#No I don't have OCD I just have. Some cognitive overlap

[chicago-geniza]

Need to shower and do laundry before the talk this evening but unfortunately I'm cemented to the spot staring at a fixed point in space obsessively ruminating over all the circumstances in which people must have contracted and died of UTIs before the advent of antibiotics

[windcarvedlyre]

Somewhat related to your Komaeda autism post, but did you know that FTD can often be mistaken for mental disorders like depression, bipolar, OCD, autism, etc.? And vice versa? I always thought it was interesting and I like playing with the idea that Komaeda got misdiagnosed with FTD because of that overlap. Idk it's just fun to think about (also because a lot of typical FTD symptoms really don't match with him imo so it could be a fun explanation idk)

Disclaimer: I have zero expertise in this.

I was actually just discussing that with someone! I'm not sure that's possible, though? Because of his age I feel like it would have taken a lot of red flags (or a lucky coincidence) for doctors to consider dementia at all, and there's no way they wouldn't have confirmed it with brain scans. @cry-stars recently told me about a case in Japan where a guy in his 20s had dementia mistaken for depression for aaageees, so I could see him being the same.

So I could see him being misdiagnosed as something else- or correctly diagnosed with something he has on top of the FTD, attributing FTD symptoms to that- for years before having it corrected to FTD, or luck leading to brain scans/cognitive tests getting him diagnosed out of nowhere, but not the reverse of the former.

I still really love reading meta on potential comorbidities, though! On top of the post-traumatic stress there's no way he doesn't have. I've read some neat perspectives on him from people with OCD and BPD, but I don't have them myself so I can't add anything to those discussions.

[liesmyth]

my locked tomb hot take of the day is that the way Harrow’s symptoms are presented in HtN line up much more closely with religious OCD with poor insight and psychotic features than schizophrenia. She shows almost no signs of paranoia or delusions (G1deon really was trying to kill her! It’s absolutely true that the other houses would swoop in like vultures if they knew her house’s true position! Her sword and psyche were both actually haunted, to the point that Alecto could hitch a ride in her body. She is never shown in the text to hold a belief that is inconsistent with reality, IMO) and her only true psychotic symptom that we see is hallucinations, and she seems to most of the time have some idea that they aren’t real, which indicates a level of self awareness incompatible with schizophrenia. She also doesn’t seem to display many cognitive symptoms like thought block or disorganized speech and thinking. The rest of her behavior is highly obsessive (compulsive praying, wearing face paint even when nobody is around, obsessive studying, needing her food to be arranged on her plate a certain way) and is very in line with someone suffering from religious scrupulosity. As someone who has experienced both OCD and psychosis, and knows how the symptoms can overlap, this is is the hill I will die on.

I don't feel like I can contribute in any meaningful way to your points, so I'll just put this out into the world and say that I appreciate your insights!

Speaking from a #meta perspective: I know that around the time HtN came out, Tamsyn gave interviews talking about her own experiences being hospitalised for mental health reasons and implied that was what she was partly drawing on when writing HtN. I can't remember if she called Harrow schizophrenic or stated that it was her intention to write her as such, and the author is dead anyway. Plus, obviously, the fact that someone's writing was informed by irl experiences doesn't have to mean that said writing is a 1:1 parallel for those experiences, expecially in a sff setting where ghosts exists and in fact there's something that Harrow can see and nobody else can.

TO ME, the fact that people who experience psychotic episodes can recognise themselves in Harrow's internal monologue and experiences is more meaningful than whether Harrow “really” has a given specific disorder or she's just seeing ghosts. The point is that SHE feels a disconnect from reality and that she's delusional and cannot trust anything she remembers or reads. Nobody in-universe is ever going to diagnose her, you know? The series itself doesn't claim to be straight-up representation for any specific named issues — things like Cytherea's cancer or Harrow's mental state are left ambiguous and partly influenced by magic. I think the fact that readers can relate to some symptoms some characters experience is more meaningful than whether these symptoms all point to something that can be diagnosed unambiguously.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me!

[shepfax]

personal rant post abt mental health services ┐⁠(⁠´⁠ー⁠｀⁠)⁠┌

well. the psychological assessment process is done and the report said my autistic traits are a mix of clinical and subclinical so I don't meet the requirements for a diagnosis today.

they marked me down as having OCD (this was a prior diagnosis I fully acknowledge), specific phobia (another one that is obvious to me), and sluggish cognitive tempo. I had never heard of the last one and now I'm doing some research about it because it's apparently a controversial term that essentially means I am slow to process information in real time--not just slow, but incredibly slow. my actual intelligence was measured in the 99th percentile and my processing speed was in the 8th percentile. it's not an intellectual disability but it is definitely a form of cognitive impairment.

I've known I had OCD since I was young, and they ascribed most of the autistic behavior I exhibit to OCD--sensory oversensitivity, rigid adherence to structure, easily overwhelmed--which I fully acknowledge is characteristic of many neurodiverse conditions, but I still feel a bit missed here. the disqualifying factor for ASD was my emotional/social intelligence being too high. specifically too high because I am apparently hyper aware of social information to a degree that it's overwhelming me mentally, which from my inside perspective is a learned behavior. I was dogshit at knowing social rules as a kid and learned to change how I approach conversation as I grew up to avoid embarrassing people around me.

my previous counselor, my college's disability coordinator, and an adult autism specialist have worked with me under the assumption that I'm on the autism spectrum so this came as a bit of a shock. since meeting with that specialist back in 2019 I've attended countless meetings with ASD support groups and local resource fairs, all of which have been really helpful for me. the assessment professional said there is no reason I have to stop going to these things especially if they help me but I still just feel weird

honestly speaking, I'm going to be holding onto my autistic identity for the time being but I'm gonna keep it more low key while I do more research about this SCT stuff and the overlap of ASD and OCD