if you have scrupulosity:
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 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.
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.
Sorry for the dash stretcher, but there’s a lot of people on tumblr who I think could use this. this is every bit of advice I can give, and I hope it helps.
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