Warning: This article discusses OCD and intrusive thoughts involving children, which some readers may find distressing.
A 22-year-old woman diagnosed with a subtype of OCD that caused intrusive fears about being attracted to children has spoken about the moment she finally told her parents what she was going through.
Molly Lambert appeared on ITV’s This Morning on June 8, where she told hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard that the first intrusive thought hit while she was getting ready for a holiday—and that it quickly spiralled into something overwhelming.
She explained that it began with a fleeting judgement about a young girl’s outfit being inappropriate for her age. From there, she said, her mind latched onto the thought and escalated it into a constant cycle of fear and self-doubt.
What followed, she shared, was a period she described as a nightmare, which left her feeling so trapped and frightened that she came close to taking her own life.
Years later, after breaking down and opening up to her parents, she was diagnosed with a subtype of obsessive compulsive disorder often associated with intrusive sexual thoughts and fears involving children—an experience that can cause intense distress despite not reflecting a person’s desires or intent.
Lambert said the impact on her mental health was severe, and that she became convinced the intrusive thoughts meant she was a pedophile. She also feared that if she told anyone, she would be arrested.
During the interview, she described how difficult it was to consider telling her family, even though she lived in a supportive home.
She explained: “Obviously, when I first experienced it at 14, 15, I had no idea that OCD looked like this and could be anything that what I was experiencing.”
She said she recognised she was having thoughts about “harming people and being a pedophile.’
Lambert added that the stress of exam season intensified everything, and that she became reliant on being around others—even though she’d previously been very independent.
She said: “I mean my parents are amazing and like they’ve always been very, like, emotionally intelligent and quite an open household. And I thought I can never tell them that I’m obsessing about being a pedophile.”
Although she described the thoughts as feeling ‘ridiculous’ and ‘irrational’, she said they still took a serious physical and emotional toll.
She said through it all: “I couldn’t eat. I lost so much weight. I wasn’t sleeping. I was so terrified to be alone because obviously when you’re alone, you know, the thoughts get worse. My parents were like, ‘why is she always with us all the time?’ I was quite an independent person before, and I was, you know, sitting in their bed all the time and just like terrified. They thought I was nervous about my exams. That was that was the least of my worries, you know.”
Ultimately, Lambert said her parents responded with care after a breaking point on Christmas Eve, when she finally told them what had been happening.
She said she told them she had been ‘having these thoughts for years’ and that she believed it was OCD.
She went on to say: “Obviously, they didn’t know what I was talking about. I was quite distressed and um, they got me therapy pretty quickly. I mean, I was quite reluctant to go. I was just terrified. I thought if I admit this and say the word pedophile, it’s going to be I’m going to police will be there and whatever. And my therapist was just amazing.”