[Julie Steiner]

Thanks, Martin, that was a very thought-provoking article.

There's a temptation to conclude that those who cope with trauma better than others are inherently morally superior, and those who don't cope well are inherently morally inferior. I liked that the article stopped short of such judgments.

Personally, I think those who cope with trauma better tend to have been equipped, both before and after the trauma, with better survival tools. There is a lot of variation in the quality of the tools we receive from our social networks (family, friends) and broader cultural climate (religious and societal attitudes). I'm not so sure that being born into micro- and macro-communities that provide their members with good tools is anything more than a matter of luck.

Not that we shouldn't admire successful survivors and find them inspiring...but I think we should also recognize, as many of them do, that they were very, very fortunate in having the sort of emotional support structure around them that they needed for a healthy recovery.

I'm inclined to think that those who turn to truly antisocial or self-destructive coping mechanisms (victimization of others, anorexia, cutting, alcoholism, etc.) do so not because they are inherently "worse" people, but because they lacked the kind of emotional support structure and positive guidance that might have helped them make a more successful recovery.

The family, community, and larger society I was born into really did the best they could under the circumstances, and I don't blame them for not being able to provide the sorts of tools and guidance I would have liked. But wow, did they ever misunderstand my situation and make it worse!

Even so, I still think I'm very lucky, because they were able to support and guide me in other situations, which compensated for their ineptitude at helping me handle this particular trauma. If all your loved ones want to pretend that the whole sordid, shameful thing never happened and is never to be mentioned--or if your abuser has intimidated you into never telling anyone about it--you're not going to have much help coming to terms with your feelings about what happened. (I think that explains why so many of those convicted of sexually abusing children had been sexually abused themselves, as children. Sadly, the victimization of others can be a form of asserting control over a situation, and rejecting the powerlessness one felt in the past.) But if those around you are basically loving and supportive in other situations, you might be able to extrapolate things that also help you deal with The Great Unmentionable.

Obviously, I make no excuses for those who indulge in child sexual abuse, which, I can attest firsthand, does great and lasting harm. But I also don't think we can dismiss active pedophiles--or Nazis or terrorists or any other participant in evil--as monsters who are completely unlike the rest of us. They are really not so different after all. That's why they're so terrifying. We'd all like to think we are inherently incapable of such sociopathic behavior...but I suspect that the main difference between us and them is that we've had different life experiences, and thus different moral and psychological guidance along the way. If we had grown up under the same influences they did, we might have turned out much the same way. Now that's a disturbing thought, isn't it?

[Edited to add: Again, I'd like to clarify that I don't think certain things inevitably predispose a person to bad behavior, or that we aren't fully responsible for the choices we make, including the victimization of others. I just caution that dismissing some people as monsters doesn't help us understand either them or ourselves.]

Speaking of influences...I also liked that the article Martin linked to suggested that certain aspects of religion can be very helpful in the recovery process, while others can be unhelpful, or even outright harmful. Yep, that has certainly been my experience.

I realize that the above is quite a digression from the original topic, so I'll try to wander back a bit. The article mentioned that facing "triggering" situations with the guidance and support of someone sympathetic was very helpful in speeding the healing process. I would fervently hope that a traumatized student would be receiving better-quality psychological help than the average literature professor is qualified to provide; but I think even a crumb of sympathy or concern--in the form of an instructor's prior acknowledgment that certain material may be disturbing, and that reasonable accommodations might be available for those students who request them--would go a long way.

That's not providing psychotherapy without a license--it's just basic human decency.

But are such warnings appropriate here?

Some of the most heated kerfuffles around here have come when someone has posted an outrageous or ironic take on a distressing topic, and objectors have said it's deeply, deeply offensive for anyone to joke about such a thing. But humor is famously a coping mechanism, too. As Abraham Lincoln said, "I laugh because I must not cry. That is all. That is all." A joke that seems appallingly insensitive on its surface may actually be a sensitive person's way of dealing with life's appalling absurdities.

(Or, yeah, the jester may actually be an insensitive jerk looking for a cheap laugh at someone else's expense. Sometimes it's pretty hard to tell.)

An unmissable hint that some folks might find something offensive--as John provided recently with his talk of "filth" before launching into his (as advertised, quite filthy) sonnet over on Drills & Amusements--can be just as effective as, if not more so than, an in-your-face "content warning", I think.