I Have Questions…
Volume: 1
“Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.”
― Maya Angelou
A response to Dr. Tarico, regarding this blog…
I have questions…
Below is the title, link, and an excerpt of the blog I am currently frustrated with. The article is reductionist and demeaning, meant to dog whistle an allistic community, while patting egos, at the very least.
“An Excess of Woke Thinking May Harm Mental Health or Relationships
Posted on December 15, 2021 by Valerie Tarico
“Wokeism, by contrast, is a derivative blend of ideology and pop culture, amplified by social media, that in some subcultures has taken on quasi-religious dynamics. It sorts people into tribes of oppressed and oppressors, assigning each of us an identity based on our intersecting memberships in groups — with race and sex at the forefront.”
My first question: The title though? Why?
Do you not see how you are demeaning and minimizing the importance of understanding emotions? Is this on purpose?
*Frames are important.
What is the frame you are trying to present?
Are you directing this blog at a certain audience? because the tangles of words are framed in a way…that makes some wonder.
Tiktok audience question: Are you purposely trying for a strawman reductionist viewpoint, or Nah?
My next question: I need your simplest definition of woke.
Do you purposely move the goalposts?
At its simplest, What are you really trying to say? Because it feels as though you are attempting to come from a place of judgment, which stands from a place of superiority. This makes no sense to me. It makes sense to you, honestly?
Pulling people out of their traumas, we can all agree, should be treatment goal number one.
Part of this goal includes, or should include, helping clients to process and understand they are no longer in a place where they need to protect. Lowering arousal levels, teaching the importance of increasing relaxation response muscles, this needs to happen before higher up cognitive processing can happen.
You aren't giving them this, with this approach. Unless I am missing something? Possible, at times I miss a nuance.
It includes providing a place of safety, not a place of superiority. Within your need for looking down on a group of people, and thus withholding services, is violence.
Understand that.
Words are things… (Thank you, Dr. Angelou)
Understand that…
Playing psychological warfare to obtain your need for addiction to power, is violence.
Violence does not lead to regulated nervous systems, Dr.
You cannot be stressed, and relaxed at the same time, Dr.
When people walk into your offices, let them be heard, let them release the emotions and feelings through rivers of water, and allow this… sit with this.
Your inability to maintain a regulated nervous system is not your client’s responsibility.
Why do so many clients have to go to tiktok and google to find care which doesn't cause them to feel small and ashamed? This is my last question, Doctor.
#ActuallyAarika
#neurodivergent
#actuallyautistic
