Does anyone else struggle with, what I found through a NOCD article, is termed "Race OCD". I constantly worry that I'm being perceived as racist. I'm white, I consider myself to be an ally of BIPOC and to work on being anti-racist. Lately though, I get hit with a ton of intrusive thoughts about coming across as racist when I speak to a BIPOC, which causes anxiety, which my anxiety probably then appears racist to the other person. I can't imagine what BIPOC have to endure on a daily basis just because of their skin color, so I'm not trying to make this about me. I'm just wondering if I'm alone in this or if other people struggle with this OCD theme. To be honest, it's pretty severe and it's scaring me, because this "theme" feels opposite to what I value & who I am. I can tell that other people notice I'm anxious, and I just hate that I'm displaying nervousness because im sure it makes the other person uncomfortable. It's like my OCD/anxiety has found another thing to torment me with because I care about being anti-racist & being an ally to BIPOC. It feels so disgusting to me that I'm triggered when I pass by or interact with a BIPOC though. I know I'm coming off as anxious. I know it because I'm trying so hard not to be perceived as racist, that interactions just get weird, anxiety filled & awkward & I'm sure the other person is like wtf this person is a racist. I just hate my brain.

i’ve been having this theme pop up recently where if I see people either criticize or be a hater and spread misinformation or seeing old controversies about my current interests/hyper-fixations i find myself having a crazy anxiety attack about if it’s “morally okay” to be interested in my interests anymore. i feel really singled out and like im doing something wrong because im watching a youtuber or listening to a specific musical group. in all of these specific situations the people involved have talked about the situations and have changed accordingly but seeing it makes me feel like i shouldn’t be allowed to like my favorite things. to be clear none of these things are dramatically evil or bad. it’s either misinformation/uneducated people influencing someone opinion and then they learn and change. it just makes me feel like im not allowed to like my favorite things anymore because of people criticizing it??? if that makes sense??? also this is a little off topic but also not really because i’m 99.99% sure im autistic because of MANY things but with this specifically i have very strong interests and i feel very deep feelings about them and any and all criticism or hateful comments towards my favorite things trigger me deeply and make my ocd act up and make me feel uncomfortable and uncertain and anxious and it causes physical discomfort to me. i really don’t know how to calm myself down about this specific theme it’s brand new and makes me feel really anxious. not trying to look for reassurance but does anyone else understand what i mean??? does anyone have any advice on how to not give into the negative comments??? any suggestions on how to ease this specific anxiety???

Cross post from Reddit: TW Religious ocd TW Racism This is going to confuse a lot of people but I’ll try my best. OCD could be tricking me. I don’t know. But I’ll do my best to explain. Warning: there are some extremely sensitive themes including racism. OCD has caused me to worry about making bad prayers. It is mainly an anxiety of what others would think of if I prayed for something bad. Basically, it can think of something bad, and I can think of why I want it, and say “amen” pretty easily. Not sure if that constitutes a prayer really since it is ocd driven, and might even feel more real to me than it actually is, but it gets very complicated. None of this makes any logical sense to anyone but me, but to me it makes sense and that’s the issue. My mind invented something where I can pray to pray for something. Yes, that’s right, and it makes no sense. Essentially these ideas for prayers come in automatically. I don’t necessarily choose them. I can somewhat choose how I react, but that is where it gets tricky. OCD also blunts my emotions with certain prayers or makes things feel more real than they are So, what happened, is my ocd targeted the theme I was most worried about having a bad prayer about, which was unfortunately racism. In the past, I made a mistake that was racist (I won’t get into what it was here), and I thought about it a lot. I imagined people never wanting to forgive me and saying I deserve to suffer forever. Additionally, worrying about making racist prayers made this go up. It was frustrating, because with ocd it can take what people say too literally. So if someone says: “you deserve to suffer,” I might be thinking that thinking about it 10 hours a day for multiple months was justified. This made me have a misdirected frustration towards the people I perceived as yelling at me, which was unfortunately people of color. Here’s where ocd comes in with the prayer obsession. OCD gave me the idea: well you’re so mad at them you could pray for them all to die. Unfortunately, with the prayer obsession I’ve had, I’ve had a bit of a history with doing bad prayers when I’m not feeling great, and I don’t know if that is just part of the ocd or not, or just doing them to do them. One example is world war 3. I don’t want people to get hurt, but when I was feeling horrible I thought “screw it, I’ll pray for it cause I want to die.” I knew God wouldn’t actually do it, and the normal me didn’t want him to. Then, and I don’t know why, it seemed extremely easy for a moment to pray for people of color to die, and I actually almost did it, but I stopped myself. This is where the praying to pray comes in. With ocd, if I have a moment where I almost did a bad prayer, my mind “saves” that mindset, and it is possible for me to go back to it any time. So this situation will present itself many times to me. With praying to pray, I can essentially be put back in the mindset at any time no matter what is going on, and by saying “amen,” my brain basically magically does it and it feels like the same thing. Because it feels real to me, it seems like the same thing as a prayer. Last night that is what I did for this and I regretted it less than a two seconds later. So basically, I ended up doing a prayer that was racist. This is exactly what happened in that moment. This isn’t who I normally am (although my brain would disagree), but in that moment, with magical thinking, I prayed for all people of color to die, out of what my brain said was “hatred.” My brain also said I felt genuine hatred, but I don’t think I really do. I think it is all related to a misdirected frustration of feeling like I was yelled at, which stemmed from ocd. After the prayer, all those feelings were immediately gone. I don’t know how messed up my brain was, or how much of a role ocd played. It probably at least blunted my emotions. It sort of came on all of the sudden too, but I did it. I’m really sorry. I don’t hate people of color despite what my brain says, but I feel like I did something really bad. When I sit with what happened and don’t engage with it, it does not feel like a big deal at all. The guilt is almost all ocd driven. So I don’t know if that means there is something I’m missing or not. I might be missing something, but I know what happened in the moment

I have been really battling with my SO OCD, and I’ve recently started to have a ton of wins!!! I’m really excited about it, but as I’ve noticed myself not engaging as much… different things have popped up. Now im obsessed with people’s perception on me, and them looking at me and thinking by how I walk, how I talk, what I wear, how I move… that I am gay? And am so convinced everyone thinks that and “knows something that I don’t”. Is that typical with OCD? If so, any ERP advice on how to overcome these thoughts?