"Normal" people

Lately I’ve been feeling obsessive compulsive sick. (It’s my way of saying that my mental illness is making me feel unwell) I hear whispers to be honest, telling me to do awful things to others and myself. They tell me how horrible everything is, they yell and scream at me, and tell me violent harmful things. Sometimes they plead for help, other times they try to lure me in to believing them, and worse of them, they threaten me. They have a gun pointed to my head and laugh at me, saying “I should’ve known you always been such a worthless piece of shit, hahaha, kill yourself you scum of the earth.” The voices are scary, but they are just voices, but they are still scary. Sometimes I want to see if they are true, but then it backfires. I am so gullible to the thoughts and believe them without warning, but when it comes to me, I am stubborn and headfast. I follow my rules, eventually breaking them out of fear. Sometimes, people can’t take it anymore, and fall. They fall off of buildings, bridges and their chairs. The voices over power them and then, they are gone. We are survivors of our own mind. We are programmed to live, but are forced by our own mind to fear itself. What a horrible fate that we are responsible for dealing with. A illness that has the same caliber has a physical one because both end with one thing: death. Death of our values, our health, and our actual life. Treat it seriously, it’s a mental illness for a reason.

Lately I’ve seen way too many comments under posts about OCD, especially the harm, POCD, and relationship themes that are incredibly misinformed and honestly harmful. People saying things like “these thoughts are unnatural,”or “you need to go get real help” and encouraging confession ***compulsions*** when they clearly have no understanding of how OCD actually works. Let me be clear: OCD involves distressing and unwanted thoughts, images, or urges. That doesn’t make someone dangerous. It makes them someone with a mental illness who is terrified of their own brain. Saying these people are “unnatural” or implying they’re broken only reinforces shame, and shame is the opposite of what helps anyone heal. If you’re commenting under OCD-related posts on an OCD ***app*** without understanding what intrusive thoughts are, or what compulsions can look like, or **how OCD can attach itself to the things we fear most** then please, stop. You are not helping. You’re reinforcing stigma and pushing people further into silence. OCD is already isolating. We don’t need more people moralizing or projecting trauma theory onto something they haven’t experienced or don’t understand. If you really care, go learn. Read about intrusive thoughts. Learn about ERP therapy. Or maybe just listen. Because some of us are barely hanging on, and comments like those don’t just miss the point, they can do real damage. I’m sorry if I come off too angry, it just really upsets me to see people speak on something they clearly don’t understand. End of rant. Thank you for reading 🤍

If you are anything like me (and most of you are, because let’s face it, we are all on this chat), you have OCD. Real OCD, not the organisation, matching colours everyone thinks it is. Real OCD. I’ve always known I was different, known that my brain does some waking things and deep down, I’ve always known I’ve had OCD. But there is just something that changes when you finally get the diagnosis. It makes more sense, you have an explanation for your behaviours. So naturally I told my friends. When they ask why I had to stop and step four times on a tile I said ‘oh, I have OCD’. I finally had a word, a tangible concept that I could explain to people. But nobody warned me about the massive misconceptions about OCD. Instead of support or acceptance, my friends seemed to question the diagnosis saying ‘that’s not ocd, don’t you just like things organised?’. And no matter how much I explain it they don’t seem to get it. And that’s the part that feels so cruel. I go through hell in my head and it can all be reduced to a phrase of ‘oh, aren’t you organised’. So please be careful out there you guys, and if someone try’s to downplay your experience, know that you are valid and that what you are going through is probably something that they could never handle. It’s a lesson that took me time to learn, but it’s important because our experience matters. Our real experience.