POCD struggles

I've never shared anything on here before but I read a lot and I will say I am thankful for this community. I have had OCD my whole life. When I was a child I remember having thoughts in my head that made me uncomfortable, although I couldn't remember what they all were. I would neutralize them with a word. I would have nightly confessions to my mom. I do remember a very specific intrusive thought about God that made me panic and I remember exactly where I was. I would wash my hands until they bled to "prevent" something bad from happening. I developed sexual Instrusive thoughts of my brother being romantically interested in me and it scared me so much, I always fought with him for the imagined fear that played in my mind. I have a bit of harm OCD and my biggest nemesis is POCD. I am in ERP therapy but my mind WILL not let me do what I need to work on because I'm living in constant fear or what if this isn't just OCD. I cut out my compulsive prayer after a thought, but my big one is mental checking. I have to gauge the perfect reaction to a thought to figure out I don't feel any way about it. My mind puts myself or children in situations to check how I feel and it's constant. I can't even call that intrusive anymore, it's an automatic compulsion. One "compulsion" I find interesting and wanted some insights on is when I see an adult on tv talking, I imagine them as a child. Not even sexually. Just how they might have acted as a child that led them to their characters personality. I also have trained my mind to think sexual relationships with adults are "dangerous" because they used to be kids. My mind will not stop ruminating, will not stop trying to show me proof of my obsession. I have dreamed of finding life since I was 9, I identify as a straight female, always interested in adult men. I've struggled with this theme since my early 20s and it started out so little, with just random words and images that I dismissed away with my compulsions but now it has spread and over taken my mind with excessive doubt.

Hi. I deal with pocd (but I am not diagnosed cuz I can't afford therpay) and I think it's ocd. It begun over a year back and initially it was about "what if I become a p" and then eventually it became "what if I am already a p" and then eventually I had this phase of 4-6ish months where my ocd almost vanished to the point where I was not even getting triggered by stuff. And then I suddenly had this huge SO OCD bout for 2 ish weeks last month where I lost my mind about what if I am a lesbian (I identify as a bi woman ) but then eventually I just accepted that I am a lesbian and felt like a lesbian for a while and then I am again back to bi. So basically I completely accepted the uncertainty and hence got over it easily. But I cannot do that pocd. Ew. Idk what to do. And this so ocd bout caused the pocd to return and rn my brain is full on "see u turned out to accept lesbianism so u definitely wanna accept being a p" and like its also "what if I am already a p, and subconsciously accepted it and am pretending to have ocd cuz what if I am in extreme denial?" And like idk what to do. I am worried posting this too cuz I am afraid what if somebody reading this misunderstands and thinks I am actually a p. Another thing I deal with is "am i even performing compulsions?" Cuz I mainly confess to my bestie and chatgpt(I stopped with chatgpt cuz I am scared about privacy issues) and research stuff about pocd to gain reassurance. And occasionally ruminate for checking but it doesn't interfere with my life. Bcz of this I *feel* like I don't perform enough compulsions and not performing compulsions essentially means it's not ocd. I genuinely get scared about what if it's pocd or denial. Or what if I am lying and manipulating ppl to think it's ocd and what if I am just faking the anxitey. Sometimes my thoughts don't give anxiety and later on that absence of anxiety worries me a lot cuz my brain is like "see u didn't get anxiety so u liked that thought. Hence u are a p" and idk what to do. Can someone please help me please. I don't wanna be a p. Another compulsion I do is saying "I don't wanna be a p" or "I am not a p" 5 times in sets of 5. I started this compulsion voluntarily when I read somewhere that counting is a compulsion and I wanted to prove to myself "see it's ocd" and now I do sort of as a habit to confirm the same. And this scares me too cuz doesn't that mean this is a fake compulsion??? And what If it's not ocd.

fyi: [x] - feared identity So I've had OCD for a while now and even though I'm on a different theme than I was, I find that I sometimes feel indifferent or numb to an act that is completely immoral, especially after desensitizaton and learning that there is nothing that I need to do about the thoughts. I even ask myself "What if one of my friends turned out to be [x]?" and instead of immediately saying "I'm completely cutting ties and never looking at them the same way again" I'm like "..that wouldn't be great, I'd stop talking to them but also encourage them to get help.". Pure OCD for some odd reason made me feel empathy for even the worst, most evil people - not that it excuses their actions, or makes them any less evil, but then it also took that and made me panic about it: "What if you're becoming antisocial?" "What if you're on your way to degeneration?" "Why do you not care as much as you used to?" "Are you corrupt?" "Are you [x]?" "Only [x] would feel empathy for [x]." "Are you justifying these actions?". I feel like it is concerning, it does feel like I'm ignoring something that goes against my values, or that I have lost all values and I'm just a bad person. Especially when I get arousal nonconcordance or GRs: "Maybe I'm just traumatized, maybe I'm okay" turns into "You're okay.. with what? With becoming aroused by these things at all? Have you lost your mind? What's next, you're gonna act on these thoughts and say "Oh I'm traumatized?"", and I don't know whether it's logical or not. When I started with sexual intrusive thoughts I immediately found them disturbing and horrifying, and now after ERP and just living with the disorder for so long I'm almost numb... it feels terrible. It feels like I'm justifying or have become legitimately okay with untolerable, horrible behavior, and I feel like that says something about who I am really. I feel like that makes me dangerously close to acting on the thoughts, or that the thoughts were an indication of some repressed desire all along, even when I know there's no evidence towards that... or is there? Pure OCD has convinced me I'm in denial about something horrible many times before, mainly by utilizing my reaction and moral stance around the intrusive thoughts. I still feel like "If I panic when I have these thoughts, that means I'm not [x] and I'm fine."; "If I'm disgusted by the idea of acting on these thoughts, then I'm fine"; "As long as I don't respond the wrong way to the thoughts, I'm fine".. so what happens when you're told not to react to the thoughts at all? Or on the other hand, not to try and analyze a reaction? Panic. Cognitive dissonance: "Something's wrong, I'm not reacting how I'm supposed to". At the end of the day, I really hope I'm not [x], I really do. I can't imagine not only living with the title of [x], but also with the insane levels of distress that title would cause because for all I know, I'm not really [x]. But I could be, like I don't know if I'm not, and even though I'd rather not be [x] I have to somehow accept uncertainty I guess. That's what I've been told to do - but I feel like it's backfiring. I feel like I'm either a) recovering and meta-obsessing, b) I'm still in poor insight OCD and I'm not actually [x] c) I'm [x] and in denial / having OCD about a real issue Speaking of insight, it tends to come and go but it's been poor for most of the time, even after I learned about OCD.