I’m so nervous, and sick to my stomach. I don’t know if I accidentally said a slur out loud when answering a question in class, and I’m trying so hard to remember all of the details. I know that I thought it the same time I answered but I’m still not sure. I’m trying so hard not to email my teacher to ask him if I did say something inappropriate or not, but it’s so hard. I just need to know—for certain.
I’m pretty sure that it would be VERY obvious if you said anything that would conventionally be considered a “slur,” so please take that as evidence against your worries. Also, did your teacher or anyone else in the class appear to be offended/upset by the word you used? If not, then take that as evidence against your worry as well! Even if you did happen to accidentally say a slur (which, based on what I first told you, is also VERY unlikely to be the case), it’s not your fault if you didn’t know it was considered that way- you weren’t deliberately trying to harm anyone regardless, and you can simply learn from the experience if that did happen to be the case, there’s no reason to dwell on it and intensify the obsessions and therefore the anxiety as well My main point, however, is that if your teacher or none of your classmates (but especially your teacher) never brought the subject of your word choice up to you, then it’s nothing to worry about- just please take this all as evidence against your worry and also try to distract your mind from this obsessive thought, and whenever it happens to pop into your head again, use this evidence and reasoning that I discussed with you to dismantle those worries and repeat the process until you eventually stop the obsessing / the thought is no longer obsessive Always remember to take long, deep breaths in and out to ease your nerves and if you use the tricks with the evidence/reasoning that I brought up, then your stomach will be feeling better in no time! Also, always remember that far from alone, for I’m always here, and you’re so strong / you’ve got this!
Same thing happened to me and it did end up being a slur unfortunately but it ate me alive for months. Couldn’t talk to friends or coworkers for months. My advice is to address it head on so you can move past it.
This might contain triggering content, but I'm also wondering if others have dealt with this similar thought, and if so, how to deal with it? Overall, I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm able to eat again, which I hadn't been able to do because of how much anxiety I'd been experiencing. I'm spending time around loved ones and not just rotting in my room, and I've been able to wake up without immediately being bombarded by intrusive thoughts. When things first got really bad, I'd wake my mom up every night for reassurance, but I haven't done that in a while either. I'm really proud of myself, but there's still this nagging thought in my mind... While looking through others posts on here, hoping to find advice that'd fit my situation, I ended up making things worse. Someone mentioned how they had a fear that they'd purposely search for illegal content (related to POCD). I panicked, and "what ifs" flooded my thoughts. "What if the intrusive thoughts affect who I am as a person, and I do that?" I'm terrified that I'll search for those things, which I know means I wouldn't do it. But then, another person on here said they'd actually looked for those things, and that freaked me out even more. Does that mean it's possible for that to happen to me? I don't want to do that, but I keep having intrusive thoughts surrounding it. I've been doing so well these past few days. I'm just... stuck. I don't know what to do. I've spoken with other people who have the same fears, but how do I manage this? It's not something I've even thought about before seeing those posts. I've been practicing accepting the uncertainty, but I'm really struggling with this one. I hate this. This morning, I woke up, and the intrusive thoughts were back. It's just disheartening.
I’m really struggling right now. My mind is racing and I’m panicking about the content that I watched in the past because I don’t have a way to ‘prove’ that it was safe and consensual. I stupidly caved in and googled “what happens if an accidentally saw illegal porn” and I ended up making my anxiety so much worse. What if the images I saw in the past had underage people in them? Am I going to jail? Will my ip address be tracked? My brain is making all sorts of scenarios up and they feel so real. At this point I don’t know if I’m a bad person or not, I just feel like something terrible is about to happen. Although I know I’d never intentionally look for that kind of stuff there’s still a chance that I could have seen things without realising, and I actually don’t know what to do. I’m in total panic mode
I know a few of you saw my posts about my ERP and the googling urges. That didn’t end up going well. My therapist actually decided we needed to halt it for now. The thing is it’s almost like I learned googling is harmless from those few exercises and my brain keeps generating more things to google. Normally I would just spiral and be done but now I can barely hold back from searching for long. I eventually give in. I’m horrified because it feels like I want to find illegal content. I swear on everything I am, I don’t want to find anything even close to it. I’m freaking out because I don’t understand what’s happening. I keep compulsively searching/testing/checking or idk. I keep remembering details and I feel like I need to google again to be sure of something. I feel absolutely insane can someone please help me??? I’m petrified I’m going to get in trouble.
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