I’m reading Bessel Van Der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score and he says, “Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity(emphasis original): being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love: These are complex and hard-earned capacities. {…} Many traumatized people find themselves chronically out of sync with the people around them. Some find comfort in groups where they can replay their (trauma). Focusing on a shared history of trauma and victimization alleviates their searing sense of isolation, but usually at the price of having to deny their individual differences: Members can belong only if they conform to the common code. Isolating oneself into a narrowly defined victim group promotes a view of others as irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst, which eventually only leads to further alienation.”

He goes on, of course. I’m quoting from page 81.

That seems real relevant to some of my shit.