While modern culture may suggest otherwise, anorexia develops out of issues far more complicated than being taught sugar is “bad” and butter is “fattening”. The basics of nutritional science can be a sting to many of us that grew up with ultra-processed foods being treated as primary meals: Twinkies and fun-size Oreos were snacks, and hot dogs with Wonder bread were dinner. We didn’t concern ourselves with the horrifying science behind how the pseudo-sausage was made, and our parents likely hadn’t thought twice about balanced nutrition. As we mature into adults who recognize the importance of eating more nutrient-dense foods, we may be aghast to find the “tablespoon” of peanut butter we’d been periodically scooping from the jar was actually equivalent to a 1950’s portion of kid-size ice cream. I get it— the self-reflection we would all benefit from is pulverizing in its ability to humble us. But I’d like to make one thing abundantly clear: none of these humbling realities “cause” eating disorders, and I certainly have never heard receipt of basic logic as contributing to disordered eating habits. Take it from me: I’m a former anorexia patient. And while my own experience and the experiences of other patients in the ward doesn’t represent all eating disorders, I can guarantee you that I’ve never heard one single anorexic or bulimic blame science for their struggles.

Maybe this is our penance for fixating on happiness and comfort above all else, including, but not limited to: common sense, scientific knowledge, research, truth, reality, or others’ perspectives. We’ve convinced millennial parents that the red dye in a fun-size bag of Doritos inevitably manifests into Autism Spectrum Disorder or related disabilities. Or that a failure to buy organic grapes plucked from the sanitary hands of cherubs will guarantee some form of sensory processing disorder or *gasp* childhood anxiety. There is growing research pointing to the correlations between a nutrient-dense diet, regular exercise, and significant decreases in symptoms of depression and anxiety; such evidence makes a marionette of my heart. That which slices its strings? The squawking mobs of people claiming that nutrient-dense food, and encouragement of anything remotely “good for you”, leads to clinical eating disorders or obsessive-compulsive fixations on health. But the sugar-high you’ve compassionately induced so your child won’t become dysregulated by being denied Thin Mints for breakfast? Completely copacetic.

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Americans will do most anything but put forth effort, especially if laziness and lack of action is incentivized. Because we’re a culture of decadence and ease, it should come as no shock that the products with the least amount of effort and promises of dramatic results are those that tend to steal headlines and, in turn, revenue. Ozempic has been an eye-opening trend in the past couple of years. Calley Means refers to the use of Ozempic as being as symptom of America’s not healthcare, but “sick-care”, in which behavior-rooted obesity is not seen as behaviorally manageable, but as an inescapable disease. On a podcast debate in which people argued for or against the use of Ozempic, Means was stoic and concise: the obvious answer in regards to obesity is not to fund Ozempic using tax dollars and insurance programs, but to teach people skills to make healthier food choices and engage in healthier routines. In other words: why put us trillions of dollars into debt for a drug, when we could use that same funding to incentivize better food choices and overall better habits? Well… it’s the people who think being healthy is being mentally sick, and that children in particular must be shielded from health should they hope to avoid a lifetime of therapy.

This demonstrates an overall cynical and frankly pathetic view of humanity. That we’re so fragile and incapable and lazy that we couldn’t possibly handle the demands of exercise and eating well; we’re just screwed, so let’s drug everyone to lull them into a passive, sedentary stupor. In the debate, Means asked a professional with an opposing viewpoint why the answer is “drugging people” instead of just using the money towards better food sources. Her answer? That Americans essentially have no control over their behavior and therefore are lazy, and the best we can do is give them a boost with something like Ozempic. All of this in the name of, what… keeping people from developing disordered thinking?

So I’ll preface the remainder of this piece with this: You are not going to “give your child an eating disorder” by encouraging a healthy lifestyle. This is not an opinion or a hunch. It is a fact. Eating disorders develop primarily out of a need for control and have very little to do with scientific breakdowns of food. While I do understand the delivery being important, as someone who uses words like “good vs. bad foods” or “fattening versus slimming” may instill a disordered concept of food’s purpose, we need to accept that rationality always endures. Irrational responses sound like demonizing health, appreciating “bodies at any size”, deciding for yourself what metrics you’ll use to determine health despite not having a medical degree or thorough understanding of health, and the like. Rational responses and behaviors are those which aim for 80% consistency with health-related behaviors, and encourage younger generations to learn the basic principles of health to better prevent themselves from developing disease and disorder as they age.

Something I’d like for us to consider is how delusional this form of thinking is, even though it’s equal parts understandable. We’re so focused on feelings and preventing “trauma” that we consider any mention of nutrient-dense food to be indicative of a clinical eating disorder. We believe a parent who encourages their child to exercise is a pathetic abuser trying to live vicariously through their little hockey player. When I work with online nutrition clients, specifically those new to lifestyle changes and health education, one of the main concerns aired is, “I want to get healthy but I can’t do anything restrictive.” Firstly, why do we believe health is restrictive? Is it because of the heroin-chic era of Kate Moss or Twiggy whose knees bulge out like doorknobs because they have so little body fat to insulate them? Or is it because “diet culture” has insisted upon juice cleanses and carb detoxes being the only manner by which to achieve top-shelf fitness?

Regardless of the divergent sources, the analytical side of me grows annoyed with this logic. Have we become that ignorant to basic premises of health that we’re unwilling to admit that meals high in protein and vegetables aren’t “diet foods”, but just what we should be eating? Have we succumbed so desperately into convenience and ease that we respond with “Yeah, but I don’t like cooking” to any mention of cooking nutritious, nutrient-dense meals? Perhaps an apology is in order for what I’m about to say… but that is fucking bullshit. We are adults. I wholly resonate with the exhaustion and the stress and the fears of trudging through this tedious ride we call life, but are you kidding me? We need to understand that health isn’t in place as a therapeutic measure. We don’t engage in exercise as reactionary to gaining weight, nor do we go on walks because we’re trying to gain street-cred with the 10K-steps-a-day-crew. We do it because it’s good for us.

When people making more balanced food choices when presented with a buffet, or they eat their own packed, cooked lunch instead of inhaling pizza from the third company-provided lunch that week, co-workers roll their eyes and scorn at their “discipline”. “Ugh, of course you’re being so good. This is why I’m fat!” Why is basic health considered some unattainable form of “discipline” that only the highly self-controlled, militant Type A’s are capable of embodying? Perhaps this is my own compulsive dark soldier talking, but it’s shameful that we’re in a place societally that we scoff at people trying to uphold health for the sake of longevity. And trust me, I would absolutely destroy a pizza, an entire box of Thin Mints, or a Shrek’s-family-size serving of Reese’s Puffs. But I also don’t complain that “it’s just so much easier to eat than cooking my meat and vegetables”, “that I just really want it so I’m going to have it because I’ve had a stressful week”, or “I don’t feel like eating vegetables.” With a lifestyle that aims for consistency as the goal versus extreme ends of the starvation or indulgent spectrum, I don’t find myself particularly irked by basic responsibilities of adulthood. Being an adult means doing things over 50% of the time that are mundane, repetitive, tedious, completely useless and worthless, and an astronomical pain in the ass. I’m unsure why we feel that taking care of ourselves and the only body we have would be any different.

Alas, it’s our fetish for mental health being of greater importance than any other form of health. It’s still a bit astonishing that I see mostly women committing to cold-plunging, intermittent fasting, hot yoga, and/or some form of supplementation despite having an irregular sleep schedule, vaping or smoking weed almost daily, drinking sugary coffees with sweet snacks and deeming them “meals”, or inconsistently exercising because they “don’t have time”. It’s interesting that we expect health and change to occur through a saccharine osmosis, and that our transformation will simultaneously shift our mind into that of fully functional, Zen, and rational.

This is something I speak frequently about with parents of teenagers, as teens are pummeled with Insta-therapy and TikTok pop-psychology on a regular basis: frequently fixating on our mental health makes our mental health worse, much like fixating on our body image or a preoccupation with our appearance will likely result in body image issues. We’ve created a rigid contingency which posits that a pleasant state of emotionality is required should we proceed to take care of ourselves, and if there’s an absence of positive “vibes”, we can simply “give ourselves grace” for as long as we need. We apparently don’t take care of ourselves because we know it’s beneficial for our bones and joints and hearts, but because it “seriously improves our mental health”; if our mental health is already at an acceptable level, do we still exercise? Considering, you know, exercise being “therapeutic” is more important than exercise simply being a linchpin in living longer, healthier lives?

The social-emotional bent and therapizing-everything fervor are the driving forces behind health education only being acceptable if it feels good. Because of an entire generation’s perverse fascination with “complex trauma”, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that parents are at a loss or are paralyzed with where, when, and how to start teaching these things to their kids. One of the most common concerns I hear from today’s parents, specifically younger parents with younger kids (think: older millennial parents), is that they’re “exploring food with their child” or “exposing them to health without forcing health”. This is admirable but, frankly, soft. Which makes sense- our culture demands children be treated as fragile flowers who are incapable of handling reality, logic, scientific fact, and even a modicum of difficulty. Again, let me be the one to tell you: there is zero information told to me about fat, protein, carbs that contributed to my development of an eating disorder. For others my age that were brought up on healthy meals, I can honestly say I’ve never heard ONE person claim that eating healthy growing up made them anorexic later in life. Even saying it out loud sounds a bit silly and reductionist.

Empathy is not blindly supporting a person’s idea of what they think is best for themselves. While I am a proponent, in several ways, that people know themselves best, we’re also historically very poor judges of our own behavior and decision-making. For individuals continuously defeated and frustrated with yo-yo dieting and hot Pilates or whatever the hell new trend is made available, we have to assume that their judgment is impaired regarding what is best for them. Not because we’re taking a cynical view similar to the one mentioned earlier, in which the argument was made that Americans are lazy. Not at all. We just have to be realistic with ourselves that when we’re in states of distress or frustration, our ability to think clearly is not operating on all cylinders. We typically are not receptive to hearing the truth and will therefore seek out only that which soothes our bruised ego. But we’ve tried the compassion thing, as well as body positivity and neurodivergent-everything… and where has that landed us?

Perfect bait for insurance companies and big Pharma. If you’re not going to do it for yourself, at least do it so you can kick those money hungry assholes in the shins.

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THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE.THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE.THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE.THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE.THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE.

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Limiting others or ourselves to simplified categories is convenient, but unhelpful. As a species who generally hates to be bothered with thinking critically, it’s understandable why we’d eliminate the guesswork and immediately jump to calling ourselves “anxious”, or our mother-in-law as “anxiously attached”, or our spouse as having “social anxiety”. All of these may be true: we may experience bouts of anxiety in varying degrees or have a formal, psychiatric diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Perhaps our mother-in-law does demonstrate a buried desperation for her grown son’s approval, an approval she never received in her own childhood. And, lastly, our spouse may struggle in social situations to the degree that he feels symptoms of panic. Regardless of the diagnosis, ailment, or circumstance, our responses and our behavior are our responsibility. And suffering from something not only doesn’t make us an expert on it, but it does not offer exemption from behaving like a functioning adult.

“I’m just an anxious person” is not a burning confession or even much of a personality quirk anymore, but a thought-terminating belief. Thought-terminating beliefs are lazy, simplistic phrases that aim to stifle any further conversation. “It can always be worse” is maybe one we’ve heard before. These beliefs function as emotional cease-and-desist letters: they allow those who tolerate us to know that we’re somehow activated by what we’ve heard, that our beliefs or general behavior appears to be under attack, and we will retreat into conversation-termination should the questioning continue. For example, the individual who is told by his professor he must present a thoughtful presentation for his final may proceed to whine that he has “performance anxiety” or “public speaking anxiety”. With this, he’s not requesting extra support or even the chance to learn skills to better tolerate the impending final. He’s pissing over the territory that is his ego by masking a demand as a comment: “It’s too hard for me, so you cannot make me do it.”

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This avoidance behavior is evident amongst practitioners as well as clients. Hell, it’s evident in the entire human species. And I can’t say I blame people; I’ve certainly tried to use my own ailments or circumstances as permission slips, as excuses, or as hall passes. But there’s a deeper connection to our negative symptoms in modern culture, one in which we surrender to the identity we and others dislike, perhaps because we’re too afraid of what the outcome might be should we simply behave like a normal person.

In a recent email thread, professionals squawked in unison about those pesky social norms that we all abide by but are apparently still oppressive to certain populations. “There is no normal!” “Normal is restrictive!” “Only people who aren’t compassionate force norms on others!” I’ve written about this in previous pieces, so I won’t go into depth as to how this is as delusional as it is narcissistic. What I will say, though, is such self-serving thinking shines a light on how the manner in which we address mental health is completely ineffective. Yes, there needs to be a norm. And yes, we’re all thankful for norms and we benefit from such norms, and denial of such does not change the reality that some people are, unfortunately, abnormal. Anyone with a legitimate mental illness will respond with an emphatic “Fuck yes” when asked, “Do you ever wish you didn’t have a diagnosis and were… normal?”

Similar contortions and creative spins occur in the realm of treating psychiatric disorders. In many clients, when their behavior escalates to the degree of dangerous, that of a health risk, or just plain disgusting, the field is quick to write these off as symptoms of a systemic medicinal issue. “It’s not behavioral. It’s psychiatric. Which means it’s not our fault it isn’t changing; it’s the psychiatrist’s fault for not getting the dose right!” The psychiatrist then becomes a swift scapegoat and easy “fall guy” when treatment plans inevitably fail to work. Treatment plans written to coddle and validate a person’s unhealthy sense of self cannot, and will not, ever work: they only appear this way because of incompetent practitioners whose greater aim is to “be seen as a compassionate person” than to actually behave like one. It’s quite similar to the entire idea of “acceptance” or “world X days” for various disabilities and mental illnesses--- the individuals with such ailments are not given the tools to better navigate the grueling reality that is life, but are told their ailment is the most interesting and sacred thing about them, and that anyone who fails to recognize it as such holds private ideals about able-bodied people being superior. I frankly cannot think of a better way to set a person up for failure than to tell them that “you’re just depressed, and once that stupid normie psychiatrist gives you your meds, you’ll be all better”. We can choose to address our problems as problems, not as quirky ornaments your kids made you in preschool that you’re compelled to like.

It's a brave step toward self-betterment to understand the ways in which our problems contribute to our suffering. And to take such awareness a step further toward action steps and gradual change? It’s something I wish more people learned at earlier ages rather than a decade into their careers or their marriages. But the act of awareness is not enough--- it does not operate as a universal hall pass when the going gets tough. “Well I just did that because it was a trauma response!” That might be true. My next statement is, “yes, and?” Yes, you are behaving in a certain manner because something terrible happened to you as a child, and for that, I do empathize. But it also doesn’t mean you’re entirely off the hook for the array of horrendous decisions you make and immature responses you produce in the face of adversity. The more we convince these individuals that a pill or a therapist or a self-help book is where they’re allowed to end their “journey”, the greater we’ll suffer when they inevitably become our bosses, our teachers, our co-workers, or our neighbors. Nobody likes a martyr.

We’re not exempt from consequences or accountability by virtue of being ill and recognizing ourselves as ill. And, to reiterate, being aware of our problems is crucial should we take any meaningful action toward improving upon them--- but it doesn’t magically occur through some divine intervention or hope. The “self-work” that is required to change our perspectives and shift our expectations is grueling: we’re faced with illogical and irrational rules we’ve created and a set of memorized behaviors we’ve accepted because they’re familiar. This is a concept called path dependence, in which past events constrain later decisions: an example is the QWERTY keyboard configuration. There are other keyboard designs far faster and more efficient than the placement of QWERTY on the keyboard, but we’ve grown so used to it that we don’t necessarily see a need to change it. Psychiatric labels have suffered similar complacence: we incentivize the unnecessary until it grows familiar enough that people see no reason to modify it. In a recent episode on Dr. Gabrielle Lyon’s podcast, and a veteran psychologist discussed the occurrence of PTSD in the general population, combat veterans, and veterans receiving services from Veterans Affairs. In the general population, about 8% of people are diagnosed with PTSD. In combat veterans? About 6%. For the men over at the VA? Over 50%. 50%?! Why is this?

Well, the answer is simple: we incentivize illness. The VA awards veterans a disability check, every month, for the rest of their life, so long as they continue to meet the criteria for having PTSD. Individuals who qualify for disability receive similar funding, so long as they can continuously prove their level of functioning is that which is “disabled”. Quite similar to the stimulus check we all received for doing quite literally nothing except whining, any person with even a single brain cell could understand the tragedy in this sort of messaging: if you’re damaged goods, you’re on the payroll. And the only way you can stay on the payroll is if you stay damaged goods. Don’t bother changing anything about it---we’re dependent on this system because it’s what we’ve done in the past, and our reliance on history has made people even more resistant to future change. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of us, then, when our system inevitably fails to keep up with the never-ending demand for free lunch.

This is further evidence as to why modern therapy, specificslly, is so detrimental: instead of taking beneficial clinical action and making attempts to separate the person from the diagnosis, we’re suggesting the opposite. You’re no longer a person with interests and passions and capabilities, but you’re a bipolar individual with social anxiety whose social battery is low and who struggles to tolerate adversity as a POC. To categorize people inaccurately and unnecessarily is to intentionally dismiss the very things that make them interesting and that make them… “them”. When we conclude for a person who they are based on superficial details and a will to end a conversation rather than open it, we’ve reached a verdict without actually, as author David Brooks puts it, “seeing someone”.

Identifying with our negative traits makes it that much less motivating to improve upon or eliminate them. In James Clear’s continuous best seller Atomic Habits, he outlines our tendency to use wishy-washy language as we transition into becoming our ideal selves. The individual who wishes to stop smoking, for example, is better off telling people “I don’t smoke” instead of “I’m trying really hard to stop smoking.” While the change is subtle and maybe even unnoticeable, the impact is immense: one statement exudes an ideal that we’re confident we’ll become, while the other is unsure of one’s ability to change. In a practical sense, the person who firmly states, ‘I don’t smoke’ is far less likely to receive further pleas to “just have one” or “you can start that tomorrow”  than the person who “is just trying really hard to quit”. As the kids say: don’t talk about it, be about it.

Our mental health and the person we choose to be can be handled in a similar manner. Should we determine we’d like to improve upon our “social anxiety”, our first step is deciding that we do not have social anxiety. No, you are not “anxious in social situations”, nor are you “just an anxious person”. You’re a person who prefers to spend time in small groups versus large gatherings. You’re the one more comfortable observing than leading. And you’re capable of handling any distress that will inevitably arise when in the presence of multiple personalities, genders, histories, and temperaments. The internal nervousness you’re experiencing is not indicative of a disorder, but of you being just another human being that isn’t really that special.

I told myself for years, “I get panic attacks in the car.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened, then, every time I got in the car: I’d get a panic attack. The self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation about ourselves that is powerful enough to influence our behavior, thus “forcing” the belief to come true. What if I told myself I didn’t get panic attacks in the car? In this way, if the panic attack did arise, I still wouldn’t be “the person that got panic attacks in the car”. I’d be someone who happened to get a panic attack, and I’d also remind myself I was a person who had the tools to appropriately manage it. The fact that it happened in the car is essentially moot. Subtle changes in how we see ourselves and our problems are truly all that’s needed for much of today’s supposed suffering.

We author the story we tell ourselves. As Henry Ford reminds us, “whether you think you can or you think you can’t… you’re right.”

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com

Topics covered:

* How we can better understand what people mean when they say something “works” for them

* Lifestyle habits can cause psychiatric symptoms, but we’re given pills before trying to change our lifestyle??!?!

* Your antidepressants won’t do anything if you’re drinking an extra large Cinnamon Churro Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Coffee Macchiato for breakfast

* “Not having enough time” and “just being stressed” are not compelling reasons to abandon basic health routines

* Basic health should be a requirement for all people before immediately resorting to prescribing medication

* Upper middle class white girls love therapy because it’s a more professional way of addressing first world problems

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com

Groups who claim to oppose any sort of norms or customs are those who also require them, as the existence of norms is what allows such groups to appear rebellious, edgy, or “different”. In an iconic moment on August 28th, 2003, we witnessed Britney Spears and Madonna make out on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards. Are they lesbians? I thought Madonna was dating Dennis Rodman? And what about Britney, wasn’t she in love with Justin Timberlake?! Tying tongues with a same-sex individual pushed the general boundaries of what society and live TV considered acceptable at the time. It shocked the world, outraging some and delighting others, remaining worldwide news week after week. Our culture ate it up, as mildly violating what we believed to be true about relationships and sexuality arrested our attention in a way we hadn’t perhaps experienced. In 2023, two women making out with one another is about as vanilla as a woman and a man holding hands in public, or an individual with a penis claiming to be a person with a vagina. To be a straight woman with an kink for women, then, is not rebellious, edgy, or different. Culture has evolved to register such foreplay as benign and expected.  

Our current culture relies on the violation of social norms for digital attention. With this said, today’s activists do not seem to have the capacity to move on from their complaints, nor do they show any interest in doing so. For the same reason they’re campaigning, they’re also succeeding; without a problem, their identity would be null and void. Fight the patriarchy! But don’t fight it too much, because then we won’t have anything to pride ourselves on. Make mental illness normal! But not too normal, because then I won’t be noticed as being mentally ill. It’s similar to stories I’ve written about regarding the demand for therapeutic services: revenue is entirely dependent upon the presence of a problem. No illness equals no revenue.  

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Youngsters are advised to “dare to be different” and to “be our authentic selves” and “do you boo-boo”. Quite honestly, I can appreciate the premise of these claims, even if I’d use entirely different language to convey the message. What confuses and mildly infuriates me about such platitudes, though, is that they their intention isn’t to encourage uniqueness. Their aim is to be different, but to be different in a manner that is fashionable and socially acceptable. The movements’ loyal constituents oppose only certain narratives so offenders can conform to a set of others. They want you to fight injustice by substituting it with more injustice. They want you to fight stereotyping by proceeding to stereotype. Such tendencies are evident in most any societal issue since 2020: the best way to fight past racism of Black people is to discriminate against White people; disability activists scorn the use of “compliance” as torture yet demand their dissenters comply with their perception of society; women hate to be characterized as damsels in distress who belong in the kitchen yet stereotype men as aggressive, toxic, and inherently destructive “takers”. Ah yes, that’s sure to help.

Individuals whose identities rest on the permanence of a problem are uninterested in true change. They require conformity. Knowing there will likely never be 100% consensus on any nuanced societal issue, they are chronically ripe for the next pandemic, the next moral dilemma, the next world war. Any one of us could find a problem if we look hard enough for it. And today’s culture has refashioned most everything into a problem.

The Neurodiversity Movement, for example, relies on 1) negatively stereotyping “neurotypicals”, as “neurodiverse” can only exist if compared to some basic understanding and acknowledgement of norms, and 2) would be a moot point if true and thorough acceptance of differences were attained. We’ve long since accepted mental illness and disability, as we have for quite some time. Side-eyeing an grown adult who drops to the floor in public is not emblematic of “neurotypical supremacy”, but is a normal reaction to behavior we’d consider inappropriate. Glancing at a person arguing with themselves under the subway while carrying an open bottle of their own urine is not a public display of bigotry, but another normal reaction to behavior we don’t see as common.

While I do understand that some individuals continuously face harassment, unfair treatment, and discrimination because of their differences, we cannot continue to use isolated instances or our own experiences as exceptions to general rules. This logical tendency is used quite commonly in conversation: should I claim that stigma no longer exists as it relates to mental illness, the “normalization” advocate might claim “Well I wasn’t hired because I’m bipolar.” There’s not only several explanations for someone not being hired because of mental illness, but this one instance alone does not speak for the millions of mentally ill individuals who have secured employment (myself included). Additionally, there are unfortunately some mental illnesses that reach a severity in which sustained employment, or even day-to-day functioning, is not possible. This does not imply they’re being discriminated against. It means they’re people who do not demonstrate the ability to handle the demands of work or everyday life independently.

I’ve had a few students with disabilities in the past with varying views on society’s conception of able-bodied versus disabled. Does being deaf in a society that largely uses verbal speech as its primary form of communication make life more challenging? I’m assuming so. Does it mean that we pander to the very small population of deaf individuals, while completely dismissing the needs of verbally-speaking people? For a more common example, think about the TV show “Little People, Big World.” Individuals with dwarfism cannot possibly expect that grocery stores, schools, restaurants, cars, busses, houses, and skyscrapers would entirely refashion their structure to accommodate the 2.5% of the population with dwarfism; they can reach a compromise by building their house to their preferences and their height and their comfort, and perhaps find environments in which physical mobility is easier.

Although my views are quite strong as it relates to normalization, I do try to understand the “accept me and don’t criticize my quirks or judge my actions in accordance with arbitrary social rules” through personal experience with being ousted. Professionally, I tend to share views that many women find offensive, brusque, or largely difficult to digest. One can imagine, then, that working in fields almost entirely dominated by women (i.e., education or therapy) can feel isolating in that it’s hard for me to find others with similar worldviews or even compatible demeanors. While I actively try to prove my ideas incorrect or faulty, I’m also afflicted with the very human tendency to find people with similar but not identical perspectives. Doing so tends to make conversations more smooth, and everyday life more tolerable. I love a lively debate, but not 100% of the time. My assumption is that such constant deliberation would exhaust even the most mentally acute of debaters.

With my general worldview and beliefs being the minority opinion in some circles, especially in recent years, there have been moments when I fantasize about shaking people and furiously demanding to know how they can be so delusional in their thinking. What helps to quell this desire is the recognition that they likely feel similarly about my ideas. With this in mind, and with the world moving towards a doctrine that most sane people consider completely divorced from reality, maybe I do empathize with those who scorn social norms.

Some norms are challenging to keep up with: do I stare at a person’s eyebrows when we’re speaking, or do I lock into the left pupil of their left eye? How frequently do I avert my eyes before returning them to the other person’s gaze? Others are arbitrarily stupid and unnecessarily complex: Do I take the last piece of cake, even though I’ve already had a slice? If everyone else has had a slice and claims to be full, would it be rude to snag what’s left? An episode of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm uses shared appetizers as an example: there’s a tacit agreement that everyone eats their “ratio” of the dip, even though such rules aren’t written or even discussed. While we’re largely in charge of which norms we abide by and which ones we choose to rebel against, there is some degree of human decency and normalcy that I believe many of us generally agree with and are appreciative of. If you eat 2/3 of the hummus and four others are seated at the table with you, you’re an asshole.

I had a student a few years ago who self-identified as “woke”. We’ll call her Mia. Mia came replete with fashionable pronouns, rainbow shirts flashing “Love Is Love”, a clunky septum piercing, and faded streaks of blue hair. In sum, she perfectly fit what the mainstream media has crafted as the “activist archetype”. In talking with her, though, she still aligned her behavior with very common and accepted social norms while also pledging allegiance to the woke doctrine. As an example, she has stated the following beliefs (and I’m paraphrasing): ‘Yes, we need to show more compassion and care for people who are  “harmed”, but no, not everybody that has been harmed is traumatized.’ ‘Yes, we live in a patriarchy and the White dudes in my business class are gross alpha males hard for innocent women, and also yes, women in America are nowhere near as discriminated against as the hijab-wearing and beaten women in Afghanistan’. Unsurprisingly, Mia received side glances and glares quite frequently, likely because of her flamboyant outfits and outspoken views during class discussion in a largely Conservative university setting. But never once did she demand that others bend to her will simply because she believed so strongly in it. I admire Mia.  

She’s also the epitome of my general views on acceptance and norms. I am a firm believer in “live and let live”; I could give a damn in you’re a man wearing a dress with prosthetic boobs, or if you’re a throuple who all rotate playing adult-baby in bed. That is entirely the preference and business of the individual, and I am in no place to determine how others choose to live their own lives. What I take particular issue with is the concept that because these individuals accept themselves, the world must also accept them. Sure, in the privacy of your own home or on your own time, flash your plastic hard nipples to whoever you’d like. But presenting in this way to teach high school students, for example? This is inappropriate, as most sane people would agree. And while we’re on the topic of “gender norms”, more specifically the “burning down” of them… have you noticed that all of the male-to-female trans “activists” transform into only the most bimbo-esque version of women? How often might we see male-to-female individuals wear oversized sweatpants, a grungy trucker hat, and a T-Shirt, all without makeup? They’re secretly and perhaps subconsciously abiding by the widely known and accepted concept of gender norms, all while simultaneously believing they’re dismantling them. J.K. Rowling said it best: “The emperor may be wearing lipstick, but his balls are swinging in plain sight.” If a penis or a vagina doesn’t define gender, what makes people think a purse, lipstick, a weave, and a miniskirt will? Just some food for thought. And, again… do you. Just don’t be surprised when you get some looks.

Similar hypocrisy is obvious in the realm of mental health and “normalization”. Individuals who have grown insta-famous for their views on “normalization” must recognize that, should all mental illness be normalized, they would no longer be seen as an exclusive group suffering a hyper-special illness that makes them more enlightened than stupid normies. If everyone is a normie, the plausibility of “neurodivergence” ceases to exist. If everyone is special, nobody can be special. In that regard, what sort of ideal would such groups endorse if they lost the ability to complain about how the world doesn’t accept them? It’s perhaps that the world does accept them that they take issue with; an individual who only sees themselves as important because of their victimhood will of course denounce those who don’t see them as such. Such blatant hypocrisy doesn’t put them in a position of “enlightened” so much as it does monotonously common; we’ve all fallen “victim” to wanting to be seen as the victim. But it’s this annoyingly-habitual tendency that has resulted in our population rolling our eyes when we hear someone speak of their “traumas” or their “issues with anxiety and depression”. Oh, so you’re a person with feelings? How fascinating.

Sadly, being a person with feelings isn’t an upscale badge of chic. It’s just the norm. And it’s because of the norm that the screechy fringe is even capable of gaining any form of recognition, affirmation, or notoriety. Perhaps we can reflect on the statement-turned-advice, “any publicity is good publicity”. This could easily be applied to individuals hellbent on the “dismantling” of norms. I’d wonder if, just for shits and giggles considering our society can’t decide on what a woman is or if we should assign a “little b” or “Big B” to “brown people”, we told everyone “Sure, babe! Do you!” By simply turning the cheek and refusing to give attention to such idiocy, the activists and insecure advocates would be stunned by their audience’s complete nonchalance in regard to their issues. In other words, giving them the normalization they claim to be robbed of may be the antidote to the hypocrisy of it all.

With this sentiment comes the understanding that planned ignoring is not possible or even beneficial as it relates to issues causing legitimate harm to others. I’m certainly not making the argument that we ignore every problem and take the “live and let live” approach to society’s most dangerous issues. But we do need to decide what problems are truly worth addressing. Arguing on national TV about what a woman is, which pronoun is which, and whether or not to use “disabled” or “differently abled” seems to be a stand-in for actual problem-solving, or merely admitting we’re unsure where to start.

“Choose your battles wisely— because if you fight them all, you’ll be too tired to win the really important ones.”

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“I’m going to show you a trick. If you try to point to something outside and start a conversation with Ms. Nora and the guards, you can flip the packet of butter over before actually using any of it on your food. They won’t even notice as long as you leave it facing down on your tray.”

The advice given to me above was from a patient that, in retrospect, must have been quite a few years older than me; because she had signed herself in and out, she was at least of legal adult age. Known as the Eating Disorder (ED) Wing Bully, Emily was Beth Dutton reincarnate. I despise Beth Dutton from popular TV Series Yellowstone: not only is her pompous savagery a direct manifestation of insecurity, it’s perceived as an admirable personality by which young women should aspire to. Emily was the early 2000’s version of Beth, although perhaps less obvious in her mood swings. Most all victims of Emily’s were met with an eyeroll, a scorn, and an unnecessarily condescending comment, and group therapy sessions tended to focus solely on her myopic perception of how society functioned. In retrospect, I’m thankful that there were exactly zero conversations about the patriarchy, oppression, White men, or gender. We were a mentally ill group of women wrestling with one of the most lethal psychiatric diagnoses a person can develop, which put us in a unique, albeit unfortunate position, to understand true pain.

Emily was a customary bitch. She made the first 4 weeks of treatment miserable before she signed herself out, by use of abrupt interruptions to focus on herself, disrespectful slurs aimed at immigrant staff, and her general delusion of perceived importance. Emily’s entire aura appeared to be inspired by the DSM diagnosis for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. To be completely honest, she reminded me of many of today’s young therapists; a vicious proclivity for reprisal but at the same time quite weak. At 15 years old, I was terrified, not of Emily’s cattiness but of letting go of the disorder I’d conditioned myself to protect with a Gollum-like determination. Even as a teenager, I felt much more comfortable in the presence of men with impossibly high standards in athletic environments. Being forced into a whining knitting circle of competitive mental illness, then, was a personal brand of misery.

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But it was far more than a petulant knitting circle. I would have given most anything to be surrounded by petulant tweenagers instead of the group of women I was with in treatment. Before my feminist readers grow worried: it had nothing to do with their character or their demeanor; it was the fact that young women infected with a cluster of psychiatric symptoms, all placed together for 8 hours a day, every single day, was bound to result in warfare. In my clinical opinion, one of the worst things you can do for a girl with anorexia is shove her into a group of 20 other women suffering from the same issue. Because I’ve written about rumination endlessly, I’ll only offer a quick recap as it relates to the dynamics of group therapy: rehashing negativity, only to be validated by other equally miserable people, is guaranteed to make an individual feel worse.

Meal times in the hospital where treatment took place were organized with militant precision. Every meal, which we were forced to eat (yes, forced--- I’ll get to this later), was under close surveillance by our team of psychologists as well as ED Wing ‘Guards’. Guards sat on either side of every patient to ensure they weren’t spitting out food into a napkin while pretending to cough or sneeze, “accidentally” dropping food on to the floor as a desperate attempt to not eat it, or dropping crumbs of food down our sleeves to later shake into the toilet we weren’t allowed to flush because of the bulimics. I hated every moment of it. Every moment of therapy, which started at 8:00 AM and ended at 5:00 PM, was hell. It’s difficult to explain how defeated you become when you’re forced to face your every neurotic judgment with such rigor.

Abigail Shrier, in her new book Bad Therapy, begins her first chapter with a concept called “iatrogenesis”. Iatrogenesis in Greek means “originating from the healer” and is, according to Google, “the unintentional causation of disease, a harmful complication, or other ill effect by any medical activity, including diagnosis, intervention, error, or negligence.” We’ve heard of surgeons accidentally leaving a scalpel inside of a patient’s large intestine and proceeding to sew their skin shut. We sat aghast after watching ‘Dr. Death’, a show based on a real surgeon who maimed the intricate spinal cavities of his patients while under the influence of cocaine and sadistic thirst. And we’ve undoubtedly noted the clinicians who amputate the wrong limb or completely misdiagnose a fatal disease as a generic cold. But we rarely discuss iatrogenesis in therapeutic fields, as it’s a problem that goes largely unseen because of its gradual and relatively invisible effects.

Iatrogenesis in therapy may look like gender-affirming care or feverish passion for happy moods at all cost. While the initial moment may present as being useful, as it heeds to the ego of the patient and therefore makes them “happy”, it results in a wide array of emotional problems as they develop. The child that is coddled by a mother who refuses to place any form of a boundary becomes the teenager who punches a teacher in the face for not allowing him to play Xbox during a calculus test. A young adult whose university allows her to take part in firing a professor will mature into a clinician who humiliates her patients and attempts to poorly “educate” any practitioner who does not share her diluted worldview. When we coddle, we handicap. And if the outgrowth of this isn’t evident in the entirely unhinged and emotionally unstable clinicians who advocate for an 11-year-old removing healthy breast tissue, I’m unsure what is.

Any and all interventions, whether that be simple reinforcement or a complex course of psychoanalysis, carry risk. I’ve heard several practitioners make comments such as, “literally nothing can happen if we’re all more aware of trauma through trauma-informed care”, or “there are no side effects of compassion.” Both are clearly untrue. We’ve become a bit lazy in our thinking, appearing to believe that only the “bad” or “abusive” practices of clinicians are those which carry imminent risk or any possibility or harm. The positivity or negativity of the outcome should have nothing to do with the fact that the intervention itself always has side effects. Side effects are guaranteed collateral, regardless of whether those turn out to be beneficial or injurious. When researchers study placebo effects and give their research participants a sugar pill, for example, they are exposing these people to chance. Dr. Camilo Ortiz, a psychologist who recognizes this peril, developed a portion of his consent forms to address what’s largely undiscussed: “Because I likely will be asking you to undertake difficult tasks, such as thinking about uncomfortable memories, it is common to feel distressed during and after therapy sessions. Research also suggests that a small percentage of psychotherapy clients experience a worsening of symptoms. Therefore, there are real risks in undertaking psychotherapy. We will monitor your progress closely and discuss any lack of progress or worsening of symptoms.”

Today’s therapists, likely with minimal awareness and with good intentions, are without question imposing varying degrees of emotional harm on their clients, through obsessive and toxic compassion, externalization of personal responsibility, and adoption of politically correct “treatment”. As has been stated by so many female practitioners in slightly various ways, “I’m going to be so much better than her last therapist, because I care.” Caring is noble, but caring is not synonymous with helping.

You see, wanting to help is not the same as actually helping. Appearing to care or appearing to be compassionate are not the same as being of service. My therapists in treatment for anorexia, while they did occasionally exude warmth, were largely unconcerned with our irrational tantrums. Their job was not to indulge or validate our feelings as well as keep us “relaxed” or “engaged”, as affirming an anorexic’s delusional concept of justified starvation would inevitably kill her. Their honorable duty was to help us tolerate the agonizing discomfort of eating, to challenge our irrational beliefs around rigid food rules, and slowly transition us into using these skills in the real world in a therapist’s absence. The bluntness and stick-to-itiveness required to succeed as a clinician, in this regard, would never have survived much of today’s therapeutic mantras; I’m confident we all would have been dead had we been treated by today’s young, “compassionate” clinicians with their bullshit jargon and perverse fixation on “connection over compliance” or “avoidance of harm”.

When we were caught hiding food or engaging in some sort of sleight of hand to avoid eating it, we were accosted in front of the entire group. This, of course, violently triggered the patients who were actually making efforts to overcome their eating disorder. Dramatic bouts of wailing and yelling would then ensue, until eventually the food magician was taken into a separate room by guards and threatened with a forced choice: eat the food by chewing and swallowing, or submit to having it fed through a tube. Many girls who had completely submitted to their anorexia preferred the tube, as it still allowed them to profess allegiance to their eating disorder by not technically ingesting food by mouth. Eating disorders are funny like that; they ruin your life but make you dependent on them, empty without them, at the same time.

My first day of residential treatment was met with forced merriment by staff and a meek welcome from gaunt, starving patients. All but one patient was female, ranging in age from 9 years old to 54 years old; each patient was at different points in their recovery from anorexia or bulimia, with many of the patients being self-identified “frequent fliers”. Frequent fliers were those who had “worked the program” anywhere from 2 to 5+ times, liberating themselves from its locked double doors only to find themselves back behind them after realizing their compulsions couldn’t be tamed in the real world. This is unfortunate but unsurprising; with anorexia being unbelievably hard to treat, many women find themselves in chronically transient states of intensive treatment, one on one therapy, or competitive group circles aimed at “healing”. I’m thankful I was not one--- and I believe it was due in large part to the tenacity and protective factors my family helped to instill.

Protective factors are “characteristics at the biological, psychological, family, or community level that are associated with a lower likelihood of problem outcomes, or that reduce the negative impact of risk factor on problem outcomes.” In plain language, they’re buffers against the development of mental illness or psychiatric symptoms. One of the prime factors, specifically for young girls, is authoritative, respectful parenting.  Parents who demonstrate resilience through their ability to cope with the stresses of everyday life are imperative should young, mentally unstable tweenagers stand a chance to do the same. My parents, who I’ve written about endlessly, were “late bloomers” in parenting: they had me when they were 41. While I don’t believe their age is the only factor in their perseverance which I so admire, I do believe I had an edge on the others born to parents in their late 20’s. We didn’t eat together at the dining room table, nor did we attend church as a loving clan only to later discuss the integration of religion into our psyche. But my parents were disciplinary, no-bullshit, reliable people; there was no question about the wrath my brother and I were in for after we’d been caught being idiots. I don’t respect and adore my parents because they were “compassionate” and gave us “tons of choice”. I respect and adore them because they loved us fiercely enough to stick to their guns when it felt impossible to do so. They didn’t lower the standard or even their emotional threshold when I was in treatment for anorexia or when my brother was in rehab for heroin. In the parallel universe where I’d ever become a parent, my Mom and Dad are people I would aspire to be.

This is what’s so sorely misguided with so much of today’s therapy. We find it more important to appear nice, gentle, and loving than to actually instill any valuable lesson about how to treat other people. We eagerly place stupid bumper stickers reading “Connection over Compliance” or “Happy, Relaxed, Engaged” on our MacBooks and iPads, as doing so is the laziest and fastest means by which to earn respect in a largely liberal, white, female field hellbent on playing God to a child’s nonexistent psychiatric fever. Quite frankly, I think it’s repugnant. My disgust may be different if these women continuously plugged these ideals yet went on to provide legitimate therapy; in that regard, live and let live. But this isn’t what’s occurring. Not only are mostly-female therapists more concerned with their digital reputation as Stand-In Permissive Mommy, they’re treating clients as fragile beings incapable of tolerating even a moment of discomfort or adversity. We seem to forget that our childhoods were rife with name-calling, wrestling, roughhousing on the ABC mat for morning circle, and sometimes diabolical bullying. We’ve also drawn a blank as it relates to life’s most important and sometimes life-saving interventions being those that, in the moment, are inescapably painful. Therapy isn’t in place to ensure the burden falls on everybody else to accept us and our unique problems. The purpose of therapy is to teach us how to accept ourselves so we’re not so reliant on validation from other people.

Agencies that have, whether intentionally or passively, adopted such policies as “gentle therapy” or “DEI-focused outreach” should be ashamed of themselves. Truly. An educated individual who is expected to understand child and adult development, and develop treatment that assists their clients in learning more adaptive skills and bettering their lives, cannot truly believe that teaching victimhood is useful. Any sane person, therapist or not, recognizes that coddling ends horribly, and that babying or spoiling children transforms them into adults who become activists and are hellbent on blaming the world around them for their misery. I haven’t spoken to any of my treatment team from the hospital since I was discharged, and I occasionally wonder if they’re still offering services or if they’re retired. More often, though, I wonder how they’d respond to today’s budding clinicians. They’d probably be fired by cowardly administrators too afraid to admit that therapy is inherently hard.

“We can do hard things” has to be an adage that we put into practice versus print in a curly font for a classroom poster or Instagram post. It’s sad that it’s a platitude more than it is a golden rule. Put the goddamn spoons away and recognize that you are the only person who can change your life for the better. Behavior analysts, specifically, like to believe they can change behavior in other people. This is a hopeful delusion.

It's best to start with yourself. You’re the only person you can change for the better.

Thanks for reading honestly unorthodox.! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com

Topics Covered:

* The Holy Billable Hour

* Minimal incentive to do “good work” because of the billable hour

* Poor services delivered because the incentive is insurance, not therapy

* What I initially wanted to do

* Why I can’t seem to figure out business

* Why do people go to therapy for their whole life?

* What now?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com

While this may be hard for many to believe, I’m a squishy puddle at my core, and I tend to fold quite easily during face-to-face conversation.

For those who have experienced the thrashing ballet that is me telling a story, you’ve likely chuckled at my excessive use of gestures and spastic voice inflection. My arms and hands flail as if I’m a seizing orangutan, all of which occurs mostly without my awareness or even consent. Maybe it’s my Italian roots at play, or just my being fully entrenched in the looming punchline. The way I write and the way I speak, unsurprisingly, are received quite differently. I’ve been told, especially by women, that reading my writing feels like getting repeatedly punched in the gut. Ouch! When I started narrating my writing, though, these same criticisms began moving more toward my being “softer” and “nicer” than the person initially thought or expected. I suppose this is a downfall of being a sharply blunt, sarcastic extravert: it typically doesn’t translate well into written word. This is also entirely my own fault, as I’m guilty of reducing the full context of my thoughts down to squares suitable for social media consumption. Don’t blame me, blame the messenger…

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With this in mind, it’s probably expected that I’ve been dragged--- a lot. My writing has been legitimately misunderstood as well as heedlessly misrepresented, the former lending a hand to critical self-evaluation and the latter an irritated but mild rage. “Content creators” must anticipate their work being bastardized, as its available for such wide and accessible misuse. This expectation in mind and in soul still does not relieve the sting of harsh criticism, especially when delivered by faceless avatars you’re unable to defend yourself against. Perhaps this is the worst aspect of social media: it not only flattens your personality and your meaning down to its dullest fragments, but it renders you a resentful martyr. I heard someone recently criticizing Jordan Peterson, offering relatively respectful feedback, to which I’ll paraphrase: “some very public figures are broken down so much that they cannot ever recover, no matter how brilliant or well-liked. I think that happened with Jordan Peterson; he had so many interesting psychological findings but just got beat down to the point that he, I don’t think, could ever be the same person the world was captivated by.” This resonated with me, as I’ve already felt microscopic hints of burning resentment which results from continued harassment, unsolicited advice, and nameless assessment.

Between losing my brother to a Fentanyl overdose and recovering from anorexia following residential treatment, I’m proud of my capacity for tolerating discomfort. Do I possess a greater capacity to handle discomfort than the average person? I honestly have no idea. The common ground we likely can all share is that we’ve suffered in at least some degree, and that we’ve managed to overcome such suffering in different ways. I do know I can handle a hell of a lot of personal, social, and professional hardship, which makes me awfully difficult to offend. Worth noting is that I’m also a human being. My feelings get hurt. I lash out. I respond angrily. I take myopic views on things produced entirely by ego and resentment. I’ve taken excessive measures to counterbalance these logical and emotional errors with critical evaluations of myself and my beliefs, and I’d like to believe such efforts have benefited me across every domain of life.

In reference to my first sentence in which I compare myself to an oozing puddle, maybe I should clarify: I do not fold in the sense that I passively comply with the demands or requests of others. It’s quite challenging to force me to do just about anything, as I’m not only stubborn, but I don’t scare easily. What I am is heavily affected (in ways I believe to be positive) by my soft spot for the humanity I see in all of us, even those whose behavior I find most appalling. It’s both cathartic and tempting to demonize people we’ve had digital altercations with, specifically if those exchanges were laden with character assassinations and willful misrepresentations. In my constant and consistent efforts to evaluate the ways my beliefs have shifted, along with the manners in which I could’ve handled myself more appropriately, I’m pleased to discover my softness persists. A perfect example of this feminine proclivity of mine was inviting a guest onto my podcast after he’d left a nasty review, stating that I was a right-wing transphobe. As soon as I saw his flowing beard and heard his rustic, raspy voice, I folded like a lawn chair. There’s a humanizing, beautiful element of face-to-face communication. Within it lies an appreciation for human error, and a passion that even permeates the digital barrier of Zoom or FaceTime. I believe I’ve found what it is: it’s the power of forgiveness.

I’ve been accused on several occasions of allowing podcast guests “to get off too easy”, as some are of the belief that “obliterating” or “destroying” a person’s every statement is an emblem of dominance and stature. I disagree. This may prove one person to be intellectually superior in some circles, but it also tends to cast such an arrogant shadow that people show even more unwillingness to discuss contentious topics. While such YouTube clips are admittedly entertaining, specifically when we’re stroking our innate egos by cheering on those criticizing groups we’ve “othered”, it’s rare that this form of dialogue will truly motivate a person to reevaluate their beliefs. Think of the last time you were thrown under the bus in a meeting or humiliated in front of your family or friends; did this incite a curiosity in you that made you want to change? If it did, that’s worth celebrating--- it’s difficult to extract a silver lining in situations so socially punishing. If you didn’t, you’re probably much like many of us: we dig our heels in in piss-poor attempts to save face, as being attacked by another person, let alone a howling group, signals evolutionary threat. And when animals feel threatened? They flee, they flare their drooling jowls to reveal razor-like teeth, or they sacrifice their own limbs to permit escape. Being ambushed is a nearly impossible task for all species.

When the cancel campaign has hit peak stupidity and its constituents have grown bored following the deterioration of another person’s livelihood, some eventually come around to recognize the residual wake of their fury. They may take to their group to signify their departure. They may reach out to others with differing opinions in an attempt to “re-calibrate” themselves to reality, as is done with those exiting cults. They may even apologize to those they’ve brutalized.

In regards to apologies, we humans can’t help but do our insufferably humany thing: we botch our amends by trying too hard to justify our cruelty, or we fail to stop ourselves from adding disclaimers and blame to the beginning and end of our confession. For those who have been wronged, we’re again seduced to tender our childish, immature streak by snapping back with a sarcastic comment. This was evident when the truth about COVID vaccines began to break our truth-avoidant culture. Anti-vaxxers belligerently demanded that mask-wearers apologize for calling them Grandma-killers. Not only did they demand an apology, but they seemed to suggest that publicly groveling and fawning was the only means by which to call it even.

These rattling walks of shame or contrived perp walks are both mean and unnecessary. “We’ve been telling you all this time about COVID, and you still haven’t apologized! NOW YOU PRETEND?! FUCK YOU, LIBERALS!” I do tend to agree that sincere apologies, when done in private, are powerful. But demanding very public apologies to a frothing-at-the-mouth audience itching to pounce, I’m unsure this is anything more than a cruel trap which closely resembles the cancel campaigns these individuals claimed to despise. These public rituals, then, really only serve to quell another person’s anger and perhaps indulge their hunger for one upmanship. Quite similar to social tarring and feathering we see frequently online, this is unlikely to be effective in preserving humanity and allowing for minds to change. It’s performative, it’s manipulative, and it delegitimizes a very intentional bid for amends; as far as I’m concerned, with our culture being as polarized and divided as it is, I’ll take anybody I can get that has begun to see the light.

There’s also an aspect of these appeals I call “compelled martyrdom”. A martyr is someone who sacrifices something of great value for the sake of the principle. In modern day, it primarily points to those who cannot seem to help but remind people of their tragedies. They’re self-righteous because of their experiences but also bitter, which often results in seething guilt trips  and unreasonable demands for recognition. Sacrifice and vulnerability are appetizing, robust tools to control, and are experiences often used too easily when justifying cruel behavior. “Well I’m an XYZ person who is disadvantaged, which renders me exempt from any sort of cruelty.” “White people are in power so can’t possibly be racist.” “Autistic people have always been silenced so it’s impossible for anything they say to be considered mean or even inappropriate.” The overcorrections we’ve seen are merely misguided attempts at overcompensation, with the reductionist belief that correcting current wrongs will absolve behaviors of the past. This is not how life works. Current racism towards Whites does not change that horrific history of slavery. People who live in poverty are not given money simply because we recognize that they live in poverty. Autistic people are not all silenced, and even if they were, screeching and howling does nothing to address their past of being discriminated against. If rewriting history were so easy, it may be easier to forgive one another, which is perhaps why forgiveness is so difficult.

Forgiveness is far more complicated that accepting what happened or allowing our feelings to dissipate. While both of these are crucial for forgiveness to occur, they’re only the beginning of the transformative process of emotional amnesty. In order to detach from the resentment such anger holds over us, we need to undergo a mental transformation as it relates to our appraisal of the event, our perceptions of our overall attitudes and beliefs, and our willingness to express compassion toward the person we’ve been wronged by. This also applies to people who believe they’ve been wronged, despite an absence of evidence to support this conception. To deliberately and willfully place our hurt feelings aside, and see the good in others, is unbelievably painful. It can feel like we’re betraying ourselves and our sense of fairness. “They need to be held accountable for what they’ve done! What if my forgiving them only results in them continuing to behave this way toward others? How can I trust a person who has treated me so poorly?” These are legitimate concerns that tend to manifest as grudge-holding, rehashing of past events, and getting ‘stuck’ on the event that occurred. As I’ve written about previously, these behaviors all fall under what we refer to clinically as “rumination”, which is one of the hallmark symptoms of depression and anxiety. Rumination is continued, repetitive dwelling on negative feelings and distress, along with their causes and consequences. With this in mind--- is biding our time and waiting for a public apology the best course forward? What would we hope to gain by putting another person through something very similar that happened to us, something that we believe to be irrevocably wrong?

As a general rule of thumb, when crossing ideological lines and engaging in conversation, it’s imperative we mention mistakes on both sides—starting with our own. We hear quite frequently individuals who refuse to address mistakes of Conservatives if they themselves are Conservative, or of Liberals/the President if they themselves are Liberals. Because I’ve never publicly expressed where I stand politically, as I don’t believe it’s useful or even relevant to much of what I discuss, I will use another example from a recent conversation I had. I’ve been vocal, opinionated, and very blunt in my criticism of the Neurodiversity Movement. In understanding that the movement was borne of very poor treatment of individuals, which is unfortunately still evident in current practices, I acknowledge that there are many power-tripping staff who continue to use unnecessary force (both physically and verbally) with the clients they serve. Both ideas can exist simultaneously: that I believe the Neurodiversity Movement is sickening in its dismissal of people severely impaired, andthat I fully oppose the use of unnecessary force, cruel behavioral modification tactics, and verbally or physically abusive practices with human beings.

While I somewhat hate to use a very public figure, I believe it offers great insight into how forgiveness may be the ultimate antidote to “cancel culture” and increased hostility between groups. J.K. Rowling has been brutalized, for years, because of allegedly “transphobic” comments made on social media. In consistent attacks, J.K. Rowling has stood her ground, offering similar statements as the examples I gave above: that she completely supports the rights and dignity of trans individuals, and also believes that trans women are different from biological women. That she, too, cares about the welfare and dignity of children, and also strongly opposes today’s “gender-affirming care”. Recently, she was yet again the target of an X-Storm when she publicly stated that India Willoughby, a trans-woman, is in fact a biological man. One podcast host eagerly joined the pile-on, only to later apologize to J.K. Rowling via tweet, claiming he was struggling mentally and had hit some form of a breaking point, which resulted in his lashing out against her. J.K. Rowling’s response? “I accept your apology, and I’d ask any supporters of mine giving Caolan grief to please stop now. I didn’t ask for this apology, it was made spontaneously, and a good faith gesture deserves equal good faith from the other side.”

Imagine how drastically different today’s heated discourse could be if we adopted similar patience and stoicism as J.K. Rowling, or the goodhearted humility of Caolan. Many will criticize this as it relates to other, more recent statements she’s made, specifically one in which she pokes fun at inclusive language in a Mother’s Day Post: “Happy Birthing Parent Day to all whose large gametes were fertilized resulting in small humans whose sex was assigned by doctors making mostly lucky guesses.” When we dismiss sincere statements and apologies because of the person saying them, we’re adopting similar cruelty. We’re adopting a pigheadedness that doesn’t allow for self-growth or even new relationships to grow, but instead fosters an infected, relentless resentment very hard to shake loose. It’s the type of resentment that keeps a person miserable, that keeps a person up at night, that convinces a person their anger is, in and of itself, a meaningful purpose. These people may truly believe this, as righteousness and correcting of past injustices seems to be the only way to forge a better path forward. But it’s also engaging in the exact same behavior we’ve so heavily criticized others for.

We humans are programmed to detect danger. When we craft our reality as hyper-similar to our beliefs, as many of us inadvertently do via technology, we become less equipped to handle inevitable tension and friction. Too much conflict is obviously not beneficial for the psyche, while too much severity in punishment tends to have reverse effects on future behavior. But we also thrive emotionally and intellectually when we’re challenged and taken to task with our beliefs. It’s the only way to stay sharp in our understanding of ourselves and the world at large. We cannot accurately assess where we may have made mistakes if we exclusively seek out cheerleaders and supporters. We can criticize ideas while still supporting people. We can vehemently disagree with a statement while respecting the individual saying it. And we can forgive a person who we find personally repugnant and even undeserving of our forgiveness.

Two ideas can exist. I believe all of us know this. To reiterate this has proven to be ineffective. It’s less about the fact that we can hold both ideas, but more about our willingness to bear the weight.

What are you willing to do?

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As usual, I’d love to hear your thoughts and concerns.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestlyunorthodox.substack.com

Therapeutic fields have become known for such magical jargon as accepting everyone just as they are, including the schizophrenic person who defecates in public and spits on innocent passersby, or the profoundly intellectually disabled individual who attempts to gauge their own eyes out with a fork. We’ve also come to believe children know themselves best, as characterized by therapists-turned-activists who allow them to release their “inner trauma” by destroying everything in their path--- including the limbs of staff and peers. What a world we live in, huh? Where the core of therapy, which is to help individuals by offering them tools to better cope with difficulty, is considered an “ism”! Because I don’t want to spoil too much of the fun, let’s just jump right in to every activist argument that continuously fails to demonstrate any sort of logic.

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or DEI initiatives, have swept corporations, universities, K-12 schools, and media. DEI strives to embody three linked values, all of which converge to support the “fair treatment and full participation of all people”, particularly groups who “have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination” on the basis of identity or disability. As the activists love to moan, “let’s unpack this”.

Diversity is the value which aims to represent everyone equally in the workforce. This is interesting coming from activists who actively aim to shout down, fire, berate, punish, and silence those with opinions that diverge from their own perception. With diversity being a supposed value in organizations, we have to ask ourselves: if we’re only willing to value a highly specific form of diversity, while dismissing and even condemning other forms, how are we aligning our behavior with what we claim to treasure? This is further exemplified by “neurodivergent affirming clinicians”, who spout off quite frequently about neurodivergence being something worth celebrating. We are all different and unique, and our uniqueness is an entity, in and of itself, worthy of our awareness and acceptance! With this said, though, how is it possible for neurodiversity-affirming clinicians to also call for the firing and denouncing of people who are simply sharing divergent views? Commonly stated by disability activists to researchers, when they disagree with a claim, is, “You should have had neurodivergent authors or autistic authors represent a more balanced view. Or they should have written the entire paper.” So the very people endlessly whining about differences in others, and being fair to others, are also assuming others’ pathologies? And requesting to be considered superior to others with differing ailments? To be accepting of diversity means we tolerate all forms of it, whether that be gender, race, political affiliation, disability… and viewpoint.

Equity, which refers to fair treatment of all people, is a value demonstrating similar hypocrisy: if norms, policies, and procedures are in place to ensure identity is not predictive of outcome, why do disability activists insist that their outcomes be most favorable based on an identity characteristic? One of the most common and perhaps contentious topics brought to light in recent years has been that of “awareness versus acceptance”, with our culture demanding acceptance be the default. Quite frankly, this is narcissistic beyond belief, which, by default, negates any action toward equity. To fixate on our own personal shortcomings, and demand that others accept our existence, is a textbook example of self-aggrandizement--- an antonym that flies directly in the face of seeing society functioning as an egalitarian structure. After all, how can one truly be in support of equal opportunity if they’re hellbent on ensuring their own personal comfort be prioritized? Should you be at a loss for an example of such, you can peruse social media for countless ones: one activist claims that workplaces should ONLY hire autistic individuals to work with those with autism. Others state that research conducted on disabilities should ONLY be written by individuals with that specific disability. If any of these clinicians were to get cancer, would they refuse treatment unless the oncologist themselves had cancer? I assume not.

Lastly, inclusion refers to how the workplace embraces all employees regardless of characteristics like gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, mental illness, or disability. Ahhh, this is perhaps most hysterical: disability activists actively, and quite selectively, choose who is included in their structure and who is exiled--- based almost entirely on immutable characteristics and superficial features. One cannot truly believe they’re being inclusive if they’re simultaneously calling for their faceless, digital “friends” to eliminate an entire group of people based on the fact that they’re White, they’re Trump supporters, or they find the neurodiversity movement repugnant. In a cute blog post, which outlines ways in which to support inclusion in the classroom and/or workplace, the author claims the first step is that of allowing students to share individual perspectives. That’s interesting, considering behavior analysts have become so depraved and self-obsessed in their pursuit of “compassion” that their primary tactic for dealing with any perspective they dislike is to demand it be silenced or removed or erased. Another common-sense way to embrace inclusion? Respect people with diverse viewpoints and learning histories! How can we do this? Well, it may be useful to refrain from calling everyone a Nazi.  

“Everyone I Dislike Is Hitler” Culture

If anyone was a master at the craft of manipulating public opinion, it was Hitler. Hitler is perhaps the most detestable, sickening, disgusting, and despicable human beings to walk the Earth. I think most of us would (hopefully) agree to this conclusion. To compare someone to Hitler, then, is intended to equate their character as being equally monstrous and as inciting irreparable harm.  But when everyone is called Hitler… how do we discriminate between the truly abusive and harmful and those that are simply tactless? Quite similar to the activist argument, that everyone be permitted to consider themselves special, mentally ill, or disabled, when EVERYONE is special, nobody can be special. If everyone is autistic, nobody is autistic. And if everyone is Hitler--- nobody can possibly be considered more or less abusive.

Hitler knew that information was a powerful force to drive public consensus, specifically when aimed at those with limited exposure to differing opinions and/or in positions of particular vulnerability. Similar to the Bamboozle Effect, Hitler was aware of the human tendency to accept ideology as fact, so long as it was repeated again and again. When catchphrases and slogans are repeated enough, and recycled through higher-end institutions, like public media and universities, it’s unsurprising that so many would uphold it as unfettered truth.  As it relates to therapeutic fields, there are few things more Hitlerian than screeching the same catchphrases over and over, igniting prejudice against individuals and groups based on an overgeneralization, and attempting to control the types of information others consume. The same examples from the DEI portion can essentially be used throughout this entire piece, including “everyone I hate is Hitler” culture; activists simply copy and paste similar phrases across all societal issues because they’re too dense to develop their own thoughts on important matters.

Hitler also wanted to control every aspect of existence, with modern examples including what media sources the public tunes in to, what information is read and digested, what is written in blogs or on Substack, what people like, share, and post on social media, and what political phrases to abide by. Sound familiar? If it does, it’s because it is! The Nazi doctrine, the very doctrine disability activists claim to oppose, is the same doctrine by which they unite. Because they’re more concerned with immutable characteristic and shared hatred of stereotyped groups (not an ism at all, huh?), they likely know minimal about one another on a personal level. Without an understanding of how the world works, or at least an unwillingness to accept reality, their only shred of common ground is that of their own, childlike misery. And nothing angers people like Hitler or activists more than realizing they’ve lost control over what others believe, and that their little philosophy continuously fails to ameliorate their insecurities.

A final Nazi tactic was to publicly denigrate, humiliate, and condemn people for sharing certain opinions. This was done through name-calling, euphemistic language, and social contagion or pressure. Disability activists have become quite fluent in using scare tactics and idiotic language, with the most common attacks being, “If you do not stand with neurodivergent people, you are admitting to child abuse” or “the fact that you won’t support us means you support harm”. But everyone else is the Nazi? Okay then.

Luxury Beliefs and Privilege

If you are a therapist or behavior analyst, a Master’s degree was required to obtain your credential. With this said, you are undoubtedly amongst the upper middle class. With such privilege and minimal understanding of true oppression, abuse, adversity, racism, sexism, or the like, I find it hysterically disgusting that individuals are narcissistic enough to believe their luxury beliefs represent the underrepresented. Luxury beliefs, coined by Rob Henderson, refers to those beliefs which confer status on the upper classes but inflict cost or harm on the underprivileged. An example of this is “defund the police”: people who live in gated communities with next to zero crime, who are wealthy enough to hire extra security, and/or whose kids attend the most expensive, prestigious, and safe schools, can easily gain social status by reposting “defund the police”. But what would this do for truly underprivileged people, like those who live in the Southside of Chicago? Would people who regularly lose family members to drive-by shootings agree that a social worker could protect them more than a police officer can?

Disability activists publicly exercise their privilege on a sickening and continual basis. Their obsession with “connection” or “compassion” over compliance, for example, is one of their tricks of the trade. To demand that any child or young adult with a disability be allowed to do anything they so choose, as they’re simply remaining true to their authentic self or attempting to normalize abnormal behavior, is self-indulgent as it is dangerous. For the high-functioning person with autism, who has a clinical degree, works full-time, has children and a family, and speaks at conferences--- are you really trying to speak for those who have an IQ of 50, are nonverbal, cannot feed themselves or bathe themselves, let alone screech about how they’re “stigmatized” online? To believe that stigma is the greatest threat to people who cannot take care of themselves is emblematic of an individual so privileged, and so self-obsessed, that their licensing board should probably reconsider renewing their license.

Free Speech

The Behavior Analysis Certification Board (BACB) came out with a statement recently about free speech, which states, in short, “please stop fucking reporting people just because your feelings are hurt, everyone is allowed to say anything they choose because we live in a free country. If you disagree with free speech, consider moving to North Korea.” Okay, I’m kidding, it didn’t quite say that. Unsurprisingly, the free speech statement triggered disability activist after activist, with many taking to their social media platforms and making comments such as, “Don’t be discouraged, continue to fight against White supremacy and right-wing rhetoric in behavior analysis!” Coincidentally, when they name-call, slander, and publicly humiliate others? Their response is, “It’s my free speech.” Oh, activists, how utterly insecure such thought-provoking dogma is: ‘when other people say things I dislike, it’s oppressive, racist, sexist, ableist, and harmful. When I do the exact same thing to others, it’s free speech’. How can an individual who holds such contradictory, nonsensical, and self-serving beliefs possibly support individuals with diverse needs? How can a person who despises free speech work with individuals whose families would do anything in their power to hear their children verbally communicate?

Capitalist, Oppressive, and Supremacist Society

According to disability activists, cancelling people and attempting to rid them of their title is indicative of our field moving towards “necessary” social justice. My question, then, is this: if you’re robbing families of services, that could tremendously impact their quality of life, how are you upholding equitable outcomes? How are you supporting underprivileged or vulnerable populations? How are you demonstrating that you care about people who need greater support than you? In despicable and expected fashion, activists only aim to propagate their own viewpoints and assist their own chattering classes in moving up a rung on a social ladder. To deliberately withhold clinically necessary services, in the name of one’s own hurt feelings being superior to all else, including science and logic--- is that not the literal definition of supremacy? And for an individual in a clinical field, which rests on science, common sense, and compassion for others… how can we trust these clinicians will make room for the perspectives, rights, or needs of anyone but themselves?

Many behavior analysts have also adopted the idea that capitalism and meritocracy are “bad”, all while demanding they be compensated for their “emotional labor”. Everyone seems to love the idea of equity of outcome, until they run out of another person’s money and resources; then, all of a sudden, they are pro-capitalism. “I don’t have time to educate you”, or “These people have not even considered the cost of my emotional labor.” This is even funnier when you look at individuals claiming to be slaves of capitalism but also working in environments that pay them based on their performance, years of experience, and credential--- and yet they still demand a raise. So, disability activist and analyst, it is time to make up your mind: Do you want everyone to make the same amount of money? Or do you only want to make what Jeff Bezos makes? And if that’s the case--- how does that serve your community at large? What about equity?

“Platforming” Harm

Another assertion for a lack of common sense often includes some statement like “I don’t platform people like you”. First of all, this is discrimination. “People like you”? I imagine if someone said the same to them, they’d spiral into convulsive tantrumming about how racist or ableist or discriminatory they are. Secondly, by endlessly complaining about people publicly — this is, in essence, platforming them. Celebrating them, even. And how embarrassing for behavior analysts, many of whom claim to be “experts” in behavior: the more attention you give to attention-seeking behavior, the more likely that behavior is to occur. Perhaps this is another terrifying reason why these individuals shouldn’t be trusted to work with clients. Additionally, for people so concerned with “harm”: aren’t you spreading harm by incessantly talking about it, sharing it constantly, centering every conversation around it, and fixating on it? How harmful can it be if it’s at the forefront of your mind, your every waking moment? In some circles, this would be considered stalking or even harassment. I imagine the activists would just consider it another form of self-expression.

What Now?

First of all, block nonsense. It’s imperative we stop giving attention to lunacy by continuing to share it amongst one another and gossip about it. A narcissist’s kryptonite is feeling irrelevant, and feeling as if they’ve failed to be noticed by those whose attention they thrive off of. To try to reason with people who conduct themselves as if they’re in a preschool gym class is a waste of time and resources, which could otherwise be used toward, I don’t know, actually helping people who are desperate for our time and resources.

On a broader level, companies may benefit from refusing to allow hyper-progressive, social justice activists to become administrators, directors, or supervisors. An individual that fixated on finding something wrong with everyone but themselves will cause irreparable harm to individuals we promised to inflict no harm upon. While some activists are more subtle than others, it may be worth it to ask prospective employees simple questions about collaborating with other people: If someone held a different perspective than you on an intervention, how would you handle it? What course of action might you take if you felt offended by something someone said in a meeting? How might you supervise a graduate student whose views you strongly disagree with? What is something you’ve learned from a person you disagree with? Should the individual respond with parroted talking points similar to those listed above--- that is, “people who use XYZ intervention are causing harm to XYZ folx”, “blah blah blah hate speech”, “I don’t platform supervision students who are Trump supporters or right-wing”, “I learn from people who are allies to my cause”--- do not hire them.

To wrap up, I found one of George Orwell’s many gems to perfectly encapsulate the muddy water our field has found itself in: “in a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

And nobody is more deceitful than an activist with a personality problem.

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