Paraphilia, addiction or anxiety? HELP!

I need to get some things off my chest. This message is going to be long, but I hope someone here has the time to read it and comment something.

I'm at a stage where I have immense guilt, and I feel like killing myself would be a good option. The only reason I'm not going to do it is because it would cause such immense suffering to those people close to me.

Anyway, I have to go back in time a bit:

I started masturbating at age 12 and watching pornography at that same age. I was really clever at hiding things and my parents had no clue of what I was watching. I was an early bloomer in many ways. As I got older my attractions stayed mostly within my age group. However, I still am from time to time attracted to teenagers (14-19). This attraction is just fantasy and girls that age are really not appealing to me in real life.

At the around the age of 20 I started looking at "jailbait"-pics. These were clothed and legal pictures, and I had no guilt for it back then.I had no intrest in actually doing anything with anyone and I mostly fantasized about being in that same age group.

Anyway, move to 22. I have a steady relationship and everything is relatively well to the outside. However, I have terrible back-issues and I'm severely depressed. I was planning to kill myself within a couple of months. I started self-medicating with pornography and alcohol, as it felt like the only way to escape my anxiety.

I came across porn, that was taken from webcam-sites, probably without anyones consent. These were clips from the webcam-roulette type of pages, where you really couldn't be sure of anyones age. I've always had an exhibitionist side myself, so I decided to actually try it. I started browsing these sites with my shirt off, because sometimes there were people that were too young. My abs were the only physical feature that I was proud of at the time. I had severe back-pain and sex with my gf was sometimes painful.

I admit it, I was solely looking for sexual communication. Later on I moved to the k18-sites. The age "verification" was basically just clicking ok though. In these pages most of the users were masturbating men or couples having sex.
I have a couple of incidents that have caused my great anxiety and shame.

I get connected to a latino-looking girl. She looks young, but I just blatantly ask her if she's intrested. She's obviously looking for the same thing and after the sexual "exchange" I panic. I was on a k18-website, yes, but what if this girl actually was like 14 or 15? I feel disgusted from the thought but later forgot about it for sometime.

I continue this thing for some time. I do it maybe once or twice a week and it feels like the equivalent of porn to me. I come home a bit tipsy, start looking for sexual company again. After browsing through endless streams of masturbating men, porn-site commercials and couples having sex, I get connected to two girls. The girls ask me, If I want to see them strip for me. They look at least 16 to me and my drunken logic is that it's a k18 website. I'm disturbed by the fact, that while they were stripping, I was masturbating. My penis wasn't visible in the cam, but I still feel disgusted for having done that without asking. I suddenly come to my senses in the middle of it; I'm about to ask for their age and if they're actually ok with all of it, but then they disconnect.

I don't know why but I didn't think much of it then. I continue my habit of looking for sexual partners for a couple of months (after this I always asked for ages though) until I get disgusted with myself and stop. The last straw was seeing someone abuse a child. I wasn't a part of this and I tried to report the person.

I admitted these things to my girlfriend (not in as much detail as here), but she forgave me and said it's not such a big deal. She cheated on me (physically) a couple of years ago, so she said that she's really not the person to judge me.

I've been still thinking about these events constantly and daily for about a year now. I feel terrible for having done these things: I guess my logic was just that they entered the k18-websites. It's still always the adults responsibility to make sure the people are actually 18, especially if they look at all young.

The guilt sometimes makes me go into a "###$ it"-mode when I watch porn. I recently found myself going back to "exhibiting" myself on a cam-model/exhibitionist website. I never show my face and neither did I do that now, but I still feel paranoid and guilty about it. A girl, whose profile stated she was 18, started talking to me there. We exchanged some pictures, and she looked young, but I trusted her word. Obviously I panicked after this again about her possible age and sent her a message saying I'm very anxious about it. She tells me to relax and says she's 18, I tell her I'm sorry and delete her from my contacts.

I'm so tired of this #######4. The cycle of shame and guilt just leads me to land into a "###$ it" mode until I feel more of it. I don't respect myself at all. I hate the fact, that I've again cheated on my girlfriend. I sometimes feel like I want to do it, so she would leave me, because I feel like I don't deserve her on any level.

The constant thinking sometimes makes me want to isolate myself and I've been at home for a week now. My girlfriend has been working and I've been lying to her that I've been studying and going out, while the reality is quite different. I've just been laying in bed, thinking about everything that's wrong with me.

I wouldn't have a problem with just being attracted to young-looking people. What I do have a problem with, is the potential hurt I've caused. What if these girls are now in therapy, or what if they were suicidal? What if I somehow caused them to think less of themselves? What if they were really underage and looked older? It's a constant stream of what if-questions.

I wasn't looking for underage people and I actually don't know what age they were. They might've been 18, but even then I think that I'm responsible for whatever harm that might come to them in the future. I feel like I've ###$ up my whole life and I'm waiting for some sort of punishment. I read about child abusers and sometimes I have a lingering feel like I'm one of them.

I've been diagnosed with ADD, GAD and OCD. What's most ironic is that I'm studying to be a teacher. I have no motivation to study anymore because I feel like I'm a #######5 person. I know I'm good at teaching and I'm actually very empathic in teaching situations. I have 0 attraction to students/pupils, even if they were pretty and I would never pursue anyone who I knew to be underage. In fact I wouldn't pursue anyone IRL, because I have my girlfriend.

Fear and guilt have been the driving forces in my life. I've always prepared for the worst and quite often it's holding me back. I don't want to reach my potential, because I'm afraid of any publicity. I'm afraid of people abandoning me and I'm somewhat overly-attached (sounds paradoxical).

I remember having extreme guilt already at an early age. I feared any authority figures and I always studied really hard even if I hated something. I was afraid, that If I didn't study, I'd end up homeless in a ditch.

Phew. I'm sorry if I've been too specific. I just needed to get this all out and I feel like I'm out of breath. If there's anyone, who reads this, I'd surely appreciate the feedback.

Dude, i can totally understand where you're coming from. I posted something with almost the same issues, however mine concerning male2male action, but again i basically did the same things as you did on cam. I wouldn't worry too much about the people that were there, i understand it's painful to realise that not all of those girls were over 18 and it would be stupid to think that all of them were, however, the fact that they agreed to go on those websites says something about them and regardless of what you have done or whatever, they were looking for the same thing. I understand that it is causing u a great amount of guilt thinking they were younger, but hei if those girls were on those websites wanting to expose themselves, don't take it so harsh on yourself, for all you know the were bordering 18 or over and were looking for the same thing, as in if they weren't it's actually them first hand that commited the illegal action.
I can relate so much with the idea that when you were doing these things you didn't make much about them, but now that you've stopped hopefully , they kinda all start coming back to you and you basically feel all the emotions that you should've felt when you were doing these things(anxiety, panic,guilt) , but they're coming at you a lot stronger now as they've kinda been stacked up till now. Just because you were attracted to younger girls at some point in your life doesn't mean that makes it you sexual orientation, and as long as in real life you haven't actually planned on it and took a step towards finding younger girls, i really don't see what the problem is here. For me it was a lil bit different, because the men i was engaging in these cam sex were mostly a lot older than me (30+) as i was 20 at that time. If you take it that way, they shouldve felt the same guilt because although i was stating my close to reality age, they couldnt know anything for sure, the same as it was for you. All i'm saying is that , although some of those girls might have been below 18, you wouldnt and never will be able to know, but the fact that they were on those websites legally it doesn't put you under any harm. Second fact, if you didn't show your face, it is impossible for them to find who you are and whatnot and if they were so young they wouldn'y happen to be hackers to try find you and somehow make something of what you've done. There are a lot of people that have done worse things that me and you and somehow they manage to live their lives fine and without any form of remorse which is really annoying , i find
I would say if you kept going on those websites for months after months and didn't seem to make anything of it, you probably were addicted just the same as i was. Im sorry that it has made you feel so guilty but im here to assure you that there is nothing wrong with what you've done. It's all those girls bloody fault for going on those websites in the first place, they shouldve been doing that if they had a lil sense of responsibility, or at least wait till they have gotten older.
How do you find coping with the anxiety? Im currently myself in the past 3 months havent been able to do much because i find myself constantly thinking about the things i have done, and they are making me feel ashamed more than anything, similar to you.
I don't really know what to make of this, but i know that in time whatever happened it will become less and less important for you...you could try to occupy your mind with anything else but this; it will be difficult at first as you have trained your mind to think about this of a day to day basis and just like drugs, it has become an addiction the same as for me. You need to relax, learn to meditate and just generally stop thinking so intensely about it because it will only tire you . Al
Also, you could benefit from talking to a therapist about these things as i have aswell...i'd say that a therapist can only help you as much as you are willing to help yourself. And dudde, people make mistakes all the time, maybe not as frequent as me and you but they do , some not that severe but other much more .
It will pass but you have to make an effort afterall to get over this stage, and try to understand why you did the things that you've done. We all go through some shady phases in life that we're not proud of, but you shouldn't let tht take over you life.
haha I find myself preaching over what you should do, but then again im in the same mess, if not worse.
For how long did you go on these websites?
I hope i helped a lil

I used the websites on and off for about three to four months.

I don't know how to explain it: when you're in that state of mind, you just believe someones word when they say they're 18. Obviously it doesn't work the same way in real life. I just keep questioning if there was a side in me that was absolutely obviously sure that thy were underage, but I was just blocking that.

This realization dawns on you much later and it's painful to handle. I guess I was worried about other issues back then.

I think I might actually have more guilt over the videos I watched, since it's in a way "supporting" something I don't want to support. Although not child porn, and although many of the people in the webcam-clips were obviously over 18, there's still the consent aspect. I didn't upload these videos, but I feel like I was part of the "market" for them. As for the people uploading them, I think they were complete douchebags, no matter how old these people were.

You haven't done anything wrong and you shouldn't be so harsh on yourself for that matter. And for the fact that those girls were on those websites looking for fun that in itself makes it consensual; if they were willing to do things and if you didn't force any girls into doing them(which is basically impossible for obvious reasons) , u haven't done naything wrong And i think that's more your obsession that you thought you deliberately knew those girls were underage; don't worry about these stuff as they are really in the past... So what if those girls we're underage? it's firstly their fault that they were cruising on those websites and as i said legally the fact that those girls were there that makes them over 18, regardless of it they actually were or not.
I personally don't think ur into younger girls or anything like that, but for you i guess its more the fear that you don't want to be into younger girls that makes you question wether u are or not, if that makes any sense : so it's definetly not something innate to your sexuality from my point of view.
THere are tons of douchebags that record these stuff and i am myself in a state of panic these days cuz well, i have done some foolish things and i hate how people like that exist, but then again this is the world we live in unfortunately ...
YOu should take it easy on yourself, no harm has been done and you most definetly didn't do anything bad chill