Intro: I started writing today about how regardless of my health issues this weekend, I still won’t play victim. I ended by discussing how people on the political right and left keep trying to make it seem like trauma is normal and not something to be healed.
Independence Day Aftermath
On July 5th I woke up with a sinus headache. I also have a sinus headache today. This sinus headache is really putting a damper on my mood on this 4-day holiday weekend. I have not felt like this ever. This isn’t something I have never had to deal with before. I have had eye migraines in the past, but only sporadically and they didn’t last that long - they went away with pain relievers. Today I found out that you can be allergic to fireworks and firecrackers because of the chemicals that they send off into the air.
Now I'm wondering, because my neighbors have been shooting them off every night since the 4th, if I have become allergic to fireworks and firecrackers. I don’t know for sure that this is that. It just seems awfully coincidental that it is happening right after they went crazy with them the night before. I didn't used to be allergic to things. But I have had allergy-like issues since 2019 or 2020. And I think it has to do with my holding emotions in from when I was a child. That time period may have been the breaking point of my body holding in emotions before it just fell apart physically.
Now that it’s rained some, I’m wondering about weather effects as well. I have started to feel a tiny bit better after the downpour.
Why am I talking about this?
I’m not blaming my neighbors
I could blame my neighbors. I could say I am a victim; my neighbors shouldn't be shooting off fireworks & -crackers. Another person out there probably did get pissed at their neighbors and may have even gone over and asked them to stop.
But I am glad that they are shooting them off. I want them to be patriotic and to celebrate the holiday. And I want those children to be having a great summer day, unaware of the craziness that's happening in the cities or online on social media. To them, they’re just having a fantastic holiday that they will always remember. That’s a great thing.
I’m not blaming my parents
And I could blame my parents for the way I was raised. Because my upbringing didn’t allow me to learn how to deal with my emotions in a way that didn’t end up physically harming myself. But I am not a victim.
I can make choices to do things differently now. I have attempted to solve my headache problem. Nohing I have done has actually worked so far. But I have been taking personal responsibility and trying to figure out what I can do to feel better.
I am angered by the fact that my 4-day holiday weekend is turning into me simply trying to feel better rather than actually rest, relax, and enjoy myself. But I am not blaming my neighbors, and I am not blaming my family. And I will be dealing with my anger in positive ways.
I’m All About Personal Responsibility
I recently shared an article called “Against “I turned out fine-ism” with some commentary on Substack notes. And if you're reading this because you get my emails and you're not on Substack notes, you're actually missing out on a lot of things from me, because I post there fairly often.
I got a response from The Dude Abides. His response is interesting since my whole Substack is devoted to talking about how people should take personal responsibility and not stay stuck in the victim mentality.
Simply recognizing that you have trauma in your past and that you need to do the mental and emotional work of re-learning how to interact with people and your own life is taking personal responsibility and thus is not playing the victim. And I get the sense that the Dude Abides was trying to infer that I was pro-playing-victim and pro-blameshifting.
This is why I write this Substack. Someone can see what I wrote and believe that I think the opposite of what I actually think and write about. The reason that he was mistaken, is that he didn’t think I knew the key to exiting the Drama Triangle. And he likely didn’t think I knew it because he’s annoyed or pissed off so often by those who are in the Drama Triangle, he probably assumed I was one of them.
But, I do know the key to exiting the Drama Triangle. And I’ve mentioned this before, but let me plainly state it here.
The Key To Exiting the Drama Triangle
Everyone has things in their life that suck. The difference between someone in the Drama Triangle and someone with a higher perspective outside of the Drama Triangle is whether or not they take personal responsibility for their current life.
The following quote was originally from elsewhere but was found in the
Substack article The Responsibility of Healing.
We were not to blame for the problems that happened when we were too young to be responsible. But we’re responsible for healing now.
Authoritarian Simps Aren’t Trauma-Less
And, besides The Dude Abides, another person also commented:
“You were traumatised but don’t realise it, I will help you realise it,” sounds like a rather massive nocebo effect.”
He means that since the person doesn’t realize they were traumatized and if you tell them they are, they will now imagine symptoms of that supposed (but false) trauma. And, that’s a reasonable belief when dealing with healthy people.
However, I was referring to people who clearly have negative, drama-filled beliefs that are doing damage to them daily. I’m not suggesting you tell someone who is living a normal healthy life that they may have trauma they’re not dealing with.
I was referring to people who allowed the lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates without a fight. These people are clearly simps for the authoritarians. They’re people who believed that the government was their “savior” and that there were “victims” out there who should not be held responsible for their own health. Those sorts of people are in the Drama Triangle because their upbringing showed them that was the way to live. And that’s abuse.
If you are in the Drama Triangle you will feel powerless, and to teach a child that they’re powerless unless there is a savior or unless they turn into a savior for others, that’s abuse. It keeps them forever tied to abusers or they become the abusers by enforcing the authoritarians’ rules and “mandates”.
Parents should be teaching their children to hold others accountable/responsible for their actions or inactions. And parents should be teaching their children to be responsible for their own lives, and their own mental, physical, and spiritual health. That is how you turn a child into a mature adult who feels powerful over their own life.
We Can Tell From the Effect There Was a Cause
One time I was boiling some water and I wanted to add some salt to it. The salt was in my hand and I had forgotten if I put it into the water yet. I sprinkled some in and I realized I hadn’t done so yet because of the effect the salt had on the water. Reacting to the salt, the water started to boil faster as soon as it entered the pot. I realized that sometimes we can see the effect and know that there was a cause. I was thinking in terms of God’s existence, but the point works here as well.
If people are looking for the government to be their “savior,” that attitude that someone else should be responsible for them, rather than themselves, came from somewhere. If people believe it’s right to trample on other people’s rights for the “greater good” that abusive attitude came from somewhere. It clearly shows they had that sort of background in their lives.
Examine the Current Life to See the Past
If people are living healthy normal lives, I don’t suspect that they have trauma. The problem is too many people exist today who are not leading healthy lives and they’re attempting to actually hurt people with the state’s approval (ex. transgender mutilation surgery for children). Yes, I believe all those people have trauma in their backgrounds.
One of our main problems today is that therapy (in general) is attempting to normalize delusional, harmful thinking. And, the people in favor of transgender surgeries for children are attempting to normalize it. But, you know what? People on the right are attempting to normalize unhealthy behavior as well by ignoring that trauma really exists.
Little Offenses Are the Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back
Just because someone talks about a little offense as traumatic doesn’t mean the person didn’t have trauma in their past that makes them catastrophize, blowing things up out of proportion. It’s because they haven’t healed the childhood issue yet. After all, they’re still children emotionally.
People on the right get so upset when an emotional child (but legal adult) gets upset over a tiny little thing. And I get it. They are histrionic. They have learned that’s a way to get what they want. And they learned that through an abusive childhood. Just because they’re blowing up at the wrong thing, doesn’t mean they don’t have real abuse in their background.
And the only way to calm them down in the present is for them to get actual help with the earlier abuse. But it may not be possible for a variety of reasons. Here are a few reasons.
Their social group would disappear and/or hate them if they stopped viewing themselves as a “victim.”
Many therapists are more likely to placate than to actually help today.
They don’t think they have a problem.
People don’t enforce their boundaries enough. The person acting like a child has had too many people give in to childish demands and temper tantrums.
People on the right ignore that real abuse happens and needs healing. They will also outright mock the person needing help.
We should always applaud those who are willing to get help for trauma, realizing that they are taking personal responsibility for their mental health and their lives in general.
People who post about trauma and dealing with it and trying to put their lives back in order have taken on a large load, and they’re doing it to better their lives and yours, knowing that their lives affect other people as well. That should be encouraged rather than mocked.
Concluding Remarks
I’d also like to add that people seeing my note could have simply asked clarifying questions rather than assuming I meant that normal, healthy people had trauma that they didn’t know about or assuming that I meant we should always blame the parents and always see the child as a “victim.” You all know I would put that sort of belief into the drama triangle and explain it to death as an example of what not to do.
A simply curious mind with a question could have learned that. But, instead, he immediately went to assuming I believed something I didn’t. He got upset for no reason. That’s probably a red flag that he has his own issues… when faced with that thought of possibly having undealt-with trauma he didn’t want to ask anything and just wanted to fight. That’s a fear response. That’s not normally health behavior and he may have been proving my point.
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The Right & Left Both Normalize Trauma