Sexually intrusive thoughts/fears

[saraemerald]

I just posted in another thread about this and I could relate to many of the posts. I wish I couldn't relate though. This has been the most painful part of my life to deal with, worse than any of the worst abuse or humiliation or hardships in life that I have ever endured. Having unwanted sexually intrusive thoughts and fears that something is terribly wrong with me, has been the worst torture ever. =(
It has pushed me into perfectionism, trying to be the best person I can be and doing everything good I can everyday to try to run away from these aweful thoughts in my f#&king head.
And then when people treat me like crap just for trying to be a good person, hurts even more because I know they don't know the battles I go through every day.
I grew up a Jehovah's Witness so having these unwanted intrusive thoughts for me translated into becoming a perfectionist in the religion believing God would provide me with holy spirit and strength to get through each day and make me a better more chaste person and perhaps rid me of these intrusive thoughts so that I could feel better about myself.

 

[Intrepid]

I just read the post you referred to. Yeah, that's me too. I don't like the way I feel today because of the images and shame bubbles up from the past. It seemed as a child the only way I was relevant was to provide inappropriate comfort to others.

It really makes me mad to think about. These feelings are horribly distracting at times.

But I know I have to be gentle with myself. I try to remember I was not formed by good people.

 

[saraemerald]

So one of the main reasons I am on this forum currently is to overcome the shame and guilt I have from the next part of what I am going to post in this thread. This is the story that I have been seeking help from my therapist with:
By my mid-twenties, I was feeling good, healthy, had no more anxiety attacks, had strong faith in God, was volunteering a lot, was confident and had better friends in my life. But I was still single. I felt like as long as I had faith in God, that's all I needed and I trusted He would always provide for me but I still always came home to my apartment after a long day, by myself.
I was always smiling amd keeping myself busy with other Jehovah's Witnesses since we were not allowed to be close to anyone outside of the religion. I felt like I was doing all the right things in my life but not where I wanted to be in my life, unfullfilled only living "life in this world" until the emd of this world came (armageddon) according to that religion.
So I thought I was happy and I definitely was healthier than I was a decade prior due to self -care over the years and proactively trying to rise above my abusive and dysfuntional childhood, but maybe deep down I was not happy because:
One day, I was realising that I was obsessing about this guy that was not in love with me back and I needed to stop thinking about him and move on with my life and "continue to rely on God". But I was upset about still being single despite everything I had done for over a decade to overcome the pain of my past which included filling myself with positive thoughts, focusing on moving forward, self care, forcing myself to go to school, church and work despite PTSD symptoms, maintaining healthy friendships, doing things for others, working hard, eating healthy, ect. Now this list of things probably sounds annoying and like yada yada yada but this is what I did to try to prevent myself from ever cracking and I was scared of being messed up like my parents so I thought that doing all these things were good for me. But when I was trying to stop thinking about this guy I liked by "being positive" and praying to God I found myself doing the exact opposite. I found myself thinking why do I know how to be positive all the time even when facing sh#tty situations in life?! Well lucky me. I guess God thinks I am strong enough to go through lots of crap and He thinks I am strong enough to deal with still being single in my mid 20's in addition to everything else I have already endured. So I suddenly tried to push God's holy spirit away so I could feel what I am really feeling without his help. So to do that, I purposely thought a really bad intrusive thought. Tbis thus created the worst case of OCD self-sabotage ever and I eventually made myself think and feel like I was the worst and sickest person ever and really wanted to disappear and die and I just started destroying myself. From that day on, I literally did not feel like an innocent chaste person anymore.

 

[saraemerald]

So one of the main reasons I am on this forum currently is to overcome the shame and guilt I have f...

After this experience, I thought I was being so stupid and didn't even know why. I also became extremely angry with God because I somehow thoight that perhaps through this, this was just roof that no matter how much good I do, I am just another imperfect human being. Like what are you trying to prove God?! I soon started hating Him so much and wanted to go back to being the happy person I was before but nothing helped. Even paying out of pocket to see various therapists didn't help. No matte what I did, I could never feel good about myself ever again. Why? Because that thought was about abusing children even though I have never wanted go do such a thing. I started hating myself for thinking a such a disgusting thought on purpose. From then on, I became depressed and forced myself to feel awful and guilty even though I knew the thought I had was never true. But I felt tainted. And confused about this whole stupid situation that I created in my head.

 

[saraemerald]

For some reason, whether it's true or not, I feel like my story is weird and not normal and I wish it never happened because it has ruined the last five years of my life, in addition to leaving my religion which is a cult and losing my friends and being disfellowshipped just for no longer attending the religion's weekly meetings.

 

[saraemerald]

Sorry if this sounds repetitive. I just want to be able to relate to others so I can process this, forgive myself, and move forward. I'm just so confused about all this and why I reacted the way I did.
OCD PTSD childhood abuse cult

 

[ladee]

Thank you for that very honest share. That took a lot of courage.
So you are saying you had 'thoughts' of harming children? I did acting out sexually with kids and wanted to die. They were my age but after years of therapy I came to understand that as a kid I dent get help and all those confusing feelings were me reinacting my own shame of abuse.
This is a hard one to forgive yourself for.
Didn't make it right that I had been sexualized from a very early age. Only added to my toxic shame of what a waste of space I was on this earth.
Therapy takes time. Lots of time. I can only suggest you get back in therapy and do the work to accept and forgive yourself.
You can use OCD behaviors but it isn't going to fix how you feel about yourself.
We have to heal our past. Thinking is not doing.
This is eating you alive and at some point you will need to seek outside help sI you can have a life.
I call this 'picking my pain'.
I can stay in the perpetual blame and shame game..or I can face my truths with guidance from a T and start living my life again.
We We're hurt and had no support..who were we supposed to take these thoughts and actions to?
We had no one safe to tell.
We are adults now. We get to make choices to save ourself or we can punish ourself into oblivion.
Give going back to therapy some thought. You are more clear about what you need.
I appreciate you sharing. That took tremendous courage. You want to heal.
I hope you consider getting the help you deserve.
Sending gentle hugs if you accept.

 

[saraemerald]

I don't remember exactly when this started happening but I think late teens, maybe even earlier, feeling like a was somehow dirty. Then when I started experiencing obvious PTSD symptoms in my late teens, I remember having anxiety and holding my breathe when I was physically close to someone. And around this time, when around my peers, friends and even adults, the word sex wpuld randomly pop into my mind compulsively but with no feelings. For some reason it also translated over to children. I never thought of actually having sex with anyone when this happened but I would fear that there was something wrong with me sexually and I felt like I had to heal myself. It was weird. It was just mostly experiencing anxiety and having a difficulty breathing normally around people when I was close to them physically. I would try to hide it by breathing very shallowly or even holding my breath sometimes. I remember being scared to think of sex too from age 17 on when I got baptised because I was trying to "be chaste" according to the religion and I had normal crushes on guys my age.
So this is very personal but I remember touching myself from a very early age like six or seven and thinking about potty stuff for arousal. My therapist says that's normal for traumatized kids. So when I was a teen, my fantasies were ironically normal but I remembered what I would think about when I was a kid and I couldn't forget and it madee feel dirty amd tainted and I remember as a teen thinking I would never be in a normal relationship and that it would take a LOT for me to be fixed, so when I was 17 and got baptised, I became very serious about all of my decisions about my life and became very religious hoping that God could heal me.

 

[saraemerald]

I don't remember exactly when this started happening but I think late teens, maybe even earlier, fe...

And from then on, I tried being as careful as I could to follow the religion and keep myself "chaste" and "clean" and became a perfectionist in the religion. I also remember being a perfectionist when I was a kid because I was scared of making mistakes because my dad was an @$$#ole and abusive towards me and would get mad ate for anytjing below an A on my report card.
I was also scared to do or think anything wrong because of the religion amd God and Satan and the demons "watching" us all the time and trying to tempt us to make mistakes.

 

[saraemerald]

So one last thing, after being a perfectionist amd trying to be as good as I could for so many years and not getting anything back except for healing physical symptoms, as you know, I sabotaged myself starting from randomly one day trying to push God's holy spirit away by thinking an intrusive thought.
I had just acknowledged that I am confident I would be a good mom one day after all the hard work I did and how far I have come. A few minutes later I was trying to resist God's holy spirit because I was tired of being so "positive" all the time and so then I thought the opposite and to God, intentionally thought, "I will just be like a priest who molests children." And that's how these last five years of my life began towards self-sabotage from that moment on all because I couldn't ignore the mindf#&k I just had and I needed to know where this was coming from in the first place.
So I superanalised it to death and made myself miserable in the process amd then I confesssed to a couple friends and then to two elders and...
I purposely forcused on the thought and almost purposely became obsessive about it and I was feeling numb and couldn't move on. It was so werid amd random and I couldn't just let it go and just forget I had the stupid thought in the first place because I HAD to know why I would even want to push God's holy spirit away.
Now here I am.

 

[saraemerald]

And just to let you know, I am seeing an awesome therapist who does EMDR but it's just taking such a long time to get past this in part because I am stubborn amd the other part, this caused me to stop attending meetings in my religion and eventually come across "apostate literature" and start doubting both myself and the religion until I finally discovered it is a cult.

 

[saraemerald]

Can anyone else who experiences intrusive thoughts relate to this as well?