#at the thought that i just. won't be able to compulsively check it anymore

[marshmellowtea]

i'm bored so i'm here lurking but the thought of coming back full time gave me the biggest surge of nausea so lol

[genderkoolaid]

Hi I'm ND and I was wondering about your experiences with religious beliefs? I saw your post and it definitely resonated with the frustration I had engaging in spiritual communities because people are never Normal about it. I guess I'm also wondering how to navigate with discernment regarding spiritualism as someone with intrusive thoughts and other issues, if you feel like you're able to shed some light with your personal experiences of course. Have a good day!! ☀️

So I personally deal with intrusive thoughts, paranoia and delusions, while also being deeply religious & having mystic experience, which as you can imagine can be very stressful! its hard talking to people about that because its so easy for people to just go "oh you're psychotic so you can't be trusted on your experiences."

when it comes to psychotic stuff: for me the #1 thing i keep in mind when it comes to this is learning to not focus on whether a certain experience is "real," but rather if it is helpful. this is one of the things thats been repeated to me many times & its been very helpful keeping in mind. trying to prove whether or not something spiritual is "real" is an absolute mess for the sanest of people (mostly because i think the conflation of spirituality and science as like. opposing forces has done so much damage to how we think about it but anyways). but something solid you can ponder is how a certain belief or practice helps or hurts you. instead of "is x real or am i crazy," ask "how does x affect me? does it make me feel more equipped to deal with life? does it inspire me to connect with others and with myself? is it causing me mental or physical stress/harm? is it causing others harm?" these focus you more on things you can identify immediately. you can also ofc combine this with things like reality checks & secular ways of coping with delusions/paranoia/hallucinations.

as a general rule it's good to take your time with any sort of spiritual/mystical experience and think through it, what you felt, possible causes (spiritual and secular), and what you might do because of it. don't feel the need to rush into anything, it's not a sign of failure to be thorough and contemplative and open to many possible explanations.

additionally, we have this idea in our minds that if something has a spiritual origin it can't have a physical explanation, which is silly to me. even if there is a biochemical explanation for something, that doesn't mean its not a spiritual experience; we are fleshy creatures. there's no reason why our spirituality can't be fleshy too. if someone has hallucinations because of brainweirdness, that doesn't mean they can't ascribe spiritual meaning to them; and it also doesn't mean they have to ascribe spiritual meaning to every hallucination. something something why must our humanity be antithetical to god-or-what-have-you.

on intrusive thoughts: i don't have moral ocd, although i used to have religious compulsions. i don't really anymore because my beliefs/experiences have re-affirmed many times that god-or-what-have-you is not going to get mad at me for not doing x thing Good Enough, and the "does it hurt or help" rubric also helps me remember that the things that help me feel good and healthy are what is best for me spiritually. if you feel scared and stressed and self-hating constantly, that isn't going to make you a better devotee/follower/practitioner, its just going to tear you apart until you can't function.

i saw a post a while ago talking about prayer/meditation when you have ADHD & get distracted by thoughts easily, and i think its helpful for that + disruptive intrusive thoughts: instead of trying to stop thinking them, you can just incorporate them. if you can't stop thinking about a hyperfixation, you can meditate on what interests you and why. if intrusive thoughts won't leave, you can vent about that to god-or-what-have-you.

the thing about mainstream religion/spirituality is that it is by and large made by sane neurotypical people, for them. ND/mad people are either demonized or, sometimes mythologized, but we are always being viewed as outsiders. we haven't been allowed to have spiritual autonomy and create our own intepretations and practices that match our unique ways of thinking and perceiving the world. once you realize this you have to start pointing out where a practice fails you and then take it into your own hands- this is why i have found religion so helpful for me, because i have found/made interpretations that affirm me. if you follow a sacred text, you can reject literalism & that it perfectly reflects the actual words of the divine. you can reject the mainstream interpretations that cater to racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia/etc. and find new ones or make your own. you can adapt rituals to your needs or make entirely new ones. and once again find other people who are also brainweird and spiritual and talk with them about what they do & believe. god is crazy too etc etc

[running-in-the-dark]

I've got more to say on that post (tw I'm insane I don't know what to tag this as its just. mental illness man idk.)

I'm really, really glad that other people apparently really don't know what it's like to feel like that. like you're not allowed to think certain things or that thinking them makes you bad.

because fuck I wish that was me.

I find it almost impossible to talk about this but I'm trying because I've found it's really the only thing that helps a little bit - and it feels like literal torture, like. I am having to actively fight every instinct in my head to be able to type any of it.

but. just. man I just can't. sometimes I can do it, but sometimes it's like now and I get so panicked about it that all the words just fucking disappear. literally can't talk about it.

okay, I'll try a different way. so. I get extremely obsessed with fictional characters (which you know if you've ever looked at this blog because duh). obviously that means I think about them. a lot. all the time really. and it's. it is really really hard, honestly. just like. imagine having to basically check every. little. thought. to see if there's anything there that could make you a bad person.

again, can't go into any more detail because My Brain (probably should stop saying that, I guess it's like, part of the ocd tendencies I have or whatever) won't fucking let me.

so, I'm trying to work on that, and for some reason I'm doing that by writing it down instead. because then I have like, the option to go back and look at it and be like actually this is probably fine. not horrible, not the worst thing anyone has ever thought, and even if it was - no one but me is ever going to see this, so why should it even matter?

but more than anything it's like. shown me how fucking insane that is. I literally can't even write so much as like. a hug. without feeling like I'm the most disgusting piece of shit ever (lots of complicated reasons but it boils down to basically. well you're thinking about his body. and that his body would feel nice. and that is absolutely not allowed in any way). when I've said that I'm writing some insane shit I don't mean like haha, this is sooo dirty hehe :3 no guys I mean it is literally insane and mostly me literally having to write paragraphs of dialogue in which the character assures me that it's okay and I'm not horrible for thinking that and. like I'm literally writing him as if he's my fucking therapist because that's the only way I can justify it in my own head.

like, I am not exaggerating when I say that I've made myself feel like I'm physically ill from overthinking this so much. I literally felt like I had a fever because I got so extremely stressed out about it. I think that was about like. holding hands or some shit. I'm 32 fucking years old. I'm literally married (won't even get into that but fuck dude just imagine being like this and. yeah).

and the funniest part about all of that is that I feel so unbelievably ashamed about all of it that I don't think I could even mention it to a therapist or whatever. like the thought alone is so absolutely horrifying that it makes me feel like I need to be punished for it. so I just convince myself that well it can't really be OCD anyway because I don't even have compulsions anymore (even though I did, and they affected my life so much for like, 15 years at least), and well even if it could still be that even without the compulsions well it's not that bad really. I mean I don't have the issues that people with actual OCD have, it doesn't really affect me, so what if I can't think about fucking that fictional guy, imagine how much a therapist would laugh at you for thinking you should get help with that, nope your brain is just fundamentally broken (it's always been that way after all, so it can't be something like that, no you're just broken and wrong and that's why all your thoughts are bad, you're just the worst person on Earth).

I can't explain how hard it is to even like. just talk about the most mundane shit. like let's say there's a picture of The Guy and I think he looks good. it's such a struggle to let myself say that. like literally, something as fucking basic as that. literally anything that is an admission of 'hi I've thought about his face and his body and I think they look kind of nice' makes me feel like I should literally die. that's why I've been trying to say that shit as much as I can lately, with the reasoning being well if I just keep doing it and nothing horrible happens it'll get easier right? (nope it doesn't, not really)

and like, there's so much more to it than social media, obviously. like it's probably 99% my upbringing (didn't even fucking realise until very recently that a lot of it is based on religious stuff because I didn't understand that my family was even that religious. yeah I don't get it either. but there's way more than the religion aspect, just pretty much everything about my childhood and my parents and. everything). but it does play a huge part in it for me and. I don't know what to do about that and I'll probably do nothing because doing anything is hard and I'm already completely overwhelmed by everything.

yeah idk all of that came from thinking about that video too much, idk, I'm shutting up now

[kuackity]

From this day onwards I officially name us mutuals forever and ever now you can't escape I say it with all my love

I actually have been on Tumblr a really really long time but it's pretty much my first time actually constantly posting my own stuff and trying to reach out to others because I always have been way too anxious to try it

I'm proud of being your source of second hand c!Dream content

At the beginning I actually tried to get into c!Tommy lore because I already knew that c!Dream mains get into a lot of discourse constantly but I just wasn't able to I also refrain from posting a lot of my thoughts because of fear of discourse so I suppose even while obsessing over the DSMP one can't stop fearing the discourse

But at least there's not so much drama over the ccs so that's better

Somehow this turned into a mini fic I think but

I'm obsessed with the idea of Quackity compulsively checking his face over and over again because he can feel something there he knows it's there he can feel it on his skin but it doesn't show he can see it on his dreams he can feel it all the time but whenever he reaches out to touch whenever he searches for his own reflection on every shiny diamond or golden thing he can find and he doesn't see it

And then it happens randomly he's just distracted and it's late at night and it's kinda dark and Luzu and Quackity and everybody else is far at their own place right now and Quackity knows he's never exactly been the strongest fighter he's just trying to hurry up to any place with lights and a roof

And then something attacks him he despawns and finally he can feel it again and he wants to scream because right now isn't the time for his dream ghost pains but then he sees it at long last on his reflection on the river nearby his face and the scar beneath his eye he immediately graps at it because now he can actually sense it beneath his palm he can sense it on his skin he can see it on his face he can trace it with his fingers

He sees the difference between the wrinkly white-ish pink-ish new skin that forms right on top of the open injury and the rest of his tanned skin and he can feel the difference on the texture between the rest of his face and the overexposed bumpy scar he has now

And he's happy and he's scared and he finally doesn't feel insane anymore but when he goes to sleep that night and he sees the him from his dreams again with his loan shark wide smile that the scar crosses over he can't help but feel like he's becoming more and more like the man he dreams about

Do you think he would get some seeing problems from it? C!Quackity isn't blind but he does canonically have a harder time seeing after pickaxe death -Beloved Drellumina

Bold of you to assume I would want to escape, now you are trapped with me, this was my plan all along. MUAJAJAJAJAJA

I understand, I like c!tommy cause I am of the sunshine type I think, and he was that at the beginning and I am not one for giving my opinions neither cause I know I am biased so I won't be objective

I love it! You should polish it and publish it so more people can join this train of angst; I am so down for k!Quackity being between feeling validated now that he has the scar but at the same time insecure cause he is looking more and more like c!Quackity, he is always in this awkward middle.

I think indeed he would get problem seeing from it, maybe with his peripheral vision? Depends on how he was attacked we can make a consequence to that, cause there can be a lot.

I am happy to be mutuals now I am just like the smiley face :D