#... you know it has now just occured to me that that Might be my ocd. hm.

[deer-motif]

I could not possibly be any further in orbit from the fandoms you're involved in... and I still enjoy seeing your posts and tags on other posts. If that anon is so bothered, they can just... leave? Or block you? It's so easy.

Anyway, please give me an essay on any topic you want (if you want to give an essay, that is! Also hi!)

awwww, thank you, lol — i really don't know what that anon was on about. also hi!! always nice to see you in my notifs :D

as for an essay. i will now say why i think leonardo from tmnt 2012 has ocd.

to start off, i really think he struggles with hyper-responsibility. first off, what is hyper-responsibility? people with ocd are particularly prone to hyper-responsibility, which is the idea that you can and must manage things around you to prevent harm — even when those things are totally out of your control. someone might feel responsible for things that they can’t realistically control, including how other people behave and feel, natural disasters, accidents, etc. when something goes wrong, they might blame themself and feel guilty. they may obsess over this guilt and/or the potential dangers that could occur, and/or experience compulsions in order to prevent these potential dangers. i feel like it's definitely possible that leo would experience this and could explain why he's very helicopter-y at times. as someone who also struggles a lot with hyper-responsibility, i feel him. if he exhibited these traits as a child as well, it's fully possible that's why splinter thought he would make a good leader: because leo is always making sure that his brothers were being responsible and safe.

in regards to a specific subset of ocd, i'm not quite sure. however i think that ocd regarding violent obsessions/morbid obsessions. which would be a fair assumption for leo due to the amount of violence and violence-related trauma he and his brothers are exposed to throughout the show. in some situations, this can be correlated with harm ocd. what is harm ocd? harm ocd is a type of ocd that causes a person to have doubts and fears about whether they are in control of themselves and if they could become violent towards themselves or others.

i think leo could easily create obsessions or imaginary situations in his mind where he is sacrificing himself or harming himself in order to save his family, and likely has a lot of intrusive thoughts regarding his injuries post-s2 and his enemies slaughtering his family and potentially himself, or himself going "darkside" due to this loss and becoming monstrous (see: the nightmare jei gave him where all of his family died and jei said that there was a "darkness in [him]" or I suppose the mutant apocalypse where he becomes a warlord). leo is also fighting people almost every day, who are typically adults, and it can get pretty nasty at times. leo has a very strict sense of justice, and there are few situations where i feel like he could actually feel the need to kill someone (note that i said few: he does have the highest kill count out of all of them). i think he could easily have intrusive thoughts regarding killing someone or brutalizing them further than necessary, or potentially killing the wrong person because he messed up or his sense of justice led him down the wrong path. i think this would be something he struggles with a lot and is tied up in his hyper-responsibility. and this also branches onto another subset of ocd, which revolves around religious/moral obsessions (more moral than religious for leo, but i've seen people actually make some interesting stuff regarding 12 leo and his potential relationship with religion). also, i feel like his specific issues could also branch into perfectionism related obsessions.

so pretty much his three main issues would be violent based obsessions, moral based obsessions, and perfectionism based obsessions. he struggles a lot with hyper-responsibility and his compulsions often come out in managing his situation and the other people in the situation to make sure they are safe and no one is harmed.

[sadieshavingsex]

ok at least one of you has told me sometimes my posts sound like ocd related thoughts and I think I might want to look into this idea more.

like as a teenager i remember looking up what was wrong with me and realizing that I showed symptoms of ocd and not being able to go get help for it because my family was sort of anti-therapy. and like as soon as my first relationship ended, the thoughts and the confessing and everything subsided and I was like oh it’s because that relationship was wrong for me and the sex and stuff was wrong and bad.

and in my next relationship sometimes I had thoughts but by then I had sort of learned what to do about them and they weren’t too bad, especially because I was totally abstinent im guessing.

because now I’m like okay yeah the sex seems to trigger something like as soon as that comes into play, I go into all of this obsessive researching about sex, checking out library books on sex just because it makes me feel better to have them even if I don’t read them, replaying and renarrativizing our sex life events ESPECIALLY anything that occurred in a gray area of boundaries, asking my partner for excessive reassurance that they like me and they aren’t using me or manipulating me, venting way too much to my partner about how I’m “thinking about xyz bad memory again and can’t get over it because of all these reasons,” being like extremely concerned about if I am going against my values or if my partner is somehow wronging me or crossing my sexual boundaries, feeling this urgent need to leave and having such a heavy conscience about staying even though I love my partner… like I feel like it’s something more, or different, than just anxiety. And I think sometimes my current therapist doesn’t realize the deep uncertainty and confusion I can sometimes feel and they accidentally play into it by like unwittingly triggering these thought loops

I was researching again and saw something that said “if xyz symptoms take up more than an hour of your day, something is wrong” like are you kidding me!?!!(!(!( researching sex and stressing out about my sex life is practically my #1 hobby and my obsession with “fixing” or “norming” my sexuality and sexual expression takes up SO much time.

I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say but I just feel like something is going on here and if I could get to the bottom of it I might feel a lot better. I don’t know.

[realskinwars]

Confession!

Hi. I suffer from dermatillomania— compulsive skin picking. So gross, I know. But I’ll spare you the discomfort of having to look at photos of my gross skin. Just trust me when I say it’s been a bad day today.

So, I was reading a book on OCD where the author talks about considering two interesting concepts:

Accepting that you have to live with uncertainty, I guess in my case the uncertainty is if I see a blackhead or whatever and I leave it alone, then I won’t know how long my skin is going to be dirty. I won’t know how large that blackhead will eventually get, and how far away it might be visible. I won’t know what it might turn into. A huge gross pimple that can be seen from a mile away? Some sort of cancerous lesion? An infection? I have no idea.

2. thinking about you worst fear associated with not doing the behaviour. What will happen if I don’t pick my skin? Probably my skin will get worse and worse and dirtier and dirtier until I turn into a giant greaseball, and I have to cover my face in an inch of makeup and never have sex again. So more or less the same thing that is already happening. What a weird circular series if possible events.

Anyway, those two ideas were helping until my mother-in-law came to stay, and now I never have any personal time, virtually ever, unless I am in the bathroom. So a huge relapse has occurred. I told my therapist I would try calling a crisis line if I lost control, but I can’t bring myself to do that. So I am confessing to anyone who may listen. Hello. I picked my skin for something like an hour today. Not the worst. But certainly not the best.

#bfrb #dermatillomania #skinpicking

[littlewalken]

Jan 6

Got the hard drive reader in and discovered one of the old Windows ones is fucked but also that I never did take pictures of the billboard being built, which I was beginning to think I hadn't anyway, and so on and so on.

But 4 old hard drives later I definitely have what I would need to prove I wrote a few things in my past when I wrote them. And I wrote some things that should never see the light of day again.

It's all good, I know that reader will serve me well for many years to come. It's a universal one so who knows when it might come in to use. And now that I'm on a 12 gig for my media storage should the housing to that kaput I can still access what's on it.

Ordered some other DVDs that look to be going out of print.

Need to make some choices with a few of the bare bones ones, just make files of them and kick them out.

Sewing on the jointed cloth doll goes well, decisions on the joints will come eventually.

rant time

I am considering making a list of people on line I have earned the right to be grumpy with, and I don't care if you agree or not-

Misogynistic "transitioning" AMAB primarily caucasian and of financial means people who have little to no idea how a the AFAB body actually works but go about as if they know everything, are the new voice of "girlhood" and "womanhood" and try to gate keep femininity and think they're having period cramps when they lack a uterus and ovaries. My Overlook Hotel level of flow, history of endometriosis in the family, and experiences growing up impoverished and having to ration supplies if I could even get them wants you to get over yourself.

Anyone, especially someone born in the 21st century, who self diagnosis DiD and has alters they can control switching between, and so on. If you have trauma that severe at that young of an age anyone worth their salt would be helping you with it. I had someone want to help me resolve something that happened 40 years ago that in your I have so many alters ideology should have shattered me. If you want attention for coming up with characters write, draw, or make videos about them. Playing dress up isn't cringe. Get attention for your creative endeavors in a healthier way. I spent years after my traumatic brain injury wondering if I was hearing alters, it turns out I acquired exploding head syndrome*, and guess what age it most commonly starts in? Late teens-early 20s. And it's totally manageable.

The hooray for obesity crowd that is taking over body positivity. It's my body and my right to lose the weight I want to lose. It's not my job to keep you from feeling bad. Find a healthier way to cope with your emotions than something that's addictive.

People self diagnosing gatekeeping things related to brain injuries and thinking OCD and tic disorders are cute quirks. It's been nearly 30 years since I cracked my head open and there have been months at a time where I can't touch ___ or eat ___ because the texture is "bad". I spent years being anxious about things I couldn't tell if they were hardware problems from the injury or software problems I could fix with cognitive behavior.

*Exploding head syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome My personal experiences occur when I am very tired, most often when I'm falling asleep or between sleep cycles, and are best described as a disembodied voice loudly saying a few words in my head.

Now that I know what it is, and have been able to sense a bit of an aura some times, I can definitely use it as a sign to take a rest.

It's not an alter, it's not a spiritual being, it's a part of my brain randomly going off because I possibly damaged it or the connections during my TBI. And if I'm taking care of myself and on a regular sleep schedule I don't really have it, in between sleep cycle episodes aside.

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Hey do you happen to have any advice on accurately depicting a character who has ADHD? I’m working on a romance novel and I originally wrote the main character as having ADHD and OCD but I realized I don’t know how to accurately do that so I want to do this authentically even though I don’t know what that’s like. Thanks in advance, I love your blog!!

Hello, and great question! As someone with ADHD - oh, look a butterfly.

I'm sorry, that joke is way overdone (and largely inaccurate.) Anyway, as someone with ADHD, I have a lot of Opinions about how people with ADHD are treated.

For one thing, though I'm by no means anti-medication -- ADHD symptoms can be really disruptive for some people and even impede their quality of life, so it should be a personal decision for everyone if they choose to get medicated -- I'm against medication being the default option for ADHD.

My ADHD symptoms -- and I'm hesitant to even call them symptoms, so much as integral aspects of my personality -- make it almost impossible for me to exist in a corporate setting, or even in some cases a classroom setting (one professor even suggested I go on medication as an undergrad.) Boredom is a fate worse than death for me.

But those aren't problems with me. Those were problems with the setting, and how I interfaced with it. I'm now privileged enough to be able to work and study from home -- I have a tutoring business, and I'm enrolled in a remote MFA program -- and dictating my own schedule has made me incredibly productive. I currently have a 4.0 GPA, and I'm flourishing artistically.

ADHD is how I relate to the world, and I would go so far as to say that it's integral to my productivity. As long as I can dictate my own schedule and setting, I am extremely productive.

But I shudder to imagine what someone with similar ADHD characteristics as me would suffer in a public school setting (fortunately, I was homeschooled -- my problems focusing in the classroom occurred as an undergrad in college.) And I think it's somewhat problematic to think that the default option for children with ADHD is to put them on medication to accommodate their setting, rather than adapt their setting to accommodate them.

Again, I'm not anti-medication by any means, and everyone with ADHD presents in different ways. Countless people benefit from medication. I am, however, very much against neurotypical people being the only people accommodated in corporate and school settings.

I like having ADHD. I like the way I think, operate, and interface with the world. I wouldn't want to think and behave like a neurotypical person.

But anyway. Enough about me. Here are some links from some other folks you might find helpful.

Videos:

I have ADHD, What is Your Superpower?

Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story

ADHD sucks, but not really

Recognizing ADHD in Adults

ADHD at 33

The Trouble with Normal: My ADHD Success Story

Not Just LIVING but THRIVING with ADHD

Articles:

Women With ADHD Sharing Their Symptoms

ADHD Activists

Living With Undiagnosed ADHD

My Experience Being Diagnosed With ADHD As An Adult

Also, I know plenty of my followers have ADHD. What are your experiences with it? How do you present? Does it interface with other neurodivergencies? Let me know!

Also, please read Percy Jackson and Captain Underpants.

I hope this helps, and happy writing!

[queersturbate]

oooh, yes please. shed all your light having ocd thoughts :)

hello...everyone! LMAO

I didn't expect anyone to want to hear about me thinking Light has OCD! but here we go! (this is with the help of my friend Rio)

This is not an insult to Light's parents because I like the headcanon of them being good parents more than terrible ones. But no parent is perfect and i feel as though they would not be used to mental illnesses/disorders and when you want to raise a perfect child, the child's actions caused by their disorders will make a parent think the child is just acting out and they'll want to punish it. Especially in the 90's (while Light was a child-teen) when OCD and other disorders were looked down upon and thought about incorrectly. They would see Light get overstimulated by things, and do what kids and mentally ill people do when they're overstimulated- he would cry, cover his ears, scream, hide, or lash out. To parents, they would see that as punishable behavior and try to correct it. Which in turn, would cause Light, not wanting to get punished, to suppress these completely normal and valid reactions to being overstimulated and having no support system and see it as a negative thing. Light was brought up to be a perfect child, and OCD helped with that in ways. Just like how Autism makes a lot of people who are autistic a "gifted kid" in school and well behaved for the most part. Being praised for some qualities of your disorder (which you dont know is a disorder, so you just think it's you) and punished for other qualities is really confusing for a child and even an adult.

So Light never learned that these urges and behaviors were okay. He was taught that flipping a switch 5 times, because his brain told him he had to, was annoying. Or turning his plate in circles until it felt right, was weird. Or turning a corner repeatedly until his brain signaled that it was okay, was distracting. He learned that the things his brain was telling him he needed to do were detrimental and harmful of the image his family was so proud of him for. He learned that it is not safe to do the things his brain is telling him to do. So he only flipped switches, turned his plate, rounded a corner once despite his brain signaling that something is going to go wrong and moved on even though his skin itched.

But that's just my headcanon, really. Since we dont know much about Light's childhood except for that he was always a smart kid. But there are a lot of symptoms of OCD that Light just has in canon. Intrusive thoughts, paranoid thinking, constantly checking his actions, having a routine/ritualistic behavior, hypervigilance, repetitive behavior, "hoarding", put togetherness, tidiness. (just a reminder: being neat and tidy =/= OCD) We get to see all of these. I'll give a few examples of the ones people might not be aware of because I don't want to make this too long because I also have another thing I want to talk about.

So like with hoarding, it's not always what you see on Hoarders (tm), it's not always messiness and dead animals hiding under mountains of just trash. I think I can see him as hoarding those books that are lining almost every wall in his bedroom. Books surrounding his bed, books above his desk, books on the wall behind him. Literally hundreds of books. Now, hoarding is not just collecting, but also difficulty getting rid of items, which causes extreme anxiety and stress. Which is more of a headcanon that the reason Light has so many books is because he cannot get rid of them. Anyway. Ritualistic behavior, we saw his routine in school, he seems very particular about it just from what the anime shows us. Also when he has the death note, he puts himself on a schedule, routinely writing names, which we see when L talks about the time the killings occur. When he went to kill raye penber he had every little thing planned out, an exact schedule. Hypervigilance, he's constantly checking over his shoulder, noticing every little detail about people around him. Their intentions, mood, he guesses what they're thinking. One of the scenes that comes to mind is when L shows him the second kira clip and he looks behind him as the officers and talks about how strange it is that nobody explained the video to him. And notices that it's a test when L looks at him.

oh boy! i sure talk a lot! the other thing I wanted to mention is that I think Light also has OCPD (different from OCD, this is a personality disorder) it's possible for someone to have both OCD and OCPD because they're different disorders but it is also extremely rare lol. I just think he has both because I knew a decent amount about OCD before and when I started reading up on OCPD I was noticing a lot of symptoms and traits that I saw in Light. Soooo if you want me to talk about why I think Light has OCPD then lmk again!

OH! Also if you want me to talk about Light and L and how they would co-exist with their own respective mental disorders then lmk because i looooove to think about lawlight and their disorder solidarity LMAO. I think L would teach Light that it's okay to flip switches, turn plates, and round corners as many times as he needs O.O Anyway feel free to ask questions or give me your own thoughts about Light having OCD!

[the-ghost-king]

Schizophrenic Nico, here's why I think it's possible:

I want to start off by saying these are just my thoughts, there is no one way to be schizophrenic or to have schizophrenia. It's also important to note that many of the schizophrenic symptoms overlap with other mental illnesses/nuerodivergences like ADHD, Autism, Depression, and OCD which I know many people who head canon Nico as having. I'm not arguing schizophrenic Nico is more correct, more canon, or more right, but to explain some thoughts on why I think it's possible/very likely he does so I can use this for future reference in various thing.

I am using the term schizophrenia as a catchall for all "types" of schizophrenia, but not for schizoaffective disorder which I would say Nico probably doesn't have.

Children born in the winter/those who were "sickly" as babies are more likely to develop schizophrenia. It may also be possible if your mother was sick while pregnant with you, or having a father who was significantly older when he had you.

A stressful life, especially trauma, are more likely to develop schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. It likely has something to do with excessive dopamine production, but it may also have something to do with the same genes that control the sleep-wake cycle. Schizophrenia is more common with other mental illnesses or with other nuerodivergences or developmental delays.

Common symptoms include:

Hallucinations

Delusions

Disorganized thinking

lack of motivation

slow movement

change in sleep patterns

poor grooming or hygiene

changes in body language and emotions

less interest in social activities

Now what does this mean for Nico, and why do I think it's likely he has Schizophrenia?

Let's start with Nico's childhood, "children born in the winter/those who were "sickly" as babies are more likely to develop schizophrenia". Although Rick proposed two birthdays for Nico, the fandom generally accepted the January date more fully. We also know that Nico is described as small when he was younger, smallness is common in children who grow up sickly, but it is also common in children who's mother was ill while pregnant with them. We obviously don't know if Nico was sick as a kid, or if Maria was sick while pregnant with him, but again being born in the winter makes these things more likely, as well as consideration for the time period Nico grew up in and the larger variety of illnesses going around at the time. (He is vaccinated against some things though).

Trauma and Nico... do I really have to go into super detail on this one? He spent his childhood growing up in a fascist country that was extremely racist/anti-Semitic/homophobic/etc, his mom died when he was a child- in front of him, his father intentionally gave him amnesia, his sister died when he was a child, he then proceeded to become homeless living/spending lots of time with Minos who verbally (and possibly physically) abused him, becoming aware of his past memories, becoming aware of the fact that many people hated him because of his father and because they thought he was joining the other side (therefore, he was "bad"), he fought in many battles as a child, fought monsters alone, was often faced with life or death situations, went to Tartarus alone (where the goddess of misery told him he was "perfect"), was trapped in a hostage situation with little/no air for a long time while people debated whether or not to save him, was outed against his will, was freed only to travel again fighting monsters and then win a battle, was eventually made to quest with Apollo despite still having lots of healing to do in ToN. So stressful life? Fuck yeah, that doesn't being to cover it.

Genetic factors, obviously nothing here is confirmed so I'm speculating a little bit again, but the common idea in regards to Hades children through the series is that they are "bad". Mental illnesses have been stigmatized for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and often mentally ill people were made out to be weird/bad/etc. It's more than possible there is some sort of genetic factor taking place, also "having a father who was significantly older when he had you". Although I doubt godly genes work the same as mortal ones (trust me I have lots of thoughts on how god genetics/DNA work, but that's not the point right now), I think Hades being the oldest out of all his brothers and having a reputation for having "questionable" children says something... We have no information on Maria's family history at all.

As for schizophrenia often occurring with other mental illnesses and/or neurodivergences: Nico canonically is implied to have either ADHD and/or Autism, and is canonically stated to have PTSD. I think most people would agree that saying Nico has or has had depression isn't a stretch in the slightest.

So canonically we can all agree Nico has severe trauma and coinciding mental health issues/neurodivergences, so out of 4 possible issues I’ve first presented we guaranteeably have two. If I wanted to stretch this a little I would give myself a half point for him being born in the winter and a half point for the aspect of Hades genetics but I won’t do that.

On top of that schizophrenia usually appears during teenage and young adult years in people who receive diagnosis; most people live with mental illness for a few months or a few years in some cases before they're able to receive a diagnosis. Nico being 15 (16 by the end of ToN/shortly following the end of ToN) is about the age that schizophrenia would start to make an appearance. It's also more likely to be found in men, with men also noticing the appearance of schizophrenia appearing early in their lives, and experiencing more negative symptoms in comparison to the higher commonality of affective symptoms in women. That's a really complicated explanation to basically say there's 3 more things that would make Nico having schizophrenia make more sense.

Alright, let’s go back to the list of symptoms I provided:

Hallucinations

Delusions

Disorganized thinking

lack of motivation

slow movement

change in sleep patterns

poor grooming or hygiene

changes in body language and emotions/behavior

less interest in social activities

Once again, some of these are not solely related to schizophrenia and can be the result of other mental health issues, I’m just going to go down the list and add in some moments from the books in which Nico shows some of these traits/behaviors.

Delusions/Hallucinations (more later)

Our best chances for understanding Nico's thought process is in Blood of Olympus where he has a P.O.V... Sometimes Nico's thoughts do derail, or sometimes they get a little confusing, but not always, and when talking to others he is consistent and aware of what he's saying, as well as blunt. Anything "off" about his thought patterns to me just seems like ADHD..

Dietary changes (whether or not you think he has an eating disorder) are behavioral changes (I personally think Nico has AFRID)

Within House of Hades Nico's poor sleep patterns are constantly referenced, and I'll give him a pass on poor hygiene because he's in the middle of a quest but still..

I have extremely complicated feelings on what Will says here, it's possible Nico is an extremely unreliable narrator (unlikely, it seems many people are bothered by him and only maybe a handful aren't), I've also thought at many points this was Rick trying to backtrack some stuff with Nico because he realized he'd made his story a little too harsh for a kids book, it could also be Will's trauma kicking in and that happening... I'm not counting it as full proof about Nico disliking social interactions, but Nico does try to leave even after this conversation and isn't convinced to stay until the last chapter, so maybe there's something to be said about people's dislike of him for being a Hades kid- but I think it's fair to say Nico also dislikes people at least some because he doesn't have interest in trying to befriend anyone either, and is quick to assume all people dislike him (paranoia/low self esteem/and some other possible stuff). There's lots of discussions to be had about this quote and other similar ones, and I don't think a broad brush approach of "Nico good everyone else bad" is accurate it's more, "Nico is good but he fails to try and you have to work on your own mental health everyone won just go to you, and also people dislike Nico for silly reasons and need to get over themselves and make an effort too". (I'm extremely oversimplifying my thoughts and feelings to keep it brief.)

More on delusions and hallucinations:

Now I want to state that lots of schizophrenia symptoms share a lot of commonalities with ADHD and with depression, so although I might include some moments you think are just ADHD/depression I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you but they could also be schizophrenia or coexisting mental health issues/divergences. I also went through the DSM-5 for schizophrenia (the DSM-5 is just this big book with lists and it’s how doctors diagnose any mental health issue/divergence), I also looked through the DSM-IV (an older book from before DSM-5 which is no longer really used) and the differences between the diagnosis was fairly minimal but they quit categorizing types of schizophrenia and instead rely more on a couple of word descriptions that seem more in line with a spectrum rather than a checkable box.

In order to receive a schizophrenia diagnosis, two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1-month period (or less if successfully treated), and at least one of these symptoms must be (1), (2), or (3):

Delusions

Hallucinations

Disorganized speech (frequent derailment or incoherence)

Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior

Negative symptoms (i.e., diminished emotional expression or avolition).

It’s important to note that only one of these need to be checked off/true if the patient has voices which narrate their actions/behaviors/thoughts or if the person has more than one voice conversing with each other.

Nico deals with auditory hallucinations (2), he believes the voice belongs to Bob, his titan friend he left in Tartarus:

However this isn’t and immediate diagnosis because Bob’s voice doesn’t talk to another voice(s) in Nico’s head, and we don’t know if Nico has voices running commentary on his behaviors/thoughts.

The reason I state we are unaware if Nico has commentary isn’t because Nico hasn’t said anything, but because many people with schizophrenia before their diagnosis believe the narrative voices are just their thoughts and are a normal internal monologue- usually patients don’t realize anything is wrong until the voices start providing commentary on their actions so instead of “washing the dishes now” the voice(s) might say “wash the dishes now, you’re so lazy you can’t do anything, idiot” during a period of psychosis which may help them acknowledge that the voice(s) isn’t the way most people experience internal voice(s). It is very possible Nico is unaware he is experiencing narrative thoughts and simply assumes that his experience is something most people have, but I won’t use this to argue my point because it’s not confirmation of anything.

Returning now to Bob, Nico knows he is hearing Bob’s voice but he believes Bob is calling to him from Tartarus. Now, Nico says the voices are calling to him from Tartarus but there’s no confirmation of this anywhere… What I think is happening is Nico has a guilty conscience. He feels bad for “using” Bob to get out of Tartarus and various other things, so he feels bad that he is still down there. However, we don’t really know if Bob is calling to him or if Bob is able to do that- what I personally think is happening here is Nico’s brain is convincing Nico that Bob needs him because Nico is upset with himself for not helping Bob more, but also because Nico has never “sat still” before without a quest. Nico has also always felt the want to be needed/important...

It very well could be a delusion.

Schizophrenic patients often experience delusions which make them think they are destined for greatness, or that they have some divine/high force calling out to them for help that only they can provide. It’s an extremely common thing in individuals who experience delusions, and is in fact one of the most common delusions experienced. So although Bob could really be calling out to Nico, I don’t think he is, it doesn’t entirely make sense and there’s lots of little things which point to it being not entirely real- like the fact that nobody else knows about it? Or how absolutely sure Nico is that he need to return to Tartarus? It seems like a mixture of PTSD, delusions, and trauma response (returning to the trauma), working against him. I’ll say delusion is very likely (1).

Using these two factors alone there’s sufficient evidence for diagnosis, but let’s keep going just to see.

For disorganized speech (3) this isn’t something Nico seems to struggle with, and even if he did “derailing” could be ADHD or Autism, so I don’t think this symptom pertains to him.

Changes in behavior (4), seem to all be explainable via depression and/or PTSD- he has begun to express emotion again in Tower of Nero upon learning of Jason’s death he is said to be upset by Will and he walks off to be alone, seems like depression to me. Emotional/Behavior changes from schizophrenia tend to relate more to bipolar disorder rather than a depressive disorder, so I would say if Nico has schizophrenia he probably doesn’t have emotional or behavioral changes from it. If he did he might have some catatonic behavior, but this seems to be clearing up some in Tower of Nero so I’m not super sure on that, maybe during bad periods of psychosis behavioral changes occur, but I would lean more towards this isn’t a symptom Nico personally deals with. Negative symptoms (5) tie into this same idea, it’s possible it’s schizophrenia, but it’s more likely PTSD or depression at work.

So why do I care so much about the possibility of Nico being schizophrenic?

I feel like canonically/fanonically making Nico schizophrenic does a few things, firstly schizophrenic rep in media is extremely extremely awful- can you think off the top of your head of a schizophrenic character who isn't from a horror film/a murder/a villain in their own story? Maybe, but personally I can only think of one which is Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower- and even then? That's not canon, it's only implied- and it might not even be true

Schizophrenic media representation always paints schizophrenic people as bad, scary, and evil, and although the horror genre is extremely well known for being super ableist, transphobic, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic (just the final cherry on top) having one of the first- if not the first openly confirmed schizophrenic characters in children's media not only be someone who has lots of character development, and isn't a stereotype, but also be someone people have grown up with, cared for, and sympathized with- would be extremely monumental.

People with schizophrenia and other related disorders aren't something to be scared of or to think of as bad, and often times they're more bothered by whatever they're experiencing than you are.

I don't have schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder or anything like that, but I have various undiagnosed mental health issues which often lead to me questioning reality, or having to set aside time to convince myself that no there isn't a man living in my wall... Having a character have to question those things, work through those feelings, and learn to trust themselves and care for themselves even with those difficulties would be really great to see in media, not just for people with schizophrenia but also for people with similar/related disorders who might share symptoms see parts of their own struggles in a good, educative way.

I have to finish this in two parts because tumblr keeps breaking because there's too many words in my post lmao (2nd part here)

[fanficbitch]

In Another Life // Outburst

Aaron Hotchner x y/n

July 2009

Not that I expected much, but hotels in Buffalo aren’t the most luxurious. My room has two queen beds, a chair off to the side, a night stand, tv stand with tv and a couple of ugly pictures on the wall. There is one in particular that has me transfixed. It is a painting of a woman walking through a field of very tall grass. It is as if she is walking into sun or some far off light. It makes me wish that sometimes I had a simpler life. It makes me wish that I wasn’t always traveling. But that’s just a dream.

I turn back to the tv which has been softly playing in the background of my thoughts. It is so early in the morning that the only thing that is really on is infomercials. The particular one on is about some special blender, but I don’t really care so I turn it off.

It’s our first night on this case so we actually are able to get some sleep. Well, the rest of the team is getting sleep. I’m sitting here awake at 2 in the morning. I’ve found it harder to sleep when we’re on an away case since I realized my feelings for Hotch. It’s just hard when I know he is only a few rooms over. Actually, I think he is in room 413. He said it when we checked in case we needed anything. And selfishly, I need him right now. 

I move my feet so they are dangling off the bed. What’s the harm in going to say hi to a friend? Nothing. Will he even be awake? Of course he will, it’s Hotch.

My feet start moving although I don’t feel in control of them. They drive me to the door then three doors down to 413. Then my hands start moving without my consent. I raise my right hand to the door and give it two knocks. 

It suddenly occurs to me that I might have heard him wrong earlier and this isn’t his room. I could be bothering some random person in the middle of the night. Or even worse, someone on the team. I prepare to sprint back to my room, but the door opens before I get very far.

“Y/N?” Hotch asks with a raised eyebrow. Somehow when he is in his white pajama shirt and checkered pajama pants he still looks amazing. “Can I help you with something?”

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. “I couldn’t sleep and I thought you might be up.”

He gives me a small smile. “Well you were right,” he says then steps to the side so I can walk in his room. It’s pretty similar to mine, except there is a king bed instead of two queen beds and papers spread over the surface. “I work when I can’t sleep,” he says from behind me.

“I see that. Do you want some help?”

“Of course,” he says then sits on the left side of the bed while I clear some space on the right side and sit next to him. 

I intently read some of the case notes, but don’t get very far. “Was there any particular reason you were up?” Hotch asks nonchalantly.

“Just these hotel beds,” I lie. “Why were you up?”

He just turns and smiles at me. “What?” I ask.

“I have a feeling you know why I was up since you knew I was awake,” he says and my cheek flush red.

Of course I knew why he was up. I know Hotch too well not to know that. I wonder if he really knows why I was up? That I can’t stop thinking about him.

“Okay,” I say, trying to redirect attention back to the case. “We deducted that he has OCD because of the video he sent in. But, was there any finger prints or anything on the video? Maybe he licked the envelope?”

“Nope,” Hotch says. “He must of been using gloves and taped the envelope.”

I bite my lip and look down at the papers. “I love when you do that,” I hear from next to me. I look up slowly, waiting for him to continue. “When you bite your lip and furrow your eyebrows in thought. I always know something brilliant is coming after that look.”

“I don’t think anything brilliant is coming this time,” I say as I throw myself back onto the pillows. 

“I know it’s in there,” he says, not taking his eyes off me but sitting back on the pillows as well. There is a silence between us. I cross my legs so my left knee is brushing against his covered thigh.

“So, how is Jack? I feel like I haven’t seen him in a while,” I ask.

Hotch nods a few times. “He’s good. He’s really gotten into soccer lately and he’s starting to get kinda good.”

“Wow!” I exclaim. 

“Yeah, you’ll have to come to one of his games.”

“Yeah, I would love that!”

“I also hear his coach is pretty cool,” Hotch says.

“Hmm, who happens to be his coach?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, he doesn’t like to brag,” he says. “You’ll just have to come to his game to see him.”

“Interesting, interesting,” I whisper. I lean my head against the headboard so I can look in Hotch’s eyes. 

I don’t really know how it happened, but the silence between us ends when we start kissing. Suddenly, I am on Hotch’s lap and his hands are on my waist. I wrap my arms around his neck so my fingers can play with his hair. 

Wow he is a really good kisser. And his lips taste like mint. Yum. This whole situation is too overwhelming to comprehend. I am making out with my boss who I have secretly had a crush on for months.

Little touches here and there and stolen glances across the room have amounted to this moment.

After a while, our kisses slow and we pull away so our noses are touching. “Why don’t I clean off the bed and you spend the night in here?” Hotch asks. The butterflies in my stomach begin to flutter. All I can do is nod. Hotch moves me off his lap and onto the bed. He quickly gathers the papers then throws them on the chair in the corner of the room.

Hotch pulls back the covers and we both slip under them. We arrange ourselves so Hotch is spooning me. That thought runs chills down my spine. Hotch is spooning me. Chills.

His fingers are drawing circles on my hip. “It’s much easier to sleep like this,” I whisper.

“I know,” he says, feeling his breath on my ear. “These hotels get so lonely.”

We stay silent for the rest of the night. I quickly fall asleep being in the comfort of Hotch’s arms.

It’s even better when I wake up in the morning nuzzled in Hotch’s chest. However, I am woken up by his voice. “Hotchner,” I hear. I stir slightly and look up to see Hotch holding his phone to his ear. “Alright, be there soon,” he says then looks down at me. He hangs up and places his phone on the nightstand. “They need us at the station.”

“I’m not surprised,” I say as I try to sit up, but Hotch pulls me back down. 

“Just five more seconds,” he says and squeezes me tight. I hear him counting down under his breath and he finally releases me on one. We both sit up and stare at each other. 

“I should get back to my room,” I say quietly.

“It was nice having you here,” he says.

“You definitely made it easier to sleep,” I smile. “I’ll see you downstairs,” I say as I climb out of bed. I try to walk away, but he catches my hand and pulls me down for a last kiss. I smile as I pull away, as does he. I scamper to the door and down the hallway to my room. Once I am inside, I can’t control myself. I jump up and down and silently scream. I just slept in the same bed as Aaron Hotchner. Oh my god. 

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 17X1 & 17X2

MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

My mind is blown! I am shook! Never in a million years did I ever expect that we would see McDreamy again! Or that Meredith and Derek would be reunited like this. Oh my god. I literally can’t even. I think this might be the best season opener Grey’s Anatomy has ever done. Hands down. They came to play and they did not mess around. I thought something was off when they showed the opening sequence with Meredith on the beach because the pier walkway was way too long, but I never expected the surprise to be what it was.

The implication at the end of the episode is that Meredith has contracted COVID-19, is currently unresponsive, and will be battling this for the foreseeable future. I’m interested to see if that is in fact the case or if it’s something else. I did not believe that she was going to be the character that got it so I am super shocked and surprised. As some eagle eyed fans noticed over the summer the IMDB page for Grey’s Anatomy was updated recently with the appearance dates of many of the original cast members being updated to 2020.

I have to admit when I first saw that I didn’t think much of it because Season 16 overlapped between the years 2019 and 2020 and since they mentioned and used archival footage of past characters during seasons 15 and 16 my initial thought was that the actor’s profiles were updated to reflect this for contract reasons. But now that the McDreamy Derek Shephard himself has reappeared anything is possible my friends!

Literally anything and I am so glad. It looks like there are more dream sequences and possible afterlife sequences to come. My guess is that more of Meredith’s deceased loved ones will appear on that beach. I’d love to see George, Mark, Lexie, Ellis Grey, Doc the dog the list goes on. I’d also love to see Cristina, Alex, Izzie, Callie, Arizona, and April all make appearances either through dream sequences or over Zoom.

I’m also wondering if they’re going to have Meredith code and then do a reprise of the elevator hallway sequence where the elevator doors open and Meredith’s dead loved ones and important people in her life greet her and tell her it’s only temporary and she’ll back in the land of the living soon. Oh gosh. What if they have Ellis tell her she’s extraordinary?!?! Now I’m crying! She so deserves to hear that! Oh my gosh. The possibilities are endless.

The Station 19 episode wasn’t much of a cross over to be honest and I’m okay with that. My best friend and I watched it for context, but you could have totally gotten everything you needed to know just by watching Grey’s and those are the cross overs I prefer. In the Station 19 episode we got some additional Bailey and Ben content (always nice) and we learned how the kids who wound up with third degree burns became injured. That’s it really.

Richard had some snaps in this episode! He had all the best lines in my opinion! He was hilarious. His exchanges with Bailey and Catherine were hilarious. It’s great to see him back on his feet and throwing zingers. Bailey was a boss ass bitch in this episode. I loved it! She laid down the law and I thought they did a really good job of showing subtly how the COVID situation is impacting her because of her OCD. I really liked that they wrapped up DeLuca’s storyline because as long time readers will know I was not a fan of his mental health storyline and the last two seasons have really made me hate his character.

I thought they did a good job wrapping that up giving the confines of COVID, both real and fictional, and that we got closure there. At this point they’ve wrapped up his storyline to the point that DeLuca is back to being a side character and just another doctor who works in the hospital and for that I am glad. A fun little aside, when DeLuca asks Meredith if there is a specific patient she wants him to check on she tells him to check on the patient in room 1702 which is the episode number.

I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get as many Meredith and Hayes scenes as I would have liked. Hayes wasn’t in the first half of the premiere at all and his scenes with Meredith in the second half were briefer than I would have liked. However, that might be because they weren’t able to film scenes with the actor before COVID shut everything down so I am hoping that we will see more scenes between him and Meredith, especially him at her bedside, going forward now that both actors are full time regular cast members.

I really loved the scenes that we did get. They felt authentic and natural. That natural comradery that the actors have was there in full force. We got to learn more about both characters quarantine situations with regards to their kids and we got to learn a bit more about Hayes’ past and their developing relationship which was nice. Also I really want to hear that story he alluded to about hoping an electric fence as a teenager to see his girlfriend. I loved the aside where Meredith commented that his mask was falling apart and he told her that he gave his new one to a nurse who needed it more than he did. He’s so caring and compassionate and kind I just want to reach through the screen and hug him.

Meredith deserves someone in her life who is kind like that and who thinks of others the way she does. Who puts the job and her patients and her kids first over everything else. Who gets it and thinks nothing of showing that kind of compassion. She’s never really been with anyone like that before. No one who was a doctor anyway. I also thought it was very significant that Hayes invited Meredith to have a drink with him in his office after work and then was the one that found her in the parking lot at the end of the episode.

This appears to be a call back to the fact that he asked her out for a drink at the end of last season and she accepted, but asked that they do a rain check because she was so exhausted and the fact that they are growing closer and he wanted to check in with her and see how she was doing. The fact that he was the one to discover her I think is also very significant because at the end there I felt liked he looked towards her car to see if she was there to talk to her or to see if she’d gone home and I love that he was looking out for her in that way.

Also, the fact that he was the one to find her and call for help and that led into a dream sequence where she was reunited with Derek the love of her life feels very significant. The fact that Hayes calls out to Meredith and tells her to stay with him, in the present and in the land of the living, and then that transitions into the dream sequence where Derek is calling out to her on the beach feels significant to me. 

My best friend that I watch with commented that she could see them doing a scene where Derek tells Meredith it’s okay to move on and fall in love again the way Abigail did with Cormac in the flashbacks we saw in the Conference episode last season. And that based on that Meredith makes the decision to formally move on and actively pursue something with Hayes now that she knows she has Derek’s blessing and that her ex DeLuca is doing okay and is back to work.

I think both of those things could free her to truly give Hayes a chance and build a life with him. He’s really the only post-Derek love interest for me who really checks all the boxes and who I could see her building a life with in a way that would respectfully honour what her and Derek had. It also just occurred to me that because they established that both Meredith and Hayes are quarantining at hotels because of their COVID work and are away from their kids there’s a potential storyline there in that once Meredith is better they could quarantine together and spend some sexy time alone without breaking any of the necessary restrictions. I’d love to see them quarantine together.

Something else that I realized after watching is that the episode establishes that Amelia and Link are quarantining at Meredith’s house with Scout, Zola, Bailey, and Ellis and that Maggie has been coming by to watch and visit with the kids from a safe distance while Meredith has been quarantining at a hotel because she’s working COVID command. The fact that they set this up early on in the episode becomes important later when you realize that something is wrong with Meredith and she’ll be hospitalized for a while and could die so it sets it up that her kids are okay because they’ve got Amelia, Link, and Maggie, people that Meredith trusts, looking after them.

Also we find out that Meredith’s house has a backyard for the first time! So that’s neat. Maggie and Winston are officially the cutest! I love them! I’m calling it now they’re endgame. They’re soulmates. I thought at first the long distance thing was going to be super boring and dull, but they found a way to make it really sexy and fun and I love that! We finally found out what Amelia and Link named their baby! As many had predicted they named the baby Scout! His full name is Scout Derek Shepherd Lincoln! My heart! Derek would be so so proud of Amelia. She’s come so far. I loved the scene with Meredith, Amelia, Link, and Scout. I really felt like that was missing from the Season 16 finale so I’m glad we got to see it in flashback.

About the only thing we didn’t get to see in this episode that I would have liked to have seen is a scene with Richard and Meredith catching up and either operating or treating a patient together. They haven’t had as much time together recently and I’ve missed that. Although considering that Meredith is about to hospitalized I’m guessing were about to see a whole lot of that. We did get to see Jackson spending lots of quality time with Richard and we got to see Maggie stand up for him with Catherine this episode so that was nice. This episode changed my mind about Catherine and Richard. 

At the end of last season I really wanted them to separate and go their separate ways because I felt like they were bringing out the worse in each other and that was the only way they could find peace. But this episode we saw Catherine apologize really apologize and she made Richard Chief of Chiefs to make up for what she did and I thought there reconciliation was really quite sweet. Teddy and Owen wowza. Teddy was god awful and a terrible human being this episode. I was completely on her side last season, but this episode changed that for me. I hate Owen as a character most of the time, but damn if this episode didn’t make me feel for him. Oh boy. Teddy lied straight to his face multiple times when given the opportunity to tell the truth.

I don’t think there’s any way that they can come back from that personally. Which is a shame because for the first time in the show’s run Owen is single and is not hung up on someone else. Cristina is in Switzerland living her best life. She’s happy. That’s long over. Amelia is with Link. They have a child together. Her and Owen are happily co-parenting Leo and there’s no way that Owen, horrible as he can be, would do anything at this point to split Amelia and Link up or come between them because that would mean separating Scout from his father and having lost his Dad at a young age Owen would never knowingly do that to someone else’s child. At least I don’t think he would.

Plus, he got what he wanted in that he did get to parent Betty and Leo with Amelia and they still share in the parenting of Leo. I also thought there was a good call back there to when Owen cheated on Cristina. I hated that plot, but it’s nice to see them acknowledge his relationship with Cristina because it was so instrumental to the show in those early seasons. I’m glad that we got a reference to Amelia and Owen co-parenting Leo because I feel like that’s been missing lately. I get that Teddy is scared of being happy, but the way she treated Owen was just horrible. She was so awful to him in this episode I actually felt sorry for the guy and that is truly a miraculous feat because I rarely do because of how horribly he treats all of the women in his life.

Side note: His line where he told his Mom to tell Leo that the broccoli and carrots needed to be reunited in his stomach was both hilarious and horrifying! I loved Owen’s lines and how he kind of played Teddy while giving her opportunities to tell him the truth. I thought that was hilarious in a funny not funny kind of way. I’m curious to see what Teddy, Owen, and Tom’s storylines will be going forward. We didn’t see a lot of Tom in this episode and at the end he was fired and demoted to being a Neurosurgeon. There’s no indication of him and Teddy getting back together so I’m curious to see what they do with him.

Owen seems 100% done with Teddy and her nonsense and at this point I can’t blame him. I would be too. I’m interested to see where this goes. Will Owen end up with someone else? Will he stay single and continue on as a single parent? What will happen to Teddy? I’m starting to really like Levi as a character I have to say. Nico not so much. He treats Levi horribly and the guy deserves so much better. I loved seeing the intern from Pac North who called Bailey an icon last season checking temperatures. Amazing.

Richard’s idea on how to sanitize the masks with the purple light was really cool. I loved the moments between him and Bailey. I get why she’s worried about him, but as Richard says Grey Sloan is his life. It’s his longest and most successful relationship and as he says he will find no peace without it. Bailey and Ben have my whole heart. They are so cute. They’re the best. I loved the small moment that they had at the beginning of the episode where Ben did the “going through the motions” count with her because he knows it helps her. It was also a great call back to Jo teaching that to Bailey after she got out of treatment.

Also oh my god Jo and Jackson! Wow! I have to say when I saw fans speculating about that online before the show came back I thought it was the dumbest idea ever. One, because those two characters rarely have scenes together and aren’t that close. And two, Jackson has Harriet and is a single parent. Jo has been decidedly luke warm on the idea of having kids. She only considered it because of her relationship with Alex. That being said, after this episode I could go for it. I liked the twist that she went to Jackson and asked him for a favour and they were going to hook up and have a one night stand and then Jo got drunk on the way over and wound up crying because she wasn’t ready.

I have a feeling that they’re going to have them go back to being friends for the time being and then pick that storyline up later when Jo’s had a chance to heal possibly in the second half of the season. I also like that they wrapped up the storyline between Jackson and Vic and that we got to see Harriet for the first time in forever! Yeah! Vic isn’t ready or wiling to be a step parent and I liked that they established that Jackson needs to be with someone long term that is. Jo isn’t at that stage yet, but at least she’s open to the idea and has been married and had a successful adult relationship with someone in the past. Jackson’s been married, divorced, lost a child, and is raising a child.

With time and proper communication I think they could actually be a great pairing. Never thought I’d say that. Not wanting to be a parent is part of what broke Jackson and Vic up in the first place. They never addressed the issue with Maggie, but in retrospect that was never going to work out because Maggie is so involved with Meredith’s kids. They’re her main focus kid wise. We should have known that they weren’t going to work out when they failed to address that.

With April what broke them up was her devote faith and his complete lack of belief coupled with the different ways they dealt with the death of Samuel. While I did like April and Jackson as a couple I was happy with April’s write off in the sense that she got to be with someone who shares her faith and dealt with the trauma of losing someone close to them in a similar way. Her and Jackson never had that. Jackson found God in the wake of almost losing April, but by that point it was too late.

The damage was down. There was nothing either of them could do to repair what had been broken. With Jo he has the opportunity to start anew and lay all of that out on the table and vice versa. Although I imagine that the conversation Meredith would have with Alex about that would be pretty weird. I thought they did a really good job of showing the realities of COVID in hospitals right now. What the disease does, how deadly it can be, and how hard it is on all the health care workers and first responders. 

I have family members and friends who work in health care and it’s a scary time. Levi’s comment that they had lost 100 people in one day and that he’d had to tell 100 people’s family members that their loved one had died was chilling. It’s also real. This is not something they are sensationalizing for the sake of television. This is really happening to real people everywhere and it is heartbreaking.

In this episode we saw Meredith have her first breakdown in quite some time. The last one I can remember was after Derek died and that was a while ago. She was upset that so many of her patients had died and I’m sure that reality is something that a lot of healthcare workers are going through right now. This episode felt raw in a lot of ways because of that and I’m glad that a show that has worked so hard to reflect the realities of our time is taking the time to honour and showcase that.

Also I think having Meredith Grey the show’s titular character and star for over 16 seasons potentially contract COVID and collapse from working too hard and not taking her own advice is the ultimate example of it can happen to anyone and anyone can get it. The show did not have to go as hard as it did, but they did and they delivered and I respect the hell out of that. The tagline for this season is “Sometimes we all need saving.” Apparently they were being literal about that as that includes Meredith freaking Grey. What a twist!

I honestly believe that this will be the show’s last season. Because when I look at the storylines and the ways in which they’ve set up the characters starting with last season I can see where they could go with it and how they would wrap everyone’s storylines up in a satisfactory way. Plus I don’t think they’ll ever be able to top this season and it’s opener. Also we’ve got main cast members coming back because those actors are normally so busy they’ll probably never get another opportunity like this to bring them back and they’d be foolish not to take it.

The promo for next week teases more scenes with McDreamy (!!!), Meredith battling COVID literally, and Hayes visiting her in her hospital room. I’m excited!

Until next time!

[awfullybigwardrobe44]

6, 8, 9, 17, 19! :(

6: What is one thing you’ve thanked God for today? Or if you haven’t yet, what is one thing you can thank God for right now?

The SUN. I’m from WA state so any time the sun comes out it’s a big deal, lol. It was so lovely today, and I needed this.

8: Favorite book of the Old Testament?

Is Psalms the cliche answer? Probably. But there ya go 😂 seriously. How good is God, that He gives us a literal handbook of pre-written prayers we can use to pray to Him? Even if we can’t find the words to pray, we can go to the psalms and pray those.

9: Favorite book of the New Testament?

My OCD brain over here really loves how clear and simple things are in Romans. It’s so structured and theologically rich, not to mention one of the books that focuses the most on the gospel/salvation.

Also 1 John, because if I ever get around the OCD over salvation, I might find that book very comforting. 1 John has a series of “tests” to know if you’re saved or not, and it’s good at helping us reflect on ourselves and our faith.

17: What is your go-to verse when you’re afraid?

... it occurs to me that I don’t have one. I should definitely choose one. But this came to mind:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. —Romans 8:28 (ESV)

And also, for my little OCD brain,

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time[a] and now and forever. Amen. —Jude 24-25 (ESV)

19: i already did this one, but just for you, SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE ME TO BIBLE CAMP. ITS THE GREAT ADVENTURE. ITS THE BEST THING EVER. ;)

Thanks for asking ❤️

[crushaa]

Explaining the long break and how I got diagnosed with ADHD:

This is a post about mental health. There’s a TLDR at the bottom :) 

“Apply yourself, Cien. If you wanted to pass this class, you would be trying.” 

When I was 15, I got my tonsils out. I got the same kind of statement from a few friends and even family members; “Oh yeah, they used to take EVERYONE’S tonsils out! Even if they didn’t need it, it was the cure to everything. But now everyone’s got ADHD, so that’s the new trend.” 

Around the end of July 2019, I was running out of steam. I still had plenty of creative energy, but I couldn't understand why I wasn't able to work on anything anymore. The truth is that I knew I would hit another music block, and I wouldn't be surprised if anyone else expected it too. My posting history has always been very irregular, even back in high school with long unexplained breaks in between new songs. Knowing it would happen, I felt confident in my ability to tackle it and change my pattern of behavior.

I never thought it would last this long. With each month passing by I began to feel guiltier and guiltier, trying to find out why I couldn't do it. I'd sit in front of an empty FL Studio project for hours, and all my Paint Tool Sai canvases never had more than a few lines.  As the months went on, some pretty dramatic life events took place- various family deaths, 2 near death experiences myself, an abusive doctor. For whatever reason, I just could not recover. 

I used the tragedies as excuses as to why I couldn't do it. It would be reasonable to not be able to do anything. My antidepressants were definitely working for the first time in my life, but why couldn’t I work? I spent the New Year holiday feeling just as guilty and frustrated as ever…. I couldn’t do it anymore. I decided that I was going to go back to my doctors loaded with new theories and ideas as to what could possibly be wrong with me. It never occured to me to tell anyone I couldn’t write more than 2-3 songs in one year when it’s literally my job to write music. 

I began speculating the possibility of another psychiatric disorder, and that made me nervous. Would she think I was lying? Or faking it? I could no longer stand the treatment from the nurse practitioner who had been treating my psychiatric illnesses. I’d always been very uncomfortable with how she treated me, but she’d found the rare genetic disorder I had. I felt that I owed my progress to her and that I should stick it out. But I was still leaving her office in tears at the end of every session. An off color comment, passive aggressive reminders to take my medication, the feeling that I had no say in my own treatment plan… it was too much.  But she was the only one in town who was available to see me. So I went, and I was administered an MMPI by a psychiatrist in that same building. At the end of February, I’d get the results.  

The next appointment with her was the last time she’s ever going to see me. The results of the test had come in as inconclusive, and my world fell apart. She asked what I thought of the results, and I answered truthfully. I told her I was afraid that she saw me as a hypochondriac. 

“Well what if you are?” I didn’t answer. “Well, you are,” she went on with a cocky smile. 

She began to tell me it was my own fault. She told me I had brain damage. But it was fine, because she told me I could be treated for believing I was still sick. 

It affected me deeply, for days I couldn’t stop crying or eat a full meal. The guilt, frustration and embarrassment swallowed me whole; the problem was me. Of course I was making it up. I felt suicidal for the first time in 4 years. There was no point in trying anymore because I as a whole was defective. This world would be better off without a lost cause like me. 

I pulled myself out of this headspace for a while one day, and realized that a HEALTH CARE PROVIDER made me feel this way. 

WHERE WAS THE BRAIN SCAN, BITCH????

 All the guilt, embarrassment, shame- it morphed into a new red hot burning rage. I fired her immediately and revoked any permissions she had. I went to my primary care doctor and asked him to prescribe me my psychiatric medications while I looked for a new psychiatrist, to which he agreed. I asked him for an ADHD test, but he wasn’t comfortable doing it himself. He referred me to a psychiatrist with a 6 month waiting list who then tried to refer me to the abusive nurse practitioner. I set up the six month appointment wait and began to look into doctors in other towns.

On Monday, April 6th, I went to go see a different doctor for something completely unrelated and walked out with an ADHD (Inattentive type) diagnosis. And now less than a week later, everything about my life has changed. 7 long months of executive dysfunction came to an end in the 1 hour it took for the first half-pill to dissolve. Hot damn. 

It felt like everyone else in the world was allowed to use the sidewalk to get from place to place, but there was a rule that I had to dodge incoming traffic to get anywhere. Now, I can use the sidewalk too. I am relearning everything that I know. 

I am no longer ashamed that I have the GPA of a baked potato. I know that I am not lazy, I am not stupid, and this was NOT my own fault; I was sick and nobody knew. The signs were there, but how we view ADHD has changed entirely since I was a child! People still called it ADD. So why was it so hard to get diagnosed in this day and age?

The stigma has shifted into something far more dangerous than I’ve ever realized it was. I don’t hear “I have ADHD OO SHINY” jokes anymore, you know? We believe it to be a grossly overdiagnosed behavioral disorder meant to punish children for having a lot of energy. We wave it off, calling it the new tonsil removal surgery trend. Of the three types of ADHD; Predominantly Hyper-Impulsive, Predominantly Inattentive (that’s me!), and Combined Type; a mix of the two, there tends to be more stigmatized attention towards the hyper-impulsive type. We believe in what we see, breaking the first rule of mental illness: Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. 

This leaves those suffering from both inattentive type and combined type to rot. Attention deficiency itself doesn’t have much of a stigma because it isn’t even seen as having a seat at the ADHD table. This is catastrophic and will continue to destroy lives because people don’t feel hyper enough to even consider that they might have ADHD. In turn, those who are told to try harder, apply themselves, stop procrastinating, and to stop being so lazy do not receive the proper care they need. Those who suffer without treatment get worse over time; they lose confidence in themselves, they don’t start new things in fear of the inability to finish, they break promises to friends and family with the inability to follow through, damaging important relationships beyond repair. 

My confidence has been shattered. I was the artist who failed art class. College was never an option because I knew I’d go straight back to failing every class I took. I feel like I am a burden and the token “lost cause” of my family, the one everybody worries about because I’m not right in the head. I’ve grown to become a reclusive, bashful adult who struggles to make and answer phone calls and emails. ADHD devastated my life in deeper ways than my OCD, my PTSD, my anxiety or depression ever could. 

The number of diagnoses are going up because we can recognize it better. This is not a bad thing- science is evolving to show possible causes of the disorder itself. We know not to smoke while pregnant anymore, we know not to eat and drink high fructose corn syrup, we know not to sit in front of blue light screens all day, and we’ll continue to learn.

As soon as I started my medication, I was able to start taking care of myself and working again. The symptoms of my other mental illnesses began to let up, and I felt like a human being for the first time in my life. I have control over my own emotions- I can walk on the sidewalk with everyone else, I am free. 

However, it’s going to take the rest of my life to unlearn the methods I came up with to perform basic self-care functions. It will take many years to gain confidence in myself, to make phone calls without shaking or to even consider the thought of college, potato grades and all. But my mindset has transformed from “I can’t” to “Maybe I could try,” --a first for me. 

Question everything, don’t settle for the minimum, and don’t stop fighting. Thanks for reading this post. I'm hard at work on Propaganda part 2 and hope to post it on May 31st. See you then :-) 

TLDR: ADHD destroyed my life in ways my depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses never could. The stigma surrounding ADHD is shifting to become more dangerous than it has been in the past.  

We live in a society.

[icasttourniquet]

The Reckoners as a Metaphor for OCD

Spoilers for all three books in Sanderson’s Reckoners series, which, if you haven’t read, is excellent, and you should read.

The Reckoners trilogy takes place in a world where certain people, called Epics, have superpowers that corrupt those who wield them, making them more prone to mass murder than the average person. Power sets always come with a weakness, which the protagonist discovers is a fear, something the Epic was scared of before they gained their abilities. Most Epics avoid this fear. But, by confronting it, Epics can learn to use their powers without turning evil.

Where’s the metaphor for OCD? Well, if you know anything about OCD treatment via ERP therapy (and who doesn’t?), then the analogy is hopefully clear. If you don’t, allow me to spell it out.

What’s OCD?

Contrary to popular belief, OCD has nothing to do with cleanliness or perfection. OCD is a disorder categorized by:

Intrusive thoughts (obsession)

Strong, negative reactions to that thought

Compulsions to reduce the negative reaction (compulsion)

Oh hey, you see where the name OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) comes from now?

Source

In the classic OCD stereotype, that might look like this:

My intrusive thought tells me the surface I touched is not clean.

I become absolutely terrified of the possibility that I am infected with salmonella and will die.

I wash my hands to convince my brain that I don’t have salmonella and won’t die.

At first, this might seem clever. Hey, you were scared, but then you took a concrete action and it made you not scared anymore! That’s great! And if the compulsion remained just a simple hand-washing, maybe it would be. Unfortunately, over time, OCD convinces you that one hand wash isn’t enough. Now it takes two to kill salmonella. Or three.

OCD obsessions and compulsions can be about absolutely anything, Here are some examples:

I saw a bat; therefore I have rabies.

I am anxious because I’m going to die of rabies.

I spent 8 hours online researching whether the bat outside gave me rabies before I am convinced that I won’t die.

What if I accidentally cheated on my boyfriend last night?

I am terrified I might’ve cheated on my boyfriend.

I ask my boyfriend every morning whether or not I cheated on him and he reassures me that I did not.

If I pick up a knife, I’ll accidentally kill my wife.

I an scared because I don’t want to kill my wife.

I refuse to touch knives, even butter knives.

That last example is called an avoidance compulsion, which is sometimes hard to spot because it’s the lack of a compulsion, though it is still detrimental. The Epics in the Reckoners series all follow the avoidance compulsion, refusing to ever interact with their fears.

OCD Treatment

I think there are two easy ways to misconceive of OCD and get the whole treatment wrong. The first is to assume intrusive thoughts are the problem and to try to get rid of them. This is what a lot of folks (myself included) assumed OCD treatment would look like. However, everyone, neurotypical folks included, has intrusive thoughts all the time. They just don’t react to them.

Another common response is to mitigate the compulsions. If you wash your hands too much, let’s get you some soap that’s softer on your hands. If it’s important for things to be clean, let’s help you clean the house twice daily. If you are worried you didn’t lock the door, take a picture so you can check later (as an aside, please don’t recommend this to people with OCD; this is called enabling a compulsion and reinforces the idea that if the door is unlocked, that’s a problem worth having a panic attack over, which it is not).

Both solutions will fail because neither addresses the actual problem, which occurs in step two. The problem is the anxiety response, not the intrusive thought and not the compulsion. It is possible to think any thought at all and not react to it.

Addressing Anxiety

Whether or not the intrusive thought is valid, the response is detrimental (if it wasn’t detrimental, you wouldn’t fit the diagnostic criteria for OCD). Treatment focuses on reducing the anxiety response by proving to your brain that the thought itself cannot hurt you. This is done through exposure response prevention therapy (ERP).

Basically, the brain is a complicated machine-learning algorithm. Every time it sees a compulsion relieve anxiety, it reinforces the idea that the compulsion is the only way to relieve anxiety. During ERP, you expose yourself to something you fear and refuse to engage in compulsions. Because the adrenaline response cannot last indefinitely, you eventually start feeling less afraid. Suddenly, your brain sees that there’s another way to get rid of the anxiety (I.e., by sitting with it). Over time, you can convince your brain that thoughts in and of themselves don’t require a reaction at all.

Source

I thought this was a post about the Reckoners

Only vaguely. I mostly wanted to talk about OCD (shh, don’t tell anyone). But, hopefully you can see some similarities now.

I see water.

I am terrified of water because it makes my powers go away and renders me weak.

I avoid water.

The Epics are all caught in a classic avoidance-based OCD obsession-compulsion loop.

But wait, I hear you cry. The Epics actually lose their powers when exposed to their weakness. Their reaction is justified.

Justified, maybe. Helpful? No. Most intrusive thoughts have a bit of truth in them. Bats can give you rabies. Rabies has as close to a 100% mortality rate as makes no odds. If you genuinely think you have rabies, you need to get a shot. Panicking about seeing a bat, however, does not help you survive rabies or make a rational decision about whether to get a rabies shot. The panic is useless.

Some OCD thoughts are completely true: in my case, I obsessed about my impending mortality. Unless I become the first immortal human (still working on that), my intrusive thought is accurate and I will die. Worrying about that now, though, is completely useless.

Similarly, the emotional reaction is interfering with the Epic’s life in a serious way. They could avoid their weakness just as well if they weren’t terrified of it. Again, the intrusive thought and compulsion aren’t what’s maladaptive here. It’s the emotional reaction.

And, when Epics face their fears head on, just as someone with OCD does during ERP therapy, the fear fades. In their case, it’s because they claim their powers and their weaknesses don’t work anymore. In the case of the OCD sufferer, it’s because the brain learns the reaction is overblown. So not only are they stuck in an obsessive-compulsive loop, it’s treated in the same way OCD is!!

So what?

As someone with OCD, I was delighted by the way facing the fear resolved the negative effects of being an Epic. I like that it portrayed the extreme fear of the weakness as a negative, even if the weakness existed. And I liked that characters didn’t ‘fight’ or argue with their weaknesses, as many people with OCD do with their intrusive thoughts. All told, rereading these books gave me new ways to think about my own OCD. I don’t think Sanderson was trying to make an OCD metaphor at all, but he made a pretty good one!

[taxfrauddotcom]

I've seen several posts lately talking about what "real" intrusive thoughts are and claiming that there's no such thing as "mild" intrusive thoughts (eat a leaf, throw your phone, etc) and as someone who has OCD and severe intrusive thoughts, I have a lot of problems with posts like those. I’m gonna copy and paste a thread I posted on Twitter about the subject:

intrusive thoughts (like most symptoms of mental illness) are pretty much on a spectrum. Sometimes mine are actually generally harmless things like throwing my phone out the car window or just yelling in a crowd and sometimes they’re terrifying/violent/evil.

imo posts that deny the existence of "mild" intrusive thoughts prevent people from seeking help bc they don’t think their symptoms are severe enough. I didn’t develop OCD until I was an adult, and until my mental health completely fell apart my intrusive thoughts were manageable and mild but I didn’t get help so they got worse and worse until they terrified me and gave me panic attacks. I still get intrusive thoughts- some of them horrifying and some of them mild- but now that my mental health is under control they’re generally less severe and are a lot easier to deal with.

it’s also worth noting that literally anybody can experience intrusive thoughts, not just people with OCD or PTSD etc. The difference between an nt person and a mentally ill/nd person’s experience is in severity, frequency, and their ability to cope with them. They can also be a warning sign for an upcoming/developing issue like dementia/a psychotic break/ocd. If you have intrusive thoughts often and you obsess over them, even if they seem “mild” it’s worth keeping an eye on and getting help if they increase in severity.

OCD can develop at any point in your life (though it typically appears by young adulthood) and people who develop OCD in early childhood are relatively rare. (Also worth knowing that OCD also comes in different subtypes, some of which don’t fit the stereotype we see in media involving cleaning etc)

I understand where people who make those posts are coming from but I just really don’t think these kinds of posts are helpful to mentally ill/ND people.

At the end of the day, mental disorders are a collection of symptoms occuring in a predictable, frequent pattern. If you have enough of these symptoms and they happen chronically then you will be categorized as having a disorder/illness. However, people who don’t meet the minimum criteria/threshold can still experience these symptoms. Keep that in mind!

side note: I think the reason why we tend to see so many people sharing their funny/mild intrusive thoughts rather than the more severe ones is bc like. The severe ones are so horrible you don’t want to share them publicly but joking about the sillier ones might be a way to cope. personally, any detailed discussion of my awful/dangerous intrusive thoughts will be had privately between my therapist and I in a safe setting where I can get immediate support. But sometimes I will joke about how weird it is that my brain wants me to yell “fuck” in the middle of class and that doesn’t mean I’m minimizing my own mental illness or faking having OCD/intrusive thoughts lol.

You can read more about intrusive thoughts here. Note that the article says “The [intrusive] thought could be benign, like doing something embarrassing or socially unacceptable in public, or it could be more disturbing, like a thought about harming someone that you would never really want to harm”

Anyway I’m sick of people saying that people who post jokey intrusive thoughts don’t understand what intrusive thoughts are or that they don’t experience “”“"real”“”“ intrusive thoughts. It’s really dismissive of people’s experiences and also just a generally incorrect assumption to make.

[borrowedfeathers]

I vaguely remember you posting about how not everyone with OCD can do exposure therapy. Do you have any resources or anything to share about that? I'm coming to the realization that I likely have OCD and everything I see says I HAVE to do ERP as soon as possible but just reading descriptions of it makes me cry and panic. I don't think I could do those exercises without being seriously traumatized but I also know I can't keep not doing anything about my obsessions and compulsions :(

I’m sorry, I really don’t. I just know that I get really angry when people try to treat it as the gold standard for OCD treatment because they really want to act like retraumatization doesn’t exist — and furthermore, the patient should always get the last word, so if they’d be happier to not confront their triggers at all (to the extent that that’s under their control), you’re an asshole if you contradict that. 

I’ve always been in CBT in terms of therapy (11 years now) and I know that’s not for everyone either, but something that’s actually worked for me is just trying to use the coping mechanisms from CBT when a trigger naturally occurs as opposed to exposing myself to it intentionally. Like I actually had an instance of this the other day — I’m a chronic breast cancer patient and I regularly examine my chest for new lumps. I found one recently, and the last couple of times that happened to me, it gave me panic attacks, insomnia and uncontrollable crying since it made me start to catastrophize and feel like I was going to be engulfed by the disease and die imminently. I did cry when I noticed it but it felt almost like a pressure release than a panic, and then I sent an email to my oncologist. (I got tested today and what’s going on seems more likely to be hardened calcium deposits than new tumors...weird.) And unlike the last time it happened to me (while I was out of town last year), I had my cat with me, plenty of anti-anxiety meds and a familiar environment. All that enabled me to stay much calmer than I did before and contact my doctor without panicking. Unfortunately this method requires you having to wait until something bad actually happens but drawing on your past experiences and your outside resources is what’s worked for my OCD more than anything else.

Speaking of anti-anxiety meds, for all the time I’ve been in treatment for OCD I’ve been on Ativan and I swear it’s literally saved my life on numerous occasions. People say it’s dependency-forming but honestly my take on this is that there’s no shame in it if it’s what you need to live your best life. I might be taking benzos for decades to come for all I know and anyone who has a problem with it can kick rocks. I also decided to put this in actuallyocd since hopefully someone there might have advice that’s more specific to your needs. Good luck and take care, anon. <3

[system-of-a-feather]

Entropy System’s System Pride Day Questions

So I finally got around to watching that video and felt it was a pretty good and interesting set of questions and felt I would go ahead and answer them in terms of our system so those that follow can get a little more knowledge about us and our experiences. This is all answered by Riku - the current host of this system. Plus I lost track of time and totally didn’t notice System Pride Day coming up so lets just have this be belated System Pride Day post

How old was the body when the host discovered they were part of a system?

That depends really which host we are talking about. I am currently the third long term host that this system has had and I can’t personally speak for the two hosts before me since I don’t know how aware they were of the situations that were going on. Personally, I didn’t know about the presence of other alters (even as a protector since I normalized everything odd about it somehow?) until I was about 13 or 14 when a certain incident kind of freaked me out since I co-fronted clearly for the first time and didn’t know why I couldn’t control my body. From there Aderis kind of made herself prominent and pretty well known and it kind of moved from there. With that being said, I didn’t know anything of Dissociative Identity Disorder or that it was an actual disorder with a basis in trauma until I was 16 or 17 years old. Prior to that I alternated between thinking it was “normal”, “imaginary friends”, “intense and out of hand roleplaying”, and “just my imagination.”

How many members do you have / are you aware of?

We are well aware of seven members existing currently. According to Ray, we have a fragment that is dormant that most of us don’t know about but isn’t particularly much of a current worry. There might be others, but to our current knowledge, we are seven.

Do you attend formal therapy? Have you in the past?

I am currently seeing a trauma / dissociative disorder specialist and have been seeing him for about a year and a half now. I have been in the mental health system for about four years now and saw a different therapist prior. (I’ve also bounced around between therapists for short periods of time, seen three psychiatrists, and been in group therapy)

How many misdiagnosis have you had?

I wouldn’t say I’ve had any major misdiagnosis in the past as much as “inaccurate” diagnosises in the sense they weren’t “wrong” but they danced around the issue / were more technical or were hard to confirm and have been brought into question. I have been diagnosed with OCD and Aspergers in the past however, lately it seems more likely that OCD is more “OCD tendencies” and is under debate, and Aspergers - when I saw an Autism specialist - was hard to pinpoint whether or not I had learned a lot of traits from my two family members that have it or if I had it and coped pretty well. The other thing that has been brought up with my current therapist is if the autistic traits are more centralized in some alters more than others.

I’ve also been diagnosed with what I like to call “understatement” diagnosises where they are right, but don’t really fall under the DSM-V’s typical line of “the disturbance is not better explained by another mental disorder” such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Do you have a proper diagnosis?

Yep. My current therapist diagnosed me sometime last year. 

My previous therapist - the one that specialized in autism and not dissociative / trauma disorders - did bring up the concern almost immediately though when I first started therapy because apparently one of the first issues you talk about casually being “I’m majorly depressed because my online self is way better than me and handles life way better and I just suck so I should just stop existing so we can have a better life” while also not knowing what dissociation is apparently quickly pings off concern.

Hilariously that therapist ended up dismissing it and so I did as well until my current therapist was like “Uh, I’m pretty sure you have DID.”

What is one situation that you are really proud of your system’s teamwork?

One situation? Man there are a lot, but I think I really am just proud of how well all of us have pulled together to manage living away from home at college and shit. Plus running this blog, but mostly college and juggling that, self care, recovery, goals, money, and a social life all at once.

What is the biggest hurdle you’ve overcome so far as a system?

I would probably say figuring out how to function, communicate, trust, and organize ourselves - especially how we relate to other people in our life and who to decide to let in our lives and who to not. We used to have a lot of issues with codependency and systems having drastically different opinions of people in our life so coming to figure out a way to mutually respect one another and trust each other’s judgements and understand where one of us might be biased / incorrect / swayed by trauma, extreme personality traits, or lack of insight and assigning responsibility / a order of respect / trust on topics to each alter. Really just getting our life in order and learnign to properly respect the experience, opinions, and individual knowledge of each part was probably the hardest for us.

Is your goal final fusion or functional multiplicity?

We are currently striving for functional multiplicity. If final fusion does occur down the line naturally, we aren’t 100% opposed to it, but honestly as we are, we are pretty comfortable and adjusted to living life as a team. We don’t really see the need to have to fuse unless it helps or unless a part feels like they would prefer / function better integrated with another part that agrees. We aren’t against fusion, but also we don’t see too much of the point.

Do you feel that each of you and your alters each deserve happiness, safety, and acceptance?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

I would also like to extend that to pretty much anyone who has a single molecule or more of carbon in their body (save for some objectively horrible people as exceptions).

But I really do try to help and hope that everyone in my system, and anyone in systems reading this, can get the happiness, safety, and acceptance that they deserve to have since no one deserves to live with anything less

We all are working hard to make this life work out so I feel its the least we deserve. It’s the least you deserve.

[zoequeenz]

Compulsion (Part 4)

MASTERLIST

PREVIOUS CHAPTER 

(TRIGGER WARNING: sexual assault mentioned)

“There’s a form of OCD called scrupulosity.” Spencer says.

“Religious obsession and compulsion.” Hotch adds.

“An obsessive fear of committing sin, which creates so much anxiety that he’s compelled to do something to ease that anxiety.” Spencer explains making me smile.

“Like setting fires.” Hotch interjects.

“Where’s the behavioral evidence?” asks Gideon messaging his temple.

“Right here. All right, remember the night of the three fires? We saw the doorknob turning against the lock.” Spencer explains showing the video.

“But he’s not trying to get in, he’s compelled to turn the doorknob three times.”

“Well, what about the fires? The first ones were single fires. If the unsub has OCD, shouldn’t they all been in threes?” I ask.

“They were in threes.” Spencer answers.

“A trinity of threes. The first fire occured on March 3rd.”

“Three pm. Third day, third month.” Gideon says.

“It’s that convergence of threes that causes overwhelming anxiety. Obsessive compulsives ease the anxiety by performing the compulsion.” Spencer explains.

“What about the other fires? Professor Wallace?” Hotch asks.

“Office number three.” Spencer answers.

“I checked for more patterns of threes. His class was on Tuesdays.”

“Third day of the week.” I add.

“Matthew Rowland was in that class. It was his third class of the day. If we looked into each of the fires we’d find a lot of patterns having to do with threes because our minds are incredibly adept at seeking out patterns but to the unsub, once that pattern hits, Bam---he sets a fire.” Spencer tells us.

“But if the target was always people, why did no one die in the first few fires?” Gideon questions.

“They were failures.” I conclude.

“Up until Matthew Rowland.”

We sit in silence for a few seconds processing this.

“What is it?” Gideon asks Hotch.

“ I think I know who it might be.” answers Hotch.

“And it’s not a he. It’s a she.”

We freeze looking around at each other. Then Gideon calls the Dean to let her know that we have found out who the unsub is.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

“Clara Haynes” says the Dean.

“A chemistry student. I’ll get you her records now.”

“First get campus security out and find her. She could set her next fire within hours.” Gideon tells her.

After she hung up we called Derek. He and Elle would be able to get to her apartment faster because they were out. We explain to Derek everything we know.

“Okay, got it.” Derek says.

“Her apartment’s off campus.”

He then hung up.

“I noticed something--a ring on her finger, and she kept turning it.” Hotch says.

“At intervals?” Spencer asks.

“Of three.” Hotch answers.

“And she counted off the ingredients of a light bulb bomb.”

“And the word''sugar ``.'' I said.

‘Yeah. And she kept repeating it.” Hotch says.

“Once she started she couldn’t stop.”

“Yeah, it’s palilia. It’s the involuntary repetition of words. Howard Hughes had it when his OCD worsened.” Spencer explained.

“Clara and her classmates were working on a project about gravitational pull.” Hotch adds.

“The three body problem.” Gideon says.

While we were discussing we got a call from Derek. He and Elle were in Clara’s apartment. It was covered in holy texts about fire and doing it for Charon. Derek then asked Spencer to explain Moloch.

“Moloch was the demon sun god of the canaanites. In order to keep from incurring his wrath, the people would sacrifice their children to them by burning them alive.”

We then get a fax.

“Sixteen year old survives inferno. The mother Ellen Haynes called it a miracle. “My daughter was tested by God. He tested my child and she came through blessed.”.” I read.

“Look at the house number.” I gave the paper to Gideon and Hotch.

“Three Three Three.” Gideon read.

Elle then brought up magical thinking or as Morgan called it obsessive thoughts. Like “step on a crack break your mother’s back” and that Clara actually believed it. And that when three threes show up she thinks God is telling her to test that person.The Dean then showed up and brought us everything she had on Clara.

“Security’s checking the science building.” she says.

“Well, where else would she be?” asks Gideon.

“We need to find the next pattern of threes.” Spencer says.

“Hey, Hotch.” Morgan says on the phone.

“We’re lookin’ man. I don’t think she would have left behind a day planner that says “set next fire here” written in it.”

Hotch then tries to get Morgan to understand the severity of the situation and Morgan says he gets it but her place is seriously messed up. He then hangs up. It seems like not even a minute later he is calling us again. He and Elle found a ton of homemade bombs in her apartment. Hotch tells him to seal off the building.

“We need to send our people into every building. And have them start pulling fire alarms. Please, GO.” Gideon pushes.

“Mead, a map of the campus.” he asks.

“We need to find anything and everything having to do with the number three. Where’s the blueprint?”

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

3rd Person POV

Meanwhile, Cocky boy is reluctant to leave the science building. He is there with two other students. He says he has too much to do. He and the other two are heading into an elevator. He so stupidly believes his mini fire extinguisher will help him. He and the two girls then step onto the elevator. Clara was ready though. She had a key and stopped the elevator on the third floor with the three people stuck inside. Cocky boy keeps trying to press buttons. He knows the elevator won’t start. One girl asks him about the key. Cocky boy had left in on the hook in the office. The other girl stated that you could hear the emergency call button.

“Maybe it’s broken.” says the girl with pigtails.

Cocky boy presses floor one.

“Or turned off.” He says.

“ I say we pry open the doors.” pigtails says.

“You can’t pry ‘em all the way open.” he says.

“It’s a safety precaution.”

“Maybe we can try yelling for help.” suggests the other girl.

An alarm goes off.

“That’s the fire alarm.” states pigtails.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Here in the office Gideon is running around like crazy as I look at stuff with Spencer. Being this close to him makes me all fuzzy inside. He’s so cute. Focus Percy, it is literally life or death here.

“Jason,wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait.” Hotch says.

“Clara Hayes is very likely a good person. Someone who never wanted to do anyone any harm, like any other rational person. But there’s nothing rational about obsessive compulsive disorder.”

“Research suggests OCD involves: problems in communication between the frontal part of the brain and the orbital cortex. Plus deeper structures. The basal ganglia.” Spencer adds.

“You can’t reason with her because you can’t reason with a physiological problem.” I say.

“She’s not setting these fires because she wants to, but because she has to.” Hotch finishes.

“What are you trying to say?” Gideon asks him.

“Don’t try to convince her to stop.” Hotch tells him.

“Because you won’t be able to.”

Gideon nods.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

3rd Person POV

Back in the elevator Cocky Boy is attempting to pry the doors open. He got it as far as they could go.

“That’s it? It won’t go any further?” asks pigtails.

“I told you, it’s a built in safety precaution.” he says.

The other girl shakes her head.

“Help! Somebody help us! Hello? Somebody help us!” she calls out.

“Please, somebody, we’re trapped down here.”

Pigtails is being lifted by Cocky boy to see if she can see anyone.

The doors then open. A sigh of relief when they see Clara.

“Clara!”

“Clara, thank God.”

“It’s all right.” says Clara.

“Clara, go back to the office and get the elevator key.” says Cocky Boy.

“It’s okay. I’m here to save you.” Clara says.

“Go get the key Clara. The elevator key.” he tries again.

She disappears. This brings panic to the three students. One asks if the building is on fire. Clara responds.

“Not yet.”

Morgan and Elle are running wild through the building but are having no luck finding Clara. While the students in the elevator are wondering where their “rescuer” is. They ask for help again.

“I’m here to help.” answers Clara.

“I’m here to save you. God chose you. Chose you....Chose you…”

“Clara?” says Cocky Boy while Clara reveals three bottles.

“Father, son...holy ghost.”

The three begin to panic when they realize what the liquid is. They try to reason but Clara just begins to cover them in gasoline. She then lights a match.

“God chose you.” Clara says.

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Persephone Chase’s POV

It was vital we find her now. Spencer and I were combing through everything we had on her. She was failing out of college this was her last semester. This was her stressor. Gideon is on the phone with us and asked us about anything else.

“She was a researcher in the science building.”

“We know that. They’ve already cleared the science building.” Gideon says.

“The third floor of the science building is under construction.” Spencer says standing.

“I’m on my way.” Gideon says.

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3rd Person POV

Hotch runs to the science building.

“Clara.”

The students in the elevator plead with her. Telling her she doesn’t have to do this.

“I have to do this.” Clara says holding the match.

“You know it’s not rational, Clara.” Hotch says.

“You were trying to tell me.”

“God chose me to be tested, and now he’s chosen them.” she says.

“If I don’t do this, something terrible will happen.”

“What’s gonna happen, Clara? A flood? An earthquake? You know this isn’t rational.” Hotch argues.

“I know. I know. I know.” Clara says pulling back slightly.

“Then resist.” Hotch says.

“I can’t.” she explains.

The students try yet again to reason with her.

“They must be tested.” Clara declares.

“God’s Wrath…”

“Clara you told me it was a chemistry student. You left the message about Charown.” Hotch tells her.

She begins to chant.

“You want to stop.” Hotch points out.

Hotch watches in fear. That fire is getting too close to the gasoline covered students.

“Clara…” says Hotch.

“Clara...stop.”

Just as Clara is about to throw the fire into the elevator Hotch shoots her leg. She drops the fire and it slowly begins to roll towards the elevator, ensuing more panic into the students. Gideon luckily stomps it out in time.

��I thought you said not to reason with her.” Gideon told Hotch.

Hotch just looks down in confusion and sadness.

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Persephone Chase’s POV

It was over. We could finally get away from this college and back home. I was so unbelievably happy to board the jet. I knew I could just nap the whole way home next to Spencer. Plane rides with the pretty genius boy was one of my very favorite things.

“You know, I figured it out.” Elle said boarding.

“The stutter.”

“You know why the Footpath Killer stuttered?” asked Gideon.

“When you and Hotch were talking earlier, that’s when I got it.” she said proud.

“He said he was just trying to stall Clara.”

“Right” Gideon says.

“Well, that’s it, itsn’t it?” Elle asks.

“The Footpath Killer. You were just trying to stall him. You said “I know why you stutter” because you were buying time. You were stalling. But you don’t really know why he stuttered.”

“I don’t?” questions Gideon.

“ I looked it up. No one does.” she smiles.

Gideon then goes on to explain some of the theories for stuttering. Then she asked what really happened but at this point my head was on Spencer’s shoulder and I was on the brink of sleep when Hotch walked over.

“Chase, I still want an explanation as to why you were reluctant to get out of the car or go around campus.”

I looked down for a second, collecting myself. I knew I could trust Hotch, Spencer too. Derek is the only one who knows. The only one I want to know. But maybe it is safe to come clean. Tell the truth. Have more protectors. I open my mouth and just as I’m about to speak I feel a hand slip into mine and give it a tight squeeze. I smile, more comfortable.

“Back in college, I dated the wrong guy. Never cared for me, always pressured me. It was horrible. One night, I went to a party with him. He drugged me and he and his frat brothers took advantage of me. Colleges rattle me. I just couldn’t do it. Sorry I kept this hidden.”

There was this look of sadness in Hotch’s eyes. I couldn’t even look at Spencer.

“Persephone, we will always protect you. We are a team. Thank you for telling me.” Hotch then walked off. This was new, he’d never called Persephone before.

“Hey.” Spencer said.

“Yeah.” I whisper.

“I’ll always protect you.”

“I know.”

He kisses my forehead. I blush. Thank goodness the plane is dark. Then I put my head back on his shoulder and fall asleep. Content with my team, who will always have my back.

NEXT CHAPTER