Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration Puns

TW: Descriptions of physical/emotional abuse and self-harm.

Hey! I've been meaning to make this post for a while. Basically, I haven't really been much of a hiki these past two months. I've been going outside almost every day. I'm enrolled in community college (though doing poorly), and I'm aiming to become a social worker to help victims of abuse and domestic violence. I'm 22, and I've been living in an 18 month transitional living program for about a week now. How? Well, it's a long story that hopefully might help some of you out there, hopefully opening someone to the idea that this extreme isolation from society isn't a character defect — your experiences matter.

Like many others here, I was often bullied throughout my school years — both by students and teachers. Constant stress. Crippling social anxiety. Compulsive skin picking and self harm. Nightmares. Flashbacks. Hypervigilance. Chronic depression. Suicidal at 11-years-old. I guess I had my life cut out for me! I always dismissed my struggles as character defects, but it was much more than that. The environment I grew up in was arguably the biggest factor of all of my past and current problems.

I've seen many licensed social workers, case managers, and therapists these past two months. I was diagnosed with PTSD on at least four separate occasions. It wasn't based on experiences in school or out in society, though. Those experiences were only made worse by those I dealt with on a daily basis, somewhere else — my own home.

Looking at my home life, it'd make sense to say I was raised by people who also seemed to hate me for simply existing. It was a very authoritarian household. I was frequently spanked, slapped, belittled, and even kicked for any mistakes, mistakes yet to be made, and pretty much anything minor that could be used to inflict violence upon me (all mostly by my dad). My earliest memory is, I kid you not, being slapped as a toddler because I went against my mother's orders to abbreviate my last name, saying, "I know. I just like writing it out the long way." In 9th grade, my dad put his hand around my throat because he thought I didn't iron my uniform. Yeah. It's all just awful.

In this household, I was punished for expressing myself in any way that was not approved of, whether emotionally (like facial expressions) or physically (like the music I listened to or what hairstyles I could have). As a result, I developed an abysmal self-esteem, a compulsive skin picking problem, a cripp

Ok, so, I’m not sure if this belongs here, but I wanted to share because I wanted to contribute (just saw u/diditmakesound post about moving beyond extraction and consumption). So, this is my contribution, and one of my latest insights:

We are living through a mass trauma — COVID. Quite the experience. We’ve been locked away, we’ve been separated, we’ve been isolated, we’ve been hammered with negativity from all media platforms, and we have been divided. We’ve lost our communities, and the pandemic has shown us many of the people in our lives’ true colors — whichever side of whatever argument you are on is not my qualm... my qualm is that we are now defining ourselves around those “sides”. Different post for another day though.

If you’ve been alive in the past year/year and a half, and you’ve been a part of society in ANY form, I’m sure you’ll agree that it feels like everyone is on edge, and we’re all walking on egg shells.

Ding! Cue extreme, large-scale, collective social anxiety. You can feel it in your bones (or at least that’s been my experience and the many others whom I’ve spoken with as of late).

With that said, I’ve noticed a personal shift in my social anxiety (through work on myself and integration of some experiences in altered states of consciousness). It’s nearly disappeared overnight, really.

I’m capable of talking with others freely, I’m reaching out to people I haven’t spoken with in years, and I’m building COMMUNITY again.

I believe it all comes down to this insight: EVERYONE is re-learning how to socialize.

So, how can we get past/through this and begin to live our best lives again? Here are a few suggestions from me:

1. Be open and honest with one another about our struggles with social anxiety. You’ll find many people feel the same way.

2. Be aware that our feelings are coming from a situation that was out of your control. Don’t blame yourself.

3. Be aware of the anxiety in general — it is exactly that, anxiety. It is not reality and likely doesn’t reflect the actual situation happening in that moment.

4. Remember to give ourselves more credit and understand that we’re all in a space of LEARNING, and those spaces can be uncomfortable, but with practice and time, we’ll get the hang of it and come out the other side a better version of ourselves.

Wishing you all the best on your journeys. Blessings and love to you all 🙏

And PLEASE, feel free to share any additional suggestions in the comments. We’re all here to s

My son starts reintegration therapy 9/21 I’ve started and he told my mother yesterday that I used to beat him with a belt. I’ve never laid a finger on my kid and my ex and I used to fight about it Bc he was physical and my dad was extremely abusive growing up.

I am ready to be like f this.

It’s been a year and my defeat is real. How the hell am I supposed to get through this without telling my kid he’s completely full of shit?

Introduced: Sponsor: Rep. Tracey Mann [R-KS1]

This bill was referred to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs which will consider it before sending it to the House floor for consideration.

Rep. Tracey Mann [R-KS1] is a member of the committee.

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