#because of health OCD

[crxw1ey]

i lowkey do fear i might be hypermobile which is causing me a lot of pain that i shouldn't be feeling at 20 but i have uni and being at the club by 11 so idrc about that rn

[ducktracy]

NEW CLIP FROM THE RECENTLY RELEASED CHINESE TRAILERRRRRRRRRRRR OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY GRACIOUS

i’m all over the place but LOOK AT THISSSSSSSSSSSSS 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[cripticmotherfucker]

You're not evil for struggling

[where-our-stories-start]

I think you, Aza Holmes, will have a very full life. I think you’ll go to college and study whatever you want. And you’ll have a career. One that you’re proud of. And I think you will be with someone. Someone great. I think you, Holmesy, will have an incredible love story. I even think you’ll have a family of your own one day. You’re gonna make a whole damn life for yourself. I know it. But I don’t wanna lie to you. I think it’ll be hard sometimes. I think sometimes you’ll see that life unbuilt. But you’ll always rebuild it. And you will never be alone. Promise. Because you will always love and be loved. And love is both how you become a person and why. Love, Holmesy, is how you become real.

[ciderjacks]

ocd is weird bc I definitely still have it, I just got really good at identifying it and shutting it down. Like I was taking down a gross medical sticker on my wall that for some reason I stuck up there last year, and my brain was like “no don’t do it. You’ll die if you do that” so I put it back on and my brain was like “or…maybe life will get way better if you take if off. And if you leave it life will get worse. Want to make that choice” and I was like really stumped over it, then suddenly I was like ohhhhh ocd you tricky devil… and tore the sticker off. I go thru this exact experience about thrice a week.

[huellitaa]

"im so ocd" "im getting ocd" babe you saw a pen in the wrong spot and put it back to its original position. ocd is not perfectionism

[thecrabbybarista]

Curious about something

*Interpret "frequently" as daily or almost daily

[jinxedshapeshifter]

I'm so curious about how being from 200 years in the future affects Silver's attitude about relationships (both platonic and romantic). Like there's absolutely no way it doesn't, considering Silver's yeeted between time periods whenever a crisis happens (this is implied as early as Sonic Rivals 2 btw, as it's kinda implied in Silver and Espio's story that a portal just. shows up to take him back to the future). He's constantly yeeted between a time period where all his friends are (usually) happy and healthy and a time period where all his friends are dead.

That feels like it'd fundamentally fuck up somoene's views on relationships, making them either inclined to avoid connection (much like Shadow's attitude), crave connection to avoid loneliness (which does seem to be Silver's current attitude, and is something he directly mentions in issue 8 of the IDW comics), or both. It makes me wonder where Silver's at on that spectrum, and if he has attachment issues. These are people who have been dead for probably at least a century in his time period.

This is actually something I think is a minor flaw of the Sonic franchise. While there are exceptions (notable ones being Espio post-Zombot arc and Shadow) we don't really see how events have affected these characters. We don't get to really see how Forces affected anyone. We don't get to see how Generations affected anyone (and we know it did affect Tails, Charmy, and Cream at the very least, because Tails says he's going to have nightmares for weeks after you save him, Cream says "It was scary in the dark, but I tried to be brave" when you save her as Modern Sonic, and Charmy describes it as "very scary" if you save him as Classic Sonic and tells Modern Sonic "I was scared because somebody took me"). We don't really see how anything affects Sonic (which is a missed opportunity, because he probably has PTSD at this point and I think that's something that'd be wonderful to show. Unfortunately I don't see Sega showing Sonic with PTSD any time soon due to their dumb mandates). There's absolutely no way Silver isn't incredibly traumatized from all the time travel shenanigans he gets into (not inherently because of the time travel shenanigans, but because he's constantly trying to fix his future and doesn't have purpose without that. Additionally he's from a time period where all of his friends have been dead for decades, which cannot be good for one's psyche).

My point is none of these characters should be as okay as Sega likes to portray (with the exception of Shadow I guess) and the best we get regarding Silver specifically is his premonition thing in Team Sonic Racing and his existential crisis in Future Growth.

[thatoneluckybee]

Tips for Writing Characters with Trichotillomania

- Someone with trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder!)

I’m really glad that people are starting to realize that BFRBs actually exist! And with that, I’m happy that this means it’s not JUST me headcanoning characters to have BFRBS or CREATING characters with BFRBs. HOWEVER. With this, it is important that these disorders are represented well. I have trichotillomania myself, so here’s a list of things that I look for in characters and when making my own, and tips for accurately portraying a BFRB!

This is focusing on trichotillomania as I have it. I might make some on other BFRBs but I’ll have to do a lot of research and talk to people or read accounts of people WITH the specific BFRB. (I pull my hair and bite my nails, so I cannot about other BFRBs I don’t have off the top of my head.)

What IS a BFRB?

BFRB stands for “body-focused repetitive behavior.” BFRBs are a group of disorders listed in the DSM-5 under “Obsessive-Compulsive and RELATED Disorders.” BFRBs are NOT OCD. They are closely related, but are DIFFERENT things! A BFRB is defined by bfrb.org as a “repetitive self-grooming behavior…that can lead to physical damage to the body and have been met with multiple attempts to stop or decrease the behavior” and WebMD as “intense urges…that can cause damage.” (A BFRB is NOT the same as self-harm!!!!) In short, a BFRB is a behavior or habit that hurts you and is nearly impossible to stop or control. The easiest way I’ve found to describe it is like pressure. Next time you have an itch, try not to scratch it. It’s difficult! It feels like a pressure building up. Now, imagine that “itch” is really the INTENSE urge to pull out your hair, pick at your skin, bite at your lips, and the like. THAT is a BFRB.

What about Trichotillomania (or Trich)?

There are two main types of hair-pulling: FOCUSED and AUTOMATIC. Oftentimes, people’s trich does not neatly fit into one category. One trichster can engage in both (like me!) or it could depend on the location of the hair on your body. Focused means you are AWARE that you are pulling when you pull. AUTOMATIC means you are NOT AWARE that you are pulling.

Secondly, trichotillomania DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE. People can pull from ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE. Oftentimes people who mention trichotillomania only consider pulling from your scalp. But we, as human beings, are mammals. There is hair everywhere. Other common places include eyebrows, eyelashes, the pubic region, underarms, arms, and legs. But if there is hair at ALL, trichotillomania can cause you to pull it. Some people have specific locations they pull from, and not EVERYONE pulls from EVERYWHERE! (For example, my scalp was never an issue until this past year, and I have had this BFRB for several years. It began with my lashes, then progressed to my legs and brows. I pretty much have trich for everywhere now. Yay.)

ONTO THE TIPS

For many, trich can be a self-soothing behavior. If a character has trichotillomania, they may gravitate towards their hair when they are startled or under stress, even if they are not pulling. An example of this could be a character running their fingers through their hair when anxious, or running their fingers over their eyebrows when frustrated.

A BFRB is not something to be ashamed of. However, there is a LOT of stigma around them. Many trichsters WILL attempt to hide their BFRB from people, especially strangers. Even the most kind-hearted, honest cinnamon roll may lie to a loved one about why their hair is thinning or why their arms are sore. Some common ways of this are wearing hats or styling one’s hair a certain way, wearing pants and long sleeves, or avoid hairdressers and doctors.

IT HURTS. There is often PHYSICAL PAIN that accompanies trichotillomania! What inspired me to write this post was quite literally me being grumpy because I was having to hold a towel to my arm because I dug too deep trying to get an ingrown hair and it bled more than expected. Pulling, especially if it’s from sensitive areas of your body like your nose, pubic region, fingers, feet, eyelashes, etc. where there are many nerves, can HURT. There will likely be red, bumpy skin. There may be blood. There may be scars.

There is going to be hair everywhere and yes it is annoying and no it’s not stopping anytime soon. Vacuums will clog. You will get hair stuck to the soles of your feet when you take off your socks. It’s gonna be everywhere.

Some people will chew on or eat the hair. This is known as trichophagia. I do not know much about trichophagia as I do not have it myself. However, I DO know that people with this can experience issues like stomachaches, indigestion, and the like. That’s okay. That’s normal.

You cannot love someone’s trichotillomania away. Please, please, please do not do this. You can help someone if they want it, you can love them, you can try, BUT THIS IS A DISORDER. It is NOT a choice. It is not something a character needs to “try more” with. I see a lot of posts under the trichotillomania tag here on Tumblr that are excerpts of fics. 99% of the time, it’s Person A forcibly stopping Person B from pulling and begging them to stop “for them.” I am not saying there is something inherently malicious about these! But someone cannot just stop “for you.” I’m sorry. It’s still a disorder. Please avoid the “stop for me!” trope if possible, or at the very least avoid this being the “cure-all” for a character’s BFRB.

These disorders are so widely misunderstood and underrepresented. There is a lot of misinformation. Please do not shy away from creating characters with a BFRB, in fact I highly encourage it! But pleasepleaseplease do some research beforehand and listen to people with these disorders. Good luck!

[thethingything]

as a side note on the morality OCD thing, filtering phrases like "reblog if", "if you can't reblog this", "can and should reblog", "reblog this version", etc has helped immensely with not seeing as much of the guilt tripping bullshit on here. there are probably more but these are the ones on our filtered post content list so far.

also if you're on desktop, the Xkit Rewritten extension has a "tweaks" section for a bunch of dashboard stuff that includes the options "use a slim layout for filtered posts" which makes those posts take up less space, and "hide filtered posts entirely" so they don't show up on your dash at all if you need that option

[grimm-the-tiger]

I love (maybe) having Avoidant Personality Disorder. Why don't you make more friends? Because I'm scared they'll push me away. Why don't you grow a spine? Because having a shiny new spine might scare people off. Why don't you talk more? Because I spend more time picking apart the conversation for my own errors than I spend actually having the conversation. Anyway, I'm going to go stare at a wall for an hour because I phrased a sentence wrong ten minutes ago and now I'm worried my friends hate me and are never going to speak to me again.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

this feels passive aggressive

[blackjackkent]

Rakha enters the Counting House's high security vault on a balcony overlooking the main floor. It's an enormous room but mostly empty except for three people standing around a single chest at its center - a dwarf in a fine silk tunic and two guards armored like the ones upstairs.

No sign of Minsc. Jaheira has described him and he is definitely not any of these people.

"It's still... moving..." one of the guards quavers nervously, looking at the chest with an expression of deep anxiety.

Rakha's head tilts to one side and she squints. The chest gives an almost imperceptible twitch.

"Hush your fussing," the dwarf says irritably, pulling a pipe from his pocket and sticking it into his mouth. "Nine-Fingers had this one made especially. That little mouthful will barely slow it down."

(A/N: "Made"? This line raises a lot of questions about mimic biology and reproduction. Also, one of Glitterbeard's guards has Hector's face with an undercut and no beard, but the right eye color more or less, which is amusing me.)

"But the stories..." The guard wrings her hands.

"Stories," the dwarf scoffs. "Tall tales and big names." He pokes his pipe at the other guard, who is looking at his comrade anxiously. "Don't let them fool you, lad. Elminster the archmage. Drizzt the drow exlie. Heroes have power, aye - but not half so much as we do." He flicks his fingers, and Rakha watches with mild interest as fire flares up around his fingers, with which he lights his pipe before inhaling a mouthful of smoke.

"A little coin in the right purse," he murmurs pensively. "A soft word in the right ear. It's not glory that spins these planes, lad. It's gold. See? Now--"

He breaks off abruptly. The chest has given another distinct twitch, and this time its accompanied by a low, moaning growl that sets the hair standing up on the back of Rakha's neck.

She has only a moment to process what's happening, but it's long enough. She's seen this before, a creature disguising itself as a chest - in Grymforge, and in Moonrise Towers. A mimic, Wyll called it. A creature that is mouth and teeth and tongue and very little else, and would have swallowed her whole if she'd let it.

Extrapolation flick-flicks through Rakha's brain like lightning. The visitor logs said Minsc was here only minutes ago, led here by Glitterbeard, the bank's manager. Nine-Fingers said she instructed that he be killed. Jaheira has described Minsc as a behemoth, dangerously violent, and with his own streak of madness to match Rakha's.

There are only so many ways to safely kill such a man. One of them, Rakha imagines, is having him swallowed by a mimic.

Mmmm... whispers the beast in her brain. Too quick. Too clean. No mess left behind to show the deed was done. And yet... perhaps not so easy as they think...

The mimic gives another low moan, its whole body spasming and the eyes embedded in its "wood" flesh opening wide. And then a fist explodes outward from between its teeth.

Blood spatters across the ground. The scent fills Rakha's nose and her vision goes white at the corners. She grips the balcony railing, struggling to regain control, and watches in astonishment as a huge, muscular form uncurls itself from within the mimic's body, ripping its jaw upward with a sickening crack.

The mimic screams and shudders to stillness, its tongue lolling out along the stone floor. Minsc - for certainly this is Minsc - straightens up, his eyes bright with rage as he glares down at the dwarf.

"There is no gold in here!" he bellows, pointing at the dead mimic. With a grunt, he lifts the whole creature up by its tongue and hurls it aside.

"If there is one thing Minsc hates more than beasts with bad breath," he growls. "It is those who are tricksome with the truth."

His head cocks to one side, and then he smiles, showing all of his teeth. "And turnips. But you are no turnip! Let that be a comfort to you in your final moments!"

At Rakha's side, Jaheira laughs suddenly - a sound Rakha has never heard from her before. Every muscle in her body has relaxed with sudden visible relief and her eyes have brightened as she steps forward eagerly. "Meet Minsc!" she says cheerfully. "He still seems very much himself to me."

Rakha grunts. The smell of blood from the eviscerated mimic is still plucking angrily at the strings of her brain, and it is taking most of her available effort to retain control of herself. If this is Minsc, Jaheira can handle the reunion without her.

(Part of her is intrigued, attentive. Just as she has been led to believe, she can already see something of herself in this huge behemoth of a man - the rage and edge of madness in his eyes. The brute force ripping and tearing of flesh and teeth. But there will be time to understand that when she can breathe again.)

Let Jaheira reveal herself.

Jaheira steps forward, letting her boots click loudly against the marble of the floor. Minsc stiffens at once, turning to look up - and his eyes widen, seeing her face.

"You..." he hisses.

There is something strange in his eyes - it does not look like happy recognition. Surely Jaheira sees it too - but just as surely, she doesn't want to. Her smile takes on a forced quality. "Stone Lord?" she calls down teasingly. "Better to call yourself Stone-Head."

(A/N: For once when I say in my writing that there's a long silence, I actually mean it - there was a good fifteen seconds of Jaheira and Minsc just staring at each other with Minsc looking increasingly puzzled. XD )

A long silence passes, during which Minsc's expression shows his inward struggle to parse what Jaheira has said. Then his expression goes very dark, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Your false face does not fool my eyes!" he roars. "I will cut until you look like the monster you are!"

The words resonate inside Rakha's head. The beast keens eagerly. Yes, cut, cut, cut... spill her blood, spill all their blood, rip out their throats and then we shall rip out yours, Minsc of Rashemen--

Jaheira's brief moment of relief has vanished. She has gone utterly still and a muscle is working in her jaw. "Somehow you are making even less sense than usual," she says hoarsely.

And then a voice, all too familiar, echoes across the vault. "Perhaps I can explain!"

It's Jaheira's voice.

And at the far end of the room stands... Jaheira. Or someone who looks like her, at least. Her skin shimmers with the lingering Weave-ripples of the teleportation spell they have seen before, the one used by the Absolutists and the nautiloid. She raises one eyebrow, her lips curled in an unpleasant smirk.

Understanding once again cracks through Rakha like a whip. A shapeshifter - one of Orin's doppelgangers, this time wearing Jaheira's face. But not quite her manner; the smirk is too hard, too cold, and her voice rasps with a disdain that, even in the worst moments, Rakha has never seen from her companion.

"The Stone Lord sees through your lies, shapeshifter!" she barks up at Jaheira. Her voice rings like a bell in the high-ceilinged room. "Count yourself lucky he cannot stay." She turns the sharp edge of her glare down towards the dwarf next to the dead mimic. "Nine-Fingers set a poor trap, little banker. Let the Absolute's faithful show you how it is done."

The Weave rocks. From every corner of the room, figures with weapons and spiked armor shiver out of the dark. Absolutists. Bhaalists. Rakha's staves are out in her hands before she has fully registered what is happening.

"Now come, Stone Lord!" the imposter barks. "We have the gold - and the Absolute has need of it elsewhere."

For a long moment, Minsc does not move, just looks up at Jaheira - the true Jaheira - with narrowed eyes. Then he turns. "As you say, Jaheira," he rumbles. Crossing the room with a few enormous strides, he moves to the imposter's side.

The imposter's smirk widens. And then there's another flash of dark energy, and they're gone, and the cultists begin to close ranks on all sides.

Jaheira has gone very pale with fury and alarm. She pulls her scimitars free, but there is no time for her to do anything but watch as her friend disappears in the Absolutists' company.

"Stlarning shapechangers!" she roars, almost matching Minsc in thunderous volume despite her smaller frame. "Enough - let us deal with these cultists, then find out where they are nesting!"

[dusk-the-cat]

I’ve recently heard of Moral OCD and I feel like the applies to me (As in: I have most of the signs + other ocd symptoms) but I genuinely don’t know if me feeling incredibly guilty over (what would be to most people) minor things is a realization of me being a bad person or if it’s irrational.

[shinesurge]

You mentioned something about your body not letting you comic by the end of arc 5, are you talking about repetitive strain injuries or just discovering health issues that aren't made worse by doing a comic?

Repetitive stress injuries; almost the entire reason I've struggled to keep a consistent update schedule the last few years is because I can't usually get in a full day's work more than two days in a row without needing several more to recover. The spirit is willing but the flesh is aging, and even doing this full time, at that rate this comic isn't getting anywhere near done lmao. If the next two arcs take another ten years there's just no way. Part of why I'm working on getting the novels underway is as a failsafe for getting the story finished in some capacity haha

IS worth considering though, the last five years have been. Especially difficult mentally and physically, and I do feel like things are finally starting to level out to where they were when I was able to work consistently! My current situation is infinitely more healthy and safe, and I'm doing everything I can to stay well enough to work more. I'm not banking on it but who knows, maybe getting away from Tennessee and everything in it combined with working out again will get me back up to speed. Nothing is set in stone here! I'm just sort of doing what I did with the December deadline and trying to plan ahead since making this comic at all is sort of a totally insane undertaking for a single human lmfao

[fella-lovin-fella]

something so frustrating about the medical system is that if you know what you're talking about, they think you're faking. like no, ive just lived with this basically my whole life and have sought help multiple times. believe it or not, that makes you learn things! hope this helps!