*****Here's another content warning for stuff about OCD, ableism, and descriptions of intrusive thoughts.*****
Hello everyone! I'm back to rant angrily about OCD at 1am again (it gets really cringey towards the end)! It's a school night but I don't care because school is terrible and life is terrible so why should I waste time trying and failing to sleep when I can blog instead?
Ok so this is a bad segue but I am a strong believer in the theory that Lady Macbeth (from Shakespeare's play Macbeth, obviously) had OCD. I'm not gonna bother explaining why because you can figure that out for yourself, but I'm doing a whole project based off of it, so I hope it's true.
Anyway, because of this Lady Macbeth OCD thing, I kinda like her. That's not to say that she wasn't the cause of people's deaths and stuff, but the representation of OCD for me was like, wow. I can barely find any forms of media that have characters with OCD, and I found one. Better still, it portrayed OCD without being about OCD, if that makes sense. I'm gonna explain this badly but, it's amazing when something is represented as something that happens in life, instead of something that defines someone's life. Like, I want to see more books that have characters that are aroace without the whole plot being about their aroaceness. I want to see books in which one of the main characters is gay but their sexuality isn't relevant to the plot, you know? I feel like so much of our media only depicts straight white cis neurotypical characters unless them being "different" is relevant in the plot. Lady Macbeth's place as a person with OCD in a play that is not specifically about OCD is just something really significant to me.
So I was telling my friend how I liked Lady Macbeth and my friend was like "Why? She's a bitch. It doesn't matter that she has OCD like you, you shouldn't like her based off of just that."
I guess that made me realise how starved of representation I am. If I like this corrupt character just because she's one of the only characters I've seen who has OCD, surely that means something? At the same time, though, I think I should be allowed to like her because I guess I can relate to her. I dunno.
But anyway, I'm about to start angrily ranting about stuff now so prepare yourself. I'm gonna tell a story and honestly I feel kinda ridiculous for being upset over what happened but I was at the time and so yeah.
So the other day at school I was in class and since we're studying Macbeth, the class was talking about Macbeth. Specifically, Lady Macbeth. My class was talking about the washing-hands-to-get-out-imaginary-bloodstains thing, which is something I can relate to on a lot of different levels. But anyway, some of the people in my class were using some pretty strong words to describe Lady Macbeth.
Obviously I have not been involved with anyone's murder or anything, but I still really relate to Lady Macbeth. And I guess those people in my class were speaking about her as if people in real life don't experience that too. They were talking about her hallucinations as if people in real life don't hallucinate, too.
And it wasn't just that one time either. My English teacher constantly calls Lady Macbeth "crazy" or "mad" or whatever. And I get that there really isn't another word that describes it, but I can't help but wonder... if these people saw me doing my compulsions, would they also call me "crazy" too?
Sometimes I forget that most people don't have OCD. I guess some people don't realise that OCD is an actual mental illness, and if they do, they don't think that there would actually be anyone there who had it. Lots of people only say ableist stuff because they think that disabilities are so rare that nobody in the room could possibly have one. The same goes for homophobic, transphobic, aphobic, biphobic (etc.) stuff too, but that's a whole other rant that I'll save you from for now.
But we're right here. And usually we don't say anything because we know we are the minority. There have been times in the past, though, where someone has made an OCD joke and I have said, "imagine if someone in this room actually had OCD" or "wow I actually have OCD so thanks" and the expressions on the people's faces have been priceless. I'm not the type to go around publicly humiliating people heaps, but when an opportunity like that arises I will take advantage of it and enjoy it.
But seriously though, what's it like not having OCD? Is it true that you've never believed you've killed someone when someone puts something in the "wrong" order? You've never stayed up all night waiting for something terrible to happen just because of that? You don't consider your parents doing your chores for you to be a traumatic event?
You're not having an anxiety attack right now just because you're thinking about when, a couple of days ago, you came home so happy with flowers for your mum and you walked into her room and there they were -- the clothes hanging out to dry in "the wrong order". And you didn't sob for days because of it, even though you fixed it. You're not still waiting for something terrible to happen. You don't have that crushing weight on your chest; that horrible anticipation that something horrible will happen and it will be your fault. Your fault. You kill people.
I can't believe that for most people there is no "wrong order"/"right order". For most people, what I just said sounds like it's not real -- who would think that? Most people don't feel the imaginary weight of so many lives on their shoulders. I can't believe that so many people think I'm crazy because they have never experienced that. It's such a silly thing to get so upset over. I have to feel embarrassed about this because for most people it's not at all normal.
You must feel so free...
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