i fall asleep at 3 every night no matter how hard i try to go to bed earlier, wake up at 7, and then have intense anxiety just because i feel like i’ll get anxious, if that makes any sense. then i can’t go back to sleep. it’s been like this for weeks and i’m so exhausted… i have a handle on my intrusive thoughts and realize it’s just OCD, but i’m still getting the same intense anxiety without the fears. it’s like i’m scared to get the fears.

of course

@LiamC1 Its pretty early for me and I just woke up and I had this thought like what if u don’t hate ur pocd thoughts. Then my mind thought would I have sex with them? And my mind said well I wouldn’t mind it. Now I’m freaking out bc I didn’t have much anxiety and push away the idea. Please help

@Anonymous321 without trying to give you reassurance, it sounds a lot like OCD. OCD tends to try fooling you into thinking you really do want something. it will pass! i get this often. i’ll get a thought about a little girl and my mind will go ‘oh no, i think i find this scenario hot. would i do this if i had the opportunity? i might.’ and that gives me super intense anxiety but after a bit i realize i never would! it’s kinda silly!

@LiamC1 Yea you’re right. It just is happening now because I finally felt a bit better and I know that I never would desire to hurt a child so it’s all the ocd.

@Anonymous321 that always happens to me whenever i start feeling good. i’ve gotten to the point where i can agree with all my thoughts and feel a little bit better though. i know i’d never do anything!

@LiamC1 Yeah I get that. I just hate the idea of being that person. :(

@Anonymous321 me too. i just now tried an exposure and got an intrusive thought about a tween girl. and i thought ‘i find this hot’ and got scared because i also got a groinal response. this is really hard and may have set me back a bit but i can do this!

@LiamC1 You can! I struggle with getting the groinals ALL the time around the subject of my intrusions. It’s horrible. It makes me feel like I really want it. And it’s so scary

@Anonymous321 my therapist wanted me to sit with the image that gave me anxiety and intrusive thoughts, and it was super hard, the thoughts kept coming like ‘if this little girl was alone in your room you’d do something’ and i believe it which scares me because i’m not that type of person at all, this is so hard

@LiamC1 It really is. I understand this completwly

Hey can I ask you something? I’m having a really hard time

@Anonymous321 Sure, I'll try my best to answer :) What's up?

@maybe_maybenot I get the groinals all the time and it scares me. And I’m worried it means I AM that way

@Anonymous321 I haven't started therapy for OCD yet, but everything I've read so far tells me that giving reassurance to someone with OCD will only actually make things worse, so with that in mind, I won't say whether or not you really are or aren't a pedophile. I will say that if you actually look into the community of people who are attracted to children, there are people who identify as anti-contact pedophiles. Basically, this means that they recognize they are sexually or romantically-attracted to children, but are committed to living their lives without abusing or harming children. So even if you do ultimately find that you are attracted to children, it doesn't mean that you are doomed or destined to hurt children. We don't get to choose our attractions, but we do get to choose what we do with them. So, maybe you're a pedophile and maybe you're not. But either way, it's okay.

What I said was that you might be, and you might not be a pedophile.