wyrd_dragon
Not Active
For everyone here - I think thi smight help some understand where those of us asking for empathy and appearing to wallow are asking for.
it's short and really awesome
To the thread: Phrases like 'she's bringing it on herself' or anything that basically says 'you actions/attitude = you deserve to have people treat you unkindly' = victim blaming. It's really really negative to do this to anyone, no matter your status as a victim/survivor. No survivor deserves to be treated unkindly, talked over, and have their boundaries disrespected. Not unless they are actively harming other people/attacking people/acting out. Even then there are better ways to address behavioral issues than via victim blaming.
It would be awesome to see far less victim-blaming-mentality on this forum, and a lot less accusations of having 'victim mentality'. 'Victim mentality' as a phrase is being deployed in many forums (online and off) against people who identify as victimised and damaged.
I tell you this not to say you're like these people, but to inform you unless you aren't aware of this useage. It tends to be used by groups of harassers, like anti-feminists and racists, against less privileged groups, like women and people of color. It's very much become an oppressive term that allows people to ignore these folks and claim they are 'just playing the victim'.
So in this discussion it's felt like it's been deployed as a reason not to have to respect the persons boundaries. 'They're doing it to themselves/playing the victim/need to get out of victim mentality', although sometimes legitimate concerns, are also victim-blaming and silencing behaviors. It's important to think really hard about how and why you're using this kind of reasoning before saying these kinds of things.
I believe it's okay -- and needed for many vulnerable people -- to ask people to respect their boundaries when it comes to word usage and behavior. If 'pity party' and 'wallowing' are words and phrases that trigger and upset people, yes you can't be forced not to, but why would you choose to? Asking for boundaries does not = 'controlling the forum'. It = asking for boundaries.
Please remember - because I feel like there's more than a few people who don't - how you cope is not how everyone else does. That you feel you can recover does not mean everyone can. That you are not disabled or handle disability differently does not mean everyone who has the same diagnosis can or should recover the way you do. That you do not have, or handle differently, comorbid health or other mental health issues does not mean others do not or that they should handle it the way you do.
For many of us here, PTSD or CPTSD is chronic, lifelong, and debilitating. It's unhelpful and harmful to insist that we are, somehow, just not working hard enough and need to be okay with 'harsh' feedback and 'tough love'. That if we just were 'more positive' or 'didn't focus on the negative' we'd be able to recover. For many of us, there are real risks inherent in pushing ourselves that hard.
Most importantly - CBT is not the be-all and end all of therapies for PTSD. Many people with CPTSD (especially) do not respond well to CBT. It can be actively damaging. Judith Herman herself noted that, although PTSD tends to respond well to CBT, CPTSD does not.
Differing traumas cause differing ongoing issues and there are many of us who ARE defined, to a large degree, by our trauma and our MI, because our formative years included these things. Because there is no 'before' to return to. Challenging these core identities with a CBT approach can actually cause major instability. We still need to confront these unhelpful core beliefs, but there are more gentle, less distressing and destabilising ways to do so.
This thread has shown just how many folks seem to feel that CBT = best practice. I really think we need to keep in mind that psychiatry and psychology are fields which age, grow, and discover new things. There are some practices that are outdated, and some that don't apply to everyone. This is my story and why I feel this strongly:
I've had 24 years of therapy. My first T was a Freudian Psychiatrist who damaged me greatly, when what she was doing was best practice and accepted knowledge at the time. We don't use her methods of psychiatry anymore.
I was drugged when I was 8 years old with Mellaril, and antipsychotic now only used to treat adults with schizophrenia. We don't drug children that young anymore, and we don't use mellaril for PTSD anymore. Then I was tried on all the early SSRI's - most redundant now.
It used to be accepted 'fact' that people with PTSD also had DID. My Psychiatrist insisted that I had multiple selves, even though I told her I didn't. She insisted I had feelings I wasn't feeling. Told me that, since my disorder was supposed to progress a certain way and certain therapies were supposed to work, that I was feeling and experiencing things I told her I did not and was not. That if I wasn't responding to treatment it was because I was just not working hard enough.
I'm still recovering from what she and my parents did regarding my early treatment, even though they meant the very best and were doing what was accepted as 'right' for the late eighties and early nineties.
I've been through multiple meds and multiple therapists and therapies since then, always doing better, always looking for what worked best for me. I've learned what best supports me and I've become safe enough with my T to start pushing boundaries. Because I'm supported to do so. If I'd, instead, spent years attempting CBT or exposure therapy I'd probably be dead.
Please, take more care in your assumptions about people, about trauma survivors, about 'victims', about treatment, and about the value of choosing your words so as not to do harm. We're all very different, with different traumas and from different walks of life. The safest thing is to listen with empathy and remember that everyone copes differently.
To the thread: Phrases like 'she's bringing it on herself' or anything that basically says 'you actions/attitude = you deserve to have people treat you unkindly' = victim blaming. It's really really negative to do this to anyone, no matter your status as a victim/survivor. No survivor deserves to be treated unkindly, talked over, and have their boundaries disrespected. Not unless they are actively harming other people/attacking people/acting out. Even then there are better ways to address behavioral issues than via victim blaming.
It would be awesome to see far less victim-blaming-mentality on this forum, and a lot less accusations of having 'victim mentality'. 'Victim mentality' as a phrase is being deployed in many forums (online and off) against people who identify as victimised and damaged.
I tell you this not to say you're like these people, but to inform you unless you aren't aware of this useage. It tends to be used by groups of harassers, like anti-feminists and racists, against less privileged groups, like women and people of color. It's very much become an oppressive term that allows people to ignore these folks and claim they are 'just playing the victim'.
So in this discussion it's felt like it's been deployed as a reason not to have to respect the persons boundaries. 'They're doing it to themselves/playing the victim/need to get out of victim mentality', although sometimes legitimate concerns, are also victim-blaming and silencing behaviors. It's important to think really hard about how and why you're using this kind of reasoning before saying these kinds of things.
I believe it's okay -- and needed for many vulnerable people -- to ask people to respect their boundaries when it comes to word usage and behavior. If 'pity party' and 'wallowing' are words and phrases that trigger and upset people, yes you can't be forced not to, but why would you choose to? Asking for boundaries does not = 'controlling the forum'. It = asking for boundaries.
Please remember - because I feel like there's more than a few people who don't - how you cope is not how everyone else does. That you feel you can recover does not mean everyone can. That you are not disabled or handle disability differently does not mean everyone who has the same diagnosis can or should recover the way you do. That you do not have, or handle differently, comorbid health or other mental health issues does not mean others do not or that they should handle it the way you do.
For many of us here, PTSD or CPTSD is chronic, lifelong, and debilitating. It's unhelpful and harmful to insist that we are, somehow, just not working hard enough and need to be okay with 'harsh' feedback and 'tough love'. That if we just were 'more positive' or 'didn't focus on the negative' we'd be able to recover. For many of us, there are real risks inherent in pushing ourselves that hard.
Most importantly - CBT is not the be-all and end all of therapies for PTSD. Many people with CPTSD (especially) do not respond well to CBT. It can be actively damaging. Judith Herman herself noted that, although PTSD tends to respond well to CBT, CPTSD does not.
Differing traumas cause differing ongoing issues and there are many of us who ARE defined, to a large degree, by our trauma and our MI, because our formative years included these things. Because there is no 'before' to return to. Challenging these core identities with a CBT approach can actually cause major instability. We still need to confront these unhelpful core beliefs, but there are more gentle, less distressing and destabilising ways to do so.
This thread has shown just how many folks seem to feel that CBT = best practice. I really think we need to keep in mind that psychiatry and psychology are fields which age, grow, and discover new things. There are some practices that are outdated, and some that don't apply to everyone. This is my story and why I feel this strongly:
I've had 24 years of therapy. My first T was a Freudian Psychiatrist who damaged me greatly, when what she was doing was best practice and accepted knowledge at the time. We don't use her methods of psychiatry anymore.
I was drugged when I was 8 years old with Mellaril, and antipsychotic now only used to treat adults with schizophrenia. We don't drug children that young anymore, and we don't use mellaril for PTSD anymore. Then I was tried on all the early SSRI's - most redundant now.
It used to be accepted 'fact' that people with PTSD also had DID. My Psychiatrist insisted that I had multiple selves, even though I told her I didn't. She insisted I had feelings I wasn't feeling. Told me that, since my disorder was supposed to progress a certain way and certain therapies were supposed to work, that I was feeling and experiencing things I told her I did not and was not. That if I wasn't responding to treatment it was because I was just not working hard enough.
I'm still recovering from what she and my parents did regarding my early treatment, even though they meant the very best and were doing what was accepted as 'right' for the late eighties and early nineties.
I've been through multiple meds and multiple therapists and therapies since then, always doing better, always looking for what worked best for me. I've learned what best supports me and I've become safe enough with my T to start pushing boundaries. Because I'm supported to do so. If I'd, instead, spent years attempting CBT or exposure therapy I'd probably be dead.
Please, take more care in your assumptions about people, about trauma survivors, about 'victims', about treatment, and about the value of choosing your words so as not to do harm. We're all very different, with different traumas and from different walks of life. The safest thing is to listen with empathy and remember that everyone copes differently.
