I appreciate the acknowledgement against psychoanalyzing people in public, and I agree that trying to cargoculting any of this is unlikely to go well, but I’d be curious to know what specific things you think can also fall under “being very unwell?” I just reread the excerpts Chris highlighted and the only thing I can think of is the “letting go of anger” thing, which is only a sign of unwellness, imo, if it leads to being exploited/abused/etc.
Never [consciously] hating anyone more than transiently and finding a childhood that bad to not be terrible are consistent with an unwell person in denial (in a way I don’t think holds for all of your statements. e.g. “self loathing was a confusing concept for me” feels much more consistent with the kind of confusion I’d expect from 99th percentile mental health).
Hm. I think I disagree on both counts; we maybe need to operationalize the words, but while I think hatred of others can be very valuable in some cases from a game theoretic perspective, and is very natural given that, lacking it is absolutely not something I’ve seen consistent in “unwell people,” and I’ve never known it to be “useful” for people who can protect themselves or others without it.
To be clear, anger is extremely valuable for self protection and boundaries, and I never claimed to not get angry. So if that’s what you meant, then yes, people who can’t summon anger in defense of themselves or others are often unwell or in denial of how bad their circumstances are.
But in most cases I’ve seen, “hatred” of people, especially people who are fundamentally not malicious or sadistic, but just fairly flawed, seems to me a much stronger sign of unwellness than wellness, particularly if the person is not subject to ongoing pain or suffering.
As for finding the childhood “not terrible,” I’m reminded of the xkcd on self reporting pain ratings :P
I grew up in a relatively safe part of the Miami suburbs, but it was still Miami, and I was guest to a lot of shitty households (even before I started working as a therapist) that made me thankful for the things I did have; three meals a day most days, a mom who worked multiple jobs to afford private school for at least a few years, gifts on holidays and birthdays, a secure home that I never worried about losing (other than from the occasional hurricane) and which I knew would always be there for me if I needed a place to stay, even when I much preferred going elsewhere.
You might say this is just the result of anchoring in a different direction, but to me it just feels like having had a wide perspective. I don’t not know what good families are like. I knew it from the start, because of fiction. It was always obvious what was wrong, when something was wrong, and what was right when it was right.
My basic point is just that I and many people would describe similarly mixed upbringings as not terrible, and they wouldn’t be in denial about it. My family messed up in a lot of ways, but they were still, most of the time, a functional system, where people gave each other support and showed affection and took care of each other when they were hurt or sick. It was also a place where people occasionally screamed at each other, and cried. Sometimes things were broken, sometimes people were hit. These are terrible things to have happen, but they were not the dominant experience compared to the good things.
I mentioned some of the most negative things because they were relevant to point out the ways my upbringing was not obviously responsible for some positive aspects of myself, but there was plenty of positive unrelated to the things I mentioned, and I gave that disclaimer because I think most people do not actually have a wide enough sample set to accurately judge the the range from “not terrible” to “terrible,” especially given (understandable) protectiveness of children’s wellbeing.
I’ve had many conversations with many people, young and old, why the things they experienced as children were abusive or “not okay.” I’ve also had to intervene in enough truly, actually abusive households to know what my own experience was and wasn’t. I don’t excuse anything my family did, which is a big part of why I left, but they tried their best. I wish I’d grown up in a happier home, but I was still luckier than many others I grew up around, and I don’t hold any ill will toward people who were clearly lacking in the knowledge, resources, emotional stability, etc, to do better than they did.
I appreciate the acknowledgement against psychoanalyzing people in public, and I agree that trying to cargoculting any of this is unlikely to go well, but I’d be curious to know what specific things you think can also fall under “being very unwell?” I just reread the excerpts Chris highlighted and the only thing I can think of is the “letting go of anger” thing, which is only a sign of unwellness, imo, if it leads to being exploited/abused/etc.
Never [consciously] hating anyone more than transiently and finding a childhood that bad to not be terrible are consistent with an unwell person in denial (in a way I don’t think holds for all of your statements. e.g. “self loathing was a confusing concept for me” feels much more consistent with the kind of confusion I’d expect from 99th percentile mental health).
Hm. I think I disagree on both counts; we maybe need to operationalize the words, but while I think hatred of others can be very valuable in some cases from a game theoretic perspective, and is very natural given that, lacking it is absolutely not something I’ve seen consistent in “unwell people,” and I’ve never known it to be “useful” for people who can protect themselves or others without it.
To be clear, anger is extremely valuable for self protection and boundaries, and I never claimed to not get angry. So if that’s what you meant, then yes, people who can’t summon anger in defense of themselves or others are often unwell or in denial of how bad their circumstances are.
But in most cases I’ve seen, “hatred” of people, especially people who are fundamentally not malicious or sadistic, but just fairly flawed, seems to me a much stronger sign of unwellness than wellness, particularly if the person is not subject to ongoing pain or suffering.
As for finding the childhood “not terrible,” I’m reminded of the xkcd on self reporting pain ratings :P
I grew up in a relatively safe part of the Miami suburbs, but it was still Miami, and I was guest to a lot of shitty households (even before I started working as a therapist) that made me thankful for the things I did have; three meals a day most days, a mom who worked multiple jobs to afford private school for at least a few years, gifts on holidays and birthdays, a secure home that I never worried about losing (other than from the occasional hurricane) and which I knew would always be there for me if I needed a place to stay, even when I much preferred going elsewhere.
You might say this is just the result of anchoring in a different direction, but to me it just feels like having had a wide perspective. I don’t not know what good families are like. I knew it from the start, because of fiction. It was always obvious what was wrong, when something was wrong, and what was right when it was right.
My basic point is just that I and many people would describe similarly mixed upbringings as not terrible, and they wouldn’t be in denial about it. My family messed up in a lot of ways, but they were still, most of the time, a functional system, where people gave each other support and showed affection and took care of each other when they were hurt or sick. It was also a place where people occasionally screamed at each other, and cried. Sometimes things were broken, sometimes people were hit. These are terrible things to have happen, but they were not the dominant experience compared to the good things.
I mentioned some of the most negative things because they were relevant to point out the ways my upbringing was not obviously responsible for some positive aspects of myself, but there was plenty of positive unrelated to the things I mentioned, and I gave that disclaimer because I think most people do not actually have a wide enough sample set to accurately judge the the range from “not terrible” to “terrible,” especially given (understandable) protectiveness of children’s wellbeing.
I’ve had many conversations with many people, young and old, why the things they experienced as children were abusive or “not okay.” I’ve also had to intervene in enough truly, actually abusive households to know what my own experience was and wasn’t. I don’t excuse anything my family did, which is a big part of why I left, but they tried their best. I wish I’d grown up in a happier home, but I was still luckier than many others I grew up around, and I don’t hold any ill will toward people who were clearly lacking in the knowledge, resources, emotional stability, etc, to do better than they did.