Shameless: “The Resilient Phases” (Expanded Edition)

Written by Andi Bazaar, Yevhn Gertz, Tydalé-Oliver Schofield and “introducing” Shawn McKenzie | Feb 9, 2024

"We don’t need to forgive in order to recover from our trauma, the pressure and perceived “nobility” of forgiving people who may have intently traumatized us is another form of gaslighting when it is forced upon someone and it is definitely not a prerequisite for inner peace."

Shawn McKenzie / Photographed by Timothée-freimann Schofield / MHMTID© 2024

• Many toxic and abusive traits are completely romanticized in movies, from overly angry guys to different forms of manipulation and somehow they always make it work in the end. In real life, people get PTSD, depression and need years to recover from everything they endured.
• People with compassion fatigue are often judged, people wonder why they don’t seem to care anymore and if they are no longer empathetic. It is important to remember that these people have given too much for too long and it is their turn to receive support until they recover!
• Depression and anxiety take a while to come, it also takes a while to recover. Please be patient and kind with yourself, you will get there. Being kinder to ourselves through that process makes it easier and a little shorter whatever you are experiencing won’t be permanent!

"We don’t need to forgive in order to recover from our trauma, the pressure and perceived “nobility” of forgiving people who may have intently traumatized us is another form of gaslighting when it is forced upon someone and it is definitely not a prerequisite for inner peace."

Just a reminder that you don’t to forgive someone to move on and recover, no matter what pressure is put on you you don’t have to. If you want to forgive someone without pressure, then it is fine but some people say that it is impossible to move on and that’s just not true.

I feel so angry whenever I hear of some therapists’ behaviours in our culture. Breaking confidentiality, using religion, the homophobia and applying societal pressure on their clients. Instead of removing trauma, you add another layer to it and scare them from trying to recover.

— PS: IT DOESN’T MATTER IF THEY ARE MINORS

Confidentiality is supposed to happen what, where I practice the age of consent for confidentiality is 12 and it helps young kids so much in opening up knowing that they have agency over their own lives.

People are reaching out because they feel they have lost their “intelligence,” memory, productivity and worry it is permanent. It is good to remember that we are in year 2 of a pandemic, with hopelessness setting in. Once we recover from this, everything will return to normal!

Never forget the external factors that contribute to this, no they are not excuses and they are valid and are affecting so many people globally. We need to be kind of ourselves and recognize that we can’t control these external pressures that put a lot of strain to mental health!

I know it may sound silly but the biggest step in our mental health recovery is recognizing we need help, we often do a good job of denying that we are not doing well or that we just need to power through it, effectively delaying the changes that can help us recover!

⚠️ TW: TRAUMA/ABUSE ⚠️

I want to talk about the freezing response we get when we are anxious/going through a traumatic event, it goes against the fight or flight response that we usually get and may make us feel weird as to why we freeze. Let’s dive into it!

It is important to realize that fight or flight responses occur mainly in situations similar to those we have gone through before. It offers us options and our brain knows what to do. However, there are some situations that are so scary or unexpected that we just shut down.

Sometimes, our brain may not find a way to fight or flee the danger so we freeze, this is because freezing can also have evolutionary advantages. A prey that doesn’t move is harder to see and track, when we freeze, we also present no danger and may be overlooked.

So it is not an unusual response or something that is strange. Furthermore, in traumatic situations that repeat themselves we may freeze because in the past, when we tried to fight or run away, the trauma was even worse.

We may know from past experiences that it is best to freeze and get it over with than do something that may anger the person or dangerous situation further, it may seem silly that we just froze or we may feel angry that we didn’t defend ourselves.

However, in these situations logic doesn’t apply. We don’t have time to really think about it or do something, it is a huge primal and instinctive response and it is only later on that we analyze the situations and think of other ways we could have handled it.

So what can we do? Unfortunately, not too much. If we are in the same traumatic situation or with the same abusive people, we can start seeking to find other living options. If we are out of these but still freeze easily we can go to trauma therapy.

For the most part, it is hard to change these responses because they happen as a reflex as opposed to a choice. By recovering from our trauma though, our minds change the way they perceive dangers and may help us freeze less. Hope this helped a little!

There are many ways to recover from mental health struggles. For some, it may mean meds long term. For others, it may mean going to therapy every month to externalize and solve issues, etc. As long as quality of life improves, it is a win. There are solutions for everyone.

There is nothing more magical than seeing people recover and get better overtime, that journey of growth and getting the symptoms under control is so beautiful. We go from very heavy sessions and many forms of written exercises to light hearted conversations towards the end.

We need to stop pressuring people into forgiveness, not only is it not the path to healing when it is forced but it can make us feel worse and aggravate the trauma and depression. We can recover and live a happy life without forgiving if that’s not something we are ready to do.

What we often think of as “identity crisis” is usually repressed emotions coming to the surface/doubts stemming from anxiety or depression because they are strong, we have a sense of losing the “self” but it is actually not identity related.When we recover, that “self” is back.

LET’S TALK ABOUT GHOSTING AND ITS IMPACT ON MENTAL HEALTH

Shawn McKenzie / Photographed by Timothée-freimann Schofield / MHMTID© 2024

I have been asked a lot to write about it, it is a complex topic and it took me a while to think about how to write it. Ghosting would be the sudden removal of communication without telling the other person.

There are some very obvious pros. For one thing, it can be necessary for safety or for someone who does not respect boundaries. Being able to suddenly block the person is such a protective factor for our mental health, this is why it should be used in these instances.

However, the reason why it has become a popular method is because of other reasons. With the rise of social media and meeting people becoming easier with options, ghosting has also become a way to discard people who we are no longer interested in. Ghosting offers an easy way out.

Again, in some cases it is a form of safety. Some people (many men) do not respond well to rejection and may become rude or violent when faced with that. This still goes under the umbrella of safety and boundaries, however in other cases it is more about it being easy.

It is so easy to love bomb someone and feeling connected with them and suddenly realize they are not the person we wanted and withdraw. In this case, it is important to let that person know. Ghosting can be very traumatic because it involves real people and attachment.

We may get to start attached to people and feeling like everything is going well and that sudden withdrawal is almost traumatic, there is no way of knowing what happened, no communication about the sudden change of mind. It can be easy to truly internalize that.

People who have been ghosted may think that there is something wrong with them and starts to trigger symptoms of depression and anxiety, they may review previous conversations to see where it went wrong and easily start to overthink the whole situation. It is hard to deal with.

It is completely normal and okay to not have interest in someone anymore, but letting know cuts that uncertainty. Yes, they may feel sad about it at first and wonder what happened but at least they know something changed about the person leaving them and not themselves.

In these situations, ghosting involves people doing this because they don’t want to seem like bad people/want to keep a certain reputation intact. It is a protection of their ego rather than confronting their own issues. For example, they may get attracted fast and lose it fast.

By ghosting they don’t have to confront that reality, they can simply take 5 minutes to take that person out of their life and start all over again with a new person and repeating that cycle without ever having to think about their own problem.

There is also FOMO setting in, when we match with 5-10 people and talk to them we may talk with someone and really like them but then someone we are more attracted to comes in the picture and it becomes easier to discard the previous person suddenly.

Ghosting is one of those situations that is super easy for the person initiating it and deeply troubling for the person going through it and this brings us to the key problem: communication. You may be just wanting sex, attention, testing the waters, whatever it is but it is easier to lie and say that you are looking for more in order to attract more people but then simply ghost them when you want to. And this is a huge problem. Dating would be a more positive experience for everyone if they said what they wanted.

There is nothing wrong with open relationships, casual ones, hookups or anything like that but there is something wrong with hiding intentions and blindsiding other people. Now what is the solution? Obviously, ghosting is here to stay, that’s for sure.

For those who have been ghosted out of nowhere when there was no safety concern, what can you do? The first thing to remember is that ghosting is not about you. Yes, for real. It was all about the other person, realize that the lack of communication and integrity is on them.

• It is better that you knew it early(ish) on than years into the relationship when the attachment is deeper. In plain terms, it is dodging a bullet. It is also important to take breaks, don’t go straight back into dating if this event is still weighing on you.
• It is better to wait and recover from this and go back with a fresh perspective than it is to continue going through this while vulnerable and risking getting hurt more. Also, if it is triggering too much anxiety, depression, lack of self-esteem, it is important to go to therapy.

Healing is really important, people forget how attached we can get even if we have never met someone in real life. Don’t gaslight people who have through these experiences, their attachment and subsequent pain are as real as those of other relationships.

They also need to process and grieve what happened as opposed to simply being expected to move on, take your time to grieve no matter what those around you may say. I hope that this thread helped clarify ghosting a little bit and its impact on mental health.

Given that the start of recovery in our mental health is not linear and can happen slowly, let’s talk about the early signs of recovery and getting better. Knowing those signs can help us give ourselves the credit and validation for all the work we did to get better.

One of the signs will be the ability to cope, we will start to feel as though our symptoms are not as debilitating as we thought. Instead of feeling hopeless or helpless, we will start to feel as though there is a way out it may be just a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel.

It may not happen all the time or even often but just starting to experience it is amazing, the main characteristic of most mental health issues is that they make us feel trapped and unable to get out of that cycle. Starting to feel as though we can get better is amazing.

Another sign is going to be the ability to do more tasks during our day, whereas before we struggled to get out of bed and even eat or take a shower when we get better we realize that we can slowly do more things during our day even if it is not a lot more and not all days.

The future doesn’t seem as bleak "with anxiety, all possible scenarios and roads we imagine are bad." — when we start to feel that there are good things or even neutral situations awaiting us in the future, we start to have that balance that reduces our experience of anxiety.

We are able to talk with people around us more, with depression we tend to socially withdraw. Lack of energy, fear of being judged and low self-esteem can make us withdraw fast. When we feel the need to connect to people around us and loved ones, it is an amazing sign!

• Another sign is establishing boundaries when our self-esteem is low, we feel as though no one should love us. We can’t be in a position to have boundaries but when we establish boundaries and don’t let people go over them, it is a great start.

We start taking of ourselves more, self-care is an awesome indicator of the fact that we value ourselves and put some of that energy towards showing love to ourselves. The more we feel that need to relax and pamper ourselves, the better it is.

• Another amazing sign is we have a good insight on people who are toxic and contribute to our mental health issues, the ability to recognize it and eliminate them from our life is a crucial step because it tells us that we deserve better people around us.

Another one we tend to disregard is being connected to our environment, when we are more connected to our environment and less zoned out it is a sign that our thoughts/emotions are not as strong as they used to be making us zone out all the time.

Finally.. our memories, concentration, attention span slowly start to return. This is by far one of the slowest changes that happen, if you haven’t noticed this one yet don’t worry it can take a while after recovery to reappear but when it does it is such a wonderful feeling.

📞 Information on where to get help:

🇬🇧 (UK-based):

• Anxiety UK — 03444 775 774
• CALM — 0800 58 58 58
• Mind — 0300 123 3393
• Samaritans — 116 123

🇺🇸 (US-based):

• Mental Health America
• National Institute for Mental Health
• AFSP
• StrongMinds

I hope that this article has been helpful in helping you recognize some signs of recovery and or show us all what we can look forward to when we start to get better, hope you all have a wonderful day.

Love x

A SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Andi Bazaar (Writer)
• Mark J. Levstein (Co-Editor)
• Yevhn Gertz (Director of Photography/Co-writer)
• dr Oliver Schofield MD (Consulting/Co-writer)
• dr Seth Gryffenberg, MD (Consulting)
• dr Khaan, MD (Consulting)
• Timothée Freimann schofield (Photographed)
• Clayton Euridicé Schofield (Editor/Journalist)
• Scott Wynné Schofield (Publicist)
• Henrie Louis Friedrich (Analyst)
• Jwan Höffler Conwall (Art Interior Design)
• Hugo-licharré Freimann (Ass Director)
• Shot at GQ’s Studios by José Schenkkan and @benjgq
• In appearance by "Shawn McKenzie" (Model/Co-writer)
• In collaboration with "The Me You Can’t See UK" (TMYCSUK) / @tmycsuk