#115: The Compulsive Desire to Write
Hypergraphia, Thought Hoarding, and the Beautiful Ways My OCD Keeps Me Hyper-Attuned to the World Around Me
Anyone else struggle with ADHD & OCD as a writer?
It’s such an interesting confluence of symptoms, and its impact on the writing process has been really intense for me. Sometimes wonderfully, sometimes horribly. As all things, a tremendous ebb and flow.
What I’ve found most of all is that it has given me this condition called hypergraphia, where you have a compulsive desire to write down every thought — even nonsensical ones or ones that serve no practical or artistic purpose.
Just words.
Every sort of observation you can imagine.
Sometimes fragments that make no sense.
Letters, made up things, sounds.
I’ve had this condition for years (it developed in early childhood), and I find it fascinating reading about accounts of how it manifests in other writers with OCD.
Some compulsively draw or doodle, some compulsively write specific words, repeating lists, and specific sayings, and others (whichever subtype I am) actually write out their internal monologue of their lives 24/7 on pads, journals, or phones.
It’s a very interesting condition.
The way I’ve understood it is that OCD is a mapping issue in the brain, and the brain doesn’t know what it can trust — what’s real and what’s an intrusive thought or a paranoid delusion.
So hypergraphia says, “No worries friend! I’ll write down every single thought you’ve ever had for reference whenever you need it! That way you can double check your notes for whatever you don’t understand about your reality!”
I’m making this sound much more cheerful than it is, but I would also be lying if I didn’t admit that it is sometimes hilarious and endearing. This little compulsive voice in my mind who constantly pesters me to document every thought I have.
It’s interesting, because the voice is a part of me, but it feels like a second self, The Voice, the part of me that dictates my stories and my writings and my ideas.
I feel like the observer of the voice a separate entity entirely.
Reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth made me feel much more sane.
He talks often about how we are the observers of our thoughts, not our thoughts themselves.
Sometimes the voice feels like my secret magic gift — writing sprints for me feel relatively pain-free, and I feel comfortable writing for long stretches without running out of things to say (for better or for worse).
But it can also manifest in really painful ways, like repeating nonsensical words over and over to myself to the point of physical pain if I don’t have a place to write them down.
I’ve resorted to carving onto my hands with whatever writing utensil I could find in my younger years. You can imagine.
Thankfully, I always have a note pad with me now, or a phone to whip out my notes app and jot down whatever observations my brain demands I record.
It’s honestly such a fascinating form of mental divergence, and luckily, because a symptom of the disorder is excessive writing — it’s extremely well documented!
Some also have this induced only in certain situations, as a response to certain medications or brain conditions.
For some, it develops as a symptom of another brain abnormality or ailment; for others, it’s a mix of OCD and ADHD.
But in every case, I find it absolutely fascinating! I’m quite lucky that my case of it overlaps so perfectly with my life’s passion, but I’ve read many cases of people in other professions where writing wasn’t integral to their job, who felt like they were literally being tortured by the constant compulsion to write.
There are so many interesting essays and firsthand accounts throughout history of people who have had this specific form of ADHD/OCD.
The technical term, I believe, is thought hoarding, and it takes SOOOO many different forms. I read one account of a man who only wrote single words, never sentences, but the compulsion to write them was so severe he would fill up entire books full of disconnected single words, no patterns, just chaos.
Apparently, it’s all connected to the amygdala, cortisol levels, certain formations of the hippocampus, and other medications, conditions, or circumstances in which OCD/ADHD develops.
At this point, I’ve learned to love and work with my OCD, to embrace it. To accept the good and the bad. I’ve been enormously lucky to have such a robust support system to build a life around my OCD in which my OCD can thrive and primarily help me.
But there are times when I am off balance that it really hurts my brain, and I can get caught in obsessive ruminatory loops that cause me to feel a deep physical anguish.
Anywho, I’m so curious if other people have this!
There are lots of Reddit forums of people commenting like, “Finally!! I’m finding people like me! I thought I was the only one!”
And so I’m wondering, in the world of Medium, if I can find more fellow OCD/ADHD baddies.
Just a quick note before signing off: This is only one very specific branch of OCD / ADHD, two separate conditions which are as diverse and multi-faceted as the wonderful humans that hold them, so just know I’m only sharing my unique experience and in no way trying to imply or characterize that I might know yours.
Only love & good vibes over here my friends, I think mental divergence is beautiful, I love my MD family =)
