my new glasses have slightly progressive lenses, and the glasses store assistant warned me that it will take some getting used to, that i gotta take extra care when walking up/down stairs becuase the steps will look closer than they used to, but i haven't had that problem at ALL. is it because i already overcompensate in the field of Careful About Stairs because i'm plagued by anxiety and vivid intrusive thoughts about all the horrible ways i can die while falling down stairs? or maybe i'm overthinking this
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can we put âintrusive thoughtsâ on the ever-crowded shelf of âwords the internet canât use until they learn what they actually meanâ please? because it is genuinely INFURIATING to see tiktokkers be like âoop shaved my head, the intrusive thoughts won!!â or âmy intrusive thoughts are telling me to call my ex a cunt and tbh they a pointâ
but then when people talk about intrusive thoughts that involve violence to themselves or others, sexual assault, bigotry, animal cruelty, abuse, or any other genuinely horrifying thing, then suddenly itâs all âomg if you even have that thought youâre disgusting!â and âyou wouldnât think it if you didnât mean it on some level!â and âok FINE maybe you canât help THINKING it but do you HAVE to post about it?â (and iâve seen that last one commented on videos where people simply mentioned HAVING intrusive thoughts about the topics i just listed. not describing the thoughts in detail or saying what they entailed! just mentioning âi have intrusive thoughts about [x topic]â and suddenly everyone in their comment is jumping down their throat for making them uncomfortable.)
the point of intrusive thoughts is that they are thoughts you do not like, do not want to have, and do not believe in your logical, thinking brain. âswerve into trafficâ âyou could stab themâ âwhat if you poisoned the coffee you just gave them and somehow repressed the memoryâ âwhat if you secretly want to hurt them, so secretly even YOU donât know itâ âwhat if you ran someone over and didnât noticeâ âwhat if you donât actually love your mom youâve just fooled yourself into thinking youâre capable of love but really youâre just faking itâ
intrusive thoughts are upsetting, scary, and often objectively ridiculous.
theyâre not fun.
(on a similar note, it is genuinely creepy to realize how many people believe in thoughtcrime, even if they donât realize it.)
i havenât yapped abt it as much recently but ive been doing pretty well with resisting ocd stuff recently and it feels like a big win :> its still a struggle but i managed to resist my biggest compulsion for (almost) a full week now !!!! and like. idk if iâll be able to keep the streak going bc tomorrow and the day after are going to be pretty stressful days and when im stressed or exhausted i usually give up on resisting much faster𫣠but iâm still optimistic that i might manage to pull thru
since im awake and talking about ocd again - something not a lot of people know is compulsions can be completely mental, it doesnt always manifest in a way another person could notice from the outside
youâll have an intrusive thought; youâll try to analyze it and logic it away, mentally reassuring yourself. âI would never do [x thing]â, â[y thing] would not happenâ, â[other person] wouldnt do [thing]â or even just âdonât think about thatâ. things like that.
but no matter how much logic or reason you use, it doesnt go away, âcause thats not how it works. So you keep repeating whats now become like, a frenzied mantra of re-assurance unable to think about anything else.Â
and this can go on for hours. or on and off for days (or even longer, unfortunately)
hereâs more examples of mental compulsions for the curious:Â
I want to talk about some of my hcs/creative choices around Gihunâs mental health in In the Weeds.
This is my âGihun could feasible have OCDâ thesis
Iâve got the feeling itâs gonna be a long post l o l
I this hc originally belongs to @vlkodlac but I looooove the thought that Gihun is drawn to cigarettes in part by how they help him regulate his breathing.
I work with a lot of traumatized dogs and I teach as many of them as I can how to take a deep breath on cue, and that goes a really long way in helping lower arousal and increase cognitive scope (nerd talk for âthe dog can breathe, so the dog can thinkâ).
This is useful for people, too. Breathing is a very powerful tool.
I donât think Gihun ever would have gone to therapy formally, or he might have tried it once but not stuck with it. I think 1. It isnât of his personal history as far as we know so heâd be unlikely to seek it out, and 2. His skin would crawl at the idea of someone else in his head. Not only because of the mind games trauma he has, but because he also has cherished memories he doesnât want to have violated/gone through with a fine tooth comb/changed by being discussed.
As a person whose life is deeply intertwined with the major and minor impacts of OCD, I think that side of my life creeps into every character I write, but especially so in Gihun. I donât think it would be hard for him to develop thought distortions, including OCD-like symbols, as a way to process the trauma and grief of the game plus the isolation of his self-imposed exile from the world.
I think he could easily experience obsessions/compulsions around:
1. MEMORIES (or whatever this one is called)
Obsessions/compulsions around memories are really common. He might relive things over and over in his head to make sure he remembers them the same each time, either to remember the positive and keep a person alive that way or to torment himself. Maybe he relives Sangwooâs dying moments on repeat night after night to just make sure that Sangwoo put the knife in his neck himself. To just make sure Gihun didnât kill him.
2. HARM
Gihun is terrified of hurting/losing people. Thatâs why he keeps the world at armâs length. In letting Junho get close to him in ITW, he thinks heâs dooming him. This is why their relationship drives him closer to the gameâit makes him more suicidal, not less, even though Junho could be something really good for him.
3. CONTAMINATION/MORAL
Lumping these two together because thatâs how I experience them, and because I could absolutely see Gihun going the same way. I think fears that he is similar to the people who run the game/that he is the garbage they say he is would keep him awake, but beyond that, I think it would distress him so much heâd have to perform some kind of ritual about it. One of those rituals is present in ITW: feeling behind his ear to make sure the microchip is really gone, that he didnât hallucinate cutting it out (this connects to MEMORIES). He also has some compulsive handwashing after hallucinating blood on his hands after handling the money in ch. 8 (youâll see).
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okay now that iâm several weeks out from it and back to normal. can i just say. the week leading up to my wedding i actually felt pretty chill and relaxed. it wasnât until AFTER the wedding that all my anxiety hit meâlike, first panic attack in months, barely sleeping, etc. and apparently thatâs not super uncommon, especially in people with OCD/anxiety.
and idk, i guess im just sharing this as a heads-up to my fellow ocd ppl that sometimes when planning something big (not even necessarily a wedding) it comes AFTER the big event, and thatâs normal, and that doesnât mean you made a mistakeâit means your body and mind were probably holding onto a lot more stress than you even realized, and now itâs gotta work its way out of you somehow. and it sucks! but youâre not weird or wrong for it.
"El, do you want to just dump all the info you learned about OCD while on a weeklong research binge, desperately trying to understand what was going on in your brain?"
Why yes, I do. Did you know it has a very high co-morbidity with Tourette's, and a slightly lower co-morbidity with ADHD. One research paper I read posited that they might all spring from a dysfunctional impulse control, though that was pretty much the scientific equivalent of wild guessing, since it was in the conclusion instead of the focus of the research
Chronic eczema sucks ass. Especially when you have sensory issues. Especially especially when you compulsively pick at/scratch uneven or dry skin. Itâs only recently I realised how much of a lingering effect itâs had on me, Iâve had this since I was maybe 8 years old, itâs my normal, and as itâs seen as such a trivial thing if itâs not intensely severe, you just donât think about it. Itâs just another thing to deal with.
