#deadespeon

[cripplecharacters]

Hi. I have OCD (and various other mental illnesses) and have a character who has OCD. However, this character lives in a setting with aliens who are basically psychic with extra steps (they communicate via electromagnetic fields and can identify and interact with humans brain's electrical impulses.) What I'm wondering is should I make it so these aliens can like, easily distinguish some types of neurodiversity. i.e. they can easily recognize OCD character because his thought/brain patterns are more "repetitive?"

Personally I'm very torn on this. On one hand it feels validating because like a sort of "proof" that the difference is there and to ignore it is foolish. But at the same time it feels reductive to be, even indirectly, identified primarily by disability.

Possibly relevant, I don't think all neurodiversity should be easily identifiable by this species. Like I don't think autism could be identified (too much variation) but maybe something like DID could (parts of the brain field are somewhat "segregated")

Thank you for your ask! I think if the aliens have had contact with humans (or similar alien species) before, they might have some knowledge on what conditions are associated with certain thought patterns. If the aliens haven’t specifically spoken to humans on the matter they might make their own classifications which would probably look a lot different than ours (especially with how wide symptoms vary in one condition and how many symptoms overlap in so many conditions).

Your character doesn’t have to be only identified by their OCD, that may be what stands out at first to the aliens but if your character is well rounded they can be identified by their other traits. For example, when you first meet someone you might think of them as ‘the person with the interesting fashion sense,’ but as time goes on and you learn more about them you associate them with more traits.

Have a nice day!

Mod Rot

Hi!

I think that it's an interesting idea! I feel that it would make sense for an alien psychic creature to recognize that there are some "thinking patterns" that some humans sometimes have. As an example, I can see how they would pick up that certain people have a very specific Pure O pattern just from psychic-ing various people.

Depending on if/how the topic of mental health/neurodiversity exists in the alien society, they might not even necessarily consider it as such. If they don't recognize the pattern as a disorder, they might just think of it as a type of thinking that humans just have, like how they can perceive that some humans have brown hair while others are redheads (while readers would probably pick up on what is implied if they know anything about OCD). The alien aspect gives you a lot of possibilities!

As someone with OCD, I don't see it as "reducing" at all. It's true that his thoughts happen in a different manner than most peoples', but there's still content in them, right? His OCD is just affecting them, which is just how that works. The only exception here is that his OCD process itself is a part of the story - unless you decided to put his entire character's focus on how Weird and Exotic that is, you should be perfectly fine. I think it's an interesting part of worldbuilding to add!

If you are really worried about him being "identifiable" by his OCD, you can always make it so that different OCD types are seen as distinct (or, from an alien's perspective, perhaps even unrelated). For example, someone who's thought process is occupied with visual intrusive thoughts, versus one who is mainly having a specific compulsion-obsession pattern over and over, etc. - this will show OCD as the wide range that it is, and definitely not as "a label" that someone could just be instantly identified with. You can also make sure to show that every person's thought patterns are different to some degree (even if they're as neurotypical as it's humanly possible), and perhaps those with OCD's patterns are just hyperspecific enough to be recognized as more different; a "genre" of thought patterns of sorts. Because at the end of the day, they will also be people who don't have OCD who might share a few of these "OCD patterns" (and who don't fully get read as having it, maybe as adjacent at best), as well as two people who do have it and whose brain patterns don't match at any point, who still do get read as having OCD despite all that. It's a spectrum, afterall, so the brain patterns would be too!

I think that if you have OCD yourself, you can do basically anything you want with this. As I said, you have an interesting concept that you can tackle from a bunch of different angles, and I would love to see a take on it by an author with OCD! :-)

mod Sasza

[wingsofachampion]

So have you met any other Tropius yet since you came here?

A few, on Route 120! They were nice to talk to!

[depressedgarbages-stuff]

All posts of the situation of 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸 I saw today (Wed, Apr 24.):

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