Woman who thought she was a pedophile shares terrifying symptoms of rare condition

A Manchester woman has revealed how severe OCD fueled violent intrusive thoughts that made her believe she was a pedophile, symptoms of P-OCD that forced her to confront a terrifying question: “Am I a killer?”

As a teenager, Molly Lambert experienced unwanted sexual and violent thoughts, looping endlessly in her mind until it consumed her daily life.

“I genuinely thought I was a pedophile,” Lambert, 22, told the Express in a March 3 interview. “The shame was overwhelming. I felt like a monster. I couldn’t even tell anyone what I was going through.”

The intrusive thoughts disrupted her daily life and created fear around being alone, eating, and sleeping.

“It was fight or flight constantly. Every thought was dark, I wasn’t eating properly, I wasn’t sleeping, I was so scared of being alone and going to bed,” she said.

At the time, she didn’t recognize her obsessive thoughts as possible symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).