Someone pls help me, is this POCD or am i actually horrible?
CW: Mentions of P*dophilia
Firstly, yes i am aware reddit is not a substitute for therapy. We are working on it but it seems like i am not going to get a Spot for months at least and this has consumed my mind, so i thought i would ask for advice on reddit.
I (17m) do not know what to do. Everyone i have Opened up to in real life (my mom, dad, aunt and my 2 best friends) have told me that i'm just not and it couldn't be, but that didn't reassure me much since they don't know what my head is like.
Let me start with some context and preface this by saying i have a bad memory bc of fetal alcohol syndrome (the mom and dad i speak of are actually my grandparents who adopted me but are for All intents and purposes my parents.) My childhood wasn't always easy but i am not sure i could describe it as "bad". My parents fought a lot (they are divorced now) and i struggled to maintain friendships since i also have autism.
I don't know if that is the actual cause but puberty plus unrestricted Internet access and no actual deep friendships was not good for me, i would guess. I started watching fetishy content at all way too young age, maybe 9 and started to masturbate to it sometime after.
Around the time i finished elementary, i lost all of my meaningful friendships up to that point and that of course, wasn't good to me. I started imagining them in fetishy scenarios and i started asking them weird uncomfortable questions because nobody ever told me to knock it tf off, which i assume is the reason we eventually stopped talking entirely. This is a recurring thing, i got too good at hiding things, preventing me from getting help earlier.
Eventually, the thoughts fantasies about my friends devolved into me looking up similar stuff on the internet, which long Story short led to me getting into and indulging in sh*ta stuff. Around the same time, i started getting into erp on reddit, lying about my age to just indulge in my bullshit further.
But yea, eventually i started doing things with the thought of "if nobody will know i did it, i cannot hurt anyone."
I started having these thoughts about pretty much anyone in my life who was willing to talk to me, shamefully even family friends who were much younger than me while playing with them. (I did nothing specifically innapropriate, but the thoughts were there. I don't want to elaborate since i know there is nasty people on reddit)
I am not proud of it but i indulged in these thoughts for way too long and it makes me feel disgusting now.
I did this for years, doing a bunch of bad shit because no one ever told me to stop or prevented me or ever asked. I don't wanna shift all of the blame away from myself, but i feel guilty since i keep telling myself this could have been avoided.
I eventually did this so much i stopped thinking about it, just getting off and then not thinking about it much. I did eventually manage to make genuine friendships that have lasted until now (whom i have treated badly in the past in other ways which i also feel very guilty for but that is not the point of the post.)
Anyways, this all hit a wall about a week ago. I basically became paranoid that i could get into genuine trouble, which snowballed into me rethinking large Parts of my life and realizing how messed up how messed up i genuinely have been the last 9 years of my life, and genuine ethical fear about being a horrific person. At that point, i started catching these thoughts whenever they popped up and stopped myself from thinking about them, but they became very intrusive. I just knew i should stop thinking about it.
I felt terrible and didn't sleep well for a few days until i got sleep meds and i opened up to the ppl close to me and this made me feel better for a little bit, until the next friday i had a consultation with a child and youth therapist, who after 50 minutes diagnosed me with a suspicion of p*dophilia, before telling me she cannot take me back for a second appointment which made me have a massive mental breakdown at home because i felt so disgusting.
Anyways this morning i woke up feeling terrible again. I just know that i don't want to hurt anyone or see anybody in an oversexualised Light anymore, but i'm so scared that i will fall back in old habits or that this whole thing hasn't made me change at all. I keep overthinking if i am not actually a disgusting freak bc of the intrusive thoughts, or if they're even intrusive thoughts at all. I just know i don't want to hurt anyone, i know i am capable of not hurting anyone now that i understand what i was doing, but i am driving myself insane about what all of this means about me. I am trying to get help but it seems so far away right now.
So, reddit, can anyone offer advice or offer some insight into what is wrong with me, any help is appreciated. I am also ok with making clarifications if it's not asking for graphic Detail (obv)