Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for OCD and Related Disorders - Director, Jon Hershfield, MFT

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POCD Part II: Treating Pedophile-Themed OCD

The idea of actually getting treatment for POCD can be terrifying, especially when you think your obsession is unspeakable and untreatable. But OCD is OCD. POCD is not some untreatable separate diagnosis that requires some strange outlying treatment approach. The most effective treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Though there are multiple forms and variations on CBT, the ones that are most likely to help with OCD use a combination of cognitive, behavioral, and mindfulness-based interventions.

Cognitive Approaches to POCD

Cognitive approaches to the treatment of POCD focus on teaching you how to recognize when you are making assumptions that are problematic, unhelpful, or plain wrong about your pedophile fears. This might include addressing things like black-and-white thinking (if I have even one intrusive thought about a child, it means I am a pedophile) and magnifying (I noticed my baby’s cute bottom and that means I was leering at it inappropriately). Modifying distorted ways of thinking in this approach doesn’t involve trying to prove your fears are untrue (you’ve already tried that plenty), but instead works on drawing your attention to a more objective assessment of your experience. You can’t argue with the content of an obsession, but you can challenge the way in which you have formed your conclusions.

Behavioral Approaches to POCD

Behavioral approaches for OCD emphasize exposure with response prevention (ERP), which involves gradually training yourself to resist compulsions as you methodically confront your fears. Naturally, this does not involve putting you or any children in risk of any harm, but instead is designed to readjust your responses to the POCD triggers. This may involve resuming your role in challenging activities at home (e.g. bathing your children while not engaging in rituals), resisting the urge to do compulsions serendipitously (e.g. continuing to walk on the same side of the street as a child when you have an urge to avoid), purposely increasing closeness with children (e.g. babysitting your niece and resisting rituals), imaginal exposures (e.g. writing narratives about your pedophile fears potentially being true, reading triggering articles/websites without ritualizing), or any or all of the above.

Mindfulness for POCD

Incorporating mindfulness skills is often an important part of the CBT work, especially for POCD and other manifestations of the disorder that are maintained by mental rituals. Mindfulness skills are those which enable you to observe your thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they happen, without engaging them or judging them. You need to be able to see that you are ritualizing, to see the thought approaching and choose a response (often by not responding) instead of just reacting.  By accepting the presence of unwanted thoughts, you are not only doing exposure to your fear of not responding the “right” way, but you also lighten the burden of constantly having to punish yourself. The stuff that goes through your head is just that – stuff that goes through your head. Mindfulness work can teach you to make room for that “stuff” and reduce the power it has over you.

Sure, anything to get out of this living nightmare, but how am I supposed to accept something that is anathema to my values?

You’re not. You’re accepting that you have thoughts, that you have fears, that you are uncomfortable around uncertainty, that you very strongly wish no harm to come to anyone you love. You accept that you care strongly about the kind of moral person you are. You accept these things and learn that responding to these thoughts and fears the way you have been brings you no closer to the things you value and it’s time to identify new behaviors that will. That’s a different kind of acceptance.

Demystifying CBT for POCD

CBT treatment for POCD is a frightening prospect. You want to stop having thoughts about children that make your stomach churn, and your CBT therapist wants you to have them. Or, more accurately, your CBT therapist wants you to let them come, let them be, and ultimately let them go. It’s dirty work, but there’s a lot at stake. The OCD wants total submission. It wants total control over who you spend time with, what or who you make contact with, where you go, how you raise your children, what you listen to on the radio, what movies or TV to watch… It wants it all.

To the POCD sufferer, the idea of discovering that you are a pedophile means losing it all. Your identity, your legacy. ERP rebels against this oppression. Though you won’t ever have to do something that violates your ethical beliefs or do anything that could harm a child, you are going to have to put yourself in situations that trigger powerfully unpleasant thoughts and feelings. But when you develop mastery over this obsession, each step along the way you get rewarded by more freedom from the OCD. Freedom of movement, freedom to be with whomever you want to spend time with, freedom to watch or listen to whatever show or music you choose, freedom from the tyranny of OCD.

If you don’t have a longstanding history of OCD symptoms, and POCD crept up post-partum or at some other time in your adult life, you may be reeling from the shock of experiencing these frightening thoughts for the first time and not knowing why. If you have always had OCD and just found your fears evolving thematically in this direction, your experience is no less terrifying. However, you may already know how OCD works. If you can think it and it’s awful, then you’re doing to think it. This is not because you are some bad person with a broken moral compass or some closeted deviant wired the wrong way. It’s because this is how OCD works. Mastering your OCD means knowing all its tricks and how to outwit them.

The Trap of Convincing Yourself

Uh huh, freedom from OCD sounds great, but how do I know if I’m a pedophile or not? “Pedophiles are like this and I’m like that.” Looking for something like that to prove I’m not a child molester. I mean, what’s the difference between me and someone who’s a pedophile and is just afraid to act on it? Or maybe doesn’t want to act on it because they know it’s wrong or harmful? I need to know that I’m, not sexually attracted to children, that I’m not even capable of it.

This is an OCD trap. I could write about the diagnostic criteria for pedophilia and the basic premise that some people for some reason are either sexually wired toward children or somehow develop urges that result in preying on children. You could read it and find the thing you think makes you different or the same, but your obsession will persist regardless. It is the problem with certainty and capability. First, attempts to attain certainty suggests that certainty is somehow accessible with harder and deeper thinking. If this were true, you would not find yourself seeking out more information about POCD. You would have thought long and hard about it, figured it out, and moved on. Certainty is an illusion. I’ve managed to go my whole life without molesting anyone, but it doesn’t prove a thing other than saying that the attention I need to give to thoughts about potentially molesting children is probably very low. Certainty is perfect knowledge that something is 100% true. Rather than certainty, what we would be better off seeking is confidence, an internalized belief that something is true. This comes not from trying to prove things, but from accepting uncertainty and living in such a manner that “proof” seems superfluous.

The other problem with the never-ending quest to prove incapability is the implication that being capable of something means we will do something or means we are the kind of person who could do something. It’s a trap because if you have at least one arm, you are capable of punching someone. If you are physically larger and stronger than a child, then you are capable of abusing that child. Capable just means physically able, so being aware of capability is irrelevant when trying to determine likelihood of action. What’s more important than the potentiality is reality. If in the present moment you are having unwanted thoughts about children, then you are whoever you are and are having those thoughts. This doesn’t say anything about you other than what is happening. You could be thinking of anything, but happen to be aware of this obsession.

You Are Not Alone

You’re not alone and you’re not a freak (at least, not because of this). If you struggle with unwanted obsessive thoughts about children, and you live in fear and disgust over the presence of these intrusions, you may have a version of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a common mental health issue that really does respond well to the right treatment. If you can find the language to articulate your experience to a therapist who understands OCD, then you can learn the tools to develop mastery over your unwanted thoughts.

Click here for POCD Part I: What Is Pedophile-Themed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?

Jon Hershfield, MFT is a psychotherapist in private practice licensed in Maryland and California, specializing in the treatment of OCD.  Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. 

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Moral Scrupulosity OCD: Part Three

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Moral Scrupulosity OCD: Part Two

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jason McClary

    Jon,

    Thank you for this article. There are so many people who struggle with OCD and don’t know how to get the right treatment. I have had OCD for 26 out of 38 years and didn’t know anything about CBT until I was in my late 20s. I am so happy there are therapists out there such as yourself who are taking away the stigma of mental illness and letting people know that they are not alone!

      • Orwell1984

        The word pedophilia comes from ‘pedo,’ child & ‘philia,’ a love of. Therefore it is thoughts of loving children. Pederasty (word is not gender specific) comes from ‘ped,’ child & ‘ to act upon.’ Thus, ‘POCD’ is actually ‘pederasty’ OCD because the thoughts of pedophilia are already there, but the action is not. Thus, the fear is that they would act on these thoughts and become pederasts, not that they are pedophilies.

        • Jon Hershfield

          It’s an interesting consideration, but in my experience I have seen the obsession present in both ways – the fear of acting and the fear of identifying as such. The same is true in other sexual orientation obsessions. The concern is identity contamination, not just committing unaccepted acts.

          • Anon

            I can agree and say mine definitely is identity contamination. I’ve never obsessed over actually going out and touching a child because that risk is as low for me and insignificant as someone without OCD that i dont even bother worrying about it because i know i control my behaviour and i just simply don’t want to do that.
            But i worry that 1) i’m secretly attracted to children and just don’t know it (despite months of ruminations and nothing in my past to suggest I do), 2) I will become a pedophile in the future somehow, 3) feeling a sort of responsibility for those that harm kids in the world even though i cant do anything about it.
            Being a good person and making others happy has genuinely been the biggest value in my short 18 years of life so currently i’m working on putting more energy into growing to be a better person, girlfriend, friend, and daughter instead of looking for certainty. Thank you Jon for this article 🙂

          • Jon Hershfield

            >>>>>But i worry that 1) i’m secretly attracted to children and just don’t know it (despite months of ruminations and nothing in my past to suggest I do),

            —There’s no life law that says we are required to worry about secret mental processes, including so-called secret attractions.

            2) I will become a pedophile in the future somehow,

            —Stories about the future are, by definition, stories, and again you are under no mandate to investigate or worry about them.

            3) feeling a sort of responsibility for those that harm kids in the world even though i cant do anything about it.

            —You can be a compassionate and moral person that has these feelings without being consumed by them.

            >>>>>Being a good person and making others happy has genuinely been the biggest value in my short 18 years of life so currently i’m working on putting more energy into growing to be a better person, girlfriend, friend, and daughter instead of looking for certainty.

            —I like it!

          • Anon

            hi Jon it’s me again. Whilst I am working towards these things and i am doing exposures on my own (they’re great!) my OCD has come up with a new worry. At first I didn’t realise it was OCD but now I do.
            I hear a lot with pure O that we have to “take the risk and do things anyway” obviously this means things like: go to work knowing there’s kids there and risk that the obsession could be true in order to break it. But one day I had a thought that “I should take the risk and watch sexually illegal child material” and at first I was terrified because i do NOT want to do that and the mere fact it exists angers me and I wouldn’t be able to find it anyway. I realised I dont want to watch it but I wanted to test how it made me feel (even then I still don’t want it – I’m so repulsed)

            But this thought gets me stuck. Because now I don’t know where to draw the line at exposures. I really really don’t want to watch it but I have a thought that if I don’t I will never know how I will react to it (aka I might like it? – I already know this is absurd and untrue and horrible but OCD repeats itself) I promise you there is no risk of me ever watching it I would rather die. But how do I recognise this as what it is – an OCD obsession looking for a compulsion – rather than seeing it as something I need to do.
            I also worry that if I don’t tell my boyfriend about this obsession then I’m lying to him and hiding a huge part of me. I adore him more than anything and at the minute he’s a lot of the reason I’m alive. But I know I If he know he would be repulsed so I feel so much guilt. How can I be happy with not telling him? Telling him would make it worse because I know In my heart it’s not true but for someone without OCD it’s such a hard thing to talk about so I don’t want to tell him. I know it would end badly. I would rather him not know.

            Also what are some exposures I can do? At the minute I’ve been Watching a family I used to watch on YouTube that do video blogs.

          • Jon Hershfield

            >>>>I hear a lot with pure O

            —There is no such thing as “pure o”. It is a misnomer used to describe people with OCD who have obsessions and compulsions like everyone else but whose compulsions are primarily covert or mental in nature.

            >>>that we have to “take the risk and do things anyway” obviously this means things like: go to work knowing there’s kids there and risk that the obsession could be true in order to break it. But one day I had a thought that “I should take the risk and watch sexually illegal child material”

            —That’s a crime, not a risk. Also, it’s a false comparison since going to work is obviously in line with your values. No ERP should ever fall out of line with your values.

            >>>>and at first I was terrified because i do NOT want to do that and the mere fact it exists angers me and I wouldn’t be able to find it anyway. I realised I dont want to watch it but I wanted to test how it made me feel (even then I still don’t want it – I’m so repulsed)

            —Testing is a compulsion. Don’t do compulsions.

            >>>>But this thought gets me stuck. Because now I don’t know where to draw the line at exposures.

            —Yes you do. At values.

            >>>>I really really don’t want to watch it but I have a thought that if I don’t I will never know how I will react to it (aka I might like it? – I already know this is absurd and untrue and horrible but OCD repeats itself)

            —Hence the entire premise of all OCD treatment – you have to learn to accept uncertainty in order to get better.

            >>>>>I promise you there is no risk of me ever watching it I would rather die. But how do I recognise this as what it is – an OCD obsession looking for a compulsion – rather than seeing it as something I need to do.

            —Because that’s not what the word “need” means.

            >>>>I also worry that if I don’t tell my boyfriend about this obsession then I’m lying to him and hiding a huge part of me. I adore him more than anything and at the minute he’s a lot of the reason I’m alive.

            —That is not a healthy way to conceptualize any relationship.

            >>>>But I know I If he know he would be repulsed so I feel so much guilt. How can I be happy with not telling him? Telling him would make it worse because I know In my heart it’s not true but for someone without OCD it’s such a hard thing to talk about so I don’t want to tell him. I know it would end badly. I would rather him not know.

            —Disclosure is a personal choice and there are several things to consider regarding when, to whom, and how. I discuss this in When a Family Member Has OCD. The way you describe it, it sounds like mostly a confession compulsion, not an effort to work together to get you better.

            >>>>Also what are some exposures I can do? At the minute I’ve been Watching a family I used to watch on YouTube that do video blogs.

            —That’s a decent idea. I can’t provide you with a treatment plan via blog comment of course. There are several suggestions in my blogs on the subject, as well as my books and several others on OCD (I recommend Jonathan Grayson’s book on uncertainty of you haven’t read it)

          • Anon

            Thank you Jon for the help and I really do appreciate it even though it’s such a horrible topic. even though I sound repetitive and although I clearly have questions and things I need to stop doing you do inspire me.
            I’m taking on board everything you’re saying but I have 1 more question before I go.
            Earlier I went past an article about normal/abnormal sexual child behaviour (it was for parents and very vague) and I originally clicked on it for exposure but then it was interesting in a way. (Not in a sexual way but in a curious way?) I was disgusted and doing a face the whole way but I read until the end. I now worry that I’m curious about child sexuality or something and want to know more. In a way I am curious to read abut again it makes me sick and I’d just rather not know bc it’s gross but it’s possible I am curious. It doesn’t necessarily go against my values but i think I would rather not know. But I feel guilt for being very slightly curious. Sorry if I sound repetitive! I think I probably am just wrestling with the same thoughts just worded differently. But thank you if you reply & if you’re wondering I’ve been a lot better lately and stopped caring about telling my boyfriend 🙂

          • Jon Hershfield

            Sexuality is interesting. Trying to be certain you are finding the right parts of it the right kind of interesting is compulsive.

          • Anon

            The only reason I’m asking about this one even though it feels the same is because I’ve never heard of other OCD people having worries about being “curious” and what that means. Because although I know how irrational my POCD is, morbid/dark curiosity isn’t really irrational for me even though I have good intentions. Anyway advice is appreciated and this is the last one I promise haha

  2. roberto

    Hi Jon,
    In first place i want to apologize for my english, i’m from south america.
    there is almost nothing of information about this state in spanish pages and local specialists know almost noting,when i found this article, i didnt undrstood too much so i started learning english so i could understand it, this was the first time i dont feel alone, i read this almost every night, you see im just 20 and i want you to know that you give hope to a soul, an unkwnown soul, so i eagerly waits for a part 3 hahaha…

    Thank you very much mr Jon. Thanks you a lot

  3. Adam

    I commented on your Part 1 post, and was asking specifically about certainty/uncertainty. I think you addressed it in this post – and that perhaps what I am seeking and what I CAN have is confidence. I am confident I would never do anything to my son…which can be more attainable than certainty?

    • Jon Hershfield

      Well, confidence is attainable, so by definition it is more attainable than something which is unattainable. In the short term, as you treat your OCD, you may have to learn to be willing to make certain non-compulsive choices despite lacking in confidence until confidence comes around and makes it easier.

  4. emma

    Hi Jon! Dont know if you remember me? We mailed abit and I discussed with you the deff of a pedophile(u do not need to be attracted just have fantasies for over 6 months). Everyday I would be paralyzed and would sleep as much as I could. Why? Because I felt like since I would get sexual thoughts about kids when having sex or playing with myself, I felt it came under that.

    I then realized something I had never realized before…those criterias are for people to know if they are pedophiles, but I also have OCD.If you would get sexual thoughts of kids when having sex and freak out but it happened alot and did not have OCD, you could be a pedophile. But when you have OCD, you need to realize that you can not see things in black and white in form of those criterias as you also suffer from another mental disorder.

    The likley hood of it being ocd and fear of having fantasies is likley. OFC I will never know, but using common sense and realizing I suffer from OCD..it is just another symptom. 9 years of the fear of being a pedo and thoughts occurring all the time, ofc they will appear during sex because of fear and after 9 years I dont fear it , but it can still pop up here and there but it’s prob more because of my brain is use to having those thoughts for all over those years.

    I feel more free understanding I suffer from OCD and reading the criterias for pedophilia is not going to help, as the criterias would be different with someone with OCD etc.

    You were a great help Jon. I will be able to seek help in November and I can’t wait to get my life back at 24

    • Jon Hershfield

      Congratulations on coming to the conclusion that compulsive analysis of diagnostic criteria is a symptom of your disorder. You’re on the right track. best of luck in treatment!

  5. T

    Hi Jon, I just want to thank you for these two posts. This specific OCD has suddenly come up for me this year, and it’s been horrible. I recently met with a specialist and we will be doing ERP therapy. I’m nervous as hell about it, but I’m also hopeful that it’ll provide me with some tools/relief.

    Thanks again!!!

    • Jon Hershfield

      Glad it was helpful. Sounds like you’re on the right track to getting better!

  6. emma

    Hello Jon. I really do love your work and I wish I could have someone like you,over here in Norway 🙁 These articles are really good and have informed me alot about my OCD. However,you really dont write about arousal?What is your take on that? You see thoughts of kids pop up during times of sex etc and sometimes it feels like I get aroused by the thoughts,even when I try to get rid of them and hate it happening. Is this a OCD symptom?Or am I turned on by my OCD thoughts that I do not like?

    • Zach

      I’m 20 and I was having sex with my girlfriend and it felt amazing, but we were in a ‘risky’ place in public and there were families in the distance. Suddenly, a thought popped up like “what if my girlfriend was a child” followed by an image and then I ejaculated immidiately. Since then, I have thought about nothing else. I can’t tell if I came because of the thought or because of the sex. Was I about to come before? Or was it the thought? And did the thought even happen? My description of it is only what I think happened, because I don’t 100% know now. And even worse, as I type this, my brain is just being like “You know the truth, you’re faking this OCD thing” and then I also doubt these thoughts, and then those thoughts of doubt, and so on and so on…even now, still doubting. I don’t know a thing anymore.

      Everytime I see a child or young teen, I check to see if I’m attracted to him/her. I know I shouldn’t, I’ve read all your posts on HOCD and what not so I know I shouldn’t. I even shouldn’t be on here. But I can’t help it anymore. This feels too real now. Till now, I had only worried about intrusive thoughts, groinal responses, sex play as a child, etc. Now it feels like the real thing and I just feel so sad. All I can think about is how it will ruin everything. Help me Jon?

      (still doubting this post entirely)

      • Jon Hershfield

        >>>>>I’m 20 and I was having sex with my girlfriend and it felt amazing

        —Yay!

        >>>, but we were in a ‘risky’ place in public and there were families in the distance. Suddenly, a thought popped up like “what if my girlfriend was a child” followed by an image and then I ejaculated immidiately. Since then, I have thought about nothing else. I can’t tell if I came because of the thought or because of the sex. Was I about to come before? Or was it the thought? And did the thought even happen? My description of it is only what I think happened, because I don’t 100% know now.

        —Because it’s 100% unknowable.

        >>>>And even worse, as I type this, my brain is just being like “You know the truth, you’re faking this OCD thing” and then I also doubt these thoughts, and then those thoughts of doubt, and so on and so on…even now, still doubting. I don’t know a thing anymore.

        —This all seems based on an idea that if the thought did cause the orgasm (as opposed to the thought and the orgasm merely coinciding by chance), that this has some inherent meaning. Is this belief supported by any evidence other than your anxiety? Since it is impossible to know for certain what happened in what order or why, attempts to achieve this certainty could only possibly increase anxiety. This is especially problematic if your anxiety is being mistaken in your mind as evidence of some sort of problem.

        >>>>Everytime I see a child or young teen, I check to see if I’m attracted to him/her. I know I shouldn’t, I’ve read all your posts on HOCD and what not so I know I shouldn’t. I even shouldn’t be on here. But I can’t help it anymore. This feels too real now. Till now, I had only worried about intrusive thoughts, groinal responses, sex play as a child, etc. Now it feels like the real thing and I just feel so sad. All I can think about is how it will ruin everything. Help me Jon?

        —People say “this feels like the real thing” and overlook that, by definition, in order for that statement to make any sense at all, you must be separated from the “real” thing, whatever that is. That’s why I don’t go around saying I feel super not pedophillic today. Sorry you got bit by the OCD bug, I know it can be terrifying. It sounds like you have a history of obsessing about the potential loss of your sexual identity and you got triggered by the presence of a thought at an inopportune moment. Now you are engaging in compulsions to try to prove your fears untrue, but it just results in worse anxiety and confusion. OCD is treatable with CBT, are you in treatment?

  7. kerry

    Hi Jon,
    Thanks for allowing me to vent some pocd thoughts, just waking up for work and the thoughts are there, some times images sometimes themes or just scary word assosociations, the word pedohile or kiddy f**er or other anxiety ridden phrases followed by the did it move groinal thing. I had an image of a naked girl when I was working in my early twenties and that pushed my pocd into full effect, instant anxiety disorder, have tried the cbt route, some relief, need to hit this on the head, father of one 5 year old son, love him more than anything, ocd has compulsions of me touching some of his items of clothing or a picture of him in the bath with my penis in attempt to relieve the anxiety only to make it tens times worse, this is a daily intrusion, in social circles or if there is children or babies the anxiety worsens, I know cognitively I have to let the thoughts be there, even ask for them, but this is a long endeavor, we only get one life. Any reply would be appreciated Jon.

    • Jon Hershfield

      Hi Kerry, thanks for sharing your story and sorry you are struggling. OCD often goes after the things we care for the most, even our children. You say you have tried CBT and it provided some relief, but did not explain why you are no longer engaged in CBT for your disorder. I’m not sure I understand the functional purpose of touching a picture or piece of clothing with your genitals to relieve anxiety. Is it a checking/testing compulsion?

  8. A***

    Hi Jon

    I have found that ERP and Mindfulness therapy have aided me on my road to recovery from Pure O. I went through a fairly upsetting separation back in the fall of 2009, due to irreconcilable differences and my wife’s inability to understand and support my POCD suffering. I am pleased to say that we maintain a good relationship nowadays as we both have the same goal for our kids to grow up happy and healthy. The one downfall to the separation was that my family moved to Europe and have been there the past five years. I still have the odd spike when I visit which is religiously every couple of months, my daughters mean the world to me. It just feels that when I am out of my comfort zone my OCD is on the perrifery, this is mainly when I am visiting the kids. I put it down to the emotional instability which influences the heighten sense of anxiety I feel at times in their presence this is lesser now but it does not negate the vulnerability of knowing that I can be exposed to episodes of hypersensitivity. I like everyone else has a challenge to maintain OCD I just wanted to know how to strengthen my core beliefs, is ERP the way to providing more of the seld esteem I need just to shrug it off when exposed to the elements during my visits?

    • Jon Hershfield

      That’s great that you’ve made so much progress with your OCD. I think the key to long-term management is actually self-compassion, which involves both mindfulness and ERP. ERP comes in as a strategy for widening that space in your mind that these unwanted thoughts go through (maybe my sensitivities are signs of some sinister sexual deviance, etc…) and mindfulness comes in with the non-judgmental observing power (these are circumstances that typically make my thoughts seem louder, etc…). So to answer the question about core beliefs (by which I think you mean values), you are already doing it by being consistent in your family visits. You can soften the experience by going into it fully aware that it can sometimes still be challenging, that it is challenging for anyone with OCD, and that you’re doing a fine job putting your family first. “Shrug it off” is one way to put it, but I prefer “let it be as it is.”

  9. sara

    Hello. Thank – you for a great read. I have been on many OCD forums and many people who suffer with this type of OCD tend to talk about masturbation. You have not mentioned it at all here.

    I have read alot about POCD to try and understand what OCD is doing to me, and I find myself very wise. However, there is not alot said about masturbating to check if you are a pedophile. I did this once when I was 17 y old. I started to masturbate to images of kids to see if I could come. I tried for a few seconds and gave up in fear if the results. I read an amazing article about OCD and POCD, and here they stated that people with POCD/OCD do not masturbate to these images. It was based on research.

    The article is called: Risk assessment and management in obsessive–compulsive disorder David Veale, Mark Freeston, Georgina Krebs, Isobel Heyman & Paul Salkovskis.

    It states very well all the tings I have gone through and what people go through with POCD/OCD. However they state, People with POCD:fail to masturbate to these images.

    So how have they come to this conclusion? I have OCD and I am diagnosed. I have the type POCD and I have once tried to check if I could masturbate to the images (I stopped after a few seconeds).

    OFC, many things on the nett are wrong and many researchers don’t have the correct result. This is why I want to ask you. I do not read as a compulsion, I read here and there to make myself understand I have OCD. This has helped me understand myself alot!

    regards Sara

    • Jon Hershfield

      There are many things that people do for the purpose of compulsive checking that I haven’t mentioned. In my Harm OCD articles I haven’t mentioned people who might stand over their loved ones with knives while the sleep to prove they won’t hurt them and in my HOCD articles I didn’t mention people who hire same-sex prostitutes to prove they wouldn’t enjoy them. So I wouldn’t read in to what has not been written. Many people engage in ill-advised checking rituals that backfire and later become additional sources of obsessing. Masturbating to pedophillic imagery to prove that you can’t achieve orgasm that way would be an example of compulsive checking. When you read sources that say people fail to masturbate to this or that image, what they are identifying is that they are not engaging in this behavior for pleasure/fantasy purposes, something a person might do if they had ego-syntonic desires instead of simply obsessive fear of having those desires. Your point is well taken, that this subject should be discussed more. But the question is not whether the behavior has occurred but what is the function of that behavior.

    • Charles

      Hi, even though I am no expert like Jon, I too suffer from OCD, not POCD but did have intrusive thoughts like these after watching the news about several cases of child abuse, but I guess I have a good insight of my disease,so I never thought I was one, my obsession was that I was never going to be happy because of the intrusive thoughs. I understand you, they are the most horrible thing in the world. I politely reply to this because I actually read the same article as you, and probably what I am going to tell you is bad for you because it is reassurance, but in fact there is a part of the article that speaks about compulsions looking for reassurance, and even one rare case that a man watched child porn to prove to himself that he wasn´t a pedophile, and of course the result was disgust, and the authors described it as a compulsion because he wasn´t looking for pleasure and did not get it, but to “prove himself”. Of course it is a really bad compulsion as it is illegal, probably VERY traumatizing and I bet that this man later obsessed about the fact that he actually watched it regardless of the purpose. I think this is a good example of WHY COMPULSION DON´T WORK AND ONLY MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE because for OCD, there is never a satisfying answer. I guess it is the same in your case, you were trying to prove that you couldn’t masturbate from the intrusive thoughts, and in fact as you describe it, you couldn´t, but doing that only feeds your obsession. I have learned that basically everything you do (no matter what it is) in order to try to alleviate the anxiety and bad feelings of the intrusive thoughts and to try to prove that your irrational fears are not true, is in fact a compulsion and these can be different for every person. I think your OCD is making you focus in ONE sentence of the article that you think would make you a pedophile, instead of the rest of the article that as you say, describe your symptoms of OCD. I hope it helps! I know OCD is so hard and because of our cognitive mistakes in the way we think (like for example everything is either black or white) just for having the thoughts we think we are horrible people!! when in fact is usually the opposite.

  10. B

    Thank you for these articles; they’re very helpful.
    Something which has made things difficult for me is the idea that, if I am after all attracted to children, I could communicate it to them non-verbally through my body language, and that they would be harmed by exposure to my feelings even though I don’t consciously want to be broadcasting anything. I know a lot of information is communicated instantaneously between people through social signals and subtle physical signs, and I’m afraid that any proximity to children on my part might be inherently destructive. In this scenario the inclination becomes the harmful action, so I’m not really sure what I ought to do, since as you say I can’t rule out the possibility that it’s there.

    • Jon Hershfield

      I would recommend letting of the idea that you have some kind of control over invisible signals, do exposure by interacting with the world freely (not avoiding children), and accept the possibility that unseen harm could take place. By your same logic, I am capable of harming you with signals I could be embedding in this comment. Not worth the attention it’s getting and you do have influence over how much attention you give to what goes on in your mind.

  11. Scareddutch

    Hi Jon. I hope you read this. I have POCD and struggle a lot when having sex with my wife. We have a little boy of almost 2 years and I’m always so scared to think about him when having sex.

    The last 2 times it happened when I almost had my climax. It’s like I can’t stop this thoughts to pop up when having an orgasm. I’m not sure whether I can’t stop them or I don’t care when I have an orgasm or if I invite them. I only know I don’t like this and it fills me with anxiety.

    Sometimes I see horrible thoughts but most the of the time I only think about his name. I try to focus on something else, but maybe that’s the reason I think about it.

    You article and also this article was helpful, but still i feel uncomfortable: http://www.ocdonline.com/#!thinking-the-unthinkable/c1arh

    Please give me some advise! Thank you!

    • Jon Hershfield

      Unpleasant as it may be to do otherwise, trying to block certain thoughts from happening at certain times only makes them more likely to intrude. The arrival of an orgasm often makes people feel protective of that moment, which tends to lead OCD sufferers to test or check for unwanted thoughts that can ruin that moment. You have to increase your willingness for the moment to be “contaminated” by whatever thought happens to be around, even this one. Focus on the task at hand (your wife), but when the unwanted thought makes itself known, just make room for it and let it be there as you might a thought about a lampshade or shopping cart or anything else. This will probably feel bizarre, but eventually your brain can let go of it. The key is not being protective of the orgasmic moment but letting it be however it is.

  13. Kerry

    Hi again Jon
    You answered a comment I made to you in September 2015, it’s Kerry. To further comment on the touching my genitals on a piece of clothing or picture of my son, what happens is I when i am doing laundry or folding his clothes or holding a picture I get the groinal response and an urge to touch the item on my genitals, not sure if I am trying to stop the anxious groinal response or just following through with the urge, it does stop the groinal response but creates the dynamic of having done something wrong.. I have also had similar experiences when laying beside him or when he is on my lap, I get the uneasy groinal response then the thought if I thrust or move my pelvis groinal area I will stop this feeling, it’s almost like the ocd sais don’t you dare move your hips right now then I just do it to stop all the anxiety, compulsion? Maybe. I think a part of me sais just thrust your hips groin area, your not scared, confusing thought pattern to say the least. I have been doing erp with scary repetitive thoughts at home and in public, purposely looking at people and children and creating the scariest thoughts I can conjure up. Lots of anxiety but I believe it has helped. Is there a way I can improve my erp in these areas. I am quite involved with my son sports and activities swimming, beavers,soccer. I try to do erp at these events but its scary. Thanks for the help.

    Kerry.

    • Jon Hershfield

      These are compulsions. My recommendation would be to note that you had the urge to touch or move and then choose to allow it to remain present instead of seeking a compulsive strategy to remove it. The goal is not to stop feelings but to stop allowing feelings to dictate behavior.

  14. Scareddutch

    Hi again Jon. I have POCD and are using sertraline. Last weekend I had a great time visiting friends. It was fun, but we drunk a lot of alcohol and went out (I know that isn’t really clever…).

    The day after I keep questioning myself about what thoughts I had that night. I’m scared and I vaguely reminder that at some point I thought: “look, here is my true self”, but I don’t know in what context and I’m not 100% sure about this (maybe it was ironic). Earlier that night, my mother sent me some pictures of our little son while he was in bath so I’m scared I thought something horrible about my son and after that I had this thought that I am truly a pedophile. (I mean the “look here is my true self” phrase.). Maybe the thought was about something totally different (maybe about girls I was looking at and maybe they were nearly 18 and maybe I didn’t think this at all, but it makes me ruminate and sad all day. Summarizing: I’m scared about a thought that I might have had. I don’t know in what context and I keep ruminating to find the truth. Please help!

    • Jon Hershfield

      Your obsession hinges on a belief that thoughts are things and that there is some value in knowing for sure which thoughts you have, when, and why. You need to reject this belief and recognize that your efforts to get certainty through rumination are the cause of the problem, not the solution.

  15. NeedPeace

    Hi Jon. I really hope you will respond to this. First, thank you so much for your articles and taking the time out to reply to so many people on here. I have had OCD since I was 11 when my dad died and that triggered it I believe. It started out more innocent and developed into being almost totally geared towards sexual topics. Now I’m in one of the worst places I think I’ve ever been in with it because I have overanalyzed everything to such an extent that I can’t tell anything apart in my head anymore. I can’t tell what’s real and a lot of things feel real so that’s of course very terrifying. One thing in this post stood out to me: “Fear that noticing adult characteristics (e.g. specific body parts, body positioning, style of dress) of prepubescent children, pubescent adolescents, or of anyone “too young” is an indicator of pedophilia” I almost cried when I read that because I relate so much. Lately I’ve had this huge fear of one day having a child and being attracted to my own child. I don’t even really want to have children and don’t exactly plan on it, but for some reason all I can think of lately is the possibility of one day having one and being absolutely tortured by my OCD when having to clean them or see their private parts. And the worst part of it all is that I had the thought “what’s the difference between them and adults anyway except that they are smaller. The parts are still the same. So if I’m attracted to that part on an adult then why wouldn’t I be attracted to the same part on a child?” So THIS has me totally freaked out and totally feeling like I really do like these images or thoughts because now I can’t even separate them. All I can keep thinking is that there’s no difference in them and when I see the images in my mind it almost all seems the same to me.

    I often wonder if I’m just attracted to everything. I feel like my mind gets excited over anything of a taboo nature and it’s like it needs to make things interesting and give me things to obsess on or something. Even if I’m masturbating and think of ANYTHING whether it’s family or a child or a male friend that I shouldn’t be thinking of that way, whatever it is if I know I shouldn’t be thinking it or that it’s messed up, I end up climaxing very intensely and it is bothersome.

    So then after thinking so much and worrying so much yesterday, I had a dream last night of either me or just an adult, I’m not sure it’s a little blurry, and in the dream I (or whoever) was having sex with their son who was like 10 years old I guess and when I woke I was automatically being bothered by this dream and how real it felt and feeling like maybe I enjoyed the dream and while I know I’d never ever act on any feelings or urges of this kind of nature, it terrifies me that one day I could have a child and could think of them that way or even just that I’d constantly be questioning myself and would be miserable. This is honestly tearing me apart inside. I feel like I’m the only one that goes THIS deeply into it all. I don’t even know why I care so much about this when I don’t even plan to have kids and I know I’m attracted to my boyfriend so I should just enjoy that but I can’t. I want to just focus on him. What if this happens one day where I have a kid and I feel that I’m attracted? My brain can’t tell the difference between anything it seems and if I imagine any kind of genitalia whether it’s big or small, male or female, I automatically feel like I’m attracted to it. Have you ever heard anyone struggle THIS deeply with it? Is this even OCD anymore? Do you have any thoughts or advice on all these things? Thank you so much for reading.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>Hi Jon. I really hope you will respond to this. First, thank you so much for your articles and taking the time out to reply to so many people on here. I have had OCD since I was 11 when my dad died and that triggered it I believe. It started out more innocent and developed into being almost totally geared towards sexual topics. Now I’m in one of the worst places I think I’ve ever been in with it because I have overanalyzed everything to such an extent that I can’t tell anything apart in my head anymore. I can’t tell what’s real and a lot of things feel real so that’s of course very terrifying. One thing in this post stood out to me: “Fear that noticing adult characteristics (e.g. specific body parts, body positioning, style of dress) of prepubescent children, pubescent adolescents, or of anyone “too young” is an indicator of pedophilia” I almost cried when I read that because I relate so much.

      —-Sorry you are struggling. This is a common issue in this form of OCD.

      >>>Lately I’ve had this huge fear of one day having a child and being attracted to my own child. I don’t even really want to have children and don’t exactly plan on it, but for some reason all I can think of lately is the possibility of one day having one and being absolutely tortured by my OCD when having to clean them or see their private parts.

      —Pretty much everyone with OCD from what I can tell has this worry, that their obsessive thoughts will somehow ruin parenthood. If you had Harm OCD, you might be more focused on the idea that you could somehow kill this fictional child, or if you had contamination OCD, you might worry about being disgusted with changing diapers or getting you or the kid sick, but since your OCD focuses on sexual themes, this is the kind of storyline your OCD is likely to weave. The thing is, of course you will have some unwanted thoughts about your children. You don’t need OCD for this to be true. What is unknown (and unknowable in the present moment) is how you will respond and relate to those thoughts. Your OCD is pushing you to assume you will respond poorly. OCD has a way of conning you into assuming there is no chance you will be able to respond in a healthy or therapeutic way to the OCD in the future. So you compulsively tell yourself you can’t be a parent to avoid having to cope with the uncertainty.

      >>>>And the worst part of it all is that I had the thought “what’s the difference between them and adults anyway except that they are smaller. The parts are still the same. So if I’m attracted to that part on an adult then why wouldn’t I be attracted to the same part on a child?” So THIS has me totally freaked out and totally feeling like I really do like these images or thoughts because now I can’t even separate them. All I can keep thinking is that there’s no difference in them and when I see the images in my mind it almost all seems the same to me.

      —It’s not hard to come up with arguments for suicide, homicide, adultery, sin, or any of the other things people worry about. This is just one example of your OCD baiting you with nonsense philosophical arguments, trying to paint you into a corner where you feel the need to defend yourself. But defending yourself just sends the message to the brain that there is something to defend, and this is what keeps the obsession alive. My recommendation is to stop compulsively philosophizing or at least to notice when you are doing it and abandon it in the moment you become aware of it.

      >>>I often wonder if I’m just attracted to everything. I feel like my mind gets excited over anything of a taboo nature and it’s like it needs to make things interesting and give me things to obsess on or something. Even if I’m masturbating and think of ANYTHING whether it’s family or a child or a male friend that I shouldn’t be thinking of that way, whatever it is if I know I shouldn’t be thinking it or that it’s messed up, I end up climaxing very intensely and it is bothersome.

      —There’s no doubt that taboo is stimulating. My guess is you often confuse being activated (aroused in ANY way, even non-sexually, such as being afraid for example) with being “turned on.”

      >>>>So then after thinking so much and worrying so much yesterday, I had a dream last night of either me or just an adult, I’m not sure it’s a little blurry, and in the dream I (or whoever) was having sex with their son who was like 10 years old I guess and when I woke I was automatically being bothered by this dream and how real it felt and feeling like maybe I enjoyed the dream and while I know I’d never ever act on any feelings or urges of this kind of nature,

      —If you’re lucky to live long enough, you will have had sex with and killed at least one of everything in a dream. That’s what dreaming is like. How much attention you choose to give this when you are awake is up to you.

      >>>>it terrifies me that one day I could have a child and could think of them that way or even just that I’d constantly be questioning myself and would be miserable.

      —Spending attention on what you might think in the future is playing right into OCD’s hands.

      >>>>This is honestly tearing me apart inside. I feel like I’m the only one that goes THIS deeply into it all.

      —-You’re not. As you acknowledged at the beginning of this post, you have OCD. The question is what you are going to do abut treating the OCD.

      >>>>I don’t even know why I care so much about this when I don’t even plan to have kids and I know I’m attracted to my boyfriend so I should just enjoy that but I can’t. I want to just focus on him. What if this happens one day where I have a kid and I feel that I’m attracted? My brain can’t tell the difference between anything it seems and if I imagine any kind of genitalia whether it’s big or small, male or female, I automatically feel like I’m attracted to it. Have you ever heard anyone struggle THIS deeply with it? Is this even OCD anymore? Do you have any thoughts or advice on all these things? Thank you so much for reading.

      —My advise is to stop trying to think your way out of thinking problems. A better strategy would be to engage in cognitive behavioral therapy for your OCD and develop the tools necessary for improving your ability to attend to the present moment. Your boyfriend and your values and all the things you are getting pulled away from are just waiting for you right there.

  16. Chris

    This is my entire life right now. A ten year old girl came onto me when I was a teenager and it f****d me up inside. I find it sexually arousing when someone finds me attractive. So, of course, it happened. I got aroused and even masturbated later. To this day , I don’t know why. I also have a taboo fetish. Rape, incest, bdsm, anything “sick” gets me aroused. I think it’s a forbidden fruit type of thing. So I drew no line with pedophlic fantasies. After all, it was just the rush of doing something I wasn’t supposed to. Right? Well, now I can’t tell. I wonder if its just because I want children. It’s odd, because I don’t think this way about my other taboo fantasies I had. I don’t want to rape anyone. I have no sister or daughter to want to sleep with, I don’t want to have sex with animals, and I don’t want to sleep with children . But now I question myself about children. I havent fanasized about them in over a year. I got tired of the disgusting feeling I would get afterwards. Again, something that didn’t happen after masturbating to other taboo things. But I can’t get this out of my head. I constantly check myself. Every time, I see nothing sexually arousing about children. But then I think, “then, how did you get off to those fantasies?” It’s ruining my life with guilt, shame, and depression. I don’t know what to do anymore.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>This is my entire life right now. A ten year old girl came onto me when I was a teenager and it f****d me up inside. I find it sexually arousing when someone finds me attractive. So, of course, it happened. I got aroused and even masturbated later. To this day , I don’t know why.

      –You just said why. You were a teenager and got sexually aroused.

      >>>>I also have a taboo fetish. Rape, incest, bdsm, anything “sick” gets me aroused. I think it’s a forbidden fruit type of thing.

      —This is true of most people, that the things that excite them in the fantasy realm are taboo. For some, this experience is more pronounced than for others. Pornography use contributes to this too.

      >>>>So I drew no line with pedophlic fantasies. After all, it was just the rush of doing something I wasn’t supposed to. Right? Well, now I can’t tell. I wonder if its just because I want children. It’s odd, because I don’t think this way about my other taboo fantasies I had. I don’t want to rape anyone. I have no sister or daughter to want to sleep with, I don’t want to have sex with animals, and I don’t want to sleep with children .

      —Good.

      >>>But now I question myself about children. I havent fanasized about them in over a year. I got tired of the disgusting feeling I would get afterwards. Again, something that didn’t happen after masturbating to other taboo things. But I can’t get this out of my head. I constantly check myself. Every time, I see nothing sexually arousing about children. But then I think, “then, how did you get off to those fantasies?” It’s ruining my life with guilt, shame, and depression. I don’t know what to do anymore.

      —I wouldn’t waste any more time trying to get certainty about why or how you wer able to get off to something. besides it being irrelevant, it’s also impossible to get the certainty anyway. From what you’ve written, it sounds like you have two problems, OCD and a somewhat unhealthy relationship to masturbation and its role in your life. These are both treatable and can be addressed in therapy.

  17. Deirdre

    Hello Jon, thank you very much for this article. I have not struggled previously from OCD (at least not DIAGNOSED OCD), but I am familiar with depression and anxiety disorders. I have had several experiences recently that cause me to wonder whether or not I have POCD. When I was younger than I am now (about nine years old at that time) I came across erotic literature focused on young children, I had recently discovered masturbation and the taboo of the material caused me to become excited. I have continued with this pattern or searching for child-based erotica for several years but only recently (I am now thirteen) did I wonder whether there was something seriously wrong with me. Before a couple of months ago I had always rationalized this decision by saying that of course I would never condone the harm of children in real life (which I wouldn’t). (I am aware that I was still a child myself at that point and most likely continue to be one in your eyes, but I have always been mature for my age and haven’t felt thirteen since I was about nine. I hit puberty early.) I was working on a school project a few months ago when the awful thought hit me that I could be a pedophile because of this online sexual interest in young children. Of course, I searched online for the answers and soon discovered the criteria necessary to be classified as a pedophile which caused me some relief over the thought that you do have to be sixteen to be classified as a pedophile. Over the next few days I expected the anxiety and fear to dissipate because I had discovered that it was logistically impossible for me to be a pedophile, but instead of going away the fear began to overwhelm me and I starting thinking things like the following:

    “It’s impossible for me to be a pedophile…but…I developed early, maybe the wires got crossed because I discovered my sexuality so young.”

    “I COUDN’T be a pedophile..but what if I am? I could simply be rationalizing my feelings when I am, in fact, a pedophile.”

    “Oh god, what about my niece and nephew?! I’ve never felt sexual arousal toward them…but… there was that one time when I shifted my nephew on my lap and I became aroused.”

    “Oh my god, I’m a monster!”

    After the myriad of thoughts began passing through my head, I started to think of any past experiences that I had with young children (there were plenty because I volunteer in a Kindergarten classroom) and even memories that before I had laughed at or thought were sweet soon started to take on a sinister edge. I already see a good therapist (though not one that specializes in OCD) and before I discovered POCD I had been debating ways to tell her that I thought I was a budding pedophile. Then, as I began reading about the symptoms of POCD and common thoughts that sufferers of POCD experience, I found myself reassured as I had been experiencing most of these symptoms and thoughts. I still find myself guilt-ridden (just today I contemplated depression, suicide, and my worth to live), but the thought that maybe I will still be able to live a productive, happy life even if I do suffer from this disorder “because at least I’m not a pedophile” has made me happier. Please let me know whether or not it is even possible for a young woman of my age to suffer from this disorder, and if it is, whether or not you believe I have it. Thank you.

    • Jon Hershfield

      You mention being mature for 13 and I have to admit that I am impressed by the words “dissipate” and “myriad” coming from someone of that age. The typical age of onset for OCD for girls is 10-12 if I recall (a little younger for boys). I can’t diagnose you from a blog comment, but nothing you wrote here suggests to me that there is some kind of meaningful sexual dysfunction going on. Your attempts to get certainty that you are not “wired wrong” suggest an obsessive-compulsive way of framing your experience. I would encourage you to work with your therapist on learning to live with uncertainty and improving your skill at not having all the answers. You mentioned suicidal thoughts — if you are concerned at all for your safety, please address this immediately with your therapist and/or local emergency services.

  18. Aaron

    Hi Jon, thank you very much for this post! It has been extremely helpful and very insightful. I have not been diagnosed with this themed ocd, but I fit the majority of these symptoms. I have also read so much into this, and I’m at the point of desperation. I can no longer take these thoughts and the time I’ve spent over analyzing all my past choices.

    I’m just worried and at high levels of anxiety all the time, because I fear I am a pedophile. I’m afraid to seek treatment because I don’t know how it would be handled, and I feel terrified of the outcome of my diagnosis. I seen this post and after rereading and rereading your post I have taken the chance in pouring all out, in hopes of getting some sort of peace to this relentlessness.

    I’m a 26 year old male, I am married, have a beautiful wife, and a beautiful one year old daughter that I love very much! In fact my fear started after she had turned a year old. I had already been dealing with the guilt of having watched pornography in the past when I was in my early 20’s, my guilt arised from the fear of having cheating on my wife by viewing pornography while we were engaged and during the time we had been dating. I had been working in my head this past problem and contemplating if I should open up the past and tell my wife about my past porn addiction, in the end I had came to the conclusion that it was of the past and it had been almost four years, since I last viewed any pornography. I had let it go entirely and decided I didn’t want to hurt her with this information. The following day I heard on the radio how people were being arrested for an ongoing sting operation, involving child pornography being downloaded from an online site. My mind went racing and I then started worrying if I had ever visited the site (knowing I never had watched anything involving children) I still kept searching my mind for anything that could of been related to child pornography in general. I started worrying I would be an unfit parent do my daughter, I started thinking I’m a monster and my mind slowly started unraveling and fell apart into this spiral when I remembered when I was younger(16-17) that I used to search ” teens dancing” on YouTube. They were around my age and I didn’t think nothing of it as I felt they were around my age. Slowly my curiousity grew and it lead to my full blown porn addiction. I started searching online for porngraphy not specifically related to teens but just in general. I would see women of age and in some case I could not tell if who I was seeing was of age or not and this part scared me the most because I knew this was wrong I knew I shouldn’t be searching for these things but I kept going. I explored the Internet for anything related to sex to masturbation to bondage and sexual aggression. I can’t remember now exactly what I would see and especially the age of the people in the videos I would watch but I knew it was wrong but I was caught up in the cycle and the addiction. It went on to the point where I became numb to what I would watch and at times I would hope to get caught watching it but I never did. The porn addiction continued as I grew out of being a minor and continued on until I was 23 or so. Once I married my wife I stopped completely and agreed to kick the addiction entirely for mine and my wife’s sake. I have to this day successfully stopped all together with his horrible addiction. I moved on and I had let it all go and decided I would not let it get to me and not let it affect me going forward. Here I am now many years later about four or three years later and I have a beautiful family but the guilt and the thoughts that bombard me don’t let my mind rest and I feel as though I truly am an unfit parent because of my dark addiction.

    I started believing I was a pedophile and this became further fueled by the random thoughts about hurting my own daughter images would just flood my mind and it made me not want to be around her in fear that I would act on my thoughts. It became worse as my anxiety increased and certain movements would give me groin sensations and then my own mind would use this as proof and then it further would push me down this never ending spiral and then slowly it branched out and the thoughts started transitioning to other kids. Specifically girls. I would notice them or how they dressed or what they would be wearing and I hated how it would stick in my head and how my mind would run with these images. It’s gotten to the point where If I see a child cross my sight my mind jumps to a thought that because I noticed them I have already confirmed my fears. An example of a thought would be: a girl walks past me (of any age) if I notice her or any characteristic of her body in anyway I immediately associate that with having thought sexually about them and then I will begin to have the thoughts. I could be just shifting my view absent minded as I’m walking and if my view happens to fall on a young girl it just immediately goes right to that that I was looking at her with those intentions. I immediately look away and dwell on it and feel guilty about having just looked in that direction. I have looked at women before and I have noticed them and what they dress and I would stare and find them attractive I believe this to be common but whenever I would see what I would believe to be a teenager I would look notice them and once I find out they are younger because they are with a parent I immediate look away and think nothing of it. Other than she was attractive but she is young and then move on. But now I feel like as though I never would do those things and that I In fact enjoyed looking and staring. In the past I would stare at woman and possibly girls (unless they were noticeably young) who would wear skirts in hopes that a certain action would cause their skirts to raise and expose themselves. I know this sounds extremely horrible and I have been dealing with this guilt and this shame of having done those awful things and having stared at woman and girls in that way. I never once NEVER made an attempt to intentionally lift up or try to see by using any device such as a mirror or a cellphone instead I would just position myself to see if I could catch a glimpse of anything would happen or not. I associate this past perversion with my pornography bunch and having watched voyerism and things associated with this nature. Another thing that troubles me the most is that I never had any idea of how old the person was who was being filmed and I know I had used search phrases such as young girl *fill in the blank* or teen girl or other search lines that would fit that phrasing. I know what I was doing was wrong and I became numb to it and abandoned hope of fighting it and I strongly wished to get caught. I had come to terms with all this and had thought I moved on and never let it affect me once I was married and the only trace of this problem and addiction was that I would stare at woman and to some extent young girls (unless they were noticeably young) inappropriately. I had known the problem I had by staring at woman and I had noticed the fetish I had as well with voyerism. I told myself my only problem now was just that I liked to do this. Once I knew the girl I had been staring at was under age I would immediately look away and stop looking I wouldn’t regret looking because I felt that I had not known and I wouldn’t dwell on it so long as I stopped looking. Which I did. But now my memory is distorted and I have a feeling that maybe I didn’t because I’m going to a worse case scenario thinking where I feel that I did this and everything associated with being a pedophile. Now whenever I see a girl of any age and if I happen to notice anything about them I freak out and become paranoid for noticing because I do not wish to notice it I don’t want these thoughts to be geared in this direction. I have since stopped looking at other woman to be faithful to my wife and in attempts to help reduce this anxiety but it all seems to mount up against me and if one walks in front of me I think ” oh no I looked again!” And my worse fear is relived over and over. It’s become even more crippling when tied to these symptoms mentioned in the post and by the fact that my theme of ocd has moved on to harm. Again I have not been clinically diagnosed with any of these ocds but I have read very much online into bit harm ocd and pocd. I fit the criteria for harm ocd and some of the symptoms on here are loosely associated with what I’m experiencing.

    I write now because I can’t stand this and I have admitted to my wife all my faults and all my wrong doings and I feel so ashamed and a monster and I think how can I be a fit parent to my daughter when I have done these horrible things. I don’t recall ever looking at any child online but my mind associates it as if I have and slowly I’m starting to think I have seen children. Even though I never have! But it all seems very confusing because the symptoms and how I feel are geared towards younger kids as well such as children and I don’t wish to think this way at all! I don’t enjoy thinking of children in this way but my mind condrticts what I know. I have read that everyone thinks horrible thoughts and that people that have ocd tend to cling onto these thoughts much longer and in a way that’s different from people without ocd. I however do remember a time but I’m not entirely sure if it’s an accurate memory or not but I remember a time where I once masturbated to a thought of having seen my young niece underwear as it was exposed while she was playing. I know she could not have been much older than twelve or so at the time and my only reason for this thought having crossed my mind was because I had the fettish of voyerism and I even told myself it’s not her but the fact that it’s just an up skirt because my mind only remember the image as it flashed and not anything else. I look back and I know this was wrong also and I can’t help but few as though I am a sick perverted monster who does not deserve such a beautiful daughter. The problem is that these thoughts are there and I can’t stand them and it further pushes me in a downward spiral as I feel they are justified because of my past. This whole issue started about 6 months ago and I have explained every phase of it in my head and I’ve tried reasoning with it I have done man many searches into harm ocd pocd and even have taken multiple personality test to see if I am a sociopath for having thought these horrible things. I have taken sociopathic test online 3 yielded I was 30% 20% and 10% sociopath while 4 yielded that I was not. My personality test have yielded that in considered a protector or defender personality and I’ve taken them 4 times. I don’t know what to do I’m at this point now where I just have to get it off my chest and confess this horrible problem and this site when I seen it has been my way of doing so. I know what’s described in my post sounds horrible and I know I will be judged but I just want to get this out I want the help but I’m afraid and I seen your site and every one posting and I thought this would be a good avenue. I feel as though this message has shifted multiple times and I apologies it’s just that everything is spilling from my mind all at once and I want to catch it as it comes.

    I had an undiagnosed ocd when I was 6. I was afraid that I hurt my classmates or my teachers and it was to the point where I would have to sit with my teachers and my parents and explain to them what I had felt or the intrusive thoughts geared towards my family and my classmate and teachers as well. My parents raised me very sheltered and extremely religious and always in church and did not believe in taking me to get properly diagnosed it was only until now that I realized I actually had an ocd condition that went undiagnosed. My parents instead had me speak to a pastor and over time the harm thoughts subsided but occasionally would arise here and there but I would not focus on it but rather would do as instructed by the pastor and pray. They never stuck around only in passing and it’s just until now that it’s all flooded back again with vegence as it goes between harm and pocd. I apologize for this long post but I had so much to say and a lot of it is just become numb now because I often repeat and confess harm and pocd thoughts as they come to me to my wife and now I have laid the burden upon her. I guess my question is is this a legitimate case could I be suffering from this as well? I am not trying to use it to justify my past actions even though apart of me feels like that’s what I’m doing but I just want to know if this is related and if my fears are true. Thank you so much for taking the time t read this extremely lengthy post and I hope you are still reading this as it’s been about 7 months since the last activity. I hope to hear from you soon. I have done so much research on this and harm ocd that my mind has gone in circles with different conclusions and self diagnosis. I can explain away most of it but this one sticks around mostly I think because it was the first problem to arise. I read that ocds jump around between different types and gravitate to whichever causes the most anxiety and I feel as though I’m a pinball between both extremes. Please I could use just some sort of answer.

    Thank you

    • Jon Hershfield

      You have put a lot into this blog comment and there’s no way I can address all of it, so I’ll try to summarize. You describe many common symptoms of OCD, such as looking away when you see a triggering person, doing excessive reassurance-seeking research, and compulsively confessing to your wife. My recommendation is that you see an OCD specialist, get assessed, and start doing CBT. You seem very committed to living a life that’s in accordance with your values and one that involves being present and connected to your family. This is incompatible with doing compulsions and trying to be certain about things with OCD.

  19. Aaron

    I also would like to know if these past actions (explained in my previous post) are actions that would constitute pedophilia. I’m constantly replaying old memories and wondering if I had ever stared inappropriately at younger kids that are under age 13 or if I had noticed the way they dressed or bodily characteristics and maybe I just played if all off and just forgot about it as I incorporated it as just staring at girls/women in general. I don’t know anymore and my mind is just In a jumbled mess. I have specific memories where I may have noticed inappropriate things like if a younger girl (13 or younger) was sitting a certain way while wearing a dress and I think I may have noticed and stared or something of that nature involving looking but I can’t be certain if I stared for a long time or what thoughts I may or may not have had. It could be just that I looked and looked away as I know it was inappropriate but because of my past actions and the current state of my mind I’m not even sure if I did that or not. I know if I had been at the beach or a water park I have noticed other girls but that seems like an impossibility not to as everyone in a water park or beach is half dressed and I can’t remember if I had been staring at or noticing more than just the women or of age girls that were there. Then I think maybe I was just looking at everyone there despite of age but I don’t know. I know this is part of the ocd but it’s a struggle for me because my mind says look at all this evidence of how you stared or noticed things in girls this means you are a pedophile. And it scares because I read the post in here and I see that people have the thoughts but I feel like it’s even more difficult for me to justify because I had the whole porn abuse/addiction plus I believe staring is also part of an action. Even though I never NEVER went out of my way to physically touch or do anything inappropriate to a child or any girl of any age in fact I remember always feeling awkward if I was in a setting where a child was too close to me or sitting in a certain way near me I remember.m feeling uncomfortable and not wanting to notice or feel things or wanting them to get too close but even now my mind is saying I liked this and I’m just confused. I’m over analyzing everything even what I think most guys do which is stare or look at women from time to time and I feel like every time I stared at women it has also included under aged girls or at least girls under 13. I don’t know anymore and I’m tired of overthinking every time I ever looked at a girl. I hope you’re able to reply to this whenever you get the chance I could really use the help. Thank you very much for taking the time to reply if you do reply to this. I really and truly greatly appreciate this so much thank you.

    • Jon Hershfield

      You are asking me if looking at or noticing things represents acts of pedophilia and you are compulsively seeking reassurance about your obsession on the subject. My recommendation is to stop trying to be certain about your obsession and recognize that compulsions are the problem.

  20. Lostandnnedhelp

    Would you be able to give some insight on my issue?

    At little back story. I suffer from Asperger’s which I believe helped me develop OCD and anxiety which I’ve struggled with for as along as I can remember.

    My basic situation now is I was struggling with POCD (Pedophile Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and obviously had massive fears that I was a closet pedophile and just didn’t know it. It started about a couple of months ago but has since died down and I don’t give it much thought anymore. However what has been plaguing my mind recently is the thought that I may be a Hebephile. This is similar to a pedophile but is instead a preference for children aged 11-14.

    The cause of this worry steamed from when I was reading about what makes people pedophiles (another attempt to find reassurance) and I found that a lot of people that have an attraction to children a certain age often experienced trauma at a similar age themselves. This sparked some fear in me because when I was 14 I had an online relationship with a women who I was convinced was 18. In retrospect she may have been much older and definitely suffered from some issues herself. While the relationship was all online and through phone it became very intimate a lasted until I was 16. I went to an all boys school and didn’t know any girls and struggled with social situatiins so I think I found comfort in having someone who said they loved me and made me feel sexy. It was a very sexual relationship as well which adds to the worry.

    As I got older I started to reach the age she said she was when we first started “dating” and I was so confused as to what would make her want to have such a relationship which someone so young. She would always say I was mature for my age and when I was 18 she would be 22 etc. But I’m convinced she was much older anyway which disturbs me. It was my first relationship.

    I’ve had relationships with people my own age and older since but I always worry if I’m deep down really attracted to children closer to the age I was when this took place. I often struggle with intimacy and can’t often “perform” when having sex with someone I’m not comfortable or close with. I always thought this was due to anxiety and Asperger’s but I worry if I was in a situation like that with a child would I be able to perform easily? I find myself always looking back and the girlfriends I’ve had since then and wondering “did they LOOK their age or did they look younger?”.

    Hears my biggest trigger: I am usually in a sort of “Head space” to be able to get comfortable around people. A sort of self image and reassurance I am normal and can get by in situations with people. When I “admit” to myself that I’m attracted to children I completely leave that head space and become completely myself, I don’t feel like I’m pretending or putting anything on. Some reassurance in this is that thinking this ways is not the only thing that takes me out of that head space. Often whatever is deeply bothering me, if I accept it and let it come I also go into this blank zone where I’m no longer thinking and letting the feelings happen. I’ve herd about “backdoor spike” and think this could be similar but I still worry that it’s just me “accepting” who I truly am.

    I’ve since had trouble getting erections even when looking at porn or adult women and worry, all since leaving that head space and trying to embrace these fears. It’s put me in a massive depression and I’ve started having suicidal thoughts. I’ve booked an apointment with my doctor to set up some therapy with someone who understands OCD. But I’m so fearful that I’m this broken person deep down. To find out I am attracted to children would mean losing it all. How could I ever hope to have a real relationship with someone my own age. I would never indulge in these fantasies of children and would never harm a child ever.

    I don’t want to be attracted to children and I don’t want to die but I’m so scared wither of those is in my fate.

    Can anyone offer some advice or help?

    Thank you

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>Would you be able to give some insight on my issue?
      At little back story. I suffer from Asperger’s which I believe helped me develop OCD and anxiety which I’ve struggled with for as along as I can remember.

      ——-Many people on the spectrum have OCD issues as well. One of the challenges in addressing Aspergers is the way in which the mind attaches to concrete and logical assessments of situations. Logical and rational don’t always match up. So a person may logically conclude that because public restrooms have germs and some germs are dangerous, then all restrooms should always be avoided. This then manifests as an obsession with germs and compulsive avoidance of restrooms even when that may not be rational.

      >>>>>>>>My basic situation now is I was struggling with POCD (Pedophile Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and obviously had massive fears that I was a closet pedophile and just didn’t know it. It started about a couple of months ago but has since died down and I don’t give it much thought anymore. However what has been plaguing my mind recently is the thought that I may be a Hebephile. This is similar to a pedophile but is instead a preference for children aged 11-14.

      ——–This is the same obsession. Your OCD tells you that you need to be afraid of being or becoming attracted to something inappropriate. Could easily be any other thing (e.g. an animal, family member, or any number of things people obsess about).

      >>>>>>The cause of this worry steamed from when I was reading about what makes people pedophiles (another attempt to find reassurance) and I found that a lot of people that have an attraction to children a certain age often experienced trauma at a similar age themselves. This sparked some fear in me because when I was 14 I had an online relationship with a women who I was convinced was 18. In retrospect she may have been much older and definitely suffered from some issues herself. While the relationship was all online and through phone it became very intimate a lasted until I was 16. I went to an all boys school and didn’t know any girls and struggled with social situatiins so I think I found comfort in having someone who said they loved me and made me feel sexy. It was a very sexual relationship as well which adds to the worry.

      —–It’s not clear that what you experienced was a trauma or has anything to do with trauma. In any case, it highlights how reassurance-seeking can backfire.

      >>>>>As I got older I started to reach the age she said she was when we first started “dating” and I was so confused as to what would make her want to have such a relationship which someone so young. She would always say I was mature for my age and when I was 18 she would be 22 etc. But I’m convinced she was much older anyway which disturbs me. It was my first relationship.

      —Awkward, but not necessarily traumatic. As for why she did what she did, that is unknowable.

      >>>>>>I’ve had relationships with people my own age and older since but I always worry if I’m deep down really attracted to children closer to the age I was when this took place.

      —Worrying about anything “deep down” is generally not a good idea. If I push someone in front of a bus, I may be advised to worry about the consequences. If I have a thought about pushing someone in front of a bus, best not to worry about my thoughts.

      >>>>>I often struggle with intimacy and can’t often “perform” when having sex with someone I’m not comfortable or close with. I always thought this was due to anxiety and Asperger’s but I worry if I was in a situation like that with a child would I be able to perform easily? I find myself always looking back and the girlfriends I’ve had since then and wondering “did they LOOK their age or did they look younger?”.

      —–First, I would argue that everyone has difficulty with intimacy and performance when they’re with someone they don’t fully trust. Anxiety and the kind of difficulty people with Aspergers have picking up on subtle social cues from others can exacerbate this concern. Doing a mental review of past girlfriends and what they looked like is best understood as a compulsion here. A compulsion is a behavior you engage in to increase certainty about your fears.

      >>>>>Hears my biggest trigger: I am usually in a sort of “Head space” to be able to get comfortable around people. A sort of self image and reassurance I am normal and can get by in situations with people. When I “admit” to myself that I’m attracted to children I completely leave that head space and become completely myself, I don’t feel like I’m pretending or putting anything on. Some reassurance in this is that thinking this ways is not the only thing that takes me out of that head space. Often whatever is deeply bothering me, if I accept it and let it come I also go into this blank zone where I’m no longer thinking and letting the feelings happen. I’ve herd about “backdoor spike” and think this could be similar but I still worry that it’s just me “accepting” who I truly am.

      —Like anyone with OCD, you worry that you are not taking your thoughts seriously enough. The solution is to take your thoughts less seriously and do exposure to the idea that this may be dangerous.

      >>>>I’ve since had trouble getting erections even when looking at porn or adult women and worry, all since leaving that head space and trying to embrace these fears. It’s put me in a massive depression and I’ve started having suicidal thoughts. I’ve booked an apointment with my doctor to set up some therapy with someone who understands OCD. But I’m so fearful that I’m this broken person deep down. To find out I am attracted to children would mean losing it all. How could I ever hope to have a real relationship with someone my own age. I would never indulge in these fantasies of children and would never harm a child ever.
      I don’t want to be attracted to children and I don’t want to die but I’m so scared wither of those is in my fate.
      Can anyone offer some advice or help?

      —-I can’t diagnose you from a blog comment, but you describe common symptoms of OCD. Your Aspergers predisposition to black-and-white thinking may be interfering in your insight (e.g., you associate a perceived imperfection in your sexual mind with being an utterly and completely “broken” person). My advice is to stop trying to prove your fears are untrue and get in to see someone who specializes in OCD and can guide you through the CBT/ERP process.

  21. Vieno

    hi jon,
    i’d like to start by saying my name is vieno and i’m nineteen years old. i have a girlfriend of almost three months and she’s been beyond helpful and understanding of my situation, promising to seek out treatments and medicine for me that could potentially help lessen this or make this go away completely (she even linked me to this particular article and i’m beyond grateful because it gave me just a bit of hope).
    i think i suffer from POCD. it started just four days ago (august 1), when i visited a blog that had some pretty nasty stuff on it purely because someone suggested people report it (because of the nasty stuff), and it triggered a deep emotional reaction inside of me where i sat there in a kind of dazed state of regret and shame. and because i have always been the type of person to get so caught up in negative thoughts (due to my clinical depression and BPD), i started thinking back to more shameful things i’ve done and i had remembered a pattern of very intrusive thoughts i received at a young age, maybe 14 or 15, i can’t pinpoint when it happened, but i know it did. the intrusive thoughts including brief sexual things including me and children, but because at the time i was undiagnosed and confused, they were just thoughts to me – and i went on about my day. but the moment i remembered such horrific thoughts and that i had thought them, i was filled with so much disgust, regret and shame that i started questioning everything.

    i was born into a very dysfunctional family. both of my parents were drug addicts and at the age of 3, my mother lost legal custody of me and i went to live with my grandparents. everything was fine up until i was around the age of 6 or 7, where my mother remarried and wanted to get in touch, where we did. when this happened, i was sexually abused by my stepfather repeatedly before my mother divorced him. i was young so i was unaware of what was really happening, and when i was asked by my grandmother a few years later, i was terrified and confused so i vehemently denied it. i realize now that that was a mistake. when i later entered therapy at 13 for unrelated reasons, i opened up and told my therapist about the abuse. in turn she told my grandmother, and as a result, my grandmother didn’t believe me and called me a liar. so i internalized and got over this.

    or so i thought. because of this, i grew depressed. i grew angry. i grew wary of men. from a young age i was introduced to pornography and as a result, i grew promiscuous. the thing is, i have a very low, if any at all, sex drive. so any time i did have sex, it was very unpleasant for me. for a long time i identified as a lesbian, but lately i feel as if i’m asexual or on the spectrum of asexuality. i still like the idea of holding hands and kissing my girlfriend, so i’m very confused.

    those details aside, i should confess that i have never been professionally diagnosed with OCD. but i have a very minor diagnosis of asperger’s syndrome and BPD so a lot of my mannerisms are scattered and unhealthy. i listed out all of the symptoms i think are similar to OCD and my girlfriend agreed i had some form of it. i’m obsessed with washing my hands and cleaning my laptop when i think it’s dirty, i’m obsessed with my organization skills to the point i’ll, say, delete a computer file if one thing is misplaced and start all over, even if there were a lot of files. i tend to ramble a lot so most of this is pointless, i’m sorry.

    regarding the incident that took place four days ago, as soon as it happened i mentally screamed at myself for having thought such a thing. i became fearful, so upset to the brink of tears, later tears, confusion and anger. the more i thought about it, the more these emotions piled up. the more i thought about it, the more convinced of the possibility i was what i feared and hated the most: a pedophile. but it was impossible for me to wrap my head around because before this, the thought never crossed my mind (disregarding the intrusive thoughts i had briefly because they were quickly forgotten) and because i had sworn to myself i would never hurt another child like my stepfather hurt me, or let a child be hurt if i had anything to do about it.

    but there’s always that constant, “what if?” what if i’m lying to myself? what if i actually do like it? what if i’m tricking myself? what if i’m faking? denying? and i always test the waters and think of a child, i always check to see if i find them attractive, even try to place myself in a realistic scenario but i get so scared i back out and yell at myself. i’ve become numb. i’ve questioned everything. there’s no relief from my mind, no matter how much reassurance i get from my girlfriend it’s never enough. i barely eat and i don’t even bother drinking anything. i’ve also seriously considered suicide not once but twice. planned it out and everything, the only things stopping me were my job and my girlfriend. i don’t necessarily want to die, i just want these ugly thoughts to end. i said once that i’d cut off an arm and a leg to make them go away. i’d become a devout christian (something i have never been). i’ve considered suicide, pills, things as childish as time travel and wishing, even a surgery that’s out of practice, lobotomy. i hate these thoughts but i’ve become so numb to them i can’t tell what’s the truth anymore. they make me uncomfortable, they make me disgusted and quite honestly terrified. i don’t and won’t be something so disgusting. and if i AM, i promised myself i’d commit suicide.

    is my mind playing tricks on me? i recently got discharged from the hospital due to appendicitis and since then i have been very stressed and depressed, more so than usual, could i have reached a tipping point and just exploded? every time i calm myself down, i get worked up again and get upset to the point where i have a crying spell and panic attacks.

    i’ve read all these comments and not only sympathize to an extent but also relate immensely. i know this is a lot to digest all at once, but if there’s any advice or anything you can tell me, i’d appreciate it so much. thank you.

    • Jon Hershfield

      Sorry you have had to endure such such abuse and mistreatment at such a young age. It sounds like you have done a lot to overcome both your external and internal challenges. You mentioned possibly being on the autism spectrum, which might explain some of your OCD symptoms as well. If you are prone to overly-concrete black-and-white thinking (as people with Asperger’s are), you are more likely to notice an unpleasant thought and immediately conceptualize it as you being a “bad” person. It may be harder for you to sit with some abstract ideas (like “we all have all kinds of thoughts and needn’t take them too seriously”) and when things don’t line up in your mind the way you think they are supposed to, you can get frustrated or angry.

      You mention struggling with a lot of “what-ifs” about whether you are being honest with yourself, faking, in denial, etc. This is par for the course with OCD, which you need to remember is characterized by a deficit in uncertainty tolerance (hence the what-ifs). Obviously, you need to be careful with the suicidal ideation (another part of overly-concrete thinking probably), and take self-harm off the table. People tend to obsess about things that are important to them and it’s not surprising that your sexual identity and your desire to not cause sexual harm to others is of profound meaning to you. But why you have these obsessions as opposed to some other kind is not what’s important. What’s important is that you stop engaging in behaviors that fuel the obsessions (e.g. reassurance-seeking, trying to get certain, etc.) and instead get an assessment from an OCD specialist and get some cognitive behavioral treatment for it. You must be doing something right if you found a girlfriend this supportive. My recommendation is to return the favor by getting treatment for your OCD and letting yourself try self-compassion and happiness for a change.

  22. Scareddutch

    Hi Jon.

    I have POCD and using sertraline. I have 2 sons (2 years old and the other is just a baby) and last weekend I was giving the baby his bottle while my other son was playing in the same room. I sang a song for him and suddenly I noticed that I moved my groinal area while singing something like “booo, booo, booo”. I got scared by this movement and as a response I kept singing to give myself some reassurance.

    Now I really feel horrible. Not because I was singing this song, but because I kept singing the song just to reassure myself about the movement in the groin.

    I really think I did something terrible. Please help.

    • Jon Hershfield

      I’ve had lots of clients with this obsession (fear of doing something sexually inappropriate to or around their child) and they often find themselves engaging in reenactments, checking, and other self-reassurance behaviors that they later feel guilty about. It’s not stain on your morality. It’s just OCD. The question is whether or not you are going to recognize that this feeling you are struggling with right now is the byproduct of a compulsion and is another reason to identify and resist compulsions, accept uncertainty instead. Time spent beating yourself up over the morality of a compulsion is just more time compulsing.

  23. confused

    I’ve always been a bit of a worrier. I had a span of say, 15 years old to 21 years old where I would obsess that I had literally every type of cancer, or heart failure etc. It felt so real I would feel the symptoms as proof.. I also had a fear of HIV from a one night stand. I had to get tested three times before I slowly was able to accept.

    Then at 25 years old(first time I ever had an inappropriate thought of a child in my entire life), my one year old daughter was climbing all over me on the couch. I felt an arousal feeling in my groin. . I put my daughter down and literally just felt so much fear. Immediately, I asked myself if I liked it. It was like my mind was saying yes even though I was clearly petrified. Maybe I had poor insight. I don’t know. This went on for a year and half, it slowly faded with me not giving the thoughts importance. I mean, the pocd was still there at times, but really was easy to brush off.

    Life was great again, my daughter and I formed a great bond. But, now all this pocd crap is back it started with intrusive thoughts, the fear feeling came back. Then the groinals. Then myself asking if I like it once again. I have tested these thoughts non stop, imagining kids or if i could engage in sexual acts. note mentally only.
    I get this huge wave of anxiety and that to tingly feeling in my groin. Which leads me to further obsess that I enjoy it or could enjoy. Or maybe I’m confusing my anxiety with liking idk. But I don’t experience much disgust this time round.. Just horrid anxiety. This anxiety and checking and constantly trying to reassure myself now lasts all day and night. I’m a mess

    My life is back to hell. I feel as if it’s more real this time and I have just become one. Im having trouble just not giving the thoughts importance. They are bombarding me all the time. My insight just seems so poor. I cannot think straight. The whole feeling of liking the thought or enjoying it doesn’t seem to be a common problem for pocders which leaves me further confused. I just want my old life back. I’m so sick of being scared

    • confused

      Forgot to add that this isn’t directed just at my daughter. It just all started with her one year after being born. It can be almost any kid that is a girl. In public I’ve had the need to feel to look to see if I’m attracted. I never really get answers. Just a ton of anxiety.

      Ironically, I typically like curvier girls,so this should be silly, but when I’m at my worst I feel like I lose attraction to my fiance and other similar aged people.

      I have another daughter on the way, we just moved and I’m getting a new job, so I’m sure all that is triggering this pocd comeback. But the general thought of if I like it, do like it or could just scares the crap out of me. I know I shouldn’t test or check, its lead me to more grief. But I’m just in a bad place.

      If anyone can offer some words or anything that’d be great.

      • Jon Hershfield

        My guess is you are going to keep having daughters until you do something about your OCD. Seems to be the way the universe works.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>>Then at 25 years old(first time I ever had an inappropriate thought of a child in my entire life), my one year old daughter was climbing all over me on the couch. I felt an arousal feeling in my groin. . I put my daughter down and literally just felt so much fear. Immediately, I asked myself if I liked it.

      —This is a trap. Were you supposed to hate it? No, you were supposed to simply notice it and be mildly uncomfortable and then leave it alone and get back to the business of being a parent. OCD says if you can’t prove that you don’t like something, it must mean that you do like it. But liking or not liking having pressure applied to your groin is a pretty strong feeling to have about something irrelevant.

      >>>>It was like my mind was saying yes even though I was clearly petrified.

      —If I tell you not to think of a white bear, you think of a white bear. If I tell you not to think you like something, you think about liking it.

      >>>>Maybe I had poor insight. I don’t know. This went on for a year and half, it slowly faded with me not giving the thoughts importance. I mean, the pocd was still there at times, but really was easy to brush off.
      Life was great again, my daughter and I formed a great bond. But, now all this pocd crap is back it started with intrusive thoughts, the fear feeling came back. Then the groinals. Then myself asking if I like it once again. I have tested these thoughts non stop, imagining kids or if i could engage in sexual acts. note mentally only.

      —These are compulsions.

      >>>>I get this huge wave of anxiety and that to tingly feeling in my groin. Which leads me to further obsess that I enjoy it or could enjoy. Or maybe I’m confusing my anxiety with liking idk. But I don’t experience much disgust this time round.. Just horrid anxiety. This anxiety and checking and constantly trying to reassure myself now lasts all day and night. I’m a mess

      —The idea that you are supposed to feel disgust is a non-starter. You’re not supposed to be impressed with any of this. The only reason you are is you keep doing testing compulsions and your brain can’t come up with any other explanation for why you would do that. Hence, the subject remains important.

      >>>>My life is back to hell. I feel as if it’s more real this time and I have just become one. Im having trouble just not giving the thoughts importance. They are bombarding me all the time. My insight just seems so poor. I cannot think straight. The whole feeling of liking the thought or enjoying it doesn’t seem to be a common problem for pocders which leaves me further confused. I just want my old life back. I’m so sick of being scared

      —-My recommendation is to stop doing compulsions. This may mean also doing exposure to your fear and learning how to increase your uncertainty-acceptance skills. The best way to do this is with the guidance of a therapist that specializes in OCD treatment.

  24. TiredNScared

    Hello Jon
    First off, I would really like to thank you for all the work you are doing to help people over come this monster of a disorder. It means a lot to those of us who suffer from this terrible burden that so often seems misunderstood by the societies in which we live. I have purchased your mindfulness work book and it really has helped me in my fight.

    I have been a sufferer of OCD since I was around 11 or 12. My original fear manifested as contamination OCD, specifically food poisoning or anything else that caused vomiting. I eventually saw a doctor, took meds (fluvoximine, which I am on again), and sort of “grew out of it”. However, in my teenage years (I just turned 29) I started having what I guess could be called mild obsessions related to pedophilia and other sexual fears. These would be more like nagging questions than vivid scenarios. I would ask myself if I ever showed any tendencies that were abnormal. I have never looked up any illegal child material online or anything, but I have seen stupid drawings that depict (very unrealistic) child-like characters in sexual acts. Even these greatly disturbed me, but I often would ask myself unanswerable questions years later like “Did I enjoy that picture?” or “Did I deliberately seek it out?” In the past, I was sort of able to just say “meh, that was gross, but it’s just a stupid drawing. I can’t change what happened in the past, just forget about it.” I seem unable to do that now. I also remember being 15-16 or so and somehow ending up on a porn site that had Teen in the name, and that has bothered me to this day. I saw it once, and remembered the name, then went back like a year later to make sure I didn’t see anything illegal and enjoy it. I was there for about three seconds before I left and realized that was a dumb thing to do. But I still ask myself if I enjoyed it, and wonder about how old the people in it were, and it upsets me. It has compounded to the point where now I wonder if every female model I found attractive was of appropriate age. It really upsets me to think I could even be attracted or “got off” to anybody “too young”.

    Anyway the reason I mention this is because in the beginning of this summer these thoughts and fears took on a strength even greater than the contamination OCD I had as a child. I started imagining all kinds of catastrophe scenarios, and my anxiety seems to be ever-present. It creeps itself into my mind in the form of intrusive thoughts, images, impulses, sensations, and worst of all questions. The idea that “what if I am secretly the most heinous kind of person” causes me physical pain. I feel sick and terrified, as though I was being chased by a murderer. Every time I notice a pretty feature in a child or teenager I get freaked out. I should mention that I get bothered more when I notice post-pubescent markers like breasts, hips, or other things. I immediately ask myself how old the person looks and whether or not such a thought is sexual or appropriate, whether or not I am attracted, etc. It makes going out no fun to say the least.

    By far the worst part is that it has infiltrated its way into even my happy memories to make them sources of anxiety. Almost two years ago I married the best woman I have ever met. It was the happiest memory of my life, and my time with her has been more fulfilling then all my previous years. We dated for about 8 years before tying the knot. But now my POCD attacks these feelings. Three months ago I was always goofing off with my wife, finding new ways to make her laugh or to humorously annoy her. And we both loved it. But now my POCD tells me things like “If you are such a horrible person, you will ruin this woman’s life! All the happy faces at your wedding will turn to horrified looks of revulsion and everyone you have ever known will disavow your existence.” I just sit there and cry sometimes, as the POCD takes my most precious memories and emotions and uses them as weapons against me. My wife has been very supportive of my struggle, even attending therapy sessions with me so she can know what she has to do to help fight this disorder. But I see the toll it takes on her, I can see how the laughter in our house has diminished, and I fear I will never go back to being the man I was. The man who made her laugh. The very thought makes my eyes swell up with tears. We wanted to have a kid of our own soon, but this only causes me more distress now. It feels like I have committed a horrible crime and am just waiting for the world to come crashing down around me, even though I know I haven’t ever hurt a kid, or downloaded anything illegal or anything like that. I just feel sad and scared all the time. I constantly ask myself questions or try to justify the thoughts or feelings I have, or beat myself up over them. Sometimes my brain will not even let me enjoy little things like a sunset or my hobbies, saying things like “a pedo, even a non-acting one, doesn’t deserve to enjoy these things!” It makes me so sad. I feel like I am just waiting for the police to bust down my door or something, even though I haven’t done anything! How do I combat this ever present anxiety and keep this disorder from ruining my memories and my marriage?

    At the same time I also find myself worrying if I am concerned for the right reasons? Am I worried about people hating me or am I worried about hurting people? I don’t know what to believe about myself some days and I am angry, tired, scared, and sad all at once. I have so many questions that I feel the need to attend to. I believe rumination, mental checking, mental review, and mental self-abuse to be my primary compulsions. So far I have avoided the desire to look up diagnostic criteria, although regrettably a few people have posted it in these comment sections, and I have briefly scanned them.

    Anyway, sorry for the very long message. I guess my questions would be how do I fight these compulsions, which seem so much harder to combat than the physical compulsions I had as a child, and how do I keep POCD from poisoning my well of happy memories?

    • Jon Hershfield

      You articulate the POCD experience well. I see two worthwhile approaches here. One is you have to identify any and all efforts to get certainty, especially about nonsense thoughts like “did I enjoy xyz or abc?” as compulsions, and once you have identified them, abandon or interfere in them. See http://ocdbaltimore.com/how-to-respond-to-unwanted-thoughts/ for more on this. The other is you need to insist on enjoying the enjoyable, whether it comes with unwanted thoughts or not. You describe what sounds like a healthy and loving relationship with your wife. Instead of being so quick to view it as contaminated by your OCD commentary, put your foot down and commit to enjoying your relationship and your memories WITH the thoughts, not in spite of them. In other words, say, “No, OCD, you can’t have this, and I’m happy to have whatever thoughts you throw at me.”

      • TiredNScared

        Thank you very much Jon, I appreciate the compliment, and your link. I find that to be rather helpful and I will take its advice to heart. Your words mirror what my wife has told me over and over again, not just regarding POCD but regarding a great deal of other issues as well. There will be no living with her after this, so I am afraid I will have to hold you responsible (read: thank you) for that. With time, patience, and practice I believe I can get through this and not only return to being the person I that was (still am), but a better and stronger man than I ever have been in the past. I believe I can master this fear that has so often crept its way into my consciousness to put it in its proper place: the ether of un-importance.
        I would like to ask your advice on loving-kindness based approaches to combat POCD. It seems very hard to show compassion or even mercy toward yourself when you have disgusting fears like “what If I have a daughter, and when she becomes a teenager I become attracted to her and rape her” pop through your head. I have always struggled with self-esteem issues throughout my life, in no small part because of my OCD. I often find it hard to compliment myself or forgive myself for past transgressions, either real or imagined (and as you well know, with OCs it is often hard to tell the difference). What habits can I adopt or techniques can I employ to make self-love and self-forgiveness come easier and without, or at least with fewer, self-imposed conditions?
        Secondly, I would like to ask your opinion on a strategy my therapist has suggested I utilize. He has proposed creating a list of evidence (say 15-20 items) against my fears and reciting it to myself anywhere from 30-40 times a day. It helped at first, but I quickly worried this would itself become a compulsion. I have slowly started to reduce the amount of times I read the list per day to a handful. Utilizing the strategies I have to this point, my recover has waxed and waned. I will go near of a month with reduced symptoms and then it will come back with a vengeance for a week or two. I have heard this sort of result is to be expected with OCD however. Do you think such a strategy to be beneficial in the long run? I should say my therapist does focus on anxiety disorders, mostly depression but he has treated more than a few OCD sufferers, some with this theme, over the years.
        Finally, I would like to know whether or not you consider philosophizing a compulsion. As I stated in my first post, adult features are easily the more triggering for me. I still have fears regarding younger children, but these seem less severe to me than the worries about developing girls. When I am bothered by these things my mind runs a sort of internal debate regarding whether or not noticing a feature was appropriate or not. For example, something like “Well historically men married women at around 15 or so, so does that mean all those historical figures were pedophiles? That doesn’t seem likely does it? I would argue that most men start to notice women as being women at roughly 16 or so, but they just respect the law. Wait, does that thought make me weird or creepy? I suppose it depends on the individual. If a girl looks like a kid then I imagine that’s creepy, but if a 15 year old looks like a mature Phoebe Cates (or Scarlet Johannsson, if you want to be more contemporary) then I wonder if noticing that as attractive qualifies as pedophilia. However…” Or something to that effect. Sorry for that tangent, I just want to give you a taste of the annoying thought pattern. I suspect this is a compulsion, but it feels like this sort of scrutinizing is just my natural thought process, and has been since I can recall. I have always taken a mixture of pride and frustration in my ability to try and see different angles on things. I am conflicted over whether these types of thoughts are just stuff I should let sit there and not attend to, or whether they are compulsions that I should, as you put it in the link you provided, run interference on.
        Thank you for any further advice you can provide, and for the time and effort you put in to answering all these posts. I am sure I speak for many when I say it means a lot to get this sort of aid.

        • Jon Hershfield

          >>>>Thank you very much Jon, I appreciate the compliment, and your link. I find that to be rather helpful and I will take its advice to heart. Your words mirror what my wife has told me over and over again, not just regarding POCD but regarding a great deal of other issues as well. There will be no living with her after this, so I am afraid I will have to hold you responsible (read: thank you) for that. With time, patience, and practice I believe I can get through this and not only return to being the person I that was (still am), but a better and stronger man than I ever have been in the past. I believe I can master this fear that has so often crept its way into my consciousness to put it in its proper place: the ether of un-importance.

          —–Beautifully put!

          >>>>I would like to ask your advice on loving-kindness based approaches to combat POCD. It seems very hard to show compassion or even mercy toward yourself when you have disgusting fears like “what If I have a daughter, and when she becomes a teenager I become attracted to her and rape her” pop through your head.

          —It seems hard because you think there is something inherently unusual or sinister about the thought. You’re caught up in the content and forgetting that it’s actually a normal thought to have that you are processing in a disordered way. But to your question, loving-kindness is good.

          >>>>I have always struggled with self-esteem issues throughout my life, in no small part because of my OCD. I often find it hard to compliment myself or forgive myself for past transgressions, either real or imagined (and as you well know, with OCs it is often hard to tell the difference). What habits can I adopt or techniques can I employ to make self-love and self-forgiveness come easier and without, or at least with fewer, self-imposed conditions?

          —-There are quite a lot of things you can do and it is true that OCD sufferers often tend to struggle with self-compassion. I gave a talk with Shala Nicely on the subject and she put together a great collection of resources here: http://www.shalanicely.com/dont-talk-to-me-like-that-maximize-your-ocd-recovery-using-self-compassion/

          >>>Secondly, I would like to ask your opinion on a strategy my therapist has suggested I utilize. He has proposed creating a list of evidence (say 15-20 items) against my fears and reciting it to myself anywhere from 30-40 times a day.

          —This is a terrible idea that stands no chance of working for OCD. It is prescribing a compulsion. Sorry to be so blunt, but it is quite literally the opposite of how OCD is treated. Consider what information the brain is collecting from the behavior of reassuring yourself 40 times a day. The only logical conclusion it could form is that you are a person who is very unsure. That is the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.

          >>>>>It helped at first, but I quickly worried this would itself become a compulsion.

          —Not become. Is.

          >>>>I have slowly started to reduce the amount of times I read the list per day to a handful.

          —Good. Now burn the list.

          >>>>Utilizing the strategies I have to this point, my recover has waxed and waned. I will go near of a month with reduced symptoms and then it will come back with a vengeance for a week or two. I have heard this sort of result is to be expected with OCD however. Do you think such a strategy to be beneficial in the long run? I should say my therapist does focus on anxiety disorders, mostly depression but he has treated more than a few OCD sufferers, some with this theme, over the years.

          —I can’t speak on your therapist’s experience. All I can say is that the concept of reading a reassurance list 40 times a day is no different than telling a compulsive hand washer to buy more soap. No person who has read any book on the treatment of OCD would advocate this.

          >>>>Finally, I would like to know whether or not you consider philosophizing a compulsion.

          —Yes. It is a common mental ritual.

          >>>>As I stated in my first post, adult features are easily the more triggering for me. I still have fears regarding younger children, but these seem less severe to me than the worries about developing girls. When I am bothered by these things my mind runs a sort of internal debate regarding whether or not noticing a feature was appropriate or not.

          —-The debating is the compulsing. You are trying to wash your mind by trying to get certainty through analysis. It’s a trap and only fuels the notion that you have something to investigate.

          >>>> For example, something like “Well historically men married women at around 15 or so, so does that mean all those historical figures were pedophiles? That doesn’t seem likely does it? I would argue that most men start to notice women as being women at roughly 16 or so, but they just respect the law. Wait, does that thought make me weird or creepy? I suppose it depends on the individual. If a girl looks like a kid then I imagine that’s creepy, but if a 15 year old looks like a mature Phoebe Cates (or Scarlet Johannsson, if you want to be more contemporary) then I wonder if noticing that as attractive qualifies as pedophilia. However…” Or something to that effect. Sorry for that tangent, I just want to give you a taste of the annoying thought pattern. I suspect this is a compulsion, but it feels like this sort of scrutinizing is just my natural thought process, and has been since I can recall. I have always taken a mixture of pride and frustration in my ability to try and see different angles on things. I am conflicted over whether these types of thoughts are just stuff I should let sit there and not attend to, or whether they are compulsions that I should, as you put it in the link you provided, run interference on.

          —-You seem to have better insight into the problem than you are giving yourself credit for. Everything in the above paragraph is a compulsion.

          >>>>Thank you for any further advice you can provide, and for the time and effort you put in to answering all these posts. I am sure I speak for many when I say it means a lot to get this sort of aid.

          —I would print out what you put in your first paragraph of this post and put it somewhere you can see it every day. It’s a gem. My recommendation is that you read Jonathan Grayson’s Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and also perhaps the books “The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD” and “Imp of the Mind”. If you have a good connection with your therapist, you might encourage him/her to read them as well. You have the insight and the motivation but seem to be lacking the tools and guidance on using them.

          • TiredNScared

            Thank you Jon. I have since purchased Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and I find it very helpful. I have also used the IOCDF to find a therapist who specializes in CBT and ERP for OCD within 15 minutes of my house. I don’t know if they have treated this form before, but I will try and find out. I have my first session this week.
            I will remind myself everyday of what I wrote about overcoming this condition. I feel I do have insight into the problem, but that some days it wanes a little. Sometimes I am aware of my capability to do something against my values. For example I am sitting at a computer right now, therefore I COULD look up something illegal or horrific, and then I feel the impulse to do that thing, but am aware I will not do it and have not done so before. But the mere presence of the impulse causes me to doubt myself. I am, however, getting better at recognizing this OCD trap. We ALL have impulses to do stuff that we find abhorrent, and I imagine I had these thoughts before my OCD made them seem like Vegas style neon lights.
            I like the article on how to respond to unwanted thoughts. Of particular interest to me was the part about distractions. You mention something like playing video games as a bad distraction if used to run away from thoughts, but doing things like drawing and painting to be very good diversions. I actually collect older retro video games as a lifelong hobby, and I went to school for art, both of which have been great sources of joy in my life. That is perhaps one of the main things this disorder has taken from me. I used to have creative ideas all the time, but since this came on hard and heavy I have barely been able to draw or focus on any of my interests. Instead I worry about how if my fears are true than I will somehow be a poor reflection on these things I value. Ideas for pictures (well, the kinds of pictures I want to draw anyway) also seem dishearteningly absent. my mind instead spends most of its time trying to discern what makes me different from an actual pedophile (I used to believe that my distress over this issue was an obvious difference, and Idea reinforced by my current therapist, but I know that they too feel distress), or trying to check for sexual responses to triggers. sometimes it gets to the point where I don’t really have normal, pleasant sexual thoughts, and my interest in that area has also been compromised. I suppose all of this is just a result of over-emphasizing certainty over mindfulness, but do you have any pointers for how to quickly catch yourself engaging in these mental rituals?
            Finally, I have one more issue that causes me to waste more time that I would like. A few years ago i remember finding pictures of a model from Japan that I found very attractive. These were not pornographic by any definition, but were of course titillating (I actually find the suggestion of sex to occasionally be more enticing than seeing the actual act.) Perhaps this is TMI, but I found these to be…uh…useful, in certain situations. I never really thought much of it until recently. However, at some point I discovered that she started modeling at 14 (she was 19 or so when I first saw her…yes, of course I researched to try and figure out). I didn’t really worry about it until recently, but now I can’t stop thinking that some of the pictures I had may have been when she was 15 or so. I know I should just let it go, but the thought that I may have had fantasies about someone that young makes me feel really bad and disgusting about myself. It makes me question how people would think of me if they knew. The thing is, I am not even sure I did, because I remember thinking she looked too young in some of them, but I keep trying to remember if I did, or convince myself that I didn’t. It just makes me feel so gross to think I could have been aroused by anyone that young, even if it was just once. I see it as a kind of character indictment toward myself. I recognize these as multiple compulsions (self-abuse and rumination to name a few), but this particular issue is, for whatever reason, hard for me to let go, and makes me worry that I could have done the same thing before without realizing it. I know this is a REALLY stupid thing to worry about, and I actually feel guilty bothering you with it. I do not want reassurance that I didn’t do anything “wrong” (how could you possibly know if even I am unsure?) but what I would ask is what kind of mindset would be helpful for me to adopt that would allow me to simply say “I am not sure if I did that, but if I did, then I forgive myself. I may have made a mistake but it isn’t worth flogging myself over.” I just can’t seem to forgive myself for this, and other, perceived past crimes. Thank you for any advice you can give. Sorry for being a little verbose.

          • Jon Hershfield

            I’m not sure there’s a “trick” to catching and abandoning mental rituals. Just, if you become aware that you are trying to get certain about your obsession, stop. If there is an activity you can engage in that helps you stop without additional compulsions, great. Good that you connected with an OCD specialist. They will be able to guide you through the process in more detail.

  25. Kent

    Jon,
    thank you for your continued efforts. Like many, my fears have increased (or so I believe) over the years. I see someone bi-weekly for severe anxiety. It started with the fear of being kidnapped, to fear of death, thinking I had brain tumours, MS etc……Now sexual based themes. I seem to obsess over making sure a girl is 18. If I masturbate it’s always in the back of my head that they may not be 18, or that banner ad may have underage women and I looked at something inappropriate. If I’m at the gym and I notice a pretty girl I obsses that she may be under 18, Today we were talking about Sophia Loren somehow and I googled her which lead me to a pic of her topless in a movie from 1951. This would have made her 17. Albeit she looks 30 I had a meltdown and expect the FBI shortly. I spent hours reading the rules of “nudity and film”. My only saving grace was they sold these vintage photo’s of her topless on Pintrest and the picture is considered art. I’m married and never dated younger women before, this anxiety came out of nowhere and is consuming. I used to be able to say a lady, girl, man whatever was attractive and not think I was weird, but merely do what everyone else seems to do so easily. How can I overcome this?

    • Jon Hershfield

      It sounds like there are some distorted beliefs about what it would mean to notice, see, or be attracted to someone under this magic number of 18. Your compulsive efforts to get certain that you have not broken this rule have led you to even more distorted beliefs about the consequences (i.e. expecting the FBI). The first thing that would have to change in order to get some clarity on what is going on with you is that you would have to stop the compulsive research and reassurance-seeking. The next thing would be to work with a therapist on constructing an exposure plan to your fear.

  26. Maki

    Hello i think i was having wat so called pure ocd but didnt go to any psychologist ive experienced everything form hiv to killings to being pervert being pedophile and now the last strike i had was being obsessed to the thought what if the one who i actually gave a blowjob was his son who is a ten year old its really true i did blowjob but after an attack of intrusive thought i doubt my memory evry thought i encountered popped out right after flirting to a guy. And then the next day i saw a child who has bruises and thinks that im the one who did that bruises maybe after i gave a blowjob but deep in my heart its his uncle who i gave ablowjob not him i also sensitive to the way he looks at me maybe hes afraid of me.why he looked at me like that. Im so depressed aleays having sexual thoughts to a child

    • Jon Hershfield

      Sorry, I am having a little difficulty understanding your post for language reasons. If I understand correctly, you have had many different obsessions before and recently you have become obsessed with the idea that the person you recently performed fellatio on was not in fact who you remember, but could have somehow been a child. This type of “false memory” obsession is not uncommon. Like any other ocd, it is best treated with cognitive behavioral therapy from an ocd specialist.

    • Jon Hershfield

      Means I have seen it several times before. It is an obsession that some people have. Not something everyone deals with. Not rare or uncommon. Not something that should be treated as unusual or strange. Just treated like any other form of OCD, with cognitive behavioral therapy.

  28. TiredNScared

    Hello Again Jon. Thank you for all your replies and advice. It has been very helpful and I have been doing my best to keep it to heart. I have started seeing a specialist in OCD and already it has helped. I make exposure scripts and audio exposure recordings every couple of days, and listen to them for at least an hour and a half every day. I avoid visiting forums (including this one) regularly, and I deliberately go to places that will trigger me, like the mall, and try my hardest to avoid checking to see if I find younger teenage girls attractive and to just observe. Sometimes I fail, but I usually catch myself. Overall I feel better, but I have two things that seem really hard to shake, and I wanna know if you have any advice.
    Fist, I have this weird resistance to enjoying my hobbies or engaging in activities I value or enjoy because, if my fears are true and I am a sexual deviant, I wouldn’t want those things marred in the eyes of the rest of society by their association with me. I know that’s very bizarre, and I have yet to hear of anyone else having this thought, but it its one of the biggest walls I am facing in treatment, because it is an impossible demand for certainty as a prerequisite for joy. I am an artists, and this has been a HUUUUUGE barrier to returning to creative thoughts. Basically it says that if I am a pedophile, anything I create will be ruined just by having been made by me.
    Which leads to my second concern. That is using feelings as evidence. I know that is nonsense, but it is hard sometimes. When I imagine confessing to family members that I am a disgusting pedophile, or if I even think or write a phrase like “I am sexually stimulated by children or teenage girls” I get a VERY powerful feeling of guilt. The feeling is akin to being caught in the act and being forced to confess, or like you have just revealed a truth that has been eating you up inside. I know this is nonsense, but if feels so real. I feel confident that I am good at seeing past other OCD tricks, like groin sensations, but these two issues really really bother me, especially when I am alone. Oddly enough, when I am physically in the presence of prepubescent children (but not pubescent teenagers) the feeling and accompanying anxiety actually DECREASES and I feel more sure of myself. Anyway, I apologize for always being so verbose and taking so much of your time. I think I just need a refresher on how to deal with this.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>Hello Again Jon. Thank you for all your replies and advice. It has been very helpful and I have been doing my best to keep it to heart. I have started seeing a specialist in OCD and already it has helped. I make exposure scripts and audio exposure recordings every couple of days, and listen to them for at least an hour and a half every day. I avoid visiting forums (including this one) regularly, and I deliberately go to places that will trigger me, like the mall, and try my hardest to avoid checking to see if I find younger teenage girls attractive and to just observe. Sometimes I fail, but I usually catch myself. Overall I feel better, but I have two things that seem really hard to shake, and I wanna know if you have any advice.

      —Good to hear!

      >>>>Fist, I have this weird resistance to enjoying my hobbies or engaging in activities I value or enjoy because, if my fears are true and I am a sexual deviant, I wouldn’t want those things marred in the eyes of the rest of society by their association with me. I know that’s very bizarre, and I have yet to hear of anyone else having this thought, but it its one of the biggest walls I am facing in treatment, because it is an impossible demand for certainty as a prerequisite for joy. I am an artists, and this has been a HUUUUUGE barrier to returning to creative thoughts. Basically it says that if I am a pedophile, anything I create will be ruined just by having been made by me.

      —-Sounds like a form of emotional contamination. I would approach it as a form of ERP. Work with your therapist to assign creative endeavors and purposely bring in triggering thoughts. You could do some kind of art that represents your POCD fears somehow or you could do something unrelated but while thinking about POCD and tell yourself that whoever views this art may have their lives ruined somehow. Incidentally, Charles Manson was a pretty decent folk singer.

      >>>>>Which leads to my second concern. That is using feelings as evidence. I know that is nonsense, but it is hard sometimes. When I imagine confessing to family members that I am a disgusting pedophile, or if I even think or write a phrase like “I am sexually stimulated by children or teenage girls” I get a VERY powerful feeling of guilt. The feeling is akin to being caught in the act and being forced to confess, or like you have just revealed a truth that has been eating you up inside. I know this is nonsense, but if feels so real. I feel confident that I am good at seeing past other OCD tricks, like groin sensations, but these two issues really really bother me, especially when I am alone. Oddly enough, when I am physically in the presence of prepubescent children (but not pubescent teenagers) the feeling and accompanying anxiety actually DECREASES and I feel more sure of myself. Anyway, I apologize for always being so verbose and taking so much of your time. I think I just need a refresher on how to deal with this.

      —-Well, just as you have improved in your ability to mindfully observe thoughts and sensations, so too must you learn to be mindful of emotions. You all it guilt. I would argue that is a story you tell yourself about how you feel. Furthermore, I recommend you not spend your time “imagining confessing” as this sounds like a testing compulsion.

      • TiredNScared

        Thanks for (yet another) great reaponse Jon. I appreciate it. By “emotional contamination” I presume you to mean that I am letting the unpleasant and disturbing emotions associated with my obsessions marr or otherwise influence my behavior toward pursuing my values. I hope I am understanding correctly. I do feel like emotions have been the hardest thing to deal in many ways. I was out with my wife today, and some kids walked by us. I just had this though, something like “you know you think they are hot. You wouldn’t think it was so bad to do this and this and this etc. You know it’s what you really want.” it really freaked me out and triggered the emotion I described above. It almost felt convnincing. That’s what makes me feel the worst, and damages my attempts at mindfulness. That feeling you get when you almost convince yourself of something. I really don’t want to believe these things about myself. I guess I just had poor insight at that moment. My wife could tell I had a problem just by looking at me. She tells me I try too hard to be mindful, and I think she is absolutely right. I gotta say it’s tough though. It is more like learning how to think all over again rather than being something you actively do. I often worry about whether I am adopting the proper mindset. Sometimes i feel like just saying “you know what, I really do not care if I am this thing or not! I am gonna do what I feel like doing.” However this makes me worry that I am resolving to adopt an identity that i certaintly, absolutely do not want. Methinks I think too much…

        • Jon Hershfield

          >>>>Thanks for (yet another) great reaponse Jon. I appreciate it. By “emotional contamination” I presume you to mean that I am letting the unpleasant and disturbing emotions associated with my obsessions marr or otherwise influence my behavior toward pursuing my values. I hope I am understanding correctly.

          —Yes. Many people with OCD feel protective of experiences they value and try to keep unwanted emotions from attaching themselves to them. But this attitude only makes it more likely that emotions will be perceived as intruders that are infecting the experience instead of as something passing by.

          >>>>I do feel like emotions have been the hardest thing to deal in many ways. I was out with my wife today, and some kids walked by us. I just had this thought, something like “you know you think they are hot. You wouldn’t think it was so bad to do this and this and this etc. You know it’s what you really want.” it really freaked me out and triggered the emotion I described above. It almost felt convnincing. That’s what makes me feel the worst, and damages my attempts at mindfulness. That feeling you get when you almost convince yourself of something. I really don’t want to believe these things about myself. I guess I just had poor insight at that moment.

          —Better to just roll your eyes at thoughts like that and say “ok, fine.” The thing is, accepting that you’re being a psychopath in your head at any given moment is not a threat to anyone. You’re resistant to do it because of your obsessive fear that it will contaminate your life or your values. It’s a trap. If you want to stop feeling like these thoughts are threatening, you have to stop responding to them like they’re threatening. This may mean letting your mind do whatever it feels like from time to time without monitoring it so closely or taking it so seriously.

          >>>>My wife could tell I had a problem just by looking at me. She tells me I try too hard to be mindful, and I think she is absolutely right.

          —Wives are almost always right. Being mindful should not be an effort. It is simply a perspective, not a task.

          >>>>I gotta say it’s tough though. It is more like learning how to think all over again rather than being something you actively do. I often worry about whether I am adopting the proper mindset. Sometimes i feel like just saying “you know what, I really do not care if I am this thing or not! I am gonna do what I feel like doing.” However this makes me worry that I am resolving to adopt an identity that i certaintly, absolutely do not want. Methinks I think too much…

          —Yup.

  29. TiredNScared

    Also, I will definitely consider your suggestions about art. We have already discussed simply working through the anxiety and fear and just doing it.

  30. Karissa C.

    Hi Jon,
    Maybe you could comment on a related question. When I experience intrusive thoughts around children, I panic about what their parents will think. I can’t hide anxiety well. Won’t people notice if I’m calm but then around kids I get stiff and start covering anxiety? Will they get a “weird feel” about me and not want me to be around their family? Worse yet, what if the child gets a thought around me like “she’s a creeper” because of the vibe of my unwanted thoughts? If my thoughts affect only me, that’s one thing. But if they damage my social relationships, and give others an unsafe vibe, that’s worse, and they’re my deeper fears.

    • Jon Hershfield

      The only way to avoid people thinking you’re a creeper with 100% certainty is to avoid being around people. That is also the only way to guarantee that you lose all your social skills and become the “creepy” person you’re afraid of being seen as. The key to freedom is in being yourself and accepting that even though people can’t read minds, they may or may not form conclusions about you that you may or may not prefer. I spend the majority of my time with anxious people and they still seem pretty normal to me. You can’t predict the future, so you can’t predict what people will notice or think. You can only make educated guesses in life. An important educated guess is that avoidance of the things you fear will lead to worsened fears.

  31. Popalop

    Hello Mr. Hershfield, I am a 16 year old and over the summer I worked at a summer camp/daycare with my sister and mother. I believe I have POCD

  32. Popalop

    Mr. Hershfield, First off thank you for the help you gave me over the phone, but I have one more question. Before my POCD started I had a dream, A terrible dream about a child getting sexually abused but I remember the abuser not being me because he was a Caucasian man, me being African American. I remember waking up that night scared and worried, asking myself “Why’d I dream that”, or “What’s wrong with me”, But soon I got over it until a couple days later while watching a movie with my mother and a child in the movie resembling the boy from my dream, Once I seen the kid I got the same feeling I did after waking up from that dream I even got a groinal response to the kid, It seemed like I was attracted to him or something, But then I realized It was probably just anxiety taking over my body at that moment, I soon forgot about this moment until It came back to me once my POCD started up, My question is wouldn’t a pedophile be mentally aroused and happy at those two moments, while myself feeling horrible and scared over the moments?

    Thank you sir

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>>Mr. Hershfield, First off thank you for the help you gave me over the phone, but I have one more question.

      —Because you have untreated OCD.

      >>>>Before my POCD started I had a dream, A terrible dream about a child getting sexually abused but I remember the abuser not being me because he was a Caucasian man, me being African American. I remember waking up that night scared and worried, asking myself “Why’d I dream that”, or “What’s wrong with me”,

      —-These are nonsense questions. Dreams don’t matter.

      >>>>>But soon I got over it until a couple days later while watching a movie with my mother and a child in the movie resembling the boy from my dream, Once I seen the kid I got the same feeling I did after waking up from that dream I even got a groinal response to the kid, It seemed like I was attracted to him or something, But then I realized It was probably just anxiety taking over my body at that moment, I soon forgot about this moment until It came back to me once my POCD started up, My question is wouldn’t a pedophile be mentally aroused and happy at those two moments, while myself feeling horrible and scared over the moments?

      —-You are compulsively asking for reassurance about what is or is not a pedophile. This is guaranteed to make your OCD worse.

  33. Miguel

    Hey jon its me again and ive been doing mindfullness with cbt, and i now have more knowledge about ocd in general since I bought your books. Ive yet to seen a ocd speacialist because im just to scared, but i live in florida so there should be access to a good therapist somewhere right? Anyways what my mind is doing lately is pretty weird and makes me uncomfortable. I associate any feeling or sensation i have with attraction. Example, im looking at a chair and could have a “sexual” feeling or sensation and associate that with attraction, crazy right! Its truly debilitating and hinders my ability to do anything. It could be anything and intangible ex; a bed, candy, words that are spoken, breath (intangible) ect. How do i go about this? Am i suppose to accept?I feel like im the only person that has this problem. I just dont know. Something else that bothers me is that i get a sharp feeling in my head and i dig through what on earth is giving me those feelings or i’ll dig through my mind to figure out if something im doing in general is a compusion . Would you consider these 2 things a compulsion? Its like im questioning everything and stressing me out . As of right now im not getting any anxiety from these thought, “feelings” etc just stress . Maybe its cause i notice that im doing something wrong and stop myself? still going to be doing my own self cbt guide but i would like to know your input on this. Thank you very much!

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>Hey jon its me again and ive been doing mindfullness with cbt, and i now have more knowledge about ocd in general since I bought your books. Ive yet to seen a ocd speacialist because im just to scared, but i live in florida so there should be access to a good therapist somewhere right?

      —There are many excellent OCD therapists in Florida. You should see one. https://iocdf.org/find-help/

      >>>> Anyways what my mind is doing lately is pretty weird and makes me uncomfortable. I associate any feeling or sensation i have with attraction.

      —-Yes, this is called selective abstraction, a cognitive distortion where you associate things with your obsession.

      >>>>Example, im looking at a chair and could have a “sexual” feeling or sensation and associate that with attraction, crazy right!

      —-Some chairs are better looking than others. None of them are good conversationalists.

      >>>>>Its truly debilitating and hinders my ability to do anything.

      —-Your attention to it and attempts to suppress it are what hinder you.

      >>>>It could be anything and intangible ex; a bed, candy, words that are spoken, breath (intangible) ect. How do i go about this? Am i suppose to accept?

      —-Can’t think of an alternative.

      >>>>>I feel like im the only person that has this problem.

      —You aren’t.

      >>>>I just dont know. Something else that bothers me is that i get a sharp feeling in my head and i dig through what on earth is giving me those feelings or i’ll dig through my mind to figure out if something im doing in general is a compusion . Would you consider these 2 things a compulsion?

      —Could be. Trying to be certain if something is compulsive is also a compulsion.

      >>>>Its like im questioning everything and stressing me out . As of right now im not getting any anxiety from these thought, “feelings” etc just stress . Maybe its cause i notice that im doing something wrong and stop myself? still going to be doing my own self cbt guide but i would like to know your input on this. Thank you very much!

      —-My recommendation is that you see a therapist.

  34. Christian

    Hello Dr. Hershfield, I really hope you reply to my comment, These past couple months have been filled with Depression, Anxiety, Anger, Confusion, Guilt, and Frustration. It all started with a dream I had a couple months before this got really bad, it was a dream of a child getting sexually abused, I woke up very Anxiety filled, I can’t remember if I had a groinal response or not, I’m not entirely sure, But I soon got over that, But a couple months after and I develop what I hope is just POCD, but I’m a textbook case for it, The constant doubt, the guilt, The reassurance seeking, everything about it described what I was feeling, And that helped a lot but I was soon analyzing my past and I have found things that are really bothering me, The dream, the moments of holding a child a getting a groinal response even before all this has happened, past childhood memories that I believe is very innoporpiate, And a couple months ago I was sexually attracted to a 12 year olds body, I’m 16 and I promise she looked way older than what she was I thought she was atleast 15, but she wasn’t. But for a minute I was actually feeling better because I have this crush on this girl that goes to my school and she was taking a lot of space in my thoughts until last night, I had a dream that I was holding a child in my arms and when I woke up, I had a groinal response, And now it’s all back, and I don’t know anymore, I can’t escape it, I’m even scared of going to sleep because of the dreams, I just want my old life back, I want to be able to look at my little cousins innocently again, I want to move on with my life! I just want some advise from you, should I be looking for treatment from a OCD specialist or looking for somebody that treats pedophillia, or is my story common? Is it just POCD or am I the thing I fear the most?, A couple months ago I was normal kid with normal problems like school and girl trouble, I just want to be happy again.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>Hello Dr. Hershfield, I really hope you reply to my comment, These past couple months have been filled with Depression, Anxiety, Anger, Confusion, Guilt, and Frustration. It all started with a dream I had a couple months before this got really bad, it was a dream of a child getting sexually abused, I woke up very Anxiety filled, I can’t remember if I had a groinal response or not, I’m not entirely sure, But I soon got over that,

      —Unclear what there is to get over. Dreams are dreams. I keep a list in my head of dreams my clients tell me are some kind of a big deal. When I inevitably have one, I proudly cross it of my list.

      >>>>But a couple months after and I develop what I hope is just POCD, but I’m a textbook case for it, The constant doubt, the guilt, The reassurance seeking, everything about it described what I was feeling, And that helped a lot but I was soon analyzing my past and I have found things that are really bothering me, The dream, the moments of holding a child a getting a groinal response even before all this has happened, past childhood memories that I believe is very innoporpiate, And a couple months ago I was sexually attracted to a 12 year olds body, I’m 16 and I promise she looked way older than what she was I thought she was atleast 15, but she wasn’t.

      —Yes, a lot of teenagers report to me that they worry about having been attracted to someone a few years younger and whether this makes them a pedophile. But regardless of the literal age of the person you noticed, the thing you noticed were sexual markers of puberty, which all healthy people recognize. In other words, you worry too much about what your mind does even though it does whatever it wants without your input.

      >>>>But for a minute I was actually feeling better because I have this crush on this girl that goes to my school and she was taking a lot of space in my thoughts until last night, I had a dream that I was holding a child in my arms and when I woke up, I had a groinal response, And now it’s all back, and I don’t know anymore, I can’t escape it, I’m even scared of going to sleep because of the dreams, I just want my old life back, I want to be able to look at my little cousins innocently again, I want to move on with my life! I just want some advise from you, should I be looking for treatment from a OCD specialist or looking for somebody that treats pedophillia, or is my story common? Is it just POCD or am I the thing I fear the most?, A couple months ago I was normal kid with normal problems like school and girl trouble, I just want to be happy again.

      —-Well, you don’t need a dream analyst, if that’s what you’re asking. I can’t diagnose you from a blog comment, but I agree with your initial assessment that you have many of the textbook symptoms. If you have access to one, I would seek evaluation from an ocd specialist. You sound like a “kid with normal problems” to me. OCD is probably one of your normal problems.

  35. Daria

    Hi!
    Thank you for your article.

    I’ve been having POCD ups and downs for 4 years now.
    I almost cured myself by acceptance. Stephen Phillipson articles helped me a lot. Acceptance is the key.
    But sometimes when intimate I’m still having the thoughts. I’m trying to accept them and let them be. But really don’t know how to handle it.

    Also my friend has a daughter and sometimes when she says she is so much against paedos, I feel guilt for having the thoughts. Like she doesn’t know I get these thoughts. I feel so terrible…

    Thanks for reading… Hope ypu’ll reply.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>I’ve been having POCD ups and downs for 4 years now.
      I almost cured myself by acceptance. Stephen Phillipson articles helped me a lot. Acceptance is the key.
      But sometimes when intimate I’m still having the thoughts. I’m trying to accept them and let them be. But really don’t know how to handle it.

      —Instead of “trying to accept” you can aim to identify when you are resisting and then try to stop doing that. Unwanted thoughts come up in intimacy and other situations. That’s not the problem. How much and what kind of attention we offer them is the problem.

      >>>>Also my friend has a daughter and sometimes when she says she is so much against paedos, I feel guilt for having the thoughts. Like she doesn’t know I get these thoughts. I feel so terrible…

      —Many people with OCD suffer from what is sometimes called TAF-morality (TAF means thought-action fusion) in which the mere existence of the thought is interpreted as a moral failing. My recommendation is to mindful of this feeling you call “guilt” and accept that it is a sensation that comes up when you hear certain triggering statements, but not something you need to analyze or explore.

  36. Hannah

    Hello I’m a 21 mother of 5 and 3 year old and I believe I have devolved pocd I use to be able to do everything for my children but about a month ago a thought crossed my mind what if you could be a pedophile all kinds of terrible intrusive thoughts pop up I’m constantly thinking of it and I have a feeling in my private at all times I avoid sex with my boyfriend when images pop in my head I do a head shake I know I’m not attracted to children or would kill myself before harming them but this is ruining my family I miss being close with my kids. Could I be a pedophile? This is making me quite suicidal

    • Jon Hershfield

      What you are describing sounds like a very common manifestation of OCD. Avoiding intimacy is one of many compulsions you are likely doing that are sending the message to your brain that these intrusive thoughts have some kind of intrinsic meaning. Instead of asking whether you could be what your intrusive thoughts are telling you to worry about, you need to be asking what you are doing to fuel the OCD and what you are doing to treat it. It’s scary stuff, especially when you have little ones that you love so much. But what they need is a mother who is present, not a mother who is devoting all of her attention to being certain about her unwanted thoughts.

  37. John

    Dear Dr. Hershfield
    I stayed in touch with http://www.ocdaction.org.uk helpline but they told me they cannot help me if I was not diagnosed by specialist, so I did. I’ve been seeing few of them (sexologists /psychologists who claim to be specialized in OCD treatment, that includes CBT and ERP) in my home-country. Despite the fact that both of them , or rather their “professional” methods guided me to a point where I am now, both of them diagnosed me with OCD and one of them claimed that my terrible mood is mostly connected with escalation of porn usage in my recent life. I do agree to a certain point with that. I was NEVER EVER INTENTIONALY looking for ANY illegal material, but some of the things I am able to find on mainstream erotic sites, very often lead me to situations like the one I’ll describe beneath.
    Here how those situations usually look like:
    1. I look at a pornographic image (movie/photo).
    2. A girl which I am looking at seems too young for me(I am in my late 20’s) , in one way or another (petite body, young face etc.)
    2. I know I shouldn’t continue watching it, not because a person is underage (even thou I am never 100% certain about that ) but because she seem too young for me (does such distortion is caused by potential OCD?) and that my possible OCD will have use of such uncertainty later on.
    3. I start to be careless and numbed by the sexual drive. I decide to continue watching mentioned image despite my doubts, and here’s where the scary part starts, at the same time I start to feel some kind of sexual excitement about the potential uncertainty and possible taboo element of whole situation.
    4.Some time later I feel terrible guilt and cannot understand why I did what I just did. I start to feel like I have just got myself into some kind of potential pedophilic behavior this way.
    I cannot accept existence of such excitement. Do we all deal with such emotions or it’s just me (because of my potential OCD)? Do others simply forget about such events and go one with their lives? I read on one of those sites about POCD that “masturbation to CP material with little anxiety and much pleasure and joy on a regular basis and only feeling guilty or ashamed after orgasm is much more suggestive of actual Pedophilia.” Then , Who the heck am I? I know I wasn’t looking for such content, but isn’t that the same, to think about someone who seems too young for me and despite such warning to continue watching it and masturbating?
    All that mess with those movies started for me a few months ago when I was watching one of those videos and at one point I wasn’t certain if what I was seeing was harmless or messed up since it was an amateur movie from a site which I haven’t seen before. I got interested , because I was attracted to it’s “storyline” and a beautiful , “developed” actress taking part in it. The problem started when I saw her “partner” in the mentioned movie who looked under age and I decided not to quit watching it. I remember I thought that no adult would act with someone too young. It was also said that younger one is someone’s wife so I continued to watch it. On the other hand I couldn’t be certain if she’s not underage since it was an amateur movie, right? I didn’t know what to do and was exhausted with doubting all the time, and then I had that thought – “I don’t care about it all, if she’s underage and wants to take part in that movie it’s her choice”. In the end I checked if the whole site and people taking part in it were of legal age and Yes they were. But I wasn’t certain bout it while I was watching it. Well my problem is a little bit awkward, that means – I know that I am not a pedophile and I’ll never become one, cause I never had any drive towards it but It is what I thought or believed I was seeing, and how I reacted to that, bothers me. I cannot forgive myself for what was my reaction to mentioned movie. I already stopped watching porn since it’s only making me anxious. I don’t know, maybe there’s something wrong with me because I showed that picture to one of my friends and he said that he doesn’t see anything underage in it. I beg for any advice.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>I cannot accept existence of such excitement.

      —You don’t have a choice other than to accept thoughts, feelings, and sensations. What you are really struggling with is a narrative you’ve attached to these experiences. The experiences themselves are just neurons firing, and boring to contemplate.

      >>>>>Do we all deal with such emotions or it’s just me (because of my potential OCD)? Do others simply forget about such events and go one with their lives?

      —You’re talking about a non-event like it’s an event. You looked at porn. You had some thoughts about the not-child actress looking young. You overreacted compulsively, then changed your mind, then felt guilty after re-analyzing it and distorting what happened. Except nothing worth analyzing happened. You watched porn. So be it.

      >>>>I read on one of those sites about POCD that “masturbation to CP material with little anxiety and much pleasure and joy on a regular basis and only feeling guilty or ashamed after orgasm is much more suggestive of actual Pedophilia.” Then , Who the heck am I?

      —A guy who didn’t watch CP.

      >>>>I know I wasn’t looking for such content, but isn’t that the same, to think about someone who seems too young for me and despite such warning to continue watching it and masturbating?

      —You’re doing a mental ritual right now, not observing the experience objectively.

      >>>>>All that mess with those movies started for me a few months ago when I was watching one of those videos and at one point I wasn’t certain if what I was seeing was harmless or messed up since it was an amateur movie from a site which I haven’t seen before. I got interested , because I was attracted to it’s “storyline” and a beautiful , “developed” actress taking part in it. The problem started when I saw her “partner” in the mentioned movie who looked under age and I decided not to quit watching it. I remember I thought that no adult would act with someone too young. It was also said that younger one is someone’s wife so I continued to watch it. On the other hand I couldn’t be certain if she’s not underage since it was an amateur movie, right? I didn’t know what to do and was exhausted with doubting all the time, and then I had that thought – “I don’t care about it all, if she’s underage and wants to take part in that movie it’s her choice”. In the end I checked if the whole site and people taking part in it were of legal age and Yes they were. But I wasn’t certain bout it while I was watching it. Well my problem is a little bit awkward, that means – I know that I am not a pedophile and I’ll never become one, cause I never had any drive towards it but It is what I thought or believed I was seeing, and how I reacted to that, bothers me. I cannot forgive myself for what was my reaction to mentioned movie. I already stopped watching porn since it’s only making me anxious. I don’t know, maybe there’s something wrong with me because I showed that picture to one of my friends and he said that he doesn’t see anything underage in it. I beg for any advice.

      —-You have a disorder characterized by a deficit in uncertainty tolerance. The whole paragraph above is just about you trying to be certain. My advice is to work with your therapist on CBT, including an ERP plan that can train you to be better at uncertainty tolerance and stop engaging in mental rituals, reassurance seeking, and other compulsions.

  38. AJ

    Hi Jon.

    I’m fifteen years old, and this all started for me back in late September, 2017. I remember the exact thought that started it: I was in the bath, and I wondered what it would look like if my labia was long enough to stretch all the way to the end of the tub (stupid thought, I know, but just one of those random ones) and then I thought “Well, you’d probably be born with it.” And then that freaked me out because I went “Thinking of children’s genitals?? Ew, what the hell?”
    Since then, it’s been non-stop suffering, and I have no clue why. I also remembered having an obsession with poison as a child- I was scared of even breathing around bleach or rat poison or anything toxic, and I’d avoid the hallway with the washing machine out of fear and constantly wash my hands. I’ve also had other fears, like fears of injuring people or animals and fears of screwing up a relationship, but they never prevailed as much as the pedophile obsession. This made me think that I could possibly have OCD, since I also have GAD, and I searched into that.
    I then got officially diagnosed with OCD about two months ago. This doesn’t comfort me as much as it should though, since I don’t trust my therapist, and I’m afraid she’ll misdiagnose me (I haven’t told her of the subject of my OCD).
    I’ve been beyond depressed, going as far as relapsing with self harm and thinking suicidal thoughts. It’s strange things I obsess about too, when it comes to POCD- I have the typical thoughts, but also thoughts like “You like cookies? Children like cookies- you’re a pedo” or “You have pink underwear? That seems childish, how creepy of you” or “You have kind of a bitchy face, what if that’s the face of a pedo?”
    It’s all very disabling- I can hardly look at myself in the mirror and when my SO calls me good or nice I feel like a phony. I never even liked kids in general, but I also never hated them or wished harm upon them at all- in fact my SO and my sister are survivors of CSA and I can truly say that I despise pedos- I just have a horrible, horrible fear of being one.

    Sorry this is so long, I just haven’t have a place to dump my thoughts. I’ll be talking to an OCD specialist next week so that’s a start, but I just don’t know how I, a fifteen year old, will live the rest of my life like this. These four months have been hell. Any advice?

    • Jon Hershfield

      Brave of you to reach out to seek more information about what you’re going through. That’s excellent that you’ve scheduled to see an OCD specialist. I don’t have any specific advice other than to say that everything you describe is something I have heard before. Your efforts to prove that you aren’t a pedophile (just like your efforts to prove that you won’t poison yourself or harm an animal) are compulsions. Compulsions validate obsessions in the brain and make them more powerful. In treatment you will learn to identify and resist compulsions, and enhance your ability to accept uncertainty about this subject. You are already good at accepting uncertainty about most things, but obsessions feel different. Be open and assertive with the OCD therapist about the thoughts and they will help you construct a plan to navigate out of this. You can get better.

  39. Alex

    Hi Jon,

    I have struggled with pedophile thoughts since I was 12 years old. I am now 29 years. I have truly believed that I am a pedophile, until I told my therapist about it 2 months ago. She says I have POCD. I really want to believe her. I have other OCD tendencies as well, like getting images in my head of me smashing someones skull in, so it sort of makes sense to me now.

    The big problem that makes me really question if I have POCD is this: I have been fighting against the thoughts since I was 12, but I honestly believed I was a pedophile at such a young age and I sometimes sort of just “gave in to the urges” (thinking this is just something I have to accept) making myself masturbate to pictures of children (not CP, just normal non-sexual). Of course I hated myself intensely afterwards and getting anxiety and hurt myself. But the truth is I got aroused by it. It felt much stronger and different than the usual arousal. Does this make me a pedophile after all?

    As I said, I got aroused by children in my teens, and to this day I still can I think, but I don`t really know because I get so anxious and try to make the thoughts and images go away. I`m not at the stage yet where “I can allow myself to let them come”, as my therapist puts it. Im so afraid that when I let them I won`t even know the difference between real arousal and anxiety? I feel so f’d up not even knowing when Im turned on or just scared.

    • Jon Hershfield

      Using an adult brain to judge the experience of a 12-year-old’s brain is unreasonable. I would take the risk of trusting your therapist and doing what they recommend. Learning to navigate uncertainty is what’s at issue here and the reason why it’s so difficult for you to do is OCD. S treating the OCD makes the most sense.

  40. Phil

    Hi Jon,

    In saying, “what we would be better off seeking is confidence, an internalized belief that something is true” does this also apply to believing something is NOT true?

    Ie: aiming to have the confidence to believe that one is NOT a pedophile?

    If I’m not mistaken, this confidence can firstly only be described as a sort of assumption that one does not truly believe. Is there value in feigning this confidence to yourself? Or is it better to continue to say ‘these thoughts are just thoughts. I might be, or I might not be. It doesn’t matter either way’ ?

    This acceptance is difficult to truly believe. No matter how many times you try to employ it, truly believing that it doesn’t matter is difficult.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>In saying, “what we would be better off seeking is confidence, an internalized belief that something is true” does this also apply to believing something is NOT true?

      —Yes, I am saying that we shoudl strive for confidence that we are truly what we want to be (or not what we don’t want to be), but not certainty.

      Ie: aiming to have the confidence to believe that one is NOT a pedophile?
      If I’m not mistaken, this confidence can firstly only be described as a sort of assumption that one does not truly believe. Is there value in feigning this confidence to yourself? Or is it better to continue to say ‘these thoughts are just thoughts. I might be, or I might not be. It doesn’t matter either way’ ?

      —Both work. You can sit with the uncertainty as it is AND pretend you are in command of it.

      >>>This acceptance is difficult to truly believe. No matter how many times you try to employ it, truly believing that it doesn’t matter is difficult.

      —The same is true of accepting that you will die one day, but we manage to get up in the morning and answer emails anyway.

  41. Hankthetank91

    Hi Jon, idk if I have ocd, but I ruminate a lot about distressing things. I actually just finished my first year of medical school and now I have time to fix myself this summer so I’m going to try to full force so I dont have to deal with this hell. My obsessions basically are that I’ve done something terrible and eventually when I least expect it im going to be accused of something and go to jail, lose it all, etc.. my compulsions are confessing and seeking reassurance. I’ve been told the best way to deal with this is to simply stop confessing, stop the compulsion and eventually it will go away. I’ve been sitting with this compulsion for awhile now though like a mo nth or two and my anxiety is still here :/ . I will indulge and let you know that my most recent fear since the anxiety is not dissipating yo try to get advice.
    My wife and I were called to help out in a church nursery, so we watch over kids while their parents go to different church meetings. I already had anxiety going into this because I had a previous intrusive thought I had somehow inappropriately touched a 7 yr old girl while teaching a church class, and I did it so indescreetly that no body knew but me, not even her or the rest of the class that was present. Anyways, I thought hey, working in a nursery should be good ERP, so I start to help out and on the first day I started playing catch with a little kid, he would run and pick up a ball I threw and then bring it back. Anyways, a thought came to me “what if when holding the ball out to the kid I accidentally pr intentionally grabbed his crotch” , my head was turned when I was holding the ball for the kid, so I didnt see what I was doing or where my hand was. I know that’s not something I would do, but the thought was there. I was sitting right next to another guy watching some kids but when i had the thought i looked over at him and he was busy playing with some other kid so he wasnt watching me and couldn’t verify that I hadn’t done something inappropriate. anyways…, my mind says I need to confess to the kids parents of something I know I didnt di, or the bishop, or idk somebody to make me suffer.. that’s the kind of thoughts my mind has, and I know it feels like defeat mentioning this obsession, I need to just hold them in and wait for them to dissipate, but I want suggestions on how to best fix myself. I still volunteer in this nursery, and try to not let my irrational fear get the better of me and I know once I overcome this fear, something else will take its place…
    In summary, I’m searching for the cure to my ailment, I’m willing to do anything and I’m determined to do so self help wise (since I’m a poor medical student and my health insurance doesnt cover pyschotherapy) so any self help I will do it!
    Thank so much Jon

    • Jon Hershfield

      This is a common manifestation of OCD, this notion that you somehow could have done a terrible thing you have no reason to do, and it was so terrible that you somehow blocked it out until now. And since there is no way to prove you did not do it, you feel the urge to confess and seek reassurance, either to get certainty that the event did not occur or to get certainty that you did the moral thing and accepted the consequences somehow. You correctly identify that you need to stop the confessing, but it sounds like you are overlooking the mental rituals you are engaging in to prove to yourself these events did not occur. Essentially you are still sending the message to your brain that there is reason to investigate and confess because you are still mentally reviewing the obsession to try to prove it away. What is also notably absent froom your description is what you are doing for ERP. This kind of obsession can respond well to things like scripting, writing out narratives where you describe having committed the imagined bad act and having live with imagined consequences (including potentially having to live with never knowing for sure what you have or haven’t done). Since you mentioned not being able to afford psychotherapy, I recommend you utilize an OCD workbook and construct an ERP plan for yourself. The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD may be helpful, and I also recommend Jonathan Grayson’s Freedom From Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Also, if you have not already read them, you might find the following blogs helpful: http://ocdbaltimore.com/false-memories/ and http://ocdbaltimore.com/how-to-respond-to-unwanted-thoughts/

  42. Morgan

    I recently just had a baby and I am very afraid of my thoughts towards her and keep thinking that I have acted on them … but I cant remember doing it or I think I did do something horribly wrong but just cant remember.. how do I fix this? Please help

  43. samia

    Dr.Jon
    I was recently diagnosed with depression I was also have suicidal thoughts I was given medication but the medication had a negative effect on me so I had to stop taking it. I didn’t not want to be alone for fear on hurting myself. After awhile I could be lefted alone but I still hide the knifes and anything that could harm me or others. When I thought I was better a thought popped into my head while I was watching YouTube that woman looks hot or something I completely freaked out because I thought I was becoming a lesbian I had refused to watch any women and constantly checking to see if I was attracted to them. When it was not dominating by whole life so much I thought was recovering I went out one day while crossing a bridge I had the fear that I would fall or jump of the bridge because I was alone. I managed to make it home I was good for a while until I scratched across my neck an image passed across my mind with a knife going across my throat it freaked me out so much that when I looked up the first thing I saw was a picture of my aunt but I saw her neck first same image popped up I cried for most of the day then when I was calm my aunt came home I freaked out again that night I was afraid to go and sleep because I feared that I would harm her in my sleep when I finally had that under control I went out 1day later I spent the whole day out but I was having the shivers when I came home me and my cousin was in the room talking my 6-9yr old male cousin came into the room all because he wanted to know what we were talking about my other cousin lefted I focused on the tv but the kid was on the blowup bed so he was right in front of the tv he started touching himself which freaked and grossed me out I yelled at him to stop that and put on some pants he was in boxers that night I broke down crying because I had the sudden thought that I was going to harm children my ocd seems to focus on him I don’t want to hear his name voice or see him because I have really bad attacks I feel frightened all the time and I have more intrusive thoughts just this morning I was feeling a little better but the kid change his clothes right in the hallway freaked me out again and because I can’t stand those thoughts it has brought back the suicidal thoughts please help

    • Jon Hershfield

      Sorry you are having such a difficult time with your mental health. If you are at any risk of harming yourself, go to your nearest emergency room. Whether on medication or not, it seems clear that it is important that you be under the care of a psychiatrist who is aware of and invested in helping with your mental health issues. You describe a consistent pattern of using avoidance, of objects, images, and even your own thoughts, as your primary strategy for coping with obsessions. Avoidance only ever sends the message to your brain that the thing you are avoiding must be a danger or threat. The more you avoid, the more intrusive and frightening your obsessions become. You mentioned trying medication, but did not mention any actual treatment for your OCD. CBT is the most effective treatment for OCD, which I recommend you look into. I understand you did not have a positive experience on your last medication. It is common to try several medications and combos thereof before finding something that really helps. When it does help, it helps primarily by enabling you to do the CBT.

  44. Anonymous person

    Hello Mr. Hershfield. I’m a 25 year old from India. Since the past few years, I’ve had several fears, one among which could probably be POCD. I’ve never tried to maintain sexual interactions with children, however, whenever I observe a picture of a child, I tend to observe it carefully, to check whether I am being sexually attracted to it, though I may not feel exactly that way. The posture of the child, the way she is dressed tend to remind me of the way I may observe an adult woman in a similar circumstance, though I feel sexually attracted to the adult lady, while I may just find the child extremely cute or attractive, though not exactly in a sexual way. As I mentioned earlier, this is only a recent development, because for the first 20 -odd years of my life, I never thought of kids in this way, and I most definitely did not have any paedophilic fears. If, for e.g., I am scrolling through my social media feed, and I come across a child, then I may look at the photo carefully , and I may to understand what I’m feeling, and I tend to observe the exposed parts of the body, and I’ve noticed that as I begin to observe those body areas, I may end up feeling something similar to what I would feel if I were to observe an adult lady, though without a groinal sensation. I do not masturbate to children’s fantasies either. There was this one time when I saw a child rub her chest in a video which featured silly pranks done on children, and I felt a certain excitement at that moment, though I was worried that what I was doing was wrong, so I decided not to watch it again. A part of my probably made that connection, because it seemed like what an adult woman would do, and hence that action created an excitement.
    There are also times when I get random thoughts in my head, for e.g., there was this time when I was watching a movie with a young actress, probably around ten or so, and I decided to do a google search on her, and while I was looking at her, A thought (1/3)

  45. Anonymous person

    that came across my mind was that if after a few years , I would probably find her sexually attractive. I just thought- what if a person has known a child and wishes that he could maybe , for e.g., marry the child after a few years, because although he is not sexually attracted to the child now, he thinks that could be the case after a few years. This random thought did not disgust me a lot, so I feared that something was wrong with me.
    My main problem is that I tend to be obsessed with morality, like for e.g., is it okay to be attracted to women who only dress in a certain way, how well do I understand consent, etc. I tend to be obsessed with morality, and especially doing things in the right way. My phone is filled with hundreds to thousands of screenshots as well as pages that concern other people’s points of view on sexual obsessions, or articles on ocd , mental disorder , etc., and I may delete several of them , though I end up adding new pages related to the same topics within weeks / months, as it is a recurring theme. Screenshots/pages are mostly on stuff like- can ocd cause anger outbursts( I am short tempered and extremely irritable at times), are you a sexual abuser, etc. On things that I have been sure of throughout my life, I begin to doubt them,for e.g., It is inappropriate to have sex with an intoxicated lady, or put your arm on a woman’s shoulder/ chest when you are standing next t her while taking a photo, but when I observe , for example , a post or maybe social media outrage to a related incident, my brain begins to believe that it is okay to be inappropriate in the above situations, and it makes me fell extremely guilty and ashamed of myself, and I try to use some sort of means to justify it.There are also thing that I was not completely aware of, for e.g., that there needs to be explicit consent before two people begin in the bedroom, and not knowing it causes extreme shame , and I feel that I am horrible, or at times, simply(2/3)

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>that came across my mind was that if after a few years , I would probably find her sexually attractive. I just thought- what if a person has known a child and wishes that he could maybe , for e.g., marry the child after a few years, because although he is not sexually attracted to the child now, he thinks that could be the case after a few years. This random thought did not disgust me a lot, so I feared that something was wrong with me.

      —You are assuming that morality requires one to be disgusted by thoughts. This is a false assumption.

      >>>>My main problem is that I tend to be obsessed with morality, like for e.g., is it okay to be attracted to women who only dress in a certain way, how well do I understand consent, etc. I tend to be obsessed with morality, and especially doing things in the right way. My phone is filled with hundreds to thousands of screenshots as well as pages that concern other people’s points of view on sexual obsessions, or articles on ocd , mental disorder , etc., and I may delete several of them , though I end up adding new pages related to the same topics within weeks / months, as it is a recurring theme. Screenshots/pages are mostly on stuff like- can ocd cause anger outbursts( I am short tempered and extremely irritable at times), are you a sexual abuser, etc.

      —This is a significant compulsion that sends the message to your brain that you have something to find. I recommend you completely stop this behavior and stop all forms of research/reassurance-seeking on the subject.

      >>>>On things that I have been sure of throughout my life, I begin to doubt them,for e.g., It is inappropriate to have sex with an intoxicated lady, or put your arm on a woman’s shoulder/ chest when you are standing next t her while taking a photo, but when I observe , for example , a post or maybe social media outrage to a related incident, my brain begins to believe that it is okay to be inappropriate in the above situations, and it makes me fell extremely guilty and ashamed of myself, and I try to use some sort of means to justify it.

      —These efforts to “justify” or rationalize are also compulsions. Some people wash their hands, you wash your moral philosophy. Same problem.

      >>>There are also thing that I was not completely aware of, for e.g., that there needs to be explicit consent before two people begin in the bedroom, and not knowing it causes extreme shame , and I feel that I am horrible, or at times, simply(2/3)

  46. Anonymous person

    disappointed in myself. I wish to be a better person, and I am still in the process of learning to be more independent, as well as to be a better feminist. I have taken tests in the past to see if I am a feminist, and a person who would not be defined as abusive, and it is a compulsion, just like checking for sexual obsessions and pocd as I’d mentioned in my previous posts sent to you miinutes ago. Although I have always supported women, and have no qualms for working under them, I feel that due to the recent attacks by women on men, calling them out for sexual assault, I feel personally attacked, either because of my fears, of because I felt that I would do something inappropriate, or worse, if I marginally felt that it would be okay to do it. I feel ashamed because of everything-right from the POCD, to the sexual appropriateness part. For context, just to clarify , in case if it matters, and I hope it does,when I was 16 , I was (3/4)

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>disappointed in myself. I wish to be a better person, and I am still in the process of learning to be more independent, as well as to be a better feminist. I have taken tests in the past to see if I am a feminist, and a person who would not be defined as abusive, and it is a compulsion, just like checking for sexual obsessions and pocd as I’d mentioned in my previous posts sent to you miinutes ago.

      —Good that you recognize these as compulsions.

      >>>Although I have always supported women, and have no qualms for working under them, I feel that due to the recent attacks by women on men, calling them out for sexual assault, I feel personally attacked, either because of my fears, of because I felt that I would do something inappropriate, or worse, if I marginally felt that it would be okay to do it. I feel ashamed because of everything-right from the POCD, to the sexual appropriateness part.

      —This is called personalizing (attributing outside events to your obsession and assuming they are about you) and it is a style of thinking that serves the OCD.

      >>>For context, just to clarify , in case if it matters, and I hope it does,when I was 16 , I was (3/4)

  47. Anonymous person

    When I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and folloeing 5 round of chemotherapy for nearly a year, I underwebt a bone marrow transplant. I have had HGraft – versus- host disease since the past 7 and a half years, and I am still consuming steroids , as well as throxine for hypothyroidism. I live with my parents, and although this is normal where I live, I have not had any close friendships since the past nine years or so. I have stayed mostly indoors with my mother , and my sister during this period. I used to attend Language classes for a year or so, and I now have a job since a few months, but I do not have any special friendships , or social interactions apart from the necessary ones. I had visited a psychiatrist, and although he wasn’t aware of sexual ocd or pocd, he told me that maybe I was observing my mother / sister at times through a male gaze, while wondering if what I was doing was wrong, was because of the long term isolation I had been in. Is this also the cause for my POCD , and my sexual inappropriateness, or the thought that I will be ? I wish to be a good person, but at times , a part of me does not give a damn, and I feel guilty about that. Do I have POCD? Am I a potential monster? Al the four posts shared with you today on this page are from me. My username is anonymous person. I beg of you to help me with this. I cannot go to that psychiatrist anymore, as my family is not aware of what I am going through mentally, and I had to make several excuses to just go there. Please help, I need to find a cure to my problems, so that I can create goals, focus on them, and live a happy life. Thanks a ton in advance.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>When I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and folloeing 5 round of chemotherapy for nearly a year, I underwebt a bone marrow transplant. I have had HGraft – versus- host disease since the past 7 and a half years, and I am still consuming steroids , as well as throxine for hypothyroidism.

      —Sorry you have had to endure so much.

      >>>>I live with my parents, and although this is normal where I live, I have not had any close friendships since the past nine years or so. I have stayed mostly indoors with my mother , and my sister during this period. I used to attend Language classes for a year or so, and I now have a job since a few months, but I do not have any special friendships , or social interactions apart from the necessary ones. I had visited a psychiatrist, and although he wasn’t aware of sexual ocd or pocd, he told me that maybe I was observing my mother / sister at times through a male gaze, while wondering if what I was doing was wrong, was because of the long term isolation I had been in.
      Is this also the cause for my POCD , and my sexual inappropriateness, or the thought that I will be ?

      —Social isolation can certainly be stressful and stress can make OCD worse. I see no reason to think that this has anything to do with why you have the specific theme of obsession that you do.

      >>>>>I wish to be a good person, but at times , a part of me does not give a damn, and I feel guilty about that.

      —-Perhaps identifying with guilt in that moment is not necessary. Pat of me doesn’t give a damn either. The difference between you and me is that you are trying to be certain how big that part is and I am less interested in that pursuit.

      >>>>Do I have POCD? Am I a potential monster? Al the four posts shared with you today on this page are from me. My username is anonymous person. I beg of you to help me with this. I cannot go to that psychiatrist anymore, as my family is not aware of what I am going through mentally, and I had to make several excuses to just go there. Please help, I need to find a cure to my problems, so that I can create goals, focus on them, and live a happy life. Thanks a ton in advance.

      —I can’t diagnose you through a blog comment of course, but everything you describe sounds like OCD to me. My blog on Moral Scrupulosity may also be useful for you to read. Sorry to hear you are unable to easily access treatment where you are. My recommendation is to utilize whatever resources you have. If you can download an ebook on treating OCD and join an online OCD support group, these may be useful endeavors. In any case, my recommendation would be to treat this drive for certainty about your morality as an obsession and strive to be better at being uncertain.

      • Anonymous person

        Thank you so much for the responses, Mr. Hershfield! I’d just like to let you about one thing which does bother me a lot… sometimes, when I am around maybe my mother or sister, I may feel like touching them…and there is this fear that should I or should I not do it…there is this urge, but I’m mostly sure that if I did touch them in an inappropriate way, it would make me feel deeply uncomfortable. This has happened only since the past couple of years, and I feel unsure about whether I should extend my arm to touch them or not; I extend it sometimes, just to check , but I’ve never touched them. I took a quiz recently and found that I was touch deprived . Is it because of that, since I’ve mentioned to you that I’ve been mostly in isolation, or is it because I am depraved? I do not wish to hurt anyone.please help. Thanks in advance.

        • Jon Hershfield

          I don’t know anything about touch deprivation but I can say that intrusive “urges” are common in OCD. In fact, they are included in the definition of “obsessions” in the DSM-V manual of mental disorders. The trick is to be mindful that the so-called “urge” is present and simply note it as it passes, like thoughts or sensations. Any efforts to check or get certain that you won’t act on the urge in an inappropriate way will make your OCD worse.

          • Anonymous person

            I do understand what you’re saying, Mr. Hershfield, but the thing is that I don’t always feel that I fit the profile of a OCD/POCD patient. Sometimes, I do look towards people who are underage, and I may notice something about them that prbably arouses me,although in most cases, there hasn’t been a groinal response. I do fear harming people, but also because I do get extremely angry at times, and although the last time I hit/pushed someone was years ago, I fear that I may cross the line and it would not reflect well on me. I feel like I have turned into a rape apologist, from someone who would earlier condemn it, because I’ve begun to empathize with suspects because I feel like I’m like them. I probably also suffer from a sexual addiction, and have to masturbate at least once in a day, and since years at night 1-2 times at least per week, I do masturbate, probably for a really long time, even over two hours while laying in my bed, and I do suspect it could be because of a paraphilia, because I suspect that I have autogynephilia. I do look at people sexually, but I do question myself- for e.g., what if I touched someone , and would I get away with it. I do feel guilty, to the point that my brain tells me that it is okay to touch someone, and it is because I’m focusing on what’s right and what’s wrong? I feel that I’ve actually changed- for e.g., earlier , I would never look at anybody’s phone, but 2-3 times in the past couple of years I have checked my mom’s phone , because I wanted to know what other people were saying about me, and I just took a bit of a look at other stuff and left it. This is an example if me having acted on my urges, and I feel more guilty because I do not feel much guilt anymore, and at times I wonder to what extent a person can escape prison without being caught , so that I can avoid getting caught, and probably because I want to get away with it. I do not wish to be as innocent as I was, but I know that if I hurt someone , deep down (1/2)

  48. Anonymous person

    I know that I would feel guilty if somebody thought of me as a bad person. Since the past couple of weeks , following our previous interaction, my guilt has been lesser, but recently , there were several outings of abusers on social media, and my anxiety has increased, while at the same time trying to ascertain if I would do any of the things mentioned. My morality seems to be the most important thing to me and has been since several months, and moderately to highly important since the past couple of years. I wish to be a better person, and stop saving pages of information, and screenshots. I also wish to know the difference between real and OCD guilt. Kindly offer a few suggestions to help me stop this behaviour and constant checking. And thank you so much! (2/2)

    • Jon Hershfield

      My response to your previous comments and my response to this one is it sounds like you have OCD and should get treatment for it. You are telling me here that you disagree, which is fine, but it doesn’t change my opinion. You describe engaging in a significant amount of checking and reassurance-seeking compulsions, the solution to which would be to work with an OCD specialist on an exposure and response prevention plan. When you try to “ascertain if you would do any of the things mentioned” you are a teaching your brain that you are at high risk of moral failure (making your obsession worse). What you call “ascertain” I would call “compulse.” You mention some concerns about sexual addiction, which is not my area of expertise, but may be addressed with a therapist who has experience with that.

      • Anonymous person

        Thank you so much for your responses, Mr. Hershfield! I sincerely apologize if I irked you in any way during our previous discussion. I was a little too desperate to find answers, and I hope I wasn’t too pushy.

        I’ve noticed that sometimes when I see someone attractive , I may get a slight groinal response, but recently, at times, my hand goes straight to my penis, not necessarily to masturbate , but because I feel aroused, and I may touch myself slightly , but I try very hard for a few moments to not masturbate, after which the sensation goes away as my attention gets diverted. Is the fear of avoiding this also OCD? This has begun to happen during the last week or so, and my sexual needs have not dramatically increased, and it is more or less the same, which is why I ask. Could it be possible that because I am deeply engaged in the idea of avoiding my fear, I could be doing and then a losing it subconsciously?

        • Jon Hershfield

          Hard for me to tell what the mechanism is connecting your awareness of attractiveness and the need to touch yourself, but whatever it is, I would try to be more mindful of the urge to move your hand and let yourself experience it as it is (without touching yourself) and maybe just mentally note it as “urge” and let it pass. Anything you do to confirm or deny the significance of noticing attraction is going to change the way your brain perceives “attraction” so your best bet is to notice it and just let it be something that occurred in your consciousness, whether wanted or unwanted, without further analysis.

          • Anonymous person

            Hello Mr. Hershfield. Thank you so much for your response. I’ve noticed that the issue of touching myself in the wrong area has significantly reduced.I have tried to be more mindful.I think the fact that I am so deeply involved in this entire situation is probably making my symptoms worse , or giving me new ones. Could that be a possibility?
            Also, you mentioned above >>>> “Anything you to do to confirm or deny…whether wanted or unwanted , without further analysis.” Could you please expound on this, since I understand that the brain is malleable, and I could potentially become a better or worse person based on the way I think. I’d like to get greater clarity on the process of thinking, and how I could be more rational and clear in thinking, rather than be muddled and sink into Ocd despair over and over again. Sorry to bother you over this. Thanks.

          • Jon Hershfield

            I don’t mind you asking, but blog comments is not the forum I use to expound on the nature of thinking and how learning takes place in the brain. I would recommend looking into any of my books or other books on OCD for more detailed learning on the matter. In short, doing ERP entails taking the risk that any number of things you fear could com true and learning to tolerate that uncertainty. To your first question, I think devoting too much energy to trying to be certain about the subject of you obsession makes the brain assume that the subject of your obsession is more important than it probably is.

  49. Anonymous person

    As a follow up to yesterday’s message , there are some additional things which I’d like to address:

    1) A couple of weeks ago, saw a child while I was standing at the bank, and as she moved , I just noticed that her dress was transparent, and I got a glimpse of her body, and at that time, I wanted to keep looking at her, before I forced myself to turn my attention elsewhere. I was scared of the urge that I had . Is this also OCD?

    2) Almost always,when I look at a photo of a person, or even a child for that matter, I click on the photo to see the rest of the body, maybe in hopes to find the exposed areas of the body.I tend to check out the rest of the body, but I don’t get attracted to children. Is this a skin fetish, or POCD, or something else? It makes me feel guilty.

    3) Suppose if I were to do an Exposure and Response prevention test on myself- sometimes , I do watch sexual stuff on the net, which mostly concerns people of a minimum of a young adult age. In that section, I came across a video of the movie ‘ Lolita,’ which from what I know concerns an adult having relationships with a minor. I did not feel guilty, and although I did not watch it, I wondered why I could not pull myself away from it like any normal person would. Is this a sign of pedophilia , or something else? Would actually watching it help me to progress mentally and reduce my OCD? Or should I avoid it? I humbly request you to help me with the above queries. And Much thanks to you. As always.

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>>1) A couple of weeks ago, saw a child while I was standing at the bank, and as she moved , I just noticed that her dress was transparent, and I got a glimpse of her body, and at that time, I wanted to keep looking at her, before I forced myself to turn my attention elsewhere. I was scared of the urge that I had . Is this also OCD?

      —-Being scared of something that simply arises in consciousness, like what you are calling an “urge” sounds like OCD to me.

      >>>>2) Almost always,when I look at a photo of a person, or even a child for that matter, I click on the photo to see the rest of the body, maybe in hopes to find the exposed areas of the body.I tend to check out the rest of the body, but I don’t get attracted to children. Is this a skin fetish, or POCD, or something else? It makes me feel guilty.

      —Sounds like compulsive checking. Some people feel they really need certainty about whether a door is locked or a stove is turned off. You feel you need certainty about whether your reactions to bodies are appropriate. Checking is checking.

      >>>>3) Suppose if I were to do an Exposure and Response prevention test on myself-

      —Let me stop you right there. ERP has nothing to do with testing. If you are using exposure to test anything, then you are just doing a compulsion. The purpose of exposure is to learn to accept uncertainty and not do compulsions, not to prove your fears untrue.

      >>>sometimes , I do watch sexual stuff on the net, which mostly concerns people of a minimum of a young adult age. In that section, I came across a video of the movie ‘ Lolita,’ which from what I know concerns an adult having relationships with a minor. I did not feel guilty, and although I did not watch it, I wondered why I could not pull myself away from it like any normal person would. Is this a sign of pedophilia , or something else? Would actually watching it help me to progress mentally and reduce my OCD? Or should I avoid it? I humbly request you to help me with the above queries. And Much thanks to you. As always.

      —You are sort of walking the line between collecting information about OCD and asking me for compulsive reassurance about your obsession. My recommendation would be to do some reading on OCD from one of the books available on the subject and enhance your understanding of ERP so that when you are ready to do it, you can do it effectively.

  50. Anonymous

    So I have severe ocd/pocd but now I dont know if I am getting aroused without intrusive thoughts and or if im just a sick piece of ****. I am sick and hate myself and Idk what to do am I getting aroused because now I’m just used to the fact that I dont even think about thoughts or groinal response anymore its just immediate or am I really just a piece of ****.

    • Jon Hershfield

      Sorry you’re in such distress. Trying to be certain is the problem, not the solution. The more you analyze the context of arousal sensations, the easier it is for OCD to convince you that you’v done something (or are something) wrong. Calling yourself names should be looked at s a form of compulsive self-criticism or self-punishment in that it teaches the brain that you’re doing something to be criticized for. This can be self-reassuring (as in, I must not be bad because I hate myself in case I might be bad), but ultimately backfires because your brain thinks you need to be reassured so must have something wrong going on. Instead of trying to know why you get aroused, a better approach would be to accept sensations as they come and go without judgment and also do ERP treatment for the POCD fears.

  51. K

    Hi Jon
    I’ve been diagnosed with POCD and have been trying to do ERP therapy. I’ve been panicking all night as I struggle to find the difference between a non offending pedo who has distress / doesn’t look at CP and me as I seem to have unwanted sexual urges.ive never looked at CP. What even defines an urge? I feel like the DSM defines me as a non offending pedo as I don’t want to do those horrific things. The ERP feels like welcoming a fantasy.
    Thank you, woman in her twenties.

    • Jon Hershfield

      If you are trying to get certain about this, then you are not actually doing ERP. ERP stands for exposure and response prevention. Exposure means you confront the thing you are uncertain about. Response prevention means you resist efforts to get certain (compulsions). In your ERP work, it would make the most sense to include the fear that you may be this non-offending whatever person. The DSM defines the word obsessions in OCD as unwanted “thoughts, urges, or images.”

  52. Anonk

    Hi Jon,
    Not too sure if this is ok to ask. For me I struggle with the thought of “am I sexually attracted to kids? I know I never want to act on it but *trigger for readers* I have heard there are pedos out there who don’t look at CP and feel disgust at their thoughts and distressed and don’t want to act on it either. How can we know the difference should I just be seeking treatment for non offending P thoughts? I’ve cried everyday for a week and never felt this low. (Have been diagnosed with POCD previously by therapist)

    • Jon Hershfield

      This is a common fear in POCD. In sexual orientation obsessions, I hear a lot of “but what if I’m just an ego dystonic homosexual?” It’s the same thing. Rather than trying to be certain about your diagnosis, what makes the most sense is to take the risk of moving forward with the diagnosis you have, OCD. Part of your exposure work in OCD treatment should be exposure to the idea that you may be wrong.

      • Anonk

        Thank you Jon. I am starting to do small doses of ERP throughout the day, I find my anxiety comes down but then it seems like I’m accepting the thought as true. I feel a bit better after doing the ERP but then it leaves me with doubt that I’m enjoying the thoughts, and I can go on with my life just being defined as a non offending P – does that mean I have to just accept I’m a non offending P? Or I’m not doing proper ERP? Thanks you

        • Jon Hershfield

          “Seems like” is the thing you need to learn to accept. Accepting uncertainty is not about accepting that your fears are true. It’s about accepting that feelings and thoughts don’t always line up the way you want and making a guess about how you want to spend your finite time on the planet is all you can do. “Doubt” is another object of attention like any other thought, feeling, or sensation. Some more thoughts on uncertainty acceptance that may be helpful: https://www.intrusivethoughts.org/blog/mistaken-beliefs-uncertainty-acceptance-ocd/

      • Anonk

        Thanks Jon. Tried to do some ERP with a picture tonight ( NOT an inappropriate one ) Then felt arousal / anxiety whatever and felt like I wanted to masturbate, not to the picture but just in general. I didn’t, but Now worried that I’m aroused by kids and haven’t stopped crying. What to do?

        • Jon Hershfield

          Sensations and urges, like thoughts, arise in consciousness. You can choose to worry about them or compulsively try to be certain about them, or you can observe them and choose not to respond compulsively to them. If you are going to do ERP effectively, it necessarily involves sitting with whatever discomforts arise. In this case, crying may also be a compulsion, when a better strategy would be to let it be upsetting and go on with life as planned anyway.

  53. Anonk

    Thanks Jon. I’m struggling at the moment as I had an intrusive thought of a naked kid out of the blue and it seemed my mind was telling me “you enjoy that thought.” I felt like I couldn’t deny it and said to myself yes I do enjoy that picture. I have had terrorising anxiety for the day and have seen kids in the street and had the intrusive thoughts and wonder if I just need to seek therapy for unhealthy sexual obsession or if that’s POCD as I don’t want to act on it? Couldn’t stop replaying the thought and feel anxiety and disgust about it, but at the time it seemed like I enjoyed the thought and it’s freaking me out.

    • Jon Hershfield

      “Denying” a thought is a compulsion. Thoughts are thoughts – they don’t need your analysis anymore than sounds do. So the thought “you enjoyed that” arises. OK. Let it arise. This constant refutation and analysis is just another form of mental handwashing. If you’re considering any therapy, then OCD therapy is where I would start.

  54. Anonk

    Hi Jon,

    How do I get around the fear more of being a non offending pedo / attracted to kids? ERP? Isn’t pocd fear of acting on it rather than fear of being attracted? Or both ? I’m more worried about the fact I could be attracted to kids and just in denial about it rather than worrying about acting on it. It makes me sick. What even is sexual attraction? Now when I look at my partner I just feel numb. Every time he touches me my mind goes “you’d enjoy that if it was a kid” and I feel revolting.
    Thank you for your time

    • Jon Hershfield

      >>>>How do I get around the fear more of being a non offending pedo / attracted to kids? ERP? Isn’t pocd fear of acting on it rather than fear of being attracted? Or both ?

      —-These types of obsessions are an inflated concern about losing control of you identity, so it can manifest in all of the above and other ways. Like any fear, you confront the uncertainty with ERP – in this case by exposing to the fear that you are in denial of some shadow self or something. It’s entirely possible that I’m a non-offending serial killer. I’m ok with this.

      >>>>I’m more worried about the fact I could be attracted to kids and just in denial about it rather than worrying about acting on it. It makes me sick.

      —-Scripting (imaginal ERP) is good for this sort of obsession. You could write about the consequences of being in denial and how never knowing for sure somehow ruins your ability to lead a fulfilling life.

      >>>>>What even is sexual attraction? Now when I look at my partner I just feel numb.

      —Most likely because you are checking to make sure you are having the feelings you want.

      >>>>Every time he touches me my mind goes “you’d enjoy that if it was a kid” and I feel revolting.

      —This is a very common intrusive thought in this kind of OCD. Instead of being distracted by how offended you are about it, I recommend taking the opportunity to do ERP. You may find my article on responding to intrusive thoughts to be helpful: http://ocdbaltimore.com/how-to-respond-to-unwanted-thoughts/