cynicist

I just wanted to add that it's not about blame: if you don't put responsibility in the proper place (your parents if they were abusive) then you will go through life with all these unresolved issues and will be utterly powerless to solve any problems that arise from them. For example, if you have issues with a negative self image that lead you to abusive relationships or not getting the job you want because you don't feel deserving, if that lack of self worth comes from your parents not showing enough interest in you as a child and you don't explore that, then you will be doomed to live the rest of your life with that problem because you will consider it to be your problem rather than a problem with how your parents raised you. (giving responsibility to yourself rather than where it should be)

This is the key in my mind. I imagine you were controlled by your parents for most of your life, and survived by managing the emotions/reactions of others around you. So your locus of control (meaning where you derive your feeling of efficacy or direction from) was external rather than internal. Now you are an adult and independent, but you no longer have that external pressure of your family to guide your actions and so you feel lost and confused about what to do with your life. This comes from not being free to explore your own desires and interests as a child. So now you have the painful task of learning how to manage your life based on your own desires and interests, which is really hard because you've been trained to do the opposite for so long. You resent the feeling of obligation that was historically imposed on you by your parents that you now feel is being imposed on you by the requirements of life. (job, money, taking care of yourself, etc) The escapism I would imagine is a habit you learned as a child to protect yourself from the harsh reality of the environment around you, a habit that is all too easy to continue now as an adult since you are being overwhelmed by all these situations you weren't adequately prepared to deal with as you were growing up. The pent up rage you feel needs to be explored and dealt with at some point because until it is you might act it out on others. (you probably are aware of and fear that possibility already) I could be totally wrong about all this stuff but I don't think so. Reading RTR and the story of Simon the Boxer can help. I would also highly recommend The Psychology of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden to help you understand your own mind better. My advice would be to take things one step at a time and learn what you need slowly, and remind yourself that it's not your fault and that even though you are behind you can catch up because there is nothing fundamentally wrong with you. (you have trauma, but it's not yours) Exploring and clarifying your history (especially with a therapist) will also help a lot.

Absolutely yes to all three questions. The reason friends are vitally important is because it is difficult to see yourself or your actions clearly sometimes from within. I'm sure you've noticed things about other people (odd behaviors or repetitive patterns, even things like dressing provocatively) that they don't seem to be conscious of, things that you would consider negative. Well friends are there to help you live your values more consistently by telling you when you go astray. This is especially true in romantic relationships because your base mammalian impulses will often conflict with your values As for the last question, we are social creatures. When we find something that we enjoy or do something that we are proud of the first thing we want to do is share our experiences with others, and we get a lot of pleasure out of that. I'm not sure I could say that friendship is required for personal happiness but it certainly enhances it. I share your pain as I've had many superficial relationships, and I'm working on my self-knowledge to prevent that from happening again. Although I think the value of true friends is prodigious, it is matched by the difficulty in finding them. Good luck in your venture.

I think the frequency is going to be determined by your budget and how much you want to be there (and whether or not you still think you need it). If you aren't enthusiastic about going then that's a sign that this therapist just isn't working out and it's time you stopped paying. If you were enjoying therapy and getting a lot out of it I don't think you would be asking if you should go once a week or once a year lol.

I'm kind of surprised this needs to be explained. The reason anarchists don't apply this principle to the relationship of parents to children is because children can't survive on their own. So yes there is an obviously large potential for corruption that many of us know intimately from our own upbringings, but this is unavoidable in the case of any adult/child relationship (partly due to physical dependency but also mental immaturity). The other key difference is that force is not implicit in a parent/child relationship like it is in any government action. If you think this is not the case then please give me one example of a government action that doesn't include the use of force.

So I watched that video and I'm still unclear as to what structural violence is. In the about section for that clip I read, "Poverty, also coined as 'Structural Violence', is the most deadly form of violence on Earth". This can't be the correct definition, because it doesn't include voluntary poverty. For example if I'm a college student and I decide to pursue graduate school, I'm voluntarily forgoing the money I could be making if I had a job because I want to pursue a higher education. So clearly it has to do with involuntary poverty, and in the video the examples that are cited involve death from being unable to afford food or medicine. Of course in either example there is no mention of any violence or structure involved, just the claim that poverty is bad. The obvious question to ask is why these African children are dying, despite $50 billion in international aid (source) every year? Of course the answer is that the statist rulers of those countries hoover up the money for their own ends. I have no idea if that is included in the umbrella term "structural violence" since no one can give a precise definition of it, but I find it incredibly annoying that people who use that term will talk about how bad waste or poverty is but not go any further to examine where these conditions originate. (besides of course blaming capitalism without reason or evidence)

Personally I thought you made some good points, but I'm also not sure what you expected from that conversation. I could see the train wreck from a mile away. Well I'll go ahead and judge her for you, what kind of parent calls their kid a brat? I can't imagine giving birth to a child and then judging their behavior as selfish/bad at the ages of one and three. I mean at that point everything they've learned has come from their parents. It's pretty obvious that she is just ordering them around and then is upset that they aren't doing what she wants. She doesn't negotiate with them and hypocritically considers them to be the unreasonable ones. And then she trots out that beaten down horse of an argument that, "you'll understand when you are a parent", disgusting. I know one thing for a fact, if I ever have kids I'll value them as human beings, not treat them like unruly pets that simply can't be reasoned with, or robots that should do what I say and never have an independent thought or desire in their minds. People like her don't deserve children, and honestly your criticism was rather light. I agree with anders that she was simply seeking validation, which is why she ended that convo so abruptly.

Man I know the feeling, before FDR I felt lost and confused, like I was an alien species or something. Now I know how true that is lol. And if you've had similar experience in trying to talk about shit that matters the intimidation is natural, I have difficulty trusting others enough to be open about my thoughts/feelings after being mocked for "taking things too seriously" among other types of humiliation or put downs. I would think it's even worse way up north where you are just because the less people there are the smaller the chance that you'll run into someone remotely rational. I've thought about moving up north myself due to my hate for hot/humid climates (probably around Colorado/Oregon/Washington) but from what I've seen it seems a lot of FDR members are located around Texas or in really large cities. Anyway good luck with the search, I'm still in the process of getting my life in order so I'm behind you at the moment.

Ha land of the conservative christian. I haven't been to Missouri but I live in South Carolina, where people think being atheist means not believing in organized religion. The idea that a "higher power" doesn't exist is unthinkable here...

That's great to hear. I've been there and I know how tough it can be to feel the pain and anxiety rather than try to make it go away. I also had a lot of drug using friends and the pressure to smoke can be hard to confront. In my situation I ended up abandoning my old friends because outside of the shared avoidance of reality we didn't have any true connection. Anyway I hope your job hunt turns out well, good luck.

This has been huge for me. I can see how it might be unsatisfying if you expect knowledge to transform the world quickly but just to be clear and grounded in my own mind is very rewarding to me. It wouldn't make much difference for sheep but we aren't sheep. We can make changes in our own lives but only after we have knowledge of what is wrong. I think people who are unsatisfied with mental clarity are probably struggling with the inability to change others. In the past this has been a frustrating and debilitating feeling for me as well but after taking a step back and really thinking about it, it's a liberating feeling too. After realizing that I have no responsibility to rescue other people from their crazy delusions I felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders.