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discussions of severe mental illness specifically ocd, self-harm and psych wards mentioned
Do people outside the OCD community even know that severe OCD exists and what it's like? I feel like this isn't common knowledge unless you're somewhat clued into the OCD world. I think even people who realize OCD is a disorder and don't use erroneously use the term to describe being organized don't know about how severe OCD can get. This thing is a spectrum from "life-disrupting but still functional" to "bedridden". Like, both my ex-girlfriend and my current best friend told me about periods of their life where they had OCD (or at least symptoms of OCD) but which passed for them. Meanwhile I'm out here with my life disrupted 24/7 by OCD and right now this is like, the best my OCD has been in several years.
When I was in my worst periods of OCD hell I genuinely felt like I was losing my grip on myself and reality. I spent days in bed just thinking and doing compulsions and spiraling. I considered checking myself into a psych ward because I was so scared of myself. The reason why I failed my first semester of college was because I couldn't read the assigned texts without my brain screaming at me because my class texts had become a focus point for my OCD. My brain could barely think any thoughts outside of OCD thoughts so I lost cognitive ability. I was self-harming as a compulsion. I was completely non-functional as a person.
I've heard a lot of other stories like this from other people with OCD and yet I feel like nobody knows this? Nobody knows that a common OCD experience is literally the feeling of becoming so convinced of the worst by your thoughts that reality starts to unravel around you? I wonder if I should make a post in the neurodiverse comm about OCD because I swear even well-meaning people do not know shit about this disorder.
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Sounds like you're in a much better place mental health wise now, I'm so much happier for you!
I had a pretty brief 2 years with not-debilitating but still life altering OCD, it's definitely always been there when I look back (my fundamentalist dad told me once the worst sin you can commit is "cursing the holy spirit" so little terminal thought about that for like 6 years until one day I cursed the holy spirit by literally stating it lmao). It's hard to convey what it's like to someone who hasn't had it or been near someone who has experienced it. Even people who have had loved ones go into pretty deep contamination OCD sometimes don't know even though they're doing all the exhausting compulsions and rituals their partner is doing, which is weird, it's a disease that's definitely not well understood.
My worst was always around checking and it felt like I was a crazy person. I was driving back to visit my mom, 5 hour drive, and I turned around and drove back home to my place to check the windows and stoves and doors - like this would add hours onto my drive. I would lose so much sleep checking the door and the stove over and over through the night. I say it's about checking but it doesn't really communicate what it was like unless you were around me, it was A LOT of checking, or unless you have had OCD. Eventually I started doing it at clinical, you're supposed to check you have the right med but I'd check again and again and again, and then I started getting help.
I do remember when the doctor said "you have OCD" and now I was also neurodivergent (I was cause of the anxiety before lol but I just didn't consider it). Which was a weird feeling. Anyway, I'm sure people would appreciate an OCD info post. I know for example at the height of my OCD I didn't even know why I was doing what I was doing, and I had had to study common mental health disorders, like it came up and I wrote tests on it - my point being you might even be able to help someone realize that they might have OCD and there are ways to move past obsessive thoughts and compulsions that don't hurt.
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You should make a post there. Couldn’t hurt if you ask me.
But, a lot of people don’t quite understand what OCD is to be sure. Even I don’t fully understand it, but I feel I have a slightly better grasp than most. It always kinda bugged me when people would casually say that “like omg I’m so ocd” over some random thing they do or whatever. That’s not OCD and it’s diminishing the meaning of a diagnosis that’s very real and very potentially debilitating. It’s that level of cognitive misunderstanding that bothers me with a lot of colloquialisms that are centered around various medical diagnoses.