"There are no races." a good friend said to me, we were enjoying the sun, sitting in his yard "there are only language
groups" and he paused. I thought about that for a while. He had a point. A neat way to express the truth.
"And" I added, "some people are socially indoctrinated and have internalized political, ideological or religious identities crafted by external agencies, so that they think that races exist....."
We are all people. Racism was invented by British Christian Oligarchs as a tool of social division.
Fact : The vast majority of us are good, lovely vulnerable people, and we are all to some extent traumatised and oppressed because we live within this war making social power system.
Consider PTSS and PTSD.
Post Trauma Stress Symptoms: What the person presents. The person is wounded, shocked, traumatised and distressed and the lack of environmental safety and psychological resolution leads to long term symptoms of distress. Understandably so.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe
"And" I added, "some people are socially indoctrinated and have internalized political, ideological or religious identities crafted by external agencies, so that they think that races exist....."
We are all people. Racism was invented by British Christian Oligarchs as a tool of social division.
Fact : The vast majority of us are good, lovely vulnerable people, and we are all to some extent traumatised and oppressed because we live within this war making social power system.
Consider PTSS and PTSD.
Post Trauma Stress Symptoms: What the person presents. The person is wounded, shocked, traumatised and distressed and the lack of environmental safety and psychological resolution leads to long term symptoms of distress. Understandably so.
Post Trauma Stress Disorder: What hierarchy of violence presents as it refuses to address the trauma it generates and refuses to do anything to prevent further trauma or help resolve the issues arising - that is a deeply disordered behaviour pattern for any human culture. The labelling of the victimised is disordered.
The system claims the traumatised suffer a disorder. "There's something wrong with you!"
The Survivors says "no, these are the symptoms of my trauma and I am even distressed that you suggest that I am disordered - your system of power that generates so much trauma is what is disordered!"
Quite a difference, eh?
"Given the kind of family, community and society you were born into, and everything that happened to you, it is no wonder you feel the way you do."
"There are things that happen in that child's life that should not have happened, and things that did not happen that should have happened, and that is a big part of why they feel the way they do. How can we help that child in his or her distress?"
What would be your diagnosis?
The wisest response and probably the most efficacious answer would be best based on what evidence we are aware of that can is verified, as a matter of due diligence, with a careful eye to all the possible outcomes.
This is a current 'diagnosis' I am working on.
Make of it what you will.
The system claims the traumatised suffer a disorder. "There's something wrong with you!"
The Survivors says "no, these are the symptoms of my trauma and I am even distressed that you suggest that I am disordered - your system of power that generates so much trauma is what is disordered!"
Quite a difference, eh?
"There are things that happen in that child's life that should not have happened, and things that did not happen that should have happened, and that is a big part of why they feel the way they do. How can we help that child in his or her distress?"
What would be your diagnosis?
The wisest response and probably the most efficacious answer would be best based on what evidence we are aware of that can is verified, as a matter of due diligence, with a careful eye to all the possible outcomes.
This is a current 'diagnosis' I am working on.
Make of it what you will.
1. We live in a social power system that is Hierarchically Violent, in as much as the effects of what psychologist and writer David Smail calls the activity of 'distal power' trickle down, and afflict the population. Power is exercised by a few, who control immense institutions, and direct those in ways the ordinary citizen can rarely counter. States start wars, cut social care budgets. Who pays the price?
The Origins of Unhappiness - a new understanding of personal distress by David Smail
"It is the main argument of this book that emotional and psychological distress is often brought about through the operation of social-environmental powers which have their origin at a considerable distance from those ultimately subjected to them. On the whole, psychology has concerned itself very little with the field of power which stretches beyond our immediate relations with each other, and this has led to serious limitations on the explanatory power of the theories it has produced.
The Origins of Unhappiness - a new understanding of personal distress by David Smail
"It is the main argument of this book that emotional and psychological distress is often brought about through the operation of social-environmental powers which have their origin at a considerable distance from those ultimately subjected to them. On the whole, psychology has concerned itself very little with the field of power which stretches beyond our immediate relations with each other, and this has led to serious limitations on the explanatory power of the theories it has produced.
To illustrate this, typical cases of patient distress in the 1980s are examined. The decade when the right-wing of politics proclaimed there was no such thing as society gave rise to psychological distress across social classes, as long-standing societal institutions were dismantled.
This is as much a work of sociology, politics, and philosophy, as it is of psychology. Fundamentals of an environmental understanding of distress are outlined. A person is the interaction of a body with the environment."
2. Lateral Violence is a term that describes the displaced anger and outrage that ought to be directed at those who orchestrate oppression, but is instead directed at peer groups. This dynamic is manipulated by Power Establishments in the processes of 'othering' : Racism, Misogyny, Islamophobia, Homophobia, Zionism, Neo-Liberal bullying of the vulnerable and the poor do not emerge from ordinary people, they are stimulated by potent forces within media and institutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_violence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_violence
3. An unresolved trauma has the potential to create or generate patterns of behaviour that are in effect coping mechanisms, that can become distorted, dysfunctional and unhealthy over time. The pressure of lack of safety drives this most of all.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181836/ - paper on how trauma affects our brains
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2007/05/brain-function - "Exposure to trauma may create enough changes in the brain to sensitize people to overreact to an innocuous facial gesture years later, even in people who don't have a stress-related disorder, says new research. It appears that proximity to high-intensity traumas can have long lasting effects on the brain and behavior of healthy people without causing a current clinical disorder. But these subtle changes could increase susceptibility to mental health problems later on."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181836/ - paper on how trauma affects our brains
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2007/05/brain-function - "Exposure to trauma may create enough changes in the brain to sensitize people to overreact to an innocuous facial gesture years later, even in people who don't have a stress-related disorder, says new research. It appears that proximity to high-intensity traumas can have long lasting effects on the brain and behavior of healthy people without causing a current clinical disorder. But these subtle changes could increase susceptibility to mental health problems later on."
4. Europe, and many other places have been the site of almost constant wars for over 2000 years and these wars are still 'celebrated' by each nation state in their self created national myths - this suggests the trauma remains unresolved. The grass roots have been subjected to a long series of wars driven by the 'perceived needs' of Power Establishments, which are in essence institutional bully systems that compete with each other, using war as a tool of policy. Europe has yet to recover from that dreadful history. The same can be said of Canada and North America and many, many other places. The inter-generational impacts of that trauma still percolate through our communities and nations.
5. The most obvious way to resolve trauma patterns is to be honest about what happened, to allow the person or the people who were traumatised to tell the truth, to create a situation of safety where the traumatised person or people know that they are safe, and to be clear as to the social and material situation within which the trauma/abuse occurred and address that. Justice and assurances that the abuse, oppression and war will cease and a peaceful future is determined are part of resolution of the trauma patterning.
This is what Gabor Mate and the Native Peoples, and the Survivors of clerical predatory abuse of children who confront the Vatican and others as in Ireland are seeking. And this is what women subjected to sexual assault are calling for - honesty that leads to safety that leads to prevention of future harms.
What is left then is living with the symptoms of trauma, and being cared for with that in mind, such that the symptoms abate and living can continue with less distress and more security and love.
What is left then is living with the symptoms of trauma, and being cared for with that in mind, such that the symptoms abate and living can continue with less distress and more security and love.
6. It is fully human to face this. That is what it means to be fully human, to refuse to be dehumanised or to dehumanise any other, for any reason. Ever. That is fully human.
7. The mainstream system has always obliterated or denied or assimilated those cultures that were more egalitarian because their existence provides evidence of an 'alternative' or 'alternatives' ( the older cultures were much more diverse than the mainstream culture claims to be) way of life that is more gentle on people, more nurturant and indeed more sustainable, happier and humane.
PTSS , PTSD, Post Trauma Stress Symptoms, Chronic Trauma, Intergenerational Trauma. all these terms are varied ways of observing what our experience means. They are not labels; they are directions, themes, narratives, patterns and the individual cannot be correlated with the general pattern, each experience is uniquely that if that particular person.
More care is need in the public discourse on matters of importance to our collective community, our shared realities and experience.
Let us rest, and let us heal. As a cry from the heart, not as a demand or expectation. It is what it is.
"There are no races." a good friend said to me, sitting in his yard; "there are only language groups"
I think he has a point. We're all human beings living within social cultural systems predicated on leveraged power, power that protects itself with extreme violence. That hurts everyone.
PTSS , PTSD, Post Trauma Stress Symptoms, Chronic Trauma, Intergenerational Trauma. all these terms are varied ways of observing what our experience means. They are not labels; they are directions, themes, narratives, patterns and the individual cannot be correlated with the general pattern, each experience is uniquely that if that particular person.
More care is need in the public discourse on matters of importance to our collective community, our shared realities and experience.
Let us rest, and let us heal. As a cry from the heart, not as a demand or expectation. It is what it is.
"There are no races." a good friend said to me, sitting in his yard; "there are only language groups"
I think he has a point. We're all human beings living within social cultural systems predicated on leveraged power, power that protects itself with extreme violence. That hurts everyone.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe
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