SELF-ARCHEOLOGY

There are far too many silent sufferers. Not because they don’t yearn to reach out, but because they’ve tried and found no one who cares. — Richelle E. Goodrich Peoples definition of abuse varies, but all of us have experienced abuse at one point or another. For example, bullying, physical attacks, intimidation, neglect, emotional manipulation, verbal abuse, ganging up, triangulation, character assassination, etc., are all common and typical forms of abuse. People experience abuse in their relationships with their parents, siblings, other family members, teachers, peers, classmates, coworkers, friends, acquaintances, romantic partners, neighbors—anybody, really. Many people listening to victims wonder, “If it was so bad, then why didn’t you say something?” Or, “If it actually happened, you wouldn’t have stayed silent for so long.” The truth is, however, that many people hide their abusive experiences from others. In this article we will explore the reasons why people stay silent and hi...

Over the years, I have encountered, observed, and professionally worked with many people who come from difficult childhood environments . One common feature that these people, and the vast majority of people, have after becoming adults is feeling empty, lacking, and lost. Many of us enter adulthood hurt, deprived, misled, lonely, anxious, tired, angry, numb, bored, or terrified. When a person grows up, leaves their childhood home, and “becomes an adult,” it is common for them to feel totally lost and disconnected. They don’t know who they are, what they like, how they feel, where to go, and what to do about it. Now why do so many people feel this way? If, as a child, it is forbidden to be yourself, and if your true self is met with violence, rejection, scorn , or invalidation, then you learn to hide it. This is necessary to your survival in an otherwise problematic or dangerous environment. And so you repress your feelings, you hide your thoughts, you abandon your interests, a...

QUESTION The longer I know someone, the more anxious I feel around them. Why is that? ANSWER It is hard to say for sure without knowing a person’s history and the particular situation they are in. Based on my personal and professional experience, someone who feels increasingly anxious around others is afraid of the relationship becoming more close and more intimate. Not necessarily in a romantic or sexual way (although it can definitely be that, too), but just knowing each other better, being more vulnerable, and so on. Now why is that? Generally, I see two cases: one , the person is afraid of building an intimate, caring, loving bond with someone, and two , they are scared of others exploiting and deliberately hurting them. Sometimes it is a combination of both. In the first scenario , the person is not used to healthy intimacy and has trust issues. They may not know how to have mutual respect, reciprocity, and power equality—or even what it looks like. They also may not kno...

Those of us who have encountered people with narcissistic, predatory, or even sociopathic tendencies (for the sake of simplicity referred to as manipulator ) have experienced a phenomenon where the manipulator tries to vilify you by using triangulation , gossiping, power play, mischaracterization, and other tactics. It usually goes like this....  The Mechanism Behind It The manipulator is driven by shame, insecurity, and fear. As soon as they start feeling inferior, or as soon as you notice the manipulator's toxicity—or as soon as they notice you noticing their toxicity—they begin feeling deep insecurity. In their attempt to manage it, they may try to cover their tracks and save their image by giving you made up explanations and excuses, instead of recognizing their unhealthiness and working on themselves to overcome it. If you are able to see though their smoke and mirrors tactics, ideally you will either set a firm boundary and distance yourself from them or they wi...

Psychiatric Hospital Experiences (Part 1): Patient Stories can be found here . Here's PART 2: WORKER STORIES. [Language unedited, except for a few typos for clarity.] Comment 1: It's *insanely* difficult to prove abuse. There was an incident with the home health agency I worked with where a male CHHA raped a female stroke patient. She had extremely limited verbal skills, but was still able to communicate what happened. Police were called. An investigation proceeded. They determined she was of a "limited mental capacity" and misunderstood what occurred. Worst thing I ever saw. Comment 2: I used to be a support worker for an organization in Canada that used zero restraints and most of the people we served had some variation of extreme intellectual disability and mental health diagnosis as well. I mention this because ,in my ten years supporting there, I never once had to restrain anyone. We used a lot of preventative techniques (sort of like the peel metho...

About a month ago, I read an article on Cracked.com called  Things I Saw As A Psych Ward Nurse Too Dark For Horror Films . In it, a male nurse shares his experiences working in a huge psychiatric hospital where he saw, experienced, and participated in many horrible things. Those who follow the subject for a longer amount of time probably will not be too surprised because it is extensively documented how terrifyingly grim so many mental health facilities and health facilities in general are. However, I spent some time reading the comments under the article and wanted to post them as a separate article. I have selected a few more interesting ones where people share first-hand experiences of either staying in such a facility as a patient or working there as a staff member. It's a lot of text, so I decided to separate the comments into two posts: one for patients' stories and one for workers'. Here's PART 1: PATIENT STORIES. [Language unedited, except for a few typos for...

This article is a response to an old, yet very pertinent comment regarding childhood trauma and its effects. About three years ago, I wrote an article called Child Abuse and Its Results in Today's Society . Some time after, a person named Lisa left this public comment: I didn't publish it at the time for relatively obvious reasons, and then completely forgot about it. But yesterday I was looking at all the unapproved comments, saw it, and thought it could be useful to comment on it. This is a rhetorical response only; I'm not actually addressing Lisa personally. I've met and observed many people who say and do similar things, and who have a similar personality and communication methods. I'm simply using this comment as a background context—an example, or a vehicle, if you will—to talk about a bigger, highly common issue that is childhood trauma. Now, disclaimer aside, let's get to it. Not that I do not agree with any of this, but as a parent (and someone ...