Tumblr; Doubt, and "Problematic Content"

Re. Compulsions & Pure-O
I'm looking at this page

To me, that sounds kind of like what you've described here:

Edit: also what Mercury said. It's a big enough problem that it's causing you distress => it's a big enough problem to talk to someone who should be able to help about it.

Edit 2: I've made like four consecutive edits of this post and I'm still not satisfied with what it says -_- time for me to sleep.

 

My OCD went from doing compulsions to make my brain shut up to pure-o style OCD, and I kinda have... Mental compulsions? Like repeating phrases or words over and over again in my mind to make the intrusive thoughts stop. But idk if that's what you experience!

Also I was literally going through 1 bottle of handsoap in 2 days when my compulsions were at their worst, and I was denying myself food as punishment for my bad thoughts and I thought I wasn't bad enough to warrant help but let me tell you, your brain is a lying asshole. Your brain is in fact a jerkbrain, and you need to go and kick its metaphorical butt.

 

What, what if I do that and the professional decides that I am in fact a pedophile and-

Okay that might be somewhat far fetched. But still they might.. be somewhat bemused, they wouldn't understand the fandom context and it might go south somehow. Otherwise I would.

 

I do do a lot of weird things mentally. I don't know if those things are like compulsions or just quirks. Things like, mental visualization, for I guess comfort purposes?

Lord don't ask me to analyse myself I am notoriously bad at it, I once convinced myself that I was an unfeeling narcissist for a year and almost committed suicide.

Hmm...

 

Yeah, the fine details are a lot less relevant that then whole gestalt of what's happening, and any professional who got their degree at somewhere more reputable than a cereal box is going to be able to see that. Hell, I'm just some guy with a lot of experience with their own brain problems and it only took me a few seconds of skimming your post to go "Holy shit, this sounds like scrupulosity in spades." It's that clear that you're suffering.

 

That sounds like the obsessive moon-logic rearing it's head, to be honest. Even if a therapist doesn't understand fandom, it might end up being a case of the advice "what if you stop interacting with the roving band of angry internet children who are also deeply obsessed with pedophilia and cartoons/films/books?" more than "I think the roving band of angry internet children are correct, you are indeed a Bad Person. Shame on you, for being Bad, despite not actually following the actual violent and/or cruel actions of that brand of bad person."

This is the scrupulosity talking, and it's trying to convince you that any attempts at alleviating it will prove it right. Please, consider getting help and looking into calming it down. Your lying brain will eventually calm down.

 

I keep reading more posts about this stuff.

I don't know. I've been a lot better this past week, and have managed to keep myself a lot less anxious about this stuff in general, be that for the better or worse. But christ, it's starting to feel like I've been thrown into the middle of a war. It's like there are two distinct sides battling it out across the tumblr fandomspace, one group making posts condemning certain types of content whilst the other rebuts them. And this website is clearly on the pro- side, and I guess this is where I've landed, both due to my own history in fandom and due to my friends and network of mutuals and this whole messy tangle of things that have essentially pulled me into these debates.

It's hard, intellectually. It's hard to know where any potential bias I may have ends and where my own common sense begins, and it's hard to know whether my common sense is actually sensical. Both sides are talking sense to a degree, and although I'm no longer feeling as tide-tossed as I was when I wrote the OP, it's still difficult to read those opposing arguments because I see what they're saying, I just...

It doesn't help that not everything I see here reaffirms my trust in this side of the argument. There are a lot of attitudes being thrown around in the threads here that I don't entirely agree with, and a lot of, uh, high-ranking kintusigijin (is that the right word? I feel I read that somewhere) who act in a somewhat abrasive and/or erratic manner that kind of calls into question whether the advice that I am getting from them and this community, albeit in a manner that may not be founded in anything, uh, real (I do know that the vast, vast majority of you at least are wonderful and well meaning people).

At this point I'm cautiously stalwart in maintaining my tentative "pro" position but even though I'm not actively worrying about it as much there's still a part of me that's waiting for this to all blow up in my face, somehow.

I suppose if there's any consolation, the anti posts seem to be gaining less ground and attention, at least in my sphere of digital awareness.

 

Medicated scupulosity-type OCD lady here.

I'm seconding what Jacktrash said. I think it might be okay for you to be online to read Homestuck, stream music, and watch Netflix - you know, the more neutral stuff. But Tumblr is a bad, bad idea for people with scrupolosity issues. Probably without the meds I'd have committed suicide by now over it.

Here's the thing: scrupulosity almost always requires medication to treat. You can definitely learn adaptive coping skills, and that is a verrryyy important part of the process, but it's not the whole thing. If you go to a Psychologist, they can refer you to someone who can prescribe the medication for you.

Until then, the main thing you've gotta do is avoid the things that set you off the worst.

Good luck!

 

I can't just stop using Tumblr, that'd really require me to uh, change my life habits I guess? Blogging about things is sort of the main thing I do these days.

I've survived so far, like... I'm not going to say that there haven't been a few close calls, but... well, what I'm saying is I'll probably be fine, if a little uncomfortable some of the time. I think that this particular issue at least is something I'm starting to get over.

I don't know I'll see how things go I guess.

I still sometimes worry that the issues I have might not be severe or persistent enough to actually be truly pathological, although I suppose if that were the case it'd actually be a good thing (if kinda invalidating idk)

Spoiler

It's super fucked up but a lot of the time I wish my mental issues were actually more severe, so that I would have confirmation that it's actually something wrong rather than just my psyche being weird, and that other people would actually notice for once. Also if I knew that I definitely had a disorder of some variety then it'd help temper the extent to which these things can at times loom over me because I could always just say "ah yes it seems like this is a really big deal but you know that you have obsessions like this so it probably isn't actually" as opposed to wondering if this is just my normal conscious informing me that I'm an awful person

 

@spoiler: Again, are you me? Because wow it's like we're mental illness twins or something. :O

I'm glad to hear it sounds like you're at least starting to adjust. I keep thinking I'm getting over it myself and then I run into some anti people on tumblr and the anxiety pangs start all over again: you know they've got this whole clique thing going on? Where they get together and celebrate how they bully people over ships. It's fucking terrifying!

I feel like for me at least, repeated exposure in a controlled environment might be best, because I seem to remember feeling this way about some other stuff in the past (complete with anxiety attacks and all), and now when I encounter those things it just rolls off my back. It might be a long way away, though, because this was like, eight years ago. >_>

 

High five for mental illness twins!

It's definitely true that I used to have obsessions about things when I was younger (as I said on the OP I think), about more menial shit, mostly about illness. I kind of got used to that though to the extent when it didn't really bother me as much any more. This new moral-focussed stuff came in a few years ago and suddenly I had to learn how to deal all over again, but I'm hoping the parallels mean that a similar sort of thing will happen where eventually I won't be so phased.

 

Going around in circles again... still doing better but seeing all these people getting accusations of paedophilia fucks me up. Last night I had what was essentially a nightmare about being attracted to somebody who was only in their mid teens. That was it, that was the nightmare; there was somebody in their mid-teens and in the dream I was attracted to them. What the fuck kinda nightmare is that... I need to stop thinking about this stuff.

 

Mid-teens, like...16-ish? I.e. legally able to consent to sex in England?

Your nightmare is chatting shit, and it's US-centric shit. Glad you're doing better though.

 

Specifically 15

The dream was, a friend of my sister's came over who was 15, and I found them attractive, and felt shit about it until I woke up

 

Spoke too soon earlier, now I feel like shit again. What if I'm a paedophile? I am trapped in reality

E: I feel like I should explain more but I'm literally too tired to do that

 

15 is not pedophilia. To be pedo the subject of your interest must be pre-puberty. Finding post-puberty teens sexually attractive is not only not pedo, it's normal.
It's only bad if you act on it.

 

Your dream doesn't reflect what you want, it's trying to work through what you're worried about (which is why you were uncomfortable!). When I was younger I dreamt often of being pregnant, and that's something I've never wanted to be in the waking world, even now in my mid 20s.

Brains are super weird machines, and even if you were momentarily attracted to someone too young, making the adult decision to do nothing about it is what makes someone good. There are plenty of monsters out there who don't feel attraction to minors but abuse them or manipulate them anyway.

 

Yeah, dreams are definitely not a reflection of your ~true desires~. I'm often still a girl in my dreams, for pity's sake - not even an adult woman, but a teenaged girl, and I'm a nearly middle aged nonbinary transmasculine dude!