August 31, 2017 – Page 8 – Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0

I’m exhausted after a long day, and about to try for some sleep. And I really can’t write more at the moment about the the bigger context this came up in connection to.

I’m sticking this behind a cut, because it might be disturbing for people who have had similarly bad experiences.

But, a few things occurred to me about the ‘80s-’90s repressed memory therapy fad specifically. Some of it might also be relevant to other psych things which can turn abusive. Especially involving kids and other people with very little power, credibility, or rights are involved. (My personal experience there, yeah.)

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it in these terms before, but the big thing that occurred to me tonight? Too much of this looks like exorcism just barely disguised in secular progressive pseudoscientific clothing–but enough for insurance to pay for it.

Any resistance? It’s probably not even coming from the victim at all. Even if it were? Don’t listen to them. Their memories, thoughts, feelings, and perceptions can’t be trusted under the influence of demons. They can’t be trusted to know what their own best interest is, much less act toward that. Intervention is crucial, and ASAP, before their soul is further corrupted or even totally lost to Darkness. Even if they can’t see right now that it’s for their own good, you’re really doing them a favor.

Any signs of increasing distress from your chosen intervention? Likely a good sign that the demons are putting up a struggle. Better keep pressing harder, to weaken them. Again, any protests are not the victim talking, and are best ignored for their own good even if they were.

The situation will look worse before it gets better, but we must all have faith that these demons will be overcome by righteous power. If something happens to the afflicted person? Not enough faith, and/or they weren’t strong and dedicated enough to the fight. It probably would have happened sooner without your help.

I was going to say more, including about dire predictions and getting people who care afraid not to go along or even express many doubts, no matter what happens. But, I’ve pretty much run out of steam for now. Don’t know how good a job I even did of wrapping words around this comparison, but hopefully you get the drift.

Too many people are primed to think in these kinds of terms, without necessarily seeing the ideological connections there. (Very much like the whole Grand Battle Against $DISEASE narrative, yes.)

And it frequently takes disturbingly little to justify denying people’s agency if it can be cast as For Their Own Good, and/or that they’re being influenced by hostile forces.

Most of the ones perpetuating this stuff really do think they’re doing the Right Thing, out of the best motives to help. That doesn’t make it right. It does make it more disturbing and dangerous, in some ways. (And we’re right back around to the self-image of “goodness” malarkey, as it can relate to abuse on a more systemic level…)

I also keep coming back to the fact that if you promote just plain exorcism as a treatment for autism–as one too-relevant example–that (very rightly) will not go over so well outside of some fringes. Most people would likely agree that you should be held accountable for harming children with that wacky blatantly abusive bullshit. And that the parents subjecting their kids to this share some culpability there.

Slap a more socially acceptable (pseudo)scientific mask on the same basic ideas, though, and suddenly it looks less scary to pretty much everyone but the people subjected to that treatment. Very possibly covered by insurance, as I said before.

(Personally, my parents losing their jobs with “good” insurance was what got the worst of the psych abuse stopped. Sucked for dealing with actual medical problems, but I still have to think it was worth it. What prompted that approach? Mostly badly misinterpreted autistic stuff, plus some actual overlaid PTSD from causes that went totally unaddressed. They were essentially trying to fix autism through exorcising the Imaginary Abuse Demons, while directly layering on more trauma and encouraging more emotional abuse at home. As the short version.)

That particular therapeutic garbage may have thankfully gone mostly out of fashion. But, there is still some equally terrible stuff with wide social acceptance.

Over time, I internalized others’ beliefs about me – that “there was nothing wrong with me”, that I only needed to try harder, that if I really wanted to do things differently I could. In order to deal with each of these premises, I had to develop an interpretation of them, to translate them into something I could (at least partly) understand, and then turn into my beliefs about myself.

So “there is nothing wrong with me” became this: “Don’t ask for help, because I’m not supposed to need any. Besides, if anyone looked really closely and still didn’t find anything wrong, all of this really would be my fault. It’s better just to have a small hope than to risk actually finding out.”

And “all I need to do is to try harder” became “The other people around me are succeeding while I am not, and it must be as hard for them as it is for me. So I am never to complain about difficulty or physical discomfort. If anything is physically at all possible to bear, it should be borne in silence.”

Finally, “if I really wanted to change, I could” evolved into “I am deliberately resisting having my life, and the lives of those around me, be any better. I don’t know why this is. But everyone feels this way, and they can’t be wrong because look who they are and how many of them are saying it.” In other words, I was deliberately making the people around me upset and angry.

Trying to function under these self-imposed guidelines was difficult. It was like trying to build a house on swampy ground which could not support any weight despite looking all right at first glance, or like trying to ice skate on a pond which in many spots was barely frozen over. In each of these cases, the surface impression does not at all reflect what lies beneath, or the fragility of what is seen. And those around me built their houses, or skated on their ponds, and could not understand why I was having so much trouble. And neither could I. My self-esteem was very low, and more than anything else, I was ashamed of my self. Of my being. Of my entire life.

Dave Spicer, Autistic and Undiagnosed: My Cautionary Tale (This presentation was given at the Asperger Syndrome conference held in Västerås, Sweden on March 12-13, 1998.)

I was reminded of this one again, with the other piece I just reblogged a quote from.

And the other bit from the same piece I had to add on:

You are avoiding the subject, the therapists say, over and over, you only want to talk about dogs and not your real issues. Why do you have such a problem with authority? Why are you so rude on purpose? Why do you like making people mad? Your whole family is in a shambles and it is all your fault.

(Plus the “We were drugged. Oh, we were drugged to the heavens…” Ouch.)

“[L]ook who they are and how many of them are saying it”, indeed. 😐

Of course my thoughts went back around to some of the observations on misdiagnosis and self-diagnosis.

Whatever else may be happening in my life these days? At least I’m not regularly getting a bunch of harmful assumptions like that pushed at me anymore. And I am at least somewhat able to see that most of those assumptions were terrible, no matter how many people would rather believe what’s going on would be “fixable” if the person were only pushed to try harder. That is a definite good.

Even if, you know, too many other people wouldn’t see it that way. That’s an easier story for them. And they’re often the ones in positions to do real harm.

It just gets overwhelming sometimes. Especially with how many people do wind up on the sharp end of assumptions like that–and don’t always have the same chances to get enough distance to figure out that nobody deserves that. Much less that, no, the assumptions aren’t necessarily right, no matter who all they’re coming from.

(via clatterbane)

Source: clatterbane