***How Are You Feeling Today???*** (may trigger)

God that doesn’t make me feel any better.

I know wishing for it to have never happened doesn’t do anything either.

I don’t know how to explain this, but a lot of times I don’t really think about age when I start finding someone attractive. I always just seem to assume they’re the same age or older based on how they look, especially if they’re taller.

And now I’m wondering if my previous crushes were just reassurance for my HOCD. I don’t think so because I really enjoyed them (and some of them made me cry and feel pain which obviously was not awesome)

I don’t know. It’s making me doubt the validity of all my previous posts. Which generally I always think that the first post holds the most truth and your feelings get twisted by OCD over time.

This might all sounds like a bunch of nonsense, I know :/

I try to make people feel better- but ultimately I don't want to be The One to make you 'feel' better. Reassurance is cotton candy.

I just want you to feel better enough to stop freaking out, long enough to look at it from a step back, dispassionately, and say Hmm. In the REAL WORLD (not looking at what are basically cartoons) THIS is what I go for! Hmm, I must really be that, and nothing else.

It's what I did for my sexuality, after years of humming and hawing and letting my OCD run away with amigay amistraight. Well, I seem to like this, this, and this, so I must be that. (That, happens to be bisexual, in a very convoluted fashion). Doesn't matter how I feel, I go by what I know.

That’s the thing. I don’t even know what I know anymore.

I do know I keep looking for certainty and that I will never find it because that’s how OCD works :/ I think I have exhausted everything from my past that I could possibly use to “check”. I know, it’s bad. It’s like a drug.

Am I even sure that I’m actually freaking out or am I just pretending to freak out so I get the results I want?

I’m just so scared! Shota might be considered fine and dandy in Japan but here it is practically CP!!

Granted there’s no actual children involved but still!! I feel numb and sick.

So I’m not as hysterical as I was last night but I still feel really really bad. I wish I had never ever looked up those shota comics. Ever. I wouldn’t be feeling horrible right now if I hadn’t. I feel like I’ll never be able to get past this and that this is just who I am now.

But I KNOW I’ve been attracted to older guys. Or guys the same age as me. I know I wasn’t lying or pretending to like them! I know I never want to harm children or minors. I know I’ve gotten aroused by porn involving two older men. I know I’ve enjoyed erotic fanfiction between two consenting adults. I know I’ve written erotic fanfiction between two consenting adults. I know I never used to feel like this before. I know I’ve gone for broad shouldered men with chest hair. I know I didn’t have a clear understanding of what shota actually was when I first found them.

And OCD is challenging every single thing I’ve stated. It makes me feel like I’ve never done or felt those things ever. It’s even making question if I really do wish I have never looked those shota comics up. It makes me feel like the FBI is gonna come crashing into my room any minute and arrest me. It’s what I deserve. It’s making me wish I was literally anyone else right now. Not having this heart wrenching empty feeling.

I’m just so scared I’m going to look the shota up again. I don’t want to. But I’m afraid I’m going to. I know that’s another part of it. I’m afraid I’m never going to get past this

Well....

I did some poking around (keeping my own OCD at bay) and all I can tell, is that It's in a very murky grey area, legally speaking, so I think I would steer clear of it..... however, surely plenty of people have looked at it, some inadvertently, and we don't hear too many stories of mass incarcerations based on a casual browse. I mean some of this stuff is ubiquitous, and the only case examples I saw, involved pretty egregious collection of animated works on top of usually, other stuff, as well.

So, I wouldn't worry? But I sure wouldn't go out of my way to look either.

Try and resist the temptation to 'check'. You're scared you're going to look it up again, and I am concerned also but only from the standpoint of this inane urge we get to check and check and check, and check again. Poking the bear, every time we do.

I do something similar with heaters and such. It's off but I'm worried it's on so I'll turn it on then back off welllllll I just turned it on again and now this time it really might not be off so....

Just try and walk away from it, sweetie.

You have to go by- you MUST, go by, what you really do in the real world and who you glom onto.

Anything else is unsubstantiated fodder for OCD.

Easier said than done. But you know that.

Oh trust me. I never want to look at it ever again. In fact I think I will block the site everywhere I can.

I just don’t know how I can ever forgive myself. Sure I might have been unaware just how bad it actually was and was dumb. But that only works for the past. Not what happened last week.

And I wonder if OCD can set us up to acquire more themes to agonize over?

Artninja1995 wrote:And I wonder if OCD can set us up to acquire more themes to agonize over?

I tend to take things literally- you might be being facetious, however, If not, well, how imaginative are you? I think our capacity to imagine, is the only limit on OCD. There are... some things that are common in this forum, that honestly had never occurred to me, or I am pretty sure I'd have OCD'd over them, back in the day.

Artninja1995 wrote:I just don’t know how I can ever forgive myself.

Very easy. Don't care about it. Who... did you harm? These aren't even live-action depictions. They're drawings. You didn't even indirectly cause harm by consuming something made at someone else's expense. The Non Aggression Principle is intact.

If no one is harmed- and no one was- then the only person offended, is you. You can... choose to decide there is nothing to forgive yourself for (other than being human but good luck on beating that), while at the same time saying, 'Well I won't do THAT again!' It's not like this is an addiction- and yes, please stop worrying that it will become an addiction.

Hah you know what. I wouldn’t be nearly this freaked out had I not looked up the definition of shota and other things surrounding it. I mean of course I’m still not sitting well that I brushed it off so casually a few years ago now that I know the truth.

But then again I did know it was bad last time, which is why I stopped it. And had the intrusive thoughts and tried avoiding public and kids for a while. But then it’s all just kinda a blur after that.

But I mean somehow I got over the thoughts and didn’t have any massive flare ups and knew not to look up those comics and was living pretty happily and sort of kept The memory of looking at those comics a few years ago in the back of my mind as a sort of “we don’t speak of that” sort of thing and pretending it never happened. And also then again I didn’t realize how bad it actually was so it was probably much easier. Could I just chalk looking it up last week to a morbid curiosity or my OCD setting me up because it hadn’t been bothering me for a while and it was craving attention and the spotlight? Because I don’t think one can just forget why they stopped looking at it in the first place.

I’m also worried that my therapist won’t be as understanding as you are Snaga. I don’t think he wont be but I still have that fear.

I don’t know. I just don’t know. And I’m kinda talking myself in circles at this point.

I possibly could be having this weird clarity because I took a Zoloft and am currently galaxy braining...or its placebo effect. Idk.