#you make me fucking sick as a person with ocd and intrusive thoughts

[maxellminidisc]

Just went down a rabbit hole so sickeningly and evil-y white whilst blocking and I genuinely feel sick and murderous

[sleeperagentclone]

I am too socially inept to deal with all the weird people my dad has collected over the years

[the-sun-is-also-a-star]

if you're one of those people who are like "oh my god im so ocd!!" and then you just like to be organized, shut the fuck up. literally shut the FUCK up. You have no fucking idea what its like. Its like being trapped in a mental prison. Its being called weird and ridiculed by my own family because i have to wash my hands between helpings of food or because i have to run out of the bathroom when i flush the toilet or because even when i smell something awful i have to breath through my nose instead of my mouth because if i breath through my mouth it feels like i can taste it. Its developing conditions that accompany it, like excoriation disorder which makes me dig into my nails so hard they're permanently fucked up and look ghastly and sometimes even bleed and which means i have scabs on my head all the fucking time because i pick at them constantly, or misophonia which makes me flinch at every trigger sound, it gets so bad to the point where i start hitting myself and had to move away from walls because i was sure i was going to bang my head against one. hard. It's having violent intrusive thoughts, sick intrusive thoughts, thoughts that make you stay up into all hours of the night and fret over whether you're a good person, thoughts that make you think about death all the time. your own death, death of loved ones, how people will die, how people will react to you dying. It's having morality ocd, which makes you hate yourself more than anything after any minor mess up. It changes your life. Its fucking hard to live with. so i never want to hear "oh I'm so ocd" from people who aren't actually ocd ever a-fucking-gain.

[shsl-heck]

One thing that's had me thinking about Amy lately, is the tension between disgust and desire. She is horrified by the immensity of her desire for Victoria, but the shame and guilt over it can only ever make it worse. Fear and arousal, disgust and desire, all of them bleed into each other (we see this constantly in both porn and horror). It's like she has this splinter at the core of her being and she either cant realize or wont accept that the more and more she digs for it to try to get it out, the deeper she's driving it into herself. She cannot remove this without help from someone else. (Coincidentally, not being able to recognize that her attempts to do/be what she's supposed to are only making things worse is also what leads to the Enwretchening)

I'm aware there's a reading of Worm in which Amy's attraction to Victoria is purely an expression of a kind of morality focused ocd, but I personally think that's less interesting. She definitely experiences some level of that (the urge to fuck up a baby she's healing followed by disgust with herself is like a perfect example of an intrusive thought associated with that brand of ocd), but I think this is a case of *and* rather than *or*. My reading of Amy is that of a deeply lonely and emotionally neglected child clinging to the one person in her life that gives her any form of affection, whose attachment only gets increasingly complicated as she starts to grow up and realizes she is attracted to women.

She has never been treated as part of the family, has always felt on some level that she's only playing at being a sister to Victoria, and she is dealing with that during a stage of her life that is turbulent at best for even people raised in a healthy functional environment. There is a broad cultural taboo around sex and desire, but there's a special sort of self-loathing and fear that you're somehow predatory for finding someone attractive that a lot of queer people experience due to the stigma surrounding their sexuality and/or gender. Homoeroticism and attraction is seen as disgusting and fundamentally wrong by society no matter what. It is especially disastrous for Amy because even though she's never been able to see herself as Victoria's sister, she knows she's supposed to, and that adds a whole new layer of guilt and shame to even a passing thought about Victoria being attractive.

Then she triggers. Suddenly she not only has to pretend to be Amy Dallon the well behaved unintrusive family member, she has to be Panacea, the girl who performs miracles. She doesn't even have a secret identity to fall back on for privacy because of New Wave's gimmick. Any resentment about her role, or desire to live a normal life become more proof that she is a sick, evil person; a parasite who has wormed her way into the Good and Heroic Dallon-Pelham family and is eating away at them from the inside-out.

Even as it forces her to repress more and more of herself, Panacea also offers Amy what is seemingly her only chance to be Good like her family. Healing people isn't just something she has to do in order to avoid being a terrible person, but also how she can atone for everything else that's Bad about her. Saving people is a way to try to purge herself of the desire for Victoria, and to prove that she can be a Dallon in more than name.

Like, as awful and lesbophobic as Wildbow's handling of Amy was, there is something deeply compelling and even relatable about her to me. She perfectly captures an emotional state that I've struggled (and failed) to explain as I wrote and rewrote this post. It's the hunger, the guilt, the shame, the fear, the loneliness that settles on your skin like frost as a child when you accept that there must be something wrong with you, because if there wasn't then you wouldn't have to try so hard to be good.

[kibblemode]

i hate hate haaaate anxiety and ocd guess what just fucking happened to me under a cut bc its. bad.

so like i was nauseous as fuck so i decided to go driving bc it calms me down right. well theres roadwork around my apt and they had the cones laid out in a way that made it look like i needed to switch to the other lane halfway through right. i didnt apparently bc i hit 2 HUGE fucking piles of road chunks that knocked my bumper out of place (i was able to put it back in place mostly thank god) and im like genuinely surprised my car didnt fall apart or lose a wheel bc that shit was BIG. anyway im already freaked out bc i feel sick and that just made it worse AND its 1am so i have nobody to help calm me down lol. and THEN i start getting fucked up intrusive thoughts like oh what if your engine blows up. what if your tire explodes and youre stranded and have to pay like 300 to get a new tire. then i get the fucking thought "what if instead of a rock you hit a construction worker and crushed them to death. heres a few detailed images and scenes of that happening :) and what if you were so mortified you gruesomely reduced an innocent person to a pile of gore that you throw up everywhere :)" its making me even MORE sick. and on top of all that shit i need to be up for work in less than 4 hrs. im going to kms for real.

[bi-demon-ium]

hello i have ocd and i saw your kate with ocd post so i am here to talk about Her!! i specifically have contamination, harm, checking and order/organisation ocd so this will kind of just focus on those? actually i want to not make it fucked so i'm keeping out of the harm ocd headcanons definitely. 

Bucket checking compulsion. She checks her bucket a specific number of times every day (for me whenever i check something i end up checking it 25 times), people keep telling her she should stop wasting time but she doesn’t think of it as wasting her time if she’s preventing all the bad things by doing this one thing

She cleans a lot, especially to calm herself down, if i recall details correctly. So i say she has contamination intrusive thoughts and she cleans surfaces and objects to avoid getting other people sick, like buys-sanitiser-spray-for-furniture, doesn’t-touch-public-bathroom-walls, wipes-down-restaurant-utensils, carries-two-sanitisers-on-her type cleanliness

Counting things until she gets to a Good Number, eg counting her steps and then she just Stops Walking once she reaches that number and she has to wait for the thoughts to pass

Religious/Moral/Superstitious thoughts because she grew up in such a diverse environment she was definitely exposed to some superstitions and moral values. For instance she believes in how if someone takes scissors from your hand it means they’ll fight with you, and she’s afraid of fighting with someone she loves, so she always puts the scissors down first

Checking on everybody compulsion, when they’re all together she checks if they’re fine; at the farm she checks on all the animals, her dad, and moocho. If milligan isn’t there she spirals and overthinks his mission, but he knows & always calls as soon as it’s safe for him to do so <3

I’d say if she exhibited any symptoms especially harm ocd in the orphanage she would be made to feel like a Bad Person

Whenever she thinks of a bad thing about a person she has to “overcorrect” and think of x number of good things about that person

Finally she gets the chance to get exposure therapy tasks for her ocd? Like they expose her to x thing that she thinks will make her/her family sick, and not let her clean her hands/body after, so she faces that through. It sort of minimizes the ocd intrusive thoughts in the brain once it proves that [bad thing] won’t happen if you do x task

I also have multiple thoughts on autistic kate but that is irrelevant right now

Have a nice day gert <3

thank you!!! sadly i don't really have anything to add but this is really interesting to read!!

[rahullkohli]

Hi, Annika. I just saw your last post and I wanted to check in and see if you're doing okay. I am sending you my best.

jesus christ this is two months old, i am so sorry. thank you so much for checking in on me, it's honestly so nice to log in to see. i appreciate it so much. i'll just put explanation under a cut because it's all just a lot. you don't have to read, but at least i can use it to dump my brain for what's been going on, because i don't have anyone to talk to about it.

but ily for caring about me, i truly was scared to log in and find that no one had noticed i was gone and that people just forgot i existed.

so basically, my dad was in the hospital with a blood clot in his eye at the beginning of december, which fucked up his sight a lot. and everything was just so heavy with christmas being the worst time of the year for me, and then on top of that last year was absolute hell for me so i just fell heavy into the depression.

then on january 4th or sth my dad had another blood clot in the brain, which brings us to the ninth blood clot in his brain in about two years. this time around was the worst hit so far, and he now needs so much help. so i'm basically his primary caregiver again. he has a nurse that comes a couple times a week, and social health workers coming every day to make sure he eats, do some cleaning, help with stuff like laundry and such, which is a huge relief. but there's still so many other things he can't help with, and that all falls on me. like going to his hospital appointments with him because his memory and eyes are basically worthless at this point.

on top of that my depression is just getting worse and worse. except for when i go to help my dad, i don't see anyone socially. my dad never asks me about how i'm doing, how my life is, or anything like that, neither does the rest of my family. i only hear from them when they ask about our dad. so i am more or less just a tool for them.

and tumblr just started feeling like such a negative place. most of what i saw was people telling others what they were allowed to like and not like, and if you didn't adhere to those rules you were told you were a monster. and most stuff i saw on my dash seemed to be new things i didn't have the energy to engage with (i still haven't watched wednesday even though i was so excited for it). and it was a lot of all the bad crap happening in the world, and tumblr didn't feel like an escape any longer, it just felt like it was amplifying my depression, and speaking into the catastrophe thinking side of my OCD and anxiety, and it made my intrusive thoughts hit a level i honestly haven't experienced before, and i was genuinely afraid of myself.

and i'm just exhausted. the past three months i have been in bed when i haven't been doing stuff for my dad. the only thing i have for myself to keep me sane atm is running twice a week, yoga once a week, and song lessons once a week. the support person i got switched to after my old one quit is on sick leave now, so i have a temp, but i can't really talk to her because all of my shit is just such a heavy baggage and i don't know where to start, especially since i'm hopefully only seeing her for another month.

i'm just tired. if i didn't have cas to take care of, i think i would have asked my doctors about options for psychiatric hospitals for a while. i feel like a zombie most of the time, and i only keep going because there's not really any other alternative. so i guess that's that.

at least i was able to work things out with my vet bill, and i'll be paying the last installment next month, and cas is strong and healthy as if nothing happened.

also, i'm using pedro pascal to cope.so that too.

[adelle-ein]

the state of disability activism online atm is so depressing to me; it feels so motivated by hatred and superiority and not compassion or kindness or anything but a desire to be Better than other people

i'm not talking about posts like "hey guys it really does help depression if you take your meds on time and get some sunlight!" i'm talking about "if you don't have friends and don't go outside every day then you're a pathetic disgusting lump who's making yourself disabled on purpose" type shit. which i see. every day. on every site. Constantly. who is this strawman that stays home for weeks at a time and enjoys it and doesn't know that it's bad for them and is happily making themselves sicker on purpose?? who is this person?? oh right. they don't exist. you just hate anyone who's less functional than you.

and it is a constant thing. for example "intrusive thoughts discourse" where everyone talks about "intrusive thoughts are not Eat Crunchy Leaf it's thinking horrible violent sexual things you don't want to think! and if yours aren't that bad then you're a faker!" i have ocd (yes, diagnosed) and yeah i do have intrusive thoughts like that, often, and they're very distressing, etc etc. but like. i also have intrusive thoughts where i just fixate on something completely benign and physically can't stop thinking about it (ie something getting dirty, my neighbor making a weird noise) to the point of intense distress and even panic attacks. is that lol quirky weirdgirl faker because it doesn't involve anything violent or sexual? even though this is a serious and debilitating part of my illness where i don't sleep because i'm lying awake worried that the toilet might get dirty tomorrow??

and why are the go-to insults from these people always "bet you can't drive! bet you haven't left the house in weeks! bet you don't tell a waiter your order's wrong! bet you can't order a pizza without shaking!!" (i see that last one SO OFTEN don't fucking know why.) like yes. punch up at those nasties with agoraphobia and avpd and social anxiety. definitely anyone who doesn't drive is doing so out of sheer laziness and there is no reason to be scared of people other than just being pathetic. you sure are showing them. what a good little activist you are!

the mentally ill vs physically ill "discourse" is a huge source of this. as someone who is Both i can tell you that both are horrible and significantly impeding my life and the physically ill people talking about how depression doesn't count and the mentally ill people talking about how you just have to go outside more to Cure Everything and both of them fighting each other and infighting and whatever are just. a vortex of exhausting bullshit. not that every struggle on every "side" is the same but i so rarely see nuanced discussions of this just "ew, [insert disability the person in question thinks is for babies here]"

just a lot of nasty hate and gatekeeping and yes ableism from people who should really know better but they don't care. again i'm not saying that "get more fresh air!" is ableist or whatever but oh my god you people are so sick and hateful. the really sad part is i have seen people who used to be genuinely kind and helpful sink into this horrible us vs them mentality, where the only way to Win is to be the Least Visibly Disabled but simultaneously the one who has a dx list as long as their arm, so when someone says "my agoraphobia makes it hard to leave the house and i haven't been out in two weeks" they can turn around and go "well I have agoraphobia AND fibromyalgia and *I* leave the house every day so what's your excuse you disgusting tumblr virgin??" as if that isn't just straight up ableism and bullying somehow. not that there aren't people who act cruel and then go "i'm disabled so this is okay!!" or reply to innocent posts with "i'm disabled how dare you imply that i try to shower regularly??" but the people who go "i'm disabled but i'm Normal not like those other gross cripples" are even worse tbh

this is again on every website. twitter tumblr all of 'em. it's not just a tumblr thing. i don't want to talk about the poor chili lady and the reaction to her but the "ironic" and/or "morally just" internet bullying has gotten completely insane.

like i said it feels like the goal from this particular breed of people is to have a ton of disabilities but act completely "normal" and symptom free so that you can brag about your superiority to the Other Disableds while pointing at your dx to go "but, look, see, I'M normal!!! and you're not!!! meaning you're inferior to me!!! freak!!! disability rights tho :)"

anyway yeah i would love to have a ~disability community~ but i don't bc this vortex of being The Most Superior Disabled Person is disgusting and exhausting and i see so many people participating it for no goddamn discernible reason other than a desire to hurt others which. sucks.

[servingcuntry]

i just. need to get this out.

for one, i'm probably making myself upset and i'm probably the problem. i think all of the fucked up shit is just building up, so tw for ocd, anorexia, and just an overall vent ig (this isn't anyone's fault, i'm just struggling rn <3)

for about 2 months, i only ate a meal a day; this past week, i've been trying to eat three meals (it's harder because my stomach shrank + i have ibs). some days, i've eaten 2 (which is still good!!!) but i've also gone most days with eating 1 ... i think i actually only ate 3 meals once or twice this week. and it makes me feel worse because i've been super fucking greedy and i've been snacking if i don't eat that much. i'm not even hungry, i'm just overeating when i don't need to. i know that. i know better. i'm dramatic.

then, my mom likes to check on me, which is good. i'm not diagnosed with anything (sorry if self-diagnosing is bad, i swear i've done thorough research before labeling myself. i'm seeing a specialist soon), so she just likes to throw words around when she doesn't understand. she gets mad at me for forgetting. i wish forgetting was optional, but maybe it's my fault. i don't think about/to do something i've never done before? i'm fucking lazy. sorry. i don't/can't eat? i'm lazy, i need to stop forgetting, i don't want to feel better, apparently. if i told you that i didn't forget most of the time, that i didn't want to eat, that i actually hate this shit and don't feel like it, you'd get pissed because you don't understand. so i'll keep being lazy and forgetful until i'm ready to tell you i'm struggling. (or, maybe it's just my ibs!!! i might be letting it take over since i'm such a lazy fuck <3 i'm clearly capable of snacking when i know i don't need to!!!!!)

let's not forget the side comments i make!! so fucking stupid!!! why do i keep talking about having disorders when i'm not diagnosed? what if i'm totally wrong and dramatic? what if they're just excuses for my actions!!!!!!!!!! i also lie about not being able to sleep!!!! i'm just a fucking idiot who says shit she doesn't have the right to say!!!! i could probably sleep if i tried, but nooo, i just have to stay up!!! and lie about it!! it's fucking pathetic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i just want something to be wrong with me!!

and i'm fucking SICK of these intrusive thoughts, not even kidding. i won't go into detail, but i fucking hate them. they make me hate myself, they make me sad, they confuse me, they piss me off, they affect my decision making, they make me feel like a shit person, they make me worry about everything, they put images in my head, they put thoughts in my head, i just hate it.

and it's my fucking fault.

i'm lazy. i want, i need to overwork myself until i can't anymore, until i'm physically and mentally unable to. i want to have an overly-productive and workaholic mindset, that way, i can feel like shit when i don't do what i need to, and instead of just feeling bad, i keep doing work. i keep working and trying so that i can be ahead instead of behind, or even just where i'm supposed to be. because i'm sick of being stuck. it hurts, i feel bad and lazy. i am lazy. i hate this. i need to work, i need to want to work.

and i'm a sick mess of filth, an attention-seeker, and a mentally fucked individual!!!! sorry if this was a lot, might delete later, but i'm not okay as much as the disgusting voice that projects intrusive thoughts in my head tries to tell me otherwise!!!! fuck YOU!!!

[sadistic-softie]

I'm going to break again. (READ TAGS)

The intrusive thoughts have returned. The dark ones. The ones that drove me to hysterical breakdown and got me in that stupid crazy person house with kids that likes crushing little rodents. I don't wanna go back. That place makes me sick. Same meals every day. Maybe I can handle the thoughts this time. Last time, I was only 13, so I might do better this time? All I can do now is what I used to do to cope. Write them out. Get them out of my head so I don't have to think about them anymore. This might delay or even prevent a break. Who knows?

These nightmares and memories are getting to me. Bad. I can't get the trauma out of my head. It won't stop it won't leave me alone. I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind. I haven't even been able to watch TV anymore because my head is so crowded. I just sit outside sometimes. Sit in the cold. I've been wearing my comfort hat all the time now. I hate taking it off. I can't keep my thoughts straight.

The nightmares. They make me tear at my skin more often than usual. It don't mean to, but I can't stop. Dermatillomania getting worse. I've eaten so much of my own scabs, skin, and blood lately. I've done that sort of thing for years already, but ever since I've started having those nightmares, it's like I crave it. I do it more. I like it. I want to taste my own blood, and it tastes really good. I've also started pulling out my body hair?? I don't know why I'm doing this. It's like I NEED to. Dermatillomania is related to OCD, right? That was my Dx. That's probably why. OCD getting worse.

I'm probably less stable than I think I am. I don't know. So much doubt. I feel 13 again. I need to do something, but I don't know what. I'm really unsure of myself. I somehow feel like I'm in danger of...my dreams?? Like, I feel like sleeping is dangerous, because every time I sleep, I get worse. I know how that sounds, but I'm serious. I feel like they're killing me metally. That's stupid. I don't even know what I'm saying. I've always been so stupid. Useless. Gross. I'm just paranoid. That's probably it. Parania getting worse. The nightmares.

So now what's my plan? I need to have a plan. Stability. I'm gonna keep following my therapists advice for now. Write it out. Get it out of my head. So, here goes nothing. But, if you're reading this, I'm warning you that it's some heavy shit and I don't condone nor wish to act on these thoughts. Plan, stabalize, write, heal.

Here it is. I just needed to get these awful, disgusting thoughts out of my head so I don't have to think them again. PLEASE remember the previous paragraph. these thoughts I carry are a weight on me. It gets worse the more you read. I feel so fucking horrible and sick thinking that they're mine. I carry so much shame, but I just don't wanna feel alone, and I can't bear to share this with anyone I see in person:

I have been eating the same thing every day. I eat other things too, but, I always have this one specific thing at least once a day. an apple with peanutbutter as dip. Every day. Apple with peanutbutter. Apple with peanutbutter. Apple with peanutbutter. And every time I cut the apple, I open this drawer. This drawer is full of knifes. Knifes of all kinds of shapes and sizes. Kitchen knifes. Serrated knives, big knives, little knives, a cheese knife, a filleting knife, a butcher knife, bread knife, boning knife, peeling knife, mezzaluna, etc...pretty much any knife you could find in a kitchen. I love holding them. Especially the butcher knife.

The way that I feel when I hold a knife with weight to it it just...indescribable. I feel like it belongs in my hand. I feel a sense of power that I've never felt before. Being knocked over and kicked while I'm down over and over for my whole life, to end up with this steel beauty in my hands and nobody elses. It's like it's begging for my to do something I don't want to. I get the urge to cut off my own hand. Just fucking slam that heavy steel rectangle right down onto my wrist for no reason other than that I can. That I have the power to do that. To cut off my own fucking hand.

And I've thought of just cutting myself. Just to drink my blood. Why wait for the dermatillomania to get to me? When I can just cut myself open and lick up all that thick, metallic liquid. The taste is so potent. So fucking delicious. And I'm afraid to admit it. I hate that it tastes so fucking good. I hate that if I could drink my own blood with no consequence, that I wouldn't hesitate. When I was seven, I used to knaw on my own arm. I gave myself hickeys trying to break the skin. Stupid weak child giving into curiosity. Did I not once consider the consequence of biting off a chunk of my own arm?

Why was I always such a gross freak? A seven year old child attempting autocannibalism? I didn't even know that word yet I was so young. No wonder people didn't wanna be my friend. I was a freak. What made me want to do that when I was so young and uncorrupt by trauma? I'm older now...I could break the skin now if I really wanted to. I could draw so much blood. I could test every knife on myself, cut out parts of me and eat them. Just like I've always wanted. My sickest childhood dream. One I never shared to anyone. The one that comes with so much shame. Shame on top of shame on top of shame.

What kind of sick freak wants to eat a part of themself?? What kind of psycho thinks about mutilating the ones they love the most? Am I a monster?? My therapists all said I'm not. So many of them...regardless, I still feel horrible about it. I have thought about pushing a knife into, torturing, dismembering, disecting my loved ones. several of them. Several times. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT MAKES ME WANT TO KILL MYSELF?? Maybe I deserve it. I should brutalize myself. See how I would 'like' it! But knowing me, I would probaly try to drink my blood while I writhe in agony. Fucking freak. Gross freak.

Don't be fucking gross? You tell me not to be gross when you catch me having a piss accident?? Everyone pees themselves every now and then. Accidents happen. You know what? YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT GROSS!!! I have cut every part of you into little chunks by hand in my mind. Every muscle, tendon, organ, etc...In my head, I have tortured my best friends brutally. In ways i can't even describe without my stomach twisting. THAT is what's gross. I hate it.

I CAN'T FUCKING STAND THE WAY YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE I'M SOME PATHETIC, INJURED ANIMAL YOU PULLED OFF THE SIDE OF THE FUCKING ROAD!! THAT SHIT MAKES ME WANNA RIP MY SKIN OFF!!! WHY DON'T WE ALL KILL OURSELVES???!!! I wanna burn a house down. I wanna destroy everything! I want someone to try and kill me so I don't take the blame for fucking stabbing them in the shin. I JUST WANNA BE IN FUCKING CONTROL FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE!!! FOR ONCE IN MY FUCKING LIFE, I DON'T WANA BE THE GOD DAMNED POWERLESS VICTIM!!!

[barbiewritesstuff]

Recovery

-- Okay so this might be a strange one but there we go.

Please be nice to me on this one, it's very personal to me because I have ocd and it is ... a fucking nightmare lol. Like all issues, OCD presents itself differently on all people so please bear that in mind when you read this.

Trigger warning: OCD (contamination), intrusive thoughts (as little as possible), and a mention of suicide if you squint

Taglist: @lgg5989 @blessupblessup

It's not his fault. 

He doesn't know any better. 

It's really not that big of a deal.

Really, it's nothing. Bob's making a big deal out of nothing. Fanboy didn't know that touching the rim of his glass would make him book it to the bathroom to throw up the contents of his stomach. He didn't know he would scrub his hands until they bled. Fanboy couldn't possibly realise that handing Bob the glass was going to make him have a panic attack in the Hard Deck's bathroom.

It was his own fault, really. He should have listened to himself and stayed at home. Home was safe, home was clean. 

The problem is that it's all downhill from there for Bob, because if drinking from a glass Fanboy touched has this effect on him, kneeling in front of the toilet bowl as he is doing now is so much worse in every conceivable way. 

Eventually, after the vomiting and the dry retching, he stands up again. Bob's shaking like a leaf as he stands by the sink, turning the tap to boiling and dumping soap on his hands. He washes for twenty seconds, rinses, dries, then does it four times more. Five times should do it. Five times always does it. 

"You okay, buddy, you're looking a little green," Rooster says as soon as Bob's back with them. 

He has to go, he realises. Everything has been touched. Every bench, every table, every pool queue, glass, plate, seat and pillow. Fanboy is sitting on the sofa. Hangman is playing pool, Payback is leaning against a table and Rooster -- he feels a hand collide with his shoulder. 

Have they all washed their hands? What have they touched? Rooster clapped his shoulder, whatever germs Bradshaw carried are now on him. He can feel them seeping through the fabric of the uniform, through the shirt he has underneath it. He can feel them touch his skin, making him sick. He needs to go.

Bob doesn't even say goodbye, he just turns on his heels and books it to his car. Except he can't use the car, because if he uses the car, then the car will be contaminated. No, he has to walk. He has to walk the forty-five minutes to his apartment, trying to keep his mind from wandering to his shoulder.

He's pretty sure it's spreading. There was an itch when Rooster touched him, but now he can feel it in the small of his back, and in his chest. It's coming up his neck, reaching up to his ear. He's on the verge of a panic attack. He knows the thing, the germs, are there but when he uses his phone camera to look, there's nothing. Just flesh.

When he reaches the front door there's a second of nothing. He just stands there with his hands in the air. It's the car issue all over again. If he touches his keys, the keys will be contaminated. He could wash them, throw them in the dishwasher, but his car keys are on the keyring and he can't wash those. There's no way to fix this problem without contaminating something, the thought almost makes him sick.

A decision must be made though, because he needs to shower. Either he contaminates the keys, or he contaminates the phone, which he can use to call Phoenix. In the end, it's neither. Because she's already there.

Phoenix, Bob and Hangman share the same block of flats. Different floors, though, but Bob's is first and so they see him. Phoenix has known since the start, but he can see Hangman doesn't understand.

She fishes antibacterial gel out of her bag and puts it on her hands, cleaning them at his eye level so he can check. When she's done, she fishes his keys out of his trouser pockets and turns them in the door. It opens with a click.

He goes in, going through the same rigorous procedure he goes through every time he comes home. Bob removes his shoes, then his socks, placing them in the dark wash basket next to the door. He removes his uniform next, then his shirt, dropping them into the light wash basket. Finally, there's only underwear, he removes it too before walking into the rest of the flat.

He beelines for the shower, turning it so hot he flinches when he goes in. He stays under for a while, letting the water jet burn the germs off of him, before soaping himself up, rinsing, drying and brushing his teeth. He does it four times more.

When he was younger, he used to have to flick the switch five times too, but now he's in the navy he just doesn't have the time so he doesn't even bother turning the light on anymore. He's even duct taped it off in case he has guests. In case he ever gets well enough to have guests.

Bob knows this is getting out of hand, but he's seeing a shrink. She's nice. He feels better after talking to her. She's even floated the idea of medication, he can't trust medication though, there's side effects. He could get sick. "No," the devil on his shoulder says, "this is fine. This is manageable."

He goes to his bedroom and fishes out a pair of cleaning clothes. They're in a special plastic box, far away from the box of uniforms, or the boxes he has for Sunday clothes and Home clothes. After that, he gets a pair of disposable gloves and goes back to the hallway to dispose of the clothes. The darks go in first on a hot wash with disinfectant. While that happens, he does it all over again. Drops the clothes in the lights basket, showers, brushes his teeth and gets dressed in a new set with new gloves. The lights are next, and then the whole thing again. Except now he puts on his sleeping clothes, from another box, and immediately slips himself into his bed.

---- 

He wakes up when his alarm rings and gets up for the day. He showers and brushes his teeth five times, the dentist has asked him to stop brushing so often and he tries, but the last time he managed to stop himself at four his grandmother fell ill. Phoenix says it's unrelated, but you never really know. It's better to be safe.

Then, breakfast. It's nothing much, just a glass of water and a cereal bar. He needs to brush his teeth again. Might as well jump in the shower. Just to be sure, just to be safe.

When he gets to base, he's sweaty and achy. Phoenix has gone to get his car for him, so at least he won't have to walk home again, but before he can even think about that he jumps in the shower and brushes his teeth again. Just to be sure, just to be safe.

His hands have started to crack open. Soon they'll bleed and he'll have to wash them more just to avoid an infection, or contamination. Which, of course, makes him bleed more. It's a vicious circle. There's never an end. There's only Bob and his brain, whispering things that no one else can hear. If you don't do this, the plane will crash. If you don't do that, Phoenix will die. It's exhausting. 

Bob wants it to end. He wants it to stop. He's not sure how, because medication is out of the question. Well, he knows how, but that just leads to more clean up.

By the time he's finished and dressed for the day, he's late to the hangar. It's okay though, Phoenix is wiping his helmet with an anti bac wipe. She smells like alcohol gel. 

Bob likes Phoenix, she's nice. She's safe. She has a friend with OCD so she knows what she's getting into. It's not the same type but she can recognise the blind panic on which he operates and knows how to work to make him calm down. 

She's accommodating. She's patient. She flies her plane and lands, trying to cause him as little distress as possible. She listens when he talks, and when he asks for her to please, please, please get in the plane with her left foot first. He's not sure why it matters but it does and he feels the immediate relief when she does it.

"Maybe medication isn't such a bad idea," she tells him later in the locker room when she sees the state of his hands, and his arms and legs for that matter.

Phoenix is nice. Phoenix is safe. If she tells him it's okay, maybe it is. Maybe there's recovery after all.

[noodle-tries-to-write]

I have just hit 32k words on my book (it's slow going at the moment, but any work is good work!). so. should you like to read a section from it on this fine morning, you can find it under the cut

tw for OCD-related things (violent intrusive thoughts)

context is that Riley is at a dinner with Asher, Cara, and Asher's parents. this is for complicated plot reasons you don't need to know

I look across at Riley, and xe actually looks like xer smiling. Huh. I guess xe has some gene or something that makes adults talking about their jobs seem interesting. A gene that I am clearly lacking – I still don’t really know what my dad does after all these years (beyond his job title) because I clock off whenever he starts to talk about it.

“Anyway, enough of that! Riley, do you do much in the way of extracurricular activities?”

I’m about to intervene when Cara decides to do the hard work for me.

“Muuum, do you really have to be such a… mum?”

“Oh I see, I’m not cool enough for you, huh? What is it that cool mums ask their daughter’s friends?”

Cara just shrugs, and goes back to looking down at her plate.

“It’s okay, Mrs Harker. I actually used to play rugby before I started college. After that, everything got a bit tough, and now school is my number one priority.”

“Oh that’s a shame.” Mum glances at me for a second, and I’m suddenly filled with a mix of dread and a desire to escape. “I don’t know if Ash told you, but she actually –”

I pull back my chair and stand up. 

“I need some air. I’m going for a walk around the block.”

I don’t know what it is about my mum that gets on my nerves so much these days, but I’m sick of it. If you can believe it, we actually used to have a pretty decent mother-child bond. Yeah, we pissed each other off from time to time, but we mostly got along. I was a good kid, so we were pretty much always either on the same team or willing to cooperate our way to an agreement. It was all fine. Then last year happened, and now… the more she obsesses over my well-being, the more I want to run to the hills and never talk to her again.

It’s because you’re a horrible no good person who can’t even act grateful towards their own mother. It’s because you’re a demon in disguise who is finally showing their true colours. Just you wait. One day they’ll see how evil you truly are, and you’ll be wishing to have the sympathy back. Ungrateful shithead.

I shake my head, trying to force the thoughts out. Trying to push them out of my head and onto the pavement. 

You don’t want to face up to these thoughts because you know they’re true. A good person wouldn’t have these kinds of doubts, and you know it.

Ah. My brain’s favourite trap. If I accept that I’m a bad person, that means that I truly am a bad person. If I deny that I’m a bad person, that means I’m in denial, which means I’m one of the worst kinds of bad people. 

Look at you. Even trying to manipulate yourself. Trying to work out the correct response to a series of thoughts that wouldn’t matter so much to you if you weren’t such a horrible person. You couldn’t stop manipulating people if you tried.

I return to the previous strategy of trying to shake all the thoughts away. This time, I even tap the sides of my head while I’m doing it. And then I’m counting the shakes and the taps, trying to work some kind of rhythm. Using almost everything in my arsenal to get it all to stop.

Evil piece of shit. Shake. Tap. One. Absolutely fucked up. Shake. Tap. Two. Your family secretly hates you, and you deserve that. Shake. Tap. Three. You’re going to end up hurting them one day, mark my words, you awful shit. Shake. Tap. Four. 

I pause. I wait a moment, checking to see if something has worked. Making sure that the thoughts are truly gone. 

I hear a quiet little thought at the back of my mind. I take a deep breath. And I choose to ignore it. It’s only a little thought. I’ve gotten rid of enough of the big ones that maybe it’s time for me to go back to the restaurant. Maybe it’s time to go back to being normal. Time to thank my lucky stars that nobody walked out here and saw me in all my insane glory.

Except, judging by the way Cara looks at me when I sit back down, I think she definitely knows what just happened. I don’t look at my mum or Riley. I don’t want to know what they’re thinking or feeling. I don’t want to check whether they’re angry or sympathetic. I just want to get through this dinner without having to think about any of it for one more second.

[nymph-of-books]

i have rarely heard people talk about something like so, having a hand washing compulsion does NOT mean you're afraid to get dirty, or that you're scared of being sick, or anything like that. compulsions are fucked up, man, and there's no one answer to every compulsion's reason. since i was 8 or so, i've had a recurring compulsion to wash my hands, but i'm perfectly fine camping. my brain just tells me over and over, wash your hands again, you didn't do it properly, to the point where my hands look like an old lady's (i'm a teenager. it's not early ageing) whenever i tell someone i have a hand washing compulsion, they immediately go "oh, you don't need to be scared of getting sick!" nope. i absolutely don't care about getting sick (also, saying that is a jerk move, because no one decides their intrusive thoughts, saying they're irrational won't help anything but make the person feel more isolated, but that's a conversation for another day.) i just have a hand washing compulsion. and it makes absolutely no sense. and i know this. most people with ocd know that their compulsions don't make sense, but in order to keep the gremlin brain (derogatory) away, they perform their rituals. and it sucks. EVEN when you may think someone's ocd is simple, they want to be clean and orderly, you are probably wrong. unfortunately, due to my very own executive dysfunction (love you brain.) (lie) my room is a MESS and the only reason i'm annoyed with it is because i don't have any space to put the rest of the mess i make with it.

[gay-otlc]

Oneat Cperson Disorder

Obviously everyone with OCD is super neat. They probably have great handwriting and a perfectly organized room, and they’re qUiRkY because they don’t like asymmetrical things, all that shit. That’s what OCD stands for! Oneat Cperson Disorder!

Wait... OCD isn’t Neat Person Disorder?

Then what is it?

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. That’s the real acronym. It’s not Neat Person Disorder, it’s not a synonym for organized. It’s a shitty disorder characterized by obsessions and compulsions. A major symptom is intrusive thoughts.

This is what OCD actually is.

(Warning: Unneccessarily long. You have been warned.)

Intrusive thoughts

Almost everyone gets intrusive thoughts. That’s not an OCD specific thing. 

The way my therapist explained it was that the brain is like an email inbox, and thoughts are like emails. Some thoughts are marked as important, such as things like I need a drink of water. This is important to survivial and should be prioritized. Some thoughts just go in the general inbox, like That person over there is tall. It might be relevant to whatever’s going on at the moment, but is generally not that important. Some thoughts are spam, like I should hurt someone I care about. It’s not born out of any desire, it’s just random, and it’s completely unimportant.

A non-OCD person would mark the spam emails as spam. An OCD person would mark them as important.

And the type of spam emails that gets marked as important goes with the subtype of OCD. So, someone with harm OCD (me, it’s me, hi) could get the thought Overdose on these painkillers. Someone with contamination OCD could get the thought I touched this surface and now my hand is covered in germs.

Conclusion: Intrusive thoughts would be fine if my fucking spam filter worked. Stupid brain. 

Obsessions

After marking the intrusive thought as important, the brain will consider it to be... well... important. It isn’t, but hey, the brain doesn’t know that. It just knows that it was marked as important, so it should definitely think about this email.

And think about the email.

And think about the email.

And be literally unable to stop thinking about the email.

And become completely and utterly obsessed with the email until it matters more than a lot of the actually important thoughts.

Thanks a lot, brain. 

This is the obsession!

Since the brain only marked an intrusive thought as important because it was distressing, thinking about the intrusive thought will obviously cause more distress. OCD is an anxiety disorder, and the obsessions make you... take a wild guess... anxious!

An obsession will spiral until it creates a worst case scenario, usually taking place in a “what if” form.

So after I get the thought about overdosing, the next thing I think will be Oh fuckity fuck fuck fuck fuck, what if I overdose on these painkillers? I don’t want to, but I’m worried I’ll lose control and impulsively do it. This is hilarious, because I am an extremely not-impulsive person, but the OCD brain thinks in absolutes.

It wants solid, 100% confirmation that I will not commit suicide. And no matter how unlikely it seems that I will, having 100% certainty that I won’t is impossible. And my OCD brain apparently doesn’t understand probability and thinks that P(not overdosing) =/= 100% means P(overdosing) is extremely likely.

This might also be accompanied by fun other distrubing thoughts that explore this worst case scenario in more detail, such as my family finding my dead body, my friends being told I’m dead, people attending my funeral, etc.

A person who thought I touched this contaminated surface might go on to think Oh no, what if I now have this disease and get sick and die? That might be accompanied by going to the hospital, having surgeries and shit, also the funeral, etc.

The “what if” question is very distressing, And because it’s an obsession, you can’t stop thinking about it.

Conclusion: My brain should be able to stop thinking about things. Stupid brain.

Compulsions.

That obsession from before was fuckin’ scary, right? It’s all worst case scenario shit. We don’t want that happening. 

So, what do we do?

Prevent it from happening! Seems logical, right?

Except. Except this is absolutely, 100% the wrong thing to do. It perpetuates the idea that intrusive thoughts are Big Scary ™ and creates a vicious cycle until preventing the worst case scenario from happening completely consumes our lives. 

Compulsion is any sort of preventative measure.

When I have thoughts like overdose on these painkillers, there are a lot of things I really shouldn’t do except always do. I could list reasons to live (The problem with this is that I don’t want to die, and treating it like I do adds on to the idea that this is a genuine risk. People who are suicidal for real absolutely should think about reasons to live.) I could google “signs of suicidal people” until I’m confident that I don’t fit enough of those signs. I could completely avoid painkillers at all whatsoever until I’m in too much pain to do schoolwork I really need to do and then upon trying to take a painkiller I have a panic attack I mean haha what that definitely wouldn’t ever happen-

If someone has the thought I touched this contaminated surface and is now worried about getting sick and dying, what could they do? They could wash their hands, which is a big one associated with OCD. They could check symptoms of whatever disease they’re worried about until they’re sure they don’t have it. If a fever is something they’re worried about, they could check their temperature and then check it again because they don’t believe the first non-feverish number I mean haha I’ve never done this one either really what is it with these examples? So random, definitely not based in real life...

Ahem.

All of these measures are taken to prevent something that there isn’t a risk of, are make me more scared of something I don’t actually have to be scared of, and make me more reliant on these habits to the point where it interferes with my functioning; for example, if I’m scared of painkillers now, I’ll be in more pain and that will make it harder to do things. 

Conclusion: Just because compulsions give me immediate relief from anxiety, doesn’t mean they aren’t bad in the long run, and doing them is also bad. Stupid brain.

Ending Statements And Stuff:

So, can people with OCD be neat? Well, I’m convinced neat people are a myth, but I guess they can be. But can people with OCD also be disorganized? Fuck yeah, I’m here, aren’t I?

OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It is not Oneat Cperson Disorder, and please do not treat it as such. That can be harmful to disorganized people with OCD like me, who think “I can’t possibly be OCD! My room is a mess!” and then just... not get help for so long. 

It’s also just... like... wrong? It’s factually incorrect to say OCD is a synonym for neat and that alone should be a good enough reason for you to not say it. 

Don’t say things like “I’m so OCD!” because you don’t like it when something is crooked or any thoughts I have about harming you will be completely intentional.

Also, I think we can conclude that Shai’s brain is fucking stupid.

[suekre]

So ive followed you a VERY long time (like from the deviantart days lmao) and i only just realised that you were talking about ocd in that post. Just wanted to let you know that i have ocd as well and god it is exhausting and i know exactly how you feel! I finally start therapy for it in 2 weeks. Pls know that i love your art and you very much and appreciate everything you create and share with us. All the best!! X

Hey you, I know you! Thank you for coming to my inbox and sharing this with me, I appreciate that so much. :) I am SUPER happy for you that you are about to get the help you need, that is awesome. I wish I could have had it at the time!

(And oh boy, the good old deviantart days, haha! Always happy to have my longtime followers around! :D)

OCD is exhausting indeed. People who aren’t affected can’t imagine what a nightmare it is. I, personally, am more prone to intrusive thoughts than actual obsessive-compulsive behavior. When people hear „OCD“, they usually think of obsessive hand washing or „leaving out every black tile while walking through a kitchen“ or so, while it can manifest in other ways. I didn’t know back then. I just thought I was going completely crazy at the time. I think I mentioned my disorder at times but I never actually openly talked about my own experiences (where I come from, mental disorders are a big NO NO, because it’s all in your head, just pull yourself together, other people are ACTUALLY suffering, it’s just dumb thoughts, you just need to think positive, y’know).

I kinda feel like doing it now. Just to get it out, and also to occupy my brain and hands and hey, maybe someone else can pick this up and find themselves in my own experiences. I sure know how relieved I was when I found out I wasn’t alone with my what I thought was a ‚Very Weird, Unique and Niche Problem‘.  

I gotta admit first - I’m doing much better nowadays. Even my worst days, as horrible as they may feel at the time, do in no way compare to the hell I went through in the second half of 2015. I have come a long way since my last (and so far worst... omg, oof, I hope there won’t be another) episode of intrusive thoughts. But, oh boy, was it intense.  It was the absolute worst time of my life, ever. I’m not writing this to scare anyone. Anyone who is familiar with this, will know how bad it is and anyone who can’t relate at all won’t feel affected anyway and will maybe even think something along the lines of „What the fuck?!“. I get it. It DOES sound crazy.

I have always been an overthinker. I always needed more validation and reassurance than other people around me and for the longest time I had no idea why that was. It was usually subtle - always kinda there but never strong enough to actually affect my life in a negative way. I just felt off at times, and not always super good. But I was generally ok, I could always manage.

Until that one episode that changed my life forever. I know that sounds dramatic but, even though I am in a good place nowadays, it sure DID change my life. I was 31, I lived together with my then-boyfriend and I still remember the exact date. Friday, July 24th, 2015. I remember the exact moment when my entire mind collapsed. It’s so weird, it literally happened from one second to the other. I am not making this up to sound more dramatic, it was a matter of seconds.

I was on my way home after work and I felt… restless and stressed. It felt good to get off work (it was my first full time job and... it didn’t go well, to put it nicely) but I was no longer really looking forward to my week off, and our trip to our favorite Open Air the following week. I picked up some dinner on my way, I came home, and I saw my boyfriend in the middle of the living room, he was making some preparations for our upcoming trip. When I saw him, tall and handsome and smiling at me, I smiled back but inside I felt like crying. My smile was fake. Kissing him felt weird, and also fake. And all of a sudden, there it was. The life changing thought:

„I don’t love him anymore.“

A simple thought. I had weird thoughts before, like anyone does, but they never had any greater impact on me. This time, though, that one thought knocked me off my feet. Not literally, I had turned into a pillar of salt somehow. This was the Perfect Man Of My Dreams (at least that was what I thought back then). The man I wanted to spend my life with, the man who made me happy every day! How could that even be, how could I even think something like that?

I felt even more restless. I didn’t tell him, of course. When he asked how my day was, I put on my fake smile again and said it was okay. We ate our dinner (although I had instantly lost any appetite), and I kept looking at him and the thoughts... just kept coming back.

You don’t love him anymore. What if you don’t love him anymore?

On repeat. It was awful. I just couldn’t shake them off.

It’s the stress, I tried to tell myself. You’re overworked. It’ll be good, you just need some rest.

But I couldn’t relax. My heart was racing, my blood was pumping. I didn’t know what was going on. I begged him to leave his work undone and take me out for an after work drink and he agreed. All the time, the thoughts wouldn’t leave my mind. I didn’t want to think them, but they were merciless, they just kept coming back. I felt so helpless.

A few drinks later, I had calmed down a bit, at least so much that I could stand to look at my BFs face again without feeling guilty. There you go, I said to myself, not quite convinced, you’ll be good. It’s already wearing off. When we crawled into bed later, I was tired and relaxed (and tipsy) enough to sleep and convinced that this was just a little glitch, that things would be just fine in the morning.

When I woke up, I felt exhausted. My heart was racing... and the thoughts came back IMMEDIATELY.

You don’t love him anymore. You gotta leave him.

What. The. HELL!? Why are these thoughts still a thing? Why are they still there? Why do they keep coming back?

I kept trying to push them away but the more I tried, the more intense they became. As if they tried to spite me. I started losing focus on everything else around me, the world slowly started to blur. It was just Me And My Thoughts from here. I tried my best to hide my state, and I think I managed for a while, but I felt like a robot any time I talked to someone. When people would pick up on my confusion, I usually brushed their concerns off. It’s nothing, I’m good.

I mean... how do you even tell someone that you just. can’t. stop. thinking. about whether you still love your boyfriend or not? According to the world, that is something you “just feel and know” after all. Except that I didn’t. I had no clue. I couldn’t feel anything. But, according to the world, that was perfectly normal, too. “Honeymoon phase is over at some point, babe. That’s everyday life, you grow comfy, it’s no longer a flash of feelings every day, you know that. You guys have been together for a while after all, what did you expect?!” ... what I felt didn’t feel like comfy everyday life either, though. Comfy everday life shouldn’t come with high key anxiety, sleepless nights and a loss of appetite at any lived second. If that was comfy everyday life, I sure didn’t want it.

So, what do you do when you have no clue about something? Right! Google! Go and ask the world! “How do you know that you still love your partner?”, “Is the love gone?” ... I spent hours, DAYS doing that, but no answer I found was remotely statisfying (or maybe it was for a minute, but the reassurance never lasted long) and I felt that those articles didn’t actually understand what I was asking in first place. I would spend every day like that. Permanently asking myself the same questions, analyzing myself, testing if the Big Feels for the man had decided to come back... nah, not really. Maybe NOW? If I just look at him close enough?! ... maybe if I squint a little?! Fuck, still nothing! Niente! Nada! I am a horrible person, aaah!

(Our open air trip was an emotional disaster by the way, I felt horrible all the time, and the permanent rain didn’t help. -3/10, do not recommend).

If I had known at the time that I wouldn’t spend just a few days but (more or less) six months with this shit... oof. I was already exhausted after those few days.

Over the course of the next weeks I stopped eating almost entirely. I just couldn’t. This permanent tight anxiety knot in my stomach made me want to throw up at the mere thought of food. At my worst point I weighed 138 lbs (63 kg), at 6 ft 1 (1,85 m). I often joked about how I had almost reached runway model standard. I was sick, I was weak, I was scared, but I just couldn’t eat and the bits I DID force myself to eat were burned almost right away by my crippling anxiety. (I still have clothes from that time, and I sometimes beat myself up for no longer fitting into them before I remember that I should NEVER fit into them EVER again.)

Instead I smoked a pack a day. I hardly got any sleep and when I did, it wasn’t relaxing. Always in Fight and Flight mode. My body was at alert level any minute, any day. I’m still asking myself how it could be that I never actually... collapsed. I was always tired, exhausted and malnourished... I dunno, you tell me.

The thoughts never really disappeared. They kept coming back in all variations. You don’t love him anymore. You have to leave him. You may not want to, but you have to. You don’t love him. I had very few “good moments” in between but in those good moments, my mind was usually frantically looking for explanations and reasons behind all this. For ways to improve my relationship, to feel better about my boyfriend. I came up with the WEIRDEST shit. Almost every day I found something new that bothered me. One day he was a little boring. That’s it! We gotta go out more, do more stuff, that’ll change everything. ... aaah, no. Guess not. The next day, it was something else. The day after THAT, it was something entirely different again.

I was suddenly prone to making some HELLA weird impulsive decisions, too. „I gotta break off contact to that one person RIGHT now, THEN I WILL FEEL BETTER!“, “I gotta talk to my mom about THAT particular incident in my childhood right now, THEN I WILL FEEL BETTER!”, “I gotta make a trip to the mall JUST NOW, THEN I WILL FEEL BETTER!”… the decisions made total sense to me the second I made them, for about ten minutes at most, but the initial rush of relief started to fade again quickly and I frantically started looking for new solutions. Google was my best friend. I couldn’t go a day without googling exessively. Overthinking, pacing, googling. Any day, any hour awake. Over weeks. A few months even. My mind was constantly reeling. It was a bottomless pit.  

I cannot put into words how exhausting that was. Sometimes the idea of throwing myself out of the next window seemed SO tempting, not because I wanted to die, but because I wanted the thoughts to stop tormenting me.

(I was out of regular therapy at the time, btw. I thought about calling my therapist about it but never did it. I felt isolated, I literally thought I had to do this all by myself.)

At some point, a few months into it, I somehow transferred to zombie mode. The thoughts became a little less intense over time. They were never gone but not quite as nagging anymore. But any time I wasn’t in alert mode, I felt just hollow instead. Sucked dry of any joy, of any emotion, of any sign of life. I just... functioned. Still tried to hide it. I dunno how well I did with that. Probably not at all well. I kept it all to myself, just because it felt that ridiculous. Tried to find excuses. “I’m just tired.”, “You know, there’s a lot going on in my head right now, but I’ll be good.” ... truth is that I don’t remember a whole lot of that time, it’s all blurry. There are just a few significant moments.

Such as that one evening, after work, when I left the building, made a few steps and stood five (or ten? fifteen??? who knows?! not me.) minutes on the spot, motionless, because I could no longer remember my way home.

I got fired from that job, by the way. I’m sure it was mostly due to low performance, I get it, but I can’t blame my poor state alone - they were also assholes.

Anyway.

I had, of course, never stopped the googling and one day, after hours of browsing any niche I hoped I hadn’t browsed yet, I somehow found a blog written by a young woman like me. The description tackled almost all of my thought patterns and I was blown. away. She asked herself the very same questions, with the very same twists, and... she even had a name for it.

ROCD. Relationship Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I cried for what felt like hours. Out of relief. There was a person in this world who knew exactly what I was going through. And she even had tips how to overcome it. It wasn’t the first time I had heard about OCD, but as it had never affected me in any way before (I, too, associated it with compulsive hand washing and tile jumping), I wouldn’t have thought of it. After doing my own intense research on the subject, a huge part of me and my life finally started making sense to me. Not much was known about ROCD at the time, but it kinda didn’t matter anyway. What mattered was the OCD part. The subject of the thoughts is entirely interchangable. It’s the chain of thoughts itself that has to be broken. Don’t focus on the relationship. Break the chain instead.

The internet also recommended exposure therapy but as therapy wasn’t an option at the time (weird German laws... regular health insurance covers only a limited amount of therapy lessons within a certain span of time and I had used mine up and there was no way I could pay myself), I decided to try it myself, the key points being:

* No more googling, no more reassurance. Learn to live with the uncertainty, learn to live with Not Knowing.

* Let the thoughts happen. Watch them pass by. They’re just thoughts, they can’t harm you. Don’t fight them, just recognize them and let them stay, they’ll get less scary over time.

* Focus on other things, as hard as it is. Try to occupy your mind and your body. Any minute you spend doing something else but brooding is a win.

It all sounded so very abstract at the time, but I was determined to give it a try. Oh gosh, was it hard. After months of emotional torment and getting used to unhealthy ways of coping, it was SO DAMN FUCKING HARD to NOT google. To NOT think. It felt like torment all over again. How was I supposed to just let the thought sit with me!? It was scary, I didn’t want it! Just ONE little peek, only a second, come ON! I won’t do it again after that?!

Oh god, it was the worst, it really was. Trying to break the chain while I was so desperate to save my relationship was terrible. I honestly don’t remember HOW I made it... but I made it. I somehow... clawed and bit my way out of it. I went right through the pain and made it. It’s not actually a linear process but there comes this point (and I know a few people I met on online platforms who would back me up on this) when you know the worst is over. You just know it. Things weren’t exactly good by the time the thoughts were history but I had reign over my own head again, I could actually SEE the world again, and that was worth everything plus my body weight in gold.

I’ll stop right here because the following months weren’t about my OCD anymore, but about figuring out needs, figuring out myself and what I wanted from life and this particular relationship and it’s not quite relevant and another story. (I DID love my ex-BF but it turned out he wasn’t at all good for me, I had ignored all the red flags for too long, and it didn’t take long after this for us to go separate ways)

I hated this particular time in my life while it lasted but I have learned and taken so much from it. It has changed my life in so many ways. I learned that things are never set in stone, not for anyone. That there will always be uncertain times on our ways. That change is always scary. That it’s okay to be scared. That staying in crappy situations for the sake of it isn’t always the right thing to do. Sometimes, doing the right thing (aka leaving a relationship that isn’t good for you) can make you sad. Love does not equal compatibility.

Looking back, I am - in a very bizarre and twisted way - grateful for the experience. It was an incredibly important lesson for me that taught me to be kinder to myself, to look out for myself and to listen to my own needs. That I should put myself first at times. For the first time of my life, I really got in touch with myself and my own emotions. I learned to understand them, I learned where they come from. I learned to cut myself slack at times.

The list goes on and on, but you get my drift. I know myself inside and out at this point. That wasn’t always the case. Not until 2016.

It still comes back at times. Not with such full force, but it keeps creeping back in, pretty much any time I have to deal with uncertainty in my life. Bad news at work, not hearing from a friend for a while that I’m dying to hear from (inevitably thinking that they MUST be mad at me) or when I spot a few symptoms of sickness that I’m not familiar with (I practically never get sick). Not Knowing What Will Happen drives me CRAZY. I hate uncertainty, I need my life to be stable and calm to fully function.

Now, in COVID times, it’s mostly the fear of suffering from an incurable disease. AGAIN. I’m familiar with that, too. I’m not even scared of catching the virus, I just fell right back into overthinking any symptom I have, even if it’s just a short pain in the neck or whatever (you know, things that one usually brushes off). When my life was busier, I was MUCH better at handling those thoughts. Most of the time, they didn’t even come up in first place. Sitting inside and avoiding contact 99,9% of all times, and having little to no actual distraction („reading/watching movies“ doesn’t help me personally, it does’t occupy my mind enough, I usually just stare right through the pages/screen), however, leaves FAR too much time for the thoughts to unfold, once they come up.

This subtle but lingering concern for my health puts my body into a permanent state of anxiety once more. Fight and Flight mode. The pace of my heartbeat is always slightly, but perpetually, increased. It isn’t always outright panic attacks, it’s this constant state of having to be… alert. Something MIGHT happen, y’know. Be prepared. Relaxing and doing nice things becomes almost impossible. Instead, I get tired and exhausted. Depressed, even. It sucks the joy right out of me. I feel like living under a glass dome. I see what’s happening around me but I am unable to connect, emotionally. People keep living their lives and I can watch them, but I can’t be a part of it. It’s a deeply crushing feeling. I manage to somehow function but I don’t really feel alive. My abandonment issues and fear of „getting left behind“ kicked in again, too. I want to catch up and take part but can’t so I stress myself over THAT, too. This only adds to the exhaustion and makes me feel even more isolated.  

Hello, vicious circle, my old friend.

I didn’t even realize that I had such huge potential to fall right back into it. It all started… I dunno, by mid/end of January?? It’s a bit blurry this time. It is directly connected to Germany’s recent lockdown, though. A massive case of Not Knowing How Things Will Turn Out. I failed to take better care of myself in the past few weeks. And now I’m here. AGAIN. Ugh.

But well, as I said, it’s not as bad and, as I said, I have at least learned some important things over the years. In this particular case of intrusive thoughts, the first rule is: NEVER GOOGLE SYMPTOMS. And never google shit like „chances to survive (whatever illness think you have at the time)“, either. The mind longs for reassurance but googling symptoms is BAD, as we all know by now. It’s not even reassuring when you do it. Because you’ll inevitably end up diving through the vast internet for HOURS, picking up an entry that some person named Kevin made on a cancer forum way back in 2004, saying that his uncle died the next day after finding out he has cancer and that is, OF COURSE, what will happen to YOU, too. There is no other way. YOU WILL DIE.

Excuse the text walls. I took an opportunity to ramble about my own experience, for the first time ever since it happened (not including the few short talks I had with the few people I met on internet forums).

To anyone who made it this far: Thank you so much for reading. It sure felt good to write this down for once, even if it’s just a short summary (yes, really, I mean, we’re talking six-ish months here), and the descriptions fall woefully short. If anyone affected by the same happens to read this -  I am so, SO sorry you are suffering so much. You are NOT alone and you are NOT weird. Talk to someone. Open up. To your doctor, or you therapist, if you have one. To a person you trust. It is the worst but there are ways, there is help. I wish I had known at the time it started for me.

You know now. :)

P.S.: DON’T FUCKING GOOGLE:

[mistermoo]

On today’s episode of “What’s L-v3r thinking about?” *repost

Please take all of what you’re about to read with a grain of salt.

TW/CW : Self harm, Suicide, Mental Illness, CSA, Slurs, Gore / Gore films, Lying Compulsive/Pathological  

Let the chaos consume you. This is everywhere, don’t expect specifics. 

Let’s start with the intrusive thoughts.

 I genuinely don’t know whether I have a mental illness like a pure type of OCD or if I’m just a bad person. Sometimes, my brain gives me random thoughts like 

“What if you were attracted to children?”  

“Doesn’t this animal in heat turn you on?”

 “Say this racial slur, who cares?” 

“Do this offensive thing, it’s not like there will ever be consequences.” 

 But let’s not mention the fact that I care for only a few people in my life and if the rest of you were to disappear, I wouldn’t really care/mind. I’m indifferent to the idea of loss, and if you were to tell me you wanted to kill yourself, god I’d say do it. 

 I’ve been only cutting myself out of boredom, but lately it’s out of pure hatred for my life; any physical pain is better than the shit that I’m feeling mentally. I think the idea of getting the shit beaten out of me would be romantic, if not, then at the very least I think I would enjoy it.

 My brain goes to lengths as of to think about raping my friends (I’m aegosexual/questioning whether I’m ace spec), touching them, ruining them. I like the idea of making someone feel like shit. I could never bring myself to actually do it, but the thought runs through my mind all the time; especially around my more innocent friends, my ace friends. I hate myself for that. I don’t *want* to do these things, but my brain is tricking me into thinking I want it. Please don’t think that I ever wanna do these things. When I say *I* want, I mean my brain wants. I don’t want. I want this to fucking end. I’m tired of it, it hurts. 

But, at the same time I want to put someone through such big trauma, and I don’t know whether that’s mental illness or just-- the way that I think. I genuinely liked watching August Underground, even though some of it was a little too much for me. I literally take my ex-abusers/best friends (I can’t even say that he abused me, I just don’t know what’s true anymore. Maybe I was sick, maybe he was. Maybe we were. It was so long ago.) I take his personality and turn it into my own, with it’s own little twists and turns. Somehow he’s still better than me; he finally got away from me and I wanna grip him and tell him to stay. I wanna sink my teeth into the guy and watch him bleed from how unhappy he is around me, especially because he knows of everything I’ve ever lied about. But he says that he’s the same. But he’s trying to improve. He’s trying, and I’m not. I just mask this, and I let it boil and boil until I breakdown and write shit like this.

I know him and now he knows me. There’s no beating around the bush, there’s no escaping that now he knows how terrible I really am. I never claimed to be good. There’s euphoria out of feeling like this I think, thinking I’m better than everyone who isn’t like this. I must know more to be able to feel these ways, might as well use it to my advantage. I either feel like shit about this 24/7 or I feel like I’m god. 

 I feel like if I were to ever openly tell this to anyone, they’d look at me like I was wrong. But, honestly, I feel like this side of me is different from the one I show at school. At school I’m this PC kid who hates hearing the words ‘faggot’ or ‘retarded’ even though I would probably still say that type of shit if I weren’t this performative activist to other people simply because I don’t think I could ever stomach confrontation like that. And not to mention the fact that I’m such a big fucking liar. I lie about shit that you shouldn’t lie about like being raped, being abused... But, then I complain when others do it (cut back to where I said that at school I’m this PC kid). But, why do I do it? I have no fucking clue. I don’t gain validation, I don’t really gain ANYTHING unless it’s online. Then, I do gain validation. But, I feel like I’ve gotten better with these big, absurd lies. I have gone through trauma, and I’ve stopped lying about it to make it bigger. Cue the applause. It’s the smaller, stupid-er shit that just pops out that I can’t seem to control. I dunno. I hate to believe that this is really me. I feel like this is just a side of me that sometimes bleeds and shows. I don’t want this to be the real me because I know that it’s wrong. I want to figure out what’s wrong with me. I really do. But there’s no escape to how I feel;; my brain is too roomy and too filled with air to figure out why I’m like this. To call me a good person because I know the shit that I think is bad would be blatant lie, a call for help on your side. 

I don’t know what I am, if I’m a product of my environment or if I’m just a product of waste. I feel absolutely nothing besides apathy for people who think that I’m disgusting, and feel indifferent to those like me. Tell me the worst thing you’ve done and I’ll applaud, even congratulate you. I don’t care whether I trigger people, but at the same time I want to make sure you feel safe around me. I don’t want to hurt you but at the same time I’d pay just to step on your neck. 

Yes this is all the intrusive thoughts, but somedays I think they’re apart of me. I think that if I break, or if I get so close to the edge, my hands will truly tear deep into someone’s skin, and that scares me. It scares us all. 

  But anyway, I can’t tell if all of those things are deep-rooted in trauma (like being very sexually active [with myself] at a very young age/knowing what sex was at a very young age/having sex at a very young age , being groomed online , looking to be groomed online , needing male validation at a young age , watching porn at a young age , and probably more smh) or if I’m just a bad person in general. 

Telling me I’m a bad person won’t hurt me or do anything to make me change, I’ve been told that my whole life and see where we are?