#I think we as a society severely underestimate mental illness and the effects it can have

[katie5000]

I wonder if he's got the same thing Kanye West has - bipolar disorder. Like, nobody talks about Kanye now, but I remember as his mental health declined how hard to the right he went. (Twitter didn't help at all - it was radicalizing people even before Musk bought it.)

But yeah, IIRC it seemed like it was the launch of the Cybertruck that marked the point at which it became obvious that something was wrong with Elon, and I think it's only gotten worse. Despite his impulsive and erratic behavior, he is an example of "high-functioning" mental illness - not so debilitating as to disable him completely from doing everyday things, but bad enough to be a serious problem for anyone he has relationships with on any level.

And I think being cushioned by all that wealth harms him rather than helps him. Like yeah, he'd have no trouble paying for treatment if he wanted it, but who around him is ever going to risk telling him that he needs to get it? Who will make the effort to really push to get him out of denial? Anyone who could is either afraid of his power or they're benefitting too much from his current position to sabotage it.

And that's the tragedy. He'll go on living in denial while breaking everything he touches as he spirals down toward an undignified death.

I think that Elon Musk is an object lesson in moral philosophy.

Like, he's the epitome of self-interest; the closest thing real life can produce to a Randian hero. And by any reasonable standard, he's won at life! He's the richest man ever to live, and he's getting richer; he controls the channels of information and communication; the government of what remains the world's only superpower waits on his command. If capitalism had a victory condition, he would surely have achieved it. And yet...

He's empty. He's an absolute sucking void of neediness. His own children hate his guts. He pays professional gamers to run up impossibly high scores in every game under the sun because the pale glow of being praised by epic bacon chuds online is the closest thing that he can feel to love.

Like. I can't tell you what a soul is, but I think you neglect it at your peril.

[scripttorture]

Would there be any tell tale signs that someone is a torturer? One of my characters friends have been taken away and they're convinced they're being tortured and plan to take the torturer out, obviously killing someone on an assumption is bad (that'll be made clear in the story) but what is the likelyhood that she would guess right based off actions? Not as an excuse to her actions but just so I can write her thought processes a little clearer and as accurate as possible

There isn’t enough research for me to give you a definitive answer here. If there are tell-tale signs then- the little bit of research we have so far hasn’t clearly identified them.

 I can’t say that there aren’t any tell-tale signs. The truth is we don’t know enough. We don’t know enough about who is vulnerable to ‘recruitment’, what the long term effects look like or long term rehabilitation.

 I can talk about what we know about the general mind set, justifications torturers use and the effects torture has on them. I think that would help your story.

 But in my opinion- I don’t think you can tell based on a person’s actions. Unless the action in question is literally witnessing them torturing someone.

 In these sorts of environments- your character would find a lot of people who voice support for torture, or apathy over whether or not it occurs. That does not necessarily mean the apologist has or will torture someone.

 The mental health problems torturers are vulnerable to occur naturally in the population for a wide number of reasons. And in groups like soldiers and police officers they could well be symptoms of other kinds of trauma.

 There are records of some torturers abusing their families. But it’s unclear how often this happens and plenty of abusers are not torturers.

 Personally- I am very dubious about the idea of someone looking at a person’s behaviour and assuming they can ‘tell’ their crimes as a result. I’m not dubious about it as a fictional idea, story wise it does have a lot of potential.

 I’m dubious about showing it as successful because- that sort of thinking is tangentially tied to torture in real life. This assumption of guilt is used to justify torture in real life. Especially when the victim is an ethnic minority or mentally ill.

 Let’s start with the simpler stuff: the long term symptoms torturers have are broadly the same as the ones survivors have.

 My impression is that torturers typically have less severe symptoms then survivors but this is not always the case. I usually recommend that writers pick a smaller range of symptoms for torturers then survivors (I think I usually say 1-3, but I do vary that if there are other traumatising factors in the story). As with any other kind of trauma symptom it’s impossible to predict which individual will develop which symptoms, so I recommend picking symptoms you feel fit the character and story best.

 Which brings us to the thornier issue of how torturers justify and relate to their crimes.

 Please remember that I’m not a mental health professional. I will try to make it clear when I am giving my opinion or the impressions I get from reading interviews verses assessments professionals have made.

 I don’t really see any marked difference in the arguments torturers make compared to torture apologists generally. If anything my impression is that torturers make less sophisticated versions of the same basic arguments.

 Torturers generally claim that torture ‘works’, either as a deterrent or as a way for obtaining accurate information. This is demonstrably false.

 I am honestly not sure whether most torturers believe it. My impression, based on the interview transcripts I’ve read, is that a lot of torturers are dense and somewhat self-deluded. I think it’s possible that some of them do genuinely believe it, despite their own experience.

 Torturers will often try to argue that they ‘had’ to commit their crimes and that it was ultimately in service of a greater good. The ‘logic’ is that if torture works the way they think it does (which it does not) then they ‘preventing’, terrorism, rebellion, animal poaching etc, and this justifies the harm they cause.

 This is more or less exactly the same argument that torture apologists often fall back on. The rhetoric that the ends justify the means- even if the means can not possibly lead to the end they’re arguing for.

 Another apologist argument that torturers commonly use is the idea that their victims deserved it.

 They emphasise that their victims were criminals, terrorists, homeless, ‘dangerous’ minorities, queer people- or any group that is pushed to the margins of society. They try to reframe their abuse as a heroic act and to reframe any arguments objecting to it as in support of crime, terrorism etc.

 Sironi, a professional who spent much of her career treating torturers, has said that they seem to have a lot of difficulty accepting the magnitude of what they’ve done. They downplay the harm they caused victims and underestimate the damage they did.

 It’s- difficult to describe what this looks like though because they do generally recognise that they’ve caused a lot of harm. I suppose the best way to describe it is a sort of self-pitying focus: torturers are much more likely to emphasise the problems torture has caused them then they are to show genuine sympathy for their victims. The impression I get from interviews is that they know they’ve caused harm but don’t really want to think about it too much.

 Perhaps the scale of it is overwhelming.

 To my knowledge there hasn’t been an indepth study examining things like socio-economic background in torturers.

 Anecdotally they are usually men, but this may be because discrimination against women makes it harder for them to join the organisations torturers are in. If there are less women in the military and police then for purely statistical reasons more torturers in those groups would be men.

 Rejali’s assessment was that they are often seen as loyal to the state/government they serve. Again this may be more to do with recruitment then anything else.

 As for their general mindset-

 My own impression is that they don’t re-adjust to society well.

 This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re violent. In fact I haven’t seen anything to say conclusively that they remain violent or aggressive after leaving the organisation they tortured for.

 But they struggle to come to terms with their mental health problems. They often seem to resist attempts to treat or address them.

 They struggle to keep down normal jobs. They struggle to access educational opportunities. They struggle to keep up relationships with their previous friends and family, they often don’t seem to develop new relationships at all.

 They’re profoundly isolated individuals. They’re generally quite seriously ill and they’re usually almost completely unsupported.

 The organisations that they tortured for- tend to get rid of them. Either when they reach the point of collapse due to mental health problems or when they decide torturers are a liability. The second option often seems to mean they’re killed.

 Here’s the thing though: from the outside without further evidence all of this can look very much like a trauma survivor.

 A trauma survivor who is also an apologist asshole, but a trauma survivor nonetheless.

 If you want your character to be right in their assessment then I’d suggest combining all of these with observation and survivor accounts. If other survivors have consistently pointed out a particular individual or group then it’s more likely they’ll be torturers. An individual who spends a lot of time at work with, or was trained by, a known torturer is more likely to be a torturer themselves.

 But this is definitely not fool proof.

 If you want your character to be wrong then keep in mind all the people that could fit the above description without necessarily being guilty of much besides- being wrong, possibly ill and a bit of a bastard.

 You might find the appendices to The Wretched of The Earth helpful. Particularly the notes on the two (very different) torturers and the torturer’s daughter.

 I hope this helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[coronavirusremediationservices]

With no end to the pandemic in sight, coronavirus fatigue grips America

Gabe Rice began sheltering in his suburban Phoenix home with his wife and three youngest children in March. They worked remotely, learned remotely and put social events on hold to hunker down alongside much of the country.

It was challenging and frustrating, but, Rice initially assumed, temporary. It seemed like a plausible plan to help the nation get the pandemic under control within a couple of months.

But Arizona’s economic reopening in May, urged by Gov. Doug Ducey (R), was soon followed by a spike in coronavirus infections in June, which became a terrible surge in hospitalizations and deaths by July.

Then came August, and the devastating realization for many Americans that the pandemic, which has killed at least 159,000 people across the country and sickened more than five million, is far from over.

“It’s difficult when you think you have a light at the other end of the tunnel to look forward to, and then all of a sudden you realize it’s a train,” said Rice, 44, a program coordinator at Arizona State University.

An exhausted, exasperated nation is suffering from the effects of a pandemic that has upended society on a scale and duration without parallel in living memory.

The Rice family and millions of other Americans are wrestling with difficult questions about how to juggle school, pay their bills and look after their mental and physical health.

Parents lie awake, their minds racing with thoughts of how to balance work with their newfound role as home-schoolers. Frontline health workers are bone tired, their nerves frayed by endless shifts and constant encounters with the virus and its victims. Senior citizens have grown weary of isolation. Unemployed workers fret over jobs lost, benefits that are running out, rent payments that are overdue. Minority communities continue to shoulder the disproportionate burden of the contagion’s impact, which in recent weeks has killed an average of about 1,000 people a day.

Buck Horton reopened his club, Wo-de’s Chill Spot, in Harvey, La., only to be forced into a second closure —  by the fire marshal’s office, which cited violations of Louisiana’s coronavirus restrictions. Buck Horton reopened his club, Wo-de’s Chill Spot, in Harvey, La., only to be forced into a second closure — by the fire marshal’s office, which cited violations of Louisiana’s coronavirus restrictions. (Emily Kask for The Washington Post) The metaphor of a marathon doesn’t capture the wearisome, confounding, terrifying and yet somehow dull and drab nature of this ordeal for many Americans, who have watched leaders fumble the pandemic response from the start. Marathons have a defined conclusion, but 2020 feels like an endless slog — uphill, in mud.

Recent opinion polls hint at the deepening despair. A Gallup survey in mid-July showed 73 percent of adults viewed the pandemic as growing worse — the highest level of pessimism recorded since Gallup began tracking that assessment in early April. Another Gallup Poll, published Aug. 4, found only 13 percent of adults are satisfied with the way things are going overall in the country, the lowest in nine years.

A July Kaiser Family Foundation poll echoed that, finding that a majority of adults think the worst is yet to come. Fifty-three percent said the crisis has harmed their mental health.

In a podcast released Thursday, former first lady Michelle Obama directly addressed the mental toll, saying she has struggled with the quarantines, the government’s response to the pandemic and the persistent reminders of systemic racism that have led to nationwide protests.

“I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression,” she said.

Historians say that not even the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 675,000 people in the United States, had the same kind of all-encompassing economic, social and cultural impact.

“One of the biggest differences between this virus and [the 1918] influenza is the duration,” said John Barry, author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.”

With coronavirus, he said, the incubation period is longer, patients with symptoms tend to be sick longer, and many take longer to recover. Barry said leaders did not make sufficiently clear early on the simple epidemiological truth that this would be a painfully drawn-out event.

“Part of the frustration and disappointment and depression, frankly, is because of the expectation that we’d be through this by now,” he said.

President Trump repeatedly promised a quick resolution. He conjured the image of church pews packed by Easter. The White House recommended 15 days of restrictions. That was then extended by 30 days, to the end of April. On Thursday, Trump said a vaccine could be ready by Election Day, Nov. 3 — a date well in advance of what his administration’s own experts think is likely.

But the virus has repeatedly shown that it has its own timetable. The first wave of shutdowns helped reverse the frightening trend lines of March and early April but came nowhere close to crushing the opportunistic pathogen. And now the season of the pandemic is indisputably the year of the pandemic.

“This will be a long, long haul unless virtually everybody — or a very, very high percentage of the population, including the young people — take very seriously the kind of prevention principles that we’ve been talking about,” Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview.

“It is within our power and within our will to really get it down to a level that’s low enough that we can do many of the things that would get our economy going again,” he added. “There will be a long slog if everybody doesn’t pitch in.”

Not everyone is experiencing the same level of stress, and everyone’s pandemic struggles differ. Any “essential” worker exposed to high-risk conditions day after day has more urgent concerns than someone merely stuck at home and missing out on summer barbecues.

In Cadiz, Ky., Stephanie Grant has endured one of the most trying years of her life. The 42-year-old lost her job at the end of April. For more than two months, as she waited for unemployment benefits to kick in, she fell behind on her car payment, utilities, insurance and rent for the apartment she shares with her two teenage daughters.

She drained most of her savings trying to remain afloat. She applied for jobs at gas stations and dollar stores. She pursued becoming a coronavirus contract tracer, but that also didn’t come through.

“I could not get a job anywhere,” she said. “I want to get back out there and work.”

As her stress and her bills mounted, Grant turned to a Kentucky nonprofit focused on housing and homelessness. The group helped her catch up on her rent, and the arrival of her unemployment payments in late July have allowed her to catch her breath. For now.

“Right now, I’m wary. It seems like we are falling apart. The stress, the tensions, everything that’s going on. … People are scared,” she said.

And many people are bored, eager to socialize. In Harvey, La., Marlon “Buck” Horton operates a popular bar, Wo-de’s Chill Spot. But Horton’s bar permit was suspended in late July after complaints about what the state fire marshal described as “a large, non-socially distanced crowd.”

Horton, 39, denied the fire marshal’s report that he served alcohol indoors. He said people simply eager to grab a beer crowded outside, and a passerby posted a video of the gathering on Facebook, leading to the crackdown.

“We’re stuck. We don’t have assistance, and we still have landlords,” Horton said last week. At a hearing soon after, the suspension was lifted when he agreed to pay a fine and abide by the state’s coronavirus rules.

Although some states battered by the virus have made progress against it in recent weeks, it has infiltrated small towns with little previous exposure.

In Mississippi, George County is among eight counties that have been told to delay school reopenings for grades seven to 12 until Aug. 17 because of high rates of virus transmission. Superintendent of Education Wade Whitney realized how serious the pandemic had become locally when a co-worker in an adjacent office became severely ill and was hospitalized for five days.

“When that person catches it, it kind of hits you right between the eyes,” Whitney said. “Small-town George County is not immune.”

That co-worker was Matt Caldwell, the director of operations for the school district and the former head football coach at the high school. Caldwell, a big man who played offensive line for the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the early 1990s, had assumed it would be no big deal if he was infected.

“Boy, was I wrong,” he said. “I definitely underestimated it. I tell everybody I talk to it’s a real thing. Those people who think its just a hoax and all that — I know this, I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anybody.”

Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, has become an oft-quoted expert during the coronavirus pandemic. But she’s also a mother who is dismayed that her son Miles, 7, who should be entering second grade in a Maryland public school, will start the year with online-only instruction.

“I’m absolutely devastated. It’s not learning,” Nuzzo said.

The Washington Nationals host the New York Mets on Aug. 4 in an otherwise empty Nationals Park. The Washington Nationals host the New York Mets on Aug. 4 in an otherwise empty Nationals Park. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post) This is not just back-to-school season, it’s also the time when many counties and states hold their annual fairs. Those are being canceled right and left. Professional sports is now back on air, but in most cases without fans in the stadiums and arenas. Major League Baseball is trying to keep its revived season intact after several outbreaks of infection.

And there are the ordinary cancellations so many people have endured — birthdays not celebrated, weddings and funerals carried out over Zoom, trips not taken, loved ones not visited.

Joseph and Kelli Crawford of Gilbert, Ariz., had planned to travel to London in April for their 10th anniversary and for her sister’s 30th birthday. Everything was booked: Flights, lodging, tickets to concerts and plays.

They rescheduled for March 2021. But now they worry that even that might be optimistic.

“I’m crossing my fingers. But I’m also not going to be packing my bags,” said Kelli, 33.

A flight attendant, she also agreed to an 18-month voluntary separation from her work. She’ll keep her health insurance and part of her salary.

But she won’t be bored. All four of the Crawfords’ children, ages 4, 5, 10 and 13, are home. The three oldest have begun remote classes. Their 4-year-old daughter has been aching to start preschool since she saw her older brother do so last year. But there is no virtual preschool, so that plan is on hold.

“It’s one thing for the adults to be lonely,” Kelli said. “But these poor kids, I get so heartbroken about the loneliness they’re experiencing.”

There are glimmers of hope for those staggered by this dire moment: The vaccine development for the novel coronavirus appears to be moving at unprecedented speed. There are promising therapeutics that may lower the mortality rate of those who become severely ill.

The pandemic will someday come to an end, experts promise, because all pandemics have. And though SARS-CoV-2 is a slippery and unpredictable virus, it has not proved as deadly as the 1918 influenza virus that swept across much of the planet.

“In 1918, practically every city in the country ran out of coffins,” Barry said. Victims commonly died at home. “All these things led to much greater fear, which meant that people were also more willing to put up with anything that might help.”

Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan, said that though similarities exist between today’s outbreak and the influenza pandemic a century ago, American society was different at that time.

Americans had experienced epidemics of cholera, diphtheria and other diseases in the not-so-distant past. They were accustomed to children dying of smallpox, whooping cough and other diseases.

Rep. T.S. McMillan, a Democrat from Charleston, S.C., with two flappers, dances the Charleston in Washington in the 1920s. Rep. T.S. McMillan, a Democrat from Charleston, S.C., with two flappers, dances the Charleston in Washington in the 1920s. (Library of Congress) Unlike today, most Americans also had little confidence that a magic bullet would end the suffering and exasperation. “Another expectation of our era is the expectation that science will come up with a fix quickly,” Markel said. “None of us have the patience for lengthy processes. We live in an instant society.”

Still, Markel said, despite the seemingly endless nature of the current situation, history offers reasons for optimism. When the pandemic of 1918-1919 was over, for instance, people rebounded quickly.

“They went out and started dancing the Charleston, buying raccoon coats and buying stocks and bonds,” he said. “It went from zero to 60 in no time flat.”

This crisis, too, will pass.

“No question, epidemic fatigue or pandemic fatigue is real. We are experiencing it,” Markel said. “But throughout human history, there have been terrible pandemics and contagious threats. Every civilization, every nation, has come through to the other side. And we will, too.”

[staying-strong-with-miso]

**content warning: suicidal thoughts, self-harm, cutting, family problems, mothers**

*

*

*

*

*

*

Oh my god anon, you are not over analyzing for attention. Please let me remind you and everyone else reading that “acting out” for attention is a symptom of needing attention, for a specific disorder or bad situation. Let me repeat, putting yourself in harms way “for attention”, means you need attention!! People who don’t genuinely require attention, do not hurt themselves because they want it. It is not and it is never bad or silly to “attention-seek” for help, whatever it is you need help with. 

It’s easy to feel that you are exaggerating your problems for attention, when that is the message getting sent to you by people in your life and society as a whole. Look at how you phrased this anon, “my generation tends to do that”. Teenagers and kids have been told that their problems don’t matter, that they’re over-exaggerating, that they’re just seeking attention, since before time itself. 

Today’s hyperbolic memes aside, this is no more true now than it was fifty years ago. Adults tend to look down on the experiences of kids and teens, (especially young girls, mentally ill and disabled kids, queer kids, kids of color,), they forget we are people. It is easy to accept that and feel it is true when we have been told this message for so long, to internalize it and not question it. It becomes your inner voice. Focus, how do YOU feel and what is YOUR BODY telling you it’s feeling? 

Remember, no matter what anyone tells you, your emotions and your perceptions of your emotions, your thoughts, they are valid and they matter. It is not abnormal to feel suicidal when you have Misophonia. Every teen Misophonic I know has struggled with it. It’s because Misophonia is scary! It’s painful! It terrorizes you, it makes you feel there is no way out, that everything is out of control. 

Remember that this is not true. It is also far too easy to accept that bad ideas like that are true when you are scared. Remember movies and tv shows, stories where the villain recruits new villains to work alongside them. Something you’ll notice quickly is that the villain takes the hero when they are at their weakest, their most broken down and scared. Then they lie to them. When watching this, it’s difficult to understand how the hero could believe such ridiculous lies! You can easily see from your detached viewpoint that the hero only believes this because they are in pain. The hero can’t see any good prospects, anything good in their life. Nothing beautiful on the horizon. When they’re like this, it’s easy to see how when the villain tells them that poison is a magic potion that’ll cure everything, they’ll believe such an obvious lie. Because when you can’t see anything good, its way too easy to mistake bad things for good ones. 

Think of the “villain” in this situation as mental illness. If I could draw this out like Steven usually does I would. I hope you’re getting the picture with just my words. Unless this is more ramble-y and incoherent than I thought, in which case know I care for you and I’m trying my best rn, and I’ll rewrite when I can.

Anyways, what’s most important for you to remember here is that you are not alone. There are people who have been through and are going through the exact same thing. There are people who care about you. I think I can say with a pretty high degree of safety that most of my followers and mutuals here are among that group. 

Not only are there people who have been through this exact same thing, they have come out of it too. I’m not saying Misophonia goes away, but after your teen years, it really does get better. You have a future. You have a life and you can make it yours. Do you know how precious a human life is anon? How precious your life is? It’s more than you could ever know, more than could ever be counted or calculated. One day you will have control over your life, over your situation. Yes Misophonia will be a part of it, but it gets less controlling when you’re an adult. 

I’d be the first to admit that my hopes and dreams for my adult life have been drastically changed by my disorders. Changed anon, not killed. There is so much out there for you to be excited for! What you held on for yesterday and today and tomorrow might not all be the same but oh I can promise you there will always be something to hold onto, if you look. When you can’t find anything, remember the stories with the weathered heroes who can’t see the good things right in front of them. No, maybe their good things aren’t the exact same as yours, but in both cases, they are always there. if you still can’t find them, you have the power to make your own, even if you don’t know it yet. 

You can have a great life anon. You can have a great future. I know what it’s like to not be able to see it, but I promise it’s there waiting. 

Things won’t always be as they are right now. Change is as inevitable as the passing of time. There are plenty of things that may be able to help you. 

Anxiety medication might help you, (I know it’s helped me and a few others), counseling might help you, (also helped me and others like us), definitely antidepressants. (Again, has been very helpful for me and many other Misophonics I know.) These things also might take time to work. They all take a long journey of trial and error. I know you’re probably tired of hearing that already, but please trust me that every single second of waiting in pain has been worth it, 100 times over. I genuinely, hand-on-my-heart, mean that. 

Anonymous, I need to repeat this, I need to know that you get it. You are not making this up for attention. You, like many others before you and with you, are experiencing serious repercussions on your mental health from living with Misophonia. It is a beyond-terrible, straight-from-hell disorder that yes, you, like all of us, will survive, will live beyond in ways you can’t imagine right now, but is currently endangering you. 

Please, don’t underestimate the effect it’s having on your mental health. Don’t understate it, or make excuses for it. You need and deserve help, anon. 

I’m terribly sorry about how your mom is treating you. You deserve so much better. Even if she doesn’t understand Misophonia, maybe she will take your mental health seriously, especially if you tell her that you’re suicidal. Which, I urge you to do. I know it will not be anywhere near easy, but believe me when I say it’s necessary. Don’t panic, you don’t have to do anything major right away. There’s no time limit. When you’ve worked up the courage, just be honest. Be brave. 

If she has a bad reaction, if she invalidates your feelings or brushes it off, please know that has everything to do with her, and absolutely nothing to do with the severity of your pain. And be proud! One of the most difficult and important parts of learning to thrive with this disorder, maybe the most important part, is learning how to communicate about it. About your pain, and about your needs. Once you learn how to do this, once you practice and get good at it, trust me, everything is easier. 

Whether you end up talking to her about it or not, be proud of yourself for recognizing you need help, and reaching out to me. Asking for help is both incredibly brave and the biggest favor you could do for yourself. You deserve it anon, you deserve help. 

Another thing I want to talk to you about is guilt. Something a lot of mentally ill and disabled people, people with unique needs, have to go through, is people in their lives trying to make them feel guilty for those needs. For demanding to have those needs met. No matter what it is you need, if it’s because of your disorder, if it’s your family you’re asking, demanding they meet your needs is never, ever an unreasonable thing to do. It is in fact, necessary. 

You are her child. It is her responsibility to take care of you, to love and nurture you, and to respect you. You deserve those things. Every child deserves those things, inherently. You are not an exception to that. You are no less important than anyone else, your needs are no less important than anyone else.

Sometimes people in our lives act like us being Misophonics is worse for them then it is for us. That can never be true. Ultimately, the worst those people  experience because of our Misophonia, is inconveniences. Or, even, sadness and frustration on our behalf. We, you, are the one in serious pain here. Maybe that sounds selfish, to care about only our pain. But when the topic is our disorder, and for some, for me, our disability, that is exactly what we need to do.

I have seen guilt rip up Misophonics from the inside. Guilt they do not deserve. Having our Misophonia triggered does not only do damage to our body over time, is is a legitimately traumatizing experience. It does damage to our psych, our mental health overall. We need to avoid it at all costs. If doing so hurts other people, that really is too bad, and we should be mindful of how we can lessen that. But when you’re young, when it’s at it’s worst, when no one respects your disorder and your pain, when you’re overwhelmed and in agony and barely beginning to understand what’s happening to you, when people equate their inconvenience to that agony, to this whole experience, we really cannot afford giving them that mindfulness. 

When you are struggling with if your pain matters or not, when they are not doing anything but making that feeling worse, when they try to make you feel bad for them, bad for needing things, bad for being Misophonic, excuse my french, but f**k them. They are your family! You are the one in pain here! They need to wake tf up and do better by you, you deserve better!

So never doubt the validity of your pain. Never apologize for needing things. Demand better! This society thrives off our self-hatred and self-doubt, don’t give it to them! You are important damn it! You deserve help! You deserve sympathy! Your family owes those things to you!

Anon I love you. You are stronger than you could ever, ever know. I am on your side. Take care of yourself because you are worthy of it, because you have a future. You will find people, (you have! right here!) who will listen to you and respect you and love you. This awful situation is not permanent, it will not be your end. This disorder really does get easier as an adult, enduring this really will be worth it. I let my rage lead me out of the worst of it, which probably isn’t for everyone. But I do know this, you will find your way.

[scienceblogtumbler]

Q&A: ‘We are only at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic’ – Prof. Peter Piot

By Annette Ekin

We’re only at the start of the coronavirus pandemic although the second wave may take a different form to the first one, says veteran virologist Professor Peter Piot, who has spent the past 40 years tracking down and fighting viruses.

Prof. Piot, who helped discover Ebola at age 27 and has led the fight against HIV and AIDS, contracted coronavirus earlier this year. The director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, and a special advisor on coronavirus to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke to Horizon about how having Covid-19 changed his perspective on the illness, why we need a vaccine and the long-term impacts of the pandemic.

First things first. After 40 years chasing viruses, you recently had a close call with coronavirus. How are you?

It took three months from the beginning of the disease to recovery, but now I’m back to more or less normal. But it (my experience) showed that Covid-19 is more than either a bit of a flu or that 1% go into intensive care and die. There’s a lot in between.

But it gave me new insight. Now I know the virus from the inside – not just studying or fighting it. It’s a very different perspective.

How so?

First of all, this (crisis) is about people. A lot of the official Covid-19 communication is about flattening the curve and barely about people. Secondly, in terms of insight, the fact that this is not a ‘flu or intensive care’ type of thing. There are going to be a lot of people with chronic conditions.

Then, personally, it makes me double motivated to fight the virus. After having fought viruses for most of my life, they got me now, but I think it’s also the human experience that makes a big difference. It’s what we call – that’s the term in Dutch – ervaringsdeskundige (an expert from experience). It comes from social policy. So you don’t just have experts telling people what’s good for them. You also talk to people who were affected. And I come from the AIDS movement. So in HIV, we wouldn’t dream of designing, developing, even (doing) research without involving people living with HIV. So that’s my kind of way of thinking.

At present, there are more than 9 million cases globally and the pandemic is taking hold in Latin America. What is the current situation from your perspective?

Well, frankly, first of all, the figures are certainly underestimates because these are confirmed cases. So we probably are closer to well over 20 million, and soon, half a million deaths.

Together with HIV, which is now a silent epidemic that still kills 600,000 people every year, and the Spanish flu, it (coronavirus) is certainly the biggest, not just epidemic, but also societal crisis in peacetime.

When we think of Europe, that just about every country has succeeded in bringing down the spread of the virus, that’s good news. Societies are going back and relaxing various measures.

And now we’ve got to prepare for a so-called second wave. I hope that it won’t be a tsunami, but more like the outbreaks we already have, for example, in a meatpacking facility in Germany or in Korea around nightclubs. Also, in the UK, we have still (have outbreaks) in some care homes. So I think that’s what we have to prepare for now.

The truth is: we’re only at the beginning of this pandemic. As long as there are people who are susceptible to be infected, the virus will be very happy to infect us because it needs our cells to survive.

‘Now I know the virus from the inside – not just studying or fighting it. It’s a very different perspective.’

Prof. Peter Piot, Director, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.

Is there any cause for optimism?

The good news is also unprecedented scientific collaboration. It’s hard to keep up with all the new information and science that is coming out of something that, it’s hard to believe, is only five months old.

Sometimes I say: ‘Oh my god, how can I keep up with all the publications?’ But on the other hand, that’s a good problem to have, because in past epidemics, information was not shared. Also unprecedented is that industry and countries are investing enormously in developing vaccines, therapeutics and so on. So it’s a bit of a silver lining.

If we’re only at the beginning of the pandemic, how long could it last?

I don’t have my crystal ball here, but it could last several years. I would say that in the shorter- or medium-term run, a vaccine could make a huge difference, although I doubt that it will be a 100% effective vaccine. Promises have been made that maybe hundreds of millions of vaccines will be available by October. For all practical purposes, it will be rather 2021, and that could really bring the epidemic under control in a large way.

But we will have to continue to change the way we interact with each other. When you look at Japan, for example, for generations people have been wearing face masks when they even have a cold to protect others. So, there is a need for some quite wide-scale behaviour change, in addition to counting on this magic vaccine.

The pledging marathon hosted by the European Commission has raised nearly €10 billion in pledges that will be shared between vaccines, treatments, tests and strengthening health systems. In your view, what are the priorities for spending this money – and is it enough?

This pledging event is necessary for two reasons: to make sure there is money (and to ensure) equitable access of the vaccines and other (resources). The biggest need is in vaccine development and manufacturing.

But the very important point is that (the funds are) not only for research and development but also (for) putting into place mechanisms so that there is access (to vaccines) for those countries that are either not vaccine producers or are on the poor side. You (might) say it’s a lot of money (overall), but, it’s not enough.

Epidemics often reveal society’s fault lines and exacerbate inequities, says Prof. Peter Piot. Image credit – Peter Piot

Why not?

What’s unprecedented, again, is that we’re talking about billions, not millions, in terms of people who have to be vaccinated. That’s never been tried before. About 4 or 5 billion people will need access to this vaccine. And that also means billions of glass vials to put the vaccine in – all these very basic things that have to be taken care of.

Companies and governments have to take a bet and invest in vaccine manufacturing without knowing whether that vaccine will actually work. That’s quite a challenge, but that’s the reason there is such a need for also public money because this is going to be a public good.

Then there’s the issue of ‘vaccine nationalism’. It started with the US saying vaccines produced in the US will be for Americans. And if every country starts doing that, the majority of people in the world will be excluded because only very few countries produce vaccines.

So how do we make sure that no one gets left behind?

That’s a big question. I think that’s ultimately going to be a political issue. And so that’s why I stress that the pledging initiative hosted by the Commission, that equitable access is an integral part of it. It’s not just raising money to develop a vaccine. It’s raising money to develop a vaccine that will be accessible to all those in need. It is quite a big difference.

Last month you said in an interview that we’re learning while sailing and that without a vaccine normal life won’t resume. Do you still think that?

It’s a bit more nuanced now. I’m now saying we’re learning while we’re racing because sailing is a bit slow. At the moment, everybody’s racing. And I still think that without a vaccine it’s going to be extremely hard to go back to normal society.

A lot will depend on whether vaccines will protect against transmission. So, in other words, that if I’m vaccinated I can’t get it, or, as with the case of influenza, the vaccine is particularly useful to prevent the development of severe disease and mortality. There are many unknowns. It is, for me, the number one priority for science and for the response because without a vaccine, then that means that we have years of having to live with this virus.

Is there a vaccine contender that you’re excited about and can single out?

No, I’m excited about quite a few. But the beauty at the moment is that there are very different approaches to making a vaccine. You have (messenger) RNA ones and then you’ve got more traditional approaches. I’m personally agnostic.

Even if a vaccine could prevent people from getting ill, you mentioned that many people will have chronic conditions. How should the response in the longer term be shaped?

We’re all busy with the acute crisis and, although now we have a little bit of time to prepare for these second-wave outbreaks, we also need a long-term view. That’s obvious for the economic and social impact. Even mental health impacts, not only of the epidemic, but of the counter measures – being in isolation, kids not going to school, etc. which could really also exacerbate social inequalities and inequities. Epidemics often reveal the fault lines in society and exacerbate inequities. That goes way beyond the biological and medical aspects, but that’s what we need to plan for now.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length. The views expressed in the article are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Commission.

Published by Horizon

source https://horizon.scienceblog.com/1330/qa-we-are-only-at-the-beginning-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-prof-peter-piot/

[scripttorture]

My main character is kidnapped and placed on a table in a white room. She is completely immobilized, including her head. Water keeps dripping on her head from above. The point is to force her to unlock psychic abilities in order to stop the water. Her only contact is a voice from the next cell. How long could she stay in this situation before her mental health is completely shattered?

Anon, she would die of sleep deprivation or a heart attack if infected pressure sores didn’t kill her first.

 You can’t keep a person completely immobilised without it having a drastic effect on their health.

 Before I go any further I understand why you’re underestimating the damage and risk something like this causes. These are exactly the kinds of tortures that are often portrayed as harmless.

 It’s hard to find accurate information about torture. Most otherwise accurate factual sources are wildly inaccurate when it comes to torture. Most of the best quality information isn’t well known, costs, is out of print or not translated.

 It also isn’t really compiled and a lack of cross-disciplinary communication hampers research.

 If the only portrayals of torture you’ve seen so far are the kinds of inaccurate (often unintentional) apologia that turns up in most fiction, then it’s not surprising you’re underestimating the damage being done to your character here.

 The same thing applies to this assumption that torture can ‘shatter’ people. Anything close to your scenario would cause a lot of severe mental health problems. But torture survivors do recover, they do go on to have happy lives with their symptoms.

 If the only portrayals of torture survivors you’ve seen are fiction which shows them as ‘broken’ and unable to carry on with their lives, then I can see how you got here.

 That’s not your fault.

 Now I think the most helpful thing I can do here is give you my opinion of the scenario and several potential fixes. I can’t tell you which is ‘best’ for your story that depends on what you think is the most important element here.

 So first let’s break down what the major sources of damage are.

 The water is causing sleep deprivation. You can read more about the effects here.

 The lack of mobility would cause pressure sores throughout the character’s body, where she’s in contact with the table. Her back and ankles are likely places for sores to develop but they can also form on the back of the head.

 I’m not sure whether she’d get the kind of swelling typically seen in stress positions. This is caused by the fluid from damaged muscle cells pooling in extremities.

 What she would get are skin irritation, leading up to minor chemical burns, caused by lying in her own urine. These injuries would be extremely likely to become infected because she’d also be lying in her own faeces.

 Sleep deprivation, especially total sleep deprivation which is what is happening here, increases the risk of infection while reducing the body’s ability to heal wounds.

 This is really a lethal combination and it would kill quite quickly. I don’t have an exact figure for this but if I was writing it myself and wanted the character to survive without physical disability, I wouldn’t go over 48 hours. And I’d make sure she had medical attention afterwards.

 I’d expect physical weakness, muscle damage, skin damage and the beginning of infections in several sites.

 Honestly? I think if you want to focus on long term psychological effects and also show a large, frightening change in mental state quickly- the sleep deprivation is the element you should keep.

 After a few days of total sleep deprivation your character would be a wreck. She’d be paranoid, completely disorientated and could be hallucinating. But crucially, these are not permanent. She’d recover her ability to reason once she’s allowed to sleep.

 The effects of sleep deprivation are frightening. And before a victim is allowed to sleep properly it can look as if they’ve gone from mentally healthy to- well suffering from the kinds of mental health conditions that are most stigmatised in society.

 Psychosis, paranoia, a tendency to violence, delirium and hallucinations. In a story where the main culture doesn’t handle mental health well that can look like someone’s mind has ‘shattered’ and that can have an impact on how the survivor is treated.

 But these are not typical long term symptoms for torture. With very few exceptions the symptoms for torture are the same regardless of the torture. You can find them here.

 If you want to use sleep deprivation there are a couple of ways you could do that which are more realistic and less likely to kill the character.

 A typical way would be keeping a bright, constant light in the character’s cell, with no bedding and having a loud noise whenever it looks as though the victim might be sleeping. Another way is by having a guard come by the cell every two minutes or so and banging on the door.

 In some accounts torturers provided bedding but it was wet. And that does prevent sleep but it also comes with the risk of hypothermia, so I wouldn’t recommend it in this story.

 All of these are done in a cell where the victim is unrestrained. They’re just locked in the cell. I’d give an estimated time frame of around 2-5 days.

 I said I wanted to give you more options, there isn’t much mileage in my opinion for keeping the character completely unable to move. But it’s your story not mine and you might think it’s an important element.

 If you do then I think you need to get rid of the sleep deprivation element because it’s already pretty dangerous.

 If your character is immobilised using restraints then don’t describe the character with a restraint around her neck. The chances of choking, vomiting and drowning in the vomit or suffocating are all reasonably high. A strap across the forehead is a less lethal scenario.

 Injuries from the restraints would be incredibly likely. They can range from bruising or abrasions caused by struggling to more serious circulation problems which can lead to strokes, heart attacks, amputations and death. I’d strongly suggest having the restraints loose enough that the character can wiggle and struggle, otherwise circulation problems are likely.

 People can also just randomly have lethal heart attacks when kept in restraints like this over several days. Policies related to the restraint of mentally ill people in particular have come under scrutiny across the world for the amount of avoidable deaths these practices cause.

 Pressure sores are possible but I’m unsure about the time frame they take place over. That’s because they’re typically seen in patients with mobility issues who are moved but not frequently enough or who spend a lot of time in the same position. In that context they take weeks or months to form, but these people are being moved and we know that movement helps reduce the chance of sores forming.

 Chemical burns from urine are almost certain to occur around the thighs, buttocks and groin region.

 To be clear these are not like high-strength acid burns. It’s the difference between having short contact with a highly corrosive substance and sitting for hours in a weaker, but still damaging, substance. So you’d see redness and swelling in less affected areas, skin peeling and weeping in more effected areas. Think of the painful skin under a large blister. In the worst effected areas you could expect sores, depending on how long the character is kept like that.

 I’d suggest keeping the time frame down to 48 hours or less as a result of all these potentially lethal problems.

 The character wouldn’t be confused, delirious, psychotic or hallucinating after this. But she would develop several serious mental health problems as a result of this torture.

 There’s a lot of individual variation in what symptoms people experience and we can’t currently predict symptoms. So take a look at the list and pick 3-5 symptoms that you feel fit the character and story best.

 If the effects of completely immobilising the character sound too dangerous, or otherwise not what you’re going for, I’d suggest taking a look through the tags on stress positions. Stress positions are much more common then this sort of total restraint. They also have more well known and well defined effects which makes them easier to research and write.

 I’m going to leave it there because I think you’ve got a lot to think about and decide. If you’ve got further questions though don’t hesitate to ask. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[scripttorture]

Hey I have a young character who was kidnapped around the age of eight and tortured. Most of it was things like being filling awake and unfrozen for surgery’s and being stuck in tight cages. He was stuck with his kidnappers for about three months before he was saved. In my story the kid’s around twelve now and despite having many resources to help him he still has many issues (1/2)

(2/2) . Such as: severe social anxiety (can’t look strangers in the eyes, hates talking to strangers and when he does talk it’s one word answers), is absolutely terrified of being touched, has attachment issues, and he has tiny things that will trigger him into a panic attack. He has two siblings that he’s really close with so he gets to socialize with them. Anywayshe grew up in somewhere really isolated and rural and now he’s moving to a big crowded city. How do you think he should handle this?

I think you might have underestimated the level of symptoms a child in this situation would have. Not by a huge amount, but enough that it seems noticeable to me.

What I’m getting from your description is that the character has two symptoms; anxiety and panic attacks. Both of which you’ve described at a realistic level of severity and you’re characterising them well.

I think you’re doing a really good job with the symptoms you’ve described but I think you should consider adding another symptom. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic or immediately noticeable.

Looking back over the ask it’s possible you’ve already done this and just described the ‘main’ symptoms that are an issue years later when the character moves. If that’s the case please bear with while I make some suggestions for further symptoms. It might not be useful to you but it could be useful to other people reading the ask. :)

I think you could include a memory problem here at a less severe level then the other symptoms. I’ve got a post on the four main types of memory problems torture causes here.

All of these problems are incredibly common in survivors. With anxiety that is this severe, this noticeable, a less severe memory problem could easily be overlooked.

It doesn’t need to be at a plot-effecting level the way the anxiety is. Something like- establishing that the character is ‘a little bit forgetful’ or showing that he ‘seems to think about what he went through an awful lot’ wouldn’t need to take up a lot of narrative space. And it adds in a type of symptom that’s rarely portrayed well in fiction but is experienced by most survivors.

You might also be able to include insomnia without changing much. Long term sleep deprivation (ie insomnia) does have some really dramatic and awful effects. One of which is that it makes anxiety (and problems with social interaction) worse.

But I think you could use it without changing the severity level of the character’s current symptoms. It could be used instead to highlight the main two symptoms ‘he’s not making any improvements right now because he isn’t getting enough sleep’.

I also suggest caution when using vivisection as a torture. It was generally not done in a way that’s survivable.

I’m not saying ‘don’t use it’ in this case. But I would recommend going back over what you’re putting the character through and then looking up an analogous surgery done for health reasons. Does it take more then three months for a complete recovery? Because if so then having the character survive multiple unnecessary procedures with less medical care in the same time frame- might not be possible.

You might also want to look up Japan’s Unit 731 which vivisected prisoners and civilians during World War 2. Some of the victims were children. This is- pretty heavy stuff even if you’re involved in reading about things like this regularly. It might help you with your story but it is extremely effecting.

I think that brings me to the question itself.

Honestly? Crowded cities and these kinds of manifestations of anxiety are often not a good mix. There’s a limit to how much anyone, but especially a child, can do to mitigate that.

Generally I’d say that there will be days the character just can’t go outside. In this particular situation it sounds as though his triggers and the ways his anxiety manifest would combine to mean that he usually wouldn’t be able to leave the house without a panic attack.

I think he’d spend a lot of time feeling exhausted and miserable and there’d be very little he could do to stop that.

If he’s strongly triggered by unexpected touch then he wouldn’t be able to walk down the street at rush hour or on the weekend. That means he’d be cut off from most parts of city life. That isolation would in turn feed into his symptoms and make them worse.

Based on what you’ve described he wouldn’t be able to regularly attend a mainstream school. The crowded, noisy, social environment would lead to almost constant panic attacks. Which means even if he managed to show up and be physically present during the school day he wouldn’t be learning. His energy would all be going on getting through the day, rather then taking in new information.

And due to the effects stress has on memory it’s unlikely he’d take in much.

I think how well the character would do going forward would really depend on the culture in your setting. Because he’d need a lot of accommodations and specialist care to recover in this sort of environment.

And well, even if he wasn’t being moved to a triggering environment, he’s twelve. Moving somewhere completely different is stressful at that age. Even more so when the child in question is a trauma survivor.

I moved countries when I was only a little bit younger then your character. It is incredibly stressful and isolating. In ways that make mental illnesses worse.

One of the things survivors really need to be able to recover is a stable environment. This scenario takes that away. It would take at best months and at worst years for the character to adjust to his new environment even if it wasn’t actively triggering.

In a culture that makes a lot of allowances for mental health and supports survivors then some things which might help the character include:

Specialist housing

Home schooling by specialist teachers (preferably with his siblings)

Regular scheduled visits from therapists

Regular scheduled socialisation with children his age in a non-crowded, out-of-home environment

It would mean keeping regular schedules of when the character is likely to come into contact with others and who those people would be. As well as allowing the character to withdraw at any time if things become too much.

In an environment more like the modern Western norm-

Essentially the character would be forced into situations that would give him panic attacks almost all the time. He would withdraw. He would get worse. And he wouldn’t really be able to do anything about it because as a twelve year old he doesn’t really have any control over where he lives, who he sees, whether/where he goes to school and what his home environment is like.

In that kind of scenario a family might choose to move somewhere more isolated again for the sake of the child. But they might also insist on the child ‘toughing it out for his own good’, resulting in- well a lot of harm and broken trust.

Asking how the character himself should handle this skips over one of the most important effects of his age: he can’t make the kind of changes that would help.

He can’t choose his house. He can’t arrange his schedule. He can’t choose his school.

All the important decisions about where and how he lives, what he does, the kind of medical treatment he has- those are all made by other people. And by the sounds of things those other people have chosen to put him in an environment that is going to be incredibly bad for him.

Where that leaves you really depends on what you want from the story.

If part of the point here is that the character has a very difficult childhood that delays his recovery, causes him to struggle at school and has a severe negative impact on his social position as an adult- You’ve achieved it. This will work very well.

And in that kind of story you could easily use the extra stressors imposed by adults as a way of strengthening the character’s bonds with his siblings. They understand, the adults don’t.

If on the other hand you want the character to recover and do well in the city, if you want the story to be about him getting better in this environment-

Then you need to change the way he’s interacting with his environment, building up something that is not like the typical modern experience of schooling and city life.

Adults with these kinds of symptoms deal with them by carefully planning when, how and for how long they come into contact with other people.

There are other things that can help, like CBT in some cases, but they all stem from being able to expect and plan contact with others.

So if you want him to do well he needs that structure, scheduling and control. Giving that to a child means rather radical restructuring of urban life. Don’t be afraid of that. Don’t be afraid of imaging a society and a city that treats torture survivors far better then we do.

Beyond that- I don’t know much about childhood development and I think you’d benefit from looking at what both @scriptshrink and @scripttraumasurvivors have to say about traumatised children.

I hope that helps. :)

Edited for formatting

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer