Phosphor [&]

(and yeah, a big part of the reason I loathe Internet Discourse is because it not only worsens matters for folks who already had OCD, but unapologetically poisons new people with it - especially people who are vulnerable and already dealing with shit!

and OCD is a hell that I don't wish on anyone. it neither makes the world better nor makes you a better person. in fact, it often does the opposite! it's just toxic brain sludge. it's Just Misery)

(and I'm also wholly uninterested in splitting hairs about whether the kind of obsessive scrupulosity that Internet Discourse infects people with is "real" OCD or whether it's some kind of highly-similar-but-conceptually-different brainbug. not only is that exactly the kind of unhelpful nitpicking that we need to get away from to begin with, it's well-established that mental illness is not purely genetic. as any trauma survivor knows! if overexposure to worldsuck can poison people with anxiety and depression, then I don't see why overexposure to Internet Discourse can't poison people with OCD.

as far as I'm concerned, if it looks like OCD, harms like OCD, and responds to strategies meant for managing OCD, then I'll call it OCD)

there was a post going around about how online slapfight discourse poisoning is basically a contagious form of OCD, and as a "diagnosed and medicated because it literally causes me to inflict physical injury upon myself otherwise" OCD-haver, I not only 100% agree but want to point out that, accordingly, much of the strategies involved in managing OCD also work for managing discourse poisoning.

I need to eat and then run to the store and then work but I really want to write up a how-to on this at some point

in the meantime I strongly recommend these two articles for reading:

• The Many Obsessions That Can Haunt a Person with OCD: to dispel the notion that OCD is just about counting and other external compulsions. the root of it is in the obsessions. the section on scrupulosity is probably the most topical to discourse poisoning
• A Cure for Plural Piss-fight Poisoning: this is about the kinds of slapfight poisoning specific to the plural community, but a lot of it is applicable elsewhere and I can personally vouch for this advice being very effective

Edit: Also adding this comic about OCD to the pile. because twitter is shit, here's the individual posts: [1] [2] [3]

apparently I keep meeting folks who are like "OH SHIT THERE'S A WORD FOR IT??" re: scrupulosity and other flavors of less-visible OCD, so here's an article about it that I really liked! be warned that it covers some taboo topics and gets pretty intense at points

to this day I still cry actual tears at "every ritual resisted is an act of faith"