What does ERP for POCD look like? Is it "I'm okay with potentially being a pedophile" because one can't know because there is no blood test or something to absolutely know that do sure, and the person just has to take comfort in the fact that whether they are or are not a pedophile, they are in control of their own actions? Asking as I am speaking with someone who is struggling with POCD but hasn't gotten therapy for it or done OCD, and deal with contaminated OCD so I am noth familiar with ERP for POCD

17f So basically I think you know this whole accept and sit with the uncertainty thing. It applies to pocd as well. Because you can ruminate, test yourself, seek reassurance as much as you want but it will never be enough for you brain to be sure you are not a P. So you need to sit with "Maybe I am a P maybe not" and just don't do anything about it. So sometimes I can do that. But here comes moral ocd. If I accept the chanse of me being a pedophile, isn't it morally wrong for me to be around children? Look at children? Watch movies with children in it? Cause now I can't even look at children even if it was an accident without freaking out and thinking that I'm a monster. Sometimes it feels morally wrong to leave the house because there is a chanse I can meet a child on the street I genuinely don't know what to do. It feels paralyzing at this point. Seems like I can't do anything. Like I even need to cover children on the screen with my hand when I watch a movie. It's exhausting.

so I’ve been seeking therapy for my OCD for a few years. The theme that I’ve been dealing with most recently is the fear of becoming a pedophile, which then has led to intrusive images of me doing things to kids.Which now is just causing me so much distress and 24/7 constant thought cycle. I am starting to not be able to tell the difference between thoughts that are wanted/ unwanted- the line has become some blurry and these things are starting to feel like someothing i want to do. My brain keeps telling me to just test these thoughts and the “maybe”or”i don’t know” isn’t working. This has become such a barrier because the second layer is that I’m afraid that if I just let the thoughts be there it’ll make me be OK with doing those things and the fear is what’s keeping me from actually doing something inappropriate. It’s also transitioned into intrusive thoughts and images of me doing something very disgusting to my dog and that when I’m cuddling with him I get the thoughts to just do it or try it to see if i am actually a p*do. it’s almost like the compulsion would be to do the inappropriate thing, even though I know it’s wrong just to see how it would make me feel. I feel like i can’t control these urges even though i’ve never acted on it. At any point i could just do it. I’ve never had these thoughts before up until about a year and a half ago when my friend‘s boyfriend got arrested for soliciting a minor then all these thoughts came to life.Has anyone experienced something like this and have any advice?

Warning: This might be triggering for people with POCD But very often when someone (me included) seeks reassurance with POCD people say "well a pedophile wouldn't worry about being a pedophile so you are not one" or "the fact that you are stressing about it means you care and you are not a pedophile" It's just pissing me off when people say it (I know they are trying to help) cause it seems like they have no idea what are they talking about. Even some therapist here said something like that to me once and it makes it hard to trust them after that, cause this is not true... Pedophlia is a paraphilia, and paraphilias can be ego dystonic. So a pedophile CAN be distressed because of his attraction and can worry about it too. Doesn't mean he is suddenly not one. I've seen multiple reddit confessions from actual pedophiles (non-offending ones) and most of them seem to hate the fact they have this attraction. Even saw I guy who thought he had POCD but then after years of therapy understood that he actually has this paraphilia. So those words just never help me