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What OCD Is Like (for Me)

2017-07-25 · letter vlog · John · 3:50 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Health (also: Books & writing) · mode: Explainer · tags: heavy topic, self promotion

John describes what his obsessive-compulsive disorder is like for him: intrusive thought spirals that hijack his consciousness and compulsions that try to calm them, not the visible neatness of the popular image or a romanticized superpower; Turtles All the Way Down began from that experience, and he urges anyone worried about their mental health to seek help.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; disclaimer that he is not a psychologist and speaks only from experience

  • ★★ John says he is not a psychologist, thinks we should listen to experts on mental health and other things, and can only speak to his personal experience. (hedged) — 00:00:02

00:00:13 — What OCD is like for John: inner experience, thought spirals, compulsions, stigma and romanticization

  • ★★ John says inner experiences are hard to talk about because the senses cannot reach them: psychic pain cannot be seen or heard and is hard to describe without simile or metaphor. (hedged) — 00:00:13
  • ★★★ John says he has obsessive-compulsive disorder. — 00:00:37

  • ★★★ John says OCD is seen in the popular imagination as excessive hand washing or neatness because those behaviours are visible and filmable, but for him the obsessive comes before the compulsive. — 00:00:39

    “there's a reason the obsessive comes before the compulsive in the name”

  • ★★★ John experiences obsessive thought spirals in which intrusive thoughts he does not want, which seem to come from outside him, hijack his consciousness. — 00:00:56

  • ★ John says everyone has known some version of not choosing their thoughts, such as thinking constantly of someone they have lost. — 00:01:06
  • ★★★ For John the obsessive thought spirals happen all the time and can take over for days, weeks or months, for example a sudden worry that his food is contaminated or poisoned. — 00:01:19
  • ★★ When it gets bad, John can lose all control over his thoughts for a long time, unable to follow a TV show or read a book. — 00:01:35
  • ★★★ John finds this exhausting and terrifying: he cannot stop being scared, and if he cannot choose his thoughts and is partly made of them, he wonders whether he is the captain of himself. — 00:01:44
  • ★★★ John says his compulsions, such as repeatedly checking food for contamination or googling for hours what happens if he eats moldy bread, are ways to comfort and calm himself. — 00:02:02
  • ★★★ John says mental illness is highly stigmatized in our culture but also sometimes romanticized, as in TV shows where a mentally ill person goes off their meds to catch a terrorist, or obsessive detectives. — 00:02:26 · mental disorder
  • ★★★ John says that may fit some people's experience but not his: his illness has no superpower side effects, and inside a thought spiral he can hardly observe anything outside himself. (hedged) — 00:02:40 · mental disorder

00:02:55 — How Turtles All the Way Down began from the experience of living inside thought spirals

  • ★★★ John says that when he began the book that became Turtles All the Way Down he wanted to give form and expression to the experience of living inside thought spirals. — 00:02:55 · Turtles All the Way Down
  • ★★ John says the book is totally fictional, beginning from imagining a 16-year-old girl, Aza Holmes, trying to be a good daughter, friend, student and maybe detective while living with terrifying thought spirals. — 00:03:05 · Turtles All the Way Down

00:03:25 — Please seek help; mental illness is treatable; sign-off

  • ★★★ John asks anyone concerned about their mental health to seek help, pointing to resources in the description. — 00:03:28 · mental disorder, doobly-doo
  • ★★★ John says effective treatment can be hard to get but there is hope: the vast majority of mental illness is treatable, and many people with chronic mental health problems have fulfilling lives. — 00:03:35 · mental disorder

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description points US viewers needing mental health services to SAMHSA and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and anyone anywhere to ask a doctor or someone they trust for help. — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: mental disorder · obsessive-compulsive disorder

Also: Aza Holmes · doobly-doo · free will · social stigma · Turtles All the Way Down

Only in the description or credits: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline · Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Also centred on obsessive-compulsive disorder: On Mental Illness (and the end of Pizzamas) · The Rax Guy · This Video Is Actually Three Videos · Not Doing That Great · I've Been Pooping All Wrong

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