#ocd discussion

[waxwork-daughter]

I think I adopted a "Dana Scully avoidance compulsion" headcanon as an automatic, relatable thing because it felt natural to me in the context, but in trying to articulate it, I do also think that the evidence is there. Sort of backwards evidence but still.

It's many things, like scully bringing in the jersey devil (that one was sort of as a joke but still) and the 'vampires' that turned out to be the eves. It's her being scared of the mechinations and sinister events during the pilot, with the famous bug bite scene and having to be removed to use a totally neutral voice stance when she found the connection to Billy Miles. It's in her believing in Boggs and Bruckman and Kevin Crowder and Gibson Praise. There's even a moment in Little Green Men I had never noticed before because I'm usually distracted by their very insane reunion, where Scully sees the poor dead man and realizes that Mulder actually has been right in the middle of the mytharc activities again, and asks if it's 'them' again, looking terrified, when it turns out to be military helicopters. She does believe. In a lot, almost all of it at least the way the character is initially structured.

And she is afraid. But I don't think it's 'i'm afraid to believe' in the sense of fearing foolishness or disappointment. Not even a matter of fearing the things exactly, because she can cope when it's unfolding in some sort of wild emergent situation. But. This part is hard to articulate if you don't have OCD (though if you do, I'm sorry and I'm sure you understand lol). But there are things you can't talk about. It's not 'allowed.' it's too personal or it's like saying it will make it real or make it happen to you again, or because admitting what you want might make other bad things happen to you, or because talking about the scary things that have power over you might draw them to you, or you might discover spontaneously that bad things had happened to you in the past but you forgot about it completely and if you look in the direction of the secret cabinet of powerful, charged, scary things that you can't talk about or think about, more of them might come out at you than you can deal with. And it will be your fault because you touched that live wire or drew that attention to yourself. You might even have to do extra things or say extra denials or take extra care in other outward aspects of your life so that these things can't get you.

Of course in the real world, none of these fears and rituals and avoidance compulsions are true. They aren't based in fact.

But Scully is actually shown to have some levels of extra perception, right from the first season with BtS and Lazarus. And she lives in a world where monsters and aliens are real. So while these powerful compulsions might just be based in anxiety and magical thinking, they also might not. And for her to be able to figure out which avoidances are based in what, she would have to be a lot more willing to push through and examine it than she is.

I think that's part of why believer Scully can work in canon, and a watsonian explanation for why she's the most open about it in s8 and 9. She's already in a catastrophic state, and everything is already set in motion, it doesn't matter what evil or fate she accidentally calls up because it's all happening anyway and all the perfectionist rituals have fallen away because the crisis there and she doesn't have the energy or the willpower left beyond survival and coping however she can. Which was probably on some levels a relief, but mostly was foreign and exhausting.

(I also think this is why I have so much trouble with the 2nd movie and revival Scully. Say what you will about the overall quality of the end of the original run and it's mostly all fair, but I do think that they had thoroughly deconstructed Scully in a way that mostly stayed in character -- save of course for those 2 big things that were decided by certain production realities -- and brought her through that crisis of reality shift and being forced to let go of those patterns that felt like they were keeping her safe but in the end Didn't Work. The ending is bittersweet because for all they've lost, they have gained a measure of freedom on an emotional and personal level that they didn't have before. And then the Late Canon picked up some pieces of Scully from old days without trying to remember what was under the surface and tried to stick them back on and push her back into the old pigeon hole she was stuck in before.

The thing is that I can appreciate cyclic storytelling, or leat helical storytelling filled with parallels. But I don't like a reset button, and after everything she went through to learn, using one on Scully doesn't seem fair.)

[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.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Man, I wish it was easier to find information about indigenous stuff intersecting with other things because as someone with psychosis and OCD, I'm really curious about how many indigenous people have delusions/hallucinations/compulsions/etc based around their cultures and spirituality.

[lunarmoontea]

As a person with OCD, I really relate to Ragatha's struggles with being positive and a people-pleaser.

Ragatha is in a horrifically fucked situation, and, due to her own trauma, has been bottling up all of her negative emotions out of fear that she'll be perceived as a jerk if she expresses them even slightly.

And with Jax having his own unhealthy coping mechanisms, she's constantly having her buttons pushed because he perceives her kindness as manipulative to others (when it's more manipulative to HERSELF as she's trying to convince herself that everything is okay.) Her crashout is completely understandable.

But despite that, even though Pomni told her that it's okay to be a jerk sometimes, she still feels awful even after just a slight outburst.

I cannot tell you how many times I've had that same face Ragatha has after I've expressed anger towards someone. It's like "do they hate me now? Do they think of me differently? Are we not friends anymore?"

And also, I relate so much to the frustration she has with Jax! Like Jax is constantly bullying her (he threw her face-first into a DEEPFRYER last episode) and then she feels bad after ONE reasonable crashout. She puts so much weight onto every interaction, and then someone like Jax can just shove Gangle on the ground and go about his day.

Imagine how frustrating it must be for her to be putting so much weight on everything she does and says, and then to see someone else just go about their day and express their negative emotions freely and STILL be able to bond and make friends.

I know that OCD wasn't likely what they had in mind when expanding Ragatha's character, but her character is so well-written and human that I can really relate to her struggles in my own way.

I think overall Ragatha does a great job at representing why a lot of people-pleasers are the way they are, and why it's so difficult for them to properly express themselves. Whether that be because of unhealthy coping mechanisms, wanting to be accepted, or otherwise.

[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.

[wackywatchdotcom]

to me ragatha is the most tragic blend of fawning and wanting to be liked and being terrified that the people around you are going to die at any moment and a desperate desire for things to turn out okay and more and it makes me distraught

[crazysodomite]

like the concept of "oh you brought up a good point let me explain my point of view and we can both behave amicably towards each other" Literally doesnt exist on here. its only dunking

[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.

[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.

[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.

[missraunchybitch]

I absolutely HATE those posts that are like "reblog if you care about depression (or smth similar), and if you don't your a bad person" Because A. These posts help NO ONE, they don't actually spread awareness, they are clearly virtue signalling and B. as a person with ocd when i see posts like those they absolutely trigger my intrusive thoughts and compulsions, because even though I KNOW these posts aren't helpful it still bothers me endlessly and i now i have to deal with these intrusive thoughts for the rest of the day. and this isn't an uncommon phenenom, i see it pretty oftenly discussed in ocd circles.

To conclude fuck those posts, you don't help, you are farming, and you make actual people's mental health worse.

[venusiinfurss]

guys big news my brain told me that if i think about It one more time than It will stop hurting

[qoldenskies]

I think they did genuinely mean he has OCD because he was always written with his neurodivergence in mind. There are a ton of overlapping traits plus being autistic statistically increases the likelyhood on having OCD. Not giving them too much writers to much credit though because I doubt they did research into the different types of OCD. Contamination OCD is the one most portrayed in media so it’s a common misconception that it’s the only type.

im hesitant because the way its mentioned is so offhanded im almost tempted to assume it wasnt really intended, just used as a descriptor to mean that he's neurotic and cleanly. but it would be neat if it was more intentional than i thought .... i choose to believe that in my heart of hearts

[kafus]

do any fellow hypochondriacs have advice for coping with the terror that you have cancer. i keep going in and out of being so terrified that i have cancer that i can’t move or function or do anything. the symptom i am having that is making me worried can be caused by a million other things and everyone in my life is saying i don’t have cancer but it CAN be a symptom of cancer and it’s sort of new and unusual for me so i am like terrified out of my fucking mind constantly. if it doesn’t get better by monday my mom is going to take me to urgent care but until then i genuinely don’t know what to do to stay calm. the anxiety is so debilitating it’s really affecting my quality of life right now. so far the only thing that kind of helps is absolutely drowning my thoughts in pokemon. but i can’t even get on my switch rn i am So scared. Help

[wackywatchdotcom]

something about ragatha since that post has been a hit is the fact that i do really think like 70%+ of her day is just.... filled with compulsions

like. people pleasing doesnt necessarily have to come from ocd but w the way i read her its related. that she is very obsessed with people liking her and will do as many Nice things as she can reasonably do or else theyre gonna HATE her. that shes concerned abt their safety so shes gonna keep an eye on anyone she can because what if smth bad happens and its too much for them to handle???

and i think these two obsessions are also interconnected (i need people to like me, i need people to be safe, if im around people i can make sure theyre ok, if they like me i can keep them safe, if theyre alive then i can make sure they dont hate me, if they dont hate me then i can keep them from abstracting, etc) (add some moral ocd in there too she feels like she has that. and more!)

and w reassurance seeking? ragatha is absolutely like. notttttt good at avoiding it. and bc cast members seem to be a little put off by the way she ALREADY checks in on them i geeet the feeling that the way she seeks reassurance is like. she knows how to covertly seek reassurance