i have pretty severe obsessions surrounding being “ethical” and being terrified to do anything someone might see as bad or wrong. i usually have a pretty okay handle on it overall but i do often indulge in compulsions involving searching twitter accounts of both people i do and don’t know personally to see what they personally view as ethical/wrong/etc, and i recently went on the page of a friend that i haven’t really spoken to in around a year and a half who basically said if you like true crime you’re a terrible person with no empathy for the people involved and who blindly support official narratives despite high rates of corruption/lying/etc. i am someone who watches some true crime, i used to do so a lot more but lowered my viewing due to a lot of the reasons my friend referenced, but obviously i don’t agree that liking it in any capacity makes you a bad person. normally this is something i could shake off with some time and space, but the fact that it’s someone j used to be very close to is making it stick more, as the idea that she would think i’m an awful person (despite us watching things like buzzfeed unsolved which has true crime aspects together before) stresses me out, even though we have had previous ethical disagreements (one being the last conversation we really had) though this was before my obsession honed in on this topic. i just don’t really know how to feel about it because on the one hand i do agree that a lot of true crime can be very unethical and terrible, but i don’t think the entire concept and everyone who listens to it can be painted with that broad of a brush, but my brain and past close relationship is making me think i’m wrong and just justifying this to myself and maybe i really am an awful person

Input please. Whenever I have a thought or come across something like news about pedophilia or other awful things, I feel like I try to make it okay in my head. Like I am trying to explain it away, excuse it. And when I look at that from a more compassionate lens, I think maybe I am just trying to process something bad. Maybe I am trying to make something horrific feel a little less horrifying so I can keep existing in a world where it happens. Because the truth is, whenever I hear about something terrible, it does not just go away. I do not have that ability to shove it aside and move on. I have to live with it. I carry it. I live my life alongside these awful things that exist. But then, when I look at it through a different lens, it gets darker. Maybe I am not trying to process something bad. Maybe I am actually trying to justify it. Maybe I am trying to convince myself it is not that bad… because deep down I agree with the people who do it. Or maybe I am afraid that if it were not so stigmatized, I would somehow be okay with it. And that thought worries me. I know that why someone holds moral values is not as important as the fact that they do. I know that what matters is your actions and your commitment to being a good person. It still scares me. I keep asking myself: am I trying to justify something awful just so I can mentally survive it, or am I trying to justify something awful because some part of me agrees with it?

I try my best not to ask for reassurance, I really do. One thing has been bothering me a lot for a few hours now: A (former?) good friend of mine and I are meeting up next Thursday to talk about the situation our friendship is currently in (since I write a lot anyway and like to digress, I'll spare you the details for now). But to cut a long story short: it’s tense. Now, I've been "stalking" her on social media relatively often since the whole thing started, actually almost daily and on all socials. What really bothers me is the thought of whether I'm really stalking her at this point or not. I know that the term now has a pretty distorted meaning, especially on social media, but at its core, stalking is not only punishable by law, it's also morally wrong and indicates disturbed behavior. I noticed earlier that she somehow blocked me on Twitter/X. I have a very random user name there that she doesn’t know and I was also firmly convinced that you can't see when people visit your profile. It's stressing me out in two ways right now. On the one hand, I'm actually afraid that my behavior can now really be described as "stalking", and on the other hand, I'm confused and unsure about how she could even notice me on Twitter. Apart from social media activity, there were 2 "real" situations about 2 months ago in which I felt, in retrospect, that I had crossed a line. I "tracked" or checked (actually legally) the online activity on Whatsapp (EU) of her and a second person to see if they were online at the same time and therefore possibly writing together and she was lying to me. She knows about this since I told her. The second time was in person, when I went for a walk with another friend in the park behind my school and then saw said friend sitting there after she said (at school) that she was going home. I immediately panicked because I thought she was lying to me again, which is why I went up to her and pretended that I had just happened to pass her with the other friend. I didn't actively follow or spy on her on purpose in any way, however, up until a few weeks ago I did actually have the urge to do so. I'm quite aware of the legal boundaries and would never cross a line there, but I'm more concerned about the morality. I know that it probably sounds a lot like reassurance-seeking up to this point, but I don't really want to hear from others whether what I'm doing is directly considered stalking or not, because I'm going to have this heavy feeling either way. Instead, I would like to know what advice you would give me in this situation, either because you have actually been stalked yourself or simply because you have advice from a more distanced perspective than mine. I want to add that although I was officially diagnosed with OCD that I am sadly not in professional treatment yet and that I have been wondering for years now if I may fit the diagnostic criteria for BPD as I believe to have a lot of common “quiet BPD” symptoms, the friend mentioned being my FP.

I feel nauseous. Extremely sick, i cannot eat, cant sleep well, and I haven't enjoyed things I normally enjoy to cry in bed and spiral for several days already. I feel extremely anxious over my past real events. I remembered something extremely triggering. I used to be morbidly curious about crimes and like I remember when i was a younger teen I watched a dark documentary that honestly i shouldnt have watched. There was this extremely weird scene and i think i felt weirded out but also a little aroused? but only bc I was thinking "lucky, shes already having sex. I wish I was her so i could experience it too." The poor person was like 1-3 years younger than me at the time. I KNOW how wrong that is now i legit feel like im going to throw up rn. Anyway I think I felt a little aroused??? And I think I touched myself a little bit and imagined myself in her place? I dont think I enjoyed it bc i remember it felt forced and weird and i stopped. I never did it again. I feel so sick! I would NEVER watch a documentary like that now as an adult and think or touch myself to it thats just so wrong but im scared that this is a sign im a sicko/p. I remmeber crying at the end of the documentary bc I felt disturbed by the contents but i still put some in my watch later out of morbid curiosity to see more real cases of these crimes bc they scared me. I never watched them again though. It only happened once and it was before my ocd started which SCARES me even more!!! And i wouldnt watch them as an adult either theyre too disturbing! I regret it so badly and feel like a monster bc it was messed up. Like what was wrong with me?! Theyre extremely disturbing to me and I rather avoid such content bc its triggering to my ocd but im afraid now like was that a sign of me possibly being a p? Am I a monster??? Am I in denial? Is this even ocd?! I feel so much shame and guilt it's killing me. 😔