To be more clear, I don’t know that she has a diagnosis of PTSD. As you know, I’m not a mental health professional. It’s just something I’ve noticed.

Many of the most ardent and prolific feminist writers have been raped or sexually assaulted. That’s why they took up the cause in the first place. They don’t want what happened to them to happen to someone else. The ones who tend toward reactionary combative rhetoric ... it’s like they’ve never been able to restore their personhood. The societal gaslighting rape and sexual assault survivors ensure after assault really does a number on victims.

There’s a reason why so many rape survivors become suicidal. It’s like the assault never ends. And society’s response is telling them that it could and will happen again at any time and they will be blamed and shamed and ostracized for it. That’s a terrible burden to bear.

Living under that... what else would you call it but PTSD? When everyone is either an enemy who is going to hurt you, maybe kill you, and no one else will provide you safety? They’re either going to stand idly by and watch our they’re going to peck you to death for being "attractive to predators" which disrupts the peace of the flock. You see the same behavior in some birds and rodents. How is that different from the trauma stress of living too long in a constant state of fear in a war zone? Your life becomes a war zone of it’s own.

So no, you can’t argue with her because she’s not there to argue for the joy of a good argument or to hone her debate skills or develop a style. She’s still fighting for her life and to be accepted back into the flock in her mind. She sees you as someone willing to peck her in order to save themselves or just not have to acknowledge what happened to her.

And yes, I do have some personal experience with this but I was able to respond to my assault at the time (I broke his nose—maybe, it was swollen and he had two black eyes), I was not raped, and I was able to restore my own rights to personhood fairly quickly once the gaslighting began.

And yet still... it stays with you forever. It does. I would be turned on again if the flock knew how I restored my own sense of safety. Gotta love the irony.