#OCD representation

[cripplecharacters]

Hello!

I have a character I am considering be OCD (or possibly OCPD) and she is the narrator/POV character for a large portion (1/3) of the book. My issue is, if I decide to give her any condition related to compulsions, intrusive thoughts, etc, how do I get across the severity of the condition while neither pounding the readers over the head to the point of boredom/frustration, nor minimizing/erasing her symptoms by just ignoring them until they are relevant to the story? (The plot's focus is not on her disability, but disability is an underlying current through the whole book.)

I think this would be much easier of a balance to strike if it were a short story, especially since i have written short stories before from the POV of characters with similar issues, but this is going to be a full-length novel, and she'll probably be the narrator for like 60,000 words, and that is a lot longer for a reader to keep interest in her.

To be clear, I'm not asking for a list of symptoms or anything like that. I have been doing research and continue to, for that. I'm just wondering how to strike the balance between those experiences and turning off the reader from repetitiveness.

Hi asker,

What I think is you don't always have to describe all the thoughts in detail. If there's common themes/recurring imagery or the like in her thoughts, you could focus on that to minimize repetitiveness.

For example, if one of her themes is that she worries she might accidentally hurt someone, you could describe it in the first times it happens in-story as something like...

"As I walked next to Michael, I worried i might hurt him without intending to. What if I tripped and fell onto him? We were near the road. I always worried. I focused on counting my steps to make sure nothing would go wrong."

As in, you don't have to specify how exactly she's worried it might happen, or that her brain is giving her thoughts that it could happen in way A and B and C. And then, at some other point, when the triggering situation happens again, you can do something like,

"Michael walked next to me. I counted my steps. He told me about...."

However, you can absolutely embrace that repetitiveness as a narrative style. The more repetitiveness you write in, the more anxiety you are conveying, because you're conveying the thought loop that OCD causes.

You can also focus on the emotions your character feels during thought loops and compulsions to varying degrees. Sometimes she might be more distressed than other times. Sometimes she might just be annoyed. Sometimes she believes the compulsions more, sometimes she tries harder to resist them.

I would actually suggest picking up books with protagonists with OCD, just to see how this repetition is played with in the stories.

Books I can recall off the top of my head that I have read that have a protagonist with OCD are Turtles All The Way Down, The Goldfish Boy, and OCDaniel, and I don't remember myself getting turned off by repetitiveness at any point. I recommend them as interesting reads, but I read them all a while ago and can't go into much detail. They are all also YA or Middle Grade just because I enjoy those types of books, haha.

Hope this helps,

mod sparrow

[fella-lovin-fella]

guess who got diagnosed with ocd a couple weeks ago

[ashleyrowan]

BEHOLD! My collection of fucked up little OCD blorbos. Ever since I got my diagnosis, I've been noticing more and more characters in fiction who have control freak disease just like me and I LOVE them.

Do you have any special characters who have the same neurodivergencies as you? Drop 'em in the comments, especially if they've got OCD, I wanna add to the collection >:3

[toomuchdivergentformyneuro]

‼️[TW: slight gore; OCD intrusive thoughts mention]‼️

something that i am INCREDIBLY infuriated at is how OCD is presented and shown in media.

they will make people saying that they need to turn a light on and off 12 times to prevent their family from dying as a funny skit for people to laugh at, when in actuality that’s how it feels and seems to that person. it is so real to that person.

and also, they only seem to present OCD in an afraid of germs way, and the turning the light on and off way, when once again, in actuality, it is pretty damn common that OCD isn’t even obvious, and also looks much more like avoiding things in a very much less obvious way.

and like yes, OCD can also be being afraid of germs, and having obvious compulsions, but that’s not the only way it can be seen, and i don’t think i’ve ever seen representation of OCD that’s in another way, one that’s more like MY OCD.

i want more COMMON depictions of OCD that AREN’T used as FUNNY LITTLE SKITS.

and it’s infuriating and frustrating that how literally SO MANY PEOPLE don’t ACTUALLY know what OCD is! they think it’s liking things organized, liking things clean, and etc. and SIMPLY that.

they don’t realize it involves INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS that are unwanted and are highly distressful and don’t leave us alone most of the time/when severe.

and on top of that, they don’t fucking know the difference between intrusive thoughts and impulsive thoughts.

impulsive thoughts is “oh i just cut off all my hair cuz i felt like it” and intrusive thoughts is “i had the sudden image of jabbing these scissors into my skull”

intrusive thoughts are not fucking fun, and ALL those with OCD struggle have them, pretty much daily, and usually have a deep core belief that they are a bad person (depending on the intrusive thoughts) because of them their WHOLE LIVES, whether they know they have OCD or not, whether they’ve been in therapy for it or not.

i am fucking TIRED of people not knowing what OCD is, not knowing what intrusive thoughts are, and the misinterpretation/one interpretation of it in media.

every time i see a misinterpretation or misinformation about it, i become absolutely livid.

if i had clearer representation of OCD growing up, i honestly would’ve known that i didn’t have all these horrible subconscious wishes, and that i wasn’t the worst person on the planet for my intrusive thoughts.

we need better representation immediately, and for people to actually care to represent it and understand it.

[dremb]

An obsession caused by OCD can lead someone to perform a compulsive action to alleviate the stress. While this does make the anxiety go away, it makes future compulsions even harder to resist. Essentially; the more you feed it, the stronger it gets. (This is my painting)

[mibkid]

A while ago i learned that Alec benjamin has ocd, and he even made a song about it(around february this year). For those who don't know who that is, yes you do, i'm 100% sure that you've heard at least one song of his. At least if you are 25 to 15 yo.

AND the thing is.

I am blown away by how many people i have learned has ocd the last two years. From people i have gotten to know, to musicians, to youtubers, to fellow artists, it has me shocked every time.

But it also makes me feel seen, and heard, and understood in a way i didn't know that i needed. It makes me think that there is positive possibilities for my future, that i can work on my ocd and still do what i want to do. Despite me knowing that i will of course struggle, i think we all do, in the face of adversity.

I read today that we don't all need to be advocates for OCD just because we have it, but that just your existance against ocd is resistance and a form of activism and advocacy on it's own.

And I think i understand what that means now.

[rowanfalls]

Was someone gonna tell me that Sasha Amphibia has OCD or was I supposed to find out by myself?? How was I supposed to know I'd be crazy about her if no one was gonna tell me!? Just watching the show????

[piercingsandfangs]

Hannah the horrible needs to stop self diagnosing herself with OCD.

She's not diagnosed with OCD yet yaps and tries to speak on the ocd experience. ' No one with OCD thinks the way they think is logical ' WRONG. So so wrong.

' I've shown signs of OCD and it's sooo embarrassing ' brutha Ew. It's giving abelist.

I'm also not diagnosed but I'm also not gonna act like my experience is the experience of everyone or think it's okay to call symptoms of it embarrassing on a massive platform.

[starandcloud]

What're you doing?

Just so it's out there, this is just how my autism works, this is not meant to represent everyone with autism. It's just mine

Tw: OCD thoughts

Cardan: Walks into his partner's college dorm Hey baby

Y/N Sitting in the middle of the living room floor, doesn't answer

Cardan: Darling? walks toward them

Y/N: Off. I mopped it today.

Cardan: Alright... Alright, what're you doing? takes his shoes off

Y/N: Sorting...

Cardan: Well I can see that, what're you sorting?

Y/N: My... Skittles... Fully concentrated on their skittle sorting

Cardan: Goes to sit next to them

Y/N: No.

Cardan: Got it, is it a personal bubble thing?

Y/N: Mhm...

Cardan: Do you want me to le-

Y/N: No.

Cardan: Alright.

Silence

Cardan: Can I ask, why you're sorting your skittles?

Y/N: Brain says so

Cardan: Fair enough, do you want help?

Silence

Y/N: Pushes the bag of skittles towards Cardan. Mhm...

Cardan: Eats a skittle

Y/N: Why... would you do that... it's purple...

Cardan: Because I wanted the purple one?

Y/N: But it's not in order, now something bads gonna happen...

Cardan: Nothing bad is going to happen baby, and even if it does, I'm right here. Okay? Gently puts his hand on their shoulder

Y/N: Mhm...

@nomournersonefuneral

[theromanceriot]

Book Release: The Unsolved Murder of Bianca Keller by KJ Sweet

New Book Release: The Unsolved Murder of Bianca Keller by KJ Sweet

Blurb: With her boyfriend murdered and her best friend being suspect number one, Bianca Keller’s life has turned upside down. But it actually hasn’t been all that bad. In fact, her life has never been better. Not only does she finally have control of her murder mystery podcast, but she’s been doing good in the world helping solve other unsolved murders and bring criminals to justice—but not…

[gwydionmisha]

The Sanitised Lie of OCD Representation

[cripplecharacters]

Hi. I have OCD (and various other mental illnesses) and have a character who has OCD. However, this character lives in a setting with aliens who are basically psychic with extra steps (they communicate via electromagnetic fields and can identify and interact with humans brain's electrical impulses.) What I'm wondering is should I make it so these aliens can like, easily distinguish some types of neurodiversity. i.e. they can easily recognize OCD character because his thought/brain patterns are more "repetitive?"

Personally I'm very torn on this. On one hand it feels validating because like a sort of "proof" that the difference is there and to ignore it is foolish. But at the same time it feels reductive to be, even indirectly, identified primarily by disability.

Possibly relevant, I don't think all neurodiversity should be easily identifiable by this species. Like I don't think autism could be identified (too much variation) but maybe something like DID could (parts of the brain field are somewhat "segregated")

Thank you for your ask! I think if the aliens have had contact with humans (or similar alien species) before, they might have some knowledge on what conditions are associated with certain thought patterns. If the aliens haven’t specifically spoken to humans on the matter they might make their own classifications which would probably look a lot different than ours (especially with how wide symptoms vary in one condition and how many symptoms overlap in so many conditions).

Your character doesn’t have to be only identified by their OCD, that may be what stands out at first to the aliens but if your character is well rounded they can be identified by their other traits. For example, when you first meet someone you might think of them as ‘the person with the interesting fashion sense,’ but as time goes on and you learn more about them you associate them with more traits.

Have a nice day!

Mod Rot

Hi!

I think that it's an interesting idea! I feel that it would make sense for an alien psychic creature to recognize that there are some "thinking patterns" that some humans sometimes have. As an example, I can see how they would pick up that certain people have a very specific Pure O pattern just from psychic-ing various people.

Depending on if/how the topic of mental health/neurodiversity exists in the alien society, they might not even necessarily consider it as such. If they don't recognize the pattern as a disorder, they might just think of it as a type of thinking that humans just have, like how they can perceive that some humans have brown hair while others are redheads (while readers would probably pick up on what is implied if they know anything about OCD). The alien aspect gives you a lot of possibilities!

As someone with OCD, I don't see it as "reducing" at all. It's true that his thoughts happen in a different manner than most peoples', but there's still content in them, right? His OCD is just affecting them, which is just how that works. The only exception here is that his OCD process itself is a part of the story - unless you decided to put his entire character's focus on how Weird and Exotic that is, you should be perfectly fine. I think it's an interesting part of worldbuilding to add!

If you are really worried about him being "identifiable" by his OCD, you can always make it so that different OCD types are seen as distinct (or, from an alien's perspective, perhaps even unrelated). For example, someone who's thought process is occupied with visual intrusive thoughts, versus one who is mainly having a specific compulsion-obsession pattern over and over, etc. - this will show OCD as the wide range that it is, and definitely not as "a label" that someone could just be instantly identified with. You can also make sure to show that every person's thought patterns are different to some degree (even if they're as neurotypical as it's humanly possible), and perhaps those with OCD's patterns are just hyperspecific enough to be recognized as more different; a "genre" of thought patterns of sorts. Because at the end of the day, they will also be people who don't have OCD who might share a few of these "OCD patterns" (and who don't fully get read as having it, maybe as adjacent at best), as well as two people who do have it and whose brain patterns don't match at any point, who still do get read as having OCD despite all that. It's a spectrum, afterall, so the brain patterns would be too!

I think that if you have OCD yourself, you can do basically anything you want with this. As I said, you have an interesting concept that you can tackle from a bunch of different angles, and I would love to see a take on it by an author with OCD! :-)

mod Sasza

[shybasementkid]

can we please make an ocd creature to accompany the autism creature, the adhd creature, and the anxiety creature. pretty please. its good representation

[delicateharmonybear]

Shoutout to that moment in Wonder Park where she cleans an already clean house because she stressed about her mom and her creativity is lost. I need more representation for OCD girls like me who clean when they can't process their emotions

[brokenbodybitch]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute By: Talia Hibbert

This book was so good!!!! The ocd rep was beautifully done, as is all the disability rep I’ve read from Talia. The story is perfectly balanced with the romance, mental health discussions, family dynamics and banter; you have Celine and Bradley’s adorable childhood friends to ‘strangers/rivals’ back to friends then to ‘lovers’ and their inner dialogue about the other is hysterically adorable at the very least (fav example; brad fantasizing about messing with Cel’s alarm for a hypothetical friend’s wedding…ok sure you totally don’t like her). But you also have amazing discussions about mental health particularly surrounding Brad’s OCD and Cel’s relationship with her distanced father and the impacts of those. All in this was such a beautiful YA Debut from Talia Hibbert

[ack-cough]

(You look around the table and see your family. You're normally not this quiet at the table, and they clearly notice-)

(you might as well TAKE your fill)

(!!!)

(You excuse yourself from the table and head the bed early. You try to ignore their confused looks and worried questions)