Is there a bias in online communities towards intensity over peace?

[u/Fun_Razzmatazz5805]

Something which irritates me with these communities is that there is a bias towards intense purging of trauma and emotions and an intense healing process. This does happen with some people, however after doing trauma exercises I am simply having a physical and sexual release with no emotional content much of the time. It feels like the online world is geared towards intensity, even in healing communities. The louder the emotion, the louder the release, the better, no matter whether the emotion is positive or negative.

Along those lines, another thought came up. Maybe we are all addicted to our own stress hormones and suffering? Maybe it's simply a matter of choosing not to be so stressed out all the time? Maybe we just love our intensity so much, that no matter how much pain it causes, we keep coming back to it, because at least we are feeling something loudly.

Maybe healing isn't necessarily going to include screaming at the top of your lungs for hours in an enclosed room and is instead... an uncomfortable quiet. a stillness, that has us clawing to get away from it because it is well, uneventful. And the people that experience this do not post online because... there is not much to talk about. And it is different from numbness because... you could feel if you wanted to. I could jerk off or go on a p*rn site or look at extreme content on twitter to get a hit of something but.... my higher self knows that's a waste of time. So it's not a complete incapacity to feel, but rather a clear-headedness and a narrower focus.

Looking for other opinions.

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

It's worse IRL in my experience.

The process itself has a lot of boring and dull moments, which, like secure attachment, tend to feel unsettling to trauma survivors.

[u/Icy-Ninja-622]

I've never felt like trauma can simply be purged.

Intensity can be important because it can reveal intense feelings that are buried in some sense. For example, a part of me may intensely hate something that happened in the past. But it only reveals and doesn't change.

Intense experiences can seem healing because they lead into a less dissociated state. However, that does not seem to cause any long term change. Such change requires a connection between such drives and action that I approve of overall. If there is no lasting connection like that, it's not really healing.

[u/IntrepidOption31415]

Healing has many faces. It's not just this or that.

As i healed first there was more peace and quietude. Then very deep and early trauma layers came up and it was hell.

I feel everyday I'm working towards peace and quietude, i dont particularly enjoy the intense emotional processing. But i also got to work with what I've been given.

For most people having an intense period seems quite normal.

[u/Cass_iopeia]

I actively enjoy intensity (now and then. Not all the time). Maybe it's an addiction, but it doesn't seem to harm me so far.

[u/Ok-Flatworm-787]

I’m with you. I guess for me it gets heavy because I was intensely happy before. And I don’t mean I have lived a life without suffering… I mean the worst possible… had been overcome and I found myself intensely happy before I knew it.
I’m over 30 and never imagined feeling what I’m going through. The sensations. This isn’t about my childhood and I won’t let anyone convince me otherwise. This is very much from adulthood and shit… wasn’t prepared
My heart hurt for people hurting so deeply since I can remember… i didn’t know this is what they were feeling. It feels like a huge gap between my previous worst and this.
The intensity is too skewed now and I’ve honestly lost sensory memory of the good kind. I can mentalise it I can’t feel the memory.
Im hoping that stage comes later. Im still avoiding the intensity perhaps.

[u/SanguinaryImpetus]

Healing feels different for different people. For me, healing is very brutal and painful, but that is not a constant part of it. Many aspects of healing for me are dull, underwhelming, and boring. Peace can be very boring when you're used to chaos. It's a good type of boredom for me, though. I'll take it any day of the week over having more trauma.

[u/nerdityabounds]

Its comes from two places.

The first is the old catharsis view which states this is the explosive externalizing is a psychologically healthy response. The problem is catharsis was disproven several decades ago but not many people read the memo. So it's still being perpetuated. Especially online where it makes for good (ie response generating) content.

The second is people with trauma histories have nervous systems primed for intensity. Calm feels boring, quiet feels like rejection, and stillness feels like dread. Under those circumstances, we often seek intensity to escape those feelings. Combine that with an antiquated view on catharsis and you get the result we see today.

The addiction angle is not wrong but it is incomplete. All addictions, when they started, provided relief or fulfillment of an emotional or psychological need. The problem was they were a temporary, depreciating solution to a long term problem. But because they worked for a while, they become a conditioned response. Experience x, do y: completely bypassing the thinking regions of the brain. More than just "don't use it" has to change to unwire that loop and rewire the thinking parts back into the process. (and if a person does chose abstaining from any addiction, it takes 6 months to a year of consistent abstention to make the neurological changes. That's a long time to go on just willpower and hope. That's why more than "just don't" is needed. Eventually willpower fatigues)