I guess I kind of excluded the category of individuals who have these triggers with the “mentally healthy” consideration. I assumed that the average person doesn’t have topics that they are unable to even think about without incapacitating emotional consequences. I certainly believe that such people exist, but I didn’t think it was that common.
Am I wrong about this? Do many other people have certain topics they can’t even think about without experiencing trauma? I suppose they wouldn’t...couldn’t tell me about it if they did, but I think I’ve got sufficient empathy to see some evidence of everyone was holding PTSD-sized mental wounds just beneath the surface.
We spend a lot of time talking about avoiding thought suppression. It’s a huge problem impediment for a rationalist if there is anything they mustn’t think about—and obviously, it’s painful. Should we be talking more about how to patch mental wounds?
I’m mostly mentally healthy, and I don’t have any triggers in the PTSD-sense. But there are topics that I literally can’t think rationally about and that, if I dwell on them, either depress or enrage me.
I consider myself very balanced but this balance involves avoiding certain extremes. Emotional extremes. There are some realms of imagination that concern pain and suffering that’d cause me cringe with empathy and bring me to tears and help or possibly run away screaming in panic and fear—if I’d see them. Even imagining such is difficult and possible only in abstract terms lest it actually cause such reaction in me. Or else I’d become dull to it (which is a protection mechanism). Sure dealing with such horrors can be trained. Otherwise people couldn’t stand horror movies which forces to separate the real from the imagined. But then I don’t see any need to train this (and risk loosing my empathy even slightly).
I guess I kind of excluded the category of individuals who have these triggers with the “mentally healthy” consideration. I assumed that the average person doesn’t have topics that they are unable to even think about without incapacitating emotional consequences. I certainly believe that such people exist, but I didn’t think it was that common.
Am I wrong about this? Do many other people have certain topics they can’t even think about without experiencing trauma? I suppose they wouldn’t...couldn’t tell me about it if they did, but I think I’ve got sufficient empathy to see some evidence of everyone was holding PTSD-sized mental wounds just beneath the surface.
We spend a lot of time talking about avoiding thought suppression. It’s a huge problem impediment for a rationalist if there is anything they mustn’t think about—and obviously, it’s painful. Should we be talking more about how to patch mental wounds?
I’m mostly mentally healthy, and I don’t have any triggers in the PTSD-sense. But there are topics that I literally can’t think rationally about and that, if I dwell on them, either depress or enrage me.
I consider myself very balanced but this balance involves avoiding certain extremes. Emotional extremes. There are some realms of imagination that concern pain and suffering that’d cause me cringe with empathy and bring me to tears and help or possibly run away screaming in panic and fear—if I’d see them. Even imagining such is difficult and possible only in abstract terms lest it actually cause such reaction in me. Or else I’d become dull to it (which is a protection mechanism). Sure dealing with such horrors can be trained. Otherwise people couldn’t stand horror movies which forces to separate the real from the imagined. But then I don’t see any need to train this (and risk loosing my empathy even slightly).