cynicist

If you want to insult me then come out and say it directly; Stop hiding behind excessive words. You are not the least bit humble.

I would agree if he were new or this were a rare occurrence but he has double my post count, which makes him a veteran here. Besides, if I said his behavior was 'unproductive' he'd have me define my terms; With pejoratives I'm off the hook for the verbal sparring.

I think these boards could use some more directness instead of this under-the-table kicking that often goes on under the guise of rational discourse. I could use more flowery language and project a sense of maturity or civility but that would give a false impression; In truth, his repetition and persistent lack of awareness is beginning to grate on me, and the long-winded denials and deftly-executed logical manuevering is exhausting to read. I would prefer overt aggression to the sublimated hostility in his posts...

You are 'sorry' if resolving disputes through discussion and working together is not a rational/realistic standard for me as well as you? You just can't help yourself can you? This is exactly the snarky, dickish, passive-aggressive behavior that I downvote you for. (and no, none of those votes are from me this time) This verbal shield you call 'logic' is impenetrable. I'm not at all being sarcastic. You mentioned earlier that I made no effort to reconcile my concerns with you; If I had thought you to be at all amenable then I would have. (No, this did not change because you disagreed with Kevin. I do that all the time and I'm still on good terms with myself) As a side note, I want you to know that several times I did consider writing you something out of concern; Each time though, I thought about how the conversation would play out and decided against it. Until you give up this victimhood mentality I don't see how we could have a productive discussion since every criticism levied would be perceived as an attack and vigorously defended against as you've done time and time again in this and other threads. His sarcastic statements are crap, and he was being a dick to Kevin. I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

I'm used to reading the passive-aggressive, wide-eyed, "I didn't realize" crap from you dsayers, but you seriously think that I regard Kevin as infallible? Lol. Like the pope you mean? Is he the high priest of philosophy? I'm basing what I said on how I approach trying to understand things that I'm legitimately interested in, which means looking up terms that I'm unfamiliar with before asking how they could possibly be relevant to a conversation. You are a smart guy and the definitions of those terms would easily make clear why Kevin brought them up, so I'm led to the conclusion that whatever the reason for your question, it has nothing to do with that... You can stop with the self-pity, by the way. Downvotes are not always attempts to attack and silence you. Sometimes they are messengers carrying parcels of great value should you choose to stop and give them heed.

Here's an interesting video on tattoos and tattoo removal as a change of pace.

It's hard, but condemning yourself to loneliness is not much of an alternative.

I'm glad you found my post helpful. The other replies were great and touched on equally important things. I want to add a small bit of encouragement. Even the self-awareness that you are displaying here by talking about these problems and reaching out to other people is far further than many are willing to go. Most people would choose to lie to themselves and be condemned to their fate over facing any portion of the pain within them. I invite you to look at the effort you've made so far to learn about yourself as laying the foundation required to eventually outgrow your history, bit by bit. As long as you keep trying there is the chance to succeed.

I'm curious about the severity of the debt in question. If it were bad enough then I too might want to convince myself that I shouldn't have to pay it. I know it's fun to hate bankers but technically they didn't create the money either, they just get it at really low interest rates from the fed and are allowed to leverage by law. So if you are going to blame them and say you don't have to pay them back because the monetary system is messed up, then I don't see how the same doesn't apply to personal loans too. It's all the same inflated worthless currency. Depending on interest rates you may actually be getting the better deal, since the money they loan you is going to be worth more than what you pay them back with...

Yeah I tripped it too, looking forward to my super late response lol. (or lack of)

Procrastination happens often when you evaluate your worth as an individual by the quality of the work you perform. When that happens, then any task which can be criticized negatively reflects on your whole character; Every failure becomes an unbearable existential threat rather than a small setback that you overcome by changing your approach. In this environment, it's perfectly natural to not want to do anything, because everything you can do is seen as a gamble on your value as a human being. Why would you want to risk that? That's not "neutral", that's numbness, dissociation. Yes you do. In fact you said it in your post: I don't really feel anything and to be honest I don't really like it. I want to feel something. That's what you are doing, right now. This is the 'neutrality' that you are describing. You want your pain to be recognized and acknowledged. There is nothing stupid or ridiculous about that. The only problem I see is that by approaching it this way you are not addressing the underlying reasons and so the formalization, the cutting, and any other outward symptoms will never go away. About the despair/depression and slipping... I think many of us have that from time to time. That's why we need good friends to listen and help, and encourage us. I know that I would be in a bad place if I didn't have people to talk to when I needed it. We just can't do this stuff alone, not in the society that we live in.

I know this is late but just to clarify a bit: At idle, they will be identical as far as noise and power consumption. At load (gaming), the noise levels of the two cards are within 2db of each other, which is pretty insignificant. The major difference between them is the power consumption at load, where the GTX 750 ti averages 178 watts1 and the GTX 970 averages 313 watts2, a difference of 57%. So unless you desire the increased performance to run new games at high settings, basically required only if you are running multiple monitors or high resolutions or just like to max out quality settings, you are better off with the lower power bill. Given that everyone who owns a computer spends most of their time idle anyway, it's not hugely important though. What makes the 750 ti awesome is how small it is, enabling you to create a great small form factor build that isn't useless for gaming or has heat problems. Sources: [1] http://techreport.com/review/27203/geforce-gtx-970-cards-from-msi-and-asus-reviewed/5 [2] http://techreport.com/review/26050/nvidia-geforce-gtx-750-ti-maxwell-graphics-processor/10 Also, TDP is the thermal envelope for regular operation of a component, not max power. It stands for Thermal Design Power. So a higher TDP always correlates to higher heat under load since that is what is being measured. (That's how they determine what cooling is adequate)

He's probably right about that, but it doesn't mean you should be in therapy with him. You are paraphrasing right? He didn't actually say that if you stopped therapy with him you would remain unhappy and emotionally dead for years... because that is manipulative and horrible, even if he believes it to be true. Sorry but the excuse of 'bluntness' doesn't work here, and to be honest that strikes me as rather neurotic behavior on his part. (and possibly unscrupulous as you mention) Exercising some sensitivity, especially when it comes to emotional/mental matters, is paramount in therapy. I mean damn... even doctors delivering news about cancer are cautious, and they don't need to worry about things like provoking emotional instability and suicidality. I don't understand this part. What do you mean by 'how he was on entering his clinic for the first few weeks'? Trust your judgment. I know you are suspicious of yourself, but your feelings are there to help you. If you have been with him for a year and still think that you have emotional defenses that prevent you from going further, then either way you are done. It could certainly be that you are avoiding something necessary, but if you don't trust your therapist enough to be vulnerable (*after a year) then you aren't going to accomplish anything by seeing him anyway. You may have some idea of 'breaking through' resistances or whatever; That is nonsense. If you apply more force to try to make yourself do something that you are uncomfortable with, then those resistances will harden and you will trust yourself less. The opposite approach is the only one that has any chance of succeeding, and both trust and vulnerability are vital components of it.

Yes, everyone is traumatized, and yet people who visit websites in order to learn about themselves and how to overcome their unpleasant origins somehow score higher for me than those who ink themselves instead, and who may not even be aware of any trauma to begin with. Those categories aren't mutually exclusive, but certainly some ways of dealing with the after-effects are better than others.

Do you have tattoos?

You must be fairly new. I'd implore you to visit http://fdrurl.com/books and check out Universally Preferable Behavior, which is a free book written to address this very issue.

Your theory is that people against tattoos are jealous of how cool and popular people with tattoos are? Extremely lucky, like I dodged a bullet. I think many people in this thread are missing the point. It's not the tattoos themselves that are so horrible, it is what they generally indicate. Most of the people I knew with a lot of tattoos were and hung out with certain types of people: the kind who were underachievers, really into drugs, had very low self-esteem, were promiscuous, impulsive, and had lots of emotional problems. How many very successful people have you seen with sleeve tattoos? I'm sure there is an exception out there but I don't know of any...

In that case what you are saying seems quite reasonable and not different from what I would do. By compliance I meant what is required by law and with a pleasant attitude. (that part isn't required but I like to humor people sometimes ) I'm not going to make their jobs easier at my expense lol. Thanks for explaining it so well.

This is interesting. What do you mean by it? I mean I want to say that I know where this comes from, because it reminds me of the guilt that many (including myself) feel about what happened in our families, that we are in some way responsible, but this is self-attack from internalized parents and is not true. (It also brings to mind the victims of physical rape who feel like it's their fault somehow, who are often victims in childhood too) This defense is what we set up because the truth of the nature of our family environment is too horrific to bear, and so the neurotic split in our minds is necessary to continue functioning. (e.g. It's my fault for being a bad kid) Let me know if I'm off, but if not I have a part like this too. I agree but I don't like the implication that these intelligent sociopaths are simply masters at the craft and that's why you are affected. I mean yeah they are good at recognizing old wounds, but you are only affected to that degree because those wounds exist; If they didn't, then their attempts to hurt you would only result in bewilderment and a desire to leave the situation. It's really sad, because I used to think as many people/parents do, that understanding this 'language' of overloaded meaning and hidden signals meant that I was better prepared for a messed up world. Now I realize that what I thought of as a tool would be completely unnecessary if I wasn't made susceptible to this crap to begin with... Not to criticize, but if that part of yourself is saying that they are master manipulators in order to avoid blame (e.g. I can't help but be susceptible), then she is correct but for the wrong reasons. I'm guessing that the reason the victim focuses on external persons is that she feels that being hurt in the past isn't a good enough reason, indicating to me that she isn't getting enough sympathy. (and likely is afraid of the persecutor part being hyper-critical and saying 'suck it up' or whatever) Sidenote: I've tried experimenting with taking what people say very literally instead of 'knowing' their implicit meaning, and responding in a very naive and curious way. I would recommend giving this technique a shot; It will completely change how you view things. You will want to laugh sometimes at how frustrated this makes other people who are trying to hurt you; It seems like they immediately try every other tool in the toolbox to get SOMETHING to work against you. (Usually it gets to me being called stupid/retarded and then they stop) Apologies if I'm reading too much into your post, but it really struck me for some reason.

It's not either-or. I wouldn't consent to a search of my property, that's just too invasive. I think we probably would agree more than it seems here, it's just more context-specific than it seems at first glance. (If pulled over by a cop I'm sure you wouldn't wait for him to pull out his gun before you rolled down your windows, for example )

Sure, but it is relevant that he thinks you are hiding something. That's what I meant by provocation. If you blend into the crowd wouldn't he be more likely to wave you on like the majority of people that he meets? What?!?! Sorry for the incredulity but that sounds like a recipe for certain disaster to me.

I think this is very insightful. I've noticed that my own projections are recognizable by the fact that they are disproportionate in some way to the reality of the situation. So as an example, if I am criticized by a manager at work (authority figure, has some power) and I feel helplessly frustrated and resentful even though the remark was minor, I know that while the remark may have been unkind to me it must be piggy-backing on my history in order to have that level of impact on my emotional state. Why were you frustrated? If I can hazard a guess, would it be because you thought that Stefan had not delivered enough wisdom for those people to enact meaningful change in their lives? I think it's great that you noticed it on your own. I was not sure what to make of your comments in the chat, but I wish I had said something about it. Do you feel that you are not doing enough in your own life? Or that maybe your actions are not as impactful as you'd like?

You can argue anything, but this thread isn't a battleground so maybe we can save that one for another time. This is a great point but it also struck me that there must be more than a strong desire for visibility for this to happen. A person must also be incapable of determining the authenticity of a compliment, otherwise they would not confuse manipulation for visibility in this way. (phony praise is recognizable by a kind of disparity between either the act and reality or the relationship between you and the other person in my opinion) The attack is incredibly calculated, and so I'd like to highlight another facet of it. If you try and point out what seems blatantly aggressive to you, the attacker feigns ignorance and uses the literal meaning of his words as a cloak. Only a true coward relies on a device so predictably banal as this to deliver his blows.