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I feel like I am paying attention to my breathing and have gotten scared a couple times really bad that I couldn’t breathe. I feel crazy. I had this problem years ago as well and it came back!

My support people have had to pause being supportive temporarily (I hope?) and it came out of left field so I'm feeling a little lost. I was speechless then started to cry afterwards. I lost my job & my partner last month, so I'm already struggling with those support systems being gone... and now my family support. My reaction to this kind of thing is to be hard on myself and also to push away. I "decided" that I'm on my own and won't ask for help going forward, which is probably an over-correction. Just sitting in my feelings for a bit, trying to be non-judgmental about how I feel, then I'll try to move onto an evening activity I would normally do instead of ruminating. This is hard. I know a lot of you are struggling and I want you to know you're not alone 🩷

How do folks here feel about ways they have or have not seen people with OCD portrayed in media (like films/movies)? Do you feel like it has given an inaccurate or accurate picture of what life is like with OCD? Why/why not? I was thinking on this after seeing an episode of Grey's Anatomy showing a patient who had OCD.

Starting to lose hope that it'll get better because I don't feel like I deserve it. I just keep relieving painful memories over and over about this stupid addiction. I just wish I knew all of the risks and dangers

I'm 41 when I was 11 my parents put me on Ritalin and immediately I started counting coins and doing religious chants I got this game jenga for Christmas and when I tell you I sat there putting that puzzle together and pulling out different pieces of it for over 6 hours in the middle of the night because it didn't feel right it was awful. They brought me back to the doctor and they immediately took me off the Ritalin but I still had the OCD so they tried every drug in the book on me and I've been on Prozac and Remeron for about 30 years I also developed panic disorder with agoraphobia so I'm on Lorazepam for the last 10 years. I have the going over in my head thing and touching or repeating OCD that I still battle with where if I'm doing something something reminds me of something else that could be bad so I have to redo whatever I was doing so for instance if I was putting on my shirt and I hear an ambulance go by I have to take the shirt off put it back on think of good thoughts and the right order and then put the shirt on this can take up to an hour. Or if I go to get up and a commercial comes on that scares me about something with health I have to automatically sit back down wait until that commercial's over or if I hear a word that reminds me of something that I'm worried about I take that thing I'm worried about will happen if I continue watching whatever show I'm watching I had a gambling addiction too so playing this game Baccarat you either bet on red or blue and if I bet on red look at the table the table is blue then I look at the B from Baccarat and that's the second letter of the alphabet so I'd say I'm going to lose by 2. This isn't talking in my head slowly this is basically just me quickly thinking it you notice the blue you notice the B and all that I'm going to lose and you get that Dreadful feeling you're going to and then you do. :and sometimes it would happen by whatever I thought I would lose by and that would reinforce my OCD even though I know OCD is not some kind of fortune teller I have a hard time explaining things to people because there's so many words I'm not allowed to use because it'll trigger my OCD or I think something bad will happen. I always over explain things even though I understand people understood what I said I have come a long way but I remember when I was 20 on Christmas Eve I drove into this addition pulled into a random person's house looked at their address numbers as four numbers and then as the first two and the last two and they had to add up right and they had to add up right then I would have to look at the clock and add the time so if it was 7:15 7 + 1 + 5 13 (13 was a bad number) that would have to add right with the address and if it didn't add I would back out and pull back in their driveway I pulled in and out of these people's driveway like 40 times and I saw another neighbor staring out the window on a cordless phone obviously calling the cops like what the hell is this guy doing. There's so much more but it's hard to explain that you would have to be inside my brain to understand how it works So that's just some of the weird stuff I have with OCD hopefully anybody else that experiences anything remotely like that understands it is OCD This was my first post sorry it was so long

So I suffer with Contamination OCD, and when I try to talk to other people about it, they always think that it's because I'm afraid of getting sick from germs, and although some people struggle with that that's not what worries me, I'm not scared of getting sick but I hate the thought that the germ is on me or on items that I use or on surfaces, its just the fear of it being there that I'm the most scared of. Does anyone else who has contamination OCD also experience it this way?

I will be having my 5th session and feel as though I am behind. I misunderstood the 4th session which was ERP and wonder if anyone has had this happen. What are recommendations?

Hi I have SO-OCD aka HOCD and just want to know about what to do for ERP and also any success stories because I am scared that if I do ERP I will end up accepting the thoughts and sensations with the idea that I am gay I have been straight all my life and I have had these worries pop up before but it never bothered me much however the more the sensations of excitement in my heart or the calm sensations when I think about these ideas of being with the opposite gender increase I get more worried that I am when I don't want to be but even saying that feels like a lie to myself along with the idea that this is hocd and this is why I am scared of doing erp

I posted a big post earlier but couldn’t really fit this in and wondered if anyone can specifically relate to this. This may be potentially triggering if you are at a very difficult stage with mental compulsions so please don’t read if that’s the case. I find mental compulsions stick with me. Unlike physical I find ERP impossible as with physical you can do ERP and then just walk away from wherever that compulsion would have taken place. So it’s out of sight out of mind and you can forget it, anxiety can come down and if you did think of it, you can think ‘well it’s too late to fix it because I’m not there’. So you can go about your day, your brain understands there was no threat and then when you come across the situation again, you feel less fear. But with mental compulsions, I find as it’s in your head, it feels like you could engage in the compulsion at any time. Like you can try resist the compulsion, but then you keep remembering it as you’re not leaving it anywhere, it feels attached to your mind. If you start to forget it, you check if it’s gone and then it comes back. It feels like the opportunity to carry out / fix the compulsion is always accessible as it’s done in your head so wherever you go you can do it. So it follows me. And then because I keep thinking about it, I ruminate and the fear factor increases and the consequences get more irrational. To make it worse, I’ve developed an obsession that mental compulsions are more dangerous and that by ignoring them I’m subconsciously accepting my intrusive thought (fear of losing control) and training my brain to make my intrusive thoughts reality, so that when I feel better and have forgotten this compulsion and think it’s in the past, my intrusive thought will suddenly come true all because I didn’t give in to the mental compulsion and I’ll suddenly lose control and become some evil person against my will. Now obviously that’s OCD talking, right? And if I were to over come it, that would seem silly and wouldn’t happen. But having This thought process completely prevents me from ever being able to let go of the mental compulsion. As when i do start forgetting, I suddenly freak out and remember the consequence that may happen by allowing myself to forget. Then it resets my need to carry out the compulsion. It’s horrible. The obsession also says that if it came true it could happen at any point in life like ‘remember that time you didn’t do that compulsion… well you’re about to be a psycho’. So it’s not like I can apply ERP and accept that nothing happening means avoiding the compulsion was the right decision because my obsession and fear isn’t time framed. Urgh it’s exhausting! I just hope I’m not alone in this. It just has be doubting everything and fearing for my life

im in a relationship and me and my partner are recently taking a break right now. i want to be able to learn more about myself and get better mentally, i would obsess over the thought of him cheating if he wasn’t texting me or calling me. would constantly check his location, i would feel like he didn’t love me. but after talking before going into our break i realized i was just obsessing n thinking to deep into us n only thinking negatively. im not diagnosed with ocd but my therapist mentioned that i fall into the category of it haven’t gone to a psychiatrist to get diagnosed yet. but it helps having a label to what i experience. i just want to know if there is any tricks or tips people might have on obsessing to much on the other and not on urself, i want to be able to control my ocd in my relationship, and in myself i don’t want to constantly have these inner mental battles with myself anymore and be able to think without overtly thinking too much into anything or obsessing over the most mundane things and only thinking negatively about something. we’re taking this break to find ourselves mentally and individually. we dated young and are now entering the stages of adulthood and i want to make this work because i truly love him and seek only the best for him. i have done certain things that help with the overthinking and obsessing over these thoughts and the what if’s idk im just rambling now i hoped this app would help me in some way to learn how to control my thoughts and to get out of my bubble so much i isolate myself with my thoughts and its causing me more harm now and others.

So TW: if discussions of choking and anaphylaxis bother you. I’m having a pretty bad ocd flare up. Sometimes it attaches to food like my last flare up. I just developed a healthy relationship with all food but lately I’ve been having trouble with post Covid recovery and sometimes food doesn’t love me. The last month it’s focusing on choking and anaphylaxis. I’ve been having some sensitivities to food that causes tight throat, post nasal drip, and a bunch of mucus in throat. Of course, this is 90% probably GERD. It runs in my family. Well the last week and a half I just rejected food. I couldn’t do it without thinking I was going to react, and OCD being the super sleuth it’s not I totally gave in to my Health Anxiety OCD and scoured every Reddit forum in sight to try and find relief. I was just convinced I was gonna have an allergic reaction. Then it turned into a fear of choking. I dropped like 6 pounds in a week because I was not feeding myself. I was eating super bland and boring foods to try and keep the GERD down. I cut out dairy, I cut out allergy typical foods. I was living on white rice, bland chicken and that’s it. I expanded the safe food lists to bananas and owyn plant based protein shakes bc obviously my current diet is not viable. Well, last night I made myself make salmon with lemon to bake and boiled cabbage. It’s not a lot but it’s a start. I made myself eat half the filet and ALL of the cabbage. I had some Lima beans on the plate too but couldn’t make myself. The other two were a win. I ate in front of my boyfriend just in case. I decided to kick it up a notch today at work. I ordered my favorite chicken wrap from my favorite deli that I’ve never had issues with before. I had them leave off the cheese and bacon. But I left the lettuce, tomato (even tho it’s a GERD trigger), avocado, and chicken basted in a mango sauce. I forgot the sauce had a kick, but I made myself eat it to show myself I could. I’m still really anxious after eating it but it isn’t as bad. I kept telling myself even if the food gets stuck it will either go down eventually or I’ll cough/throw it back up. Everyone in my office is cpr and aed trained as well as hemiloch maneuver trained. I kept a bottle of water beside me to drink after some bites where I felt like it was getting stuck and viola! I ate it. I was gonna eat chips but I’m not gonna push it. It’s a long road and I know I’ve developed a dysphasia of some type. But I plan to see my GP after my trip next week to get blood panels ran for vitamin deficiencies, etc. and get a referral to a GI. Bc I don’t want GERD to get worse. People in my family get stomach ulcers and I’m not trying to play with that. I start EMDR back up this week. I’m trying to act now rather than let this manifest further. If it doesn’t get better, I’m going on meds and I haven’t been on meds in years. I don’t need this taking my job from me I have too much I need to do and this is in the way. I’ve beaten it before I can do it again

***this may be very triggering so please don’t read if you’re struggling a lot with your OCD**** So I’ve been doing ERP (without a therapist but on a waiting list) for my physical compulsions and I was achieving so well. But then Mental compulsions took over and they are taking over my life. I really hope there’s someone who can relate to this and hopefully teach me that I will find peace. I will sometimes have compulsions that occur through imagery in my mind. This is new for me but has topped all my physical compulsions which I never knew was possible. In fact I’m at a point where I wish I was overwhelmed with physical compulsions rather than this current torture. For example the other day I was at a house where I felt very panicky and gave into a bunch of physical compulsions. When I got home I felt disgusting. The thought of that house was traumatising because of how much stress I induced while there. I couldn’t bare to think about it, I just wanted to forget about any memory of it. I layed in bed and closed my eyes and unintentionally imagined the outside of the house I had visited and as I did I had a harm intrusive thought - what if I lost all control of myself and harmed someone I love against my will - now I’m the most loving sensitive and caring person so this OCD theme has been debilitating for me, but i had been overcoming it with my physical compulsions. I opened my eyes and instantly had the compulsion that I needed to close my eyes again and imagine the same thing again (the outside of the house the exact same way as before) - only this time I imagined their living room instead. I usually have to do things twice to cancel them out (represents ‘on’ and ‘off’… so stupid) so I opened my eyes and panicked because to fix things I needed to correctly imagine the outside of the house as I did earlier. But before I could do that I now needed to imagine the living room the right way, and then I could imagine the outside. But I kept imagining different rooms and couldnt get the image of the right rooms meaning I was going deeper into this house unwillingly. This created a backlog of mental compulsions I needed to fix. I needed to work my way back out the house the same way I went in but my brain wasn’t letting me. I opened my eyes and I was sweating and panicking. I felt trapped and like the only way to ever escape this anxiety and eliminate the threat would be to go back into my mind and fix these errors. I felt helpless and trapped in another world. I felt like my whole life was over now because I could never fix this. Unlike a physical compulsions this was happening in a world I was imagine in my head. I couldn’t just simply go and flick the light switch or tap on the wall. To correct the compulsion I had to actually mentally imagine it. But my mind wasn’t letting me. I felt detached from myself. My anxiety peaked and I had an anxiety override (body tingling, I felt cold) flush through me. And suddenly I felt a sudden lack of care and felt relief. It was like my brain had got so worked up it just let go of the compulsion urges. I fell asleep. The following day I woke up relieved that that mental compulsion episode had left me and I didn’t need to do anything. I cried to my partner who doesn’t know the extent of my OCD, I hide it a lot. But I do get emotional over it. But I never tell him what my ocd entails. All he knows is ‘I have OCD’. I said ‘I’m free’ and felt so relieved. I felt slightly at unease around my house as I was slightly traumatised by how petrified I was and everything was reminding me of it. But I moved on and had a great day feeling relaxed and ready to tackle any OCD that came my way. That was until the following morning I woke up feeling anxious about what I had experienced. I started feeling that I had tricked myself into being over it and felt detached from the world again. I started feeling that I needed to go back into my head, back into that house to fix the compulsion errors. My brain telling me that if I don’t, that unfixed episode will haunt me for life. That even if I get over it and forget, it’ll lie dormant and then come flooding back at a later point in life. It was telling me that all my intrusive fears will happen at some point in my life as a consequence to not fixing my errors and escaping that house. I keep telling myself this is all OCD trying to keep a hold of me. Sometimes my anxiety will ease momentarily and I’ll feel more rational, but then I doubt it and think but what if that’s it lying dormant. And then it comes flooding back. I don’t feel ERP will work for this one. It’s been 2 days now of me trying to avoid the urge to go back and try to fix it. I feel like it’s inevitable that lll have to go back and fix it. Because it seems like I won’t get my life back ever again if I don’t. That’s how it’s making me feel right now. But then I’m scared that if I do go back to fix the errors, I won’t be able to fix it easily. I won’t be able to imagine the right rooms and will only make more errors. I feel like I can’t win. I feel like the only way to get back to reality is fixing these mental compulsions. I just don’t know how 😰. I’m so scared, I know deep down this is all OCD. These fears are obsessions and intrusive thoughts morphing to avoid me escaping OCD. I know it’s illogical and I know the only reason I feel so much meaning behind this mental compulsive world I imagined was because these images of the house was just thoughts that made me feel uncomfortable and I attached meaning to them and taught my brain to fear it. I know I created this fear but it feels so real to me now I’m just stuck. Can anyone relate to this. Does anyone have mental compulsions that feel like a rabbit hole, like a trap and a long list of errors you can’t fix. Is it normal to feel this way. Is my life over? 😞😞😞 I just want to be happy again. I just want to be able to engage in life again. My boyfriend is my whole world. I love him so much and I can’t focus on anything other than this one mental compulsive episode that I feel I’ll never forget. It’s so overwhelming that I haven’t had any physical or new compulsions since because my mind is too preoccupied with how I’m going to deal with that one episode.

I am that convinced I just feel Iv got to leave this earth , I can’t live with the secret so I can’t live anymore , and I’m so sad cos my family are adamant it’s ocd because I’m 30 and these thoughts and feelings and groinal responses have only came about when I obsessed about this

I think I have to face a major trigger in a few days and I think I am not ready for it. If I may not have thoight anout it this much if I was in better condition when I don't use to have these thoughts like 24/7 if I use to be not depressed this much about it then maybe I coukd face it but not now and I am trying hard to not to face it but nothing is working. I fear that I have to face it but I am not ready atleast for now plzz anyone help me!!??

Even prior to my diagnosis, as an adolescent i’ve always had an intense internal struggle with how people should perceive me. I was always self conscious and “dressed to impress”. Though when it came to my family, i felt almost guilty and disgusted by their praise. I cant pinpoint exactly what had happened or at what point in my life this started. Just that i went from being a young girl, fresh out of kindergarten, proud of her parents watching her preform a solo with a symphony orchestra- to screaming at them not to come see her playing in the ensemble of her middle school play. I use to love the hugs my parents gave me. I felt so safe pretending to fall asleep in their laps while they watched tv up past my bed time. But now when they show me the slightest bit of praise, try to give me a hug, or return to that place of love- i just want to crawl out of my skin. i feel as though they’re objectifying me, though they’re just my parents. i’m so resentful towards them, i just have this hatred that’s been building up for years and years. Any good memories are surpassed by the bad, and I cannot fathom getting back to a place where we all truly love each other again. meaning me, loving them. i’ve stopped singing in public, because i’ve taken up addictions and have punished myself for the way they make me feel. Anytime i try to play my ukulele and sing, even in the privacy of my own room i am not truly safe, stable, alone, or have feelings of security. I’m quite paranoid, because they often creep outside my door to listen. And while you would think i’d understand they just want to hear their daughter sing, their unwanted presence, and attention makes me want to crawl out of my skin. It’s what makes violent images swirl in my brain, brings my blood to a boil, and makes me want to hurt myself. Initially i cut myself. but that only made the attention worse. so i turned to hiding my feelings and wallowing in my pain. i am medicated for ocd- on 50mg of clomipramine and 30mg of Lexapro. While these medications help dim the extremity of these feelings and reduce the amount which they affect me, I still find it nearly impossible to gain control of my mindset and channel the eerie feelings into positivity. I understand both sides of the argument, though the negative side is much more pronounced. I have a really hard time opening up to people because I don’t have a lot of stability in my life. So therapy isn’t on the table for me, there’s no trust. i’m hoping maybe a few of you have gone through similar experiences with strong set emotions, because i could really use a helping hand in rewiring myself. I don’t have respect for my parents. I know they’re decent people and they have both have great skills and interesting life experiences, but i don’t love them. we have had some pretty nasty arguments over the years where i’ve told them that to their faces. i’m pretty sure they just thought i was being a moody teen, so they say they don’t care and that they’ll always love me. But this just makes me despise them more, and triggers my fear of objectification all over again. I just feel like as long as i’m controlled by them under their roof, i am not my own person and i am not free. but i also know that’s not true, and that the second i move out i will have so many regrets. but i just know that, i have not, and don’t know when i’ll truly process that. please help.

I have ocd based on health related things. So whenever my brain gets an idea about something to be afraid of, I should try to expose myself to the idea of having that through exposures until I get desensitized to it? Keep doing this throughout life, how do you not get depressed by this?

I’m not ok at all. I don’t know if I will ever be. I’m incredibly emotional and told my mom that and she got an attitude. I thoughts moms we’re supposed to care?! Mine just makes me feel like I’m a problem. She is always there for everyone else. She is always there when people are sad and they come to get for help like friends or co workers but when it’s me she gets mad, she gets an attitude, and threatens to hit me. Yes I’m 24 and I live with my mom and I feel incredibly guilty to even talk about her because she’s my mom and I love her but she just hurts me. I can’t do it anymore. I have no one. My dad passed away and he was the one person besides my grandma who would be there for me and understand. All I have is me and I’m not strong enough. Dealing with ocd, loss, depression, stress at work, college, etc. is too much. I don’t have a therapist anymore because I can’t afford it. I can’t afford to move out on my own but I swear I would in a heartbeat. I hate my life. I know I don’t have it worse than most. I get that. But I am just talking about my experience. Maybe this could help someone else not feel so alone but I feel incredibly alone 💔

I used to believe in twin flames and soulmates and some form of ‘destiny’, and it never got me anywhere in life. I want to kill myself but I know I’m not going to, I just feel tired of waiting to get better. I’m really close to God and sometimes I just tell Him that I’m tired, sometimes—I even like the anxiety, or maybe I just like to feel something. But I have therapy in two days and I do not feel confident telling my therapist about my false memories and my real event scenarios, she’s not even an OCD therapist, she’s a therapist from school but I’m taking things one step at a time. I’ve practically been locked up in my room, I haven’t eaten anything, and I’m just watching movies and going on TikTok. I’m literally terrified of the future, I can’t trust that anything good happens even when I try to. I would love to trust God, I would love to be more optimistic about my life, but I just feel like it’s not going to end well. And if it doesn’t end well for another year, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to say I’m going to kill myself, but I would sure feel like doing it in the future. I’m just losing hope and I’ve been so patient for so long, sometimes I try to threaten God to make my life better just so that I can feel like He’s hearing me. Whenever I make a mistake in regards to my mental health, I don’t take it lightly, I get worried, and I get scared that I’m going to go to jail or my parent/guardian is going to jail, and I just feel like I wouldn’t be able to trust a therapist with everything that’s on my mind… I know it sounds miserable to say it, and I know I feel miserable, and I know I’m not supposed to according to my religion (which is pretty good actually), whether it’s being scared of jail, being scared of not choosing the right major, being scared of being indecisive, or being scared of not healing, or being scared of everyone judging me, fear of God setting me up for failure, my mind will always find a way to get me alerted onto something. I can’t live like this anymore, I can’t live with this fear eating me alive, I don’t want to be afraid. Maybe I want to be uncertain about things, maybe I don’t want to feel responsible for everything, and maybe I want to go back in time and live life the way I used to with everyone calling me ‘sensitive’, maybe I hated it, but this is hell. If I was called sensitive now, maybe I’d feel insecure, but I would do something about it as if I’m swatting a bug or something. I went through my first week of school contemplating what I was going to do if I got sent to jail for something that I realized later on wasn’t even bad, it was actually normal. My plan was to just kill myself when I’m in jail, I wouldn’t even trust God anymore. I always see posts about a need to trust God’s plan, but I see it as seeking reassurance about feeling some form of safety or comfort, so I avoid it. And the more I avoid it, the more I feel like God won’t help me. So maybe I’ll just say that God has a plan for me, cause He knows I’m not leaving anytime soon. I almost did when I thought all hell broke loose and that there was no hope for me, and now I’m here still giving it a shot because I’m just too hopeful and too optimistic about God and about life. I hope it’s going to be worth it, or else I’m going to feel like God never wanted me in the first place. I just don’t want to feel like I’m the only person carrying my own burden while God watches me try my best to make my life better because the only way He can help me is if I try, but I see it as just doing the right things instead of trying to do them. I have a habit of doing things with good intentions only to find out MONTHS later that it was all wrong and I feel like I have to start all over again. So I’m hoping it’s not going to turn out like that again. I just want to feel support from Him, feeling support from people is fine, but I’ve trained my mind to depend on his approval of my life. I depend my whole life on God, if I’m around someone I KNOW He doesn’t like, maybe I’ll be nonchalant about it, but eventually, you best believe that I’m going to avoid that person. And if He’s mad at me, you already know I’m dead meat and that there’s probably no going back (but only if He wills.) I’ve prayed this prayer of a better life multiple times that when I think of doing it, it almost becomes a compulsion for me. I was supposed to wash my hair today, and I didn’t because I was depressed in my room and I didn’t feel like getting up to do anything productive. And I have a meeting at 5 and now I’m going to have to go on the call with my camera off while I try and do my hair. I wish for the best and I hope for the best, and I don’t want to be sassy towards God again, but I NEED my life to get better, I need it to be easier.

Look, I know this is probably a bad idea to ask for some reassurance, but lately my OCD has been getting pretty good at being anxious about things that seem logically possible. But I dated this guy like a year and a half ago, we used to make out and stuff but I decided to stop doing that with him because it just wasn’t working out for us. Well, I remember telling him something like “can we keep the sexual stuff online and not in-person”, well, I thought I was being clear about it. I also remember this one point in time when we agreed to stop doing that stuff, one night he texted me asking if we could do that stuff again (this was before I was getting upset at him for not listening to me) and I agreed to it, and it didn’t work out so I officially said no to it. But then, I remember all those other times of making out with him a little more (I think it was after I kept on saying no.) But I remember there was this one time we were at a friends house where I let him touch my butt and then at one point I told him to stop (I don’t remember the timeline of that day specifically) but then I remember constantly telling him to keep the sexual stuff online instead of in-person and he always kept on saying “yeah sure” or like “got it.” He did stop those times, but then there were times on rare occasions where he would try to do that stuff on me and I would just tell him to stop and he would listen in the moment and not do it again for a while. One time while we were doing other stuff, he accidentally almost touched my butt and he immediately moved his hand up and that’s when I got the idea that he listened to me. I don’t want to ruminate about the timeline of this stuff, and I used to feel violated those other times when I felt like he wasn’t listening to me, and when I was dating him I used to have memory problems due to stress and anxiety, and after the breakup I had a nightmare about it, but now that I see it, it’s probably not sexual assault or anything related to that matter. I used to think it was, and I never felt that confident to talk about it or even think about it because it always made me feel uncomfortable. I feel like this is just some false memory stuff cause something seems mixed up and I feel like I probably gave him the wrong impression because when we started making out again we used to do other stuff…

I'm feeling so helpless so please I just need to know if this sounds like ocd. This is how it started and no one else seems to share any stories similar to mine. When I was 17, I was looking around a store with my mom and big sister. At the time I struggled really badly with body dysmorphia and low self esteem, so; I started feeling weirdly jelous of all the children in the store. They all got to be happy and clueless and adorable and not even care, and I missed when I was that small. I started getting so jelous that I was actively looking around to see other children to compare my life to, and then I accidentally saw a little girl, maybe around 4-6? Idk. In a shopping cart with her mom, she fell backwards and I accidentally saw up her skirt, and I immediately felt a huge rush of anxiety, like the kind that makes your face really hot. And I immediately thought "am I a p*dophile?". I don't remember feeling any real attraction, it was just the anxiety. But that was enough to make me go "wtf" and start looking around at kids again to see if I was attracted to any of them. Like, I would look at a little boy infront of me who was running and think "am I attracted to him?" and then a girl in a sundress at a desk with her mom, and would think "am I attracted to her?" And I think I was confusing for thinking she looked nice with attraction, but idk ;-; I also saw a 3 year old in the buggie seat of her mom's cart when leaving the store and thought "ok I don't think I'm attracted to her I just think she's adorable" and could not stop thinking about whether I was a p*dophile or not for the rest of the day. It sort of became an on and off thing I would worry about but bc I wasn't having any like repetitive intrusive thoughts yet, it didn't become a constant worry until the next year. Which is why I'm so confused because for so many people it seems to be like a one time and done sort of thing. I only started getting intrusive image thoughts when I confided in my mom about it, and she said "as long as you aren't fantasizing about it I think you're fine" and then that immediately felt like it just opened a flood gate for all these new thoughts right then and there and I haven't been the same since. Like, the fear of having fantasies about it was enough to put the image in my head. Also idk but I think it's worth mentioning that I used to love working with kids. I was never a teacher or a babysitter but I adored them and always did volunteer work that involved them. Like, face painting at events and stuff like that. It was never a sexual thing but now bc of how many years I've been struggling with this I question all the time if it really was or not. I used to dream about becoming a mom and would watch a mommy vlogger named bubzvlogz all the time bc she had these two adorable kids that were I think 4 years old and 6 months old, she was the only mom vlogger I really liked bc she didn't make her whole kids lives the channel. She was very ethical about it. It was more of a her vlog featuring her kids. And I just thought they were so cute but I never like had thoughts about them so I feel like maybe that's proof it's just ocd but I'm still unsure. Idk like, I'm just wondering why I was so obsessed with children (especially babies) and how cute they were. Like, what if it really was sexual, I'm literally getting groinals as I type this and wonder about it. Idk, it all just feels so weird and icky now and I can't even imagine myself willingly putting myself in a situation where there will be lots of children ever again.