- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
It’s not you or anything to do with who you are. Your mind knows that that’s important to you and your OCD is using it to get to you. It isn’t you it’s your OCD.
- Date posted
- 4y
Yeah I appreciate you saying that. Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate my mind from myself
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 4y
This happens to me too. It’s because racism is so opposite of who I am, so my OCD attacks it. Since the thought of it is distressing, it continues to pop up. It doesn’t mean you have internalized racism. OCD is egodystonic. Thoughts are just randomness that your brain produces. YOU are the one who gets to decide which thoughts align with your values. Practice acceptance around having the word pop up in your head. Acceptance does not mean we like it or want it to be there, but that we are no longer fighting against it and trying to prove that it isn’t how we really feel. Over time, the less attention you pay to it the less your brain will send you the thought
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 4y
The underlying fear here, I’m assuming, is that you’re a bad, racist person. Another way to approach this from an ERP standpoint would be to write a script talking about how you are racist, how that would make you feel, how it would affect your relationships with others, etc. Really dive deep into the root of the fear. Reread the script a few times a day, and sit with the anxiety that it produces without reassuring youself that you’re not racist. You’ve got this :) and not to give you reassurance- but I’m certain you’re not racist. If you were, you wouldn’t question the thoughts or find them distressing. Hope this helps!
- Date posted
- 4y
I think everyone is a tiny bit racist because it's human nature to look for ourselves in everything and everyone. It's part of a survival mechanism. If you group with people who look like you do or act or think etc like you do, there's a better chance of protection and survival. I don't think we need to condemn this aspect. It sounds like you're very aware and your conscience and will know who you are and what you want. The rest of the thoughts are clutter. You don't have any bad racism inside you. You are taking things from the environment and media etc. and your mind is making stew with it all. It spits out ideas and words here and there. They mean nothing. It's not who you really are. You have proven who you are simply by saying that the thought is not one you agree with. It's your brain messing with you. Let it pass like a leaf on a river. It will soon stop when it realizes it has no power over you.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 24w
hi im experiencing a lot of anxiety and guilt right now. im 16 now but in the past i said many offensive bad things, slurs and racist jokes with my friends. it was disgusting and im not proud of this. I'd never say those stuff to an actual black people to idk make fun or shame them because im not actually racist, i could never hate another person just because their skin colour is different. but i did say disgusting stuff as "a joke" and i feel very guilty about this. I don't think i was always a bad person but for around two years i was just acting mean and pretty shitty. i wish i could turn back time, but that's not possible. i was talking about stuff I didn't have a clue about, i said n word just because "its just a word, it's not that deep!". but now i know it's really more than that. yet I can't move on. i keep thinking about it so much i want to throw up. I can't look in the mirror now i don't know what to do. lately im trying to become a better person, be nice to people close to me and just to finally feel good. but i feel like I don't deserve to change and i create scenarios that people will bring up my past when ill finally be a better person.
- Date posted
- 13w
I can be way too hard on myself and beat myself up over the smallest slip up in regards to OCD. Sometimes it can feel like I'm gaslighting myself on what was "so blatantly and obviously a moral atrocity in thought and intent", when 95% of the time I'm not even sure what my own intent with dealing with these thoughts is or why I do what I do. It makes me feel like some shameless beast for "daring to even entertain the thought of something so VILE!!!" When I just get so confused and scared on moral issues, like my mind is pulled down a rabbit hole I can't escape until the tricks are done on me and it's too late, i've accepted such ideas I hate until that hate and trying to not give in convince me "it might not be that bad". It feels like anything, even the most mundane things can trigger this. This cycle happens mainly because I feel like there's "no way to escape committing more 'attrocities' in thought or compulsion anyway"...and these cycles become the basis for more of these incidents. there a way to stop this? There have been multiple times where I called myself the R word, and even knowing it's a slur I still called myself that because "I'm nothing if not deserving of such scorn". Any attempt to stop the madness makes it worse and it's like all this I talked about is so convincing I dare not question it until after the fact. Please help.
- Date posted
- 13w
I wanna start out by saying, I am really proud of how far I've come in recognizing my OCD tendencies and learned about how it can show up intersectionally for BIPOC folks who have racialized trauma and how me, being a White person, how it manifests itself for me. I'd also like to say, this is gonna be more of an analytical and reflective post. Please feel free to read and respond with any critiques or thoughts you have. I'm embarrassed about it nowadays, but it's important to acknowledge because it was a HUGE part of my teenage personality, unfortunately. I used to be a HUGE Shane Dawson fan 😭 like, his content was my strongest hyperfixation to date. So at this point in time, I feel like I'm still trying to decipher what kind of racial commentary and satire and jokes are genuinely funny and which are just perpetuating stereotypes and straight up minstrelsy. Shout out to D'Angelo Wallace for making the video essay that woke me up to seeing this issue more clearly. I try to be aware of how I can easily fall into just laughing at racial stereotypes without being aware of the serious consequences it has for BIPOC people, but at the same time, I don't want to be too worried about everything being racist and therefore that means it's bad and should be banned, cause that's also not always helpful, I've noticed. So racialized fear and polarization is something I'm deconstructing. I hate to admit this, too, 'cause it's embarrassing, but my OCD seems to latch onto racial issues. I end up obsessing about whether or not I'm causing marginalized people harm or not, particularly when it comes to racism. I believe this is because I know I was one of those White kids who was into "edgy" humor when I was a teen. I think it's just lingering guilt from knowing that was wrong, but OCD makes my guilt and rumination and therefore compulsions to "fix" it so much worse than most people. It's frustrating, but I have come a very long way in confronting and dealing with it. I'm very proud of myself for being aware that that's an issue I have. I've got to give credit where credit is due, to my biracial friend (who also happens to have OCD) for essentially helping me learn this, albeit the hard way with many arguments about racism and trauma. It's something that isn't talked about much, but we're learning to build bridges in our understanding of how mental health affects us as people with different forms of racialized trauma. Mine's not so much trauma, but social stigma, whereas his was from actual bullying and harassment and physical assault, simply because of his race. I've also learned how to recognize and deal with my own mental health issues WHILE confronting race because of Black advocates like Tony Nabors who does Racial Equity Insights, F.D. Signifier who does really great intersectional analyses on social issues pertaining to Black people, and D'Angelo Wallace for being the first Black YouTuber that made the problem with Shane Dawson video that finally helped me break out of my lowkey toxic parasocial/trauma bond relationship I had with him, lol. Does this post seem too wordy and analytical for this forum? Let me know if this isn't the right audience for this type of writing and reflection. I just wanted to talk about it because it's something I had to figure out largely on my own. Wondering if anyone else relates to this or can see themselves in this.
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