#ocd and activism

[wild-at-mind]

I don't want to be shitty to younger people on tumblr and in social justice spaces (teens and early 20s) and their absolutism and black and white thinking because I totally was like that too. I absolutely loved that thing where someone said something bad about a tumblr user and then you could act like everything they said was suspect forever. It was so convenient, to put things neatly into boxes. Social justice on here was very different back then, this would have been the early 2010s and a lot of it was about cultural appropriation vs appreciation. I think that is a very important conversation but this too was very black and white. I noticed that the only person injecting any nuance was an activist in her 40s I used to follow. Through her I learned also that some topics are really loaded for certain people but others might not feel the same because of different life experiences, even if they were the same ethnic group encountering the same type of potential appropriation. She got me primed for nuance I would later need, when my brain flat out stopped letting me deal with black and white thinking after my breakdown in 2015 and the fallout going up till 2017 and beyond. It's only now that I am really getting better. With occassional lapses. (Like when people on here were lauding protest suicide, that messed with my brain so much. Activists like the one I used to follow who don't like that kind of thinking, or the bloodthirstiness of a lot of the 'activism' shit on here, leave tumblr. They do, because it is shit here. You can get attacked for opposing the violence and self flaggelation in the rhetoric on here. By people you broadly agree with!!)

I think the reason youth tends to come with this kind of thinking is because they haven't seen it happen many times before and not lead to revolution. I can only assume that there really are people using social media to make young people interested in activism think that accelerationism is the only pure policy- by not doing things that might make things slightly better, society will be forced to fall and revolutionise into something much better. That means you don't become impure in the eyes of some internet strangers who don't give a fuck about you as a person, which is important to most people especially younger ones who haven't found their 'people' yet- everyone wants to be accepted. So you wait, years and years, the revolution doesn't happen. Things get worse in many ways, but it's never worse enough for society to fall. Because it won't. Or I guess probability means statistically, it could. But the older you get, the less likely it seems. What will you do?

I think the only thing that helped me out of this headspace was meeting people in real life who believed the same things as me, but who I disagreed with slightly. I found out oh wait, I do not have to do as the internet says and cast these people out. I can slightly disagree on how ideally an issue should be handled and that is ok. Now, many years later, I'm reclaiming my right to think the way I do, and to not trick myself into thinking I am a way I am not. The way my brain works may not be how my friend's brain works, but I can trust she won't reject me because I find JK Rowling's opinions offensive but don't find content dunking on her interesting in any way. Because she's my friend, and at the end of the day we share the same values.

To someone not online I don't think this stuff would make sense at all. Sadly I'm too weak to not be online, and I have this long background of being in that space which influences all the pushback with myself I've had to do. Its hard to get rid of that history, and hard to ignore the posting on here that seems to validate things that people living with OCD cannot put stock in (e.g. your feelings and thoughts are objectively real and also show what kind of person you really are- absolutely not something we can accept and still live with ourselves.) But I have to do it. I have to keep living. I have to believe that would be a net good. If I can't stay offline, maybe by writing this stuff it will help me and others who think like me.

My top tips for when you realise society isn't falling and won't just reset and come back better:

Join IRL activists, support their actions, plan actions with them. Get used to the variety of shapes activism takes. Talk with them about the things you disagree with. Your ability to ally with people you slightly disagree with but agree on most issues is the number 1 way you become set apart from internet-based activism.

Be suspicious of anyone promoting inaction as activism. (Yes that's about the not voting people.) You don't become impure if you vote for the candidate who is the least shit, or has the most chance of getting in and making things less shit. That's OCD thinking that for some reason has become mainstream on tumblr among non-sufferers and sufferers alike.

Posting on tumblr doesn't matter. I have seen people who convinced themselves it did go down conspiracy rabbit holes very easily. (You know- 'they are trying to silence us because of the importance of our posting!' and then it spirals from there)

People trying to guilt and shame you into doing certain things, such as rejecting your long-term mental health, or tell you that if you feel like shit all the time it's a good thing somehow- stay away from that thinking like its infectious. The most effective activism comes from people who are in an ok place mentally so they can plan and work together, not people who feel like them feeling ok is bad or offensive somehow and are making snap decisions based on this. You feeling bad doesn't help anyone.

[panicismydefaultstate]

Just in case anyone else needed to hear this today-

Your health is not your fault. You didn’t do anything to “deserve” this. And you are right, it isn’t fair. You are allowed to feel upset, hurt, angry and jealous that your health, body or mind disables you.

It’s not fair, and that sucks. You are allowed to scream about that as much as you need to.

[lapdogchase]

i'm not sure if this post was meant as a joke or not but i don't think it matters-- it has over 5k notes and most of them seem to be taking it seriously. but the idea that you can do a specific action to stop having intrusive thoughts and if u just keep doing it and the thoughts will go away :) is just. that's just a compulsion. that's a repetitive behavior you feel driven to do to reduce anxiety. there are ways to cope with/treat ocd but giving urself new compulsions isn't one of them, that will just make it worse even if it's reassuring in the moment (which is another part of ocd- it reduces anxiety for a moment and then the anxiety comes back, which is what reinforces the obsession-compulsion loop.

and if this was meant as a joke or satire, it's still being taken seriously, which is just adding to the problem of bad ocd advice posts, and leaving it circulating is irresponsible. and if it wasn't meant as a joke, it's still harmful despite coming from a good place, and leaving it circulating is still irresponsible.

[morganbritton132]

I like that sometimes you’ll be doing something your whole life like it’s normal and then you’ll meet someone and they’re like, no. That’s actually an insane thing to do be doing.

[starheirxero]

Sorry for passionately posting about Lunar in a way that shows my fundamental core beliefs that approaching the world from whether or not someone is a Bad Person (who doesn't deserve basic things like patience or food or housing) or a Good Person (who is perfect and deserves everything kind and is inherently flawless) is such bullshit and unfair and that I hate the way it's a common belief that's bled into everything.

It will happen again.

[gin-juice-tonic]

sometimes i think about how many common therapy tactics are either useless or actively harmful against OCD and stare at the ceiling

er, i should add, this isnt a dig at therapy, it's just important to see someone well-versed in OCD is all.

[horaitos]

all mental health symptoms are valid unless they are Cringe

[marshemillow]

I had a nightmare last night that the latest popular tumblr discourse was, "It's racist for white people to buy products specifically designed for curly hair (because it's like "cultural appropriation" or some shit)" and jesus christ get me out of here. Get me the fuck out of here. I'M IN HELL!!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!

[t4tadrienette]

Ocd truly manages to make enjoyable activities a fucking nightmare

[horrorknife]

goodbye to all my friends changing to bluesky. you wont get me active on a twitter layout type website ever again but i hope you all have fun over there

[gigifluidcat]

To all my homies with OCD, Imma just tell you that no.

You're not a bigot for not reblogging political activism posts, you're not a monster because you can't afford to donate to a charity, it's OK to skip or scroll past anything trying to guilt trip you into doing so, and you deserve to live your life.

[projectcatzo]

I know everyone hates the monastery in Three Houses, I do too, but I also hate whenever I'm watching someone play Three Houses and they half-ass their monastery activities. Your vegetable garden needs harvesting! Sylvain has something to say to you!! Ferdinand is still missing his bag of tea!!!!

[majorasnightmare]

not sure if you've already explained it or gotten this question before, but does "Dirge" mean anything? or is it just a play on "Durge"?

did Dirge just shorten "The Dark Urge" because it was too weird/concerning or was he always called that? did he ever have a different name beforehand?

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS QUESTION FOR SOOOOOOOO LONG U DONT EVEN KNOW

its hands down one of my FAVORITE trivia pieces for him!!!

Out of character, I rly struggle with naming player characters, so i wanted to make a durge named dirge because thats funny. but now its a whole THING

So! When Dirge was a freshly sculpted gore baby, he gets adopted by a refugee drow couple who had fled Menzoberranzan. They do give him a name, but seeing as how he killed them when he was VERY young (think 6-8), hes long since forgotten that name. And ever since entering the temple of Bhaal, he almost exclusively was referred to by a series of titles, or familial nicknames like bloodkin, slaughterkin, etc. He never renamed himself, and upon taking leadership of the cult, purposefully chose not to so as to better subsume himself into his role as living vessel of Bhaal's will made flesh.

HOWEVER! Despite attempting to completely deperson himself, he still had a few identifying habits. Gortash was the only person Dirge had regular interaction with outside the cult interested in viewing the man beneath the titles, and made a point of trying to uncover that individual as often as possible. In part it was because it gave Gortash a personal little thrill, to have that kind of power over Bhaal's Chosen by Knowing Him, and because he sensed a core truth Dirge himself refused to acknowledge: like is attracted to like, and Gortash knows an angry powerless traumatized child hungry for the world when he sees one.

So Gortash ended up being privy to a LOT of Dirge's private moments, and shamelessly encouraged them, and always strove to try and pull Dirge-the-Person out from the shell of The Religious Idol. Which meant that he was actually the only person before Dirge's lobotomy to notice a particular quirk he has: when Dirge is by himself, and comfortable, when his mind is at rest and calm, and when his attention is occupied by something engaging, he sings. Quietly, and to himself, but he sings nonetheless. (hes a tenor btw)

Gortash just so happened to be present when Dirge was thus engaged, cleaning up after a particularly satisfying kill, and affectionately joked that the man was "his personal funeral dirge", which of course IMMEDIATELY made Dirge stop and threaten to slaughter Gortash right then and there.

A lifetime later, on the beach waking up Shadowheart, when she properly introduces herself to him and asks for his name in turn, there is absolutely nothing in his skull that serves to identify him, to himself or to others, he catches a single fragment of an interaction, the barest fraction of a memory, of someone calling him Dirge. So that's how he introduces himself, and it sticks.

[edraculation]

WE NEED TO LEAVE REBLOG BAIT IN 2023 PLEASEEEEEE

[transvampireboyfriend]

"chronic anxiety? but you always seem so chill?" i don't think it's normal to always, without fail, assume that if you hear an airplane it will fall directly where you are

[deermouth]

i just wrote out this whole long thing about absolution, and after that, went on r/southernreach, realized a lot of things i had criticism of are probably intentional in ways I had not considered before, re-wrote my thing, and am now sort of having a crisis because i don't............. really care................. about all the red-stringing........................ or like i DO care, but i don't WANT to................ leave me alone (i chose to open the reddit tab)