posted: 2025-01-21
Content Warning: I'm going to talk about Mouthwashing, and I am not mincing words. It's my website and I don't have to censor the demonetization words. So this is a warning that I'll be acknowledgeing the existence of sex and sexual assualt, violence, and all other relevant content warnings to the game as listed by their Steam page I am also spoiling major plot points throughout (You should play this game if you're still interested in it). Reader discretion is advised. I already have a warning about readers under the age of 18 not being the target audience here, but I won't beat aroud the bush: this piece is not suitable for folks under the age of 18.
Putting On Glasses
Near-Sighted
Well, brother, I have ADHD.
You think I knew that? "How could you have not known up until last Friday?” I didn’t, actually! I really didn’t know! I didn’t have the capacity to even know that it was possible that I, yes perfect little me who can do no wrong, god's favorite nephew, could have any kind of neurodivergence. I’ve learned that people with ADHD have struggles with actually reflecting on themselves. They skim the list of their actions over their lives, see themselves for what they are in their own "unabridged" set of bullet points that make them “them”, say “yep, that’s me alright”, and go on their merry way. That what it’s been like for me. So perhaps that was the first sign.
I am neurodivergent in a way that is both shocking and wholly unsurprising to me. On Friday, January 17th I scored a 7 and an 8 on the DSM5’s hyperactivity and distractibility scales, respectively 1. I was thus clinically diagnosed with having ADHD by a licensed mental health professional. It’s taken some getting used to, these last sub 100-hours. I’ve lived 26 years without the understanding that not everyone feels like they need to pick at the skin around their fingernails until they bleed. I’ve lived 26 years without understanding that the vomituous urge to jump into a conversation the moment there’s a pause in someone’s speech is actually not a feeling everyone has. I mean, yeah, I’ve known some people are quieter than others, but to feel this pressure in one’s muscles to fill silence… this isn’t a common feeling. Actually, it’s even pretty rare!
I’ve held myself to this frustratingly mean standard for so long, wondering why it was so much harder for me to, for example, read. To literally read. Academic papers. Books. Chat logs. Text messages. Emails. All of them. I’ve been a very mean person to myself for no other reason than I was simply unaware of the nature of my own existence. I was seeing the blurred outlines of others making huge strides in their fields and thinking to myself “now why aren’t you doing that?”. Hey, look, results oriented thinking, that’s an ADHD thing too!
This diagnosis doesn’t excuse my poor actions. Having a label on my mental quirks does not pardon me when I annoy others because I jump into a conversation before they finish their sentences. I’m sorry that I do it. It’s something I’m working on. But still, the fact remains that I can come across as a controlling, manipulative snob who doesn’t care what others think because he has to have things his way because that’s just what comes naturally to him. That’s how I appear to some people. I didn’t know that until they told me. I didn’t have that exact definition. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.
A routine is useful to me. I like to know what I’m doing, where I’m doing it, for how long I expect to be doing it, if I’m doing it by myself or with others, and if there’s anything else I should prepare in advance. I go with the flow insofar as the flow is already the direction I am swimming. I will carve out a tributary to ensure the flow is going where I want it to. I don’t ask for affordances, because I don’t let myself be in a state where I need them in the first place. This makes me controlling. This makes me manipulative. This makes me a snob. I don’t like admitting that I accept these labels, but they are true even in a very miniscule way.
So how do I act moving forward? What do I do? I have the rest of my life to figure that out, I suppose. God, I wish I had an immediate fix. But I can start by allowing myself two truths:
- I want to make sure I am a better person for myself and those around me, and
- I will take meaningful action to do so.
But this diagnosis is something I am only just now learning about myself. The truth is something that flew under my nose despite all the obvious signs. I couldn't see the details off in the distance. I am sliding on a pair of glasses and seeing the far-off past and the upcoming future world in a sharper resolution.
Far-Sighted
Later that Friday evening, I played Mouthwashing in a Discord call with a few friends. I’m bad with horror, or at least by myself. When I had the comfort and trust of friends, even when they’re muted and silently lurking in the call probably playing Balatro or grinding out their Hoyoverse dailies, I could handle the psychological horrors of the story of the crew of the Tulpar. For those of you who haven’t bothered to investigate this game low-poly horror game with a bleeding eyeball logo, let me summarize the game by copy-pasting the definition from Wikipedia:
“Mouthwashing is a 2024 psychological horror adventure game developed by Wrong Organ and published by Critical Reflex. Played from a first-person perspective, the game follows the five crew members of the freighter spaceship Tulpar after a mysterious crash leaves them stranded in space, trapped within as supplies dwindle. The captain, alive but severely maimed and unable to speak or move, is blamed by the remaining crew for deliberately crashing the ship for reasons unknown. The game uses a split, nonlinear narrative.”
In Mouthwashing we play as two different characters over the two different time periods: Curly, the captain who is dead-set on maintaining the status quo for the sake of staying in the good grace of his employers (who clearly don’t give a shit about him), and Jimmy, the sick son of a bitch who rapes his crewmate Anya, attempts a murder-suicide to prevent the rest of the world from knowing, repeatedly violates a mutilated Curly, drugs the ship’s alcoholic mechanic Swansea, manipulates the naïve intern Daisuke into crawling through a dangerous ventilation duct (which ultimately severely injures him and requires putting him out of his misery), and then ultimately kills himself after putting Curly in a cryo-pod. Neither of our protagonists take responsibility for the harm they cause and it ends up dooming everyone to a miserable, painful, and ultimately avoidable death.
I’m going to cut right to the chase: I fell for Mouthwashing’s slight of hand. I was so focused on how much I disliked the protagonist, Jimmy, and how much I wanted to try and make sense of the narrative that I failed to consider the true nature of one Mouthwashing most prominent story beats: Jimmy’s sexual abuse of Anya. I’m disgusted at myself for not noticing it in the moment. I was too quick to follow along with the plot of trying to make sense of the rest of the space, and what was real and what wasn’t that I ended up missing some of the most obvious parts of the game. It wasn’t until Anya mentioned that she was pregnant that I understood that I had missed something big that had been going on right under my nose.
That’s the whole point of Mouthwashing’s unreliable narration: it wants to present the horrors of rape culture, toxic masculinity, and capitalism’s devaluing of humanity. We are the bad guys for ignoring it, yes, but moreover, we fail to acknowledge and help and PREVENT these abuses from happening at all, let alone going forward. Jimmy ultimately “gets away” with his actions in his final suicide. Curly is doomed to live frozen in a cryochamber with the knowledge of all these atrocities and that, despite his adhere to the system, his loyalty to the ladder, no one is going to come help help him in the end. So much for sticking up for the status quo.
And I fell for it.
The true horror of Mouthwashing is not being able to trust the people around you. To never know a feeling of mutual support. To feel as isolated as Anya does on that spaceship. How can you exist in a mutual shared space without the trust of friendship? Isolation. I am afforded the ability to experience “scary things” because I have my friends. But even as I sit here writing this, exploring this thought more and more, I’m realizing more and more how horrifying it must feel to not have the power of trust in the people around whom I exist.
It hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. “I hope this hurts”.
It’s a sad, disappointing thing to see in my own actions. I upheld the problem, even if I didn’t want to be. It’s putting on glasses and observing the world again with a new perspective. the more I write here, the harder it is getting to actually find words to express myself, but that’s the point isn’t it? This admission of fault, it’s supposed to be hard. I am afraid of admitting my faults online simply because I do not know what the uncaring eye will think. And isn’t that still a depressing sentiment? I’m more worried that someone will judge me for not catching the subtext of Mouthwashing on my first playthrough and will hold it against me, than I am about how I can improve myself. Or at least, I’m trying to be honest about how I genuinely feel in this moment. I cannot believe I missed the most obvious signs in this game. I cannot fathom the possibility that I missed many more in real life.
Am I going to let this feeling dominate my life? No, I expect to be able to still operate in my daily functions as much as my ADHD-riddled brain will allow me. But I need to reflect on this moment. It’s a rare one. And I’d love to have my actions line up with my words.
It’s another pair of glasses I need to put on. This pair’s a little less comfortable, but still necessary. I need to be able to see the things that are so up close to me that I was previously blind to.
Wearing Glasses
I realize that these two anecdotes- obtaining an ADHD diagnosis and discussing the troubling themes of Mouthwashing -are not necessarily related. The through line could easily imply something more problematic “Oh my ADHD prevented me from recognizing victims of abuse”. That’s not right. There’s a lot more to it than that. But I need to emphasize that these two experiences all happened within the span of eight hours. It was hard to have had my world rocked so violently in such a short span of time. It’s something I’m keeping in mind, in my working memory and in my permanent memory. I can’t beat myself up here, but I do need to take responsibility for my actions and their impacts, intentional or otherwise. I need to give myself the grace to learn and grow, and to understand that I will have more opportunities to help myself and help others.
Be nice to yourself. Be nice to others. Take responsibility for your actions. Be graceful. Do not tolerate people who will take advantage of that grace. Champion those who need it more than you.
That’s what last Friday’s new pair of lenses has shown me.
In adults, you need to score at least a 5 to “qualify” as having ADHD.↩︎