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i appreciate you taking the time to read I'm glad you liked it! I think you're incredibly brave and that's a very noble goal to strive for! Thank you for reading Thanks, Rose. I'm glad you liked the article. I don't have enough knowledge to answer your question. Lloyd Demause makes a compelling argument for why boys need more love and affection for neurobiological reasons. http://psychohistory.com/books/the-origins-of-war-in-child-abuse/chapter-2-why-males-are-more-violent/ Thank you for reading and sharing! You're post has definitely given me a lot to think about!

Thank you so much! I'm glad it was valuable to you Thank you for reading I'm glad to hear that! Thank you

Originally posted on Medium! Enjoy! As long as we stay around corrupt, abusive, and nasty people who overtly attack us, implicitly humiliate us through clever language tricks, or invalidate us subliminally through a sudden but brief look of contempt that immediately follows earnest proclamations that attempt to convince us they “understand where we’re coming from”, our entire emotional apparatus will remain compromised. So long as we remain in the presence of toxic people, our emotions will remain toxic through overstimulation; guilt becomes toxic shame, humiliation becomes chronic irritation, fear becomes hypervigilance and paranoia, while anger festers into murderous rage. Let’s have a more detailed look at anger as an example. Emotions are just another kind of information; information in the form of energy and the information that is being communicated through anger is that, not only has there been a violation or a transgression against you, but also that something needs to change, hence the energy which is designed to propel you into action. For instance, if you feel angry after being insulted by a bully, your anger is saying “get away from this person” or “remove yourself from the interaction”. But what happens when we cannot remove ourselves from the interaction? What happens if we are children, have no control over our environment and can’t escape because the bullies in our lives are our parents? Or, what happens even when we can control our environment and leave, but for whatever reason mistakenly believe that we can’t? Well, it is likely then that the anger will turn into rage. The difference between anger and rage is that while anger carries the message, “take control of your behavior and change things by leaving the dysfunctional environment”, rage says, “since we can’t remove ourselves from the environment let’s change things by controlling the other person” or, more simply put, by fighting back. This is why rage is often coupled with violent impulses to inflict physical or psychological damage on the other person. Again, it is designed to propel us into taking action that will change something. But what if we can neither fight nor flee from an abuser, as is almost always the case for children? What happens when we can’t run or when any attempt to fight results in greater harm for us? What happens when feeling these emotions become dangerous for us? The answer is that we end up feeling nothing. We become depressed. We enter the ‘freeze’ response similar to what we would enter into in the presence of a grizzly bear, a beast that we can neither fight nor run from; we play dead. Now, to be clear, it is terribly tragic for a child to ever have to enter into this response as a result of being raised by hostile parents, but at the same time it is totally healthy and necessary for preventing the child from further harm. It is unnecessary when this occurs for an adult who does indeed have the choice to get abusive people out of his life. Once we escape the corrupt and commit ourselves to healing, we slowly but surely can heal our emotional apparatus. And once we are safe to feel again, we gain access to our emotions like anger and grow confidence in our ability to process reality and self trust that our emotions accurately reflect reality. Eventually, people’s sneaky and crazy making attempts to undermine us and blame us for our feelings becomes extremely obvious and pathetic. We become our own proof.

That's very kind of you to say, thanks! I forgot I even posted this here haha. I can also relate to everything you said. The resentment, getting this message to not be "shy" or "introverted", in other words be entertaining, and the deep mark from trying to make sense out of randomness. Thank you for reading!

Hey! Great question. Well, there's certainly a lot of reason's why you could be feeling guilty and there are certainly costs and benefits to either decision. First, I want to share this interview with of Martin Miller (Alice's son) speaking about his mother. I have read TDOTGC, FYOG, and TBNL, and thought they were all fantastic. She has had an incredible impact of the way I think and how I introspect. So, it was with much disappointment that I discovered that, at least according to her own son, that she was not that great of a mom and did not live with integrity in her personal life. http://www.contemporarypsychotherapy.org/volume-7-no-1-summer-2015/interview-martin-miller/ In other words, I think it's a good idea that you haven't followed in her footsteps completely!

Consistency: The Physics of Relationships Just as the consistent behavior of matter and energy creates security in our relationship with the physical world by allowing us to connect cause and effect and thus, accurately navigate through and avoid danger in our environment, so too does consistency in personal relationships create security. Because of this, without consistency from our partner or from our friends, we forever remain in a perpetual state of unease just as if we were experiencing a mushroom induced nightmare wherein you could never be sure that your next step would land firmly on solid ground or that the floor would vanish, leaving you spinning helpless in free fall. Imagine trying to play a sport like basketball and all of a sudden the ball hits the goal only to vanish and then reappear above you and fall on your head. You would be stunned at what had just happened, fearing you might be going insane. Now, questioning your sanity, you pick the ball up and throw it at the goal again, but this time it actually lands in the net and everything’s seemingly back to normal. In addition, nothing changes for an entire week until suddenly as you’re on a walk the ground exerts a force that trips you, which causes you to fall and creates painful bruises. Soon, you begin to fear movement itself because you are never sure when, how, or why physics abruptly change consistency. In order to alleviate this anxiety, you begin testing different theories you have as to what might be causing these anomalies by changing your behavior. You start asking yourself, “Maybe it has something to do with me playing basketball or walking to slow or running too fast?”, but this is to no avail. No matter what you do, it seems there is no escape and soon, you become paralyzed. This is the sort of terrifying nightmare world which abusers create for their partners through inconsistent behavior; a world wherein you can never be sure what the next day will hold in store for your mental health. This is why mean people are never mean all the time, because that you can predict that. This is why “niceness” is essential for any kind of prolonged abuse to work, because the abuser want’s you around and want you to think that it’s your fault and that there is something you can change that will effect his behavior. Consistency is the physics of a relationship; it is predictability and security. Without it, there is only tyranny. P.S. Thank you once again for taking the time and reading my article. You could have chosen to read anything over the past few minutes, but you chose to read this. That means a lot. If this was valuable, all I ask for is that you please like, comment, share, or recommend the article. Also, I hugely appreciate donation through pay pal ([email protected]) or Bitcoin donations, which I find truly helpful and motivating 1ALYYHuvAUjjsXLHJRyCxGQ5E9rDoDVpx4 If you liked this article you might also like this one called, “Narcissistic Supply: Emotional Vampirism as a Symptom of Unmet Childhood Needs https://medium.com/@joelpatterson_52315

"Minorities have fewer opportunities to express prejudice against whites" When I hear people who claim to be concerned about discrimination against minorities, I can't help but wonder why I never hear them consider Atheists. Studies have shown that Atheists are the most hated and feared minority. http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistbigotryprejudice/a/AtheitsHated.htm Could it be because the majority of atheists are white males and that wouldn't go against the lefty race bating narrative that white males can't experience discrimination? http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise-demographics/#race-and-ethnicity "Black Prejudice Does Not Affect the Rights of White people" I guess not unless you're an atheist!

On medium this, to my great surprise, has become my most successful article yet, being my most viewed (767) piece with the largest read ratio(595 reads) of 78%. I shared this article in only two narcissistic abuse facebook groups before I went to bed around midnight and only 6 hours later both posts have gathered over 20 likes and much praise. And the thing is, this is one of the simplest things I've written. A piece which my inner critic usually opposes by telling me the next piece has to be a dazzling display of my analytical capacities being pushed to the max, with research and sweeping rhetoric. The lesson? Empiricism is the way to go. You just don't know if that thought you're having is boring or not until you share things. The “Narcissistic Dull” Much has been written about narcissists, in great length and in great detail. Such work has even spawned the invention of new terms and lingo to better describe characteristics that are typically displayed by narcissists as well as to establish a clear distinction between a behavior when its exhibited by a narcissist versus someone like you or me. For example, there’s rage and then there’s “Narcissistic Rage.” Anybody who’s encountered such fury will know that there’s a clear difference between the two. For example, I rage sometimes, like when I yell at electronics that aren’t working the way I want them to. However, it’s totally a guilty indulgence for me and something that if you happened to witness on accident, I’d feel pretty embarrassed about it and would be keen on persuading you that it’s not something I do a lot or think is ideal. When a Narcissist rages she feels no such shame. She does not consider the boundaries of others nor how her screaming tirades impacts those around her and if she does, she feels self righteous and that the abuse is justified. Even if she’s aware of how immature and mean her behavior is, she does not care. If anything, she feeds off the thrill of power and feeling of omnipotence she gets from provoking fear in others. However, there is one such characteristic that I’ve encountered repeatedly in narcissists I’ve interacted with that I don’t think I’ve ever read about, which is that they are so often incredibly, painfully boring. I’d like to introduce my own term by calling it the “Narcissistic Dull”. Think about what makes a conversation enjoyable. For me, it is when the other person brings curiosity into the interaction, is truly interested in what I have to say, listens and asks questions. This is what helps to keep me engaged. But, despite the narcissist’s wit and charm, that flashy novelty wears off during conversation because they never ask you anything, don’t listen, they never are interested in you and they just go on and on and on about themselves. And because they (wrongly) think that they are interesting, they won’t neglect to mention the tiniest details. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to listen to my mom say while we’re at Subway, “You see, I’ve never really liked bread. If I eat it, I like it burnt.” Sure, anyone can be dull, but if what I’m saying is a little boring to a friend, we can express ourselves and find a way to make the conversation fun again. When the narcissist is dull, she is extremely dull, doesn’t notice how bored you are or does notice, in which case she doesn’t care about your experience in the conversation and if so so happen to make your experience known, she will not take kindly to receiving any kind of feedback that isn’t what she wants to hear.

ohhh, okay. Thanks, Mike!

Hey, I was watching an FDR presentation, I forgot which one, but it was one of the ones from 2013 wherein at the end of the video it showed three recommended videos. One of them was called "The True Cycle of Violence" It looked interesting, I searched for it, but it wouldn't show up from the official channel. Only other channels had it uploaded. I then noticed that it was unlisted. I thought this was strange since it wouldn't be listed since it's an incredibly important video and I looked in the Donator files and didn't see it there, so I thought, "Maybe it's a mistake?" Maybe it's not a mistake, I just wanted to bring this to ya'lls attention just in case.

From a Youtube Presentation entitled, “The True Cycle of Violence” From Stefan Molyneux. Includes presentation facts and Stefan’s commentary in quotations. Child Abuse -Biological mothers are 3 times more likely to commit abuse against a child than a biological father “Now, I know what you’re going to say. I know what you’re saying to yourself already. What you’re saying to yourself is, ‘Well, of course mothers abuse children more! That’s because That’s because mothers spend a lot more time with children.’ That is exactly what I am arguing against in this presentation; that knee-jerk reaction to making excuses for women. This is important. Whenever the statistics of violence point towards women, the first thing we instinctively do is invent excuses for them. ‘Well, because of this!’ or whenever I was reading about the statistics of women in prison, ‘Well, a lot of these women were abused as children’ Right! And a lot of the men, most of men in prison were abused as children, but we don’t hear that So, as soon as we come across anything which points the finger of responsibility of aggression, of violence towards women we immediately want to make up excuses. That is incredibly sexist. I don’t want that kind of world for my daughter to grow up in. I don’t want her to get a free pass because she’s a woman. I want her to get as much moral responsibility as we place on men. We have to start making excuses for men to match the excuses for women or we have to start imposing the same thing on women that we impose on men. But, we just have this incredibly sexist and condescending paternalistic response to female immorality, which is to make excuses, to take away their moral authority, their moral responsibility, I won’t do that! I have too much respect for women, to hold them to a lower standard- that soft bigotry of low expectations. Maternal Abuse - A British retrospective prevalence study of 2,869 young adults aged 18-24 found that mothers were more likely than fathers to be responsible for physical abuse (49% of incidents compared to 40%) - In a large representative study that examined the characteristics of perpetrators in substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect in the United States, neglect was the main type of abuse in 66% of cases involving a female caregiver, compared to 36% of cases involving a male caregiver. “So, almost twice as likely to neglect, which in many ways is the worst abuse.” - In a study comparing male and female perpetrated child sexual abuse using data from the 1998 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, 10.7% of of child sexual abuse incidents were found to be perpetrated by females, McCloskey and Raphael (2005) argued that female perpetrators of child sexual abuse could be much higher as many cases go under-reported. - Approximately 40% of child victims were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 18.3% were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 18.3% were maltreated by their fathers alone; 17.3% were abused by both parents. “So, of course you say, ‘ Well! The mothers are stressed and the mothers are not getting enough support…’ But, this is not what we say about men who abuse their children. Do we say, ‘Well, the men are stressed, the men are not getting enough support’ You see, this incredibly condescending attitude that we have towards women, I wanna treat women as equal to men, which means calling them out when they are violating foundational moral rules.” Spanking - More than 90% of parents of toddlers say they have spanked their child at least once. - About 61% of mothers of 3- to 5-year-olds had spanked their child in the past week. - Boys are much more likely to be spanked than girls “So, let’s talk about this. What’s the thesis here? The thesis is that we have a cycle of violence. A report came about recently, tragic, that 1 in 3 women in the world are victims of domestic violence. Why is it that men have such aggression towards women? Hmm, could it be that men as boys were hit very hard, very repeatedly by their mothers and grow up with a lot of aggression towards women as a blow back? It’s a possibility, let’s at least be open minded enough and responsible enough to the future to look at it as a possible thesis. I will continue to make it in the presentation” - Spanking can continue into adolescent years. In places in the U.S. at least 40% of those in High School are still being spanked. - People in rural areas and in the American South are more likely to spank - Mothers spank children far more often than Fathers do. “Very important. Do early childhood experiences of being hit, do they have an effect in how we grow up in terms of aggression and our perception of the opposite gender if the opposite gender is hitting us the most? Of course it does. Is this ever talked about in the cycle of violence? No.” - Economic status of a family makes no difference in the odds of spanking. “I’ve heard differing reports on this, so take that with a grain of salt. ” - African American parents are more likely than white parents to use corporal punishment. “This is something I’ve never understood about the black community. Why do you continue to let the white man’s God justify you hitting your lovely black children? It makes no sense to me. I mean if you really want to be free of the white man get rid of ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’. “ - Conservative Protestants are more likely to use corporal punishment than parents with other religious affiliation. “Religious fundamentalists are more likely to spank or hit children than other belief systems.” - Parents who value positive reinforcement tend to view spanking as inappropriate. “It’s not inappropriate. It’s immoral.” Maternal Spanking - In India, only 22% of fathers spank their kids, while 78% of mothers do. “Again this is self reporting and we would assume that it;s probably higher. I could imagine more mother’s say that that don’t spank when they actually do, rather than say, ‘Well, I do spank’ when they don’t. ’” - A 2011 study in Child and Youth Services Review published an article indicating that the percentage of mothers who spank their child increased with age: 15 percent did so at 12 months, 40 percent at 18 months, and 50 percent at 20 months. “Can I just say something here? I can’t believe it’s the 21st century and this still needs to be said to at least half of the women who who are taking care of babies, uh, moms, could you please stop hitting your babies? I find it astounding that this needs to be said at this point in human history. Moms, can you please, please, pleease stop hitting your babies. Because remember, power disparities are a bad thing. So, a husband who beats his dependant wife is doing bad because he has more power, but you as an adult wife have infinitely more power than a baby does. So, if power disparities mean that you have to have greater moral sensitivities. And there’s no greater power disparity in that between a parent and a baby, then perhaps you can listen to your own complaints about man and stop hitting your babies? Would that at least be something you could perhaps consider? Because we are going to have to live in the world wherein these catch and release babies grow up into being. ” - Fathers who were spanked as children are less likely to spank their own children than mothers who were spanked while young, according to a U.S. study. - Mother who were spanked when they were young are actually much more likely than father who were spanked when they were young to continue to hit their own children. “So, Dad’s learn. Mom’s repeat...” - Second generation mothers who were spanked at least once a week were found to be nearly as half as likely to spank their own children compared to mothers who weren’t spanked. - Fathers spanked as children were less likely to spank their own children. - The study found only 28% of the second generation of fathers reported spanking their children compared to 43% of mothers. “The second generation is ‘I was spanked, therefore..’ ” “So, moms are hanging on to this spanking like grim death and I repeat, for the sake of peace in the world and the future and the stability of your relationship with your children when they’re growing up, um, please stop hitting your babies. Would you maybe put that on the list of things to get done this week?” Spanking Effects “I’ve done a whole presentation, I’ll link you to this, on the effects of spanking, but this is since the post war period, the statistics, the research- all relentlessly the same that spanking is destructive to the children. Moms freak out about BPA and baby bottles and then will just continue to hit their babies. ” - ‘When one trains parents to stop using corporal punishment and use other techniques, child aggression decreases. We’ve seen that for 30 years’- Alan Kazdin, a professor of psychology and child psychiatry at Yale University’s Child Study Center “But, don’t listen to Dr. Kazdin! What you want to do is listen to your grandmother who spanked and don’t listen to the facts because I’m sure you still use her gramophone and type writer as well. ” - Researchers examined data from more than 34,000 adults and found that being spanked significantly increased the risk of developing mental health issues as adults. - According to their results, corporal punishment is associated with mood disorders, including depression and anxiety as well as personality disorders and alcohol and drug abuse. “I mean, we know that wives who are beaten get depressed, but somehow we think that children who are hit don’t” - According to their results, corporal punishment is associated with mood disorders, including depression and anxiety, as well as personality disorders and alcohol and drug abuse. - The study reports that spanking ups the risk of major depression by 41%, alcohol and drug abuse by 59%, and mania by 93%, among finding others. “See, you know how many american kids are being drugged for being manic? Uh, well, it;s many more boys. Do boys get hit more than girls? Yes. Is there a relationship with this? Of course there is. If you hit your boys, they grow up kind of manic and then you get to add drugs into their system, which cause permanent brain damage, suicidality, homicidal rages, Toprol weight gains. The things we are doing tp our children the future will not understand how we can have any sentimentality about our kids when we treat them this way.” Maternal Spanking -94% of 3- and 4-year-olds have been spanked at least once during the past year, according to one study. - 74% of mothers believe spanking is acceptable for kids ages 1 to 3, says another study. “There’s no such thing as a one-year-old kid, that is a baby. So, the baby is still probably trying to figure out how to walk with some kind of stability, but SMACKING them is by far the best way to teach them how to do the right thing. I mean, this is sadistic, this is sick. Women, what are thinking?” - 61% of parents condone spanking as a “regular form of punishment” for young children, according to a different study. - Various factors increase the likelihood, including geographical location (children in the south are spanked the most), family income (less money means more spanking), race (African-American spank their children more than any other ethnic groups), and religion (parents more fundamentalist in their religious beliefs spank more so than those who are less so.)

I think you've already said a lot of what I'm about to sayind, but this is my take. He's relying on the validity of the senses, (your ability to hear that what he's saying and see that he's standing in front of you) to communicate to you that the senses are invalid. Because the proposition that "the senses are invalid" relies on the validity of senses such as sight and hearing, the proposition that "the senses are invalid" self detonates. Because is assuming the opposite of what he is arguing and thus, disproving himself. You needn't lift a finger and make any arguments further. It's literally like saying the mailman putting an letter in your mailbox that says, "mail never gets delivered." You could respond, "Well, if the senses are not valid, I can't be sure that you really aren't talking about a donkey living in your armpit!"

Thank you for taking the time to read and share your thoughts. I'm sorry to hear about our loss.

I'm been experiencing much grief lately and today, as a result of writing, I was able to really get in touch with these feelings of heartbreak and loss. I wanted to share the writing here in the hopes that maybe it would be valuable to others. It's been a while since I've posted anything personal. "There are few things that leave such a ghastly impression on the mind as witnessing the slow mental deterioration of those around you. To see the repetitive routines of distraction and avoidance eventually harden around the lives of those you care about, like amber around a mosquito, until the personality once full of hope and promise is completely rendered into an inert state, is like experiencing the loss of death, over and over again. The only difference is that, while there is some closure that comes with a physical death in knowing that the person that once was will never return, as a child there is no such relief when a person has deceased on the inside as their physical presence only serves to haunt, like the translucent ghost of someone dear that can never be fully embraced, with the tortuous hope that they will one day return and hug back. My father became more and more withdrawn as family stressors increased. Like narcissus who stared into the water at his reflection until he drowned, my father stared into the television set to drown out the noise, only to the effect of easing himself. My mother became more anxious and as a result would chatter and talk out loud and laugh hysterically throughout the house like the Joker to the point that I started walking in the house with head phones. My sister eventually went to rehab to achieve sobriety from pills only to get out to start taking harmful pharmacutical drugs. Not to mention many friends who become harder and harder to connect with the more they smoked weed.

Thanks for sharing this!

Impaired Cognitive Empathy in Bipolar Disorder and in Patients with Ventromedial Prefrontal Lesions Cognitive empathy, or the ability to take another person's perspective, is closely related to (or even synonymous with)theory of mind, ...the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own. On the other hand, emotional or affective empathy is "emotional contagion" - the ability to mirror an emotional response observed in another person and to experience it vicariously. Dr. Simone Shamay-Tsoory and colleagues (2009a) have developed a model that distinguishes between the two types of empathy, which are represented by separate neuroanatomical systems (see figure below). Fig. 6 (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009a). Two separate systems for emotional and cognitive based empathy. Behaviourally, emotional empathy involves personal distress, empathic concern and emotion recognition. Anatomically the IFG [inferior frontal gyrus] appears to be responsible for emotional empathy. ... Cognitive empathy, on the other hand, involves perspective taking, the fantasy scale and theory of mind and is mediated by the VM [ventromedial prefrontal cortex]. Individuals with bipolar disorder can show deficits in social cognition and emotion regulation even in the euthymic(remitted) state (Green et al., 2007). These observation ledShamay-Tsoory et al. (2009b) to examine cognitive and emotional empathy in 19 euthymic patients with bipolar disorder and 20 matched control participants: The cognitive and affective aspects of empathic abilities were assessed using the Interpersonal Reactive Index. The Interpersonal Reactive Index includes four seven-item subscales, each tapping a different aspect of empathy: (a) the perspective taking subscale, which measures the reported tendency to adopt spontaneously the psychological point of view of others; (b) the fantasy subscale, measuring the tendency to imaginatively transpose oneself into fictional situations; © the empathic concern scale, measuring the tendency to experience feelings of sympathy and compassion for others; and (d) the personal distress scale assesses the tendency to experience distress and discomfort in response to others’ observed distress. The perspective-taking subscale was used as a measure of cognitive empathy, and the personal distress scale was used as a measure of emotional empathy. To assess theory of mind, the ability to detect faux pas was examined using a set of stories developed by Baron-Cohen et al. (1999). For example: James bought Richard a toy airplane for his birthday. A few months later, they were playing with it, and James accidentally dropped it. "Don't worry" said Richard, "I never liked it anyway. Someone gave it to me for my birthday." Questions after each faux pas and control passage assessed story comprehension, false belief (i.e., the speaker had a mistaken belief and not malicious intent), faux pas detection, and specific identification of the faux pas. Also tested were recognition of emotional expressions from the eyes, cognitive flexibility, and spatial planning abilities. The results indicated that the participants with bipolar disorder had lower scores than controls for cognitive empathy, but higher scores for emotional empathy. Figure 1 (Shamay-Tsoory et al. (2009b). Participant Empathy Scores. A similar effect was observed in the faux pas task, with the patients impaired on cognitive understanding, but not in affective understanding or in recognition of the faux pas. This agrees with prior studies on theory of mind in bipolar disorder (Malhi et al., 2008; Montag et al., 2009). On the other hand, the bipolar individuals showed completely intact performance on recognizing emotion in the eyes and in the spatial planning task. However, they had difficulty in set shifting and reversal learningin the cognitive flexibility task. And greater difficulty with reversal learning was associated with lower cognitive empathy scores, suggesting that cognitive inflexibility contributes to the deficiency in taking another's perspective. What does this mean? The present study results suggest that [the likelihood to engage in the process of reflecting on the viewpoint of others] is impaired in bipolar disorder. On the second affective scale, personal distress, the bipolar disorder group actually scored significantly higher than healthy comparison subjects... This indicates a greater tendency to have self-oriented feelings of anxiety and discomfort in response to tense interpersonal settings. .... ...[Their] exaggerated emotional response to others may be expressed in a dysfunctional empathic emotional overreaction (or “hyper empathy”). This notion is consistent with the “simulation” theory, according to which individuals impersonate others’ emotional mental states, using their own mental state. Thus, it may be hypothesized that bipolar disorder patients tend to engage in the “oversimulation” of others’ emotions, as reflected in high affective empathy, and as a result, they tend to misinterpret others’ mental states, which is reflected in impaired cognitive empathy and theory of mind. What are the brain systems that mediate such difficulties in those with bipolar disorder? Returning to the model in Figure 6 (above), Shamay-Tsoory et al. (2009a) associated emotional empathy with the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and cognitive empathy with ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VM). How did they determine such a clear dissociation? This was from another experiment that administered the same set of tests to a different population: neurological patients with fairly discrete lesions in each of those brain areas. Fig. 2 (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009a). Group and task (cognitive versus emotional empathy) interactions. Significant interaction between group and empathy type. Patients with VM lesions were impaired in cognitive empathy compared to the healthy controls (HC), patients with posterior lesions (PC) and patients with IFG lesions whereas patients with IFG lesions were impaired in emotional empathy compared to the HC, VM and the PC group. As with most things, though, the anatomical dissociation wasn't completely clean; there was some degree of overlap, as shown below. Fig. 5 (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009a). Location and overlap of brain lesions according to emotional versus cognitive empathy impairment-groups. (A) Lesions of the emotional-empathy-impaired group (n=6). Four patients had an IFG damage involving [brodmann] area 44, one had a VM damage and one had a PC damage. Chi-square analysis revealed that lesions involving area 44 were significantly more frequent in this group as compared to the non-impaired group. (B) Lesions of the cognitive-empathy-impaired group (n=7): five had VM damage involvingarea 10 and 11, one had an IFG damage and one had a PC damage. Chi-square analysis revealed that lesions involving area 10 and area 11 were significantly more frequent in this group as compared to the non-impaired group. Nonetheless, such human lesion studies can demonstrate the importance of specific brain areas for the cognitive or emotional processes in question, thereby illuminating the underlying neural network abnormalities in psychiatric disorders. References Baron-Cohen S, O'Riordan M, Stone V, Jones R, Plaisted K. (1999). Recognition of faux pas by normally developing children and children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism.J Autism Dev Disord. 29:407-18. Green MJ, Cahill CM, Malhi GS. (2007). The cognitive and neurophysiological basis of emotion dysregulation in bipolar disorder. J Affect Disord. 103(1-3):29-42. Malhi GS, Lagopoulos J, Das P, Moss K, Berk M, Coulston CM. (2008). A functional MRI study of Theory of Mind in euthymic bipolar disorder patients. Bipolar Disord. 10:943-56. Montag C, Ehrlich A, Neuhaus K, Dziobek I, Heekeren HR, Heinz A, Gallinat J. (2009). Theory of mind impairments in euthymic bipolar patients. J Affect Disord. Sep 12. [Epub ahead of print]. Shamay-Tsoory, S., Aharon-Peretz, J., & Perry, D. (2009a). Two systems for empathy: a double dissociation between emotional and cognitive empathy in inferior frontal gyrus versus ventromedial prefrontal lesions. Brain, 132 (3), 617-627 DOI:10.1093/brain/awn279 Shamay-Tsoory, S., Harari, H., Szepsenwol, O., & Levkovitz, Y. (2009b). Neuropsychological Evidence of Impaired Cognitive Empathy in Euthymic Bipolar Disorder. Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 21 (1), 59-67 DOI:10.1176/appi.neuropsych.21.1.59 Figure 2 (de Waal, 2008). The Russian doll model of empathy and imitation. Empathy (right) induces a similar emotional state in the subject and the object, with at its core the perception-action mechanism (PAM). The doll's outer layers, such as sympathetic concern and perspective-taking, build upon this hard-wired socio-affective basis. Sharing the same mechanism, the doll's imitation side (left) correlates with the empathy side. Here, the PAM underlies motor mimicry, coordination, shared goals, and true imitation. Even though the doll's outer layers depend on prefrontal functioning and an increasing self-other distinction, these outer layers remain connected to its inner core. There's probably a lot more to this topic, but I thought this was an interesting find and is very instructive on the topic of empathy in general. http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2009/12/impaired-cognitive-empathy-in-bipolar.html

From Joel Patterson Everything we do is a conversation. From the tattoos a person carves into her skin to the kind of figurines an adult man proudly displays on his living room book shelf, as well as the particular way he chooses to organize them, all of these unique decorative nuances, or lack thereof, broadcasts a plethora of information about a person’s history and values. Music is no exception. Music can not only give us insight into the psychology of the artist who wrote the piece, but also it can give us insight into the psychology of the listener who has found a way to connect to the song regardless whether or not he understands the song’s ‘true’ meaning that the artist intended. Music can also be considered a reflection of the society and culture in which it was produced, depending on whether very few can connect to the same piece as opposed to hundreds of thousands of people. Since I was a teenager, I’ve been particularly fascinated by this aspect of popular music. When I was fourteen I found a great deal of pleasure in getting up early on Saturday to watch a show on VH1 Classic called “Metal Mania”, a show that played 80’s and early 90’s music videos back to back. While I did enjoy much of the music, I would gladly sit through and watch videos of songs I didn’t particularly like simply because I found them interesting in the way an Anthropologist might and enjoyed thinking about why particular trends were popular during particular eras in music. There is one such trend that can be found in popular music of the late 90’s to early 2000’s, a place where many would least expect to find anything particularly radical, which I find to be very groundbreaking in the context of music history. During this time period we see numerous bands (I’ve created a list at the bottom of the page.) expressing feelings such as anger towards child abuse and abusive parents, pain at having been raised in a dysfunctional family, or some kind of sympathy towards children in these environments in way that had previously never been so explicit or frequent. While it is true that artists prior to the late 90's wrote songs that scratched the surface of this subject matter, such songs were still often couched in poetic language and anonymity, and never included the two most introspective words “I feel”. Take for example the lyrics from a great song by John Lennon called “Mother” Mother, you had me But I never had you I wanted you But you didn’t want me So, I just got to tell you, Goodbye And compare it to the Lyrics in “Down with The Sickness” by Disturbed No Mommy, Don’t do it again Don’t do it again I’ll be a good boy I’ll be a good boy, I promise No mommy don’t hit me Why did you have to hit me like that,mommy? Don’t do it, you’re hurting me Why did you have to be such a bitch Why don’t you, Why don’t you just fuck off and die And not only were these songs prevalent, since a large number of these songs started showing up just within the time span of about 7 years (1997–2002), they were also mainstream. “Down With The Sickness” charted at number 5 on the Modern Rock Tracks in 2001. In addition, the striking lyrical content was also often accompanied by equally striking and overt imagery, which has never been done previously, in music videos that cost anywhere from $3000 to 200k to make. Korn’s, “Falling Away From Me”, which shows a young girl getting hit with a belt, is one notable, albeit disturbing example. The subject of child abuse had never before been at the forefront of popular culture or had been brought to our attention is such an overt and ‘in your face’ kind of way. The question, for me, then becomes, “Why?” What information about these artist’s histories is being broadcast? What experiences might they have shared that were so different from the generation before them that would influence this kind of change in popular music? Why did a similar trend of musicians drawing our attention to family dysfunction not happen between 1981 to 1989? Why were so many able to identify and willing to embrace these songs at the time? Although, to be fair, there was was some push back. This trend was even noted and criticized in the song “Click Click Boom” by Saliva, which came out around the same time. “What the hell is wrong with me? My mom and dad weren’t perfect, But still you don’t hear no crying ass bitching from me, Like there seems to be on everybody’s CD” Unfortunately, all too many shared and still do share this cruel sentiment, as what would eventually be known as “Nu-Metal”, such as Korn and P.O.D, would be the subject of much mockery and criticism from those who deemed themselves as “true metal fans.” Although I can understand how distancing oneself from the truth of ones own history through esoteric, vague, symbolic, obscure language about fictional horrors such as “raining blood” can be emotionally much easier than using honest and clear language that paints a realistic picture of the actual horrors that the majority of children suffer from. Just a disclaimer, I’m no expert historian, so my attempts to answer these questions are only that; an attempt. I am not proving anything, these are just my thoughts. Still, I hope what I’ve found might have some explanatory power. “We were probably the first generation to be raised more by the media than by actual human beings” - Bruce Fletcher (My Dinner With Generation X) Since childhood experiences have such a profound impact on our psyche such that it can even influence the types of music we are drawn to and create, I’ll start there. One thing that every artist from the list I’ve created has in common is that they were all born between 1961 to 1981, which means that they are part of what is known as Generation X. If these individuals had drastically different childhoods compared to the generation before them, it might be able to help explain why the music they created was so vastly different and why it appeared during the time it did. This is most certainly the case. To borrow from a blogger named Jennifer who specializes on the topic of Generation X, whose work you can find at http://www.jenx67.com/who-is-generation-x, “Generation X was born during the greatest anti-child phase in modern American history. Our childhoods were underscored by the following: Legalized Abortion (Roe vs. Wade) Invention of Birth Control Divorce Absent Fathers Working Mothers Latchkey Kids For more about latchkey kids, I invite you to read a 2009 blog post I wrote about Gina, a member of the Latchkey Generation.” “From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, divorce rates in the United States more than doubled. In addition, between 1969 and 1996, the number of working mothers in the workforce also doubled. Consequently, many households were headed by working single moms. It’s estimated that as many as 40 percent of Gen Xers were latchkey kids who returned home from school to empty houses. Their childhoods and youth were marked by a lack of supervision, and excessive household and family responsibilities. The pendulum swings wide on the consequences of the latchkey childhood. Unsupervised Gen X children and youth ran the gamut of those who watched too much TV and didn’t do their homework to those who fell into escalating levels of crime. According to Coupland, inwardly-focused Baby Boomers sometimes regarded their children as “obstacles to their self-exploration,” and thus resulted permissive parenting of grand proportion. In addition, on top of spending many hours bored and lonely, Coupland also concludes that Generation X was “rushed through childhood.” To share more of Jennifer’s writing, (http://www.jenx67.com/2009/01/latchkey-generation.html) “The term latchkey kid originates from the latchkey of a door. A latchkey kid — sometimes just called a latchkey — is a child between the ages of 7 and 13 who comes home from school to an empty house. The child is left unsupervised until a child returns home from work. The hours of unsupervision vary, but typically take place during what law enforcement refers to as the “danger zone” of 3 to 6 p.m.In the 1970s, the rise in divorce coupled with a high rate of mothers in the workforce gave rise to the term. I had many Gen-X friends who wore a key tied to a cord around their neck. (This would be great training for all those lanyards we’ve had to wear in the workforce. Ugh.) “ The data does indeed support this. So, this generation was indeed born into a completely different world compared to the prior generation. It makes more sense as to why the themes of family dysfunction would be so prevalent in this generation’s music. The families this generation grew up in were dysfunctional. Another question that comes to my mind is, Why did the number of working mothers in the workforce double? Why was it so accepted and commonplace for baby boomers to divorce, which statistically was initiated by the women, compared to the generation prior? Of course, I’m not saying that women can’t or shouldn’t pursue a career. (Fuck off social justice warriors.) But, considering that children do far better the more time they bond with their caregivers and when they live in two parent households, why was the choice made to have kids and then not spend time with them? Why were the fathers okay with this and did not offer to stay at home full time since the mothers decided to pursue a career? What sense does it make for parents to have children and not meet the children’s needs? It’s like choosing to buy a dog and neglecting to feed it. Perhaps there was a movement that occurred that explicitly harped on ideas that might have influenced so many women of the Baby Boomer generation to abandon their children in favor of a career? I can think of no better example than the Second Wave Feminist Movement, which undoubtedly made “equality” in the workplace a primary focus, much to the detriment of hundreds or thousands of lonely children. To quote three of the most influential authors of the Second Wave Feminist Movement “The Family must go because it oppresses and enslaves women”- Kate Millet “Women, as well as men, can only find their identity in work that uses their full capacities. Women cannot find her identity in the dull routine of housework.” -Betty Friedan “I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.” -Gloria Steinem In conclusion, the music most like changed so drastically because childhoods changed drastically. And childhood changed because parenting changed (for the worse) and one possibility as to why so many families fell apart could be that the Second Wave of Feminism had an incredibly destructive influence on the way women (and men) thought about parenting by suggesting that the family is oppressive and that staying home to meet a child’s need is akin to being a slave. Again, this is a complicated issue and and I’m no historian. I’m sure there’s way more to it. These are just some facts I’m collecting which might have some explanatory value as to why music changed so drastically. If you have any additional thoughts, I’d love to know what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrZ4sMRYimw I had trouble getting these videos to post. Disturbed- Down With The Sickness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L78yVFeyvRo Everclear- Father Of Mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkcbxjWG9Mc Blink 182- Stay together For the Kids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BFHYtZlAUr Also, here's The Medium.com Article version. https://medium.com/@joelpatterson_52315/https-www-youtube-com-watch-v-fguj3tvkgo8-db10bc63e54a If you found this piece interesting, you can find more articles there, such as "Louder Than Words: What Modern Feminism Has Actually Achieved" https://medium.com/@joelpatterson_52315/louder-than-words-what-modern-feminism-has-actually-achieved-71e853e8d98d

I also would like to share some thoughts I was having about this topic. I think that refraining from engaging with trolls comes less from a place of haughty superior than it is actually an act of true kindness. As it was mentioned previously, there are consequences to engaging with trolls and not just in how it frustrates the target. In addition, trolling has negative consequences for the troll. The more a person trolls the more he trains himself to be cruel, manipulative, unreasonable, disruptive, and ect. Refusing to engage with someone you think is doing such things denies the other person the opportunity to strengthen those negative habits within themselves. So, even if we accept that the reasons for engaging with trolls mentioned above are good reasons for the target, to me, it's still like handing over alcohol to an alcoholic, even if you are 'setting the record straight'. It strengthens the troll's bad habits. Plus, there are ways one can alert others to a troll without engaging with the troll. Again, to disengage it's actually very kind, just as refusing to hand over a drink to an alcoholic is. Another question that I think is worth taking into consideration when trying to figure out whether someone is a troll is "how do I feel in this interaction?" You're feelings are just another kind of information. There are no unchosen positive obligations. You don't owe anyone a conversation. You do not owe anyone an explanation for why you wish to not have a conversation with them. Sure there's the option of pointing out to the troll their inconsistencies, but again, you don't owe anyone the amount mental sweat and time it takes to point that stuff out, especially if already feel negative interacting with them. Troll or not, life if short and if you aren't enjoying the interaction, if you repeatedly feel frustrated, anxious, disrespected, or bored interacting with someone, then that's a completely valid reason to disengage in my opinion.

Great post!

Hey, LiberT. Yes, that's correct.

I think that's really fascinating, especially since those I've come across who are anti consumerism believe that consumerism is a result of capitalism. So, given those facts, would a good way of putting it be that consumerism, in its modern form, is more so an effect of the State?

Okay, but if everything is relative and subject to our interptepation, then that would also include the statement everything is not relative and subject to interpretation. So, you can't say I'm wrong, only that what I'm saying is relative and subject to interpretation.

So, would it be wrong for me to say that everything is not relative and subject to our interpretation?

Neeeel, that makes sense to me. If you wish somebody would elaborate, that's one thing. When I get likes on facebook, I wish every single person would tell me what specifically they liked about it. I wish the people who do write me feedback would write even better feedback! I wish they'd bake me cookies too. But, that's not a good reason to say the reputation system is useless. To immediately(and I'm not saying you're doing this) react and blame the system concerns me because its an missed opportunity for self knowledge. That's what I'd like to encourage, I think that you are all perfectly capable of disagreeing with me about this one particular thing and still be wonderfully intelligent human beings. The reason this is important to me is because, in my personal opinion, freedom is to eschew worries and chagrins which are based on things which are out of one's control. All you have control over is your honesty, your integrity, the amount of respect you give to other individuals and the amount of value you want to bring to the table. You can't control the existence of the reputation system, you can't control who clicked that up or down button, you can't control people's desire to either give or not give elaborated feedback. If somebody wants to downvote this out of spite, that's totally out of my control! When you blame the reputation system for your downvotes, when you immediately jump to the conclusion that, "people just want to be popular", you are surrendering your freedom. You are saying that your reputation in this community is not up to you. This is like the liberal arts student who cries that they can't get ahead because of racial or male privilege! On the surface, it appears to be an empathetic stance. "Oh, look, I care about all those people who are having their work denied because of racism and sexism." or "Oh, look, I care about those oppressed individuals who have their posts denied because of the system!" But, it's not about the other person. The idea of"Privilege', like the reputation complaints, is appealing because it allows people to avoid responsibility. It allows them to avoid self knowledge to and to avoid asking themselves uncomfortable questions like, "I wonder if my downvote was just? Maybe I was being passive aggressive? Maybe I'm not providing enough value? Or worse, maybe I'm not providing negative?" And that concerns me because if you immediately externalize and blame the reputation system, you probably do it with other areas in your life. That's double plus un-good. If its true that this reputation system here is so botched and that people's priorities and values are so scewed that they are merely trying to obtain popularity or just downvoting out of spite, which could be the case for all I know, you should probably stop posting. Wishing an 'immature' community would change its behavior is not going to give you freedom.