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Is it normal in OCD to test yourself to see if you like something (POCD specifically) Sometimes I imagine scenarios or things to see if I have a reaction to them but then feel guilty about imagining it afterwards…

I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts about pedophilia, I was highly addicted to porn for 2 years or more, I even masturbated a couple times to someone younger but when I did that my ocd didn’t trigger or nothing till months after thinking what if I am a pedophile, after that is when I decided to quit porn indefinitely I realized I was going too far,I always thought I was a decent person, I have never hurt anyone, I always had this idea that I could become someone people can look up to or just become someone everyone respected, I’ve always loved sports, my family and video games, but lately I haven’t been able to enjoy any of that it’s like my ocd is making me think I’ve always been like this and all my actual beliefs weren’t real that I’ve always been this horrible person, at first I would get panic attacks and disgust but now I feel kinda numb and I don’t want to feel like that cause it’s making me think that maybe I am one and my mind is getting used to it, I even feel uncomfortable talking about kids or just being around them and I have never been like that . I am a heavy nicotine and weed smoker (I’ve tried to stop since it seems to make them worse). Now it feels like I am a completely different person, I also have a girlfriend who before this i would love with everything in me, and would be afraid to lose her every time we would argue, I would even think about a child with her in the future, but now I don’t even feel love or any attraction or any of the previous feelings I would feel towards my future and I just feel it makes it even worse cause if I’m not attracted to her and all my previous beliefs feel like lies then what can I believe in? Any advice or tips? I’ll be starting therapy this week so I pray there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Hey all, I was recently diagnosed with OCD and MDD a few months ago. I’ve been experiencing symptoms for the past 11 months though. I used to be a person who would downplay depression, reasoning that if someone is depressed, they should be able to snap out of it. This year has taught me the truth behind how debilitating mental health conditions can be. My OCD has been absolutely tearing my life apart. For the past year, I’ve been coping with excessive guilt over past and recurring mistakes, my anxiety of which has recently been causing me panic attacks and throbbing headaches. I’ve also been coping with feeling unnatural sexual attractions, to those of the same sex and to children, which contradict the values I hold at heart. At one point, even simply shaking someone’s hand would cause sexual arousal, due to my hyper-vigilance surrounding physical contact. My OCD and depression nearly led me to take my life a few months ago. There are no words to describe the amount of pain I’ve had to endure. My thoughts and feelings have been absolutely tearing my life down, bit by bit. I feel like I lost who I was, and like it’s impossible for me to know who I am. This isn’t me. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been feeling constant sexual arousal, it’s so easily triggered now. I don’t know if it’s because of the OCD, if it’s a result of the SSRI I’m on, or if it’s just a product of me being a young adult—Or maybe a combination of all of the above, but it’s debilitating. How easily I get aroused causes me so much guilt. There is a girl in my life that I love, but it doesn’t help that I get aroused around her because of the simplest of things. It’s not what I want for us. I want to be able to hone in on my self-control. I can’t help but constantly compare who I am now to who I was just over a year ago. My happiness has suffered, and my endurance is draining. I know there is a long road of insight and recovery ahead of me, this is just the beginning. If there’s anyone who can relate to me in any way, feel free to let me know. Comfort begins with feeling understood.

Theres so many effed up things i’ve done or said in the past which still bother me to this day. One day i’ll have one obsession, like ROCD over being scared i’m cheating on my partner, then another day i’ll have POCD because of a past experience with an underaged friend, and im just so burnt out from all the thoughts and overthinking. I feel like the most horrible person each and every single day, a constant urge to confess, a constant feeling like im a traitor, and then thinking im just using OCD as an excuse for everything. Im so SICK OF IT ALL. I can’t catch a break. There’s too much going on in my head, like this constant rumination and analysis and then compulsions to search up these obsessions. However searching up things relating to it is probably the most harmful and worst mistake for me, because then I see stories of allegations e.g like dream being exposed for grooming a minor and people exposing others for other vile acts and it just triggers me so much, because it feels like I BELONG on there but never in my life would i actually want to do such things, and if everyone knew what i did then i feel like everyone would agree i quite literally deserved to be burned at the stake. Should i just get a therapist at this point or can i get through this myself with the use of some mental gymnastics like i’ve been doing the entire time? I feel too much guilt, it’s eating me up alive.

I was on a dating app ( I’m an adult ) and I seen 16 or 17 year olds using the app no big deal right ? Just change the age filter to my age which I did but I still can’t shake off what if I message an underage person so I just deleted the app all together to make the feeling go away which it still hasn’t

Hi guys. I'm asking for help on different ways of approaching groinal responses. Whenever I have intrusive thoughts, like really bad ones, I can feel my heartbeat "down there". I used to always associate it with arousal so now I just feel like I like thinking about the intrusive thoughts I've had about POCD and other stuff. It makes me take a shower everytime to "clean" myself but I need help because it's exhausting. Does a heartbeat down there always mean arousal? Do I make it happen because I just think "don't happen" a thousand times in my head?

Hi has anyone tried this medication before for OCD? I’ve been on it for just over two weeks and I feel like it’s made my POCD worse. I’m on 150mg btw.

Hi everyone, I am 20 years old with ADHD and i need some help. Recently, i got diagnosed with OCD; and i am dealing with Real event OCD/intrusive thoughts. When i was 16, i said something out loud (i think that was impulsive/intrusive) that was immorally wrong and against my morals. I was aware of my wrong doing, yet i still said it because i announced it in a “jokingly way” i completely regret it and ashamed of it. i don’t want to go into detail on what i said, because i don’t feel comfortable. But anyways, at the time i didn’t think what i said was “bad” and i just brushed it off to the side. then 1-2 months later, i came to the realization, that what i said was wrong. Since then, i have been fixated on the event as i feel like a “bad person”. What is wrong with me? Why would i say that? I feel like i don’t deserve pity or forgiveness. I don’t know what to do. I am not trying to find reassurance. I just want to find people who share similar experiences.

Its a very anxious night for me as a parent. I went to tuck my child in and i worried with groinal responses i still hugged my child goodnight than worried did i brush up or lean toward them inappropriately and then she was sad i was leaving. I wanted another hug so i hugged her again and ocd tried saying i had bad intent. Its so exhausting fighting ocd as a parent in distress

I hate pocd so much… I hate it so much. I just want to be happy but this will never let me be happy. Idk if i only have pocd but my mind makes me think that i’m attracted to anyone I get close to. My mind doesn’t care how inappropriate it is. I hate this so much. I live with my family and I never go out. I’m stuck here with my thoughts and the people who trigger the thoughts. I hate saying that I feel so disgusting. I feel like a horrible disgusting person. I wanna live a happy life but I know itll never happen. I don’t want to kill myself but I wish I could just die. I just want it all to end. I don’t understand what caused this. Why me. I do believe that I can be a bad person sometimes. I’m so rude to my mom and I have a bad temper and no patience. I hate myself for it and I always try to blame my dad because he acted that way my whole childhood. What if this is my karma. I hate this so much. I wish I could just go to sleep and wake up without an ocd thought. Sometime I think about taking medication but i’ve seen people struggle with choosing the right one. And I’ve seen people taking them still struggle. This will truly never end. What if while taking medication the thoughts are still there and it was never ocd. Im so scared.

Does anyone else struggle with a fear of sex/sex avoidance? I’m 23 and have dated quite a bit yet when it comes to having sex, I always pull the brakes before it can happen. I’m too scared of the intrusive thoughts and that having sex would confirm my fears. It’s ruining my ability to have meaningful romantic relationships. I feel like I’m completely alone in this. :// It’s not normal to avoid sex like I do.

hey has anyone ever had like groinal responses but it always happens at weird times? Like when someone is fighting, when ur mad, or when ur stressed out. i’m scared i get turned on by bad things happening. my parents just fought and my mind keeps trying to tell me that them doing that makes me happy and then i got a groinal response. really struggling with this lately.

My Ocd turns everything innocent and normal into something horrible. Sometimes when my daughter and I are watching tv she will want to play with and brush my hair. It feels so nice and relaxing or she will cuddle up and rub her feet on mine which is relaxing and makes me feel sleepy but ocd ruins it by telling me it’s inappropriate and that i’m enjoying something inappropriate. One day I saw a snapchat video my young grandson made of himself just out of the shower looking at himself shirtless in the mirror and I was thinking that he thinks he’s so cool and is probably going to flex like all boys do and laughed to myself but then the ocd kicked in and said that I was attracted to him and it made me so upset because I never have and don’t think of any child in that way. I don’t feel that way so how can ocd try to make me believe that I do?? How can ocd be more powerful than my own actual thoughts and feelings? This disorder is so debilitating and upsetting. I can’t live like this.

Also just now someone messaged me with 17 comments and i couldnt see them... im so scared they think i did something inappropriate and horrible when i dont ever want to ever groom, or be inappropriate with minors in any way...

very scared and worried i hurt/did something bad to my baby cousin while he was growing up and scared did something to a young family friend when i was growing up. idk how to move past without having answers but I never will get one. how do i even FEEL like im a decent or good person if there’s a chance i did something bad like this growing up? i was very hyper sexual as a kid and did try to touch other kids my age and also did weird things out of curiosity. i also did have things done to me as a kid by other kids idk if by any adults. I’m just scared.

It’s all becoming too much. Im scared that maybe I am just insane and crazy and I don’t deserve to be loved or to live because of my past actions that are disgustingly repulsive. What if im just using OCD as an excuse? I cant stop thinking about it and its making me depressed because im scared that I am just a terrible human being.

Please share your stories! I have really bad real event, false memory and POCD. I’m struggling a lot right now feeling undeserving, feeling like everything I’ve ever done in my life was meticulously calculated. Funny thing about OCD is even if I see someone do something way worse than me, it won’t phase me unless I’d done it. For example, something minor I did that really could mean nothing, my OCD convinces me it proves my ocd right. In light of the disordered times, I’d like to ask for someone to share their ocd recovery story, maybe some tips and how they did it. It’s feeling pretty impossible for me right now. Thank you!

so I've been trying to do what my therapist said while she's on vacation for a few weeks and do some of my routine exposures. One of them is watching tv and not looking away when there is children on screen. I tried sitting through a preview of a shows first episode that featured a young girl in a Victorian outfit with blonde hair, and he had very ghostly white skin and powder pink lips. It was a ghost show, which is the kind of genre I usually like, so I wanted to try and enjoy the clip. And my therapist always told me to "not appraise the thoughts, our goal isn't to avoid them, but to let them pass" but as I kept watching, I kept getting mental voices telling me that "she's pretty you want to kiss her" and I felt almost frozen in my seat? I felt a kind of anxiety I haven't felt in years, but I tried to continue to watch the clip and let it pass, but I couldn't. I felt this mental need to go back and "check" to really be sure if I was attracted to her, I pictured kissing her and idk if it even counts as an intrusive thought atp? I felt like if I were to have the thought and then prove myself I was grossed out by pushing it away I would feel better, but it didnt. My brain just kept telling me that I wanted her and it was very much on purpose to test to see whether I felt that way or not and it did and I kept feeling that horrible form of anxiety that makes your face hot and I don't think I was really TRUELY attracted to her but it's like a fucked up twisted form of attraction that's false but feels real at the same time? Idk if that makes sense... idk, I'm trying my best but I feel like I NEED to think the thoughts, letting them pass isn't enough. Or like the thought will stick in my brain and it'll keep going like a mini movie playing in my head and it feels like almost like I'm fantasizing even though that isn't what I want to do. I feel like I have no choice but to push them away or else I'll have a horrible realization... idk... I've been struggling with this for 5 years now. I don't even know how to properly articulate how I feel in those moments it's so confusing that I don't know how to describe it to my therapist. How do people just lable their feelings on things so effortlessly? Why is it so hard for me? Idk I don't really want reassurance bc it won't help but I just want to feel like I'm not alone in this.

I’m actually convinced I’m a p…. I feel as though I’m a fraud faking to myself and everyone around me. I feel like I shouldn’t deserve to have friends or be around anyone because I am a p. Every thing I see, hear, it could be not child related, or it could, 24/7 I am getting intrusive thoughts saying these things to me. I get groinal responses that make it worse. I cry everyday. This has gotten so much worse. I am so sad. I don’t know what to do with myself I really want to give up. I just miss being a little kid, oblivious to the bad around me and I didn’t question if I was a bad person 24/7 all the time. I hate this so so bad I feel like I’m a bad person who doesn’t deserve anything in life, I don’t even feel like I deserve my family or to have a family of my own in the future.

Hi I recently just turned 21 and found out I have hocd, I don’t know what triggered it to become this bad but I have intrusive thoughts that come in, and don’t know how to manage or make them go away. I’m also starting therapy next week, so any advice in the meanwhile would be greatly appreciated