TW: intrusive thoughts
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Trying to do anything with intrusive thoughts
Middle of a conversation
Let's think about the most horrible thing I could say and possible repercussions, instead of the topic at hand.
Having sex
It would be really awkward if I got fixated on an image of my grandpa and literally couldn't get him out of my mind, hope that doesn't happen. Better focus really hard on not thinking about that or a traumatic thing from my past or the terrible things happening around the world or-- shit I'm not enjoying this anymore.
Putting silverware away
Definitely don't want to wedge one of these between my teeth and pry it around. Gotta be careful not to skoop out my eyeballs too. Fuck I'm gonna finish later
Driving anywhere
The difference between me surviving this drive and not is a very slight angle change with my hands on the wheel. Literally turn the wheel a quarter of an inch and I die. Gotta grip it extra hard to make sure I don't decide to do that.
Yeah the sentiment roughly matches my experience but the numbers don't seem right. They suggest there are more outright illiterate people than functionally illiterate people.
They don't cite any sources so the numbers are probably extrapolated from various studies with different definitions of literacy (if they aren't just made up).
If I had to guess I'd imagine the simple majority of people are functionally illiterate, potentially an absolute majority depending on what we mean by functional. Like most people are capable of reading road signs but that doesn't mean they can critically analyze a complex sentence.
I think I can count on one hand the number of people I know who read even one book a year.