Safe, Sane, and Sexy

"... and researchers are not sure why" absolutely reads like they're completely shrugging and have absolutely no idea, but in the world of academia, everything has got to be stress-tested. Not just to question our beliefs, but to explore any number of contributing reasons to things. We absolutely have so much evidence through lived experience that this society puts systematic pressures on both men and women that traumatize them in different ways. We're all taught and reinforced the idea that women's bodies aren't theirs, in particular. Researchers aren't dumb. But we can't stop at that, because that doesn't tell us the whole story. In other to understand how to reshape society, we need to understand more and question more how we got here and what else there is to know. This doesn't mean "not listening to women", this means "understanding EVERY step of the process". That includes biology.

Here's the link to the article in question: https://cptsdfoundation.org/2022/01/18/the-connection-between-ptsd-and-the-menopausal-transition/

And here's the first paragraph:

"Even though there is an abundance of literature on PTSD, we lack a thorough understanding of the biological causes that explain why it is more than twice as prevalent in women than men. Women are also more likely to experience chronic PTSD for more than a year. Despite this, women have often been excluded from studies; variable hormonal cycles have been cited as a factor, but in recent years, new findings have shed light on how estrogen and hormonal cycles can influence PTSD.(1)"

While I'm unfamiliar with the greater literature of this field, what I infer is this: C-PTSD is a psychological effect of trauma. It's the job of research to figure out things like "how often is this a result of trauma?" "what can this look like?" "how does it vary?" "if not everyone seems to get it after trauma, why?" After asking questions like these, the statement "PTSD is twice as prevalent in women as in men and researchers are not sure why" could instead read as "women are psychologically and/or biologically affected by trauma differently than men and we don't think we know everything about it"

I don't know if I'm right. I'm very not informed on the field. But something tells me that academic meanings are lost in translation here.

Also, the end of that first paragraph? That implies that this research will actually help us understand how to include more experiences in research by controlling for factors we couldn't guarantee accurate results with before. This research may help us include more women.

It started with someone listing "places with uncanny energy," like gas stations on a road trip, empty movie theaters, etc.

Then someone reblogged it and said those are called "liminal spaces," defining liminal as in-between, neither one thing nor another.

Tomorrow (July 4th, 2026) is the 10 year anniversary of the-crepes-of-wrath's comment, which:

Predates the 2020 spike in interest by four years

Predates the original backrooms post, and the the creation of r/liminalspaces by three years

Predates the earliest mention that KnowYourMeme attributes to Twitter by two years

I'm pretty sure this is the moment the term "liminal spaces" was attached to this sort of imagery, and it's TEN YEARS OLD TOMORROW!

the-crepes-of-wrath did not invent the concept nor did they claim to! liminality was conceptualized by folklorists / anthropologists, initially to describe a three-part process of rites of passage. the wikipedia page goes into all kinds of contexts liminality has been applied in. unfortunately a lot of people do not know this & think "liminal" is just a word for "spooky or uncanny." a shame imo!

Good parents forgive this debt. Bad parents expect it to be repaid, one way or another. The accepted currencies are varied and cryptic and might be mostly innocuous or they might be horrifically criminal.

Many families don’t realize that there is a debt until the child defaults on it somehow. That could be for any reason—the child simply fails to deliver on the parental investment by not adequately being the child they paid for.