I think the desire by some to have a psych diagnosis for everything is a symptom of histrionic personality disorder, the signature disease of this era. They are desperate for attention, and the way to get it is be ill, in some way. Thus the need to cast every personality trait as a disorder, in need of treatment as well as medication.
I hear this, and myself in it as both allied critic and some ways habituated. That said, casting something like CPTSD in terms of 'character' or 'mystery of being' and in any significant affective degree linguistic spell-working...this begs revision. People do not lock themselves indoors months, years on end with blacked out windows, flashbacks. night terrors, prolonged insomnia and other horrors due to linguistics of cultural tide. Genuinely appreciate the line taken as far as can be but nudging 'personal identity attachment' onto table as explanator for a debilitating condition defined by ego disintegration/dissociation?? I get it, many have indeed been busy 'healing' - often as much from all the healings as anything else, nevertheless.
Thank you—deeply—for this response. I hear your position, and I respect the ground you’re speaking from.
You’re absolutely right: the raw realities of CPTSD—lock-in, night terrors, disintegration—are not “just language.” They’re real. They hurt. And they are not imagined or manufactured by words alone.
What I’m challenging is not the reality of suffering, but the way systems—especially psychiatric and cultural—name it, frame it, and fix it in place. That’s the curse: the moment when mystery hardens into label, when adaptive survival is interpreted only as dysfunction.
I don’t think we choose these states. But I do think the language we are handed—by institutions, healers, and even well-meaning therapists—can become part of the psychic glue that holds them in place. Not intentionally, not maliciously, but by creating a self-reinforcing spell of identity. And that’s where the work of undoing begins—not in denying pain, but in refusing to become the name of the pain.
I also resonate with what you said about “healing from all the healing.” That line cuts. There’s something there I want to sit with.
Appreciate you taking the time to push the piece further. It’s not about being right. It’s about being real, Thank you.
I think the desire by some to have a psych diagnosis for everything is a symptom of histrionic personality disorder, the signature disease of this era. They are desperate for attention, and the way to get it is be ill, in some way. Thus the need to cast every personality trait as a disorder, in need of treatment as well as medication.
I hear this, and myself in it as both allied critic and some ways habituated. That said, casting something like CPTSD in terms of 'character' or 'mystery of being' and in any significant affective degree linguistic spell-working...this begs revision. People do not lock themselves indoors months, years on end with blacked out windows, flashbacks. night terrors, prolonged insomnia and other horrors due to linguistics of cultural tide. Genuinely appreciate the line taken as far as can be but nudging 'personal identity attachment' onto table as explanator for a debilitating condition defined by ego disintegration/dissociation?? I get it, many have indeed been busy 'healing' - often as much from all the healings as anything else, nevertheless.
Thank you—deeply—for this response. I hear your position, and I respect the ground you’re speaking from.
You’re absolutely right: the raw realities of CPTSD—lock-in, night terrors, disintegration—are not “just language.” They’re real. They hurt. And they are not imagined or manufactured by words alone.
What I’m challenging is not the reality of suffering, but the way systems—especially psychiatric and cultural—name it, frame it, and fix it in place. That’s the curse: the moment when mystery hardens into label, when adaptive survival is interpreted only as dysfunction.
I don’t think we choose these states. But I do think the language we are handed—by institutions, healers, and even well-meaning therapists—can become part of the psychic glue that holds them in place. Not intentionally, not maliciously, but by creating a self-reinforcing spell of identity. And that’s where the work of undoing begins—not in denying pain, but in refusing to become the name of the pain.
I also resonate with what you said about “healing from all the healing.” That line cuts. There’s something there I want to sit with.
Appreciate you taking the time to push the piece further. It’s not about being right. It’s about being real, Thank you.