regarding. . .          jacob black + obsessive compulsive disorder.

as you’d expect,  control is a big aspect of any werewolf’s personality. it’s borderline essential to most werewolf characteristics if one wants to interact cohesively with the rest of the world.     however,  jacob handles his own sudden,  un - anticipated lycanthropy with far less grace than most others he knows.     overnight,  jacob’s entire life is turned upon its head without his consent,   accompanied by the trauma of his first shift and what it means to be a werewolf at all,  the cushion to all of it is a man he’d been so suspicious of,  pulling friends and acquaintances bit by bit away from their previous lives until they’re no longer familiar.     it’s a lot,  on top of the everyday stresses that come with his life already,  as well as his more recent investment in helping bella cope with her own demons along the way.     his life is suddenly dangerous and unfamiliar in every place he needs it to feel safe and secure.     his actions themselves and even his own feelings are suddenly so untethered from the person he spent all his life becoming,  they barely feel like his anymore.

there are two main components to most anxiety disorders.  the given anxiety itself ;  specifically,  the initial process of something causing distressing,  persistent anxiety, and then often the resulting dysfunctional behaviors that reduce the anxiety. ocd itself can have noteworthy  ‘ types ’ :  cleaning and contamination,  symmetry and ordering,  forbidden or harmful thoughts and impulses,  and hoarding.     because jacob’s symptoms lie most in the ordering and thoughts / impulses category,  i will only be going over these two in this headcanon.

ordering  :  a big part of jacob’s anxiety is over control, moreover the lack of it.     the feeling that he does not belong to himself.     his thoughts and feelings are shared with an entire pack of other people when he’s a wolf.     his future partner is borderline, if not entirely guaranteed, to be someone he won’t get to choose,  but instead his brain will choose for him,  which in of itself isn’t nearly as terrifying as the prospect that he won’t even be able to choose for himself how he gets to feel about it,  that even his right to forming his own thoughts will be robbed of him.     shifting into a creature that’s just as powerful as it is deadly is something that can happen to him at the drop of a hat,  at any moment,  as long as his emotions behave even remotely in their own accord,  which, is how emotions tend to work.     

this is one of jacob’s obsessions,  and what helps to reduce this is to meticulously keep track of and control what he needs to believe is his.     naturally,  this means most of this meticulousness is reserved for his own things ;  his room,  his belongings,  his clothes,  his hair.     everything has to be a certain way now,  because in everything he does,  there's now a desperate need to keep hold of it,  a compensation to the thought that he's going to lose it all.     everything in his room and garage has it’s place,  deliberate and intentional to the point that if someone touches or grabs at one of his things,  even if it’s to simply look and set back down,  his anxiety spikes and he will one hundred percent hover,  escalating - ly irritable until he can personally return it to it’s rightful spot. another habit to reduce this feeling is being deliberate and habitual with his own body.     routines like morning jogs,  or the time in which he showers or wakes up,  are opportunities to own his own physical actions.     if outside any of specific routine of his,  counting his own steps is an accessible method to achieve the same sense of security within his own actions.     brushing or braiding his hair is also helpful and another reason why he doesn’t want it cut,  as well as the permeating desire to remain as himself as he was before he was a werewolf.

thoughts  and impulses  :  this one’s honestly the doozy of the two.     actions are worrisome and the impulse part of the two,  but the idea that his own thoughts aren’t his is foundationally distressing to his sense of autonomy.     with being part animal comes the instincts of one—   the instincts of a predator at that ;  to hunt,  to prioritize and optimize survival,  to respond to fear with violent self defense or complete concession,  to obtain security through physical feats.     most of these behaviors are a direct contrast to his personality before his first shift.     the person he thought he was and wanted to be was generous,  thoughtful,  nurturing,  warm, to fix things and to thrive,  to do things just because,  no personal survival or reward necessary,  no need to compete in the ongoing power struggle of nature.     that’s not to say wolves don’t participate in any of these qualities—   in fact,  jacob knows real wolves’ behaviors aren’t that black and white or brutal.     [ funnily enough,  this fear - fueled black and white thinking can be more alike to the animal instincts he’s desperately trying to avoid ]     it’s the anxiety of the shift itself being something he doesn’t get a say in,  that it’s completely at the whim of fickle,  moment to moment,  fluid and irrational emotions.     that anxiety only ever snowballs any stress he might already feel that could prompt a shift.     anger that would otherwise be fleeting becomes fear that his mind can’t stop obsessing over until he can soothe it somehow,  assure him that he is in control,  and that he won’t hurt anyone unless he himself decides to.

unfortunately,  one of the quickest and easiest ways to stop a shift is pain.     intense pain interrupts the self defense mechanism of shifting to prioritize the healing process instead.     if ever jacob feels like he’s genuinely on the verge of an unintentional shift,  the quick snap of an arm over his knee or clamp of the jaws into his hand is usually enough to short - circuit the process,  moreso if the shift has already come  and gone before he could stop it.     pain becomes soothing,  an act he feels the benefit of choosing,  as well as controlling a shift and ensuring that if someone is to suffer for his lack of control,  it will be him alone,  and it will be his decision. another far less damaging coping method is to just. . . ask someone for help.  this is rather simple,  but it requires far more patience and awareness than breaking his own bones,  as well as admitting out loud to others something he’s deemed a moral failing of his,  a personal defect.  even just asking someone to remind him who he was is can be grounding,  which is something he would have learned the moment bella responded to the voicing of his fear of losing himself with reassurance that he just wouldn’t,  that she’d be there to remind him,  whenever he needed,  that she simply wouldn’t let it happen.     that confidence in ones own ability is something he envies as well as hopes to believe in,  even if it’s childish,  even if it’s vicariously through whoever gives it, if he trusts them enough for it to mean something to him.     group activities that engage his sense of self before monsters existed offer a dual calm,  one instilled by doing the activity itself,  another by having someone else to verify and confirm his own behavior to him just by being there to respond to the familiar,  human jacob that always existed before he ever had a reason to question it.

a tragic irony is that when jacob is a wolf,  most of these anxieties evaporate immediately and get replaced with a simpler experience of reality.     instincts sharpen the world,  narrow it to focus,  refine actions and reactions to the present moment in which fear is much harder to conceive,  as fear by nature is based on theoretical what - ifs.     eventually,  a healthier way to experience his own lycanthropy would be to accept all aspects of himself,  both human and wolf,  but with the entire invasion of the supernatural into his life so fresh,  he’s desperate to cling to his own personhood,  which is very much steeped in the version of him that didn’t even know werewolves existed,  much less that he was one and what it means.

there’s no room to learn what kind of werewolf jacob black wants to be when he doesn’t feel like that’s something he ever got to choose,  or ever will.     and so,  it remains something to fear,  which means it remains something he cannot control.