I’ve seen people talk about actors and artists that had a terrible time.
My own would be Anne Rice. She wrote Interview with the Vampire after her young daughter died of Leukemia. Then her husband suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage. I suspect her Christian, anti-fanfic phase was a result of mental illness and manipulation from the publishers, although I don’t think she ever apologized.
Why? I literally referred to three women going through this and posited why. I didn’t apply it to “all” at any time.
I’m also a trauma survivor and have had complex PTSD for much of my life. If I can understand their subconscious drivers are clearly beyond their control or understanding, you should be able to as well.
People are psychologically complex. By ascribing “all” to my post, you’re doing the exact thing you’re accusing me of: assuming everyone could handle it the way you did.
EVERY HUMAN BEING IS LED BY INSTINCT. We all have subconscious drivers we DO NOT, and CANNOT control.
That is a neurobiological reality of how the brain functions. No neuroscientist worth his salt will comprehensively say we have “free will” if the definition includes controlling subconscious drivers.
I did not read it as specific to those three people, but as a more general statement on these types of people, who turn to bigotry and have a history of trauma.
Uh, no, that’s just what I inferred you saying from your comment. Hence I called it out, because I thought YOU were saying it.
There are things outside of our control. Being a bigot is not one of them. It is not an instinct. It is an active choice one has to make and keep making. If you’re traumatized by the actions of a man and a specific trans person’s appearance happens to trigger your trauma and you go into fight/flight/freeze/fawn, then that’s an instinct. But if you then go on a rampage to call all trans people rapists and donate to transphobic causes and people and ally yourself with actual fascists and fascism-apologists, that is not an instinct. That is an active choice.
But it’s a choice based on belief, which humans have a very hard time controlling. So it’s a deeply misinformed choice.
… what? You seriously think we can’t control beliefs or opinions?
Do you just think that humans are mindless automatons who can’t control anything or most things in life? Because that’s nonsense.
And why is it so important to you to find explanations or excuses for her choices? The choices remain deeply damaging to society and to marginalized people and communities. Even if she was truly just motivated by her own trauma, that does not make these choices defensible. She is making the world worse for people who have done nothing to her and who only want to exist in peace.
There is no defense for this.
I think it is difficult for people to understand who do not have mental issues. I have in certain situations severe anxiety. People even those who know me well often do not understand that I cannot just help being the way I am. That the feelings that come are not something I can control. People constantly interpret my behaviour as asocial and unfriendly but I am far from that I just cannot help becoming defensive and silent when I am afraid.