[Anxiety23]

Hi. I tried to post here earlier but it didn't work out.

I have to start with a bit of background. I'm a 23-year old male student. A bit over a year ago I had serious back problems and I felt like the relationship with my girlfriend was falling apart. I got depressed and my self-esteem was terrible.

I was already using too much pornography and alcohol and things got worse. I had always had an bit of an exhibitionist thing, but seeing a cam-capture video triggered something in my brain. I started browsing video-chatting sites like Omegle without a shirt. I was always worried about some young people there, but my porn-addicted logic was that they wouldn't get offended by a shirtless torso and you could easily disconnect anyway. (Basically this site is full of penises and genitals) I asked for my peoples ages and disconnected if they were too young.

I had some sexual encounters and later I would worry about their ages even though I had asked them. There was one exception to this rule. I was on the unrestricted 18-side of the site (you have to click ok to verify that you're over 18 - not very hard to do) and I connected to a girl. I first thought that she looks a bit young (could've been anywhere between 14 and 20 honestly) but I still asked her if she was intrested. My logic was that she was on the 18-side anyway. Well things happened and immediately after the encounter the terrifying guilt hit me. What if she was underage? Later it got worse as the memory blurred and I started panicking a lot.

This and the fact that I had masturbated to (legal) teen porn has led me to believe that I'm a potential pedophile or a sex offender. The chatting thing was entirely fantasy for me and I would never go out on the streets to show absolutely anything. I've been spending my days, watching loads of To Catch a Predator, getting anxious and suicidal and comparing myself to them. What if I'm one of them?

I keep questioning myself and my ethics. I'm so ashamed of what I did and I have terrible guilt over it. My rational brain tells me that I didn't groom anyone or force anyone to do anything and that I wasn't looking for underage people. Yet at the same time my brain keeps scanning for everything that has ever turned me on to find evidence. I believe there were a lot of genuine pedophiles on that site as well, and just thinking of it leads me to think that I'm one of them.

Now why I've posted this on the OCD-side is because I've always had OCD related to different issues. Actually the porn and alcohol were partly a (terrible) escape route for me. I've been worried and guilty for over 8 months and the scenes keep repeating in my head. I try to remember them as correctly as possible and it's not helping at all.

The worst thing is, I'm going to be a teacher. I've never had any intrest in any of the students or their age group and I would never want to harm a child. Now I just worry that I somehow done it already. I have no motivation to study and I'm considering to change the thing I'm studying. I'm afraid of myself.

I also have this fear of being exposed. Like what if someone had hacked me and gathered all my details and people would judge me and cast me out. There's absolutely no "evidence" of this yet it seems like a genuine concern to me.

Help, anyone?

[gtripoli]

I am sorry no one replied to you until now. Hopefully you are doing well.

Have you seen anyone about getting treated for OCD? I would definitely recommend doing that.

In the meantime, trying to find an answer to your question of 'am I guilty of xxxx' is really not productive. You will never be able to find a satisfying answer to that question. The more you try to be sure, the more your symptoms will flare up. I know you want nothing more than for people to reassure you that you are not a pedo, but that reassurance will not get you very far. Try to allow the question to remain unanswered.