Topic: anxiety

Question: When I'm around children I get this intense feeling of paranoia and fear
I'm a male in my early 20s. Lately, my paranoia about being around kids is causing me too breathe heavy and sweat a lot. I then start to act weird because I'm trying to fight my paranoia. This leads to people starring at me because they don't know that I'm suffering from panic attacks and paranoia. They just notice me acting scared around kids and they think I'm a threat because of it.    I'm not a pervert or predator. I would never hurt a kid. I like kids and don't know why I'm so scared to be around them.    I don't understand why I feel like this. Am I a bad person? How do I make this stop?

Answer (from Kaileen McMickle, MS, LPCLicensed Professional Counselor):
Your very concern about your response to being around children shows that you aren't a bad person--it actually speaks to that you care. Panic attacks are really scary and not easy to deal with.  I wonder what you mean by paranoia--does this mean you are worried about your body's response when you are around kids?  Do you worry about their behavior?  Or does paranoia for you mean that you are worried about other people's judgments of you because of panicking?  If what you are saying is that you are trying to fight off the anxious feelings you have, it could intensify your symptoms because emotions want to be acknowledged.  One way to help manage through that is via deep breathing.  You can check out some videos on youtube that you vibe with and the nice thing about practicing this is it's very easy to do in public without people noticing.I'm also curious about more of the details of what your experience is like.  Are there certain age ranges or behaviors that trigger your anxiety?  Figuring out the specifics of what sparks that response in your body will give you some basic insight into why you are feeling that way and what types of situations to prepare yourself for.  You can do this by paying attention to what happened right before you started feeling anxious.If you are looking for more personalized ways of working through your anxiety, a counselor can help personalize treatment for you.  There are a lot of telehealth counselors available right now at lower rates due to the COVID issue as well.Overall message here is there's so much you can do and your anxiety means nothing bad about you!

Answer (from Martin Hsia, Psy.D.OCD, Anxiety, and Insomnia Specialist):
In our practice, many people we see have unwanted thoughts of doing harm to children - physically or sexually. As you said, these are intrusive and unwanted thoughts - not genuine desires to harm them. This is a form of OCD we often call Harm or Pedophilic OCD. What you are describing here as "paranoia" sounds similar to this, and is so demoralizing because you are dealing both with the distress of these unwanted thoughts and feelings, as well as the fear and uncertainty about your own character as a good person.If this is really what is going on (further assessment by the right professional would determine this), the current gold standard approach to addressing OCD is Exposure with Response Prevention - in this case, confronting the feared situations, thoughts or images on purpose, rather than avoiding them, until they lose the fear and shame associated with them.

Answer (from Sherry Katz, LCSWCouples and Family Therapist, LCSW):
Your question is written in a very sincere tone.   This, together with the fact of searching for self-understanding, sound more like someone who is unsure and puzzled, not someone who is "bad".What was your own childhood like?The sensations you describe feeling sometimes occur in people who are reminded of very deep hurts from during their own childhood.Is it possible what you're feeling is from being reminded of great distress you lived through when you were at a similar age as the kids around whom you feel this sudden and great paranoia and fear?