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> Everyone's trauma is equally important Thank you for explaining to me that having been repeatedly raped in childhood, for a start, is in some meaningful sens

> Everyone's trauma is equally important Thank you for explaining to me that having been repeatedly raped in childhood, for a start, is in some meaningful sense equivalent to a romantic relationship in adult life ending in less than an ideal way. You're not wrong that oppression olympics is bullshit, but since you went on to start doing it anyway under the color of performatively claiming not to, this is me telling you to knock it off. > people being unable to choose how to respond to events of their lives, to such a degree where that sense of un-agency becomes a recurring chorus of subsequent events This is a habit. Form a different one. That's hard, I know. No one promised it would be easy, though it is easier with help. But this is how the actual problems get solved. Making much of your generosity of judgment, while issuing the most ungenerous possible collection of therapy-speak commonplaces at everyone who looks askance at the current fad, solves nothing. I assume your next play will be to discount everything I have to say as the obvious consequence of 'unprocessed trauma'. This is an error you are of course free to make. This is 'processed trauma'. Part of that process involved understanding that people who minimize real vileness are wrong to do so. You may not have realized you were doing that. You no longer have an excuse not to. It may be enlightening to see how you choose to respond to that constraint.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
> Thank you for explaining to me that having been repeatedly raped in childhood, for a start, is in some meaningful sense equivalent to a romantic relationship in adult life ending in less than an ideal way. You're not wrong that oppression olympics is bullshit, but since you went on to start doing it anyway under the color of performatively claiming not to, this is me telling you to knock it off. What in the world are you talking about? I didn't discuss any trauma of mine. How on Earth am I playing oppression (trauma?) olympics by not discussing any of mine? And like, I am incredibly sorry for what's happened to you, but you are literally engaging the olympics you say are bullshit against a theoretical opponent you made up. I'm not in this race, you're arguing with yourself. But if it's indeed bullshit, as we seem to agree, stop playing then. > This is a habit. Form a different one. That's hard, I know. No one promised it would be easy, though it is easier with help. But this is how the actual problems get solved. This is likely the way you worked through your trauma. It is not a universal experience. > Making much of your generosity of judgment, while issuing the most ungenerous possible collection of therapy-speak commonplaces at everyone who looks askance at the current fad, solves nothing. I cannot parse this word salad. > Part of that process involved understanding that people who minimize real vileness are wrong to do so. You may not have realized you were doing that. You no longer have an excuse not to. It may be enlightening to see how you choose to respond to that constraint. Stating that trauma is equally disruptive to all who suffer it and that gatekeeping someone else's trauma as "not bad enough" to warrant whatever they're struggling with is not minimization. I'm discussing the trauma itself, not the traumatic/triggering event. In that context: everyone's matters, and everyone who says they have it, has it, because it cannot be measured or quantified any other way. That terrible, awful things happen in this world does not mean those whom suffered less are not worthy of empathy, accommodation, support, etc.
- throwanem 3y ago
  > How on Earth am I playing oppression (trauma?) olympics by not discussing any of mine? Asserting everyone deserves the same prize is still handing out prizes. There is nothing to be prized in any of this. > This is likely the way you worked through your trauma. It is not a universal experience. Neither is forming the habit of assuming no agency that you described. I had that habit. To the extent I broke it, I described how I have done that. It's a bit rich of you to describe an experience of trauma that corresponds with mine, and then claim there is no merit in my description of how I responded to that experience. > I cannot parse this word salad. 'Word salad' is a psychiatric term of art describing the faulty use of language seen in some undergoing psychotic or schizophrenic episodes. I assume you do not intend to suggest I am either, but in that case one wonders why you resort to the phrase at all. Unwinding the dependent clause, then: You have implicitly claimed great generosity of perspective in your analysis of all human suffering as equally meaningful and worthy. You have also given the lie to that claim, in responding to my analysis without any evident effort to understand the perspective that informs it. Because your standing to make the argument is built on this claim of generosity, the error impugns the argument as a whole. > That terrible, awful things happen in this world does not mean those whom suffered less are not worthy of empathy, accommodation, support, etc. If I have said otherwise at any time here or elsewhere, I would appreciate you quoting where I did so. I should not like to think I could make such an error and fail to notice. What I have said is that there is merit in keeping a sense of perspective, and where objectively something much worse could have happened than has, then including that fact in one's analysis can be useful. A major purpose of therapy is to provide an outside perspective, isn't it? You give the impression of assuming no other source of such perspective exists. I have twice now described one. I have likewise at no point discounted the value of empathy, accommodation, or support. I think we define those terms differently, though. It's easy to wallow in misery. It is comfortable to wallow in misery. Of whom in such a state could anything fairly be expected? - even by oneself. Of course, it also has the problem that nothing ever improves for doing that. And the thing about living through it - for any definition of 'it' - is that you still have the rest of a life to get through the best way you can, after. In what sense is it supportive to suggest other than that people be about that work, to the absolute extent of their capacities to do so? In what sense accommodative, to suggest that a wound which can be healed or at least closed not be? In what sense empathetic, to suggest that no one need even try to find ways not to suffer? I grant you not all can achieve this. It's not their situation to which I speak; I would not dare. But many more can than can't, and it seems to me a shocking and frankly culpable insult to all those of us who can to suggest that we need not, or that there can come no point at which we are living in it merely for the sake of living in it. I would like you to show the generosity you claimed earlier - to really grant us agency, victims or survivors or whatever you care to call us. Encompass the idea that we can, should, and must at least try to overcome, will you? To do otherwise grants much more power to those who have misused us than they ever deserve.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

> Thank you for explaining to me that having been repeatedly raped in childhood, for a start, is in some meaningful sense equivalent to a romantic relationship in adult life ending in less than an ideal way. You're not wrong that oppression olympics is bullshit, but since you went on to start doing it anyway under the color of performatively claiming not to, this is me telling you to knock it off. What in the world are you talking about? I didn't discuss any trauma of mine. How on Earth am I playing oppression (trauma?) olympics by not discussing any of mine? And like, I am incredibly sorry for what's happened to you, but you are literally engaging the olympics you say are bullshit against a theoretical opponent you made up. I'm not in this race, you're arguing with yourself. But if it's indeed bullshit, as we seem to agree, stop playing then. > This is a habit. Form a different one. That's hard, I know. No one promised it would be easy, though it is easier with help. But this is how the actual problems get solved. This is likely the way you worked through your trauma. It is not a universal experience. > Making much of your generosity of judgment, while issuing the most ungenerous possible collection of therapy-speak commonplaces at everyone who looks askance at the current fad, solves nothing. I cannot parse this word salad. > Part of that process involved understanding that people who minimize real vileness are wrong to do so. You may not have realized you were doing that. You no longer have an excuse not to. It may be enlightening to see how you choose to respond to that constraint. Stating that trauma is equally disruptive to all who suffer it and that gatekeeping someone else's trauma as "not bad enough" to warrant whatever they're struggling with is not minimization. I'm discussing the trauma itself, not the traumatic/triggering event. In that context: everyone's matters, and everyone who says they have it, has it, because it cannot be measured or quantified any other way. That terrible, awful things happen in this world does not mean those whom suffered less are not worthy of empathy, accommodation, support, etc.

throwanem 3y ago
> How on Earth am I playing oppression (trauma?) olympics by not discussing any of mine? Asserting everyone deserves the same prize is still handing out prizes. There is nothing to be prized in any of this. > This is likely the way you worked through your trauma. It is not a universal experience. Neither is forming the habit of assuming no agency that you described. I had that habit. To the extent I broke it, I described how I have done that. It's a bit rich of you to describe an experience of trauma that corresponds with mine, and then claim there is no merit in my description of how I responded to that experience. > I cannot parse this word salad. 'Word salad' is a psychiatric term of art describing the faulty use of language seen in some undergoing psychotic or schizophrenic episodes. I assume you do not intend to suggest I am either, but in that case one wonders why you resort to the phrase at all. Unwinding the dependent clause, then: You have implicitly claimed great generosity of perspective in your analysis of all human suffering as equally meaningful and worthy. You have also given the lie to that claim, in responding to my analysis without any evident effort to understand the perspective that informs it. Because your standing to make the argument is built on this claim of generosity, the error impugns the argument as a whole. > That terrible, awful things happen in this world does not mean those whom suffered less are not worthy of empathy, accommodation, support, etc. If I have said otherwise at any time here or elsewhere, I would appreciate you quoting where I did so. I should not like to think I could make such an error and fail to notice. What I have said is that there is merit in keeping a sense of perspective, and where objectively something much worse could have happened than has, then including that fact in one's analysis can be useful. A major purpose of therapy is to provide an outside perspective, isn't it? You give the impression of assuming no other source of such perspective exists. I have twice now described one. I have likewise at no point discounted the value of empathy, accommodation, or support. I think we define those terms differently, though. It's easy to wallow in misery. It is comfortable to wallow in misery. Of whom in such a state could anything fairly be expected? - even by oneself. Of course, it also has the problem that nothing ever improves for doing that. And the thing about living through it - for any definition of 'it' - is that you still have the rest of a life to get through the best way you can, after. In what sense is it supportive to suggest other than that people be about that work, to the absolute extent of their capacities to do so? In what sense accommodative, to suggest that a wound which can be healed or at least closed not be? In what sense empathetic, to suggest that no one need even try to find ways not to suffer? I grant you not all can achieve this. It's not their situation to which I speak; I would not dare. But many more can than can't, and it seems to me a shocking and frankly culpable insult to all those of us who can to suggest that we need not, or that there can come no point at which we are living in it merely for the sake of living in it. I would like you to show the generosity you claimed earlier - to really grant us agency, victims or survivors or whatever you care to call us. Encompass the idea that we can, should, and must at least try to overcome, will you? To do otherwise grants much more power to those who have misused us than they ever deserve.