Idk why but as a kid I used to get hysterically upset everytime I would imagine a gif of a rotating cow because I could never stop the cow from rotating no matter how hard I tried and I would be crying and no one knew why

This is probably an unnecessary addition, but OCD is missed in cases like these because it's deeply misunderstood by most people.

It's talked about like being obsessively neat or repeating pointless tasks is the main part of it, when really those are just potential symptoms.

The main thing behind OCD is not being about to turn off a thought. There's a thing where most people can just stop thinking about something. If it's over, it's not relevant, it doesn't matter anymore, people can turn their attention away. For OCD, that mechanism can get stuck. And some thought that was supposed to just temporarily pass through your head just stays there. An image of an object rotating. An anxiety about something bad happening. A wish that you made on a dandelion. These are all things that have at some point gotten stuck in my head, sometimes for years at a time.

The compulsions, the rituals, are the person trying to address the thought so it can go away. After all, if you're worried about the door not being locked you can check the lock. But for someone with OCD, that doesn't make the stuck thought go away. So they check it again. And again. And they made a ritual, maybe if I check it exactly five times, I'll know that it's locked and I can let this worry go.

It helps a little. It feels like you're doing something. But it doesn't solve the problem. Actual therapy for OCD involves not doing the compulsion. Instead, you ignore the thought, move around it, try not to give it space in your life. Your mind won't let the thought go normally, so instead you fill yourself with other thoughts. Other parts of your life.

It's not easy at first. Your mind fights you on it. But as you get practice, it gets easier. You learn tricks around your own mind, ways to look at the thought and go, hm. I guess I'll go distract myself now. It does get better. I promise

You know, other people have pointed out that ADHD is perversely named for the ways in which it affects others, rather than for what it actually feels like to have ("are you always worried that your friends hate you and incapable of achieving your goals specifically because they are your goals? you may have 'trouble sitting still in class' syndrome!) – but I think that OCD is in many ways a similar case, especially because "primarily obsessional" OCD (that is, OCD without compulsions) absolutely exists, and is likely under-diagnosed. If people with OCD were naming the condition from scratch, we'd probably call it "Persistent Thought Disorder" or something similar, and consider the rituals that people assume character OCD to be common but non-universal symptoms.

you're cute and it's tuesday

I'm cute and it's tuesday

longing for something you don't know, couldn't know, can't ever know. grief, nostalgia, homesickness... all over something you're unsure was real. what remains only tells of something dead and lost. how could you even begin to imagine it as something that was once alive?

you reach for it, but your hand is stopped by glass.

he had to jump in the ballpit to cool off after getting all airplane ears over a treat puzzle that proved a little too advanced

he's done this a few times now. the ball pit actively soothes him when he gets mad over puzzles. i could learn something from this

Oh I’m so sleepy… won’t you use !tuck to tuck me into bed?

!cursedoak

did anyone else have terrible dreams about a gnarled, twisted forest with one tree more terrible and hateful than all the rest

This is still my favourite image the Internet has created

A sketch of an idea that manifested itself in my head yesterday, at some point I'll dedicate myself to finishing it!

Could these be Roberto's ancestors? hehe

I'll try to finish this wip soon! ✨

A little progress I've made on the sketch of an idea I'd left behind.

An attempt to show the different eras of my sharkfolk, through what appear to be the ancestors of my character Roberto, a great hammerhead shark. 🦈✨

I need to think of a name for each of these ages.

It's done, now I can start painting! ✨

What do you think?

Color blocking done, now I can think about colors in peace! 🎨✨ These aren't the final colors, To avoid the anxiety of thinking about colors, I do this fill before anything else, it also helps me distribute the reduced palette so that the same colors aren't too close together.

Now I'll have to take a mandatory break to focus on jobs to maintain my financial survival. 💸

I hope that one day I'll be able to be funded by things like Patreon, so that I can just concentrate on creating things from the world of my sharkfolk, but I don't think I'm talented enough for that, maybe one day hehe

And I started this year by finishing coloring this art piece! ✨

I made some small changes along the way, what do you think? This year I want to dedicate myself to trying to bring this story to life through a webcomic on Patreon, I hope it's a good idea, but I'm full of determination and hope! 🦈✨

The lion lowkey concerns himself a little bit

this is what it looks like when i kiss my little cat's head

it's usually morally correct to make fun of the usa but whenever i hear british people do it it feels kinda tone deaf. idk if we have the high ground here guys. its like your mom making fun of your mental illness like ma'am where do you think i got it from.

If you see the quote "I refuse to share my body with a man who wouldn't defend it politically" or any variation of it floating around the internet — it was Kat Blaque who originally said it and she would really appreciate it if people gave her proper credit for it but it's gone viral on a lot of different platforms and most of the people sharing it don't know it's from her or choose not to credit her on purpose.

Like I just know terfs are going to be parroting it pretending it wasn't said by a black trans woman about herself & her life.