Experiencing sudden and compulsive urges to secretly spy on and watch my sisters and others in my neighbourhood.
The start of a ‘secretly watching’ others Voyeur Compulsion?
I first started experiencing this when I was about 15. I would be in my room and have the urge to walk around the patio and look through my sister’s window or watch them from the skylight on the roof.
I would suddenly just get the feeling that I wanted to watch them, and be very excited by this idea. It felt wrong-my stomach hurt and I felt kind of sick and bad but at the same time I was very drawn to do this. It was almost automatic. When my stepsister would get home from work, I would go to her window and watch her undress.
After a while I also got urges to watch my neighbour and a girl who lived down the street. I liked the feeling of being free and wild and running around my neighbourhood. It was very strange but it felt like something I had to do.
The Trauma, embarrassment, humiliation and guilt of getting caught
I would do it probably 4 times a week when I was at my mom’s house. Eventually, I got caught. When I got caught doing it once and it made my family very upset. My sisters changed rooms because of it. Things settled down for a while and I stopped (I think I stopped-or maybe just did it less?). It started up again, and I was caught a second time. The second time it tore my family apart. I think it was actually my step dad that caught me outside of her window. He was very hurt, disappointed, and upset.
My sisters, my mum, and my dad felt very uncomfortable with me. It made me look like a liar and a pervert and eventually led my mum to send me away.
This issue had a HUGE and ongoing impact on my life
It split my family apart, and split me away from them. My mum sent me away to military-like outdoor recreation program for three months and I got a battery of psychological stuff. People told me I was psychologically unstable, did not have a conscience, and that I was a bad human being.
It affected me tremendously, and made me do and say whatever people wanted me to just to get out of that place. I just did what I had to just to survive-in the end I just felt nothing because in no way did I feel a connection or guilt for the original thing that I had done wrong, just a sense of absolute slavery to a family and society that would judge me as unworthy to participate as a citizen and human.
I lost the sense of who I was even more and grew completely isolated from everyone in my family. It took away my confidence and sense of self.
It felt like I was being misjudged for something that wasn’t even me. I didn’t know why I did this, and since there was no explanation I just reacted fearfully. When I did all this to my sisters and others, I knew that it was wrong but felt powerless to stop it.
My mum and father’s reaction the only reaction they could have had, but was equally senseless, in the sense that it didn’t SOLVE anything. They resolved the problem by ignoring the problem, and pushing it away. The truth is that I wasn’t JUST the problem. The issue and the way that it affected all of us was the biggest problem. I was made to apologize to my sisters but they were so clearly put in a position of superiority that it didn’t mean anything. If you force someone to apologize for something that happens and they don’t even know why they will apologize it will not change anything. Apologies in situations like this don’t mean anything.
Engaging with this Peeping Tom part and clearing it
When I first re-entered these feelings in late 2006, I blocked off from them and became VERY scared. Obviously, I HATED what I did in the past and didn’t want to relive this. The urge to watch people came on suddenly and VERY strong, and I fought it as best I could. What resulted was some half-hearted attempts to look through a neighbour’s window, and afterwards a lot of pornography (some voyeur-themed) and masturbation. After three hours of mixing clearing focuses (to address this issue) and pornography, and feeling VERY forced / manipulated into these feelings, the feeling suddenly left me.
This first phase was by far the most intense-although other urges to watch people come up and these kinds of feelings, mostly they are in the background and mostly I feel that I am now clearing my fear in regards to these because as some of you might imagine there is a huge fear when I’m grabbed by these impulses.
Obviously, this issue was HUGE in my life . . . .
This caused a family split and falling outs
It split my family up, made me feel like a bad human being and permanently affected my life. I have lived with the consequences of these actions for many years and EVERYTHING in relation to my family interactions has been tainted by these feelings and these past events. In the initial three hours of intense fighting with this issue the greater chunk of it has been resolved.
In retrospect, I realized that I made a LOT of excuses for what I did;
- They were just my sisters . . . .
- and
- I don’t have a problem, etc. etc . . .
. . . . but in the end there was no excuse for what I did because no excuse was needed. What was needed was to understand that something was MAKING me do this. That’s what this healing process made me aware of. It also changed the bedrock of who I was by clearing the things acting to cause me to be like this. So, I cleared in a day what perhaps a lifetime of therapy or trying to push this away or keeping it hidden could not do.
I had energetic crap MAKING me compulsively watch others
I have done more than apologize, I have done more than simply force myself to NOT be a voyeur or MAKE huge efforts to block it out or forget about it or keep it hidden. Within the healing process I had the space to engage with this issue as it was happening and rather than panic or dissolve in fear or shame or humiliation we found something acting to CAUSE me to BEHAVE LIKE THIS.
When you find the origins of something and you resolve issues AT THEIR ORIGIN you don’t have to keep using a combination of guilt / lying to yourself / desperately covering it up / or forcible adjusting to negate these impulses in an attempt to deal with something. You also learn to realize that while it’s not your FAULT (in a larger sense) that these things happened, although it is very definitely YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to resolve these issues.
Unlike other systems such as counselling or some other method, I did not ‘get past’ my issue by ignoring it or disavowing ANY part of myself. Rather, I courageously stood in myself as I watched what I HAD in the past considered a very scary side of myself that allowed us to identify this as something being DONE TO ME. Which was then RESOLVED by me working to GET RID of what we found. Other paths/ ways/ system often tell you that you are WRONG or BAD in some way, and that YOU are the one that needs to force a change. The approach I am using now says that;
- We ALL have these kinds of CRAP
- We can ONLY attempt to resolve them by engaging with them; facing them
- Then using tools that do ALLOW you to RESOLVE the ORIGINAL cause of these happening.
Clive’ comment. I can imagine that some reading this page will have some quite strong reactions to this type of example in public space. So, have a think about this? I’m resolving as in GONE, FINISHED / IT NEVER RETURNS worse issues than what is described in this example here in my clients ‘relatively’ easily. So, I applaud this person for having the courage to allow this up on a public site. People with this type of issue are in a catch 22, because it wont be easy to let anyone know that this is how they are? BUT if you don’t these issues will continue in the population and probably get worse. Hence although this is the most viewed page on this site, it took a year before anyone with this issue left a comment . . . or got in touch to have their own issues in these areas resolved . . . is that a surprise?
I see…so cases like forced voyeurism and other debilitating patterns can start as late as 15 years old? (Sorry, for me it’s late because I’m only 22 years old. Fifteen still seems like recent to me.)
How old is the client who has resolve this issue? I bet I’ll be twice as shocked if I find out his real age.
Still, I can’t believe this page is the most popular one on this site. That I never even bothered to look at this page until I read more indicates something about me (presumably something unpleasant that I’m not aware yet).
It sucks to have this kind of “voyeurism program” ruining one’s life. I’m not a lesbian, but I tend to look at women’s legs when they’re wearing shorts, mini skirts, short dresses, etc. I don’t know why I feel tempted/attracted (in a ‘sinful’ way) to look at them. Ironically, I’d be afraid of wearing anything that reveals my legs except when I’m on the beach. The simple act of wearing running shorts while jogging around makes me uncomfortable if I feel that I’m in a place where men are likely to look at my legs. I’ve seen women who keep wearing those revealing shorts and feel ABSOLUTELY comfortable and sexy wearing them. Either those Catholic teachings that “thou shall not display ‘tempting legs’ in public” is still on my mind or the compulsion is a deep symptom of something else.
P.S. I live in a predominantly conservative Catholic archipelago. Part of me hopes no one from my area sees this. I can already imagine people around me thinking I’m nuts. Ironically, lots of dysfunctional peeping toms exist in my country too.
Thanks for writing this article. I had a voyeurism problem involving my neighbor before. My family certainly treated me different during my problem; it’s like they knew about it, but they would not speak of it. Many people do not know the challenges and pain that a voyeur goes through during their problem.
Thanks for the comment Joseph, you’re the first person to brave leaving a comment about their experience of this subject, since this page has been up for over a year . . .
i am currently struggling with this problem.
I know it’s wrong and sick yet it’s a terrible impulse to have and even worse than alcohol or drug abuse because it’s not just me that’s suffering but the people who’s privacy i invaded.
It’s an internal struggle, in my head and doing it has made me paranoid and reclusive on occasions over the years.
Leaving this comment on this website marks my finding the will to get rid of this sick habit that’s tearing me apart.
Thank you so much for writing this article, you’ve given me the strength.
Hi Clayton, thanks for leaving your comment, it took a while to get my client into a better space and it’s not a nice issue to go through – I hope you get through this ok.
I used to have this problem, and i was even caught by my best friend peeping on his sister about 6 years ago. I tried to lie my way out with a pathetic excuse, for some reason he acted like he bought it even though I know he didn’t. We haven’t talked about since and I was never confronted by anyone else about it. Oddly, the problem seem to just go away over the years and that impulse is completely gone, but I still feel pretty worthless knowing that I was invited into their home and betrayed their trust, not only that of the girl but the trust of my best friend and the rest of his family. I feel it’s made things awkward to say the very least.
Thanks for your comment John.
I just found out today, my daughters boyfriend of 3 years spied on my younger daughter in the shower. I keep wanting to think he was playing a practical joke on her with his camera, but he never said anything to her when she caught him. I’m in such a quandary as to how to deal with this. Any comments, much appreciated.
Hi. I think you are tough for telling us such a thing, and I feel sorry that someone used you like that. Too bad it affected your life with your family. Lots of things that are difficult to understand, so we judge people for what they do without trying to figure out why
i think it is a brave endeavour to share an experience. i had this when i was about the same age.. looking in to the neighbours bathrooms from terrace, in to their living rooms,my brother,uncle bathing etc.but as i grew older and learnt it is not a right thing to do.. i controlled it. it is possible to leave it altogether. i beliieve that- “to enjoy your own privacy you must respect others too”only then one shall be free to do what ever one want to do.i hope god forgives me for what i did.
I had a different problem but also something I viewed as bad so I would try to hide it away and it would come back randomly. Finally one day I decided to energetically deal with it by feeling its full energetic vibration until it cleared out and it has never come back since. It’s completely gone now. The thing is, it’s like you get these energetic issues when some energy didn’t completely flow through you somehow and only by fully being there and feeling and letting the energy happen will it actually clear anything up.
I think that the way these things are handled are terrible. You pathologize someone when you label the person as bad for doing something that is natural to them. Especially at such a young age you do not know why you feel these things. I just think about my son now and what I would say to him (he is 5 now) if he ever starts doing something like that and I would try to minimize the emotional impact on him. Yes, the behavior is wrong but it doesn’t mean he understands it any better than I would understand it, but it doesn’t make him a bad person. As the Seon Master Dae Haeng Sunim says “nothing is inherently wrong, good or bad, it is only our feelings on it that make it so.”
As a female, & this is something I’ve never spoken of in over 20 years (except to 1 trusted partner) I had a compulsion from about ages 5 to 7 to get other girls (I did it to 3) to show me their privates so I could look at them. I’m heterosexual & I knew it was wrong as a child but had a compulsion. I was caught making a younger neighbour open her legs to me through the fence (I felt ashamed writing that) & my mother caught me in my cupboard making my best friend look at mine. My mother was shocked & reacted weirdly. They also caught me “playing with myself” as a child & made negative comments that still affects me to this day like I was doing something very wrong. Finally, I was caught looking up my mother’s night gown. I don’t know why I was just curious & knew it was taboo? I feel that my sexuality is something to hide especially from my family & still have a shame about these weird behaviours because I don’t understand them. Thank you.
I feel guilty as hell and stupid. I don’t know where the impulse came from….. plenty of possible factors. I’m just hoping I don’t hear anymore about it. I was looking through a crack in the bathroom stall door using the mirror. It’s the first time I’ve ever been so brazen about it. It was really unintended until I got that opportunity walking in. It’s really hard to not show that level of awkwardness I feel after being caught by a co-worker. Who may or may not report me….. I was fixing my hair in all that…. but too obvious….. I can relate to Nina’s story a lot. I’m similar in a lot of ways. It would take every ounce of me not to look at another females legs just because she was sitting next to me at school. I can’t wear revealing clothing. I can’t stand someone staring at me.
Even with my parents, I would have a hard time not looking at them a certain way. I’d look at their legs, primarily. It got to a point where they knew something was off about me, but they never did say anything.
Then there’s the porn that I viewed a lot until just recently. I used to watch porn several times a day, and reduced it to several times a week…. now it’s down to once a week or less. Somedays are worse than others.
I’m trying to better myself, but I’m still a weird female. A married to a man female who has female targets.
I love the man I married. He’s one of those I would do anything for, even change this part of me….. I’m stuck as to how. It is nice to write it out.
Thank you for this forum.