T’sh Tales

“Yeah, why?”

Is there anyone else on here that has OCD? And not the “tee here, I alphabetize my bookshelf” OCD, but like “my brain keeps telling me the world is going to end if I don’t do this thing but every time I do it, it just makes my brain worse” and “fun fact, it’s now considered an anxiety disorder which totally makes sense because I’m terrified like all the time” OCD.

I thought it was just anxiety. Went in for an autism assessment for other reasons, and the psychologist informed me “so, the repeated intrusive thoughts are what we call an obsession and the drive to check on [concern] is a compulsion, so technically not anxiety.”

(Which was actually super helpful, because the closest my GP could get was GAD, and that just didn’t feel right.)

So, the question:

I went through NOCD for ERP therapy, which is the gold standard for treatment. It was covered by insurance and it helped me learn how to deal with it. I am what the app calls a "sustained conquerer" and I haven't had OCD active in my brain since 2022 after just 6 months of treatment. I leave for work during the week whereas before i could only do remote work.

OCD is an anxiety disorder because it produces so much anxiety in you if you do not engage in compulsions to deal with the triggers.

Mine hit me two years ago when my dog had his first flare up of a chronic illness we didn’t even know he had. Suddenly, my brain started screaming “if you stop looking at the dog, he’ll stop breathing.” (Which, can I just say is really unfair because the dog’s whole point of existence is to look at and get happy hormones from. And suddenly my brain is feeding itself with “if you don’t look, he’ll die.”) looking back, I think I was actually in a bit of a crisis because I didn’t sleep for three weeks because I was listening to the dog breathe, and I spent all day at work terrified he’d be dead when I got home.

My dad at this point dragged me to one of his PTSD sessions and the therapist gave me a CBT workbook he had written for his patients with anxiety. I couldn’t read past the first two pages because it was just too much. But those first two pages mentioned checking behaviors and I knew staying up all night listening to the dog breathe was having a huge impact on me. So I picked that one behavior to try to change.

The psychologist that did my autism assessment labeled my OCD “in partial remission.” Because I happened to pick the one behavior (interrupting checking) that is key in overcoming OCD. But the thing with dogs … you can’t just … stop looking at them. So now I can go weeks at a time and everything is fine, and then suddenly that intrusive thought sneaks up and grabs me by the throat, and, like I said. It makes me dizzy how violently it hits sometimes.

I’m glad I know it’s OCD, though. It means I actually know what I need help with and where to look for support. And somehow, it’s entirely changed my perspective on what I’ve been dealing with. I can’t put it into words yet. I think I’m still too early in my journey.

I'm gonna be talking, of course, of grammatical gender, because of this viral image:

I'm sure you've seen an image like this floating around and people crying about how having non-binary be translated with a feminine and masculine form depending on usage defeats the purpose of the term.

But it doesn't!!!

Spanish is not like English, it has ✨grammatical gender✨ which has nothing to do with gender identity whatsoever. It's not that we believe chairs are female and stools are male, our grammar is just like this. Every word has a grammatical gender and there must be grammatical gender concordance. Thus, non-binary must have both a feminine and masculine form to use depending with which word you're pairing it.

Let's say you want to talk about a "non-binary person". 'Person' in Spanish is 'persona' a grammatically feminine word (despite its usage being gender neutral and encompassing people of any gender, as I said, grammatical gender ≠ gender identity). Because 'persona' is a grammatically feminine word, you have to apply grammatical concordance accordingly, and so to say "non-binary person" you would say "persona no binaria".

Now let's say you want to talk about "non-binary gender". 'Gender' in Spanish is 'género' a grammatically masculine word, and because of that to say "non-binary gender" you would say "género no binario".

See? It's not about grammatically imposed misgendering, it's about how this language is built.

But Shine, I hear you say, that's all nice and good, but how do I refer to my non-binary friend? And well, dear reader, you're in luck because I'm not only Spaniard but also non-binary myself.

In Spanish 'friend' (like a whole lot of words) has a feminine and masculine form. When those words are used to refer to people, grammatical gender does match gender identity. For the most part. And broadly speaking, feminine words are associated with the vowel -a, and masculine with the vowel -o (this is not universal, there are exceptions to this, I'm trying to paint the broad picture to give you a general idea).

So what about gender neutral? Well, officially we don't have one. The Real Academia Española doesn't recognize it... But the RAE isn't word of god, it compiles usage, so the more a term is used, the more chances it will be officially recognized. Not using a term because it's not officially recognized is actively detrimental to the goal you want to achieve.

Okay, not an official gender neutral, but what have we come up with? Well, at least in Spain, it's associating gender neutral to the vowel -e. So you have the femenine ella/la/-a, the masculine él/lo/-o, and the gender neutral elle/le/-e.

Now time for practical examples!

"My friend, David, is a boy." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amigo, David, es un chico."

"My friend, Liz, is a girl." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amiga, Liz, es una chica."

"My friend, Alex, is non-binary." 🇬🇧 → 🇪🇸 "Mi amigue, Alex, es no binarie."

And that's how you do it!! At least in queer friendly spaces in Spain, can't speak for other places. I have seen the 'x' thrown around to make gender neutral in Spanish, but -e is way more intuitive for spoken language, so I like it better.

More of my art @alwaystiredshark

doing is resting for months

and im still tired

How to identify, and then deal with, your emotions

Emotional regulation skills

Conflict resolution skills

Creating and enforcing boundaries

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy skills

Emotional intelligence ideals to aim for

Axes of self-care/wellbeing

Self-care self-evaluation (find out where you’re starting)

How to make a self-care checklist

How to start a self-care habit

Reparenting resources

Crash Course Psychology

KhanAcademy: Understanding the Self and Society (some units more relevant than others)

Emotional education activities for children and teens