So that's why Susie Green left

[DistantVworp]

Charity commission launches formal inquiry into Mermaids:
twitter.com/SexMattersOrg/status/1598666394610147329?s=20&t=x_Supvwk6lHkKBR7a-ESSw

About bloody time!

And it’s why I am very happy that Null / JM managed to keep the Farms up even though Keffals and his CatBoy-Ranch-bathtub-estrogen mate, etc want it shut down so badly is because they catalog and archive everything.

Any jurno wanting to break a story would have all the first person damning evidence they need to show exactly who is hiding in plain sight offering glitter families and drugs to vulnerable children and young people.

There is a big difference between giving your child an unusual name or one that represents your values (hardly a new concept- how many children have names that relate to their parents culture, nationality or religious beliefs) to putting your child on a path to life changing and life long medication and eventual surgeries that reduce their body’s ability to function in a healthy way. It’s wrong to equate the two things.

@RedToothBrush I think the emphasis on looking at identity as an individual thing rather than identity formation as being multi faceted and multi levelled is totally wrong.

I’ve only quoted the above but your whole post about this is so thought-provoking. Thank you.

Not sure those two things are actually being equated there. You can see one as being further down the same path from the other, though.

In terms of online communities between me and Dh we've seen a hell of a lot. We were early adopters and started 26 years ago with meeting people in person from 24 years ago. At a time when our peers thought we were nuts. People our own age don't understand online communities in any way the same way because they only picked up social media a decade ago and not as immersively. We find ourselves out of step with our own generation at times with it.

We've seen grooming.

There was one incident when one guy tried it on privately and I was aware he was doing it to multiple women. He gave me a really nasty vibe and I publicly ended up saying I thought he was dangerous. He dated one girl and it ended up in domestic violence and stalking (mutual friends did remember what I'd said at that point too).

Generally speaking I think people got swept away with the good experience they were having and were from sheltered backgrounds or extremely naive due to age and weren’t considering that all the bad things of the real world were online but could be hidden and amplified.

I can't complain personally too much. The good stuff has outweighed the bad overall, but it's a wild west and i still believe that to be the case. Its just got bigger and more widespread and there's more users.

I also wonder whether it is also about a physical display of mental anguish? That a binder, or surgery is both a literal symbol of suffering and an external validation that their suffering is real: they must be truly unhappy because the NHS is going to cut their breasts off to make them better.

This reminded me very strongly of those metal cilices:
Instrument of penance

@WarriorN that is SUCH a great point. MN saved my life when DS was diagnosed with ASD, there was no-one around me that could help and the SN board became my community for a while. Thankfully I was then able to make a RL community and I'm too much of a gimmer to live my whole life online. I can easily see how a digital native parent can get into a pattern of online affirmation that is actively harmful for them and their family. And we know from on here how TRA/TWAM facebook groups are...

Minorish point, but there is also a difference between giving your child an unusual name for the sake of it and giving your child a name that reflects your culture/nationality/religious beliefs or heritage. It also falls nicely into the larger discussion between identity as an individual and as part of a wider group.

I belong to a fairly conservative religious/ethnic group. When we named our children, we followed a religious tradition of naming after family members who we wanted to honour and hold up as role models in some way. We also have them secular names that balanced that family/religious heritage with being 'user friendly' in an English speaking world.

Throughout the process, we had in mind our child's interests both in terms of navigating their world growing up, and in including them in their family and religious heritage i.e. as part of a group identity.

I don't hang out on the baby name forums, but from NCT type classes with our first I did come across mums who gave their kids unusual names for no obvious reason other than to be different. I also look at celebrity names e.g. the West/Kardashian clan. In both cases, it really felt like the names were given as a 'hey look at me' status symbol i.e. individual identity rather than for the child's best interest or passing on a group identity.

My gut instinct is that the latter group is more likely to be swayed towards the affirmation model and all that goes with it for their kids.

Is Jackie Green the oldest child of Susie followed by 3 younger boys?
If so where did all this access to "girls toys" come from at 2 years old?
If there are no sisters why were there Barbie's or what ever in the house?
Were they gravitating towards these things at a playgroup?
If so that makes it all the more ridiculous.
Something about this story/timeline is not adding up to me.

SereneSemolina
And if you genuinely believe that your primary age child is at risk of suicide, which must be so unusual

Unusual enough for the National Bureau of Statistics not to list any: their suicide stats seem to start at age 10.

In America I can find "134 children between the ages of 5 and 11 who died by suicide between 2013 and 2017" mentioned by the NIMH (I can't help wondering how many of them used a gun that Mummy had left lying around loaded in her purse). That's a very small number out of their population, and I can't find out reasons they are thought to have done it.

For those who haven't seen one of the more notorious outcomes of the drive to seem to be progressive and open-minded.

web.archive.org/web/20181128001624/www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-sexual-revolution-and-children-how-the-left-took-things-too-far-a-702679.html

Referenced in:

quillette.com/2018/12/04/the-new-patriarchy-how-trans-radicalism-hurts-women-children-and-trans-people-themselves/

Yeah, this is something I think people maybe underestimate.

I haven't been sick often as an adult, just in relation to pregnancies, but that did involve some very hands on care in recovery. It was really notable to me, even feeling fairly crappy, how reassuring it felt to be cared for in that way, which most of us haven't really experienced since early childhood. Even once just having a nurse help me when I nearly fainted during a test. There is a kind of surrender to helplessness and a sense that others are watching out for you, and I think the component of physical touch is also very significant.

For someone with poor mental health, attachment issues, and such, I think it would be even more appealing. And lots of these kids don't seem to have the ability to self-reflect much, to see how this kind of scenario is creating these good feelings, but it's not about the "transition" it's about other things that are just part of our human make-up. And not a healthy way to get those feelings, in the end.

Very interesting insight, I hadn't really thought about it until these two posts. But yes, that kind of "hands-on" care and attention is something that people often don't get to enjoy after early-ish childhood. And would all get bundled up together in the affirmative euphoric feelings.

www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/munchausen-syndrome/overview/

Absolutely, very thought-provoking - thanks RedToothBrush, and so sorry to hear about everything you and your family has gone through.

That's brilliant! 😂

That's so true Mangyinseam, I've felt it too. I didn't have safe, caring parents as a child and there's a very powerful sense of being looked after that you get from kind, competent medical care. I had to go back into hospital with severe mastitis after DC2's birth and I remember a staff member helping me with BFing and rubbing my shoulder firmly to help me keep going when it hurt. It flooded me with a feeling of warmth and love. Similar when auxiliary nurses came to give me a bed bath when I was bedbound after a c-section, and were all cheery and jolly and joked "just imagine you've paid £200 for this at a posh spa!" as they rolled me around. It was lovely.

As an adult who's done a lot of reflection about my ishoos I realised why that was so appealing to me! - but you're spot on that many younger people, more unwell people and those caught up in an ideology will be far less likely to untangle all that from their beliefs about the "true self".

Oh dear..... really shouldn't laugh... 😂

In theory and on paper DH and I fit this profile perfectly. Except we don't. We are 'outsiders' in many respects and fit into 'alternative communities' better than conformity.

The difference I think is that we are early technology adopters.

In terms of the history of new communication technology is there is a phase of great political instability followed by one where people have worked out the tech and its positive and negative impacts and its part of society in a way that's understood.

Its been noted that early tech adopters don't seem to fit the profile they should. You have to ask questions about that.

I also think that issues for teenagers fall at a time where there is both massive communication technology shift and a massive gap in mental health provision and loss of traditional social structures (like religion).

None of this is coincidential.

The places young people would have turned to in the past for support no longer exist and instead community has reformed online but in grouping which amplify problems because people are so similar rather than challenge them by having a multitude of different ways of thinking.

If everyone in your group has the same problem then it's harder to think in different ways to break out of that mentality and research into brains suggests that echochambers changes the structure of our brains and stops us being able to think in critical ways. Imagine this at a formative stage of brain development.

The early evidence does suggest that exposure to different view points can change this though. But we have to understand this and design algorithms accordingly.

The dangerous of concentrated power of social media, is that understanding this, it can be used against our collective interests as a society.

But yes. I don't think we can separate what's happening from social media and niche community groupings.

I'm fine. I worry for my parents and I think in 10 to 20 years my brother is going to be a car crash along with his partner and the kid that his partner timeshares. (long story) And I hope I'm wrong about that for the sake of my parents.

As long as DS is fine, I no longer particular care, as heartless as that sounds.

We've come a long way, and I think it's more important for society as a whole to start to process and move forward understanding what's gone before. It will happen.

I think im more hopeful for the future understanding how tech revolutises society then calms down and knowing we are 1st gen and DS will be 2nd gen in a way that so many others aren't. Yet. I feel DH and I are through the other side and others will get there too. Things will catch up. It won't be easy but things change whether you want them to or not.

Excellent and heart wrenching post at 11:26 red; I'm so sorry your family were torn apart like that.

It is astonishing none of its being researched, but we know why.

Also the impact of online influences on early identity formation; id attempted a post on another thread (app crashed) in relation to this, also re lack of research around it in relation to this area.

There's undoubtedly a lot of research in relation to other areas of online influence and harm eg instagram and self harming etc. access to these platforms can be like throwing petroleum on a fire. But this subject is untouchable.

We've a generation now who've grown up on YouTube and tumblr and appear to need to over share there and document their "journeys" for likes and als mot don't know how to be without . It's true black mirror stuff .

Sorry catching up,

I also think that issues for teenagers fall at a time where there is both massive communication technology shift and a massive gap in mental health provision and loss of traditional social structures (like religion).

Absolutely.

Humans are primed to be social creatures and apparently are most motivated to be cohesive with peers and "clan / tribe seeking" during teens and 20s. Which would have suited social structures hugely in the past for survival.

@MilkshakesBringAllTheCoosToTheYard I'm so glad you did receive support - it's exceptionally alienating to have a child with send.

But yes, that kind of "hands-on" care and attention is something that people often don't get to enjoy after early-ish childhood. And would all get bundled up together in the affirmative euphoric feelings.

And

For someone with poor mental health, attachment issues, and such, I think it would be even more appealing. And lots of these kids don't seem to have the ability to self-reflect much

Yes; add in the love bombing you get, the likes and adoration plus the validation via medical procedures and it's obvious how attractive it all is.

And potentially for some parents too. Though that can be complex.

I also wonder whether it is also about a physical display of mental anguish?

So much this. When my daughter and her friends were youngish teenagers (and even later) it was cutting, but at least those scars healed up, unlike a double mastectomy.