If Your Politics Obsess Over Control, You're Not Well
An honest breakdown of how fear masquerades as morality in right-wing ideology — and how healing begins with courage, not control.
🧠 If Your Politics Obsess Over Control, You’re Not Well
Originally published April 1, 2025 – Updated July 2, 2025
“You are not fighting evil. You are losing to your own sickness.”
— Me, watching the news again
🚨 Control is Not a Value—It’s a Symptom
If your political framework focuses obsessively on controlling people’s bodies, identities, choices, or behaviors, we’re not talking about a philosophy anymore. We’re talking about trauma—and your inability to manage it.
You call it “traditional values.” I call it unchecked fear wearing a badge.
These obsessions—about gender, sexuality, reproductive rights, what kids are allowed to read, who can love whom—are not policy positions. They are control compulsions masquerading as ideology. This isn’t about roads, clean water, stable power grids, or healthcare. This is about sex, fear, punishment, and projection.
Let’s stop pretending otherwise.
🪞 A Vignette: Behind the Curtain of Control
Last year, I had a long conversation with a former coworker, “Mike” (not his real name). He was deep in conservative politics. Anti-trans. Anti-choice. Pro-punishment everything. But in that conversation, something cracked.
He told me, “I don’t even know why I care so much about what other people do. I just get…angry. Like the world is spinning too fast and I can’t hold on.”
There it was.
His rage wasn’t ideological—it was existential. It came from losing control over his own life, over decades of repression, isolation, and fear. And instead of healing, he turned that fear outward. Politics was just the vehicle.
🧾 Control vs Health — Not the Same Thing
Before we go deeper, here’s a breakdown of the difference:
| Obsession with Control | Signs of Mental/Emotional Health |
|---|---|
| Polices bodies & choices | Supports autonomy & informed choice |
| Demonizes complexity | Accepts nuance and contradiction |
| Frames freedom as threat | Frames freedom as growth |
| Seeks purity or “order” | Seeks compassion and reality-checks |
| Projects inner fear outward | Takes personal responsibility inward |
| Shames, isolates, punishes | Includes, embraces, restores |
| Lives in black-and-white | Lives in full-spectrum color |
⚠️ The Real Root is Fear
“Fear is the mind-killer.”
— Dune, and every damn trauma therapist ever
Most control-centered ideologies come from a root of fear. Fear of difference. Fear of change. Fear of one’s own impulses. Fear of being wrong. Of losing the story that gives you meaning.
But here’s the problem with fear: it always seeks shortcuts. It wants certainty. It wants simplicity. It wants order, even if it means crushing people.
And the more someone lacks internal security, the more external control they try to impose.
🚫 Your “Conviction” Might Be a Trauma Disorder
Let’s be real. You’re not protecting kids. You’re not defending freedom. You’re not upholding faith or tradition.
You’re managing a panic attack. You’re rewriting your shame into someone else’s sin. You’re externalizing your terror by trying to micromanage society into a mirror of your denial.
You’ve turned your unresolved inner wounds into external war.
And the tragedy? You could have healed instead.
✋ What Healing Actually Looks Like (It’s Not Flashy)
Here’s the real radical path:
- Therapy
- Journaling
- Learning to say, “I was wrong”
- Feeling your body
- Letting go of inherited beliefs
- Losing arguments with grace
- Apologizing without qualifiers
- Letting people live
- Not needing to be right all the time
- Admitting you’re scared—and facing that
It’s boring. It’s uncomfortable. It’s not going to get applause or retweets. But it might actually change something: you.
🧭 Where We Go From Here
This isn’t a call to arms. It’s a call to reflection. Ask yourself:
- What would I be left with if I stopped fighting for control?
- Who would I become if I no longer needed to dominate others?
- What part of me is still afraid of living in a diverse, dynamic, unpredictable world?
If your politics only feel stable when someone else is suffering, then you don’t believe in politics—you believe in punishment.
And if that’s what you call freedom… you’re not well.