- Date posted
- 5d
OCD affecting enjoyment in media
This post is a bit corny but I realized this today and I would feel relief to dump my thoughts. (Also it's a bit scary to post because of #shame) I am a Yumeshipper/Self shipper; which I do because I just enjoy it and it also helps me cope with a bunch of things. And for a little bit of reference I'm under the "Non-Sharing" label which tbh I can't really control. 😅Because of Autism: characters I become attached to do not feel like ordinary interests to me. They become DEEPLY intertwined with my identity, comfort, and emotional stability. (They practically become apart of my soul) And I've realized that I'm prettyyy sure my OCD really affects with how I selfship and interact with people in the fandoms I'm in. So with how this hobby gets affected, I'm an EXTREMELY possessive person and I constantly put myself into obsessive loops and checking over how others interact with a character I enjoy. I very very frequently develop a STRONG need to know where I stand in relation to other fans. My brain becomes fixated on questions such as whether other people self-ship with the character, whether they are more popular than me, whether they own more merch, whether they are more recognized in the fandom, or whether people see them as the "real" fan instead of me. (Stupid but it distresses me) There are even times where I flat out avoid or ignore the media/parts of the fandom out of paranoia. it seems I am trying to protect myself from the distress that comes from comparison, uncertainty and a multitude of other things. However, If I don't check for people/media that I KNOW will trigger me; I feel intense anxiety, my brain keeps returning to it, and the urges to check are STRONG (which they momentarily provide horrible feelings and then relief) it's a back and forth cycle of constantly checking and then flat out avoiding everything. It usually begins as panic or a feeling of threat. That feeling can quickly transform into anger, disgust, jealousy, envy, and sometimes even resentment toward people who have done nothing wrong. And it's these thoughts that also sort of turn into moral OCD because then I start spiraling if I'm evil and other things attached to that. Anyways this was my short-ish (I tried lmao) rant about this experience and realization. It's a bit dumb because it's FANDOM and online stuff and tbh it isn't even that 'bad' of an OCD thing because I have way worse obsessions/intrusive thoughts. But ironically this is one of the ones the bring me the most stress and is extremely Frequent 😭