#and the worst part is that my OCD is so disturbing that i don’t even wanna share my experience i just want people to shut up about saying

[tooomuchcoffee]

i hate having OCD and being compared to people who just put their food in clear containers and clean their house…

like no. that is not OCD. and you are not suffering. please stop using OCD to describe your habits while i’m over here having constant anxiety daily…

[nolassafeplace]

Table of contents for this post:

What is OCD + intrusive thoughts?

What are OCD stereotypes? Are they accurate?

How can I manage my OCD?

Final notes

(Warning: mentions of intrusive thoughts about S3xual acts, physical viol3nc3. Other warnings: mental disorders, and anxiety)

**note!! This is mostly based off of my own experience with OCD, I do not speak for everyone who has this.

{..*^•^*..} What is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?

OCD is when scary or disturbing thoughts (also known as intrusive thoughts) pop into your mind without your control, which causes rituals and compulsive behaviors to happen. It can be closely connected to Autism and ADHD, and it’s common for those who have OCD to have either or both of those as well. (I’ve done some additional research on OCD and this is what I found- if I’m wrong feel free to correct me! I don’t want to spread any misinformation 😅)

Intrusive thoughts can be disturbing and unwanted imagery/words of Sexual acts, physical violence, embarrassing situations, and other things you may be scared of happening. Intrusive thoughts commonly make you feel as if you will lose control of your body, making your worst fears come true if you don’t do what the intrusive thought says.

For example: an intrusive thought says that, “if you don’t touch the doorknob handle 16 times before closing the door, you and your entire family will die.” Doing what those thoughts tell you to is called a ‘ritual.’ Another type of intrusive thought is intrusive images. I have a lot of these, and those fuel most of my rituals.

OCD can manifest in many different ways- for example Pure O, which is just the obsessions/obsessive thoughts without the compulsive behavior. There are many more types and versions of OCD, and I will make sure to go over them in another post.

{..•~^} What are some OCD stereotypes? Are they accurate?

A major stereotype that is pinned on people with OCD, is that those who suffer from the disorder are clean and organized all the time. This can be the case for some people, but it doesn’t apply to everyone. For example, I have a ritual that includes hand washing, but that doesn’t mean every part of my rituals revolve around germs.

Also, just because someone with OCD’s room is messy, doesn’t mean that they don’t have it.

Remember, OCD is fear based- people don’t do this because they want to. It’s because we’re scared that something bad will happen if we don’t. This isn’t a quirky trait, it’s a disorder.

Perfectionism and OCD are completely different, even if some of the behaviors are similar to organization. More than once have my classmates told me that they were, “So OCD”, because they had to straighten out their pencil just because they liked how it looked.

That is not OCD, that is an example of perfectionism and liking organization.

OCD is not an adjective- it should not be used that way. (If you have used it like that in the past because you didn’t know what it meant, that’s okay- but please educate yourself and stop using it in those terms unless you are referring to the disorder in a medical sense.)

{..•>.<•..} How can I manage my OCD?

Exposure therapy exists to help those manage their OCD.

Exposure therapy is when you do the opposite of what your OCD tells you to. For example, if your OCD says, “touch the door 16 times every time you close it”, you would slowly work down to closing it without touching it repeatedly. Next time you close the door, try touching it 15 times, then only 14 times, and so on.

In short, it exposes you to the things you’re afraid of.

Earlier this year, I went through exposure therapy, and it was very hard- both emotionally and mentally. However, it gave me an idea of how to try and reel my anxiety and OCD in. I have heard stories of people who have fully recovered with exposure therapy, so even if it takes a while, I’ve heard that it will be worth it.

Im not doing so great with exposures at the moment, so I cant say that I’ve made a whole ton of progress lately- but it had gotten a lot better during therapy and a little bit after it. ((I just lost motivation for a while (TwT))

{^**•v•**^} Final Notes

Please, do not feel guilty for your intrusive thoughts. You cannot control them- it’s not your fault.

Please get help if you are suffering from OCD, or any other type mental disorder. I don’t want anyone to be struggling alone. Reach out to someone you trust, don’t be afraid to ask for help. I’ll also go over exposure therapy in more detail in another post if anyone is unable to get professional help.

If anyone had any questions or things they want me to talk about, please let me know! I hope everyone has a good day/night/afternoon, take care of yourselves! 💕💕💕

[moghedien]

it was/is apparently OCD awareness week or whatever and I’ve seen a lot of people talking on twitter about ways to support people with OCD and I got one that is probably gonna piss some people off: stop spreading beliefs in the Law of Attraction

if you don’t know what Law of Attraction is, its an idea that was made popular by books like the Secret where the general belief is that if you manifest positive thoughts, then positive things will happen to you. in turn, negative thoughts attract negative things. this is a dumbed down version of it, if you want to more about the ideas and concepts, read the wikipedia page on it or something. its a super prevalent concept in a lot of self help/self care circles. 

so the Law of Attraction is, and I’m just gonna say it, absolute bullshit. its not real. there’s no evidence or data that suggests its real and if it works for you, great but its just placebo. I try not to be outright antagonistic with ideas and beliefs that I don’t share or even ones that I think are silly or stupid. In general, if its not actually hurting anyone, who cares? however, as a person who has had OCD my entire life, I DESPISE the Law of Attraction

To understand why I hate the law of attraction and think its harmful, you have to understand how OCD works. OCD is not about the compulsions and funny rituals that people with it perform. OCD is about the obsessive thoughts that people deal with. So a person with OCD will have an intrusive thought and where most people may only be bothered by the intrusive thought for a moment and can move on with their lives, people with OCD aren’t able to. They obsess over the thought and replay it over and over again, and given the nature of intrusive thoughts, its usually something really disturbing. It’s not that they want to have this thought in their head nonstop, its that they literally can’t help it. And its not just that the thought is there, its that their mind is telling them ���this WILL happen. you WILL do this. you need to panic because this IS an actual threat to you and/or your loved ones.” your brain is literally pumping you with chemicals to make you anxious and tell you something is wrong. 

Compulsive behaviors are a side effect of these obsessions, where the brain tells you that doing certain actions will stop the thought, take away its power, and prevent the bad thing from happening, and it usually does work. For a moment or two. Repetitive actions come in when a person performs a compulsion, received a very minor relief from the chemicals in their brain telling them to panic before those chemicals start back up again. The fact that they’ll receive a small teeny tiny dose of dopamine from performing the compulsions is why people do it, even if its nonsensical and silly. Your brain is biologically working against you here. 

So, what does this have to do with the Law of Attraction?  The idea behind the law of attraction is that your mind has power. If you just think the right thoughts, you’ll attract good things to you. Alternatively, bad thoughts create bad things. These bad things are literally created by your mind and your mind literally has the power over things that happen in the world. This idea is like if the things OCD is trying to make you believe were real. A HUGE part of treating OCD is just building up resistance to this very concept and learning to convince yourself that your mind DOESN’T have power over the world. Law of Attraction ideas prevent people like me from realizing that there actually is something wrong with my brain and that I should go get treatment for it and I don’t have to have daily panic attacks. Law of Attraction ideas give people with OCD nervous breakdowns because it is so ingrained in us that our mind is this thing with so much power over the world and we are TERRIFIED of it. Law of Attraction reinforces our worst nightmares. Its not this gushy hippy concept for us. Its a horror movie. 

so many people don’t know they have OCD. so many people think OCD is about cleanliness or counting or not stepping on crack in pavement, so they often suffer with it without ever knowing they don’t have to because their OCD doesn’t look like the stereotypes. this is true with a lot of mental illnesses, and you can’t go and make sure that every single person is aware of every single mental illness they might have. you can, however, help people that might unknowingly be suffering with OCD by just not spreading these concepts that are so damaging to us. if you feel like you need to practice the law of attraction, do it privately and in a way that doesn’t hurt potential people with OCD, and don’t fucking push it on people. 

[gay-otlc]

To Love Unafraid (With An Ugly, Poisonous Heart)

Summary: Fintan was silent for a long time. Then he nodded and said, "The life of a pyrokinetic is a lonely one. It's hard to get close to people. When you do, it's too easy to hurt them. It's best to just isolate yourself from the good parts of society. If the council doesn't lock you up, you lock yourself up. I'm sorry you had to manifest this curse. I'm sorry you're turning into a monster like me."

(Or, Marella has OCD, and her intrusive thoughts feature hurting Biana.)

Word count: 3374

Content warnings: Wow, this is gonna be a long list. Um. Intrusive thoughts and depictions of OCD is the main one. Severe guilt and self loathing. Cursing. Fire and (imagined) death/murder. Mentions of suicidal thoughts and self harm. Generally disturbing. And yes, I did warn you that this would be fucked up.

Written for Marelliana week. Would probably fit under day two (nightmares) but also a free day. Whatever. It's all Marelliana. @marelliana-week

Read on AO3

Every time Marella looked into Biana's eyes a little too long, she thought she would catch on fire.

It wasn't her fault Biana was so... Biana. Were there really any words for how wonderful ae was? Beautiful, one could say, but that would barely cover it. Yes, Biana was so fucking beautiful, so beautiful it was unfair, with mahogany skin and a wide smile and stiff, dark hair with streaks of lavender. Marella had never been especially poetic, but she wanted to color Biana with adjectives and metaphors until the page reflected even a tenth of aer beauty.

She couldn't write that beautifully, though. She could only watch aer and think that if she could freeze time right then, she would be happy forever.

"You're staring again," Biana said, a hint of a laugh in aer voice.

"Sorry! You're just... you're just really pretty."

Ae looked down, cheeks turning pink. Sheepishly, ae scratched the back of aer neck. "Aww. Thanks. You're the sweetest."

Biana's lips are the sweetest. They'd only kissed a few times, and before then, Marella had thought nothing could taste better challah. She'd been proven wrong. At the thought, she noticed she'd been staring specifically at Biana's pink lips. She blushed harder, looking away. Until warm skin touched her hand, and wrapped fingers around hers. Marella looked back, surprised. Biana chuckled quietly, the prettiest smile on aer face. Marella brushed her thumb over aer knuckles, wondering how the hell she'd gotten so lucky as to date the princaess next to her.

And then the princaess burst into flames. Ae was a girl on fire, stunning. Ae looked like a phoenix, a mythical creature even for the elves. But aer face didn't look triumphant or majestic or beautiful. Just scared. And sad. Aer skin turned charred, angry red burns blistering across aer face. The girl Marella loved crumpled into ashes.

She blinked. Biana was back, alive, not on fire, beautiful as ever. But Marella couldn't appreciate aer beauty nearly as much, because the image of Biana burning was seared into her mind.

Do it. Do it. Burn aer. You know you want to.

Marella ripped her hand out of Biana's.

"Love? You alright?"

Deep breaths forced their way out of Marella's lungs. She clenched her fists so hard her nails painfully dug into her palms. "Yeah," she choked. "Don't feel well."

"Oh." Biana gave her a sympathetic look, and she squeezed her fists tighter. She didn't deserve Biana's sympathy. "Do you want me to get you anything?"

Let aer stay. Talk to aer. Don't push aer away.

"No," she replied forcefully; half a scream, half a sob. Hurt flashed across Biana's face, and Marella somehow felt even guiltier. If she could snap at aer like that, what would stopping her from getting just angry enough to really snap and... well... see the scared, sad, girl on fire once again. She took a deep breath, feeling tears rise to her eyes. She looked away. "No, I think I'm just going to lie down. Thanks, though."

"Okay." Biana still looked worried. If she could have, she would have comforted aer. But she didn't know exactly how to explain I'm not sick, I don't have some life threatening disease, I'm just getting horrible visions of murdering you and I'd prefer not to let those visions become reality, because I couldn't stand to lose you, and I don't think I could be responsible for that without burning away my ugly heart and soul as well.

Once Biana tore aer gaze away from the mess that ae had the misfortune to love, and light leaped away, Marella let herself crumble. She didn't even wait to get up to her room and hide under her blankets. Just let her knees collapse as she sank to the grassy yard in front of her house. Her shoulders shook with sobs. It felt like she would explode with anger and guilt and fear, and if she wasn't careful, the fire that exploded out of her would burn everything else in her life as well. All the things she cared about.

(Biana Vacker.)

She'd had thoughts like this before. Attacking people she was close to. Usually physically, but sometimes verbally. Still, that was all before she manifested. The worst she had ever thought about doing to anyone would have left a few bruises. Not like this.

Not a pile of ashes where a girl used to be.

When she was a kid, she'd been confident that her mother's accident was her fault, that she was the one to push Caprise Redek. She needed constant reassurance that she had been in a completely different room of the house at the time, that she couldn't possibly be responsible. Her dad thought it was a grief response, the guilt, the nightmares with false memories.

It could have been, if it was just a one off. But lately, Marella had begun to think there was some sort of monster living in her brain, whispering these horrible thoughts. Trying to convince her to carry out its wicked instructions. She would beat her head trying to force it out.

That didn't work, of course. And ever since Marella manifested, it felt like the monster was on fire. Bigger. More powerful. The monster was just an entity of flames, wanting to burn anything and everything that had the misfortune to be in Marella's path.

Sometimes Marella thought she was the monster.

And monsters didn't deserve to collapse on the front lawn crying, mourning the girl she used to be, who wasn't a danger to everyone around her. The girl she could have been, if she was just a little less twisted.

Glaring, jaw clenched, she stood up and swiped an arm across her face. She screamed as loudly as she could, trying to force the monster and the fire and all the poison out of her. Then she took a deep breath. She needed to talk to someone about this, because the secret, or the monster, or both, would eat her from the inside if she didn't let some of it out. Obviously, she couldn't tell Biana. Nor her dad- he didn't need to be more worried about her than he already was. Nor any of her friends, they had a hard enough time trusting her already.

Marella needed advice from someone who was just as dark and twisted as she was, so she could escape all the judgement. Someone who knew about monsters. And fire.

She needed advice from Fintan.

Reluctantly, she took out the leaping crystal that directed her to her much-dreaded training sessions with Fintan. Once the world materialized around her, she shivered. I'm never going to get used to the cold here.

Maybe it'll freeze out the monster.

Don't be ridiculous. The monster will never leave. The monster is you. The monster won't die unless you die.

Then maybe it would be best if-

"Marella?" Fintan's raspy voice said, interrupting Marella's spiral of thoughts swirling down the drain, slowly disappearing just like any goodness, or sanity, she had. "What are you doing here?"

"I-" Marella swallowed. "I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"What about your girlfriend's house?" Fintan asked, smirking a little. Marella really hadn't done a very good job of hiding that.

"I can't go to her. I'm too dangerous to be around her. If she's too close to me, she'll get hurt."

"Because you're a pyrokinetic?"

"Because I'm a monster."

"Please. If you were a 'monster', you wouldn't resist every time I suggested you join the Neverseen. You're disgustingly concerned with morals."

The words spilled out before Marella could stop them. "I'm also disgustingly obsessed with burning the love of my life to a pile of ashes!" Fintan stayed silent, and for a heartbeat, Marella thought, This is it. She was such a monster she even horrified Fintan. But her mouth kept talking, and her heart kept bleeding. "There's a monster in my head, that tells me to do really horrible things, like- like kill Biana, set her on fire until she can't survive me, and the more it goes on, the more I realize I'm the monster, it's my own actions. The monster tells me I want to do those things, and why would I think it if I didn't want to carry it out?"

"Do you want to hurt Biana?" Fintan asked, his voice calm and collected as ever. What a dickhead.

"I don't know!" Marella screamed, spinning around to punch the wall. Her knuckles split apart, droplets of blood appearing on them. "Part of me, part of me loves her more than anything else, can't stand to see her in even the least bit of pain. And the other part wants her to burn. And I don't know which part is real, or how to stop the second part. All I know is I can't be around her. I'm too dangerous."

Fintan was silent for a long time. Then he nodded and said, "The life of a pyrokinetic is a lonely one. It's hard to get close to people. When you do, it's too easy to hurt them. It's best to just isolate yourself from the good parts of society. If the council doesn't lock you up, you lock yourself up. I'm sorry you had to manifest this curse. I'm sorry you're turning into a monster like me."

"I'm sorry too," said Marella, not quite knowing what she was apologizing for. And then she ran.

Where was she running to? She didn't know that. Just... away.

When she finally had to take a breath to catch her breath, calves burning and lungs aching, it finally occurred to her. Where the pyrokinetic monsters had to go. The only place in the world that the world could possibly be safe from her. She'd considered the Forbidden Cities, midway through her run, so she wouldn't hurt anyone she knew and cared about... but she could kill humans, and that was still monstrous. Same with any cities for the other intelligent species. If she was around people- any people- they'd be in danger.

Exile. She had to go to Exile. A place meant to keep the rest of the world safe from her.

But how the fuck do I get there?

Marella screamed. No one was allowed to hear her. She screamed, because she was so damn close to keeping everyone she loved safe, and at this last step she couldn't make it. How the fuck did she get to Exile? Did she turn herself in to the Council, have a tribunal? Would they lock her up? They fucking should. The Council had thrown innocent elves into Exile, they wouldn't mind banishing a Pyrokinetic with a fucked up brain.

To Eternalia, she supposed, since she didn't have many other options.

She leaped there, starting heading towards the Councillor's castle, barely able to focus on anything around her other than the screaming in her head and the thunderous beating of her ugly, poisoned heart. Which is how she didn't notice that there was a person right in her path... and how she managed to bump into them.

Aer.

Biana.

"Hey, watch where- Marella? Love? Are you alright?"

Just her luck, the person she needed to stay away from. "What are you doing here?" Marella blurted, before she could really think about it. It sounded harsh, and she saw the hurt flash across Biana's face.

Ae recovered quickly. "I was getting some work done for Team Valiant, since we weren't together; it's too hard to do it around you, your pretty face always distracts me." Under aer breath, ae mumbled something that sounded like Biana, you disastaer queer.

Normally, Marella was happy to laugh about being a disaster queer- a concept she was well acquainted with, but that was drowned out by the fact that Biana was still affectionate with her. Still found her pretty, wanted to date her, just as in love as ae was before. Why wouldn't ae be? Ae didn't know. But ae needed to know- it wasn't fair to keep lying to Biana, manipulate aer into thinking aer girlfriend was a good person.

"We need to break up," said the words spilling out of Marella's mouth. In horror, she watched as Biana's face fell, looking like slow motion. She could see the heartbreak dawn on aer, moment by moment.

Aer brown eyes filling with tears, ae whispered "Marella?"

"I- you can't- we- I need to go to Exile," Marella said. "We can't date if I'm in Exile."

"Why the fuck would you need to go to Exile? The fuck did you do?"

"Nothing yet. I'd like to keep it that way. Which is why I can't see you again."

"You're not making any sense, Marella!" The tears spilled onto aer cheeks, and whatever was left of Marella's ugly heart broke.

She didn't want to tell Biana. She really, really didn't want to look Biana in the eye and explain that she fantasized about killing aer. She would rather be anywhere else- preferably Exile- but Biana had a right to know why Marella was breaking up with aer. So she swallowed. "I... I get these thoughts," she started, not quite knowing how to verbalize this secret she'd kept so close to her forever. "About... hurting people. Hurting you. Earlier today, right before I left, I thought about killing you. Burning you. It was really vivid... I could see you on fire, looking so scared of me, before you turned to ashes and smoke. And then my brain whispered..."

Marella broke off into a sob, not daring to look at Biana's face. Ae probably hated her now. Ae hated herself too.

"It whispered, 'Do it. Burn aer. I know you want to.' I'm so fucked up, Biana, I'm too dangerous to be around you. Please just leave before you get hurt. I don't want to hurt you, but this monster that lives in my head wants me to. Or maybe the monster is me, it's all so fucked up, but I don't want to let the monster win, whatever it is. Protect yourself. Don't let it win."

"Marella..."

"Biana, please don't let it win! It would kill me to see you die, know it was all my fault... my heart's full of poison and seeing you die would still break it. I love you, I love you more than anything, which is why I have to keep you safe. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She turned away, almost crying too hard to speak. "I'm sorry. I'll just... I'll go."

Cold fingers wrapped around her wrist. "Not a chance in hell," snapped Biana, whirling Marella back around. "Don't you dare push me away. I am your girlfriend, and I call the shots on whether or not you're too dangerous to be around me. And the only danger you pose is trying to make my head explode from gay panic."

"Hello!? And also burning you!" Why the fuck couldn't ae understand? Ae needed to get away.

"I'll carry around a damn fire extinguisher, I don't care. I'm perfectly capable of handling myself in life or death situations. I've survived the Neverseen a million times over, I can survive the off chance that you lose control and set me on fire. I'll take precautions and I'll be ready to defend myself if I need to, but I don't think I'm going to need to."

"You don't know that! You don't know how horrible I am!" Marella couldn't stop screaming. She wasn't angry at Biana. Just angry at herself. Angry at the monster. Just... angry. She needed to stop before she set anything on fire. Monster.

"No, I don't know for sure that you'll never hurt me. But I know that I love you. I'm not going to stop loving you just because you're a flawed package. It's not like I'm little miss perfect or anything. We can be fucked up together."

"You're not perfect, but you're damn well closer than I am! Even Fintan thought I was fucked up. Fintan. I love you, Biana, I do, but my heart's too ugly and poisonous to be in love like we are. I just need to cut our ties and hope the pain from missing you goes away eventually."

"I love you, you fucking idiot!" Biana shouted. "I love you, because you're Marella fucking Redek, and you make me want to freeze time and be happy with you forever. I love you so much that it feels like burning any time I think of life without you in it. I love you so much that it feels like my world is a little bit off-kilter and then I kiss you and that's the only time everything feels right. I love you because you've been with me through all the shit in my life and made me smile through it all, so now it's my turn to help you with your shit. I love you so, so much, and I love everything about you. Even the flaws. Even the monster. I wish I could tell the monster to stay away from my Marella, but I can't, so I'm going to tell Marella to stop being so hard on my Marella. I love her, and she's not as bad as she thinks she is. She's not bad at all. I love everything about you, Marella, but I can't love you the way I want to if you keep pushing me away. So we'll be in love, and then we'll also have my scars and your monster and all our history with the Neverseen, but we'll love each other through it all. I need you to understand that I love you, you fucking idiot." Biana's eyes were wild with desperation. Ae exhaled heavily, giving Marella a pleading look.

"I love you," whispered Marella. It was all she could say before collapsing into a hug, crying. "I love you. I'm so sorry I tried to leave. You're the best. I love you."

"I want you to love yourself almost as much as I love you. You deserve it."

Maybe Marella would believe that, eventually. Maybe she'd get there.

She was still broken; how could she not be, with a monster living in her head? A little bit burnt, a little damaged, a little horrible. But she kept living. (Biana stayed alive and un-burnt too, to Marella's delighted surprise.) Her ugly, poisonous heart kept beating.

Elwin gave her a little pill to help keep the monster quiet, help keep her from freaking out so much every time the monster reared its fiery head. She eventually got to a point where she could make little fires with her hand and not spiral into a panic. Biana held her other hand as Marella lit the Hanukkah candles herself, and she was a bit scared, but it melted away with the laughter and latkes and warm lighting. It was hard not to push aer away; hard to keep herself from running away.

But Marella did it, because she loved Biana. And she loved herself, just a little bit. And she tolerated the monster. So she kept going, and she allowed herself to love Biana. To love unafraid, with an ugly, poisonous heart.

[dordmagazine]

What The F Are Intrusive Thoughts?

Lesson brought to you by the fact that most of us are having intrusive thoughts right now, no one talks about it, it's considered taboo + scary, and tbh the psychology community does a bad job of normalizing this common evolutionary behavior.

What The F Is an Intrusive Thought?

Imagine this, you're going about your day, and suddenly you’re hit with a thought that’s bizarre, shocking, uncomfortable, triggering, or overall anxious. No reason for it, it just pops up. 

Could be the voice in your head saying the worst thing you can imagine is happening 

Could be a gut feeling followed by intense anxiety and thought spirals 

Could be thoughts of doing something shocking and out of character for you (usually sexual, violent, or suicidal)

Could be in terms of a relationship (thinking you’re not good enough, they’re not good enough, suddenly fearful of commitment despite having intense feelings for that person)

Intrusive thoughts are actually perfectly normal. Literally everyone has them, not just those with mental illnesses. Intrusive thoughts don't necessarily mean you have a mental condition you need treatment for. Intrusive thoughts are not messages, red flags, signals or warnings, despite how they feel. Even for my intuitive people, your intrusive thought doesn’t mean the situation is actually going on. It's just a thought with zero meaning behind it.

Intrusive thoughts feel so threatening because anxious thinking takes over, and the thought appears to have some intense power that it actually doesn't have.

Common intrusive thoughts we don't call "intrusive thoughts", but they really are: 

Thinking our partner doesn't want us 

Thinking our partner will leave or is cheating 

Fearing everyone at the office hates us 

Convincing ourselves we'll fail 

Thinking we'll go broke

Being afraid that fictional things will happen (ex being fearful that you’ll live the plot of a book you just read)

For some reason we don't associate this type of anxious thinking with intrusive thoughts, but they're classic intrusive thoughts. Other thoughts include thinking about having sex with someone you'd never sleep with, getting in fights, getting raped or abused.

It’s important to note, if you are having intrusive thoughts of getting raped or abused, or doing the actions, that does not mean you want to rape or abuse or get raped and abused. For people who conduct these behaviors, these are not intrusive thoughts. They don’t think much about them and move on. These thoughts cause great stress for you because they go against your values and you’d never do them.

For Example:

People who have intrusive thoughts about cheating, usually value commitment, relationships, and family.

People who have intrusive thoughts about hurting an animal, love animals and would never harm one intentionally.

People who have intrusive thoughts about their religion, are usually extremely faithful and take their faith seriously.

Intrusive thoughts are intrusive because they go against your values. You are not subconsciously represented by your intrusive thoughts.

The Science

Here’s the facts, we get intrusive thoughts for a few reasons.

First one, our brains get bored and try to entertain themselves. I wish I was kidding. We’re taught the brain is a complex thing, but it’s really a toddler. In fact the part of the brain associated with intrusive thoughts, the Amygdala, is the youngest part of the brain. It’s kinda still learning how to brain. 

When we get bored or over stimulated, the Amygdala comes up with situations, so the body can send up doses of chemicals and hormones. Our brain likes to imagine things, it’s just sometimes daydreams turn into nightmares. 

Most common reason our brain has Intrusive thoughts, is because it’s evolved to keep us safe. So it constantly scans the environment for danger, running through all the possible cases. While doing this, it generates thoughts that you are unaware of. When it hits one that causes you fear, it becomes a conscious thought.

When fear hits the body, within seconds fight or flight turns on and the Amygdala is turned screaming. It wants you to come up with a plan to stay safe if the event ever happened.

Once you do, the screaming stops. If you ignore it, sometimes the screaming gets louder. We see this a lot with patients who have OCD, the thoughts get louder or keep coming back harder when we try to ignore them.

In a way our Amygdala is saying “Can’t you see we’re in danger?”

The problem is there is rarely ever any actual danger. The Amygdala is the brains faulty security system. It’s triggered by wind the next County over.

The brain does this so that you are alerted to the potential threat and can then problem-solve your way out of it. Our brain honestly thinks it's helping us. But as I mention everytime I talk about anxiety, we're not outrunning bears anymore. We don’t need overly sensitive Amygdalas.

That’s why OCD treatment uses exposure therapy designed to reprogram how we perceive thoughts in the mind. Treatment involves pushing yourself to do what scares you and ignoring the need to control everything. Overtime the brain adjusts to your responses and you have less obsessive intrusive thoughts.

Follow Your Gut

I’m a natural intuitive. So for me to follow my intuition I had to make peace with my intrusive thoughts.

Remember, our brain doesn't know the difference between real threats or imaginary ones. The brain thinks "I thought of it, it's real". Think of it like a toddler holding an imaginary tea party. We know the cup is empty, but the kid honestly thinks imagination made tea.

I see a lot with people who are practicing their intuition or learning to trust their gut fall into the trap of feeding their intuitive thoughts. Out of nowhere they get an intrusive thought that their blessing, prayers, or manifestation isn't coming. And they freak out because they think it's divine guidance.

My dears, your intrusive thought isn't divine guidance. It's your bodies glitchy security system. Your gut, the universe, or god, didn't telling you that your person will never love you, that the job isn't coming, or that you'd never get rich or have a family.

The thing with intrusive thoughts is they often keep coming up, which tricks us into thinking that it actually means something or it's divine guidance. But the reason these thoughts come us is because we never told our brains it's not actually a danger or threat.

How To Make Them Stop

First things first, if you have intrusive thoughts find a Therapist who focuses primarily on OCD. Many Therapists claim to have worked with OCD patients but lack the education or experience to support your healing journey. 

The thing with traditional talk therapy is it can usually make OCD and Anxiety worse. If you are seeking out professional help, which I always recommend, find a Therapist who is trained in Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP). If you’re on the edge of deciding to see a therapist, there are incredible patient guided workbooks designed to help stop intrusive thoughts.

Some of our favorites are:

The ACT Workbook for OCD: Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Exposure Skills to Live Well with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Marisa T. Mazza PsyD

Brain Based Therapy for OCD: A Workbook for Clinicians and Clients by John B. Arden

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts by Sally M. Winston PsyD and Martin N. Seif PhD

Brain Lock, Twentieth Anniversary Edition: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior by Jeffrey M. Schwartz

How To Be There For Someone With Intrusive Thoughts

Intrusive thoughts can effect our relationships in every way. It’s hard to see your loved one go through suffering you can’t understand.

I always explain intrusive thoughts like this:

An intrusive thought is like we watched a documentary on Bigfoot. Before it, I knew Bigfoot wasn’t real and the documentary only assured me that Bigfoot is made up. But every night I’ll be terrified that Bigfoot is outside of my window and will hurt me when I’m sleeping. So I lay awake and plan or sit in fear. Eventually, the fear will bleed into my daytime life and I’ll become scared that Bigfoot is behind me or will hurt my loved ones. And in the documentary it said people used to keep garlic in their pocket to ward off Bigfoot. So I start carrying around garlic and hiding it in my loved ones belongings. This entire time I know Bigfoot isn’t real. I know my behavior is irrational. But my body is still scared. Even if everything inside of me says Bigfoot isn’t real and even if it’s proven by Scientists. I’m still afraid.

If the person you love struggles with intrusive thoughts it helps to view everything from their perspective. You don’t need to feed into the compulsions, in fact you usually shouldn’t.

Someone suffering with Intrusive thoughts or OCD needs the people around them to be compassionate, understanding, and kind. When someone exhibits an obsessive behavior tied to intrusive thoughts ask them, “Is that an intrusive thought?” usually that’s enough to stop them the thought, even temporarily.

Another thing you can do is ask the sufferer to explain to you what they’re feeling and why they think that way. And don’t judge them for it. Simply nod and smile. People who have intrusive thoughts or OCD need to feel like they aren’t broken because of the way their brain is programed.

Remember, all their brain is doing is trying to stay safe. Treatment involves reframing thoughts and reprograming their brain. The goal isn’t to stop our Amygdala from being aware, it’s to make it less sensitive and less afraid.

Our brain needs to alert us of a flood, it doesn’t need to alert us of 5mph wind.

The important thing to remember with intrusive thoughts is to think of your brain like a toddler. It's pointing everything it thinks and sees out, making sure you see it too. All it wants you to do is say, "yes, I know. But that's not important right now." or "I think you're not seeing it correctly, it's actually this."

Having these thoughts are normal and although distressing they say nothing about your character. 

Follow us as we work to end the stigma around mental illness and keep an eye out for our full magazine set to release early January 2021.

Disclaimer: No one at DORD is a medical professional, meaning we provide education from our first hand experience (and our Editor In Chief’s Psychology Degree). If your intrusive thoughts cause you great discomfort, contact a license professional. If you think you're going to hurt yourself or someone else, contact a professional. If you'd like to know how to get in touch with a professional, shoot us a DM and we’ll gladly help connect you with the appropriate resources.

[amazonianraindance]

Pure OCD: Let your thoughts perpetuate but not dominate

Whatever is the worst possible thing to be in society, pure OCD will target as a theme. Pure OCD centres around violent and sexual intrusive thoughts and plays on the sufferer’s fear of possibly becoming that thing. The more socially and morally reprehensible something is, the more likely that subject will become an obsession for the Pure O sufferer. Back in the old ages the worst thing someone could be was blasphemous. Nowadays with pedophilia mass hysteria (the news, media, pedo bear jokes) a pedophile has become the worst possible thing one can be in society, along with zoophiles, rapists, and serial killers (see Ted Bundy documentaries), so it’s extremely common for Pure O sufferers to obsess over these things.

Everyone has intrusive thoughts of this sexual, violent nature. They’re universal- 9 in 10 people have them! The only difference is how different people process these thoughts. People who don’t have Pure O immediately recognize how absurd their intrusive thoughts are and even though they may have them, they don’t dwell on them because of how nonsensical and stupid they are! People who have OCD lack this inbuilt junk mail filter which causes a great deal of fear and anxiety.

Intrusive thoughts are a part of human nature. The brain is like a long winding corridor with infinite doors on either side. Every day the average person walks down the corridor and opens 40,000 of these doors (thoughts); most are not intrusive and disturbing but some are.

Having Pure OCD about a certain theme in NO way makes the sufferer more likely to be those intrusive thoughts than someone who doesn’t have Pure O. Someone who has pedophilia OCD is not any more or less likely to be a pedophile than someone who doesn’t have POCD.

What’s really important when dealing with Pure OCD is not to suppress your thoughts or pretend that they aren’t there. Suppression makes Pure O worse. Instead acknowledge that what you are experiencing is an intrusive thought, the thought is undesirable and morally reprehensible and you don’t have control over it, but it is there. This can be pretty tricky, you have to try not to push away your intrusive thoughts while simultaneously not letting them affect you. The key is to simply accept and acknowledge the thoughts but don’t give any importance to them.

Finally- groinal response checking! Groinal response checking is a common compulsion that Pure OCD sufferers engage in. They will deliberate upon their intrusive thoughts and check down there to see if they are aroused. If you focus too long on any one area and wonder if you are experiencing a weird sensation, you will induce a reaction simply by concentrating too long on that area. For example if you think about your elbow for too long and deliberate on whether you feel anything, you will notice a feeling in your elbow brought on simply by thinking about it for too long. The penis and vagina are especially sensitive areas with tons of nerve endings- if you focus and deliberate endlessly on whether you feel anything down there when holding a certain thought, you will notice things that aren’t there and induce a feeling just by your compulsive checking. This is known as arousal non-accordance, and thinking that it’s proof of your intrusive thoughts couldn’t be further from the truth.

TLDR; here’s my personal mantra, one I really like to use when I have especially bad days:

Allow your thoughts to perpetuate but not dominate. Breathe.

You’re going to be okay.

[aelaer]

☕ WHY DO YOU THINK TONY DOESN'T LIKE BEING HANDED THINGS (OR IF YOU KNOW THE CANON REASON THAT WOULD BE AWESOME) 👀👀👀

From what I could find, there is no canon reason. And I didn’t have any headcanon for this. So I outsourced and went to the internet to see what they thought. They had interesting answers. Here are all of them. I put my favorite answer at the end. (Copy/pasted rather than screenshotted so I don’t have to worry about screen-readers):

Via Rob Taylor on Quora:

Agent Carter fleshed this out in the final episode. Basically both Howard and Tony have OCD tendencies, most geniuses do. But Tony has a LOT of psychological issues at play.In Howard’s case it was displayed with humor, that his gadgets were not stored right. Tony’s is more to do with avoiding any personal involvement where he can. Being handed things is just one part of it, he beds women and has Pepper eject them, he can’t stand the pendulum and is ALWAYS flippant and inappropriate around authority, in particular Fury. Tony always avoided bonding with people, literally has Rhodey as a friend and Stane as his father figure at the start of the film and Pepper and Happy as his staff, albiet close staff. Since Yinsen’s death he tries to avoid drawing others into his world as they get killed, which is exacerbated by the dangers faced by Pepper, Coulson’s death and Hogan’s near killing in IM3. He is even off with kids in IM3 where he isn’t previously, so he is also quite paranoid.

Via Andrew Hart on Quora:

If you think back to (or go back and watch) Iron Man (the first one), you’ll notice Tony is handed things in the movie and it’s implied he’s handed many other things.

There are two situations that are most notable.

At the party when Christine Everhart comes up to Tony after he got back from Afghanistan, she hands him pictures of terrorists using Stark technology to attack Gulmira (however you spell it), which if you recall, is the place Yinsen says he is from. This hits Tony hard, because it’s HIS weapons being used to terrorise the place of origin of the man who died to save him.

In this same conversation, Christine accuses Tony of signing off to allow for Stark weapons to be given to those terrorists, which Tony is immediately upset by. It’s one of the few times when Tony doesn’t have a ‘smart comeback’, but is shown to be upset and disturbed by this information. This makes Tony wonder “What has he been signing? Could he have signed off for these weapons to be used without even knowing it?”

As CEO, he signs a lot of stuff, and he is responsible for everything Stark Industries does. Tony assumes the worst, that he signed off for the weapons to be used and didn’t notice it. He assumes it was just one of the random things people kept handing to him to sign.

So in this one conversation, we have Tony being handed images that deeply trouble him, and then being accused of signing paperwork that was handed to him to allow for these images to exist.

Basically this one conversation leads to Tony having a peeve about being handed things. Understandably.

Via KCreep on Reddit:

It hasn’t been outright explained. However my interpretation is this.

Ultra, rich, weathy, men have a tendency to have weird eccentric quirks. Think of Howard Hughes and him collecting his own urine in jars.  You don’t get super weathly without being a bit gifted and more importantly being right more often than not. So over time, they’d settle into the concept that everything they do is right.

My line of thinking is that Tony Stark is so cocky and sure of himself, that the entire concept of being handed anything means that he’s not in control of the current situation.

As in if someone hands him a file to look at. He might think that he’s the genius in this room, no one needs to tell him when he needs to get to work. And the act of handing a file to him would be offensive.  So while he may be too polite to just call it out for the way he thinks about it. He defaults to not liking being handed things.

Of course it’s just my insight, I could be overthinking it.

**edit then I just ran your question by my girlfriend and her immediate response was… He’s a germaphobe.  She brought up Jarvis handling things in his workshop, how his cars were all kept prestine, and how Pepper would be the one to hand things to him, someone he’d trust to be clean.  So you got two theories there.

Via Sarah Stodola on Quora:

I don’t think we have an official, worded answer from Marvel; they haven’t spelled it out. The following is my own observation and theorizing, after multiple viewings of most of the MCU films.

I think the core reason has to do with trauma and trust.

It’s not something he’s had or done all along. The trait didn’t actually seem to exist at the beginning of IM1 - he interacted with women and a pressing crowd at the casino, without issue. We also got the picture that he was a partier (crowds, booze, noise, sex) on a regular basis. We first see the hints of it later in IM1 (he’s uncomfortable with Obadiah, an old friend but also a very dominating personality, putting an arm around him - well before he knew of the betrayal), and then we have it pointed out very obviously in IM2. What changed?

Tony was held captive and tortured. Both people in his world and a lot of fans seem to forget that. Not just slapped around, but beaten, half-drowned, and electrocuted by people who seemed to take some pleasure in their “art” - all while having just undergone major wounding and open-chest surgery. He’s lucky he’s alive. He’s certainly not unaffected.

It doesn’t just show in not liking to be handed things; the issue is broader than that. That’s the piece he vocalizes, and he seems to play off it purposefully, obnoxiously even, as being difficult or quirky - better to be seen as annoying than vulnerable. But from IM2 on we also see that he doesn’t like crowds anymore - he will push through them if need be, but he goes visibly physically tense and does it quickly. He also startles quite noticeably when touched without warning on several occasions through the subsequent films - he downright jumps and half-turns if it’s from behind. It’s not just that he doesn’t like it. It actually spooks him; his eyes widen. His more dramatic anxiety/PTSD after “Avengers” seems to make most people he interacts with not look any deeper, but the older issues are still there.

He’s continually on some level of physical awareness; he holds himself very precisely. Even when dealing with the other Avengers he tends to circle - subtly - just out of reach, usually chattering steadily or joking to make it less obvious, and making conscious decisions to occasionally move in to do something like give or allow a brief shoulder grip. But it is obvious once you know to look for it. His body language downright shouts. The only times he seems to forget about it are when he’s angry (then he’ll get aggressive and up in people’s faces) or in an emergency (adrenaline, total focus on what needs to be done).

The only times he completely goes loose-muscled and unguarded are when locked in his basement hideaway (safe place), or under Pepper’s touch. The only times he moves comfortably in strangers’ close proximity are in the armor.

I suspect “don’t hand me things” is simply an excuse he can get away with to not to get within arm’s reach of most people - one fewer reason to end up in close quarters with another human being. The only regular exceptions to the rule are also the only people he’s shown to be actually comfortable being in physical contact with - Pepper of course, Rhodey, Happy, and oddly enough, apparently Bruce Banner. (And yes, Peter later on, I was reminded. Tony shows some stiffness for awhile with him too, but seems to relax gradually.)

Really, when you look at all the little things unspoken but added up to a clear picture, it’s hard not to realize just what an amazing actor RDJ really can be. To express so much about a character’s state of mind without using words at all - except the occasional snarky “I don’t like to be handed things.”

**

The above of course is all about Tony Stark in the MCU. I saw from another answer that this trait has also been carried into the comics. I can only surmise that either 1.) it would come from a similar history and mental state in the comic character, or that 2.) the writers carried over the trait from the films without looking into why it existed there, in which case it could end up a lot shallower of a reasoning.

I think Sarah hit the nail on the head and that’s the reason I like the most. Feel free to choose as you like. That’s the beauty of headcanons.

[wanderandwondertogether]

Be Still

It isn't easy to talk about our weaknesses. We often feel vulnerable when we do. We keep up the appearance that we have it all together. We're scared to let others see the truth that on the inside we're falling apart. For a while now God has laid something on my heart. I need to be more open about my struggles. I need to share my testimony of what God has brought me through. This isn't a ploy for sympathy or attention. I am sharing this with you in hopes that you will get a glimpse of the love and hope that Christ offers. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness." Romans 12:9.

I was a quirky child. Some things never change haha! I was very shy, hid my emotions, and I worried about things most would never think of. Irrational things. This is embarrassing to admit but for example: I was afraid the wind chimes moving in the wind would encourage a tornado. In my mind if I didn't do certain things like take those wind chimes down, natural disasters would occur. I laugh about it now but being young and worrying like that was miserable. I felt isolated. My mom talked to my doctor about my quirky behaviors; how I went around unplugging everything, straightening the shoes in a perfect line, saying repetitive prayers, and blowing kisses to God. Yes, I did all that and more. I was diagnosed with OCD.

OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is a mental disorder that consists of obsessive thoughts and urges and/or compulsive repetitive behaviors. It is not solely about being neat and organized. It is chronic, long lasting, uncontrollable, and can interfere with everyday life. The cause is unknown and there is no cure. However, it can be treated with therapy and medication.  Times were different back then and I sought neither because  we didn't have the knowledge and resources that we now have.

My worst obsessions were not consistent so things looked up for a long time. I still had some quirks but nothing too consuming. All that changed after I had my daughter. About five months after Lily was born I began having intrusive thoughts. This is a very ugly and distressing part of OCD. Disturbing thoughts that I didn't want to have, nor did I have any clue as to where they were coming from. I started to believe them and started questioning if I was a good person or not. They disturbed me so bad that I would start doing compulsions to alleviate the stress that they were causing me. Ruminating on those thoughts caused me to give those thoughts power. Therefore the intrusive thoughts intensified. It was a vicious cycle.  I didn't know what was real anymore. I was trying to relieve my worries and figure it all out on my own, by doing so I severely damaged my mental well being.

This is what still breaks my heart. I let this continue for three years. Three years! My obsessions consumed hours out of my day, everyday for three years. I missed out on so much during that time. I missed out on Lily's milestones. I was physically present but not mentally. One of my best friends lived two minutes away at the time. There was so much fun to be had and memories to be made but I was too consumed and now she lives in another state. I wasn't present and I wasn't me.

I took my eyes off of the one true hope I had, Jesus. If I had been still and looked at myself the way He looks at me, I wouldn't have believed these lies my brain kept telling me. Instead I let fear take over and I was left paralyzed, feeling isolated, and in a mental prison. In all of this though, God is so good. Even though I took my eyes off of him, He sought me out. He was there whispering hope into my days. I barely had the strength to stay awake. I wanted to sleep a lot to escape my thoughts. I was very unproductive during this time. I did what I needed to take care of Lily, did my job, and nothing much else. One thing that God encouraged me to do though was to get into His word everyday. If it wasn't for Proverbs 31 Ministries I don't know how I would have been reminded of the truth. Their devotionals got me more into God's word than I had ever been and at the time I needed it the most. It encouraged me to seek Him more and more each day. I was so painfully slow at it but I started to hand over these issues to Jesus. I remember going to a Women's Conference and they had ushers that would pray with you. I went up and wrapped my arms around this stranger and bawled into her shoulder. At that time I didn't see her. I saw myself being at the feet of Jesus holding onto his garment. Like the woman with the bleeding. For she said to herself, "If I can just touch his robe, I'll be made well." Matthew 9:21.

Jesus was my answer all along. I had been so consumed with the what ifs and being in control that my negative thoughts took over. I didn't even recognize it as the lies of OCD. It sounds crazy but my mind didn't even process that I had OCD. I needed to let go of my certainty and choose instead to trust God and His oversight for my life. Thank you Jesus for showing your love for me and speaking truth to my heart during that time. When I finally let go and was still enough to look at Jesus and see His love for me and that I was His is when these thoughts lost their power. I was able to see them for what they were, an ugly symptom of my OCD.

Looking back I can see all the times Jesus was there interceding on my behalf and comforting me through others. The time I was so consumed with fear I was up all night shaking and throwing up, Shane stayed by my side and held me. My best friend going to my parents and all three of them interceding in prayer for me. The messages at church that were just what I needed to hear. The friend who said God laid it on their heart to pray for me while they were washing the dishes. God you are so so good!

I share this so that someone may find hope. Mental illness is still sometimes seen as taboo and kept hidden. I pray that anyone who suffers with it will seek help and not be ashamed. There are many resources out there and people have more understanding of it now. I let the cycle last way too long. My intense struggle with OCD has left me damaged. I now have to take anxiety medicine daily, even if I am not obsessing. I created so many negative pathways in my mind that it is now constantly on alert. I still have to daily remind myself of God's truth. I have two notes that I carry around with me and look at frequently. One is biblical insight to OCD, the other is a list of God's promises. I can say that I am back to feeling like myself and life is good. Freedom truly comes when you let go of control and rest in the One who holds all things!

[1-way-ticket]

PANS Year One

Sensory processing disorder, anxiety, speech delays, sleep disturbances, obsessive compulsive disorder, tics, autism. These are the labels he would have received if we had not tuned in to that news story on October 8th 2017. We had returned from a long vacation only a few hours before hand and fought the usual hour and a half battle to get our 2 year old son to sleep. My husband had paused the news to have me hear what they were reporting on. The following morning was PANDAS/PANS awareness day. There was going to be speakers and a gathering at the state capital to bring attention to this very unknown condition that is suspected to effect 1 in 200 children. The 2 minute story on the news barley touched on what this really entailed, but it was enough to get our laptops opened.

“PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) or PANDAS (Pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcus.) is when an infectious trigger, (like Strep), environmental factors, and other possible triggers create a misdirected immune response.” -PANDAS Network

“It is an autoimmune condition which disrupts a child’s normal neurologic activity. PANDAS occurs when the immune system produces antibodies, intended to fight an infection, instead mistakenly attacks healthy tissue in the child’s brain, resulting in inflammation of the brain (basal ganglia section) and inducing a sudden onset of movement disorders, neuropsychiatric symptoms and abnormal neurologic behaviors. PANDAS/PANS is characterized by an abrupt onset of obsessive-compulsive behaviors (OCD) and/or motor or vocal tics in pre-pubescent children immediately following an infection. These symptoms are extreme and interfere with a child’s daily life. Additionally, children experience concurrent psychiatric and neurologic symptoms. Patients can have recurrent symptom exacerbations (flares) later in the disease when exposed to other (non-strep) infections.” -Moleculeralabs

Vocal or motor tics of any type, sensory abnormalities, drastic personality changes, anxiety or unusual fears, fits of rage, depression, behavioral or developmental regression, OCD, inability to concentrate, impulsivity/distractibility, signs of autism; these are not things that have sudden onsets. Though our child never had a happy demeanor, the signs of obsessive compulsive disorder, auditory processing sensitivity, and motor tics starting showing immediately after a major cold last Fall, right before that vacation.

October 9th is PANDAS/PANS awareness day. If any part of this story has you wanting to run to google because it sounds a little too familiar, I implore you to remain calm and find a doctor who is literate in this condition. You will not get to the end of the research for this. I spent countless hours trying to get just one answer. What are the causes of this? What are all of my treatment options? The list goes on.. Find out as much as you can, but go to sleep on time at night and love your child the same. In the transparency of our story, I hope to help spread the word as this is still so very unknown. And unknown leaves it unaddressed, undiagnosed, or even misdiagnosed, and untreated. If not for the awareness day news report a year ago, I would not have known the actual cause for my son’s behavior. I want it to be seen for what it is. I won’t go in to all of the details of our journey but I do want to give my God all of the glory.

Our son is no where near the extreme case that the majority of the Panda-kids you would find. Some of the worst cases I hear are of 5 year olds wanting to end their lives. This condition can be extreme and horrific. Most days you wouldn’t see much different about our child aside from a little speech delay and frequent tantrums. Even those could be hidden in common toddlerhood behaviors. The tricky part for us is that he has been this way from birth. Whereas most children have symptoms onset when they are around 7 so the overnight change is very obvious. He seemed to be an unhappy person from the day we brought him home. The more he developed, the more he had to occupy himself, but he just never seemed ‘normal.’ I don’t like looking for something to be wrong to justify difficulty. I just chalked it up to him being strong-willed and settled in to the hardships of seeing my expectations of motherhood be catapulted away from me. I wanted to cover him in kisses and play with him in joyful laughter. It all made him cry. God grew me a lot in this perceived rejection, but that’s a whole other story.

I used to struggle with OCD, so when I saw the signs manifesting in my child, I knew what it was, and I knew the turmoil that was churning in that little mind. This is what raised the flag to an issue being more than a bit of delay, a dislike of loud sounds, and a cranky attitude. After we found out what PANDAS was, we elected to get him tested. God worked this process out so efficiently. There is only one laboratory in the entire world that tests for this, and it is in our city. I was having problems getting the orders to go through. A friend gave me her mother’s phone number, who happened to be the administrator for this very small office and she got me the help I needed. These types of things kept happening. I knew His hand was in it. The tests came back positive for PANS and we started on the grueling process to then find his “trigger.” This would be what causes his immune system to mis-react. Once discovered, you have a few treatment plan options to pursue. This is treatable! We have yet to find it/them, but in the interim we take the steps to boost his natural immunity with organic anti-virals, probiotics, a healthy diet, and detoxing. The flares come every so often, typically after a cold or increase in environmental allergies. They are awful. He regresses in his developments, he wakes all through the night, he screams at everything we do or don’t do, and sometimes he will self harm to get his aggression out. After about a week, he comes back to us.

Here is what changed our lives. A prayer. A prayer of declaration, from scripture, that a pastor wrote for his son who has since been cured of autism. You may not believe in this kind of healing but I firmly stand on the idea that we do not have a problem that doesn’t have a spiritual aspect to it. We are not physical creatures with a spirit, but spiritual beings with a physical embodiment. There is no issue aside of my faith. I started to pray this over my son. And he began to transform. He laughed. He spoke in full sentences. He showed empathy and consideration. He developed some patience. He stopped covering his ears near hand-dryers. He sang. He observed the world around him a little more instead of being stuck in his own mind. He acted silly. And he continues on this path. Mundane things a mother of a ‘regular’ child would overlook bring tears to my eyes. I cherish being able to enjoy my son in ways I hadn’t been able to before. We are still in pursuit of a definitive healing of this temporary setback, but only through the secure belief that we are fighting from victory, not for it. Jesus has fully healed my son. We’re just catching up to this truth here on earth.

[hollysdailyrambles]

OCD and Me

By Holly 7.17.2020

To the surprise of no one, I, a Gen Z/millennial blend, have depression, anxiety and OCD. These are things that impact me every single day of my life, though some days worse than others. My depression comes in waves, and mostly manifests in lethargy and hours and hours of depression naps. However, my OCD and anxiety are more dynamic, and keeps some spice in my life.

OCD is a misunderstood diagnosis. I don’t just color code my closet and say “Omg i’m so OCD!!”. Fuck, I WISH it were just that. I hate laundry. So much.

Obsessions are where most of my OCD comes out to shine. The DSM5, my favorite light read, defines Obsessions as Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or impulses that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and unwanted, and that in most individuals cause marked anxiety or distress and the individual attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, urges, or images, or to 

neutralize them with some other thought or action (i.e., by performing a compulsion).

Obsessions are a pain in the ass.  Intrusive thoughts to me are always about safety. Like OMG I've been out of the house for 20 minutes, I hope my dog is okay and hasn’t eaten her dog bed and died while I was out. about holy shit what if my fiance crashes his car while driving to wegmans??? He hasn’t told me he is safe and he should've told me he was there 1 minute ago! Sometimes I have to get up and do something else (Anything else) because the spiraling thoughts have moved into what I would wear at a funeral and how could I afford the house I live in with him.

One of my big obsessions is  about doors, and the fun part is it leads to some compulsions. Are they locked? Okay I tried it, but is it locked? Okay I know I’ve checked it 100 times, but I have to check it again just to be sure. When I was allowed to leave my house pre COVID, I would have a routine. Dog in crate, Lights off, check all the sinks to make sure they are off, then go around and do a second loop making sure everything is off, then phone/keys/wallet, and then lock the door and get in my car. Then get out of my car and check the door again, because what if I wasn’t paying attention the first time. On my particularly adventurous days, I would then drive down the street, make it to the rotary, and do a loop back home. Go inside, make sure the lights are off and sinks are shut off, then make sure the door is locked again.  Very fun adventures, 10/10. 

I bring my dog for a walk 3x a day with my fiance, and you bet doors are my favorite part of it! Back door locked? Yes ok. Wait! I have to double check! Then I have to pee. I ALWAYS have to pee before leaving the house, though I’m not sure if that’s OCD or just getting older. Then we can leave the house! But did you grab the keys? If I haven't watched my fiance grab his keys, I often have to have him show me he has keys before I step out of the house. He’s a saint for putting up with my bullshit. 

The end of my day is always relaxing. A cup of tea, a book, an adventure outside to let the dog out (Keys?), then finally I can go to bed. But wait - what about the doors?! I will walk from my front door and back door a hundred times until I am satisfied they are both locked. I don’t have a particular number, but it’s about what feels good. Oh that pull on the door wasn’t perfect, what if I am wrong and it wasn’t locked? It’s a great way to get steps in. You would think by now I know to check the doors, but the worst is when I’ve climbed into bed and then the thought hits me  - The doors! Even if I know the doors are locked on a deep level, I will have to get out and check. It’s exhausting and most nights, pretty cold to get out of bed. Sometimes I get stuck in a cycle, and I can’t seem to break my own obsessive thought and compulsion to check the door. I have to ask my fiance to step in (Occasionally waking him up, sorry!) and ask him to check just so i can get out of my head. It often physically feels like I’m tearing myself out of the situation. 

Doors aren't my only obsession/compulsion mix. I have a thing about hand washing, where at night I need to be sure the sink is not running. I will shut off the water and hold my hands under the faucet for 10 seconds until I am satisfied there is no leak in the faucet. This would be tolerable if I only made one bathroom trip before bed, but as I have the bladder of a squirrel there are a minimum of three bathroom trips a night. This leads to 3 very stressful trips to the bathroom making sure I have shut off the sink.

Of course, this makes sleeping so easy! May as well hype myself up before bed

Reading this, you’re probably like “Lady, you need meds.” And you’re probably right! I would love to have a medication that works for me that allows me to have an easier time to use the coping skills I know and love! However, medication and I are currently not good friends.

I have tried! I have tried so many medications. Some made me super depressed, some made me super dumb, and other have made me have weird physical symptoms that are not comfortable at all. In another fun turn of events, I also was allergic to several medications. I cannot always source the start of my obsession/compulsions, but i can definitely tell you when my obsessive intrusive thought and fear of being allergic to medication came into being! So treating my OCD with medication is currently very much against everything my OCD is telling me.

I don’t share my OCD story for sympathy. I don't want you to feel bad for me. Everyone has their things, and OCD is mine. I share my story, because I want people to see that it’s okay to have struggles. You can and will still be successful. Even with my quirks, I am engaged, own a home, have a dog, a masters degree and a full time fulfilling job. It is always possible to aim high, even if there are more bumps in the road then other people may have,

[howyoutalktostrangers]

So,

Charlie Demers started off telling jokes. 

The Quebecois stand-up comedian, who is known for his fierce political activism, could easily make his living performing all over North America, appearing on radio broadcasts and providing voices for animated series. But over the course of the last decade he’s also made a name for himself as a writer, producing both creative non-fiction and fiction. His latest offering is something of a departure, as he kicks off a Vancouver-based mystery series.

Literary Goon reached out to Charlie to chat about what it’s like to conjure Vancouver on the page, how his love of The Sopranos informed the work, and the peculiarities of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

LG: Your new book Primary Obsessions centers around issues of mental health, which is something I know you’ve been passionate about over the years. Having suffered through a few mental health crises of my own, I’ve been able to see firsthand some of the ways the system fails to adequately treat people or reach them where they’re at. In the write-up for your book it says you’re a long-term cognitive behavioural therapy patient, so I wonder how your real-life experiences informed the narrative. Is there a political element to your prose? Are you trying to make a point?

CD: Dr. Annick Boudreau, the hero of the new series — I’ve very happy to have signed with Douglas & McIntyre for at least two books starring the character — is a fictionalized version of the cognitive behavioural therapist whom I’ve been seeing for more than fifteen years, sometimes regularly, sometimes for the psychological equivalent of touch-up work. 

I mean, she’s very heavily fictionalized; symbolically I separated them from each other, in my own mind, by giving Annick a crewcut on the very first page, whereas in real life my doctor has never cut her hair. That was my signal to myself that, whatever I borrowed from my doctor for my detective, just like Chesterton used his real priest for Father Brown, Annick was a fictional character for whom I had to be free to imagine into backstories and misadventures and mistakes that my own therapist would never have anything to do with. But it is, to a certain extent, a tribute to her and a thank you — I remember listening to a poet talk once about what a unique relationship a long-term patient-therapist relationship is, and it’s so true; it’s this in some ways tremendously intimate and absolutely trusting relationship with someone you know for years, who you feel like you sort of owe your happiness and maybe even your life to, but you don’t know when their birthday is or their partner’s name or whatever. 

When I first started seeing my doctor, it was as an outgrowth of treatment that began as part of free clinical trials at a university, and that treatment, which saved my life (either kept me from taking it, or made it something other than just sheer torture) was free, and it was at a time when I didn’t have a cent to my name, I mean absolutely nothing, and knowing how many versions of me are out there right now, at this crucial point in their psychological development in their early 20s, and they can’t access the kind of treatment that saved my life, it just murders me. Psychiatry is fine for certain things and for certain people, absolutely — and I have had good experiences, and bad ones, with meds. But for OCD, it’s cognitive-behavioural therapy. I mean, in my experience, for sure. 

And that should be part of universal health care. I don’t know how saliently that point comes through, though, in the novel, at least this first instalment. If there’s a politics at play here, I think it’s probably less to do with bread and butter stuff like that, and more to do with the flattening effect of the Internet. In this story, Annick Boudreau is drawn into an investigation to save her patient because she knows things that other people don’t know, even though they think they do.

LG: I’ve never met anyone who is as passionate about The Sopranos as you are. I read your moving tribute to James Gandolfini when he died, and couldn’t agree more that David Chase’s depiction of the realities of talk therapy was ground-breaking in a covert way. People thought they were watching a show about gangsters, but they were really watching a show about mental health. With this book steeped in a crime milieu in the same way, would you say that your goals align with his?

CD: If David Chase is Stevie Wonder, I’m a ringtone of dogs barking “Jingle Bells”. Even thinking of comparing my book to The Sopranos feels like comparing Brueghel’s “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus” to a calendar from the mechanic’s because they both hang on walls. I’m perfectly happy to have written what I think is a fun, smart, and from a certain angle even possibly a little enlightening detective story in the fish-out-of-water tradition. There’s a whiff of gangster underworld in this book, and there’ll be a lot more of it in the second one. 

LG: One of your main characters has been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which is often mis-portrayed in popular media. (I’m thinking about the Academy Award-winning Jack Nicholson flick As Good As It Gets.) As it happens, your hero Dr. Annick Boudreau sets out to help him but quickly realizes that doctor-patient confidentiality creates a roadblock where she can’t speak to the authorities. Most people think of doctor-patient confidentiality as a positive thing, but it sounds like you’re exploring it’s unexpected down-sides. Did you have an experience that clued you into this conundrum?

CD: There were bits of As Good As It Gets that showed some of the real agony of certain strains of OCD, but it definitely slotted into the broader cultural misunderstanding of OCD as meaning “super finicky” or “very particular.” The initialism itself, OCD, has been almost completely stripped of its descriptive power, since in common speech it’s almost always used to mean someone keeps a clean house or likes things a certain way — though usually if you say ‘obsessive-compulsive disorder,’ people know you mean an actual, clinical diagnosis. 

The patient in the novel has the kind of OCD that I have (though I should say, thanks to the real life “Dr. Boudreau,” have mostly put behind me), which is called primary obsessions OCD, and involves repeated, unwanted, intrusive and disturbing thoughts. Heavy on the ‘O,’ a bit lighter on the ‘C,’ although the thoughts can cause so much emotional pain, anxiety, and even trauma that very complex, time-consuming, and exhausting compulsions and rituals develop to “deal with” or neutralize them. It’s not so much that there’s a down-side to doctor-patient confidentiality, which is a sacred and absolutely essential norm — but there are particular legal strategies to bringing in a defendant’s psychologist, and trying to include their insights. And in this case, Dr. Boudreau’s patient’s shame — which I can say, from experience, is debilitating to the point of paralysis until you’re pretty well into your treatment — becomes an obstacle to his own well-being. 

LG: I grew up just outside of Vancouver, but rarely got the chance to see it portrayed in fiction. Though it’s used by countless film crews, it’s always disguised as some other American metropolis. Recently I read The Plague by Kevin Chong, and I was fascinated to see how his portrayal overlapped with my own experiences, and also how it diverged from them. When you set out to conjure Vancouver on the page, what were your priorities for setting the scene? Which aspects of Vancouver were crucial to capture?

CD: One of the things I love about the detective genre is the way it’s so, so often and unapologetically about the worst and best things about the cities in which the stories are set. I’m a huge fan of the late Andrea Camilleri, and his Detective Montalbano books, and as you read about his “Vigàta,” in Siciliy, you really can’t tell if this place is Heaven or Hell. So I was very unsubtle about splashing as much Vancouver on everything as I could. 

One of the nice things about having a psychologist for a protagonist is that she’s rich, so I could realistically give her access to every part of Vancouver, without any particular anxiety about it. But unlike Dave Wakeland, my pal Sam Wiebe’s private eye, she didn’t grow up here — Annick is an Acadian from Halifax, so Vancouver’s not in her bones like it’s in mine, or Dave’s, or Sam’s. Sam’s incredible books are already doing the work of capturing the city’s loss of soul, and it felt stupid for me to try to ape that, and so I kind of mostly went with a lights-and-make-up Vancouver. Any East Sider will recognize many barely-disguised eateries and for sure there’s some inevitable urban grit, but I also went with the Pan Pacific lounge and Coal Harbour condos because hey, fuck it, it’s fiction. 

The Literary Goon

[arkhamcitysirens]

Hey I wanted to start watching gotham but... everyone seems to hate the riddler??? lmao you watch gotham right wtf is wrong with riddler on gotham? what has he done? why does everyone think he's so bad

hey i’m your local shameless gotham stan and i think it gets a lot of undeserved hate. partially because people can’t cope with such a weird alternate universe but also… it has its problems and the show is definitely disliked for a reason. case in point: gotham’s terrible presentation of edward nygma. personally i loved edward early in season one, but at this point he’s probably become the worst depiction of any well-known dc character that gotham has given us.

-for starters, eddie’s gotham origin story is much more ridiculous and creepy than the origin of the riddler we know and love. in most universes, the riddler’s origin story usually revolves around his love for puzzles and his need for intellectual superiority, founded when he was a child as a result of his father’s abuse and mistreatment. however in gotham, he evolves into the riddler essentially because a girl doesn’t love him back, with nothing from his original character except his vague love for weak puzzles off the internet in tact. the fact a character with such excellent source material is reduced to a character whose motivations lie entirely in winning over a woman is something that understandably infuriates a lot of fans.

-gotham!eddie is a creepy stalker and the show makes it seem like his behaviour is okay. he obsesses over a woman who repeatedly tells him no. he follows her around constantly, tracking her movements, learning everything he can about her from the shadows, and it’s painted as cute and quirky. his actions are threatening and predatory, and should be shown as such. it’s disturbing how this is romanticised into a sob story for eddie, because this woman doesn’t love him back. his behaviour should be presented as horrific and endangering for her, and instead we’re invited to the edward nygma pity party, told to believe the woman is in the wrong.

-his character’s appeal is mostly the actor’s good looks. the actor, cory michael smith, is undeniably attractive, meaning he’s highly popular on the show amongst casual fans. it also means the writers often don’t put any effort into characterisation or genuine development because people are happy with the hot nerd archetype eddie fills.

-a HUGE issue with his character is the portrayal of his mental illness. the riddler canonly has severe obsessive compulsive disorder, but this is never mentioned or acknowledged. instead the writers went with a non-specific split personality disorder, which has never been attributed to edward before. that isn’t really the problem though, although the ocd erasure isn’t cool; the bigger issue is that his identity disorder is treated like it’s what makes eddie inherently evil. the show barely gives any time or thought to eddie’s identity disorder, outside of displaying him as being crazy and dangerous because of it and then becoming a Bad Guy. gotham pushes the casual idea that mental illness makes a person evil and sick, using the split personality narrative as a plot device, and erasing eddie’s obsessive compulsive disorder for something deemed to have more shock value.

-this isn’t really a fair point, but fandom interpretation has often characterised eddie as gay (hell to the yes), autistic, and other things which aren’t presented in the show. because these things aren’t canon, the writers are under no obligation to present them like they probably should have with canon things like his ocd, but it still frustrates a lot of fans (myself included) to see a character often interpreted as part of the mlm community turned into the very definition of a straight white cis fuckboy.

-he’s just not the riddler? nothing about his title of ‘the riddler’ feels authentic and he barely tries with the puzzles and games his entire theme revolves around. the riddles he uses are literally taken straight off internet. i’m not even kidding. the writers put so little effort in that the viewers probably know the solution to the riddle immediately. this version of edward nygma doesn’t actually pose a real threat to anybody, much less the entire city of gotham.

in my personal opinion, gotham overall is a show worth giving a shot, although gotham!riddler isn’t great. it is deeply flawed and deserving of its many criticisms, but i think people have exaggerated quite how bad it is. as long as you’re aware that gotham has done things wrong, you’ll probably enjoy it. don’t let public opinion sway you on whether or not you like the show.

[michaelmotorcycle2]

My solution for my variation of OCD. Revised 11/2. Part 1 & 2

         A narrated version can be found here:

       https://youtu.be/oKpu-UlktW8

    My Solution for my variation of OCD               Oct,    2019 last rev 11/2/19           

            Part I

When I have had OCD bother me the sensation is like having a 150 decibel siren sounding next to my ear. I can't tolerate the feeling nor can I tolerate letting it eventually attenuate on its own like an oscillator that is not given feedback, but otherwise keeps running. Nor can I tolerate placing resistance in the path to lower the amplitude of the siren. I actually don't feel like living at its worst. On the other hand when I am free from OCD's effects; I love living and engaging in all that interests me. For me to survive well I need to have sent the signal that powers the siren to ground much like the method used by an electronics engineer to change a memory location from 1 to zero. 

When I was at the university I found that for certain there are others like me and on some occasions I highly suspected a few were stronger than I; its hard to say because strength can be realized as speed like a high speed drill or torque as seen in the power of the tractor. Regardless all my mates were more or less very adept with respect to using the tools of formal logic, critical thinking as well as detecting hard to see but significant differences such as converging point wise compared to convergence in measure or convergence in probability. 

A sketchy illustration of a line that converges point wise can be seen by visualizing one yard-stick moving towards another fixed yard-stick until it rests upon the fixed yard-stick after some nth movement. Convergence in measure has the same two yard-sticks, but after some jth movement all but a finite set of points, which can be countable infinite in size but still a finite and measure zero set, are resting on the fixed yard-stick. However, which points are not resting on the fixed yard-stick are not necessarily the same for each subsequent step beyond the jth movement. Were you to watch the two examples unfold in a computer simulation you would in a sense need to use an electron microscope to see the difference because they appear without high resolution to be identical. The difference may at first glance seem to invoke 'why bother' to even classify or make note of the difference. However, there is a significant need to note the difference and many of the mathematical tools and theorems you rely on or engineers rely on would be absent without the distinction.  

I related the preceding two paragraphs because I know there are others like me and that some almost surely have the same issue with respect to OCD that I have. The OCD issue is due to subtle but important differences that our common language makes no real attempt to distinguish; hence, in general language has served as my trigger. If we multiply the relative frequency of each attribute I am sure the size of the population having both attributes pertaining to me is very small. Some might even say it is not worth investing the money in finding a solution for the siren activator. I don't say that, and it is those like me that I am writing this for.

For the longest time I sensed the trigger like I sense something in a song that triggers dislike without being able to actually verbalize the issue itself in everyday language. At times I had tried to ascertain exactly what the issues were, but through the act of examination I triggered the siren and did not get far. Roughly two years ago by using the tool of abstraction and letting harmless symbols stand in for disturbing concepts I was able to start making headway. Given my field is pure mathematics this was more than a comfortable fit for me. I looked at everything involved with the same depth I would use while looking at the Complex numbers and all its subsets such as the Real numbers... and all the different classes of functions that would transform one set of numbers into another set in the setting of formal logic and deductive proof. As time went on the more I began to realize in simple terminology, what I had. Indeed this was a job that must have hundreds of hours associated with it and I am very thankful for the tools I acquired while at the university for they made the endeavor possible, for it could not be achieved without.

I will not share in this essay every thing but primarily the triggers are taking or envisioning the subjective as being objective which is easy to be mislead into thinking given our common language that is very poorly well-defined in many cases. Often in spite of only a few generalized meanings there are countless specific meanings that a phrase can mean where not every meaning is accurate or without being, for me, disturbing. I realize that, if one can not see they have a flat tire then they don't feel the need for having a jack in their hand, nor are they uncomfortable without having the jack. I also realize people tend to behave like a CD player that has human emotions in that since it does not see the data on the disc and returns a blank disc message, then the DVD player which returns a message indicating the disc is full must be broken or delusional or just nutty. You can think of the preceding metaphors as a warning that suggests the language issues that disturb me very well may be unseen by the reader.  

The first thing and biggest issue that triggered my OCD was resolved when I showed that attributes presented as objective properties of the object that is being addressed, as in the Islamic fundamentalist saying, "Americans are worthless infidels worthy only of a long suffering death", are not objective. Apparently, it seems evolution thought the animal with minimal of anything else would more likely survive to copy if they viewed subjective attributes associated with the object as objective. Evolution seems to have given us this trait much like the green of grass that most people will swear is a constituent part of the grass as opposed to an internal attribute added to their model of external reality. Showing my self this was as another said, pure gold. Why? Because I could stop trying to prove what was un-provable and only accepted as true through essentially want-to-believe such as seen in those that continue to see emotive attitudes as somehow being objective attributes of the referenced object. Why could I stop? Because when a state does not exist, neither does the complement of the state where in the complement the state is real, thus, both the state and not-state are imaginary just like the unicorn and not-unicorn. For example one will never find a unicorn for anything to be outside of; hence, it is in fact the imaginary not-a-unicorn. If you falsely believe a state and its complement are real and use analysis better than 'I-feel-it-is' to show validity then you can never form a conclusion, never, never ever!

OK, that was wonderful to find and show, it helped a great deal, but I still had the language issue. What do I mean? There are two symbols that are very problematic for me because they are not well defined at all. One is the symbol 'is' where it has four general meanings one of which happens to be seen in, "The sheet of paper is rectangular". Here (is) is indicating the paper has the state of being rectangular as a constituent part of the object that = the sheet of paper. However, "The painting is good." has the identical sentence structure, but the meaning in reality is: whoever made the statement has the emotive attitude good regarding the painting or another way of indicating reality is that he or she has the emotive attitude or emotion good directed at or associated with the painting. 

Identical sentence structure is seen in each sentence shown above, but the realty pertaining to each is neither identical nor isomorphic. They are as close to the same as Bug's Bunny and your neighbor. What had happened for me and manifested as OCD is the following: When ever I heard a similar sentence that suggested an emotive attribute as being an objective property; when the suggestion resonated negatively with me the 150 decibel siren began to sound. Until I had showed with rigor that these were emotive attitudes as opposed to objective properties of the object being referenced I had tried with unrelenting effort to show they were false in a manner that was consistent with objective attributes. To let the reader have a feeling for how intrusive this was to my emotive well being ask your self the following: If something was extremely critical to you; enough, so as to actually go to war with the threat, then how long could you stay awake so as to carry on the fight if the situation continued to persist? Would you fight without sleep for your child's life if needed? I would, and with respect to specific issues I was equally determined.  

I conjecture that we interpret language indicating emotive attitudes differently than language indicating or suggesting an objective attribute or property. The emotive attitude we see/interpret like a sketch a kid may draw of ourselves and therefore we are not bothered by the offering. When the language suggests or purposely indicates property of an object we then often interpret this like we are being offered a photograph of the object as opposed to a rendering of an others subjective view. In general everything is an emotive attitude in spite of our speech patterns and even when we are dealing with strictly the objective our speech that represents an internal model that then represents reality is without doubt lossy. 

How lossy? What is the poorest resolution digital image you have seen? What is the highest resolution digital image you have seen? Reality has more detail than the highest resolution you have seen and our concepts or internal models contain less information than the poorest digital image you have seen. Therefore, lossy is a bit of an understatement. 

In my exploration the past few years I found the following, A & B, interesting and later built a mathematical model to explore the concept which I will shortly introduce:

A: On the one hand the trait of  viewing reality through our emotive lens as though it was objective reality as indicated by our speech patterns assists in more likely to survive to copy; but, it also assists in more likely to not survive. How does the latter manifest itself? There is a young man on his way to prison and perhaps the electric chair because he interpreted the emotive attitude seen on the face of another regarding himself as indicating or reflecting an objective view of himself as opposed to an emotive attitude regarding himself. This young man then got out of his vehicle, dragged the other out of his vehicle and beat him to death. 

B: How many verbal or physical fights began by 'you are' that would have been avoided by "my feeling regarding you is"? A good example is the riot that resulted when several hundred recruits from the backwoods of Virginia were insulted with jeers and phrases such as "you are worthless" as they joined the Continental Army's encampment. Washington had to physically intervene. Had Washington not been so pig headed, like myself, he would have quit. This might have been avoided simply by either recognizing that "worthless" is just an emotive attitude that is tolerable when it is not being dressed in misleading language suggesting "worthless" is a constituent part of what is being referenced. In this particular case: "You are worthless" started a fight & "I do not have the emotive attitude represented by 'value' associated with your presence" would have probably lead to, "and why do I care; for, what is important to me is how I feel regarding what I offer."   

Before I carry on with my specific issue, I would like the audience to share in an interesting concept. Do you think the world would be a safer place if animals and humans in particular stopped being assembled to view emotive views as objective models of external reality? I do, but for the same reason fearing all snakes is a good scheme when the animal can not process identification quickly enough to actually save itself when the snake is poisonous; so is the emotive/objective scheme, because not all animals would be intellectually suitable for the alternative methodology.                                                                                                                      

In pursuit of understanding related to this concept I created a mathematical model involving traits being passed from generation to generation and assumed some givens so as to create the model. I then programmed a computer to execute the model although one needs not extend too many generations to see the pattern emerge and could do with out the computer simulation. Regardless, I was a bit astonished to see that if reality and evolution matched my model then in a group of like creatures evolution will favor a protecting-trait, with respect to survival, even when the protective scheme is actually needed by very few. Why? It's just due to the attributes of probability. You have to realize my model did make assumptions, but it gave a darn good reason why we still continue to have vestiges of organs that are no longer needed in our current configuration. Simply stated these essentially no longer useful traits are just hard to remove from the genetic pool because nothing is killing them off. In a very real sense what I found was an oh-wow moment for me, but I can't say for sure my model was entirely what coincides with reality which surely always is in a state of flux.       

Back on topic and asking what do I do? I don't try to desensitize my self to the notion of (the emotive attribute presented as objective) is indeed an objective property of the object and then in the words of some, "get over it." Why should I desensitize myself to what is not real? Not only that, but I want to desensitize myself to the trigger as much as you want to desensitize your self to having a sex change. I'll tell you what I do after I identify the other symbol that is even less well defined.

The symbol 'not' is horribly absent of being well defined. It is like 'number' where number has a general meaning and zillions of specific meanings, since number can stand in for any number from the set of all numbers. The issue with 'not' is that while it has a general meaning of 'outside of' it acquires a specific meaning from the space it is used relative to. Thus not-state can have many meanings where real or not depends on the space not-state is respect to. Its absolutely crazy that common language put in place such a word for its as poor a choice as using 'stuff' for everything associated with sports or the arts.... An example of 'not'  being spread too thin by its ubiquitous use is seen by using 'not' with respect to the Natural numbers such that you have even and not-even and then ask, what is Pi? Here what you need to do so as to maintain understanding is create another logical operator for the new space that includes the Natural numbers and the the Rationals and Irrationals where Pi is somewhere within found. Thus you can say Pi is not-bar even and not-bar not-even while preserving "not" with respect to the Natural numbers. 

Another example is seen with the rock and emotions. With strict respect to the rock, emotions do not exist. Like unicorn where unicorn is real and not-unicorn where in not-unicorn, unicorn is real; each of (sad, not-sad) is imaginary with strict respect to the rock. To be clear one should really be saying he is not the imaginary unicorn nor the imaginary not-unicorn. Here with strict respect to the rock, both the rock feels sad and the rock not feels sad are imaginary. It is not until you expand the space that sad is relative to so as to include all existence that, "The rock not feels sad." has some valid meaning or is it too lossy and misleading to even be considered meaningful as a valid meaning? For now it is suffice to say the trouble is, "The rock not feels sad" suggests the other meaning equaling (the rock not-feels sad, where sad is a real possibility for the rock), is valid as opposed to imaginary. 

Our use of 'not' is in general very poorly defined. Often its meaning is very lossy in meaning or concept much like a 1 mega-pixel photograph is lossy as compared to a 20 mega-pixel photograph. Given the phrase "The rock not feels sad" were to mean  "The rock is not realized as the possibility that is imaginary for rocks and only real for other elements of reality, where this possibility is the emotive sad" then its meaning would be fairly loss-less. However, the phrase directly or indirectly standing in for the state shown above has so many meanings it may as well just be saying "stuff." I doubt that the meaning I just gave the phrase is often thought of and that more likely if the phrase's meaning is thought of one will say the phrase means, "The rock is not what is real somewhere in existence." Compare the two meanings and my meaning contains like a high definition photograph information such as the attribute is not real for rocks that the other meaning lacks. Again, one meaning is lossy and the other is far less lossy.

Before I continue, I think what we all need to make note of or remember is seen in this comparison: I am tone death. I can't tell a middle C from the note immediately above or below middle C. I would never be able to recognize middle C was being played flat or sharp. A good musician listening to what appears to me as a perfect rendering of a song could be disturbed by what I don't even notice. On the other hand I sense or hear what are to me disturbances created by the use of poorly defined language as easily as the musician detects the sour notes. Compared to the musician I am the CD player; compared to others with respect to the language issue I am discussing, I am the DVD player and others are the CD player. When I say we all need to make note of... I am not suggesting that any of us patronize the characteristics of the other any more than I would suggest to the hunter to become a vegetarian nor would I suggest to the deer for it to make itself easier to be killed. I am actually suggesting that often there is not a universal solution, and we should all at least be aware that these differences are real. 

                                Part II

Before we continue things to note are:

1:Symbols/words/phrases are subjective in that they are not objective properties of either the concept or the object they stand in for. OK, we can always disassociate symbols/words/phrases from objects and concepts. The same holds true for the meanings equaling internal concepts that the symbols/words/phrases often reference. These concepts are like photographs that attempt to model reality where some are better than others. Using any is a matter of subjective choice and none are actually reality itself, rather, they model for us reality to some degree of accuracy. 

2: Symbols and phrases don't refer to nothing when used, rather they refer to some object/concept/model by acting as essentially a name for the object as in "I am Mike" or as a verbal representation for an internal model of external reality as in "raining four days in a row." 

Sad, even,... etc are symbols that represent or stand in for concepts where the concept is the internalized notion of a state that in the big space of existence is real as either a possibility for some elements of reality or as a realization for some objects in reality. When we say, "The rock not feels sad." This sentence stands in for an internalized concept and the concept then stands in for reality. I already indicated concepts are not always high definition in that they are often minimal in the information they convey. Not only this, but if you think of the concept as being isomorphic to a photograph where the photograph/concept stands in for reality; as previously stated, that they stand in for reality is subjective. OK, we can disassociate lossy concepts too, why not, do you want the five year old's sketch of you to be your Facebook mug shot? 

3: If concept then real, is in general true; but, If real then concept, is not true. This second implication being false tells us concept is not needed for reality and the first implication is telling us reality is needed to have concept. OK, the universe does not fall apart if we not only disassociate concepts that are lossy and trigger the siren in my head, but also the universe does not fall apart if nobody was dumb enough to use lossy concepts that are misleading; so essentially they can go in my trash bin and yours too should you elect to do so. 

To answer, what do I do with our poorly defined phrases, misleading representations, and lossy concepts that trigger the siren in my head? My answer is that I disassociate meanings where applicable, I disassociate concepts that are lossy or misleading such as subjective views being projected as objective traits. All these things that I disassociate I place in the trash bin of does not exist either from my perspective or with respect to reality. For those who emotively object to my means I reply, were god shown to be non-existent with precise deductive logic that left no doubt there are many that would still choose to believe in a god that suited their emotions. I can't blame them because it makes the world tolerable for them and without they would simply not function as well. Likewise, my doing as indicated makes, for me, the world an honest rendering, bearable and allows me to be productive.

So, if need be, by taking a page from Martin Luther and invoking a belief as strong as faith: I may in a sense just choose to believe that everyone can only be smart enough not to create misleading and poorly defined symbols, lossy phrases and lossy internal models at all and rather than just for me, they exist nowhere. Why? Because, I'd rather live without the siren that causes me to feel death is a better option than live with it and have to wait until I forgot about the trigger that keyed the siren. Who would not? Not only the preceding, I don't want to desensitize myself to the emotively disturbing trigger anymore than those that believe in god want to desensitize their self to the concept of a reality without. Incidentally, my method is essentially the same structure as the device the engineer created that changes the memory value at an address by sending the signal to ground such that it never reaches the memory address. It is a beautiful methodology in its elegant simplicity and is much like diverting a river instead of building a dam to restrain or attenuate it during periods of heavy rain. I am not an engineer, but I think I'll send them a thank you card with very warmest regards for the idea.

[jcausyn]

My Life With OCD

12/5/16

Before I begin allow me to introduce myself, my name is Jim Causyn. I grew up in a small town and I have a wonderful family. I am married to my beautiful wife Amanda, and also a proud father to my son Ryan. 

My family is the most important thing to me. What most people don’t know about me is I suffer from an anxiety disorder, OCD. I’ve had it most of my life and was officially diagnosed 7 months ago.

Before I get into my story and struggles with the disorder, I want to first Introduce “OCD” to those who don’t know much about it. “OCD” as we commonly have come to know it by, stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Obsessions cause excessive and intrusive thoughts, emotions, feelings and urges. 

In response to our obsessions we act out repetitive behaviors (physical or mental) in attempt to relieve the anxiety our “obsessions” cause. These behaviors are called compulsions. The most common examples of compulsions are hand washing, checking, reassurance seeking, counting and avoidance. The way I like to look at it is anything we do in attempt to relieve our anxiety. 

If you know this much already, great! I’m only scratching the surface though. My primary goal here is to educate you on other types of OCD that are not commonly discussed. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has been commonly recognized for contamination, and perfectionism with compulsions such as hand washing, counting, checking, etc. On that note, I want to make it clear that just because you’re someone who’s neat, picky, organized or afraid of germs in no way means you suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

We all have our “quirks” which is a very significant difference from OCD. A good rule of thumb I like to use to separate the two is asking yourself two core questions. First, how long do you find yourself wrapped up in your worry or fear? Is it excessive? Is it interfering with your daily tasks?  Second, what if someone told you that you could not complete the task you felt compelled to do? Would it increase your anxiety? Would it cause you distress not being able to participate in the behavior? 

I will obviously remind you I’m not a doctor. But, through my experience I do feel that this is a good starting place for someone who feels they might struggle with OCD.     

With OCD being an anxiety disorder it causes a great amount of terror, worry and fear. Someone with an anxiety disorder can be alarmed when there is nothing to be alarmed over. They can be worried when there is nothing to be worried about. Your brain is misfiring, which in return you end up on high alert and over analyze everything.

This lands me into a less discussed topic of the disorder, “primary obsessions and mental compulsions”. Did you know obsessions can be fears of harming yourself or others? Typically this is known as harm OCD. Along with harm is sexual obsessions.

Sexual obsessions can lead to fears of sexual identity, becoming/being a pedophile, or being sexually aggressive. There are also religious obsessions that can lead to extreme fear of going to hell or being possessed. The list goes on and these are just some examples of primary obsessions. The one thing in common for those who suffer from primary obsessions is a lot of the compulsive behavior is mental.

Unfortunately, throughout the years I’ve experienced all of the above. We’ve all been there before, felt a way we didn’t agree with and thought something inappropriate. It may bring some discomfort for a short amount of time but most of you are able to filter the information. I like to call it “brain noise.” For someone like me it’s much more than noise, I obsess over it, day after day. I begin to question who I am and what this may all mean. In other words it all leads to catastrophic thinking.

It probably doesn’t shock you that these outrageous and disturbing fears lead to depression as well. You feel at war with yourself, which can take a huge toll on you mentally. Typically with OCD you will see physical behaviors, which are rituals that are acted out. Mental compulsions are acted out in one’s head. Some examples would be mental reassurance seeking, searching for information that will bring you relief, ruminating, stuck on a thought and replaying the event over and over again. Comparing, mental checking, consistently going over a thought to make sure “all is well.” In return, this can only make matters worse. 

Long story short someone with primary obsessions and mental compulsions have one goal. That goal is to “get to the bottom of it” desperately searching for 100 percent certainty. In search for answers that will put these awful obsessions to misery. The problem is that will never happen. Its false hope; OCD leads you on. Desperately getting to the bottom of your concerns is what makes it even stronger.  

It’s no surprise OCD has also been known as the doubting disease, it’s for a pretty good reason too. When you suffer from this disorder you can’t help but doubt. When I say doubt, I mean doubt that is so powerful you lose confidence in the most obvious answers.

For example, let’s say you’re about to take a test. You are at the top of the class, but not the best test taker. You come across a question on the test; a topic you’ve studied over and over again. I mean before this test you were a 97 percent you knew the answer. But then doubt settles in, what once was a clear mind has now become clouded. The more you doubt, the more you question, the less certain you become.

Someone with OCD finds themselves doubting more excessively, doubting everything, everyone and even themselves. The farther we dig for answers the deeper we fall. It’s a hard thing to overcome. The more we fight to break free the faster we sink. OCD desperately seeks evidence to prove to you this topic is something you have to look further into. Once in a while it will find some truth and that’s all it needs. That thread of truth can lead to a downward spiral.

I remember when I was younger having urges to touch door knobs a certain a number of times, switch a light switch off and on before bed and even walk up and down the stairs a number of times to feel the “task” was complete. Why did I do this? It was an attempt to prevent something “bad” from happening. I know what most of you are thinking by now.. “crazy!” I couldn't agree more with you. 

I wish more than anything this would all go away, but unfortunately it’s not that simple. Eventually, I was able to break free from those early habits and ignore them. For some time it felt like I out grew the grips of OCD. 

Because of my lack of education on the disorder, I had no idea it was happening right in front of me. It wasn’t long before my OCD shifted to primary obsessions and mental compulsions. The first of many fears was the fear of dying at a young age. I would fear I had a terminal disease such as cancer or a brain tumor. Let’s just put it to you this way, if I had a headache and felt nauseous, I automatically jumped to worst case scenario.

I found myself avoiding anything that had to do with terminally ill patients, hospitals and anything that would remind me of these fears. To me, and everyone around me, I was just your classic worry wart. But, this was much worse than being a worry wart.

It wasn’t until years later my OCD progressed. My fears became more intense and more irrational. I was vulnerable to TV, news headlines, horror films and disturbing documentaries. The world around me was riddled with questions “What if?” “Do I?” “Am I?” So why would I ask myself these things? Well, to me becoming or having such an awful situation in life terrifies me. An outcome you would never want to happen, a person you would never want to become. You find yourself doing whatever you can to make sure a tragic story, won’t be your story.  

For a long time OCD has found different ways to affect me. It shifts; adapting and latching onto the things I care and value the most. What is so tricky about it all is I know how crazy it all sounds, trust me. There is a reason I went years hiding this from everyone. I wish this could be something I could just shake off, but it’s not the case. 

On a positive note it seems I can be fine for months, even years, but then it hits me hard when I least expect it. What I’ve noticed, is depending on my mood or stress level it seems I’m more vulnerable and become easily triggered. How long it last falls into my hands. If I play the OCD game and give into what it wants (compulsions) then the vicious cycle continues. 

The less I entertain it, the more I am able to take control and mange it. One thing is for sure, OCD is a part of me; not all of who I am. Some of you who know me may think “oh it all makes sense now” but absolutely not, how serious I take my work, my passion, my drive is simply my character. Personal struggle is like my fuel. I do have something to prove and that is we are all capable of succes, no matter what we may face.

I haven’t been dealt the best cards in life, but at the same time I know my hand could be much worse. One thing is for certain, I refuse to let OCD define who I am. So I’m sure by now most of you are raising your eye brows thinking “why the hell are you sharing this about yourself?” Well, there are many answers to that question. I would be a liar if I said coming forward about all this didn’t benefit me. Breaking the silence has been very therapeutic for me. I’ve learned the more I accepted this part of me, and embraced this part of me, the less afraid of this part of me I was. It’s something I continue to work on.

The most important part of me coming forward is making a positive impact. If I could take this negative part of my life and turn into a positive, not only for me but for others who struggle not only with OCD but mental illness as well, that would be a great accomplishment. We need to encourage people to talk about it, come forward and lead by example.

It’s great for those who suffer from any metal illness to share their experience, spreading hope to one another through their struggles. But when we can get those who don’t necessarily understand but want to get involved, well that does volumes. The key to progress is support from everyone, especially those who don’t suffer. It’s a step in the right direction to making a change on how our society views mental illness. I believe it is important to give back to the world in a positive way.

Another important reason why I’m doing this is to start awareness. I feel the term OCD has been effortlessly thrown around. We’ve all heard it before “I’m so OCD”; a term being tossed around like it’s something to be proud of, being used as cute or funny. Anyone who truly struggles doesn’t really find it cute or funny. I want people to have a better understanding of this disorder. 

I think with me having OCD I can be looked down upon. Same can go with anyone who suffers with a mental illness. I mean who wants to be associated with a group where people think those who take a pill or see a therapist aren’t “normal.” That’s the very reason it has taken me years to come forward about this.

We are all searching for a place to fit in and life can sometimes feel like a race. But we should all remember it’s not how long it takes us to get where we’re going, it’s that we arrive. Never quit, and when it’s ugly, despite all odds make your goals a reality.

It takes a big heart and determination to reach where you want to be when you may have more odds to beat. It’s truly inspiring. Let’s all help those hiding and encourage others who need help to not be afraid, and that we all have the power to be successful.

Sharing this hasn’t been easy. I swore I would take this one to the grave with me, but here I am doing quite the opposite. It‘s all for a bigger purpose in my opinion. With that being said, I want to remind anyone out there who is afraid or in pain you are not alone. You may feel alone but I’m here as proof you are not. Finding happiness isn’t always easy. It’s something you have to work for.

This is far from a story of how I recovered. It’s a story of me on my journey to recovery. I refuse to let my challenges in life push me around. From time to time they do, but I have a life to live and you bet your ass I’m going to live it. So should you. 

So I’m close to wrapping this up and if you made it this far I want to thank you for your time. I truly appreciate your support. I especially want to thank my amazing wife who has been there for me every step of the way. There are days when the fears feel so real I’m weeping, terrified and afraid. She never ran for the hills when a lot of people would. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. I also want to thank god. My faith has been tested, but in the end has only made it stronger.

I’ve learned something through this long and awful experience, and that is just accepting this about myself. I’ve spent so many years scared of being judged, misunderstood, embarrassed, and looked at differently. The thought of anyone knowing I needed help upset me because I felt it made me weak. I’ve always wanted to be someone others could look up to, inspire and be a role model. The problem was pretending to have it all together, wasn’t even close to any of those things. 

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if sharing this would be the best idea. A lot of that time spent wondering is because being a father is important to me. What will my son think of me? Would he be embarrassed to be around me? I care what my son thinks of me. I want to be his biggest hero and be someone he can look up to. Is sharing this about myself going to stop that from happening? A part of me worries that it will but a bigger part of me say’s no, it won’t.

Finding courage to come forward about a part of myself I’ve been hiding for most of my life is a way I can be his hero. At some point in my son’s life he might have some obstacles to overcome. What I want him to see in those moments is “If dad can, so can I.” Someone who is able to embrace their challenges and seek help when they need it, In my opinion that’s one of the bravest individuals we can be. It’s someone I strive to be every day. 

[ryinkelsin]

I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder...

            I know what you’re thinking. I must be really clean right? I’m germaphobic. I will say that I’m clean but any more than a so called “normal” person. I do like things in a certain order. For example, my closet is organized to my specific liking but there’s so much more to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Not all of us fear germs and are what you like to call neat freaks. It is fair to say that some do. I know there are other like myself who do compulsively clean but for me that side only really comes out at work. So here, I’m going to break down the truth about how my brain works for you. It’s much more than the stereotypes you’ve come to believe.

 OBSESSIVE

             For someone with OCD this is a word we are familiar with. We understand it more than the average person. So, here’s how it works. You’re going on about your day as normal when suddenly your mind shows you something that disturbs you. For example, sometimes when I enter a building I imagine my fingers being crushed in the door I’m walking through or when I’m cutting open boxes at work a flash image of slicing my hand open enters my mind. These pictures are called intrusive thoughts and I have to live with them daily. I’m sure the two I just mention don’t see that serious to you but that’s because of a few reasons.

First, those were some of the milder ones. I’ve had more disturbing ones, like my mom running over her dog. It never happened but I thought it would. Second, It’s not a one-time thing. The image or thought continues to show in your mind and the more you ignore it, the more persistent it becomes. It becomes something you start to fear. Once your mind creates this scenario there is no getting rid of it. It demands that you pay attention to it and you have no choice but to comply.

People who don’t fully understand always offer the advice ‘Just don’t think about it.’ That’s not as simple as it sounds and trust me if I could just not think about it I would but that isn’t an option for someone like me. I bet you’re still wondering where the word obsessive comes into play and it’s here. Basically this is all fear based. Your brain convinces you that this terrible thing will happen and you believe it whole heartily. Most of the time it’s something totally ridiculous, like the sun falling out of the sky and killing you. This isn’t actually one of my fears but you get the idea. You start to obsess over this thought until it becomes the only think you are able to think about. This leads to one of two things, a full blown panic attack or a compulsion. Neither thing is good.

 COMPLUSIVE

             Here’s where the cleaning stereotype comes into play. It’s not uncommon for someone to have a cleaning compulsion. I admit that on multiple occasions I’ve cleaned my entire apartment from top to bottom. Like the day I took everything out of the fridge, shelves and all, to clean it but not everyone has this exact compulsion. Mine tends to lean more towards organization. I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. Cleaning and organization are similar but they are not the same. For example, for Christmas my aunt gave me a bunch of her books. I spent twenty minutes trying to line them up exactly the way I needed them to be. Sometimes my brain says if it’s not perfect it’s wrong and it’ll will continue to bother you until you’ve fixed it. Another great example was dinner last night. I couldn’t eat my meal until the plate was exactly in the middle of the place mat and the fork and knife were even on each side of the plate. I also had to separate the food into perfect sections. Everything is a routine and everything has an order. There’s just no way around it. The thing about compulsions is, we don’t necessarily want to do them but we have to. Your brain tells you if you don’t line the books up straight something bad will happen. It all ties into your fears.

           Compulsions happen because it distracts your mind from the thing you are afraid of. If you’re focusing all your attention on deep cleaning behind the oven or locking and unlocking the door eleven times, you aren’t thinking about what you’re scared will happen. That’s why these habits and rituals become vital to our daily lives. I can honestly tell you that I have some compulsions that I don’t fully understand. For example, I have the extreme need to change my socks at least four times a day and I’m terrified of placing my barefoot on the floor. I also must have a rubber band around my wrist at all times. Why you ask. I have no idea. There is just a voice in my head that says I have to. This voice convinces me that something terrible will happen if I don’t have one. I once had a boss you told me I couldn’t wear them and had to take them off. I responded by saying no. Just the mere thought of taking them off made me feeling panicked, so I wasn’t going to actually do it.  

           The thing is we are completely aware that these routines are ridiculous. We wish just as much as you do that we didn’t have to perform them but the urge to do so it too strong to fight. As much as we hate it, we would much rather just perform the task and move on from it, then try to battle it. Fighting it just leads to a panic attack which is extremely unpleasant.

 PANIC ATTACKS

             For someone who has never experienced this, consider yourself lucky because it is hell. Your hands shake, your muscles tighten, you’re in tears and you can’t breathe. It literally feels like you’re suffocating at times. This is what happens, you get your intrusive thought, then your brain tells you what compulsion to do but you don’t do it. Instead you try to force the image to go away, which never usually works. This starts the panic throughout your body. Once you’ve reached that point there is no stopping it. No compulsion will make this go away because now you’ve sent your mind on a downward spiral. You feel every muscle in your body tense up and your breathing quickens to the point that you feel like your chest is caving in. It can literally feel like you’re dying and most of the time we actually think that is happening. I usually end up in the fetal position, bawling like an idiot and feeling like the world is crashing down around me.

           There are only a couple solutions when you’ve reached this state. You can either take antianxiety medication or suffer through it. Medication is a good quick fix but, at least in my case, those meds make me feel groggy. Suffering through it is brutal but possible. Anxiety doesn’t last forever. It will eventually peak and then go down. It’s getting there, that is the problem.

           The worst thing about anxiety, whether it is caused by OCD or some other anxiety disorder, is there isn’t always a reason for it happening. Sometimes panic attacks come out of nowhere. The worst thing you can do when dealing with someone going through this is ask them what’s wrong. There isn’t always a reason, which can actually make the attack worse. Once a random attack happens you start to panic more, simply because you don’t understand where it’s coming from. Then you’re panicking because you’re panicking. It makes no sense I know but it happens. The more you push on someone that there must be a reason, the more panicked they will become. Instead, help them feel secure. Tell them they are safe and that you’re there. Help them slow down their breathing. Those things are crucial.

For someone with OCD, the panic could be caused but a sudden loss of control. I have specific routines that I preform every day. When they aren’t performed in the right order or I miss something I’m thrown off. It causes an easiness I can’t shake. I become agitated and stressed. Control is a big part of OCD. We tend to micromanage every aspect of our lives and when it doesn’t go the way we planned it, we fall apart. Everything becomes increasingly overwhelming and we can’t handle it. I will say though there is a perk to being like this. I can time manage beautifully. Time management has a lot to do with having game plan, which I am a big fan of. Sometimes routines are helpful but most of the time for someone like myself, it starts to control your life.

 These are the daily struggles I have and hopefully now you understand that being clean doesn’t make someone OCD. So next time you say ‘I’m so OCD because I like my towels folded a certain way.’ Remember that’s not what OCD is. To be perfectly honest here, I do like my towels folded a specific way but unlike you if folded the wrong way it causes an uneasy/panic type feeling. I’m sure you just readjust them and move on. I will fold and refold until the feeling goes away. It’s not something you can just shove off. It’s so much more than that. Don’t judge us when we count things or avoid cracks in the sidewalks. Don’t tell us we are being stupid. We know it’s stupid but that doesn’t change the fact that we have to do it. Don’t tell us that it’s no big deal because to us it’s earth shattering.

It took me a while to get here but I’m no longer ashamed of my illness. I’ve learned that it’s just a part of who I am. I’m not the only one and there is help out there. Fortunately for me I have amazing family and friends who support me. I’ve explained this to multiple people that I know and they see my OCD differently. For those people who have taken the time to listen to us and try to actually understand, kudos to you. We need more people like you in the world.

For those people who laugh and respond by saying ‘I understand. I’m so OCD about (whatever it is that you’re particular about)’ You are not OCD. You don’t understand. Trust me, you don’t want the thoughts that I have and you honestly have no clue what you’re talking about. If you actually experienced what goes on in my head, you would wonder how I live through it every day. It’s difficult but I manage. It’s something you learn to handle over time, with the help of therapy, your support system, and/or medication.  

For those of you still suffering through this and trying yourself to understand please know you are not alone. There are lots of us and we understand. 

S3�0+��

[qunot]

Venturing Onwards

You may, may want to read my first blog post before reading this or you will lack a lot of vital context!

What happened in the meanwhile since blog post 1? That is a very long story.

I have gotten sick a bunch of times and some of the symptoms which I won’t list in full detail are frankly terrifying. I’m sure these withdrawal symptoms from the really nasty stuff that is supposed to make me “normal”, especially as my body tries to adjust to hormones it has adjusted to the lack of.

Going off them more slowly would have likely been better, but I’m not too fond of being disturbed and depressed or suicidal. Greater society would say that this is a good thing, even though it obviously backfires in some ways (I have never, ever seen a case despite talking to dozens of people where it couldn’t be handled more normally like a normal well-adjusted person by simply consuming harmless content), but I think we have heard enough out of them.

I am still weird, but I am just weird in general for a number of reasons. There is no cure for weird or these irritable attractions, they are sort of more tolerable now, but they do still really bug me, especially when their intensity jumps up and down. This is likely one of the side-effects, a side-effect which ironically is more useful than the pitiful excuse of an effect that the stuff was supposed to do, if not for it being random and irritating me due to being moved from a cold glacier like state to a volcano in a short time-span making it hard for my brain to adapt.

I have also joined groups, left groups, saw groups get corrupted and fall into depravity, saw previously friendly groups turn all passive-aggressive (you can only tolerate so much before you simply can’t deal with the drama any-more), saw a few people who seemed smart go crazy and do stupid things, sites have risen, sites have fallen. It seems to be par the course for this community. I’ve gotten advice, given advice including how to avoid attacking random people, and worked myself through a number of mental break-downs.

What an adventure in only six months, it is like years have passed.

I am also slightly confused as to why I exist, this makes sense when I literally have no clue what my future is, if I even have one with people constantly formulating ways to screw with me. I have to keep a very close eye on newspaper headlines to see if some new law or misguided policy has wiggled it’s way into the sphere to “better” society.

I am also more tolerant towards people struggling with viewing things they really shouldn’t, although cracks show if they view particularly violent content that would not seem to be necessary for them to satisfy such desires. I will also add that while many view all the content as exactly the same, when they are worried about what they consume, they will often try to pick the least harmful tier of content, sometimes eventually shifting to an alternative that doesn’t involve any real people.

This means that while they may continue to engage with such content, the worst of the worst ends up getting viewed much less frequently on a whole. They may even eventually shift themselves to alternatives that lack real people entirely or are less problematic. One advantage of such alternatives have is variety, you can easily procure content without legal risk, which means that you can keep your body happy without as much work or risk. There are also many scenarios which would be physically impossible or improbable to carry out in reality.

In many cases, elevated sexual interest in such may be due to:

Puberty (many who consume such content are teenagers, people with such attractions don’t just pop out of thin air)

Hypersexuality (a controversial “disorder” which many psychologists believe to be caused by shame regarding one’s sexuality and other factors).

Unstable levels of hormones (including lowered hormones in some cases, it may be difficult for someone to adapt to alternate outlets with lower levels of receptivity, if they have fallen out of range and sexual release can easily be a a coping mechanism when one is depressed.

I do not know of any other factors which may play into this, but they may well exist, my vantage point is fairly limited given my meager nine months of experience in the community and there are all manner of people with all manner of mental states in the world. There is even supposedly a rare form of OCD which someone might have rather than the condition itself which might appear similar to the untrained eye.

As for physical acts, I am not too tolerant towards these. I have tried to be, when someone tells me of such acts to deal with them according, but ultimately, they are harming both themselves and others. This applies no matter what faction’s views are in play.

Such relationships are always destined to fall apart with both people being hurt in the process, confusion can ensue, serious misunderstands can be allowed to grow unchecked, serious damage both physical and psychological could be caused. There are a lot of reasons which could fill a post of it’s own.

Let’s not feed the silly delusion that people can “get away with it” either. People always get caught in the end, it is just a matter of time. Even if they can’t do it now, even if they have to wait twenty years for the technology to be ready, they will find a way and no one knows what sort of cruel and unusual punishment will be in place at that time. Or it could happen earlier, no one ever knows and no one is perfect.

If anyone has any information they want to add (or refutations, I love learning new things), then feel free to poke me. No nastiness tho -

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There seems to be somewhat of a hysteria around sexualisation lately with the definitions of sexual material being expanded dramatically, hysterical reports about surges in such content being pushed out as a response and the hysteria simply feeding itself into full panic mode. Report helplines are being overloaded with false reports, dodgy processes are resulting in incorrectly tagged images being pushed forward and things are generally falling into chaos.

There are also a number of absurd conspiracy theories floating around which couldn’t be further from the truth, along with a tinge of fear that we are in “control” despite suffering nothing but losses in policy and law at every single level for the past fifty years.

Despite this, we are portrayed in all manner of conspiracy theory as omnipotent puppet masters capable of anything, I cannot fathom how one could possibly come to such a conclusion. In normal circumstances, such theories would be tossed aside and considered a part of fringe politics, but in the current hyper-charged state of politics with one faction throwing mud at the other to try to undermine, convenient villains have been pulled out of thin air.

And who better to play this villainous role and we play it we do, while I personally do not commit any manner of horrific crime, crime is the way of the world, so you can always find members of the groups and many many more who have nothing to do with us, but commit crimes traditionally associated with us. This leads to sites clamping down on us and shoving us out. This isn’t due to some huge public outrage, but as part of relatively peripheral issues. Our presence, understandably but ever so annoying, is nothing but trouble to platforms and only serves to soil their reputation by association, so it really costs them nothing to shove us out.

Unlike the stories, we are not part of some shadow government that can twist them around our fingers, there may be shenanigans going on upstairs, but I not privy to them and I very much doubt it is some grand conspiracy, as much as they are human desires functioning as they have since the start of time for their own individual purposes.