#abcde

i am not going to make myself a victim by seeking out traumatizing content so that i can say i stood in support. i don’t need to see violence happening to believe it, and i am perfectly capable of standing against it without watching videos of kids being killed by missiles.

i know that for some folks, this is what it takes, but if i keep seeing graphic content, im going to be useless to any cause. it shuts me down completely. i don’t have a solution for this, because i know that its important people see it, but god damn it my ocd has been destroying me and i can’t live in this. i’m not saying that im a victim of this shit, that would be selfish. i am going to say it sucks to have my ocd triggers everywhere constantly again, because it’s not like i wasn’t already thinking about it, but seeing it is debilitating. i’m perfectly capable of understanding how bad something is without a visual.

context for anyone who gives a shit, there was a hellfire missile launched into a hospital in gaza. for those unfamiliar, it is an american missile that has spinning blades on it meant to take limbs off of folks. it is an anti tank missile.

i was looking to find proof of this, and i found a little. a video of a hospital being hit by what looks like a dud, and proof that the united states has supplied them in the recent and distant past. but in looking, i have seen more blood than i’ve meant to in a long time.

this is a link to a tiktok of a WHO official in al-shifa, which is over run. it has blood in it. it is miserable.

this is a link to a cbs mornings video about strikes hitting gaza and the evacuation plans constantly changing, leading to the death of a young boy. there is a body shown in this.

there are dozens and hundreds more. i understand how, after just seeing these fairly sterile videos, someone could say some pretty fucked up evil things about some pretty fucked up evil folk. or how that anger could be misdirected and hit the wrong people.

my brain does not stop thinking about and talking about and wanting to assist the folks affected by this shit. okay? okay. i don’t need to look at these videos for that to be true. i don’t need to be traumatized by traumatizing shit to have empathy. my brain can also get that no amount of watching the videos will ever make me get how fucking bad it is right now, because my brain has its limits. i am mourning the dead. i don’t need to see them to mourn. and i don’t need to see the traumatized families to know that people need help, and to give help. i’m not going to judge people who do need to see to understand, either! that’s just not me!

if you haven’t looked at these, i do recommend it. 10,000 is hard to conceptualize, but a couple hundred? that makes more sense.