- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
I’m not trans but some of my best friends are, so I can speak from what they’ve told me. Basically, if you mess up someone’s pronouns, what you’re supposed to do is apologize, correct yourself, and then move on. I know with ocd we often have a tendency to want to confess, or to apologize over and over, but that not only is harmful to you because it’s a compulsion, but it also makes the person you misgendered feel uncomfortable. I will often though, to avoid misgendering someone, practice using their pronouns by myself in private. Don’t let that become a compulsion though.
- Date posted
- 5y
i apologized and i’m more calmed down now. i just felt really guilty.. like it was really unexpected and it happened so fast and i just didn’t know how to react. i didn’t know they were trans until today and i literally went down a spiral.
- Date posted
- 5y
@val ʚĭɞ Glad you’ve calmed down some. I’d say what’s happened happened, and just treat your friend the same way you’ve always treated him. He’s the same person now as he was before you knew he was a boy.
- Date posted
- 5y
i cant breathe and i can’t stop shaking someone please
- Date posted
- 5y
ugh i’ve never felt so horrible someone please
- Date posted
- 5y
Exactly what Nikki said. My sibling transitioned a decade ago and we still slip up occasionally and misgender or use his dead name if we are talking about the past/childhood etc, even though we DO think of him as male. I've never known someone to be mortally offended by it, especially if you didn't know they were trans at all in the first place it's extremely understandable. We all just want respect and acceptance for our identities and you haven't disrespected that at all, you recognise and respect their identity now that you know about it and I'm sure they get that. Ambiguous gender presentation causes this situation all the time, every trans person knows that it can take people time to adjust to the change both in words and the mental image of them in your mind. You can survive feeling guilty until it just goes away again by itself (as it's supposed to), you don't need to dwell on or punish yourself for an innocent mistake. You also don't need to obsess and make yourself ill about being certain that you never do it again, either. We all slip up. It's fine to slip up. We can't get everything right all the time, and we can all survive it when we make a mistake. The only offensive thing would be doing it deliberately to hurt their feelings or out of 'disagreeing' about their identity.
- Date posted
- 5y
thank you for this. we talked today and we got over it:) he thought i knew that he was trans but i didn’t so we laughed it off. i’ll learn from this and maybe apply it in a nearby future!
- Date posted
- 5y
it is fine u already know ur "mistake", u didn't know he was a boy.
- Date posted
- 5y
i just feel so bad.. i really didn’t mean it at all. i was just making sure about his pronouns.. ugh.
- Date posted
- 5y
@val ʚĭɞ it's okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them, try to not feel guilty ik your mind will be punishing you but tell yourself that you recognize that mistake and u learned from it
Related posts
- Date posted
- 20w
I don’t know why I keep triggering myself but I think it’s real this time. I’m really fucking scared. I don’t want to be a boy but I feel like I have evidence now. Honestly this is the worst I’ve ever been, my anxiety is so bad and I really think it’s true I don’t want to be a boy but fuuuuuuck it feels like there’s no way out. I’m only 14 and I already feel like my life is over before its even started :(( I miss the girl I used to be Edit: I know I shouldn’t be doing this but I’m doing compulsions by going on trans forums to confirm I’m not trans, any advice to help me stop?? I really need your help :(
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 12w
Hey, yesterday my ex told me something I did that hurt them. This was that I didnt respond in a supportive way when he came out to me. I genuinely had no idea he was coming out (I thought it was a flippant comment) and I was frustrated as we had been having issues with intimacy for months. He said it made him feel awful and it’s only since telling his friends that he has realised how painful my reaction was. I apologised as I do feel awful I made him feel that way but now I keep questioning my reality or perception of what happened. I also keep wanting to reach out to explain why I responded the way I did. Any tips for when you genuinely feel like a monster or did something so outside of your morals? I feel awful
- Date posted
- 11w
the past month ive been ruminating about a time last year where i hurt a friend by unintentionally bringing up a traumatic memory when i was really drunk, enough that i didnt remember it, so i went 6 months without apologizing until i was worried when they werent talking to me anymore. so they told me when i finally tried to talk to them. i apologized and they told me we were ok now, and still want me in their life, but now they stopped talking to me again and its been 3 weeks, and im terrified that i did something again, especially since they stopped talking to me when i made a mistake before, and wont tell me outright. the event triggered horrible horrible guilt over what i did, mostly guilt About the guilt i was feeling, because its not a normal amount of guilt for a regular person, and eventually my compulsions for confessing and ruminating reached a high point. and when they stopped talking to me again they got even worse . they are aware i suffer from ocd and anxiety to an extent (we've been friends since we were teenagers) so its hard for me to believe they wouldn't do this unless i did something wrong again, especially due to the events of my past mistake. lately ive been wondering, 'have they found out my abnormal reaction to what happened ?' 'did a friend who knows about it tell them?' ive been avoiding asking them if i did something wrong again, because i dont want to make it a habit since i can fall very deeply into that hole of asking for reassurance and i feel even regular reassurance, without the ocd, im the last person who deserves that right now. im scared they somehow found out about my compulsions (which isnt entirely irrational) and i feel the need to apologize to them again. ive been having panic attacks about this. i feel like no matter what i do i cant fix our friendship, and its going to end badly. i feel like a terrible friend, and im too mentally ill to have friendships. i don't know what to do.
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