A woman who believed she might be a paedophile due to a mental disorder has shared how it continues to affect her today.
Molly Lambert, a 22-year-old woman from the UK, spent her teenage years in a battle with her own mind as she was left horrified by her own thoughts, which often included the harm or sexual abuse of children.
Her intrusive sexual and violent thoughts started when she was just 15 and left her believing she was a 'monster', even though she never had any desire to act on her own thoughts.
It was only when she was later diagnosed with OCD that things became clearer.
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"I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m a paedophile - I thought, I’m never going to forget this thought. My life is over'," she recalled, while also admitting that she had suicidal thoughts as she thought she was a danger to minors.
When she was finally diagnosed after seeing a TikTok about the condition P-OCD (Paedophile-themed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), she had a weight lifted off her shoulders.
What is P-OCD?
The International OCD Foundation describes it as a subtype of 'taboo thoughts' OCD relating to fears surrounding paedophilia, with an individual living with pOCD often being simultaneously flooded with unwanted thoughts or images related to this subject.
"An individual suffering with P-OCD will experience intrusive thoughts or images (spikes) accompanied by terrorizing anxiety," the foundation explains.
"The OCD has the ability to produce doubt or question memories, real or imagined. Additionally, OCD encourages you to monitor sexual urges as part of the evidence-gathering process."
'It felt like I was in a war with myself'
"My therapist said it is an awful thing to go to but that it is way more common than you would ever expect," she said.
"Getting all of that outside of me was the biggest part of my journey. It felt like I was in a war with myself, but now I knew what I was fighting."
Someone with P-OCD will go out of their way to avoid children due to being horrified about their own thoughts, with the disorder described as a combination of anxiety and uncertainty.
She's also spoken out this further on her own podcast, and about how the mental health disorder continues to affect her life today.
"During the time that I was having this awful spiral during my exams, my parents were trying to comfort me," she said. "I was constantly with them. They thought it was because of exam stress. Their favourite film was Forrest Gump, they were like 'oh Molly let's watch this tonight'. 'I was like yeah ok let's distract my mind'.
"I can't really remember the storyline now because I was that traumatised but something in it is about a little girl who gets sexually assaulted by an older man. It literally made it 10 times worse.
"People take the p**s out of me now because all I watch is the same reality TV over and over again. I very rarely watch anything different and I don't want to watch something where I don't know what's going to happen because I'm so worried that a theme is going to come up, or something is going to be really triggering or resonate with me."
Lambert is keen to raise awareness about the condition on her social media and has previously shared some of the other symptoms she experiences.
Topics: Mental Health
James Moorhouse