(This post will deal with discussions of pedophilic disorder from the perspective of someone diagnosed with it, and as such will include some descriptions of self hatred and mention of suicide.)
Let's set the stage with a scenario. The lights dim. The curtains are drawn. And the spotlight shifts to you while the audience leans forward in their seats. You feel the pressure of eyes on you, watching your actions. Calculating. Judging.
You stand in the fluorescent lighting of your local supermarket. It's the same sights and smells and sensations that it is every week when you venture in with a hand basket and a list of groceries. And it's simple routine that carries you through the aisles, the long way around through a more winding way than you necessarily need to go. And even this path isn't exactly clear, so your eyes move against their better judgment and see the glittered shirts and small skirts of the childrens' clothing section. Your stomach pulls nauseatingly and you settle on staring at the dairy shelves instead.
You've almost relaxed back into normalcy when a woman turns the corner with a child fussing for a new toy and your body tenses as they pass, reminding you that you're not right and why can't you be right and why can't you fix this. Were they looking at you? Did they notice?
The children on the cover of the magazines at the checkout seem to stare and you want to cry. Maybe you'll just order your groceries next time.
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Pedophilic Disorder is a wildly misunderstood phenomena that comes with a lot of stigma from all sides of the equation. Mapmiasics assumes that anyone who suffers from PD also suffers from recurrent urges and desires to harm a child. Many maps assume PD means a constant sense of self hatred. And the average person will hear the word "pedophilic" and automatically assume we speak of child molesters.
I can only speak from my own perspective when it comes to PD, and I fall under none of the above. For me, it comes with intense feelings of guilt and disgust, self loathing, and even suicidal ideation and tendencies. It does come with urges, but not in the sense that you may think. Instead, I find myself constantly and consistently thinking about being a minor attracted person and how much it impacts my life and my outlook. When I tell myself not to look down the children's clothing aisle at the supermarket, I find myself looking twice and hating myself for it.
I find no attraction to the clothes, no automatic interest in the kids in the store, no desire to act on it even if I do experience some sense of attraction. But the intrusive thoughts persist that maybe I will someday. Maybe they know. Maybe they can tell there's something wrong with me. I worry that I give it away, that my mere presence becomes something tangible and choking to those around me. More often than not, I cannot ALLOW myself to feel any sense of attraction. It is overshadowed by the negative, even if the attraction is to fiction, even if the attraction is to celebrities I will never meet.
To reiterate; I cannot go to the grocery store for a loaf of bread without a child's t-shirt causing an existential crisis.
Day to day tasks become exhausting, because as much as mapmiasics want you to believe that you can avoid children if you just try hard enough... It's a lie.
They're at the grocery store. They ride their bikes across the cross walk you've stopped your car at. They go door to door selling girl scout cookies. They're on the channels you speed by as you're flipping programs at night. And unlike most adults, you don't have the privilege to not notice, to not recognize. Because your brain is simply waiting to make the connection and remind you... Hey, something inside of you is a little whacky, have you thought of that lately?
You have. But you don't get the option to speed through the next breakdown and just get it over with. You will sit through it every time until you're tired of yourself.
It is an exhausting and constant reminder. One that I have been in therapy for for quite some time. I tell my therapist these things, she listens, she evaluates, she presents to me the conclusion that I pose no risk to those around me. Only to myself. The mapmiasics won't listen. They will insist she's wrong, that she's no professional, that she must be a pedophile herself.
I have a disorder, and this disorder doesn't garner sympathy but disgust from those who don't try to understand, who don't suffer from it. I have learned some tricks and shortcuts to keeping myself from having a meltdown on a daily basis, but it doesn't erase the fact that it could creep up at any moment. And so I have worked to learn how to handle that too.
This post is partially to explain what PD feels like, and partially to tell those who suffer from it that it isn't the end of the world and you can be okay. I wrote this on a day in which my PD is not overwhelmingly present, and so these thoughts come from a place of logic instead of sheer emotion. This could change tomorrow. But for now... Here I am and here is what I have to say as far as what works for me.
With time, I have learned that the strict avoidance of those things that cause me to balk was actually making the symptoms that much worse. To isolate myself from Disney channel because the actors are young, to walk the long way around the store to avoid child sized shoes, to look away from the magazines because someone may be under 18... It made me that much more aware of those things. They were no longer common place, they were the equivalent of seeing a gun pulled in a crowded restaurant- unexpected and panic inducing.
But to allow myself to walk THROUGH the clothing aisles, to smile politely at a mother and child, to watch that movie I loved as a kid even though the actors are young, it reminds me that I am worth basic human niceties and that my existence is not dangerous simply because I am here. I lack any sense of desire to act on my attractions, even on the days when I have allowed myself to acknowledge them.
This may not be the case for every person with PD, however. Some people WILL experience the desire and urge to act on their attractions. An urge is not an action. A want for something does not mean you will do it. Now and then, you may want to hit someone for being a jerk, you may want to eat an entire cake by yourself, you may want to say something you know is hurtful. But self control and impulse control can be fostered, and can minimize the intensity of these wants. There is no rule that says if you desire something, you must seek it.
We all, as non offending minor attracted people, do our best to minimize harm to children. It can be seen in how many of us have partnered with CSA prevention organizations, with how many of us willingly speak out about out our own abuse as children, with the constant activism that emphasizes how much we do NOT want harmful contact with children. We do everything in our power to show those who hate us that we are here but we did not choose to be, just as anyone else. But that we will make the best of our circumstances in spite of those who insist we are monsters.
But we also need to remember to minimize harm to ourselves as well. We need to remember to be kind to ourselves, that our sole purpose in life isn't to avoid every small thing that makes us happy, that we don't need to beat ourselves to a pulp over every intrusive thought or want or sliver of attraction. And it's so easy to say this when you're not in the middle of a crisis, but it's harder to carry it with you on the bad days too, when it feels like your skin is crawling with the self awareness. But it can be done.
If this post and my feelings seem contradictory, it is just because they are. Intrusive thoughts, feelings of worthlessness, feelings of self acceptance, desire for death, desire for normalcy, and so on. It's all part of the package, and those who deal with PD are probably just doing their best. I know I am.
This is a great post, very touching!