If someone’s identity is built on lies, refusing to play along might be a kindness.
Hold still! You look ridiculous…
Tough love is out of vogue, but it has its uses. As we argue in circles while Identity Politics and Gender Ideology rewrite our cultural rules, it’s worth considering this as a possible strategy.
An Uncommon Manifestation Of A Common Problem
Why are young girls rejecting their developing bodies in droves? Why do men want to escape manhood?
I really think it could be an unrecognized presentation of C-PTSD.
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a newish idea. Psychology has been shaken recently by lots of famous experiments failing. Decades of results have suddenly been called into question.
Since no one really knows what’s going on, I humbly suggest this interesting diagnosis.
PTSD is caused by a single event so jarring, it scars you for life. Complex PTSD comes from ongoing trauma, such as childhood abuse. Or maybe from living in a system that’s rigged against you.
The symptoms of C-PTSD are
- Reliving the traumatic experience
Obsessive behavior is often related to this, as the subconscious mind tries to reactive the emotional cycle to resolve it and begin healing
- Avoiding certain situations
Like anything that might trigger dysphoria?
- CHANGES IN BELIEFS ABOUT SELF AND OTHERS
- Hyperarousal (anxious, jittery, paranoid)
- Somatic symptoms
Male periods, anyone?
- Lack of emotional regulation
“It’s MA’AM!“
- CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS
Like perceiving yourself as something you’re not?
- Negative self-perception
- Difficulty in relationships
- DISTORTED PERCEPTION OF ABUSER
Many trans-identified females have been abused by men, and I’m willing to bet many Brave&Stunning transwomen were abused as small children by a woman who was supposed to care for them
- LOSS OF SYSTEMS OF MEANING
But this is probably the clincher – This disorder can cut you loose from reality.
It’s not surprising how well this fits – I think most of us are suffering from some level of trauma just from living in this modern world.
Hush Little One, Mommy’s Self-Soothing
Maslow’s name may be on the chart, but he didn’t create the Hierarchy of Needs. At the bottom of the pyramid, Tier 1 contains basic physical things, like food and shelter. Tier 2 is stuff like safety and security.
…And this is where most parenting stops. We ensure our kids have new shoes on their feet and clean sheets on their bed, inspect that they’ve eaten their vegetables and brushed their teeth. Homework and sports are often made to stand in for personal development.
Tier 3 is the warm fuzzy stuff – Belonging, friendship and love. This is where we fumble – As parents, as partners, as people. As a civilization.
Underparenting is an epidemic. Boomers love to call Millennials entitled and self-absorbed, forgetting who our role models are. They invented Latchkey Kids and sent the divorce rate into the stratosphere.
Mr. Bear gets to sit up front because he’s been with me longer than you!
Do you really think growing up as a societal preoccupation prepped them to be doting parents?
According to Very Well Mind, “What does the uninvolved parenting style look like? These parents have little emotional involvement with their kids. While they provide for basic needs like food and shelter, they are, for the most part, uninvolved in their children’s lives. The exact degree of involvement may vary considerably.“
But, to be fair, our grandparents didn’t know what they were doing, either. They won the war, alright, but they were raised by Victorians during the Great Depression. The amount of cultural knowledge lost in the shuffle of the early 20th century is mind-boggling.
Mom, You Ruined My Life!
Healthline blames the mother, of course: “Thanks to psychologist Mary Ainsworth and her attachment theory, we know that the trust that a mother instills in childhood positively affects not only the child’s present, but also their future relationships.”
Take a deep breath – We can’t defensive here, because I think they’re onto something important.
Mothers have a unique window of influence. Like it or not, we are the ones who have the babies. I’ve heard an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and a little extra effort in those early days has a powerful effect.
Longitudinal studies by Stanford University showed, “significant disparities in vocabulary and language processing efficiency were already evident at 18 months” when infants were spoken to more often. “By 24 months there was a 6-month gap between groups in processing skills critical to language development.”
Our preoccupation with prestige is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It stunts our development and perpetuates generational abuse.
It’s always the Capitalism! Isn’t that weird?
We want to skip to Tier 4, that shiny prestige and accomplishment everyone is talking about. Who needs love when you have respect? Instagram followers can’t break your heart.
But thousands of Likes can’t fill that hole. Dopamine hits don’t really make up for feeling disconnected from everyone around you.
And no one will ever get to Tier 5 – Self-Actualization – if we all skip Tier 3 and go straight for that shiny trophy.
Those Pesky, Icky Feelings
Family life is almost quixotic these days, generation upon generation playing house when the mood strikes. The rituals of daily life ring hollow for us, we have forgotten the meaning behind any of it. Our cultural obsession with proving our merit leaves little room for connection without transaction.
The inability to form organic, non-transactional connections with others is the hallmark of narcissism.
But we have to prove our worth if we want any hope of getting a slice of the pie. And the pressure ratchets up as there seems to be less and less pie to go around.
This might get me hate but, – Almost no one gets their own emotional house in order before having kids. The blind lead the blind through childhood, faking authority even as we cringe at our own issues.
A lot of us are preoccupied with our own shit the whole time we parent. My own parents definitely were. Putting someone else’s needs first requires a level of emotional maturity many breeders have not reached.
So, the cycle repeats. They say we each make our own mistakes, no matter how hard we try. No parent is perfect, but some of us are downright awful. My generation got screwed pretty bad, and we’re well on our way to passing on this new tradition.
Thank heaven for vino!
Some of us bury ourselves in work. Some of us drink. There are carefully cultivated drug habits, Collectible collections, bouts of binge eating, hours upon hours of TV and video games.
Some of us obsessively exercise or count calories. There are the tattoo addicts, even a few who adore plastic surgery. Then there’s the crowd who cut to the chase and just reject their identity entirely.
They said we could be anything, and damned if we didn’t take them at their word.
Post-Traumatic Disorder Complexes
Generational trauma, stripped bare by Postmodern rejection of everything, has swirled us up in a dust devil of dissociation. Previous generations dealt with war, plague and politics, but they had some pretty rigid social structures to fall back on. It was much harder to act out your mood back in the day, so it didn’t matter so much if everyone was kinda crazy.
These days, we have the terrifying freedom to think and do just about whatever we want, minute to minute. But even the greatest explorer has a home port to return to.
The recommended treatments for C-PTSD include psychotherapy, EMDR and medication – Therapy. My Ph.D. is in Armchair Psychology, and even I can see evidence of failure at every level. Failure to give us the internal tools we need to build meaningful lives.
Adrift in a sea of filtered faces, we latch onto whatever or whoever gives us the feeling we finally belong. Or at least something that drowns out the howling wind in the void.
I dare anyone to find another explanation that covers so much without relying on Ladybrain
Or an ethereal female essence
Or sex-role stereotypes.
Something that justifies sterilizing children. I won’t be holding my breath.
Regardless, maybe we should treat our adversaries like the cranky little kids they are – By enforcing Nap Time.
Recent Comments