Woman who believed she was a pedophile before OCD diagnosis shares impact on life

Warning: This article contains themes of OCD pertaining to intrusive thoughts about children, which some may find triggering.

A 22-year-old woman has come out to reveal the way her obsessive thoughts took a toll on her life after experiencing a form of OCD known as P-OCD.

Molly Lambert was going through a tough time in her life when she began to experience thoughts that left her unable to eat, sleep, or be alone.

Sadly, those thoughts focused on children, and her potential attraction to them.

But what Molly didn’t know was that she was suffering from a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, known as P-ODC.

Molly, who appeared on ITV’s This Morning today (June 8), explained that it took a major toll on her mental health.

She revealed that it all began when she had a thought about a young girl’s outfit being too inappropriate at an airport as she was jetting away on vacation.

From there, it became a daily struggle.

She said it began when she was at an airport (This Morning)

Molly’s intrusive thoughts spiraled, and she soon worried she was a pedophile who would be arrested if she told anyone about what she was thinking.

However, after going to therapy, she soon learned that she was suffering with a common trait of OCD.

Speaking with hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard, Molly revealed that though she is ‘quite fresh out of the diagnosis’ after having been given the diagnosis last year, she understands that she had been displaying the signs for a couple of years prior to seeking help.

She explained: “Obviously, when I first experienced it at 14, 15, I had no idea that OCD looked like this and could be anything that what I was experiencing.”

Mentioning the stigma of OCD, which usually depicts a person being organized or a ‘Monica’ archetype, she said that while themes of ‘contamination’ are common occurrences, that’s not what she experienced.

Instead, she said she had thoughts of 'harming people and being a pedophile,’ which she now knows are based on ‘irrational thoughts’.

She explained that her exam period at school made things ‘worse’, and it got to the point that the thoughts ‘completely’ took over her life, leaving her struggling and 'very close to ending my life’.

"I thought that I was the only person in the entire world that had dealt with this,” she explained.

P-OCD is a sub-type of OCD, according to The Gateway Institute, which states: “pOCD belongs to the fourth category, in which the patient suffers from extremely unwanted and intrusive thoughts about sexual orientation towards a child.”

It reveals that people with P-OCD are not pedophiles, as they ‘do not, in any way, want to harm children’, with many people, like Molly, reporting ‘that they would rather take their own life than to actually harm a child.’

Treatment is ‘crucial’ for the best outcome of patients, which includes things like therapy and exposure exercises.

But it’s important to know that if you believe you have P-OCD, to seek professional help so that you can begin treatment as soon as possible.