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TW: brief suicide mention, could also be triggering for POCD sufferers I’m feeling horrible right now. I’ve been getting this horrible feeling that I’m starting to like my thoughts and am starting to want to fantasize sexual things with children. And I’m scared that I really just caught myself fantasizing about it and am just pretending that I don’t like it. And I don’t even know if it’s true or me just going down the rabbit hole of ruminating. I know I never felt like this before! Ever! I never wanted this before! And I’m terrified that because I’m thinking about it all the time I’m starting to become like “you know maybe it isn’t as bad as everyone says”. I hate seeing the words pedophile, pedo, MAP, because I don’t feel disgusted as I should and I get this feeling like “that’s you!” I just feel like I’m starting to discover this thing about myself and I feel horrible. I sometimes have these scenarios in my head where like I’m being interviewed with some of my favorite YouTube personalities and since this whole thing began something always wants to label me as “the first openly out pedophile” when I know I’ve never thought that before nor ever wanted that. I just don’t know anymore. Everything is so screwed up. I don’t know who I am anymore. I want to cry but it’s like I can’t. It’s like it’s saying crying is an excuse and you’re just saying you want to cry because that will be proof you don’t want this when really you do. It’s similar when I think about if I want to commit suicide. I don’t. And it’s like “yeah you don’t want to commit suicide because you’re happy with this. You know secretly this is who you are.” It just keeps going further and further downhill and no relief. Checking and ruminating hasn’t even given me any temporary relief, and I don’t think it has for quite some time. I think I’m just completely numb to any kind of reassurance now. I’m struggling with ERP because I just don’t want to do my exercises. Because I know it will make me anxious and I can’t handle being anxious. Especially when it involves POCD. How can I do these exercises when the subject is about something so horrible. It would have been easier if I was just dealing with my TOCD or SOOCD. It would still be okay even if I did turn out to be lesbian or trans. I know I’m not trans. Jury’s still out on the lesbian thing. But pedophilia is not okay. Ever. And it never should be. It just feels like I’m being condemned. Like “you’re going to be this thing and I don’t care if you don’t like it. You’re going to learn to like it cause you’re stuck with it” OCD had in a way helped me feel more for the LGBTQ+ community and sympathize more with them over the years (I grew up in a very conservative oriented surrounding). I worry that it’s trying to make me feel the same for pedos. I don’t want to understand them. I worry I’m one of those non offending pedos who don’t want to be that either but they are. I wished I had never learned about these kinds. That way I could be blissfully unaware and feel no sympathy at all. Does that sound really horrible? Yes. I know it does. I’m not proud of it. I’m sorry this is all probably nonsensical rambling but I just don’t know what to do anymore. I wish I could take these thoughts and feelings and rip them out of me and throw them away.

Had sex with my wife and keep having thoughts about sex with a dude in the middle of it... but I stayed hard cause she was kissing on me and of course I was stimulated. But it seems like I legit want it now. And it’s killing me. I barely feel anxiety anymore or uncomfortable just no I don’t want to be gay but my mind is giving me every reason why I am. Therapy’s not working for me. Cause it doesn’t seem like I’m triggered by anything anymore.

I’m getting this constant feeling and thought in the back of my mind that’s telling me I’m gay or bisexual when I don’t want to be. It’s so hard to distract myself. I honestly hope that it’s HOCD and not denial.

Spiraling. An ocd chat group im in ended up excusing and supporting people who like to see pedophilia and abuse and incest romantically in fiction. And I shared a lot about my struggles there esp with ocd and pocd and my nsfw themes and now I feel weird and uncomfortable and all the advice they gave me with my struggles knowing their viewpoints. Im now questioning and second guessing everything. Especially since I'm really passionate against that sort of thing. And I've felt gross all after noon like im the one who condones it and I've had to resist compulsively checking my messages over and over. Please help

I have HOCD and i am 19 years old always have been straight. But im battling this for 3 weeks now. Do i just have to sort of fake accept in my brain to let it go?

Please help and read through! So im in a bit of a dilemma. I feel like the answer should be obvious as this point but ive been stuck in bed feeling depressed and not eating again so maybe its not. I need to constantly watch something or do something because i get bored or i get anxious with the thoughts. Mostly i just get bored though, but for some reason i feel really off at the prospect of watching something or listening to music while going shopping. It makes me feel like anything id buy would be contaminated and so I haven’t even for school supplies. I feel like i should just do it without the music and such but its been a few days now and i cant get myself around to doing it. Idk if im being childish because i feel upset that I can’t do it in the way i wanted to or what but i really need to get over this.

Anyone able to provide with a smart trick or smth to decrease or stop rumination?

Hi all, I struggle really badly with intrusive thoughts. Recently I have been starting to try to train myself into realizing that they’re just thoughts and telling myself “this is an intrusive thought” and letting it pass. However, I then become obsessed with seeing how much time has passed before having another one to “determine” whether the labeling of it as an intrusive thought has actually worked. I basically think/doubt myself into bringing on intrusive thoughts, by trying to see if I’ve been successful. And then convince myself that I am failing and there’s no way of helping. I also struggle a lot with accepting its OCD. I’ll believe it, and then my brain will tell me “but what if it’s not that? What if it’s really something else? What if you’re lying to yourself about it being OCD”? Anyone else???

Please read, I avoided details, so it’s not triggering... My friend recently came over and we had a good time—we laughed, played video games, watched YouTube. I put on Jubilee videos, which was nice, and then he decided to put a crime documentary styled video about this horrible man and his acts of violence. I tried to explain I rather watch something funny or uplifting, though. My suggestion was disregarded, however. I found to be incredibly triggering, so I left my room to go the restroom. Sure enough the content from that would stay in my head for what’s been a week now, and of course, the unpleasant “what if...” questions came rolling in, which make it hard to go to sleep at night or roll out of bed in the mornings. I don’t want to think about any of that negativity or “what if’s,” I just want positivity and happy things. OCD’s hard enough, but know I’m having the some of the most unpleasant thoughts and images yet. How do I get this stuff out of my head? Has anyone experienced this before? It really brings me down sometimes, like I was I could sleep for a year or be erased from existence for a moment because I hate these thoughts. P.S. And although my friend has given me a world of anxiety and distress, I don’t fault him. He only knows I suffer from “OCD.” Ultimately, I acknowledge it’s a me problem. P.S., PT. 2 I deal with Harm OCD, False Memory OCD, Moral scrupulously OCD, and Relationship OCD (or I can sometimes be effected by this type), if curious.

How has HOCD impacted you outside of reduced attraction? For me, it’s made me isolate myself from my friends and made me feel really self-hateful and critical, and has made my future look kind of bleak whereas before I was, quite honestly, *thriving*.

I guess I just wanted to share my experience and get it all out. So since I was little I was always kind of weird. When I was born the birth was very traumatic and I had brain issues (I was born closer to 10 months in the womb than 9 months) which resulted in epilepsy. I was supposed to be slow in school and behind others but to many people's surprise, I was gifted. I was really smart and could name all the bones in the body before I was in elementary school. I guess there were a few quirks I had, like I hated how certain clothes felt on my body or if my ponytail wasn't perfect I had to redo it. I'd line up my toys by color or something else, and if my sister knocked them over I'd be really upset. I got a little older and I remember developing hypochondria at some point. I always thought there was impending doom and something was bound to go wrong with my body at some point. I broke down in school multiple times thinking I was having heart attacks. I also remember being afraid to go to sleep because I thought I might die or hurt someone in my sleep or someone would hurt me. I specifically remember one time where my grandma was watching ID channel, and it was a show about killer kids. I watched it, too, but I was too young to have seen it and she should've turned it off. For the next few days or weeks, I don't even remember how long, I was terrified I'd be like those kids in the show. I told her to keep knives away from me and I was scared of myself. I refused to wear red because I thought it looked like blood and it would make me homicidal. I wouldn't even write with a red pen. My grandma would always say, "Stop dwelling." But I couldn't and it only got worse. In middle school, in seventh grade, I was thinking of ending things but I remember lying in bed and saying, "Well I've never done anything horrible so I don't deserve death." And my brain convinced me I'd molested my brother because of a humorous memory from years before. So I sat waiting for myself to do it in the bathroom for a while before crying on the floor and going back to bed. In eighth grade I had the worst POCD, and during freshman year. It was constant and embarrassing. I got a boyfriend, who I love very much, and now we get to October of 2020. I was watching a TV show with an interracial couple and I just... broke or something. My boyfriend and I are an interracial couple and somehow my mind convinced me I'm racist against him and I was shaking and crying on phone calls with him, telling him to break up with me. He refused to feed into it and knew immediately I was being crazy. This lasted for a few days. Then I told my mom. I confessed to her that I was prejudiced. I was terrified of being racist. She tried to help me feel better but I couldn't. Then within the next few days, my concern changed to POCD. She literally yelled at me, asking me if I knew how crazy I sound, insisting I'm a child predator when she and I both know I'm not. It was horrible. She told me to try and distract myself when I get bad thoughts so this spiral doesn't go any deeper, because she'd already set up a doctor's appointment for me and we'd figure out other things to do then. I tried but it only got worse. It turned into sexual assault OCD. I was constantly asking my boyfriend if I've ever done such a thing to him. Every single time he said no. But I couldn't stop. I was scared. Then, the worst of the worst... my OCD convinced me I've tried to kill people. Of course this was too much for a 15 year old girl to try and make sense of on her own, so I asked my mom what she thought about my concerns. She told me that the incident I had OCD about isn't worth worrying about, because I'm focused on what I thought at a short moment in time when nothing bad ever happened. I can't keep trying to remember what I was thinking because I'll never know. That was a month ago. Now it's mostly racism OCD, assault, and POCD. Some days are okay, others are horrible. I've tried to stop confessing, which gets easier as time goes on. I try to say to myself, "I guess we'll never know," if my mind is trying to dig into the past. But I'm still terrified most days. It feels like I'll never feel okay about myself.

I had been doing better and I am but I was still doing compulsions and avoiding one of my friend because of my hocd, and now it's back to level 0 again. Today I blocked her on one my instgram accounts because I wanted some kind of relief I didn't want the thoughts that I get before posting something or viewing stories, after I blocked her the relief wasn't for long (I had blocked a few months before also from all my social media accounts but then she had called me and asked me and I had excused that my social media had gotten hacked) now we are not that good friends as we were before HOCD happened just because of my thoughts I have started to hate her even though it's not her fault. After I blocked her my mind went like what if you start feeling bad about it now, what if this thought gets stuck in your mind. And I honestly made my decision for blocking her knowing it is a compulsion, I felt anxiety pulling in my stomach for no reason, it wasn't guilt or may be it was, and my mind why this I blocked her because I wanted and then my mind went like what if you like her thats why and my anxiety increased, my anxiety started flare-up even more and I don't even know why was feeling anxious I had wanted to do it for days now but I ended in blocking her but yet here I feeling anxious all over.

Please someone help me. I feel like I’m in denial. I feel like I don’t have ocd. It’s too real. The intrusive thoughts aren’t as frequent, I don’t have anxiety or do compulsions. I’m not even against the thoughts anymore. I can’t explain how real it feels. It can’t be ocd and the thing is I just don’t want to like girls. That’s it. I just don’t want to. But that sounds like I’m resisting my sexuality and it feels like this too. I’m sorry to everyone on this app but I don’t think I’m like u anymore. If things like internalised homophobia and comphet didn’t exist then I’d know I was straight but they do so now I think I’m just that. I don’t want to marry a girl or have sex with one or anything. I want to be straight and just fucking live my life. I’ve never had a boyfriend and I haven’t had a crush on a boy for years even though my ‘ocd’ started in the summer. I’ve had loads of male celebrity crushes that I’ve felt like I’ve loved and I don’t understand how those could’ve been fake but they must have been. Compulsions don’t comfort me I just watch tv to distract myself and that’s it. I can’t do this shit anymore. I don’t want to like girls but I have to be either bi or lesbian. Please I just want to be straight I don’t get it.

am i the only one that doesn’t have any attraction to the opposite gender

I've currently been struggling with something that is going to make me sound like a piece of shit, even I recognize how messed up it's going to sound. Over the past couple months, I have been worrying about the proper way to interact with a POC without coming across as racist. I know, this is already awful. I consider myself to be an ally who supports POC movements. I'm ashamed of white people honestly, we've oppressed POC from the beginning of time. I'm personally ashamed of my ethnicity. I've been even more so in the past year. I feel like my OCD has recently attached to this though. At least, I think it has, or maybe it's guilt knowing I'm white and part of systemic racism problem as a whole. When I pass a POC on the street, or in a place of business, I'll immediately start to get thoughts like "Am I coming across as rude? Am I being nice enough? Am I being too nice? This isn't about me, so why am I anxious? Stop being so self centered? Are you appearing racist? What if this POC thinks I'm racist? That's awful to assume what they think. Stop making this about you." And basically the entire time I'm trying to interact with someone of color, I have all this dialogue in my head, I'm anxious and I probably physically appear to be anxious, which in turn I'm sure the other person think "Why are they acting so tense/afraid?" It's not that I'm afraid, or dislike POC, I'm way to overly cautious and it's actually coming across as racist I'm sure. And I don't want to make this about me, because it's not, I can only imagine the racism POC have to endure on a daily basis. It's like my own OCD/anxiety is getting in the way of my empathy. I hate it. I want to get over it. I don't know why it's coming up, but I want to get past this.

I’m so scared of myself. Does anyone ever feel like their thoughts are so frequent that it feels like your impulses are real reflections of who you are? I get so nervous every time I drive and go out now, worried that I won’t be able to hold myself back and I’ll snap. I hate these thoughts and feel like I deserve to die. Please tell me I’m not alone. I don’t ever want to hurt anyone.

NSFW HOCD i check my nails in the way lesbians check their nails, my ring finger is longer than my pointer finger on both hands, i’ve been asked if i’m a lesbian before, i’ve had this theme since I was 12 (i’m now 19), graphic lesbian porn turns me on, i questioned my sexuality 2 times before the hocd at ages 10/11 then forgot about it and went back to liking boys, the hocd started with groinal responses, i have masturbated to a girls body once before, i worried i had a crush on a girl when i was 11 for two days but never again, i’m alt looking, i’m an english major, etc. the list goes on and on. this clearly is not ocd. someone please respond. how can i possibly dispute this evidence?

It sucks when you feel like you're the only one who struggles with a certain thing

I'm looking for some comfort. I'm having a hard time at work this morning unfortunately, because I mistakenly mentioned my OCD to a coworker who is completely ignorant to anything anxiety related. He replied, "I dont like labels, you just have tendencies" he seemed to scoff at the idea of needing a therapist. I was reminded of how fragile i am, because I got so angry at the thought of all the internal suffering and torment i went through because of ocd, and that some people have no clue just how severe it can be.. And to think someone completely ignorant to it thinks they know what I went through when they dont even have an inkling..I'm hoping someone here will reply and remind me there are people who get it. It's not a joke, it's not exclusive to keeping things orderly, it's not something you can just get over

I have a theory. With pure o thoughts there is always urgency to solve, figure out, high anxiety etc. I believe this is because there is great conflict going on in the brain between the truth and what the ocd thought is suggesting. If you think about something real,negative,bad, maybe a mistake or something you regret, it doesn’t feel the same, it just feels different somehow. Just something I’ve noticed in myself and thought I’d share.