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LIAM NEESON THREAD: Don't get overexcited.
First and foremost: Thank goodness he didn't actually do anything violent.
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First and foremost: Thank goodness he didn't actually do anything violent.
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Second: This does not mean he's a psycho killer.
Men over a certain age in our culture were taught all their lives to direct their emotions into a couple of stock responses, mostly not involving expression of those emotions.
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Men over a certain age in our culture were taught all their lives to direct their emotions into a couple of stock responses, mostly not involving expression of those emotions.
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So his reaction to his friend's trauma was understandably strong, and also was misdirected by our modern standards.
In the wake of any attack, we try to identify the threat so we can guard against it or neutralize it. Trying to game it out also is part of the grief process.
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In the wake of any attack, we try to identify the threat so we can guard against it or neutralize it. Trying to game it out also is part of the grief process.
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As a psychiatric patient, I've done my share of stalking about at night. It's not a sign of terrific mental health. It can be a form of slo-mo panicking, a way to try to escape powerlessness over the way we feel, or to put that overwhelming feeling somewhere...
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...in this instance, to pour it into physical motion. The difference between nutso li'l me and regular people like Liam N. is that my feelings didn't usually come from an external source. If anything *was* happening to me, it was blown out of proportion by my trusty brain.
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[I didn't learn until I was an adult that it does that, and it explained A LOT about my life up to then.]
Exertion *is* a good way of dealing with feelings. When I was in the mental hospital they took us to the weight room a few times a week, and called it "Tension Reduction."
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Exertion *is* a good way of dealing with feelings. When I was in the mental hospital they took us to the weight room a few times a week, and called it "Tension Reduction."
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Hypervigilance in the wake of an attack isn't surprising.
It also is to be expected that Liam would be adrenalized for days, particularly because one of the acceptable roles men played in bygone days was chest-pounding defender. Hooray for more flexible gender roles.
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It also is to be expected that Liam would be adrenalized for days, particularly because one of the acceptable roles men played in bygone days was chest-pounding defender. Hooray for more flexible gender roles.
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Prejudice doubtless played its part here too. I have nothing to say about this except that Mr. Neeson seems to have taken the appropriate lesson from his own experience, and there are a whole lot of people who have trouble seeing it when they do bad and crazy things.
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As a last observation, the more rigid a society's gender roles are, the more violence there is in that society; females tend to be made into sex objects, and males into what you might call 'violence objects.'
So I'll end by celebrating our progress. 🎉
(h/t @jamesgilliganmd)
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So I'll end by celebrating our progress. 🎉
(h/t @jamesgilliganmd)
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