#scrupulosity

If you

Check what you sent over and over to make sure you didn’t say a slur instead of “hello how are you”

Fear that someone will find you thinking not-leftist-enough thoughts and will call you out and ruin you

Feel you have to make your intentions clear and over-explain your actions

Find yourself consistently resisting the urge to engage in reassurance-seeking WRT being a good enough ally to marginalized people

Stay up late endlessly debating political ethics in your head

Have a set of actions that you take after discovering you made a morally wrong decision so that you can atone, which you rely on for reassurance that you are not a bad person

Would rather not make a decision at all than make a decision that is the lesser of two evils, but is not morally pure

-anon asks. people send mean anon asks. telling you youre a bad person for whatever reason and fueling your ocd

-rb bait posts. "rb to tell your friends you love them" "rb if you support [insert niche group]" just any "rb to" posts. and the worst of them all "if you dont reblog youre a bad person" which is literally a threat and sends you spiraling very easy

-that one post that says to say thank you instead of sorry to make it "a more positive experience". very bad for people with ocd. you say sorry because its a compulsion: "if i dont say sorry they will be mad at me" saying thank you instead of sorry doesn't help, you just switched words. compulsion is still there

-lack of trigger tags. tagging triggers often goes unused

-the "thought crime" discussion. "your thoughts Always reflect on you as a person" and "your thoughts reflect on you as a person but it's totally okay you are a terrible person and you should start leaning into it Right Now" and "never ever question a thought". all of these feed into compulsions really well.

-those post that tell you "Yes You Are Bad. You Are that thing youre stressed about". perfect fuel. they just straight up confirm your obsessive thoughts

-tumblr users are not specialized therapists. you dont have to listen to any of the posts that tell you "how to do it right"

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.