#my friend who has ocd: remember how we've talked about how you probably Also have ocd

[waitineedaname]

wild how having something weird with your brain will have your brain reacting weirdly to things that are nice and good

[katierosefun]

hi caroline can i vent to you a lil bit? i just saw a post with a terrible take about BE and juwon part specifically irked me, probably due to personal experience, so i wanted to share my pov with you.

the post -among many other things- said that juwon had ocd and it was terrible that the writers went "yeah let's just force him to stop by the end of it" and tbh I didn't get it, i always thought that when juwon said "mysophobia, I don't have it" he was right. ocd is an anxiety related issue and my boi definitely has that and it's quite bad yeah. But i always felt like it was due to the fact he was striving to uphold the standards of perfection his father has been projecting onto him since he was a kid. As much as juwon hated him he still tried his best to do everything he could in order to get some sort of praise or acknowledgment from his absent father. So that's why in the end he slowly learns to let go of all of that, he must have felt like a weight was lifted from his shoulders. He's a complex multidimensional character and both the writer and the director did a brilliant job with BE.

Sorry if i bothered you, I'm probably exactly like that post "why do you like him?" or smth and with ds it's just "look at him❤️" and with jw it's an entire paragraph. yup relatable indeed aldhakd

hi anon! oh, i think i know the post you're talking about, because i remember reading something along those lines pretty early when i was getting into beyond evil . . .

also, this got long. maybe because i have a lot of thoughts + also because i wound up talking more about mental illness rep in beyond evil as a whole:

but like. hm. yes, i absolutely agree with you because while i might not have ocd myself, i do have family members + friends with ocd, and i also have pretty severe anxiety + i used to struggle with an eating disorder, which overlapped with some ocd tendencies (at least, according to what my friends/family struggling with ocd told me from their own perception of me). because of that, i absolutely saw joo won and his tendencies and realized that. like. yeah, a lot of his behaviors can absolutely stem from anxiety-driven issues like ocd.

i think what makes me personally upset about the kind of "ugh the writers just dropped joo won's ocd storyline" is that it totally misses the fact that not all mental illnesses or disabilities are quite the same. because mental illnesses like ocd or anxiety disorder or panic attack disorder are actually mental illnesses that people want to better cope with/somehow heal from. when i was younger, i remember being told by someone who was also struggling with similar mental illnesses as mine that "yeah, you're never gonna get 'better'--this thing is gonna stick with you forever", and as a teenager, that really made me scared about like. oh my god. am i going to personally be living this weird half-life for the rest of my days? that's terrible.

but of course, that's not true! yeah, people with mental illnesses like ocd, anxiety, depression, etc--they all struggle from time to time, and that def. all varies with different degrees of stress (ie. my own anxiety and depression gets significantly worse when i've encountered a triggering situation, and my own past eating disorder tendencies like to pop in when i'm feeling stressed out with work/school/etc). but the thing about these mental illnesses is that you can get better, usually with the help of therapy, medication, a support system and, as cheesy as it sounds (but it's true!), compassion and love for yourself.

in the case of han joo won, who has clearly never had a very stable family or friends situation, it would make sense that his own ocd or other unspecified mental illness would be pretty severe at the start of the show. we've seen how he was raised, even if only for 5 minutes--we see his interactions with his father. it seems that his family also has some history of mental illness too, given how his mom was.

but the great thing about the show is that over the course of the series, joo won gets some greater sense of support and love than he had felt in his entire life. even when he was still being a jerk, the station was so accommodating to joo won (ie. chief nam cleaning out the bathroom for joo won if he wanted to take a shower, and then even later, ji hwa telling jae yi that wait, inspector han needs new bowls in a totally nonjudgmental manner).

the thing about han joo won no longer struggling as severely with his ocd is simply because he's received more support. he's found people who seem to genuinely care about him, and i think along the way, he subconsciously started to let go of his tendencies. his entire dirty history is out there--and unlike han ki hwan, who was so obsessed with perfection, the manyang gang love and appreciate han joo won anyways, annoying attitude + messy mistakes + all. ofc, love doesn't "fix" a mental illness, but it helps one get better, because that's what a support system is all about.

it's also worth noting that, like, beyond evil is a show that's very conscious about the discussion around mental illnesses. dong sik pretty clearly struggles with some kind of ptsd, and jeong je pretty clearly struggles with his own depression, and even oh ji hoon's mentioned in passing about struggling with depression. but what i like about beyond evil is that writer kim su jin and director shim na yeon and the entire cast also seemed pretty intent about those depictions of mental illness--oh ji hoon's a pretty sunshine-y looking guy, for starters, all smiles and cheer, which is the exact opposite people assume of those struggling with depression. (the most frustrating thing a depressed person can hear is oh, you don't look like you have depression though?) as for dong sik, we see him pretty clearly struggling on his own (crying alone in the basement, tucking himself away when he's grieving, the fact that he sleeps on the couch without any heat speaks volumes about how little he cares about himself), but as soon as he's around friends or his loved ones, he automatically puts on a whole act. as for jeong je, we see that he's a pretty timid guy, maybe the kind of more expected representation we see of depression and/or anxiety, but maybe that makes a little more sense, given his relationship with an overbearing mother who never really . . . allowed him to heal or get better, even despite sending him to all those doctors.

in short, i think that it's pretty unfair + also kinda narrow-minded to act like writer kim su jin dropped joo won's ocd line. she's been super intentional with everything in beyond evil, and the fact that joo won slowly loosens up on his tendencies was just another factor that really demonstrated how he'd started to get more comfortable around people who actually liked him for who he is, not for this perfect, logical robot that he was pressured into being. human beings are messy! for han joo won, who cries when he's frustrated or angry or getting scolded, being loved and respected and liked gave him enough reason to let go of his own ocd tendencies and get better.

[excaive]

Do we know anything about KJ's family at all? I don't remember seeing anything about you ever mentioning them, and the stuff of them younger that we've seen they don't seem like... they would be the most present people? At the very least, KJ doesn't seem like the type to have had the most stable childhood.

Well this is extremely telling about me, but like none of my ocs have had stable childhoods and the stuff I have written about their childhoods are just simple skeletons to give myself an idea of how they end up in the present and connect with and relate to each other - and the majority of them don't have any contact with their parents if they aren't straight up dead lol

I haven't really written down anything about KJ's past or status with relatives, but they grew up emotionally neglected and felt very alienated from others bc of ocd and intrusive thoughts which just translated into off-putting behavior to others, so for a long time KJ tried really hard to act normal so they could hang out with others bc they had a really strong desire to be with others and make people laugh, but as a result of supressing their own emotions in favor of being able to hang out with other people, they ended up with a lot of self-loathing because of their ocd bc if they didn't act odd to begin with they would've been able to make friends - and even when they end up as the eccentric freak they are in the present who doesn't supress their behavior to be palatable to others and have plenty of friends;

their self-loathing is still very much there. and despite having many friends who they care about a lot and make laugh and generally just have a ton of fun together, KJ is incapable of letting anyone in close to care about them back and they put a lot of effort into distracting people from the fact they don't actually know anything about KJ even if they've been friends for a long time. KJ avoids giving opportunity for anyone to express worry or care about them bc if you think KJ is anything but fine and dandy and want to be there for them, they'll take that as pity and they get kind of a visceral reaction to that and if you're unlucky enough, they'll act hostile enough for you to never want to interact with them again </3

but yeah, KJ doesn't have any prior experience with it being fine talking about how they actually feel or had anyone who were capable of teaching them that talking about feelings is okay and it is very much connected to them suppressing their behavior to act normal so ppl would not actively avoid them for being weird growing up.

(also just to clarify I'm talking about KJ prior and within the timeframe of the main story of Black Orbit. I've been posting about KJ and Roger post-story recently where they are dating, so like enough stuff happened for KJ to be able to be in a place to be vulnerable enough to have that type of relationship with someone)

That said, KJ probably still has contact with their mom and loves her a lot and she cares about them, but like for various reasons while growing up she was lacking in being able to be there emotionally for KJ - everything else was not bad, but also not great, y'know?

I don't talk about ocs' parents a lot bc it's not really relevant to them in the present or in the story. I know I've mentioned Cass' mom before briefly but also if you end up wondering why I never mention any of my ocs' dads that's because I can't write shit about a relationship I don't know anything about lol