I watched the SoftWhiteUnderbelly interview of a guy with OCD who works as a clown, and used to serve in the Navy. His form of OCD wasn’t self-loathing intrusive thoughts but intrusive thoughts that stemmed from the anxiety or fear of something bad happening. Like, the fear that he was going to be dishonorably discharged or drown if there’s a storm, was perceived as a sort of bad mojo that he has to combat with positively and carrying out various ritualistic actions repeatedly until the though went away.
So, he had times where he had to stand still and repeatedly, verbally tell himself “No, this good thing is going to happen instead”, or perform some mundane action like twisting a knob over and over, because if he didn’t his brain was going to be at him over the head with the negative thoughts driving him crazy.
In the interview he repeatedly mentions feeling self-conscious about how he must have looked crazy to other people in the Navy or in public, talking to himself repeating the positive thoughts he was combatting his intrusive thoughts with, or repeating a physical action over and over, but the alternative was letting it actually drive him crazy. And a part of him believed if he didn’t engage in those coping rituals, than the things his intrusive thoughts said we’re going to happen, might actually happen. And so those two things were his only coping strategy for dealing with being overwhelmed by all the crippling anxiety and fear, from which his OCD was manifesting.
SolaceFiend@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I watched the SoftWhiteUnderbelly interview of a guy with OCD who works as a clown, and used to serve in the Navy. His form of OCD wasn’t self-loathing intrusive thoughts but intrusive thoughts that stemmed from the anxiety or fear of something bad happening. Like, the fear that he was going to be dishonorably discharged or drown if there’s a storm, was perceived as a sort of bad mojo that he has to combat with positively and carrying out various ritualistic actions repeatedly until the though went away.
So, he had times where he had to stand still and repeatedly, verbally tell himself “No, this good thing is going to happen instead”, or perform some mundane action like twisting a knob over and over, because if he didn’t his brain was going to be at him over the head with the negative thoughts driving him crazy.
In the interview he repeatedly mentions feeling self-conscious about how he must have looked crazy to other people in the Navy or in public, talking to himself repeating the positive thoughts he was combatting his intrusive thoughts with, or repeating a physical action over and over, but the alternative was letting it actually drive him crazy. And a part of him believed if he didn’t engage in those coping rituals, than the things his intrusive thoughts said we’re going to happen, might actually happen. And so those two things were his only coping strategy for dealing with being overwhelmed by all the crippling anxiety and fear, from which his OCD was manifesting.