cherapple

It's been frustrating trying to find people in the area who are interested in talking anything more than academic and conceptual philosophy. I had eight members in my FDR meetup group, but only four of us went to any meetings, and never all at once. We met at various cafes and restaurants around Schenectady -- such as Tesoros Cafe, Villa Italia, Happy Cappuccino, and Arthur's Market. I have no connections to Union. I graduated from Binghamton University (twenty-four years ago!). What about you? Have you always lived in the Stockade area? I'll PM you a link to the Bitcoin meetup. I guess new members can't use the PM feature. Here's the link to the Bitcoin meetup next weekend: http://www.meetup.com/Capital-Region-Bitcoin-Meetup/events/219828432/ We have a fun event planned, but may hold it only if we get more interest, so if you join and RSVP, it would help the organizers make their decision. I look forward to meeting you, if you decide to come.

I thought it was a long shot to ask, but I am within walking distance of the Stockade. I live a couple blocks from Union. I had a small FDR Meetup group going for about six months, but I let it go when I didn't get the kind of interest I was looking for, figuring I could always start it up again if things changed. I am active in the Capital Region Bitcoin Meetup group, where some know of FDR. One member had joined my FDR group, but then he moved away. Another from the former FDR group recently joined the Bitcoin group, so there is some crossover. If you are looking for in-person meetups, I invite you to the Bitcoin group. Even if you aren't into Bitcoin, you may be able to have some philosophical discussions there. I'm among a handful of regulars, but the group does suffer from low activity, as well, however. There's supposed to be a meeting in Saratoga next weekend on the 14th.

This is going to sound like an advertisement, but I'm excited! I've been wanting this for years: a way to listen to Freedomain Radio YouTube videos -- especially the ones that aren't made into podcasts -- on my phone while using other apps, or with my phone screen turned off. Now I've found a way -- with the Wiper app. Wiper is a messaging app sort of like Snapchat. It allows you to erase text messages, as well as make and erase voice calls. The most exciting feature, to me, though, is that it also allows you to listen to and share YouTube videos (and erase the shares). It could be a good way to share favorite FDR videos with another person. This is my new music player. It comes with YouTube music playlists. Best of all, you can use other apps and turn your phone's screen off and keep listening, a function that YouTube itself doesn't allow. It doesn't save your place, or download onto the phone for offline listening, like a podcast app would. But I can now save FDR YouTube videos in a favorites list, and listen to them like podcasts while doing other things. Before, if a video wasn't made into a podcast, most of the time I would skip it rather than watch the video. Now I have more options for listening. It's a small thing, but others here may appreciate it, too. (Wiper also recently added a Bitcoin wallet with a function that allows you to erase transactions. Of course, you can't erase them from the Blockchain, but supposedly you can erase them from your phone. The app isn't open source, so use at your own risk. The Bitcoin wallet also has some bugs, in my experience.)

From Schenectady, welcome to the forums and to finding what you've been searching for. Where in upstate do you live? Cheryl

It makes perfect sense that you wouldn't know how to trust yourself, since your parents blew up any chance of you experiencing trust. You have already done way more than they probably ever have done by admitting it and talking about how you feel. Can you trust yourself to continue to make that small step? For me, it's been one small step at a time, feeling for solid ground with cautious toes, until I realized that I could trust that the ground wasn't going to be shaken out from under me anymore. I began to trust myself to feel the ground, stand on it, and walk with some confidence. After a while, you start to tell in whose company you feel steady and in whose you feel unsteady. You learn to say fuck the people who seek to gain false confidence by breaking your sense of self-trust. You will know who they are, and you will know who you are.

What kinds of decisions did your parents make when you were growing up? Were they trustworthy? If not, there was no way for you to learn to trust yourself and make good decisions. If so, then somehow they failed to teach you what they knew. I would argue it wouldn't be possible for them to be good at making decisions, and for you to be bad at it. Either way, they failed. Also, if you don't identify the fault, you will repeat it. You will later tell your own children to "get over" your mistakes, rather than listen to them, talk to them, and help them not repeat them. There's no way around it: You can't heal from the past without looking at it.

Don't think of knowledge as a new drug. Think of it as spending your life in a desert and then coming across an oasis of water. You've been dying of thirst your whole life. It's only natural that you would want to drink as much as you can.

How interesting that you posted this today, Kevin, and I came across it tonight. You even tagged me. Unfortunately, nothing in the system notifies me. I was just talking to my coach today (I've transitioned from therapist to a coach, in order to do something different) about having thirty journals. I have the intellectual part of self-knowledge down, but I still have work to do in the area of applying it. I have done a small amount of audio journaling, mostly while driving in my car. I think it's time to do more, to hear my voice (as RJ points out) in the moment. I've experienced plenty of my handwritten voice(s) on paper, which can be such an isolated format of self-expression. No one sees my journals except me, but people hear my voice every day, and I'm still uncomfortable speaking it at times. What a better way to increase my comfort with my voice than to use it directly with myself every day, or even when I wake with insomnia in the middle of the night. The more I think about making this change, the more good reasons I can think of to do it: The practice of hand-journaling was begun by the sad part of me that wasn't heard, but that hoped "someday" someone might read my journals and "hear" me, after I'm gone. :-( Writing and amassing thirty handwritten journals was a "proof of existence," a need which came from not being allowed to exist — but it was a paper existence. Handwritten journals are still somewhat of an isolated existence. No one else reads them. I can write and stay in my head. The more I hear myself in spoken voice, the less dependent I become on others to hear my voice. The more I hear my voice, the less scared I become to hear myself. (The fear I feel of my own voice really belongs to others.) Writing is a physical experience; some call it a flowing, meditative motion. (I don't like typing for long periods — the frozen feeling of my fingers being glued to a keyboard, my eyes staring straight ahead at a screen, into a bright light.) But speaking — that involves even more body presence. I could do it while walking, dancing, lifting weights, between sprints, doing housework, or lying in the dark — many more options than sitting to write. The more I hear my voice, the more I gain a literal and physical understanding that "it's opposite land now." I don't have to be quiet anymore. I don't have to hide who I am. There is no danger in speaking. There is no danger in existing — not with myself. I've made huge strides in recent years, but I think voice journaling may take me to another level, just when I am ready for it. I'm going to start tonight. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences, Kevin, at a serendipitous time for me. I'd like to hear more about how it goes for you and others, and I'll update with my experiences after I've been at it for a while. Cheryl

It is like an addictive drug to get caught up in Simon the Boxer behaviors, so don't beat yourself up. Just respond with curiosity. Which you are doing, and that's great. Another good question: What is your fear will happen when you do engage in the behaviors? I find it helpful to look at both sides of the coin.

I think TheRobin asks a good question. I am wondering: How many people do you have in your life with whom you can have productive conversations?

I'm in New York, and the regulations have put a damper on my Bitcoin enthusiasm. Apparently, it only applies to exchanges and doesn't affect merchants. The people in my Bitcoin meetup group responded to my fears by saying that this is not bad news because "merchants will feel better knowing that Coinbase and Bitpay are following these regulations." The hubris of people trying to enforce regulations like this is sickening. It shows more than ever how much state sociopaths think they own the right to take and destroy the value of things they did not create. And how much an even greater number of people will agree, and they'll hand over their identities and their bitcoins and call the theft "good." It is not a surprise, but that doesn't make it less revolting. That's like saying you don't understand people feeling anger about abuse because children are hostage to abusive parents everywhere. Kevin, your anger is perfectly rational.

What strikes me is the distance. She didn't respond specifically or curiously to anything you said. "I'm sorry you feel this (strange) way and I hope you get to a place (over there) where you feel better.... You might consider talking to your therapist (but not to me)." Is she calling you a narcissist? "(I) won't ever change." The "you might want to read what I'm reading" part is angering on several levels.

I'm so sorry for what you went through. I hope your mother responds with some level of curiosity and that you are finding people you can talk to about your experiences past and present. I can identify with having a mother who brings horrible people into your life, and what that does to your ability to empathize with yourself later in life. Cheryl

Hi Jim, We have started a meetup in the Capital Region. We hope you'll join us to talk about peaceful parenting and the psychological explorations that you mention being of interest to you. http://www.meetup.com/Freedomain-Radio/Schenectady-NY/ Cheryl

I'm so sorry, Brook. I didn't receive notification of your post, and I just came back and found it now. The Capital Region Bitcoin Meetup is here: http://www.meetup.com/Capital-Region-Bitcoin-Meetup/ The Schenectady Freedomain Radio Meetup is here: http://www.meetup.com/Freedomain-Radio/Schenectady-NY/ There are only two of us in the FDR meetup and we'd like to grow throughout the Capital Region. I hope you'll join us! Cheryl

In my unscientific opinion, willingness and openness to discussion are signs of intelligence. Attacking, shaming, blaming, ridiculing, shutting down, withdrawing, etc., are not. It doesn't matter what a person's IQ is, nor the fact that their approach is caused by trauma. If they are too afraid of intelligence to use it kindly, then their intelligence is effectively worse than useless. That's not to say we shouldn't have empathy or sympathy for such people—they attack because they were attacked—but I want to see people expressing their intelligence through a conscious choice to learn kindness. This may be one of the main differences between an "FDR member" with a bad childhood and a "non-FDR member": the decision and choice to learn behaviors that oppose the abuse that we were taught.

The other intelligent option is to ask questions in order to find out whether your assertions about someone are correct: "What is your intent here? I'm understanding it in a malicious way, but you may not mean it that way. You have a high positive reputation, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, rather than make assumptions or accusations. You might have some value to offer me, and I'd like to find out. Let's talk about it. I'd like to hear more about your experiences of our interaction." Etc.

It would mean compliments and good treatment were always possible and they chose to abuse instead.

I didn't see before how feminist question #7 of the ACE test is. At least the rest of the questions leave room for either a male or the female to be the perpetrator. I just took the test again, and due to a memory that my father recently sent me of repeatedly treating me sadistically when I was about one year old—deliberately setting me up for situations in which he could slap me until I cried—because I "had to fear him in case I ever ran into the road"—I can raise my score form a seven to a nine. The only question I cannot answer yes to is the last one: Did an adult in my life go to jail or prison? I did fear it, however, which counts almost as much as it actually happening. "I don't know" how I maintained any amount of empathy toward myself, or my own children, except that my stepmother was an attachment parent of my three half siblings, so while I didn't experience attachment parenting myself—quite the opposite—I did as a teenager witness it being given to my half siblings, and I watched and internalized the behavior as something that I wanted to both experience and to give. She didn't come into my life until I was 12, however, and she didn't offer empathy to me, so I have to think there must have been an empathetic person in my life at some point before then. There has been some value in engaging with my father, even if the "best" that he does is display his dissociated personality again and send me sadistic memories. I understand better what I experienced in the early years that I cannot mentally remember, but which my body has "remembered" in the form of intense anxiety ever since.

Do share your twitter name and I'll RT from @cherapple. Found you @avocadogreta.

Age 40 for me, and I was looking -- through copious reading, writing, journaling, and many attempts at therapy. It wasn't until FDR that I was able to gain any real traction in healing myself and find people who could, or would, help (rather than do the complete opposite, and hinder). You are not alone in the late-in-life start. Another thing: I work to remain aware of applying the "unfortunately" to myself (if you're doing that here), but instead look to the constant onslaught of people around me who fought (ignored, attacked, resisted) my attempts to speak honestly, grow, heal, and support myself emotionally. Wesley and Kevin, I was feeling defensiveness in my response to Wesley, so my feelings may have triggered similar in you. I still feel anger, going back and reading what I wrote. I'm not sure why, but I wanted to acknowledge that the "blush" wasn't all yours. Anger is the most difficult and foggy emotion to understand, sometimes taking days, weeks, months for the ah-ha moment to hit. Helping and helplessness are also huge themes for me. Thanks for sharing your responses. I'm still sitting on this one, and not wanting to respond again out of emotional reaction.

Hey, Kevin. I'm sorry, I don't see where we differ?

The goal is to understand the reality that we can't change people. That's the very reality that what was so painful about our childhoods -- the fact that we couldn't escape people who didn't want to change, and we couldn't find people who did. FDR is not supposed to be a safe place for people who resist change. It's for those who are already want it and are already doing it. The only way to find those people is to be beacons of change ourselves -- so that other self-lit beacons will recognize us and find us.

I'm wondering why you're focusing on changing other people. Is there a fear, if other people choose not to change?

"Life's a buffet and you pay every day. You take what you want and you pay for it." (1143) "If they can dodge the ball, then they can see the ball. Even if they say they can't." (1814) "Philosophy leaped over your crib and bitch-slapped you." (1172) "Stop trying to manage yourself and listen. Relax into the certainty.... Stop thinking and start feeling. Relax into yourself like a hammock." (1172)