#rumination train

aside from having DID and knowing of it for years, and portraying it with my psychonauts oc Min, i have recently been dealing with a newer diagnosis of OCD and have recently had an idea for a “boss” NPC for the game inspired by it! for me DID isnt something id come up with enemies and bosses for because it would more so be general dissociation and ptsd symptoms not specific to just DID. but for OCD i wanted to share this symptom in the form of a boss-

(art soon perhaps? or if anyone wants to draw it, feel free!)

Rumination Train - a mental world boss representing “rumination”, a problem where one has constant or repetitive thoughts. for those with OCD this can be especially bad as it usually has to do with latching onto an intrusive thought and you get “stuck” spirally further and further on said thought like an endless train, only able to “get off” the train by following it to the end. Rumination is often what follows after intrusive thought and sometimes feels “validating” to those suffering because it can bring relief by “working out” the thought all the way, but its not good because it still causes a ton of distress and anxiety, feed the behavior, and can leave you on that train for hours until you make it through... Additionally, OCD causes obsessions and compulsions, and rumination will often be a compulsion you put yourself through in order to satisfy bad thoughts. in my current OCD therapy the skill is to learn how to get off the train or to desensitize yourself to the train of thoughts... this is a process i am still personally going through so i cannot go into depth about that journey yet, but its not until like mindful thinking i have learned through DBT in the last two years either.

The boss itself will appear like a train, probably with some visual similarity to panic attacks and nightmares but square and long with “train cars”, kind of like a centipede. It is dark and glowing with orange color, bursting into the scene and coming to grab the player immediately! it swallows the player who goes tumbling into the train cars and must use psyrokinesis to get it to spit you out. The train is incredibly fast, and getting too close will have you swallowed again- but the fire doesnt seem to hurt it. the way to defeat it is by using the time bubble to slow it down, and then use psychic abilities to grab the cars with a psi-hand and pull them off. Once only the head of the train is left, you can go at it with any abilities to get rid of it for good.