how do i deal with this: my friend is talking to me about boys and a hot guy she met at the store today and while she was talking to me i was getting thoughts like "she's normal... she likes grown, attractive guys when i like little boys". this happens often and it feels so real. sometimes it feels like im actively thinking it but the thought sounds more like "she's happily infatuated with men meanwhile i'm stuck with pocd". in other situations when im talking to someone about romance and that sorts of stuff enthusiastically i get racing thoughts that portray me as a deviant. they're in first person too which is scary. i just despise this so much because although these thoughts distress me they come in so naturally it's like i don't even notice them sometimes. i don't know what im supposed to do :\

I can tell you that this doesn’t sound AT ALL like what actual pedophiles experience internally. They know that other people consider them deviants, but it doesn’t bother them as long as they can keep their behavior hidden. If a real predator was talking to your friend, they wouldn’t have been worried by the conversation at all. They might have talked about boys they like too- pretending they were talking about boys that were age-appropriate when they’re really referring to a child they’re attracted to. They get pleasure from dwelling on fantasies about children. They will seek out places to see them. They will search for content depicting them for gratification. They don’t feel disgust the way you do, and they don’t feel stressed out by their thoughts. OCD shows us our worst fears, our worst case scenario, and asks us to do a compulsion to prove that the worst case scenario wont happen. For you, the worst thing imaginable is you being the type of person who hurts children. You should be proud of that. We need more people like you who care about the effect they have on the world, especially the most vulnerable members of our society. You can’t control what you think about all the time. You can think about whatever the hell you want. Your mind is private to you, and you are allowed to explore whatever scenario you want to in the privacy of your own head. You have control of your actions, not your thoughts. You’re a good person whose brain is sending them images of bad things that they hate.

Just relax. Know that when you get these thoughts talking to her instead of getting thoughts like “she’s normal .. she likes grown men when I like little boys” instead of thinking of that because it’s not helping since your saying “I like little boys” maybe replace that thought with “she likes grown men and I do too but I have POCD “

Omg same here, it feels like it’s my identity when it does that, thoughts like these ones can be so tricky but keep resisting giving in.