Do you feel like a concentration camp survivor?

Post Reply New Topic

Yeah, Patton would've slapped my face.


Die a "heroic, honourable death" for me and I'll take you a lot more seriously.


Are you questioning whether holocaust survivors considered life to be worth living after their experiences? Because otherwise I don't understand this question.


You're looking at the wrong parts of the human anatomy; you need to stare into their eyes.

where do you live?

P*ss you off that much, did I?

No, I am just wondering if you're a starving African who is dying of Aids or a rich american whiteboy who whines too much about how much life sucks.

you know who has it worse? Africans... they have been through the same ordeal as the jews in the holocaust, but for about 150 years longer.

Yeah, I'm a white guy in America; but I don't whine about how much life sucks. All I know is: when children notice me in store checkout lines, they cling closer to their mothers. I never understood why until someone finally explained to me what I look like (leaving me rather stunned); something ain't right, obviously.

Yeah people often sarcastically joked was I a concentration camp survivor and I felt that way. I was in confinement for many months as a young teen though so maybe I was in a camp in terms of the PTSD I had as people said my personality completely changed when I returned. Which I agree. I seemed to be more outgoing before.
Anyway its safe to say person on the autism spectrum are more likely to suffer PTSD from a lessor stressor than it would take a NT.

good thing appearences can be modified

The concentration camp survivor metaphor really works because the key thing is continuous abuse and being uprooted from your reality.

In order to create your own reality you have to expect to be uprooted at times in order to find a firm stance. It takes time to grow and you can't expect to hit the target on your first attempt.


The analogy was just far too melodramatic. Yes, psychiatry and its consequences IS tragic, but at least you're being fed, have shelter, and can drink clean water.

Funny, I haven't YET heard of a person living 150 years! Some Jews would point to the bible, and various other records, and say THEY have had it harder as a people. The same is true of many asians

As for the "whiteboys", HEY.... If life sucks, it sucks. Funny how rich blacks can complain, but poor whites are considered rich, etc...

A black woman that was out in the heat just begging, once complained when I didn't give her any money. I only had like $.50 on me! YEP, LESS THAN A DOLLAR! Since I had a suit on, she figured I was RICH! I WASN'T! Even if I was, however, it wouldn't have meant that I had any money on me.

Frankly, she had no right to complain. She could have been working the whole time.

I don't feel like a prisoner.

Tim

I do.

I'm going to make an assumption and say that no one here actually experienced life in a concentration camp in WWII. I understand where you're trying to go with the analogy, but I've also got to say that I don't think it's really an appropriate analogy.

Please don't throw out the "you're invalidating such and such's feelings" line - that's a cop out in my book. I had a pretty crappy childhood. My dad routinely went into rages and it resulted in terror, bruises, and sometimes even broken bones on my part. But I would never never never compare myself to a victim of the holocaust.

WWII is one of my interests and I've read stories about what those people went through. No one in an industrialized free country could possible relate to them. The only exception might be if you were kept as a prisoner by a deranged relative or stranger who severely tortured you and all your family, starved you, made you work as a slave laborer doing the most horrible jobs, made you live in constant fear for your life and the life of your family, and then made you watch as your family members were all killed (maybe in front of you).

I know we've all had hard lives to some degree or another, but please keep some perspective here. I feel like the memory of those people deserves a little more reverence than this analogy gives them.

Certain aspects could be considered comparable to incarceration in general, and in worse case scenarios perhaps even comparable to incarceration by one of the more oppressive regimes, but unless someone has been worked to beyond exhaustion, under the constant threat of instant execution, and systematically starved to the point where they will actually eat human flesh, it really isnt all that safe a metaphor. Consider also the seperation from family and loved ones, often by their termination.. the removal of all goods and property, no matter how small, and the lack of any hope of salvation, or even news of possible salvation, on top of constant beatings, and even medical experimentation... No freedom AT ALL to speak out, or ask for help... and eventually, post-liberation, the huge possibility that the help you then receive is likely to kill you anyway...

Comparing being aspie, or being bullied, to the single greatest atrocity in history.. realy doesnt scan.

And I was afraid that your response would be something pat-sounding.