#I am treating this OCD by not engaging with the thoughts

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for refusing to do anything to help my roommate's baby?

More of a "was I an asshole" rather than "am I an asshole?"

I (21F) am a college student living in an apartment with two roommates, Anna (22F) and Mica (23NB). I've lived with Anna for two years now and Mica for one, and we've all always gotten along great with no major issues apart from the fact that Anna's boyfriend of several years is emotionally manipulative and incredibly insecure and jealous, but that's an issue for another time, except that I don't like him and make no secret of it. I also don't like children, never want children, and crying babies is one of the biggest overload/meltdown triggers I have because it stresses me out and also triggers some violent intrusive thoughts (I have autism and OCD, which both of my roommates know about, but never cause any significant issues and I don't act on those thoughts.) That is to say, I should not and do not want to be around children.

Anna and I live far enough apart over the summer that we only see each other during the school year, and this year I'm a junior and she's a senior. I showed up at the beginning of this school year and lo and behold, Anna is about five months pregnant. Turns out it happened toward the end of last school year, she didn't tell anyone at first, and didn't bother to mention it over the summer (which I'm pissed about). I was NOT expecting one of my closest college friends to be about to have a baby, let alone one that I'm living with.

For the next few months, I helped her out, drove her to doctor appointments, etc, because of course the shitbag boyfriend lives like three hours away (where Anna lives when she's not at college) and refuses to drive over to help her out himself. However, I made it clear that I wanted nothing to do with the baby once it's born. I wouldn't be helping her with diapers, wouldn't babysit, don't want her to put formula bottles on my shelf in the fridge, won't play with the baby or anything. I don't have the patience for that, I don't want the baby in my shit, I work 20 hours a week on top of my classes and homework and do not have time or desire to deal with a tiny human.

Fast forward to when the baby is born, Anna keeps saying she's looking for somewhere else to move, wants to move back full time to live with her shitbag boyfriend, have him help with the baby. Our other roommate Mica helps occasionally with the baby and is willing to do basic stuff and occasionally rocks him to sleep when they're sitting on the couch and stuff, but I refuse. Several months later Anna still hasn't moved out and has barely made the effort she says she will, she talks about the boyfriend a lot but I have literally NEVER seen him in person since the baby was born (he was there for the birth and that's it, drove her to our apartment afterwards since I didn't want to be there, then left again).

If there's ever a time when I'd be the only one home at the apartment and Anna asks me to babysit for a little while, I change plans and always leave so I'm not there even if it just means doing homework at the campus library instead of my room. Anna is exhausted and literally does nothing around the house anymore, never comes grocery shopping with Mica and I because she refuses to leave the baby home alone but doesn't want to take him to the store, I'm doing all of her dishes cause apparently she can't do that either, she asks us to do her laundry and cook dinner and everything for her now and I feel like we're being treated/put into the role of the baby's father.

I cannot stand children, I don't think Anna has any excuse for trying to make us care for her child, she seems to expect us to take care of him while she's in class and she can barely even afford her own share of rent and groceries and stuff let alone a baby (or hiring childcare), and I made it clear even before the baby was born that I wanted nothing to do with him and will not engage with him or do anything for him, and I think my "it's your fault you had a baby, sucks for you, now deal with the consequences" attitude is what might make me an asshole here but I'm so exhausted and my mental energy is always drained from the damn kid screaming and crying and making a mess of the house.

Mica talked to me privately recently and mentioned that they understand that I don't like children and that they're also upset with the fact that Anna can't take care of a child herself when she's a full time college student without a job and a shitty boyfriend who's barely in the picture, but they want me to try to engage more and have a bit of sympathy for Anna and not leave her completely stranded with an infant. I don't want children, I don't want to live with one, and don't want to have to care for one.

It's now April as of writing this and I have since moved out of the apartment (Anna and Mica still live together), I left in January at the start of spring semester when on-campus dorm housing was available and live with another friend whose roommate transferred the prior semester. I still see Anna around campus but I feel like the baby completely ruined our friendship but I still hang out with Mica a lot and occasionally get updates that way. I'm much happier, my mental health is better, and I'm not living constantly stressed and on edge because of the baby, and Anna still hasn't moved in with her boyfriend despite saying she's trying to for months now.

Was I an asshole for refusing to support my roommate and her baby, and essentially giving the ultimatum of "either the baby goes or I do?"

[keshetchai]

As someone who enjoys religion blogging/discussions, I've come to realize that it's a good practice to be aware of the general signs/symptoms of religious-OCD thinking (aka scrupulosity), because if the conversation is taking on all the hallmarks of scrupulosity, it's actually a definitive sign that we cannot meaningfully and compassionately engage in a conversation about religion in a healthy way. I've actually had this play out a significant number of times online, and when I realized what it was, I also began to realize that the intrusive thoughts/obsessive and compulsive thinking are only ever fed by continuing the discussion with that person.

[[ Important edit to clarify why I am saying it's not healthy — made after I went back to look for more concrete facts about OCD or anxiety (I have GAD, not OCD, but many resources overlap since they're both anxiety disorders):

When Reassurance is Harmful — this explains how/why reassurance-seeking specifically about an OCD fear is a compulsive behavior, and engaging with reassurance-seeking interferes with recovery/management/treatment.

This table from the Anxiety Disorders Center lists key differences between Information Seeking and Reassurance Seeking.

This IOCDF page on Scrupulosity info for Faith Leaders identifies "symptom accommodation" as enabling. Two of the examples of doing this by participating in the OCD behavior are: "Engage in excessive conversation focused on if-then scenarios (e.g., "If I did this, then would X or Y happen? And what if Z was involved? How about W?")" And, "Repeatedly answering questions about ‘correct’ religious or faith practices."

That page also goes on to outline more info about reassurance seeking. "Although providing answers to (often simple!) questions may seem harmless, providing reassurance serves to maintain the anxiety disorder cycle." (This BMC psychiatry article cites a lot of related studies establishing this.)

The IOCDF page on What is OCD and Scrupulosity? ]]

Imo, the responsible thing to do is to recognize that (even if the other person hasn't outright stated it/isn't diagnosed)* the conversation is not about religion, it is about needing mental health support from professionals and experts. Talking to me, the layperson who enjoys chatting theology and my religion — is not only not helping, but is actively harmful. I'm not just talking about the person who I replied to today, either. Like I've said, I've seen this happen dozens of times in various online forums.

*[while I am against diagnosing strangers on the internet, it's important to realize A) lots of people don't know what Scrupulosity is, so it's possible they've never considered this is a mental health concern that could be treated, and that B) for the purposes of my concern, it doesn't matter if they actually have diagnosed OCD. The only thing that matters is that their thought-process causes them genuine distress/fear, and every response given to them seems to only incite new/additional distressing questions/thoughts, or further entrenches the original distress.]

Ultimately, any discussion aside from "you might want to speak to a mental health professional about scrupulosity OCD" seemingly puts me in the position of feeling as if I am being used for their self-harm. I hate that feeling. I do not want to be leverage for fear and pain. I have GAD, I despise the idea that I am making things worse.

No matter how much I love religious discussion, the answer in these cases is always "please reach out to an OCD specialist/mental health professional. I am not qualified to discuss this." And then to stop there. I have never once seen anyone stuck in this compulsive thought spiral be reassured or feel any better by hearing from someone else's approach to theology handled with things like empathy, compassion, logic, or even atheism. It doesn't matter what we say, how we say it, or how we relate to our own religion. The urge to engage in this kind of conversation in order to chat about religion is a sign that we are not equipped to help.

You can't have a conversation here, because intentionally or not, ten times out of ten, you are adding fuel to the fire. Just like people can't simply tell me something that would erase/talk me out of my ADHD/depression/anxiety disorder, you also cannot simply argue/reassure/persuade people out of scrupulosity. We should not try. We have a responsibility to consider that it's outright harmful to do so, and to disengage.

[boghermit]

I could write pages about what BG3 means to me, and I probably will at some point. But let me share a "few" of my thoughts right now, largely unedited.

Under cut for being way too damn long. I will be talking about transgender representation, OCD, and abuse.

The transformative (pun intended) power of representation.

This is the first game where I've been able to play a transgender character, without mods, in any way that faintly resembles what I hope to some day look like. At no point in the game am I made to feel like a freak for my gender identity. Compare this to lesser RPGs like DAI where being trans is treated as an anomaly and the character you play as can be a total dick to a transgender character with no repercussions. Being transgender is entirely normalized in BG3. You are not a punchline. You are not an anomaly. You are a normal, respected, and valued part of the world.

In the grand scheme of life, this is a very small thing, to be respected and appreciated by fictional characters in a piece of media. But I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it made me hate my body less. I still have strong gender dysphoria, but I don't want to punch the mirror every time I see my own reflection anymore. I think "well, you don't look like you should, but that's just the way it is right now, and that's okay."

It also must be said that the BG3 fandom has also been a VERY large catalyst for this new confidence in my own body. It has brought me so much indescribable joy to see peoples' art of their transgender characters and to see trans identities and bodies celebrated to such an extent. I entered 2023 hating my body, and as 2023 draws to a close, I find myself more and more comfortable in it.

Resisting the Urge.

Disturbing intrusive thoughts are a hallmark symptom of OCD -a symptom that most people with OCD, including myself, are reluctant to talk about. For those unfamiliar with OCD, intrusive thoughts are unwanted thoughts, often violent, sexual, inappropriate, or otherwise viscerally upsetting in nature, that many people with OCD experience. Intrusive thoughts can turn into obsessions, and obsessions can fuel a person's desire to engage in compulsions in an attempt to regulate intrusive thoughts. Due to their disturbing nature, our intrusive thoughts can become a strong source of shame and self-hatred, and prompt us to believe that there is something morally wrong with us, when in fact we are just suffering the unfortunate symptoms of an unfortunate disorder.

The Dark Urge experiences thoughts and "Urges" like these throughout the entirety of the game. They can "fester" in the Urges, or they can resist them. They can also admit to the main companions that they are having these horribly violent thoughts.

And it is here, in the first few hours of my first playthrough, that I knew the writing of BG3 was going to be something incredibly special.

The companions do not berate the Dark Urge for having horrible thoughts. They do not react with disgust. Most of them will express sympathy, and reassure them that so long as their thoughts don't become actions, they're alright. This mirrors talking points in actual real life therapy for people with OCD. I was wholly expecting the companions to just totally shit on my character for having demented thoughts. There are other modern RPGs where companions will berate you for doing something as innocuous as stealing a pencil. In BG3, you can describe your thoughts of extreme and horrible violence, and your companions will encourage you not to hate yourself for it.

There's also the scene with Isobel, which I almost forgot to talk about. This is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful scenes in the game. It made me cry. You can tell Isobel that your Urges are demanding that you kill her. She tells you that you don't have the eyes of a killer, and if you resist your murderous Urge, you can apologize to her for your "spells of madness." She gently forgives you, but not before saying one of my favorite lines in the game.

Ultimately, the Dark Urge has much worse than OCD going on, but it was still very refreshing and meaningful to see such a sympathetic take on intrusive thoughts.

You are not your thoughts - you are your actions.

Trauma, catharsis, and healing.

Abuse is, in my opinion, one of the biggest themes of BG3. You can see it in the way Mystra regards Gale. You can see it with the Dark Urge and Bhaal. And most notably, you can see it with Astarion and Cazador. I didn't go into BG3 expecting to confront themes of abuse. It made me realize some very very unfortunate things. (Thank god, I've never been through anything as severe as, say, Astarion, but I have been in no small amount of toxic and emotionally abusive relationships.)

I recognized myself in Gale's blind desire to please a goddess who thinks he should kill himself, and I hated it. I recognized myself in the Dark Urge's desperation to please his god, only to have his heart stopped because "Bhaal will accept the world from him, and nothing less," and I hated it. I recognized myself in Astarion's prickly survivalist prey animal behavior, his lack of self worth, and his fear of trusting people, and I hated it. No one wants to be confronted with the fact, however true it is, that they're in pain. No one wants to be confronted by the fact that their painful experiences have warped them so much that they struggle to find themselves beneath the nest of thorns and barbed wire they've built.

And no one wants to confront the reality that they deserve better.

Thankfully, catharsis and healing are also major themes of BG3. You never really get the feeling that these characters will ever be completely "cured" of their pain. There are multiple scenes where characters openly weep, or talk about how empty they feel, even after they've started on the path to healing from their traumas. Which is unfortunately, true to life. Healing doesn't happen over night. But you are given the feeling that the characters are beginning to heal. BG3 tells you that healing is not out of reach. BG3 tells you that hope isn't an impossibility.

BG3 tells you in many many ways that you are not alone, sometimes verbatim, and that there is hope, and I think that is why it has resounded so strongly with so many people, including myself.

That's all the infodumping I have for now. Maybe one day I'll organize these thoughts into a more coherent article or maybe even a video.

[schizosupport]

so with brain stuff or whatever

Who am I supposed to bring stuff up to at the start?

I'm currently in the middle of a lot of changes (trying to switch primary doctor and get a therapist and stuff) and one of the reasons for me changing that stuff is that my brain is very weird and I need to figure out why/get help with it

But when I'm bringing up symptoms or whatever, I had very much assumed that would be therapist but I'm also not fully sure who does what in a system like that (primary doctor vs therapist vs psychologist) and in the past have had some problems with that (still don't really know who the hell is supposed to diagnose sensory processing disorder)

Also any suggestions for like... what's a good area or amount to start with when trying to bring stuff up? I haven't talked to someone about mental health type things in a really long time and have had problems with derealization/depersonalization, possible depression, possible ocd, some weird situations in which I wasn't really sure what was real, a couple anxiety spirals over illogical things, intrusive thoughts, etc and I don't really know what to prioritize or how much to say in a way where I wouldn't overwhelm someone new, wouldn't be worried about telling them too much, but would also be able to give enough information about something to lead to a diagnosis or help

Sorry if this is too long or too much information or too many questions or anything like that

Hi there!

Okay so the annoying truth is that this depends a lot on the healthcare system where you live, and I don't know where you live (nor do I know the system everywhere) but I can try to give you some general pointers.

Your primary doctor is the first person to talk to, if you need a referral to see any of the other professionals you mentioned, but usually the primary doctor isn't the one doing the diagnosis or treatment (though they may prescribe some types of psych medication, and they often take over prescribing from a psychiatrist once the right meds have been found).

The psychiatrist is a type of doctor, and they are the person to talk to if you're interested in medication, and in some systems psychiatrists may also be who refers you to see a therapist. In a lot of systems it's primarily psychiatrists who diagnose people, too. Sometimes clinical psychologists also do diagnoses, but psychiatrists always do diagnosis + medication (and only very rarely do they engage in therapy).

A psychologist is someone who's educated in the field of psychology, so they (ideally) have an in-depth understanding of general human psychology, and they often are also educated in mental disorders and in different approaches to therapy. In terms of treating mental illness, some psychologist do diagnose, but the most common function is for them to do talk therapy.

Therapists can technically have any educational background, and refers to anyone who "does therapy".

If you're looking for a mental health professional to treat you with talk therapy, you ideally want a therapist who has a degree in psychology. If you're looking for a mental health professional to diagnose you and prescribe medication, you're looking for a psychiatrist (doctor of medicine who specializes in psychiatry).

If you have the ability to see any of these professionals without a referral, you can choose which one based on what you are looking for. And if you need a referral, then the first step is your primary doctor.

With a primary doctor you want to give them enough information to ensure getting a referral, but you don't have to throw your whole heart out there. If you are in a diagnostic setting, usually (ideally) they follow a semi-standardized questionnaire like the PSE, so a lot of the time they are the ones leading the conversation and asking you questions. Sometimes they will do an initial interview where you tell them freely about what's bothering you. Try to focus on the things that are causing you the most distress, and try to avoid clinical language.

With a therapist, the goal is to build a therapeutic relationship, and you can approach it based on feels - it's ok not to open up about everything at once, but it can also be helpful to take time to define the goals of therapy together (which would include what you're struggling with and wanting to work on).

Hope this was at all helpful,

Best of luck!

[aw-tysm]

hi im the anon from before.

to summarize my intentions here: i am wary of you because of how i have been treated in the past by people who post about the same things that you do and im trying to figure out whether or not you are going to be unkind to me if i exist earnestly in your vicinity like other autistic people who are similar to you have in the past.

i was not diagnosed with autism as a kid because my mom refused to have me tested because she didnt want the responsibility of raising a disabled child. she chose to intentionally ignore my impairments, and when she couldnt she made it clear that she thought my disabilities were personal and moral failings on my part. she has been calling me a spaz for so long that i didnt realize it was an ableist slur until i was a grown adult. i have been repeatedly told that being undiagnosed means you are obviously low support needs and nobody seems to be saying otherwise and that feels gross to me because my experiences dont make sense in that framework. and when i try to explain that to other people they invalidate and deny my experiences instead of challenging their own viewpoint of autism.

i suffered from severe head trauma as a three year old and it isnt actually diagnosed because my mom didnt take me to the ER. she took me to the family pediatrician who held me down long enough to sew shut the gaping wound on my forehead because my mom was planning to go see a play and she didnt want to have to stay home and keep an eye on me after i hurt myself. and now i am actively denied referrals to neurologists despite having seizures all the time. which i plan to sue over once i can get help figuring out how to do so. i have been heavily medically neglected because of my autistic behaviors that are undiagnosed because of the medical discrimination i face over my brain damage.

my emotional instability from the brain damage has been diagnosed as every "problem disorder" under the sun and as such everyone i ever meet thinks im delusional and out of touch with reality. i cant get adequate medical care because people think im crazy because of my more extreme brain damage symptoms and how they combine with my autism.

according to your definition i do have caregivers! even if theyre not very good at taking care of me! but when other "high/mid" supports needs autistics on here were questioning my disability i was told that the only caregivers that matter were ones that were paid to help you, that loved ones didnt count. i was made fun of for saying my loved ones are my caregivers. which is why i now say i dont have one. thats what i have been told to do by other people who claim they are more of an authority on autism than me.

according to your definition i also dont and cant mask but according to all the other autistic people who like to make fun of me all the time my severe ocd is the same thing as masking so thus im obviously low support needs. i have been called "sheldon cooper" by so many "high/mid" support needs autistic people that its not funny anymore. im constantly made fun of for "masking" by people who are mocking me for how stereotypically autistic i am behaving and its making me feel scared and sick. im being repeatedly gaslit about what masking looks like so people can deny my disabilities.

i have had "high/mid" support needs autistic people call me "retarded" repeatedly because i get upset when they mislabel me as "low support needs" when i am evidently not.

i have been silenced with extreme violence because early diagnosed autistic people keep saying im "talking over them" when i try to explain that my experiences dont fit within their perception of autism.

im just.

you seem like you have genuinely good intentions but at the end of the day the way you are engaging with the autism community makes me feel unsafe as a psychotic autist with brain damage who has severe medical and psychiatric trauma from neglect i face due to ableism.

some of us dont get to have a diagnosis even if having one would help us survive. some of us dont get to have adequate caregivers even if we need them. some of us dont get any accommodations at all even if we need them.

i am. literally struggling to survive. because allistic society does nothing but abuse me and the autistic community seems to want to pretend they dont see it? my basic needs arent being met and nobody thinks its their responsibility to help me and im getting scared.

i just feel like i have been forcibly pushed out of my own community by people who think they are an authority who has the right to "correct misinformation." i dont think you should all get to Speak As Authorities in a way that gives people who have more niche experiences no room to talk about their own lives.

you arent an authority on autism. you are an authority on your own experiences. and if you want to correct misinfo as it relates to your own experiences then fine but you need to be more mindful of what actually counts under "your experiences" because as i see it your viewpoint on autism is limited and you are imposing an Autism Standard that only covers a very small part of the spectrum.

you. are not. an expert. on the whole. autism. spectrum. and yet you think its your place to "correct misinformation" based on your own beliefs and opinions and experiences. what if its not misinfo and you are just misunderstanding someone???? what if YOU just dont understand what they are talking about because you dont have direct experience with it??

how can you trust that the information you are spreading is any more correct or helpful?

i am at least "mid support needs" according to all the definitions and requirements and yet other people who claim to be my peers keep calling me ableist slurs because they insist im low support needs.

i just want to know that if i interact with your blog as a person who doesnt fit your expectations that you arent going to tear me to absolute shreds over it like the bajillion other "high/mid" support needs autistic people who have literally called me retarded for not wanting to be improperly labeled in a way that denies my suffering.

and like. this is not "discourse" and im frustrated that you see it as such. its such a red flag. i am begging you to be more mindful of autistic people who have experiences that you dont understand because youre attempts to "educate" are biased.

i just. i think yall should stop appointing yourselves as Autism Ambassadors when you are only knowledgeable on a very narrow part of the autism spectrum: the part you personally are on.

you are a hairs breadth away from unintentionally denying a lot of peoples experiences and i think yall need to just. take a step back and ask yourselves what exactly you think you are accomplishing by "correcting misinformation" like this. who is correcting all the misinformation i was fed by people who didnt want to allow me to talk about how hard my autism makes my life?

Honestly? It sounds like you're just giving yourself reasons to not follow me. And that's perfectly fine, you don't have to follow me. Keeping yourself safe is important.

I'm really just kind of consfused to be honest? I don't know who you are, I don't even know if I follow you. As far as I'm concerned, I don't interact with you in any kind of capacity already. I haven't seen anyone really interact with my blog beyond just liking or reblogging. So it's rather confusing having these asks come out of nowhere?

And some things that higher support needs post about aren't really based on "their experiences"? Like, it's just a fact that autism is a developmental disorder. That autism is considered a disability. We haven't been given any new scientific evidence yet to say otherwise. It's also just plain fact that some autistics have more severe symptoms that occur more frequently than others. There's studies around that kind of thing too? Sure we learn new things as we go and we correct accordingly where we can.

I labelled it "discourse" because you mention the term "heavily medicalised autistic people" and also mentioned that you're "anti-psych". You can be anti-psych if you want to, and I understand some of it stems from trauma, I'm not gonna stop you. But I'm not anti-psych and at this point in my life, I will never be anti-psych.

I'm also not the one labelling you as low support needs. What you're going through sucks, for sure. I'm not going to invalidate your experiences. But I'm also not a person who is good at emotional reciprocity. So if you're looking for some empathy or support, I'm probably not the blog to be following. I'm not a person who is good at that. Never have been and probably never will be.

I don't claim to be an advocate or an activist or an authority for autism. I am just one person posting my thoughts out into the void and learning new things as I go.

I have been on this hellsite since about 2010. And with this blog specifically? I am just out here vibing with about 100 followers, some of which are probably only here for the kpop.

You curate your own experiences here. Sometimes blogs just change or you realise you don't agree with them anymore, that's a-okay. It happens.

I've no idea how to how to make this experience better for you as I've no idea what I've done wrong. So if you feel that in order to protect yourself and keep yourself safe that you need to unfollow me, then do what's best for you.

[promiseiwillwrite]

Bad Stuff

Disclaimer: This post is about some Really Rough experiences I had here on Tumblr while I was trying to come out from under the Rock. I was trying to reach out and interact in a community where I didn't know the established rules of etiquette, and I learned them the hard way. They had major consequences for me and my path as a witch, and I am just now sorting this shit out and trying to repair the damage. I was gatekept and treated cruelly for making mistakes, and I didn't know any better. The culture on Tumblr is very different from the culture in which I was raised, (80s and 90s Kentucky) so it was quite difficult to adjust. So read at your own risk.

One of the first things that happened was that I became accidentally involved in a flame war with a person who called me "ableist" before I knew what that even was. It sent me into a 6 month depression where I did a LOT of internal work and thought deeply about how I perceive humans with different levels of intelligence. I adjusted my views about human validity surrounding intelligence, and I solidified my observation that the human who called me out was being exceptionally Mean and Shitty about it to me and a bunch of other people. They were right that me calling anyone "stupid" or "an idiot" is ableist use of language. However, they were Very Wrong in their approach and assumptions about me. I DO care about people, and my views ARE something I actively seek to adjust in the face of new information. I also have Moral OCD, so I self-punished harshly in the face of this new information, for a Lifetime of thinking badly of other humans for various reasons connected to their perceived level of intelligence. I did eventually bring it back around, however and realize that no difference in level of intelligence, real or perceived was any excuse for being mean and shitty to others. Calling out bad behavior is important, but you can do that without being mean or shitty. And it turns out that how I really feel is that I have a problem with people choosing to be mean and shitty, and not with their level of intelligence. I had just Falsely correlated the two things, and now I do not.

Not long after that, I experienced the Discourse on Lillith for the first time. I had never worked with Lillith. It didn't apply to me at all. But I could see how some humans, for whom this entity had been an important part of their practice and lived experience, finding out for the first time that this entity was closed might have had some thoughts and feelings about that. I did not engage in Any of these conversations. I didn't have a dog in the fight. But I felt very bad for people who had been working with this entity for years who were being called appropriative. What do you DO about something like that? What if you've called Lillith your Patron for a Decade, and then a bunch of people tell you you are Completely Wrong and Out of Bounds? I can't imagine that is something where you can just go, "Oh, My bad." and stop. Plus, there were a lot of people being VERY MEAN about it.

It was about this time that I realized some very important adjacent things about the way I was raised, and the stories I had been told about my Native American Heritage. According to what my Grandmother said, my Great Grandmother was the daughter of a Choctaw Chief. I had been raised with great pride in that heritage. But I had been raised as a White Girl. I've never been to a reservation. I've never known anything of the culture of the tribe, or anything but stories of my Great Grandmother. So when my mother incorporated Native American traditions/practices into her religious beliefs and practices, it seemed right and natural. We went to Native American Gatherings, invitation only events two states away. I helped build a medicine wheel on Black Mountain. I talked with Grandmother Joy Earthwalker about what it meant to be a Beaver person... A builder and a Story Teller. I was still a punk-ass little white freak girl, but this was a part of my life and my belief system... Until I encountered the Lillith discourse and thought Deeply about appropriation for the first time.

And standing in the Forest out on the peninsula in Washington, I very painfully decided that in all honesty, I had no right to that part of my practice. The thing that had resonated so strongly with me was the connection to the land, and plants and animals. I had no idea how I was going to give all that up. It was SO deeply fundamental to the core of my being. But if that part of my belief was Stolen and Harmful to an oppressed people I decided I would rather die than be that way. And I guess I did... When I gave it all up I was depressed for months. It took a lot of talking with people to come to the conclusion that animist perspectives did not have to be "Native American", but were instead present in paradigms all over the world, Many of which were decidedly open. So I didn't have to give up connection to the land, and plants and animals. I just stopped thinking of it as a Native American way, and started thinking of it as My way. My observations. My connections. And I felt better eventually.

But not before I ran into the most painful discourse of all. The folks who were bashing godspouses got to me the worst. I have had a very intimate relationship with my patron since I was 10 years old. Because of my Plural Internal Architecture, I interacted with my Patron Deity on a very personal level, and as a part of myself. I understood that this deity was a deity, AND ALSO a part of me. And it was confusing as hell. And it was very different, necessarily, from the experiences that many people described, but also similar in some ways. Over the course of my relationship with my Patron, the interactions changed immensely with time. They were a psychological outpicturing of me trying to make sense of my life and my environment, which was often very poor. The relationship at times was incredibly unhealthy, because I was unhealthy. I was a product of that environment, and my thoughts and beliefs were full of distortions that were the product of abuse and neglect. However, my relationship with my Patron was, many times, the most positive, most consistent, predictable, safe relationship in my life. The relationship I had with Him saved my life, and kept pointing me out of my depressions. He Always tried to make my life better. Always tried to Ease my suffering. Always tried to help me to be a better, more resilient being.

And then the antis told me that I shouldn't have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with a god, because why would a god, who in my patron's case and in their eyes wasn't even a god, want to have anything like that with an insignificant human person. They told me wanting it was disgusting and disrespectful. It was projecting what I wanted onto a deity figure. Just Mental Illness, and nothing real.

They spoke to me in words of doubt that I had said to myself a thousand times, that were so much more damning coming from an external source. They used that word, that my Abuser often used against me, to label even the smallest transgressions (breathing wrong, moving my eyes at the wrong time) as Morally Wrong.

I backed away from the relationship in Horror. What had I DONE? I was Horrible. I was disrespectful, I was dishonoring my patron with some distorted, self-created obsessive idea of a relationship born in some massive lack of discretion. Nothing I had thought or done or felt in the last 30 years was Real, AND it was wrong. I broke it. I broke it Badly, believing these motherfuckers and their words that parroted the worst things that crawled around in my mind.

Nevermind that Loki is a trash panda of a god, and a slut, and a freaky little guy, and that None of this would shock, amaze or even put him off.

And I haven't successfully repaired it yet. Loki is still there. He is still trying. I still want it, but I Deeply mistrust that. I feel like everything I want is hurtful somehow. Thanks Moral OCD. I hate it.

[averyauthorship]

15 questions tag!!

I saw people posting this, and most everybody said to treat it as an open tag, so I decided to do it too! Tagging (with no pressure at all!!) @mjparkerwriting @kainablue @karimac @melusinewrites @mayonnaisepudding and also ANYONE who wants to do it!

The concept for this is to write responses to the following questions as if you are your original character answering, or just as yourself. I haven't talked about myself much outside of my writing on here, so might as well do it now, right? So! Answering as me!

1 - Are you named after anyone?

My first name (Avery) was just a name my parents liked. My middle name is actually my grandmom's and my great grandmother's name. My mom didn't want to name me that as my first name because she thought it was better as a middle name. So that's my name!

2 - When was the last time you cried?

I cry A LOT. Over songs, commercials, movies, shows. I make myself cry sometimes because I think it's healthy to let it flow. I literally started tearing up at a book I was reading today. The last time I cried cried though (for real, not because of content or something) was when I had a super bad panic attack. I have OCD, and sometimes you get so panicked you just melt :(

3 - Do you have any kids?

Nope! I would like to have a couple in the future, though.

4 - Do you use sarcasm?

Ehh, I have tried. But I am not sarcastic. I'll do it as a joke sometimes when someone says something obvious about me (i.e. Whaaat? Me? Liking books? That's crazy!) but not in any real way.

5 - What's the first thing you notice about people?

Definitely the way they carry a conversation. If they interrupt people, seem rude or ill engaged. I like talking, but I realize that conversations involve two people. It's a big red flag when someone can't share a conversation.

6 - What is your eye color?

Brown! Lovely, if I do say so myself.

7 - Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings, no doubt. I can't actually handle scary movies (because of my OCD. Hate to blame everything on it, but it's definitely true. I ruminate way too hard on scary, violent things). I'm a sucker for a happily ever after! It's what I hope I can have one day, so I like seeing it in my media.

8 - Any special talents?

Besides writing (which I am learning to accept as a talent), I craft and sew for cosplay. I sing too, and I think I have a nice voice. I have a lot of hobbies, but I don't think most of those qualify as a "talent." I'm pretty dang good at building houses in the Sims. I think that's an underrated talent.

9 - Where were you born?

Maryland, USA

10 - What are your hobbies?

Ah, yes. I mentioned them before but let's list them: Cosplay (sewing and crafting and all that), reading, writing, drawing, painting, playing video games, baking, collecting items (is that a hobby? I do it so much I think it must be), jewelry making (it sounds so fancy but I just make little bracelets and earrings with shrink plastic sometimes).

11 - Do you have any pets?

My family does! We have four cats: Ash, Whistler, Taffy, and Pike. I grew up with cats, and I miss the ones we've lost every day. (RIP Rainier, Nauset, Odell, Asia, and Ebony.)

12 - What sports do you or have you played?

I am not a sports girly. Like AT ALL. But I did run cross country for a semester back in my freshman year of high school. I absolutely hated it. Instead, I picked up musical and children's theatre. That's almost a sport...? Generally, I like to swim and dance (I'm not good), but it's not like a "sport" really. Just for fun to move my body when I feel like it.

13 - How tall are you?

Honestly? No clue. Haven't measured in many years. Somewhere between 5'8" and 5'10" I would guess?

14 - Favorite subject in school?

I've always been really into English. (My dad was an English teacher so it was only natural.) Also, any English extracurricular like journalism and creative writing. I was actually a journalism major until halfway through college. I switched to focus on English and picked up minors in journalism and linguistics instead.

15 - Dream job?

I'm about to ship off to grad school to get my masters in library sciences, so the hope is to become a librarian. It's realistic, so I'm excited to do that someday! On the side, I really hope to be a published author. I don't expect to make much money (if any) but I just want to get my work out there for people to find if they need it.

[your-actual-therapist]

a word on intrusive thoughts (and some practical skills for you to try)

i treat ocd for a living. one of the biggest misconceptions about this disorder is that intrusive thoughts/obsessions are exclusive to people with ocd or anxiety disorders. no. they are not.

normies have intrusive thoughts. in fact, there is little evidence that people with ocd and other anxiety disorders have more intrusive thoughts overall. the difference is in the significance people with ocd ascribe to their thoughts.

normie: "push that old man into traffic?" haha weird brain

person with ocd: "push that old man into traffic?" my god, what kind of person would think that? i had better [try to control my thoughts better/push the thought out of my head/worry excessively about what i might do to other people/remain tense and vigilant lest i am overcome with the desire to push an old man into the street/compulsively analyze my own thoughts and urges/question endlessly whether this thought is really an intrusive thought or a real urge that I have]

normie: "you don't love your partner?" eh whatever i'm almost positive i do

person with ocd: "you don't love your partner?" oh no, only someone who didn't love their partner would think that. i had better [ruminate on my partner's flaws/ruminate on my partner's good qualities/seek reassurance from my partner and others/endlessly question my relationship/endlessly analyze my thoughts and feelings about my relationship/go down an internet rabbit hole about the definition of love and take a bunch of stupid quizzes]

the trouble is, the mental compulsions i just described above have a way of reinforcing the power of intrusive thoughts and the need for more compulsions. doing these compulsions doesn't make the thoughts go away. instead, compulsions reinforce your intolerance for not performing compulsions. if your goal is to put your mind at ease by doing these things, you will never be at ease. it never ends.

fortunately, those compulsions? they're voluntary. they are not automatic, though they may seem like it. your brain is not doing these things on its own. you are doing these things because the alternative to doing them is to feel unmitigated fear. fear that you are actually a bad person. fear that you may act on bad thoughts and hurt someone. fear that you may remain forever uncertain about something. fear that you might not be prepared for something in the future. fear that you may be doing the wrong thing now and not know it.

the good news? fear alone is not dangerous.

the only way to get rid of intrusive thoughts is not to try to get rid of them at all. it's to do the normie thing and not engage. you can think of non-engagement as a type of exposure therapy. essentially, you're exposing yourself to the fear and uncertainty that these thoughts might be true and that you might act on them or that you might never be certain one way or another. scary? yes. very scary. but the alternative is the much worse feeling of needing to constantly do mental compulsions to allay that fear.

"you secretly want to have sex with your siblings?" maybe yes, maybe no. "you are going to stab your mom if you let yourself cook with sharp objects?" fine, whatever, let's see if that's true. "you aren't trans, you're just an impostor?" could be true, but compulsive rumination won't help me solve that problem.

good news: if you commit to doing your best to refrain from mental compulsions, preferably with the help of a professional who can guide you on how to do that, their power will fade. you won't necessarily stop having intrusive thoughts, and you won't immediately stop having the initial burst of fear that comes with intrusive thoughts, but because you're not doing mental compulsions, the bad feelings that come with engaging with intrusive thoughts won't prolong themselves. over time, if you're consistent in non-engagement, the duration and intensity of the fear will grow less and less.

more good news: this will also decrease your need to avoid triggering situations, like being next to someone in a crowded street or holding a knife, because you know you have the skills not to let the intrusive thought dominate your brain for the next several hours.

even more good news: if you're still feeling fear, that does not mean non-engagement isn't working. fear probably means it is working. if you feel fear, but you aren't engaging in overanalysis or other mental compulsions, you are doing it right. that fear is not forever, it is not intolerable, and it will get better with time and consistency.

technique note: here is one of the absolute best resources i've found on the nitty-gritty of non-engagement skills. that web site also contains exercises you can do to practice non-engagement and a lot of other practical resources, so be sure to have a look around beyond the linked page. the international ocd foundation also has a lot of great resources for self-help, group therapy, and professional treatment.

[princecrows]

i was talking about will wood and taylor swift and the similarities in how people treat them publicly with a friend of mine. and the similarities we were talking about is how people will consume art about mental illness or struggles or whatever and then turn around and not really know how to effectively advocate for people with mental illness in real life? (we were talking about this during enies lobby so you can see how the conversation drifted)

will wood is seen as overwhelming a "trans internet person" artist and reduced down to his identity and one song about being gnc and people reducing him down to that despite the fact most of his songs are about the experiences of someone struggling with severe mental health issues (bpd, ocd) and most of his fans have the attitude of just labelling his extremely well thought out and well articulated experiences to "well, he just sounds insane and thats goofy silly and im an idiot"

taylor swift on the other hand has been publicly forbade from talking about her mental illness (often by the same people who would reduce will wood down and ignore his experiences go figure) despite the fact she has very publicly earned the right to be mentally ill despite the fact that isn't a thing you should earn. i dont know if you know this, person reading this, but taylor swift was in the public eye while she was literally being groomed. you have to be deliberately ignorant of any of the conversation around her and the things shes gone through to outright police the way she expresses herself.

but it once again comes down to i am taking the narrative around this artist and shifting it into a way that deliberately ignores what they are expressing through their art because i may enjoy their art about what they've gone through but i feel no obligation to truly support them and people like them.

that concept the concept that someone would enjoy art but not truly engage or advocate for what its expressing or even go as far as to be deliberately dismissive or ignorant terrifies me. both as an audience member and as a creator

[adhesivedildos]

Positives

My life I realize, feels harrowingly characterized by a series of moments detached from free will and autonomy. Spent embracing the optimistic and degrading notion that /if I want it/ I will do it. Choice of action and feeling by brute force free will. The shame inducting self contained cycle in the face of failure to align my outward life with my inward virtue.

Obeying the obsessives compulsion, thinking through the set of worries one more time so it feels /right/, punishing myself for willingly indulging in the flashbacks, watching myself go for another drink, watching my hands pick up the razor, wishing nothing more than to get out of bed before 1pm and still staring at the wall, picking up my phone, procrastinating on an assignment, spectating myself shutting down and being mean to someone I love.

seeing it in slideshow format with dull acceptance as its a predetermined series of motions I am helpless to intervene in. Then re-engaging and re-affirming from clear(er) headspace that I am a loving person of will, and so long as I desire to treat myself well, give boundaryless love and care to those around me, and act on my beliefs, then I will. Then collapsing from the shame and internal conflict of doing it again. The confusion of being a complex being existing in two places at once, confined to a set of broken neural pathways and emotional overrides that lead to destructive behavior. Because if I don't have a choice, and its not my fault, then what's the point in not giving up completely.

I'm writing this because I've made it all of fifteen pages into "Never Enough". Nearly every paragraph has a passage I could underline in intense understanding, I'm so excited to see this book through, especially after finishing "Because we are bad: OCD and a girl lost in thought" in less than a week. Better than drowning myself in Japanese existentialist novels like last year haha.

Notably, the inexorable pursuit of the void of escapism when faced with a seemingly bleak, potently factitious reality, filled with inconsistences, confusion, and hurt that everyone around seems to brush off. If swinging between the pain tolerance that comes with numbness, and the drug induced excitement of "this is the most real I've ever felt and coming down from this means returning to a shallow existence." Why stop? Because its disgusting and terrible and a violent denying of myself of a fulfilled life through community, and imbued meaning that I get to choose.

But I'm seeking, and have been seeking for months, the middle ground between believing I am destructive because I desire destruction, and that I and others are people cut off from true free will. Because fuck a nihilist. Because while I am not blameless for the harm I've caused myself and others, I am not entirely at fault. And the only evil thing I could do is not engage in the path of seeking out, understanding, and healing every trauma impacted neural pathway in my humanity that sustained these moments of helplessness.

The crucial step in that, that I've struggled a long time to believe without relying on someone I love telling me it over and over, is that I am deserving of safety. That I deserve to be loved. Learning how to actually see and treat myself as a friend. Acting in principal of how I'd want it to be for someone I love. (And I love everyone, even the people who've hurt me, I try to see their brains animalistic instinct to lash out, their defense mechanisms and internal justifications to themselves to preserve stability. Likely to a point of denying myself my own validity in being a victim.)

Back in February, and March. I finally had a hold on authenticity. Being able to be ugly and accepted, and allow myself to finally start opening up and spilling all my fears and shames and mistakes and the things that make me embarrassingly happy like experimental music artsy video games and the psychology of how people build and interact with physical spaces. And pressing and encouraging my friends to do the same! And that was an incredible step in escaping my need for escape, and legitimately fucking healing from my life to date. Enough pain and turmoil has happened since then that I've felt significantly beaten back down into myself, but its not lost, and I feel myself slowly getting back there, and I'm hopeful, and I'm trying all the time to put my virtue into discipline.

I started to split on someone close to me recently, I didn't want to, but I knew "want" had nothing to do with it. Instead of lashing out, I asked them to leave. I spent an hour in that space regulating, and examining the things I was experiencing, what lead to it, what, if anything, could help me in that moment, even if I didn't want help. I called them back for a really long hug and I broke down the state I'd been in, what triggers lead to it, and what they could to do to help me. Because If don't believe I deserve help and vulnerability, I'll only hurt everyone.

[twigon0metry]

The Female Experience (Through My Eyes)

 Before I begin with yet another one of my annual multi-paragraph discourse posts, I want to clarify that this is not a coming-out story. I felt pulled to share my thoughts around my own experiences with gender in today’s day and age as a Christian, which is something I don’t see most people speaking about. My desire is to share my experiences in order that other Christians like me can be reassured that they are not alone, and it is normal to doubt. I wish to be the representation I needed back when I was struggling. 

TW I do talk about my faith and how it connects to who I am, however, I am sharing my personal experiences, so I hope it is more accessible than offensive--if you are not a christian, you are more than welcome to engage as well.

Here we go!

 I’ve never felt like a woman. When I was a child, I didn’t feel like a girl, either. I doubt there is a single point in my life in which I have actively felt and identified with what the world deems to be female. I was never distressed, but I did feel different sometimes. Not in the way that one might feel wearing pants in a room full of other girls in dresses, but in the way that I was myself and they were something else. I did things differently, I acted differently, and people could tell. “Quirky”, “Bold”, “Different”, “Confident” are all descriptors I’ve heard many a time, and I’ve been lucky that they’re positive. These aren’t bad things, and I am in no way complaining—just explaining that even people around me could see that I was different.

 Not once did I question myself until I reached the age that the internet became a larger part of my reality. The most I’d ever done was watch my testimony play on the screen in the green room at church, on the day I was baptized, noticing how my mouth moved funny when I talked. Or perhaps, observing my spindly limbs in a photograph, suddenly and uncomfortably aware of how differently my body moved in the world. But later on, as I immersed myself in our society, observing its movements in order to understand, I began to feel further and further away.

The only people I saw who were like me, were not women.

 To the tiny part of my lizard brain, this had to mean something, and my OCD latched onto it like a moth to a flame. Any suggestion to this end sent my mind spiraling. I felt an intense need to define who I was by a label of some sort, in order that I might fit in, or perhaps prove myself, or maybe, to truly find rest.

 I had to discover what being a woman meant, because if I didn’t, I was afraid I might not be one. I had to know what a woman was in order to be sure I was one. But finding no connection to what I saw femininity to be, I had no choice but to leave my questioning in the dark, unanswered.

 When I tried to think of the things that defined femininity, I could only think of the warped things I was bent upon rebelling against. Besides being generally uncomfortable with my anatomy, I hated that women were reduced to the sicky-sweet, seductive, rose-tinted narratives I saw all around me. So what was left? Nothing, except my own feelings and how I perceived myself. And when I thought about it, I didn’t perceive myself as a woman, just as myself. There were no “female” feelings to be found, either.

What I’ve finally come to realize, however, is that those two concepts can coexist. Woman, and me—that is, everything that makes me myself.

 If, say, I were to come out as nonbinary, or, agender, the more specific microlabel for those who don’t identify with gender (discovered during one of my obsessive internet searching phases), to be honest, I’m really not sure it would help me. Because I know that no matter what I did to change myself, even if it was no more than try my best to continue being genuine, being myself—the reality of womanhood would always follow me. I would still be seen within the binary of male and female, and my sex would always affect how I was treated by others. And beyond that, I would merely be stepping outside of one box into another—just as society pressures women to be feminine, I have seen how nonbinary people are pressured to be androgynous, to be not female, or not male, or a specific mixture of both that has to be palatable to others in just the right way. If I pursued this path of fitting into boxes, it would undoubtedly be a painful one, because to me, I fit perfectly in neither.

 Soon I realized that the problem, for me, is with the warped stereotypes associated with being a woman, and not being a woman itself. Woman, as a term, was not the box I had always thought it to be—if anything, it was more like a garden, and the garden grows what it will, no matter what I choose to plant.

 I have always been myself. Woman has always been a part of that, subconsciously, as a reality of my existence. But it never did, and doesn’t have to, hold the weight I thought it did. I am a Christian, but if I were to ask myself if I felt like a Christian, that would in turn raise the question of “how do I know what being a Christian feels like?”. I am also 20 years old. I do not feel like I am 20, but the reality is that that is the amount of time I have existed in this world, outside of the womb, for. (Quite frankly, most days I still feel like a teen.) I am also 5.9”, or to be specific, 175cm. But if someone were to ask me if I felt like I was 5 feet 9 inches, I wouldn’t be able to answer that, because I don’t feel like it, it just is.

To me, womanhood is the same. I am a woman, and it doesn’t have to mean anything more than it already does. It doesn’t mean I have to conform to what the world says a woman is like to be one—as a matter of fact, it doesn’t mean I have to act any certain way at all, since it is nothing more than an immutable trait of my flesh. I can ignore it, but I cannot avoid it. Regardless of anything I do or say, it is there, and it is what I was born with. I do not have to hate it, nor do I have to find joy in it—because it simply is, the way it is true that I have arms, I have hair, I have a face. I have a woman’s mind, a woman’s body, a woman’s soul, and to reject that would only hurt me further.

 Don’t get me wrong, femininity is important. I’m still on a journey to find out what it means. But my feelings aren’t the most important aspect of that, and to give them weight would only enforce the very things I sought to avoid.

 When God met Moses in the desert hundreds of years ago, He gave this response to being asked His name—“I am.” God is God. He simply is. He does not prove Himself to anyone, nor does He change Himself to fit one box or another, or force Himself to sit outside of them entirely. He rests in His identity and His way of being, perhaps like a cat stretches out and lies in the sun, its decisions not at all swayed by the musings of man.  

I don’t identify as a woman, I just am one.

 At this point, since I have little understanding of biblical femininity outside of how the world has warped it in misogynistic ways, this I believe is how I can glorify God with my femininity. He made me the way I am, with the things I like, what I do, and how I think. He also made me female. And the best thing for me to do for my anxious, restless mind is to abide in that “I am”—I am who He made me to be, messy parts, clean parts, parts that fit and parts that don’t. Woman is weaved so intricately, gently, within that, as part of who I am and how I experience the world. To reject that would mean I really do believe what society tells me about who I am—nothing but my own thoughts and feelings, crammed into an empty box painted with purple, yellow and white stripes.

[passionesolja]

How Online Outrage Culture Plays Into OCD Management

Right Off the bat, I am not a professional. Im just a introspective ass bitch with OCD and opinions!!!

So this is something I’ve been thinking about. A revelation.

I think that the way online spaces and social media trains us to reaction to things that mentally effect us is wrong.

And dangerous if you have OCD.

When someone online does something that’s deemed bad to people, no matter how minuet or major it’s treated like the sin above all sins.

You have to have a rebuttal and speak against everything. People claim you’re a bad person if you just move on from something that’s troubling because they think shit is Horton Hears a Who and everyone’s voice matters.

Silence is on the same level as the action you’re supposed to be speaking out against according to popular online opinion.

When shit ain’t the case.

This can create this very bad internal mindset where If you have a intrusive thought, you don’t just let it slide and try to move about because you’re primed to believe that you not fighting it means that you’re agreeing with it.

When shit ain’t the case.

I’ve been to therapy before to deal with my OCD, and it was explained to me that the best thing you can do as someone with OCD is:

Identify the thought as OCD

Immediately move on from it and do not engage with it.

You’re supposed to do this so overtime, when you have an intrusive thought, you’ve already trained your brain that it’s not to be listened to. this has helped me a lot

Imo, how we act in the external influences our internal world, so if you’ve been trained to engage with anything you know isnt true, or wrong, or you feel like you’re  indicted in it. Ofc you’re going to feel guilty if you don’t engage every intrusive thought you have.

These are just my thoughts. Please, yall, protect your peace.

[antigonewinchester]

reactions & thoughts abt the first 3 eps of the Boys! major spoilers & some personal speculation as to how things will play out later this season, so all the rest under the cut.

I was impressed by s1 & the parts of s2 that I rewatched in the last few weeks, and am particularly enjoying s3. after watching so much later seasons SPN it’s so nice to watch a show that’s actually good, I can just enjoy what’s happening instead of getting distracted by bad writing or my own ideas about rewrites. was also thinking of how Kripke’s shows are very good at growing as they move through the seasons and layering on top of each other, with the themes & ideas & esp character relationships. like how in SPN, s1 is the foundation and then s2 builds on top it, then s3, s4, s5, both plot-wise and character-wise. creates a show with such a great density, and that’s very true for the Boys in s3. it builds on s1 and s2 in a very satisfying, very entertaining way.

on rewatch I found Butcher more brutal & less sympathetic than I remember him, while I enjoyed Hughie more in contrast, but as of s3 I’m really liking the balance of both of them: Butcher showing his softer side with Ryan, trying to treat him in a kind way even if it’s not his first habit, while also going brutal on the supes; and then Hughie who is still softer but making some darker, more intense decisions, both for himself (let’s take on the supes since the system is rigged; Kimiko, break my arm so I can get out of work!) but also for others (telling Annie she had to stay with Homeland, but I do not think he predicted that would lead to the Homelander / Annie fake relationship, while Annie viscerally knows the depths that entitled men will go to).

speaking of Annie, I love her so much!! hadn’t realized how much I needed the “here’s how women are harmed by toxic masculinity” thread but tbh after SPN, it’s a breath of fresh air. Annie really illustrates how the patriarchal system forces women to internalize their anger and engage in self harm to move through the world, in contrast to how men will take out their anger on others – as a child, clenching her fist to get through the pain & then an adult, being the one to kiss Homelander after he pulls the “we’re in love!” card. also given that they used the same tinny static-y sound effect for when Annie had her dissociative moment at the end of ep 3, similar to what they’ve used with Homelander’s freak out moments, I cannot wait for Annie’s eventual breakdown. it’s just such a horrible and realistic situation, her trying to get power and respect but Homelander still being able to manipulate and abuse her, because that is what powerful men will do! plus, I love when my favorite characters are put through the ringer, and it doesn’t always happen as much with female characters, so that’s satisfying to see.

while on my first watch my fav of the Boys was Frenchie, on rewatch I was quite taken by MM and he continues to be a standout for me in s3. his OCD and trying to deal with it, how sweet he is with Janine, the hints about his backstory, all so good. MM wrestles with questions of closure / catharsis vs revenge but he’s not as far gone as Butcher, he’s got a softer side to him that makes him really appealing and a good foil for the darker, more driven characters. him and Hughie in ep 3 were just great, joking around and then MM making Hughie sit down to get his arm broken the ‘right’ way. and then what happened to his brother? and Soldier Boy killing his family?? you know the showdown between him and Soldier Boy is gonna be brutal later this season.

also with Soldier Boy, they really set the stage with him being an entitled misogynistic homophobic horrible man in his first scene, huh! and obvs he’s gonna be racist, and physically abusive, given how he treated Gunpowder. (I’m also guessing that Crimson Countess helped in getting him ‘killed’ back in ‘84; maybe he was violent towards her too?) which really fits the focus on how powerful & toxic men, and the patriarchal system generally, mistreat kids this season – Butcher trying to be a good father figure to Ryan but hurting him to push him away for Ryan’s ‘safety’ at the end of ep 3, MM and his compulsions making it hard to be a good dad, Vought not dealing with Soldier Boy’s abuse of Gunpowder because he was their golden boy. also very much reminds me of the Boys animated series and the last ep about Homelander, where he was physically abused by his handlers to toughen him up / make him into a powerful fighter and how that absolutely messed him up. as Grace describes Butcher, but equally fitting for Homelander, they’re violent because of “the hate inside that you want to let lose on the world.” the abuse Homelander suffered as a kid is horrible but cannot excuse or absolve him in taking out his rage on others as adult, but certainly shows how violence begets violence...

(finally, I accidentally stumbled on a spoiler that I won’t mention, but will say it makes me think there’s going to be something with Soldier Boy going after Ryan later in the season, and it’ll possibly tie into how / when / why Ryan and Butcher reconcile after Butcher pushed him away at the end of ep 3.)

[lowcountry-gothic]

OCD Treatment & Recovery

(Transcribed from this post from @the_ocdproject and @treatmyocd on Instagram, edited for grammar and spelling.)

Exposure & Response Prevention: What is it?

ERP therapy: a type of behavioral therapy that exposes people to situations which provoke their obsessions and resulting distress, while helping them to prevent their compulsive responses.

The goal of ERP: to free people from the obsession-compulsion cycle so they can live a better life.

ERP is the gold standard treatment for OCD.

Regardless of the theme of the obsession, ERP works via the same fundamental mechanism...

1) Exposure

Purposeful exposure to thoughts, images, objects, or situations that provoke obsessions and result in subsequent anxiety/distress.

2) Response Prevention

Choosing not to engage with compulsive behavior to alleviate the anxiety/distress that has been provoked by the exposure.

How does ERP work?

ERP reduces obsessional fear by habituation and inhibitory learning. Frequent exposure to a fear based stimulus will result in a natural decline of anxiety over time (habituation). As a sufferer begins to learn that they can tolerate anxiety without reliance on compulsive behaviors, they gain new safety information which disconfirms their original belief and inhibits the obsessional fear (inhibitory learning).

Is ERP right for me?

Every OCD sufferer's story looks different. Only you can decide whether treatment is something you want to enter into. Here are a few things to consider...

What are my goals? Am I willing to go outside my comfort zone? How long am I prepared to be in treatment for? Do I have a strong support system outside of therapy? Do I have access to a therapist I trust and respect?

Getting started

Finding a therapist

The first step is finding a therapist. While there are many therapists to choose from, finding one that can effectively treat OCD can be a challenge.

NOCD is one of the world's leading providers of affordable effective OCD treatment.

All therapists at NOCD are licensed ERP therapists.

To get started and to find out more, visit www.nocd.com.

[oldsoulnewperspective]

It involves taking a huge risk of treating yourself as if your worth were not open to debate,

Just read this and thought you might relate: It can be argued that many forms of OCD come down to a fear that lack of vigilance could lead to a loss of identity.

Moral scrupulosity is, thus, obsessive concern with whether or not one is being good or bad. 

More to the point, this perfection must be constantly proven beyond the shadow of all doubt. 

Compulsions, that is, behaviors that OCD sufferers engage in to feel more certain that their fears are untrue

They could be simply measuring their moral integrity against the certainty that they are being “healthy” in romantic relationships 

Mentally reviewing/checking for acts to determine moral integrity

Self-punishment to prove moral concern

You could assign a list of moral guidelines to follow that are consistent with your cultural context, and you can even convince yourself that confidence in this list (as opposed to some other list) is warranted. But at some point, you are still going to have to decide whether or not you trust your own judgment, your own memory, and your own self-talk. Though everyone is entitled to a reality check now and then (as in, “come on, it’s not that big a deal), repeatedly reassuring oneself to get certainty always ends up colliding with the wall of reality, that something may be getting missed.

OCD is a battle of uncertainty tolerance

proving that im being “healthy” isn’t the goal. 

Improve uncertainty tolerance

Violate the expectation that uncertainty about morality is intolerable

Improve ability to commit to value-based behaviors despite unwanted thoughts/feelings

For now, consider this – OCD is driven by compulsions, behaviors you engage in to make yourself feel certain that you, in this case, are moral. 

Learning to live joyfully with uncertainty, even about your inherent “goodness” as a human being is the best strategy for beating OCD and feeling good about yourself. OCD uses the fraudulent concept of “bad person” to con you into trying to prove you are otherwise.

“That was bad. I am bad. I shouldn’t be bad. I’m a failure. I am wrong. I hurt people. I am a deviant. I am dysfunctional. I must prove otherwise. I must be good.”

o “mind less” that these thoughts and feelings arise is to take a huge risk that you haven’t tried hard enough to be moral, that you could be wrong. Maybe this thought is the one you were supposed to wrestle to the ground and pummel! Being mindful is viewing OCD as simply a storyteller that weaves thoughts together to trick you into forgetting that they’re just thoughts, and viewing it this way is the ultimate exposure.

Putting it more simply, moral scrupulosity is a form of OCD that emphasizes a fear of being immoral or morally contaminated.

If you have moral scrupulosity, making a big deal out of every real or imagined moral misstep doesn’t seem like magnifying. It seems like compensating for bad behavior. People with moral scrupulosity tend to purposely blow up their real and imagined transgressions as a form of compulsive reassurance that they are taking ownership of wrongdoing (and therefore must be supremely moral). 

Since moral scrupulosity is, by definition, an obsession with self-worth or “goodness”, it should come as no surprise that OCD promotes these painful feelings as bait to start doing compulsions. Guilt proves nothing. Recognizing that feelings are not reliable evidence of facts can take some of the power away from OCD’s claim.

If our efforts to be perfectly certain about morality cause us to be compulsive, and ERP asks us to scale back that behavior, then we are going to feel, well, less moral in a way. We may try to compensate for this by engaging in self-punishment, being extra unkind to ourselves to make sure we aren’t getting away with anything. If I can at least prove that I feel bad (i.e. guilty, disgusted, self-hating) about real and imagined moral failings, then I am at least somewhat liberated from worrying about being immoral. Put simply, self-criticism is a compulsion. It often gets overlooked because we tend to think of compulsions as feeling good. In reality, compulsions simply feel better than what we imagine the alternative to be and beating yourself up sounds better than taking the risk of finding out you’re a bad person later. If only it worked.

If treating yourself badly proved you were good and proving you’re good freed you from your OCD, I’d be all for it. 

You have a thought about something you did or thought about doing, or felt an urge to do, and so forth, and because this experience doesn’t line up with your presumed identity as a moral person, you feel bad. Because you feel bad, you try to get the feeling to stop. You may seek reassurance, try to make sure you’re not doing bad things, check to see if you have, and engage in other compulsions. You set up a series of rigid rules that apply only to you to guarantee you’ll never do a bad thing, but since these rules are impossible to follow perfectly, they also make you feel bad. 

What’s worse, ceasing to feel bad makes you feel like you’re getting away with something, like you stopped caring about your moral compass. Bad feelings at least reminded you that you care and reassure you that you would never intentionally be immoral. So, you find yourself trying to get away from the pain of bad feelings while at the same time clinging to those bad feelings for proof of inherent goodness. Ultimately, this compulsive relationship to moral doubt sends the message to your brain that thoughts about morality are codes to be cracked, problems to be solved. So, the brain faithfully performs its duty to help you by sending more intrusive thoughts and feelings your way.

But for ERP to be at its most effective, you have to expose both to the fear that you may be morally imperfect and also to the fear that you have inadequately addressed it.  ERP for contamination fears involves exposing to triggering experiences (E) to generate the feeling of being dirty, but then intentionally behaving like someone who is clean (not washing hands and also cross-contaminating to other objects and environments). So, you get the dirty feeling, but you pair it with the behavior of a person who feels clean. 

Catch and abandon any mental review of the event, especially any rationalizing over why the event occurred or why it won’t be repeated

Seek no reassurance about the meaning of the event or your characterFully engage in the present by actually allowing yourself to enjoy something (mindfulness is a major asset here). Remember, OCD wants you clinging to guilt, so embracing a joyful moment is an act of rebellion.Find activities to do that you imagine people do when they believe themselves to be good, innocent, or having served their time.

[thedreadvampy]

after the cbt post I'm really unsure if I even want to apply for counselling now

the whole point of looking for therapy was to get help but if it makes things worse then maybe I should just carry on trying to do it myself?

I don't fuckin know

that was meant to be my out for feeling like this what the fuck do I do now

Like. First off this is about CBT, not about counseling generally, which has been really useful once I've found the right process. I don't know if you're in the UK or not, but while accessing NHS counseling hasn't always been easy and it took a while to find the right fit, when I did get a counselor and approach that fit my needs it jumped my healing forwards by miles, it really can be a lifesaver (plus tbh if you're really deep in the doldrums, it can help just by giving you some structure and space). Don't stop looking for counseling because it absolutely can make a huge positive difference, I don't know where I'd be without the counseling I got from the rape crisis center and the NHS. There's a lot of types of therapy/counselling out there and what works for you isn't something I can predict - for me what I've reacted to best is freeform talk therapy, but other people find that really hard to engage with and prefer more structured or theoretical therapies, and the NHS offer a lot of different ones (they just tend to jump to CBT first).

So, beyond that; some people do find CBT really helpful. But the way the NHS specifically uses CBT is outside its recommended use, which is treatment for OCD, BPD, anxiety and some PTSD symptoms (although not PTSD itself). The NHS basically uses it as a first stop for pretty much all mental health patients as far as I can tell (because, as I say, it's cheap and easy to apply) so, much like most people with MH problems I know have been on Citalopram (which is their first stop SSRI), most people I know with MH problems have been to CBT sessions. And with that range of problems, most of them won't find what they need in CBT, which, again, despite how it's currently used, is not designed as a general purpose treatment but specifically to help manage repetitive thought and behaviour patterns.

For some people, managing thought and behaviour patterns is what they need, at least temporarily. My partner found it very helpful to keep him out of breakdown territory during a hard time, and so have several friends I know (seems to have positive impacts particularly on friends diagnosed with BPD bc BPD diagnostic criteria, which focus on intense reaction and toxic thought spirals, line up really well with what CBT is designed to help with).

I think the way in which it's harmed me and others isn't the actual treatment, but the fact that it's treated as if it Should Work and that can make you feel way worse if everyone tells you 'CBT and mindfulness is a magic cure that fixes all your brain problems' and then it. doesn't. because your specific problem isn't what is designed to fix. and I think that harm is mitigated by knowing that a) what works for you is highly personal even within diagnoses, b) at the time you get CBT you probably don't have a concrete diagnosis beyond Something Ain't Right and c) CBT, even when it's right for you, isn't meant to be the end point.

CBT is, specifically, a stop-gap. It's meant to help you keep going with your life while you sort stuff out. Again, because of budget reasons the NHS kind of hope that your problems won't be too bad so that CBT will give you a good enough stable starting point to sort your own shit out without further support, which does work for some people, but for most of us CBT should be part of a larger treatment journey if used at all. CBT is a bandage - it doesn't close the wound, but where it works it stops you bleeding out long enough to either get to a hospital or for your body to heal itself.

I'm not going to lie to you - for a lot of us, getting through to the point where we're accessing the right treatment can be a slog. And because of how the NHS works, it can mean going to CBT, finding it doesn't work for you, and gritting your teeth through a six session course so you can go back to your doctor and say 'see, this didn't work for me and the CBT people agree, what else ya got?' My partner's just sat through 14 sessions of group therapy he found extremely stupidly designed specifically because sometimes that's what you gotta do to get referred on for one-on-one talk therapy, which is what he actually needs.

Like I say, the harm comes when you're made to feel like you're failing therapy. You don't fail therapy. Therapy that isn't working just isn't the right setup for you for whatever reason and that's not a flaw in you, there is no universal catchall therapeutic method. It's always going to be trial and error and if you are able to hold in mind that you're not Bad for finding a counseling style or methodology unhelpful, off-putting or alienating, then badly-fitted therapy shouldn't be nearly as harmful as trying to struggle on manfully alone.

The hardest but most rewarding part for me was the process of learning that I could just say 'this isn't working for me because XYZ, can we try a different approach' and...nothing bad would happen. I wouldn't lose my access to counseling and nobody shouted at me, and when I said 'this isn't working can we change it'...things got better. I was having an absolutely shit and frustrating time with my NHS counselor, I was finding going to counseling a huge stress, and after stewing for a couple of weeks I blew up and said 'I don't like this, this or this, I feel talked down to when you do this, I don't feel like you're listening to me about this, and this thing you're doing keeps making me feel worse' and he got defensive. but he also. changed his practise immediately. and we ended up having a really fantastic and productive 6 months of counseling and I am in private therapy now but I keep referring back to the work he and I did together because it was so useful for me.

So like the takeaways for me are a) know that the fact that this counseling might suck for you doesn't mean counseling in general won't be helpful, there's always going to be some trial and error to find the right fit, b) if it does suck, don't suffer in silence, tell them! if you're sitting there hating it, they're not getting anything out of that either so just let them know that you're uncomfortable, finding it hard to engage, etc (I know this can be really hard and I know for me I only started being able to push back when I was already a couple of years into my treatment journey but do what you can do to communicate your fears) and c) when it works it works.

Getting counseling that works is a journey. It can be wearing and esoteric and a pain in the ass, and sometimes you just don't click with a therapy and sometimes you just don't click with the counselor, but it is absolutely worth pushing through the bullshit because a) change often happens gradually while you're not looking and b) finding a concept who works for you absolutely can change your life super fast. It took me a couple of tries but when I found a counselor and approach that worked for me I managed within 16 sessions to get out of my house, to get a job I liked for the first time, to go out and meet people for the first time in a city I'd been in for 3 years, and to cut out a lot of the people who were making my life unsafe. It's so worth it but it is a journey that takes time and trial and error, so the sooner you start the sooner you're likely to get somewhere that helps you.