#ocd discussion

[teamdarkweek]

Personally I really enjoy projecting OCD tendencies onto Shadow. Both because misery loves company, and also I think that Rouge and Omega would be so up to that challenge as supportive tough-love friends. You have an unflappable, pro-explosions realist, and a woman who could out-loophole a genie. Compulsions and Intrusive Thoughts have met their match.

[madetolooklikeus]

To get a little bit real on my fanart tumblr, i'm feeling kind of weird abt my FatT tarot card project.

I joked a couple months back that I was getting into mysticism via researching tarot for my fanart at a time of vulnerability, which yeah, but maybe a more useful way to frame it is that i developed/deepened magical ocd type thought patterns (alongside other stuff abt contamination and checking) because of some intense life stress and anxiety. Not that I believed in divination in any real way but i did get scared of numbers and the tarot interest feels like another facet of the same thing. Scrambling for control and assurence type behaviors.

I've realized it early enough i feel like (caught myself doing sth pretty unhinged and life-disrupting) and have been fairly successful at breaking myself of the thought patterns, but now i feel uncomfortable engaging with concepts of divination at all. Which, being scared of ideas bc they are tainted is not not the same kind of behavior i'm trying to recover from, just transferred onto a different type of correct thought to think in order to keep myself safe and in control.

So perhaps i do need to get back to it. Like being ok with tarot cards is not a huge priority for me, but otoh these types of fears spread and infect other areas of your life super easily so it's better to deal with them. Tagging my painting of Tender in Anticipation as queen of cups felt super bad but i pushed through and it does get easier the more you do it.

[ear-a-corn]

The Hanged Man - Comic

bricrozierart.com

[butchspace]

I guess I kind of just use this account for PSAs now, and this has been on my mind a lot lately.

I figured out that I have OCD a few years ago, and recently I’ve seen a lot of bad advice around dealing with intrusive thoughts and obsessions.

There’s that post that goes around occasionally about “taking pictures of your oven knobs before you leave” or other things I’ve seen that say to “make a weird face when you lock your door.” THESE ARE COMPULSIONS. If you have/suspect you have OCD or you often struggle with things like that, please do not follow this advice. Instead, try to accept your intrusive thoughts and move on, not argue with them. Over time, they will get easier and easier to deal with. Ruminating, stressing, or arguing with them just makes them worse in the long run.

If you think you might have OCD and want to seek a specialist, the IOCDF’s home page has a lot of resources under the “find help” tab, including a locator.

I’m going to put the rest under a read-more because I’m going to talk a bit more in depth about intrusive thoughts and compulsions. This mostly because good OCD info is so sparse on line, and I’ve spent many hours compulsively researching OCD lmao.

Content warning:

discussion of unreality/doubting one’s own perception

discussion of specific compulsions

I’m not going to push this point too hard or shame anyone who doesn’t want to follow it, because OCD doesn’t really just go away. It’s a constant struggle. I give in to compulsions regularly, even though I am medicated and have seen a specialist to learn actual coping skills. It’s hard to resist sometimes and you don’t always have the energy, the awareness, or the power to ignore them. You do what you have to do to get through your day. The main difference is that the right medication and the right therapist make it easier to stay out of the spiral and to leave a spiral when you’re in one. They still happen. You still kind of have to play everything by ear.

Similarly, it is super fucking hard to get help or even get diagnosed. No regular therapist actually knows what the fuck it looks like, and specialists are few and far between and often don’t take insurance. It’s not fair or easy or necessarily productive to try and do exposure response prevention on yourself. Your “good coping skills” can even turn into an obsession or compulsion, where you’re constantly worried about what is an intrusive thought and what is not, or if you’re responding to them properly.

What I want to do is try to give at least some useful advice to people who are struggling with intrusive thoughts.

The best way to respond to them is not at all. This is especially true with OCD, because the response to them is sort of the root of this disorder. Sometimes, it’s recommended that with depression or anxiety you challenge your thoughts. In OCD, it’s the opposite. Challenging them can so easily lead you down a compulsion spiral. (More about that cycle from a professional.)

Compulsions can be entirely mental, but I’ll use a common behavioral one to look at how engaging with compulsions can go:

You start by taking a picture of the your stove knobs to make sure they’re all off. That works for a few hours or days, but then you start wondering if the knob is ever-so-slightly in the “on” position. You wonder if the picture proves they’re off enough. You forget to take the picture at all, and have to go back in to check anyways. You check your phone a few times before leaving to ensure that the picture is still there. You take several pictures because you can’t tell if you actually took any at all. You start to wonder if you can even trust what you see before your very eyes. What if you’re just imagining that the knobs are set to off? What if you’re just imagining the whole picture to begin with? The picture allows you to engage with your checking compulsion throughout the day, strengthening the connection between the intrusive thought and the urgency to do something about it. That means it gets worse. That means you find new ways to doubt your perception or your memory or whatever.

It can eventually get really bad. It’s hard and awful to try and deal with this on your own, but sometimes you have to.

It’s so shit. It’s so fucking shit how long many people suffer with mental illness without even knowing what’s going on. I didn’t know that my constant, overwhelming guilt over almost everything I’d ever thought or said or done or maybe did and couldn’t remember was the result of a disorder. It was so freeing to realize there was actually something that might help me, and I could learn to just live with myself and my weird ass thoughts that don’t necessarily mean anything at all. It’s so shit that OCD-awareness is so low among therapists. I was never going to get diagnosed until I found an OCD SPECIALIST (bold, italicized, all caps. Don’t trust people on psychology today who just put OCD in the list of what they treat.) and went over the Y-BOCS with her. It’s all so shit that several therapists I came to with textbook examples of OCD either ignored me or didn’t have the tools to help. I told one of them I “didn’t feel connected to reality” and he kind just went 🤷.

I just want everyone who is in that/a similar situation to at least have this information available to them.

If you want to learn more, these blogs from Sheppard Pratt were the best discussion of OCD I found online that really described what I was going through. They’re written by licensed therapists, several (all?) of whom live with OCD. They’re very healing to read if this is something you’re struggling with, or something you think you might be struggling with, and great in general if you want to learn more about OCD.

Whatever’s going on, OCD or not, have some grace with yourself. Take a few minutes today and do something kind for yourself, even just think one nice thing about yourself. You’re doing the best you can.

[ruegarding]

anyway here's my rant:

despite her comment in son, hazel doesn't have much adhd/dyslexia coding. her treatment at st agnes has more to do w being a black girl in the 1930's and her powers/curse than her possible adhd/dyslexia, considering she never mentions any symptoms specific to adhd or dyslexia in her backstory. the closest things are her interest in horses, which could be considered a hyper-fixation, and her flashbacks, which could be argued as daydreaming associated w inattentive adhd. furthermore, her powers could easily be used as a commentary on masking similar to the general attitude towards her vs other dead ppl (she looks alive, so she deserves to be alive, unlike all these other ppl who went thru the doors of death). overall, interesting set up, not expanded upon in canon.

similarly, the only time piper is ever implied to have adhd is in that boo scene, which doesn't hold much weight bc it's a general statement in an impersonal pov (as opposed to "piper was only able to keep track bc of her adhd/demigod abilities," still in third person pov, but a more personalized statement). this post began as a quest to answer the question "how does piper's adhd manifest," and the answer is "uhhhhhhhhhhh."

continuing w the trend, jason is never implied to have adhd or dyslexia at all. would have been interesting to see, considering jason has the whole gifted-kid-burn-out thing going on, but alas.

i'm not including the statement annabeth makes abt demigods typically having one or both and hazel's statement abt "just being a demigod," bc it's also established that it's not a requirement. the fandom wiki claims frank is the only demigod to not have adhd: if "just being a demigod" means that every demigod has adhd/dyslexia, then frank, inarguably, has adhd/dyslexia, as well.

more importantly, in a story where adhd and dyslexia are explicitly addressed and considered the cornerstone of the world building, i need it to be explicitly said that a character has adhd/dyslexia in order to give credit to canon (my personal hcs are a different story).

so, it seems like leo is the only one out of the lost trio w adhd or dyslexia, and it's only adhd. he frequently references things he's reading and shows no issue doing so, given that it's in a language he understands.

interestingly, leo claims "he couldn’t read ancient greek" in hoh, so it could be that the ease w learning ancient greek (and potentially latin) is exclusive to those w dyslexia. however, this has been as inconsistent as the actual dedication to giving demigods adhd and/or dyslexia. for example, chiron says the ability is "in their blood" in tlh w no mention of dyslexia, but in tlt annabeth says percy has dyslexia bc "[his] mind is hardwired for ancient greek."

the only character to bring up how dyslexia affects them in hoo is percy, making it seem like his dyslexia is much worse than annabeth's, the only other character who we know is dyslexic (from pjo, it's never mentioned in hoo). if leo is "seriously adhd," then percy is seriously dyslexic. something to be said how they're both treated as comic relief in fandom, considering.

frank not being diagnosed despite his dyspraxia coding could be used as a commentary on medical racism and the model minority stereotype. since frank is exclusively listed as the only demigod to not have either diagnosis and his dyspraxia coding eventually disappears, it doesn't appear that that was the intention.

moving to a more theoretical discussion, it's hard to say what is/is not definitively adhd/dyslexia symptoms, specifically using canon, considering we rarely see any of the demigods acting "normal." the majority of the time, they're on a quest/in an extreme situation. contrast w pjo, where we learn things abt percy's adhd and dyslexia while he's at school, a relatively normal situation, and then can apply it to the rest of the series. w hoo, it's almost all guesswork.

leo mentions that his adhd affects his memory, so we know that similar moments can be attributed to his adhd. but is hazel forgetting part of sciron's story a symptom of adhd or just a normal thing that happens bc forgetting things in stressful situations is normal? is jason's seemingly permanent amnesia a symptom of the memory wipe or is it exacerbated by adhd? is piper's aversion to feminine clothing and make up caused by sensory issues? we'll never know, bc they're never said to have adhd.

[hypokeimena]

Respectfully, why do you keep writing image ids where you don't know what's in the image? I think you're doing the opposite of accessibility.

disrespectfully: you can go fuck yourself.

while i have you (my followers) on the line, take this as another exhortation to please read against access.

[aparticularbandit]

Responding to this post as a separate post because I want to respond to something that I think is beyond the scope/intention of the original post (and honestly the scope/intention of the response in the linked post) but that, like.

I want to respond to it because it's been churning in my head.

Specifically the idea of the Protestant Work Ethic and trying to earn your way into heaven.

Because that's the very antithesis of what the Gospel is.

Over and over, it is made very clear that you cannot earn your way into heaven. (Titus 3:5 and Ephesians 2:8-9 are the ones that come immediately to mind, but there are more than that. (I also like - Romans 4 and the entire discussion about it being faith and not works and especially Romans 4:4-8.)) Literally one of the entire points is that you are stuck in your sin and you cannot get out and no matter what you do, you cannot earn your way in, but God loves you and chose you and wants you, so He paid your debt Himself (Jesus) and is giving you His righteousness - His perfection - because He was the only one who could earn His way in.

God is for you, not against you.

Are there things you should be doing? Yes. (Ephesians 2:10 talks about that, too.) But, like. It's not to earn your way in. It's out of love and gratefulness to the One who got you out of your horrible predicament? And then on top of that, made you a co-heir with Him?

Because it's...He paid for you to get in and then also you got adopted as a child of God? And someone described it once as good works after that being like when a child makes a drawing for their dad and their dad hangs it on the fridge? It's not to earn anything; it's because you love Him, too?

So, like - I want to know where the Protestant Work Ethic went wrong. Why so many people think it's about earning their way when it isn't that at all.

It's a gift. It was always a gift.

[the-bar-sinister]

If you are a person who:

Has violent, abusive, harmful, or destructive thoughts

Enjoys having violent, abusive, harmful, or destructive thoughts

Enjoys fiction with violent, abusive, harmful, or destructive characters

Creates fiction with violent, abusive, harmful, or destructive characters

And you do not actually do any violent, abusive, harmful or destructive actions

You are not a bad person.

You are a good person.

Thoughts and fiction do not define morality.

Actions define morality.

Having or enjoying bad thoughts or bad fiction doesn’t mean you will act on those feelings.

Liking negative themes in fiction or having daydreams about harmful actions will not cause you to do harm.

Thoughts and fiction aren’t harmful.

[ohnoitsnuance]

It’s been really weird to see this website go from “trigger warnings are important to avoid mental health attacks from those with PTSD or OCD” to “trigger warnings are just an excuse to avoid the horrors of reality by the well off.”

I understand entirely what the second argument is getting at, because people absolutely use the phrase incorrectly to block out ideas or events that might upset them just a little (and should upset them!) but at the same time, now when I use this site, not only can I not brace myself for content that triggers my OCD but I also get double triggered by being told my want of triggers is a moral failing.

[lord-squiggletits]

Had a long voice chat about Pen Pals AU last night in which some really nice clarifications/revelations were had such as:

It's a post-war/rebuilding society fic where I want to get into the actual rebuilding and not solely focus on the romance. How to do that? Use Pharma's position as CMO who's basically functioning as a public health administrator dealing with the public health issues that come from reestablishing infrastructure and making sure a whole city(ies) of people stays healthy

Ex: energon shortages/rationing, part and transplant shortages, disease/epidemic management ("the C in COVID stands for Cybertron"), medical personnel/hospital shortage in comparison to the increasing population, substance abuse among the veteran population, discrimination in treatment of medical professionals (CC/forged, Bot/Con, etc)

Tarn and Pharma interact at work not knowing they're each other's pen pal, and it happens in the context of Tarn (as newly minted Decepticon activist/political figure) coming to Pharma with equity-related issues in public healthcare. They like each other as coworkers bc they're actually of similar minds when it comes to dealing with these problems. Tarn is pleasantly surprised by an Autobot willing to admit fault with the system. Pharma is happy to have someone competent on his side who also happens to be very imposing. Also they're supposed to be promoting cross-faction cooperation so this coworker relationship makes them feel like they're upholding their promises to their faction

Pharma deals with a lot of social bullshit and interpersonal expectations as CMO because people keep comparing him to Ratchet, or in the case of neutrals, their impression of him is based on his pre-war "famous for being forged" thing.

Realizing that without even intending to, the way I'm writing Tarn in this AU is a dead ringer for post-traumatic OCD/trauma-related OCD. Doesn't really change how I'm going to write him, but having an actual name/label and knowledge that this is an Actual Thing does help a lot (I didn't know you could develop OCD from trauma, I thought it was just an innate disorder that triggered due to genes/environment/etc and Tarn as I'm writing him in PPAU only had PTSD)

[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.

[nho-jungle]

hey guys. have you considered. that if you are looking for diversity in characters. maybe. just maybe. you should seek out ttrpg content. from diverse creators. just throwing out a crazy thought.

[belle--ofthebrawl]

Anyway this is a link to a five year or so old guardian article about the exploitations in crystal mining. It's a good jumping point

[slingerapen]

Like why was triple threat Gay OCD and Latin uncle bruno such a threat to meaningful encanto discussions

[balladofthewhitehorse]

''-And that's how I finally got my diagnosis.'' Scotland finished, sighing as he leaned back in his chair; A kingfisher rushed past, bringing a smile to the man's grim face. ''It...I dunno. It's weird.'' England snorted faintly, a strange buzz in his chest as he watched the reeds sway. ''I...uh, so do I say congratulations or my condolences?'' He asked quietly, smiling sheepishly at Scotland. ''Naw, you don't have to say anything. I suppose it's a relief to know there's help out there.'' Scotland looked at him - and England felt a pang of suspicion. What's that look mean? ''Maybe you should consider therapy. They might be able to he-'' ''-Help me get carted off to Bedlam?'' England scoffed. ''No way. I'm fine.'' ''England...'' ''I'm fine!'' His voice was a knife in the silence. ''Now shut the fuck up!'' ''You're not fine! I'm just trying to help! It'd be a good idea for you-'' ''-I'm fine. Scotland. I'm not...I'm not messed up like you.'' ''Oh, that's a load of rubbish. You're fucked in the head.'' England's eyes went wide, his face pale as he slowly stood up with a vicious snarl. ''I am fucking fine, or do I need to prove it to you?!'' His hand curled into a fist.

[shiveringsoldier]

The discourse surrounding M. Night Shyamalan’s films frustrates me to no end. Almost all of his films demonize mental illness and/or psychosis by having mentally ill and/or psychotic people commit violent acts, and it goes without saying that such depictions are harmful to a population that is already stigmatized. So that is a fair and justified criticism to make. But I feel like literally nobody brings that up. Instead, his biggest naysayers make fun of his plot twists and make racist jokes about his name.