#obsessive thought patterns

[honeycollectswhump]

Like Blood and Oxygen

[masterlist]

CW: mental breakdown, obsessive thought patterns

The chandelier casts a golden light across her bedroom, a candle spreading the sweet smell of vanilla, and it makes Mireille want to vomit. It makes her want to reach into the fire, to take it into her palm and squeeze and choke the light out of it. It makes her want to rip the chandelier down, execute it on the ground, stamp on each jewel until it cracks and shatters beneath her bare feet. 

Instead Mireille paces in front of her mirror, as tall as the ceiling, golden frame like artwork –fucking artwork, it’s fucking art, she is fucking art–, money spent on a horrid shade of gold, more money than her stupid fucking servants will ever have, and

What.

Does.

It.

Matter.

Why care at all. 

Because her stupid fucking nightgown sits horribly on her curves, silky red doing nothing but making her skin crawl and no one will see her anyways it doesn’t matter but it does. For the hundredth time she fumbles with the fabric, draping it on her breasts, flowing over her hips, just long enough to cover what it has to. Maybe instead it should cover her whole like a grieving widow or a burial shroud for all she’s worth. 

She could rip her skin off with her teeth, undress herself to the bone, bare veins and sinew if that would make her be something. Mireille knows what she should look like, she knows, every fiber knows, and yet the gown hides her waist and there is no one to touch her, to see the work of art she has spent her fucking life creating and what worth has art if it isnt being looked at. 

They should be grateful, grateful to lay eyes upon her smooth skin, shining blue eyes, luscious hair, her voice and her body and– 

And yet they don’t. They do, but not really. 

Not. Enough.

It’s not enough, none of it is, but how is that her fault? It’s not. Of course it isn’t.

Mireille has friends, and they love her, they fucking love her. She’s gorgeous and elegant, each movement deliberately poised, it's like second nature, it’s her nature and her job. She leaves kisses like burns and burns like kisses and both leave a mark on the world that will never fade. 

Instead, it will twist and scar, a never healing wound but at least it is a reminder.

Mireille should be at the center of their thoughts, the center of their world, their universe. She should be their star and their sun, granting them warmth and light when she feels like it. They should strive for nothing more than to please her, read her thoughts and treat her right, touch her right and kiss her in worship that comes from the heart. 

She doesn’t need to ask for it, she shouldn’t! If they were the right people, they would know, instinctively. They would know the meanings she so carefully covers in words and jewelry, would read it like the bible, would examine every intention. They would know and they would love her.

Love her like she was created to fit their souls, to fulfill them. Only her closeness is sweet relief, wishful satisfaction. Love her like warmth, like the sun, like blood. Love her like oxygen. 

Love her.

Love her.

Love her.

Please.

Taglist: @whumpsday, @2in1whump, @sodacreampuff, @webbo0, @toyybox, @sowhumpshaped, @clickerflight let me know if you want to be added or removed :)

[otaku553]

Save me yi nine sols

(You should play nine sols it’s very very fun)

[charon-cries]

when OTHER people try to distract or comfort themselves, they call it "coping" and "self-soothing," but when i do it, it's a "mental compulsion" and "you have OCD"

[fastnfurious2001]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* grand duke therdeo lapileon’s outfits appreciation post ₍ ᐢ.ˬ.ᐢ₎˚୨୧

[rawliverandgoronspice]

anyway to end the series on ganondorf tp's writing, my take (which isn't canon but arguable as a valid "death of the author" read imo) is that he is at his most iredeemable AND that's because he has zero things left to lose and no community left and his goal doesn't even make sense anymore he is parasitic and a ghost and pathologically obsessed by his own godlike legitimacy because that is the only thing he still has and it has prolonged his life in a horrible diminished state in a nightmare dimension so SURELY it must mean something right right RIGHT

[aimseytv]

[null-doesnothing]

fascinated by vulcans being touch telepaths, like these idiots just CONSTANTLY reading a mfs electrical signals—oOOoOooooOoOo I FELT the chemicals in your brain do a little thing BITCH. yeah. yeah. that's right, I just made our brains into a closed circuit so we can share thoughts. you're welcome.

[idontmindifuforgetme]

HOT DOCTOR HOT DOCTOR HOT DOCTOR HOT DOCTOR

[itsslivernotsilver]

hi guys does anyone wanna hear about the dichotomy that mist and maddie form in reference to that god damn tomato from the og short stories. ok great here i go

pantheon definitely expands a LOT on the differences between the two sisters but ken liu’s bit about the tomato has always stood out to me and i’m kinda sad they didn’t keep it in the show but whatEVER!!!!!! anyways it’s such a perfect symbol for the glaring differences between mist and maddie and i’ve been thinking about this for almost a year now so i gotta get it out there

like. it’s so simple. it’s just a tomato.

🍅<—tomato. round and red 👍 (also i love that little interaction so much holy shit)

anyways it’s so simple in it’s design but the connections that each sister has with such basic object like this are so drastically different it’s crazy

maddie approaches it from a deeply emotional and human perspective. to her, a tomato means the taste of one, her grandma, her family’s garden, her family’s dog, and just like. general childhood memories. in the show, she represents the side of humanity that wants to stay physically in the real world. she’s obviously friendly with UIs and CIs given that like. yk. and she expresses curiosity in mist and her whole deal!!!!!

but she clearly has her biases and those are shown through her wants for her son and how upset she gets when he advocates for uploading (even though mist practically raised him too but whatever i’m not gonna get into that rn). anyways my point is that she’s approaching this tomato conversation with her experiences regarding physicality, nostalgia, and other “human” feelings

but mist doesn’t have any of those!!!!!! she doesn’t have any human experience at all. she approaches a tomato from an extremely technical and factual perspective. she brings up the species categorization, court cases, genome info, etc. she even decides to mention that, logically speaking, she knows more about tomatoes than maddie does (which is like??? girl????? a little unnecessary but true)

in the show there’s the conversation about nostalgia and her line about having the code for nostalgia but not being able to execute it because of a lack of memories fucks me up sooo bad

she loves maddie and everyone around her because she’s kinda just an actual embodiment of love but she can’t help but feel alone in a world where everyone moves so slow and nobody really gets that she can’t understand a lot of “human” emotions. it’s why she’s so ecstatic to introduce caspian to the cloud and why she’s so passionate about the drive with all the CIs who are just like her. but in this moment she tries her best to connect with maddie but ultimately can’t because of the sheer lack of similar experiences

they just can’t understand each other fully and they never will. they’re forced to agree to disagree over something as simple as a tomato and god that tension keeps me up at night

another thing that i thought was super interesting was how the maddie’s interest in mist was flipped in the show if that makes sense???? like in the stories, it’s clearly maddie who wants to learn more about mist. she tries her best to bridge the gap and it’s her idea to give mist a body. but in the show, it’s mist that seems “more obsessed” (heavy on the quotes) with maddie. she’s reaching out more and she asked for a body herself and maddie lashes out when mist does something while trying to help (don’t even get me started on caspian and his whole deal this season i’ll fucking kill someone)

ALSO i feel like this post is getting too long now but i wanna at least mention the quote at the beginning of the chapter cause holy shit man

anyways that’s it for now i think. i might make another post about the quote and the other stories and some other details i really liked for the nonexistent people who’ve seen this show 👍

[evilhasnever]

I do subscribe to the Lans Only Love Once theory, because it has been proven true again and again by lwj and wwx, lxc and jgy, qhj and lan furen, lan qiren and his 3000+ rules.

[keshetchai]

As someone who enjoys religion blogging/discussions, I've come to realize that it's a good practice to be aware of the general signs/symptoms of religious-OCD thinking (aka scrupulosity), because if the conversation is taking on all the hallmarks of scrupulosity, it's actually a definitive sign that we cannot meaningfully and compassionately engage in a conversation about religion in a healthy way. I've actually had this play out a significant number of times online, and when I realized what it was, I also began to realize that the intrusive thoughts/obsessive and compulsive thinking are only ever fed by continuing the discussion with that person.

[[ Important edit to clarify why I am saying it's not healthy — made after I went back to look for more concrete facts about OCD or anxiety (I have GAD, not OCD, but many resources overlap since they're both anxiety disorders):

When Reassurance is Harmful — this explains how/why reassurance-seeking specifically about an OCD fear is a compulsive behavior, and engaging with reassurance-seeking interferes with recovery/management/treatment.

This table from the Anxiety Disorders Center lists key differences between Information Seeking and Reassurance Seeking.

This IOCDF page on Scrupulosity info for Faith Leaders identifies "symptom accommodation" as enabling. Two of the examples of doing this by participating in the OCD behavior are: "Engage in excessive conversation focused on if-then scenarios (e.g., "If I did this, then would X or Y happen? And what if Z was involved? How about W?")" And, "Repeatedly answering questions about ‘correct’ religious or faith practices."

That page also goes on to outline more info about reassurance seeking. "Although providing answers to (often simple!) questions may seem harmless, providing reassurance serves to maintain the anxiety disorder cycle." (This BMC psychiatry article cites a lot of related studies establishing this.)

The IOCDF page on What is OCD and Scrupulosity? ]]

Imo, the responsible thing to do is to recognize that (even if the other person hasn't outright stated it/isn't diagnosed)* the conversation is not about religion, it is about needing mental health support from professionals and experts. Talking to me, the layperson who enjoys chatting theology and my religion — is not only not helping, but is actively harmful. I'm not just talking about the person who I replied to today, either. Like I've said, I've seen this happen dozens of times in various online forums.

*[while I am against diagnosing strangers on the internet, it's important to realize A) lots of people don't know what Scrupulosity is, so it's possible they've never considered this is a mental health concern that could be treated, and that B) for the purposes of my concern, it doesn't matter if they actually have diagnosed OCD. The only thing that matters is that their thought-process causes them genuine distress/fear, and every response given to them seems to only incite new/additional distressing questions/thoughts, or further entrenches the original distress.]

Ultimately, any discussion aside from "you might want to speak to a mental health professional about scrupulosity OCD" seemingly puts me in the position of feeling as if I am being used for their self-harm. I hate that feeling. I do not want to be leverage for fear and pain. I have GAD, I despise the idea that I am making things worse.

No matter how much I love religious discussion, the answer in these cases is always "please reach out to an OCD specialist/mental health professional. I am not qualified to discuss this." And then to stop there. I have never once seen anyone stuck in this compulsive thought spiral be reassured or feel any better by hearing from someone else's approach to theology handled with things like empathy, compassion, logic, or even atheism. It doesn't matter what we say, how we say it, or how we relate to our own religion. The urge to engage in this kind of conversation in order to chat about religion is a sign that we are not equipped to help.

You can't have a conversation here, because intentionally or not, ten times out of ten, you are adding fuel to the fire. Just like people can't simply tell me something that would erase/talk me out of my ADHD/depression/anxiety disorder, you also cannot simply argue/reassure/persuade people out of scrupulosity. We should not try. We have a responsibility to consider that it's outright harmful to do so, and to disengage.

[end-orfino]

strangelove and the boss make me fucking SICK honestly. in a good way. they're so fucking great

[mildcicada]

[deimcs]

not going to lie, I think sooner or later some of you will have to come to terms with the fact that ALWAYS needing to completely relate and/or only seeing YOURSELF in the characters you read about/play as/watch in movies, can not only severely impact your critical thinking as a whole but also have very real consequences irl when you are suddenly introduced to struggles or issues you didn’t and maybe won’t ever face. suddenly your empathy is stunted 'cause you never really tried to put yourself in some else’s shoes, not even fictionally

[icewindandboringhorror]

examining a seemingly normal image only to slowly realize the clear signs of AI generated art.... i know what you are... you cannot hide your true nature from me... go back where you came from... out of my sight with haste, wretched and vile husk

[floralovebot]

ALSO ive been rereading the comics again and its giving me so much winx/specialists and specialists/specialists friendship dynamics psychic attacks again