rpanons | [D] Ashes to ashes

[D] Ashes to ashes

Rundown:

rpanons is an anonymous community for role-play related topics. This place serves as a forum for game discussions, canon discussions, RP solicitations (ATP, game ads, open memes), and advice. The occasional off topic comment is inevitable, but please keep heated social and political topics to their respective communities. Posting them here will only get them frozen. Subsequent threads made to bypass a freeze will then be deleted.

Temporary Change: To reduce the strain on Dreamwidth's servers new entries will go up when a post reaches 3,000. Please refrain from spamming so we can stretch these entries for a little longer. We don't need several threads soliciting photo evidence of body parts, and we already know that we only care about yaoi. Failure to comply will only result in deletions and butthurt. "People may notice site slowdown/cache error pages. We're working on fixing. You can help: finish posts at 3k comments, not 5k or more." - Dreamwidth@Twitter

Rules:

Do not post pornographic or shocking images.
Do not share private entries, plurks, chat logs, etc.
Do not use this community as your social/political/hatespeech soapbox.
Do not be redundant. One page does not need three or more threads on one topic/theme.
Do not treat this comm like your personal Plurk or Twitter. Off-topic happens, but it should be open for discussion and not just a play-by-play of your life. No one cares.

Concerns?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Obviously "do the research" is the biggest thing here, but any and all advice on how to handle such issues sensitively and realistically (or any hints in general, really) would be appreciated.

The one thing that tends to bug me when I see characters like on tv, is that all of the ones I've seen are pretty much completely unaware that any of their behavior is odd. In my experience [OCD, generalized anxiety] and the few other people I've talked to with these, is that - while we're not 100% aware of ourselves (and who is?), we're pretty aware of the... inanity of a lot of the things we feel compelled to do. Eg, (back when I still did this) I always knew that washing my hands afterwards whenever I touched my shoes in any way was ridiculous (and annoying), but I still felt that I had to do it and I wouldn't have peace of mind until I did it. Like that bug bite you have to scratch if you want relief.

Hope this helps.

That definitely helps, thank you very much, anon.

If you (or any other anons reading this) feel comfortable doing so, would you mind giving me some insight on lack of peace of mind prior to fulfilling the compulsive act? For example: what's the extent to which you find yourself unable to concentrate on other things; how did you feel after the fulfilment; if you're unable to fulfil the action, does the anxiety eventually reach a peak and fade, or is it too hard to get to that point/does it continually build?

It can depend on a lot of factors, like for me it often depends on the particular obsession. Some of them are worse than others so the compulsive acts feel much more important. My OCD isn't anywhere near as severe as a lot of people have it(though I'm getting worse), so that also plays into things.

And for me, a lot of the time, if I'm unable to fulfill it it consumes my thoughts unless a good enough distraction comes along. Then it's just a nagging "I really need to ___" every so often, but I can go a few minutes at a time without thinking of it. I have a thing about showering. If I don't shower right when I want to I have this overwhelming "I'm so gross and dirty feeling" unless I'm distracted, but every so often I still think "I can't wait until I can go shower..." and dwell on how gross I feel.

This is very helpful, you've given me a good idea of things to keep in mind when writing my character experiencing compulsive urges. Thank you for your input and (if you don't mind me saying) best of luck with your OCD, anon. I hope I'll be able to portray my character's issues suitably.

It also really depends on the character. How uncomfortable do they seem if they don't go through with the compulsion? The character I think is handled the best in regard to OCD is Adrian Monk. He's very aware that what he does isn't strictly normal, he can't cope with other people who break his routine, or move his furniture, for example. He doesn't like people who touch him, always carries gloves and baggies, wet wipes, disinfectant sprays, is obsessive about cup holders.

As a result he has an assistant who helps him with all those things, and god forbid he gets into a situation where she isn't there to help him, but he knows that for the most part his compulsion gets the better of him, and even if there are some parts of it that are based in common sense; animals carry diseases, still water breeds bacteria, he understands for the most part that he pushes it too far. I think he's handled very compassionately in the series, but he's a very extreme case, so it depends to what end of the obsessive spectrum you're doing it. Are we talking this severe, or are we talking Monica from Friends' compulsion to tidy things up? Because that's more on the normal side of things, as it were, a niggling insistence at the back of your mind that if you don't do it you'll lose control of everything.

In that case it is incredibly distracting, but not overbearing. Counting stairs for example, doesn't destroy your life. Having an equal number of consonants to vowels in your alphabeti spaghetti might. I personally have to unplug everything in the house before I sleep, and furniture has to be perfectly straight, equidistant from everything else, otherwise if I let myself think about it it keeps me awake until I fix it. It's an incredibly mild compulsion, because it can be overcome if I think about other things, but if I'm say in the same room as a piece of furniture that's been shifted to one side, I do have to move it, and I absolutely know I'm doing it.

In general I say be sensitive and use your head, anon, put yourself into their shoes as best you can. Balance is always the best plan, and don't rub in the traits to the dismissal of anything else the character has to offer, because they are a person outside of their issues.

I believe I'll look into this Adrian Monk character, they sound like a well-rounded example and I may be able to pick up more hints there.

The character in question (I'm about to out myself to several people, but that's okay) is actually an original character with mild to moderate Kleptomania, though I chose to ask after compulsive disorders as a whole since I'm trying to understand the mindset (also I figured there would be fewer people who have experience, direct or otherwise of Kleptomania than there would OCD or addictions). Their Kleptomania is only a very small part of who they are as a character (though of course an influential one), but I definitely plan to be mindful to make sure everything stays in balance and that their disorder doesn't overtake the other parts of their personality, their goals, and the rest of who they are as a person.

This has been a big help, thank you for taking the time to type everything out, and like I said I'll consider looking into Adrian Monk's canon (as well as that of any other characters with well-written OCD or Kleptomania, if I can find any for the latter).

Hey, anyone I can get into Monk is well worth a wall of words. I'll just have to pretend that wasn't my plan all along. Really, though, the very act of asking gives you the advantage of being able to prove forethought, and people will be quite happy to acknowledge that you're not deliberately trying to handle it badly even if you do trip up a bit at first simply because you did. I think it's commendable, anon~

As for kleptomania specifically, I say bear in mind that it has a very close cousin in compulsive hoarding - officially diagnosed as OCD presently - for example, and it's acceptable social form is simply collecting things. Kleptomania, strictly, is different to just having a habit of collecting things with pigs on, it's about impulse control, in some cases pleasure seeking, and you're right that OCD is a good one to research to get a feel for it because there's a good precedent for the feeling of it eating away at you if you don't pursue it, possible guilt or self-delusion after the accomplishment etc. I say just generally be sure what you're labeling is what you're labeling it, as the closest you can get to offensive is to call it something it's not if you see what I mean? At this point I'm sure you've researched it so it's more like a passing warning.

As I've been writing this I realised that there is one character with Kleptomania I can think of; Angela Petrelli, from Heroes, but she really only gets two episodes that passingly focus on it. The most interesting things in that respect are how the people around her respond to her condition, and how it gets more out of control in times of stress.

The character collects socks; she started to steal them for her sister when they were staying at a camp for people with special abilities, and her sister Alice's feet were cold. She left the camp briefly with the older children, and her sister caused a storm to rip through the camp while she was gone, killing everyone. Ever since, Angela steals socks, not because she needs to because she can afford to buy them, not even for her sister, but out of the compulsion to steal them. In the pilot it gets her arrested briefly, and her sons see it as a cry for help, lonely after her husband's death; Nathan, running for congress, dismisses her completely and says she's just trying to cause trouble for his campaign.

Angela, despite sitting in a holding cell, justifies the theft to herself and turns the topic immediately away so that she doesn't have to defend herself to her second son. She demonstrates no guilt at all, but it's well written and unfortunately subtle (so subtle I don't know if I'd suggest the canon as an example, but if you can watch the Pilot and the Coyote Sands episode idk, maybe some bolt from the blue will come out and hit you).

The problem isn't the characterisation - it's spot on - it's that the Kleptomania is subtle. She masks it herself, her sons don't specifically pick up on the problem at all, they see it as a side effect of something unrelated, or spitefulness, and in general I imagine she gets away with it--who expects someone to steal a pair of socks? Just like in real life where most Kleptomania goes undiscovered either because by the very nature of it the person is careful not to get caught, and either the guilt or the thrill, or both, are deeply personal.

Again, may not be the case in all cases, after all I imagine there are people who are the exact opposite, and want someone to see what they're doing, but I'd say that was Kleptomania as a side effect of a different disorder in that case, if the whole purpose is about thrill seeking or attention, in which case characters like Adrian and Angela probably aren't the right examples.

I hope at least some of this has been helpful, though!

Oh wow I totally forgot to mention re. Angela that she is a very proud and private woman, and it rounds her character off beautifully in that respect. It's important that the obsession doesn't obscure other character traits like that, but that you build it into it some way. I especially like that it has a definable source in her case and didn't just appear out of nowhere--she felt guilty about her sister's death. Since you're writing the opportunity, you have a the chance to ground the character's Kleptomania in something solid, give them a reason for it and it'll help you build a stronger character.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[D] Ashes to ashes

Characters with abnormally addictive behavioral patterns or OCD/other compulsion-driven disorders

Re: Characters with abnormally addictive behavioral patterns or OCD/other compulsion-driven disorder

Re: Characters with abnormally addictive behavioral patterns or OCD/other compulsion-driven disorder

DA

Re: DA

DDA

Re: DDA

Re: DDA

same dda as above