#my scrupulosity issues

[wild-at-mind]

If you want to know how seriously I am affected by the idea of 'contamination' of good leftists by the prospect of listening to people who disagree with you on some things, or even just having in your life people who kind of suck in some ways, here is an anecdote. So I've been trying to get involved with the local socialist group again after I dropped out after a similar attempt last year, the reason I dropped out being that I could feel the purity element creeping in. A lot of discussion turned into 'Tories are like this and have these characteristcs and also are all evil'....this coming a couple of years after a general election where a number of stalwart Labour voting constituencies went Tory for the first time, for a variety of complex reasons. And yet this seemed to have not permeated the discourse at all. Should it not have??? Personally I think it absolutely should have and I want to be around people who can talk about things in more detail than 'Tories bad, the end!' I'm glad some people find this cathartic but I don't. So I left.

I started attending meetings again this September and things seemed to be going well. We are in a different place in this country and now everyone is predicting strongly that the government will change at the next general election. No one thought much of Keir Starmer but in a constructive way, there wasn't any 'electoral politics is the greatest evil and we must all completely disengage, shun any who still believe in it and possibly become conspiracy theories' type stuff. That's not really the socialists whose meetings I was attending's vibe anyway- their ultimate aim is to put Socialist Party members into government positions but they recognise this is a long way off goal. They focus on talking to people and seeing where they are coming from, rather than talking at them and condemning them, which I agree is kind of the only way to bring enough people around to a cause like this. Once of my favourite leftist bloggers on here who sadly left ages ago once said 'leftism is supposed to be about meeting people where they are'. In one of the discussions at the socialist meetings one member who does a lot of engagement with the public said (paraphrasing): 'you have to approach people humbly, accepting that you don't know everything and open to their point of view even if you disagree'. The message I got was that not everyone can or will value your cause, especially in a very Conservative-voting town like mine, but trying to emphasise your solidarity with people however you can is better than writing everyone off as shitty Tories who could never change (and then having a conspiracy spiral). I was finding the meetings a positive experience but the last meeting wasn't so good and I haven't been back since. There was a speaker who kind of did the thing my dad does where you just monologue about how terrible the world is from a leftist perspective. Just when I thought we were focusing more on solidarity despite difference and looking for the positives socialism can bring in a practical manner. I felt really bad for this one meeting attendee who was attending for the first time. This guy asked the speaker a question and the speaker just took off going on about the same stuff for another 10 minutes. He didn't answer the question at all. It was annoying and also I couldn't help but think the guy who asked the question wouldn't feel encouraged to come again, you know?

Then also one attendee who I vaguely knew from last year revealed that she had been trying to find support gigs for her band but had cancelled one because the person they had been going to support was 'a bad person'. At first I thought maybe this meant they had fascist views or something (gig from a different band got cancelled in one of the live music venues here for that reason and the venue had to apologise profusely for not doing due diligence, as they should). But the attendee didnt elaborate in any way and I realised oh maybe this person is just kind of shitty....like really you would cancel a gig for that? I'm not being like 'haha good luck trying to be in the music industry and living by that principle', I'm objecting to the idea that you yourself are implicated if you play support for a shitty person. That's not an idea I want any part in and while it sounds like a small thing, I deliberately avoid being around people who think like this because it rubs off on me very easily and I spent years unlearning that shit.

I haven't been back for a month, there's a meeting tonight but I'm not going because I don't want to hear rants about the war from these people. At their best they can be great but at their worst they just rant and browbeat at people who they know already agree with what they are saying like my fucking dad. What is to be gained from this??? And I'm thinking I might give some feedback to the organiser on the problems I'm having with this but how on earth could I possibly explain?? :(

[goodluckdetective]

Look, this is what moral OCD is like for me:

I walk past a piece of paper. I don’t pick it up because I had a long day at work and it’s very cold outside. This then becomes my internal monologue:

I didn’t pick up that piece of paper, I should have. Don’t I care about the environment? It’s not my trash, I shouldn’t have to pick it up. But also that’s how these things happen right? We place the blame on others as our environment degrades. It was just a piece of paper, it’s not like it can do that much damage. But also how do I know: I’m not an environmental expert. Maybe stray paper scraps are killing the frogs. You’re literally killing the frogs. You should look up how many frogs die a year so you know how shitty you are-No stop it.

I care about the environment, and I recycle and I joined green activism movements but is that enough? I could be doing more. I should be doing more. I should donate my entire check to charity. But isn’t it self serving to think that my one check could help that much? Do I really think I’m that important, how self entitled and-no stop it, reset! You are obsessing and if you fall for it, you will not eat dinner. Let it go.

Okay it’s just a piece of paper. It’s okay you skipped it this once: it could have had something dangerous on it. Yeah that makes sense. But also, that means I’m putting my own safety over trying to help the environment, which is very selfish of me. I’m just one shitty person: god how could I be so self absorbed. I should have picked up the piece of paper. I’m so selfish, and shitty and-no, no, stop it! This is not helpful. It’s fine.

It’s been a long day and I’m cold, that’s not a crime- no that’s being selfish again, you’re making excuses. You’re just a lazy piece of shit who doesn’t care about others, and selfish and God the fact you’re thinking this much about one piece of paper shows how selfish you are, you care more about if you’re a good person than anything else, you’re a piece of shit, you’re a piece of shit, YOU’RE A PIECE OF SHIT.

I get home and open up Tumblr. The first post I see says “if you don’t reblog this post about the environment you’re as complicit as an oil billionaire.” I close my computer and resign myself to looking up the state frog populations until I go to bed.

I don’t eat dinner.

The amount of frogs that die a year is somewhere from 200 million to over 1 billion.

[heavenpierceher]

i think discourse on this site would rapidly become significantly less annoying if we replaced “fandom purity culture policing” or whatever the fuck it is people call it with “moral scrupulosity” which is the actual term for that behavior

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

honestly it's been really healing being back to actively contributing things and writing out thoughts on tumblr the last week or so, because while twitter tends to be easier for me to write out Thoughts on without getting overwhelmed, the environment in the twitter fandom circles i'm interested in is not only infested with antis but cliqueish in a way that is caustic to the fucking soul if you try to express a thought that's more than three sentences long--a hundred times over if you're autistic in slightly the wrong way--and it's incredibly reassuring to come back to an environment where the very kindest and most inclusive people toward you are not clearly thinking the r-slur the entire time they interact with you lmao

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

Is there like. a CW tag people use for posts that are like "if you do xyz I'm committing acts of extreme violence on you / you should explode"? Cus I often feel kinda icky about interacting with those posts and I'd like to at least be able to tag it for other people who might be more significant effected by it to filter if I ever want to reblog one of them

[itsalwaysdark]

that feeling when something is brought up and you remember having an insanely bad spiral abt that thing in your past but youre rly trying not to give into scrupulousity terrors so youre sitting there like Its okay its okay its okay its okay .

[anonymous-witness777]

ppl talk like only fundamentalism triggers religious OCD but then Phil Vischer tweets this:

and I'm like:

[protoctist]

i don't consider myself an anxious person because i'm so #hyperrational but i still have (untreated) ocd which is so funny silly because most of the time i can very clearly tell when a thought process is irrational up until an ocd spiral hits and then suddenly i'm stupid as fuck waking up every hour in the middle of the night frantically ruminating and trying to message people to confess all the terrible bad things i've done to them and nearly ruining my life. and then i wake up eat breakfast and go what the fuck was that

[fictionadventurer]

Look, I'm probably never going to want to read the giant chunker of a Big Important Tragic Classic Book (with bonus whale facts!). But I'm always up for reading a 300-pages-or-less light fantasy novel on an intriguing Victorian-flavored world with sailing ships and big monsters and a compelling-yet-maddened-by-vengeance captain surrounded by a loveable crew faced with moral condundrums, all written by people who love the character dynamics and wish the story was less tragic. Plus, if I don't read the original, I don't have to get upset over how any of these retellings twist the story. It's worked really well so far!

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

.

How to explain that going to church makes me hurt and angry, but not going to church makes me sad and depressed.

[sawthatmountainburn]

might've just ordered the first 2 parts of the yen press w.i.t.c.h. reprint and also the first volume of part 4 because I have a personal attachment to the cover... oops

[kaijuposting]

"Saw traps for people with moral OCD" is a phrase that has embedded myself into my brain because, well, Saw traps for people with moral OCD are everywhere.

Stuff that basically amounts to...

"You have to listen to my opinions on [issue], or else you don't care about [issue]. (Constantly talks about how people like you are the absolute worst.)"

Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me tear you down over things you can't control or you're a bad person."

Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me vent to you whenever and however I want or else you're a bad person."

"If you enjoy X media/trope, you just hate Y people."

"Everyone knows that X thing is harmful/hateful; if you engaged in it, it's just because you were fine with perpetuating hate/harm."

"You should have just known better/should know this already!"

This thread over here talks about the inherent issues of putting this kind of stuff out there. The TL;DR is that it really only works on people who are mentally unwell and have poor boundaries, while just pissing off everyone else. It really doesn't matter if you're technically correct; you're still attacking people, and that means they're not wrong to block you.

I think that many of these Saw traps are created when people effectively write posts directed toward people who don't want to help, rather than the ones who do. Like, if you catch yourself writing an angry, shame-laden post, ask yourself: who are you writing it for and what are the odds you're going to change their minds? If your mental image is some smug fuck or angry reactionary, you're writing for the wrong person. Write for the person who's curious, who's willing to learn.

Also? Work on figuring out how to transmute negative feelings into positive, encouraging rhetoric. EG:

"Why is there no X positivity?" -> "Let's hear it for X!"

"No one cares about Y problem!" -> "Hey, we need more recognition of Y problem" or "I haven't seen many people talking about Y problem, so here's some info on what's up."

"If you don't reblog this, you don't care about [group]" -> "Please reblog this, it would mean a lot for us [group]."

And if you're really super duper frustrated and want to vent with a lot of nasty words and sentiments? Consider taking it to a private vent channel or a journal or somewhere that a stranger with moral OCD/scrupulosity isn't likely to run across it.

Remember, most people don't want to hurt anyone. More people are ignorant than malicious. People naturally want to do the right thing, so if you feel like you have to guilt them or shame them into it, there's probably a fundamental communication issue somewhere, or they simply lack the context to understand why what you're saying is so important.

[ms-demeanor]

I mean also not to go too hard at it but i am a multiply disabled person with an autoimmune disorder who masks and continues to socially distance; not even getting into other people in my life, I am not an able-bodied person throwing you to burn on the altar of capitalism because I think that disability makes you subhuman I'm just fucking tired of watching teenagers with scrupulosity issues hate themselves because they think they're extending the pandemic by going to get coffee when that does not appear to be what's happening.

[eelfuneral]

To all my friends with Moral OCD/Scrupulosity: people do not mean “inundate yourself with the most graphic news videos you can find for all hours of the day” when they say “don’t look away” in the context of issues like war, genocide, and disasters, but rather “be aware of what’s going on and do what you can, even if it’s something small”. “Being aware” means checking in on an issue and potential ways that people can help those affected, not forcing yourself to compulsively watch as many videos of people dying as you can. Doing this is, in fact, a compulsion, and your brain will keep pushing you to watch more graphic death videos. Digital self-harm helps no one, and you don’t have to absorb every instance of individual suffering to have an awareness of it being an ongoing problem. Hell, you can take a break from checking the news for a bit if you find yourself spiraling and you can always catch up on it again once you are in the headspace to do so. Understanding how dire a situation is can be very important, but you can’t remove suffering and death from the world by compulsively looking at it. Your brain is lying to you, and it is much more productive to look for little ways that you can help people.

If you donate money to NGOs, know that every cent counts. If you are not financially well off and can only donate a small amount, that is still a wonderful thing. Forcing yourself into a place of financial risk (like risking eviction or forgoing food or medical care) to feel like you’re “really” donating “enough” is an OCD compulsion. OCD is taking advantage of the discomfort and sorrow that we feel when something big and horrific is happening and there is little that we can do, and we have to sit with some of that discomfort and avoid falling into patterns of self-harm like what I described above in an attempt to escape from it. If you’re feeling hopeless and not caring for yourself, then you can’t help people at all! No one can single-handedly save the world, but we can do little things to make it that much less unpleasant.

Be aware and be helpful, but take care of yourself, too.

[olderthannetfic]

Im neither a proshipper nor an anti at this current stage in life, but at one point i was an anti i guess? And I hate it say it, but looking back, I understand why. I don't think I actually gave a fuck about Harmful Fanfic or whatever, it was just a substitute for therapy that i couldn't get at the time (because "literally neurodivergent and a minor" or whatever, but like...actually literally neurodivergent and a minor LOL).

As weird as it sounds like, no one cared about my ACTUAL PAIN, and that made me feel EVEN MORE PAIN, so i took it out on ppl who shipped "abuse", or whatever.

It's so stupid now, as an adult who is mentally better than I was then, but as ridiculous as it was, seeing someone ship an "abusive" ship or a "queer erasing ship" (like a canonically gay character with someone of the other binary gender)...it felt eerily similar to the actual abuse I was facing and the stress that everyone was putting on me to find a boyfriend or ask why my (closeted lesbian) self didn't like any boys.

But it was so much easier to keyboard warrior about how people who ship Bad things are Bad people, than it was to fix any problems in my actual life because...well, the actual problems in my life COULDN'T be fixed. That isn't a learned helplessness thing, there was genuinely nothing I could've done. So pissing off Shippers was, like, a vessel for that, and it *felt* like I was getting to lash out at the same people who were ACTUALLY hurting me, even though that obviously is not the case. Funny thing is, it wasn't actual fandom discourse that made me switch sides, it was getting to learn more about youth liberation movements and stuff, because it was then that I recognized the actual structures that were making me hurt.

I think one silver lining is it's made me more compassionate an adult. While I don't have any defense for the antis who do actual horrendous stuff like doxxing or sending death/rape threats, etc, I do have a lot of defense for the ones who were like me and would just make posts talking about how Wrong it is to ship certain things. I know that not all antis are in the same place that I was once was, and some are just genuinely immature brats, but it's like. . . I get it, you know?

The cycle of abuse/bullying is weird and it's not often a 1:1 "I had an abusive parent so now i'll be an abusive parent", sometimes it's the chronically online stuff like I did. It's also why I'm careful-careful to not engage and to just block or, even try to have a mature discussion if I can, and if the person I'm talking to is just "a little bit annoying" rather than "actual bully doing/sending illegal stuff". A lot of them just want to be heard, I think, and it really makes me sad that this is the way they choose to be heard...but also i get it, because i was that.

--

Yup. We often discuss anti tendencies in this framework.

People want control over their environment when they have none. They want the world to make sense and for there to be simple rules they can follow to Never Mess Up. This is a very common reaction to trauma and also typical of brains that like order and neat boxes and a world full of justice and logic.

The trouble is that a critical mass of "I'm just pointing this out" type posts does tend to make all the other teens with an issue around moral scrupulosity implode. (And let's be real, plenty of the antis themselves are secretly into dark content and are trying to pray the gay kink away.)

I have some sympathy, but I'm still going to tell people they're sealioning when they are and tell them they're flat out wrong about how fantasies work, not sugar coat it because they're probably a delicate teen. There's no need to be excessively mean or treat people as irredeemable, but I also don't like how we talk endlessly about compassion for teen antis and not for teens targeted by antis. It's similar to how there are all those complaints like "Hey, I work hard to manage my mental illness, but all the support seems to go to people who are letting their issues rampage..."

[the-crooked-library]

okay so I gotta say, I don’t believe the whole “vampires cannot make good art” thing. I just don’t buy it. Like, call me biased, but as a writer, I don’t think you could talk the way they do and not be good at least at writing. There’s no way.

(you are a challenge every sunset, Saint Louis)

(I had powers now, and decades of rage to process - and so it was both random and unfortunate the man picked that night to dabble in fuckery) (I mean are you kidding me, that line is MUSIC)

(THE NAME! The name, unuttered in our home for twenty-three years - said over and over, until it was pounding in my head like a hammer!)

As such: what I personally think is actually happening is something far more mundane. Picture this - you've just been turned. Vampirism has enhanced everything about you, so your senses are like 10 times more distracting, you're stronger, faster, you're murdering nightly, you're most likely born out of some sort of trauma, and on top of that you've got years to compound whatever issues you already had - which, surprise surprise, are also somehow more intense now, whodathunk, mainly because your senses/murder/immortality are fucking with them BIG. Seriously, think about it: how much would vampire senses exacerbate symptoms of ADHD or autism? Would the species change, the nocturnal lifestyle, the mind gift contribute to dissociation, psychosis, schizophrenia? Would the killings and the loss of community be a factor in the way your depression might develop - or religious scrupulosity? OCD?

It's not that vampires cannot make good art. It's just that it becomes supremely difficult to do so, especially given that they cannot take human medication/finding a nocturnal therapist would be a bitch even if you're modern/Louiiss mon cher what eez a coping mechanisme y'know. I am convinced with 100000% certainty that, given enough time and dedication a vampire could absolutely make good art again* - though, in all fairness, very few of the ones we know possess the patience. Mind gifts/vampire speed + strength/inherited riches tend to destroy that sort of skill real fast; still, though, it's not a curse. It's symptoms disease.

* It is also possible, just as it is for humans, to develop all sorts of technical skills and still lack the “eye” for art (cough Marius cough) - but in that case, maybe try music?.. start writing? Get into ASMR? you’ve got an eternity to fuck around. Do whatever.