trying to sit with the intrusive thoughts and fear, it’s so hard. i don’t want this. i just want to go back to my normal self who only focused on what i wanted to and not this shell of who i use to be dying to just live again. pocd is the worst theme, it’s taken over my life. every move i make i am just overthinking everything. my brain tells me lies and sometimes i am so afraid i question if i am just “in denial” it’s so terrifying. i feel so so so much guilt, i would and could never hurt a child, it hurts me to even think about it. it makes me feel evil that i have intrusive thoughts. my brain tells me i am “attracted” to kids even though i know i am not, it’s hell. i’ve been having a huge flare up, maybe bc i am on my period, but it’s super difficult lately. i visited my nephew this weekend and i had so much fun, but of course my pocd ruined it and put intrusive thoughts in my head and said i was “attracted” AND I AM NOT, i was disgusting like ACTUALLY HORRIFIED. i wanted to go home so badly and when i got home i just felt so much guilt. pocd has ruined me. i want to be a mom, i want to be an amazing aunt. why is this disorder attacking me so much. :(

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?

Every day my ocd makes sure there’s a new reason for me to stay trapped in my mind rather than being the mom I want to be that my kids need. Instead i’m stuck in my head depressed and pushing them away. The other day I was braiding my daughter’s hair like I always do and her hair is really long so when I get to the end of the braid I can see her butt in my peripheral vision and I looked down and I immediately got upset asking myself why did I look down?(the ocd has made me question everything I do now). I know it’s just because I was at the end of the braid and I just looked because I was already looking in that direction. A normal person wouldn’t even think twice about it. There was no inappropriate reason behind it at all but of course my ocd latched onto the situation and said I looked down because I wanted to look at her butt. I was so upset and said to myself “I don’t understand how the ocd started an intrusive thought because she was wearing baggy pants. I could understand if she had on tight pants and her butt was more noticeable” and the only reason I said that is because usually the only time my ocd starts intrusive thoughts telling me i’m looking at my daughter in a wrong way is when she has on leggings or a crop top or bathing suit ect. Now my ocd twisted what I said to mean that I like looking at her in tight pants. Nooo! That’s not what I meant but now the ocd won’t stop trying to make me believe that. I don’t ever look at my children in any inappropriate way. I hate this. I hate ocd and I can’t live like this anymore.

I feel like I’ll never lead a normal life again with OCD, my thoughts have begun to be convince especially about POCD. I feel like so sad and down that this will be my life forever. I’ll never get to fall in love again without intrusive thoughts. I’ll never be worth falling in love with. I can never be intimate again. I’m just done, my life is over. I can’t even look at my nephew and niece anymore without the smile fading. It feels like I’m so nasty and then my brain convinces me this is how I feel. That there’s some part of me that is a p*do and that’s it. I’m a disgusting human being for that. I just feel hopeless