ALT Anonymous asked: “may i ask for an analysis on why you think reed has moral ocd if thats ok? I know in technical aspects, he wasn't written with a disorder but his inner monologues are, like, scarily accurate to the symptoms. Really, it's hard to name one thing reed isn't having.” Does Reed have (Moral) OCD? First of all, I am not a psychologist or an expert in OCD in any way. My research and information for this post comes from a few websites I’ve read + behavior I’ve witnessed from other people (like friends) who have (varying subtypes of) OCD. Some friends suspect I may have it too, so some of the info here is from personal experience, but I won’t explicitly claim that I for sure have it. The disorder is very diverse and not every person with it will exhibit symptoms the same way. For future reference, important terms to remember for OCD are obsessions and compulsions.

ALT Obsessions are the distressing, unwanted, intrusive thoughts, while compulsions are the actions, opposing thoughts, or “rituals” done to relieve the anxiety of these thoughts. Some of my sources (others are directly linked within text) (treatmyocd.com , kidshealth.org , NOCD , sheppard pratt.)

ALT Second, since tumblr has an image limit of only ~10 pics (on mobile at least…) I had to edit my evidence together and purposefully exclude some pieces of text from the novel that would support my analysis. I think I have enough evidence anyway lol … all pictures of text are taken in order of when they are shown in the book, so the first image is from earlier in the book, and vice versa. Pic 1 (left side):

ALT Why not? He'd get in trouble was why not. Julius would tell the teachers what Reed did. But all Reed would have to do was deny it. If he made sure Julius was unlocked by morning, why would anyone suspect Reed of anything? Everyone knew he was pretty much a wuss. No one would believe he'd had the courage to do this. "In the dark ages,"" Shelly said, "harsh torture was commonly used to punish those who broke the law.'" Reed flinched. "What?" He turned to stare at Shelly. As always, she sat in the seat behind Pickle and Reed. Her massive backpack and extra book bag took up the rest of the seat. Did she know what he'd done?