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Lida Richardson
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OCD Influencer
OCD Influencer
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4w
OCD Influencer
Notice the patterns ~*~*~*
•••
First of all, I am so sorry you’re going through this. I know it’s so much more painful than words really have the power to communicate, and it’s so hard when it feels endless, especially because you kind of run out of ways to explain it to people. To be clear, I am saying this not to invalidate at all, but just to point out something I notice in myself when it gets really bad. I noticed you said that various things have helped abate the symptoms but fell short of providing long term relief. That’s really real and so frustrating, and it’s so messed up that so much mental healthcare can feel like a bandaid. But I also wanted to say that something I notice is that when I feel really really low, my brain is like, ultimately, it’s always been like this, and it’s always going to be like this, and all the moments of relief are flukes. Depression loves a very flawed kind of pattern recognition, where the cycle feels endless and unchanging, and any bright spots are just kind of greyed out. And the tricky balance for me is validating that very real emotional and mental experience that is observing a true and deeply difficult thing, and also saying, hey, my brain might not be seeing every single piece of the picture right now. Like for me, when I’m in a depressive place, it feels like that place is THE real place, the place I keep coming back to, the only real truth. But when I’m not particularly depressive, I see it more as a cycle I go through, and I know the ups and downs are both true parts of it. So I just wanna say that it sounds like this year has been truly brutal, and I’m so sorry and empathize so deeply. But I also hope you don’t discount the hard work you’ve put into those moments of relief, or the fact that one of those next moments could become something longer. Does that make any sense?? I guess what I mean is that depression is really fucking awful because not only does it actually suck, it also changes your perspective so that everything both behind and ahead of you sucks even more, and it feels like there’s no escaping it. So anyway, I sometimes tell people that I feel lucky I’ve been depressed on and off for so long, because now I have all this data I can’t really discount. I don’t know the specifics of your situation or what it feels like, so again, I know it’s really real, and I’m so sorry that what you’ve tried so far hasn’t helped. But I really believe that something can and something will. Practically, the biggest rescues for me are probably routine and structure. Like, waking up at the same time every day, going to sleep at the same time, whatever little routines that you can build into your life. I have this whole really unchanging morning routine that helps me start out the day on stable footing. I’ve realized that a big thing that’s helped me stay kind of okay while sick and mostly stuck inside my house rn is just being really rigid about my routines, bc that feels like the opposite of depression to me. You can start really small and work your way up. In the past, I’ve found walking every day / some form of time outside really helpful, but since I currently have an illness that makes exercise impossible I never want to assume that works for everyone. Also — something small to really care about. For me, that means reading/writing/ taking even just one class, but it can be all sorts of things. Also generally helps me to have other people relying on me, because it’s wayyyy easier for me to let myself down than other people. Sending solidarity and strength. Really hope any of that’s useful, feel free to disregard any part of it that isn’t!!!
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11w
buddies
Maddie Weinstein
birding
•••
Maddie got me to start birding bc she knows better than almost anyone how depressive and inside-y I can get (now I’m inside-y for physical health reasons instead of mental health reasons; life is complicated and have I mentioned how much I hate Descartes??), and she was right as always. I have never reached her level, tho I was getting pretty good before I got sick. I vividly remember this moment I was walking in Green-Wood, and my Merlin app started hearing warblers, and I looked up into the trees with my binoculars and all of a sudden my vision shifted and I could just see them everywhere, like this whole private world had come to life. I obviously cried and I obviously also texted Maddie. Maddie’s rec is so lovely, and I really am so grateful to her for introducing such a beautiful thing into my life.
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13w
OCD Influencer
grace murray
Is There a ‘Skinny Apocalypse’ in Hollywood?
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I saw grace’s rec a few weeks ago and was like … this is something I’m going to have a LOT of feelings about. (Big content warning for eating disorders/discussion of fatphobia). I finally listened to it over the last two days (after seeing YET ANOTHER Diabolical Lies recommendation in Rayne Fisher-Quann’s excellent substack essay on “the perpetual present tense”), and I am feeling SO intellectually inspired (or, in other words, insufferably talkative). I think it’s really handled with so much thoughtfulness and nuance, and I really appreciated the depth of the research (they even included anorexia’s comorbidity with OCD, which is important to me for reasons that may be easy to guess, and they also dove into the history of anorexia, which is so fascinating to me — like OCD, it was often recorded in a religious context). I think the whole “(how) do we talk about celebrity women’s bodies?” question is kind of unanswerable, but I really admired the way the hosts approached it and the clear feminist underpinnings of the conversation. I will say that I do think that some of the episode’s analysis depends on what I think is a fairly neuroessentialist understanding of anorexia — as much as they talked about the bio-psycho-social components, I think Caro understated the social element (which maybe means I think the psychologists and clinicians she talked to understated the social element, which is maybe not something I am qualified to say lol, but if I do nothing else I will eternally assert my right as a patient to talk about my own perspective and distrust some clinicians). It also just brought me back to one of my other big unanswerable questions, which is (how) do I write about anorexia (I think it’s a fraught topic to write about, for approximately one million reasons). But all of this made me think I might have some luck approaching it more academically — I really love the intersection of the personal and the academic, and this particular topic could really work for that. So anyway, loved the episode, had some thoughts, emailed my old psychology professor, WILL be talking to my nutritionist.
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15w
OCD Influencer
moving forward <3
•••
In OCD therapy (I’m always talking about OCD therapy bc it’s my main experience but I think this applies to a lot of people), there’s this whole thing where they talk about healthy versus unhealthy guilt, and I’ve always struggled with that a bit, because I don’t know if I’m capable of feeling guilt in a healthy way. Like even when my guilt is warranted, it becomes so huge and consumes me and makes me hate myself. So I really empathize with what you’re talking about and know how much that voice can absolutely overpower you. I think ultimately what resonates most for me is the question of what the guilt is facilitating. Like humans are social animals who evolved to feel guilt so we could live in community/ treat each other well/ repair when we need to. But sometimes guilt works the opposite way, where it just makes us want to turn inward and hide and stops us from acting at all. So what I try to do is ask myself, have I done what I need to do/ tried to repair/ is there nothing to do? And then it’s usually about just moving forward. Self-flagellation doesn’t really help anyone else, and ultimately just turns me inward and away from the things and people I care about. The world is a confusing place and relationships are hard and messing up is extremely part of that. Like there’s no way to live without messing up. So if I want to live in the world, I have to make peace with sometimes messing up, do what I can to repair or just learn from the experience, and then move forward. Idk, so much of life to me is just about moving forward, and making peace with imperfection. And usually that punishing voice you’re talking about is really just to hurt you, not to help anyone else. There’s a kind of basic question: how would I respond to a friend who had messed up? And usually the answer is like, encourage them to do what they need to do to move forward and also be SO much nicer to them than they’re being to themself. Sending you a hug <3
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18w
OCD Influencer
Threading the needle (me)/ Understanding Unhelpful Perfectionism (Jennifer Kemp)
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Hiii it’s me again this is kind of a lot sorry. So perfectionism has kind of been one of the main antagonistic forces of my life, and I can really boil all my mental illnesses/OCD subtypes into perfectionism. I think of it as a “perfectionism triangle,” where I focus on moral perfectionism, perfectionism about my appearance, and “performance” perfectionism (academic/creative/job-related). Re academia, I dropped out of school when I was young because of debilitating academic perfectionism, and I had to do a whole kind of facing-down-of-the-dragon to get myself back in school. It’s still something I struggle with constantly, but I have thought a lot about it/ spent a lot of time navigating it if any of this is helpful. I’m linking to an article by Jennifer Kemp that’s a nice little primer if you’re interested - this was my first time reading it, but I’'m pretty aligned with all of it. Basically for me what I’ve learned is it’s really about threading a needle. Perfectionism isn’t something I can just turn off, or something I even want to turn off completely. It has worked for me in many ways — I am a conscientious, detail-oriented person, and that can really serve me. And then, it can also totally freeze me in place/make me absolutely miserable/make me want to shut myself up in a room and avoid the world. So with school, it’s not about: I’m doing perfectionism right now or I’m not doing perfectionism right now. It’s more about, huh, I sure have been working on this essay a long time, I wonder if I should set a timer and cut myself off after a point. Or, I know I’m harder on myself in the evenings, so maybe I’ll have a rule where I don’t work in the evenings. Or even just: I have all these ideas about how this isn’t good enough, but maybe at this point I know not to full-on trust my brain and take those thoughts with a grain of salt. Generally for the procrastination of it all, I’m pretty strict about doing a small amount every day. Some days I can’t do anything, and that’s okay, but breaking it up is really helpful for me. I don’t have ADHD, and know that adds so much difficulty, but hopefully that’s still helpful. I also know I do my best thinking in the morning (I deal a lot with fatigue and brain fog), so I try to get my work done in the morning, and then take rest/not working seriously when I can. Re writing: something I tell myself is, I can either write imperfectly, or I can not write at all. That’s really the deal. I am gonna write and it is gonna feel horrible and frankly disgusting sometimes, or I’m just not gonna write. When you break it down like that, it’s pretty simple. Another thing I tell myself: every single person I admire has failed spectacularly at some point. It’s very chic to do. So sorry to just throw all this at you, but this is something that has really been hard for me and I wanted to share my thoughts. Solidarity <3
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18w
OCD Influencer
Long walks somewhere quiet
•••
In every difficult transitional time in my life, walking has kind of saved me. When I first moved back to New York and would get bursting out of my skin anxious, I would get a chamomile tea and go for a long walk in Greenwood cemetery. I am super pro cemetery, because they’re quiet and beautiful and kinda sacred. When I was in treatment I spent like 50% of my time in the woods, and I really think they somewhat healed me. And if you’re not in a place where you’re necessarily wanting to just listen to your own thoughts, there are audiobooks and podcasts and music (I got so into making walking playlists; I’m linking to one bc idk what else to link to.) I know this doesn’t address the job/money side of things, but in transitions I always need something grounding. And it’s worth remembering that the world is still there and that the trees and the creatures are just kinda going about their business. Idk if this is helpful, everything for me kinda comes back to my brain bc my brain can really be my enemy. Solidarity; everyone I know in the industry is struggling rn <3
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13
18w
OCD Influencer
WWKD
•••
Ok so this one’s kind of advanced. I had this therapist who was really into The Matrix, and he had this whole thing about how recognizing your OCD for what it was was like learning about the matrix (taking the red pill, but not in the evil way it’s been reappropriated). There is no spoon, you know? When you learn your thoughts and feelings aren’t something you have to take at face value, you can kind of dance around the bullets, like Keanu. It’s pretty in line with ACT, which is an offshoot of CBT I generally like (it’s very influenced by Buddhism, which is a complicated thing in Western psychology). I got a necklace made on Etsy that said “WWKD” (What Would Keanu Do), and it was kind of a sacred object. I lost it, because I shouldn’t legally be allowed to own jewelry, but still.
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18w
OCD Influencer
Shadow of a Doubt (Andrew Kay)
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I loved this article from Harper’s last summer. I love writing that straddles the line between the personal and the journalistic/academic, especially when it’s about OCD, since my own interest also plays along that line. I wrote a paper a couple years ago about the biomedical concept of mental illness, and it made me think about my own OCD education as a patient, which was very much on the neuroessentialist side of things. I really appreciate the way Kay digs into the potential social forces behind OCD without making any sweeping conclusions. And it’s just lovely storytelling.
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18w
OCD Influencer
How to Stop Ruminating (Dr. Michael J. Greenberg)
•••
To be super clear, I am super resistant to therapy writing, and I generally have a lot of skepticism about a lot of treatment. But a therapist sent me this article at a really hard OCD time, and I find it genuinely helpful and always send it to friends in bad rumination patterns. I find the concept of “stepping off the treadmill” really effective (I am a girl who NEEDS a metaphor), and I agree that not ruminating is actually the easier thing to do, if you can let yourself do it. Idk, the effectiveness of this kind of writing is super personal, but maybe it’ll work for you too!
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