[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

Between the crushing lies that "magical voluntarism" propagates on the people, and the unceasing lie shoved down our collective throats by modern media and culture which states that pain/hurt/trauma/suffering etc. fade with time, that time heals all wounds, that loss is forgotten that deep wounds are scabbed over with time, we will all go psychotic eventually.

I wish someone had told me the truth early on. I wish someone told everyone the truth.

mental/psychic wounds never heal. the pain is always there right under the surface, under a thin sheet of "plastic wrap". It does not get better. You just learn to live on carrying that pain, or ignoring that pain. The death of someone close never gets easier. I lost my dad at 17 and I am now 40. when people ask me I tell them,. "hell fuck yeah it still hurts just as much as that day in 1991. Nothing changes."
we are all force fed a lie that time makes things better. when it does not we end up thinking something is wrong with us. I hate that shit.

the thing is that pain and trauma are not the same. pain is just forgotten, but trauma stays and stays and stays. it's like a broken time machine that always takes your brain to the same moment in the past. that is why war veterans keep having the same nightmares for example, and sel-f medicate with alcohol and drugs.

that is also why trauma is such a common tool for social control--it makes indelible marks (you read one of the articles that db linked with magenta letters, where the guy talks about magical volunteerism and the indelible marks of class-- those are made by small, precise, applied trauma in social interaction). then there's shit like torture which states use to break their adversaries-- that is more overt but it's the same thing. it's more than simple pain-- it's a way to "make memories" and program people.

anyway, of course "time" doesn't heal trauma, it just deepens it in a way, as it increases the repetition of the event, but there are therapies or practices that improve or attenuate it or help one cope… from classics like meditation to bizarre new things like EMDR… they help the brain process trauma as regular pain (in a way). there are clinics who work with torture victims and they do help to an extent.

scientists have done studies on tibetan monks and nuns who were tortured by the chinese, and what's weird about them is that unlike most torture victims these people show no evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder. their time machine is not broken. they experienced terrible pain but somehow no trauma was formed. they moved on.

so, last, there's a difference (for buddhists anyway) between pain and suffering. pain is an event that happens in the moment. suffering is a mental activity of the self due to attachment. buddhism promises the end of suffering, not the end of pain. western consumer culture on the other hand promises the end of pain but only creates more and more suffering. not that i'm a buddhist or anything though, but it's such a contrast i think it's worth looking at.