#i think what really upsets me about intrusive thoughts/ocd related issues | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

After the announcement of the deal with Yahoo!, there were 170K signatures of unhappy Tumblr users petitioning to prevent the sale in 2013.

#i think what really upsets me about intrusive thoughts/ocd related issues

maygranted · 1 year

Note

I saw your post about Buck being OCD-coded! Can you please say more?? I’ve always read him as being ADHD-coded and I’d love to hear more!

omg ofc i’d love to! i do apologise for how long this post is going to be 😭

so to start off, this all began bc my friend (who has adhd) really related to buck and i (who has ocd) also really related to him so we were like hmm wait a second… adhd AND ocd???

anyway i think one part of him that’s just v ocd coded to me (but also definitely is in combination with rsd from his adhd) is how he tends to catastrophise situations. like he has such severe abandonment issues to the point where he actively obsesses over it, here’s an example !!!

BUCK: Starts out small. Uh, she's-she's canceling plans. She's got to work. She needs to wash her hair or do her laundry, and before you know it, poof. Dropping them off at the airport and never seeing them again.

HEN: Okay, Buck, you're being a little too Buck about this.

like it’s just a very irrational line of thought and u can see how hen says oh you’re being a little too buck abt this bc it’s common for him to exaggerate situations he obsesses over in his mind. and then in turn to alleviate this anxiety somehow he begins to cling bc all his irrational thoughts are telling him that people will leave

and then ofc there’s the situation where after chimney’s left he feels so heavily responsible for it (responsibility ocd ) to the point where he says he’ll leave the 118. like that’s such an irrational line of thought that his mind has catastrophised from obsessing over it.

and then also the tsunami episodes <3 like ofc he feels responsible for chris it’s a normal response but the way he actively obsesses over losing chris and that that makes him a terrible person and he has such severe guilt over it is just v moral ocd and responsibility ocd to me? so he searches for chris to the point where he’s severely dehydrated and bleeding and he still doesn’t stop that’s just a v obsessive thing to me does that make sense??

here’s an explanation of hyper-responsibility related to ocd, which btw sounds very buck coded to me:

But what happens when someone overestimates their responsibility? What happens when someone feels that they can control things that they cannot actually control? These feelings might even seep into relationships—feeling like they can control how someone else feels, or feeling that they are responsible for making everyone happy or content. This can create people-pleasing patterns and make them constantly feel the need to put others’ needs in front of their own. This can look like saying yes to things they do not want to do but feel they need to do, lest someone get upset with them. Or, they may think, “If I don’t do this, then something bad might happen.” […]

Anxiety and guilt are often at the root of an inflated sense of responsibility. The person with OCD thinks of all the possible repercussions of not acting in a particular scenario. They feel guilty for possible negative outcomes, often engaging in magical thinking—believing that their ideas, thoughts, actions, or other things can impact the world around them. This results in compulsions, which can take on many different forms; for some, it may involve very detailed rituals they feel they must perform to prevent something very specific from occurring. For others, it may be a vague need to do something “just in case” or to feel like everyone will be safe.

and then ofc there’s my gifset where he’s developed a compulsion bc he’s scared he’s still in a coma so he has a list of things he checks </3

anyway i feel like a huge part of this is definitely also projecting bc i personally struggle with moral ocd and responsibility ocd and a lot of guilt bc of that but it’s just something i’ve noticed a lot with buck, how his mind is constantly jumping to the worst, most irrational conclusion (and irrationality IS a huge part of intrusive thoughts) and so in turn he either feels the need to fix it (bc it’s HIS responsibility in his mind!) by distancing himself bc he’s the problem or clinging. trying to fix something that isn’t even a problem that needs fixing or isn’t even ur responsibility to fix is just a very ocd coded thing to me <3 and i think a lot of this is definitely more related to mental compulsions which a lot of people don’t really know abt and instead assume ocd is just the stereotypical compulsions (washing hands, organising etc which ARE ofc things that happen but it’s not just that!) so he v much falls into that “irrational thought / obsession” —> anxiety, uncertainty, guilt —> compulsion (trying to fix shit, apologising, reassurance) cycle u see with ocd.

i hope this made sense somehow and ty for asking, as u can see i love talking abt this :)) also it’s absolutely ok to disagree with me on this, it’s just something i personally noticed and really identified with due to my own ocd, i just hope i did a good job of explaining it!

#SORRY this is so long wtf 😭😭#in my defence u said say more and i did say more #so yeah my friend and i constantly talk abt how he’s both adhd and ocd coded (so unfortunate for buck to have to deal with BOTH)#txt #evan buckley #911 meta #911 fox #ask #inkteller

36 notes · View notes

max1461 · 1 year

Note

You're smart and have, iirc, OCD, right?? Pressing question: do you know/do you know who would know what a 'good ending' to really disabling year long OCD/sexual OCD/POCD spiral looks like? How managed can it get? How often are the bad times/thoughts remembered? How common are new bad thoughts, and how bad are they?

Most importantly, if most everything is 'tainted' in some way by obsessive thoughts or memories of thoughts to varying extents, how much do you get back? How much of the things you have left before beginning to fix it do you lose? *Can you be a person again?*

This has been like, the main issue keeping me from trying to get help, considering the act of doing so is 'tainted'.

I do have OCD. I had very very upsetting intrusive thoughts of this general nature for about two years when I was in highschool. It was terrifying and I felt deeply ashamed and unlovable. I still have trouble remembering that time of my life, a lot of the memories are just gone, I guess due to the trauma. I thought that I would literally be ashamed of this "dark secret" for the rest of my life.

Now, I don't even think about it. The intrusive thoughts are long gone. The worry about "what they meant" is long gone. I don't even think about it any more. I still have OCD, and I've struggled with it a lot since the pandemic, but it's mostly related to other things now.

You are not tainted and you don't have to worry about feeling tainted forever. You can be a person again. It took me a couple of years to really start feeling like a person again after my first struggle with this stuff, though of course it's different for everybody. Don't take that to mean it will necessarily be so long for you. In college I felt like a person again and it was wonderful. Right now I admit I'm not feeling like a person, due to the OCD and depression that was triggered by the pandemic and other concurrent things in my life. But I'm feeling much better than I was in 2020 or 2021, that's for sure! And I'm better than I was in highschool as well.

The "good ending" is that you feel totally fine, and really genuinely never worry about what you are worrying about again. Sometimes OCD comes up again, especially when life gets stressful, but then (at least, this is what I'm trying to do) you make it through and manage to get back to where you were, or better.

#anon

24 notes · View notes

biracy · 8 months

Note

too scared to post this on my own tumblr for fear of Grievous Misinterpretation + you’re one of my smartest mutuals and i want to run it by a smart person first. for context your reblog about thought crime reminded me of this so i’m not just dumping this on you out of the blue! although this isn’t directly related.

anyway - after some observation of these communities and research into these issues, i have come to the conclusion that quite a lot of people who identify as zoophiles and/or MAPs are not actually those things, but people who just have intense and distressing intrusive thoughts. particularly the younger ones. i rarely saw any of them express anything except distress at these thoughts, but they have been pulled into those communities one way or another - someone grooming them into it, or their previous friend groups reacting badly to them confessing their intrusive thoughts and chasing them out, etc. ofc this would happen, because an upset person seeks support, it’s just horribly tragic what they can be manipulated into or accidentally become involved with while seeking that support.

obviously i have done no formal study and have no definite numbers for exactly how many people there could be in this situation. but given the level of distress i would see person after person after person express when discussing their “desires” and “urges”, i think the number must be pretty high. of course, we know intrusive thoughts can be horrific things you as a person want nothing to do with, and that thought crime isn’t real - but it makes sense, i think?

i wish people understood intrusive thoughts better, and i wish people didn’t behave the way that they do about fetishes. not to say that i don’t think it’s morally okay to be a zoo or a MAP, of course! but i feel that the negative reaction to many fetishes + the negative reaction to many intrusive thoughts = people do not seek the support they need, or if they do seek it they aren’t getting the help they need & are punished instead.

i’m rambling. i hope this makes sense. i’m sorry for putting this in your inbox but i’m friends with too many people who will kneejerk accuse me of being these things because i have dared to view them sympathetically :’/ but i genuinely wanted to hear another person’s thoughts on this.

Oh I definitely see where ur coming from yeah! I think this comes down to a variety of different issues let me kinda break down my thoughts:

I DO think a lot of people who identify online as "MAPs" or "zoos" or whatever are people with intrusive thoughts, OCD, DID, etc.. I think a lottttt of the "communities"/"support groups"/etc. formed around these things are mostly people with intrusive thoughts that they don't know to identify as intrusive thoughts. If I'm being honest, both networks seem to end up saying "just because you have these thoughts doesn't mean you'd ever act on them and they don't make you a bad person", which is good, but I do think someone having their intrusive thoughts framed as "this is just the way that you are, you were born to have these Urges" can end up being pretty detrimental in time.

I think it's important to note that I'm really strongly against the what I'll call "paraphilic model of abuse" that a lot of reaction towards "MAP communities", "zoo communities", whatever relies on. We need to understand child abuse and animal abuse through lenses of power (AND work towards deconstructing the systems of power that allow them to happen) instead of just presenting it as "these SICK PEOPLE who have BAD SEX BRAINS were just born to abuse and need to Get Help/Be Arrested/Be Killed". I'm critical towards the idea of "a paraphilia" to begin with, and really just can't ignore that the idea of "non-normative sexuality" has historically and continues to include gay and trans people (the DSM-5 still lists "transvestic disorder" among its eight "paraphilic disorders").

I think I can combine these two points to say: A model of abuse that relies on "paraphilia" as the cause, the idea that some people are just born to be abusers due to some psychiatric or even neurological "defect", and that these people are in some way "deviant from the norm", is a model that not only ignores the systems of power that allow for abuse to happen AND the social settings where these kinds of harassment and abuse are extremely normalized (i.e. therefore not "deviant"), but is one that leaves people with abusive (sexually or otherwise) intrusive thoughts to believe that there is something innately wrong with them that idk, they can either "cure" with whatever Pedophile Conversion Therapy is supposed to be or "solve" by going to prison/being killed, depending on who they're talking to. I think this is an extremely reductive and oftentimes actively harmful model of thinking about abuse, because many, many people who actually abuse children are not "pedophiles" (or "MAPs") in the "psychiatric" sense, many, many people who actually abuse animals are not "zoophiles" in the "psychiatric" sense, and many people who experience thoughts or "urges" relating to these kinds of abuse are not going to be abusers. People understandably get very upset during conversations like this, but I do think it's very important to move past the very surface-level idea that idk, "pedophile bad, pedophile sick" and actually observe what allows child abuse to happen, AND to maybe approach online communities of young people beating themselves up over their intrusive thoughts with more sympathy other than the instinctive knee-jerk "pedophile bad, pedophile sick." I totally understand why ur hesitant to post abt this dw, this is a Really hard conversation to have on here, but I hope my thoughts are clear enough and don't leave any room for "oh so you LITERALLY support the BAD THING? We should kill everyone who literally supports the bad thing" bad-faith readings

#ask #anon #csa mention #animal abuse mention #open mick night

6 notes · View notes

ave-immaculata · 2 years

Note

Hello! Is going near the occasion of sin considered a venial sin?

For example, I’m scrolling through the video section on FB and stopped on a certain video out of curiosity but the end turns out to be awful like something impure or of a mockery against God—have I committed something immoral? Or when I get intrusive thoughts on me agreeing on making pacts with Satan that I get out of nowhere but then automatically renounces these—have I committed something immoral? What about purposefully neglecting morning and evening prayers?

I’m terribly lost because I feel I have fallen out of the state of grace every time these things happen and often think that I cannot receive Holy Communion as a result. It gets worse to the point of me asking if what I had just done was a sacrilegeous Holy Communion?

How does one know if I am still in the state of grace? How about Anger? If I have gotten annoyed, irritated or really angry at a person for a number of days, do I automatically lose God in my soul? To what extent does God remain with us in relation to the state of grace?

I apologize for bombarding you with so many of my doubtful questions (and I’d understand if you decide not to answer this but if you do, I really appreciate it).

I'm more than happy to help in anyway I can; I would recommend bringing this all up to a Priest if you can because (non-professionally) I think it sounds like you're struggling with a bit of scrupulosity.

But to answer your questions!

From the Catholic Encyclopedia of New Advent: "All theologians are agreed that there is no obligation to avoid the remote occasions of sin both because this would, practically speaking, be impossible and because they do not involve serious danger of sin."

So, while we obligated to shun occasions of sin that we practically can, nothing you have described sounds like something you can practically avoid. This isn't going into a liquor store when you know you have an issue with drunkenness, this isn't leaving a pornographic website in your bookmarks, this isn't sleeping in the same bed as someone who isn't your spouse. Those are true occasions of sin that we knowingly, willingly enter into knowing the temptation to serious sin they will cause us.

Intrusive thoughts, even blasphemous ones, are not sinful or immoral. Being exposed to blasphemy online is not sinful or immoral. Often times, especially for people with OCD or scrupulosity (again, not a professional) these thoughts come in intrusively because we find them so deeply disturbing and upsetting. Thoughts become immoral when we are actively pondering them and exploring them and allowing our free will to agree with them. Having it in your head and to the best of your ability refusing to submit to it (even if this is a struggle!!!!!) is not sinful.

I also experience a lot of what you're talking about and I totally get what you mean about neglect of prayers feeling sinful, but, and I know this seems counter-intuitive; it isn't. If you are fulfilling your Sunday obligation you are not committing a sin by failing to pray. Praying is good. Praying is something we are all called to do. But unless you are a Priest or someone morally commanded to pray the daily office until you die, failing to pray throughout the day is not sinful. You are not in a state of mortal sin because of it.

The evil one wants nothing more than to rob us of the Peace of Christ that dwells within us. But the Gospel reading from yesterday reminds us that Christ does not give peace as the world gives it; His peace is not the absence of conflict or trouble or persecution, but it is the surrender to Him in the midst of it. This is a terrible suffering but it is not beyond His care and His tenderness.

I've also struggled with the questions about anger; the Catechism (para. 2302) defines the sin of anger as: "A desire for revenge. To desire vengeance in order to do evil to someone who should be punished is illicit, but it is praiseworthy to impose restitution to correct vices and maintain justice. If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin." Deliberate hatred is also mentioned (like the agreeing with and accepting of thoughts I mentioned before).

Being annoyed or upset by someone is not a sin, it's of course important to make an effort with your will to forgive them by the grace of God, but the feelings are not immoral. You have no need to worry, theologically speaking.

God's love is unconditional, even when we are in a state of mortal sin. He is the Father going out each morning and waiting, calling to His prodigal son, hoping today is the day he returns and He can extend His hands of blessing and rejoice. In mortal sin it is not God turning away from us. I don't personally know to what extent the Holy Spirit remains in us, but any repentance is itself fueled by grace, and we still bear the indelible mark of Baptism, so I hope it's acceptable to say that He is still with us, even if it is death to our soul.

I hope this was at all helpful. If anyone wants to chime in I'm totally okay with that! Anon, I really hope that you can begin to feel at peace about these things. Nothing you have described is immoral or sinful, and I know those fears stem from a deep desire to obey and follow God. More importantly, He recognizes that. It's clear that your heart is oriented to face Him, trust that He will guide your steps and sanctify this suffering.

22 notes · View notes

afoolforatook · 4 years

Text

A RWBY V7 Ep12 rant.....When I say this is long..... Legit was fucking 37 pages double spaced at one point. Sorry....

Before this gets started I want to warn you, this is long (even longer than I thought it’d be going in). It’s probably too long ... actually it is definitely too long but if I agonize over editing it down again and again I won’t get it up before the finale. It’s probably repetitive at times, and most certainly not anything I’ll be showing off as an example of my top essay writing. And I want to be able to say that the length pays off because I have some grand hopeful insight at the end. I want to say I know things will be okay. But the fact that I can’t is exactly why I’m writing this, and why it’s so long. So if you need this to have a hopeful ending, I’m sorry, I don’t have one for you currently. I want to, so badly. But to me false hope would be even worse. So if you can’t handle another long post that doesn’t end with a way to fix things, it’s okay, take care of yourself. But maybe the most hopeful thing I can tell you, and tell you up front, is that you aren’t alone in your pain.

I want to preface this all with one more thing: I don’t hate CRWBY. I respect them, support them. I’ve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as I could. That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize them or expect more from them or just be plain angry with them. I can be vocal about all of that without harassing them, without hating them. I don’t think they’re just plain evil or homophobic. I still want to believe that they can do things that will allow me to trust them again. Maybe it’s naive, but I want to, at the very least, still have hope that this wasn’t malicious, just very poorly conceived and executed.

And I know that other people who are hurting like me are lashing out towards CRWBY. And while I don’t at all condone that kind of reaction, I can understand it to an extent. Because I’m very, very hurt and angry and it would be so easy to let loose and say all the awful stuff I want to in my anger. To yell and call people out and not care how I come across. It would definitely be a lot easier than spending all week writing this long thing and agonizing over making it perfect. There is nothing wrong with venting and being raw and open and angry, but just as we want CRWBY to be aware that their actions can truly hurt people, we need to be conscious of the fact that so can ours. Many people are very hurt right now. And whether or not you think it was queerbaiting/BYG or not, or even whether or not you just think it was bad writing, no one has the right to invalidate the people who are hurting right now, many of whom are queer people dealing with personal traumas and mental illness.

The few people who are attacking CRWBY and other fans (and there is a difference between being angry and vocal about that anger and just attacking them) do not invalidate the hurt people are feeling. If you are hurt or angry you have every right to be. You have every right to stop watching the show or leave the fandom, or communicate your hurt to CRWBY. But communicate means just that; communicate. Talk. You can be as angry as you are, you don’t have to temper your pain to be more tolerable to the people who caused that pain. But there is a difference between being harsh and honest about how hurt you are, and harassing real people. And I won’t say “harassing real people over a fictional character/show” because I know it’s more complicated than that. My hurt this past week isn’t over a fictional character or a ship. It’s about me and what I’ve been through and the fact that the very thing that gave me strength in hard times was turned into something that confirmed my biggest fears and hurt me immensely.

The world always gets so sentimental when we see things about fictional stories giving people some comfort, and we celebrate that. But as soon as people say they can be hurt just as much by media, we lash out, say they’re overreacting, that they’re just getting upset over fictional characters. But you can’t have it both ways. We can’t want fiction to be important and inspiring to people and then belittle people who are negatively impacted by the same material, especially when often that vulnerability comes from a history of trauma and/or being neurodivergent. I am extremely hurt. I feel betrayed and abandoned and angry. And it will take time for me to process all of that and move past it. But I can be all of those things without attacking CRWBY or the people who might disagree with me.

To me, this isn’t about disagreeing. We can argue forever about whether or not this was queerbaiting or bury your gays or poor writing (and I honestly at this moment don’t even know what I think about all of that because I’m not in that headspace currently) but the fact is that there are many, many people who feel it was, and who are hurting because of that, and whether you believe it was or not does not give you the right to invalidate the real pain that they are feeling. Who is right is less important than the fact that people, people who were already vulnerable, have been hurt. So, please. Respect each other. Respect those who are hurting. Respect those who aren’t and don’t understand, and respect CRWBY. You can still be angry and speak out without attacking others.

With that said, to fully understand why this has affected me so much, and why it’s going to take a long time for me to get back to where I was, regardless of how the volume ends, there are things you need to know about my history. It’s a lot of background and this is already going to be a longer post than I’d really like, but it’s important to understanding why RWBY is so important to me, and thus able to have such a negative effect on me. So please, bear with me. Also, fair warning, though at this point it’s probably obvious, but my story isn’t happy. I still haven’t found my own positive ending to it. If it’s too much for you to read right now, please, like I said before, take care of yourself.

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Farley. I’m 24, nonbinary (they/them), biromantic, demisexual. I have MDD, GAD, ADHD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Comorbid PTSD, and am trying to get an official autism diagnosis. I’m a full on alphabet soup. I struggle with imposter syndrome, intrusive thoughts, self-isolation, dermatillomania, and multiple trauma related phobias. My queer and neurodivergent identities are huge parts of my life and I try to be as open as possible about them, in the hopes of helping end the stigma around them. One of the main ways I cope with my mental health issues on a day to day basis is through hyperfixations. While it might not technically be the healthiest method, it’s what I’ve found to work for me when I’m in a really bad place and unable to practice more active coping skills. Through stories and characters that I relate to, I can separate my problems from myself a little and both escape from them for a while when needed, and view them a little more clearly from a new perspective.

That’s some important info about me, but what really matters here is the past five years of my life and the trauma within them.

In October of 2015, a few months into my sophomore year of college, I went into a deep depression, mostly brought on by multiple family deaths and stresses over the past summer that I had not properly had time to process and recover from. I quit my job as an RA and withdrew from school and moved back home with my parents. While this was the right decision at the time, it wasn’t easy. I left a very close group of friends at school, and didn’t really have a strong support system at home aside from my parents. My friends from high school had all gone off to college themselves, and the few that still lived in town were often busy with work or school. And because I have an intense fear of driving and needed time to get myself in a better place before starting a job, I ended up spending most of my time home alone. I became more and more isolated, to the point of verging on agoraphobic, and my parents and I started thinking about ways I could basically get my life started again.

But isolation messes with your head, and makes you want to just isolate more and more. In mid February of 2016 I started to really work on being social again. Mostly because I started talking to my best friend from high school, Emma, regularly again. She knew I was struggling, and while I’ve always had a hard time keeping in touch with people, Emma has always been the person I never felt self conscious about going to. We talked everyday. After high school, Emma’s mom and younger brother had moved to Ohio (I live in NC) and Emma had gone to school in Oregon. Her father lives in Germany. So between visiting her family in Ohio and Germany she didn’t have a lot of time during breaks to come back to NC to visit friends. Since we graduated I’d only seen her once for about 12 hours during that awful summer. But now we were skyping and chatting everyday. And slowly I started to be less and less scared of being more social. I wanted to hang out with friends. I was excited about going back to school in the fall.

Something important to understand about me and Emma is how close we’ve always been. We’d been best friends since 8th grade. We told each other we were soulmates, soulfriends, when we were 15. Nearly everyone in our small high school thought we were dating at one time or another. I always knew I loved her. I was fine with our relationship being “only” platonic. Because platonic wasn’t “only”. It was absolutely perfect. It was having her as one of the most important people in my life, and me in hers, and that’s all I wanted. But I also knew that if she ever wanted to try a romantic relationship, I’d be open.

Around the time I left school Emma had been going through a lot herself. She was finally getting help for her own mental health issues and she was, for the first time, really thinking about her identity and sexuality. On May 4th 2016 she texted me like always, but this time she was nervous. She wanted to tell me something. She said she was still confused about her sexuality and didn’t know where she fell. But when she tried to think of being with someone, the only person she pictured was me. And I told her basically what I just told you. So we started talking about testing out us being a couple. She had already been planning to come to NC to visit after she went to Ohio later that month for her brother’s high school graduation. And my parents were going on a two week vacation around that time as well. So we decided that she would come and stay with me for two weeks. We would keep this to ourselves until then, so that we could see if this was really the best thing for us. And if so, then we’d tell people. We’d always talked about living together after school, but now we wanted to see exactly what we wanted our relationship to be. She bought a bus ticket for May 26th and would stay through June 10th or so, which would mean she’d be there for her 20th birthday on June 5th. We talked everyday about our plans for her visit. How excited we were, how we could cook dinner together and dance around the house in our underwear, and just get to be Us again. We talked to friends, planning to visit friends from high school and maybe even my friends from college.

On May 18th I texted Emma around 11 pm. I hadn’t heard from her all day which was unusual but she was in Ohio celebrating her mom’s birthday and getting ready for her brother’s graduation that weekend, so she was probably just busy. We’d told each other goodnight every night for months at that point. So I told her I loved her and was so excited to see her in just over a week.

The next morning it was a bit odd that she still hadn’t texted me back but again, I just assumed she was busy with family. And then the mail came, and the last part of a birthday present I was making for her arrived. So I got to work, giddy.

Around 2 pm my other best friend from high school, Juli, called me. For some reason I decided I’d just call her back later, I was too engrossed in making Emma’s present. About 20 minutes later I heard a knock on my door and turned to see my parents standing in the doorway to my room. I vividly remember spinning around happily and saying “Hey! Everything okay?” even as I noticed the tears on my dad’s face and how pale my mom was. My stomach knotted and I stood as my mom said “N-no. Honey…..” and walked towards me. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for her to say that a grandparent or aunt or uncle had died. But as she got closer and put a shaking hand on my shoulder, I got a little more confused, a different kind of scared. One of my cousins? One of my baby cousins?

Nothing could have prepared me for her telling me that there’d been an accident in Ohio. That Emma, and her mom, and her brother, and her aunt had been in a crash…. And that all four of them had been killed on impact. The only thing I remember about the rest of the night is the pain of continuously screaming, punching the wall until my dad stopped me, and calling my friends from college, trying to have someone to talk to, someone who I could call who wouldn’t also be mourning. I couldn’t handle my own grief, let alone anyone else’s at that moment.

There’s a lot more to that story. There’s the memorial service in Ohio and meeting her dad and stepmom for the first time. There’s the service we put together at our high school and seeing our friend group all together again, except not. There’s the panic attacks every time I saw a garbage truck, or my parents drove off to work.

But most importantly for what you need to know right now, is my sliding back into isolation. I barely ever saw my friends from home and every time I did for the next two years it had something to do with mourning Emma. I saw my college friends a few times; them coming to visit or me taking a bus to stay the weekend. But eventually they went back to school and I stayed at home. I drifted away from high school friends because I didn’t know how to handle being with them when everything we did together reminded me of what I’d lost. I didn’t know how to talk to them because I needed their support but knew I didn’t have it in me to be supportive of them, and that wasn’t fair. I drifted away from my college friends for the same reasons, and even more so as the group dynamic that I had left slowly changed and faded until I didn’t know who was talking to who anymore and I again felt bad for dumping my shit on them when I couldn’t do the same. I began to think that all I brought to any social interaction was my pain and hopelessness. I would just bring everyone else down. They shouldn’t have to deal with my pain. So a year after I left school I was even more alone. I’d lost or pushed away all the people in my life that I’d expected to be lifelong friends, family. And I didn’t know how to begin to fix that. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I didn’t know if I deserved to.

The only reason I was even still alive was because anytime I even got close to thinking about hurting myself, I could just sense Emma glaring at me, yelling at me, telling me that I couldn’t let this stop me from living out all those dreams we’d talked about. And I knew that my life wasn’t just mine anymore, that all those dreams, that bond, the parts of my favorite person that only I knew, would be lost if I died.

But I didn't have my friends to vent to, and as supportive as my parents were (I’d told them and a few close friends about me and Emma that first terrible week) I needed friends. But I didn’t know how to reconnect and I was too scared to go out and meet new people, especially knowing that at some point I’d have to drop the “dead girlfriend” bomb on them, and who’d want to stick around after that? So I tried to use media and hyperfixations to pull myself out of spirals, like I always had. But it was hard. Because most of the things that had been comforting before were all things I’d shared with Emma, and so now they were just more reminders of her absence. And even new things I found soon turned rotten because I couldn’t help but think about how I wish I could show it to Emma. Everything that made me happy for even a moment would pretty soon make me sad.

Eventually I found things that comforted me and helped me be creative again and that led me to starting school again, nearly three years after I’d left, at SCAD. I loved the classes. I wanted to be there. I’ve always been a fiction writer but now there was so much in my head that I needed to get out, to process, and to share with people, especially people like me dealing with an unimaginable grief. Those past few years had been made even more difficult by the lack of representation I found in grief material. Everything was either about grieving the elderly, not someone who’d barely even gotten to live. Or if it was about someone young it was due to suicide or disease or violence; in other words things that at the very least, left the grieving with some cause to care about, or something to be angry at, some real world outlet. I didn’t have that. I didn’t relate to that. And even harder was finding anything I could relate to that included the complexities that my queer identity put on my grief; there were people I could and couldn’t tell about our relationship. Did I say I lost my best friend or my girlfriend? What if her family didn’t approve and wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t let me have any of her things, wouldn’t want me around? And one of the biggest things I kept thinking those first few months; why had my life become a ‘bury your gays’ soap opera plot line. Was Emma supposed to just be my tragic backstory now? Was I just supposed to use this as angsty fodder for the rest of my life? What about her? What about her dreams, her potential? What about her progress? She’d just gotten to a place where she was accepting herself. Where she was overcoming her mental health issues, where she was proud of who she was. Why was I allowed to keep going and she wasn’t? I couldn’t find any support for these feelings. Not books or groups or forums. So I decided to make them myself. I started writing and drawing, putting together what I called my Grief Scrapbook. I was working towards the thing that mattered to me more than anything; telling our story. I was getting the chance to create the content I’d so desperately needed.

But I was still alone, even at school. I was 23 living with mostly 18/19 year olds. And while there wasn’t anything wrong with them, I was struggling with a strong sense of dissociation. Everywhere I looked I saw Emma, forever 19. And there I was, continuing to age and getting further and further away from her.

My first year at SCAD I made two friends, and while I love them, they didn’t fulfill the hole left by the large close knit groups of friends I’d lost. I tried to get back in touch with my best friend from college, only to find that she was no longer talking to me. And I don’t blame her really. Yes I’d been going through things, but so had she, and I hadn’t been able to be a good friend for her. So if she needed to move on for her own good, no matter how sad that made me, she had every right to do what was best for her, just as I had been trying to do.

I’m now in my second year at SCAD and recently started hanging out with a new group. And they’re great and I’m slowly feeling more confident and secure around them, but I still struggle. I still miss the relationships I held so dear, the relationships I let dissolve. I still worry I’ll never have that kind of connection with people again, and that if I do somehow manage to find it, I’ll mess it up again. Some days are particularly rough, when I sit with my thoughts too long, or see something that reminds me of any one of the many people I miss, and I ache for the happiness I had. And it’s those moments when I turn to hyperfixations (I do promise this is getting to RWBY).

This past February the final How To Train Your Dragon movie came out. The HTTYD franchise holds a very dear place in my heart, as it was my main hyperfixation during high school, and something I shared with Emma and other friends. The second film came out the day of my graduation. It was the last movie Emma and I saw together before she moved to Ohio and then went to school in Oregon. It was the last movie we saw together at all. I knew it was going to be very emotional for me to see the final movie, alone now. But I had to see it opening night. And (spoilers for The Hidden World I guess) the movie ended up being about the reality of having to let go of the important people from your childhood as you grow up. About dealing with the fact that sometimes the people you expected to always be a part of your life, aren’t. I loved the movie, but it destroyed me. A few months later I had to get through May, the 3rd anniversary, away from home for the first time. And it was extremely difficult. I’d had to take a break from HTTYD and process things.

So my main hyperfixations weren’t helping me get through a really difficult time. But around the time HTTYD 3 came out I happened to get back into RWBY. I’d watched the first season or so when it first came out, but then had just kind of forgotten about it. And so, in the absence of HTTYD, I got caught up. And I can’t say there weren’t things that hurt, that made me have to take a moment and collect myself. Watching the end of volume three, watching Pyrrha and Jaune finally kiss, and then watch their relationship die with her before they even had a chance to be together, hit way too close to home. Logically I should have projected on Jaune more than I did but I think I couldn’t, because it wasn’t just similar, it felt like I was literally watching the worst moment of my life play out. He was too much like me to handle. But there was Qrow. And at first I just kind of latched onto him because I liked him. I like his characterization, his design, and I was a fan of V*c ( I hate to even mention him here for fear of causing a totally different discourse, but Emma and I were big fans of his and high school and met him and when everything happened with him it was just another thing that felt like a good memory of Emma had been tainted.)

And so I was watching while the last half of volume six was airing. And I was watching Qrow slip further and further into his depression. I watched as he felt betrayed by Oz after grieving him and then getting him back. I thought more about how he’d basically lost his sister, about how he’d grieved for Summer (regardless of whether it was platonic or romantic), how he lost hope in having strong relationships ever again. How he felt cursed and how he pushed people away to protect them and himself from more pain. I saw how the Apathy affected him and how close he was to giving in before Ruby and Weiss snapped him out of it. I saw him struggle to get himself back together for Ruby and the rest of the kids, but not know how. I saw every single fear I’d struggled with those past few years in him. I related to Qrow more than I’d ever expected to. And so my hyperfixation on RWBY grew. His addiction was my isolation. His insecurities of hurting others and thus pushing them away was my fear that for the rest of my life, I would be alone because I was always going to be too broken to be worthy of friends and love.

And then everything happened with V*c and for a bit everything hurt again and I had to get away from RWBY and the toxicity within parts of the fandom. And when I was able to come back I was excited but worried. I hoped that Qrow would continue to develop, continue to progress alongside me, that I would like his new actor enough to finish healing the sting I’d felt over V*c. I just wanted Qrow back, I wanted this character to be there to help me again.

Because Qrow Branwen gave me hope. He gave me hope that I could get better. He gave me hope that even with my insecurities and trauma, something I’ll never be fully free from, I can deserve people who care about me, and that there are actually people who will care about me. He gave me hope that good things can still happen to broken people. And not just people who were once broken and have healed, but people who are still figuring out how to heal, who know they will never fully heal, but also know they still are worthy of support and care. And then volume 7 started and I got more than I’d ever dreamed.

There was the hug with Ironwood. And even though I shipped Ironqrow, the idea of there being a romantic aspect to that hug wasn’t what made it important. It was the fact that we got Qrow connecting with an old ally (and an adult), finding that he even still had an old ally. That despite everything that had happened with Oz and Lionheart, despite all the trust he’d had broken, maybe he wasn’t actually alone yet. And then we got Clover. I’ll admit I was wary of him at first. I was worried about the traitor theories, the death theories, and then the theories that he’d negatively affect Qrow, making him feel worse about his semblance. But then he grew on me so quickly. Because he smiled at Qrow. He got him to talk about himself, called him out when he was putting himself down, told him how well he was doing. And while it’s wasn’t because of Clover, he was sober, and Clover had to at the very least help him stay that way. Qrow was hunching less when he walked, opening up, being more vulnerable and social. He was smiling, laughing, making jokes. He had a steady partner that he trusted and worked well with, likely for the first time since team STRQ. And yes, I shipped them, but honestly while I would have still been disappointed if it was never canon, given how blatant it really seemed like it could be, it would ultimately have been okay. Because again, it was less about Qrow finding love and more about him finding support. And then I saw Qrow and Clover and Robyn team up, and whether it was canon or just fandom I felt represented. Not just in the way I had with Qrow about my mental health, but as a queer person struggling with complicated grief; the exact thing I had never been able to find and had taken upon myself to create for others. I saw Qrow being loved (again, whether platonic or romantic isn’t as important) and healing. Even if Fairgame never actually happened, I could still see them as queer characters helping each other process trauma. And maybe I set myself up in a bubble part of the fandom that fully convinced me that Fairgame was possible, but at the very least I truly, undoubtedly thought that Clover would side with Qrow.

And as I watched episode 12, I could feel my stomach sinking. Okay Clover didn’t side with Qrow at first, but maybe he’ll come around. Okay maybe he won’t come around, but maybe he’ll take Qrow in and they’ll have time to talk, maybe even with Ironwood. But then Clover abandons the ship, abandons Qrow and I was scrambling even more for hope that things would be okay. Maybe he’s trying to get away to diffuse things. But then “Never pegged you for the manipulative type” the first sign of Qrow doubting their entire relationship, of feeling betrayed again. And then Clover calls Qrow cynical? Maybe I’m forgetting something, cause I haven’t gone back and analyzed every scene with them, but I can’t remember Qrow ever being cynical around Clover this volume that we’ve seen. Self-deprecating yes, but this is legitimately the happiest and most secure we’ve ever seen Qrow. But okay maybe they’ll reason and Clover will come around. But then “We don’t have to fight, friend.” and it’s friend not Qrow. And then “You don’t know my friends. That’s how it always goes.” and I broke. I almost stopped there, a part of me wishes I had. Because it was already so broken, this thing that had even in the past few weeks, been a main pillar of hope for me. But maybe they’ll come together to fight Tyrian. And then Qrow goes after Tyrian and Clover keeps attacking Qrow. Well maybe he’s really trying to protect him, or has some plan. But then they continue to fight each other. And they don’t have even a moment of “who’s the bigger threat here? Us or the serial killer?” And then Qrow works with Tyrian?! Tyrian the serial killer? Tyrian the unstable maniac? Tyrian who tried to take Ruby? Tyrian who nearly killed Qrow? Tyrian who fucking worships Salem, who Qrow has spent most of his life fighting, has lost Summer to, and countless other traumas? (and I get the possible reasons, realizing that Clover won’t lay off of him so Tyrian is his best bet and then he can take care of Tyrian, but I still don’t like it. But this isn’t even about whether or not I think it’s good writing or characterization and it’s too long already to get into that.) And then Tyrian and Qrow fight so well together and I honestly felt sick. We haven’t seen Qrow work that well with anyone. Not RWBY, not Ironwood, not Clover. And now we see it with fucking Tyrian? And maybe it’s a stretch but it honestly felt like another nail in the “Qrow attracts bad” coffin that is his insecurities. Qrow and Tyrian fight nearly perfectly together and it felt so damn wrong. Clover’s wrong here, Qrow’s wrong here, and it all feels so very very wrong based on the entire progression of their relationship throughout the volume. And then Qrow takes down Clover’s aura and I’m just empty. There’s no hint of him trying to just beat Clover and not kill him. He has no reason to think that Tyrian won’t actually go for the kill during this fight. But they continue to have these snippets of “We don’t have to fight” or “I want to trust you” while showing no signs of holding back and still caring about the other’s well being. And then Qrow’s voice breaking during “Why couldn’t you just do the right thing…”. We’ve literally never seen Qrow this emotionally compromised, let alone during a fight. He’s crumbling because he finally had someone who made him think he could get better, that he could have close relationships, that he could be good for the people around him. And now he’s losing it.

I was broken here, I was already spiraling. I knew Clover would get hit. I knew I would be struggling to deal with this episode because I had so fully expected a different course. But I thought there could still be hope. There had to still be hope. CRWBY wouldn’t give us all that development, wouldn’t show Qrow finally happy without leaving some hope for things turning around in the finale. He’d get hit by Tyrian’s stinger and Qrow would have to work to save him and they’d work things out. But then “I trust James with my life… and I wanted to trust you.” And I’m sobbing. Because I get it, Clover’s loyal, but when Qrow’s face hardens I know what he’s thinking. What he’s trying not to think but it’s so hard to fight: “Maybe it is me. Maybe I can’t be trusted. Maybe I’ve ruined things again”. Even though he knows what James is doing is wrong. But he trusted James, he trusted Clover. And he thought they trusted, cared for him. And now they’ve both turned against him and no matter how much he knows he’s doing the right thing, he can’t help but worry that he’s still the thing broken here, that he still messed up somewhere and ruined the relationships he needed so much. I was breaking more and more as I watched this source of my own hope lose all hope.

And then Harbinger. The weapon Qrow built himself. That he modeled after his hero. The literal extension of his soul. And only moments before, Qrow destroyed the one thing that might have protected Clover. Clover’s emblem falls. Tyrian with “Like you killed Clover”. And yeah yeah Qrow being framed is heartbreaking. But it’s more that he’ll believe it. He did. He fucked everything up again. He tried so hard to do the right thing and still managed to hurt the person he cared about. And if Clover, the foil to his bad luck, could be destroyed by his semblance, how does anyone else stand a chance? And then blaming James. Swearing to make him pay (I honestly don’t remember if he says make him pay or kill him but I physically can’t rewatch that scene to see which it was). And yes he blames James. He hates James. It was the last straw breaking on someone he wanted to trust so much, wanted to have as a friend. But he still blames himself. He still knows he’s cursed and all the progress he’d made with Clover’s help is ripped away.

And then “Good luck”. I’ve seen people saying it’s sweet, that it’s a moment of reconciliation, of Clover showing he still cares. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But I hate it. Because Qrow won’t take it that way. It’s just another reminder that good luck is out of his reach. And then the goddamn sky and the bi flag colors. And then we see Qrow cry for the first time. And then…. The scream…. I literally nearly vomited and that was the thing that sent me over the edge into full blown panic attack. Because I know that fucking scream. I know how it feels. I hear it ringing in my ears, I feel my throat getting raw. I could hear and see and feel myself in the same position. The nightmare I’d fought off for years; kneeling over Emma’s body and there being nothing I can do but scream and scream as the last of the hope I was clutching to faded with her… with Clover’s eyes.

It wasn’t that Clover died. It wasn’t that my ship won’t happen. It was how traumatizing it was. It was that Harbinger was now defiled. It was that Qrow set it up to happen. It was the sky. It was seeing the light go out of Clover’s eyes. It was Qrow’s scream. We’ve never seen a death like this on RWBY before. Yes we watched Pyrrha’s death. But there was no blood. We didn’t see her bleed out. We didn’t see the exact moment the light left her eyes. We saw Adam stabbed and some bleeding and then hitting the rocks, but we weren’t right there, seeing the exact moment of his death close up. If Clover had been stung by Tyrian and died I’d be upset still, and many of the issues I have would still be relevant. But using Harbinger like that, playing directly into Qrow’s own insecurities like that, after having him do things that felt extremely out of character in order to set things up for Tyrian to kill Clover like that and blame Qrow? It felt vile.

It didn’t just feel like bad writing or different narrative choices. Hell, it didn’t even just feel OOC. It felt malicious. It felt like twisting established plot and characterisation completely in order to make it fit some tragic climax that was only chosen because it would have the biggest emotional impact, not because it was the best way to continue the plot. And they can’t say that they didn’t expect people to be so attached to Clover. Because if they didn’t expect that to be so emotional for viewers, then why do it like that in the first place? Why put in the climatic cinematic shot that mirrors when Yang lost her arm? Why have Qrow screaming over Clover’s body be the final shot? If Clover was never meant to have significance to both Qrow and fans, why make his death so painful? They can’t say that they didn’t know fans would get so invested at the same time that they say that it was necessary to make it that traumatic. It’s not that you can’t kill off beloved characters, no matter how long they’ve been in the show. But if you do, it’s got to feel important, it’s got to feel necessary, and it’s got to make sense for those characters, or else it just feels like you’re playing with peoples’ emotions for no reason other than shock factor.

I’ve seen a bunch of theories and discourse. Arguments over whether or not it’s queerbaiting or bury your gays. Over whether or not it’s bad writing or out of character. And I’m sure I’ll eventually have a stronger, more thought out opinion on that, but right now I can’t even get there.

I’ve seen theories as to why CRWBY did this, why it’s important to the plot. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’ll be just as surprised in a good way next week as I was in a traumatic way this week. But it will take a lot, and I will still need time to recover and dig myself back out of my own intrusive thoughts that saw this episode and rejoiced because “See!? See, good things can’t happen! You’ll always lose whatever good you find. You’ll always ruin whatever good you find.” And none of the theories I’ve seen make that better. Maybe they’ll bring Clover back with the Staff of Creation or some other method: doesn’t matter, the damage is still done. Qrow still is betrayed and traumatized. And even if Clover came back and Ironwood realized he was wrong and stopped, even if everything went back to exactly what it was, Qrow still would have lost all the progress he made this season. Because even if everything was fixed, Qrow would still have to fight down the newly boosted fear that everything will fall apart again. And similarly even if I come back to RWBY and things are good, I will still have a hard time trusting the show, and will still have to climb my way out of a hole I had just gotten out of, except this time I won’t have the comfort of RWBY to help me.

Or maybe Clover won’t come back and Qrow will relapse and try to kill Ironwood and lose his mind like the scarecrow he is. And what will that do but reinforce the fear and idea that “broken” people can’t escape their vices? That they’ll always come back to pain. Yes, it’s important to show that people can relapse and still get better, that relapse doesn’t mean all hope is lost. But there’s a difference between a relapse and new trauma that directly undercuts all the progress you’ve made. That’s not inspirational, it’s exhausting. Yes, you can come back again, but what about the next time and the next and the next? When will you just get to be secure in your happiness without worrying that at any moment you’ll thrown back to square one?

If it turns out there’s some great plot point this creates, some big revelation that fixes things, I still think it wasn’t done properly. Fine, have that, have that pain. But don’t end on that and leave people for a week. It’s not about it being a cliffhanger. It’s about people who are traumatized being abandoned. (Again, I’m not even getting into how, if this did happen, how episode 12 would still feel off from a characterization standpoint and whether or not it was poor writing. It’s an analysis I can’t currently do.)

And maybe my least favorite theory and the one that I might see as most likely; that Qrow won’t relapse. That he won’t completely lose it and instead Clover’s death and influence will be what keeps him going. Because yeah, that sounds great, that sounds heroic and strong and like the progress that came from knowing Clover did make a difference. But it feels wrong in this instance. Qrow’s had that. He’s had loss that hurt him but he kept going to finish something or honor them. He kept going after Summer died. He kept going for Ruby and Yang and Tai. If he didn’t have that, why would he have kept going when things were so bad? But Qrow doesn’t need that again. He doesn’t need another pain to spur him on. He needs support. He needs proof that his hard work, his struggle, has been worth it and that he still has allies. And not just the kids. Because as much as he respects them, as much as he believes in them and their abilities as hunters, he’s still protective of them, they still aren’t on an equal level. He still feels responsible for them. And that’s good for him, but he needs adults too. He needs people who aren’t his responsibility. He needs adults who can call him out on his shit. He needs adults he can lean on, who can take care of him. And now who does he have? Summer is gone. Raven is gone. Tai is back at home. Oz is gone. Lionheart betrayed him. James has now betrayed him. Winter has sided with James and might not be alive much longer? Robyn is there, but also hurt, and we haven’t seen anything to suggest that they are particularly close. And now Clover is dead. Clover, the only person we have ever seen Qrow let his guard down around like we did this season.

And it’s not that the “Staying alive for the person you’ve lost” is a bad plot line, and if I’d trust any show to do it I would’ve thought it’d be RWBY. But I can tell you from fucking experience, forcing yourself to keep going in honor of someone? Yeah, it might keep you alive. It might give you meaning and even lead you to do great things. But when it’s just you and your head? When you’re alone because you’ve lost everyone who kept you going and now you have to keep going without them, for them? It fucking sucks. It’s not poetic. It’s not this heroic strength that lifts you up. It’s a crushing weight of fear that you will fail again, that you’re the only one who can carry this burden, but this time you’ll let down the person most important to you. And then not only will you have fucked up your life but you’d have made their suffering and loss meaningless.

And I can see why CRWBY might take this route, what their message might be, and maybe for them and for some people it’s good, but personally it’s crushing. Because it can be a good thing to have the desire to honor someone spur you on, that’s literally why we still have RWBY. But if that’s the only thing you have? It’s toxic. You have to have other support and motivations of your own to keep you going without becoming hollow inside. And right now, Qrow doesn’t have that. Right now, if Qrow uses this to push him forward, it’s not recovery, it’s not avoiding a relapse; it’s falling into a new, much harder to spot, addiction.

Yes, shitty things happen regardless of whether or not you’ve recovered from previous shitty things. Yes, life isn’t fair and sometimes it feels like you just get hit down over and over. And yes, people die in war and it’s ruthless and unfair. But RWBY is still a show. It’s still a show about hope. It’s still fiction, an escape from the cruelty of reality. And to me there were multiple other options for the plot to create conflict and sacrifice without doing it in a way that seems so needlessly cruel.

This is complicated and layered and I think there have been mistakes made on multiple sides, and in the end, we still don’t know what CRWBY has planned and how things will go from here and why they chose this. Because everything has a meaning in RWBY. At least I want to believe that. But right now it’s very hard to think that all the meaning that was what made this my favorite volume, was anything more than a trap to make the end that much more painful. And that hurts. I want to believe that’s not the case. But it’s very, very hard. And like I said before, even if they pull it off amazingly and everything makes sense after next week, damage has still been done. No matter what happens, there were ways things could have been handled either throughout the volume or in this episode that, while still having emotional significance and sacrifice, could have been less traumatizing to a large portion of the fandom who supports CRWBY specifically because they trust them not to do something like that to them.

In the end I’m hurt because right now it feels like the entirety of this volume was just a build up for the shock value of tearing Qrow down again. And I’m just tired of it. I’m biased I know, and maybe for some people it’s an important narrative. But to me it just feels like angst just for the sake of being cruel to a character who can’t catch a break. Since Emma’s death I understandably haven’t been a big fan of really angsty fanfiction. At first seeing fics where a character lost their partner made me irrationally angry. Because why can’t good things happen in fictional worlds? Why do characters I care about have to suffer like I do just for the sake of being angsty? Why would someone do that to a character they love? Why inflict that absolute agony onto a character when you could just, let them be happy? Yes conflict and sacrifice are crucial to good storytelling, but you still have to leave a character some hope, or else what’s the point of just watching them linger in misery? This kind of pain isn’t just a plot point that gets addressed for one or two episodes and then is fully dealt with. It’s a part of who you are now and will be for the rest of your life.

I’ve been sad over shows before. I’ve thought plot lines were bad and like I’d lost a character that deserved better. But I’ve never had something take me from a (relatively) stable mindset to a truly frightening spiral like I’ve been in this week. If this had happened when I was younger (granted if it had happened before Emma’s death it wouldn’t have had the same meaning), if it had been during that first year? It really might have been a breaking point for me. The final straw. The only reason I’m able to know that as truly devastating as this has been for me this week, I’m not in actual danger of getting to a critically low space, is because I’ve learned how to deal with those low places these past four years. I’m still in a dangerous headspace but I know how to handle it. I know to reach out, to vent, to ask friends to keep an eye on me, to keep an eye out for critical signs that I’m getting worse and I need more professional help. But if I’d had this trauma as a teen and saw this, or if I’d seen it before I’d built up this method of keeping myself safe even when in the worst headspaces? I don’t know that I would have been able to deal with it.

There’s a loud part of my head that is berating me for letting this affect me so much. For letting a show and fictional characters be the catalyst for me having to actively ask my friends to keep sharp instruments away from me for the first time in years. I’ll have a moment of clarity of “It’s not that bad, you’ll get past it” before being swallowed back up by the hopelessness. I have moments of “How could you let a fictional character’s death put you in this place, but not Emma? How is he more important?”

But it’s not about RWBY or Clover or Qrow. It’s about my brain, and how I as a neurodivergent person deal with things. It’s about this how thing that I use to filter parts of my life through so that I can handle them in more reasonable chunks, is now a trigger itself. I currently don’t have any other hyperfixations, which means every time I have a moment of silence, or start to get feeling down again, my brain goes to RWBY, because usually that’s how I pull myself out. But that just reminds me of the loss RWBY currently represents. Not just the trauma this has brought up, but the fact that I’ve lost this source of comfort. And then I’m left scrambling for anything as I spiral further and further. I’m at the point where unless I am having constant outside stimulus to keep my brain occupied I go right back into a nosedive. And there’s nothing I can do on my own to stop it. So I just have to ride it out, fight back dozens of overwhelming intrusive thoughts, and try to think that I won’t always be this miserable, even though the current thing that was helping me believe that has just shown me the opposite is true.

And no, creators can’t be held responsible for the mental states of fans of their work. But when things are done that directly hurt so many people, that even if not intended to, feel so calculated and malicious, they have to acknowledge the part they played in that trauma.

The point of whether there was queer baiting/byg, and mlm representation and how its handled, is very important, but it is also something I just can’t even begin to look at right now from an analytical viewpoint. I can’t begin to come at this from an activist place right now. And I know there are plenty of other people who can speak on it better than I could currently. My queer identity is largely wrapped up in my grief and how it affects me, but that also means that when I’m spiraling, it is very hard to focus and make good points about things that are not issues I’ve directly experienced. The only reason I can write this at all is because these are really just emotions I’ve dealt with for years that were dragged back up.

RWBY has always been about finding hope when it feels impossible. But this feels like it’s becoming “keep finding new hope but know you’ll lose it too and have to start over”.

RWBY has been what gave me hope that even when bad thing after bad thing happened, there was a reason to keep going, that eventually something good would come your way and you don’t have to live in fear of losing it. That you can still be broken and be worthy of good things. But this episode ripped that all away and told me that sometimes a person is never meant to be happy no matter how hard they try.

A big reason I have clung to RWBY so much, and admired CRWBY so much, and in turn been so forgiving of plotlines or details that I maybe wasn’t the biggest fan of, was because I see myself in them. They lost Monty so suddenly and tragically and I understand that as much as anyone who isn’t them can. I understand the drive of keeping the show going. When I’m working on my own writing and art about my story and my loss, they are a huge inspiration to me to keep going even when it feels impossible. I can barely listen to Indomitable because, much like Jaune losing Pyrrha, it is uncanny how close to home it hits. They have been through more than we as fans can or should ever expect to know. Because even as someone very open about their grief, who wants to get rid of the stigma of expressing grief, I know that everyone deserves to keep as much of their grief and pain private as they need. And I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to work on a show that is literally a feat of love and honor to a person you’ve lost, and then have people attack it and you, and make huge accusations, even try to use your loved one’s memory against you. It’s my biggest fear in creating something so incredibly personal but so important.

And I know that everyone handles grief differently, and no matter how many people you have to support you it can be an extremely isolating thing. I know that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong, and I would never dare do that to them. Because I know that the ways I grieve and the things that piss me off about grief and people’s reactions to it, will not line up with everyone else’s, and that’s okay. So the exact things that hurt me so much may be the things that CRWBY find cathartic.

But I still think it’s important to talk about something that hurts you. To help people understand a facet of grief that might not be what they’ve experienced. Because even people who want to help, who want to provide representation to those hurting, can never please everyone, and even can even hurt people. I want to trust CRWBY. I want to believe they care about the queer community (even if they don’t always succeed in providing good representation), I want to believe they wouldn’t purposefully try to hurt queer fans with queerbaiting or byg. I want to believe they don’t actually hate mlm.

Narrative is complicated and sometimes things are done that will unknowingly cause harm, or that were topics that the writers didn’t understand enough to properly execute. Things that may seem so obvious to the people who were hurt could truly be things that hadn’t occurred to the writers. And that’s not to excuse those writers from acknowledging their mistake, but to give them a chance to learn and improve. I think a great example is The Adventure Zone (slight spoilers ahead), and how Griffin McElroy handled the fans’ reaction after Sloane and Hurley died in Petals to the Metal. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone but he made a decision that was very upsetting for many people and that wasn’t okay. But he listened and apologized and from there on not only tried to provide better representation, but asked about how he could do so, consulted the people he was trying to represent in order to do everything he could to not cause that kind of pain again. Creators are human and deserve second chances, as long as they show they are actively trying to improve.

Things will be learning experiences, but the people who are hurt in those learning experiences, and who are often the ones hurt in such things over and over, are still allowed to be hurt and upset. Intent is not effect. And for creators who want to be inclusive and supportive, it is their responsibility to accept criticism and work to avoid making the same mistakes. Like I said at the start of this, criticism is not harassment and harassment helps no one. Be as angry as you are, be as open as you need, but cruelty to people who are honestly trying to do good but will still make human mistakes just creates more pain and conflict. You don’t have to like it or forgive it but you can’t invalidate the people who are hurt, who do.

I love RWBY. I want to love CRWBY. I want to keep watching. I want to keep supporting and trusting them. And maybe I’m letting a show have too much influence over me. Maybe it’s unhealthy to project so much on a character. Maybe things will prove to be necessary to tell the story they want to tell. But speaking as a neurodivergent, traumatized, grieving, queer person, I still feel betrayed and hurt by something that I trusted enough to be vulnerable about and I don’t want to sugarcoat or hide that.

I can’t say I hate CRWBY or I’ve lost all hope in or respect for them, because I’ve related to them so much and know how complicated things like this can be. And because I don’t think I personally can write someone off while still in such an emotionally raw space. I’ll have to take some time to see if I’m able to watch the finale this weekend, but I will most likely watch it, if not just a bit later than I usually would. And RWBY has thrown big surprises at us before, and I can’t know what will happen in the finale and how it will feed into or try to heal some of the pain we’re feeling. But regardless of what the narrative intent is in Clover’s death, it needs to be acknowledged that episode 12 alone, ending on such an intense scene that wouldn’t be resolved for at least a week, hurt people. And CRWBY needs to acknowledge and take responsibility for it. I can’t say that I’m the most up to date on social media and what each person involved with volume 7 has said in the past few months. But I know that numerous official twitter accounts posted things that led people to put more credibility in Fairgame, myself included. And that even after seeing how big the ship had gotten, and knowing what the outcome was, some of CRWBY continued to seemingly feed into the excitement, even teasing about how hard episode 12 would hit us.

That’s honestly one of the reasons I think this feels not just like bad writing or something, but betrayal. Of course RT can’t control everything everyone involved with RWBY posts, but for a company that has tried to seem so supportive of lgbt and mentally ill fans, they should have, at the very least, not have fed the flame and given people hope and supposed credibility that they knew would crumble after this episode. It feels like, even if they hadn’t intended this entire plot point to come across the way it has, they saw us going down this path and egged us on for added shock factor.

And even if somehow the finale fixes everything, it doesn’t undo that hurt. It makes me think of the trailers for Insatiable when it first came out. How toxic and fat shaming they seemed and how people reacted poorly to it, but then all the people involved responded with how positive the show was, and that people shouldn’t judge it before they saw it. Or those “joke” videos or posts of kids coming out and the parents getting angry but then it’s about some stupid other thing. It’s meant to trigger a very sensitive issue, that people who have gone through traumas related to those issues are all too familiar with seeing over and over. So why would they have faith that this wasn’t just another one of those times when everything they see points to the opposite? Why trigger people who have already been hurt, for the sake of shock factor? It’s poor and callous writing.

And that’s what this feels like. It feels like we were exploited in order to make this hurt more. And maybe that was a very unfortunate accident. But CRWBY still needs to acknowledge that they made mistakes, and do what they can to prove to the fans that they still deserve our trust. And that’s not going to be an easy one and done thing. For some it may never be enough, and that is completely valid.

Of course everyone has different histories and issues that can lead them to be drawn to a certain show or character. And creators can’t ever know for sure that they won’t bring up painful things for any of their fans, and often trying to do so can make the content and message suffer. But even though everyone might not have a story that is as “obviously” traumatic as mine, might not have things they so directly relate to in Qrow and in Clover’s death, they’re all still valid in the pain they’re feeling. One of my least favorite things about living with grief is people thinking that their traumas and struggles aren’t as big or important as my own.

This week I’ve told people how hard a time I’m having, and why. And the people who know my backstory understood. The people who didn’t know though, brushed it off as crazy fangirl, tumblr discourse drivel. Even to my face after I told them how much I was hurting, they would groan about people getting so obsessed with fictional characters. You shouldn’t have to know why something negatively affects someone the way it does in order to respect the fact that it does. And I’m not more valid in my pain than people with “smaller” reasons. The fact is that a lot of people are hurting. A lot of queer and mentally ill people are reliving trauma. And like me, many of these people trusted CRWBY to be supportive, to be a comfort in a world where it’s hard to find sometimes. And that makes it hurt all the more.

I wasn’t in the fandom when Monty died, so I don’t know a lot about how CRWBY handled it, what they said publicly, what inevitable fandom discourse there was about how to navigate things. The only reason I bring him up at all, (because I’ve seen people mention him in discourse posts before and it’s usually hurtful and out of line and I truly hate it) is because he, and how CRWBY continues to honor him by keeping his creation going, is a huge part of why I feel so attached to it. My creative focus is on talking about Emma, about honoring her, telling her story, about sharing my grief with people. And while it’s extremely important to me, it’s also terrifying to think about people one day saying I let her down, or that because I made certain decisions I ruined the work or anything like that. And whether or not I am currently happy with every member of CRWBY doesn’t affect the fact that I will always keep in mind that RWBY is something directly tied to someone they’ve lost and it can be extremely difficult to have that kind of work criticized and not get defensive or angry (that’s not to say we can’t criticize things that are made in honor of someone, but that we need to remember there are still people dealing with grief on the other end of what we say). They’ll react poorly to certain things, they’ll say the wrong things, they’ll but heads with opinionated fans. And that’s not to excuse them for that, or to say we shouldn’t hold them accountable and communicate our problems with them and expect them to learn from past mistakes. But they aren’t faceless monsters in some big corporation who just make this for the money. They have real emotional investment in their work and I honestly believe they are well intentioned and want to support lgbt and mentally ill fans. But good intentions don’t ensure there won’t be negative impact, and if they truly want to keep, or regain fans’ trust and support they need to show they understand that.

It may be naive and there may be things I don’t know that might have changed my view but until now, even with some writing choices I didn’t love, I've really liked CRWBY and trusted them. I personally can’t say I hate them and write them off right now. I understand if you can, if this was the last straw or just proving your view, and that’s all valid. But I want to, as much as possible, believe that they’re well intentioned. RWBY is far from perfect. CRWBY is far from perfect. But that’s ok. As long as there’s effort to improve and acknowledge mistakes and try to make amends

It’s possible that things I’ve said here may anger some people, and unfortunately, as much as I tried to avoid it, may hurt CRWBY. Because as hurt and angry with them as I might be right now, I don’t want to hate them or hurt them. I’m human as well, and I’m very passionate about this and have a very personal attachment to it. So I acknowledge that it is totally possible that I have said something here that I could have handled better. If so, please, let me know. Constructively. If you need to, privately. Don’t attack me for it. I know when a conversation is toxic to me and I will not put myself in that position and will block people. But I want to be open to criticism, just as I want CRWBY to be. I want to know what I did wrong and how I can work to do better in the future. There are also certain things that I firmly believe that I know not everyone will like. And that’s okay. I have my own ways of dealing with grief and pain that will inevitably conflict with others. In those cases, while I won’t apologize for being honest about how I feel, I will understand and listen to how I may have hurt you. Different opinions and ways of coping will always be a part of grief conversations and it is less about making others agree with you and more about giving people a place to express their pain.

This is ridiculously, stupidly, long and honestly I’m not sure there’s a clear point and if you read through it all the way, you’re a saint. But I just needed to get this out, and I hope that maybe, somehow, through the ranting, it might help someone feel less alone in their pain, or feel validated. I started writing this on Sunday and wanted to post it before the finale. It’s now Friday and who knows if there’s really any point to posting it now, but still.

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know how I will handle it. I’ve seen discourse that made me anxious all over again all week. I’ve seen jokes or edits or trolls that made me sick. But there are people out here for you. There are people to talk to who will just listen. You aren’t alone. And while I can’t promise you that everything will be okay, I can promise you that there will be people here to help you get through it. There are ways to get through it. They’re not always fun or ideal, but they’re there. And eventually you’ll be able to feel okay again. The pain might not be gone for good, but you’ll have good moments again. You’ll learn how to create good moments. I still want to believe that “broken” people can be happy again, even though the world may try to show me otherwise over and over. It’s not easy, and sometimes I honestly just don’t see how it can possibly be true. But I keep trying to get back to those good places and appreciate them, for as long as I can.

50 notes · View notes

trainwreck-in-glitter · 4 years

Text

WHAT EUPHORIA GETS RIGHT ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS:

the high fucking highs: EG (“when I feel good I think it’ll last forever, but it doesn’t” at the Halloween party when rues attempted to kiss jules who rejects her again) I can’t relate to rues manic episode, since I don’t have bipolar but her jittery display of chain-smoking, obsessive thoughts, sleep deprivation, numbing the pain with coffee and taking more steps than she needs to captured the obsessive side of OCD very well, as well as the: COUNTING. I’ve had to repeat numbers in my head over and over and watching rue just start hysterically crying as a child during trying to complete that compulsion fucken’ sent me because I’d never seen an accurate nuanced way of this shown on television. I loved that her OCD wasn’t reduced to cleaning obsessively (EX’ Emma from Glee) even though many people struggle with OCD compulsions of that kind it’s a bit of an overused trope almost like a laughing track in sitcoms, and usually doesn’t serve the characters development in any purpose having their OCD solely exist for neurotypical characters to make sarcastic jokes about.

the l-o-w fucking lows: EX’ rue being glued to her bed for two days unable to engage with anyone or even get up to fucking piss resulting in a painful difficult to watch ¿UTI¿ scene. At a time I experienced severe intrusive thoughts I neglected taking care of myself so much that my hair formed dreadlocks and took hours to brush knots all out.

pushing everyone away: EX’ (I mean just look at the first gif, as well as how rue loses it at Lexi when she tries to check in on her.) while people struggling with any kind of mental illness have a tendency to isolate (espesh in cases of severe depression/mood disorders) however it’s not always aggressive sometimes it’s quiet silence in your room for a week and a half feeling completely immobilised (like with Jules during rues own depressive, she unknowningky sinks into one herself to the extent where her dad is concerned).

feeling like a burden: whether it’s because of your mental illness, low self image or like rue your addiction issues impacting those around you, rue confesses this to Lexi who in true Howard fashion holds her and tries to affirm that she’s nothing like that. Often feeling like your own problems are too heavy for anyone to bear or understand adds to the hopelessness and potentially it could be one of the biggest roadblocks to anyone’s recovery particularly Rue’s

being heavily affected by external factors, more so than normal: like social aspects of your life EX’ (Rue’s codependency on Jules, and Jules’ search for affirmation in sexual relationships, Rue’s nerves upon returning to school particularly hit me (I had a three week hospitalisation and received treatment that kept me off school frequently, and the responses from peers was right on). when noticed again Maddy tells Rue herself she thought she was dead and another friend in her car shouts for rue to “get in Casper!”. Things like school, relationships, daily tasks and functioning can feel a million time harder when you’re battling your own head, the way Euphoria demonstrates this is so raw and realistic it really hit home for me. This becomes even more heightened when people are dealing with trauma/grief ex’ (rue still carrying the grief of her dad and wearing his hoodie frequently and maddy going on a bender taking molly at the carnival forgetting to eat for two days after nate assaults her resulting in her having to be rushed into emergency where they find the marks).

addiction and the feeling of needing to escape your own head: rue will take around about any drug just to temporarily forget her own anxieties, she’s willing to lie (in drug tests by using her sober friends pee), and fight tooth and nail even if it’s against the people she loves/cares about eg: her family, fezco, etc). her addictive personality is made apparent by her obsessive behaviours, codependency with Jules, hyperfixations (watching 22 hours of love island straight) and then again in her drug use. zendaya does an amazing job at selling this all, the way her face slowly sinks from the depths of depression into what looks like she’s gotten a relieving breath of air conveys what exactly she’s getting out of this. with any addiction whether it’s substance abuse, sex addiction, eating disorders, skin picking disorders, etc there’s a need to escape but there’s also a sense of safety/reprieve from what’s making you need that escape. for Rue who is heavily characterised by her own self-blame eg: being scared of people she loves being mad at her like in that scene with Jules, the way she cried when she saw her mother and sister sleeping beside her in hospital when she woke up from her overdose, and in one of earliest narrations where she states “if I could be a different person I would, not because I want it but because they want it” and even asks Jules after she admits to being in love with her if she wishes she was different and Jules responded in the negative. she seems to want to dissociate herself because she feels the weight of her as a whole is too much for anyone and will only be disappointing. it’s sordidly relatable for anyone with low self esteem and as a rue stan the candidness can make the scenes hard to watch.

to recover or sink: rue says herself in narration that after rehab she had no intention of staying clean and for the first few episodes or so she was using to the point where she almost had an overdose in front of very traumatised Jules who then sets an ultimatum that in order for them to maintain their “friendship” rue needs to stop using and rue agrees almost immediately. the look of guilt and shame on her face as she cuddles into Jules who is still shocked and upset saying to rue “I’ve had enough traumatic shit in my life, I’m not trying to be best friends with someone who’s trying to kill themselves”. rue remains sober but clings to Jules almost in replacement, most of rues innocent crush was well innocent and very high school realistic in the way that everything feels heightened. and for a while rue is at her happiest, her best friend since childhood even saying to Jules “it’s because of you” which fairly overwhelms her because being somebody’s sole reason for recovery isn’t long term manageable OR healthy for either party. expanding on this the blame Jules gets for Rue’s relapse is a way we’re perpetuating that their codependent dynamic wasn’t detrimental to either of them, which is wrong. Jules felt immense pressure which in turn tainted her relationship with Rue, and Rue was readily giving more to a relationship where the other person wasn’t ready to reciprocate. Jules and Rue ultimately have a beautiful dynamic together and I’d love to see more of them in season 2 but I’d like it to be in some time when they’ve both explored and identified what they’re both wanting. Because I refusE to settle for anything less than #Kethan after the finale. anywho this all meant Rues hinted relapse in the finale had an inevitable quality to it, because she wasn’t changing because she wanted it but because they did. I feel that one line perfectly captures exactly what would have led to that relapse, from personal experience I tried to actively recover from an eating disorder to please my family but quickly relapsed because ultimately challenging thoughts that have been in your head for so long JUST FOR other people stops being rewarding too quickly because as much as they may want to be an active support system they don’t have the access to rewire your brain. I challenged my meal plan but not the thoughts telling me I was disgusting. Rue still felt like a burden, she never challenged that only the drug use. it would be amazing to see Rue in therapy or even just actively attempting self care and explaining how and why that might feel so hard to someone struggling. I think Euphoria this season has set up a perfect segway for the second season, and so far they have managed to portray the complexities of being a teenager with a mental illness in glitter while keeping it relatable and not being exploitative. I think after seeing Rues chronic struggle it would be really cool to see a character representing what recovery actually looks like when it comes from the right place, having that positive representation of trying to be proactive while struggling and still having questions would be a new arc for Rue and it would really show her growth however after the city incident only time will tell 😪

#euphoria hbo #euphoria #mentally ill #ocd tw #substance use disorder #rue bennett icons #jules x rue #rue bennett #zendaya #hunter schafer #seratonin #fuckoffiknowtheresamillionspellingmistakesbutimonarant

15 notes · View notes

mental-health-advice · 4 years

Note

my step dad told me people my age have nothing to be anxious about and keeps watering down my anxiety to "stress", but i literally was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and i relate to a lot of the symptoms of pure obsessional ocd so that comment made me very angry and upset. i suffer from intrusive thoughts about harming children and sometimes myself. i told my therapist but she's not much help. these intrusive thoughts disturb me and i ruminate over them for an hour or more usually.

+ 1/2 my step dad also says everybody tries to outdo each other with mental illness and im still upset by his comments even though it was said days ago.

Hi there,

I’m sorry to hear that this is going on! It sounds like a lot to handle, so I’m glad you decided to reach out to us for help. I hope I can give you some helpful advice.

What your stepdad said was definitely not true and I’m so sorry he said that! While everyone experiences stress, there’s a huge difference between stress and anxiety. Anxiety is much more severe than stress and it doesn’t end once whatever is causing it goes away because anxiety is irrational, whereas stress is a natural response to overwhelming circumstances. It sounds like your stepdad is quite ignorant when it comes to mental illness, which is really unfortunate because you don’t deserve to have your very real mental health issues invalidated like this.

Even though it may be true that some people may feel “competitive” with mental illness in a weird way, that doesn’t mean this is what you’re doing by talking about your illnesses. There’s nothing about what you’re doing that says you’re trying to outdo other peoples’ illnesses. It sounds like this is another way for him to discount and invalidate your struggles, which again you don’t deserve. What you’re going through is real and he has no right to say otherwise.

It’s also unfortunate that your therapist hasn’t taken your concerns about this seriously. It sounds like these intrusive thoughts are causing you a lot of distress, so she should definitely take that seriously. Do you think you could try talking to her about this again? If so, perhaps you could print out some information about Pure OCD and outline which specific symptoms you relate to and why. You shouldn’t have to do this since she should have just listened to you when you first brought it up, but this might get her to listen. If it doesn’t work or you don’t want to go over it with her again, it might be worth considering whether seeing a different therapist, such as one who specializes in OCD, is an option.

Finally, there are a few different types of coping mechanisms you can try to use to help manage your symptoms. For instance, there is a four step program here that’s often used to treat intrusive thoughts associated with OCD that you might give a try. Since your intrusive thoughts are so distressing, it may also help to use coping mechanisms for anxiety, which you can check out here.

Take care!

-Samantha

#ocd #pure ocd #obsessive compulsive disorder #intrusive thoughts #getting a diagnosis #advice #advice blog #mental health advice #mhasamantha #Anonymous

1 note · View note

101itm · 6 years

Text

tell-tale: anxiety and depression

this whole post just got fucking deleted so thanks tumblr i have to rewrite it and your only excuse is “oops, something went wrong” fuck you.

*deep breath*

so anyway my mom sent me this:

and although i don’t have anxiety, i definitely had these symptoms as a child. even now (it explains my unnecessary need for straight A’s). OCD and anxiety disorders are under the same umbrella of disorders: “neurotic, stress-related, and somatoform disorders.” so it would make sense if children who ended up having these disorders had similar childhood symptoms.

it’s important to me that people can tell if there’s something wrong with them. i’m not saying self diagnosis is the best thing or the worst thing (a tricky topic that deserves its own post, really). i’m just saying that people need to be able to see the signs and understand them. it makes getting help a lot easier.

and i want to make a series of “tell-tale” that describes the symptoms of various mental illnesses. i have only struggled with anxiety and depression, but many people struggle with other illnesses that don’t get as much attention. i’m starting with the two that i know from experience, though.

anxiety signs & symptoms:

chest pain, pressure, and/or tightness

various heart problems

various stomach and digestive problems (frequent nausea)

hyperventilation and difficulty breathing

low energy and drowsiness

feeling: overwhelmed, shaky, sick, scared

obsessive, intrusive, and irrational overwhelming thoughts (think “what if’s” and planning ahead for unlikely scenarios)

confusion, delusions, detachment, disorientation, forgetfulness

hallucinations

nightmares

anger, annoyance, agitation, easy frustration, sadness/wanting to cry, mood swings, impulsivity, isolation and loneliness

muscle problems and pain

trouble concentrating

derealization: the thought that nothing around you is real

depersonalization: the thought/experience of viewing yourself from outside of your body

blushing (seriously!)

shaking and tremors (i almost forgot! something i’m asked about frequently and i’m embarrassed to admit. i shake all day every day, and it’s only made worse with panic attacks and public speaking)

here’s a link to childhood signs. whether you want to know how long you’ve had it or if you have a child.

depression signs & symptoms:

feelings of: sadness, emptiness, anxiety, helplessness, guilt, worthless, hopelessness, irritability

lack of interest in what you used to like

drowsiness and low energy

trouble concentrating

changes in sleep patterns (my anxiety has me sleep: 10pm to 10am. my depression has me sleep: 3am to 10 am and a 3+ hour nap)

changes in appetite

“aches and pains” headaches, cramps, body pains, upset stomach and digestive issues

lack of motivation

thoughts of suicide (now, something important that i learned a year or so ago: people are most likely to commit suicide when they’re getting better. in the worst part of your depression you won’t have the energy to commit suicide, but you’ll have the thoughts. if you have the energy to commit suicide, it’s actually a sign that you’ve seen the worst of your depression and you’re finally bouncing back. just hold on, it gets better.)

now, i know that they have overlapping tendencies, but in reality they’re opposite sides of the spectrum. it’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced both. my anxiety has me on all day. i’m running around. i’m always thinking. i feel like i don’t have a true break in the day. the best part of my day is going to sleep because i feel so run down from how my anxiety has me all day.

however, on the opposite side of the coin, my depression has me the complete opposite. i’m dragging my feet all day, i want to lay in bed all day. i’m numb, and i barely think. when i do think it’s about nothingness. thoughts like “why don’t humans have whiskers?” just absolute bullshit. the best part of my day is sleeping because i’m passing the time.

anxiety and depression are hard to live with, and it’s hard to get the courage to reach out and get help. sometimes people have to wait for someone else to reach out and help them. but if you know what’s wrong, it’s a little easier to tell someone and get some help. look at the symptoms. make a checklist. get help.

it takes time and knowledge, but it gets better. don’t give up, seek help.

i know it’s hard, and it’s not going to get any easier. but people love you, and care about you, and if you seek help you’ll get it.

it gets better.

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

1 note · View note

tolvoofovlot · 5 years

Text

OCD,Symptoms, Resources, Treatments(Reposted)

This is a repost of something I wrote on a forum for a thread on OCD.

OCD, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. You may have heard of it, but do you know what it is? Do you have it and want to talk about it or what methods help you or haven’t worked for you? Do you want to learn more about OCD? This is a thread about OCD, the disorder of the brain that effects many people worldwide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnzz-eFmKaw[

There is a lot of misinformation out there about OCD, especially due to media portrayals of it. Things like the above can contribute to this. And while they said the video was supposed to poke fun at people who don’t have OCD, when you go through comments or many reactions people thought it was an accurate portrayal. Things like Monk, and other portrayals and stories even when the intentions are good can cause problems. On top of the fact that often studios find accurate portrayals not marketable or too frightening so they require changes to happen to characters and stories.

https://iocdf.org/blog/2017/11/02/how-the-media-gets-ocd-all-wrong-uk-based-podcast-helps-ocd-sufferers-find-recovery/

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/neverending-nightmares-how-ocd-inspired-a-psychological-horror-breakthrough/1100-6414083/

Some things whether intentional or not can give people an idea of what it is like. Neverending Nightmares is a game inspired by OCD, the creator has it and it helps to portray it as the horror it can be. Silent Hill is often my go to example, while that’s not the intent, of what OCD is like for me. So there are also things that don’t directly depict characters with OCD but are inspired by it or are supposed to evoke similar feelings.

So what is OCD then? It is an anxiety disorder, it is a way your brain functions, or how it dysfunctions. Technically you can have symptoms of OCD but not be diagnosed with it. Unless it is negatively impacting your life it is not considered OCD typically. There is also OCPD, or Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, which is a separate thing that shares similarities but is seen as not as negative and more useful. The distinction between the two can be difficult, with the most basic being that those with OCPD typically see it as mostly positive while those with OCD typically see it as wholly negative.

https://www.ocduk.org/ocd/types/

There are also multiple types of OCD. It can manifest in many forms, and it is possible to have one or some forms and not others. What are the main ones is often debated, and lots of people have broad categories they fit under but have more specific obsessions and thoughts. Some common things are Contamination, Intrusive Thoughts, Hoarding, Symmetry. Hoarding is often associated with OCD and many who have it Hoard but it can also be a symptom seen in a lot of other disorders. Symmetry, or Order, is about making sure things are exactly perfect. This is one people do commonly think of, such as ensuring that things are symmetrical, that things are categorized. Contamination is somewhat commonly known about, in regards to physical contamination or a fear of being contaminated by touching things and needing to be clean. This is a part of why hand washing rituals are so common, but Contamination can be mental. Like thinking about a contaminated thing contaminating your very mind. And then there are Intrusive Thoughts. Intrusive Thoughts can be hard to explain to those who don’t have them. It is like having a second brain, or a separation from your self and your brain. Your brain can feed you thoughts that you don’t believe or think yourself, or it can be obsessed thinking that others can more easily stop thinking about. Intrusive Thoughts can almost be compared to hallucinations, except instead of seeing/hearing/feeling things in your environment, it is like having thoughts projected into your head.

There are other symptoms, such as body picking(Skin picking, hair plucking, nail biting, ), tics, checking(Checking things to make sure they are in the right order, doors closed, doors lock, stove off, etc). Many behaviors due to OCD are not considered rational, and even those with OCD can recognize what they are doing as irrational yet do it anyway. It is a sort of cognitive dissonance that is common in those with OCD, they recognize what they are doing and why it is wrong but do it anyway. Though it should be mentioned OCD is usually not something that will result in harming others, but instead just the self. Those with OCD have lower rates of aggression towards others as it is mostly self-destructive. Thoughts about harming others won’t likely cause someone with OCD to hurt others, but rather hurt themselves to stop the possibility of hurting others.

What needs to be understood too is how obsessive thoughts lead into rituals. Often it is not that you need to do a ritual just to feel calm, that can be a way it works, but is usually the safest way to explain it. Rather than that if you don’t perform a ritual you’ll die, or someone you love will die, or the universe will explode killing all life. Often those with OCD feel immense pressure to do these things because they’re worried nebulous or specific bad things will happen if they don’t. And if you address it, it doesn’t make sense. I know that I’m not Thanos and I don’t have the infinity gauntlet, but also if I don’t wash my hands three times my dogs will explode before my eyes and I can now hear the whimpers from their heads attached to bloody torsos as they look at me asking why I didn’t just wash my hands three times. Which if I mess up doesn’t really happen because it is irrational, but deep down I believe that will happen every time.

Something to keep in mind is OCD is also tailor made to each individual’s brain. A common obsession is one that is a fear of secretly being a pedophile. It’s not because our brains are wired to think that, it’s because OCD often tries to convince you that you are a worthless monster that deserves to die. Since pedophiles are commonly considered the worst type of people, those with OCD often have that fear. If you thought people who put pineapple on pizza genuinely deserve to be executed, and have OCD, you might be afraid of the possibility that you secretly like pineapple on pizza. It is a kind of horrifying concept but it is genuinely your own brain trying to hurt, and even kill you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dR8xVqSfXc

OCD is both less common than people think, but actually very common. Not every person who is anal about things has OCD, though it can also be dangerous to gate-keep people just because they don’t have explicitly observable symptoms since many might not be open about it or have outward rituals. Over 1% of people have it in one form or another. In the above clip is Leonardo DiCaprio, who famously had OCD playing Howard Hughes depicting real symptoms of OCD he had such as hoarding jars of his own urine(Though the nudity thing is actually related more to a nerve disorder from crashing planes). It can be tricky with historical figures because unless we have explicit detailed recordings of every thought they had and thing they did, we can’t actually know. Howard Hughes was far more explicit so we do know he had it.

https://iocdf.org/

There are quite a few organizations around the world for OCD since it is actually very common. You can usually google for local resources and support groups. A thing about OCD is while it is incurable, it is manageable. While it isn’t entirely understand where it comes from, there is medicine that can really help people and therapy is very useful in treating OCD. CBT(Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is considered by many to be the most successful way to manage OCD. People with OCD will live their lives with it, and suicide rates are high for those with OCD, but for those with treatment it is much lower. Try to ask your doctors or therapists about it if you think you have it based on some of what you can read above, it can’t hurt to check though if you don’t have explicit symptoms don’t worry about it most people still don’t have it, roughly between 1–2% of the population do.

http://beyondocd.org/

Now I want to stress that if you can, please do try to seek help. OCD has claimed many lives when left untreated. And while you can learn CBT yourself it is better done with professional assistance. Certain forms of meditation that are good for anxiety can help, but therapy and medication can be very important. Electroconvulsive therapy can help in extreme cases, but is typically a last case scenario. I have used Clomipramine and it has helped, though I’m off it currently due to insurance. It is cheap depending on where you are, and effective, but it does have some strong side effects like body temperature control being lost and sexual arousal becoming incredibly difficult. OCD can also develop in children and manifest early, but early symptoms are rare and it can be very hard to diagnose children with OCD.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/about/pac-20384610

CBT being the most effective treatment for OCD does not mean it will work for everyone, but it can be very helpful. It is about altering how you think and recognizing what kind of thoughts you are having and how to diffuse them, how to dismantle negative thinking, and more constructively think. It is best done with the aid of a therapist. Please seek professional help, especially when doing Exposure Therapy. Exposure is in bits forcing yourself to deal with things that are upsetting. Whether it is physical, emotional, mental. If you can’t touch things, being slowly made to touch things, maybe at first it is a door knob, maybe later it is a toilet seat. For emotional, maybe it is talking a bit about a trauma, then later being more detailed. Again it is gradual, and is to make it not so drastic when you have to confront these issues. But it should be done with a therapist, you need someone to teach you and you need someone who can recognize when you’re being pushed too far and might have a severe episode or are being harmed.

For much of my life growing up I thought I was the only person with these thoughts and feelings in the world. So I hid them, worried everyone would think I’m a freak, crazy, that I need to be in an asylum. But I want everyone to know you are not alone out there, if you have OCD in some form there are others like you going through similar experiences, and people out there you can talk to, and ways to get help. For me therapy was the biggest gain I ever had on my OCD, whether it was in group sessions or private ones.

https://lilywilliamsart.com/portfolio/ocdcomics/

Some comics by Lily Williams on OCD.

Broodhollow is a webcomic by Kris Straub about a man with OCD. It is a cosmic horror and mystery series both about real symptoms of OCD as well as the cosmic horrors that effect the town of Broodhollow. You might notice horror is the main way to convey what living with OCD is like, there is a good reason for this because of how it catastrophizes situations and how it can warp your understanding of the world around you.

http://broodhollow.chainsawsuit.com/comic/2012/10/06/book-1-curious-little-thing/

I wanted to pepper this a bit with both media about OCD people can check out as well as resources that can aid people. As well as facilitate people sharing their own experiences and asking questions that can help them understand things.

https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Obsessive-compulsive-Disorder/Support

https://www.ocdaction.org.uk/

https://thesecretillness.com/

And I know suicidal thoughts are a common part of OCD. I am chronically suicidal myself. But if you believe you are at risk and are considering suicide please seek help, if you can contact professionals for help, contact your doctors/therapists if you can, or use the below link for the suicide hotline in the USA. As well as other sites for helping you find local hotlines.

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

http://suicidehotlines.com/

http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

#ocd #ocd tw #actually ocd #OCD Problems

0 notes

mental-health-advice · 7 years

Note

Hi, it's lyric again. I sent in an ask about compulsions a while back. Thank you for answering. Sorry for the graphic things but I can't find any answers on this. Recently, I've been having an incredibly high sex drive. I haven't actually ever had sex but I mean like masturbating every day. It's really upsetting honestly. Because I get the intrusive thoughts about rape and it turns me on but at the same time, I feel absolutely disgusted by it. Afterwards I cry and hate myself but (Part 1)

(Lyric part 2) i can’t ever stop myself from doing it. And the images I see in my head absolutely terrify me but yet I can’t stop them. I’ve never thought to ask my doctor about OCD mainly because I don’t feel I fit into the ‘stereotype’ I guess. Im okay with messes, but the odd thing is that small things annoy me. My room could be a total mess, but I’ll notice something like a painting being crooked and it’ll drive me so mad that I almost want to break the painting. I never do, but I want to.(Lyric part 3) I’ve also had an obsession with cutting myself. Like, I’m not depressed at all but something about cutting myself calms me. Even if I’m not stressed and nothing’s wrong, I still want to cut. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m scared to tell anyone in real life because I don’t want to be put into a mental hospital. Sometimes I feel like I should be put in one because I feel as if I’d purposely put myself in a situation where I’d be raped, etc. Even though that thought really scares me.

Hi Lyric,

I’m sorry to hear you’ve still been struggling with these sorts of thoughts. I can see how scary they could be for you and why you’ve been hesitant to talk about them. I’m glad you feel comfortable reaching out to us and know you can always do so!

I do really think it is a good idea to bring up the question of OCD, the images you’ve been seeing, and your self harm, to your doctor. They are the best equipped to help you deal with these things in a healthier way. Seeing a therapist or counsellor would also be something to consider if you aren’t already doing so, as they are usually best for talking through these issues and establishing healthy coping mechanisms. There are also therapies such as CBT which I think was mentioned in an earlier response that help you learn to disrupt destructive thought patterns whether the disturbing images or urges to self harm. That being said, I hope I can provide some comfort and help!

I know one of our admins has given you an outline of some OCD behaviours and examples some of which you may or may not relate to but you did point out cleanliness in relation to your room in particular. Not everyone with OCD presents the same conditions or obsessions so tolerance for a messy room doesn’t discount you. In some cases, intrusive thoughts work hand in hand with OCD in a pattern like this: “scary or disturbing intrusive thought ➡ can’t stop thinking about it e.g. would I ever do that (obsession) ➡ I thought of it so I should punish/harm myself (compulsion).” So these things may all be connected and therefore best dealt with as a whole! It’s always best when your doctor has the full picture. You can find more about OCD in relation to intrusive thoughts and self harm here. This website also has some comforting statistics to remind you that many people experience similar things. Even the experience of sexual arousal after even disturbing images can usually be explained by our brain just kind of running on auto pilot and is a often related to intrusive thoughts themselves not your own preferences..

As a general rule with intrusive thoughts, just trying to ignore them rarely works and it seems you’ve had some experience with that. The most common techniques around dealing with them revolve around acknowledging the thought as an intrusive thought, and then dismissing it. Some people like to use visualization to accomplish this such as your thought floating out of site in a balloon. It is important to remind yourself that you are not your intrusive thoughts and you can dismiss them knowing you will not act on them. Therefore you don’t have to harm or punish yourself. Dr. Martin Seif expands a little more on a version of the above technique and explains some of what I’ve said here.

If you find yourself in crisis where you think you may hurt yourself or someone else, please don’t be afraid to reach out to someone and the emergency services if necessary. We have some alternatives to self harm here and distractions to calm down. This is a list of helplines you can call if you need someone to talk to. If you are nervous about reaching out to emergency services because of hospitalization, I can understand that fear. Sometimes, if you think you are a danger to yourself or others, the hospital is the best place to be. It may be helpful to research your local hospitals care and policies as well as discuss hospitalization or alternative emergency plans with your counsellor, doctor, and/or a trusted family member.

Stay strong, you’ve got this!

- Siyah

#mhasiyah #self harm mention #intrusive thoughts #tw: rape mention #mental health advice #advice blog

3 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs