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by sudioStudio64 4028 days ago
I don't know that the mental machinery is as elastic as you say. Our bodies to indeed adjust to mental stress, in fact parts of the brain that respond to fear and stress will overdevelop in relation to other areas producing aberrant behavior.

There are mental trauma, that has not been caused by physical trauma, that will end up being like the gash you describe never being able to acclimatize to.

I take your point about the use of the word scarring...I was just trying to draw a certain type of similarity into the conversation...it certainly isn't a perfect analogy.

One other thing, though...is it really a surprise that discussing mental or emotional damage would use a physical analogy? We don't culturally have a large body of language for describing things accurately that are "just in your head."

2 comments

Physical analogies are dated when we have accurate terms now.

"There are mental trauma, that has not been caused by physical trauma, that will end up being like the gash you describe never being able to acclimatize to."

I'm not so sure about this.

Stress happens because of stress hormones. You can develop a tolerance to those hormones like you could develop a tolerance to any drug.

The range of experiences that human emotion can adapt to are vast. People in far more violent societies have adapted to far more horrific things. If we didn't have the ability to adapt to extreme shock we'd be screwed as a species.

And mental trauma from torture or combat that leads to suicide?
It doesn't lead to suicide. It predisposes one to suicide, but the trauma isn't insurmountable. What causally leads to suicide is the choice to take some kind of weapon and use it on yourself.
You seem really invested in this idea. I think that we are at odds on the idea that mental damage can be insurmountable. I could speculate as to why, but in the end I think we should just call it good.

Cheers.

I don't get why this was downvoted. I was polite. I tried to articulate a counter point. Is it just that people really disagree with the hate speech part or that mental trauma can be as serious as physical trauma??