Help, Purely Obessional OCD: Pedophilia fear.

I am 18, I Have Asperger's syndrome, severe depression, and OCD (Pure O), and I have high intellectual capacity/ reasoning power and rare abilities which point to genius (but I'm held back by the crippling OCD). And on the physical side I have rheumatoid arthritis, which causes chronic severe pain that makes my mental state even worse. The worst thing by far is the OCD, I can live quite comfortably with the rest by comparison. My obsession is fear of being or becoming a pedophile. Its often under control as I am able to reason with it effectively, though I am permanently exhausted from conclusively proving in my mind that I'm not a pedophile every single day. Lately its been at a particularly terrible intensity. When I lose connection with reality and really start to panic, I get either semi or full erections which make me want to throw up and punish myself (which I have read is called a 'groinal response' and is common among people with OCD, and is a result of the anxiety, not attraction). The past few days I have been getting erections as the result of anxiety, but they seem so real when their happening, I really feel like I am an evil pedophile that deserves to die (all my worries are life or death: if I'm a pedophile- suicide, If I have brain damage as the result of a minor concussion- suicide, if I go deaf- suicide, etc.) My OCD symptoms, my disgust and fear at these thoughts, the fact that I have never had a pedophilia oriented fantasy, along with the fact that I have only began to worry about this in the past 2-3 years, seems to quite conclusively indicate that I am indeed not a pedophile, but the fear remains. Something which really set off my attacks was an article by Robert Lindsay entitled 'OCD Versus Sexual Sadism, Pedophilia and Sociopathy,' which referenced studies that concluded that every man has a degree of attraction to children. These are obscure studies with varying results, yet when I emailed him he almost religiously said they were true when I asked how verifiable the data was. I asked about this on yahoo answers, and a mental health counselor of some kind said " Lots of studies are conducted and many times they make no sense or come to conclusions that are just strange. I should know since I have been involved with research and have read lots of them." Which gave me a lot of hope, but the fear remains. I need to be certain that this horrible thesis that everyone is a mild pedophile is false. I really feel like no one understands what I suffer. I need to be 100% certain that I am 100% percent non- pedophile, and nothing seems to put me in that place of certainty and clarity that is so important to me. And when I am reading that I'm a mild pedophile and getting erections due to the extreme anxiety, the delusion becomes overwhelming. Can anyone relate, or give me advice on how to deal with this? And can anyone confirm that the thesis that everyone has mild pedophile tendencies is false?

Gordon135 wrote: I need to be 100% certain that I am 100% percent non- pedophile, and nothing seems to put me in that place of certainty and clarity that is so important to me. And when I am reading that I'm a mild pedophile and getting erections due to the extreme anxiety, the delusion becomes overwhelming. Can anyone relate, or give me advice on how to deal with this? And can anyone confirm that the thesis that everyone has mild pedophile tendencies is false?

Hi Gordon. I'm sorry you are suffering so. Although I have never suffered the stress of fearing I'm a pedophile, I have suffered about other things in the same way, so I know how painful these things are.

The idea that you need to be 100% sure, is counter productive. The doubt and fear built into Anxiety/OCD assures that you it will never be 100%, because that is its job.

The anxiety doesn't care what reason you use to try and nullify your fear. Many people with OCD spend a lot of time "checking" to try and reassure themselves that they are not something horrible that they fear.

Here, let me say this. Someone who is a pedophile knows what their desire is. It is not residing in an almost non-existent part of their brain and about to catch them unawares. If you don't not have the desires that a pedophile has (and you never have), then you are not a pedophile. You do not become a peodphile, by being feared into it. You don't catch it like a cold.

All of that is logical. I would be very happy if that paragraph could solve your problems. But I'm guessing that the blowtorch of OCD will evaporate the logic in a millisecond.

If you haven't talked to a Psych, or a therapist, you may want to start there.

good luck,

Otter

Feeling as though you may be a pedophile is a somewhat common, and disturbing facet of OCD. These urges do not mean that you want such things, and are usually something to do with unrealized desires, a sense of infantilized or juvenile persona past a certain age, or a genuine fascination which begins to intrude into your brain, sometimes a combination of those. These thoughts emerge, unwanted, obtrusive, and frightening. You feel intrigued, but know it is wrong. You must see a therapist about your ocd, of course you will not want to talk about this. Use your therapist's guide for dealing with your other problems, and apply it to this.

IMHO, anyways.

VincentVittorio wrote:Feeling as though you may be a pedophile is a somewhat common, and disturbing facet of OCD. These urges do not mean that you want such things, and are usually something to do with unrealized desires, a sense of infantilized or juvenile persona past a certain age, or a genuine fascination which begins to intrude into your brain, sometimes a combination of those. These thoughts emerge, unwanted, obtrusive, and frightening. You feel intrigued, but know it is wrong. You must see a therapist about your ocd, of course you will not want to talk about this. Use your therapist's guide for dealing with your other problems, and apply it to this.

IMHO, anyways.

What are you basing these Freudianesque reasons for it on? It is the OCD which makes me fear the things most abhorrent to me, not some deep rooted reason for it, just that pedophilia is the thing which I most cannot live with, therefore it is the thing that OCD makes me fear. I also have feared brain damage and deafness (I am a brilliant pianist, so I would kill myself if I either lost my ability, or the hearing to passionately enjoy that ability; my pedophilia fear is there because its a question of life or death, not because I have hidden desires or I'm immature).

Gordon135 wrote:I need to be 100% certain that I am 100% percent non- pedophile, and nothing seems to put me in that place of certainty and clarity that is so important to me. And when I am reading that I'm a mild pedophile and getting erections due to the extreme anxiety, the delusion becomes overwhelming. Can anyone relate, or give me advice on how to deal with this? And can anyone confirm that the thesis that everyone has mild pedophile tendencies is false?

Free will - everyone has free will to choose what they want or don't want. Ergo you can simply decline to desire something sexual like that. Ergo there goes the thesis idea. That was easy.

Without the desire, you are just a guy struggling with OCD. Erection and/or arousal is no proof of desire. If that were the case then all rape/abuse victims must have wanted to be raped/abused if they felt any kind of arousal - that is ridiculous!

The problem is that the thesis LABELS people. It say "you ARE a pedophile to some degree and that is part of who you are." It doesn't work like that.

I am sorry that you read that thesis; whoever wrote it has a disgusting view of the world IMHO.

Hi Gordon, I'm going through a similar thing. If I I a pedo I personally don't think I could live with myself, although I don't know if I could physically kill myself although I have fantasised about it. All methods freak me out!