Thanks for sharing this-- the linked post articulates things I have been struggling with for a long time but a. have been afraid to share with anyone and b. gives me a framework for understanding the pattern of occurence of these intrusive thoughts.

This posts hits hard.

My sister and I were molested as young kids. We are close now and it was more traumatizing for her than it was for me and we have both mostly worked through it. But this kind of off-the-cuff theorizing about mental health by randos and pop-psychology nonsense is why I've made some major decisions in my life.

One of these pop-psychology "truths" you hear a lot is that child molesters where themselves molested as children. I mean, maybe it is true for some or even many but it doesn't make total sense if you think about it. It had to start somewhere where their was an adult who never experienced it as a child and then did it. So it's not necessarily true.

For this reason though I have extreme anxiety about this. I have never thought inappropriately about a child but that doesn't matter. What if it is true? What if one day it suddenly clicks in me? And this deep seeded fear implanted in me by society altered my life. Maybe in another life I'd be a father. Not in this one. I was sterilized by choice. I married an older woman and she doesn't/didn't want kids. We are both past childbearing age anyways at this point. As much as my abuser stole this prospect from me so did this nasty little idea that because I am a victim I'm just one baby-sitting evening away from becoming a predator and I have never been able to shake it. Never will. There will never be a moment in my life where I can be comfortable being alone with a kid.

This is... an immense relief really. Those exact things but also arson and dismemberment and self-harm and all the other nasty shit that runs through my head. I'm sure I've mentioned it before but I was SA'd as a 6 year old child by another child of the same age but a bigger than me, nothing violent or penetrative just touching while I didn't understand what was happening really and later anxieties over it. I'm sure being raised Catholic and being convinced I was Hell-bound for it didn't help. I've fought all sorts of intrusive thoughts since I was young and it added to my anxiety, even though IRL I wouldn't hurt a fly and I've been told directly I don't have a cruel bone in my body. To know that other people have this flavor of horrifying shit flash unbidden through their head is oddly comforting.

I get a lot of intrusive thoughts, ranging from violent to just inappropriate, but the ones the post is talking about by far bring me the most self-hatred. I didn't know this wasn't a problem exclusive to me. On one hand it is horrifying that other people have to deal with this as well, but it is also good to know there are others who know what it is like. I've never opened up to anyone about my intrusive thoughts and seeing how neurotypical people react I probably never will.

Oh god other people go through this too? I guess I am glad I am not alone... but shit sucks

It's an interesting read that gives me a bit more framework to describe stuff I've experienced since I was a child. Like I remember when I was a kid getting a thought of "what if I push my grandmother down the stairs" when we were standing on an elevated patio and I got so freaked out about it that it just still stands out to me over 2 decades later.

Intrusive thoughts would give me major anxiety when I was younger, and I forget where I learned it from, but one of the strategies I used to help me with them was to mock them.

You should jump over this railing.

YoU sHoUlD JumP OvEr ThiS RaILinG.