Sylvanna Devlin

There is often confusion about negative emotions. They make us feel bad just having them – which is also part of survival. Things that make you so angry you feel hatred are to be avoided!

Anger is a fight response to fight, flight, freeze, or flee. You are under attack as far as your psyche is concerned and your body floods you with cortisol. Speeding up those perceptive mechanisms you might need. Once it’s hanging around your system it’s easier to be triggered again.

The issue with anger as a natural biological response – particularly if backed into a corner – is how you react and respond. Not whether you feel it in the first place.

Don’t leave someone alone to cool off? You’re the asshole. Prod, and bait someone to deliberately make them angry? You are the asshole.

And for those who just “want to see what you’re made of”? This next part is about you.

If your internal world perceives a threat to their wellbeing, and you can’t run away. Of course you’re going to feel the emotion of hatred. So if you say, like me, have severe PTSD from reactive abuse and someone “just wants to see”. Of course you’ll learn to hate them.

That’s your psychological worlds way of communicating, “hey this person is being an enemy, get ready to fight or run, and avoid them”

It’s a nasty feeling to have. Hatred ruins the soul – so does anger. But they are a physiological response to perceived danger. Of course we don’t enjoy feeling that way our system is trying to get you to avoid the asshole.

Now some people do seem to fly off about small things. Remember abuse is cumulative and American society has a huge abuse problem. It’s normal and normalized here so we’re all angry all the time and some become hateful.

It’s abusive to test a temper, bait a fight, engage in a war of words (not consensual sparring) to have nasty comments as one goes by. It’s all very American, and very abusive. They all act like a lone cowboy who doesn’t live in a vacuum but behaves like they do – maybe even feel entitled to. But together.

It’s awful to be on the receiving end of cowboys and coteries of pissy conformist “popular” girls. (The other frequent reason for bad behavior.)

The former is plain stupid and vile, if repeated we’re going to learn to hate them and thus try to avoid them.

The latter is about control and is a stupid idea based on primordial senses that the herd is only safe if everyone around them is in the herd.

They hate anyone who doesn’t conform to the herd and try to either control them and mold them, or make them flee.

Fragile egos that feel threatened by beauty of the soul and intellect they can’t understand are responding to a primordial need for being part of a herd. Stronger together and all that.

It might be why the English pull through in an emergency but feel threatened by oddballs.

Americans seem confused by a cultural ideology of individualism that runs counter to a need for group safety, likely exacerbated by the strong outward pressure to all be individuals (but only in the way I want).

Be individuals together…

Which is actually possible. You look at gaming communities and most are independently weird and want to feel accepted. The mutual task is secondary.

I want to be around academics, to discuss ideas. Or the spiritually inclined who know better than to judge. (Which is admittedly quite advanced as it requires superior understanding of human nature).

Of course we’re drawn to the latter for leadership. Those that are peaceful to their core. Which is good to try even if it can’t be entirely achieved. But so many are frightened of the former because we’re interested in learning not leading.

It turns out that it’s viewed as concurrent with change and that frightens herds terribly.

It’s instinctual for herds to hen peck and it’s instinctual for actual individuals to become angry, maybe even learn to hate.

We can evolve past this. But we need to want to. And right now all pressure is on the individual and not those in the herd.

Of course it is, herds get voters. There are by cultural nature a large group.

It’s important for an individual to remember they feel threatened by them – because different goes counter to herd mentality. And this culture is frightening without all being weird together.

That’s what I had when younger. All the usually bullied weirdos banded together and weren’t bullied. Before that I was picked on by the herd. And in college I had a more normal experience – but no dates from classes!

I am in a situation I want to be left alone to regain my figure and fitness. To bellydance again and pursue academic interests. For some reason my mere presence makes the herd feel threatened and they are on constant attack mode.

Women where I am tend to have been through hell and maybe not back. So they are going to burn for a sense of safety and are more likely to join a herd for that feeling.

I am inclined to be friendly but independent despite an extreme history of being abused. That’s good for some, admired by others, but perceived as a threat to the herd by those clinging to a group – some quite naturally so.

I can argue, complain, learn to hate, and all I am pushed to. But at the end of the day I only have power over myself and I don’t want those feelings.

I’ll get back to you when I figure out how to put emotional tai chi into such practice so I wake up ready to dodge and deflect.

I’d rather not be in a situation I have to. But I need to avoid holding my breath, women are going to feel less threatened by me. Particularly when I expose reactive and cognitive abuse – the main power plays of “popular” kids and adults who want the herd to feel safe and never change even if that herd is abusive to them too.

It’s why immigrants are feared, intellectuals, the unusual. And the tension between a cultural identity that says we’re all different that runs counter to a cultural history, of banding together for a feeling of safety.

And I’m an unusual, intelligent, imaginative, immigrant.

I’m bound to have problems.