Dunno what you're saying, dude. — unenlightened

I'm saying that people aren't as malleable as any frustrated psychologist might know.

How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Is it still a joke if it makes you sad?

I'm still laughing. You can't expect much sympathy for having to have things your own way.

Part of me wants to say that psychology is anti-rational. I mean, if a person was exposed to trauma, abuse, and neglect, and form a resulting aversion towards risk with dealing with people, then what's wrong with that? — Wallows

If you evolve in an adverse environment, then you may be ill equipped to survive once you leave it. While your paranoia might make you particularly well equipped to survive abuse, it's going to limit you once you're freed of the abuse.

There's a native American tribe in the southwest US that is known to be the most obese and diabetic population on the planet. They evolved in the desert, deprived of a predictable source of food. Their bodies became super-efficient at storing energy, but they now live in a land of plenty, so they just keep getting fatter and fatter.

If you evolve in an adverse environment, then you may be ill equipped to survive once you leave it. — Hanover

That's actually quite paradoxical. If your aware of social Darwinism along with conservative sentiment that statement doesn't contrive with those doctrines.

That's actually quite paradoxical. If your aware of social Darwinism along with conservative sentiment that statement doesn't contrive with those doctrines. — Wallows

It's a false dichotomy to require that I either accept we are either (1) entirely products of our environment and genetics or (2) entirely products of our choices. The conservative position is no more #2 than is the liberal position is #1. To accept #1 is to deny free will of any sort. To accept #2 is to pretend I could fly if I just chose to.

My position is that our environment and our genetics shape us, offer us all sorts of benefits and challenges, and define us is some real ways. I don't discount though the power of the will, whatever it is, that propels some of the the struggling to greatness and some with so many privileges to failure. Good choices and bad choices matter, including refusing to take the steps needed to move you out of your misery.

I suppose I'm lucky I can eat a hamburger and not gain the weight that some Native Americans do, but it's not a foregone conclusion that I won't get fat and some of the Native Americans I spoke of won't be thin. Choices matter.

I was thinking more about Das Man, or the notion that there's a one-size-fits-all sanity. I don't think you should continue shaming people with a re-engineered purpose. That wouldn't make much sense. — frank

You're right.

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2019/when-schools-cause-trauma?fbclid=IwAR37PLdKqCJJhibcdln9OpSI1tGpoZ2X8OvdZGOk7Pphmnk1AdPv1woWUVE

Just wanted to re-establish my bleeding heart credentials a bit, and this was handy...

I have had a very dreamy childhood which became more strange in my adulthood.

In my spare time I acquired a lot of knowledge - through a combination of observation and the man-made help.

At 16 I began to have a permanent hallucination that is still present at 27, and had great interest in imagery.

I would stimulate my mind with imagery I found using man-made help.

The hallucination reacted after long periods of imagery reading - it would have epic events; it had a four major events, and during the time inbetween there were thousands of minor events plus all standard observation.

The hallucination is like a machine of lines and currents that grows, learns and broadcasts imagery as well as dream enhancement(I probably know the most about dreaming).

It is like an interactive shell that feeds from waste energy and is hyper during sleeps healing energy; I have learned a lot studying it's presence over 11 years.

If anyone is still following, here is some more stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/02/stephen-porges-interview-survivors-are-blamed-polyvagal-theory-fight-flight-psychiatry-ace?fbclid=IwAR0Bi30N_ykulk2XHaG6X5JvoeLZK7NZjDzMfu9mbDLy_KmI74-tvZDg3Lg

That's a good interview. I heard about the polyvagal theory somewhere else, recently, but only saw the headline and a precis. Reading the article, the theory makes sense to me.

I want to insert a little of my personal experience, with a very big caveat that the article is talking largely about sexual assault and I'm talking about something self-inflicted, and, I imagine, much less traumatic.

I used to be a big marijuana smoker, 14-20. At 16, I had a very bad shroom trip (ego-death, violent imagery, certainty about being in hell etc).

I really liked weed before that. It was like being in a cozy, intimate room with friends. My experience of smoking with people then was: the space changed, people were more themselves, their real selves, and it was easy to communicate and share. It was really fun, and funny. I treasure those moments a lot.

After the trip, I still had a little of that. But it was like the weed 'space' had in it a kind of whirlpool at the center. I was always kind of aware of it, in the way you're aware of something in your peripheral vision. I was feeling the waves or ripple-effects of the center all the time. Sometimes, it would draw me close to it, and I've have to go to bed.

As I got older, it got more intense. I've stopped now, because three or four times something like this would happen: I'd be very relaxed, settling into the 'intimate space' and suddenly one element would seem 'off'. This could be a character in a movie we were watching, or someone's gesture, or whatever you like. Suddenly, I would be fixated on this thing with a growing sense of...something. Then I would start to have flashes of random images (the time I most remember involved 1. a basement with exposed pipes 2. paper popsicle wrappers with melted popsicle juices. ) and these would flash back and forth, growing in intensity, until some feeling/image reached a distilled peak of [This cannot happen! If that were true, it would be too horrible!] and then I'd have to lay down. I'd be totally still and silent, immovable, and over me would continue slightly softer images and ideas, and there was always comfort in hearing people talk to each other about stuff, without hearing what they were saying, just the sound of voices talking to one another, that you can vaguely locate in the space you're in. Like parents relaxing or making preparations for a party , or something while you're very sick. These states would last for hours with me unable to talk, except in a kind of free-associative babbling, until I fell asleep. Then I'd talk to everyone in the morning (What happened man? you were really fucked up!)

Like I said, I don't want to equate this to the events the author was describing, but maybe it's drawing on some similar thing? I very much felt like I 'got' his description of 'freezing' while stuff happened around you.

Yeah, I can never overcome the pot-anxiety. It's like there, telling me that this isn't the best way to kill time.

pot-anxiety is real. I think we may have experienced it in different ways. Smoking with friends, for me, was the best way to kill time. If I could still access it, I believe I'd still feel that way. For me, it was like [whatever force] plunked down something that meant I couldn't go there anymore. When I was into mystical stuff, I got really hung up on the cherubim w/ flaming swords keeping everyone out of Eden.

I come in at 5 on the test. A great book that deals with this in relation to drug abuse is
https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-Opposite-Addiction-Connection/dp/1620408910
Chasing the Scream, which goes into the connection between drug abuse and childhood trauma and also the racist intentions of the original drug war and the failure so of the current conception of, treatment of and legal reaction to drug abuse. It also offers wonderful solutions to drug addiction. Luckily I never got addicted to any drug. Food, fantasy, to some degree sex I had issues with. The interesting thing is that I think my childhood experiences helped me to see society more clearly than most people and to have a healthy skepticism. But I was also lucky (and perhaps skilled) because I extended my social connections well and also adopted some mentors.

People who bought this book also bought a handy keyring bottle-opener. According to Amazon. :smile:

Here's something a bit peripheral ... https://humanparts.medium.com/the-danger-in-fake-positivity-and-spiritual-bypassing-c202040b8dd3?fbclid=IwAR3-R-geVAiM9-jahx94XAaZXPN4TgQtE4Vfnua8CcP-CWtdWzsglfmv9ms

Here's something a bit peripheral ... https://humanparts.medium.com/the-danger-in-fake-positivity-and-spiritual-bypassing-c202040b8dd3?fbclid=IwAR3-R-geVAiM9-jahx94XAaZXPN4TgQtE4Vfnua8CcP-CWtdWzsglfmv9ms — unenlightened

For me that's central. In today's anti-emotional climate, with psychotropics and can do smiles as the rule, not judging the so-called negative emotions is an option everyone should at least be aware of.

eople who bought this book also bought a handy keyring bottle-opener. According to Amazon. :smile: — unenlightened

ha! Any damaged person worth their salt oughta take a few moments and learn how to open a bottle with a lighter imo. A bottle, unopenable is its own trauma.

Here's something a bit peripheral ... https://humanparts.medium.com/the-danger-in-fake-positivity-and-spiritual-bypassing-c202040b8dd3?fbclid=IwAR3-R-geVAiM9-jahx94XAaZXPN4TgQtE4Vfnua8CcP-CWtdWzsglfmv9ms

Yes. And add to that fake negativity. You can distance yourself from your negative emotions with schopenhauer and Cioran just as well as you can with Norman Vincent Peale and Live, Love, Laugh

According to Pessoa,'the poet is a faker/ who's so good at his act/ he even fakes the pain/of pain he feels in fact.' Same with the self-psychoanalyst for that matter. The prettier and more conceptually coherent you've made your emotions, good or bad, the further you are from them, maybe?

Here's a talk. It's low key, conversational, and a quietly devastating criticism of much current practice in education, mental health, and science.

http://radiocafe.media/newmexican-perry/?fbclid=IwAR0n3v0-fZkjJqbsF83ln09r4TTKijvVwpBGPQjtxivEz3u4r91wLfwkVVI

Someone can score 5 but feel nothing about it, someone can score a 1 and have more tragic experiences than that, therefore this questionnaire is sometimes inaccurate.:
Someone can get a score of 2 and also experience something worse in their childhood like:

Living in a socially isolated, negatively influenced environment since childhood
Lasting chronic pain from childhood to adulthood,
Had no 'real friends' nor someone to empathize with
Lose faith in humanity at the age of 5
Get shouted, insulted every day for 2 years any etc...

Yeah, something like that.

wow. thank you so much for making this post. I have an ACE score of 5. When I learned about ACEs, it was like suddenly it clicked, and I understood why my life was so hard and messed up. The trajectory I was set on was a bad one, and this took a huge weight off my shoulders.

Here's something a bit peripheral ... https://humanparts.medium.com/the-danger-in-fake-positivity-and-spiritual-bypassing-c202040b8dd3?fbclid=IwAR3-R-geVAiM9-jahx94XAaZXPN4TgQtE4Vfnua8CcP-CWtdWzsglfmv9ms

This is something that drives me up the wall. most people feel pressured to pretend like everything's ok. but then nobody ever honestly says how they feel. it's all just sparkly veneer. drives me up the wall.

Hi there. There is a connection; folks that are in denial about their own trauma have to insist that everything's ok, and if everything ok, yet other people are suffering, then it must be their own fault somehow. This has become so widespread a psychological defence as to rule nations. Those that promote it are almost certainly in an even worse condition. So congratulations on holding onto your own experience despite the pain and the pressure. Hopefully, as the word spreads, a more humane treatment regime will follow, and eventually, less trauma.

I think a 4 for me. Kept swapping countries and going to different schools. Bullying for not knowing the language sometimes. Becoming very reclusive as a result. Not being able to get many friends (but a few good ones thankfully to keep my sanity). Also unhealthy obsession with video games at one point in my life.

The problem with these posts though I find is there is gonna be that guy that’s like. “Oh just a 2 for me, my parents left me in the wilderness after chopping my arm off and I had to work my way from there” which is only gonna promote this:

folks that are in denial about their own trauma have to insist that everything's ok, — unenlightened

Because if that guy’s ok then what are my problems to his? I have to be like a 0 or something.

Yeah, let's not make those comparisons, ACE is an indicator not a measure. I suspect that the more subtle and indirect the abuse, the worse it is - for instance, neglect is literally nothing, right? Isolation is nothing...

But what I meant there was more that there is a politics that holds that since we have declared it self evidently true that all men are equal, there is nothing else that needs to be done to sustain the reality, and if anyone finds themselves disadvantaged it must be a personal failing. Their lack of humanity, not ours. To hold such a view is to take a contemptuous position towards one's own weaknesses, and this is a divided, dissociated condition that projects the contempt on to others. The condition will obviously afflict most those who despite their trauma have material advantages but becomes persuasive also to any traumatised person ready to punish themselves... they wouldn't recognise themselves from this description, but the rest of us probably can.

One is everlastingly comparing oneself with another, with what one is, with what one should be, with someone who is more fortunate. This comparison really kills. Comparison is degrading, it perverts one's outlook. And on comparison one is brought up. All our education is based on it and so is our culture. So there is everlasting struggle to be something other than what one is. The understanding of what one is uncovers creativeness, but comparison breeds competitiveness, ruthlessness, ambition, which we think brings about progress. Progress has only led so far to more ruthless wars and misery than the world has ever known. To bring up children without comparison is true education. — J. Krishnamurti

It is hard to exaggerate how radical this idea is. No exams, no competitions - what on earth would we do all day?

I try my best to be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.
They say 'sing while you slave' and I just get bored,
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. — Bob Dylan

When children are truly free to walk away from school, then schools will have to become child-friendly places in order to survive. Children love to learn, but, like all of us, they hate to be coerced, micromanaged, and continuously judged. They love to learn in their own ways, not in ways that others force on them. Schools, like all institutions, will become moral institutions only when the people they serve are no longer inmates. When students are free to quit, schools will have to grant them other basic human rights, such as the right to have a voice in decisions that affect them, the right to free speech, the right to free assembly, and the right to choose their own paths to happiness.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201304/the-most-basic-freedom-is-freedom-quit?fbclid=IwAR3g1JEFem_0ICV5TrWPSwMPpZHZl7cYLESq2w0P-Kvl7a-HAVTnLZloTMw

Here's a simple principle to reduce trauma in schools and other institutions.

thank you, I appreciate your insight and your kind words. I agree, suppressing our own trauma requires us to project agency onto the suffering of another, that is to say, it is somehow, their fault.