isolation of affect

inverse wrote:

AvoidantPenny wrote:They aren't the sort of experiences that people can come to peace with without therapy.

Everyone has different tolerances and levels of resiliency. You can't make blanket assumptions about anyone.

There are ways to treat children that push them beyond their coping abilities regardless of their tolerance or resilience. That's why such ways are illegal, because the law has made a blanket assumption that treating children like that causes them long term harm.

Either way, in his case I don't need to assume, I know what he's told me about his childhood and the problems he has now. Your original comment would only be valid if he was happy and well-adjusted, and he's not.

You've heard his story, and you know how you would react to it, but again, everyone reacts differently. Read Augusten Burroughs if you want an example of someone who had an insanely abusive childhood but now can talk about it with almost no emotion. People are different. Your experience is not the benchmark for everyone in the world. You think your friend should react differently than he has. See that word "should" there? That's a judgement.

inverse wrote:You've heard his story, and you know how you would react to it, but again, everyone reacts differently. Read Augusten Burroughs if you want an example of someone who had an insanely abusive childhood but now can talk about it with almost no emotion. People are different. Your experience is not the benchmark for everyone in the world. You think your friend should react differently than he has. See that word "should" there? That's a judgement.

For the vast majority of people who have been through something very traumatic, therapy is something needed to learn to cope with the thoughts, feelings and memories. Some people appear to function perfectly fine although they haven't been through therapy- in my experience and from reading through other's stories, yes they do, but at some point, it all comes undone- it's just waiting for something to set it all off. Perhaps some people have an awesome support network around them and are in a very caring environment and have been able to get by without needing formal therapy. If they do, that's wonderful for them. Otherwise for the rest of us it's either learning to deal with things in therapy or have everything fall apart over and over again.

I have not read Augusten Burroughs' story, but I can only assume that at some point they've had to deal with some pretty heavy stuff. People are different, but generally it's only with time and processing that someone reaches the point of being able to talk about such things without it affecting them so much anymore. Alternately, some people do speak about their trauma without emotions- I know I do. It's what I learned to do because emotions weren't safe to feel. Most of the emotion attached to what I went through are yet to even come out- they're there, definitely. I get little bits of them here and there. But by keeping the emotion and the memory separate it feels safer.

inverse wrote:You've heard his story, and you know how you would react to it, but again, everyone reacts differently. Read Augusten Burroughs if you want an example of someone who had an insanely abusive childhood but now can talk about it with almost no emotion. People are different. Your experience is not the benchmark for everyone in the world. You think your friend should react differently than he has. See that word "should" there? That's a judgement.

I don't know how I'd react in his place, nothing like that happened to me. Can you point out where in this thread I've said what he should or shouldn't be doing? Quote me.

lilyfairy wrote:yes they do, but at some point, it all comes undone- it's just waiting for something to set it all off

So true...