It's Always Infuriated Me Hearing People Say That Children Have It Easy. It's Only Gotten Worse As I've

[Image ID: A white background with black text with red shadows "Intrusive thoughts can" (can being all red text) "and will" (will being in all red text) "be about anything." The next points are bulleted out in a list in black text. "There is NO limit to what they can be about whatsoever. They WILL be about things you don't want them to be about by DEFINITION. NO topic is evil or weird enough to be exempt. NONE. NO LINE IS DRAWN. THE SUBCONSCIOUS DOES NOT STOP. It MAY make you uncomfortable to hear about and that DOES NOT give you an excuse to be fucking ableist about it. They cannot be controlled, you cannot expect people to try. They are NOT indicative of someone's true wishes or feelings. REPREMINANDING SOMEONE FOR HAVING THE "WRONG" INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS WILL ONLY MAKE THEM WORSE, ESPECIALLY FOR SOMEONE WITH OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER. Lastly, in large black text at the bottom of the image is big red text that reads "YOU ARE NOT BETTER THAN SOMEONE WITH INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS YOU FIND GROSS OR MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE. YOU ARE NOT BETTER THAN SOMEONE WHOSE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS DO NOT MAKE SENSE TO YOU, EVEN IF YOU EXPERIENCE INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS OF YOUR OWN. IT IS A SYMPTOM THAT CAUSES ENOUGH SUFFERING ON ITS OWN. DON'T JOIN IT." End ID]

For this Disability Pride Month, I saw a post that was shittybad and it made me angry. So have this

There's only one real way to categorise disorders and it's when you google it and the first results fit into one or more of the following categories:

1. "Is your child-" "Does your child-" "How to cope with the burden of being a parent for-"

2. "How to get better: Step One: have a lot of money!" "How to get better: Step One: simply stop having it!"

3. "10 Ways To Spot Sickopaths With This Disorder So You Can Protect Yourself" "The Bad People Disease -by Dr. Eugene X."

therapists saying you're surprisingly self aware is like being called a pleasure to have in class for adults

call me tism the way i awe at his presence

btw if you can't, won't, or don't want to brush your teeth for any reason, i extremely strongly recommend orbit gum.

it's sugar free and ideal to chew it after eating--when you do that it helps prevent cavities according to the american dental association :3 your teeth will feel and be cleaner and also like it's fun to chew gum

[personally a fan of their sweet mint flavor because it's minty without being painful/overpowering but there's also a lot more of them--bubblemint's good too]

Thinking about the dichotomy of "I feel uncomfortable/triggered in the presence of x/y/z environments I would like to be someplace without that" that I constantly see online and when I tell my therapist I really get uncomfortable when people raise their voices around me even if they aren't actually mad and her response of "you can only control your own reactions and emotions, it's not really fair to police others on how they should exist in your presence" and honestly it sucks to hear but she's right.. it's good to have people be conscientious of what triggers you but really it's up to us to do the hard work of building that emotional resilience. The idea of people around me having to be hypervigilant of what they say and do lest I start getting dysregulated does not sound fun at all, I want people to feel comfortable being themselves around me and that means training my dumb lizard brain to chill tf out. Living in a constant state of avoidance sucks ass for everyone involved.

When I say “school should be disability accessible”, I don’t just mean we need handicap rails and EAs. Kids should be able to miss a day without failing out of school. You shouldn’t be dismissed from clubs because your attendance record is “spotty” (true story). I once missed an entire week of school because of a terrible, unending migraine. I was expected to keep up with my studies despite the blinding pain that came with working on my computer. When I heard my teachers say that you couldn’t miss exams, I asked what I would have to do to be excused from them. Their response? “Either get a doctor’s note an hour before the exam or death of an immediate family member.”

I cannot express how rigid this expectation was. First of all, with my condition, I wouldn’t have enough warning about my sickness to go to the doctor and request a note. For many people, this is exceptionally difficult, especially with the current shortage of medical professionals. Next, it ignores the fact that my schedule may not line with theirs because of my medical needs. Once, I had to visit a hospital a province away (which I was on the waiting list of for over a year) on the same day as an exam. I begged my mother not to take me because I was so nervous that I would be marked as an automatic fail. I was lucky enough to make it work, but that’s only because of my spectacular support system consisting of family members and wonderful doctors.

Disabilities aren’t always about needing a bus that can accommodate wheelchairs. It’s already difficult enough for many of us to maintain school attendance without the harsh punishments involved for skipping a day. We need to be able to miss school without being punished. Only than can you claim that the school is “accessible”

if you have violent intrusive thoughts I love you. if you have sexual intrusive thoughts I love you. if you have bigoted intrusive thoughts I love you. you are not your thoughts and you are worthy of love and care and help and affection. you are not a monster you’re a person going through it and that’s okay

sick of people watering down mental illnesses online.

people who are severely mentally unwell are likely to do things that are unhealthy, irrational and sometimes just completely fucked up. that is the reality of severe mental illness, especially if left untreated.

we may do things that are harmful or damaging to others, this doesn’t make us dangerous or evil, this makes us ill. if you cannot handle the fact that fucked up people might do fucked up things as a result of their severely shattered mental state, then do not surround yourself with people who are mentally ill. don’t make your inability to accept the severity of my mental state into my fucking problem.

Recently saw an insta vid where a musician was singing lyrics that described their intrusive thoughts as a person with OCD, and in the comments every so often there would be people writing like "bro what is this 🤨🤨" and "keep this between you and your therapist dont post it on the internet" and it just further fueled my belief that OCD symptoms and intrusive thoughts need to be talked about more because a majority of the struggle with the disorder is the shame surrounding its symptoms. OCD is not able to be easily romanticized or 'quirky'fied like other disorders or neurodivergencies have been*, and as a result its symptoms are more quickly met with disgust or repulsion.

Other people in the comments were thanking OP because it captured the struggle of real intrusive thoughts instead of impulsive ones. Impulsive thoughts are more of the 'I'm gonna dye my hair randomly on a thursday night' thoughts vs the intrusive 'what if I drove my car into that family and suddenly killed us both' thoughts, the latter of which make OCD as a disorder truly debilitating. And the people that immediately assign bad morals to intrusive thoughts? They only further condemn people with OCD to never wanting to talk about the symptoms they've already been struggling with shame about.

I feel it needs to be made more blatantly explained to the public that OCD intrusive thoughts aren't desire based. They're fear and disgust based. You fear hurting anyone so badly your mind can't stop thinking about what if you hurt someone. You fear molesting anyone so you never want to even touch anyone. Your mind fixates on the 'what ifs' and distorts them into the idea that, because you think this way, you must want to act this way--when the reality is the exact opposite.

If a person with OCD ever confides to you one of their intrusive thoughts and you feel a knee-jerk reaction of disgust towards them, it needs to be reiterated that:

1. the person does not want to be thinking about this, their brain is legit hardwired to make those thoughts pop up

2. the person themselves also feels this disgust, often intensely, and they very likely resent themselves for ever thinking it

and

3. they have no desire to enact the intrusive thought, because its intrusive nature hinges on the person's fears and dislikes.

*And to clarify what I mean by romanticization and 'quirk'-ifying, I do not mean to imply that romanticizing any disorder or condition is inherently a good thing. It's only to state that conditions like anxiety and ADHD have been made such common/'trendy' topics recently that they're less taboo to speak about--leading to more people talking about their struggles with it, and helping others realize they might have it too and aren't alone. Because certain OCD traits aren't as marketable (obviously) a lot of those with it are left rather isolated.