New here: this intrusive thought makes me want to kill myself.

During last summer, I developed a sense of high anxiety around being in the company of young people/babies that I'd never had prior. This was a result of feeling intense distress over finding out that an ex teacher was a pedophile. I came to realize in March this year through research that this is called POCD, which provided me with a lot of relief.

In the late evening of Monday, 23rd September 2019 after having moved back into university halls of residence for my second year a week prior, I basically watched lewd stuff (obviously with adults in) for around about 2-4 hours intermittently when my depression was as its worst height. I'd already experienced false memories by this point.

I would go from lying on the front of my chest and push into the bed (an awkward way of doing it that I developed when I was in my early teens) while watching the lewd stuff on my phone, to then sitting up and watching random videos on YouTube.

The second to last video I watched was a video of Kurt Cobain and his 2 year old daughter, that appeared on the homepage after going back from and sitting up in bed again. At this point, I remember thinking that if I were to watch this video, I shouldn't watch another video afterwards, purely ''because this YouTube video had a baby in it'' - even though I knew deep down that the two videos were entirely separated by tabs on my phone, not to mention obviously by content.

Nevertheless, I watched the interview video, scrolled through the comments and paused at a specific point then went back to the lewd stuff, and only then did I kneel down again, but with a video loaded.

Finally, I remember sitting up again and going back to the YouTube homepage and the first video shown was a slideshow of Cobain's daughter through the years and I remember feeling so much guilt for having watched the prior stuff. The reason for this is that - as best as I can describe - seeing her (as a baby, the pinnacle of innocence) exemplified the essential humanity that we all have, including the adult performers I'd been watching.

As a result, I felt heavy guilt (that I now realize to be misplaced) for being what I considered to be ''anti-feminist'', and an ''evil person''.

Perhaps I overthink the morality of things, I don't know.

My brain at the time immediately started to go into overload and overlap what would otherwise be two separate actions of watching YouTube then lewd stuff. I remember going to the sink afterwards, and dry-vomiting.

With regards to the actual first-person recollection of possibly staring at the Cobain video, I have no explicit sensory memory of this. The 'image' in my head is grainy at best. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself were this the opposite.

After leaving the bathroom and panicking a lot, I walked through it step-by-step, and eventually felt comfortable enough that I hadn’t done anything wrong and so I left it. This, as a general worry didn't reappear again till May 2020, with the rest of 2019 being spent going from day-to-day worries and false memories. I even felt happy and content on New Year's Day this year.

Surely, if I'd done this horrible thing, I wouldn't have been able to feel anything happy ever again?

At first, I wondered if I did do it, and I just repressed it, or I didn’t and actually it’s just my overactive imagination mixed with my anxiety. I know that in my heart I didn’t do anything wrong, as I had listened to Nirvana plenty of times afterwards, and didn’t feel pangs of guilt or shame that I know I would’ve if I’d done anything wrong.

Things have gotten better mildly. My first appointment with an OCD therapist is soon. I'm currently two weeks and four days into taking a beta-blocker to regulate my heart-rate and blood pressure that helps ward off the panic attacks I have about it.

I'm trying to sleep better, but sometimes the image creeps in too much. I'm due to get a new set of the anti-depressant mirtazipine soon, too.

But even with that, it all feels like too much right now and I'm more suicidal than ever about this.

I don't want to die over an image in my head, but is this a belated guilty conscience?

I worry that I might, out of a morbid curiosity, have done it. I remember faintly thinking how awful it would be to do it, and then - as far as I know - not doing it.

At the same time, I'm becoming exhausted with just existing on the periphery, not showering and ordering takeaways etc. I have a drive to continue life because I know I didn't do this, as there's no way I would have done it, let alone live with myself afterwards. I'm aiming to get my life back. Sorry, this post is kind of despondent and hopeful.