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I’ve often commiserated with other psych survivors (particularly other women who wound up with a borderline diagnosis like I did) about how we felt that we were punished as patients any time we questioned a treatment provider. Skepticism was definitely not welcome and was often labeled as non-compliance or hostility. Now I understand better where these authoritarian attitudes originate.

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Why in the world would I consider some people’s lives expendable? You are certainly reading words or thoughts into me that are not a part of me at all.

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Steve – after re-reading my comment, please allow me to correct/clarify: I agree that “[i]t sounds like they are training sociopathic traits into people” NOT that I agree with training sociopathic traits into people (which I do not).

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Haha. I can’t really see much difference in what we’re saying, except obviously awareness, being the simple illumination of what is, has no gender itself. Only the happenings IN awareness can be masculine or feminine, or in the case of the human body alone, actually male or female. But your view on transitioning is similar. If it is the result of self-acceptance and self-understadning that’s one thing, but if it’s an emotional reaction based on jumping to the conclusion that I’m in the wrong body, then I feel this is a recipe for life long disappointment, which to admit to would be to admit that you had ruined your life pursuing something you were adamant that you wanted (you’d have to be adamant to get it). At least this is the risk. And thank you for admitting you’re fear of female genitalia!! I love a bit of honesty.

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Birdsong: Once again you seem to think I am making excuses for psychiatry’s cruelties when I am not. Postulating a mechanism of action is not saying that mechanism is right. Cruelty and indifference are wrong, as are methodologies that produce them

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Steve I like how you think! I agree about training sociopathic traits into people and that using empathy and letting down barriers (while maintaining *appropriate* boundaries) is the most appropriate thing to do

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Absolutely. There’s only so much a person can take.

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Yep. There’s most definitely a (woefully under-researched) phenomenon called, “Covid Psychosis.” Just stands to reason that if the brain is infected and inflamed in anyway (viral, bacterial, parasitic, etc.), you’re likely to have a serious psych reaction.

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“And feeling disempowered (unsafe) is probably what causes most people to drift into psychosis in the first place.”

Bingo.

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For more on subject-object split vis a vis “God” from a materialist perspective also see Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity.

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For more on ‘subject-object split’ see Indian Advaitist philosopher Sankaracarya and Julian Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

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I like this contribution.

Seon is Korean Zen, and Ch’an is Chinese Zen. Or is Zen, Japanese Seon? Or is Zen, Japanese Ch’an? Guau!!

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Perhaps we should eat only one next meal to satiate our hunger for the rest of the days of our lives.

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The Abhidhamma is the manual of Buddhist philosophical psychology. I also agree that we should study this treatise.

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By the way, Tenzin Gyatso (Dalai Lama) is head of Gelug school — that’s a Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana school. Zen is a Japanese Mahayanist school, not a school of Vajrayana.

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I agree that parents should encourage and support their children. What does that look like in concrete practice?

I disagree that awareness is beyond gender because my body consciousness is a subjective consciousness. I was born with a penis and I have grown from a boy into a man. I think there are more important issues that topics such as gender ideology distract us from. Then again, importance is relative to one’s experiences. My history indicates that it is superficial to focus too much on one’s flesh-and-blood body. I have also had times in my life where I have spent too much time thinking about my own. Maybe one’s emotion body can seem more real than one’s flesh body. I think happiness comes from within. So if you think that you’re a woman born in a man’s body for example, why should you mutilate yourself to validate that feeling? If it were a true experience for you then wouldn’t experiencing it be its own meta self-validation? Why should surgery follow?

I’m asking sincerely. It appears to be a never-ending abyss if you expect happiness to come after some next consequence. I also think in this way sometimes. It seems to be a form of masochistic self-denial.

Yes, I am a man and I am frightened by a clitoris. Keep the vaginas away from me. Siddhartha Gotama instructed his disciples that monks are supposed to avoid contact with women. (I am not a monk, just a bit of a misogynist who likes learning about all sorts of niche interests.)

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