I have problems. A little background: I had porn addiction in my teens; it got worse when I developed incestual thoughts and had a mental breakdown and an existential crisis. I am now in my mid-twenties. My sister, to whom I was and can be attracted to, has blonde hair; this became a trigger. At the beginning of the fallout from my initial sex addiction, I felt so depressed and guilty I had little libido. So, I forced myself to feel sexual; even more than before, I began to use sex as an antidepressant. I would force triggers like color, texture, situation, shape, whether something has a (even vaguely) “womanly shape”, so on. It was a doomed cycle; I’d be miserable because I was addicted to sexual thoughts about my sister, I would engage thoughts about my sister because I was miserable. It got worse. Both to engage sexual thoughts about my sister and to force sexual thoughts about “more appropriate” people, I forced sexual thoughts when I saw blonde hair. The thoughts about children and teenagers more or less started because I kept forcing arousal when I saw smooth skin or blonde hair so I would feel good and feel sexual.
One of my triggers is paranoia over not knowing whether someone I have just seen in my periphery is an adult woman. My therapist and I have been working on relaxing a little on this issue, I don’t worry if someone I thought was a woman turns out to be a man or someone younger. He tells me that adults finding younger people attractive was not an abnormal trait in others’ lives. He says these thoughts occurred because I was starved of social interaction and love. I have been going to my neighborhood pool recently both to improve my social confidence and adjust to understanding when I’m seeing children as children and adults as adults. Occasionally, I think someone I look at that I am either attracted to or trying to figure out their age sees that I look at them, but I think they are just moments.
It has been going well decreasing my paranoia, but today something happened. A boy and a girl came by; the guy was maybe 17-18, I did not see too much for sure. The girl looked 16 but I wasn’t sure. As I drove past the pool entrance, I looked to see if I could determine her age still and saw her in a swimsuit; she looked back at me, like she saw me. I found her attractive. I know it isn’t the point, but anytime I see someone find attractive and either realize they’re too young or might be, I feel very lonely and isolated. Not to mention if I get suspicious, it ironically triggers and spikes my perverse sexual feelings about young people.
I feel guilty about looking and enjoying it and for being seen. I don’t like that I can’t tell people’s ages for certain. I don’t like that it could make people uncomfortable or potentially even paranoid. What do I do?