I just read the latest article in my inbox from my substack article subscription to Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) and it seems like another worthy of passing along, with hopefully just a few limited comments I have about the matter.
The article is written by a therapist and is titled A Letter to Parents from A Concerned Therapist. I formed my blog piece title here as a spin-off, subtopic that this piece generated in my own thinking and observations in this realm.
First, I invite readers here to take in the fullness of the article with all its well-expressed observations and concerns of this seasoned child therapist, who has at least temporarily, needed to withdraw from their field. As I read through their various points (note, I initially assumed the writer was a woman but in looking back, there is no name…so my use of “their” as a plural pronoun for a singular writer of unknown sex has a reasoned basis) , the one that stands out to me most about this whole realm is the “hostage-taking” element that everyone from non-agreeing parents to friends to medical community to educational community to businesses and more are being forced to bow to–or else.
It never ceases to stun and amaze me how quickly a whole society and therapeutic community seems to have lost its mind in terms of recommending–no demanding–compliance and facilitation of delusional thinking, harmful behavior and manipulative threats by those in the throes of this social contagion. The threat being bowed down to is that if those around them don’t affirm and comply they will harm themselves.
I cannot overstate the irony and the extensive expression of narcissistic behavior involved in all of this at some deeper, collective level, and the writer of the piece touches on the personalities of those parents who wholeheartedly support and publicly promote their “trans” kids. These days the term narcissism is thrown around quite a lot, and many people conjure images of a selfish person or self-absorbed person, as opposed to more deeply understanding the diagnostic criteria for those with an actual “described disorder” in that vein.
Like many things, narcissism exists on a continuum that is expressed in degrees of narcissistic traits. What many don’t understand when they casually use the term is that there is a healthy amount of narcissism required for people to function well, and that some of these traits are present in higher degree in people with certain giftings and success in various realms. Centuries ago, such traits and behaviors were more evidence of a variety of others things both good and evil, and were named differently depending on one’s worldview. One of the key things about a true narcissistic person is that they never question if they could be such, which I find a frightening thought given the narcissistic demands being made by many licensed psychologists and others in that sphere that one would expect would have better insight.
It makes one wonder what the personal payoff is to such bastions in the medical/psychiatric community–is it money or is it prestige of some sort?
The true narcissist makes the rules and breaks the rules and with seeming impunity. And there are the overt narcissists and the covert narcissists. I think the writer of this article alludes to the traits of parents, teachers and others who go on an extensive saving (or martyr) mission to publicly affirm, promote and otherwise facilitate the trans ideology fall into that category of those with high amounts of narcissistic savior complexes.
The writer also touched upon the phenomenon of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy–another topic I am familiar with. She also points out that these days having a diagnosis of some sort becomes an identity goal in-and-of-itself, with badges of honor in the eyes of peers for engaging in many of the plethora of social contagion behaviors.
At any rate, for those interested, Dr. Miriam Grossman has done much work on the current trauma and harm being done to parents caught up in transgender situations with young or adult children. She says these are parents who have survived hard things in life over many years–divorces and other difficulties and losses–and have no real history of deep psychological troubles. She says these parents are flooding the therapy world now needing Xanex and even on the verge of suicide. This is a good episode where I first heard her address this topic and she has released a book in recent months Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness.
My overriding comments here in response to the PITT article by this therapist which validates not only my own personal experiences but those I hear of regularly in parent groups is that for every transgender situation where parents either comply out of intense fear or try to resist and advocate for what is best for their child there is a tremendous amount of pain and trauma that may last a lifetime.
And for those around them that have not been so personally touched, it can be hard to take in how these things are affecting individual parents, married couples and families who are having to navigate it all. Even if some of these kids eventually desist, the destructive processes and that break down the family relationships may never be truly healed, for a variety of complicated reasons. Nor can many forms of damage done ever be repaired or redeemed. Some things damaged are lost forever. Life is short, and many of these parents are suffering with situations of estrangement and parental abuse (at the hands of minor or adult children) that has gone on for years upon years.
And yes, I hear regularly of forms of parental abuse. The words being spoken to parents, and the coercive machinations…the self-created crises/issues these parents are forced to deal with…the walking on eggshells and much more…in any other situation would be named differently and for what it really is.
While social justice warriors out there are fighting for imaginary rights for people with imaginary conditions, parents in that realm who refuse to be taken hostage receive the justice of guilty until proven innocent.
__________
Here’s an imaginary situation that might most clearly convey what is so wrong with all of this:
If a parent in therapy said they were thinking of killing themselves because they were deeply pained and depressed over their transgender child’s actions, there is a high chance this parent would be diagnosed with something and/or authorities would become involved. But, if their teenage daughter who decides from TikTok that she’s really male and gets lots of almost narcissistic affirmation and praise for her status and/or mental condition threatens self-harm if her parents don’t go along, we have a whole medical community who now considers this the appropriate “care” and increasingly, a parent could have social services step in with allegations of abuse. With this happening, how in the world can the parents on the receiving end of such insanity expect to find any real help?
We are losing our collective minds in a way that is hard to understand, and the only explanation in my mind ranges from some type of political-profit-driven-malignant narcissism to some type of demonic spell that has been somehow collectively cast upon otherwise spiritually rational people of any religious or non-religious persuasion.
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