cynicist

The funny thing about this is that you are describing the experience of going to church for a catholic. They don't really know what any of that shit means either, like why you would symbolically eat the flesh or drink the blood of the savior of the human race. Or how jesus is the son of god, but also is god (his own father), and where exactly the holy spirit fits into this trifecta of crazy. Most of them are just imitating whats others do. Source: Me, being raised catholic as well as going to 'bible study' classes 0_o

This is even more interesting to me in the context of siblings because the background is similar. These are good questions that I have pondered many times. I agree that a therapist or another free person is necessary, otherwise it's like trying to find your way through darkness. You may feel a familiar texture or trip over something recognizable but it is hard to connect everything together and get a clear picture in the way someone outside of your head can.

It's not just parents. I remember hearing that stuff all throughout school. "Oh don't complain, you have it easy, wait until you get into the REAL world". Working is not as bad as I thought as a kid but it does concern me what kind of crap people were saying around me when I was younger. Good to hear you made the connection though, it is certainly satisfying to separate what is you from what others put into you. Doesn't that seem so weird? Sounds like your parents (like most people) are on autopilot doing what they think they are supposed to do instead of what they want. Like the 'American Dream' programming, as if getting a house, career, and kids is part of some voodoo checklist that once completed will fill the empty voids where their hearts are supposed to be. I don't mean to exaggerate I just remember thinking as a kid that my mom was a robot, that she was trying to stick to the 'mother' script as much as possible and any deviation from it would lead to a short circuit in the brain.

Ah ok, without names it was harder to follow. The multiple personality thing is a problem I had several years ago and I will tell you right now it is a really bad sign of anxiety and fear around the judgments of others. I would do it because I wanted to be seen in a positive light and avoid criticism and just generally fit in. I feel sympathy for her because that comes from having to hide who you are over many years (and being attacked by many people for who you truly are). One thing that sounds strange to me is why did your guy friend tell her your criticisms in the first place? I'm happy to hear legit criticism myself but most people take it as a personal attack so I'm sure he could have predicted her response.

Oh no, I know exactly what you mean. It's like you were starved for positive attention in your life so when someone shows you positive attention they just immediately become special to you. The socialist thing isn't great but none of us are perfect She sounds nice, I hope your date goes well.

I too have done wrong as a child. I didn't even know as I had repressed the memory; It came back as a sort of nightmare while I was lying awake in bed one night. It felt almost like someone else's memory, though I knew it was mine, because I could not reconcile what I saw with what I know now to be my nature. The rage I felt back then was frightening to me, and I could feel tears coming to my eyes as I asked myself how I could do such awful things. I accept my responsibility for my actions, but I also had to ask myself, where did I learn this behavior? Why did I choose to hurt rather than love? As children we learn by example, we can't speak languages we were never taught. If you are responsible for your actions as a child, then surely your parents deserve even more responsibility? If none of the criticism is aimed towards your parents, is that truly just? You certainly cannot change the past but that should not mean you are condemned to live in agony, not when that prevents you from the good you can do as an adult.

Yeah I already see the problem here. Since RTR is so unusual for people it is better to have the conversation in person because it can lead to misunderstandings quickly. So for example when you said that you, "felt sad and like she didn't care", what you were saying is that you felt like she didn't care, but what she heard was that you were calling her inconsiderate. This is avoidable in person because you can clarify, "I'm not saying this is true or anything, I'm just saying this is how I feel". This is harder to do in text, that's why it's called Real Time Relationships And why tell her you are doing RTR? It basically just means being honest about your feelings while in a conversation, so I would say that instead because it is easy to misunderstand and think someone is trying to manipulate you using some technique they learned on the internet instead. Like those pickup artist guys. Oh man is this over text again? At least use skype or something. I had a similar issue with my brother around using terms like "feedback" and "value", my solution was just to translate that into something that sounds more natural. Something more like, "Was that advice helpful or did I totally lose you there?" or "What did you think of what I just said?". Using language that is different from your normal chats will make you sound different, especially in text. (more clinical or corporate in this case) The way I understand it is that being honest is enough of a change already, using different language too just makes it all too alien for people to handle. I'm not sure what accusations she made (hope it was nothing too serious) but if you are certain you want to try again I would setup a video chat if you can't do it in person. This is up to you but I would start off by apologizing for trying this new way of communicating over text rather than doing it face to face because it led to a number of misunderstandings between you two. And then going on to explain how you just want to be more open to talk about your feelings with each other because you haven't felt able to do so in the past and see how she responds. Then you two can hopefully have some meaningful conversation. But being vulnerable is what RTR is all about! Be honest with her and if she decides to put you down in order to feel superior, then let her know how that makes you feel. If she continues to attack you and you continue to be honest about your feelings, at some point you will want to end the conversation. If she has any empathy at all she will not feel good about her behavior when you didn't return her abuse and will want to apologize to you. If not, then at least you know the truth about whether your sister is capable of talking about anything real or not. What you do with that information will be entirely up to you, but at least you will know. I wouldn't write her off immediately, (well, depending on what she said exactly lol) remember that it wasn't easy for you and she doesn't have your level of knowledge or skill at this point, so you can't expect her to be able to communicate like you right away. That said she also may not be capable either, I would just remain open to both possibilities. My own brother made some mistakes but I was at least somewhat hopeful that he could change until he started mocking my interest in philosophy. I would definitely ask your sister what she thinks of what she has read so far the next time you two chat, if she has any interest at all in Stef's books then there is definitely hope

I still have it. I think procrastination is a sign that a part of you is trying to push yourself to do things arbitrarily (have to) while another part is resisting. (resentment) We get trained that way by parents with their arbitrary rules that we try to resist and then continue that pattern of behavior as adults by trying to force ourselves to do things that we think we should be doing. I think the key is retraining ourselves to do what we want instead (or explaining how doing this thing we don't like will allow us to do what we want to later), and reminding ourselves of that continuously, but it's easier said than done. I often find myself thinking that I should do something and then not having a good reason why, it's like catching myself on autopilot. Often when I sit down and take the time to think about what I'm doing and why, it's easier to be motivated but I don't do that often enough. It seems like a skill that I never learned growing up; Since nobody sat down and explained why I should do anything when I was a kid I now have to teach myself how to do that, otherwise I just go on autopilot and try to make myself do stuff like my parents. At least that's how I see it, could be different for others. Yeah that's how I feel. Like there is still this younger part of me that wants to do certain things, and then other parts of me that want to do other things and I need to negotiate and find a balance between them all or explain how it is in their interest to do something.

I don't think overcoming the fear is a good idea. You are feeling anxious for a reason, a good reason whatever it is. I'm not going to guess why because I don't know enough about your history to do so but I want to share a possibility that has not been mentioned in this thread so far. A number of times in the past I felt extremely anxious around asking particular women out, not just nervousness but something akin to fear, and I wasn't sure why. Only years later did I realize that these women were very dysfunctional and that my anxiety came from trying to go against my values (it was a warning and it saved my life) because they were attractive and I was only a man I would ask her out again for coffee and monitor your feelings during the conversation. If you continue to remain nervous after getting to know her better I would respect your feelings and not go on a second one.

I guarantee you that comes from her family, I have a similar history (including the multiple personas thing) and that tactic is one that families use in order prevent you from learning the truth about a particular situation (that an outside perspective can give you). You stated your honest opinion of her situation. I don't know the motivation for telling the others about it, maybe you just wanted to hear a second opinion, but I'm sure the reason people have a problem with it is that they perceive it to be a criticism. You see, even though it may be true it is an uncomfortable truth (one that she doesn't want to hear in particular, because her multiple persona thing comes in part from being dishonest with herself and wanting to avoid issues rather than confront them directly) so you are right in assuming that things would have gone wrong even if you had spoken to her directly. You are saying something about her which is negative, and she already has self-esteem issues for sure, and she is now mad at you for it. I can tell you also that she feels lots of anxiety when it comes to being honest with other people. (due to be punished for it by her family) I'm guessing she is a passive, go-with-the-flow kind of person? Probably likes to get along with the group, not talk about anything that could be negative, changing subjects if necessary. She doesn't like to take a stand on anything or if she does she will contradict herself often, has a hard time admitting mistakes or errors, is passive aggressive, drops hints and holds grudges and rarely will tell you directly what she is mad about. I could be wrong but this is a particular pattern of behavior that I'm familiar with.

Great topic, personally I have had a tendency to pretend knowledge that I wasn't certain of in the past (due to issues around self-worth stemming from family history) and the way I managed to deal with it is that I realized having to try and back up claims when I was questioned by people was really hard. (when I didn't know for certain I mean, didn't have logic or evidence on my side) Usually I got away with it anyway due to skill in other areas (language, technical aptitude, etc) but I always felt bad about it afterwards and it was stressful so my old strategy was to just try and forget about it. Once I realized how much energy I spent on it (and why I was doing it) I just decided it wasn't worth it anymore. I think a key part of solving the problem is that when someone points out a flaw in your reasoning or brings up an idea you didn't think of previously, stop and consider it before responding. If you find yourself trying to rush forward it is usually because you would rather be right than accurate. Now that I don't feel like I have to be right all the time I'm more comfortable with backpedaling if I make too broad a statement, though I'm still careful not to do that in the first place. (I also distinguish my opinions more clearly now) If you are open to correction then you are the opposite of pretentious. I think the concern you have comes from mistaking ignorance for pretension. If you say something that happens to be out of your depth and you realize that once someone points out your error, then you were merely ignorant. (It can take knowledge to be aware of your own ignorance) If you persist in your argument after you realize you are incorrect, then you are pretentious. (I think this can be unconcious; you may find yourself becoming flustered or really upset and not know why, or you can have this feeling that you are missing something in your argument but continue regardless) I also think the word is tainted by people who use it to attack you, like you experienced with your siblings. If you can recognize that they aren't addressing your arguments it is easy to avoid self attacking. If you are truly being pretentious they need a reason to suggest that. I don't think that is weird. It's likely true but you can't prove it so I would hesitate to say something like that myself. And what would be the value in a statement like that anyway? Talk is cheap and too many people make claims about knowledge that they don't have, and you know that yourself, which I think is the reason you would feel uncomfortable saying it. To me it makes more sense to demonstrate your knowledge through sound arguments or action, then there is no need for the claim. Now that I'm older I just can't take anyone who relies on job titles or things of that nature seriously.

My own mother is like this. It's because when we were younger we had no choice but to listen to her while others can just ignore her or leave if she becomes abusive. We've been trained to be afraid and our natural feelings and assertiveness were constantly opposed. I think the conversation you had with Wesley is insightful. Keep in mind that even though you feel afraid just like before, things really are different now. You're an adult, which doesn't mean you have to do anything at all, but it does mean that you have possibilities that didn't exist when you were a child. You can stand up for yourself and take care of yourself and you couldn't do that before. Pushing yourself will make it harder, try to show yourself the patience and gentleness you never received when you were young. It's ok to make mistakes and fuck up, because if someone turns their back on you it doesn't mean the end of your life like it used to with your mom. Remember there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you, you were just badly taught and that is a problem can that be solved (I think you are right in rejecting that 'shy' label, people that use it are just telling you that they would rather not use their minds to think because labeling you quiet is easier)

I take issue with the idea that historical analysis can't be scientific because it can't be replicated in lab conditions. Don't forget that science is not just evidence (which requires reproducibility), it includes reason as well. So if I take the premise that hitting is bad, I can logically come to the conclusion that if my parents hit me, then they did something bad, and that will be true without any experimentation at all. In my opinion the value of dream analysis and IFS is the same as the value of emotions; it doesn't need to be objective in order to be useful. You can't rely on them to the exclusion of objective standards of truth, but as you work through correcting your misconceptions it becomes much more efficient to trust your instincts rather than reason your way through life. (which is why I think both approaches are valid and important, and focusing on one to the exclusion of the other is a mistake) If you have any data on the success rate of psychodynamic methods I would be interested in seeing it, but I would keep in mind that therapists are not philosophers and part of the issue of exploring history in therapy is that many therapists are averse to taking clear moral stands or principles in their analysis of a patient. (which makes it easy to get lost in your subjective experience of your history without accomplishing anything in particular) So I wouldn't be surprised if CBT was more effective simply because it lets therapists avoid fundamental questions around the family/state/society in favor of focusing on the less volatile work of pointing out inconsistencies between certain thoughts and reality. (where there are no moral concerns to sidestep) In fact if you look at the reviews for that book on Amazon, a least one person mentions mentions exploring childhood and parental treatment as a waste of time and money. (no doubt because without established principles/morals its hard to do anything practical with that knowledge) Thanks for the suggestion, I'll add it to my reading list.

I've been there with the white knighting an immature, overly sexual hot chick thing. It's like I knew she had nothing good to offer, but she was hot and I thought I could turn her into what I wanted. Almost like here is a good clay base, certainly I can work it into a masterpiece with the right combination of words. I was naive and assumed that since I changed my own mind with new info that she was capable of the same. I just want to assure you that your judgment is sound and nothing you said would have changed anything. (and jesus from that last bit you mentioned I think you seriously matrix dodged that one)

Lol, the best part for me is that I would have guessed it was Russian anyway. (polish background, I've had russian/slavic friends in the past)

Yeah I felt the same, like she is switching between attack and defense constantly. It's all about protecting her emotional integrity at all costs. It really warms my heart to hear that. This world can be a tough place to navigate without people watching your back. I think being neutral is a good idea, it's easy to get back on that treadmill of the past so keeping a clear head is important. As an example I tried to have a similar conversation with my mother not long ago and I ended up feeling angry and was distracted by her from the more important issues, though I still found the conversation valuable. For preparation it's helpful (since we know our parents so well) to imagine their responses so we can be ready for them when they come up. Also try to focus on your feelings instead of the events of the past. This is important because while memories can be hazy and disputable, they can't logically tell you that your own feelings are wrong. During my own childhood convo, my mom kept saying that she remembered things differently from me, so I had to continue to go back to something like, "Ok, well I understand that you may think things were fine, but I remember feeling terrified as a child.". As far as continuing the conversation with your mother, Stefan has some good advice that I will repeat here. He suggests that if you still have lingering feelings of uncertainty regarding your parents, that it's important to continue talking to them (taking breaks is fine, but putting it off indefinitely is not) because from those conversations you will either break through and find something salvageable in the relationship or you will gain closure from the realization that it's not possible. If your mom continues to ignore and belittle you, keep talking (it will be painful) until you just absolutely have nothing you want to say to her anymore. That's how you will know that it's over. I won't tell you what to do but this part alarms me. Do you mean because it is hard/scary? Or that you just don't think it will help you? I'm not an expert in this area by any means, I have a hard time doing it myself, but my understanding of psychology is that this younger self inside you is not gone or dead just because you are older. There are certain perspectives we have that remain within us as we age; an example of this is when someone is described as looking at a rainbow with a child-like wonder. Those parts can get locked away or suppressed inside our minds because of traumatic events, and it is important to reintegrate these aspects of ourselves in order to have access to the full range of human emotion and spontaneity that we are capable of. I think freeing these parts of ourselves that are trapped in our history and which can provoke us to repetitive, destructive actions is the whole purpose of therapy. This is not to suggest that you should do anything, but if you find yourself repeatedly in similar, negative situations that's a good sign that you have something unresolved from your past that is playing itself out in your present in order to get your attention. (This warrants further exploration of your past, and possibly therapy depending on the severity of the issue)

It's hard to comment without having read the material. The claim you posted though sounds strange to me. It would be like telling an overweight person that he needs to stop eating unhealthy foods and not exercising if he wants to be healthy and that trying to examine why he became fat is irrelevant to attaining a healthier weight. I mean yeah it is true that correcting your misconceptions on reality is the thing you need to do in order to be mentally healthy, but examining where these ideas came from is a good way to help people do that. If someone has a false belief about his self worth that causes him to experience social anxiety, then the way to solve that is not to merely tell him about his false belielf, he has to experience and understand it himself. CBT is based on actions that enable you to do this while the IFS/childhood experience approach is based on understanding the past. I see them as complementary approaches that work well together rather than being at odds with each other. That said Warren Farrell wrote a blurb for the book and I respect that guy's opinion so I'll definitely check it out.

Not to make light of your situation but this part made me literally laugh out loud. It's like, "My friend totally betrayed me by having sex with my girlfriend, which was a really crappy thing to do, and I just couldn't stand for it. Fast forward to this year and I felt like I never showed him much of who I really was and never took the time to really understand him." Sounds like you just entered bizzaro world and everything white is now black. (could be just a lack of info on my part) Also it feels strange to me that you want to explain yourself to her after defriending her. I know that if I had a friend I cared about and they decided to defriend me and stop talking to me I would absolutely want to find out why, so the fact that you don't mention her reaching out to you is noteworthy. (again maybe a lack of info) The whole situation seems odd to me, as if I'm missing a big part of a puzzle, namely the motivation for a relationship with this woman. I mean I noticed you didn't say a single positive thing about her, not that you should have. Sounds like it's all about understanding her and her problems, and trying to get where she is coming from, so that you can try to change her through your sage advice. (and prove to her that you have value because of your wisdom, so that she won't get bored and dispose of you) I don't want to project (this sounds similar to my own history) but does any of this remind you of your relationship with your mother? (having to prove your worth, trying to fix crazy, being focused on her needs over your own, trying to connect with someone who isn't very empathetic) To be clear I don't mean anything oedipal, just that you may be acting out certain parts of your past.

Oh my god that was difficult to read, and not because of your grammar. I found myself feeling enraged during much of that story. The arrogance of this woman to claim that she did nothing but "try to help you" while at the same time abandoning you to abusers as a child (you didn't mention why but it doesn't really matter) is an astounding feat of denial. She is more concerned about her own feelings (being "hurt and pissed off") than she is about why you may be angry about your history. I mean honestly if she really had no idea what you were talking about, and was this perfect angel of mother, would she not be curious as to what you mean by it? Just based on that text she sent you I see denial, defensiveness, minimizing, distortion, manipulation, put downs, and all sorts of passive aggressive behavior with absolutely no curiosity or interest in you as a person, so no, you absolutely will not have a meaningful conversation with her, text or otherwise about this particular issue. You already know what she is going to say about it based on what she sent you. She will deny and make excuses, pretend as if you are crazy and then act as though your anger is a confirmation of that if you have a problem with her abusive behavior. I'm sorry to hear about your history but happy to know that things are changing for you at least. I think a more productive thing to do would be to continue exploring where things went wrong on her end as a parent and trying to realign this story that you have about her with reality. (The only reason I am suggesting you have a story about your relationship to her is that a part of you is excusing her behavior) It might help to look at the actions she took and imagine hearing about a friend doing the same with his kid and seeing how that makes you feel. I'm curious what your wife thinks about all this as well. I think her view could help put things in perspective for you. (I can totally empathize with how hard it is to see things from inside yourself, don't kick yourself for it we all have this problem) Another thing that might be helpful is just to send her a text saying that she might be absolutely right about things and it could just be your issue but you need to take some time to sort things out for yourself and to do that you are going to take a break from the family for a while. Then take a few months to sort things out in your own head and see how you feel about seeing her again. Remember that it doesn't have to be a permanent break, and if she truly "supported whatever you wanted to do, right or wrong" then she should be able to support you here in your difficult struggle with your past. I think her response to that idea may also help you. Regardless of what you decide to do I just want to say you are not alone and I'm also having difficulty with this. It is a hard thing to recognize that what you thought to be true was actually manipulation and lies, and that your parents could have been abusers. Part of the hardship of this conversation is that you begin to see that most of what people are doing in society is an attempt to hide this information from themselves and pretend like none of it happened. Anyway I wish you luck.

Yeah this seems like a cogent argument until you examine how property rights originate, which is that you own your body and the effects of exercising it. The problem with saying the government owns things is that the government doesn't actually exist in reality, it is just a collection of people who use violence to steal from others. So since the government is just an abstract concept that refers to a collection of individuals it can't actually own anything anyway, even before getting to the issue of whether taking things by force is legitimate or not.

I think you are reading too much into what Stef was saying. His argument wasn't that nobody should use telecopes or that science isn't important, he's just saying it shouldn't be funded by stolen money because that shows people don't want to pay for it. Sure but that's why Microsoft has their own research division, because they don't expect other people to pay for it. I notice people like to point at things like NASA and DARPA and say how we wouldn't have space travel or the internet without government research, without considering that the same things could have been discovered without using stolen money. It's not like nobody would ever have figured out electronic communication or propulsion, because these are still interesting questions with or without the existence of the government to fund the answers to them.

That sounds accurate to me. Similar to how there isn't necessarily any direct violence involved in poverty so they add the word "structural" to make it sound more legitimate. It is somewhat amusing to me how the state is basically direct violence that has been abstracted through language, and how it could be described as structural violence in the sense that it is violent but depends on social structures/institutions to support its continuation, but I would never expect anything that clear as a definition.

No it's not the concentration of power that bothers anarchists, after all google has a lot of concentrated power over data but we don't view that as immoral, it is the monopoly power to initiate violence that is immoral. Once again you seem to be missing the point. If I have a boss because I work for a company, he has quite a bit of power over whether I have the job or not, and an anarchist wouldn't say that is problematic and we need to diffuse that power or whatever, because force is not involved in that interaction. The parent/child relationship has the potential for abuse, the government guarantees abuse. When a government sends you a refund, where does it get the money from? Oh right theft. How does the government have the ability to hire volunteers for its military? Oh right it needs to steal money in order to pay for their salaries. When I say the government can't do anything without force I'm saying that any action they take is only possible because of force. Without theft there would be no military or tax refunds or whatever. Wow I'm starting to understand where you're coming from, that argument is one hell of a twisted logical pretzel. Of course government can force people to do things against their will, but if people (to clarify, I mean society, not necessarily the individual person) view the government as legitimate authority or necessary like you argued one paragraph prior, then they will go along with it. I'm not arguing that violence only works when people think it is legitimate, I'm arguing that violence on the scale of the government is only possible if it is viewed as legitimate by the majority of people. The reason being quite logical, those in charge of the government are vastly outnumbered by the people they rule. If I try to control you with violence it is certainly possible if I'm bigger and stronger. If I try to control your whole neighborhood with violence it becomes much harder to do on my own, but a whole lot easier if your neighbors think that what I'm doing is actually morally good.

No it's not a false dichotomy because I'm not suggesting that the options are "nuclear family" or "kids on their own", the options are "adults have power over children" or "children manage their own lives". Clearly since children aren't capable of living on their own adult power is always a risk. You talk about mitigating it through decentralization, which frankly is irrelevent to the point, which is that there is no situation where children can be on their own while the same is not true for adults and their relationship with government. You glossed over my point entirely and didn't address the fact that government can't even do anything without initiating force, which is not true for parents, which indicates to me that this is probably something emotional going on in the background for you. What you are not understanding about how government is supposed to dissolve is that once people stop approving of violence they will stop approving of the government by extension, because the government can't exist without people accepting violence as a way to solve social problems. (because anything the government does involves violence)

Way too expensive. You can get vpn services with servers in a variety of countries which don't even keep log files for around $80 a year (some of them even accept bitcoin!). Of course if you don't particularly care about speed and only want to use something free for occassional traffic you can just use the (tor network). (Here) is a list of vpn providers that take anonymity seriously. I like IVPN and Privacy.io but definitely do your own research. I would definitely recommend looking at Tor first because it is completely free so there's no risk to try it out. Edit: Bleh just had to edit because I forgot to mention that it's not enough to secure your connection with encryption or obscure your location, your browser settings are equally important. Tor has a browser bundle that handles that for you but if you use a VPN I would recommend using extensions like NoScript and AdblockPlus to handle social media trackers, javascript, and cookies that can be used to identify you or your pattern of browsing activity.