I literally discovered your channel 2 days ago and thought "hey i like her vibe it would be fun if she did something with Jessica Kellgren Fozard" and now BAM there it is. 😂

I love your hair!!!!

Thank you for sharing your experiences, I really appreciate it

@@Gobeline78 she actually did a video doing rowans makeup in a vintage style too! It was a while ago, I think its on Rowans channel! Its called "Being femme and disabled".

@@roebearwhat Haven't seen that around yet. I'll check it out ^^ (I was mostly surprised at the timing ahah)

I relate so hard, it's so isolating because people don't understand "how can you believe that?" and it's not that we actually believe it, it's something else

One of mine is that I will step off the platform in front of the subway.

I’m worried because this kind of sounds like me..

@@alexhelenbrooks6957 maybe go to your gp to talk about it? It's worth it to get help, hope you're okay 💜

One of mine is that I will sit on my cat and kill her. It’s not an unreasonable fear- she loves to immediately curl up on my wheelchair as soon as I vacate it (to go to the loo for example), and usually needs to be moved off before I can sit down again. So it’s not unreasonable. The issue is that I can’t stop thinking about it. I have to check and recheck that she’s not there, that she hasn’t jumped back up just after being moved off, before I can sit down. And turning to check and recheck (at least six times, that’s the number that I have to check) is actually really painful for me. And I have to do this EVERY TIME I go to sit in n my chair (which is often, it is my wheelchair after all). I don’t have OCD. Or at least, I’ve never been diagnosed with it, though I do have other disorders. That being said, my psych says I have OCD tendencies, due to very common intrusive thoughts, and a certain need to do things to maintain control- and massive anxiety regardless, but that gets even worse if I’m not able to do things to maintain co trip and order (which I usually can’t now due to being severely physically disabled- I used to be that stereotypical anxious person that used cleanliness and organisation to cope. But now I’m too disabled to do any cleaning at all, and my brain is a mess because of it). But not quite to the level of OCD, to be clear. But as someone with intrusive thoughts, I thought it would be okay to add mine, even if I don’t actually have OCD. I do have some similar symptoms.

I think I made a grammar mistake somewhere because the sentence looks weird? Sorry English isn’t my first language

The sentence reads fine to me. c: But it's not my first language either.

It reads fine to me too! But what would I know I’m French 😂, also I understand how you feel, I’ve had similar thought

Your comment is grammatically understandable and is not incorrect unless you were putting it in a scholarly article, you did great. Also, this is extremely accurate and is very similar to what I do in those situations.

(Native Speaker of English) Your sentence reads well to me! :) It is definitely understandable. A few words are in a different order to what I'd expect, and in Britain we usually use '....' for quotes (not ), but other than that it is near perfect (I think)

+

I'll have to pick that up, growing up with OCD has made media with OCD characters really stressful

I’ve read it, I think it really helped me (as a neurotypical person without OCD) understand how the experience might be.

+

I haven’t been able to get more than a few pages in because it’s SOOO accurate I end up in thought spirals every time! (I have OCD)

I spent my entire life thinking I don’t have ADHD because everytime I told people about my problems they were like „everyone procrastinates and have problems concentrating sometimes” but here is the big difference: SOMETIMES, not everyday. Even my roommate who have OCD that was undiagnosed for so long doesn’t take me seriously

i always tell those people the D stands for DISORDER. you can not have a little of a disorder! like… it is called a disorder and diagnosed and treated as such because the obsessions + compulsions are extreme enough to make a person’s life very difficult. i truly cannot understand what goes on in these people’s heads. no one would say i got a little schizophrenia or a little bit of kidney disease.

I literally went years without a diagnosis bc of the common place usage of ocd as an adj.

When people say that, I usually ask "Oh, you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? Me too!" and watch as they fail to explain themselves.

This is why I always look for something else to describe it. I just say that im particular about where something is, as that's all it is for me

hiiii i'm an aspy with ocd 🤝🏼❤

Back at you!! :)

I needed this, thank you ❤️

Thank you, neurocousin. I am an OCD and social anxiety sufferer married to an Autistic person, and there is simultaneously enough overlap between our different neurotypes that we can relate to each other, and enough difference that our strengths and weaknesses complement each other.

My ex husband would always throw a fit about how I was "just being dramatic" and should "just ignore" things. One amongst the plethora of reasons he's my ex husband.

Oof

No way, a therapist said that!?. I know GPs can be very rude and uneducated especially to females or young people, but a therapist (or as we call them in the UK, councellor/mental health specialist/ advisor) thats awful!

yo some therapists are truly awful. I've had multiple therapists who gave me judgy bullshit about my self harm. Like hey you're doing the exact opposite of your job, thanks

Mmmm, throw out the whole therapist

i don't have OCD, but i didn't know anyone else got bathroom snakes. mine weren't always snakes, it was more just general fear of something being there, and thankfully mine faded away a few years ago, but i remember having to check in and around the toilet, just in case. i knew logically there probably wouldn't be anything there, but i needed to make sure. repeatedly. so... i get how much that sucks. i'm sorry you have those awful thoughts

I found out a while ago due to a problem in my plumbing that the water reservatory in my building has a piece made of lead and I have convinced myself my water has lead in it and that the filter isn't good enough and it will destroy my body and I worry about it constantly 🤡 I am not sure the piece actually touches the water 🤡

But isn’t the “cup tastes like blue” more autistic? I know that OCD and autism do overlap sometimes but I’m not sure about this one

Aaaah the bathroom snakes sound so much like the decaying hand that lives under my bed and will grab you if you don't get into bed fast enough.

@@Marispider I'm really glad this isn't one of my things, because it would have been made so much worse when there was this one time that something actually /was/ there. Not a snake or anything, but I was just minding my own business when an /earwig/ that was between the toilet seat and the toilet bowl pinched me. More than once. Now I always have to check if there's any weird feels. Also, naturally, that earwig got flushed. And I only saw an earwig one other time that I got rid of before the stupid thing had a chance to try anything.

Thank you so much for being part of this video! xx

I commented on the main video about this, but I wanted to thank you for what you said about it being hard to open up to people about our deepest darkest thoughts. I tried doing that once with my biological mother and she told me I shouldn't ever talk about that stuff because someone would take my daughter away from me for fear that I'd hurt her... I haven't been able to share since. It's so hard to be open and honest when interactions like that are so common. Thank you for the solidarity I felt in your comment - it's made me feel much less alone in this world. ❤

You did a great job explaining your personal experience with OCD!

I have OCD also, primarily obsessions. Being forced to watch a movie about harm to loved ones is exactly how I've always described it . Thank you so much for making this!

Thank you! You’re doing the right thing and I hope others follow your example.

That's awesome! I don't blame people for saying stuff like that because we've been socialized to try to relate with everyone's experience instead of just listen, and the phrase "a little OCD" is so common. I'm not 100% sure if I have OCD, but my therapist realllly thinks I do. It only developed over the last 2.5 years and I didn't understand it as possible OCD until very recently, and before I had any of the symptoms I used and heard phrases like "a little OCD" all the time. My mom says it a lot, and I'm right about to go home for my school break not yet having told them about my possible diagnosis, so that is going to be an interesting time.

@@izzysnyder5226 Good luck! Hopefully a diagnosis will help.

I try to keep in mind that we use figures of speech or certain phrases without thinking about them. What you're actually saying and what you mean may be different. A simple øne is, usually when people say "how are you?" They just mean hi. They likely don't actually intend to start a conversation. We use the question as a statement. I am not sure I'm making sense.

​@@C-SD I think I understand what you're getting at-basically we say things as expressions that don't match up with their literal meaning, so "a little OCD" is a stand in for "a little neurotic" or "a little anal". If this is what you mean, I get where you're coming from, but I think it's an instance where we should all try to shift the way we use language. Calling things "a little OCD" kind of diminishes the severity of the disorder and conflates compulsions with excessive neatness, when usually compulsions are incredibly unpleasant and unproductive. It makes OCD seem like a personality flaw and not a psychiatric disorder. Since people with OCD are real people who deal with a real and serious mental disorder, the phrase "a little OCD" in my opinion is really different from "how are you?". When people say "a little OCD" they mean "a little like the stereotypes I've seen of OCD", whereas "how are you?" is not perpetuating any stereotypes, it's just a phrase.

When he said that it made me think of clockwork orange. That movie was really disturbing.

I related to that a lot. My severe OCD symptoms are fairly episodic, and for the few times where I've gone several weeks or months fixated on one thought or one set of thoughts it really does feel that way. (For context I am not yet diagnosed with OCD but my therapist says she really thinks I have it)

I read this book (forgot what it’s called) where a woman has OCD and severe intrusive thoughts. She has a newborn, and she was terrified that one day she might get the urge to burn the house to the ground while her husband was away or stab her kid. She confessed these thoughts to her husband, but he misunderstood her and thought this was what she wanted to do. He kicked her out of the house and called the cops. The rest of the book is describing her recovery and finding her daughter (who inherited her OCD) many years later. I loved the book, it really gave me insight as to what it might be like to live with OCD. 10/10 would recommend.

@@kalyanigollamudi759 I often have thoughts about what it would be like to carry out certain harmful actions (usually to myself), and the more I wonder about them the more scared I am that I will end up doing something dangerous because the harder you try to ignore a compulsion the worse it becomes (imo).

I was looking for a comment mentioning this book! I finished reading it just the other day and in a way it was one of the most uncomfortable books I've ever read, precisely because it depicts how awful intrusive thought spirals can be. I would highly recommend it for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of how OCD can manifest.

I totally agree. I didn't even realize that thought spirals were part of my OCD until reading the book. It is depicted so accurately and is such a good read

I really liked what I read of the book but I've not been able to finish it... because it affected me so much :( I need to be in a good headspace so I can finish reading it!

I remember the part where her best friend says she’s like mustard: good in moderation. She loses it and yells at her asking “what must it be like to have mustard ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, MUSTARD MUSTARD MUSTARD” or something along those lines. That really resonated with me.

John Green himself has OCD.

That’s a really good idea! What I have done in the past is react as though the person was telling me that they did in fact have OCD. Basically I’ll say things along the lines of “wow, thank you for trusting me and being so open about your disorder” and they usually have to then reel back and acknowledge that they don’t - it tends to have a more long lasting effect in terms of not using the “expression” again. I definitely agree with you, though, the underlying essence of this approach is to highlight the disorder part. They often correct themselves and end up saying what they actually meant (no no I meant I’m particular about organisation). It also means that instead of condescendingly correcting someone (which I’m very wont to do so have to keep myself from doing), I’m signalling that if there ever was anything serious, I’d be supportive. I’ll usually also not smugly say “that’s what I thought” or anything like that, I’ll start a conversation about the difference between a disorder and experiencing the symptoms of said disorder in a more occasional, healthy, appropriate and contextual way.

I do that a lot. Anytime I have a visible routine someone notices, if I am comfortable with them and know they'll laugh, I'll say, "wow, so disorder." If I'm not comfortable with them, I hope they don't say anything😂

miippi when my grandmother was pulling the "just don't feel that way" reasoning I made the mistake of pointing out that she actually has some compulsive behavior. Now whenever she wants something done a certain way or doesnt want to hear shit for having done what she wanted without considering others, she'll just smile at me and say "well its just me being ocd isn't it." It just feels like a knife twisting because she knows that isnt okay. Ive explained it. Her friends have. My therapist did. And yet still, she does it. If I try going into it more I might actually cry. My point is some people can have things explained and should understand but simply refuse. It sucks but explaining over and over to no avail can be even worse then dealing with them.

@@khaxjc1 that's awful. People need to realize that making fun on psychiatric conditions, is just not okay. Why is tends to be so hard for sone people to understand that there's a difference between "I like having this done my way" and "If I don't color organize these crayolas until they feel right, something awful will happen"??

Thats why ive tried saying "im a bit particular." Or "im super anal anout this this this" when im joking about liking things a certain way. 😊

Yup! I have adhd along with OCD so I’m not organized and I have very few rituals (I have a hard time remembering to do any kind of routine) but I ruminate a fuck ton and obsessively research things bc I’m scared of messing them up (for example researching dog health because I got a new dog and I immediately started worrying that I’d do something and he’d get hurt or die)

SAME. 26 years of horrible obsessions and compulsions

Everything in my house is sanitary enough to perform surgery on. Organized? Not one bit. I don’t have time for tidying up. I’m too busy scrubbing one dish for fifteen minutes, hopping on one foot until both feet feel even, running to my mother’s office every so often to check she hasn’t died, scratching my skin raw because both sides aren’t even, etc etc etc...

This made me realized that we do say "a bit depressed". But I guess we don't say "a bit major depressive disorder" so I suppose it is not really the same thing. The point was more that this language about mental health is pretty insidious in English

Ugh, yes. I have ADHD and people saying "Oh, I'm sooo ADHD" when they're just a bit energetic is the worst. It's like oh so you have the executive dysfunction, memory issues, sleep problems, social impairments, etc. too? No? Hmm...sounds sus.

Using the word "triggered" and then laughing pisses me off I have PTSD and being triggered in to a flash back is terrifying not funny. I've spent 2 hours grocery shopping for my household my parents household and my grandma and suddenly smell someones cologne and have to leave a cart full of food in a store because I know I'm moment's away from a panic attack and would rather have in alone in my car the with dozens of people staring at me.

@@spriddlez i think there is a difference there too, because everyone can experience depression. It’s a natural emotion and it happens in everyone from time to time. That’s very different from clinically diagnosed depression, which is usually chronic and debilitating. That’s the difference between depression and a depression disorder-how does it impact the person experiencing it. Edit: whereas experiencing a genuine emotion or a mood swing is not at all the same thing as having bipolar disorder. People think the only characteristic of bipolar disorder is uncontrollable, sudden rage. There’s so much more to it. Manic episodes are frequently high and unstable feelings of happiness or energy or impulsive decision making, not just a momentary outburst. They can last hours or days or longer.

@@oscollective i especially despise hearing "i'm a bit ADHD" cause i have ADHD and the people who say it tend to also be the ones who perceive me as irresponsible, stupid and lazy once i actually show symptoms

the holding breath oh godddddd i hate it, i have to hold my breath every time i pass a cemetery or when using the restroom... it feels like i have to hold my breath every time the wind blows! (get it? 🤣)

@@evvieelmore hahah yea, it really sucks...(heh). People really do be catching me holding my breath at the randomest times though. As if I I'm not already enough of a weirdo

Does anyone else need things to be even? Like if I touch something with one finger, I have to touch it with the same amount of pressure with all of my fingers and often one of them is too hard so I have to press with the same amount of pressure as the hardest one and that literally goes on for ages trying to get all ten of them even.

My parents literally disbelieved my psychiatrist's diagnosis when I was a teenager because my room was "too messy". Like they knew better than someone trained specially.

@@corneliastreet2491 YES i'm autistic but yeah i deal with that, especially with eating

From what I've come to understand about my mental health, my compulsions are trying to prove for certain that I do/do not believe something. I put myself through several mental tests, observing how I react mentally and emotionally. I flip through and analyze all of my memories like a rolodex from Hell. I say phrases to myself like "I don't think that". I avoid situations that will trigger my thought spirals. I tell myself that if I am not constantly ruminating about things then I am avoiding the punishment that I deserve for the things I think. There's probably more, and I am going to work with my therapist to identify what my compulsions are, but overall nothing really relieves the anxiety even temporarily except training myself to drop the thread entirely and not follow it, no matter how painful it gets.

@@izzysnyder5226 holy hell, the way you described that is exactly how i would deal with my Pure O when it was really bad as well

Best comment on here. “Pure O” is as offensive to me as “A little OCD”. You are very correct, you need both the O and the C for a diagnoses. 9/10 times I hear someone talking about having Pure O, it’s self diagnosed. Talking to Pure O people’s, there’s so much disconnect between what people with OCD I’ve been in therapy and support groups experience and what they experience. Not trying to say people with Pure O are faking and lying, but all the descriptions I’ve been given by people who claim to have line up more with General Anxiety disorders. Anxiety causes thought loops, causes distress, provides intrusive thoughts... but if you don’t have compulsions related to those feelings you don’t have OCD. Perhaps people who claim to have Pure O really do have OCD, but it feels like people take the Pure O label and run with it instead of going through the treatment necessary to identify the compulsions, I really believe that label is damaging because of that. I have seen quite a few doctors in my life, and have been in and out of psych hospitals, being treated for 15~ years (OCD, OCPD, PTSD), and not a single Doc has backed up the idea of Pure O. Therapists and counselors, on the other hand, really seem to like the label. I could be wrong, and I’m not trying to dismiss anyone’s health, but if you’re serious about treatment and recovery for OCD you absolutely need to identify and treat those compulsions!! For example - I have troubles sleeping because I get violent, graphic intrusive thoughts and images in my head. They stress me out. As a compulsion, I mentally recite my morals to myself, debate myself over the nature of violence, go back through memories that prove I am a good person, ruminate on the actions and events I experienced that day and analyze them to make sure I didn’t accidentally give hints to people that I have those thoughts, ruminate over how people reacted to me throughout the day to make sure that they didn’t show any signs that they may have been able to read my mind and know about my bad thoughts..... yeah. Those are mental compulsions. The majority of people with Pure O experience those mental compulsions, but they take that Pure O label and end up not acknowledging those compulsions as such - putting a damper on treatment!!! Treatment for OCD isn’t as much about getting rid of the intrusive thoughts as it is dealing with the compulsions and stress from having those thoughts - There is not a cure for OCD, the intrusive thoughts aren’t going to disappear!

@@ryanpatterson2875 i read as much of your comment as i could, w|o paragraph breaks getting through large blocks of text is really difficult + sometimes impossible due to my vision impairment. what i read i 100% agree with. every pure O person i’ve come across has been self-Dx. which could mean they don’t actually have OCD but can also mean they just haven’t identified the compulsions. whiiiich is one of the limitations of self-Dx + yet another reason i strongly blv anyone w| OCD absolutely needs professional help from someone who specializes in OCD.

Not to mention, Emma has to put up with her family members who Do Not Get It, which a lot of us are familiar with

And her family stressing her out to the point that it made her symptomatic again even though between therapy and medication she'd been doing well. T (side note: As someone with depression/anxiety the scene where she sat and stared at that pill bottle until she made herself take it was VERY familiar for the first time I took meds for my mental illness)

All things considered, it was done pretty well even if clearly not perfect. I vividly remember the scene where she goes to therapy for the first time and there was a long montage of her cleaning the chair (iirc it's wasn't done in a funny way, just showing how meticulous and obsessive her cleaning was) and when she sat down the therapist said something like "The meeting's over. We scheduled for an hour and you spent 56 minutes cleaning the chair". Not telling her off or shaming her, but in a very matter-of-fact-ly way, trying to make her see that she needed help and why. It really stuck with me, I felt like it showed in a very real way just how incapacitating OCD can be, to the point where it can keep people from getting the help they need. Glee was not a perfect show in any way, shape or form. It could've done so many things so much better and some things it did were pretty problematic. But it tried, and that's already a lot more than most of the media of the time was doing, so I commend it for that at least

Rewatching Glee I did appreciate that they didn’t make it completely the butt of the joke. But when Glee originally aired I had crippling OCD and my name is also Emma so it was a difficult watch at the time 😅

Her boyfriend sings a song with the lyrics “I will try to fix you” while she is crying due to her ocd 🙄

Looking at a word... And being like it can't be spelled that way?? And then the absolute betrayal you feel when it is. Or when you stare at a word and you're like no I spelled that wrong I have to have... But you didn't.

Hahahaha untie 😁

As a polyglot and TEFL teacher, English spelling makes absolutely no sense. Peeich is far more phonetically accurate.

I used to get so frustrated when I was told a word was not spelled a certain way. At least I get extra time on tests and have accommodations at my school

My high school boyfriend would always print his assignments on colored paper. Is that unique to him or can someone else with dyslexia attest to whether that helps in some way? I’m very curious. We could print books on colored paper for dyslexic children learning to read, foster that enjoyment of reading. Idk. That seems like a good idea to me. Also, I’ve heard fonts with serifs are much harder to read. Opinions?

I do the same thing with my books, and I SOOOO hear you about needing to be perfect or not bothering to try because it's too distressing not to be perfect. (People assume it's being spoiled or conceited or having to be the best at everything - it's really not that. It's simply physically distressing not to do things perfectly. Not all things - just certain things.)

Poor kid. I started showing symptoms at the age of 8, same kinds of thoughts as that boy. It really destroyed my childhood, I didn’t get diagnosed for another 9 years after that! I was written off as just an annoying difficult child. So happy he got diagnosed and is getting help, warms my heart!

@@ryanpatterson2875 oh dseesh, that sounds like a horror story. 9 years without help in the form of therapy and/or meds??? Kudos to you for hanging in there. :(

If it's okay to ask, what does a burnout look like? What makes it different that other adverse reactions to your surroundings? My brother has verbal autism, and want to have a better understanding of his condition.

@@rabbit__ What you're talking about sounds more like a meltdown, which is like.. you get overwhelmed by stuff and can't.. do stuff. But a meltdown is pretty temporary. A lot of meltdowns can indicate that the person is overstretching themselves though.. An autistic burnout is pretty similar to a "normal" burnout. Months of fatigue and being unable to do stuff because you overstretched yourself beyond your limits for a long time. It's just that for a lot of people with autism they get it from just trying to "keep up" with the world. We take in a lot more stimuli every day, and have to expend more effort to "try and look normal", both of which make pushing yourself too far quite easy. But honestly, every person with autism is different. If you want to know what's the hardest about it for your brother, you're going to have to ask him. ;-)

@@Rhaifha thank you!

In my case I have Asperger syndrome and thanks (sadly) to all the years of being ridiculed or told "Act normal" I have a great ability on masking. Everyone see me as a "normal" person and when I try to explain my feelings or intrusive thoughts they take it as if I was faking it. Since a traumatic period of my life I started to do more "rituals" like washing my hands constantly (a lot more than normal) or stiming with my foot on top of the ones I already had like feeling sick for looking to the eyes or scripting or eating everything separately. My sister had the audacity to attribute it to me watching the big bang theory (they didn't notice the slow process). Is impossible to explain it since they just take it as a joke and respond "I understand because we all have a little of your condition (and they compare it to my other sister's bipolar disorder) “.

@@Djinn_Entonic Not passing as well after trauma is perfectly normal. I'm sorry your family doesn't understand. I recently started allowing myself to stim and it's very comforting!

I've done that with my hair, too!! I've been growing a padawan braid for years, and at first it was sooooo hard to keep from making a braid behind my other ear! Now, about eight years later, it just feels right. :)

Love to hear things like this! As a kid, my OCD manifested in multiple ways, but one was intrusive thoughts about sex that made me feel so guilty I couldn’t function. My only “fix” to the problem was to tell my mom whatever the thought was. She was always kind and wonderful and never judged me. And one day she came and just gave me a bunch of age appropriate books about bodies and sex and actually learning about the subject in a positive way helped me SO MUCH. From then on, I’ve had a passion for sharing healthy sex-ed information because I know how important removing stigmas and shame from the subject is. It’s not necessarily a cure because everyone’s OCD/intrusive thoughts manifest in different ways, but I think that that type of full on (safe) immersion can be really helpful!

Ah thank you! I didn’t catch what she said there even after replaying it a few times.

are you in theray? or was? I know triggers like this can really make you spiral, but therapy + not preventing yourself from doing the things you love can really help (talking as a fellow OCDer here)

i was a bit blown away too. my diagnosis is very new and having someone explain so accurately what my intrusive thoughts feel like was totally bizarre tbh. but like in a good way!😂

SAME TY for talking about it Charlie

@Jamie Lynne thank you for sharing your story with me ❤

@Jamie Lynne I really like that analogy!

one thing i really appreciate is that when jessica is doing a video on “x in the media” if she doesn’t have the specific disorder/syndrome, she gets people who DO have it to help with the video it feels like she really does listen and care, rather than exploiting things like OCD for monetary revenue

i really like that roman and jess also explained how painful and debilitating it can be and how there really is no control within the disorder. having both of them here gives an insider and outsider’s perspective on the disorder and i feel less “crazy” or “insane” seeing that someone without ocd understands and seeing that i’m not the only one with ocd experiencing the symptoms in even thing i do. especially at somewhere around 6-7 mins in , rowan felt the need to restart her sentence and combatted the urge to restart recording cause speaking is one thing my ocd affects badly and it was actually really comforting to know that it’s possible to combat it

@@lordvoldemort7855 I have OCD too, and when Ronan said she was just going to keep recording, I was shocked! It was definitely really helpful to be able to see her push through that!

With mine (on top of some examples in my comment) if I'm writing a list, if I misspell something I have to start the whole list over on a new paper

I think a lot of people can't understand how serious the actual conditions are so they basically use stuff like "anxiety" as a synonym for "nervousness". There is an incredible difference and I think a lot of the people who do this don't realize that that is the case. I've explained this to a couple of my friends without panic disorder and I think it has really helped them understand this.

@@ash_rock for sure - it's really difficult to convey sometimes though, because everyone can experience the depressed feeling or an anxious feeling, but depression and anxiety are so pervasive and consistent... It's on a different level

everybody experiences certain symptoms of these disorders sometimes, but that doesn't mean you have the actual disorder. the people who think that being scared of things sometimes or being really sad for a while mean that they have a mental illness annoy me to no end.

@@ash_rock I have social phobia and because it has been invalidated by professionals as not being serious enough to get into a program I desperately needed at that time, I now don't like calling it social anxiety. I feel like the word anxiety minimizes it too much. Also the acronym SAD annoys me for some reason.

@@jk-jl2lo exactly. People can go through a depressive period after a personal tragedy without having chronic depression, and people under extreme stress for a long period of time can have a panic attack without having an anxiety disorder. But being sad for a few days in a row is not depression, and being very nervous before a big exam is not anxiety

YEEEES 💖

Yes

That would be the best video ever!

Okay that would literally make my life.

Yes! I agree. I feel like I’ve never seen good ADHD representation in media and so many of my ADHD related traits I never even knew about until finding people online talking about them.

Adhd among other things have severely impacted mine.

@@annieinwonderland I have a concurrent diagnoses of ADHD as well, so I can relate to your comment pretty deeply as well.

Oh hey didn't know there is a word for this 😅🤦🏻‍♀️I don't think I'm as severe as you but I hate asmr because of it. Just the thought of it makes me want to throw up. I can't even eat without watching something cause I need to drown out the sound of my own chewing.

@@FS-qk5uq It's only recently been labeled a mental health issue, the word is fairly new still! I'm exactly the same way, and I hate it. It can be my grandmother or a kid, if there are eating sounds, my body instantly gets hopped up on adrenaline and i go into fight or flight mode physically - my heart rate goes up, i get clammy and shaky, i get dizzy and can faint or vomit, or just really intense adrenaline bursts. The only thing I can compare misophonia to for neurotypicals is imagine that everytime somebody had something, anything, in their mouth, you only heard the sound of nails on a chalkboard. Gum, teeth picking, chewing, loud swallowing. It's all way too much for me, which is why I will hardfast unfollow youtubers who routinely eat and chew on camera with the sound on. It's disgusting and excludes people like me who already don't have a huge social life (Because for most people in america socialization = eating food around each other or drinking drinks around each other) from being able to just enjoy some content. I also understand though that my irritation with eating sounds is never personal, my brain is just wired slightly wrong. I never hold anybody in any negative light for eating or making noises around me, unless they're doing it purposefully to trigger my miso. (which happens a lot, because people can be toxic and think it's a funny mental illness to poke at)

@@FS-qk5uq Also: I'm considered severely deaf. I can't hear deeper or lowered toned voices clearly without hearing aids. So what I want to know is why my brain can still "hear" all the mouth noises. It's crazy, I tell ya. I wish I could turn off my misophonia and go out to eat without feeling clenched and anxious the whole time. I've literally never been out on a date that I enjoyed and was relaxed in my surrounding for, in my entire life. People are so orally fixated. Constant eating is a huge trigger for me as well. I can handle meals better than when i was a teenager, because i know they'll end. But a gum chewer or a chronic snacker are not really the types of people i can be around comfortably.

i have DID and i'm so tired of seeing us being shown as murderers TT

The only somewhat saving grace of Criminal Minds is that especially with the relatively rare cases of a schizophrenic killer they do go out of their way to mention through Spencer (because of his mom) that most schizophrenics are not at all violent, and are more often victims than perpetrators. While not enough, was very unique in crime shows and something I can't help but be grateful for having a career in mental health and having my own mental health issues.

I tbought Monk had OCPD?

This summer after my therapist mentioned that it sounded like I was following an obsession/compulsion type pattern, I googled OCD without compulsions and found out about pure O. I thought it must be made up pseudoscience because it described me too well and there was no way I had a mental disorder as serious and weird as OCD. Every time I read about it or hear someone talk about it I cry because it hits so close to home. I experience it much the way you described-trying to logic my way out of obsessions/intrusive thoughts (which always makes me feel worse and which is also in a way a form of self-punishment). I don't have a formal diagnosis yet, but my therapist at college really thinks I have it or should at least pursue OCD treatment.

@@izzysnyder5226 Hi Izzy. :) It’s certainly really difficult when you’re in a position where you don’t have a diagnosis but identify so strongly with the description of OCD. The internet was/is my friend and my foe because one of my compulsions was to google my obsessions to figure out if they were really OCD. That behaviour is categorised as reassurance seeking behaviour and it actually makes the OCD worse in the end because we give our brains even more reason to think something is wrong when we seek reassurance for the thoughts and obsessions. I really hope that you can find someone who can either confirm an OCD diagnosis so you can get the right treatment, or help you if it’s something else. ♥️ Huge hugs, it can get better once you find the treatment plan that works for you.

@@sophiebeaumont9683 Thanks so much! Yes, I do a lot of reassurance seeking behavior because I'm convinced that I'm making up the symptoms even to myself. I'm fairly confident that I have OCD or something reaaaaaally similar but I am stuck in that limbo place where I don't know for sure if that's what it is.

Hi I’m preparing to get cbt and I want to know how helpful it is, what was it like?

I show symptoms of Pure O, but i'm kind of scared of getting diagnosed because i'm also autistic and have ADHD, and I don't want one or more to be ignored because of that.

Lol. I didn't even realised that it was 48 min long

I as someone who has been disabled there whole life but not until adulthood have I actually accepted the i am disabled. It is due to Jessica.

i knowwwwwwwwwwww

They had a collab on Rowan's channel some time ago where Jessica was giving her a makeover!

I hope you are able to get answers for yourself. There are lots of people in this community who would wish you well on a path to discovery and if necessary, treatment.

Very much relate to the virus making compulsive hand washing worse!! I find it really scary especially when it's something that up until recently was irrational, and now being told you absolutely have to do your compulsive hand washing or people will literally die? Nothing like your irrational fears being medically confirmed lolol! I hope you and your sister get what you need 💕

@The Littlest Pika, I'm so sorry to hear your sister has been washing hands do much they bled. :( She can see a psychiatrist to see if she does have ocd and talk about ways to manage her mental health. Treatment for ocd include medication or counseling (counseling involves strategies on how to reduce stress, not just listening to people's problems). If you want, you can ask your family to refer you to psychiatrist to diagnose whether you have ocd. They'll ask you questions on your health and life to figure out if you have ocd. Best of luck. 💜

As someone with ADHD, I absolutely HATE the rowdy boy stereotype, it really is just one part of the ADHD spectrum, even within its sub diagnosis. We really need more female presenting characters with ADHD, especially Inattentive or Combined type, the one I have. Before I got diagnosed, I could have never thought I have it, as I’ve only known of rowdy boy hyperactive type and people who could control it, even without medication.

Same!!

Yes, that scene made me cry as well. I struggled (and to be honest, still do) with identifying the difference between what is supposedly my innate personality and what traits are “only” symptoms of my mental illness, because surely the latter informs the former?! It’s really confusing

@@nomadine85 yeah, same, I have obsessions that are often like really fun to be honest (in the minority but still there) and it’s like you don’t want to lose the “good” things where I can tell you like every intimate detail of a certain character or actor and make lots of fun pattern connections that are all really enjoyable for me even if they take up a lot of my time... plus like I am really good at organizing when I can get to that point (after overcoming SO MUCH anxiety and inertia) and I’ve always thought of that as part of me

I legit wrote these down on my notepad. Thank you!

Nice!

yes! I know a few people who don't have OCD but have sort of compulsive behaviors-one of my friends taps on things repeatedly, another counts numbers of letters in the words people say into multiples of 11. Both of those things can be frustrating and time consuming, but they are not attached to any form of obsessive anxiety like OCD compulsions are. And yeah, needing things to be neat in a consuming way can be genuinely difficult, but typically the OCD obsessions that cause someone to compulsively organize aren't even connected to the real state of organization around them, they're to stop themselves from harming someone or prevent themselves from having pedophillic thoughts or stuff like that.

thank you for this suggestion!! another one i heard is "particular" but that wouldn't be as strong as "neurotic" is

Now I feel bad for being able to relate...

@@anncabras3961 No there's nothing to feel bad about! You're not a bad person.

@@oliverharris60 aww thank you, that actually cheered me up a bit :)

I've never had this particular variety of thoughts, but I can relate to various harm-related intrusive thoughts. And it can get so hard to shut them out. Usually, it's stuff about harming delicate animals like a kitten. Or sometimes, myself. My brain loves to obsess over harming myself in various ways. I just gently remind myself it's just my brain. I don't genuinely want to hurt anyone or die. It's just my brain obsessing over stupid things, because that's what my brain does. It makes it so much easier to deal with, and so much less stressful. I don't know if that will help you, but I hope you can find some way to make it easier to bear! Your poem was really well-written.

@@amystarr7654 Thank you so much :)

my mom uses that all the time!! but when i use the joke on her ocd when her room is a mess, she get's upset 🙄

I make this joke about myself all the time. It would be nice to have a useful compulsion instead of the ones I got stuck with!

@@elsa8525 Sometimes, I do that also in my brain, but then I kinda get scared that it means I actually wanna experience some type of OCD with that.

Pulling your hair out compulsively is called Trichotillomania

My arms are covered with scars from picking. I've gotten better, but I just dug a hole in my toe 2 days ago.

That happens to me too 😬

Ay hey fellow trich fam.

@@FS-qk5uq when people tell you "just stop!" LOL, it doesn't work that way

I always use that as an example of how to explain what OCD is like for me. I totally am of the “if I don’t do this or if I get a stain or scratch on this, something awful will happen to everyone I love!” variety. I felt for Charlie’s mom when she said “Oh! If I don’t do this Charlie will die!” She said it like it was a matter of fact, which is exactly how my irrational OCD panic thoughts present themselves to me. It’s Always Sunny is definitely problematic but I at least think they did a very good job with that.

+

Even doing a q and a with non famous people who have illness like this. My family had never heard of shojrins syndrome. But I refuse to let it stop me.

In the meantime you can check out How to ADHD, they have tons of videos