am i a pedophile? plz help

[Blake567]

hi im 18 and i am scared right now any help is great preferably from a therapist when i was 16 i came across a nudist site i did pleasure my self to little kids a few times and since then i have never gone back i have never looked for stuff similar i live right next to a park i see alot of kids i have never seen one or talked to one and have been sexually aroused by them i have never had fantasies of children any porn or i have watched since then has been mature women i have had no urges to see that type of stuff again i would NEVER hurt a child but im scared i have talked to my mom about it which was very hard but shes great she talked to me she thinks it was just curiosity since i was to young and have never seen that stuff and all was fine till now my friends were talking about pedophiles and i remembered what i did and since about a month or two ago im not sleeping well im not eating well i dont want to get out of bed i anmmaking myself so upset im having diarrhea i aslo have bad anxiety so i can not let this go im googling a ton of stuff desperately trying to disqualify myself from being a pedo i setup a meeting with a therapist but they turned down my insurance and we dont have the money to see one also my dream is to be a police officer in my home town which im terrified this will jeopardize this is bad its the first thing i think of when i wake up and the last when i go to bed im literally driving my self crazy i need to know that this is not who i am i need answers surely a pedophile wouldnt have this much guilt surely if i was a pedo i would have fantasies about all the kids i see at the park i live next to surely a pedo would have over whelming urges to see that stuff again am i going to hell? am i a bad person? was this just a week long really weird phase? was this just curiosity? am i a pedophile?

[slowlylosingit]

Pedophilia, or paedophilia, is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children (wikipedia). The fact that your primary sexual interests are not children (nor are they your only sexual interest) already means that you are not a pedophile. Don't worry about that term. On the other hand, you have had sexual thoughts about children and if that continues it should be addressed by a professional. I am not a professional in any aspect. Most people will call a person a pedophile if they are attracted to anyone under the legal age (usually 18 years old). That is not what pedophilia is. Someone under the age of 18 is a minor, not a child. Teenagers are usually adolescents, but age doesn't define "child", "adolescent" or "adult" when speaking scientifically. Legally a person is an adult once they hit the legal age in their area (again, usually 18). However, this doesn't mean that they are a child legally until they are 18. The legal term, again, is minor. A minor is not a child. People confuse this all the time.

A child is someone who has not yet entered puberty. For instance, if the person is female, they would not have started to develop breasts. They would be totally flat chested. Once a person BEGINS puberty, they are an adolescent. Once puberty has completed, that is when a person is an adult. None of this is defined by ages. Pedophilia isn't a legal term and no laws define it. If you find yourself attracted to people who have just started puberty and have some beginning characteristics of puberty, that is called hebephilia (usually aged 11-14). If you find yourself attracted to people in the later stages of puberty, that is called ephebophilia (usually ages 15-18). Most people have never heard of this so everyone just incorrectly throws around the term pedophile.

Now, all that being said, you need help if you continue to have any sexual thoughts toward children. In reading your statement (please try to use periods, it is very difficult to read/comprehend otherwise) it is a little hard to determine what is really going on as you seem to contradict yourself a bit. If you truly have never had any more sexual thoughts about children and it only occurred once or twice when you were younger, then I see no reason for you to be so concerned. Since you are clearly very upset and concerned I have to wonder if you don't have ongoing thoughts. Even if you are, I would be careful. Once you admit this to someone you could possibly have the local police notified about you. It could cause you many issues down the road. When police suspect you are a pedophile, guess what, they might not treat you very kindly.

If you EVER find yourself wanting to do sexual acts with children, have thoughts about abducting or grooming or otherwise interacting with a child in real life in any kind of sexual way, then yes, you should get help immediately.  If you do not have these kinds of desires or thoughts, then I would stop thinking about it and move on with your life. No need to dwell on something that isn't happening anymore. But please, please get help if you are thinking about doing something in real life to/with a child.

[Paxiled]

I think it's more complicated than the above statement because, even if you're not a pedophile, you are suffering anxiety and obsessive thinking that is affecting you a lot from your statements.  The treatment necessary is for the anxiety and obsessive thinking whether or not the person is a pedophile who hasn't yet acted on it.  By the way, pedophilia is indeed a legal term and every jurisdiction has a law defining it.  That law might not mention the word pedophilia, but that's what's being outlawed.  The law is written differently in different jurisdictions, and US law and English law comes from laws that were derived by court cases and weren't written down until the last several decades in every jurisdiction.  The above post is right -- these days a lot of people publicly confuse pedophelia with statutory rape, which isn't rape at all because it's consensual but an age is set where someone is considered off limits.  These complexities are of no consequence to anyone on this forum -- this is an anxiety forum, and that's the problem the poster has even if no action has ever been taken in response to something a lot of people have exposure to but take no action about and forget about later in life.  But they also aren't sitting around worrying themselves to distraction about it.  That's anxiety whether or not there's any legal problems involved.    

[slowlylosingit]

If he goes and admits he has anxiety because he has had sexual thoughts of children that could very possibly set in motion events that will cause him a whole hell of a lot more anxiety than his current situation is giving him. I still advise against doing that unless he is having thoughts of actually acting out his sexual thoughts on real life children. If you think his anxiety is bad now, wait until the police know about this and it is in his permanent record that he is a possible pedophile. And Pedophilia once again is not a legal term in any way sense or form. It did not derive from any laws. It comes from the greek words meaning child and friendly love. Child is also not a legal term. There is no law regarding pedophilia. Laws are based on ages and pedophilia is not. It would be very difficult to enforce a law if it was based on pedophilia as the victim would have to be proven to be a "child" first. Laws just use the term "minor" instead and draw a line in the sand at a particular age which is pretty much all you can do without making everything far too complicated.

If you are worried about this person's anxiety, then you should recommend he NOT say anything to anyone else about his thoughts. If he wants to get help now he should not mention those thoughts but perhaps swap them out for other thoughts. I doubt these are his only anxiety causing thoughts.

[Blake567]

i have many many anxiety causing problems moving,cancer and a lot more. this is the main thing at the moment. i have had no thoughts before or after what i did. i think the reason i am freaking out is because i feel im a terrible person for doing that even though i never hurt anybody. could this be possible it was curiosity or some kind of phase that lasted like a week? like i said i have had no sexual thoughts nor urges to see that stuff again. i have had no fantasies that involved children. a pedo wouldnt feel this bad right they would think this is normal?

[Paxiled]

Slowlylosingit, anything said in therapy is legally private and cannot be discussed with anyone.  You also don't have to tell the therapist anything you don't want to and still give them a pretty good picture of what's going on.  Living with anxiety for your entire adulthood, as I have, is worse than anything else I can imagine.  It limits your life far more than not being able to get one particular job -- you can talk yourself in time into not having any job or any life.  Better to be happy if you can get there.

[Paxiled]

I should say, can't be discussed with anyone unless you confess you're about to commit a crime.  Nobody forces you to say that in therapy, and also, events don't cause anxiety, anxiety is a disease with no known cause.  People without anxiety, including those of us before we got our chronic anxiety, had a lot of bad things and bad thoughts but moved on.  That's what people do.  It's what anxious people don't do.  I'm taking this person at his word, which is, he had an experience when young that is bothering him even though he has never followed through on what he's obsessing over and has no intention to follow through on it.  But I can't know and you can't know what's actually going on because we're not there.  Whether this obsession is over something that might actually be a problem or whether the obsessing is a problem, resolving it resolves it.  Not resolving it in order to maybe get a job some time in the future, well, I've said my piece.

[Paxiled]

There are no therapists on here, we're just anxiety sufferers.  You are suffering from obsessive thoughts, which all anxiety sufferers suffer from.  So do all depressed people.  If we didn't obsess over negative things we wouldn't have the problem.  In your case, though, what you're obsessing about is justifiably raising concerns for you for more reasons than just anxiety.  You must get into therapy and right away.  If you can't afford it, and I mean truly can't afford it, there are programs for that.  If you have insurance as you indicate, there are therapists who take it, just not the one you tried.  On the website of your insurance company will be a list of all the providers who take your insurance, and then you call each one to make sure they still participate and are taking new patients.  But one way or the other you must get into therapy as soon as you can, both to calm you if this is just obsessive thinking and in case your fears might have some validity to them, given you have said here you were aroused by pictures of naked children.  What turns humans on can be pretty odd and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what you're going to actually do, as you've found out -- you haven't done anything.  But let's be sure, okay?

[Paxiled]

By the way, the fact you're concerned enough to come on here and talk about it means a lot -- if you were a true pedophile you wouldn't think it was wrong, though you might know others do.  But again, therapy is necessary for you.  Please talk this over with you Mom as she will probably be better as an adult at finding you a therapist.

[Blake567]

i just dont get it if it means anything i was watching really weird porn around the same time could it be possible i was just figuring out what i liked? because i only watch straight porn now and have had no thoughts nor urges around children that would not be the case with a true pedophile right? im scared that getting therapy will disqualify me from my  dream job i also had no thoughts nor urges before i did that you dont just wake up one day and are a pedo and it was a one time thing