Your (P)OCD story?

Hello,

is anyone interested in sharing his or her "OCD story", especially if it's POCD? I'm really interested in it.

I never had POCD in the same way as many people here. I do get intrusive thoughts about it, but my main fear is that I will suddenly turn into one. Even worse, I went through a stage of wondering whether various people I know could be a pedos and freaked out whenever kids were around - in case someone there was a pedo, thinking that there should be signs and I could prevent anything untoward occuring

It was more of a harm prevention thing, that if someone was and I subconsciously knew, would that make me some kind of pedophile by proxy? Would I have inadvertently committed a crime by not reporting it? I couldn't talk to anyone about it, as I felt that if I even mentioned the P word it would seem like an admission of guilt and I'd be taken away to prison. Then I started to worry that I was actually guilty of something because I hadn't talked about it and was keeping it secret - it was a dark time.

Then I started to worry that I was spending too long thinking about this and it meant that I could become one, almost like being infected by my own thoughts. I also stopped reading the news in case I'd accidentally read something about pedos and it would somehow taint me in a moral sense.

I no longer avoid children, although I do panic if there are young kids in a state of undress around. I still worry that someone will think I'm a pedo and report me to the police. I know I am definitely not a pedo, but really fear becoming one, or worrying that someone else is one and that I could somehow prevent them committing a crime and that makes me feel really guilty. It's much better though and no longer stops me from going out, although I still need to confess these worries as I feel that to keep them secret is a sign of guilt. I also still seek reassurance too. However, it's less frequent.

Like I said, not your conventional POCD, but it has a P theme nonetheless. Sorry if that's not what you meant.

Thank you very very much for your reply!
I think it's kind of interesting that you're obsessing over the same topic but in a different way. So when you fear turning into a pedophile do you do stuff like checking for attraction to make sure you're not starting to become one?

-tanja- wrote:Thank you very very much for your reply!
I think it's kind of interesting that you're obsessing over the same topic but in a different way. So when you fear turning into a pedophile do you do stuff like checking for attraction to make sure you're not starting to become one?

No, I'm so terrified of turning into one that I try and avoid all thoughts of pedophilia. I fear that if I start checking attraction, then I might turn into one. The same goes with reading about it. I can just about handle reading some of the POCD posts on here, but even those are triggering sometimes. I guess you'd call it mental contamination?

I mainly seek reassurance from close friends and relatives that I couldn't turn into a pedophile, avoid TV and avoid kids as much as possible. Oh, and I ruminate and reason to myself about how someone doesn't suddenly become a pedophile and it's not catching. At one point last year I was constantly cleaning as I got this idea that pedophiles had dirty houses . It's ridiculous I know, as I've never had sexual thoughts about children. However, as far as checking attraction goes, I know for a fact that I'd have full blown POCD and become a mess in no time.

However, I made a real breakthrough recently. I was about to visit some friends with a small child a couple of weeks ago and had a spike before I went. I challenged the thoughts and went anyway. However, that spike has kind of stayed with me to an extent.