Do you feel like a concentration camp survivor?

Post Reply New Topic

Do you know how young psychiatry is?!

It is one of the youngest institutions around......

And its not the plane crash that causes the disorders, its the environment INSIDE the plane.

My question is.. when you cant sleep, can barely eat, dread waking up still alive, when someone holds you down and points a gun at you your only thought is "thank god finally please pull the trigger", when you no longer feel pain or care about anything, when you envy people in concentration camps because they at least are not alone in their suffering and can realistically hope for eventual escape or death.. are you really any better off?

Or will people tell you its not real? That you want to be that way? That you chose the events that left you that way?

Is it truly not comparable when your shaking all over and uncertain as to whether or not your even making any sense when trying to talk about it?

As others have stated its not the stimulus that determines the severity of a persons trauma its the aftereffects. To try to equate the conditions that brought it about with the results is to dismiss and marginalize others suffering and makes you look like the worst kind of hypocrite.

I think the words of Lennon's 'Working Class Hero' are quite apt. here they are.

As soon as you're born
they make you feel small
By giving you no time
instead of it all;
'Til the pain is so big
you feel nothing at all.
A working class hero
is something to be (repeat)

They hurt you at home
and they hit you at school;
They hate you if you're clever
and they despise a fool;
'Til you're so f*cking crazy
you can't follow their rules.
A working class hero
is something to be (repeat)

When they've tortured and scared
you for 20-odd years;
Then they expect you
to pick a career;
When you can't really function
you're so full of fear.
A working class hero
is something to be (repeat)

Keep you doped with religion
your sex and TV;
And you think you're so clever
and classless and free;
But you're still f*cking peasants
as far as I can see.
A working class hero
is something to be (repeat)

There's room at the top
they are telling you still;
Bur first you must learn
how to smile when you kill;
If you want to be like
the folks on the hill.
A working class hero
is something to be (repeat)

If you want to be a hero
well just follow me (repeat).

Working Class Hero -John Lennon 1970.

Fraya, very nearly all of the happiness that I have ever had was from the animals. With all of the problems that they have and all of the dangers, they know how to be happy and how to make others happy.

Being in a concentration camp is being forced and terrorized into starving yourself of contact with the real world. Lack of material goods and food becomes merely a detail. Even when they don't think I'm qualified (not that they think at all) and even when it's risky, a human being needs contact with what is real. What is real besides life? Nothing. The bad feelings come from being disconnected, and our guards are the people who force this disconnection.

Hey, at least you had a choice whether you could go out and get whatever you wanted, or even move around your house. I doubt whether your parents would have locked you in your room, thrown gruel at you and bashed you with a stick or whip if you didn't eat it; nor would they have chained you to the bed so you couldn't go to the toilet, or shoved objects into your orifices as experiments, or even forced you to do chores otherwise you'd be shot. Well, Remnant, a lot of that sort of thing happened to those people locked in those camps, most if not all suffered sever trauma and PTSD during and after their release, and those that didn't survive could have been considered to have been 'lucky'. You, however were born in 1960, and have really no idea what these people went through, and to make a comparison with your life is insulting to them. I can see how you can empathise with the animals, but what these parks and authorities are doing is in some cases for the animals' benefit. Really, all large animals should be left in the wild, and no-one should try to own one (except for horses and cattle, which are bred for our use). Big cats, especially TIGERS are not meant to be used as pawns in a game of life, and should be left to enjoy their lives in the wild where they belong.

jeeze, I am soo sorry you feel this way, it sounds like some of you really have had it rough. I know we may have a social imparement, no matter how severe, as everyone is different, but many of you guys think all is hopeless and u have had a bad life. Im sorry you feel that way, especally givin you only have 1 life to live. I really hope some of ya who feel this way find fortune somday, find happyness. I myself have had my shair of bad moments to, but Im thankful to be alive, i have a had day to but I prey to God i live a long life. We all have talents, we all have things to contribute to society I hope you find a way to use them.

I have met a holocaust survivor, he was a little jewish boy when he and his family were captured. I must say, you may have had traumas, but anyone who feels they feel like a servivor, at least from reading your posts, some of ya, i can say, you are grossly mistaken, he told me stories, and from what I read you all, dispite your past traumas, never been thru anything near to the stories he told.

As bad of a day as I may have, as hopeless as i felt early in high school, as fearful I am that life wont turn out as i wanted it to later on, I am thankful for the worse day in my life, knowing what even the best days of this boys early life were like.

Good one Woody. I've never actually had anything that compares with that myself, but the point I was trying to get across to Remnant mainly was that nothing he has been through could compare remotely with what even that little boy went through. We should all consider ourselves grateful that we can live the way we do, and none of us have anything to really worry about to the scope that these people back then had. Maybe Ana54's parents were survivors, don't know, but still she should say to herself 'a lot of bad sh*t happened back then, I'm lucky that I can function now the way I do; and while I can't forget that stuff, I'll at least try to move on knowing there are people I can talk to.'

I think the comparison is extreme. I suffered some intense humiliation, from peers, educators and even my own family. I was highly intelligent, but stuck in schools for disturbed kids because my parents weren't the popular types and my behavior was seen as problematic. When my being aloof was taken as sarcasm, I was punished. When I habitually avoided school for fear of more torment, I was locked up in a detention center for 6 MONTHS and labeled a truant and a troublemaker. The abuse I faced there haunts my nightmares 15 years later. And I still can't make the concentration camp comparison.

This isn't to say I don't understand where you're coming from. Sometimes I feel like I live in a non-democratic country, and our rights are a mere illusion.

Did you actually READ what I SAID before you dropped a CLANGER and went off on a TANGENT? Probably not, anyway back to what we should be doing - giving advice to Ana.

I won't go so far as to say that I feel like a concentration camp survivor.

I do get feelings of being run down from past experiences though, almost as if I am an old man that has been through enough and just wants to drop out and have a peaceful uneventful remaining life. And then I have other wants and needs that keep me from being content as that old man. And I sort of go back and forth between those states, being happy and alone and restful, to being lonely and frustrated and unhappy.