it again in some sort of checking compulsion, which you should not do.

@BigGip09 Yeah. What really made it worse was that I was 19 at the time, already it was a big red flag. And I didn’t even realise it was really bad until about a year or two later. And I just felt so sick to my stomach. Like “what the hell was I doing? This is definitely not something I should be looking at!” I still feel guilty and sick to my stomach. Again, this is something I would never want for myself. I know what I was attracted to (mostly cause of SOOCD) and kids wasn’t one of them

@BigGip09 Possibly it could have been a compulsion. A sneaky one. I don’t know. I am with a therapist, yes. ERP is...not going well. Which is why I’m asking to talk to an advocate.

@ArtNinjaGirl I completely understand. As human beings we aren't perfect. We don't know everything and we're going to make mistakes. What matters the most is that you understand that the kind of stuff you seen is 100% wrong and you wouldn't want to see anything like that again. That shows how good of a person you really are. I hope you'll be able to get through this as soon as you can. Try not to latch onto the fact that you witnessed the hentai, more of the fact that you didn't know what it was and you know see that it's disgusting and your OCD is just trying to alter that. I wish you the best, friend. :) I hope I was able to help.

@ArtNinjaGirl OCD can be one sneaky bitch when it comes to checking. It's common for people to get these intrusive thoughts, impulses, and feelings when it comes to sexual content or whenever we masturbate. I don't know if that's what you were doing or if you just looked at it, but still. They come up the most when we try to do something to take our mind off of it. Maybe try switching up your OCD specialized therapist? It's good that you're reaching out to an advocate about this sort of thing.

@BigGip09 It’s not my therapist that’s the problem, it’s me. He’s been great and so very patient. I just keep driving myself around in circles with ruminating and being afraid. I’m hoping to talk to some advocates and learn how they managed to get through with these horrible horrible feelings. And yes, I’m ashamed to admit I had been masturbating. I just wish I could go back and smack myself and prevent it from ever happening. I would say that I wouldn’t be so miserable and scared, but we all know that’s probably not true. OCD would have probably latched into something else

@ArtNinjaGirl I too had been masturbating during the playlist incident, but I do remember that my intentional searched had nothing to do with those playlists and I definitely did not watch them, but unfortunately it was still enough to make me completely disgusted. There's many things I'd like to go back in time to prevent. I'm pretty sure all of us that are living would want a wish like that. But we can't. We can only move on, accept what has happened and learned from it. And you definitely have learned from it! I hope you don't feel like you have to rush to get better. It will take time for everyone to get better with different, unique approaches. Maybe spend more time with your therapist and tell them that ERP has not been working as planned. You two will eventually come to an agreement and things will get better. You aren't a bad person at all! I thank you for showing this much strength to get help. It takes a lot of courage to do so. I'm proud of you and I'm rooting for you to get better. :)

@ArtNinjaGirl To add onto your last statement, it most likely would have latched onto something else. Literally just as I felt I defeated my themes and felt free, false memories came in and I went back to ruminating over everything all over again. It sucks. :( But it's not forever. :)

@BigGip09 I’m thankful that you understand. It’s like when this spike first started I was so confident that I’m not attracted to minors but of course as you ruminate and such that confidence dwindles to almost nothing :/

@ArtNinjaGirl I understand. I'm not quick to judge people, I am always willing to understand them the best way I can. I know how it can be with ruminating. If you do it enough, it genuinely makes you feel like you're the worst person ever. Wanting for war crimes. Like, literally the most evil person to ever spawn, but once that anxiety kinda goes away you get a moment to laugh at these thoughts and actually be able to brush them off. In the morning, it's stronger, but at night it's much weaker, the later it is. I'm sure you'll be able to get through this.

@BigGip09 I think me looking at that stuff a few years ago was also part of a compulsion for my HOCD. I’m not entirely sure, but I feel like that could’ve been a reason

@ArtNinjaGirl Either that or checking OCD. At the end of the day, you still didn't know how bad that stuff was and you definitely didn't enjoy it while knowing. Give yourself a break, unconditional acceptance can help if you practice it step by step. I'm beginning to become more happy with myself this week, even if I'm ruminating here and there. I'm not doing my compulsions, I'm not laying in bed all day, and I'm actually helping people, which is one of the things I love to do in life.

I THOUGHT THIS SAME THING! And for the most part, it's still true. The rules for animated porn is a little different than real ones, but overall, you'd have to really dig to find cursed imagery of these sort of things, in the dark web like you said. They legit advertise things like that there from what I've heard others say. It's putrid. I'm NEVER browsing there. Still, even without digging that deep, it can happen by accident since the internet isn't perfect and people are going to see really shitty things they don't like. I know I have when it came to Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and Instagram. It sucks.

How am I supposed to move past what I did?

@ArtNinjaGirl Hi, it's been a very long time since this message as you can see. I just wanted to see how you were doing. I've been spiraling a bit looking in my bookmarks and came across your post. I hope you've been better.

Thank you. I just have a few questions if that’s okay. What subtypes do you have?

@ArtNinjaGirl I struggle with Relationship and contamination OCD

@NOCD Advocate - Becca Horsfall Ah ok. How did you manage to get the courage to sit with the thoughts you were having and sit with uncertainty? This is something I really struggle with, given the themes of my OCD

@ArtNinjaGirl ERP is hard. I will never say that it’s not. For me, my therapist constantly reminded me we were taking things in small steps. I started with something that causes me a little bit of discomfort and combated it til it didn’t bother me at all and then moved to the next step. Taking things in small steps definitely saved me from giving up. And then holding onto the truth that ERP works and I could be free from these thoughts. I truly believe you can do this friend! And then one day you can look back and feel like you conquered Mt. Everest!