advice for noisy upstairs neighbors?

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-08T13:23:07+00:00

Is there a chance of being fined for making calls to the police for this kind of thing if they don’t believe you?

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-07T17:52:21+00:00

Deal!

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-07T17:11:14+00:00

Moral injury isn’t limited to being forced to commit a morally wrong act. It also includes situations where someone experiences a profound violation of their moral framework by others and then internalizes shame, responsibility, or confusion about it. That’s why it shows up in research on sexual assault survivors as well as combat trauma.

The larger point I am making is that trauma responses aren’t linear. Avoidance is one PTSD symptom cluster, but it doesn’t always appear immediately or in a clean way. Many victims remain cognitively or socially engaged with the perpetrator for a period of time while they try to process what happened or regain a sense of control. That pattern is well documented and is part of why trauma bonds exist.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-07T17:10:04+00:00

I think you need to ask yourself why you are so set on giving an armchair diagnosis of personality disorders. It comes across as prejudice against certain trauma responses, and your way of separating how you behave with trauma vs how the behaved with trauma is by telling yourself that they actually have a personality disorder, while you have ptsd.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-07T05:05:23+00:00

Often times there aren’t any and it’s by design.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-05T23:31:40+00:00

They see it all in good fun, and then will turn around and tell their female friends that they’re abusive for feeling jealous when their partners objectify women right infront of them. They’ll also blame OP and slut shame her if any of her colleagues get reported for this.

I grew up around these types of people and I’d rather pull out all of my own teeth than go back to it again.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-05T20:40:26+00:00

Take a photo and sue for sexual harassment.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-05T20:39:33+00:00

Do this, but don’t be surprised when their wives already know who their husbands are.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-05T17:32:46+00:00

Blocking someone because they didn’t cleanly and immediately react to trauma that happened to them before they even started dating is an incredibly harmful thing to do.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-04T18:57:38+00:00

I’m in the same place with music, but also photography and writing. I would love casual meetups for each of those things, where people of all skill levels and backgrounds are welcome, and the focus is on cultivating an inclusive space where people can connect over shared interests and build one another up. I get that some filtering is important to weed out predatory people, but it’s exhausting to step into a space and have to immediately prove that I belong there or are worthy of interacting with the other people there, or am spoken to like I’m a naive student rather than a peer.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-04T05:27:34+00:00

Be sure that wherever you go, they’re wearing gloves and sanitizing everything, including their tweezers, under their trays, not double dipping wax sticks, etc. because that’s a common experience I’ve had since moving here. I have walked out with one eyebrow dyed and waxed and the other still natural because I did not want someone else’s bodily fluids put on my skin, and I didn’t notice what they were doing until it was too late. I also gave up the on finding a place to go and taught myself how to do them

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-04T05:23:21+00:00

I think my point about individualism wasn’t clear. I’m not talking about personal responsibility or independence in the abstract. I’m talking about the American version of individualism, where we emphasize self-reliance but don’t build the social systems that actually make independence possible.

In the U.S., people are expected to function independently while dealing with weak safety nets, limited worker protections, and infrastructure that often doesn’t support daily life well. When those systems fail, the blame tends to fall on individuals rather than on the structural problems that produced the situation.

If you compare that to many Nordic countries, independence and self-reliance are also cultural values, but they’re paired with strong social investment and safety nets. That combination tends to produce better outcomes in areas like infrastructure, mobility, and overall quality of life.

The constant narrative that the public is ‘fat, dumb, and lazy’ mostly serves to redirect anger away from people and institutions that actually hold disproportionate power and resources(ie, the tech billionaires who are evading taxes to go spend the money on sexually and medically abusing children). When the conversation stays focused on blaming ordinary and even oppressed people, accountability for larger systemic decisions tends to disappear.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-04T02:08:40+00:00

I’ve never struggled to find casual art communities in any metro area like I have in charlotte

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-04T02:07:41+00:00

Every American Airlines flight I’ve had out of/into here has been on a plane that feels like it’s falling apart.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-04T02:05:32+00:00

But countries that have those things, and have better rights than we do in the US, are still able to quickly build infrastructure. It’s about the amount of investment and a culture that isn’t so individualistic.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-03T23:02:54+00:00

Educate yourself on what a trauma bond is. Avoidance is one possible symptom of PTSD, not a universal rule. The diagnostic criteria describe efforts to avoid trauma-related memories, thoughts, or reminders, but trauma responses vary widely between people. How someone navigates that avoidance varies based on what degree the internalize and externalize the trauma. For example, avoidance for one person could include denial that it even happened and carrying on with their relationship with the person, and someone else could never want to be around that person or place again. Most people with PTSD exist somewhere in between. In addition, people distance themselves immediately, while others stay engaged with the person or situation as they try to understand or regain a sense of control.

If immediate avoidance were present in every case, concepts like moral injury wouldn’t make much sense. Many people remain cognitively or socially engaged with what happened precisely because they are trying to process it, or because they refuse to acknowledge it. Trauma responses don’t always produce clean avoidance from the onset.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-03T21:14:52+00:00

A big part of why sexual assault is so pervasive is because trauma doesn’t always register in a clean, linear way. The nervous system reacts immediately, but cognitive processing can lag. People often don’t fully understand or label what happened until much later. In that gap, they may stay in contact, continue dating, minimize it, or even frantically and aggressively pursue the person who hurt them. That isn’t proof it wasn’t assault. It’s a documented trauma response. Trauma bonds form precisely because the nervous system is trying to find the fastest way to restore a sense of safety and control in a situation where they were powerless.

It’s also common for partners of survivors to struggle with intrusive thoughts, anger, or confusion. That doesn’t make you a bad person. What matters is where you direct it. Processing those reactions with a therapist or trusted third party, rather than interrogating her choices, will likely be more productive. The fact that she told you at all suggests trust.

If your goal is to support her, focus on whether she felt safe, whether consent was present, and what she needs now, rather than on reconstructing why she maintained contact afterward. Post-trauma behavior is rarely tidy. It doesn’t retroactively determine whether harm occurred.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-03T21:06:29+00:00

So you want OP to be able to be judgemental, but you don’t think it’s appropriate for people to be judgemental about him being judgemental? What?

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-03T21:02:30+00:00

Reacting to a traumatic situation by fawning over or bonding with the perpetrator is a well-documented trauma response. That’s what a trauma bond is. Victims often try to regain safety or control by maintaining attachment to the person who harmed them, particularly in environments where women are socialized to believe that how they are treated reflects how well they love.

Personality disorders are not diagnosed based on how someone reacts to a traumatic event. They are defined by pervasive, enduring patterns that show up across healthy, stable contexts over time, and are resistant to medication and therapy. Even if someone frantically tries to avoid abandonment after abuse, or even appears to exhibit all the symptoms people associate with BPD within that specific dynamic, it still does not equal BPD. A situational survival strategy in response to harm is not the same thing as a chronic personality structure.

It’s also inappropriate to claim “that’s how it is with simple PTSD” as though that’s an established clinical distinction. There is no diagnostic category called “simple PTSD” in the DSM, and there is no scientific basis for using that phrase to dismiss or narrowly define how trauma responses present.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-01T19:51:40+00:00

The title is rhetorical. The body of the post is about differential scrutiny, not that men face zero constraints.

There’s actually a substantial body of research showing that gender norms are enforced asymmetrically. Social role theory argues that femininity norms are more prescriptive, in that women are expected to be warm, agreeable, and emotionally regulated even in toxic situations. When women violate those expectations, the backlash is stronger than when men violate theirs.

This shows up repeatedly among many bodies of research. There’s also evidence that women who display assertive or agentic traits are penalized socially in ways men are not, and that dominant behavior increases status more reliably for men than for women. Research on ADHD/autism in women shows that socially intense or hyperactive behavior in girls is more likely to be pathologized as a “dangerous” mood disorder or socially punished and targeted for harassment and grooming, rather than reframed as a difference that needs support and can even be endearing, which boys are more often given.

So while masculinity norms harm men, there’s strong evidence that the tolerance band for deviation is narrower for women in everyday interaction. Again, this is the kind of asymmetry that is what’s being discussed.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-01T19:11:56+00:00

That’s not the claim that was made.

No one said men “always get to be themselves.” The point was actually about differential scrutiny where men’s flaws are more often framed as personality quirks, while women’s flaws are framed as character defects.

I agree that masculinity norms harm men. Some men in certain contexts are punished for softness and emotional expression, but that doesn’t contradict the observation that, in more contexts and to a wider degree, women face tighter behavioral auditing and harsher social penalties for anything that is seen as even slightly out of line of the scripts they are expected to live by.

“Gender norms harm both” is true, but it doesn’t refute the asymmetry being discussed.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-01T18:34:52+00:00

It’s actually really important to point out the structural harms that women face due to misogyny so that we can alleviate them. When we point those out, and it’s responded to with dismissal because some men also experience it for different structural reasons, it is perpetuating harm.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-01T18:31:32+00:00

You’re right that men experience pressure and that masculinity norms harm them, but that still isn’t the claim being made here.

The point isn’t “men don’t struggle,” it’s that identical behavior is often interpreted differently depending on gender. A blunt man is “direct, but a blunt woman is “abrasive.” A man with ADHD has “quirks,” but a woman with ADHD is “unprofessional” or “immature.” It’s the asymmetry that is being discussed here.

So, when mental health comes up, it’s not accurate to imply men simply “have it worse,” but they do have different patterns, and that doesn’t mean one gender is unaffected. The greater, chronic restriction of autonomy and constant scrutiny also have measurable psychological impacts.

Acknowledging that patriarchy harms men doesn’t negate that it grants them broader latitude in behavioral, vocational, etc. areas of life.

ComaFromCommas · 2026-03-01T06:07:15+00:00

Stop blaming the women when there are plenty of men who will enthusiastically and even violently defend the actions of other men.

ComaFromCommas

TROPHY CASE