#ocd questions

[envyadams-vs-me]

Hey dudes, does anyone else with ADHD or OCD experience this type of thing/routine? 👇

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1. I binge watch an entire show (either a new one or one I already know I like)

2. I then continue to watch the show for the next few weeks/months (either on repeat from start to finish or I pick out my favorite episode and go from there)

3. I either get tired of it or I just watch an episode of something else and get hooked

4. The cycle repeats

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If so, WHAT THE HECK IS THIS TYPE OF BEHAVIOR CALLED??

#adhd questions #ocd questions #adhd #ocd #help pls

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

#polls #incognito polls #anonymous #tumblr polls #tumblr users #questions #polls about brains #submitted dec 7 #polls about relationships #ocd #actually ocd #obsessive compulsive disorder

[in-sufficientdata]

Why the Konmari method is pretty useless for people with genuine problems with hoarding and OCD, or OCD tendencies, at least without some caveats and definitions:

Hoarding is defined by a persistent emotional attachment to inanimate objects. Clutterers and hoarders often have an unconscious need to save items, whether for an imagined future ideal use, or just because otherwise they would end up in the landfill.

People with these issues often have difficulty discerning the difference between a truly useful item and something that should be given or thrown away because of their emotional attachment to the item.

They see themselves as the best curator of the items, which may range from useful items like craft supplies, display items, sentimental items, and stuff that is truly just junk.

"Sunk costs" is a term from economics that means that a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Although the original term refers to finances, the sunk costs of the time and effort someone has put into an item can influence their decision to keep the item.

Therefore, another factor in this attachment is the sunk costs of money, effort, and time that a person has put into an item. A person may no longer be personally attached to an item, but will keep it because they have always meant to use it or simply because it's not yet ruined.

This is also a reason those with fewer economic advantage tend to be hoarders more than those with a comfortable financial situation. Someone like this realizing they've obtained two of an item will take on the responsibility of curating both instead of getting rid of one.

Because of all these factors, the expression that was translated as "sparks joy" in the English version is too easy for a clutterer to confuse or redefine in their own mind as they work to sort through their items.

In my case, for example, I had a situation where the basement, which was full of our excess saved items, needed to be cleared so the cracked foundation could be repaired. I had to decide what to save in the limited storage space we still had, and what to throw out or donate.

If Konmari had been in vogue at the time (this was in 2004) I'm certain I would have kept far more items than I should have. This language is too easy for a clutterer to massage and redefine in their own mind based on what the item is.

First, clutterers need to be clear-eyed about the fact that they suffer from excess emotional attachment to objects. Flylady's declutter method was in vogue at the time I engaged in this declutter session, and she has a whole checklist of questions to ask oneself about an object:

Do I love this item?

Have I used it in the past year?

Is it really garbage?

Do I have another one that is better?

Should I really keep two?

Does it have sentimental value that causes me to love it?

Or does it give me guilt and make me sad when I see the item?

This may seem needlessly complex to someone who is not a hoarder or clutterer but this addresses many of the reasons that a sufferer would keep an item that they shouldn't.

Another factor is that they are perfectionists. This seems at odds with the idea that they may have a huge mess in their home, but what happens is they often can't deal with their persistent need to have a perfectly clean home that matches their vision.

Because of this they put off starting on the project until it can be done perfectly.

This is why methods like Flylady and Unfuck Your Habitat (which is really just Flylady without the cutesy rhetoric) help these people so much, because people with differences such as ADHD become clutterers because they don't know how to regulate their own time or how to organize.

The emotional attachment to their possessions is, incidentally, why decluttering on behalf of your hoarder friend is a very bad idea. The person will need to work through this process on their own, in order for it to stick.

Getting rid of these items can be intensely emotional and difficult for someone with these tendencies.

Time limits, routines, consistency, and persistence are the best tools for someone who needs to declutter. Don't try to do this all in an afternoon. Not only is it a difficult process, it should become a consistent habit.

For resources and further reading please check out Squalor Survivors (archive.org link).

#mine #please feel free to ask me questions about this i am an old hand #squalor survivors #hoarding #ocd #obsessive compulsive disorder #ocd tendencies #konmari #konmari method #marie kondo #reposting everything from my twitter feed #i'm about to delete everything so get it while it's hot #tweet: 2019

[himalayaan-flowers]

@ religious people who think that reading their religious text has all the answers on how to live - what are you meant to do when you have crippling ocd and cannot even read a sentence without 10000 intrusive thoughts about somehow committing unforgivable sins and going to hell to the point reading the text becomes impossible?? same goes for praying, meditation etc (and medication does not help enough. finding a religious therapist involves knowing which religion you believe in in the first place)

and atheists how do you function without ever knowing for sure if what you're doing is right or good enough without any objective rules and believing so much suffering in the world is completely purposeless

#genuine question #but i don't think anyone knows the answer :( #christianity #islam #ocd #scrupulosity #religious ocd #moral ocd #religion #hinduism #buddhism #judaism

[keshetchai]

As someone who enjoys religion blogging/discussions, I've come to realize that it's a good practice to be aware of the general signs/symptoms of religious-OCD thinking (aka scrupulosity), because if the conversation is taking on all the hallmarks of scrupulosity, it's actually a definitive sign that we cannot meaningfully and compassionately engage in a conversation about religion in a healthy way. I've actually had this play out a significant number of times online, and when I realized what it was, I also began to realize that the intrusive thoughts/obsessive and compulsive thinking are only ever fed by continuing the discussion with that person.

[[ Important edit to clarify why I am saying it's not healthy — made after I went back to look for more concrete facts about OCD or anxiety (I have GAD, not OCD, but many resources overlap since they're both anxiety disorders):

When Reassurance is Harmful — this explains how/why reassurance-seeking specifically about an OCD fear is a compulsive behavior, and engaging with reassurance-seeking interferes with recovery/management/treatment.

This table from the Anxiety Disorders Center lists key differences between Information Seeking and Reassurance Seeking.

This IOCDF page on Scrupulosity info for Faith Leaders identifies "symptom accommodation" as enabling. Two of the examples of doing this by participating in the OCD behavior are: "Engage in excessive conversation focused on if-then scenarios (e.g., "If I did this, then would X or Y happen? And what if Z was involved? How about W?")" And, "Repeatedly answering questions about ‘correct’ religious or faith practices."

That page also goes on to outline more info about reassurance seeking. "Although providing answers to (often simple!) questions may seem harmless, providing reassurance serves to maintain the anxiety disorder cycle." (This BMC psychiatry article cites a lot of related studies establishing this.)

The IOCDF page on What is OCD and Scrupulosity? ]]

Imo, the responsible thing to do is to recognize that (even if the other person hasn't outright stated it/isn't diagnosed)* the conversation is not about religion, it is about needing mental health support from professionals and experts. Talking to me, the layperson who enjoys chatting theology and my religion — is not only not helping, but is actively harmful. I'm not just talking about the person who I replied to today, either. Like I've said, I've seen this happen dozens of times in various online forums.

*[while I am against diagnosing strangers on the internet, it's important to realize A) lots of people don't know what Scrupulosity is, so it's possible they've never considered this is a mental health concern that could be treated, and that B) for the purposes of my concern, it doesn't matter if they actually have diagnosed OCD. The only thing that matters is that their thought-process causes them genuine distress/fear, and every response given to them seems to only incite new/additional distressing questions/thoughts, or further entrenches the original distress.]

Ultimately, any discussion aside from "you might want to speak to a mental health professional about scrupulosity OCD" seemingly puts me in the position of feeling as if I am being used for their self-harm. I hate that feeling. I do not want to be leverage for fear and pain. I have GAD, I despise the idea that I am making things worse.

No matter how much I love religious discussion, the answer in these cases is always "please reach out to an OCD specialist/mental health professional. I am not qualified to discuss this." And then to stop there. I have never once seen anyone stuck in this compulsive thought spiral be reassured or feel any better by hearing from someone else's approach to theology handled with things like empathy, compassion, logic, or even atheism. It doesn't matter what we say, how we say it, or how we relate to our own religion. The urge to engage in this kind of conversation in order to chat about religion is a sign that we are not equipped to help.

You can't have a conversation here, because intentionally or not, ten times out of ten, you are adding fuel to the fire. Just like people can't simply tell me something that would erase/talk me out of my ADHD/depression/anxiety disorder, you also cannot simply argue/reassure/persuade people out of scrupulosity. We should not try. We have a responsibility to consider that it's outright harmful to do so, and to disengage.

#this is a massive pet peeve of mine #im not mad at the people who responded about religion and religious thinking bc it took me time to realize what this was too #like im sure i used to view these kinds of questions in a more...idk flippant light when i was a teenager and maybe even in my 20's #as i became more educated about my own mental health though i started to realize the pattern in these fears #and like many of you i probably originally started replying to people with scrupulosity or similar religious anxieties genuinely #not realizing at first that replying to their fears or questions was inevitable harmful #not realizing that hey actually this is far above my paygrade #ocd/obsessive thinking and anxiety spirals can be crippling life ruining and immensely painful #and unfortunately my love of theological discussions sometimes tripped me RIGHT into what was essentially self-harm #so im not mad at other people for also making that mistake - but i am asking everyone to think about this actively #its too easy to leap in without considering if the discussion is healthy to have for our discussion partner #its definitely too easy to contribute to the pain and fear while only meaning to genuinely help what is misunderstood as a mere “worry” #bc these arent just small fears or worries but thoughts that are causing them immense pain

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

Questioning NPD + OCD culture is my intrusive thoughts are worse than yours actually.

And also hating how every musician misuses both the terms narcissist and intrusive thoughts. Can’t even listen to music without getting fucking attacked by the blatant misuse of fucking MEDICAL TERMS.

I’m better than them obviously because I actually do research. Praise me for doing the bare minimum please. Praise me for having a rudimentary understanding of neurodiversity and psychology. Praise me for knowing big words also.

— 🕸🕷

.

#npd culture is #questioning npd culture is #questioning npd + ocd culture is #npd + ocd culture is #npd #actually narcissistic #actually npd #narcissistic personality disorder #cluster b #ocd #obsessive compulsive disorder #-🕸🕷

[ocd--culture-is]

questioning ocd culture is swearing up and down that you do NOT have ocd and are being dramatic/that even suspecting that you may have it makes you a bad person or a faker and then heavily relating to every symptom you come across on an otherworldly level.

this fr before being diagnosed, very normal apparently but it's so frustating

#ocd culture is #questioning ocd #public ask #ask #answered #--- #culture is #actually ocd #ocd awareness #ocd tag #ocd thoughts #ocd things #ocd #obsessive compulsive disorder

[notabled-noodle]

also — if you’re trying to sort out one group of symptoms from another… ask yourself:

what’s the function of the symptom?

why do I do it?

what’s going through my head while it’s happening?

how frequently does it happen?

most disorders have a consistent underlying cause.

autism is mostly about not understanding social rules plus a need for consistency, which leads to communication difficulties and a desire for sameness.

OCD is about seeking certainty and eliminating doubt, which leads to intrusive thoughts, rumination, and compulsive behaviours.

ADHD is about dysregulation of attention, which leads to executive dysfunction, sensory processing issues, and emotional dysregulation (among other things)

once you figure out why you’re doing something, it becomes a lot easier to figure out what disorder might best explain your patterns of behaviour

#neurodivergent #autism #adhd #ocd #neurodivergent questioning

[icewindandboringhorror]

sneeping with his legs up over his head for some reason... weird boye

#cats #love the second picture... skrungly sleepy well rested boye face... #since he's an elderly boy now sometimes when he wakes up from a nap he looks a bit scruffy and squinty eyed #Hard to beleive he's like 15 though.. he still looks like a kitten to me.. due to his giant round creature eyes and childlike demeanor #I think it's interesting that like... baby cats are babies. kittens are kittens. and you can tell a cat is like 'young adult' phase #looking from like a few months to maybe 1yr or 2yrs.. but after that they just always look the same to me #a 5 yr old cat is a 10 yr old cat is a 15 year old cat. unless the cat in question is particulalry aged or youthful #I still have so so little energy... it's been icy here this week. like not even FUN but just scary icy even thoguh i lOOOVE the cold #and its my favorite weather. I think it'd be okay actually if I had a woodburning stove/fireplace/hearth thing. literally thats my only #concern with the power going out. I genuinely don't mind stuff like having to go to the bathroom in buckets or cook over a fire or do other #less conveninet things. Its just that if eveyrhtng is electric then you have no way to cook and all of that. well.. and I literally need #background noise to go to sleep lest my ocd sprials become so loud I am slowly driven into maddness.. but a few battery packs or something #and a phone with one downloaded video I could play on repeat is fine for that. I dont need internet. ANYWAY.. so so sad that my fav #orite season ever (winter) is here. and the first cold of the winter is like... just an ice storm that you cant even walk in. I #love like 4 feet of snow where you can play in it and stuff. But just a thin flat sheet of a few inches of ice over every imaginable surfac #is not really playable. the wind speeds are so high and so many trees fall it's actually not that safe to go hang out outside anyway unless #you were in a totally clear open field. which is SAD also because i love ice and high winds. i love to stand out there and get whipped in t #he face with ice crystals and feel like I'm in some dramatic movie or something. but alas.. the threat of being attacked by a falling tree. #I did go out some but again it's like. literallyyou cant walk on it. so I just squatted and dragged myself along the ground lol #One of my stories has a whole section where the main characters are trapped in a deadly cold environment for a week and have to use magic #to survive and etc. etc. so I'm always like.. ouuu.. I should go in the ice.. it's Writing Research actually.. *foolishly gets frostbite* #THOUGH yesterday I went on a harrowing evil journey down a bunch of icy hilly roads to go check on some person's cat because the cat #had been left in the house for like 5 days at that point with nobody to check on them and nobody else seemed to want to do anything #about it (like call all of the neighbors or try to get someone out there) so I just went myself with a roommate who agreed to drive me. #It seemed acting totally normal and I gave it more food and water but.. I am still worried about it.. Apparently the person will be able #to get back to their house tomorrow but.. I dont trust them. But I couldnt take the cat with me because it's like.. a stranger's cat #basically and also no carrier + very skittish.. so I feared if I just tried to carry them bare handed they'd definitely leap from my grasp #and then it'd be like.. sliding on a sheet of ice chasing a cat and so on.. I still think they need to be watched for health issues tho >:| #ANYWAY.... many cat adventures lately... and strange weather... I wish for a normal week without always so many Things Happening.. augh

[borderline-culture-is]

questioning BPD culture is also having OCD and having intrusive/obsessive thoughts that your FP doesnt like you anymore based on no evidence whatseover and having a spiral and then seeing them post about their boyfriend and having a mental breakdown and feeling like a drama queen

.

#questioning bpd + ocd culture is #questioning bpd culture is #questioning bpd #borderline culture is #actually borderline #borderline personality disorder #bpd #bpd culture is #actually bpd #bpd culture #bpd safe

[caitas-cooing]

Okay so context to this question is that I was playing persona 3 reload and my littlest brother was watching me and I said something about how I have to level up characters as evenly as possible or else it made my brain itch, and he did not understand what I meant by that. So like do you know what that means or should I find another way to explain this

#because like #I thought the brain itch was a fairly common experience but the things people got that feeling about were different #but maybe I'm the weird one here idk #my brother tried to say that was OCD and I said that's not even what OCD is #maybe it's autism related? Max has adhd but not autism so maybe that's why he doesn't understand #Tumblr poll is probably not the best place to find an answer to this question #but I use the resources I have

[horizon-penblade]

Is there a word for that type of horror we get in Milgram and Infinity Train where it's like. Your actions and mental state are being supernaturally judged in quantifiable form by something that apparently knows your thoughts, but everything else about the environment you've become trapped in indicates that the powers that be are ethically dubious at best. Is that like its own thing or is it just. Cosmic Horror But Specifically For People With OCD

#infinity train #milgram #At least in milgram we know where the judgements are coming from (it's us the audience) #But in both situations it's like. Ok what is this place. Where did it come from. #We have some people who are kind of *in charge* of the extremely messed up judgement trap but like. #It's still not clear how it started or what it is or where it is or #Basically I rewatched a bunch of infinity train today and i have SO many questions that... will never get answered because of capitalism #actually ocd

[pageofheartdj]

I am confused about something. What is the difference between anxiety and OCD(considering that OCD is an anxiety disorder)?

I read that in OCD person does rituals to relieve themselves of their fear. But I also read that not all OCD cases have to have rituals.

Intrusive thoughts is enough. But isn't this how anxiety works?

Or normally anxiety 'activates' when directly interacting with the source of anxiety while in OCD it can start at any moment not connected to what you do?

#anxiety #ocd #random thought/question

[compulsiveobsessing]

i frequently think about charlie intentionally stepping into that bear trap. what a good metaphor for ocd

#promoting my Charlie Kelly Has OCD agenda #iasip #charlie kelly #ocd!charlie kelly #that episode and the one where his mom is doing her compulsions around the house and then he and mac start doing some too #and when mac questions why he's doing them at one point charlie's like 'idk it just feels good man' #T_T real

[dannydevitosthiccdog]

Any Autistic peeps have any tips for wearing glasses? Like a specific frame or tips to stop sensory overload?

Or any neurospicy lovelies tbh.

#autism question #autism #adhd #audhd #actually autistic #ocd #neurdivergent #sensory overload #ive not wore glasses in 6 years because they pissed me off so much #i dont have many moneys so i cant get expensive ones really

[seapiglet]

it's ironic how many people I've seen absolutely up in arms over michael sheen being asked about his age gap relationship, claiming that it "infantilises" his partner, anna.

there is nothing infantalising about being curious about the relationship dynamics between two people at different stages of their life. there's nothing inherently judgmental or disapproving in asking about it.

however, it is infantilising to treat a middle-aged man as if he's so fragile he needs to be protected from any potentially uncomfortable questions (which is something he knowingly signed up for in this case).

I think people's brains are so addled from needing-to-fuck-that-old-man-disease they're creating problems where there are none.

#the assembly #michael sheen #i found his answer sweet and interesting #especially when talking about how little time he'll have with his kids compared to most younger parents #that people are *still* attacking the person who asked the question is maddening #i also think this opens up a wider conversation about the meaning of the word 'spectrum' #given how many people I've seen claiming neurodiversity is 'no excuse' for 'being rude' and citing their own diagnoses as proof #this happens VERY often with mental health issues too #eg 'mental illness is never an excuse for violence/saying hurtful things!! I have anxiety and I'd never hurt anybody!!' #cool. glad to hear it. but your anxiety is irrelevant in a conversation about oaranoid schizophrenia or ocd or whatever lmao