#OCD life

[highlyillogicalandroid]

Hilarious to me when media features a character with OCD who is clearly NOT written by someone with OCD.

[bow-echo]

I got switched to Pristiq. It's 3:21am CDT UTC -5 and I'm wide a-fucking-wake. I thought I was supposed to take it at night?

[inkskinned]

even 2 years ago people still said autism with a whisper. it was also how people sometimes whisper lesbian, like they're afraid of uttering a slur. autistic was either an insult or it was something terrible, a horrible burden only select people endure. "select people" were usually 9 year old boys and skinny white men.

they are not hispanic young adults with a dog and a life and friends. i can make (sustained, calculated, painful) eye contact. with certain people, i don't even have to count how many seconds i am holding their vision - i can just look at them. i can wear clothes that bother me, i will just have a worse day than usual. i might cry about any changes to my schedule - but change is scary! this is normal!

when i was 16 it was OCD. i mean that was the thing everyone said. i totally have ocd. they would arrange 6 colors of gel pen in rainbow order (no worry for indigo feeling left out) and they'd be "so ocd" about it.

if you struggle with intrusive thoughts, be careful at this next paragraph, but. at 16 i developed a compulsion that involved self-harm. my ocd was convinced i was simply forgetting that i'd hurt someone terribly - a thought that persisted for no clear or delineated reason.

at some point i will probably write about how the idea of "morally pure thoughts" was hell for me and others with ocd, but this was the odd dichotomy for many of us: they liked our "aesthetic", but were genuinely repulsed by our lived experience. "intrusive thoughts" now means "cutting your hair in the sink" instead of talking yourself down from believing horrible things. "so ocd" is a label without any true understanding.

it's something i've talked about before - in multiplicity - but i firmly believe in the veracity and necessity of self-diagnosis. i think it saves lives and it saves tragedies from occurring. as someone raised in a house that wasn't safe, self-diagnosis was, for many years, the only viable option. 15 and honestly googling: am i depressed or are there demons affecting my behavior.

but it is not genuine self-diagnosis anymore, most of the time. it is a strange, blanched version of that whispered word autism. now certain traits are constantly seen as "autistic" - any passing intense interest. any flubbed social interaction. people say it while laughing - a touch of the 'tism.

and i like the acceptance! i do. i like that people are talking about it. i like that if i self-identify, more people speak up and say me too, bitch. but there is something-else quietly happening, the way it happened to OCD. the quirky, "fun" parts have been washed and sanitized and removed of all suffering. now it is just something that makes you "a little bit silly."

it took me 27 years on this planet before i learned to make friends. something about me just seems incredibly odd, i guess, some kind of radiation monitoring. someone once (in a way that was almost friendly) told me i am doing the right things, but in a way that's off-putting. i have scoured myself raw attempting to be charming.

someone on tiktok does a deep dive into their particular passion. the top comment says "what kind of autism is this lol". like we are a breed of animal. like it has no influence on our experience. like our life is a fresh breeze, an open meadow.

more often for me, life was a drowning.

[rachmcadams]

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) dir. Frank Capra

[eggings]

happy disability pride month to anyone who has a disability from a condition that “usually isn’t a disability”. happy disability pride month to people with disabilities that aren’t often understood by able-bodied people. happy disability pride month to people who don’t have any official diagnosis yet. happy disability to people whose “labs look completely fine”. wishing you peace this july.

[identitty-dickruption]

relatedly, I think that some of the most extreme takes about morality and relationships and "being a good person" come from people with undiagnosed/unrecognised/mismanaged obsessive thinking. and that, here on the social internet, we often all do a really good job at fuelling each other's worst obsessive tendencies*

*in case this breaks containment: this is coming from someone with OCD. I have been diagnosed for several years now and have been thinking about this a lot

[giraffeautism]

The most common argument you'll hear against self diagnosis is that people will fake being [X] for attention. But every disabled person, physical or otherwise, knows this could only work in online spaces - the world was not made for us, and brandishing your disability as a badge of honor that gives you ~special privileges~ is such a funny idea.

Like, honey - that doesn't happen. No one gets anything from being disabled. Maybe extra accommodations if you're lucky - but nothing else. And the internet isn't as important as you seem to think - eventually it just feels hollow.

Ask disabled people how often they had to fight to get diagnosed so their medical needs could be met and their complaints would be heard. Doctors are just hardwired to delay this as much as possible.

I knew I was autistic since late 2018 - I got an official diagnosis 4 months ago. Knowing yourself and how you can make your own life easier is a lifesaver.

And this isn't even going into how many *cons* there are to a professional diagnosis, like being met with disdain at best and denied services at worst.

I don't care if a 16 year old who self diagnosed after taking 1 online quiz about autism is wrong. And honestly I think it's weird people treat this 'issue' with so much hatred.

[joker-and-the-queen]

Firm believer that sometimes you just have to say “fuck it, my writing is good enough” and post, or you’ll spend forever trying to improve it. When you’re a perfectionist, your writing will never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good.

[vegetabletaxi]

moments i should've realized i had moral ocd

when i was 10 i was convinced the police were going to arrest me for looking at boobs

thinking i was abusing and neglecting my first pet to the point where i gave him away so he would be "safe from me"

being so, so, so, so forgetful ("oh, what i ate??? oh, no idea! i was too busy being guilty over the fact i'm not 100% vegan yet!")

jumping at every opportunity to get drunk/high/etc. so i wouldn't have to think about anything anymore

having had like a million coping mechanisms but never knowing "why" and thinking i was doing it "just to get attention"

getting an anxiety attack everytime i mess up at work somehow

feel free to add on lol

[icelogged]

† to the basement of the church

[undeadorion-archive]

Cooking with sensory issues

[theropoda]

this is the worst website to have moral ocd on because someone will post 'if you don't like pickles you deserve to get run over by a car' and you'll spend the next 3 weeks ruminating over if not liking pickles makes you a bad person and actively, unironically contemplate suicide about it

[hillerska-official]

[trainerethan]

Autistic red is real and true to many but I think we should all also accept autistic green into our hearts.

[quitesins]

Saiki K was low-key OCD representation

[deprixpainsblog]

Wer bin ich? Ohne meine Psychischen Erkrankungen?