World Mental Health Day and OCD Awareness Month: How Mental Health, Pedophile OCD, an Eating Disorder and Psychosis Nearly Stole My Life
In the last year and a half, I’ve been terrified to share the truth about how mental health, OCD (specifically Pedophile OCD), an eating disorder and psychosis have nearly stolen my life. I swore to myself that I would never talk about Pedophile OCD. I told myself over and over again “you will never be able to share this with anyone”. Because Pedophile OCD and psychosis are not things that people understand. Because what if it made people think I was actually a danger instead of just consumed by horrific intrusive thoughts and OCD? But I can’t stay silent any longer. Not when I see the bravery of people like Molly Lambert talking about Pedophile OCD. Not after sharing the Instagram story I shared the other day and seeing how many people reached out to me. Not when I know that this type of OCD is killing people.
So, for this World Mental Health Day and OCD Awareness Month, here is my story of the last year and a half.
In April 2025, after weeks of not sleeping properly, my OCD triggered psychotic symptoms and I was sectioned.
What I’ve always been terrified to say was what that OCD was about. I experienced a sudden onset of severe Pedophile OCD - persistent doubts about whether or not I could be a pedophile and whether I was a monster.
It got so bad that it triggered psychosis and I believed I had done something inappropriate at work that I hadn’t done. I was experiencing psychotic beliefs, persecutory beliefs of delusional intensity and depressive symptoms triggered by OCD.
This happened weeks after my book Girl Unmasked was released in paperback, and I felt like such a fraud. For six years my mental health had been stable. Suddenly I believed I was a monster. I believed there was evidence that didn’t exist. I tried to hand myself in to the police. I was terrified.
I was sectioned in April 2025. There are weeks of this time that I do not remember, and that is scary.
After a 6 week admission, I was discharged to basically zero community support, despite being told repeatedly that I needed psychology input. I returned to work as a nurse and tried so hard to cope, but I was around constant triggers (children) and I was traumatised from my own brain.
I fell deep into an eating disorder after OCD food refusal (I believed I didn’t deserve to eat because I thought I was a pedophile when I was psychotic) triggered starvation syndrome, which was later diagnosed as anorexia. I struggled to access private help due to my BMI being too low but was stuck on an NHS waitlist for ED psychology, whilst the community team remained absent.
I discharged myself from ED services and started working with a brilliant private clinical psychologist.
Despite losing my grandmother and a 4.5 year relationship breakup, I weight restored in January, but as I did, another incident at work triggered my OCD and soon enough I was psychotic again.
I started attending a day unit but ended up being sectioned - three more times this year. My OCD made me believe I was a monster. I thought I was a danger to children. I worried I’d done something I couldn’t remember. It was living hell.
When it triggered psychosis, I heard burglars trying to get into my house at night to harm my parents because of what I thought I was. I heard people following me and talking about me. I had to shout constantly at the voices to shut up and leave me alone. I have never felt so terrified, vulnerable and alone.
The admissions I had this year were extremely traumatising. I felt so angry at a system that did not understand my needs at times, and at other times felt blessed to have the most amazing professionals advocating for me. But coercion, restraint, and the system itself caused so much trauma that I will have to heal from.
My OCD meant I resigned from my job, lost my relationship, and felt my world completely crumble.
Pedophile OCD is one of the most stigmatised forms of OCD. People don’t talk about it because of the shame that encompasses it and because people don’t understand. But it is actually extremely common, especially among people who work with children. Persistent thoughts of ‘what if I’m a pedophile’, ‘what if I’m attracted to children’, ‘what if I’ve done something inappropriate’ make you feel like a monster. It strips you of all of your self-worth and made me feel that suicide was my only option.
OCD is egodystonic, meaning that intrusive thoughts are the opposite of someone’s morals or values. It attacks the most important things in someone’s life. There is no evidence that someone experiencing themes of OCD such as harm OCD, Pedophile OCD or sexual OCD makes them a danger to anyone.
If you don’t understand, then listen and learn. Approach with a non-judgemental attitude. Mental illnesses are not just anxiety and depression. They include other things too. Like psychosis and Pedophile OCD. Both of which nearly stole my life this year. I didn’t think I could live as the monster that I believed I was. Thankfully, by some miracle, I survived. And now I need to share my story and make sure that other people experiencing this know that there is hope. That they aren’t the monster their brain is telling them they are.
Please check out Inside Intrusive if you experience these types of intrusive thoughts. Please seek support from the NHS, or from charities like OCD UK or OCD Action or organisations like NOCD and OCFree. Know that you aren’t alone. You are battling one of the most misunderstood types of OCD. One of the loneliest. One filled with shame. But there is hope of getting through it. There is therapy and medication that can help.
This is terrifying to share. More terrifying than anything I’ve ever shared before. But I have to do it. For those out there who feel alone in this.
So there we have it. Happy World Mental Health Day and OCD Awareness Month.
Love, Emily x
GIRL UNMASKED (The Sunday Times Bestseller) is available to order from Amazon and all major bookstores as a hardback, paperback, audiobook and ebook.
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