Media Induced Ignorance

It could almost be classed as mental illness on it's own. Media Induced Ignorance Disorder. In fact let's refer to it as MIID from now on. It is classified as the impulse to blindly follow and believe everything the media tells you. Symptoms include speaking in long rants about injustice while creating it.

Now, I'll explain where that came from. I was scrolling through my news feed on Facebook yesterday. It had taken me till today to calm down about it enough to write about it. Someone on my Facebook; a girl I used to share a class with, was ranting and raving about "benefits scum". A term coined by the media in the first place. This uninformed idiot was ranting on and on (and her friends were joining in too) about how she worked hard for her money but when she asked for Working Tax Credit she was only offered £11, while "benefits scum" where being handed more money for sitting on their arse's than she earned. Apparently this owes her the moral highground. Now I give her if what she said were true she would hold a highground for it. A high ground she would quickly lose for being a raging bitch about it.

However, everything she is saying is in no way true. She is adding to the prejudice spewed out by the media. That the occasional person who does carry out benefit fraud means that everyone else must be to. In her world I must be lying about being too ill to work. I am just sitting on my arse, at home, soaking up money that she would like to add to her own coffers in addition to the money she earns as a hairdresser. Surely, it is worse to earn money and go along to try and wheadle more out of your government than it is to ask for help when you are unable to work? But of course, everyone is able to work and we are deliberately ill. People on jobseekers just want to not work. She doesn't seem to realise how little the amount given to people on benefits is. My mother works but doesn't earn enough so she is given help with the rent from the government. But it still isn't enough. I give her what I can of my benefits and that still isn't enough. My grandparents have to subsidise everything from their pensions.

Are we unworthy of government help? Because what my mum and I recieve still isn't enough to live off. In thoery my £100 a week is supposed to cover all the household bills, food, clothes, transport to my medical care. Now I only contribute to the household bills but if I lived alone I would be thousands in debt. We are in debt enough as it is.

I had to restrain myself from saying this to her on Facebook. It never fails to amaze me how ignorant the world is. MIID! It's an epidemic. I still want to scream at her. That anything, whether it be illness or just a lack of jobs in the current economic climate, would automatically mean that you are "benefits scum" sickens me.

OCD No-go

Well I just made an error. A big massive mistake. I should know better. Everyone with OCD should know better. It's practically core to keeping OCD calm without proper treatment.

Avoid areas that may contain triggers. It's like rule 1. I wasn't even doing anything unusual. I read a lot of news and articles online. Since I can't go out very much, I should at least be informed about the world.  Mostly this is fine. Ocassionally you see a headline about cancer but mostly there's nothing scary. Ocassionally you get pulled in to the wrong story by it's intriguing and inoffensive title, only to find it's a trigger once you start to read what the story is actually about. These events are rare so I don't think about them or try to avoid them.

What I do actively avoid is the health page. VERY ocassionally I skin it for mental health articles. But tonight I ran out of things to read and skimmed other sections out of boredom. I told myself not to click on health. I knew it wouldn't end well. It rarely does. But I did it anyway. I read through the top articles and clicked on one about oral health. BIG mistake. Unforgivable really. It was all about how they have found new links to throat and mouth cancer. I should have stopped there. I could eaily have turned back with just a small spike in anxiety and been fine in no time. But no, I read on. I read about how apparently people who regularly use mouthwash were found to be more likely to develop cancer. I mean great. I started using mouthwash about a month ago because I freaked out that my teeth were going to fall out. Now I can't use it because I'm freaking out it'll give me cancer.

I mean it's just ridiculous. I could have been blissfully ignorant. I wouldn't be worrying about either cancer or my teeth falling out. Now I'm worrying about both. Haven't I got anough other worries without this? And really it's all my own fault. I know not to look. But still, I did, and now I'm stuck with this. Because Not only does the article not specify what about mouthwash causes the risk, it also doesn't say how much it raises the risk. If the increased risk is tiny, I might not be able to use more but I would be able to stop worrying that I've caused myself irreversible damage.