I just noticed that I used to fit the profile of a pedophile

[thegarden]

To be brief, in grades 7 to 8, I was:

- more interested in smaller kids than others my age

- hugely affectionate about little children

- in a position where I spent a lot of time with kids

- able to identify more with kids than people my age

- fascinated with more child-like activities

- did enjoy especially being around 5 or 6 year olds

Should I go on?!

I finally thought I was innocent after carefully running through my doubts of whether or not I did touch kids inappropriately. But doesn't all this point to me being more likely to do something like that in the past? I mean, I don't feel the SLIGHTEST attraction towards kids nowadays, but I could've been dangerous back then.

What does it mean? Should I be worried because I used to act like a pedo? I didn't even know it was seriously wrong to be a pedo back then!

[IrmaJean]

Those conditions would seem more appropriate to explore if you were an adult at the time, but you were only 12 years old, garden.

From your previous post:

I missed the innocence I had before those dark times.

Possibly you wished to connect with a part of yourself that felt lost to you? This makes perfect sense to me, and I can see nothing that involves anything sexual from what you've written.

It does seem like your OCD may be causing these anxieties. Maybe it's best to not give this more energy? Try distracting yourself with another activity.

I wish you a peaceful and anxiety-free day.

[malign]

No, all this points to you caring about children, in the past. Lots of people care about children; I'm one of them. I volunteered in sunday school when I was in college. Did I molest any of them? Of course not. How do I know? Because I was there (and I'm not dealing with obsessive thoughts.)

When my brother visits with my little niece and nephew, I play with them, hug them, fiddle with their hair ... None of that has anything sexual about it. On the contrary, children who aren't hugged and played with have been shown to suffer; humans are meant to touch each other, just in appropriate, non-sexual ways.

I'm not sure where you got this "profile" of a pedophile, but let's use logic. You could say "All pedophiles (say they) love children. I love children. Therefore, I'm a pedophile." but I hope if you did say that, you'd realize that that's ridiculous. It's an ancient logical fallacy, because of course, lots of non-pedophiles love children too, including, we hope, their parents.

Pedophilia is about sexual desire for children, and that doesn't appear in this list or anything else you've described to us.