Horseradish

I agree with this, and I want to clarify that when I am talking to someone, I find it distracting when they are looking at something else. If they are just averting their eyes but I feel that they are listening or engaged in what they're saying, just uncomfortable with eye contact, I don't find that rude, but I wonder why they feel uncomfortable with eye contact.

I wonder if these kind of obligations in their life make them resistant to doing school-related things. I know while growing up I was most of the time resistant to anything forced on me. I remember a time when I was about to do my homework, and then my dad came and told me to do my homework, and then I didn't, because I felt a strong urge to not do something just because someone told me to, I only wanted to do it as my own choice. You said "I like to give the impression" which is the same as lying. If your kids drops something on your toe, and it hurts, and you "give the impression" that you are " physically tough-as-nails and impervious to harm", then you are telling your kids that it doesn't hurt, which is the opposite of the truth, which is a lie.

I find this topic interesting, I have some thoughts and observations, I don't know what the right answer is. I do find it distracting when you are talking to someone and they are looking elsewhere, and I also try not to look elsewhere myself, and when I sometimes do, I feel that I have been rude. I usually like eye contact while talking, but I heard somewhere that it's good to give the other person a chance to took at you, so I sometimes look away for a few seconds, not at something but off into the distance. I think this seems to make people more comfortable, but I'm not really sure.

It doesn't seem likely that someone would have done something that had zero effect. I don't find it believable that it had no effect on you. You also said that it wouldn't be a punishment if it didn't bother you, but you say it had no effect. I was wondering that, if it bothered me because I couldn't argue with it. However I think what bothers me is what I said earlier, that children don't have the same level of moral responsibility, so I don't think they should be punished. This affectation is a lie to your children though. Leading up to now, what kind of things have they been forced to do in the past, or even right now? Are they forced to go to school? It does sound frustrating for you. What are they experiencing? Have you talked to them about it?

Sorry I'm a bit confused, you asked for them to pick something they want to get better at, but they don't want to do the thing they picked?

If these punishments had zero effect on you, then why did you parents do it? If it was completely ineffective, what was the point? This post bothers me, but I'm not sure why. I know I disagree with it, but I'm not sure where. After some thinking, I think this post bothers me because children are not full moral agents, their brains have not finished developing yet, so I don't think punishing them in kind is appropriate to their brain development. The other thing that I knew bothered me right away was "I also like to give the impression (not just to my children) that I am physically tough-as-nails and impervious to harm." Why would you want to do that? You are not tough-as-nails and impervious to harm, why would you want to give your children an impression of yourself as an adult that is false?

I think they might be less likely to participate, but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. They would have happy lives and display it to people around them, and some of those people might become curious and try to find out more. I think not fitting in is a good theory. I have a low ACE score of 2, and I might have said 1 before FDR, minimizing my memory of past negative feelings. The Daniel Mackler theory kind of made sense to me, until I saw the high scores other people posted. But the not fitting in thing makes sense. That is definitely something I felt. I never fit in with any peer groups or cliques, any group I spent time with I never felt that I was actually "in" the group. I only ever had one friend growing up who I thought wouldn't abandon me for another friend if they had the chance. I didn't feel understood by my parents. I spent a lot of time alone in my room listening to music and writing in my journal or reading. And then in college while I was busy partying and hanging out with lots of people I stopped writing in my journal or thinking about my inner world. And then when I failed out, I stopped hanging out with all those people, and I was alone again when I went to a group therapy thing which led me to podcasts and I discovered FDR.

Taking things away was one of the main ways my parents would punish us. Yelling was the other. When they took things away I felt angry and helpless. It was mostly video games, computer, or TV. They would disconnect the cable or internet, or take away the console or the cables for it. Most of this was around doing the dishes or some sort of cleaning. It usually felt unfair, because none of us 4 kids would usually do the dishes, but we would all be punished. I remember my mom saying how great we had it and that she had to work all day. And we had to go to school all day, and not get paid, and we were stuck in this house, it didn't feel like a fair trade-off that we had to do all the housework. And I am tempted to omit the detail that my dad was a stay at home dad, except for sort of part time work helping my mom's business. But dad, who is the parent who I tend to idealize, he wasn't working or going to school full time. So he fits into the "you kids should do a bunch of cleaning" picture even less. I just remember I had no energy to do dishes. And no desire. I did have the desire to be helpful, but that was squashed whenever something was forced on me. I remember once I was about to do my homework, a very rare occurrence for me, and then my Dad came and told me to do my homework. And I didn't, I remember having a bit of an inner battle between my desire to do it and not wanting to do it now that he told me to. And, the few times I used my innate desire to be helpful, like wash the dishes or something, Dad would sarcastically say something like "Oh you're doing the dishes this one time? Woooow that's soooo impressive". Wow Ruben, that sounds really twisted. I don't know the word for it, but it was probably emotionally confusing, and the mutual smiles and eye-rolling sounds like you had to stifle emotions and fake yourself a lot. Buying something with your own hard work, except that hard work was forced on you. And then you can't even keep the products of your forced labor. How has this affected you? Did it change your relationship with money or work or anything like that?

I find encores so weird, I feel uncomfortable to be in a crowd at a music gathering, because they have become expected.

What came to mind for me was similar to what David said. But for me it was something like society blaming the victim. A bunch of people's faces were criticizing you, but ignored the violence against you. What do you mean they would come after your mom? Do you mean the faces criticizing you? Or one of the guys who tried to rob you who ran away? You posted this dream awhile ago, have you figured anything out since then?

Mine last two donations still showed up as CAD for me, but I'm subscribed, so maybe it won't change for me.

From what I understand of Stef's experience, he came out of childhood seeing no evidence that anyone at all cared that he was abused. When he was in his late teens, people called the cops on him for having a quiet party, but no one called the cops on him for his entire childhood while his mom beat him. I think Stef's argument is that if the cops were called, the child would have evidence that at least one person out there cared that he was being hit. And that makes sense to me. And the idea that it could be worse to call the cops, well it could be better too. We don't have any studies about what happens when the cops show up. I think his point is to do something that the child can see. And maybe that's not calling the cops, maybe it's sending a carrier pigeon with a note to the child. Who knows. I struggle with what to do also, the family across the street used to get in screaming matches in the middle of the night. One night it was going on for a long time, I didn't know if I should call the cops. Eventually, someone else did, and then I felt guilty because I thought I should have done it. I don't know if calling the cops helped the family, but I haven't been woken up in the middle of the night by them since then. I still hear some screaming during the day, but less. I don't know if the kids have been helped, but maybe they have just a little.

That's right, I was going to mention that too. It wasn't just a one-time thing, which would have been horrible enough. They found it acceptable to do it over and over for years of your life. I don't think anyone said Heron didn't place blame on the parents. However Heron shifted the blame from what PetrKL feels most horribly about, what made him feel possibly the most scared he's been in his life. Heron said "Perhaps the Perhaps the issue of a possible lack of connection with your parents on their part, leading to your inability to talk to them about what was bothering you." Heron place blame on Petr's parents for *something*, but not for what Petr found most terrifying and horrible. And what Heron said is possibly a secondary issue, but he dismissed the main issue that Petr wanted to talk about.

PetrKL, I'm really sorry this happened to you. It sounds like a horrible, painful memory. No, you are not overreacting. This would not even be appropriate among adults who could process what was happening (unless they had agreed to it). But definitely not if it was your parents. And it happened repeatedly. And just to point out, maybe this is really obvious, but they could have gone to the living room they wanted so badly and had sex there, it's not like they were out of options. I don't think not feeling comfortable enough to talk to his parents about is the real issue. PetrKL said in his original post that he looked online and found that having sex in front of children falls in the sexual abuse category. So sexual abuse is the real issue. What was lacking in their parenting was that they had sex in front of him. I don't think you miscommunicated in your first post, you were quite clear. What you did was tell PetrKL that his terror was unfounded, that it was a minor issue and only about a slight lack of comfort in a relationship. I hope that you can figure out why you want to downplay this, BlackHeron, maybe something in your history. But I think you are adding to PetrKL's abuse in this thread.

It didn't come across as mean, it just came across as an assumption rather than a fact. Also, I'm a heterosexual woman, and I'm not repulsed by the idea of gay women or gay men. However this might be different than for a man. I have read about a study where heterosexual women have a sexual response to pictures of attractive men and women, where heterosexual men only have a sexual response to pictures of attractive women. However I haven't read anywhere that heterosexual men are naturally repulsed by gay sex, but I also haven't researched it. Do you know what book you read that in? Edit: The reason I care about this distinction in your post is that it might be the difference between some sort of cultural aversion to gay sex, versus a natural aversion. Maybe if you previously were disgusted by gay sex, and now you aren't, it might not have to do with your sexuality, but maybe you gained some sort of empathy for gay men? I am not sure, and I haven't listened to episode 2701 so I'm not sure how that conversation went.

What do you mean a "healthy heterosexual man"? How do you know that a "healthy heterosexual man" would be disgusted by the idea of 2 guys having sex with each other?

It kind of sounds like it to me. If they are thinking of you, why are they telling you getting a degree is the only way to "not waste time"? But I definitely might be wrong, I only have a bit of information. You said above that you think most of the skills you need can only be gained from experience. Have you discussed that with your parents?

Do they define wasting your time as not getting a degree?

Thanks, that is very helpful. That makes sense from what I've seen in society, which is "women cry, and it's ridiculous, but men don't cry at all" which is harmful for both, but worse for men, I think. That video is very useful too. Ya, I was trying to avoid saying it was good or bad, but it does seem like a negative part of me. But I guess that part of me was protecting me for a long time, so I shouldn't assume it was negative.

That's interesting. Like I was mourning the loss of a former part of myself? Can I be sad about losing something that was a good thing to lose? Ya, all the small steps in honesty were terrifying but made me feel brave and real. The definitely helped build up to this moment. This video was really interesting. Is it discussed anywhere else on FDR? I would like to talk about it. I think it is pretty helpful though. I wonder about some of the male emotions stuff. Stefan and Alice Miller are huge believers in feeling your childhood feelings as the only way to heal and become your true self. This video seems to say that not all people are like that (mostly on the male side). I think it's very interesting that men might express emotions in different ways. But I don't know if that is true, or if men are just not "allowed" to express their emotions in our society. That's interesting massaki, thanks for the response. The book wasn't necessarily my plan, but I did say something like "for example this book is something I want to work through" on the brief description I submitted when looking for a therapist. On my first session I outlined my goals, and the book wasn't part of the goals, but I did mention the book, partly to see if she would be against the book or anything. When she addressed it in our final session, she said that she knew I wanted to work on childhood issues, and she wasn't familiar with the book I talked about so she was using some of the things she knew about (in our first session she said she worked a lot with mindfulness, attachment theory, and emotion focused therapy). Then she apologized for not bringing up Homecoming. I don't know if that changes anything, though, and you might be right massaki. I know that even though I felt sad to go, I still didn't feel like I had some great connection that was deep and powerful. And maybe that takes time to establish? I don't know. I do think I got a lot of help from her, and I think I have improved a lot, I don't think I have come out worse, though maybe I am not seeing something because I can't view myself from the outside. However right now I want to take a break from therapy for a few weeks, but continue journalling and focusing on relaxing and letting myself feel my emotions, and to be curious about them. The video Mike Fleming linked makes me even more worried about finding a good therapist, and I don't have much money, and I have lots of work I can still do on my own currently so I want to do that. But when I go back, I know I am ready to ask for what I need.

Thanks, Lians That's interesting. It's not the first time, because what pops into my head is me talking to my bosses at work about issues I'm having, but that is something I've only started doing in the last year or so. It's always scary and usually when I start talking I cry, or am holding back tears but have watery eyes. And it's scary partly because I know I will cry, I can't hold it back unless I ignore the situation, and I don't want to do that anymore. It has been like small practices of honesty. The sadness was like I was sad to say goodbye to my therapist though, like I wanted to go back, that maybe I made the wrong decision. I don't know, I will have to think more about it. I think the authority thing is a good point. And it is probably related to me having seen my parents two weekends ago, where my goal was to be honest with them. And during that weekend whenever I was somewhat honest I would start crying or my eyes would water. (And I say somewhat honest because I still held back at points, I still didn't give the whole truth to my parents that weekend, but it was definitely a large step up, and it felt like a slight change in a pattern, which felt good)

I appreciate that response, maybe ZMorris was experiencing something similar? I don't go in the chat room very often, but there are definitely certain people in there who I prefer not to talk to. I think the key thing, as others have mentioned, is that this "community" is just a bunch of individuals. I don't approach the chat room like I am talking to some sort of hive mind, but I take note of what different people are saying. If one person says something irrational or non-empathetic, I take note of that person, I don't think "wow, this community is so irrational or non-empathetic."

Do you have any examples of a topic you've brought up and what the responses were?

Yes, some of my big issues are in honesty and in asking for what I want or just in negotiating. So I had these fears from the very beginning, but was only able to express them in therapy now. Which means I am seeing improvements, and I think she has helped me. But I am going to try a couple other therapists to see what happens, and this time I will be able to say what I need from the very beginning, because I have some practice and because I see how hard it is if I don't say what I need or bring up concerns from the beginning. And then I will see how I feel with these other therapists. I don't want to rule out the therapist I was seeing, because I did feel able to read my original post to her. Last year I had a counsellor through work for two sessions that I felt unable to go back to, I cancelled my appointment with the secretary and didn't respond to the counsellor when she called to rebook. After my second meeting with that counsellor I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, I felt like I was too awful to help myself. So that is a stark contrast to the therapist I have been seeing. But maybe there is a therapist that is an even better fit to me, so I will explore that, and see how I feel.

Thanks It felt really good afterward that I did it.