I agree that this is so important. We have gone from feelings being extremely and often cruelly irrelevant, to feelings being God (unless you need to claim any money of course then your feelings and reality don't count for shit). (Apols if I wander here I cannot sleep and have had some painkillers!)
We need be able to rationally look at the causes of extreme emotions and feelings and the beliefs that flash through the brain in an instant or in a more conscious way and use this analysis to work out how to help.
An irrational fear of doorhandles has no rational basis for believing/ perceiving them to be a severe threat, yet somewhere there will be a thought, a fear, a belief that underpins this extreme reaction. We can sympathise/empathise with the feelings and levels distress it causes but that does not mean we agree/collude with the underlying belief that door handles are 100% a terrible mortal danger, if we did no one would get better. People need help to let go of irrational beliefs and proportionately identify and live with risk/ feelings.
Our body feedback systems can be unhelpful sometimes in reinforcing that the extent of the feelings is proportionate with the level of risk/ threat in the hear and now, and sometimes we cannot believe what our extreme emotions are telling us, but rational objective reality is what helps ground us and help us find sanity.
But when we are considering people who have suffered trauma, and/or who have serious MH conditions, we have to be very careful and nuanced. Not at all how CBT etc is usually dished out on the NHS as a panacea, and as if it doesn't work then you are not trying hard enough, and not being positive enough.
I have PTSD so know something of the processes one feels, the challenges and what it may take to try to get better. It is not easy when some serious threats remain in life, that stir the deepest most existential feelings of fear and terror that some incidents awaken.
That many women have to live with perpetual threats (anything from money and housing worries to sexism, unwanted attention, harrassment, domestic abuse both psychological and physical, threat to our legal rights etc) often on top of childhood traumas and/or sexual assault traumas means that we live with very high rates of stress/distress which is not given credit as being a rational and logical response to circumstances, but rather is seen as irrational = have some pills and CBT and just be positive.
Some people seem to have bypassed this level of living in reality altogether.
I wonder, if some of this PoMo 'everything is a construct' groundswell of ideology is some people experiencing depersonalisation/ derealisation/ existential dissociation/ dissociation in the context of MH conditions that feature emotional dysregulation many of whom are undiagnosed and/ or under treated. Or unquestioningly affirmed. (PoMo is new to me in terms of having significance, so am only just realising that to some people it is a 'thing'!)
This is perhaps where the narcissistic/ annihilist/ perceived threat to trans people's existence comes from. Deep inside they believe/ fear that they are not real, that we will not see them or that they are fundamentally unlovable, before any signs of malignant behaviour really come about) That their deepest person/self/ identity has become disconnected and lost to them an in its place a false/ superficial/ constructed self exists. I should put the terminology in but just haven't the brain power!!
And sadly rather than being able to find grounding in reality, facts, rationality, safe attachments, meaningful occupation, etc, they have been drawn further into this world of disconnection and meaningless meanings (helped culturally maybe by films like the matrix, and being online etc). I just watched the BBC physics video of some weird bloke being up his own arse, and one of the comments was that he has so many identity possibilities that he has (and admits to maybe having) actually no identity at all.
In some ways he is actually kinda average seeming, and is freewheeling as many of us do/have but not in a good way, and seems to have the I neeeeeeeeeeeeeed to be special, looook t meeee and see meeeeee nooooooowwww disorder, and he appears to have a better grip than many we see nowadays.
We live in a world that is Potemkin-like, where media, social and propaganda and cheap goods (although less of these nowadays) does not reflect many people's real life experiences or sustainable expectations. We try to be/ are told to be/ naturally are aspirational beyond basic grounded experiences but the reality is that many will never truly reach what they aspire to be or have the degree of agency that we are told that we must have and should have.
And needs as basic as housing and some sustainable security have nothing to do with this modern superficial aspiration, and will never be achievable for millions of people now, unless something very big changes.
There was an article linked to on another thread that discusses the problems with women being represented well on TV in that it is good because it helps women and girls to challenge sexism but it also implies that the reality of equality has been achieved rather than being something we still have to aspire to We seem to be so challenged these days with what is expected and desired vs what by your late twenties/ thirties is actually possible.
Anyway I will stop now. I have only the feelings of confusion and wonderment (and tiredness) at the mess we are in.
I expect I will read this back another day and have the crushing feeling and belief that I am totally stupid and b really embarrassed!!! But there you go. My need to wonder and think and discuss is in this modern world where I am suck indoors, forever captured on the internet rather than in a classroom, religious place or pub where it maybe quite rightly forgotten.
I love reading everyone's posts on here.