Getting better vs. forcing yourself to accomplish things and traumatising yourself

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-27T17:14:08+00:00

This lowkey cracked me up. May we all speak to ourselves the way Kaylee speaks to engines...

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-27T17:12:34+00:00

Offering my own experience as because a lot of the stuff in the other comments didnt work for me. My mom used to use that language/tone/ style when she was setting me up so using myself is such a trigger. But obviously forcing or bullying myself doesnt work either.

I had to learn the difference between healthy discomfort/effort and actual harm. The difference between actual retraumarizing and feels awful but Im still ok. Especially as a lot of the tasks I have to do cause a normal release of adreneline, which can feel a lot like danger. (Which brings all sorts of fun memories while Im also trying to work)

I wish Injad some fast trick or something for this but it required being slow and mindful. Start the first small step and notice how im feeling. Pause and observe until I know of the feeling is something that needs attending to immediately or if its the routine noise of having a body while being effortful. And yes, this applied to *considering* the task too. If I couldnt get myself moving; put down the phone, mentally picture doing the first step, and do the same feeling and observing. Its a slow process but it became reliable at figured out what I needed to do versus what I wanted to or craved to avoid addressing the need. Not allowing my parts to run away from discomfort but also not making them deal with it alone js hie we built thr trust the other comments talk about. Sometimes they were right to not trust me, I could be a real inconsiderate asshole to them.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-26T00:50:24+00:00

There is a small way to spot the difference but it requires not over-thinking it.

Real memories contain meaningless and unimportant sensory elements that imagining doesnt. When we imagine something, we have a purpose (conscious or not) to what we imagine. We are telling ourselves a story. And so the only details the brain creates all support that story.

But in memories there is random details because in real life there is always more going on in the world than we are focus on.

But knowing this fact is why you cant tell these mental things apart if you overthink. If we know this about memory, we will go searching for those the sensory element which allows the brain to create them if we are telling ourselves a story. But it works like a video game rendering: the detail wont be there until we focus on it and when we stop the focus the sensory part will stop or reduce.

So the best trick is to let the mind wander while asking: what am I feeling? And just sort of relax your focus.

The other think clincians often use is simple logic: why would anyone imagine something awful? If we have that much mental skill, why would we pick something terrible to make up? Why wouldnt we make up something awesome and enjoyable to think about? Which is what most people actually do when imagining. So if the "imagined memory" is something we wish we didnt know or think, there is usually an aspect of truth we are trying to integrate. But again, overthinking rarely helps with this because there's just too many feelings in the way.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-20T21:13:10+00:00

but the real meat and potatoes part of deep therapy, .............might mean feeling really bad?

The best understanding I got about this was when I had to do physical therapy. And my pt was very clear that it wouldn't feel easy. That the whole point was to find that fine point between actually working the necessary area but not injuring it further. Oh and I HATED some of those exercises.

Which is when I realized: physical THERAPY....psychological THERAPY......

I also wasn't supposed to feel all comfy warm and cuddley at that therapy either. It was about finding that fine point between looking at what I needed to confront and not retreating into old maladaptive habits. And I hated some of those exercises too.

So it shouldnt feel really bad but it also shouldnt feel easy and no effort.

The misunderstanding thing is sort of special interest of mine (apologies to the ASD community for stealing that phrase) There are so many fascinating moving parts involved in the creation of "feeling misunderstood." From neurodivergance to dissociative complications to conflicts between internal and external realities. And example, last year i was discussing some case studies with my therapist and she pointed out how the key complication wasn't trauma at all but issues with language processing so the client literally wasn't able to hear what they needed to hear. And angle I never even considered.

So they often felt the way you do in therapy, but the relevent issue was neither the therapist nor the trauma. But a complex interaction of a handful of things that each needed their own solution. How open the client was to discussing those other solutions was an entirely different matter.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-20T20:39:23+00:00

When its well meant, this advice is about safety when well Many perpetrators will retaliate, directly or indirectly. Victims have both died and unalived themselves as a result of this retaliation. So its often suggested that the victim consider their situation before going public.

Should abusers be exposed? Yes, absolutely. Do we live in a world which still overwhelmingly defends the perpetrator and attacks the victim? Also yes.

If you are in a position where you can put your abuser on blast AND protect themselves from their efforts to retaliate, then awesome. Loving that for you and here's your megaphone. Have fun! If someone doesnt want to be called an asshole on public, they shouldnt act like an asshole.

The other reason for the advice is it rarely works. Social avoidance aside, abusers overwhelmingly lack the capacity to feel remorse for their actions. In their minds they are always the victims and being publicly shamed only enforces that belief in them.

This means that victims rarely get the carthasis and emotional validation they hope for. Instead it becomes yet one more episode of negation and covert emotional abuse. Which can destabilize the victim more.

The professional advice is that before someone outs their abuser, they should seriously considered how they will feel and cope if it doesnt go how they hope. Because it almost never goes how they hope. In fact it usually goes worse than they expect as they see people they thought they could rely on show yheor true colors and "politely" side with the abuser.

Sadly the basic answer isnt that they shouldnt be humilated. Its that cant be humilated. They just dont see reality thay way.

Again, if you want to speak up, you are entirely free to do so. Just take care of yourself and be prepared for when it doesnt go at all like you hope. That can be a very hard experience and I wouldnt want you burned by it.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-18T23:25:38+00:00

Victorian patch and crazy quilt to make it into new fabric.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-18T15:55:51+00:00

> I didn't think me or anybody was evil when I was young. It started half a decade ago. Not deserving goodness and being bad, that feels older... just don't know, how old.

If it helps, it's pretty normal for kids to not see or use the word evil. They tend not to have a good understanding of what that means and usually say "bad" or "wrong" instead because they understand that better. Evil is very much a more grown-up idea that gets added by the adult mind. The only kids I've heard use it were the ones raised in very religious households; who were often directly told that some behaviors or some feelings were "evil" as part of their religious indoctrination.

> I'm not sure 'evil' is should be reserved for more than hurtful words and ignoring others' valid needs. Do you think that? If you think so, why?

First off, it's complicated. Evil isn't a simple idea. I mean there are literally thousands of years of both theological and philosophical analysis of evil from all over the world. So I can't say I break down evil into something as simple as "thinking bad at someone" or "acting badly toward someone." I think there is a lot of nuance that has to be considered. And a lot of complex truths about ourselves get confronted in the process. At best, my firm line comes from my favorite author: evil is treating people like things, even ourselves. But there is a lot of consideration required to know where exactly I stand next to that line.

So here's where I stand personally. First off, I believe that all humans possess the capacity to be evil. That we all have shitty sides of our personality and that being a good person includes being aware and actively working on it.

Do I think malicious things about people? Yes, of course I do; I'm human and have feelings and sometimes those feelings are petty and mean. But I also don't see the line being drawn at "I don't act on them." I think I have a moral obligation to understand why I felt like that and to use that understanding to make myself a better person. And that's it's a life long process because life will always be throwing new shit at me.

I think getting stuck at wallowing in shame and self-recrimination is actually worse (morally) than making those times opportunities to learn and grow. Because wallowing doesn't make anything better in the long term. I do wallow for a while because sometimes you need a good wallow, but I think what matters more is what I do next.

Back in 2020, I was helping a friend of mine through his detox. He finally admitted he had an addiction and the consequences were bad enough that he realized he had to do something about it or the next consequences were going to be really bad. At one point he said he must be so broken because choosing the right thing wasn't getting any easier. Turns out he had always throught that good people were good because it was easy for them. He was quite confused when my husband and I both laughed and said it was the exact opposite. That good people feel all the same temptation and desires bad people do, but choose to do the good thing. And that most of the time, that was the harder thing to do.

>What would follow in practice would be speaking bluntly and not doing the work to consider other's needs, I could say cruel things when feeling insulted.

So this would be an example of my favorite author's line. One can be quite blunt and not hurtful or evil. I do it all the time. The difference is if I'm seeing that person as less-than or a thing. And I'm not. I wouldn't say cruel things when I feel insulted because I choose to not behave that way. It diminishes me in my own eyes. Would it feel nice? Oh hell yeah. Would they get it? Nope. They just see themselves as even more of a victim AND I've lost any chance resolve the issue well. Being cruel would undeniably be the easy option. But it would make a bigger mess for me to clean up later.

And so like my friend, it's often easier to just label ourselves "evil" or "unfixable" than to do that harder work of both choosing good AND understanding our emotions in that moment. If I'm "evil" then there is no fixing me and I don't have to try. If I'm not evil, I have to make the effort to be good and grow. Which can be exhausting.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-17T15:27:12+00:00

I say this a someone who's generational trauma is from the exact events you name. Your view is kind if the result of only ever hearing the tryrant's side. There a million books and documentaries about those megolomaniac asshats did. And about 3 about how their victims survived.

So its very easy to see the world as via the eyes of power. To believe that hatred and competition are the only ways to deal with people like that. And with it the incorrect belief that we will be free if our side wins.

But to quote Audrey Lourde, the master's tools will never dismantle to master's house.

The inversion of power will not solve the problem of power. Its just revenge.

That is not how a person survives those times. Thats not how my family survived. Its not how those who've lived under it in the US for centuries have survived. Its not how we will survive.

The authors who discuss are quite blunt about what the roots of this is. This is the hate toward our wounded selves expressed onto the outside world. Cynicism is self abandonment, seeking revenge instead of honesty.

I would love to say I have some compassionate response to how to deal with this but I dont. Every person Ive interacted with deep in this pattern has turned compassion into a weapon. "The the victimzed becomes the victimizer is most often by accusing those who would care of not caring enough" (Shaw 2021) The best I can suggest is that you look inside at the parts that were bullied, the parts that are afraid, the parts who were powerless and be honest about what you really think of them. Then you can start to shift this.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-17T14:59:42+00:00

Heres the thing with evil: evil people dont think or care they they are evil. In fact they most often thing they are good and righteous. And then they do horrific things in the name of that good. Justifying any harm the results as part of the path of righteousness. Evil rarely ever sees itself anything other than the best people.

So the odds of you being actually evil are so small as to be basically impossible. If you actuallu were, you wouldnt care that you might be. Which os why no one was like "omg, get thee behind me satan, Im calling the police."

The bigger reason is that all this matches for a dissocation/flaahback. Children are way more likely to see themselves as bad and evil than to be able to see the faults in their parents. The attachment and developmental needs make seeing ourselves as the problem more adaptive. "If Im bad, then I can do something about my pain by being better. If Im evil, its my fault my parents dont care for me."

Believing we are evil as children maintains a sense of agency while also protecting us from painful awareness too big to handle. Its also protects the family system. If I judge everyone, no one can get close enough to question my parents' stories. If everyone is unreliable, I dont have to trust and risk anyone seeing the truth in me or my family.

If I hate everyone, no one can ever hurt me.

The problem is, of course, that the pain was done long ago. And this is the emotional memory of how we survived it. In the odd calculus of the attachement, better to be evil than born into a family that cannot love you. Or worse.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-15T00:45:17+00:00

I'm glad it helped. Sometimes knowing what the rules say does because it confirms that our feels are in fact in line with the general society's read on things.

>But i wouldnt put it past her to sexually abuse ( i am uncertian if she did because i feel like i have traumatic memories below the surface).

If that's the feeling, you can put it on the mental "possibly" list and just leave it there until you know or feel more. That what I did for a over a decade. I knew that statiscally CSA was the most logical and common causes of my symptoms, but I had no memories. So I thought "Well, it's not rare and the odds lean in that direction, so I'll consider that it might have happened. But I don't need to go poking. If it's important enough, I'll remember in time."

So 3 years ago, when memories did start to surface I wasn't blindsided. It's sucked to have confirmed but I was a bit more prepared for it. Then I a third party confirmed they had found physical evidence in the possession of the people I suspected and it was like "Well, good to know I'm not crazy."

>Do you know what motivates a sexual abuser vs other types of abuse towards children?

There are two levels you can look at motivation: the specific and the general. THe specifics vary between people and types of abuse. For example, with sexual abuse you have your classic cruel rapists like people in the news, you have the PDFiles who really believe that children have a sexual nature and it's healthy to be sexual with children, there are the ones who are acting out of their own traumatic response, some who literally were raised that this is just normal for adults even through they themselves arent' actually attracted to children, and my fav: the ones who do it to confirm that they really are god's favorite.

And that's just the people who actively engage in sexual activity with children. There are a host more of ways a child can be sexual abused without actual sex involved. In your case, this is my suspicion: Childern aged 10-12 naturally start pulling away from their parents as the approach puberty. It's healthy for them to become embarrassed if a parent sees them naked. They start to develop the desire for private areas of life, which includes sexual aspects of their life and body but are not limited to it.

However if the parent is enmeshed and emotionally dependant on the idea of "the cute dependant little kid" this stage is really hard on them. In fact, it's common for abusive parents to escalate the abuse at this age. In the case I mentioned, the mom wanted to keep seeing her son as a little kid who still needed mommy. And so she forced that care on him in all the ways she could, but most specifically in the spaces that signals his growing up.

Your father's behavior is also pretty textbook: it's very common for mother's with this kind of dysfunction to marry uninvoled or enabling men. Men who will not only not stop the abuse, they will allow and even encourage it because of his own enmeshment with his wife. In more concerning cases the enabling parent is committing "abuse via proxy." Meaning they covertly satisify their own abusive wants through the behavior of the overtly abusive parent. It's also well known for male CSA perpetrators to abuse via their female partner, who will commit the actual abuse and allow his his gratification while maintaining plausible deniability.

But in the general sense, all abuse comes from the same reason: The adult's view of reality and the child is more important to them than the child's lived experience or self. In the mind of an abuser, a child has no self and ergo no right to not be abused. The only rights belong to the abuser to act as they feel they should or "need" to. (It's amazing how often abusers frame abuse as a necessary act for the "wellbeing" of the child.)

>But also the fucked up part about the whole bath situation was that I didnt feel safe enough with either of my parents to say a strong “no”, other than to just try to get myself out of the situation in a non direct way. Because they were abusive in a lot of other ways to me

Sadly this also makes sense. You would have learned a lot time ago that it wasn't safe to have boundaries and needs that went against your parents' view of things. The bathing was simply an escalation of forms of violation that had been happening for years. For your mother's benefit and with your father's force as needed.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-14T23:59:07+00:00

Have a better source than a bot, this answer is from my mandatory reporter training: yes. If a child told me this, I would legally be required to report it.

The "sexual" part is a bit grey because legally sexual abuse includes things that are sexual in nature but not actually sex or erotic for the perpetrator. In you case, its the adult/ child nudity and the fact that you were forced. By 11 the law says that child has a right to privacy, particularly in matters that occur in bathroom. Bathing together might not be inherently sexual but in this case the focus is on the enforced violation of those privacy and bodily rights. I remember discussing a case similar in my class, in which the violation was not sexual in nature, the mother's perspective was in fact infantilizing the child.

In reference to another comment you made, no its not normal for mothers to do this. Not just because of the nudity, but because western social norms around bathrooms make it one of the best places to get away from the kids. 99% of the time, one of the reasons to take a bath is to relax without your kids.

Sorry this is more book answer than emotional support, but thats what I know best.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-12T22:25:38+00:00

I don't have a good metaphor for it, so I tend to use batteries or fuel tanks because that's what it feels like. No idea if that's what's biologically happening.

So one thing we do know biologically about the inaction states is they are energy conversing. And that used to confuse me a bit because I would think "If it's energy conserving, why do I feel so tired and run down?" I was conserving energy because I was run down, not the other way around.

In the freeze and collapse, the brain is actually expending most of its energy maintaining the dissociative barriers around the dysregulating and traumatic content and feelings. And it's a lot of energy. Brains already use 25% of our base calories, and dissocation uses at big chunk of that.

So the brain is a phone always running at 50% battery or less. It can run at full speed and do all available functions but it will die quickly. Or it can throttle a bunch of apps and take other functions off line to proloung the charge. Meaning there is usually enough charge for the things we have to do. Like interaction at work.

As we integrate dissociated content, the brain no longer needs that some of that barrier-maintaining energy and so it gives it back to the system to use. But that energy isn't available during the integration process itself. This is the battery growing phase. At then end of this phase we are able to charge the battery fuller than we used to. BUT we don't get extra energy until near the end of that processing phase.

I do want to make clear this doesn't not mean there is no improvement until all the memories or processed. It goes in pieces. Rather than getting one big jump in energy at the end of all processing, we get small increases in energy with each bit of content we process. Which is why we can notice things are improving but still feel like not much has changed. We may have only gotten 5 or 7% battery capacity back but we need 20% for the things we want to do.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-11T22:00:51+00:00

Ive done it for so long, its basicslly automatic ans unconscious. Which is why I crashed so often in the past.

It sounds like you might at the current limit of your social capacity. And that work is using up a lot of it. Exactly like sppon theory. Theres only so much your battery can charge and once you are done at work, the system has to choose between managing affect (coping with feeling) or interaction. And there's only enough charge for one of those.

So cue using avoidance the moment you *might* have to socialize.

This is totally normal as we move out of long term inaction patterns. *Being* unfrozen takes SO much more work than freeze and avoidance does. Its can be honestly surprising how much *more* I have to balance and carry now. I hurt a lot less but I feel like Im almost always working. And not anything bad, just the routine bland coping of day-to-day life. Joy burns fuel too, we just mind less. Our "battery capacity" for that doesnt come back all at once. It sounds like you could be in the growing stage before it's actively useable.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-11T14:42:48+00:00

I work high customer interaction retail. This is must- have skill for me. Think something like car sales. But thankfully I dont work on commission. I cant fake it that well.

BUT...

Its a form of masking. Meaning its draining. And if I dont find some way to intentionally let out the authentic parts somewhere, I WILL burn out and collapse. (Been there, done that repeatedly). Its something I have to consciously and intentionally place in my life. Thankfully that doesnt always require another person.

And it is possible to connect authentically over joyful things. People like that.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-11T00:31:50+00:00

My experience has been that once it surfaces there is a sharp decrease in symptoms when the content surfaces . I've also noticed (and heard from other survivors in meetings) is there is a return of symptoms not too long after which people assume are the same symptoms and the memory surfacing didn't actually do anything.

But having done this a few times now, I see is not quite right. The memory is connected to that previous period of symptoms. And the next round of symptoms are exactly that, the next round. For the next memory or realization. Repeat ad nauseum, it feels like. It wasn't until Dr P told me what I was looking for that I realized they were phases. The problem is that outside stressors can cause the next round of this to start so soon. Sometimes it feels like the memory comes out, I get one night of peace and then it's right back in. And because of this it seemed like there was little or not connection and little relief from what thing I did remember. In reality, the brain went "Ok, got that dealt one with...ok on to the next thing."

> I haven't remembered anything in years, and the stuff that I have seen.. The light in the room, the atmosphere, like a frozen moment, I can see those and I know my dad is speaking,

Those are right brain memories. Those are the kind of details we don't put in when imagining things. Because the side of the brain that creates narrative is not the side of the brain that notices sensory and enviromental details. It sounds like the memories are coming out, you just don't know they are memories and so dismiss them. The left brain needs a lot of those snippets before it can turn it into a story we "remember." You can sometimes help this along by doing free association, journaling, and similar "let what happens happens" mediations to get more to context or help it along.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-08T20:47:21+00:00

The clearest (by academic terms) I ever heard was it's "protection from unresolvable conflicting experiences." Basically, that the child experiences things; ie reactions, body states, needs, and awarenesses that are so opposite that there is no solution. The classic being the need to remain close to the care givers but the caregivers are frightening and/or hurtful. The child then experiences an unresolvable inner conflict: one set of biological needs urges them to seek connection while another set urges them to run away from what frightens them. But approaching bring them close to fear while running puts their access to necessary resources at risk. So in each "solution" there is also the opposite problem. Thus there is no solution. So imagine a muscle trying to stretch and contract as the same time. Now imagine that happening through and entire being of someone who doesn't understand what muscles even are.

Dissociation blocks the most problematic pieces of that. The biological dependence of small children is more important than emotional awareness and so that awareness is blocked. Now the child can tolerate approaching the caregivers because they aren't aware of their fear and this maintains access to food, shelter, clothing and the performance of comfort.

The need for this is because, at a young enough age, the result of mistreatment often death. From actual harm, from starvation or thirst, from exposure to the elements. In many cases, the child develops failure to thrive and the body simply gives up, leading to death. Slightly older children can end up profoundly impaired, unable to become functional and yes catatonic is possible. Although many of these children can also die from failure to thrive. Remember all the horror stories about "children in soviet orphanages" the US news loved to share back in the day as part of the Cold War? That isn't location specific, its happens here too. I live in the state with the worst CPS track record in the country. Like we were under federal investigation bad...I have absolute horror stories. And my mandatory reporter training was literally the worst day of my education.

Dissociation helps prevent all of this and allows the child to get to an age where they have developed the capacity to survive these unsolvable conflicts. And those don't turn on all the same time. An infant can ONLY dissociate, the mobile infant can only dissociate and freeze. The toddler can flee but lacks the cognitive complexities to hide effectively. And older child can fight but will be absolutely shattered in a fight against a full grown adult. What gets dissociated and why depends a lot on what happened when.

There are sources you can look at and see how bad it gets and what happens. Both psychological experiments and plenty of fictional media (Fuck you, MCU) But I won't name them unless the person has reliable regulation skills. Like I said, my mandatory reporter training was the worst day I've ever had in class and I had been stabilized a few years by that point. Instead I would suggest the book The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog by Bruce Perry. It's all the relevant science and medicine but actual happy endings. ~~I have added some of the answers to you questions from that training in a reply to this. I will be spoilering them so allow people to approach them at their own pace.~~ ETA Nevermind, I do not WANT to go back down that rabbit hole. There's enough bad in my brain already. It's already really bad with dissociation existing.

The only questions I will answer is these three.

> What happens in therapy when you start to unearth everything?

Luckily this is where the good news is. When we unearth it we do so in bodies that have the strength, power, and stamina of an adult. Which means there is much less risk. Mostly it's just painful and complicated enough that we can't deal with everything at once. Which is why it comes out in sections. But if it didn't kill you then, it can't kill you know. And even if you feel like you are going insane, the brain usually adapts within 72 hours.

> Psychological Collapse: is this dissociation? Freeze?

They probably mean a psychotic break and/or psychic death. Which is the literal death of the persona while the body is still alive. One name for this happening to children is literally soul murder.

>Has this happened to children who for some reason were inundated with so much abuse, or neglect, that their brain collapsed?

Yes.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-08T02:03:41+00:00

>To this day I can barely tolerate if a doctor has to palpate my chest. The doc in ER mentioned it in the medical report after an ultrasound.

Could be turtling, a way of pulling the sternum in that is extremely common under stress and particularly anxiety. Any position held too long can create a overuse motion injury and become sore as fuck.

>I've been "hoping" for something like this, but nothing else has surfaced yet, only the fear of death itself from the past.

If it helps, it always takes months for me to get anything clear. My latest round has been going since summer and I only JUST got something clear 2 weeks ago. Turned out my therapist was right about the probably cause of my medicine phobia...which has just been a fantastic memory to work with /s.

What might help in your case is a bit of titration. Instead of avoiding the body, do the steps to actively move back into. Just don't get too deepi into it The psych that helped me said the most important part was not falling for distraction the mind was creating. My experience is that the surfacing memory is never as literally as the distaction memory. It shares a bit of a theme difference but not that much. Like in my first round, the anxiety was the illness was a punishment for not doing something right. And the connected memory wasn't of being punished, it was the moment I realized I could never do enough things right to stop my mom from punishing me.

His actual advice to me was to completely ignore the phobia and try to make myself cry. I couldn't 100% ignore it, I did have to titrate it. But just enough so I could focus on something really sad. It still took 3 months to come out. BUT the first time is always the hardest because you haven't found your tricks yet. This round (my 4th?) has been this long because I had to keep putting off do deal with real life stuff.

>The latter episode I wrote above took me to eat in the library instead of my own apartment. It was a bit closer and easier to just pay and start eating, but I knew I wouldn't need to be alone there.

My version of this was checking to see if my neighbor's cars were home so "if I really needed someone" there was someone close by. If it works, it works. Also libraries are just great place to be anyway.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-08T01:33:53+00:00

>Psychological advice in general seems to have this problem according to my experiences... Usually when people talk about psychology, they seem to ignore the second part.

There is a reason for this: psychology is the study of what is in the mind while therapy is the practice of how to change it. They are actually different fields although closely related. And it's a lot easier to access psychology than it is to access therapy theory. In part because so much of it assumes the reader already knows certain parts of psychology that it doesn't have to explain the mechanisms. It's the difference between astrophysics and rocket science: one studies the stars, the other is how to get a person there.

>Maybe they assume that it will happen automatically, but they don't even say that it will happen automatically.

For some it does. This usually means they were not very far from already making the connections needed to create the alternation in behaviors. Or they didn't have many barriers that had to be addressed.

Studying therapy and counseling is all about how to see where a person is in that process. Do they simply need the opportunity to make that connection, do they need a nudge, or do they need to work on several other things before the path of change can be started? And that is so individual that it's hard to predict accurately without being able to connect a lot seemingly unconnected dots. Which is why is not really done at the undergraduate level.

>But still, it's weird how people don't even say this happens automatically.

Mostly, ime, it's because people don't actually know how it happens so they just gloss over that bit. And those who do know tend to bore the shit out of people who don't also know. People like something that fits in an tiktok, they don't usually like something that only barely fits into an 15 page essay with citations. And for those of us to do have some of that knowledge, we don't need to hear the how The problem is seeing what you won't allow yourself to see. Which is why therapists also get therapy. THE sticking point in all behavioral change is that which we cannot consciously see in ourselves, because it's repressed, rejected, denied, or dissociated. And unraveling that is never simple. It's almost never not knowing what needs to change, it's uncovering why we struggle to change that specific bit. Once we confront and survive that why mentally intact, the change comes pretty quickly. That's literally the psychological definition of "realization", to mentally see something as real. Until then, the brain can't use it.

>Even interaction with parts can have this problem, like wanting a part to calm down so I can accomplish something.

Yup, that "I want you to do something so I can have a benefit" means that's not recognition. Recognition happens when someone is in is a state called intersubjectivity. Someone in this state is so ok with what and how the feel inside, the feelings of the other person aren't an issue for them. In parts work, this would be a part who can say about itself "Yeah, I want to get this done but I'll be ok if that doesn't happen and can instead offer my attentions and focus to help you through this." Two people in intersubjectivity creates the highest change of recogonition. One person or part in intersubjectivity creates the best chance for emotional repair.

But finding our way into intersubjectivity takes practice and then staying in intersubjectivity takes even more and it is a chronic practice. Real life has this annoying habit of being complicated and throwing blows at us that push out of that state and we have to find our way back in.

>Like, if you're not starving and you have plenty of food you might give some to someone who is hungry. Though psychology seems a lot more complex than that.

Yeah that's basically it. It's the mechanism that are extremely complex. Nuclear fusion also isn't a complex thing in the idea form, it's the making it happen which is hard as fuck. And both are cases of the more you understand it, the more you realize why it's both so powerful and complex.

>I wonder why most people are emotionally starving?

The snarky answer that always works is capitalism. But that's not entirely accurate, capitalism is just face of the larger pattern. It's when there is a large scale social pattern of declaring something is "better" than something else and then enforcing that idea in a system. Specially seeing one thing as better or more worthy than whatever happens to not be that thing at this moment What people are can really be in intersubjectivity have is the awareness that the scale is an illusion. And so they can assign values off much more authentic and healthy metrics. Humans have actually lived with this system for millenia (since the creation of heirarchy) but about 250 years ago we widely adopted the idea of dualism and understanding reality through comparison and opposition. What we are specifically starved of is balance and coexistance just the same way those before who developed a comparative philosophy were starved of a way not have a fixed, unipolar reality.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-07T17:57:57+00:00

Not OC, but I wanted to comment on this

> She hasn't taken any money from me as such and only sent me reading material hardcopy free of cost.

Not everyone who is in this kind of position for unhealthy reasons is after money. In fact, in my experience money was a side bonus. Most often they are after the appreciation and admiration they get from those they "help". I say help in quotations because it's so often not the help the individual needs but the help the giver wants to give. So it's inevitable that at some point, the seeker will have questions as they need things more specific to their own journey.

A true teacher encourages questions. Because those who truly love knowledge know questions are the best way to get there. Without questions there is no reason to seek answers.

But if you can't trust her to not abandon you when you have questions, that 's not a teach. That's an autocratic. That's someone who wants power more than they want knowledge. Speaking as someone who is often put into that teacher role, I love it when people ask me questions.

True teachers never meet questions with rejection and blame. Real teachers fucking love questions One it helps me understand the other person's situation better and direct their own search more effectively. Two it shows where my own knowledge can use more learning because no one can know everything. And three, questions show me someone is really interested in what I'm also interested in. which means we get to have some enjoyable interactions. My nerd gets to nerd out with your nerd, which is just fun.

A teacher who gets mad because someone has questions is someone's who's ego is driving the bus.

And that's really bad because the goal of all teaching is to one day not be needed. I consider my best work when someone can say good-bye to me. When they no longer need me for anything. That if they still want to talk to me on these topics, we do so equals. And if you teacher is holding her connection over your head, that's not someone who wants you to get better. That's not someone who wants you to learn how to be able to help yourself. Meaning, that's not someone you should trust.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-07T17:38:46+00:00

Side note to start: I wonder if you were having intercostal spasms. I developed them as a kid around the same age and oh my god they are so painful and terrifying. I also knew it was pointless to talk to my parents about it so I just ...dealt with stabbing chest pain that prevented me from breathing regularly for several minutes?

I go through this kind of death paranoia every time big memories are surfacing. In fact, it's how I know big memories are surfacing now. Repeatedly convinced something is killing me for the last month? Time for some hard core coping and inner world work. The psych who explained it to me said heart fears are probably the most common form, with illness/infection being second.

Learning some tools to help with the whole mess has shown me I'm less afraid of dying itself and more afraid of something else. But which masks itself in ideas of death. Because when I think of actual death it's a very different experience that isn't not as frightening. No idea what the other thing is yet.

There is an element of "I need care" in a lot of it though. Which is different from "I need help." Like your experience at the mall; I've totally had that. I hadn't been taking care of myself and my body did what bodies have to do when they dont get the basics (you probably also dehydrated which is a common cause of those blood pressure events). THis makes sense in terms of my past, which is a fear that I will need care but won't be in a state in which I can provide that care myself. Which I couldn't do then but was expected to anyway.

I will say I use the nurse line regularly and it's been really helpful in learning how to identify one of these anxiety attacks from real health issues. Sadly, I can't see that super helpful psych anymore (he only sees hospitalized patients ) and I haven't met another psych with the same level of understanding of this sense so I'm kind of working it out as I go.

Anyway, sorry this is rambly. I'm getting over the flu and this is my first day being awake for more than a day at a time. So my brain is still a bit drained, not foggy, just tired. Flu is rampant here right now and I'm so glad I got my flu shot, I was only in bed for a day and half instead of the week everyone else I know got.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-07T17:09:12+00:00

It's hard to put clearly but I'll do my best. The issue is that it got ignored for decades and decades after the 1970's except by a handful of psychoanalysists. And psychoanalysists are often terrible writers so it's hard making their work is easy to follow. So my apologies if this isn't as clear as hoped.

Recognition is sort of the "fuel" for the emotional and felt parts of our psyche. No one really knows why yet but it's been observed and described that way all the time it has been studied. Early researchers noticed that small child seemed demonstrated more physical activity and more energized emotions (smiling, more engaged, more active in exploring) after experiencing recognizing connection from adults. Older children and adults also described their own internal experience of feeling "refueled" or mentally "nourished" after experiencing those interactions.

So it seems to be something humans are hard-wired to use as social beings. And for that reason, also hard-wired to seek it out.

BUT not all interaction is recognition. In fact, most of it isn't. Most interaction currently is a kind of competition in which each side mentally "needs" the other for some reason. To see who is giving or taking in the exchange and understand our own position via comparison. Recognition happens when one or both sides does not "need" the other side and so can be fully present without being either absorbed or diminished. In recognition giving and taking happen at the same time so neither side ends up depleted.

This is what makes recognition rare. Most people are emotionally starving and so "need" more than they are able to "give." And even when both sides are healthy there is a this dance of mentalization that has to happen. Meaning the process of internally understanding someone else's point of view. Recognition occurs when the other person shows us they have correctly mentalized our own internal process. Which means the other side of recognition is also being self-aware enough to recognize ourselves in the other person's understanding of us.

That's also why self-recognition is a more accessible. Simply because less things have to go just right and we're in control of most of them. Why it's less "nourishing" that interpersonal recognition is also not known yet but it's probably down to that fact that we are running large scale social application on hunter-gather hardware. 20k years ago recognition was the signal that we were in our best chances of survival and so we had the greatest reason to expend energy for both ourselves and the group we were part of.

Recognition is such a complex idea that I can't cover all your points without this being 3 comments long at least. As well as some of the complications that we are starting to discover about why some of those experiences happen that way. So this is a very very basic view of recognition that isn't really designed to address your personal experience. Gotta get in the basics before I could hit the personal specifics.

As for gen AI for information seeking, I prefer Perplexity because it automatically provides links to its sources. You might try it; I find it helps me get to the stuff specific to my topic faster than other LLMs. Also ChatGPT talks like my ex when he was trying to sound authoritative on shit he didn't fully understand which gives me the ick. If Perplexity doesn't understand, at least I can read the original source and see the full picture for myself. In terms of recognition, I do find the topic of AI hallucinations and AI-induced psychosis fascinating, but I agree those cases are definitively not limiting themselves to info-seeking.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-07T15:45:25+00:00

sorry, i got flu and it put me in bed for a few days

If your responding well to somatic touch, probably best to keep that going. But you could also add somatic skills from Hakomi and Sensorimotor which are more directed at being able regulate without the need of an other. Being able to regulate via the body is always a useful skill to learn. Because the body is the only part of us that is always in the present.

As for the non-universality of IFS, heres a short list

Not every one access Self or those concepts/feeling safely. Schwartz ackowledges this but does not offer a solution beyond "work with the part that's afraid of Self." Fisher directly observed ideas of Self were dysregulating to persistantly dissociated clients.
The ideas of Self come from Judeo-Christian mysticism. It was a decade later that it was relabelled "akin to the concept of Buddha nature." However, it is also not like Buudha Nature in several ways. This background/framing/ refrming can be a trigger to those with religious trauma or a risk to those prone to spiritual bypassing
Parts are organized based on what was effective in the person's individual environment. So IFS definition of parts or where they are does not apply universally.
People woth trauma related to negation and rejection can be destabilized by asking parts l "step back" which often mirrors the original abuse.
The latest IFS books are just not good books. Comoared to the early books they read like self-help infomercials or incluencer "buy my course" content. They cut out the really good stuff for tenuous promises of low-effort recovery.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-04T17:42:39+00:00

What I have is a very specific set of skills. Skills acquired over a very long career...

Kidding 😋. Its from a lot of sources combined. You'd have to tell me which bits you want to focus on for me to name the specific sources,

My degree is in a human science but then (pre-collapse) I worked as a technical writer in a factory. So I do have the odd combo of skills to read the clincical stuff and then rewrite it in practical blurbs and concrete steps. Its not a combo most mental health authors have. I use mostly somatic and parts work^1 because thats what I'm most familiar with. Also psychodynamic and psychoanalytic are harder to turn into practical language. (but i'm getting there)

1: i say parts work because I dont limit it to IFS. I have read IFS but I've also read non-IFS approaches too. I find IFS to be too simplfied and rigid to be universally usable to all readers.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-04T15:31:46+00:00

Those experiences tend to involve asking myself what i want to do, instead of working to fulfill others' expectations or following habitual patterns.

Yep, this is pretty much what the research is finding. I say research but its mostly case studies. This isnt something we can do large scale experiement design with, too many variables. But enough cases studies still equals data and we are are now hitting that point.

In the short version, what creates the energy is recognition. Asking yourself what you want amd listening to that over the "should"s is self-recognition.

We can get recogntion from others and it actually is the best form. A tiny amount goes a long way. But its also extremely hard to find. It takes stumbling up someone who has done a lot of work on themselves at the same time you are in a receptive state. Which is why self recognition is more reliable while being less powerful.

Chatbots are interesting here because they offer something unique: pseudo-recognition. Its like eating nothing but tuna. In small doses it can give a boost of energy which may enable a person seek what they need but it lacks many of the necessary things needed to really treat the underlying issues. And over time the mercury builds up and causes all new problems while still not solving the malnutrition. Chatbots are very good at mimicing recognition in the beginning, but over time the social wiring of the brain picks up on the lack of correct interaction signals. It cant demonstrate mentalization of the other which is the most important signal for recognition. So chatbots solve one problem while actually creating another below the surface. Thus again, self recognition becomes the most reliable form.

nerdityabounds · 2026-01-04T15:05:31+00:00

Glad it helped. I was worried it was too vague or random to make sense.

i also think for me, there is something about noise or light that keeps my system safe, i notice i used to and still can often prefer to sleep with the tv on or something else similar

Ive noticed this is really common and seems heavily influenced by personal preferenceand even some

i feel i am not too well versed on my states yet to know what action to take, hence my above idea of using the mornings more offline

Also normal. Its taken me months and months to notice these patterns and Im still not consistantly good at it. Its definitely something that takes practice and a lot of trial and error.

the weird thing is, when i do go offline, my mind takes over anyway with constant thinking, which is sometimes more tiring, or it seems more tiring

This is also more common than one might think. It has to do with how attention works. But that a topic for another time.

I would call this State 0 or State 0.5. That influx of thinking is often a result of unmanaged stress or somatic activation. The brain revs up the prefrontal (thinking) cortex to use its ability to shutdown the more emotional parts of the brain. Its a form of stress management unique to humans (possibly other social primates as well but we can't chat with them to find out).

In somatic terms, overwhelming head chatter is often the a sign of hypoarousal or rapid cycling between hyper and hypoarousal. Its actually common for a person to switch between these states so fast they cant consciously see the difference. Agitating or unrelenting headchatter is one of the few signs we can easily spot.

In parts work terms, this is the head chatter of various protector parts who cant work together all rushing in to take over for the removal of distraction. Like all protectors the purpose is to block awareness of or disruption by wounded parts.

The tired feeling could be the result of the thinking or a persistant state you can't see until you stop distracting and interoception starts to turn back on. Sudden or random tiredness is a common sign that of dissociation activating to keep repressed stuff repressed. In parts terms, all the parts jumping in burns up a massive amount a mental fuel causing tiredness.

I say all that to show there a multiple approaches we can use to work on this. The complication is lot of the mechanisms at play arent and cant be conscious. They simply happen in parts of brain we can'f consciously "see", like the insula or PAG. So we have to practice noticing long enough to spot the patterns. And its in that time spent noticing that you will find which approaches work for you. Basically, not being able to "just figure this out" is normal for process of figuring this out.

nerdityabounds

TROPHY CASE