/lgbt/ - LGBT

>>5789

idk i just find other ways to amuse myself until i innevitably relapse

Trauma is like a poorly behaved dog: It will remain to some degree, however you slowly start to train it, and it becomes more responsive to your commands for it to back down.
Patience, thoughtfulness, and grace will help get you there. I've been teaching myself piano and relearning drums to cope with a lot of my own struggles. Find a good outlet, and build some hobbies.
Unironically, this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt6luG5Kiq8

>>5791
why can't i just put it down?

Idk if you already do this, but try applying dialectical materialism to yourself too. Identify what the issues are, if they are issues at all, and if you want or have to fix them. Is it something external or internal (really, everything is both at once to some extent)? You are an individual who is always changing, there is nothing about you that will not change, even your physical body will grow and change and over your life your brain structure with mature and degrade. You might need help from outside or it might be best to work through your issues by yourself.

The modern way of thinking about mental health is awful, it is completely clinical when mental health is nothing like physical health really, and what will solve it mostly is having a good community and friends or being able to describe the issues you are facing properly through philosophy or something.

As for normality its a difficult topic, there's nothing wrong with being normal but also there's nothing wrong with not being normal, really "normal" is an ever-changing thing and we should be building a social normal that includes all the working class except traitors and selfish criminals, and that excludes all the capitalist class except traitors (and the progressive petit-bourgeois who would be on the side of the communists).

>>5792
In my case, it comes from being in a certain home/social environment over a long period of time (that isn't just Brapitalism lol). That conditioned my brain to follow certain "pathways" that were means to survive that environment. Now that I'm not in that situation, those responses/behaviors of mine became not a means of survival but a habitual response to stimuli that reminded me of those darker times.

The closest to "putting down" this "dog" is a gradual process of developing new pathways and responses. It's all about cultivating understanding. Understanding of yourself, your peers, your environment. A really important step for me was understanding shame (the feeling that my faults make me inherently bad/incapable of change), and guilt (the feeling that I have done something wrong, which while painful is nothing inherent to my nature).

I found that whilst not being entirely religious, Zen and Quaker doctrines helped me build a gentle peace and helped me "put down" my "dog".

>>5796

Aw, i was hoping it'd be more like that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden shoots his cheek with a pistol…

Fuck therapy, but not psychology.
It's true that psychology and psychiatry mostly just gets people to tolerate intolerable conditions (sorry for riffing on that reactoid Ted, but he was right on that point) to make them more compliant with a system that pretty much just mentally assrapes everyone, but at the same time having the mental skills to tolerate daily assfuckings of the soul is in fact an important skill to have. I'd say it's especially useful for a communist given that our experience in life is eating a bunch of L's, always building up to a couple of big wins that we may not even get to see in our lifetimes. If that's the path we're taking, then it's necessary to be mentally tough as nails.

Problem with psychologists is that they're slow as fuck in helping you because of their limited time and because let's face it they wanna keep you around for as long as possible to take your fucking money. So here's what you do
>Get Anki
>Get "Super simple CBT"
>Get "DBT made simple"
>Read both books and put every important thing worth remembering and meant to be worked on on an anki deck meant for psychology shit.
>Work the fucking deck and the psych CBT/DBT concepts
And just like that you'll treat yourself much more effectively than a psychologist usually would lmao. If you just download your books then it's basically free therapy except its actually effective (so long as you actually do the work, but that applies to paywalled therapy too). This worked for me as an unemployed autistic transhumanist with GAD, OCD and cPTSD (In fact, after treating myself this way I've recently become able to make my own money for the first time in my life after years of thinking it was hopeless, FUCK YEAH!) so I'm sure it'll work for you.

>>5800
>It's true that psychology and psychiatry mostly just gets people to tolerate intolerable conditions (sorry for riffing on that reactoid Ted, but he was right on that point) to make them more compliant with a system that pretty much just mentally assrapes everyone

Not OP, but this is mainly why I feel resistant to the idea of recovering. It feels like im giving the capitalist society that deems me a "freak" the win by trying to change myself to be more like the neurotypical productive normal person society wants everyone to be.

I also have a lot of problems with how psychology views the mentally ill like animals to either study or lock-up. So fuck therapy AND psychology

>>5790
yeah, this is more or less the attitude I have had so far, the problem is that I inevitably end up hurting others when the relapse happens. I want to stop wearing people out, I want to stop falling into the pit of despair.
>>5791
I have spent years of my life trying to train the trauma and it has gotten less severe in some ways but very much stayed in others. my own trauma still makes me vulnerable to experiencing more of it and when this happens I lose progress on all fronts.
I have hobbies, I have coping mechanisms, my problem is that I don't want to keep running away and I don't want to hurt others in the long and difficult process of healing.
>>5792
if only things were so easy… this line of thinking brings you very quickly to the conclusion of killing the person who carries the trauma
>>5795
I find identifying contradictions within my existence and within my mental state rather easy, I have a really hard finding a way to resolve the contradictions that isn't inherently introducing more contradictions.
see the last two paragraphs merge quite easily for me, the current superstructure pushes us to aspire for an idealistic normality, it is very hard for me to answer the question of which parts of my brain should I kill, the liberal capitalist answer to this question with "everything that strays from normality", most of them in practice instead strive for "everything that makes me less valuable to capitalism". now, neither of these seems like a good answer, your nurture shapes you as a human and while some traits are inherently obstructing our existence as social animals, many others are only obstructing our existence under capitalism, or under the broader superstructure (as in conditions created by our current capitalist existence).
now, I also understand that the understanding of normality is constantly shifting under capitalism and I understand that it can be useful to keep an idealistic model of normality but I just don't see it as very humanistic to kill parts of our very existence to accommodate for our superstructure as opposed to shifting our superstructure to better accommodate for our needs and necessities.
the intent with my opening post was to see what the answer other queer marxists have adopted towards this issue as someone who is struggling to find an appropriate one.
>>5796
I am sure that this is at the very least part of the problem for me, I imagine you come from a very controlling social environment which ironically was the opposite of my very lax one. my problem was the lack of any real social support which made me very exploitable from a young age and as you can imagine this has put me in quite a few dangerous situations at an age where I absolutely shouldn't have had to deal with this kind of mental baggage.
I feel like by now I have a pretty good understanding of why I act the way I do to certain situations. I try to control my more unreasonable, emotional reactions to situations that reinvoke my most traumatic experiences. the problem is inherently that this takes a lot of mental fortitude to combat and under capitalism you cannot always be under a controlled enough environment to ensure you will handle every situation appropriately. handling badly one situation is obviously not gonna get you in a lot of trouble but over time this becomes unmanageable.
>>5800
see, I don't have inherent issues with eating the dirt and watching things getting worse and worse both systemically and within my direct existence. I put my resentment towards the way things are towards direct action, community organizing, civil disobedience and analyzing the world under a marxist lens.
you could say that I am quite functional, I have a job, I have a permanent residence and I manage to mostly hold my shit together even when capitalism makes it really difficult for anyone to. the struggles I have come with existing within a social context, people describe me as principled, determined and direct.
this inherently reads as abrasive to a considerable amount of people and this is before you even account for my inherently anti social reactions to specific traumatic social scenarios that when not under control turn me even less socially tolerable (I have PTSD from domestic violence, state violence and experiencing multiple sexual assaults).
>>5803
I kind of agree, I see the
>im giving the capitalist society that deems me a "freak" the win
part as inherently reactionary but I understand the deeper sentiment of not wanting to conform to the capitalistic idealism of humanity.

I am sorry for not sharing more potentially insightful yet directly personal anecdotes and examples, as well as keeping it rather superficial. I feel a certain amount of hurt in sharing some of my life experiences and I have some degree of concern for my personal safety in sharing some of these in a public anonymized place like this one.

>>5789
>what does it even mean to get over trauma?
According to trauma researchers, it's when you can narrativize it and merge it into your cohesive self-conception. But there are also physiological changes from trauma that might not ever go away, e.g. people with ptsd have fucked up endorphin and endocannabinoid systems. And parts of your brain are probably forever marked by it. But like other said, the goal is that when e.g. you're reminded of your trauma, you aren't controlled by overwhelming feelings, instead you remain in control and can work through the emotions.

Also there's things a therapist does that you can't do yourself. Trauma that occurred from an interaction with someone else creates emotional scripts for us that can only be retrained with another person. The therapeutic relationship is part of this (therapy isn't/shouldn't be just the therapist telling you helpful stuff - it also includes their existence as a safe relationship with proper boundaries that you can rely on). Also a therapist can see when we're engaging in denial, projection, etc., or acting out a script/schema. these things are made to not be seen by the one employing them. It's how you mentally structure and pre-process the world in order to make sense of it and render it less difficult to accept. So they can point these out and from that feedback you can begin to maybe see when you're engaging in those defenses or scripts and regain control.

Also not every issue is capitalism… if you were abused at home as a child, and then you leave that home but carry the ingrained responses, they become maladaptive to your current adult life. If that person blames society for triggering them and clings to how they are now as their natural state and contend that it would be wrong to change their nature, they won't ever heal and gain control of themselves. You have to decide if you're going to treat your mind as it is right now as something sacred and immutable, or if you're going to treat it as violable (and probably already very violated) and thus changeable. The goal isn't to give society or the therapist power to mold you, the goal is that you gain control over yourself to mold yourself as you see fit, without being controlled by ingrained responses.

>>5867
>instead you remain in control and can work through the emotions
don't you think there are degrees to this? I have been traumatised by multiple experiences in my life and I've always tried to immediately snap out of the repetitions and to instead focus on survival minimizing the long term damage. this has worked to make the best out of a shitty situation but clearly hasn't worked as well with interpersonal relations. over the years I have observed people with similar issues repeat their traumas over and over and over again, I would like to believe I don't do that.
>Also there's things a therapist does that you can't do yourself.
I am sure having someone who is good at recognizing these patterns and is only bias in the direction of our currently established science CAN help some. I also think that this isn't as infallible as straight forward as you and people like you seem to believe it is. I've been failed by therapy and I've seen so many others around me be, I would really really like to believe that it just is that simple. I believe the existing structure is very much built with horse blinders on and I do believe there is quite a bit of nuance that the science simply ignores.
>Also a therapist can see when we're engaging in denial, projection, etc., or acting out a script/schema. these things are made to not be seen by the one employing them
how do you think regular people act? do you not think that everyone does these things? I am sure that there's some behaviors both you and I have that are completely unhealthy under the analytical lens of a third party, this is a normal part of social existence.
>So they can point these out and from that feedback you can begin to maybe see when you're engaging in those defenses or scripts and regain control
every single one of us, traumatized or not engages in this, every single one of us doesn't have full control over their life. this is a very easy concept to twist and turn, which is why I believe it is very easy to infer something is just a script or a defense when it isn't and they are simply being over-analytical. I believe that the current approach is fundamentally flawed, I believe that we shouldn't treat mental health like physical health as when you do this you end up giving up your autonomy to a inherently biased third party who simply lacks your nature and nurture.
>Also not every issue is capitalism…
I do believe that capitalism and the existing superstructure it has created is inherently deeply tied to mental health and mental healthcare does very much enforce the capitalist model of normality which is the topic of discussion for this thread. I believe that our current understanding of mental healthcare is a product of the environment it exists under and 50 years from now things are going to look very different as our society evolves.
>You have to decide if you're going to treat your mind as it is right now as something sacred and immutable, or if you're going to treat it as violable (and probably already very violated) and thus changeable
I do believe every mind is inherently mutable and evolving every single day. I also believe that therapy, especially when a significant amount of cognitive and moral offloading is necessary is quite likely to go against your nature and values which do end up neutering your very nature and creating a new nurture instead of killing/overriding the inherently destructive pre existing nurtures.
>The goal isn't to give society or the therapist power to mold you, the goal is that you gain control over yourself to mold yourself as you see fit, without being controlled by ingrained responses
I have no inherent issue with this goal, this is my goal as well. I just don't see the existing system as capable of achieving what it sets out to do for a overwhelming majority of the population. the purpose of this thread is looking for a healthy avenue to improve without relying on this kind of social contract as it is both hard to access and as far as I'm concerned quite ineffective.

you can of course argue that my trauma makes me inherently distrusting of authority and this is all a gigantic maladaptive behavior. unfortunately, as you can imagine this helps neither of us because even if that assessment were to be true, it would still imply the system has failed me for lacking the appropriate treatment for someone in my situation.

>>5912
>don't you think there are degrees to this
Of course. Also i feel like I have to say that not every horrible experience is traumatic (some people come out the other side without it changing them), but the coping mechanisms are part of the thing that makes it trauma. So even if you used really good coping mechanisms that were necessary to get you through, those coping mechanisms can themselves be the problem later on.

>I've been failed by therapy
Same. I've had three therapists, and one was an idiot, one acted stuck up and like she hated me, and the other wanted me to reconcile with my abuser and attributed my (now very obviously) ptsd symptoms to innate causes. So now instead of therapy i just read books. But that's how I learned that there are many models of therapy. Regular talk therapy is one model, made for funneling people towards psychiatrists, helping neurotics and depressives with cbt, and things like that. Then there are psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapists which focus on long term therapy and forming a therapeutic relationship. This model actually makes sense to me, at least for most people's issues. The first model is i think tailored to no one, since imo it underestimates the extent of the causes of people's issues. Like assuming that a depressed person just needs to be told to try to maintain a structured and active life harder. That might work for some people but many aren't functional enough for just being given the info on what to do and a place to vent to be enough.

>do you not think that everyone does these things
I think everyone engages in defenses, and some defenses are more distorting or harmful and some are more healthy. Projection is a pretty annoying one. Denial gets in the way of trauma recovery. Part of therapy is teaching healthier defenses. Yes most people are somewhat crazy and could use someone to help them with introspection, just like most people also probably need a better education.

>I believe that we shouldn't treat mental health like physical health as when you do this you end up giving up your autonomy to a inherently biased third party who simply lacks your nature and nurture
If a doctor tells you that to stay healthy you should build muscle, eat a balanced diet, and do some cardio, who is having control over what? The doctor has no control over whether you do this or not, and the fact that this is how you extend your health isn't controversial, but if you take the advice you gain so much more control over your body and the trajectory of your health. I think therapy is exactly the same, where good therapy just puts control in your hands. Yes you may never be a contortionist. You might never not engage in primitive defenses and maladaptive scripts sometimes. We're never fully in control of our lives. But more control is a valid goal, and it's helpful to people who suffer from a lack of it.

I think something that's forgotten is that people are out there really suffering. If your mental state for you is neutral and not something you want analyzed and critiqued, then you're not the target audience. Some people make themselves suffer and want a way out. Therapy is for these people, just like medicine is for sick people. It's solipsistic to deny the existence of disease as subjective or overly critical just because you don't experience it.

>I just don't see the existing system as capable of achieving what it sets out to do for a overwhelming majority of the population.
Well yeah, obviously. We're just machines for capital and the people who shape society want us maintenanced as little as possible, who cares if we suffer. That's all the more reason to strongly support the science of making ourselves better, because it's not being promoted by the wealthy. This is why we have shitty cbt and a limited number of sessions covered by insurance, and why Freud revised his theories away from abuse towards hidden incestuous desire in order to hide what he was uncovering about the wealthy people he psychoanalyzed. I think you're right that the system is against us, but you're arguing against the wrong thing. I've also experienced bad therapy that rationalized away trauma as problems in my own brain, and that tried to get me to conform to a certain philosophy, and so on. I know therapy can be harmful. I'm trying to show you the other option.

>you can of course argue that my trauma makes me inherently distrusting of authority and this is all a gigantic maladaptive behavior
Yes, probably true also

>it would still imply the system has failed me for lacking the appropriate treatment for someone in my situation.
Yes because the system is not set up for us poors. It's not failing scientifically, it's failing the same way that policing fails when they kill an innocent minority. It's not because they're untrained. It's just not designed to help us. You can be sure that rich people get what you expect therapy should be, while we get repackaged stoicism and dulling drugs.

>me and my girlfriend recently broke up over both being traumatized
>in our current superstructure
why are marxists like this? the fuck you mean superstructure!
i'm just imagining a physician saying:
>i just divorced my wife
>E=mc²

>>6465
i meant physicist. why did i say physician? why am i this fucking retarded

idk everyone is different but you probably shouldn't make your ability to maintain relationships ontologically dependent on the global system. If you let itd contradictions dominate you it's not any different from giving in to it. Nobody is coming to save you or change the world, so start with yourself.