Nina > Recent Status Updates

"When lost in the wilderness, it is best to expect rescue and to acknowledge that help might not arrive. Accept your situation, stop moving, and focus on immediate survival. But if help doesn't materialize, you have to adjust."

A brilliant book so far with a very familiar arch of trauma. I'm glad the author critiques the DSM-5 criteria for PTSD. I'm sure the committee has an impossible job but I agree that the criteria leave so many without recourse who otherwise definitely at least as present traumatized. The issue is, what is missing?

I wonder about the history of attempted workers revolution by Dalitbahujan castes. It seems like the situational markers are all kind of there

Also this is so beautifully intersectional and feminist. I am delighted.

"What is ironical is that the recitation of several names of one God or many Gods is considered wisdom, whereas knowing the language of production and the names of production tools is not recognized as knowledge. The Brahmins have defined knowledge in their own image."

Bars!!!

I am really intrigued by this class critique and the categorization of Dalitbahujans. I think I'm going to learn a lot.

What a powerful and comprehensive read so far. It's ironic I needed to leave a toxic workspace where I was providing direct support to many survivors of violence to have the bandwidth to deepen my knowledge. I'm thinking a lot about how the different care settings and level of intensity privilege different levels of work.

It's interesting that "racial discrimination" is seen as neutral by the author. I hadn't really thought about positive or negative discrimination, but his definition makes sense.

"For example, those who live in the god realm- or who wish to- are often lulled by fantasy and seduced by ease. The form of this realm might be a penthouse, a social media preoccupation, or a slothful outlook. Whatever the form is, when we fall past prey to the indulgences of a god realm mindset, we lose the impulse to search for meaning, and this leaves us with self-satisfied ignorance. "

I notice myself judging him a little bit here because of his strong reaction to poverty conditionson the train, but I actually think he is handling it much more gracefully than most people would. I appreciate his description of meditations because I find myself sitting with the concepts too.

Really interesting so far. I see so many of my clients past and present in this. I'm reflecting on how complicit I was in accepting disordered eating behaviors happening with those around me growing up. Even though I knew something was wrong, denial is a drug that I was willing to take. I'm glad to be studying this more now so I can unlearn bad habits and better serve my own clients by not normalizing anymore.

Did NOT expect that reveal

"Instead, my body was battered, my heart fractured into a thousand pieces, and the gap between my expectation and my reality was unacceptable to me. I was lost in transition, stuck between a haunted past and a future I couldn’t yet imagine."

I wasn't looking for structural dissociation, and yet still it found me.

"Love also enhances our sense of congestion to the larger world. Loving responsiveness is the foundation of a truly compassionate, civilized society."

This is me reminding myself that while I love Leni, Large Marge might be my favorite, and also to talk with the book club about the complicated element of race in this book

These kids are so tough. Adults are just flawed, suffering people, flailing as they tey their best, but in this story and in this moment, I wish they would try harder and do better by their kids and themselves.

I am despising Leni's selfish, sick father and all these selfish, sick disaster preppers more and more.

Already understanding the thesis to be crazy, damaged men make women suffer, and hella foreshadowing that any women or girls will be attacked? Or somehow be so deeply threatened? I am feeling anxious alongside Leni and Cora.