burning at the centre of time

Been chewing on this for months now and I don't have a good answer anywhere either way:
Does having OCD make one neurodivergent?

Some people speculate that because it's an illness, it shouldn't. And I don't want to appropriate things.

But at the same time, I'd seriously hesitate to say that my thinking patterns are neurotypical. This cartoon by Jeph Jacques illuminates why; that's pretty much how my brain operates.

So where does it fit exactly? Despite not wanting the ritual and the pain that comes from egodystonic stuff, I don't think I'd want to rewire my brain too much.

Happy new year from the UK! I hope 2011 will be a good year or a better year for you and your friends/family. Remember, we're living in the future. (h/t someone on Twitter, was it you?)

We stayed in and watched the original True Grit, and I've done a bit of RP tagging, which is really all I need for a decent night--NYE/Hogmanay in Scotland is a massive pile of things I don't really like (e.g. drunk people, loud noise, crowds, loud drunk crowds). To be perfectly honest, it was pretty good.

I await what the Coens have done to rework True Grit, because I think the film as is could have used their firm hand to rein it in. No, it hasn't come out here yet. Hell, The King's Speech hasn't come out here yet. [shakes head]

( and a few thoughts from disability/SJ blogging news behind the cut. Discussion may occur in comments. )

Welp, it's the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, per the UN.* So, out of the closet with me, because there's really not any better day for it.

Hi, I'm Rhi and I have a disability.

It's sort of sickening that it took me this long to actually sit down and say it aloud in an explicit sentence instead of just talking about my OCD + assorted issues (let's call it OCD+) and disability activism.

It took a long time because we are trained to think of 'disability' as certain specific things, which is harmful both to people who have those conditions and to people with disabilities who don't. I am not in the mood right now to do additional explaining, so here are some starter posts on the Disability 101 level from FWD.

I am fortunate and privileged, in the sense that, thanks to treatment, I can scrape by to meet the median functioning level society requires; that is, what is falsely known as 'normal'. I usually fake able-bodied pretty well, as a coping mechanism, because I have never been an adult without a disability and that is how I learned to handle the world.

Because of that, it took me a long time to accept that my OCD+ affects my daily functioning, that it is most likely a life-long condition, and that I may very well have chronic relapses. It took even longer to accept that the fighting I've done wasn't the way things should be. I have been discriminated against, yes. If you've followed me long enough, you've heard about my personal experiences with the US health care system, my mother's belief that anything I like a lot is 'an obsession', a fear of accidentally outing myself at work, the people who think Monk is funny, and how OCD is not a goddamn adjective.

And my experiences are mild and not anything particularly unique.

So yeah. Get aware. We're just gonna get louder.


* I was going to write about the US failure to do anything with the UN Convention and Optional Protocol on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, but then I got too damn angry, considering it took two years and an administration change to even SIGN the damn convention, much less implement it a year and a half later than THAT. But I don't know that much, so I'll just say 'google it'.

Please note: The below post is my personal opinion and should not be taken as medical advice to anyone else, nor is it meant to negate or trivialise other conditions.

So I saw the book Saving Sammy at the public library, and after picking it up and skimming the inside cover, I sort of couldn't bear to read it, mostly because the subtitle is 'Curing the Boy Who Caught OCD'.

( Not sure if this might trigger anyone, so I've cut it. )

Still. I do not know what is WRONG with me.

I am sort of pleased that I now have an icon (if you're on LJ) for these times, though, based on the art by Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half. thx boosette!

Because that is exactly how I feel when I have to clean and my OCD is like ZOMG NOOOOOO. So it will do to represent all times when I am low on spoons. Particularly the expression on the person's face.