Child Abuse and Mental Health Survivors Information - Issue #83
The Unreliability of Social Media
I wrote about this in my other newsletter last week, which is more focused on tech and careers and the things I do during the workday. What’s going on with social media, especially Twitter, impacts many of us in the mental health and survivor communities online as well and I wanted to take a moment to consider it.
When we look back on how social media platforms became popular, we often refer to the network effect. Once a certain number of your friends were there, you joined. We might watch that work in reverse soon. This is why I greatly advocate having your website and using newsletters and RSS feeds. I have always had my site, and I started this Substack when it became clear that some people who had followed me on Twitter were leaving. I didn’t want to lose touch, so I allowed them to subscribe to this and started including most of the same stuff they’d get from my social media feeds here. They can get this by email or RSS and keep in touch.
I’ve watched Twitter become less and less welcoming to conversations about mental health lately. I’ve also watched it become more difficult to continue to use without paying for it. I have no plans to start paying for it, but I also know that many of my followers there are not going to be moving to Mastodon or anything else anytime soon. As long as the automatic posting of new blog posts and other links continues to work, I’ll continue leaving those for you to follow.
Unfortunately, as much as I would love to continue providing information on Twitter, it’s become clear that the auto-posting might eventually stop working. At that point, I’m not likely to invest much time into figuring out a new plan for Twitter. If those links and shared information are important to you, the website and this newsletter will remain.
I hope you’ll consider subscribing, and sharing with others who might benefit from the content here. That’s why I do it.
Now, about that content:
New from the Blogs
When it Comes to Mental Health Finances Matter
What we see there is that mental health problems can create debt. When we cannot work, our healthcare costs skyrocket, and we can find ourselves in a poor financial situation. That poor financial situation creates more stress and emotional labor, contributing to mental health issues.
Whether the mental health problem or financial struggle came first doesn't matter. Once we are in the cycle, it will continue round and round.
That's what cycles do.
Sharing - Why Siblings Can Have Different Childhoods And Impressions Of Their Parents
But, many survivors have family members who have a powerful connection to their good childhood memories. Introducing a counterfactual can be crushing. Not everyone will take that well. Some refused to see what was happening during childhood, and others didn't because of circumstances. That desperate need to hang on to the idyllic family identification can tear families apart.
That sucks. It's also not your responsibility. The truth is the truth, and what happened to you as a child happened. How other family members, including siblings, react to those facts is their choice. Understand that their experience was different, but don't accept responsibility for their inability to understand that same thing about your experience.
Shared from Elsewhere
This is a complicated question that deserves some conversation - When homelessness and mental illness overlap, is compulsory treatment compassionate?
We are not getting enough touch. - This is not an easy subject for survivors, I know. The science, however, is the science. For survivors it's about trust, and there are far too few people in our lives who we can trust.
I’m working on a long-ish post about friendship, and thinking a lot about these issues. I look forward to writing more about it when I have the mental energy to put it together, but for now, let me share this - Why So Many Men Feel Lonely Today
Other interesting links:
Hold Still: A Story of Suicide - A review of Hold Still by Nina LaCour
7 Ways Social Media Can Benefit Mental Health - Yes, it can have benefits as well as drawbacks.
From the Archives
Way back in 2001, that was why I wanted to start a blog, to highlight the fact that there are people all around us who have survived childhood abuse. They come from all walks of life, all geographic locations, all races, and all economic backgrounds. I wanted anyone being abused, or who had grown up after being abused to be able to go on the internet, search for other survivors, and find a random guy talking about these issues, and linking to other survivors doing the same. At least that way, they’d know it wasn’t just them, they are not alone as a survivor.
That’s why it is important to me. Why is it important to you?
The Importance of Just Listening
So please, just listen. Make the space around you, even if it’s virtual, a safe space for your friends and loved ones to tell their stories. Find small ways to help, if you can, but also know that by just listening, just sitting with our stories, you are already helping so much.
Eventually someone has to take a small chance and open up about being a survivor and be willing to share their story. If you feel like there’s no one around you who understands, maybe you can be the one to break the stalemate of everyone doing the same thing, and simply share your story. Nothing more. Just share the truth about yourself. I think you’ll be surprised how many people around you are dealing with the same things, in one way or another, and just don’t know who to talk to about it.
That’s all for this week. Hoping you all have a restful and healing weekend.