callingvalhal replied to your post: anonymous asked:As someone who's ...
I didn’t see this until now. I still disagree with the over simplification because your post does seem to imply that it’s a super simple solution but I recognize now that you didn’t mean that.
Absolutely not. The mechanics of mental problems and such are very complicated. I definitely grasp this.
My own anxiety/abuse trauma resulted in a self-harming/destructive personal habit where I picked at my skin and hair until it bled and engaged in maladaptive daydreaming and weird mental tics that bordered on OCD. HOWEVER, I was also able to go “well, shit, this isn’t good” with absolutely nobody telling me otherwise, and redirect my own obsessive impulses into less destructive repetitive calming behaviors/coping mechanisms without any access to anything. Smokers have industries aimed at them to stop smoking. I linked to four sites that give free help. You can buy nicotine patches instead of cigarettes. There are ways to stop. It’s not always simple, but people have done it because sometimes you have to do things that are hard to fix your bad choices.
I will grant that smoking is not quite trich. Smoking requires you to go and buy the product you’re self-medicating/habiting with. I didn’t have to go buy my fingers. Smoking causes secondhand smoke and makes other people sick. Nobody ever secondhand picked. Smoking destroys your lungs, teeth, throat, and heart. Trich just destroys your skin and makes you bald and patchy.
The argument that “it’s just a coping mechanism and therefore it’s, like, ableist to like tell people?? they’re gonna get cancer??” is absolutely fucking ridiculous. Something being a coping mechanism isn’t going to stop the consequences of your actions especially if the activity is harmful. Is my trich a coping mechanism? Yep. Did my body magically go “hey this is bad for us we shouldn’t do that Carrie’s going to magically stop bleeding now every time she digs into her face!!!” nO. Because that’s NOT HOW THIS WORKS