Mastodawn

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)

Healing from trauma is crazy. It is unstable and it destabilises self and others.

Why? Because it requires me to grow beyond the "stable" pseudo-personality that the traumatising family-, cult- or societal systems pushed on me.

Society is sick and sickening, it causes trauma and dissociation. Then it tells us that WE are crazy, unstable, perhaps ridiculous and perhaps dangerous for doing what we need to do to heal. In order to truly heal, one HAS TO become even more crazy than before, as in more "unstable" in society's eyes. Less adjusted to its "stable" structures and demands.

I know, I know, the first step of trauma therapy is stabilisation. But what we want to be stable is stuff like having basic needs met, having housing and food and at least one stable, respectful and nurturing relationship. We DON'T need to stabilise the pseudo-personality! That's the crime of therapy that I'm rebelling against. They stabilise the wrong thing and they destabilise the wrong thing. They take away our agency to let our true self emerge and make choices.

It's like telling a caterpillar that emerging from its cocoon is "unstable" and pathological and that it should go back to the nice stable larval version of itself.

In my case, that was the version that is easily lead and that assimilates into existing systems. Not a threat.

But we deserve to destabilise the systems that did this to us. The families, cults, religions, therapies, states, capitalism - all of it. And that includes getting rid of the rules and beliefs and triggers and feelings that they installed inside us. Killing the cops in our heads. Killing the despotic parents, the double-standardised inner critic, the victim blamer in our heads.

🧵

#trauma #TraumaRecovery #crazy #mad #MadLib #AbuseCulture #AbuseSurvivor #AbuseRecovery #VictimBlaming #RapeCulture #MentalHealth #crisis #resilience #anarchy #KillTheCopInYourHead

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

I found something out. A powerful secret, or at least something the literal and figurative cops want to make us forget: That stability is not a prerequisite for growth and healing.

It's definitely nice, and it helps, and ideally we'd all have our basic needs met and have safety and guaranteed housing and food and all that.

But we don't. We're scrambling and we're flailing and we're desperate and we or our friends and comrades are actively starving and freezing and overheating and getting abused and trapped.

And yet. This is not the end. This is not stagnation. We are still healing some wounds even as others get inflicted and we are growing no matter how hard the system tries to keep us down.

I have made the biggest leaps in my trauma, eating disorder and cult recovery while in housing crises. 3 Years ago in the homeless shelter and again now during this past half year of getting kicked out. Even currently while freezing with insufficient heating and expecting the eviction notice any day now.

I am not just holding on, I am getting stronger and more resilient by the day. And I am healing old wounds and structural trauma in my soul and mind and body. I am fighting the old "instincts" (really abuser-installed mechanisms) that would have me panic or fawn or shoot myself in the foot. I am not doing those things anymore, instead I am using what skills and resources I have in the ways that *I* decide are best.

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

It's an old cliché that a crisis is an opportunity for growth. It is true though. At least some of the time. I suspect this has to do with my history of privileges and growing up middle class. The more I lose that status, the more opportunities I get to undo the damage that this oppressive upbringing has done in me, has tried to do THROUGH me.

I am chosing not to be a cog in the machine of class exploitation. That makes me a target. This current crisis was kicked off when I tried to stand up for exploited workers as well as myself and when I suggested a non-capitalistic solution to a problem the landlord presented. He told me that was the reason he could no longer lease to me.

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

Housing insecurity is a huge bugbear for middle class people, one I am still in the process of wrangling. We are brought up in such a way that the threat of housing insecurity becomes a thought terminating cliché, it is unthinkable, it is THE WORST, it feels like death. To the point that most middle class people can't even consider the notion of paying rent a bit late.

This fear is blown so much out of proportion. It's what gives landlords so much power, because most people are so deeply cowed, even if they don't think capitalism and its ways of dominating land and housing and people is right. They still go along with it, when mass organised rent strikes could be such easy and effective actions. Why obey landlords at all?

#classism #HousingInsecurity #housing #class #landlord_is_not_a_job #landlord #alab #HousingCrisis

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

ok this is not where I thought this thread was gonna go 🤣

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

Back to using crises as opportunities for growth. I feel dirty saying it, as though I was some kind of techbro CEO holding a manager's seminar on self-actualised leadership or whatever.

But that's not what I mean. I certainly am not suggesting that we should be grateful for hardships. But I am saying that we're capable of much more strength than our oppressors would like us to see.

When parts of our external and internal structures break down or are taken away or overburdened, we have to build them back up. And we get to chose to do it better this time.

The people who get most deeply unsettled and destabilised by a crisis are usually the ones whose personality has already been structured by trauma. Like me for example. And that's why it is so important to stick with our true selves and rebuild from there. A good chunk of what we lost was trauma-induced.

The cops in our heads don't have to survive crises. They're making it even harder to survive! I turn on mine and look them in the eye and say: "You have shown your true colours and they do not match mine."

I find the inner children and tamped down body signals beneath the rubble. Here is my tribe. These are the ones showing up for me and when I protect them, we/I thrive regardless of whatever the world throws at us.

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

Our bodies know how to heal trauma, we are born with this knowledge. We know how to cry and laugh and tremble and hug and storm in anger. Even yawning is part of this repertoire.

Our body-mind-soul comes equipped with the ability to flow from one of these to the other, as layers of trauma are healed. We do this best after a crisis is over, which makes sense: That's when we heal best. We need some stability to heal.

And then we do what this society, that is so good at causing trauma and so bad at allowing its healing, calls unstable: We cycle through deep feelings and their deep, physical releases. We cry and then giggle through our sobs. We yawn and then rage.

We are human and do what our species is surprisingly good at - if we get the chance.

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

We as a society need to learn to distinguish between different states of "stability".

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

We can sneak some healing in in between crises and amidst ongoing trauma. And we can be each other's anchors.

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

Part of why I started this thread is my frustration over being slowed down instead of supported when I do my most powerful healing. I tend to do that during crises because that's the only kind of circumstance where I get to break out of the stifling cocoon of "stability". The wrong kind of stability.

I mean I've even had multiple experiences where helpers told me to slow down and expressed worry that I could head into mania, when what really happened was that I managed to break through the thick layers of depression and went "Wheeeee!"
I was not manic. I had a completely rational and appropriate response to my circumstances. I was also not doing anything rash or dangerous, I was merely trying to get as much done of things I've wanted to do all along, as this window would allow me. Because I usually knew on some level that my relative freedom from depression wouldn't last.

There are other examples. It is happening right now too. Examples of people slowing me down and holding me back because they see my healing as "unstable". They don't trust me. They're operating on the unspoken assumption that I don't know how to heal or what direction to go or what speed is right. In short, that I don't know what's good for me.

Even if I have terrible ideas*, I need the freedom to try them out. Let me learn for myself, otherwise I can never truly believe it, because my main problem has always been that I followed too much and asserted my agency too little.

All I ask is for my agency to be respected and supported, not in spite of, but BECAUSE I am in crisis. Putting a damper on someone's agency when it's already under such strain is retraumatising. Lack of agency is what makes trauma trauma.

And lack of permission to be "unstable" cements the trauma by bulldozing the body's natural healing abilities.

*very rare, but it has happened

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

I worry that ppl read what I write while being in crisis and assume I must be some kind of wrong just because/ when it shows through that I am in crisis. This thought makes me feel so helpless and shamed and helpless. Yes, double helpless.

And I don't know how to solve this problem. If I adopted a stance that didn't show the crisis, I'd stop being true to myself and I'd stop being open to healing.

But where do I find people who'd take me seriously despite the fact that I'm in circumstances that give me particularly valuable insight? 🤔

By take me seriously, I don't mean "believe everything I say" - I can be wrong or half-right and things I say during crises will tend to be more heavily coloured by my particular circumstances than otherwise. But I'm still a human being worthy of sincere consideration. I don't tend to get that mirrored back to me unless I deny parts of my experiences. More self-feeding trauma loops...

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

I don't even tend to find that with others who are in crisis. Or maybe I just need to learn how to connect to them in ways that feel stable, the right kind of stable, to both of us.

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

Of course I've been trained to look to people NOT in crisis for help, but they really do tend to look down on me, or simply not get it, or do things that slow my healing down, even when they're really well meaning. I've pretty much always been burned and I try every damn time.

I try and try and try. But I don't let go of my true self or of my inner compass and that's something few helpers tolerate. I have yet to feel actively supported in this during a crisis, ie during times where I needed it most. I have on many occasions been forbidden from staying true to myself and almost all professional help comes only on the condition of giving up control over core aspects of the self or autonomy, like sleep cycles for example. They make subjugation a prerequisite, either in subtle or in more obvious forms, depending on what they can get away with.

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

Which is to say, in this society help is given more freely and easily to those who need it less. The more urgently someone needs help, the harder they make it for that person. They get less help and more hoops to jump through, more scrutiny, more dehumanisation, more additional trauma, less digity, less agency. Then they're blamed for not "wanting help" by the people the system serves well.

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 11

I do want to connect to others who are also in crisis, but not so they can help me. So we can support *each other*, so we can increase each other's agency and amplify our voices. Things that increase when shared.

Capitalism tells us sharing depletes resources but the truly important things are not zero-sum games. We multiply our hope, our determination, our resilience.

Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸Nov 12

@Aurin_the_classtraitor I take you seriously!

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 12

@corbden
Thank you, it means a lot!

always tired Nov 12

@Aurin_the_classtraitor @corbden

I don't know you yet but what I read here in this thread definitely looks well thought out. Can't fully understand how some might dismiss it as just weird stuff from someone in crisis or something.

Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸Nov 12

@project1enigma @Aurin_the_classtraitor Traditionally, the mental health profession looks only at outward behavior as a sign of progress. That's been changing somewhat, but the whole field started as a way to keep the "crazies" from bothering other people. (Thanks Freud.)

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 12

@project1enigma
Thank you. Maybe I was in a bit of a triggered state while writing that 😂 (which is a good thing)

I tend to think what I write is insightful, but I have also had many mechanisms "implanted" into me to stop me from being heard and having big impacts in the world. So whether it's representative of most people or not, I still always assume that others will dismiss me unless I play a certain role (intellectual, collected, distant, talking in the abstract).

always tired Nov 12

@Aurin_the_classtraitor

Yeah I understand. I can just guess that this can come from an overlay of the specific background of your experiences but also from overculture that also doesn't like people to stand tall in "uncomfortable" way.

Random thought of the idea of a person making trouble but not as the usual negative reading but as something good, transformative.

always tired Nov 12

@Aurin_the_classtraitor

(It's interesting how you can use the triggered state for something good. I often can't, it's often rather less inner freedom, more operating automatically.)

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 12

@project1enigma
that is usually how it goes, yes

Aurin (ki, ki, kis)Nov 12

@project1enigma
Yes, I want to be that troublemaker 😁

@Aurin_the_classtraitor

great thread

Diana Haynes 3d ago

@Aurin_the_classtraitor