Essay: How having childhood onset OCD lead me to believe I was a pedophile

by Nelson Maatman

As a young child I was very sociable, but as I grew older, what I now recognize was anxiety, took over. It started with a weird incident when I was 9 years old. We, as a class, were told to look over another class of 6 year olds and my classmates responded saying I was weird and started laughing. I was bullied in school and became more shy and introverted. I started seeing psychologists which reinforced the belief that I was weird.

I didn't have the necessary knowledge and verbal skills to accurately explain what I felt and why. I fell down the Rabbit Hole and it took me almost two decades to climb out, just to fall into another.

The first time I had butterflies more significant than a crush was on holiday in France when I was 11. A gorgeous suntanned 13-year-old boy from Belgium, with brown curly hair, who I can still remember vividly, caught my attention. There was no doubt in my mind, I was gay. *Back at* school my 8th grade teacher was an openly gay man. How lucky was I for having a gay role model right after figuring out I was gay myself. Sadly reality was more confusing and complicated than I was able to cope with.

Seeing how I felt like the only gay kid in my world I did what any kid growing up at that time would do: search for peers on the internet. It's not what I found. Instead my first meet was with a man in his late 50s with an interest in prepubescent boys. He didn't lie about that when he send me a message. But since he was not a scary man jumping from the bushes I didn't think he was hostile and decided to meet up with him anyway. I was hoping he would be able to share some wisdom. Maybe he could even introduce me to other gay boys.

That's of course not what happened.He gave me a DVD with videos of what he called "boys playing ping-pong". I was very much excited over the boys my age and older. It felt wrong and exiting at the same time. I had suffered from compulsive behavior from a very young age but since they involved security they where not identified as such. I would feel like I had to run up the stairs, I would check behind curtains and if doors and windows where secure, but the weirdest probably was that I was scared to be in the bathtub after pulling the plug. But nobody of course knew about that one. **I was seen as a scared child and as I withdrew more I was even misdiagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum.**

Child psychologist mistook my disinterest in a mandatory psychology exam for autism. Obsessions and compulsive behavior had a grip on my life. But **obsessive and compulsive intrusive thoughts are very hard to identify since I was terrified to disclose them.**

I was starting to think I was like the older man from the dating site. I had intrusive thoughts about raping children that would very much disturb me. I did not have the knowledge or skills to understand and identify the difference between an intrusive thought about rape and a rape fantasy. A rape fantasy is an enjoyable thought about having sex with someone against their will. I was terrified of committing such a crime and the unwanted thoughts I had about them where almost exclusively about fleeing and hiding after committing such crimes. To me they where not sexual or enjoyable at all. But since they had a sexual and criminal theme I did not disclose them. I would disclose other disturbing and intrusive thoughts to people, including therapists.

After lots of therapy things went from bad to worse and I was diagnosed with a Schizo-typical Personality Disorder, a disorder related to schizophrenia. I was hospitalized twice, but mostly learned to adjust to the narrative.

I was hanging out on the streets with a guy my age I really liked. We ran into a group of other teenagers and my friend started interacting with them. I experienced, what I now understand to be, severe social anxiety. I was 17 and a 14-year-old boy asked me to buy him a pack of smokes. I was really anxious and did what he asked. My friend however thought I was feeling anxious because I was nervous for liking the boy. He told me he thought I was a pedophile. It shook me to my core. This on top of intrusive thoughts about rape made me wrongfully self identify as a pedophile.

I immediately sought out therapy but this again turned counter productive. Normal therapists where too disturbed by the intrusive thoughts and specialists where so focused on sexual abuse prevention they failed to try to identify what it was that I was feeling. Everyone was focused on what they saw as paranoid and delusional thoughts. The obsessive thoughts, like for example swallowing and choking on a fag as I would take a drag, were ignored. I started avoiding places with children. I'd go around a few blocks to avoid passing by a playground or school.

Eventually I would avoid going outside during the day altogether. I found another alternative therapists who made things worse. As I was walking the street with him he noticed I would look away if children passed by. He told me to not be scared and just look. It just worsened my anxiety.

While looking for non-therapeutic solutions to my anxiety, I ~~went on to talk~~ talked to the most famous pedophile activist in the Netherlands in hopes of finding a way to achieve inner peace. He warned me about violence from other people. ~~Therefore I thought~~ *I started thinking* the anxiety I felt, which I thought was stress and fear, came from an external source: a hostile society. *Since the world would believe* I didn't want sex with children I thought I needed the world to accept for society to accept people who do want that: Pedophiles. I needed to change society to not be hostile towards me.

From here on my story goes from bad to worse. But the whole world was witness to that train-wreck. Here's what you don't know: I always avoided being around children. I didn't want to risk anything happening.

Then one day I couldn't return home and decided I had to leave. (???? we need details here)

I left for Frankfurt international airport without a plan. I asked for international flights to countries I could go without a visa. He suggested Mexico City. A return flight would cost me €350. I expected desserts and excruciating heat, tacos, parties with salsa music, colorful art. I jumped on that plane and found something else, something better: I found out who I am. I had barely had sex with anyone except for a double timing friend, who I felt was the love of my life, for more than a decade.

In Mexico however I went on Grindr and found what I really wanted: Handsome Latino gay guys. I had what I experienced to be huge feelings for very much adult guys. Feelings I knew I had never had for a minor since I was an adult. Of course these relationships where very dramatic because of how new and big these feelings where for me. I went on Grindr and hooked up almost daily, I'd go to a bathhouse SODOME and would hook up with as much as 7 guys in a night. I had found my hedonistic dream. I caught feelings badly for one, but when he found out who I was it ended. Then I started dating another guy, until eventually I got snatched up by a Christian fundamentalist who planted printed (what year is this?) child pornography of girls(!) on me.

I hope that's not where my story ends, but for the last 15 months I have been awaiting trial for a fabricated case. I was happy for a few months but I guess the universe doesn't want me to be happy. Still, I'm still happier and have more sex than I had two years ago. So even a Mexican shit hole prison isn't the worst my life had to offer so far. But I don't think I deserve what life threw at me.