Fuck Your Stupid Ableism

*****CONTENT WARNING for OCD, ableism and descriptions of intrusive thoughts! Please don't read this article if you are worried it might distress you! (Also sorry for the swearing, I couldn't find another word that described my feelings better than swear words. Also this post is probably really cringey and weird so sorry.)***** 

Is it just me or have you ever really wanted to talk about something but been really scared to because it could end kinda badly? And then there's a moment when you think, "fuck it, I'm gonna post it on my blog". I guess the good thing about a blog is that anyone reading can escape whenever they want, and I can also think about what I say before I say it and edit stuff if I realise I said too much. I know it's kinda cringey though and I'm also great at complaining and playing the victim. But better than in person I guess? (Especially in the case of those random blog readers in the mysterious country of "Other").

So I guess I can't really segue well into this so I'm just gonna say it (ahhhh I'm so nervous and I don't know why, you probably already know what it is from the content warning). So I have OCD. Yeah, that. And before you can say "omg don't worry me too I'm so OCD I get so annoyed when tables aren't lined up", I would like you to take a good long look at the title of this post. Fuck you. And if you actually did know that OCD is not that, congratulations, I officially like you. 

So this "moment" that I'm talking about which made me decide to write this post is actually a couple of moments. But the main one is this: my homeroom teacher, who is also a PDHPE teacher, was like "oh haha these banners aren't lined up and it annoys me, I must have OCD hehe". Don't get me wrong, I've heard plenty of people say that. Like, teenagers at school, my English teacher from a couple years ago, even some rando on national TV. But a PDHPE teacher. She's supposed to be teaching people about mental illnesses. But she was just adding to the stigma. I have lost all my respect for her, honestly. But I guess that was just my breaking point. My OCD has been getting a lot worse recently so I was planning on writing a post about it anyway, but I guess that teacher is why this post is called what it's called and not "oh poor me I'm mentally ill now I'm listening to The Smiths and throwing my problems out into the internet".

Honestly this post is just an excuse to trauma dump and complain, so please don't feel obliged to read it. But hopefully if you do manage to make it through this post, I hope you learn something about one of the most stigmatised illnesses out there. I'm not gonna explain what OCD is because Google does that better than me (kinda). So I'm just gonna jump into it.

So I've known I had OCD since 2020, and even then it caused a lot of problems. You know all those angry poems about that one friend who was really mean to me? She cut off our friendship because of my OCD -- I was telling her I thought I had it and she would not even read one article about what it was, but meanwhile she was getting hella annoyed at all my symptoms. I don't blame her. Honestly I look back at that and just laugh because I thought that my OCD was bad back then. Hahahahaha.

My parents only told me they knew I have OCD at the end of the last year, and it basically went like this: "daughter just letting you know we know you have OCD and by the way we booked you an appointment with a psychologist and it's tomorrow". When that happened was I basically refused to go and then they went by themselves and the psychologist told them off for springing it on me and trying to force me to go. That was awkward and I felt like a bratty child but turns out I was in the right so yeah. 

So I started going to a therapist by choice in July and now I've started ExRP (which is a type of therapy where I have to expose myself to triggers and not do the compulsion) which is going interestingly. ExRP starts by focusing on the least severe triggers. Obviously that makes sense because it means it starts out easy and gradually becomes harder instead of super hard straight away. But it's also kinda annoying because it's going to take months if not years to get to the hardest ones which are the ones that are obviously impacting me the most. I just have so many mixed feelings about it all. I really want to ask if I can try out medication but I'm having trouble trying to work out how to say "hey give me drugs" in the least awkward way as possible. And I'm not so sure if I even want drugs. As John Green writes in his book Turtles All The Way Down, "If taking a pill makes you different, like, if it changes the way-down you... that's just a screwed-up idea, you know? Who's deciding what me means -- me or the employees of the factory that makes Lexapro? It's like I have this demon inside of me, and I want it gone, but the idea of removing it via pill is... I don't know... weird. But a lot of days I get over that, because I do really hate the demon." 

Ok so now that I've told you about 50% of my medical history, it's time for the real complaining/trauma dumping. This is where it gets interesting.

So I basically have most of the subtypes of OCD. Obviously some are worse than others, and the worst ones change and stuff. At the moment my most severe ones are numbers, religious, harm and Tourettic OCD. I'm still a little confused about what exactly Tourettic OCD is but I know I very likely have it and it is extremely disruptive to my life. 

But yeah. I don't think most people, even people who know I have OCD, know how bad it is. I can't do anything properly at the moment -- schoolwork, reading, writing this post etc. It's really sad that I can't read anymore. At the moment it takes me like 40 minutes to read one chapter of a book -- and not long ones either. The reason for this is because I am literally doing compulsions every five seconds so it takes me a really long time to do anything. I'm pretty sure the compulsions are a part of Tourettic OCD, but also number OCD. It's confusing. But basically what it is most of the time is that I have to move my arm/leg/whatever five times. Five, specifically. Number OCD yay. I'm kinda confused about that one. Sometimes it gets really awkward in certain situations. Like, I keep having to bash my leg against walls five times if I do it once, if that makes sense? And the other day I had to put my hand next to a burning heater five times because I accidentally did it once. It is very likely that I have counted to five more times just today than you have this month.

It got a lot worse since I last saw my therapist and unfortunately I don't think that I'm going to be able to see her tomorrow because my whole family (mum and brother, likely dad) has COVID.

So that's the other thing. Religious OCD. I go to a Catholic school so I have to occasionally go into churches, plus I have to take mandatory religion classes. But here's the thing: I'm an athiest.

So when I got Covid about a month ago, I had just been to a big cathedral for school. The dates line up that I had caught Covid on that day that I went into the cathedral. So, naturally, my OCD told me that the fact I got Covid in a church meant that God was punishing me for not believing in Him. I know that's a bit of a paradox, but it was also combined with the fear that God was also punishing me for being a bad person. 

Ok. So that was pretty hard. But just as I had gotten over that, I found out I had to go into my school's chapel. I couldn't get out of it -- so I couldn't do my avoidance compulsion. My OCD was telling me that I or someone I knew was going to get Covid. Then. Guess. What. Happened. 

While this was all happening, my religion teacher was talking to my class about how there is no excuse for not reading some Bible every day and that not going to Mass every day is a mortal sin. He is also fully aware of the fact that a lot of us are not religious. So as an athiest with religious OCD, I was freaking out, even considering asking my parents to move to a non-religious school.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that people with OCD know on some level that their obsessions and compulsions are irrational. But we can't stop doing them or thinking them. I know that nobody will die if I do something in the "wrong" order. I know (just a little) that my family getting Covid has nothing to do with me going into a chapel. I know that patting my dog not-five times isn't going to make something bad happen to her. But I still feel the burden of so many people's lives on my shoulders. And the burden isn't even real but it's still there and I can't just make it go away.

Everyone I've ever spoken to about my OCD (except my therapist and friend with OCD) has just told me to "think about it rationally". They tell me, "that's not going to happen". The thing is, I know at least a bit that terrible things won't happen if I don't do my compulsions. But I guess, sometimes the compulsions are about taking the responsibility off of me if the bad things do happen. I've believed someone died because of me before, because I didn't do my compulsion in time. It was irrational, but I believed it anyway. So I can't just stop. You can't just rationalise yourself out of a disorder. 

Sometimes I do need the reminder that nothing bad is gonna happen or whatever, but that's all anyone can say to me. It's like they're a broken record, all saying some variation of "that's stupid, just stop thinking that" over and over. It's almost like people are trying to convince me I don't have OCD. But, you know, if you're gonna try and help me, you have to acknowledge and accept that there's a problem first.

People always tell me to look on the bright side. I know they're trying to help, and they don't understand, and that's not on them. But sometimes people talk to me like I'm a little kid who is crying because Santa didn't get them a puppy. But I have a chronic illness which prevents me from being able to function. People need to realise that sometimes it's ok to mourn what your life could have been if you hadn't gotten sick. And I know they don't know how hurtful that is. What else are they supposed to say to me? But it's still kinda frustrating. 

OCD is so complicated, bro. I feel like it's simultaneously a part of me and a completely different entity. You know that fungus that turns ants into zombies? I think OCD is a bit like that but mixed with blackmail. Lately I've been thinking of it as taking over my body... or mind. The lyric "Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body? I don't know." (Still Ill by The Smiths) really resonates with me at the moment. 

Ok. Back to the awkward descriptions of my OCD. 

So there's harm OCD. This one is one of the aspects of my OCD that I don't like talking about because it makes me look like a potential murderer. But I have to remind you that people who have upsetting intrusive thoughts about harming others are usually less likely to actually do so in real life. Please remember that.

A lot of my OCD is worrying about potentially harming someone. But sometimes I get intrusive thoughts or even images come into my mind. Like, recently I've been unable to be alone in a room with my dog, Peggy, because I'm terrified that I'll suddenly hurt her. So I just leave the room. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was chopping up vegetables, and suddenly my OCD was like, "what if you stabbed someone with that knife you're using to chop vegetables?" And then I put down the knife and started crying. All these images of me stabbing my family came into my head so I backed myself against a wall. And then I noticed that there was red paint on the floor and I bet you can figure out where that took my mind. So yeah. 

This isn't exactly harm OCD, but for some reason my OCD tells me that if I say "I love you" to someone, something bad will happen to them. So I often find myself saying I "value" or "like" them instead, which gives me Kaz Brekker "I protect my investments" vibes. And for some reason I can't tell my therapist about that one.

The title of this post is getting less and less relevant as I write. So I think I will talk about ableism now.

I guess I didn't really notice all the ableism I was experiencing until I found out that OCD can be considered a disability, not just some random thing. Also I know that most other people have it much worse in life and I'm sorry if I seem like I'm acting like I think I'm the most mentally ill person in the world. People who act like that annoy me so it would be kinda embarrassing if I was one of them.

I find that people take my contamination OCD a lot more seriously than all my other types. Kind of. I think the fact that there's a pandemic happening has a lot to do with that. Also probably because of the stereotyping around OCD and cleanliness. But seriously, my mum only ever talks about my contamination stuff. And sure, my hands bleed a lot from how much I wash them (hand moisturiser is my saviour), but contamination OCD is not my biggest problem at the moment, because I guess 1. I'm used to it now 2. I don't have to do the compulsions literally every five seconds 3. the obsessions aren't as bad 4. I think the fact that I have now had Covid made me a little less worried about it.

There's so many parts of me that are based on my OCD. Like, I keep realising "oh I do that because of OCD". It's kinda sad because I feel like my whole life revolves around my mental illness. Recently I have felt like my every action and thought is controlled by my OCD. Sometimes I wonder if I'd still be me if my OCD was gone, because it's such a big part of my life and identity.

I think I'm gonna stop writing now because it's pretty late. I was not expecting to finish writing this post today haha. But I have to go now. I hope you didn't find this post too harsh or anything. I also hope you don't think I'm a bad person after reading this. That's my job. If you do think I'm a bad person now, well, fuck your stupid ableism.