Is this POCD??? Please reply, very confused and ashamed girl

Hi, I'm 19 and I have never been diagnosed with OCD but I'm pretty sure this is what I'm suffering from...
When I was 6 I was sexually abused by my uncle... It was obviously a traumatic time but as I've grown up I've suffered from very intrusive thoughts of all sorts, fear that I might be Lesbian, fear that I'm attracted to old people, fear that I might do something to harm myself, fear that I'm attracted to animals, fear that I could ever murder someone, fear that I have an illness such as cancer, fear that I have a bad mental illness like psychosis...

But the one that I'm recently dealing with lately and have done in the past is what if Im a peadophile??
I'm absolutely petrified, anxiety is spiralling out of control.

I've had groinal responses in situations and I've been so freaked out by it it's unbelievable- for example, the other weekend I stayed at my friends and her 4 year old daughter was in bed with her naked, I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life my anxiety was going crazy but I had this crazy groinal response and it really scared me I just wanted to up and leave.
I've checked before when I've been researching this to see if I was lubricated and I was! What the hell????????? I don't understand why because the topic disgusts me and I would never want to be like my uncle

Please can someone explain what's happening to me? I've never been this scared about anything in my life. I would never harm a child and I know that but when these thoughts attack so does doubt. I couldn't live with myself if I was a peadophile I really couldn't.
I wanted to have a family one day but now I'm in doubt that I ever can

thanks

Awh, hey sweetie.

First of all I'd like to say I'm so sorry for what happened to you when you were 6 with your uncle. That must have been truly horrifying.

This sounds like POCD, because you're frightened of the thoughts, and also because of your history with all of your other fears.

POCD is actually a very very common theme of pure-o intrusive thoughts. I am a 23 year old female. I was sexually groomed by a 27 year old paedophile lesbian at the age of 12. 4 years later I developed a fear of being a lesbian, especially since the kids at school found out and picked on me until I was 15. I was in a long term relationship with a boy whom I loved dearly, but I couldn't shift the intrusive thoughts AND groinal responses (arousal). Every time I saw a woman who had a flat waist and large chest, and especially seeing the groinal area on them, my heart would flutter, followed by groinal response, followed by feelings of anxiety and impending doom. The same came with POCD just a year later. I was 17, working with kids, and would get groinals when changing diapers, but wouldn't think much of it, and brush it off. My first groinal response was when I was 10 and I saw a little girl of about 8 fiddling with herself in a swimming pool changing room. I was a bit weirded out at why that gave me a twinge down below.. and to this day it still haunts me, and I still get that groinal.

Am I attracted to kids? No. Do I want a relationship with a child? No. Do I want sex with a child? No.

OCD will lie and lie and lie to you, about what you want, about your urges and desires. For a few weeks I had an urge to download child porn. It was crazy. Every time my boyfriend left me alone in the house I'd freak out because I thought I was gonna download some horrendous content, and then my mind would tell me I'm only avoiding it because I don't want to get caught and lose all of my loved ones. It's a vicious cycle. Thankfully I no longer have trouble with that and I am improving in my condition. My OCD mainly fixates on sexual intrusives. I've even had thoughts about my own mother! Certain sounds that she made, or gestures, or movements, my mind would make everything sexual and turn everything into sexual things, causing arousal.

When the POCD kicked in properly in January this year, I had the most horrendous groinals. I was told to let the thoughts just be in your mind and fly out again, so I laid on my bed and attempted to relax and let the thoughts and images run wild. It was agony for my groin. I was drenched from the lubrication. But I resisted. I would not masturbate to those horrid thoughts and disturbing images. I want to keep my mind pure and clean, with just arousal focused on my boyfriend. I've never had an incident as bad as that since.

This is an exhausting theme of OCD. The questions, the thoughts, the doubt all go around and around in our heads. Please PM me if you need any more assistance, but this definitely sounds like POCD.

If I were you I'd look around for an OCD specialist in your area who might be able to give you a few appointments so you can find coping mechanisms for these thoughts, but to start you off, here are a few.

So you have a thought about being a paedophile, maybe you see a kid on TV and your groin twinges along with an intrusive thought in your mind. You simply say "Oh, it's you OCD, okay, do your thing." Don't pay it any importance and try not to react to it. Instead get up, and do something like the dishes, or go for a walk, and try and focus your mind on the grass, the houses, the flowers, the concrete, your breathing, how fast/slow you're walking, anything. The more attention you give the thought, the more it grows. Trust me, I know. I'm an agoraphobic, so I spend most days sitting inside. There's a limited amount of things I can use to distract myself, and it isn't easy, so often my thoughts go onto more vile and nasty things.

I wish you good luck and again, please PM me if you need to dear.
You're not alone.

Hi, thanks so much for your response, I've read it now about 6 times already, I guess that might be a symptom of OCD too, but I've never been diagnosed. The thing that I'm finding it hard to cope with the most is the doubt in my mind about myself, it's the scariest thing ever. Like why can't my mind just recognise something is intrusive and just accept it as intrusive! Instead it picks and picks at it and questions me about denial and whether I'm like this and my similarities and differences to actual peadophiles! I can't even look at children at the minute every time I see a child I look away, how do you know that I'm not 'that' person?????!! Thanks again for the reply I really appreciate it

HI Keyleigh, I am in the same boat too! It's literally the worst thing I can ever imagine going through. I think I'd actually rather be dying of an illness!!!! It makes you afraid of yourself and feel STUCK in your own damn head all the time. You aren't a paedo. We are just super sensitive so we worry about everything! Sorry to hear about the abuse you experienced too, that's awful. I don't have any recollection of any abuse and I have this too, but it does seem like there may be some sort of connection as I've read quite a few posts of the girls on here (maybe guys too?) with POCD were abused at some point. very sad and horrific how it's so common.