Episode 6: Reflections on Clarity in Communication (From an Ex-Question Monster)
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/simone-aliya/episodes/6--Reflections-on-Clarity-in-Communication-From-an-Ex-Question-Monster-e30aush
Welcome back! If you want to learn all about intense anxiety related to clarity in communication—a common, yet much overlooked OCD symptom—you’re in the right place, because that’s what today’s episode is all about. So this kind of OCD falls under the category of “Pure O,” an unofficial term used to describe a form of the disorder where obsessions are the dominant symptom and compulsions come in the form of avoiding triggers, ruminating, seeking reassurance, and confessing or simply talking about the thoughts. In other words, the compulsions are more mental and abstract instead of physical. Today, I’ll share my experience with obsessions related to clarity in communication and with increasing my tolerance for the unknown in conversation and more. Because let’s face it—like many OCD symptoms, obsessive concern with clarity in conversation is simply a manifestation of the fundamental intolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty that characterizes OCD.
Many with this kind of anxiety might avoid social interactions because they find them too triggering. And while I did spend a lot of time alone as a child and teenager, my fears of potentially misunderstanding somebody or them misunderstanding me hasn’t kept me from engaging with people and forming many connections in adulthood. I think I’ve become even more candid and open in my thirties, after I managed to more or less hang up my detective’s hat and stop trying to figure out unimportant things related to what I said or what somebody else said. My ability to quickly and easily connect is something I value about myself, even though it has attracted some questionable characters into my life. Everywhere I go, I find myself readily exchanging ideas or stories with people. Even with my intermittent, intense fears of harm and death, I have zero “stranger danger,” which is a bit unusual for somebody with anxiety and goes to show you how we who live with OCD maintain our unique personalities separate from the disorder. I spend my time in public talking to people instead of scrolling on my phone. I do not want to spend a second of the present looking at what other people did somewhere else in the past. This has invited both wonderful and less wonderful connections into my life. I say this thinking about the time in 2023 when I ended up sitting outside a Cuban restaurant here in France with a group of older men who were drinking beer on a sweltering, August afternoon.
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