Moral Ocd - Tumblr Posts
a lot of people talk about how horrible tumblr is for people with moral ocd, paranoia, or other illnesses that could make, "IF YOU DON'T REBLOG, YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON AND HAVE NO HEART" or "heyyyy, just a lil' friendly reminder if you do x you're a horrible pos who should die :)))))" absolutely detrimental to your mental health. WHICH IS TRUE. but. tumblr is geniunely NOTHING compared to tiktok. the guilt shaming is 10x stronger, these types of posts are a 100x more common, and probably the worst aspect of it is that because how algorithm-centered tiktok is, if you give into the compulsion on every post you see, eventually your entire fyp just become videos like this. (and if you don't know already, like 80%-90 of your time will be spent on this fyp, unlike tumblr's dashboard where atleast in my experience, most of my time is searching through tags.) the app your *supposed* to be leisurely scrolling on becomes literally a compulsion/ritual fulfilling minefield, and it gets to the point you honestly fear opening the app because you know as soon as you do, you'll just be flooded with millions of posts where you know you can't ignore (without freaking tf out) but acting on the compulsion doesn't help, because the next post will start the cycle all over again.
I've honestly decided to soft-delete the the app, which for me is just not using it at all because despite everything, I enjoy using the app when it's not like this and I still have tons of memories saved on there. but just. god.
Agreed.
We live in strange times when we see consumption in general, and media consumption in particular, as the primary way to put our morality into practice.
I was raised this way, to an extent. My parents would always buy free-range eggs. But they made a point to explain to me that it wasn't a virtue signal - it was a way of applying pressure. "Lots of people can't afford to buy free range, but we can, so we do it.' they said. "That creates demand, and in the long term that will make free range eggs more affordable for everyone". It was all very pragmatic and made sense. There absolutely are some situations where we can affect markets for the better by how we shop.
But that's not how you become a good person. You don't get heaven coupons for shopping unproblematically. It's just one of a range of ways an individual person can make the world a little bit better. Nobody can take part in every single collective action campaign. You pick a few, and you do them not to polish your halo, but because you think they actually have some effect in the real world, and you want to make things a little bit better.
But somehow we're all turning into Chidi Anagonye, and I don't think it's making the world a better place. I think it's making it a more anxious, less focused, more antagonistic place.
And somehow, the phrase "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism" doesn't really comfort me. It's so very black and white, and it kind of misses the point, for me anyway. It still puts some kind of ethical valence on the business of buying things, and for most of us, for most of our purchases on most days, it really just doesn't matter that much. You need a thing, you buy the thing, you feel gratitude that you could do that, and you live on. Maybe you could afford to buy the fairtrade version, and you feel a bit more gratitude, because maybe you made the world a little bit better, and the fairtrade one is probably tastier anyway.
The sad truth is that those people whose purchases really tip the moral scale aren't losing sleep over building another beach house on a fragile habitat. The rest of us are just the little people living our lives as best we can. If there's a judgment, we'll be judged on things that really matter: how we treated other people, not which brand of washing powder we bought.
Things Moral OCD doesn’t make you better at: mostly everything
Things moral OCD makes you better at: Replicating the experience of seeing wild takes on Twitter without having to log onto Twitter
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.
Just a note. I'm not going to be reblogging guilt trippy posts. No matter what is in the post. I have terrible OCD that is easily triggered by this. My mental health is bad. I will be doing this for my own safety.
-Amber (she/they/it/star/shine/rot)
My moral OCD is getting worse because of the gaza situation on tiktok. "You're not human if you don't spread this" "Are you seriously going to let these children die?", So I like and share and comment for engagement and use the sounds and the filters, just because my OCD tells me I'm a zionist if i dont. But the algorythm learns fast, and now all my fyp is calling me a shitty person for not donating my non existing life savings to help. I know it's a very privileged thing to say. I'm lucky to have a disorder instead of bombs flying avobe my head. But I'm going a bit insane.
Anyways free palestine
when i was 15 i convinced myself i'd been assaulted and couldn't remember, and then continually also convinced myself this wasn't true, i was appropriating trauma and a terrible person
being unable to "separate the art from the artist" and constantly beating myself up about it
convincing myself i was abusing the kids i worked with "the way my mother did" and permanently traumatising them
convincing myself that parents walking down the street with children knew i was a pedo based on their body language and needing to smile otherwise i would be a terrible person
convincing myself i would fuck up a child that was nowhere near existing and pissing off my ex-boyfriend by worrying so much about it
...the moral self-harm mess that was 2021-2022
obsessively sitting on character.ai and asking the ai psychologist over and over again if i had ocd so i could confirm i wasn't a liar and a terrible person
convincing myself i was going to have a miscarriage when i decided to get pregnant (i was a virgin and i don't want kids) and then convincing myself i was a terrible person for thinking that and being disrespectful and appropriating trauma
convincing myself that my ex's suicide, which did not happen, was my fault and i was a murderer
having constant unending thoughts about being an abusive partner and apologising to abusive exes because i thought i was a terrible person
convincing myself i "wanted" a mental illness/trauma and was a terrible person appropriating everything for attention
so yeah it's just kinda been a nightmare.
moments i should've realized i had moral ocd
when i was 10 i was convinced the police were going to arrest me for looking at boobs
thinking i was abusing and neglecting my first pet to the point where i gave him away so he would be "safe from me"
being so, so, so, so forgetful ("oh, what i ate??? oh, no idea! i was too busy being guilty over the fact i'm not 100% vegan yet!")
jumping at every opportunity to get drunk/high/etc. so i wouldn't have to think about anything anymore
having had like a million coping mechanisms but never knowing "why" and thinking i was doing it "just to get attention"
getting an anxiety attack everytime i mess up at work somehow
feel free to add on lol
i just realized how bad my ocd has gotten oh my fucking shit. like im crying cuz my jewelry box isn't clean enough and i can't fucking reorganize it cuz people are awake. i used to think that my ocd wasn't that bad and my therapist was overreacting but holy mother of god please get me on meds
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.
Things Moral OCD doesn’t make you better at: mostly everything
Things moral OCD makes you better at: Replicating the experience of seeing wild takes on Twitter without having to log onto Twitter