This is a repost from my thread in sexuality issues forum so if you've read that then congrats you're already done with this entry

I'm a 20 year old guy suffering from social anxiety, depression, as well as pedophilia. Now, before we go any further please note that I've never acted on these desires because I know they're wrong and that anything I did would hurt the kid. I'm actually very protective of kids in general. I can't stand the thought of someone hurting a child. Its the one issue that I get really emotional about. As such I can't stand child pornography. I saw some once on an image board, before the mods pulled it down, and broke down crying. I just don't understand how someone could do that to another human being, much less a child.

Anyway, this all started when I was 13. At the time I didn't really have any friends and had social anxiety making it more difficult to put myself out there and try to meet people. One day I started working with preschoolers at church because they were short-handed one day. I loved it because I finally had people in my life who accepted and validated me as a person. As I continued working with kids I started to notice an emotional attraction to some of the girls I worked with. At the time I just thought of them as my favorites, but looking back I can see that they were actually crushes.

Soon I started to identify with kids more then then my peers and started to find them sexually attractive as well, although not nearly as much as girls my own age. Using the human mind's power of rationalization I told myself that I felt this way because I was just a horny teenager and that it would pass in time. Unfortunately I was wrong.

At 16 I discovered porn at first it was just women, but eventually I started looking at kids. While I didn't really look at child pornography, I certainly walked the line for quite a while. By the age of 18, I was completely addicted to looking at pictures of girls in bikinis and while I still thought women were attractive, they weren't nearly as attractive as kids. I couldn't deny it anymore, I was a pedophile. It was the most painful moment of my life. I thought I was a monster and started to hate myself.

This was all of course completely secret from everyone I knew. No one knew I looked at porn and there was no way in hell anyone knew about my pedophilia. I wanted to reach out and get help desperately but I couldn't. My parents would freak out if I was gay so how the hell would they react to this? I couldn't go to the church, if anyone at church found out then they'd all hate me and label me a freak and a monster and my life would be over. I could go nowhere for help. Even God seemed out of the question. I prayed to him quite often, usually for death, but he never seemed to answer my prayers. I was completely alone. I would not wish that pain on anyone.

About a year ago I started opening up to some of my online friends on another forum about my pedophilia. Most were supportive and understanding in the beginning but over time they stopped talking to me. One person really stuck with me through it all and along with their help I really began to examine my feelings and the causes behind them. It was during this time that I realized that my attraction to children stems from the fact that they were the only friends I ever had.

I also started to think about my teaching career and if I should teach or not. I had kept teaching through all of this, although I was very careful to avoid tempting situations and I only taught the preschool class because I don't find kids that young sexually attractive at all. I do occasionally get crushes on them, but they're paternal not romantic like my feelings for older kids. I just want to take care of and look out for them and nothing else. Even with all these precautions I was hesitant to just assume I would be OK. I went back and forth on this issue for months, blogging about it and even talking to my online friends about it. Finally, I reached a point where I realized that I can still work with kids. I know some of you find that disturbing, so let me explain my reasoning. As I said earlier, I avoid situations that are tempting, which isn't very difficult because they make me incredibly uncomfortable. Even when I've been in very tempting situations where I knew I could get away with hurting a child, I've never even considered doing so. While yes, I find children attractive, I find the idea of hurting a child by acting on these desires to be completely unappealing. Its so wrong.

I'm doing so much better now then I have been in the past. While I still look at pictures of kids, its only once in a great while and its getting easier to ignore such impulses. I'm still rather depressed though with no friends and having trouble with my social anxiety making it difficult to make friends but I don't hate myself anymore. I'm even slowly starting to work on my relationship with God although its a slow process. Hopefully by coming here I can find some more support so and help as well as people actually going through the same thing I am (one of whom actually pointed me to this site). I don't want to live like this anymore, its awful.

So yeah, thanks for reading all that, if you have any questions or anything feel free to ask them here or PM me.