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shattered-catalyst · 3 years

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Intro to OCD for the RPC part 1/?

This is a balmy 6 page document on the VERY BASICS of OCD by a person who has had OCD for over 15 years and knows their shit.

If you want to write a character who has OCD this series is going to be a good starting point. If you dont know much about OCD I encourage you to read it so you can be an ally to those of us who have the disorder.

OCD is made into a cultural joke and when there isnt the ‘Obsessive Cat disorder’ bullshit its an angst off with other people and their non-ocd intrusive thoughts. Its different. Do your research and be an ally.

This will cover the very very basics. The next post will look into subtypes of OCD and how those are experienced.

Whomst can write it?

Literally anyone as long as you

● Do so respectfully and not make a mockery of the disorder and the harm it causes in peoples lives

● Dont make OCD the characters single thing or boil them down to it entirely ● Do respect the experiences and opinions of muns who have the disorder if they have concerns about your portrayal.

● Dont milk it for angst - unless you have OCD in which case release some of your angst.

● Dont try and say you know what intrusive thoughts are because they have *insert any other neuro a-typical thing here*

● Dont police how Muns who have OCD choose to portray it. Its our experience not yours. I like to write out my characters OCD as I experience OCD so my experiences are different from other muns. OCD is very diverse in its effects but always ask if you arent sure.

. What isnt OCD?

● Cleanliness or organization- OCD is NEVER an adjective.

● Planning/ Hypervigilance/Organized/Methodical

● Turning light switches on and off, unplugging things (find out more on later time)

● “I have to organize my pencils otherwise it bothers me” “ I have to make sure my mattress is straight” “ my nails have to be the same length” are all typical responses from people WHO DO NOT have OCD.

● Making sure objects are lined up neatly

● Having things go in a particular order like the letters CDO as the joke goes

● Really loving Cats, Corgis, or Christmas; if you own any of these items i urge you to reflect and also send me 10$ (jk but do reflect)

The Barest minimum

Google OCD this will be an advanced version of OCD. This will be long but if you want to be aware of others or want to write the character you will read it.

OCD is made of Obsessions. Triggers. Anxiety, Compulsions/Rituals.

1. Obsessions are the thoughts

2. Triggers are the object/person/image/situation/smell ETC

3. The Anxiety occurs is at uncomfortable levels to the point of panic or anxiety attacks

4. Compulsions or Rituals are performed

*There is a variant of OCD called Pure O. In this individuals have the obsessions triggers and anxiety but there is NO compulsion or ritual. This is still valid OCD.

Obsessions are the precursors to the flawed unwanted and harmful intrusive thoughts:

Im going to use you so you really understand this because its important.If you misunderstand this you are basically encouraging a mental health condition and dont get a sticker for reading this far.

First check out this link as it has ALL the subtypes and examples.

Obsessions can be hidden by the intrusive thought and teasing them out can be difficult to do if you have the disorder because well its a disorder okay thats why. It boils down to ‘i could harm someone’ ‘i could cause harm’ ‘ i may have accidentally harmed ___’ ‘ i may accidentally harm’ etc

This is the flawed powerful belief that predate the Intrusive Thought.

Intrusive thoughts appear in every brain on earth. They are not special or unusual however intrusive thoughts with OCD get stuck in the brain- meaning they stay there no matter what you do. So yes , they are different from intrusive thoughts in other conditions.

The thing about OCD is that it latches on to what you hold dear; it may be you are a caring person and love children and animals- your OCD would give you intrusive violent or sexual thoughts or images. These are horrible to experience. They are not welcome nor appreciated and there is no benefit or positive side to having them.

If say social justice is something you hold dear your ocd may take the form of intrusive thoughts of slurs, jokes, visuals etc. These are horrible to experience and lead to high levels of anxiety and are not positive nor beneficial to have in any way shape or form.

Maybe you would not harm someone or you value others; your OCD may present as graphic intrusive images or thoughts around poisoning, stabbing,accidental..ly murdering (yeah you read that right), hitting, insulting etc someone else

I must emphasize this because it is critical that people understand POCD: for the sake of those of us who have OCD read this until its burned into your brain.

This is the fucked up awful Obsessive thought that you are/were/ or could be sexually attracted to children. This is NOT pedophilia. People kill themselves over this because they are afraid that these intrusive thoughts are true. People isolate themselves and dont have families out of fear of harming a child. People take work in different fields or avoid areas with children out of the absolute terror their obsessive thoughts could be true. This is NOT pedophilia. There is NO attraction present.

Most people who experience POCD intrusive thoughts would rather punch a sharknado than even THINK of hurting a kid in any way shape or form. That is why the OCD does its thing it is like having an abusive brain.

Again for clarity's sake

If you value social justice -> the intrusive thoughts violate social justice stuff

If you value animals -> intrusive thoughts come up with harming animals

If you care about the protection and safety of children -> POCD

Triggers would be the situation, scenario, object, person,creature, context etc that is related to the Obsession. It can be literally anything.

What follows is a hell of a lot of anxiety that can range anywhere from discomfort to full on panic attacks.

Everyone has different intrusive thoughts and everyone experiences different amounts of distress upon being triggered.

● As a side bar. Do not ever try and expose someone to their triggers or write about a character being exposed to their triggers as a way to help ‘cure them’ or ‘expose them’ to ANYTHING. What you are doing is literally taking someone with a mental illness and shoving them into a breakdown and thats a piece of shit move. Exposure therapy does exist and is done by professionals TRAINED in ERP. My parents did this a lot and I am positive I am not alone in that experience.

Compulsions or Rituals: Now you may be saying ‘hey i know what those are’ yeah dude me too and I have had ocd for over 15 years and trained in mental health for 7 and guess what. They teach ya wrong.

Compulsions or ‘rituals’ are any behavior done to alleviate the anxiety from the intrusive thought and trigger object.

This can be as passive as ‘i am leaving the room’ ‘ i am checking my body sensations’ ‘ i am trying SO HARD TO HEAR MY HEARTBEAT’ .

It can also be repeating the same thing over and over. To illustrate this I once mentally chanted the same song lyric line on a 3 hour plane ride because otherwise we were all going to die. I took one for the whole team.

It can be somatic things like counting your heart beats, focusing on your breathing, swallowing, staring and not blinking for so many seconds.

It can be readjusting clothing until the seams fit. It can be checking god yes checking IK its a common trope but it IS a compulsion that has ruined my life and can be as passive as checking my reality or texting for proof my cat is still alive. It can also be checking yourself for assurance you wouldnt do the intrusive thought or that the intrusive thought isnt going to happen.

Compulsions are mentally painful and sometimes physically painful;

● Washing your hands with scalding water for 5+ minutes can lead to horribly dry and cracking skin to down right BURNS.

● If you do the same movement you can mess up joints and ligaments. So if you pray constantly you may have knee issues from standing and kneeling.

● If your compulsion has you doing movement against an object ie say gripping and regripping something you get callouses.

● If you compulsively exercise you may get trapped doing something above a healthy amount or say going from not working out to running a five minute mile and wiping out on a treadmill because your brain demanded it. Totally didnt do that...

● If your compulsions make you rub against any object you can get friction burns and scars.

To put this in perspective 15 years of compulsions have left my hands and finger joints a complete mess, damaged my arm tendons, friction scars on my arms that only now faded, and scars on my legs from doing too much of an activity.

Its not lmao I gotta fix these pencils its real agony and real torture.

In short compulsions and rituals are not fun they are absolutely not logical, and we know they are not logical but we are forced to do them. Thats why its a disorder.

OCD disrupts relationships with social components such as ;

Obsessively checking in with partner/friend if things are ‘okay’ (this feels horrible to do too fyi like you KNOW things are fine but you cant NOT because the anxiety is SO BAD),

Relationship OCD is a WHOLE category itself! this ties into sexuality OCD where your obsessive thoughts prey on your sexuality (regardless of your orientation), your relationship, cheating or being disloyal etc.

OCD causes significant withdrawal from others, fears of being a monster, intense guilt over intrusive thoughts, disgust with yourself over the intrusive thoughts sometimes leading to self punishment.

OCD leads to strange behavior which more often than not leads to bullying and ostracization. To exemplify this I have an intrusive thought that I have stolen something when I am inside stores, my check-check-check-check-check-recheck! of my pockets gets me store security called so often its criminal.

OCD limits activities that may expose them to triggers or influenced by intrusive thoughts ie: not being able to take the train to work or only getting off at bus stops with even numbers.

OCD impacts where they spend time, who they associate with, what jobs they take or even if they have a family or not

OCD leads to overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame, and fear over having intrusive thoughts or images that they experience which causes them to socially isolate or have difficulty in social situations.

OCD leads to Hyperfixation: like a lot of other things but thankfully it is just hyperfixation and not different from other diagnoses.

OCD leads to rigidity or structured routines: I have listened to the same CD in my car for 5 years now. Every single day. 5 Years.And Im not okay with that.

OCD impacts standards we hold ourselves to and others: its like regular perfectionism but like add on 5 extra layers of anxiety!

OCD according to NIMH statistics

1.2% Occurrence among US adults

2.3% Lifetime Prevalence among US adults

34.8% Of Adults who have OCD suffer moderate impairment to daily functioning 50.6% of Adults who have OCD suffer serious impairment to daily functioning

OCD has strong co-morbidity with the following:

Tourettes Syndrome- is a genetic friend of OCD and if you have tourettes or OCD your chances of having someone else in the family is high

ADHD

Autism

GAD

Eating Disorders

Depression - this is a big one along with low self esteem because of the intrusive thoughts

Writers like to make jokes about characters “being OCD” well now they have clinical OCD and you should consider fleshing out your character with this information just as you would any other disorder.

Batman (DC)

Riddler (?)(DC)

Domino (Marvel)

Cyclops (Marvel)

#this took a lot of emotional energy and i am now terrified

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dank-rituals · 5 years

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Im born, genetically predisposed to mental illness & cancer, to a family that has a legitimate curse of some kind that insists on tragedy every time the wind blows in our favor.

I have a childhood, that was actually pretty great, though I did develop into a daydreamer. I also have basic "talented child" problems.

My mother commits suicide because she can't handle her mental illness, causing severe trauma to everyone around her.

I get ostracized at school because of..well, pick a reason I guess. Let's go with poor social skills, that lays enough blame on me but also I feel like I can defend it.

I REALIZE that I haven't developed social skills early, so I try to learn and grow. I'm met with complete dismissal, the damage is done and in a small town nobody cares.

Mental health degenerates.

I seek professional help, fill out a lot of questionnaires and am told SO MANY TIMES "things will be better in college, weird kids have trouble in high school that's the trope"

Barely make it through high school all hope resting on that idea. Make poor decisions based on it. Surround myself with toxic people just to have people around me.

I have no clue how college works, literally just agree to the first (bad) plan my negligent uncaring guidance counselor offers.

Find out I'm getting a lot of financial aid, but will still need loans to cover tuition. Not housing though, I'm clever and will live off campus with 2 of my older friends who are going to the same school. Oh, apparently it's 5 other friends? Didn't know people could just invite themselves to this, but hey toxic people are toxic.

Sign the papers, move my shit to new place. Am instantly terrified of the disparity between what I was told would be and what is.

College is, in a word, traumatic. Cannot meet new people, cannot get professional mental health, cannot get away from toxic roommate, cannot drive, cannot get out of bed in the morning...what if today's the day I do what my mom did? She just couldn't take it and snapped one day, when will that happen to me? Stay in your room, play video games, can't die if you don't live.

Fail all classes due to lack of attendance. Lose apartment due to lack of rent. Lose friends. Lose future.

Hope.

Ignorant, enabler friend offers place to live to continue education (the one I'm hiding from for fear of my own mind). Golden ticket for a second chance! Still me though. How long can I pretend to these sweet loving caring people that I'm going to class, that I deserve their kindness, that I'm going to survive this. About a year, turns out. Completely dismissed from school. 2 years, no education to show. Sent home to work on a farm. Work odd jobs, suffer the infinite indignities of my home life.

Suddenly, out of nowhere...things change. Life isn't so horrifying all the time. New job, leads to new school, to even better job. Meet a girl, get a place...is life...good? Did I...did I make it through? Am I gonna be o....

/CANCER

Yay, the horror is back! Everyone wants to show support, in the end it's me and her and some money they gave us. Cancer isn't a battle. I come through...different. The horror is back, different now. Had a chance and it was taken. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Wanna live. Strange to feel that way. Some people make me want to live, not toxic, not too good for me. Why not have both? Because they are too good. I ruin everything. As usual.

2 more years, living the same day over and over. Everyone's gone. Job gets worse every day. Life is a rotten apple. Pot helps, not enough. Therapy is useless, try to get help from an unfeeling system. "Get out of this town" everyone says.

Christmas time. I fucking hate Christmas time. One too many bad weeks. I'm done, leave my job, get out of town, any means necessary. Line up a job, hard to make work, but willing to take the risk. Visit people who were too good for me...awful visit, scared for this future. Job falls out from under me. Nowhere to go, money drained away.

A kindness, not much of a job, but something. Money runs out, scary few weeks. Ramen and peanut butter. Last chance, big tax refund from shit job. Just gotta hold on for a bit, then on my feet and ready to try again.

Remember the student loan? It's been years, I've avoided thinking about it, it's just a reminder of the first time I really thought I'd kill myself.

Tax refund has to go towards it, no say, no notice, nothing. Just poof, my last chance gets devoured by a dark cloud from the past.

I get high to get past the panic. I sleep like shit, and I wake up the next morning. No plan, no hope, no idea or will to live. I write it out hoping someone understands.

I dont know what to do. I dont know why I should get out of this bed ever again. I dont know what I did to deserve all of this. Why it always happens to me. Why cant I just be happy. Why cant I just live and be normal and not wanna die every 10 minutes. Why did my mother abandon me to this. Why am I such a stupid, worthless failure who only ever lets people down and hurts them. Why do I have to be me.

#vampirecmb #depression

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