The zombies are attacking…

zombie.

Yesterday I watched “Stars on Ice” on TV, and today I read the article "Zombierna anfaller" ("The zombies are attacking") by the Swedish journalist Maria-Pia Boëthius, and I have also started to read the book “Stridens skönhet och sorg” (in English something in the style “The fight’s (or battle’s) beauty and sorrow”) by the Swedish historian Peter Englund, with portraits of ordinary people during the WWI built on real accounts and real people - and what I read, and am reading, made me think. You can read parts of the book here (in Swedish).

Boëthius writes (in my a little free amateur translation):

“That journalists are nasty at work doesn’t mean anything? Hey? Yes, they are only playing their roles. What!? The typical case is Alex Schulman, or we can call him ‘Alex Schulman’. Because he doesn’t exist in real life, he says himself. The bullying style is just a funny gimmick.”

Alex Schulman was invited to the Swedish radio apropos bloggers and that he had become unfairly flown on the throat by another Swedish journalist in a debate-program in Swedish TV because of his nasty style as blogger for one of our biggest evening papers.

Now it was revealed that it isn’t the real Schulman that is nasty in the blog, but his fictive self! He has taken the literary and, as one could understand, the heavy burden on his shoulders being the one flying on peoples’ throats.

Boëthius draws parallels to when she and her siblings were children and her brother had a brilliant creation, namely California, whom was identical twin with her brother, but a twin their parents didn’t know of. Sometimes her brother and California changed places, especially when he was up to some mischief. Then it was of course shown that her brother always was innocent.

Boëthius wonders where all those probably million fantasy-mates people had when they were children have disappeared. She wonders if not many of them have gotten jobs on Swedish newspapers (and on papers, and other media, in the world?).

My reflection, spontaneously, over what Boëthius wrote was:

“...not taking on the responsibility for (what you say or do or who you are)!"

And it also struck me that Alice Miller has written about cynicism and irony in one of or both her last two books.

I also reacted quite a lot at the jury members in “Stars on Ice” and what they said to the ones competing during the competition, their style of saying it and the content in what they said. I don’t think what they were saying and how they said it was fun at all. And not entertaining either. And not interesting. They were just nasty! Nasty for the competing people's own good? But they could probably handle it as they were grown ups. But the young people in "Idol"!?? See Bob Scharf on "Reality TV".

I have only read the first 30 pages (of over 600) in the book “The fight’s beauty and sorrow” and my interpretation so far is that people actually didn’t know why that war started. The conflicts underlying it weren’t so big so they hadn’t been insoluble and the war wasn’t unavoidable at all. But there was an excited rhetoric and a high-pitched worked up propaganda, and all this contributed to making the war unavoidable when it was viewed as unavoidable. Many people seemed to go out into the war with high expectations to fight for their country! And people at home said goodbye with flags and music! Many people didn’t seem to really realize how horrible a war actually is!

The American neurologist Jonathan Pincus writes about societal approval unleashing drives in people harmed early in life… See the earlier posting “Evilness and responsibility…” and earlier postings under the label Trent Scaggs.

Alice Miller writes at page 206 in her book “The Body Never Lies”:

“Inability to face up to the sufferings undergone in childhood can be observed both in the form of religious obedience and in cynicism, irony and other forms of self-alienation frequently masquerading as philosophy or literature.”

And at page 139 she writes:

“…feelings (one’s own and those of others), are something to be jeered at [hånad, gjord narr av]. In show business and journalism the art of irony is a well-paid commodity, so it is possible to make a great deal of money with the suppression of one’s feelings. Even if one ultimately risks losing contact with oneself and merely functioning as a mask, an ‘as if’ personality, there are always drugs, alcohol, and other substances to fall back on. Derision pays well, money is no object. /…/

But because these emotions are not genuine, not linked up with the true story of the body, the effect is bound to wear off [avta] after a time. Higher and higher doses are required to fill up the void left by childhood.”

So you need more and more and more until you can face up to the things underlying...

What corporal punishment can cause…

[Edited with more text and links October 5]:

"The fight or flight reaction * occurs in humans during times of stress or danger. The sympathetic nervous system causes a boost of adrenaline and is extremely powerful, but it doesn't always work to our advantage.

Prolonged exposal to adrenaline can damage your body and the repeated exposal to threatening situations can be a source for emotional and developmental problems later in life.

Many victims of torture and abuse, such as prisoners of war, experience post traumatic stress disorder and suffer feelings of alienation, rage and guilt, some succumbing to suicidal thoughts.

People may encounter the fight or flight reaction not just in situations of perceived physical danger, but shouting and verbal threats also carry a freight of terror straight into our base brain.

Remarkably with all we know children are treated to high doses of adrenaline each time they are shouted at or threatened with corporal punishment. And this is no different than what military personnel suffered when they were essentially told they would be tortured if they did not cooperate.

The threat of imminent violence carries this reaction which in repeated situations or prolonged durations leads to physical and mental disorders which can permanently affect a child's future."

The heading of this video was "What Corporal Punishment Does to the Endocrine System."

* See what Bosch writes about False Power Anger (fight??) and helplessness/powerlessness (flight??). Also see a posting under the label help and powerless victim, with quotations from Alice Miller's book "The Truth Will Set You Free."

Also see Andrew Vachss about emotional abuse of children:

"...of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all.”

"Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and protection."

---

Det som sägs i videon blir något i stil med det som följer:

”Fly- eller fäktareaktionerna inträffar hos människor under tider av stress och fara. Det sympatiska nervsystemet sänder ut en puff av adrenalin och är oerhört kraftfull, men detta verkar inte alltid till vår fördel.

Utdragen exponering för adrenalin kan skada din kropp och upprepad exponering i hotande situationer kan vara en källa till känslo- och utvecklingsmässiga problem senare i livet.

Många offer för tortyr och övergrepp/misshandel, sådan som att vara fånge under krig, upplever post traumatiskt stressyndrom och lider av känslor av alienation (avskurenhet), raseri och skuld, en del dukar under för självmordstankar.

Människor kan möta fly- eller fäktareaktionerna inte bara i situationer av uppfattade fysiska hot, utan skrik och verbala hot leder också till skräckbelastning som riktas rakt in i vår hjärnas bas [och påverkar hjärnan, dvs. ger fysiska/fysiologiska reaktioner].

Anmärkningsvärt med allt det vi vet så utsätts barn för höga doser adrenalin varje gång de skriks åt eller hotas med kroppsliga straff. Och det är inte annorlunda än vad militärer led när de blev upplysta om att de oundgängligen skulle bli torterade om de inte samarbetade.

Hotet om överhängande våld för med sig denna reaktion, vilken i upprepade situationer eller utdragna förlopp leder till fysiska och känslomässiga sjukdomar som permanent kan påverka ett barns framtid.”

Och en hjärna som fortfarande är under utveckling måste vara ännu mer sårbar! Men det går att återhämta sig, kanske helt, om man får en möjlighet att sätta ord på vad man upplevt och det finns någon som kan lyssna på det man berättar, utan att förminska eller ifrågasätta.

Förmodligen har den svårare att bearbeta senare trauman som utsatts för misshandel (inte bara fysisk, uytan också känslomässig och sexuell och kanske allt detta) som barn. Vilket kan vara (och troligen är) förklaringen till varför vissa svarar på traumabehandling och andra kanske knappt alls. Man behöver också bearbeta tidig misshandel för att få ett lyckat resultat.

Poängen är att övergrepp skadar. Och skadar på sätt vi vanligtvis inte tror. De skadar inte bara psykiskt, känslomässigt och leder inte "bara" till psykska problem eller till och med sjukdomar, utan också till fysiska. Om inte tidigare, så när vi blir äldre (se bland annat ACE-studiens fynd). Om vi inte får en chans att berätta om vad vi varit med om och blir lyssnade till empatiskt.

Se också senare inlägg i dag.

More of the same…

children (not mine) bathing till they had blue lips! :-)

A Norwegian blogger writes about “more of the same.” I want to translate the last two paragraphs (here done a little freely):

“The Swedish psychiatrist and feminist Kerstin Aldén has said that where the patient’s narrative contains enlightenments and statements which challenge the psychiatric treatment personnel’s conception or idea about reality this awaken resistance and one questions the one who has pronounced her/himself. Diagnosis also reinforce taboos, by locking out what one in different time doesn’t want to define as problems. That psychiatric diagnosis can be politic repression ought to be known through history [she mentions Drapetomania or runaway syndrome here and refers to a Norwegian article with the heading 'When the means become holy…' Also see Citizens Commission on Human Rights]./…/

The diagnosis can make the patient’s relation to her (or his) own reactions alien, and make her seeing herself with the eyes of the one treating her – in the same way as she has identified herself with what the perpetrator said. The consequence of the diagnosis can become revictimization. As the essence in the trauma is extreme impotence (powerlessness) and isolation, the diagnosis can become more of the same: being exposed to other people’s power of definition and exclusion from the fellowship.”