We’re publishing an original piece by Dr. Gary Sidley, a retired clinical psychologist with over 30 years’ experience working for the NHS and one of the founders of the Smile Free campaign, on the traumatic impact of mask mandates on victims of violence and sexual abuse. Here is an extract:
For those who have suffered traumatic events in the past, masks can escalate painful emotions in a number of ways. Victims of previous physical and/or sexual abuse that involved an assailant’s hand over their mouths can be particularly sensitive to the somatic sensations associated with the wearing of a face covering, the tactile feel of them typically evoking ‘flashbacks’ and the reliving of the assaults. If the violent perpetrator wore a mask, merely the sight of someone wearing one can trigger the same disturbing memories. Jenny describes her trauma-driven torment as follows:
“Mandated mask wearing has caused me numerous problems. I was sexually abused for years as a child where I was smothered and muffled, anything to stop me crying out. So mask wearing has been a trigger for me, both wearing and seeing people in masks… particularly children.
“Many weeks ago I went into a shop and was aggressively followed by a man who wore a mask under his nose! It was very intimidating and luckily my husband was with me and it did not escalate. Hence also my reluctance to go into shops. They give me a feeling of dread and depression and panic.”
Gary has included testimonies from half a dozen such people in his piece.
Worth reading in full.
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All mask wearers are the victims of abuse
We’re all being fucked by the government.
Indeed we are – including it seems the witless MPs spouting propaganda from notes (circulated by Whitty?) …but they surely have ‘perks’ to look forward to like ‘tea with Boris’?
Masks are political oppression and ‘sumission’ nothing more.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Not to belittle the other horrors of abuse many have suffered.
I’m not in this exact position myself but I have the same emotional reaction to seeing people in masks. Due to issues back in childhood, I rely on facial expressions to judge the emotions and intentions of others, ie whether they are a danger to me or not.
Of course I didn’t realise this until last year, when I ended up a quivering wreck in a shop. It’s utterly terrifying.
Sadly, the NHS refuses to recognise physical or mental exemptions at all, so much for Our caring NHS.
I have learned to cope as best I can and enjoyed the brief time I could go in shops and see maskless staff and customers. Back to online shopping again now.
There are some smaller supermarkets not insisting on a mask, just dont wear one and say you’re exempt if asked, I’ve never been asked. I feel the same about them, stay away from anyone with one on and avoid places if I can where they are worn, they make me feel physically sick to see them
The trouble is that it’s seeing others in them that is the biggest issue for me, so even though some small shops are not insisting, most people in them wear masks.
The other thing is that when you’re either trapped in the emotional moment or hyper aware that it could overwhelm you, you cannot talk or handle interactions. The smallest thing can push you over the edge into meltdown. So it’s best to avoid the experience altogether, if I can.
That the majority of humans are indifferent to facial expression is the most disturbing thing I’ve learnt these two years.
I’m not alone of course.
“The Masked” are now in a class of their own!
The Unmasked need to avoid them – they give out anxiety vibes and disturbing negative energy.
The “masked” look like morons from another world – no human recognition…. just those frightened eyes !
Just seeing fellow humans muzzled en masse makes me uneasy, at times near desperate.
I do not muzzle myself and have exemption badge and card in my pocket for occasions when confrontation is just tiresome.
Everyone should be aware that exemption in this country is, to date, entirely self assessed. If you are “seriously distressed” by putting a muzzle on your face, you are exempt.
Those faceless twathordes make me feel physically sick.
The thought of celebrating Christmas in a church full of faceless twats makes me want to scream and scream and scream. Until last year, I’d never missed a carol service or midnight mass.
So the intentions of the Evil Cabal of powerful people who devised this torture have been achieved – you illustrate what masks are really for!
They have isolated you, made you feel disturbed and denied you companionship and a sense of belonging and sharing – naked psychological warfare against the people in action!
Forcing pointless masks on the population is nothing whatever to do with an enhanced flu virus.
“The Masked” belong in a 50’s Horror B movie!
I have been to hospital outpatients a couple of times in the last 18 months. The reception staff have been aggressive when offering me a mask, one I declined saying very firmly “I’m exempt” and the other I accepted and put it in my pocket, both times they looked stunned but said nothing… Of course the spiky purple hair may have something to do with it or maybe the look that silences other peoples disruptive children in restaurants
Well done you! My experience has been the same, the people who should understand really don’t.
Infants are born with the ability to learn to see, but cannot actually “see” until the brain has made millions of connections to provide the ability to make sense of the images from their eyes. Every other ability develops in the same way, you need inputs to learn to do it. Like face recognition and interpretation of expressions. Mask wearing is buggering up millions of infants neural development. Once the brain has past a critical stage (I would hazard up to 2 to 4 years of age) it can no longer develop the skill. Lockdown and masks over 2 years has done for a huge cohort of infants and toddlers already.
I am sure that Gary Sidley is right.
But mask wearing in general is a physical and psychological distortion of normal social interaction that has no justification.
Oh come on, it’s only a mask! Said no one after reading that article.
Said every abuser in history, mutatis mutandis.
I have a story to tell, if anybody ever queries why I am ‘exempt’.
It would make anything by Stephen King seem like a toddler’s bedtime story.
I’ve never had to use it yet. I keep adding embellishments.
Copy may be sent under plain cover upon receipt of the appropriate (=large) fee.
This is developing more and more into The Stand.
I’m itching to give some mask wanker a really pornographic and traumatic story at the top of my lungs in the middle of a shop but the bastards won’t challenge me.
I have been challenged a few times and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to give a civil response. I just detest seeing shoppers with half their face obscured. I try to smile at people but don’t get any visible reaction.
I had a lovely lunch out today with two friends but I hated seeing them dutifully masking up when we left the pub to walk just a few yards to the exit. This whole charade will never end until people stop being so worried about disobeying the ‘rules’.
I discovered how enjoyable shopping was when wearing a mask made it intolerable.
I found visors instead, making it bearable but the purpose of masks is to make people eat shite and say it’s delicious.
This is a similar kind of covidian apologetics as used to incite rage about the Boris party.
In the grand picture of things, it does not matter that some unfortunate individuals are “triggered” by masks.
What matters is that mask mandates are an entirely useless measure from epidemiological standpoint, and are a political tool backed by fake science (lab experiments with no external validity) and celebrated by corrupt people able to make business deals related to it.
The fact that some people suffer in their own special way is just a distraction utilized by the woke pushers of the overall agenda – don’t fall for it. (The expected response of the regime will be to take “pity” and make mask exemptions only available to those certified by a psychiatrist – not to abandon masks.)
I agree. It’s similar to complaining that natural immunity via prior proven infection isn’t recognized for vaxx passes and mandates.
I know of an elderly person who has been largely unaware of the entire covid scamdemic – and that is because she has developed dementia around the period when it started.
Now she is about to enter the care system (with great reluctance on her part – but she is making life hell for her relatives, who are now themselves on the verge of mental collapse because of her increasing needs and [nightly] interactions).
Now, imagine that this person, who has survived WW2, will be subjected – for the first time in her long life – to compulsory mask wearing in the (expensive) care home, by some masked strangers. It’s not difficult to predict how well that will go and what effect it will have on her psyche.
You do not need to watch horror movies when you have reality designed for you by covidians.
I use the exemption but if pressed I give the reason that wearing a mask for any length of time can prompt a violent, uncontrolled sneezing fit that can last for 10-15 minutes. I then just say “your call”; that usually kills any objection.
I had a different type of experience which gave me a “genuine back story” should the police or courts have challenged my not wearing a mask.
When I was 10 I had to have an eye operation. In those days they gassed you to put you out. They were supposed to get you to breathe some of it from a tube near your nose until you got drowsy and then put the whole mask over your face for however long it took for you to be out.
What happened to me was that the staff were in a hurry, the hospital was “overwhelmed” (as I found out a few days later when I had to have a further operation to stitch up my eyeball which they had accidentally lacerated during the first operation – there wasn’t even room in the corridor for me post-op – but that’s another story) so, in brief, they didn’t bother to wait until I was drowsy but just put this huge black mask over my nose and mouth and, in effect, suffocated me. Of course they had to hold me down, as I was fighting for my life and I was a strong child. I can still remember the whole thing with clarity, I can remember that because I couldn’t physically resist anymore my last act before being suffocated was to put my hands together in prayer (because I was a Christian at the time). Then my vision went, so that everything went in a wavy line, multiplied (a bit like the old Dr Who) and then that was it. It was like being killed, it was the same process.
So no, I won’t wear a mask.
If I didn’t have this reason, I would probably have found another.
I just refuse. That’s it. Probably helps being well over six feet but much physically frailer people than me are braver.
This probably helps with avoiding to be challenged. On the other hand, it’s called a fight or flight reaction for a reason and it’s always possible (an not even difficult) to push the nervous stress outward in form of aggression (I’m 5’5″).
Very true. I find myself primed every time I enter a maskazoid zone.
I could have a story to tell here as well. But the mere thought of recollecting that in detail has left me sufficiently agitated that I rather drank two small Whiskeys instead.
NB: Someone who thinks this is odd is advised to get a copy of Sherlock Holmes and read it. They have brandy readily available in every household and always recourse to that to steady their nerves etc when they feel this is necessary.
And in John Buchan stories.
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I work in mental health and these kinds of stories are sadly very familiar to me. I work with several service users who are triggered by wearing a mask, often because of prior experiences of being strangled by their former abusers (often to the point of losing consciousness, patients terrified they would die and fearing for their children). Despite the “rules” we are supposed to follow in the NHS and apply to our patients, I have never told even one of my patients they have to wear a mask, and I have actively encouraged them to self-exempt when I’ve seen how uncomfortable they are wearing one, or if I can anticipate because of their trauma history that it would be triggering. Unfortunately I just see my colleagues doling out the masks, making service users sanitise their hands (this too can be highly triggering for some sexually abused people), sometimes wearing aprons and gloves treating the service user like they are some kind of disease vector (all prescribed by the senior managers). No understanding of the impact of prior trauma, and we as professionals can retraumatise our patients by applying unnecessary measures that are simply lacking in any evidence base (just so we can be seen as “doing something”). Of course the chief execs, nhs bodies, public health officials and government know all this, but simply don’t care. People are just numbers, and we are the problem. No wonder the nation’s mental health is in such a state.
don’t wear one then
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I, too work in mental health and have been working at home via phone and Teams (for attendance at ward rounds) for 20 months now. My employers are a small not-for-profit organisation commissioned to provide advocacy services to psychiatric patients.
I received a very unwelcome letter on 18th December, the Saturday prior to Christmas, informing me that I will need to have three clotshots by 1st April. This will mean that the first would need to be administered by 3rd February. I have heard enough from sceptic doctors and medical scientists (some of them of world renown) to know that the so-called vaccination is unsafe, unnecessary and ineffective. I have sent a six-page letter to my manager, giving copious quotes from said authorities and making it plain that there is no way that I am prepared to give up my bodily autonomy and risk injury or death for Big Pharma’s profits.
The same letter stated, quite unequivocally, that even after having three ‘jabs’, I will still need to wear a mask when on the ward. To me, this demonstrates a lunacy on the part of the powerful interests that require this which is on an altogether different level to that of the unfortunate detained patients I work with. You may well ask “What the (blank) is this for?” in as moderate a tone as you can muster. For me it is as plain as the light of day that they KNOW the clotshots don’t work. and they KNOW the masks don’t work. It’s all about obedience training. This is something that is usually done with dogs, and I want them to know that I am a thinking human being, not their bloody dog. It is really good to know that masks are often retraumatising to those who have suffered abuse as many of the clients I see on the ward have this as part of their history. All I am told is thats some patients do not like to engage with people over Teams. There may be some truth in this, but my guess would be that it is far, far more common for people with acute mental distress to react negatively to professionals in masks. Unfortunately ALL the doctors and nurses on the ward wear them (as they are mandated to do). So like helen f, I do wonder what effect this will have on the short- and long-term mental health of those they treat.
But what do I know?
Hoping to be able to carry on with my job in the face of the NHS vaccine mandate.