Please can someone help me. Terrified (POCD)

For some context, ever since I started masturbating at 14 I’ve been obsessed with porn. I had looked at porn religiously, which was always legal, and would fill my bookmarks with porn that would date back years. I had noticed that over time my porn taste changed into more rough and extreme types of porn and I’d always try and find the next extreme kind of porn after I was done with the last. This would consume hours and hours a day of my life and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at how long long I was spending.

I have also had OCD in numerous forms which has been troubling in many aspects. Just for example, I’ve had periods where I have been so worried about developing a stutter because I watched a video of someone stuttering I had to go and speak to a professional doctor to reassure me that I wouldn’t develop a stutter. I had a period of a year where I was afraid to go to sleep because I thought I wouldn’t be able to unless I slept in a particular position. I’ve even battled the ability to yawn as I would tell myself during each yawn that I couldn’t do it and would stop half way through which would cause massive amounts of frustration to me. I’ve had the typical symptoms of taking photos of all plugs in the house before I leave or making sure I check the door is locked 6 times before I leave.

I remember seeing a child model in a bikini posted on one of the chan websites. I remember freaking out and closing the browser and didn’t look at porn for quite a while afterwards as it disgusted me. I vividly remember being shook up from it.

Fast forward 2 years later, 2 years ago, during a time when my life really wasn’t going well and I was in the worst part of my life where I attempted suicide on several occasions I ended up trying to find that photo I saw all them years ago. In doing so I ended up finding a website that showed lots of different child models poses in underwear and bikinis most likely aged 9-14. Over the course of a month I looked at a lot of models quite obsessively and masturbated to them.

After that month I instead ended up ditching that and spent most of the time looking at teen photos in underwear instead. That went on for about a year, in which time I had developed a very unhealthy relationship with porn and was noticing myself looking at hours of all type of porn a day and masturbating at every opportunity.
This porn addiction led me to have hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of bookmarks of porn of all legal and mostly extremely strange types and would spend hours searching for that “perfect” video.

However in between that time I also found myself looking back at the child models periodically from time to time and would masturbate over them which happened during covid lockdown. I knew I shouldn’t be doing this yet I continued to as I wanted to find more extreme porn. All during this time I didn’t consider how damaging and sick this was, something I now know and am deeply deeply sickened on every level. I really would like to add that I wish I could apologise to everyone, in particular those in the photos for what I’ve done and I truly hate myself so much for what I did. I am truly so sorry.

On top of this one other thing that really has bugged me is when searching for legal porn on the net I remember seeing a thumbnail showing just a mouth of someone and a penis next to it. I remember thinking it looked young. The problem I’m facing is that I can’t remember if I masturbated to this or even ejaculated to it. My brain is telling me that I didn’t and that I ended up looking at a bookmarked video but something in the back of my head is saying something else and it’s sickening me and sending me down another rabbit hole.

I realised how sick and disgusting it is and shocked myself at the trance I had gotten myself into. I understand how much of a piece of $#%^ I am. Since then I masturbated to regular porn for a few months before stopping completely two months ago. I know I’ll never return to porn ever. It’s damaging in so many ways to so many involved and it’s something I know I can live without. In quitting porn I have also quit masturbating and it has helped tremendously to stop objectifying women. But I cannot shake my past and it’s haunting me to the grave. I just don’t understand as I know that I’ve never looked at a child in real life inappropriately or had any sick disgusting thoughts before since I looked at what I did. It’s making me feel insane every second of the day.

Since that point of ditching that side of porn half a year ago, I have fallen into a deep depression at the thought of what I did and how I didn’t consider what I was doing. I’ve never looked at a child in real life before, during or since and ever had those thoughts. Yet now I find myself 24 hours of every day obsessively wondering if I actually find children attractive. I’ll put a scenario in my head or think about a child and see if I find any arousal. It’s crazy because I know I don’t and I feel sickened whenever I put myself against these “tests” and end up spending the rest of the day or even weeks sometimes trying to see if there is any arousal or any sort of attraction with a horrible sick feeling in my stomach, and almost anger whenever I think there might. This has even gone as far as being disgusted at mature women who look younger or have a cuteness that could resemble a child.
I actively avoid children and the thought of ever doing anything to a child makes me more suicidal than anything.
These tests and thoughts continued to manifest from February up to last month where I tried to take my life because of it. I was unsuccessful and now am not looking to commit suicide as I want to better myself and do right by my wrongs.

However I’m not sure how long I can go through this feeling. I am constantly checking myself to see if I’m a pedophile. I’m testing myself constantly which goes on for days of obsessive thoughts until I’ve reached some sort of conclusion as to whether I’m a pedophile or not. I also find it so hard to speak to people without coming away from a conversation thinking that they must think I’m a pedophile for literally any reason my brain can think of.

I spoke to the stopitnow! helpline, which I must add are a fantastic service. I went through all of the courses they offer to understand the damages viewing online material does to children and it opened my eyes even more so than before I took the courses. I would recommend them in a heartbeat. I spoke to two different people from their helpline and explained what I have said here and they both said it sounds like I have something called POCD instead. That helped for a while but then after time I started doing more tests and analyses and have fallen straight back into the hole.

I just can’t stop asking why did I do it? I don’t understand. I would never touch a child or put a child in harms way. Like I said I would die first before ever hurting a child. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

It’s affected every aspect of life you can imagine and I need to find out if these thoughts I’m having have truth behind them or if they don’t. I literally cannot live or do anything as I don’t feel like I deserve happiness. The thought of being a pedophile makes me want to kill myself and I’m soon to have little left to live for as I’m seeing my life fall to pieces from this constant worry. I don’t know what to do and im scared, disgusted and sick. Please help.

Hello -

I am sorry you are suffering so much. Your situation seems very complex. There are various things going on: Depression, Anxiety, and issues with sexuality that are outside normal reactions to POCD. I don't think it all stems from OCD. On the other hand, it DOESN'T make you a pedophile. Issues with sexuality can be very complex and are often misunderstood by the one who suffers. It also doesn't help that it seems you went through a time of porn addiction which can make things even more complex because there is a need to consume more and more intense subject matter.

I think that the service "stopitnow!" might be good for temporary support but I would advise a professional therapist, face to face. Let them dig through things and organize what is going on.

Hello and welcome!

What Otter said.

I'm glad to hear you've cut off the younger images, and well yeah I think a lot of us could do from quitting porn. I've placed myself in a position where I don't have near as much opportunity to consume porn as I did before and I think that's a good thing.

I would add, try to resist the urge to test yourself. Testing is BAD. Testing leads to all sorts of rabbit-holes. Try not to test, and try not to second-guess everything. It's okay to step out from under the microscope you have trained on yourself.

Ultimately you know deep down- you've stated you've never done anything to a kid, that's what you have to lock onto and go by. Your actions. Not what-ifs and maybes.