4 ms·
This essay introduces the "ring theory" of trauma. The ring is centred on the patient, with immediate caregivers, family, friends, and others, ultimately strang
by dredmorbius 2y ago
This essay introduces the "ring theory" of trauma. The ring is centred on the patient, with immediate caregivers, family, friends, and others, ultimately strangers on the Internet and Space Alien Cats, in the outermost rings.
Dumping flows out, comfort flows in.
It's the most succinct guideline for how to act around someone with a chronic or terminal condition I've found, and corresponds well to my own experience in multiple instances over the decades.
- parpfish 2y agothe problem with insensitive people isn't that they don't intuit the logic of this theory. it's that they insist that they are in a different ring that would justify their behavior.
- dredmorbius 2y agoWhich is where the role of guardians / gatekeepers, which I mentioned in an earlier comment on this thread, comes in: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41177346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41177346> Those people politely but firmly and effectively remove such people to their appropriate ring.