Let's Do This Mental Health Language Thing Then

[Friday]

Not sure if you have read my diary, but that is where I talk about my trauma. On the board I ask questions to help me deal with the aftermath that my children are going through in order to better understand
1. What will be helpful for them in this moment
2. How to hold onto my mental health while this is happening
3. Holding onto my mental health so that I can be there if they start to get what is going on and have questions

@shimmerz

Maaaaaaybe that's what I've been noticing? When you're actually posting as a supporter, not a sufferer, so you're talking about things you haven't lived & trying to relate them to things you have lived?

What confuses me there, though, is why you'd be so determined that all the people who *have* lived those situations you're trying to learn about are wrong about their own trauma & it's effects? Aka all the bringing everything (Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, Cults, Imprisonment, etc.) back to Child Abuse, Developmental Trauma, & DV?

It makes sense that you're trying to see these things through a familiar lens & relate back towards them...Where it doesn't make sense is where you sort of assume them, or subsume them, & take them on as your own. No matter how many people who have lived them, or have lived both, are trying to explain the differences between them?

 

[Gs172003]

I can't keep up with who's a sufferer and who's a supporter. Can we put that by the names please? :)

 

[shimmerz]

Maaaaaaybe that's what I've been noticing? When you're actually posting as a supporter, not a sufferer, so you're talking about things you haven't lived & trying to relate them to things you have lived?

I am in the unique position of being a sufferer and supporter through these experiences I am posting about. Which is most likely very difficult to understand if one hasn't been in this position. In fact, I have actually lived through these experiences, except I noticed the indoctrination, the abuse, the crazy f*cking shit that was happening to both myself and my children. So in that way, I am actually a sufferer.

I ripped myself and my children away from the their father when I was 29. 3 kids under the age of 8 who were forced to go back to their father all.by.themselves every other weekend. My youngest child screaming and clinging to me for years because he didn't want to go. Because he was brutalized every single weekend. And there was nothing I could do about it. Call CAS? His father tells them to f*ck off and they do. Then he makes it worse for the youngest. This whole thing has been traumatizing. To all of us.

is why you'd be so determined that all the people who *have* lived those situations you're trying to learn about are wrong about their own trauma & it's effects? Aka all the bringing everything (Stockholm Syndrome, Torture, Cults, etc.) back to Child Abuse, Developmental Trauma, & DV?

I am not certain I am bringing it back to Child Abuse, Developmental Trauma, and DV. Not for everyone.

My intention is to ask others experiences.... whether it fits for them. Whether it resonates with them. Whether it doesn't. Are there terms I don't know about that I should? I think you are being too general in what you are saying here. I am not attempting to talk anybody into anything, nor put words into other people's mouths. What I am attempting to do however, is to gather information from the most beautiful, smart, dysfunctional people I know and try to use my apparently limited intellect to put together a plan where I can still support my children/grandchildren AND keep my sanity.

Where it doesn't make sense is where you sort of assume them, or subsume them, & take them on as your own.

Mind being a bit more specific about this?

If we take the Family Cult thread for instance. Have you noticed that many people can relate to that thread? To that concept? In all honesty, if one can't relate then I say that is great! Disagree. Or leave it alone. Or state your case as to why it isn't a cult. But please don't tell me that I have no business bringing it up.

Oh, ETA: I am not actually a supporter at all. As my children have no idea that there is anything even wrong. So in reality I am supporting me through this - not them. But for the most part I am a sufferer. No question about it. And I would like that to change. Soon.

 

[shimmerz]

I can't keep up with who's a sufferer and who's a supporter. Can we put that by the names please?

Shimmerz - Sufferer
Shimmerz - wannabe supporter

Hope that helps @Zoogal!

 

[Gs172003]

Shimmerz - Sufferer
Shimmerz - wannabe supporter

Hope that helps @Zoogal![/QUOTE...

Haha thanks!

 

[joeylittle]

I had no option to ignore their postings. I think that makes the ground a little unleveled. So what I need to do instead, because there is no 'person' involved, is have their comments in my face.

Oh, I should have not used that word. I did not mean ignore in the forum-feature sense, I meant ignore in the skim it and forget it sense. Whether or not they are anonymous can add to the personal frustration, I suppose - but I don't think it has to change anything about how one responds.

edit to add:

Has anon been asked to ignore my comments? Ignore my posts? Or is this just about me? And if so, why is that?

The first anonymous poster was thread-banned and censured.

 

[Suzetig]

Or state your case as to why it isn't a cult. But please don't tell me that I have no business bringing it up.

I think you (generally, not you specifically) can bring up whatever you like and I expect that in a membership the size of ours with the diversity of ours you'll always find people who can relate to you - which is one of the things I love about this community.

I guess though you talking about your subjective experience of something (e.g. family being like a cult) doesn't mean objectively it is a cult. Some people will respond to your subjective experience and relate to that or not, others will think objectively about the characteristics of a cult, or their subjective experience of a recognised cult and want to challenge your perception. That's where, for me, metaphor and language become important because Y experience being like your idea of what X would feel like doesn't make it so.

For example, I have direct experience of childhood physical abuse and domestic violence. Someone saying that they know how it was for me because of they got a big telling off from their parents is likely to get a "but it wasn't" response. Because no one can really get the terror of knowing that your parent might most likely kill you until you've lived that experience. I can accept how unpleasant and can empathise with their feelings, but their experience wasn't like mine no matter how hard they try to convince me it was.

The same with attachment disorder, narcissist personality disorder - things that have a complex assessment and diagnosis process. You may see similar characteristics and traits and really think it fits but if you're not qualified to diagnose, and you haven't undertaken a full assessment you're guessing at what might be happening - and you might be wrong because we all bring our bias and lived experience to such things. Those kind of labels matter because they can come to define a person, can undermine relationships and cause ill health.

 

[Gs172003]

I think you (generally, not you specifically) can bring up whatever you like and I expect that in a mem...

For me when I see titles like "in a cult" etc I assume that that is exactly what they mean. I havent been on here that long and don't know alot of histories so I just go by what is said. I don't have time to go back and read what each individual has been through. All I can do is gleen from the daily postings.

 

[scout86]

Something I realized (finally?) this morning was that even a word as simple as 'like' can have different meanings to different people, in the same conversation.

When I use it, pretty much 100% of the time, I mean that I see similarities. (In the context that we've been talking about. "A is like B", as opposed to "I have a positive reaction to A") But, there are other people who use the word, in a sentence that sounds the same, to mean that A is identical to B. I hadn't really thought about it that way. If I mean to indicate that 2 things seem to be identical, that's what I'd say. But, the language being what it is, I can see where either usage might be correct. Although the 2 thoughts are so different that it's horribly confusing unless you explore it further.

@Friday , back on the last page you mentioned @shimmerz indicating that people who've lived things she hasn't are 'wrong' about their own trauma. (Not that they actually ARE wrong, but that shimmerz seems to think that? be saying that? something?) I haven't gotten that vibe. But I HAVE had people tell me that I've told them they are wrong about something when that wasn't my intent and I have no idea what led them to think it was. It's been a source of frustration. I've tried to get answers/explanations and it consistently just makes things worse. When I read what you wrote there, it got me to wondering if this is some other, fairly simple once you see it, difference, either in word usage or communication styles, or something. So, I'd really appreciate it if you'd expand on that a little. I DO know that shimmerz kind of has a 'thing' about being understood and will sometimes carry a discussion 'above and beyond' because it seems, to her, in the moment, like being understood is a matter of life and death. Maybe that's a factor sometimes. (It's not something I do, BTW. I assumed years ago that no one's going to understand me and being understood won't change anything, so I'm pleasantly surprised if someone actually seems to get what I mean. LOL)

 

[Ronin]

But please don't tell me that I have no business bringing it up.

You see, but this assumption most commonly isn't, from where I'm standing at least, what's happening.

Saying 'these things aren't alike' is clarifying. It's from having lived the thing. It's from seeing the overlaps you're trying to get at - and also seeing how the areas discussed are Completely Darned Different. It's not saying 'you have no rights to talk'. It's saying 'Please consider how you talk about this, or if you're the most informed person to talk about this, when there are people who lived the exact thing'.

For whom it isn't a point of similarity; for whom it's a point of having lived several traumas - that may be even conflicting - that may be *dueling in their type and intensity*, trying to make sense of all of it. It's a very special type of hell having traumas that intersect in the damned painful areas cascading each other off and making each other *worse*.

Quite often what stops that trainwreck is recognizing where the hell the tracks crossed. Exactly. What happened with that train where and when. Talking about how that's similar as any other train wreck one's seen in their life? Is not gonna be exactly helpful in getting them back to regular transport.

It's all well to open a topic. But there's also a thing like opening a topic and letting other people talk it through, being simply a topic starter and giving others space for what needs be said.

Both are equally valuable; one *isn't* a bad person with no worth in the dialogue just because they are not *actively* dialoguing, themselves. Faciliating is darned needed. A few very informed comments are damned needed. Sitting back and listening to others on the issue is also damned needed.

 

[Friday]

Disagree. Or leave it alone. Or state your case as to why it isn't a cult. But please don't tell me that I have no business bringing it up.

Just to be really clear, I've never said that. At least not in this thread. I'm not generally shy about telling people to STFU ;), but I'll also usually try and explain a thing when I think someone is trying to figure something out. And that's one thing that's also really consistent about you, is that in every thread/post I've ever read by you, you're honestly attempting to understand things (or I wouldn't still be talking to you, I have a very finite level for dealing with stupid, and you aren't stupid). It's just in certain subjects that there seems to be this wall. The insistence that 2 things which are not the same are the same. Shrug. I've told you what I've noticed, as you asked, which is that in most cases if you bring a specific trauma to the table, you aren't trying to figure that trauma out, but trying to relate it to a different trauma >>> Which generally causes a lot of friction from people with that specific trauma >>> & then arguments about language. It's gotten to be almost formulaic? Hence, I thought, THIS thread... Where -at least it seems to me- you're trying to figure out why people do that? Why do so many of certain kinds of threads devolve into arguments about language (where people who've had the trauma are arguing with people who haven't; and dead on IMO, it's a question of language 9:10).

 

[Friday]

I was going to PM this bit, as I don't want to pull this thread off topic talking about specifics, (because my specifics don't matter, a lot of people have lived both kinds of trauma being talked about, whenever there are 2 or more traumas on the table) but for some reason my convos don't seem to be working ATM. So just for general edification :p

I am in the unique position of being a sufferer and supporter through these experiences I am posting about. Which is most likely very difficult to understand if one hasn't been in this position. In fact, I have actually lived through these experiences, except I noticed the indoctrination, the abuse, the crazy f*cking shit that was happening to both myself and my children. So in that way, I am actually a sufferer.

I ripped myself and my children away from the their father when I was 29. 3 kids under the age of 8 who were forced to go back to their father all.by.themselves every other weekend. My youngest child screaming and clinging to me for years because he didn't want to go. Because he was brutalized every single weekend. And there was nothing I could do about it. Call CAS? His father tells them to f*ck off and they do. Then he makes it worse for the youngest. This whole thing has been traumatizing. To all of us

Not sure if you know, or not, that ^^^ is my & my son's ongoing life? Has been for the past 5 years, will be for several more. Except it's 50/50 custody. And there is very easily something I can do about it, or could have done about it, and choose not to. And, yes, it's all a very special kind of hell.