It's Episode 2 of Dudi's Freak ShitshoW Tube Presents: Literally Anything! Roughly, what, 2 years ago, I enlightened all of you on my own personal journey reading the ridiculously heavy-handed but insurmountably reverred webcomic HOMESTUCK, how I shoved (almost) all 8130 pages into my brain within the span of just four weeks. I'm sure you've all been wondering what I've been doing since then. I'll be honest, I kind of got a bit stuck with what to do with this site as I just got distracted by other things (doing literally nothing) so I left it in a fairly cruddy state for a very long time. I did try and make a new article about a very famous Deus Ex campaign but I never finished it (one day I'm definitely talking about Deus Ex, though.) So instead, I will be enlightening all of you on a very specific and personal part of myself - Excessive Rumination!
I have OCD. I've had it from a young age, but was never properly diagnosed, though it's something I definitely want to do down the line. Mainly it falls under the purely obessional type: where the symptoms are primarily mental and do not manifest in any physical way (though it depends on the current obsession, I had many physical sensations during my health anxiety period.) What OCD loves to do is latch itself on to a hypothetical (e.g. "What if I'm a secret racist?") and repeat the question again and again and again in my head to try to come to a conclusion, which it never does. It's basically the Thought Police - desperately trying to gain complete dominance over the unconscious mind, so that every single neuron in my mind is completely 100% in line with my own personal beliefs and values. So, when it finds an *unsavoury* thought, it'll obsessively interrogate it, giving me immense anxiety and worry over my own nature.
We have no control over our unconscious self. The underlying feelings that our own soul manifests that affects our personality and goals cannot always be changed. It could very well be that, because of some brain malfunction or other error in your development, you may be doomed to an inherent evil in yourself that you must forever suppress. This terrifies me. I don't like hiding things about myself, I want to be proud and happy of who I am. Our world tells us to be ourselves, that living our truth is the key to a happy life. But, if our very nature and underlying wants are *evil,* then... Is it even possible to be yourself? Or must you live in shame forever, always a wall between your inner self and reality, knowing that you can never love yourself because your truth is just morally wrong? The prospect is so scary, but I can't stop thinking about it.
Take the case of the paraphile, for instance. Pedos, necros, zoos... The boogeymen of the world, essentially. The monster under the bed. Some would say there is no saving the paraphile - put them into therapy, castrate them, cut their own genitals off, but you can't kill the attraction within. You can't change the nature of a man. Some would say the only cure is a buckshot to the face. Truly, the paraphile is the last person anyone wants to be.
But there isn't a choice, isn't there? The machinations of our sexual system, what the brain decides is the stimuli that turns you on... You can't decide it. It just does its thing, and, boom! You're stuck with a romantic abnormality you must live with for the rest of your life. You must live your life in constant shame and guilt over your own desires, knowing you must repress your own feelings, your ultimate desires, because it's just wrong. Spend your days in fear and sadness knowing you belong to the most evil group of people to ever exist. Not to mention those who develop their attractions thanks to trauma - sexual abuse, neglect... But it's not exclusive. Your brain can just decide you're the paraphile and there's nothing you can do about it.
Some would say the journey the paraphile must take, just like any other person with repressed desires, is acceptance. To not try to push it down or to pretend it doesn't exist, but to accept that it's there and know why it can't happen. In the end, what judges us morally is not the thoughts in which we have no control over, but our actions. The physical result of every neuron in our brain firing in harmony. It's best not to dwell over the uncontrollable unconscious, and instead find confidence in that we know right from wrong and strive to be the best person we can be, despite our idiosyncrasies.