This is going to be a post that talks about sexual OCD, real events, and POCD. People 18 AND OLDER please. I actually have something that bothers me from time to time about OCD. The topic of that is avoidance. Masturbation is a problem for me. Everybody knows what it is, most of us have done it, yet we don't talk about it. Is it avoidance if I choose not to masturbate because of the guilt I feel after? Should I not do it because of the sexual intrusive thoughts that come up? Should I avoid it completely because I don't want to be addicted to it or be deemed a pervert? When I do it, pornography is not only not used, not needed, but not preferred. I don't know if avoiding it will help me or make me feel better about myself. On one hand I want to control my urges but on the other I feel like I'm restricting myself from what's being used as a harmless sexual release. This confuses me a lot. I find myself only doing it so the feelings of arousal, groinals, and urges go away completely but they come back. Is there a way for it to go away long term or should I get used to it?

Is anyone with POCD dealing with the intrusive thoughts happening more when they are watching something and it mentions anything sexual ? Every time anything like that is mention, the Intrusive thoughts get really bad. Similar thing with if I do something like masturbate. I haven’t done it in weeks because I’ve been so scared to. I hate when the thoughts happen and I feel like a terrible person (especially because of when they come) also, sorry if this is tmi, I just need to get it off my chest and hear about other people’s experiences. Anyway, I tried to masturbate again, and the intrusive thoughts happened again and an image of a child would just pop up in my mind, and I would stop immediately, and then when I forced myself to think of something else, I tried again and then the thoughts came back. It’s so frustrating, I can’t do anything g anymore without intrusive thoughts ruining it and making me feel disgusting and horrible ! It makes me feel even worse that the thoughts happen when I’m doing something like this because I feel so guilty and OCD can trick your brain into thinking you enjoy it, but I know I don’t because I would never do anything to hurt a child. Ever ! I would rather hurt myself. And then afterwards when I was trying to get asleep, the worry kicked in and I thought ‘omg what if I continued to masturbate when the intrusive thoughts came and I enjoyed it ?’ So now obviously I’m worried that I did, and now I can’t decipher between if I actually did that or if I didn’t, and now false memories is making the situation even worse by making me think that I purposely thought of the thoughts whilst I was masturbating, and now I just feel awful and guilty. Or ‘omg what if I am actually a pedophile’ and then I kept trying to test my reactions by thinking of a child to check that I was disgusted by the idea, and if I wasn’t completely uncomfortable then I would begin to worry more, thinking that I somehow enjoyed it. Honestly, OCD is torture. To whoever’s reading this, I hope you’re having a good/okay day with your OCD and I hope you’re happy today. This illness sucks and I’m sorry that all of us have to deal with it. Sometimes I wish I would get amnesia or something and forget that I have all these thoughts and all the things that OCD convinced me of, and I know that sounds horrible, but sometimes I think that’s the only way I can get better and forget about this. Or I think ‘wouldn’t it be so good if someone invented a device that could just take all the bad thoughts away and I wouldn’t even know I ever had them’

18+ only Aside from anxiety and intrusive thoughts, which to be honest I'm not as bothered by them like I used to be, there's something else that bothers me just as much, if not more than those things combined. That bothersome thing is pornography. It's been a bother in my life ever since I first discovered it when I was very young. It's always been messing with me. It's like this dirty secret that I engage with and I honestly don't know why I still do to this day. It doesn't help me. I feel bad about it every single time. It amplifies my anxiety and the other day it hurt a friend I deeply care about. The thing is, I've talked about this previously on here, so I just appear like a broken record. At this point, I'm addicted to it I don't want to be, but I am. This is something that takes advantage of your mind. Even if you say no, your mind won't. Worst yet, it appears everywhere in many forms. I feel so dirty. Everytime I end up relapsing I just feel horrible. Horrible due to the fact that this is associating with who I am, even though I don't think it aligns with my morals nor my goals. Not even close. I also feel like this stumped my social development in my adolescence. I understand that teenagers get all wonky with hormones and it isn't like I had a roadmap with going through high school, but pornography definitely made things more difficult. A lot of risky actions were made, bad decisions, and regretful imagery that to this day still messes with me from time to time. I thank God for the days I'm not being distracted and disturbed by those kind of thoughts 24/7. Today, I still think that's bothering me. Another thing that makes me sick is how easily extreme and zany videos can be even when you're not looking for those kind of things. I can Google one thing and it will either give me the opposite or something completely different. Unfortunately, this can include very disturbing things that I wish I wouldn't have seen. This is the only thing I feel so much shame for and I just want it to die. I don't want to deal with it anymore. Yesterday's relapse was one of the worst ones in a long time. I just don't want to keep dealing with this stuff anymore. I wish it were as easy as picking it up, and throwing it out, but the urges and the thoughts and the visualizations come back.

Nsfw tw// a compulsion I struggle with is m-sturbation. when the groinal responses and thoughts get to bad I do that to gain some sense of relief. but sometimes I end up agreeing with the thoughts or think bad stuff while doing it just to “give in” and also “test myself” and finish so i can find some relief. but IMMEDIATELY afterwards is a sense of shame and regret of wtf did I just do? i guess doing this gives me a sense of control over whatever this is so i try to agree with it but the compulsion is so gross and so is the theme so why would i ever find relief. i honestly believe im a p in denial. my pocd has been acting up non stop for almost 2 and a half months. I feel like im going to cry