Help I'm not sure how to ask for help! (POCD)

So I recently got diagnosed with OCD in relation to Harm but I've also probably had pedophilic themed OCD for a few years now but I was too scared to mention it to my therapist because of a lot of fear but also a lot of shame.

it's that doubt that's really eating alive, since I'm constantly overthinking ESPECIAlLY because I'm approaching my 18th birthday so I'm freaking out.

So what made this whole thing start is that when I was about 10-13 I would look up pictures of boys in their underwear or swim team/ water polo pictures because I had started questioning my sexuality. This was when I started figuring out that I was most likely gay.

However because I didn't realize that these types of people look for these "Legal" pictures of kids (God it makes me sick to describe it that way) in compromising positions and basically make online curated websites dedicated to them. And I kept visiting these websites until I realized their full sinister nature at around 15 or 16.

I never viewed anything illegal but it was obvious that those freaks were using those pictures of swim teams and kids at the beach as bait and enticement.

This left me horrified once I figured it out and I think this is when the POCD had developed and taken ahold of me. I think because I grew up in a more conservative setting where homophobic assholes try to equate pedos with being gay that this really effected me.

Now it's really hard to discern between what was normal experimentation and exploration, and what my OCD is trying to reform as being a predator. Especially since these aren't technically false memories but rather it''s like false interpretations of those memories. I think also since the whole James Charles drama went down on YouTube it's really ######6 up on whether or not I'm being creepy or predatory or if people see me in that light.

Looking back I think maybe the worst thing I've done was like, oogle the waterpolo team at school Junior year. And that was with a bunch of other girls and with kids my age so I'm pretty sure that's normal.

Unfortunately this had lead to suicidal ideation on my part because the OCD is telling me that I deserve to die and that the world would be safer with out me.

Hello and welcome to the forums!

Well you were yourself a kid- in fact in many ways you still are- so in no way have you done anything predatory, IMO. I think you really know that, but you're letting your OCD get away with you. I personally think oftentimes POCD can be thrown in with Harm OCD fears.

Why don't, besides trying to stop over thinking this- why don't you start to take the legal definition as a way to ground you. You're still young so I expect you to still look at others that might be older or younger than yourself, but there's looking, and then there's touching. I think it's perfectly normal for teens to be attracted to a wide range but just so you know what's jailbait and what's not. Being attracted to someone younger, isn't necessarily the same thing as being attracted to minors for the sake of it. One is nature; the other is a paraphilia.

All of which is to say try to stop splitting hairs, and keep things in perspective. When I see people who are teens, or barely out of it, who let OCD get this idea in them that if they're not interested in only people over the age of majority that they're some kind of pervert just makes me shake my head. You're expected to like other teens, some older, some younger- some technically too young but I think it's just nature, sweetie. Not a perversion.