Hello, my dear readers! Welcome back!
As promised, I decided to talk about my OCD and the inner workings of my warped mind from the standpoint of if it was a person inside my mind/brain saying the most hateful, heinous, and nasty things to me. And I decided to name those intrusive thoughts, Ralph.
I chose Ralph, because for one, I think Ralph is such a dull, uninteresting name. It just sounds gross, actually. And I had an evil boss named Ralph, from way back in the day who tried to send me to prison for computer trespass. 😱😱😱. If you want details, just message me. 😉
Anyhoo, I think I started calling my OCD intrusive thoughts Ralph this past year. It helps me to identify which thoughts are actually mine. Do they belong to me? In other words, are these MY natural thoughts about what I need to do in a given day, thoughts about where my life is heading, thoughts about what to prepare for dinner, etc.? You know, normal thoughts.
Or OCD/worry-type/evil thoughts, such as “you want to stab someone, as in for real.” Or “what is it like to be blind?” or if you’re on a plane, “you know this plane is going to crash.” Or the negative what-if stuff. “What if someone breaks into your house and kills you?” “What if you just drove your car over Spaghetti Junction?” Shit like that.
So, basically it has been a continuation of the catastrophic/untrue thinking, that we all have. However, for those of us, we can get stuck in that loop I talked about previously, or that ridiculous rabbit hole. Now, we all know that this is called rumination.
Please check out the previous blog posts on the subject, listed below.
Ya know, I kinda look at Ralph as being The Blob, that 1958 movie starring Steve McQueen. Ralph is The Blob in that he contains all the garbage and scary, frightening and what-if thoughts all rolled into one. You see, The Blob in the movie contained all of its human victims, all rolled into one gigantic blob. Sorry. Spoiler alert. 😂🤣
Ralph just LOVES to keep me trapped in catastrophic thinking.
And we actually go back a LONG way.
Ralph was the one who told me that I would not live past a certain grade when I was a child. That kept me worried, but then I would get to that grade and then another and then another. Fortunately, pretty early on, Ralph stopped telling that lie, as apparently it wasn’t true. Heck, I even managed to make it all the way to 57! Hahahaha!
Ralph told me during the 80s, and at the height of the Cold War, that we were going to get nuked. He also told me that going to D.C., which is where my parents and brother live, was a BIG mistake. If you don’t already know, when I was growing up, D.C. is where I spent my summers. It was fall, winter and spring living with my grandparents and aunt and attending school in Wadesboro, and then up to D.C. for the summer. And yep, Ralph, kept telling me that I was going to hear sirens signaling a nuclear attack, any minute now…
When I was in the cult (from 1985-87) in 1986, Ralph also told me that I had blasphemed the Holy Ghost because of a certain lyric from a Culture Club song called “Dangerous Man” from their album Waking Up With the House on Fire – “Martin had the Devil just like any man can.” You see, Ralph convinced me that because Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Man of God and, therefore, filled with the Holy Spirit, that I had damned myself for all eternity because I was always singing that song, since according to the Bible, all sins can be forgiven except for blaspheming the Holy Ghost. The preacher of said cult convinced me that this wasn’t true. Ralph also convinced me to throw that tape away, because it was secular.
So, after DECADES of this kind of thing and a LOT of research on the subject of intrusive thoughts, I am learning more and more not to pay attention to Ralph and his nonsense. Because that is exactly what it is, NONSENSE. ‘Oh that’s just Ralph.’ ‘Ralph is here today, so no need to worry. He is trying to scare me.’
And that is exactly what he is trying to do.
So, labeling and naming these thoughts Ralph has actually been a tremendous help.
In further research on this, I have learned that it is the brain’s way of actually trying to protect you, as strange as that might sound. It is the fight or flight response, but gone completely and totally haywire. It is sort of the brain’s way of trying to protect you in case of an emergency or a catastrophe. However, it can become very problematic and bothersome, as in my case, and in the case of millions of people.
I think I handle mine pretty well now. It has not caused me to stop what I’m doing or keep me from doing something. I REFUSE to let Ralph do that.
I’ll give a recent example. Last month when the assassination attempt happened to that thing that wants to be a dictator, there were reports that the far right would try and retaliate. And one of the places they would try would be the gay bars. Well, the attempt on the orange baboon occurred on Saturday, the 13th of July, and I went out on that Sunday as I normally do, to the Atlanta Eagle. Well, Ralph went into overdrive saying things, such as:
“You probably shouldn’t go. You’re gonna get shot up.”
“What if someone bombs the Eagle? It’s not like people haven’t set off bombs here in Atlanta before, and you were living here at the time when those happened!”
“You’re gonna get shot, bitch!”
I hope I have made myself clear about what I – and so many others – go through. It isn’t easy, but manageable. And if necessary, therapy may be in order.
Before you depart, please check out what I have at the Derek Store!
Thank you so much for coming back. Please stay tuned next week when I tackle something EXTREMELY important to me, and that is how gays have been portrayed on TV and in films. Ooooooooo!
But until then, please stay safe and as always, mentally well!
DEREK’S DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional, neither am I giving any medical or legal advice. If you are seeking help from a doctor or an attorney, please consult said professionals. These are my personal thoughts and feelings on the subjects discussed, and my blog is my own personal experiences and journey with mental imbalance. Thanking you in advance!
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