They rapidly ban commenters who call them out on their manipulation. "Rarely even seeing" is the point.

Oof. My condolences.

Yes. More than half my Complex PTSD is due to bullying to the point of terrorism and the social isolation that comes with that.

My condolences. I, too have not being normal - and being ruthlessly punished for not being normal my entire life, which caused my CPTSD.

I've heard the mods are themselves abusers who infiltrated the sub to find victims.

Do you remember exactly what changes it makes? Because "prolonged early childhood abuse" may as well be my middle name.

I've read somewhere it manifests similarly to Traumatic Brain Injury - not surprising really, if you think about it.

> I disagree with this - yes, some people are just mean spirited, but plenty of people aren’t, even without any risk of punishment.

I've never encountered these people; people will transform into cruel monsters as soon as I walk into a room, without me saying word.

> As for the “crowd” bit, what you’re referring to is mob mentality which is sort of a separate human phenomenon and causes humans to act in a number of abnormal ways - this is sort of related to hierarchies, but not directly, as mob mentality can exist outside of the context of hierarchies.

Fair enough, but every person's opinion of me seems to come directly from bigoted social norms, as the behavior the exhibit echoes bigoted behavior toward others exactly.

> I think hierarchies are essential for large scale societies/communities to function properly - a company, for instance, where everyone has equal influence/decision making power would be absolute chaos and highly inefficient.

But what price efficiency? I'd rather be free to do as I please (as long as I harm no others) without unjust punishment even if it costs a little more. I've been paying great sums all my life only to be terrorized wherever I go as it is. I'm not saving any resources through this hierarchy - only the top saves; the bottom bears all the costs.

> This ability to organize ourselves in large societies/communities is one of the main reasons anthropologists believe homo sapiens beat out all other “homo” variants - it’s literally in our nature.

That's done at the cost of ruthlessly stamping out any individual thought. Only group thinkers are allowed in the group.

> You’ll have to be more specific here, as this could mean a whole lot of things, but if we’re talking about skill/talent, humans are most definitely not created equal.

I'm talking about basic human beings, regardless of gained skill. Also, what skills one can gain is highly dependent on birth fortunes.

> That said, I still believe humans have the agency to shape their lives, although only to an extent. As the saying goes, “life’s not fair”.

What you're disregarding is that other people also have agency to disrupt the live of any person they come in contact with - and they will purely out of unchecked malice. People won't maliciously interfere with another's life only if there is a credible threat of punishment for doing so. No punishment? A crowd will hack away at a person until he or she is chunks.

> Hierarchies among humans exist everywhere, in every community. Some are immediately obvious, while others are more subtle. Unfortunately, I think you’ll have to accept this, just as almost all humans have for thousands of years.

Hierarchies destroy the people trapped in them. Hierarchies are one reason why communities die. Humans aren't "accepting" this so much as they are trapped and suffering under them, with little means of escape.

Then how do you explain the fact that so many people recognize that no human being is inherently better than another, and that most advantages in life are at least partially due to the random lottery of birth circumstances?

Any belief in some form of "natural, unavoidable" hierarchy is purely a manifestation of narcissism or other cluster-B disorder.

The hierarchy is mythical; the assault and abuse its religious adherents resort to to enforce it is not.

No amount of schooling or learning is going to change other people's minds about where you fit in their mythical hierarchy. I learned that the hard way, and it ruined my life.

> What's less obvious is that these toxic environments are only enabled by toxic norms.

And these toxic norms are created and reinforced by society and human nature.

I have never "entered into" a "relationship" of my own free will - every interaction has at least an element of force and/or coercion.

> When we think we are free, we are really only just finding people who are only marginally different from our caregivers growing up.

That's because that's what the human race is, fundamentally.

> It's easy to see ourselves as the cause as we are the common denominator in all these interactions.

It doesn't help when every other abusive asshole on the planet insists that we are the cause - as if we somehow forcing the abusers to abuse us.

> It also skews our perception of normal and benign behavior, so things like ambiguity in relationships can feel very dangerous.

My perception is not "skewed" - I have all of the rest of humanity to observe, not to mention every psychology textbook I can get my hands on.

> The result is that healthy relationships can feel very triggering and dangerous

I have no idea how this would happen. I knew my treatment was abusive when I was a child - "healthy" relationships would be the farthest away from that, and that is exactly where I want to be.

> All we learned was transactional relationships.

And that comes to pass because human beings inherently drive toward transactional relationships.

> It's literally impossible to experience relationships differently unless you get lucky to stumble into it, or you deconstruct and unlearn all those unhealthy behaviors. It's not just a switch you can flip to suddenly be a different person and make up for years of healthy social development.

What if you grew up knowing that other people were abusive, and you went out of your way to reject everything they did or stood for? What if you made a point of not behaving like your abusers from a young age, even when that rebellion got you "punished" harder because you refused to adopt their toxic ideas?

> Got weird aches and pains going on?

Just the previously broken bones.

> Do you have family, friends, people who support you?

I've never had anyone support me - that's the problem. And it's not anything I'm doing - I've had multiple therapists repeatedly insist that other people's bad-faith rejection of me isn't my fault. I behave exactly how other people behave - down to pacing of breath - yet people insist on reacting to me radically different that they do everyone else, seemingly out of spite. I've basically been Assigned "Other" At Birth and no one will tolerate me, no matter what I do to change their minds.

> Do you adhere to stoic principles

Are you saying that stoicism is a mental disorder?

> Have you been tested for ADHD or autism?

Autism yes, ADHD no. But my behavior is quite the opposite of the symptoms of ADHD.

> Finally spiritually. Are you mad at extracosmological forces? Or are you in tune with them?

I don't believe in spirituality at all. I'm strictly about what can be proven.

> But if you see issues on any of these, see a doctor.

Been there, done that. No doctor seeing me will force other people to ignore their misfiring instincts and act in good faith towards me. My problems are sociological, not psychological.

There has to be a limit to that - I've been traumatized since nearly birth.

I have Complex PTSD from child abuse and neglect from parents, peers, and school authorities. People seem psychologically compelled to abuse me; no person I have ever encountered has failed to at least vocally support my abuse unless they would risk losing their job doing so.

And yet I am capable of navigating the world (despite everyone's incessant attempts to interfere with my life) and have been for nearly forty years. How exactly am I "stuck" at early infanthood, when my abuse and neglect started?

It is still unhealthy. We should not throw up our hands and give up on reducing trauma - especially in children.

Same here, but I can't remember anything else.

I think what happens is that our minds only remember the dangers in our lives.

Yes - my memories have already been processed, and I've been trying to forget things since they happened. EMDR can't retrieve anything.

Again, there is NO way to "cut out" the repeat trauma causers because the species, at the anthropological level, are psychologically compelled to continue to abuse what the are ultimately afraid of.

Thank you; you are exactly correct - except for the last paragraph.

You need to ask yourself: How did that happen in the first place? How was a child exposed exclusively and only to abuse, and never to any caring or considerate behavior? The answer is simple: because people let that happen, on purpose. And that allowance of abuse is core to who people are as a species. Allowing other children to be abused is how they secure the futures of their own children. Human beings are only half-social - they may work together to achieve things, but they'll also work together to harm the "other", whoever the "other" is labeled as. That was exactly how I was arbitrarily labelled as a child, and that wasn't an accident - anyone in charge could have insisted that I was part of the group everyone else was in, but instead they re-affirmed that I was the "other" and gave tacit, if not explicit, permission for everyone to beat me up.

That is what humanity is as a species. Any anthropology textbook will tell you this, if you bother to read it.

My expectations and defenses are not "actively hurting" me because you motherfuckers never changed because abusing me still gets you - and will always get you* - what you all want. You all compulsively need to feel superior to me because I frighten you because you all are too mentally weak and lazy to understand me. You neurologically cannot treat me well because you define your identities by who you are superior to; admitting you all are wrong about me means complete psychological collapse - a fate worse than death.

Everyone around at the time had every opportunity to speak up against the abuse that was inflicted on me; that fact that ZERO people did condemns the whole species. The people born later need to punish those who allowed my abuse before I consider any behavior they exhibit as legitimate.

That would require cutting myself off from society entirely - which is exactly what my abusers are trying to force me to do. There are no non-toxic people - there are only abusers and their enablers, and the only solution is to break the stubbornness and programming of the enablers so that they don't enable anymore.

They fucked this society on purpose because they measure their self-worth based on how many people (including children) they hold power over.

My parents loudly and publicly abused me throughout my childhood, and every schoolyard bully did the same - with entire communities cheering all of them on.

I have been diagnosed with Complex PTSD and that's never going to go away - especially since people are still trying to make sure it stays put.

Not necessarily. I've been through the gamut of therapists and none have been able to help me because the primary problem is other people stubbornly insisting on hating me no matter how well I treat them.

PTSD sufferers rejoice - as much as they can, anyway.