writ upon the heavens

starting off the day strong with extremely normal statements on Discord

Some of you out there are saying “Because I’m a teenager in an abusive household, and it’s simply not safe for us to go unmasked.” And to you I say… Sorry. I hope you get out soon. And I hope when you do get out, you discard the things that served you and yours in times of strife, but shackle you and yours in times of peace. I hope your solutions for living in an unkind environment are temporary, and do not become habit when you break free and find the space you deserve for self-actualization. Do what you have to do to survive, but do not internalize it. Do not justify it beyond survival. Hate it as you hate the situation you are in, because it is part of the unfairness of that situation. Remember always that there are people behind those masks, and they are not the masks themselves. Do not become Omelas on the shining hill.

-- Excerpts from Suffering Holders and Apparently Normal Omelas Children by Comfy Sleepy System

In the short term, yeah maybe, dissociation is such a widespread defense mechanism for a reason. But I see so many instances of "[headmate] is our depression/anger/trauma/whatever holder but the stuff they're containing is leaking out and affecting us anyway." Or "[headmate] is our protector/caretaker/whatever but they're getting super burnt out and we're struggling to function." Even in situations where all of the system's anger, grief, etc is being contained by a system's Omelas Kid, this results in things like people continuing to stay in (or get deeper into) abusive relationships. And that's no way to live. Suppressing pain does not actually get rid of the pain or its cause.

I'm reminded of a concept LB Lee described in their essay Treat Yourself: The Commodification and Misuse of Self-Care, which they called "the devil's boat":

OP: Giant tortoise sprinting for shelter from the rain. The keeper’s rushing over to shoo the turtle away and she said they’ll get sick if soaked. (cr Q萨奇旅行日志)

do you think you are a bad person? do you feel like you constantly have to do something, anything, good to balance out your miserable existence? 

does Chidi from The Good Place hit home to the point where he isn’t funny, because you see too much of yourself in him? 

are you constantly worried about the impact your actions have on others–  to the point where you avoid your friends, deprive yourself of things you want or need, or outright starve yourself? 

you may have scrupulosity.

scrupulosity is a mental health issue that crops up with a lot of different diagnoses- c-ptsd, ocd, autism, and adhd are some of the most common, but a LOT of ND and traumatized people have it. 

scrupulosity makes you overly concerned with morality. you feel like you are Bad and have to do Good things. you obsess over your own Badness and the Badness of the world. you feel like you, personally, need to fix everything that’s Bad, and that if you don’t, you’re Worse Than Twin Clones Of Hitler.

you might try to expiate your badness by becoming a doormat– letting other people walk all over you. you might donate money to charity or GoFundMes, even if you can’t afford it, because You Need To Be Good. you might avoid Problematic things, to the point where you can’t enjoy a bar of chocolate or a children’s cartoon.

and that’s in fairly normal circumstances where the world is not actively on fire.

at times like this– where the world is full of legitimately horrible shit, where it seems like everything is fucked up beyond repair and everyone needs your help- scrupulosity can fucking kill you. 

 this post is already too long, so I’m going to reblog with some suggestions for how to help take care of yourself for people with scrupulosity, and some advice on how people without scrupulosity can help support their friends rn. 

the bad things that are happening right now are not your fault. 

yes, even if you are white. 

unless you are actively a cop beating up protestors, you did not do these bad things.

you do not want them to be happening. 

you are not complicit in evil just because you exist.

it is wrong and unfair that you have privilege, yes, but you did not ask for it. 

it is bad for people to hurt, and that includes you. 

you are not making the world a better place by making yourself suffer. you will not save the world by depriving yourself of what you need. you do not need to do penance for existing. 

please take care of yourself, just like you would if something else bad happened. keep getting therapy, if you can. keep practicing self-care. make sure you’re eating and sleeping and trying to stick to a routine.

it is good to want to help, and it is good to try to donate and protest where you can. 

but sometimes trying to help other people can be a form of self-harm.

if you are compulsively checking the news/social media even if it triggers you-

or donating money that you cannot afford to spend because you feel like you’re Bad if you don’t-

or going to protests because you feel like you deserve to get hurt for other people’s sake-

you are self-harming. 

you need to take a step back and re-evaluate how you can help without hurting yourself. 

if you can, i’m going to recommend reading @theunitofcaring​‘s blog. she is someone who wants to make the world a better place, and honestly her posts about how even bad people deserve good things have been the best goddamn antidote for my own scrupulosity. 

mary oliver’s “the wild geese” is also helpful.

most of all:

do not give money or time or attention to a cause just because people tell you you’re a bad person if you don’t. 

there are a lot of people out there who are asking for money and time and attention because of Current Events, whether it’s covid or police brutality.

some of those people are good people trying to make the world a better place. some of them are scammers who are actively taking advantage of people; some of them are good people, but they will not use your time/money/attention effectively.

you have limited resources. you cannot save the world all by yourself, and hurting yourself will not save the world.

if you’re going to try to use your limited resources to help, you need to make sure that you’re using them effectively.  

if someone’s GoFundMe is fully funded and beyond, you do not have to give them money you cannot afford to spend. 

if you can’t find any information on a charity that’s asking you for money, you do not have to give them money.  

as a general rule of thumb: if someone is trying to make you feel guilty, they want to sell you something. 

this doesn’t mean that they’re bad people. sometimes what they want to sell you on is “a world where no one gets choked to death”. 

but they are still trying to sell you something. 

they are not making you feel guilty because they care about whether or not you’re Good, they’re making you feel guilty because they need money or time or attention. 

you need to think critically about whether or not it’s good to buy what they’re selling, the same way you’d think critically about buying anything else. 

if you don’t have scrupulosity and want to support your friends:

please don’t use guilt or shame to motivate people into activism. 

yes, i know white fragility is a Thing, and i know that some people will deny their complicity in evil until the end of time-

but guilt and shame are major scrupulosity triggers. 

it’s shitty to trigger people’s mental illnesses, even if it’s in a good cause. 

if you make a lot of posts saying things like DON’T LOOK AWAY, IF YOU IGNORE THIS YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM, and so on and so on, you are going to hurt people with scrupulosity. 

you are going to push people into self-harm social media checking loops. 

this goes doubly true if you’re trying to get people to give money. 

most people with scrupulosity are broke– mental illness does that to you. 

if you are trying to guilt people into giving you money, ESPECIALLY if you are using hard sell tactics, you are going to hurt people with scrupulosity. 

you are going to make people give you money they cannot afford to give you. 

make sure you’re giving people the tools they need to avoid The Current Events.  tag your goddamn posts on tumblr. don’t force people to look at things they don’t want to look at, and give trigger warnings if you’re sharing news. 

if you have a friend with scrupulosity, now is probably not the time to defend abstract concepts instead of helping them. 

if you can tell your friend is going into an obsessive guilt loop over, say, whether they’re Evil and Bad because they’re white, helping them get out of that obsessive guilt loop is probably more important in the moment than defending the concept that All White People Have Privilege

if your friend is having intrusive violent thoughts about killing cops, it is probably better to help them with those intrusive thoughts over defending the concept of ACAB.

these abstract concepts are important. but even if they’re true, your friend’s brain is distorting them in a way that’s unhealthy. in the same way that, say, someone with RSD or BPD could pick up on the fact that you’re mad at them, and distort that into “you hate my guts and never want to see me again”. 

it’s unhealthy to never, ever show any sign of anger towards a friend with BPD, but sometimes reassuring them that you don’t hate them over something small is necessary. it’s the same thing with scrupulosity and abstract moral/ethical issues. 

sometimes it’s necessary to get your friend’s brainweasels off their treadmill before dealing with the problem at hand, even when that problem is real and important 

and sometimes this is a Competing Access Needs thing.

 if people being racist in a white-fragility way triggers you or if being unable to express what you believe triggers you, you might not be able to deal with your friend’s scrupulosity. 

you might have to say “right now, I can’t help you”, for both your sakes. 

and there is nothing wrong with that. 

they are not doing anything wrong by needing help with their brainweasels, and you are not doing anything wrong by being unable to give it. these things happen. 

I’m much better at helping make the world a better place when I’m saying “what can I sustainably spend a few hours a week doing that will materially help people?” Not when I’m beating myself up for being privileged or feeling obligated to give away money I can’t afford to.

It is ok to set limits on your activism, volunteering, or engagement for entirely selfish reasons. I think it took telling myself “I’m doing this to be a better activist!” to get there. But your health matters, your happiness matters, and if the amount of engagement you can safely do is zero, do that. You can always come back to it later. Or not! You do not have to be an activist.

I think there are two truths that are hard to wrap one’s head around, but they’re both important to recognize if you are the kind of person who cares about problems in the world:

1. You are powerless to solve most problems. Even if you’re a billionaire or a high-ranking politician, there are still things you cannot solve—perhaps you can make a very large impact but you have to set priorities (do I try to eradicate malaria, or feed the hungry, or root out political corruption?) and deal with problems that cannot be solved with money or the law (some diseases will never be possible to vaccinate against, because of how biology works, for example).

The vast majority of us are not billionaires or even comfortably wealthy, and are not government officials of any kind. So the areas over which we have influence are much smaller and there are many things on which we will never be able to make a noticeable difference by our individual efforts.

2. You do have some power. At the very least, you have the power to treat the people around you with respect and kindness. You might have power at work to call out a racist comment or check in on your coworker who’s going through a hard time. You might have the power to pick up trash in your neighborhood, or write a Wikipedia article on a subject you studied in school, or cook at a local soup kitchen or Food Not Bombs event. You might have the power to vote. You might be able to identify people in your life who are having trouble with registering to vote or getting to the polls and help them do that. You might have the power to attend a protest in your area, or to research protests that are happening and promote them on social media. You might have the power to call your elected officials and ask them to vote a certain way, or to help deal with a bureaucratic obstacle using their constituent services office. You might organize your workplace for better working conditions.

Focusing too much on 1) can lead to despair, feeling powerless or worthless, or hopeless. Focusing too much on 2) can give you the false impression that you are obligated to do all the things you can possibly do (not possible for a single human with limited time!) or to do things that would put you in danger or harm you (don’t try to unionize your workplace if getting fired would be disastrous to you!).

As a side note: none of the things I listed under part two include “arguing with strangers on the Internet,” “trying to convince the people in your life to have Correct Opinions,” “criticizing yourself for having Wrong Thoughts,” or “reading upsetting news that you can’t do anything about.” This is intentional. I am both healthier and more effective when I focus on material impacts, not mental states. I think most people are, if not everyone.

And so how do you figure out how much is the right amount? That’s a question that’s very personal and depends on your circumstances and values, but I would say the bar for me is: be kind to people unless I have a good reason not to, support my friends and family as I’m able, help people I notice who are in distress if I have the opportunity and it won’t harm me. Everything else is extra, and I dont have to worry that I won’t ever do that extra, because my personality is such that I enjoy helping people.

But if I spend some time away from that for my own well being, that’s fine. Because as @theunitofcaring put it, my happiness is a moral good. I am learning to love myself enough to believe that I don’t have to earn my existence on this earth by advancing some cause. Ultimately my beliefs boil down to the idea that human life, freedom, dignity, and happiness matter more than anything else, and I am a human being and I deserve to look out for myself.

time was not meant to be given PARADOXES

wanted to defeat an evil sorceress possessing your ancestor anyway to save the world? we had a tool for that: it was called MYSTERY SEEDS