Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - Tumblr Posts

To all my homies with OCD, Imma just tell you that no.

You're not a bigot for not reblogging political activism posts, you're not a monster because you can't afford to donate to a charity, it's OK to skip or scroll past anything trying to guilt trip you into doing so, and you deserve to live your life.

Greetings bugs and worms!

This comic is a little different than what I usually do but I worked real hard on it—Maybe I'll make more infographic stuff in the future this ended up being fun. Hope you learned something new :)

If you are still curious and want to learn more about OCD, you can visit the International OCD Foundation's website. I also recommend this amazing TED ED video "Starving The Monster", which was my first introduction to the disorder and this video by John Green about his own experience with OCD.

The IOCDF's website can also help you find support groups, therapy, and has lots of online guides and resources as well if you or a loved one is struggling with the disorder. It is very comprehensive!

Reblog to teach your followers about OCD

(But also not reblogging doesn't make you evil, silly goose)

I hate being bad because of fear.

Sometimes, because of my OCD and trauma, I’ll avoid certain stuff. This can be hard to explain to others so it often leads me to lie or come off as passive aggressive when I’m asked to do a task/go somewhere/touch something that I’m scared of.

I know that avoidance is unhealthy and reinforces the cycle of anxiety, but it’s so hard to fight against and I hate being so scared and shaking and just having to act fine and stay stiff and quiet because I “shouldn’t act anxious” and am “scared of nothing” according to my mother.

Though, when I promise to do something or accept a task that I then avoid and never do, it upsets people, reasonably. I hurt other people to avoid my own fear and I don’t know how to help it.

I take therapy, anxiety meds, exposure therapy and I’m getting much better but it’s still so hard. I wish it could just stop and I could follow instructions without having irritational fear making me break rules and promises.

I don’t want to be a bad kid, I wish I could be the best kid out there, but that’s just not possible right now with what’s being asked of me.

Banner by @ alwaysribbit

OCD is hitting me too hard tonight. Intrusive thoughts at night are the worst.

-Amber (she/they/it/star/shine/rot)

Look, this is what moral OCD is like for me:

I walk past a piece of paper. I don’t pick it up because I had a long day at work and it’s very cold outside. This then becomes my internal monologue:

I didn’t pick up that piece of paper, I should have. Don’t I care about the environment? It’s not my trash, I shouldn’t have to pick it up. But also that’s how these things happen right? We place the blame on others as our environment degrades. It was just a piece of paper, it’s not like it can do that much damage. But also how do I know: I’m not an environmental expert. Maybe stray paper scraps are killing the frogs. You’re literally killing the frogs. You should look up how many frogs die a year so you know how shitty you are-No stop it.

I care about the environment, and I recycle and I joined green activism movements but is that enough? I could be doing more. I should be doing more. I should donate my entire check to charity. But isn’t it self serving to think that my one check could help that much? Do I really think I’m that important, how self entitled and-no stop it, reset! You are obsessing and if you fall for it, you will not eat dinner. Let it go.

Okay it’s just a piece of paper. It’s okay you skipped it this once: it could have had something dangerous on it. Yeah that makes sense. But also, that means I’m putting my own safety over trying to help the environment, which is very selfish of me. I’m just one shitty person: god how could I be so self absorbed. I should have picked up the piece of paper. I’m so selfish, and shitty and-no, no, stop it! This is not helpful. It’s fine.

It’s been a long day and I’m cold, that’s not a crime- no that’s being selfish again, you’re making excuses. You’re just a lazy piece of shit who doesn’t care about others, and selfish and God the fact you’re thinking this much about one piece of paper shows how selfish you are, you care more about if you’re a good person than anything else, you’re a piece of shit, you’re a piece of shit, YOU’RE A PIECE OF SHIT.

I get home and open up Tumblr. The first post I see says “if you don’t reblog this post about the environment you’re as complicit as an oil billionaire.” I close my computer and resign myself to looking up the state frog populations until I go to bed.

I don’t eat dinner.

The amount of frogs that die a year is somewhere from 200 million to over 1 billion.

Just a note. I'm not going to be reblogging guilt trippy posts. No matter what is in the post. I have terrible OCD that is easily triggered by this. My mental health is bad. I will be doing this for my own safety.

-Amber (she/they/it/star/shine/rot)

My moral OCD is getting worse because of the gaza situation on tiktok. "You're not human if you don't spread this" "Are you seriously going to let these children die?", So I like and share and comment for engagement and use the sounds and the filters, just because my OCD tells me I'm a zionist if i dont. But the algorythm learns fast, and now all my fyp is calling me a shitty person for not donating my non existing life savings to help. I know it's a very privileged thing to say. I'm lucky to have a disorder instead of bombs flying avobe my head. But I'm going a bit insane.

Anyways free palestine

Unpopular opinion that might get me dragged, but tiktok really ruined some of y’all’s comprehension of mental illnesses.

Especially for cluster b personality disorders. Then throwing around terms like narcissist and bipolar and ocd like they’re words to describe the weather instead of actual conditions that change the way people interact with themselves and the world around them. Like no, Danielle, your sister isn’t a narcissist for not being able to listen to you every time you need to vent, she can’t be emotionally available at all times.

Long story short tiktok simultaneously demonized and romanticized mental illness and i think we as a whole should take a step back to actually look at what the hell we’re even talking about before using terms wrong so often that they lose their true meaning entirely

Just remember that i’m not talking about everyone on tiktok doing this, but god if it isn’t the majority of tiktok

Omori and its parallels with OCD, or my personal connection to this game

SPOILER WARNING: AS USUAL, MAJOR OMORI SPOILERS FOR MOST ENDINGS AND THINGS.

CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM, SUICIDE, SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS, DEATH, LOSS AND OMORI-TYPICAL CONTENT. I will also be referring to my own intrusive thoughts a lot, so please take caution if it might trigger you to spiral.

DISCLAIMER: I AM BY NO MEANS A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. I am in the process of seeking a diagnosis (we're getting there :) ), but it has been otherwise confirmed by professionals that I experience OCD. This post is about my personal experience with OCD and trauma, and the way I believe these feeling manifest in the game. I don't believe Sunny or Basil experience OCD, but I want to compare my experiences with obsession, compulsions and trauma-related OCD. Other people may have completely different experiences, and those are valid!

You could call this catharsis, some form of healing. Really I'm doing this for myself, which was kind of why I started writing Omori analysis in the first place (???). and im a nerd for this game

Guilt

Guilt has always been one of my biggest hurdles, and it's also a very relevant theme in Omori.

For the longest time, my brain and I have been actively trying to develop compulsions to cope with guilt, and it seems to consistently fail. I've tried singing songs on repeat, extreme self-harm, distraction, avoidance ect, and nothing seems to work. Sure, I've never committed recital day, but even small things can make me feel horrifically guilty, as my intrusive thoughts tell me I'm a horrible person or a liar.

I see this in Sunny, too. For the longest time, his mind has been trying to cope with the guilt, and it chose to delve deep into repression. But no matter how much he represses, the truth is still there, and so that guilt is still there.

The Fear Polaroids in the Omori Route are also a representation of guilt, as is the mirror during the Truth segment, both depicting Sunny has a hideous demon. My intrusive thoughts depict me as a demon, too, doing horrific things to myself and others. The images of mutilated, demonic Sunny capture the... inhumanity that my mind makes me feel.

I get it, Sunny. I don't feel human either.

Mewo's Death as an Intrusive Thought

Cat Dissection is an interesting area of Black Space, in that its immediate relevance to the truth is less obvious. It's also one of the more horrifying ones - on my first playthrough, I was running blind, and I figured you'd have to kill Mewo for the key. You do not. my biggest regret

Mewo is obviously linked to Mari, but at the time, we'd only ever seen this slightly mentioned in the real world photo album. At that point in Black Space, Mewo was closely tied to Sunny and Omori, being an essential part of White Space.

The player can stab themselves to get out, or cut open Mewo and suffer the regret. This room feels very reminiscent of a gruesome intrusive thought that just won't go away, those days where you see yourself murdering all your friends, or violently injuring yourself. Much of Sunny's hallucinations, or creatures like Something, also mimic this kind of thing.

That room has far deeper analysis to dive into, but this is as far as I'll go for this segment.

Compulsive Behaviour - Repetition

Basil is probably the first character that comes to mind when I think of compulsive behaviour. His most iconic line...

This sort of repetitive action is the root of a compulsion - an attempt to relieve anxiety. Whether or not Basil fits the criteria of needing repeat those words otherwise something bad might happen is unknown, but this sort of behaviour is very relatable in my experience.

I have a tendency to not be consciously aware, but others notice that I'll mumble things to myself. Typically this is me trying to talk back to my intrusive thoughts, as far as I know, and trying to confirm to myself that they're wrong. This will often end in asking someone else or doing research to confirm.

By repeating these things, Basil is trying to ward off the reality, which is that everything isn't okay at all, and likely won't be. But the specific framing is future-oriented - he isn't saying that things are okay right now, he's saying that they will be. This could link to my later point about uncertainty.

Avoidance

Not many people talk about avoidance behaviours as a compulsion, which is probably why much of my OCD went unnoticed as a child. You don't really consider mental compulsions, and avoidance can be very easily hidden, especially if you the ability to force yourself through something if you have no other options.

While it's not exactly the same, Sunny's repression of rooms in his house and the shaking head that prevents you from going to particular areas are forms of avoidance. The sliding glass door that leads to the backyard and the piano room are the most notable - it's not repressed, it's there, but Sunny shakes his head every time you interact with it. He can't go in there. He just can't. There's no explanation for the player.

I relate to that. I have strange rules that mean I can't do things. I just can't. There's no real explanation for myself, either, and sometimes I don't even get intrusive thoughts of the consequences, just some insistence that I can't do it. Perhaps this was confusing or frustrating for the player, but I found it incredibly realistic.

Uncertainty and Abandonment Issues

I've heard somewhere that OCD is, ultimately, a fear of uncertainty. As a result of this disorder, combined with trauma, I also have abandonment issues the way Basil does.

Even before the recital day, Basil's abandonment issues are prevalent. He clings to the group with the photo album, preserving his memories. He took photos of the things he didn't want to lose. After the recital day, Basil really did lose everything, and he was broken as a result of that.

I imagine this sort of thing was one of his regular worries, everyone abandoning him, Sunny in particular. And I can relate to that - one of my more common intrusive thoughts is others leaving me after they find out I've done something horrible. It makes you want to shut off from relationships, just to be safe - what if everyone leaves?

I think that 'what if' is what made Basil so attached to Sunny in the present day of the game. He wants to save Sunny, he wants to make things back to the way they were before, but at the same time, there's this uncertainty - Sunny is moving? Sunny is leaving? What will happen? What if everything gets worse?

This wasn't the easiest to write, but thank you for reading.

I wrote something about my experiences with OCD from Mari's lens because I need that in my life apparently.

Right, now that's finished, I can finally get onto schoolwork and shit.

mari could have OCD - an analysis

Mari as a character is left mostly up to speculation by the player - which is partially a fault on the creators' part, but is also somewhat deliberate to allow for consumer projection and exploration. Because she's left so open, I want to explore a personal headcanon of mine - that Mari has OCD.

Disclaimer: This is my opinion! I may be wrong! I am a human and I am wrong sometimes! I do have OCD, but my experiences and how I write about them are not necessarily indicative of all people with OCD.

I want to pre-establish here that doing things that I market as "compulsive" is not necessarily compulsive behaviour, and it does not necessarily mean you experience OCD. The reality is, we can't know if Mari has OCD, or any disorder, because we don't get any insight into her mind. Cognition and thinking patterns are vital to a diagnosis of OCD. If you like to play the piano over and over again, you might just enjoy playing the piano. As with anything, if it's causing you distress, please seek a therapist!

Mari has three prevalent character traits that could potentially link to anxiety of some form - her perfectionism, tying into her compulsive piano playing; and her responsibility as the "mother" of the group. From these three traits, I think I can somewhat develop an argument for Mari having OCD.

Mari is a perfectionist; this is explicitly stated multiple times in the game. It's practically the only "negative" trait (or, rather, trait that comes with a downside) given to her, and despite that, it's still painted in a glorified light. It's somewhat implied that the recital day's events occurred due to this perfectionism, but we will discuss the piano playing later.

Now, OCD is not perfectionism, and mixing them up leads to horrific misinformation about the illness. But OCD can lead to perfectionism in specific instances. Let's say Mari believes if she doesn't play the recital perfectly, she'll be a failure and a terrible person. While it seems like an extreme jump between the two ideas, and it might feel so irrational to her, something in the back of her head just won't let that idea go. To feel more confident in her playing, she keeps playing it, over and over and over again. Every time she gains some confidence, she loses it just as fast, trapping her in a little cycle at that piano. In this case, we can see how an irrational intrusive thought could lead to perfectionistic tendencies in a person - and can see a rational cognitive explanation for Mari's behaviour.

I also want to talk about an aspect of OCD that isn't commonly spoken about - taking responsibility to an extreme extent. When we discuss mental disorders, we tend to talk about where they begin and how to treat them; but with disorders like OCD, it's actually important to consider how they continue. Everyone experiences intrusive thoughts, but there are several factors that increase the likelihood of believing them. One of them is the idea that one must take responsibility for their own intrusive thoughts - "if something bad is going to happen, I have to be the one to fix it".

Some people are naturally very self-reliant, and this can be for a number of reasons. I see this in Mari in the responsibility she holds over her brother and her friend group - she's the pinnacle of their rationality, keeping an eye on them (even in Headspace, which mimics some reality), and she's the one to save Sunny from drowning during the day of the Phobias' creation. Mari is fifteen, but holds so much pressure to monitor her friends, so it's not impossible to believe that worrying over her brother would cause intrusive thoughts. OCD is sometimes exacerbated after traumatic experiences, and having to save your younger brother from drowning is a lot to go through. Maybe she became more overprotective later on - not that I really have any evidence for that, since we don't have the most lucid perspective on Mari throughout the game.

I don't really have any way to reasonably conclude this, but I will say, I can recognise that a lot of this is projection. I have OCD. It's very difficult to see representation of complex OCD in media, since it's so hard to convey what intrusive thoughts and unobvious compulsions feel like, so it's nice to be able to give it to a character. But I feel like it has some basis in the real game, and could genuinely provide an interesting headcanon for people to use.

I dunno. You tell me.

Oh right, I forgot to mention. I wrote about this headcanon here. I'm pretty proud of the fic, so, I'd appreciate people checking it out if they're interested.

ocd's been "a good disorder" for a while.

people still use OCD to refer to the good desire to be perfect.

people still appropriate the acronym to refer to stuff they think is good ("Obsessive Coffee Disorder").

people still use "intrusive thoughts" to refer to something good.

people still think the traits of OCD are ultimately, good.

people think obsessions are good.

people think OCD is a "good" disorder that you are better off having.

OCD ruined my life multiple times, and it will continue to consume every aspect of it. OCD made me feel like i didn't deserve to be alive. OCD gave me scars on my body that i can't undo or take back.

i hear so many anecdotes, much like mine, where people with OCD thought they were fucking insane until they found out it was OCD. because in media, it looks nothing how it feels in real life.

because you all decided that i deserve to feel insane instead of seen.

for this year's OCD awareness week, i was thinking of cursing everyone to have OCD, but i realised i don't need to go that far.

could everyone just stop making these jokes? could everyone just... respect that OCD is a debilitating disorder that ruins lives? treat us with it the respect that we deserve?

that's all i need.

i just realized how bad my ocd has gotten oh my fucking shit. like im crying cuz my jewelry box isn't clean enough and i can't fucking reorganize it cuz people are awake. i used to think that my ocd wasn't that bad and my therapist was overreacting but holy mother of god please get me on meds

Every time someone uses "intrusive thoughts" when they mean "impulsive thoughts," they owe all of us with actual intrusive thoughts & OCD $500 in compensation. 🫴🏼

this is exacley how it goes. also...it can be towards specific things. I personally don't obsess much over my clothing, but god FORBID there's ONE misplaced book on my work desk. it dosen't bother me that my notebook's a little messy, but I ABSOULOUTLY PANIC if I'm 5 mins off my schedule. don't assume things when people say they have OCD

Greetings bugs and worms!

This comic is a little different than what I usually do but I worked real hard on it—Maybe I'll make more infographic stuff in the future this ended up being fun. Hope you learned something new :)

If you are still curious and want to learn more about OCD, you can visit the International OCD Foundation's website. I also recommend this amazing TED ED video "Starving The Monster", which was my first introduction to the disorder and this video by John Green about his own experience with OCD.

The IOCDF's website can also help you find support groups, therapy, and has lots of online guides and resources as well if you or a loved one is struggling with the disorder. It is very comprehensive!

Reblog to teach your followers about OCD

(But also not reblogging doesn't make you evil, silly goose)

Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls has OCD

Pearl from Steven Universe has OCD

This song went through three huge changes to the lyrics before settling into this version on the album. It started out as my attempt at something like a love song, but then it crumbled away until it was more like a song about obsessive-compulsive disorder ... interesting, to say the least. What exactly does this say about me and my ability to form meaningful, lasting relationships with other human beings? Probably that I suck. Yep.

how bitches who say “i let the intrusive thoughts win!!! 😜” look at me after i give them actual examples of my intrusive thoughts

“oh my god…you should get that checked out D:”

actually i have it’s called ocd and i have it idk if you noticed

how bitches who say “i let the intrusive thoughts win!!! 😜” look at me after i give them actual examples of my intrusive thoughts