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OCD Is Not a Joke
21–30 of 47 posts
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#22I hate it when someone uses this term in light or funny contexts. As a teen I first got completely destroyed by this problem. I never knew why I was getting so many extremely intrusive thoughts. It hurt my self-respect and dignity. It turned myself against me. I never knew it was a condition. My academic performance declined, and I developed some habits I never even thought of. I was able to come out of it through focusing on other things like video games and hanging out with friends but it wouldn't go away completely. I felt it was okay though since my stress levels stabilized at that point.
Again in mid twenties, it got me. This time I researched it and found it is called OCD which is a medical condition, yet I did nothing about it nor I spoke up. It devastated me again and I suffered for years. Every single day was full of stress and I remember being sleepless for a few months in a stretch. I started reading books on how to take care of it and recovery was still far away. I became suicidal for a bit but I felt it was a wrong idea because I would let it win over me if I did it.
Finally, I've come to agree that it is okay to have it and not really take it seriously. I found out the point is to have the mind focus on useful things and keep it busy continuously. I've been doing this since last year and life has improved a lot. Today, 99% of my day is free from any OCD compulsions, obsessions and the stress. Yes I do get intrusive thoughts but I discard them and treat them with no more importance than a pile of crap.
If there's any of you out there looking for any help, I am happy to provide some resources that go a long way. Technically I should have seen some professional for this, but I was way too embarrassed to share my situation with anyone else. I urge you all to never make this mistake though.
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#23[deleted]
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#24Thing don't have the be jokes to be funny - or to be made into jokes.
We have jokes about death, murder, WWII, the big C, and tons of other things besides.
Heck, if a joke doesn't touch some deeper/dark truth, mortality, fragility, etc, it's not much of a joke, it's more into "man slips on a banana" territory.
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#25I think in the future we will realize that OCD is actually autism and autism spectrum disorders are disorders with dopamine regulation. I think this because I used to be on the spectrum until I regulated my dopamine levels and now I'm much lower on the spectrum. Anecdotal of course, but the link should be studied more.
How did you regulate your dopamine levels? Stimulants?
Buproprion
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#26"I have to sort my books", she cried, With self-indulgent glee. With senseless, narcissistic pride, "I'm just so OCD!" "How random guys!", I smiled and said, Then left without a peep - And washed my hands until they bled, And cried myself to sleep. - /u/poem_for_your_sprog ETA: No way to add a single newline on HN it seems. This website can be so daft sometimes.
The irony here is criticizing turning OCD into a joke, while turning narcissism into a joke in the same poem (unless that's intentional?)
But nobody is going to come to the defense of narcissists because that's one of the mental disorders that makes you a "bad person".
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#27I don't know if many people here would have ever heard about the concept of Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP). People who have BAP have significantly more autistic traits than the average person, but not quite enough to merit a diagnosis of ASD. BAP is the subclinical manifestation of ASD. It is common in close blood relatives of people diagnosed with ASD (such as parents and siblings.) It also occurs at a quite elevated rate in STEM professions. Probably a lot of people here have it. It is worth pointing out that it is not a disorder, it is a phenotype. The fundamental difference between BAP and ASD, is that in ASD the autistic traits impair functioning to the point that they become the legitimate focus of clinical attention, in BAP they don't reach the point of being impairing (or else, the impairments are so mild they are not worthy of clinical attention.) The boundary of whether ones functioning is so impaired as to be worthy of clinical attention is inherently a bit of a subjective judgement call, and is going to vary from clinician to clinician; BAP and ASD are on a continuum with each other, and there is no precise boundary between the two.
But actually other disorders have subclinical manifestations, not just ASD. Some researchers study subclinical ADHD, which has a similar relationship to ADHD as BAP has to ASD. Other study subclinical schizophrenia. And there is also study of subclinical OCD. (One big difference is that subclinical ASD has a distinctive name, whereas I don't think the subclinical manifestation of any other disorder has been given a distinctive name.)
Many people see ASD traits in themselves, even to the point of engaging in self-diagnosis, even if they don't actually meet the criteria for formal diagnosis. Yet, most of these people probably actually do have BAP, they just don't understand the BAP-vs-ASD distinction. Well, you could make the exact same point about OCD – many of the people who claim (even if somewhat light-heartedly) that they have OCD, but don't actually do so, may well actually have some degree of subclinical OCD, but they don't understand the subclinical vs clinical distinction.
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#28I think in the future we will realize that OCD is actually autism and autism spectrum disorders are disorders with dopamine regulation. I think this because I used to be on the spectrum until I regulated my dopamine levels and now I'm much lower on the spectrum. Anecdotal of course, but the link should be studied more.
Here's a paper which argues that the distinction between ASD, ADHD and OCD is biologically invalid: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-019-0631-2
So if that paper is correct (and of course it is only one study, and we should have more studies to explore this question further), that suggests that maybe the distinction between ASD, ADHD and OCD ought to be abolished, and they all ought to be subsumed into one bigger disorder, that then might even be subdivided into a new set of subtypes (based on actual biology) which would have little in common with the existing ASD-ADHD-OCD distinction.
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#29Thing don't have the be jokes to be funny - or to be made into jokes. We have jokes about death, murder, WWII, the big C, and tons of other things besides. Heck, if a joke doesn't touch some deeper/dark truth, mortality, fragility, etc, it's not much of a joke, it's more into "man slips on a banana" territory.
I agree we should be able to make jokes about deeper life issues, humor is a coping mechanism for many. But it's more nuanced than that.
Like in the article when a woman jokes "I'm so OCD" when arranging pens by color whilst in the presence of someone whose life is basically directed by the condition (and thus causes a lot of suffering), it can be very offensive, and the comment could be taken as demeaning.
I had similar feelings when r/WSB used the term autism as a joke to describe themselves. They were focusing on one or two stereotypical traits of the condition to make jokes about while ignoring all the other traits/struggles/behaviors that people with the actual condition struggle with every day of their lives.
These supposedly lighthearted jokes can attack a persons sense of self-worth, leading to (even more) depression, anxiety, suicide
Re: OCD Is Not a Joke
#30Thing don't have the be jokes to be funny - or to be made into jokes. We have jokes about death, murder, WWII, the big C, and tons of other things besides. Heck, if a joke doesn't touch some deeper/dark truth, mortality, fragility, etc, it's not much of a joke, it's more into "man slips on a banana" territory.
I agree we should be able to make jokes about deeper life issues, humor is a coping mechanism for many. But it's more nuanced than that. Like in the article when a woman jokes "I'm so OCD" when arranging pens by color whilst in the presence of someone whose life is basically directed by the condition (and thus causes a lot of suffering), it can be very offensive, and the comment could be taken as demeaning. I had sim…
As someone with the autism struggles, I get where you're coming from.
I think the world is the world though, and it's best for people with the issue to be more thick-skinned than to expect (or regulate) others to change such behavior.
By overprotecting ourselves and expecting others to be kind all the time, we create a self-fulfilling prophesy of more depression, anxiety etc when the world doesn't give us that.
And by regulating this (or legislating this), we create an even more toxic environment where everyone is faux-polite, and anxious of saying the wrong thing or making the wrong joke.