I have come to the conclusion that everything that stands between me and the “writing is worth doing because you’re having fun even if it’s not perfect or you end up scraping it” logic is that I have been taught my entire life that unless what you’re doing yields a tangible, good result it is an utter waste of time and you should be ashamed of your lazy, incompetent self.
Thus, to combat this little instinctual axiom, I decided I’ll simply pick any hour of the day and just write. Doesn’t matter what.
That’s the writing hour, during the writing hour we write, and if it’s bad or good it doesn’t matter because it’s just an hour and we can allow ourselves that 👍.
That desire to disappear is rooted not in hatred of others, but in this gnawing sense that you were never real, never lovable, never even right from the beginning 🤍🩶🖤
I was alone. At night. No one knew I was panicking. I had music playing in my ears. Trying to block out the words that seemed to be coming from someone not myself.
I kept thinking. I couldn’t stop thinking.
Idk what I was thinking. I just couldn’t stop the panic.
I was alone.
And death didn’t seem scary.
That’s why I was afraid. I wasn’t afraid of death. It felt exciting and enticing 
It was extremely late. And I was probably being stupid from being afraid of nothing.
While my sister went to get my dad, there was a moment where…I wished I could just stopped breathing. Because it so hard to breathe..
Death didn’t seem scary. It seemed peaceful. Peaceful because I wouldn’t have to feel pain ever again.
And that’s why I was having a panic attack. Because I was having suicidal thoughts. I never had actual suicidal thoughts before. That’s why I was freaking out.
_____________
I’m ok. This is just me sharing on here because I’m scared of telling my family. Again.
I told my dad all that I was feeling. But I feel like talking about it again. And I don’t want to..bring anyone down rn.
"My head has always been in the clouds, drifting from one whimsical thought to the next like a latent balloon. I feel no shame; in fact, I'm quite supercilious with the knowledge that my thoughts are far from what most would consider normal."
im kinda stressed, is there anyone here in the rq community who would be open to my questions, kinda random ones? specifically those who consider themselves good with conversation & nonjudgmental. i prefer interacting with other nihilists but that’s not a strict boundary or anything. state your boundaries before any discussion!
Regardless of your age, you need a reason to move forward. You need hope. Yet, it's hard to find hope for teens and young adults.
Not a year goes by without an update on the planet's decline (at our hand), wealth is only feeling more unstable and unequally distributed, a pandemic destroyed any hope of sociability for some, and social media does more harm than good when it "connects" people.
There's no true community, nothing to take pride in, there's hardly motivation for ambition or wealth. Hell, we grow up being told we'll be a generation of renters, because it's a statistical improbability than any of us will EVER afford a home without working 3 jobs into our grave.
I can't speak for America, but I know my government haven't made any real effort to prevent renter's from taking that news and slowly inflating rent costs each month.
I'm a part of the generation that is thought to deal with the broadest range of mental health concerns; however, I'm also part of the generation that's most likely to be told to "deal with it," or "grow up," by the people perpetuating our suffering, or the peers that fell victim to toxic hustle culture— enabling the shitty circumstances.
When you start adulthood with so many problems that directly impact your life, most of which come at no fault of your own, you'd hope for help in addressing those matters, but it never comes.
We're told we're lazy, we don't try hard enough, and we've got it easy (which is a demonstrable lie). How is it any surprise we became hopeless doomers? At some point you just get the idea that we were destined to fail.
Threats of War
Now we're told to be ready for World War 3 and I'm struggling to understand why. What values am I defending? Why should I die for a country that doesn't care about me?
Sure, Ukraine and Palestine are in shitty situations, but saying that doesn't require me to do anything. Though they demonstrate something: the government will risk our lives for money, and turn a blind eye to genocide if it suits them.
All that matters is that we're made to feel like our interests align. They don't represent us. They represent themselves.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support either conflict, and I sympathise with the aforementioned nations; however, I am not willing to die for them— I don't think you are. So is it even fair for us to bother complaining? It's not like diplomacy has done a thing so far.
Whether we're roped into a war or not, it doesn't feel like we'd have a choice.
Hobbies and Corporations
Normally I'd propose finding an outlet for everything. I'm not sure that's ideal anymore. Commonplace hobbies like gaming, sports, martial arts, reading, and art, they require 3 things: time, motivation, and effort.
Thanks to hustle culture, holding 3 jobs, running a drop shipping business, and abandoning any meaningful social life is considered just enough and reasonable. That doesn't leave time for personal hobbies, entertainment, or time to actually live. A life like that is no life at all. You're an animal operating on the exclusive goal of survival. You're alive, but you're not living.
Among those of us too physically or mentally scarred to work like our peers, we compassionately took to pen and paper, or software and devices, writing stories, drawing and animating worlds, or making music.
I fear that pocket of joy is getting smaller. AI image generation has already impacted artists, AI voice recreations are already being used in place of some voice actors, and we've all seen the AI voice covers for songs— claiming "you don't need to learn to sing." It didn't take long for me to see "generative AI" being proposed as a source for track samples and stems in music production.
Considering such things, it's hard to motivate yourself to put your work out there. You struggle to justify spending time creating anything, and you're probably not ready to put the effort into producing enough algorithm optimised works per day. After all, no one will see it. No one cares.
That's how it feels.
Social Media
Maybe we still have digital spaces? Really. Are cespools like Twitter spaces you can enjoy? Even Tumblr is quite detached, with small accounts struggling to get so much as a couple likes— nevermind a reblog, and god forbid you get a comment or DM.
That's minor though, it's the relationships that bother me. The ability to lock someone out of your life, within 5 seconds, for the slightest of perceived infractions. You're sensitive and a snowflake if you need boundaries, and you're "rude" and "mean" when you're pushed too far for not establishing them.
You can join a fandom or community and run into those issues, but do you really need more trouble? Ive hung around with furries since I was 13 or 14. It wasn't a furry that SA'd me, and I've never been groomed. But as a child online, I was labelled as a dog fucking groomer (at 15), because I was in a furry community discord server. I don't like to think about how that made the young adult owner of the server feel.
Social media is good for "satirical trolls," who take pleasure in hurting as many people as they can, and then claiming it's OK because they're joking, and you should've known. Is it really worth the effort for anyone else? You know, us "normal people," not bogged down by million strong fanbases, actively managing parasocial relationships and morally questionable stalking.
Closing Statements
I'm not entirely sure why I wrote this post. I guess I'm just another girl crying on the internet when I should save it for the therapy I can't actually afford.
I want to be hopeful, to feel like there's something attainable to desire, or even just things to look forward to. It's been a long time since I woke up and felt there was a good reason to be awake or even alive.
the weirdest thing about existing online as someone with ocd is seeing people constantly treating their own experiences like a diagnosable, severe mental illness that directly inhibits their ability to socialise, study, work, have relationships, cook, clean, hell even sleep.
you want me to believe that you dyeing your hair on a whim, when that is not something that genuinely bothers you as an idea or goes against any kind of moral, principle or value for you personally is an "intrusive thought", and thus somehow is comparable to *checks notes* a severe mental illness that is diagnosed in more than 1.5% of people globally, and inherently affects millions more of their family, friends, coworkers, partners, teammates. you want me to think "haha yeah thats so relatable!!!!" when you use those terms, but in reality my intrusive thoughts give me horrible, violent instructions.
i have to practice anxiety techniques to be able to cook in my own home, alone, without suffering from a compulsive episode. because of my ocd. but you can grab clothes you never wear, cut them up with some scissors into something that you genuinely enjoy more as an outfit, in an experience that has no negative mental repercussions for you, and compare it to the struggles of more than one hundred million people across the world who suffer from harm ocd.
but when i say "yeah i struggle to use sharp/dangerous kitchenwares" or "cleaning products are a hazard to me", i'm somehow weird? i'm somehow scary, or crazy, or morally reprehensible? i'm somehow an evil person for experiencing thoughts that i cannot control, i need to go to a ward, i deserve to be punished for being a terrible, horrible guy? that's.... wow. just wow.
tl;dr: stop using ocd terms to refer to your normal impulsive behaviours.
