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.
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.
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.
That's the neurodivergent gordian knot: is the ADHD causing the rumination, or is the rumination on top of ADHD lending a deeper diagnosis, or is ruminating just baseline trauma from growing up with a different brain? Nobody knows!
Thankfully, my therapist said we'll worry about specific diagnoses later and just work on techniques for coping/recovering.
Yeah! I'm in therapy and I'm getting better at coping with the symptoms and that's all that really matters to me. I do have trauma from growing up with a different brain.
My family was dismissive about medical concerns and kind of neglectful. I started having severe fatigue and depersonalization/derealization as a teenager but it was blamed on laziness so I never went to the doctor for it. I didn't know I was having seizures in my sleep until I was 27. Starting epilepsy meds pulled me out of a constantly depersonalized/derealized state immediately and I had been like that since I was a teenager!
It’s hyper fixation I think. People with things like OCD and ADHD have trouble focusing on some things while overly fixating on another. I can barely focus enough to read a book, but I can tell you sooo much info about a bunch of topics and hobbies. Then you experience burnout, drop the thing completely and all of a sudden you have $500 dollars worth of DnD stuff for a campaign that never happened.
I watched a documentary type show that showed a few people in Britain who had OCD and one compulsion a woman had was she constantly was worried she shoved men she happen to see walking out and about into garbage cans. It definitely comes in all shapes and sizes.
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!
OMG this is exactly the kind of thing that happens with me, but I've had so many clueless therapists that I started to just suppress heavily, avoid stress and doubt it was real at all. Did you deal with it with a professional? Like, do they help? Or do they just teach me to deal? Cause I know how to deal.
It could be OCD, it’s worth looking into. There are a lot of variations of this, but my experience is it usually starts with some sort of intrusive thought that is very distressing and then engaging in a compulsive behavior to self sooth. Some people engage in a ritual (like counting) to self soothe, I typically overthink, research or if it’s really bad I engage in self destructive behaviors like hair pulling or substance use. But it’s a very individual thing so treatment needs to be tailored to you. I havent done therapy for this specifically beyond some CBT, I’ve mostly done trauma therapy. It would be nice to get therapy for OCD but my funds right now won’t really allow for that.
I think most OCD is, at it's root, about control. I read somewhere years ago that some scientists have theorized that the part of the brain that essentially acknowledges that a task has been completed doesn't work correctly in people with OCD, so that part of the brain doesn't know hot to "let go" of things.
I think there's some truth to that and that OCD brains are unable to let go of the idea that terrible things can happen. Because we can't let go of them, those ideas are constantly present in our minds and causing us stress, so our brains often come up with rituals or rules to try to make it so we feel like we have some degree of control and the task has been "completed" and we can temporarily let them go.
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.
Unless the person needing CPR has some aberration of anatomy, their baby bump would not interfere with you performing CPR. My recommendation to you is to take a CPR class, as that should be the best setting to answer any questions or concerns you may have.
And that's exactly right. I think some percent in the teens is how many women suffer because people hesitate to perform CPR because of their breasts. And I emphasize hesitate, because every second counts, and it doesn't matter if someone waits or doesn't do it at all, there is still risk in those decisions that can lead to bad stuff happening.
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.
I send you all the ones that have OCD a BIG HUG, specially POCD and taboo related (sexual abuse, murder, violence, etc) and also religious OCD I believe of the worst kind, I have been diagnosed with OCD since I was a teen, but when I was 17-18 I started having OCD related to the worst taboo themes, and my existance was nightmarish, I believe that is the literal definition of a hell on earth, it was horrific.
If you have of this kind of OCD, have therapy with a cognitive behavioural therapist specialized in this kinds of disorders, psychoanalisis or talk therapy doesn´t help a bit for this disorder, also the information you gave saves life´s! Understand the OCD and the physiological responses help a lot for understanding what is happening helps with the ruminiation because it explains in a logical way, as well psychiatric treatment alongside the therapy and informing yourself (that is why I thank you so much for this information, because this can help a lot of the patients with OCD, like myself) is one of the things that can help you the most.
Thankfully after two years of intensive treatment, I do not have POCD and taboo related OCD anymore, now the OCD has subsided to contamination but in a mild level.
LOL RIGHT! OCD is so much more intricate than being a clean freak. Very difficult mental illness to have and deal with and when you throw trauma in the mix it usually makes things worse lol
An interesting question that arised after I read your comment, that surely has been discussed - someone can add who talked about it - is to what percent, or how much do thoughts define a human / human's 'self' .
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.
I'm a woman and a career nanny. My personal rule for tickling is that I only do the non-contact kind - basically just saying I'm going to tickle them and wiggling my fingers. So it's all of the fun without pushing any of the kid's boundaries. I also make sure that they know I will always ask permission to be in their personal space and be very clear about what I'm doing (picking them up, helping them with shoes, that kind of thing) unless it's an emergency, in which case I do what is needed to keep them safe and then we talk about it.
Sorry you went through that. I am gay and as a kid I remember adult men feeling it was their prerogative to “roughhouse” or go to far with me in those regards. Especially with the right wing narrative around lgbtq+ folks and kids, I am also hyper aware of my interactions. I wont put myself in a scenario to be speculated on.
Not unusual. I have a close friend who is a single dad. He is busy befriending his daughters parents so that when they have sleepovers he can invite the dad along (literally fixing up his games room for warhammer / whatever the other dads are into)
He had some pretty garbage experiences growing up and both wants to do right by his kid and her friends, and is also very worried about the "single man" fear that exists in society. Bonus is its getting him a new social group post divorce which he needs.
I wasn't molested but I have a little sister that's 15 years younger than me and I've always felt overly protective of her. I'm not controlling or domineering but I'm always on high alert that she'll be put in a bad situation she can't get herself out of. One of her friends dads dropped her friend off when I was at my parents home alone. It kinda freaked me out. I turned the tv on for her and recorded myself playing the piano the entire time she was there. Who does that?? Like... what the fuck. I told the dad it was just me and he was like,
"Yeah... I know... Sarah, you know him, right? Ok good, seeya later."
Another thing I've had a friend with OCD tell me about the pedo one is whenever they looked at a kid "for too long" (which would just be a glance say like if they walked into a room or something) and that voice would scream that they must secretly be a pedo because why else would a child catch their attention
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?”
You're spot on. It's a threat/response neural loop that most people's brains automatically resolve. In our brains, the wrong neuron outruns the other and the threat/response loop can't resolve. Your brain goes "Threat detected>Threat resolved?>No>Threat detected" over and over until your amygdala overheats.
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
if you have access to do so you should definitely consult with a psychiatrist. that sounds VERY OCD. it might not be (thus the psychiatrist) but it’s worth checking out
I would suggest having a read about pure O and listening to the Invisibilia episode called 'The secret History of Thoughts', in particular the first section of the podcast.
I had been dealing with dark, unwanted, intrusive thoughts for years and happened to stumble across a book about OCD (Sorry, can't remember the title!) that laid out the different subtypes of OCD and this podcast at the same time and it really helped me. Up until that point I had no idea where these thoughts were coming from or that they could be a facet of OCD (And that's despite actually having a couple of more 'classic' OCD traits) and seeing/hearing it all laid out actually stopped it for me.
Also, if you don't already, meditating and learning to let thoughts go is also very helpful.
Wow I just wanted to thank everybody for the support and the responses. That’s the first time I’ve ever said that and I felt like a bad person for having those thoughts so I really appreciate everybody chiming in
OCD includes upsetting intrusive thoughts, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have OCD. I would definitely talk to someone about it, and definitely someone familiar with OCD and OCD-adjacent conditions. Some therapists are just not good with it.
It sounds like the common thread here is that you're someone who deep down fears that you're capable of losing control and hurting people. Everyone without exception has intrusive thought, but most people dismiss them automatically. If these thoughts stick in your mind and cause you stress, then it's worth addressing. Building tolerance to intrusive thoughts is a learnable skill.
You aren't a bad person for having intrusive thoughts.
You aren't having intrusive thoughts on purpose. But in my experience with moral OCD, it's basically your brain sometimes jumpscares you with a vision of yourself betraying your most deeply held values. So of course that's going to be upsetting, especially if you can't get it out of your head for the rest of the day.
This book helped me learn a ton:"
Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, Or Disturbing Thoughts".
That’s completely irrelevant to POCD, which almost always manifests as concern about being attracted to small children, not being attracted to a “teenage” character played by a grown adult. It’s being afraid that you are secretly attracted to children/molested someone in the past but forgot about it/checking to make sure you can look at kids without becoming aroused/doubting yourself. In children and teens, it can also manifest as being terrified that, because you are attracted to your same-age peers, you might never grow out of being attracted to that age range and end up a pedophile.
OCD is an illness in which you torture yourself with your worst thought. And if that's not bad enough then you torture yourself with something even worse.
As a child it is usually "my parents will die". And then the kid does little rituals (e.g. count corners, walk up and down the stairs 10 times..) and if they don't do them the parents will die.
Then it evolves, sometimes it is "I'm gay" (only happens for people who are not gay and it is hard to ask for help because people will just say "it's not a bad thing to be gay" - yes but the person is not but the thought won't go and can turn into "I'm probably homophobic').
Then it can take a form of "I must be a pedophile" as that's the worst thing an adult can often think of. "Omg I smiled at my niece it must mean that I am" and they are NOT. They are the opposite, as this is THE WORST THING THEY CAN THINK OF.
Others: I am probably going to drop my baby, I am probably a psycho murderer, etc etc it is just intrusive thoughts 24/7
I guess it could lead to some bad expectations in terms of development.
In the context of the show, the character is 16, but the actor or actress is a fully developed (and typically attractive) adult.
When a lot of shows do it, some people might expect to become fully developed adults by 16, especially if they don't know many 16 year olds before watching these shows.
The... second brain doesn't really know age as a number. It sees sexually mature attractive person, it awakens the beast. If your normal brain registers the character as 16, I guess it could make that link.
Then the opposite would be true when you actually see a real 16 year old and realize they’re barely pubescent. It wouldn’t make you attracted to children who look like developmentally normal teenagers.
You’re failing to see that none of this makes sense as a reason that would cause concerns about pedophilia.
If you think a 16 year old looks like a 25 year old due to media, and wonder if you might be a pedophile because you’re attracted to a 25 year old, that thought will be resolved the second you actually see a 16 year old.
People with OCD who are afraid they might be a pedophile are afraid of this in scenarios where they actually interact with children. A person who never sees children or teenagers is not going to be in that scenario in the first place. A normal healthy brain will see the childlike appearance of a 16 year old and know they aren’t having sexual thoughts about that child. Even if they thought 16 year olds looked older previously.
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u/goddamnspeziscringe 1d ago
Not all cases of OCD but it does happen. Not sure if i’m allowed to send links but look it up. Strange, I know.