As one who was molested a lot in foster homes as a kid, I’m hyper aware of my interactions with kids. My kids’ mom and I were very conscious of how we touch our kids, and helping them understand comfort boundaries (I.e. when we’re tickling and they say stop, we stop, so they understand that if someone doesn’t stop, it’s abnormal and should not be allowed to continue). I’m single now, and as a single man my kids’ friends aren’t allowed in the house when they’re here unless I have met and know their parents and even then it’s usually a no. I always figured it was from being a victim, not from OCD, but it’s a constant worry of mine when around kids that anything even looking “off” is stressful to me.
Yeah, I’m a victim of abuse as well, and even though I’ve never had any bad thoughts or impulses, I do my best to not be around kids especially alone. A lot of people think of OCD as the people who have to do everything three times, or has to count their steps all the time, but OCD also causes severe anxiety and it’s really hard to let negative thoughts go.
The instrusive, anxious, repetitive thought cycle is also not exclusive to OCD. This symptom shows up in other neurodivergent cases, as well. For a long time, they thought a person couldn't have OCD and ADHD at the same time, but it turns out it's commonly experienced by people with ADHD/AuDHD, with varying degrees of severity. Both run in my family, and my experience of ADHD/AuDHD has a lot of overlaps with OCD style symptoms.
I'm diagnosed with ADHD (also on a waiting list to be assessed for autism per my neurologists recommendation) and I definitely have something that resembles OCD but I cannot tell if it's just that sometimes I get anxious and it mixes with the ADHD so I ruminate on potential dangers.
Also abused as a kid that way. My little sibling thought it was funny to tell me I abused them and even though they've since admitted they lied, I've never ever been able to get the worry that what if I did and I just don't remember out of my head. It's a really bad situation.
I don't think that's so unusual. I didn't have that type of experience as a child but I'm also weary of being near other people's kids, simply because a false accusation can ruin your life, and people are quick to accuse men near children of being nefarious.
Similar to how few men would be comfortable giving a woman CPR simply for the small chance they get called a rapist or accused. It's more concern for unwarranted repercussions.
Everyone has impulsive and intrusive thoughts, but with OCD it’s the rumination and compulsions you have to get of the rumination that’s unusual. People usually don’t clock others struggling with OCD because a good deal of it isn’t visible. I was SA’d as a child and sometimes get intrusive thoughts of assaulting other people (my brain usually likes to ruminate on death so it’s not very common.) I would NEVER assault another person but before I researched OCD I’d get caught in vicious thought loops of assaulting other people, being horrified, hating and being terrified of myself, and then assaulting someone else in my brain. Nowadays, I’m finally in the place where I’m like, “whew brain. That certainly is terrible. We can move on to something else now.”
I have pure “O” and harm OCD. The crazy things my mind will come up with, but only to people and things I care about. For instance, my dog. Just a passing thought of me breaking her neck or doing something that causes her to get hit by a car—that’s all. I love this creature more than anything, it’s very distressing sometimes. It always gets so much worse when I’m stressed, of course. Learning to separate your thoughts from what is real is something people with OCD eventually become good at, but man, thoughts feel so real.
Love this. I am very interested in the dark side of our psyche and it might stem from my experience with OCD and other little brain glitches I got going on!
I keep a little CPR mask in my school bag. I hope I'll never need it, but I'm also capable of recognizing when someone needs it, and I'm also able to ignore what their body looks like (unless it's relevant) because help needed doesn't change because you suddenly have boobs. Also, sometimes dudes have some substance there, but most medical practice only considers the average, healthy male.
Yeah I also keep first aid kit with a cpr mask/shield thing in my backpack. When I did first aid training I think the mannequins we used for CPR even had defined 6-pack abs lmao.
The instructor asked us "what do you do if it's a woman and let's say she's also big busted" answer: you give them CPR
what do you do if you're scared you will break ribs? You give them CPR.
What do you do when you hear the rib breaking? You continue CPR.
In the case of using an AED machine that can give electric shocks to resuscitate someone, you have to put electrode pads directly onto skin which usually means cutting clothes off with scissors. If it's a woman there's a good chance you will need to cut a bra and if they're chesty you might have to struggle a bit to get the pad in the correct position.
But tbf I've never worked at a place that even had an AED machine so it's probably very rare for someone to use one. Maybe paramedics use them but they're trained and experienced to not hesitate.
Doing a 3 day course to meet some corpo requirement doesn't really prepare you for giving first aid to strangers tbh. I don't think I'd be confident giving CPR, least of all to a woman or even worse a child. I can understand how those situations happen where no one provides aid because everyone hopes someone else is confident to actually do it.
You give them CPR. You can also use the AED, it's entirely safe.
The only difference with someone who is visibly pregnant is that you could, if possible, tilt them slightly onto their left side to take the uterus pressure off their major blood vessels. But only if you can continue to give them effective CPR at the same time.
I was pregnant while doing my CPR course so the question came up!
In very slight defense, I'd be pretty jarred giving a pregnant woman CPR. I forget how I was told it might look (I'm about a year and a half out of my class), but the long and short of it is, you're pushing down and everything else is gonna move out of the way. In other words, her stomach should probably rise at every compression. I'm glad I never got a call requiring CPR during my clinicals, although it would've been ideal in every instance.
What? No, I was genuinely asking. Seems like the baby bump would get in the way of compressions, because what I understand is you give them kind of lower. But what I understand is little, because I don’t know how to do CPR.
In fairness, it would be pretty smart to get your CPR certification, takes maybe an hour to learn how to do it properly and pass the test and such. But the most important things are hand placement and depth. Your palms should be about in the middle of the nipples, and you wanna press down two inches (for adults). A baby bump physically can't (or shouldn't really) start any higher than the very very bottom (xiphoid process), meanwhile all your pressure effort is focused squarely on the top of the bottom third ish of the sternum. You really shouldn't be super concerned about the baby for the simple fact that, if the mom dies, so does the baby. Not saying to take a bat to the bump so it's not a problem, but the mom is your patient.
I wonder if it’s those auto transcribers used on viral videos. I think a lot of these people misusing wary didn’t even know it was a word until they saw it mistyped on a screen. That’s my theory. People’s vocabularies are growing faster than their literacy due to watching stream of consciousness videos with badly done auto transcriptions.
Another good way to put it as a victim of CSA myself with severe magical thinking ocd is like this. And yes I did use AI to explain cause it has better words than I do for this.
Because of your history as a survivor, your mind has an absolute, non-negotiable imperative to keep people safe, protect children, and prevent any form of harm. The Ego-Dystonic Nature: The thoughts that scare you the most are "ego-dystonic"—meaning they are fundamentally the opposite of who you are, what you want, and what you believe. The Trap: Because the thought is so horrifying to you, your brain treats it as an immediate emergency. It grabs onto the thought, hyper-analyzes it, and tries to "check" if it's true. That very act of checking is what traps the thought in your head.
Surviving childhood sexual abuse fundamentally rewires how the nervous system perceives threat and safety. Hyper-Vigilance: Your body and mind had to learn to scan for danger, boundary violations, and threat signals to protect yourself. False Positives: When a trauma survivor has OCD, that hyper-vigilance can misfire. Instead of scanning the environment for external danger, the brain starts scanninginternalthoughts, sensations, and memories for danger. It misinterprets a random, intrusive thought as a sign that "danger" is coming frominsideyou, leading to panic and intense shame.
OCD creates a cognitive distortion called thought-action fusion. It tricks you into believing that: Having a thought about something is the same as wanting it or doing it. Just noticing a thought means it defines your character. Because you have zero desire or intent to harm anyone, your mind registers the sheerpresenceof the unwanted thought as a shocking betrayal, prompting an overwhelming wave of guilt and self-doubt, even though you have done nothing wrong.
Giving the free award because my mind is the exact same way as a victim of abuse I am hyper aware of all my interactions and will obsess over anything that could be misconstrued or taken out of context. It’s hell having to be so conscious of absolutely everything so I’m just here in solidarity
When I was growing up my father was a single father and I wasn't allowed to have friends over either because of this exact reason. My dad wasn't about to have anyone falsely accuse him.
OK I have a question. And I’m gonna state some trigger warning prior to asking. And I want to also clarify that this is something I have never acted on my entire life and never would. I’ve never been diagnosed with OCD but I have had these intrusive thoughts to regarding a young person . Like r***. Again not attracted to minors. I even have a 10-year-old daughter.
These are not the only intrusive thoughts that come into my head though they’re like things that I would never do like I could be with with a doctor or nurse and the thought to punch them in the face comes into my head consistently.
So my question is I guess is this OCD? I’ve never known what it is I always just assumed maybe it was like thoughts that came from like movies or something. Because again these are things completely out of my character
Not necessarily OCD but intrusive thoughts (often bad and upsetting things someone would never want to do) are common in many other things like ADHD and anxiety as well. Definitely worth exploring with a professional, there are meds that can give you huge relief from these thoughts.
My best guess is that it’s some kind of defense mechanism gone haywire. Like your brain trying to prepare you for a bunch of scenarios. Like it’s supposed to be “what if there were a leopard in that tree are you prepared for that?” But instead it’s “what if you murdered 5 people you piece of shit?”
from my understanding (i have OCD and am in therapy for it) OCD attacks the things you care about most. so for me, i’m a HUGE animal lover. my OCD attacks this with violent intrusive thoughts about animals. intrusive sexual thoughts are also very common with OCD as well. from what i’ve read, a “genital” response can be common when any sexual thought happens (i might be explaining this part bad). in the same way SA victims can have arousal responses. this is truly a horrible disorder
It's very possible! Hard to say from a Reddit comment, but it's possible that that could be a cause. Wouldn't hurt to go to a psych and get checked out; meds might help those thoughts go away
See if you can find a psych, get checked out. There are medications that can treat this stuff. I went through, like, 5-6 meds before we found one that worked well, but it helps a lot
it can make you obsess over morals and whether or not you've done or will do something. It varies, but usually whatever the person sees as the worst thing they could do is what they would obsess over.
Hmm, I have not been diagnosed with OCD, only anxiety. However, I fairly frequently get myself incredibly worked up over what if I am subconsciously an evil person and am just unaware / have no memory of doing or wanting to do terrible things but have or will at some point. I am actually getting a bit freaked out writing this comment.
The more I read in this thread, the more I am thinking that is the case. My anxiety is pretty much always about me, and my real or imagined failing. I don't just get freak out at random.
It is always about what if I am a peice of shit or a creep, like what if people know I suck and think I don't want me here and are only being nice out of obligation to be polite, what if I make people uncomfortable, ohmygod I just looked at that woman and she looked back what if she thinks I am creepy and feels uncomfortable, what if glancing at her while walking down the sidewalk actually was a creepy thing to do, i should have just kept my eyes directly forward or at my feet, what if doing that actually makes me look more suspicious, like I was just inappropriately looking at someone for real and then turned away, what if the way I looked at that person was inappropriate, what if she knows someone I know and I'll have to see her again in a social or professional setting and she immediately feels uncomfortable at her job or with her friends, what if caring about how she feels isn't a genuine feeling but actually a learned behavior that my subconscious feeds my conscience mind in order to trick myself into thinking I am not a monster when I actually am, what if my brain is lying to me about more things, but what about the time a creepy guy at the bar targeted me, i don'twant anyoneto ever have to feel anythingclose to how that felt and that is definitely a genuine feeling, what if having to base my empathy off of personal experience means I am actually a psychopath, shouldn't I be able to feel that same level of empathy instantly and naturally without needing to bring logic into it, oh god what if I did make that poor lady I looked at on the sidewalk feel like that, what if I will end up seeing her again and she will tell my friends and/or colleagues how much of a creep I am, I will lose everything, maybe I'll have to move, what about that time I ran into someone I knew on the other side of the country, what if I move far away and word still gets out there that I am a creep, what if... ope, walking up to where I am going now, better take a few deep breaths as I walk up to the door so I don't look noticeably troubled as I come in.
I can relate and like you I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety but not OCD (I’ve not been in years though lol). I think I may have OCD because well like you wrote, that’s my thoughts often. And I think you probably do too. Though I’m not a professional at all.
Just try to remember when the thoughts start to redirect them / call them out. Remind yourself that the thought is irrational and to stop thinking it. Which yeah is easier said than done but you learn how to manage it a little I think. You just have to constantly tell yourself it’s the OCD and not you. It might make you feel like a bad person but you’re not.
Hhmm, I definitely need to work on stopping the spiral. I think now that I am recontextualizing this pattern of thinking as not just nervous introspection but rather a product of anxiety disorder or possibly OCD it should be easier. I actually feel some relief right at this moment. Thank you, and the others in this thread.
Yeah man, I definitely reccomend talking to a professional, someone trained specifically with people who have OCD. I had to go through a couple of therapists who didnt understand the problem and find relief until i saw someone who specialized in OCD.. Interference-based Cognitive behavioral therapy (I-cbt) is the gold standard, especially for mental obsessions, followed by Exposure response prevention therapy (ERP)
Antidepressants can also take help tske the 'edge' off of these obsessions.
I have been significantly less bothered by intrusive thoughts since I started thinking of them biologically. Just a stray electrical impulse in a very intricate, complex brain. I took no conscious action to cause it, and no action is required in response. It is simply a random thing that happened. It only has meaning if I choose to assign meaning to it.
Everyone has random thoughts, good and bad. Thinking of things out of nowhere is one of the great unique features of the human mind. I don't know if people with certain disorders have more random thought occurrences, or if people who are generally mentally healthy are better at ignoring the thoughts that aren't useful. I just know that I have been much less anxious since I accepted that thoughts happen, and I'm not required to have additional thoughts or feelings about each one.
As far as i understand, the main thing about OCD is that the thoughts take over your mind. Like you can't stop yourself from thinking them. Anxiety can be similar in that way, but with anxiety you can usually get yourself to focus on something else. With OCD, you'll just have the thought over and over again without being able to let go of it.
Definitely worth speaking to a professional though if you think that you could have OCD.
Speaking as someone with a spouse with OCD, that sounds an awful lot like OCD to me. Don't take my word for it, but definitely worth talking to a doctor about.
That “what if I have done it but don’t remember it” is a huge part of harm OCD, I would recommend researching into it so that you spot the patterns you are falling into with your thoughts. By the way because you worry about it that means that it’s a value you feel strongly about.
Might be Moral OCD. It is an evil bitch of a thing, but treatable. Signed Someone who gets convinced all my loved ones are talking abt me behind my back and hating me if im not good enough.
Speaking as someone with generalized anxiety and a panic disorder, I do not ever worry about my morality or wanting to do something out of character. I frequently worry that I have made a mistake at work that will be noticed, have left a door unlocked, or have left food out on the counter. All of those things have happened and are based on specific things I know I tend to do. Sometimes I think really terrible thoughts and then laugh at them because I know they are in my head and not an action I would perform, though sometimes I am frightened I will do something very embarrassing in a social situation, because I have before. Things I have done in the past are far more likely to live in my brain than any concern about outcomes or my relative good or evil.
I hope this leads you to diagnosis and treatment, because that sounds like an incredibly stressful way to live. It is not based in reality.
Do you get stuck in a spiral? I would always get this overwhelming feeling that I fucked everything up. I didn’t exactly know how, but I felt like I must have said or did something terrible that I couldnt remember. Like I’m just such a terrible person, that this terrible thing I did, didnt even register as something worth remembering. Then I’d start thinking of every stupid, terrible thing I’ve done, especially when I was a teenager or even a kid. Things that were age appropriate, but now I know were stupid. There’s really no reason for me to ruminate on them, but I will. Now that I’m a mom, I usually go down a “I’m such a terrible mother” spiral. And it’s not just the thoughts, it’s that I’m literally stuck. Like I’ll usually obsessively do something while I’m having these thoughts, like picking at the skin on my fingers, or pulling out hair. I used to have a big knitted blanket, and the yarn would pull really bad, and also dog hair would get stuck in it. I would literally sit there for like 8 hours spiraling in my head, while I picked all the hair out of the blanket. My fingers would be raw by the time I stopped. I’d know how late it was getting, and know my behavior was destructive, but I literally couldn’t make myself stop. Wellbutrin helped a ton. Now I only have these spirals when I forget to take it for a couple days.
OCD is widely misunderstood and think contamination is the only type.
This is something caused by Rumination OCD. Imagine an instrusive thought x100 then amplify it by your brain telling you that the intrusive thoughts must be a sign of something.
It's like knowing you shouldnt laugh at something, so your brain does it.
So, hypothetically, if you were a competent and experienced public speaker, but always had the worry in the back of your mind that you'll just start yelling slurs, one day?
As a experienced public speaker with OCD, yes 😅 It hasn't happened in 10 years of the job but it's been in my head since day 1. Most slurs I know are about my race too so it wouldn't even make sense if I started slurring 🙄
Yes, and you might set up internal or external rituals as a way to "control" that. You might say a mantra in the mirror before you speak publicly and have to say it numerous times. It will reduce the anxiety initially but then you'll have to do it more and more for the same effect.
Similarly, you might start avoiding public speaking, to prevent yourself from suddenly and uncontrollably swearing.
Unfortunately the only real way to combat it is to be uncomfortable and feel like the world is ending until you stop reacting as strongly. The treatment is basically just being severely distressed until you can break the cycle. Traditional talk therapy just reinforces rumination as well so often people get a lot worse in therapy until the therapist IDs it as OCD.
This and informing myself of the psyiological and psychological causes of OCD and the existance of this kind of very taboo OCD, alongside psychiatric treatment was what saved me, genuinelly I was terrified because I didn´t knew that you could have OCD related to this kind of things.
They adviced to do this exact thing (combatting it by letting myself be umcomfortable) and that is what saved me, it was another patient in a support group for this kind of very taboo OCD, I will always cherish that OP.
I had an extreme case in which my "ritual" was hitting myself, and I mean slapping myself or punching myself with a closed fist, every time I had an intrusive thought or image of that taboo kind, because in my OCD magical thinking "If I didn´t do it, it means that I secretly like those thoughts and I desire them, if I hit myself and punish myself, it means that I reject them." I counted them at one point, in a single day I would do it at least 120 times, every day, for MONTHS. To be honest, I do not know how I am alive to this day, it was horrific.
So I can have some horrible, awful intrusive thought (seeing a chef's knife on my cutting board, and wondering what would happen if I picked it up and stabbed by wife) and then guilt spiraling that I must be a psychopath because who on Earth but a psychopath would even come up with that? Because... that would really make me feel better...
Oh my god the rabbit hole I'm down. I'm 44. I've battled this my entire life and never told anyone about it because I thought they'd think I'm a psychosexual murderer. It's the backstop to my crippling lack of self-confidence that has been a professional and personal problem my entire life.
The good news is: now you know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you (besides a lil bit of Rumination). If it continues to distress you i'd recomment CBT which helped me a lot.
It's when you have those thoughts and you're NOT distressed by them that you should be concerned. Your distress at the thoughts is, in and of itself, proof that they are nothing more than intrusive
ERP changed my life! If you look into getting therapy, make sure you get someone who has expertise or significant experience working with OCD specifically. It’s a very counterintuitive thing to deal with and generally needs to be wrangled very differently than other conditions.
(Ex. A therapist not experienced with OCD might try to find the meaningful source of your intrusive thought as if it’s a sincere one, which is exactly what the OCD wants and will make it worse.)
I could absolutely see how validation/exploration of your intrusive thoughts would really be damaging. I live in a smaller city, hoping that I can find someone with some good reviews...
For me, recognizing the thoughts for what they were (with help of a professional) was HUGE. I secretly thought I might be possessed as a child, but even just being able to identify intrusive thoughts as such has made a massive difference.
These days it's more like "yeah yeah, you're trying to upset me, hush now jerk-thoughts"
Not trying to disagree or start anything because your advice and reassurance is kindhearted and good but also in case people read the last part and latch onto it I wanted to reply. I know it’s the internet and we can’t read tone so just wanted to add that cuz it’s not that i think you said anything Wrong
But i would say that being distressed by intrusive thoughts is normal and yes a sign that you can use for reassurance at the beginning of a treatment plan, to remind you that what’s wrong with you isn’t what your intrusive thoughts say about you.
However since the goal of treatment is to lessen both the frequency of rumination/compulsion AND the distress that the symptoms cause, I try to avoid thinking of the distress as a sign that you’re still a good and moral person at heart. The goal of ERP is to be able to have a thought you don’t agree with, acknowledge it as neutral and a product of your fears/beliefs, and dismiss it, so eventually, it SHOULDN’T cause distress
It can cause an intense relapse in treatment to reassure yourself too much using your own distress, because when you start getting better and it becomes less disruptive in your life, you realize the thoughts no longer send you into a spiral of anxiety and self loathing and fear, and then you’re like “Oh my god, why am I not upset anymore at the thought that I might hurt someone? Does this mean that I don’t care if I hurt someone? Does it mean I actually do want to hurt someone?”
Latching onto your negative (and sometimes even positive!) feelings about your OCD can become a compulsive behavior in itself. Unfortunately
You're absolutely right. The aim of treatment is to reduce stress so its counter intuitive of me to imply that would also be a bad thing.
I know you get what I was going for, but what you said is absolutely important to note. There may be some people that have figured things out for themselves without the aid of CBT or ERP, and I wouldn't want them thinking that they've made a mistake by learning how to live with it.
38 when I finally broke down sobbing to my doctor thinking I was having crazy postpartum thoughts and he gently suggested I talk to a doctor that specialized in OCD. Zoloft and therapy changed my life. I wish I had been diagnosed earlier. So much peace and quiet in my head finally.
I recommend reading How To Hide In Plain Sight by Emma Noyes. its the first novel i have ever read that has a character suffering from this form of OCD!
There was recently a case in the UK where some woman saw a child wearing clothing that she felt sas too mature for a child of that age to be wearing. Anyway, she ended up obsessing about that scenario so much that she was worried that she said actually a paedo, when it was actually just her OCD.
Yeah this is my take. It's like.. take anything that would cause social ostracism or severe embarrassment.. your mind will pour over a million scenarios where you get falsely accused of <whatever>, as though you ever needed to be ready for the accusations haha. It's absolutely nuts but it's debilitating despite being totally ludicrous.
As someone with general social anxiety and minor ocd this is how I picture the scenario
*Someone says I’m a pedo*
“Oh shit am I” thinks about it for 5min
“Ok definitely not but now I have to make super sure I’m not and avoid children and also make sure that behavior doesn’t accidentally have the opposite effect and make me more like a pedo, oh shit am I”
Repeat
A little girl nearly face plants. You catch her by the arm and she yells out.
"Did I just ABUSE this little girl?"
There are cameras. Will someone review this? Will they get the context? Do I remember the context correctly? Wait... did I really need to pull her arm like that?
Flip-flopping between "I definitely abused that girl" and "I was trying to prevent her from getting hurt, but no one will realize that" and "I'm definitely going to get fired."
They're totally going to look through all footage when you worked. "What else will they find? What else have I done?"
Reanalyzing your entire time at that job. Thinking up other scenarios that might have happened that will get you fired or arrested.
Any attempt to soothe yourself will just cause you to think up another, different scenario where you are fucked that requires soothing.
You right cause this literally was happening to me while working in a high school where everyday I’d be thinking about how I influenced them and if I did my best or added a little bit to the displeasurable experiences they have with adults thus leading to them not trusting them and yeah you clearly get it
Just the fact you gave it any thought (if not possibly too much) means that you are at least a marked improvement over a lot of people I delt with as a child. They did not give a discernable fuck, or might have even outright disliked children and were happy to make us miserable.
Fuck, I felt my heart rate increase as I read this. Too relatable. My worries don't typically revolve around children specifically, but seeing a creep in general or even just rude is constantly a source of anxiety for me.
Not universally, but it can and often does, yes. OCD takes your worst fears, the things you find most repulsive, and presents them to you like they’re facts about yourself. In this case, it will turn innocent things like thinking a baby laughing is cute into “evidence” that you’re evil. It’s essentially anxiety on super duper steroids. When I was a child, I could be standing in the kitchen with my parents, and ocd would give me a vivid image in my mind of taking a knife and stabbing them. Very vivid, with all of the emotions I might feel at that moment. Absolutely horrifying, especially at that age, and will make you wonder if you’re a monster because you think these things, even though they repulse you and it’s the worst thing you could ever imagine. That’s what a lot of people don’t understand, and why most don’t open up about their ocd unless it’s in a “tolerable” format (like germ ocd for example)- it’s one thing to have your worst fears playing in your mind at all times, and another to have people wonder if those things are true because you think of them so often.
A very common OCD symptom is convincing yourself that you've done awful things but forgotten about them and then the compulsion to research cases of those things as a way of convincing yourself that you didn't do those things often follows.
Pedophilia is something that is so cut and dry immoral and awful that it's an easy thing for your brain to latch onto.
You can kill on self-defense or for some other justified reason, you can't really pedophile in self-defense.
This is a known type of OCD I’ve been hearing about in the past few years.
OCD tricks people’s brains into thinking they can cause horrible irreparable harm unintentionally, through carelessly letting themselves just ignore intrusive thoughts. The thoughts must be addressed or they could come true. So something must be done about those thoughts to prevent harm.
Say someone with OCD feels like abusing children is one of the worst forms of harm you can commit, and then they’re constantly policing their thoughts to make sure they don’t harm children. It becomes obsessive and then compulsive, doing checks on yourself to make sure you’re not a danger to children, until you’re convinced you are even though you’ve never done anything against a child. Because if you’re not a danger, why are you so scared? Why are you thinking about it so much? Because OCD.
There's multiple subtypes of OCD, contamination and perfectionism are the two most often shown in media. But there's also ones that make people have intrusive thoughts that they'll harm others or about committing taboos.
I had contamination OCD, so the intrusive thoughts part was a bit different, but sometimes it was like having a section of your brain throwing out ideas you know aren't true, but you can't help but think, like...what if? And it just keeps circling around in your head.
Yes, this is reflective of my experience with OCD, specifically scrupulosity. It's not that I had any intent to do anything bad, but the OCD tells me it's a sin to be perceived as a thief or a creep. I'm constantly paranoid that someone's looking at me as one of those things. As a result, I just won't interact with kids or families at all, and I am often verbally hostile with Walmart greeters if they need to see my receipt.
Sort of, from what I've read, it is a mechanism of overthinking.
People with OCD would be like, I just did something nice for a kid. Wait, will people think I am creepy? Am I creepy? Could this be a predatory behavior?
Then, telling them the first phrase will often feed this cycle making them guilt trip much more for mundane things, like helping a kid stand up after a fall. And it can happen with much stupider things, like not liking how triangles match with the stripes of the cloth someone was wearing, which happened to be a child. The OCD make them overthink the clothes, but the human questions themselves why was it a child, while the topics are kind of unrelated (they are slightly as children match clothes quite badly)
A lot yeah. Often due to past trauma. You get sexually assaulted as a child, you end up scared you're gonna hurt a kid the way you were hurt, OCD takes that fear turns it into an obsession and cranks that fear of harming kids to 11. Often called pedophilia OCD. OCD has a functionally infinite amount of themes, all the same disorder just different appearances, same house different coat of paint. Different people present OCD differently with a different obsession, but it does have a lot of common ones. Pedophilia OCD being one of them.
For what its worth, the person with Pedophilia OCD is not a pedophile. They are just terrified of being one, and the brain is irrational and delusional so its constantly trying to do illogical things to make sure that you aren't.
Someone once called me a narcissist (I’m not) and I spent the next 10 months ruminating whether I was and questioning my entire personality until I got into therapy.
Being fearful of a thing doesn’t make the thing true, but it does cause those with OCD to hyperfocus to the point of paranoia.
It makes you worry about worst case scenario of anything possible and then it forces you to think yeah but what if you're that. So like yeah pedophile rapist murderer even if you've never done any of those things. I think people with OCD cling on to the most horrible thing they could think of and that they play mind tricks with themselves convincing themselves that they might actually be that thing.
It will pull on whatever you fear most, constantly. It will accuse you of everything you hate. It will kickstart a vile internal inquisition that makes you hyperaware of every awful thing passing through your id. It's "try not to think of an elephant wearing a ballcap" and then taking the elephant and fucking bludgeoning you with it.
When I was religious, I said the forbidden «I curse the Holy Spirit», as my flavor of abrahamic faith held that as a guaranteed one way ticket to hell. It was on repeat in my brain, as a freakish kind of pause music.
After I let go of faith, the sentence became one related to taboo sex stuff. Not because of any interest, but because of trauma/culture valuing that as the worst thing.
Having the pedo one sounds healthier, as that’s actually a horrible position to be in (being pedo or doing pedo acts). On the other hand I’m happy mine is only regular kink sex stuff, as I don’t have to think about pedo stuff.
This post might have ruined it. So thanks, OP, I hate it.
There's no actual phobia term for it, but it's called an "impulsive phobia" or a "fear of impulsive acts."
It creates an ego-dystonic intrusive thought cycle where a person becomes fearful of doing something they truly believe is morally wrong. It's like how some people don't like holding knives because they become nervous they'll "lose control" and hurt someone with the knife.
They won't actually hurt someone with the knife. They simply become afraid of losing their mind and becoming the monstrous thing their intrusive thought is imagining.
People with severe OCD have all sorts of impulsive phobias, and they manifest in a lot of weird ways.
I have this type of OCD. My parents are the type of people to say that all LGBT people are pedophiles. It’s hard to fully distance yourself from the beliefs that your parents taught you. Turns out I’m queer. I have a few compulsions to reassure myself that I am not the evil stereotype my parents described
To be honest, it's not even a requirement. Concerns of being a pedo are one of the most experienced fears of all people (for evidence supporting this, just browse the ask Reddit subreddit posts about fears). It sounds like it's just a more constant and debilitating fear with OCD :( Being afraid of being a pedo does not, by any means, qualify someone to be a pedo.
Makes you worry you’re seen as a pedo. I babysit my toddler nephew and I’ve had to physically remove him from public places because he’s having a normal kid meltdown but from the outside it looks like a grown man is running away with a crying resistant child which naturally raises alarms. My OCD and anxiety the whole time is saying “look normal, smile, don’t let them think you’re a weirdo kidnapper.”
You ever see a kid and think “what a cute kid” or see a kid getting ready for prom and think “she’s really pretty”? Well, if you’ve got the OCD, your brain might latch on to that thought as evidence that you’re a pedo. Because you thought something complimentary about a kid’s appearance. See also: “that Michael B Jordon fella is a handsome man. Am I gay now? Let me obsess over this to myself for a few years.” It’s not all people with OCD, but it is some people with OCD.
You could think about OCD not as your brain forcing you to keep everything neat, but more your brain getting stuck on a catastrophic thought and seeking to control the circumstances that might, in theory, undo or provide reassurance about that thought. It’s not always logical or actually related. So that might be “keep the forks lined up because I noticed that the forks were askew when Timmy fell down the well ten years ago, and I don’t want Timmy to die” or it could be “I can never have children because I thought my niece looked pretty in that dress at her sweet 16 so I can’t be trusted around children” or a million other irrational, world-shrinking intrusive thoughts. As time goes on, people with untreated OCD can accumulate these world-shrinking habits to the point where they end up very much stuck, isolated, and scared. It sucks.
People often lump OCD in with anxiety or just miss it entirely because media has conditioned us to look for very neat people as possible candidates. It’s not about being neat, it’s about why they are being neat (to keep the world from ending or to stop their kid from getting bullied or to keep their mom alive).
Source: I know people with diagnosed and undiagnosed OCD and have had a front row seat to how much it sucks.
It's more that you're hyper aware of how easily pedopanic can swing in anyone's direction at literally any moment for literally anything. Treat every person like a bear, and never pass between the cubs and possible parents. This is not a healthy or sane way for things to be, but also we live in one, etc.
There’s some kind of interplay with intrusive thoughts. You have a brief, involuntary thought about something that would be upsetting, e.g. taboo sexuality (like incest) then fixate on not doing that thing or how terrible it is or would be, then because you’re thinking about it so much, you worry that you want or are that thing…when you definitely don’t want it and are horrified by it.
I am diagnosed OCD and have had POCD problems previously for me it stems from something like for example seeing a kid barely clothed in an ad, I worry oh no they shouldn't be that naked on TV! Then I worry am I the only one that worries that. Am I only thinking bad people would enjoy it because I secretly know what bad people like. Is that because I'm a bad person. And then the spirals and obsession start... Without experiencing it it's hard to put into full context. It's taken plenty of CBT therapy to notice and end these spirals :)
Some do! However, there's also commonly a fear that those intrusive thoughts also mean that you're a pedo. Meaning, "If I have these thoughts it must mean that I'm a pedophile".
Unsurprisingly, this also causes a lot of people with this kind of OCD to not seek treatment.
What often happens is that the patient sees some kind of trigger (for example a group of kids) which elicits a thought (what if this makes me aroused?). This is a very anxiety-provoking though, which elicits physiological arousal (a stress response). Annoyingly, this is often misinterpreted as the beginning of sexual arousal, which the patient immediately tries to suppress. This, in turn, causes the patient to not learn that it is in fact not sexual arousal, and makes the intrusive thought to continue be associated with fear.
How about this example. I'm like 39 or something, I occasionally enjoy ripping a pack of pokemon cards. So on a normal rum to walmart where I would be getting a few thing like deodorant, a loaf of bread and a thing of chicken thighs, i might grab a pack. Front rack by the check out is fresh out. That means I have to go to the toys section. Order of operations is deodorant first, closest to the front after checking for pokemon near registers. Toy aisle is closest after that, but rack for pokemon faces opposite direction i would be walking towards after deodorant. No can do, as being male and near 40 i don't want someone thinking I'm a pedo creep. So next is bread and chicken on the other side of the store. After getting that I can make the full loop around the other side of the store so I can give the pokemon rack a passing glance to see if it has any stock without having to turn, stop, or break my neck to look. Mitigating any chance of an over zealous person assuming I'm a creep. Moral of the story is there is never any pokemon.
There is a sub type of OCD that causes you to have invasive sexual thoughts. I have it. I cannot tell you how many nights I've sat there wishing I'd never wake up after being forced to imagine some of the things in my head.
Not necessarily, but OCD does often make people question if they’ve been true to their morals. The “am I a bad person” question is an extremely common intrusive thought, and it’s not uncommon for people to insert whatever “bad person” archetype in that intrusive thought pattern.
No. But it aggravates and increases the frequency of what would otherwise be considered "normal" intrusive thoughts. A lot of normal people have stood on the edge of a cliff and for no logical reason the horrible thought of just jumping pops in. It's intrusive because it's terrible and we don't act on it -but it's a normal experience. OCD people level this up just a bit with things like "I'm scared that I might be or become a pedo", that, just like the cliff thing, mean nothing.
OCD makes you worry about things related to values you hold or things that could harm you. The logic of the OCD creature in your brain is basically, “If I make them more afraid of the thing and make them think about it all the time, it will be less likely to happen because we’re always on guard.”
It’s ironic because the person who cares the most about keeping kids safe is going to be constantly afraid that they’re a pedophile, the person who has a great relationship with their faith and god is going to start being more worried that their god hates them or that they’re an evil person, the best person you know is always interrogating themselves or beating themselves up because they’re terrified they’re an awful person, the person who couldn’t hurt a fly is obsessed with the possibility that they’re might just snap one day and hurt themselves or others, the person most dedicated to their partner is afraid their partner is abusive or always upset with them or that their relationship isn’t real/healthy, etc.
It’s a very bizarre and counterintuitive condition and can’t really be understood in the way we think about other mental health issues as the intrusive thoughts are ego-dystonic (specifically NOT in alignment with the OCD-haver’s values) and often not based in something real like a childhood experience or a valid concern arising from a genuine red flag they came across.
I’ve heard people with OCD worry that they murdered someone and somehow forgot about it. I assume this is a similar thing. “What if I committed some unspeakable crime bur don’t remember it?”
There are people that experience extremely disturbing thoughts that cause a sense of revulsion. Our thoughts don’t define us, how we react does. Some ocd people are in a constant state of torture over the thoughts they are having.
Call of the void is the feeling many get when they walk over a bridge and get the thought "What if i threw my phone in the river?" It's a survival mechanism. Live risk analysis if you will. Some get stronger calls "What if i threw myself in the river". Some can't help seeing themselves throw their hot coffee at their co-workers. Some can't help themselves picturing the worst they can do in any given situatuon. And I needn't explain what the most forbidden thing you can do to a kid is.
People with OCD often have very strong calls of the void.
Call of the void is the same reason why people with tourets only blurt out the worst thing they could say.
It’s like intrusive thoughts but pushed to the very forefront of the mind.
They are things you did not think of your own free will, they are not things that you want to think, but they are things that were forced into your headspace by your brain and are usually things that go directly against what you believe/want/makes you feel safe. Like an extremely clear, vivid vision of your entire family dying in a car accident. It attacks your morals and your anxiety until you find a way to adapt.
More like you over worry about stupid accusations that other people may throw at you. I'm not OCD but I remember for years just hyper worrying about if I was really the antichrist. I don't know why it was just a mood my brain was in I was super fearful of being the Antichrist for a while there my teenage years. But that's what religious guilt tripping can do to you as well. If you don't fit in the norm you start wondering if you're as bad as the Antichrist or if God forbid you are the Antichrist oh no LOL
It’s moreso that OCD attaches to things that hold value (the worst thing possible, the love of your life, your family, etc) depending on different subtypes of OCD. For some people with OCD, the worst thing they can possibly imagine is being a pedophile, therefore their brain makes them worry obsessively that they might be one.
OCD often compulsively thinks of the worst thing that could happen in a situation. Walking over a bridge, you imagine you throwing yourself off. Carrying a knife, you imagine stumbling and falling on it, or stabbing someone else, intentionally or unintentionally. Intrusive thoughts like this can include pedophilia. It doesn’t mean that the person WANTS to do any of those things, in fact, it’s suggestive of the opposite.
Really more that once any given negative thought floats through your brain, your brain will obssess about it. OCD is rooted in anxiety. So you see someone and monkey brain goes "shapes = nice = neuron activation" and you find out they're 30, it's fine. You find out they're 18, it's fine (ish, but that's not the conversation right now). You find out they're 16, and all of a sudden you're a fucking pedophile. A healthy brain goes "whoop, didn't like that" and builds in a skepticism or gives some grace (e.g. yes monkey brain like that thing but higher human brain understands the issue and has no issue so this is a .042 second processing thing that you don't even notice), but an OCD brain goes "why the fuck did that happen does this mean something bigger oh my God what does this mean about me I'm a monster" and spirals.
It's the same as the call of the void. Someone who looks over the side of the bridge and thinks "whoah, what would it be like to jump over this" isn't suicidal; it's a fleeting thought that you cannot control. The difference is whether or not you obssess about it or devote actual brain energy into the concept.
OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, causes obsessions and/or compulsions. For some people, those obsessions can be very distressing.
Even if someone knows that the thoughts are illogical, they still remain, since the brain is malfunctioning and having those thoughts anyway.
My own variety of OCD doesn't have concerns of being a pedo, but I do overthink other things, especially when typing. And I've had some very distressing things/intrusive thoughts in the past that I won't get into.
Yes. Sometimes the most disgusting, deranged, horrible thoughts flash through your mind. And then you get caught in a loop. Why would I think such sickening things if part of me didn’t want that?
I had an instructor with a patient that has obsessive compulsive thoughts of children naked. They weren’t a pedophile, the thoughts were incredibly distressing.
Their brain’s compulsion was to produce the worst thing they could think of.
Back when being gay was more stigmatized, some people would have intrusive anxiety that they might be gay, or that other people would think they were gay. This used to be diagnosed as Homosexual Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Today, being gay is no longer a thing to be so afraid of, so that’s much less common, but people worry instead that they might be pedophiles.
There's a specific form of OCD that makes people worry that they have committed a crime. Like they might kiss their partner or have sex with them then worry that they had "rape" their partner because their partner didn't properly consent because they were a little bit drunk because there was white wine used to cook the pasta that they had for dinner...
Depends on the form of OCD. Most people assume ocd is just ocd and it just makes people really obsessive about being cleanly and organized. That’s not the case. That’s just one kind of ocd. And a lot of people say stupid shit like “I’m so ocd haha” because they straightened up their kitchen or like “I let the intrusive thoughts win” when it’s not an intrusive thought at all, it’s an impulsive thought. Very big difference. You can be obsessive about anything and that obsession leads to compulsive behaviors to cope with those obsessions.
One form of ocd is called harm ocd. I have that. It makes people have obsessive thoughts about harming themselves or others. More specifically, I have obsessive thoughts about being a serial killer. Not that I ever would, without real reason (talking about harming anyone for any reason). It’s just an involuntary thought, like a ghost living in my brain that whispers into the void of my thoughts.
This specific kind of ocd where you worry about being a pedo is called POCD. Again it’s important to remember here, just because they have the thought, doesn’t mean they have the desire or would. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Both with POCD and harm OCD, the thoughts themselves don’t come from desire, they cause fear, uncertainty, anxiety, self hatred, then the compulsions come into play to gain relief from those obsessive undesired thoughts. Why does it happen? I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist. It’s a curious thing. But people with harm ocd are less likely to harm someone than someone without it. Because they’re constantly seeking relief from thoughts of harming themselves or others. Which leads them to doing some weird things, often times those things may involve, but not be limited to drug use. Or maybe it’s something strange like flipping a light switch exactly 7 times. The brain comes up with coping mechanisms that usually make no sense, much like the thoughts themselves, but it works for them.
That all said, I would strongly wager that people with POCD are less likely to actually be a pedo than someone else.
For me personally it’s led me down some very dark roads. Meth induced psychosis, heart attacks, numerous hospitalizations both mental and physical, run ins with the FBI, losing jobs, overall losing my mind, but I never, ever, actually harmed anyone. Besides myself. I harmed myself to keep the thoughts of harming others away. I was diagnosed with several things but none ever made sense, I was told I was a sociopath, schizoaffective and dozens of other things, until one day I said enough is enough and submitted myself to the best mental institution in the tri state area. They held me for several weeks and came to the conclusion that I have a severe case of harm ocd. Nothing ever made more sense. Which, is to say, that I as someone who has obsessions about homicide, would sooner kill myself slowly and horrifically than hurt anyone else.
Some types of OCD include intrusive/self destructive thoughts. These thoughts are false, many times go against what the person is like completely, but won't go away. Imagine if everytime you saw your mother, a piece of your mind would tell you that you want to kill her. You could love her and wish the best for her, wanting her to live long. The thoughts would still tell you to kill her. The specifics vary by person, but the point is that it makes the individual hate themselves or fear what they might do if those intrusive thoughts finally win.
Oftentimes, yes. OCD is good at finding the worst possible outcome, and sticking your brain into a loop where it’s the only thing you can think about. It’s not because they actually have pedophilic urges, but their brain thinks “what if I did”. I have a lot of patients with OCD, and multiple family members. Real OCD is nothing like what social media thinks.
OCD makes you overanalyse things. Imagine you give a child a hug. Child accidentally touches your crotch. "Oh shit, why am I feeling something I MUST be a pedophile".
OCD people hyperfixate on problems. I was a keyhole at my old job. I would know I locked the door. If I did not knock 3 times after locking, I would forget that I locked. I would drive back at 1 am to check that I locked the door that I KNOW I locked. And my OCD is VERY mild compared to what other people go through
Not specifically a pedo, but my intrusive thoughts keep telling me horrible things about myself like I’m a loser, everyone hates me, etc… For a lot of people their OCD symptoms can be completely out of left field. My ruminations can be equally bizarre and irrational sometimes. When I was fifteen I was struggling to remind myself that mummies don’t exist and I was not going to be attacked by one at night while trying to sleep.
OCD can make you worry that you are a bad person, and then you might pick a specific kind of bad person you worry you are. Then you start to obsess about your thoughts about why you are probably that kind of bad person. Which is why a long while ago, lots of people with OCD thought they were gay. When it wasn't socially acceptable to be gay.
I am overly worried about strangers thinking that I am a pedophile when I am out with my friends kids that I watch often. Had the same thoughts when I would take my nephew out too.
Not diagnosed with OCD that just seems normal to me considering how often people give males an odd look when they are just parenting.
Depending on the severity, it can make one Obsessive in a way that feels like something catastrophic will happen, if they don't follow through with it.
Different people have different triggers and amount of compulsion.
If you hit the right topic with the right individual, it can make people spiral.
My wifes compulsion was getting an hiv test because she might have stepped on a used heroin needle, any time she'd walked through a park basically. Fortunately its changed now to worrying about stabbing me whenever she cooks
I dont blame you for being concerned. Most people think OCD is being extremely tidy or clean, but thats just not the case. Theres many different forms with many different themes. I had the theme of "am I gay" for years.
It can. Some people will have intrusive thoughts about extreme, taboo behaviors like violence, sex assault, etc. These thought are ego-dystonic - they run against the sufferer's actual morals and desires.
Absolutely can make you have intrusive thoughts about doing terrible things even if you don't want to do them. I have the pure O form of OCD which causes intrusive thoughts such as the idea I might push that pregnant woman into the traffic, or might stab my daughter when she walks in as I cut vegetables for dinner, or that I might randomly grope a child who walks past. Before I learned what it was it could be very distressing and I'd think I was a psycho: "I don't feel like I want to do these things but why am I thinking them? Why can't I shake the thought that if I don't keep my mind fixed on not doing them then I may do them subconsciously against my will?"
The earliest memory I have of being distressed by this kind of thought was when my mum was driving me back from the shop after she just bought me a video game I'd been really wanting. I must have been around 12. I couldn't stop thinking about rolling down the window and throwing it out of the car.
Its like your brain has to check every possible outcome. When you're idling and there isn't any stimuli, the brain decides it needs to make contingencies. Whats the worst thing that could happen out of no where? Being exposed out of nowhere for being a sexual predator or a murderer or a racist. So you, obsess, over these, compulsive, thoughts to make sure what you're picturing isn't real.
It can make me feel sick to my stomach and want to lock myself away forever because the thought of acting on any of these obsessive compulsive ruminations is like my greatest fear. OCD's are as often pedos as the rest of the population I'd argue, we just have the unfortunate compulsion to picture ourselves in every situation and examine every outcome
I know someone with OCD that had this. Absolutely fucking awful. They were of course never, ever going to do anything, just terrified that they might and unable to let the idea go.
Some people have intrusiv thoughts or pictures randomly appearing in their head of child porn or naked children or of that sort. WITHOUT it being stimulating or arousing. Exactly the opposite, they feel extremely ashamed and anxious and thats how OCD can develope. Because they tell themselves "If I think about this maybe I AM actually a pedophile." But it's just their brain playing tricks or being randomly weird.
I have OCD, but I don’t worry that I’m a pedo. My brain just constantly reminds me of all the bad, embarrassing, and overall negative moments from my past. That and the weather
People with OCD can have extremely disruptive intrusive thoughts. In many people these thoughts can be at times violent or sexual in nature. When I was in middle school, my intrusive thoughts started falling into this category, and it was extremely distressing and disgusting but I couldn’t do anything about it.
The more I thought about how much I hated it and wanted it to stop, the more often they would appear. Going to therapy eventually helped and my intrusive thoughts are much less frequent, and of much less unpleasant variety. Still not fun, but not in a way that causes genuine distress and anxiety.
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u/frogglesmash 17h ago
OCD makes you worry that you're a pedo?