Afraid of becoming sex offender

Yuna my dear,

You are NOT a sex offender. You are NOT a child molester. You are a young woman with high morals who is horrified at the very thought of hurting children this way.

The problem is some thoughts, images and urges that torment you. If you were a wicked, evil person, you would simply do those things and maybe even feel good about them. But in fact your whole cry for help is because your morals tell you that doing so would be wrong.

So, actually, you can be proud of yourself.

It doesn't really matter how this terrible problem started, but I have a theory. At one time, you saw a small child, and the thought of wanting to cuddle her came into your mind. There is nothing wrong with that - I often feel like cuddling little kids, and what's more when I have the opportunity I do so, without any sexual overtones. However, because of your memories of the sexual abuse against you, you misinterpreted this desire as being sexual. When that happened, you were horrified, and tried to banish the thought.

Fighting a thought gives it energy. To prove it, DO NOT think of "hippopotamus" for one minute. Of course, the more you focus on not thinking it, the more it intrudes into your mind. And this is what you've been doing with your thoughts about little kids. You have interpreted them as terrible, and this led you to fighting them, and the more you've fought them the stronger and more frequent they became.

Therefore, do the opposite. When one of these thoughts comes, treat it as inner noise. It's not real until you glorify it with belief. It gains power by being fought, argued with, and treated as important. You didn't ask for the thought. It just came. You can't turn it off, you can't banish it, but you don't need to listen. Have you ever been in the same room with a TV that has images of people on the screen, and voices coming from it, but you are paying attention to something else? If someone asked you what the show was, you might actually not be able to answer.

Treat any unwanted thoughts, images, memories, urges, moods, emotions, even physical pain sensations in your body, in the same way. They're there, so what. This may take a little practice, but it is very powerful.

You are not what you think inside. That's only noise, unless you believe it. You are what you DO. So, that should handle the immediate problem of how to deal with your feelings of guilt and horror at yourself. There is nothing to feel guilty about. Therefore, you can go to your doctor and get weaned off those nasty pills.

However, you can and should do something about the childhood sexual abuse against you. You can have free access to a psychologist. Go to one who is competent at dealing with this issue.

And my dear, have a good life. You can.

Bob