TheSchwartz

This is very similar to how I feel about it, with the exception that I thought that I did know what love was for quite a long time, only to realize that the 'love' that I thought I had experienced was very much not real. The only people that I have known don't fully align with the principles I hold, including myself. That is why I added that particular definition of love, as I had some suspicions that this was perhaps why I am not sure if I love myself, or even sure what love is. I have heard the definition "that warm and fuzzy feeling" as love so many times, and I associate that with what "love" I was given when I was younger. I still can't figure out if my response to what I thought was real love was in fact real love, or if it was a mirroring of the manipulative type of love that I received, or maybe something else entirely. Would you say that love is an involuntary response, if not to virtue, something else? Or is it a conscious response that can be changed at will?

Today I came to realize how badly I want to be able to love myself, when I am not sure what it means or even very much what it feels like. If love is the involuntary response to virtue, what does it really mean to love yourself? Any thoughts would be welcome and very much appreciated!

I can only use assume "confiscated funds" actually means drug money they stole or some other similiar thing. I would imagine they are trying to show that they are using these "confiscated funds" for something "better" than the rightful owners would've. Seems legit (not photoshopped) to me!

I fell down, stopped moving, and didn't try to get up.

This idea when I realized it about myself hit me like a horse's hoof to the teeth.

After going to bed last night with a mind buzzing in thought, I woke up feeling... different. It feels as if someone has flipped a switch in my mind and I decided today would be the day that I quit smoking. I grit my teeth and began to look for things to occupy my time and my mind. I can't say that my day was particularly productive, but I discovered something incredibly important. I realized that the ache I feel when I am sober will certainly not be the death of me, and I have more control of myself than I believed before. Sadly, a little while ago, I gave into the temptation to smoke again, but I remain optimistic as I was able to refrain from smoking for most of the day. I look forward to see what tomorrow brings, which is certainly a change from the norm.

Thank you for pointing me in the direction of the theory of learned helplessness. I checked out your link and googled a few other sources, what I read seems to correlate with what I experienced and how I feel. I feel like the child needs independence and a voice of his own, to say the least. I am sure there is more to it than that, but I am still working those things out. I did stop going to therapy, at first because of lack of finances. However I started smoking instead of going to therapy a short while after we got some more funds. At some point I just gave in and stopped caring to a large degree. I have believed that it would be best if I were to just stop smoking altogether for a while now. It has become not so much a question of whether I should, but rather, how can I cope with my feeling without it?

I have been thinking a lot on this, and I agree. It is precisely the fact that I rarely take any action towards my betterment that makes me believe that I just don't care very much at all. I keep telling myself that I care, but I never do anything, and never feel any desire to work at it. How can I truthfully care if, when it comes down to getting my hands dirty, I would rather not?

A lot of what you wrote resonated very much with me madman, mostly towards the end. It is very much what didn't happen to me, and what I wasn't modeled and taught by my parents. I feel the same now about all of these things with the exceptions that I still don't really know much about win win stuff, and I acted insignificant and quiet so people would leave me alone rather than tough. I feel the same about suppressing my emotions indefinitely and living in my head, as well as smoking to make myself feel more stupid, although I wanted to do so in order to stop thinking so much or so deeply. I also agree that cannabis is keeping me down and stuck, which is why I feel it would be in my best interest to quit. I also feel it is a strong possibility that I will have to move away from my brother in order to quit, as I do not believe he has any interest in quitting whatsoever. I am feeling stuck at that point, finding a job and building a savings so I can support myself after I make the move, whenever that might be. When it comes to taking action in almost any regard, I give up on myself before I have even begun. This is one of the major ways in which I feel a disconnect between what I want and what I do. Rather than persevere and use the frustration as fuel to drive me towards my goals, I just give up without a fight. I feel like I am crying because I am so used to feeling unworthy of sympathy that it is almost a shock to receive any, and I am incredibly grateful for it. Thank you for taking an interest in me. Out of curiosity, in what way would the second option make you suspicious. Truthfully, the part of me that I feel has been dominating my seat of consciousness for the past couple of months does feel like giving up because of the lack of knowledge rather than having it drive me. I feel overwhelmed by the amount that I don't know, the amount of time it will take to learn what I don't know, the degree to which I don't feel like I care about the fact that my life is going down the drain, and the lack of desire for taking real action. A part of me feels like I am kidding myself when I tell myself that I really want to do these things and change my life for the better. I often feel like the fact that I do very little to better myself is a sign that I don't really care. This kind of spurs me to do even less, because I feel like I have already failed, and I give up. I often feel like a coward because I capitulate so easily.. I have no fight in me, and I don't put effort into anything that I can think of. I want so badly to believe that I really I really care about myself and my future, but I can't help but think, "If I did care about myself, wouldn't I be working really hard to make myself better, rather than doing largely nothing as I have been?" I don't know how relevant this is, but I started crying very hard as I began typing that quote. I have done only a few hour long sessions with a therapist, and I started journaling in the beginning of September, although that has slowed down a lot this month. I find myself writing only 20-30 minutes every few days rather than up to 2+ hours a day I have done on many days. I have been stuck for a while feeling overwhelmingly hopeless in my situation. I struggle with the fact that I tell myself day after day how much better things could be, and the myriad of ways I could begin today in bettering myself, yet I continue doing nothing. I struggle with trying to understand why I continue to pretend like there is a hope to change when I don't feel very comfortable with or am willing to do the work necessary for the change. Thank you so much for the kind and encouraging words. I have trouble with seeing myself as having the capacity to be good, and so it is difficult for me to take them to heart. Especially the part about fuck not having control over my own life. I feel like I am desperately afraid of taking control of myself and finally being a 'real' person I am incredibly grateful for your response and the interest you have taken. Although, I can't help but feel like I am dumping on you. I feel as if a damn has broke and now the flood waters have come bursting all over this forum. I guess I am just afraid that I am asking you of your time without really giving anything back. Regardless of that, I feel like all of the comments have been very helpful so far, and I am thankful. I feel I must rest and think some more on this, as I am still quite confused. Until then, I eagerly await any further responses!

Thank you so much for your great responses, I will respond as best I can, though I am having difficulty understanding myself right now. Tears are rolling down my cheeks and I am not sure why. I don't remember very much before around 9 years old, which was around the time my father passed away. I have this vague memory of him being "good", and he certainly was good with other people, but I firmly believe he was a terrible parent. I remember 3 times that he spanked me, and I remember that he would yell, to what degree and duration, I do not remember very well. But after speaking with my brother about his experience, the way I think about how he was has changed significantly. My brother has told me about my father dropping a gallon of milk on his head as he was pretending to sleep on the couch for touching the thermostat. He told me about how my father slapped him across the face for defiantly dropping a piece of litter onto the floor while he was being lectured about keeping the house clean. He tells me about how my father yelled. I don't remember nearly this kind of treatment, and I can't help but think my brother was treated more poorly because he was unwilling to bend, and I was always compliant. My brother of course was also bullying me, repeating what had been inflicted on him to me. After my father passed away, my mother was diagnosed with cancer in her eye, which slowly spread to her liver and spine in the next decade. My mother would spend an increasingly larger amount of time at work over her last 10 years, partially because of the way me and my brother were behaving, and the state of the house, but I believe there were probably other reasons as well. I only had 1 close friend during my childhood, and the friendship began only because he smoked cigarettes and I told him I did when in reality I had only smoked once. In my late pre-teens and early teens, most of my time spent outside of school was with him, either playing with the kids in his neighborhood, or doing something else in his house if no one wanted to play. We started to play video games a lot when we were around 13-15, but as our time at high school went on, he found other people that he liked more than me, at least I assume, as he eventually stopped hanging out with me, or doing anything with me. I had only had casual 'friends' throughout my life aside from the one deeper friendship, and so I delved further into the world of video games. I had been mostly withdrawn before my friend stopped hanging out with me, and became completely so when he did stop. I spent all of my time outside of school and sleep playing video games. I had had friends on the video games I played, but increasingly I was removing them from my friends list or them remove me as we increasingly realized we weren't really friends and didn't play with each other anymore anyway. As time went on, I increasingly isolated myself, with my mother increasingly isolating herself from my brother and I. Closer to the end of my senior year of high school, I started to try to open up and make friends, and to try to break out of my isolated state. I even asked a few girls out, though I never followed up on the one that said yes. I am not sure why I stopped trying, but I did, and my isolation increased after high school. I went to college for a little while to be an electrical engineer, paid for by my mother, and partially from a small scholarship I got. I stopped going after less than 2 months. It was for a multitude of reasons, but the biggest was I just didn't really care or see the point of putting that much effort into something that I didn't feel was very worth it. With my mother supporting me, and no real reason to get a job, I began playing video games pretty much all day every day. It was almost always just me alone in the house playing video games, my mother at work (occasionally staying over night), and my brother elsewhere with friends, eventually moving to Arizona for a while. When I was 19 or 20, I got my first real job through my aunt's partner at a day facility for the mentally handicapped. I quit that job after 2 months or so when I was asked to clean someone after having used the restroom, rather than express my preference to not do something I don't feel comfortable doing. This has been and still is a theme throughout my life, not expressing myself openly and honestly. After I quit, my mother's condition got gradually worse, until it spread to her spine and paralyzed her, causing her to make the decision to be moved to a hospice. She lived there for a few months where me and my brother would alternate seeing her every weekend. At this point, my brother and I lived in our mother's house together, almost exclusively spending our time playing video games. This is also around the time I began smoking cannabis, as my brother had began some years earlier, and naturally asked if I would like to smoke when he did. In early 2011, my mother passed away, and left us a trust with our aunt as the trustee. This combined with several life insurance policies she took out, were quite enough for us to live off of for an indefinite amount of time. It was around this time that we began our journey down the rabbit hole, actually beginning with Ron Paul, eventually ending up at FDR. After a year and a half or more of me and my brother spending our time and money playing video games and smoking our aunts began to pressure us to find employment, or to get some kind of education. We both opted to become video game programmers, but we both became uninterested within a month or two, and stopped going before long. With no real incentive to better ourselves, and not having any real concept of delayed gratification in our minds, we just did what was convenient to us. After a while longer of more doing nothing, our aunt began to try to make it seem like the money would last a whole lot longer, and that we really should consider doing something with what we had left. So, she proposed a plan to start out own business, and that she believed it would be a good idea to become gunsmiths. Having no direction or goals for myself, I latched onto this idea like a lamprey, lying to myself, her, and my brother about how much I wanted to do this. So, we began the necessary steps of putting together a business, using the trust to fund it. There are a lot of details regarding how that went down, suffice it to say, we opened in June 2013 and closed in July or August of 2014. This was mostly due to the lack of energy and effort from my brother and I, and our aunt's willful or not refusal to see it. Neither of us were really motivated or wanted to do the necessary work required for a business to succeed, and would spend more of our time at the shop not working than doing something productive. We would leave early almost every day, often closing the shop early if our aunt was not there to keep it open. She was putting all the effort in that we should have been, and I am only beginning to realize the implications of the year I basically stole from her life. However, after having closed the business I have had quite a revealing conversation with my aunt and her partner that has made me believe she was not acknowledging our lack of effort for selfish reasons. She had recently been let go from her job as superintendent of a juvenile correctional facility, and I believe that was part of her decision to ask us to start a business. After about 6 months, I was at the point where I realized I was unmotivated, and depressed about everything, and she only made a token effort at talking to me about it. I was lying to myself a lot then, and thus lying to her. She took my words at face value, and ignored my continuation of the same behavior. I have had knowledge of my depression for at least a year and a half now, having realized that I don't really have friends, and the few people in my life I am not totally open with. I continue to keep quite a lot of myself to myself if that makes any sense. I do not know what she gets out of her relationship out of me exactly, but I know that I feel I am getting nothing out of it from her. She says she loves me, but we barely know anything about one another. What I do know about her is that she knew that things were going wrong at our home when we were children, and her excuse was "I wasn't sure when would be a good time to step in". So, I am at the point where I am ready to cut my aunts out of my life, I just have to build up the courage to have that conversation with them. I feel I owe them that. I am also at the point where the money is starting to run out, and we are living on selling stuff from the business that we don't need, and debt. I feel like my brother is ignoring reality the same as I am, and while I know intellectually that I am going down a very terrible path, I continue to have no interest in taking serious action to change. I want to have this conversation with my brother, to be real with him, and be able to say, "hey, I think smoking is terrible, and I want to quit, and if you don't want to, I cannot live with you because it will be too tempting". At the same time, I need to find a job, which requires me to work through my anxiety of inexperience and feelings of little worth. This would enable me to begin saving money, which I feel would be necessary for me to go live independently. I guess my values are just a vague notion of how I want to be, and not very well defined. For example, I feel I should be completely open and honest in the couple of relationships I have, but I find myself being closed off for fear of burdening someone else with my issues, or annoying someone or embarrassing myself. I believe I can tell what are my real values by how I live, and what I do, and this is what I think is partly causing my depression. I am not living the values I perceive to have, nor am I working towards fulfilling my desires. Instead, I have reverted to my old habit of playing video games and smoking cannabis. I feel terrified at the thought of taking responsibility for myself and actually attempting to succeed in my goals rather than let them lie fallow and ill defined. I feel very small, insignificant, and I feel I have been and continue to waste my potential for this fear of rejection, for this fear of being spotted as broken, as untouchable. I often feel like a brain in a vat, like I have no connection with myself or my body. I feel like my mind is adrift in a vast sea of nothingness. This is actually the kind of idea that prompted me to post this in the first place. I want to better myself, and I know at least a few of the ways in which I could begin doing so, yet I don't do those things. I continue to ignore reality and let my situation continue to worsen. I overwhelmingly feel like the cost benefit of fixing myself so to speak is not in my favor. I feel like there isn't really a place for me in the world, like I have spent so much time not living, that it is too late to do so. And so I never do anything, and sit there and feel terrible about myself for being so whiny and never doing anything. I feel like I have been sitting here excusing myself from taking responsibility, but at the same time, I feel completely in the dark in terms of how to actually live my life and be a human being. I just feel so weird, almost like my life can't be real, like it is just a dream or something. I feel very ineffective in my life, and I don't really know what it is like to succeed, as I have put no effort into almost anything in my life. I feel so confused and overwhelmed by all the emotions that I feel, and I often end up feeling numb or empty, or I distract myself to the point where I don't even acknowledge my feelings. I am not good at separating emotions either. Sometimes I am able to tell what is causing the feeling, and thus able to discern more clearly what the feeling is. Most of the time, it is just a bad feeling that I am experiencing and I retreat into smoking, and distractions, and numbing myself to the point of nothingness. Thank you very much for your time if you have come this far. I understand that I wrote a lot, and I am unsure of how clear I was and I hope I am not emotionally dumping on you guys. I have been so isolated for so long, I am afraid that I might have gone crazy and there is no coming back. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, and thanks again!

Throughout my life I have not had a connection with the people and the world around me. This also extends to a lack of connection with my principles, my desires in life and the goals necessary to meet them. There are so many things about myself and the way I operate my life that I want to change, and I think about ways I could go about doing so, yet I almost never make any kind of action in order to accomplish what I want. I don't really live what I perceive to be my values, and so my desires feel disconnected from my actions. I am unsure of myself and confused about a lot of things, without any kind of real support from anyone. I have one person in my life(whom I live with), my brother, and our relationship, while honest, is not very open, and we don't have much of a connection at all. We are both into FDR and the idea of anarchism, but I really think I am much more into philosophy than he is, or at least I believe I am. I already know I want to become independent as I have never been in my life, and live on my own, my own way. We both smoke cannabis, and he does not want to quit, ever, as far as I can tell. I have wanted to quit for a while now, but I find it difficult to do so when I have the relief to this sickening and ever-present ache in my stomach and chest right in front of my face every morning. In order to become dependent, I know I will have to do what I have not done before in my life, find a job. I have essentially been supported by my mother throughout my life and by the trust she left us after she passed away, and I have never developed any kind of skills or value, and I just don't know what to do with myself now that it is nearly gone. I feel lost in terms of the direction I want to take in my life, and I don't feel efficacious in moving my life where I want it to be. I am afraid of taking on the responsibility (and joy) of life, mostly because I don't feel adequate or "ready", or that I have enough to offer for anyone to take interest in me, whatever the relationship might be. I have had almost no relationships of any kind throughout my life, and I feel I am lacking in the kind of qualities that would make someone interested in me. I feel like I am starting to ramble, so I will try to make a point. I want to move forward with my life, but I feel like there is no place for me, and I feel disconnected from just about everything. Any help or advice would be very greatly appreciated!

It makes me sad to think that she would rather make an app to force her children and many others to stop using their cell phones, rather than try to figure out why the children are unwilling to ever speak to the parent.

From the article: “I lost my daughter, but it was the will of God,” Sidime told Quebec Court Judge Richard Marleau. “I am not violent.” I am completely dumbfounded by this, and it struck me as completely crazy. Him and any other parent claiming that their abuse is the "will" or sometimes the "wrath" of God, are just completely delusional. What a despicable system that doesn't consider this and the many other red flags in this case that this guy did this of his own free will, and certainly DID mean to harm this poor little girl, even if he didn't mean to kill her. It is also disgusting how the rest of the family completely supports him and considers him a "gentle and quiet man". He just MURDERED one of your younger family members.. does that mean nothing to these people??? I guess either delusion has fully spread throughout the family (and apparently the rest of Quebec), or Sidime has them so completely under his boot heel that they are too scared to oppose him.

My thoughts lately have been revolving around how much the framing of my own situation in my mind might be causing my problems more than I previously thought. I will often think of myself in incredibly negative terms, and then realize (at least intellectually) that these things aren't really true. An example, I often think of myself as worthless, or unable to provide value to others around me. Then I remember that I have in the past provided much value to people, even if it isn't as much or as often as I would like. I also often feel as if I just don't belong with humanity, and that there are no people that I can relate to or have any kind of relationship with. Again, I know this isn't true, as the single digit number of people I 'know' are nowhere near the entire world, and there are at least a few good people that inhabit it. So at least intellectually, I know that I am capable of and it is worth putting myself out there for other people to see, but I just can't seem to get over this block I am feeling that makes me want to continuing hiding from the world. This is why I am increasingly beginning to think that I am essentially making my own life shit. Another thing that I just realized today, is that I am subconsciously expecting other people to do the work necessary for my growth in my stead. Before I began this topic, I had been Googling how to find low cost or better, free psychotherapy. One of the most useful pieces of advice was to just start calling therapists in my area and telling them my situation, that I am desperate for help and I can't really afford it. Instead of doing that, I came here to make a topic that was going to essentially be "What are your opinions such and such therapy, and how can I get it for free?". I can't help but think this attitude is a major part of my isolation. Thank you for reading.

I guess I am first and foremost thinking of a quote that I heard Stefan say in one of the call in shows "sadness is the coward's anger" as that did and continues to resonate within me. I am having trouble even recognizing whom my anger should lie with. After my mother passed away, my brother and I were living together in our childhood house, and shortly after, we both started leaning towards libertarianism. I remember how much I clung to him, how desperately I felt the need for someone to 'copy'. I would basically take the same interests and likings as him, having no real personality or life of my own. During this time period, we would periodically have incredible shouting matches over the tiniest thing (usually a video game). I realize now how much that is due to both of our underlying emotional issues, and the fact that they remain unresolved to a large degree. After talking about it with him, and in retrospect, I understand now how much he using words and other manipulations to win these 'arguments' at any cost. As a result, I have developed a lot of mental health issues, mostly because of his internalized voice inside of my hide. I believe the beginning of the worsening of my depression happened when we finally had the shouting match that ended in a conversation where he finally revealed how manipulative he had been being. Since then (maybe 2 or 3 months ago?) I have been feeling relief that is almost palpable, at least towards my brother. We have both come to a new level in our relationship, where we both no longer yell at each other, and we resolve conflicts with each other quickly and fairly (conflicts aren't very often either). I still am confused about him, as even though he is no longer abusive, and our relationship is better than ever, I often feel like his ambitions to better himself are not as high as mine, for whatever ambition is worth when you are in such a depressed state as I. Sometimes I feel like our ambitions are just going in different directions instead, like he is trying to improve in different areas than I am to start with. Before 2 weeks, ago, I knew that the only other 2 people in my life (my two aunts) were both statist, but I was cutting them slack because I thought they actually cared about me, and were truly interested in my well being. About 1 1/2 to 2 weeks ago, I was feeling so absolutely depressed, that I finally decided to go and talk to them about it (as truthfully as I could, like I hadn't done before). It was and even more revealing conversation than the one where I had the revelation about my brother being manipulative. They fully revealed how incredibly little they respect or care for me, and how irrational they are. As I was talking to them about my father in my childhood, they were repeatedly excusing him for the neglect and abuse (what little I can remember) that he showed me. They got even worse when I was relating what my brother had told me what he remembered about his childhood. Eventually, the conversation led to peaceful parenting, and the immorality of government, when they went into full defense mode. My brother and I have tried to talk to them about these subjects before and repeatedly, and I suppose this was one last desperate attempt to see if they could be brought around. I had been getting increasingly angry at them for the excuses they were making for my father and spanking or abuse in general, but it was at this point that my perspective shifted, and I fully understood they would never be brought around. For the past year, I have been running a gunsmithing business with one of the aunts and my brother, and we recently made the decision to put the business on hold due to lack of revenue. I will soon be able to remove both of these unrepentant statists from my life, and I will be all the better for it. I truly wish I could say that the phrase "you are not alone" had any effect on me, but it never has from anyone, online or in person. No matter how much I intellectually understand that there are so terribly many people that have similar and sometimes nearly identical experiences to mine, I still feel alone. Maybe that has something to do with my near constant state of isolation I have been in basically since my father died when I was 9. I too have often viciously self-attacked myself, although I have been trying to learn to be gentler. Even though I rarely attack myself anymore, I also rarely, if ever, have positive feelings about myself either. I find myself crying often crying as well, usually a self-pitying cry. I feel like there are some legitimate emotions behind this sadness that makes me cry, but it always ends up with thoughts of hopelessness, uselessness, and pointlessness swirling around my head instead of anything constructive that could help me understand the sadness. I too feel a sense of hollowness, that might stem from the fact that I have been leading an even more isolated life than my mother modeled for me. Thank you PGP and Sam for sharing your experiences with me. I suppose there is the consolation that even though I feel like my life up to this point has basically been wasted, I have come to the realization that I need to change before I wake up one morning when I am 50 and realize that the majority of my life had been wasted instead of only the first part. I am sorry if this just seems like a huge jumbled wall of text, I still have much difficulty connecting with myself, or others. During this past week, I did some tentative searching for a therapist, and that just made me feel awkward, and weak. Awkward because I sat there thinking about how anxious I would be to even talk to any of these people, and weak because I feel now like I was using the excuse of "them not being for me" purely based on their photos and nothing else. There is also the factor of me being broke that has helped to deter me from seeking a therapist.

Thank you very much, and I'll take that to mean that I am not alone

In the past week or so, I felt a serious and real change in my attitude towards my life, and an apparent disappearance of a sense of apathy I had been carrying for as long as I could remember. I have spent this time being more productive than I literally have ever been, and it made me feel so good, and happy for once. But today, I woke up, and it was all back to the same. I once again am stuck back with all these incredibly negative feelings, and I have no idea why. My situation has not changed at all since yesterday, yet my mental state and my hope have bottomed out again. I guess I don't even have a question, and I am sorry for having so little information to go on, but I just don't know what to do. I felt for sure that I could finally maintain a sense of hope and worth, that definitely this time it wouldn't slither and fade away into the darkness. But I was wrong, and here I am, in the same negative mental state as always, without a sense of what went wrong, or why I am back to where I was. I guess I am just desperate for a connection somewhere. Thanks for your time and feedback.

EuanM, not studying exactly, I am just discovering I have an increasing interest in history. Lately I have been reading up on the various political and otherwise influences on WWI and the subsequent wars. Although I am still fairly new to the subject, what I have read indicates to me that without WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and possibly even Korea/Vietnam would not have happened either. It just seems like a long list of dominoes that all fell together perfectly to keep the wars going. But what the hell do I know, I aint' done none of that thar fancy college stujyin. I guess I am just fascinated (in a morbid kind of way) how elegantly the powers and governments of the world have fucked things up in the past, and how that reaches forward into the present in so many ways.

What kind of history are you studying? Got any recommendations on good literature?

I'm incredibly sorry to hear what happened to you as a child. I can't imagine what it must be like to be literally under constant threat of death from your own parents as I experienced mostly only neglect. I am less than half your age (23) and I am currently experiencing issues with cannabis abuse. I completely understand the desire to break with reality when reality is so relentlessly shitty and just be high all the time. You didn't mention if you still currently use alcohol or cannabis and if not, I was just curious what it was that helped you kick it.

I too am having issues with quitting cannabis. Whenever my thoughts turn to quitting I get this feeling of hollowness and I am afraid of where that might lead. I also find it difficult to understand why I do this to myself, and I am very glad to know that I might find help in the book you suggested for more reasons than I initially got it for.

Hi madman, thanks for the input! For me, it has become harder and harder to be scared of being truthful anymore, mostly because of how much I realize I have nothing at all to lose. I am currently reading Self-Therapy by Jay Early which is on the IFS Psychotherapy and I plan on reading "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" afterwards. I'll definitely check out Alice Miller and Ayn Rand after, though. I will need to read RTR again as I don't think I was really connecting with it the first time through. Edit: Spelling

Were these alcoholic nighttime visitors abusive and/or unruly? Also, has the landlady had any other previous tenants that seem questionable to you? You expressed a desire to have the other tenants not be dangerous in addition to any landlord. I would definitely try to get to know more about their background, like you did with the landlady, in case they have dangerous people in their lives. Was the counseling she received positive and healthy? Did she learn any negative behaviors from bad therapists (such as forgiving unrepentant abusers)? Is one of her boyfriends likely to be abusive towards her or any of her tenants? What is her current boyfriend like (if she has one currently), and might you be able to find out anything about any past boyfriends? I wonder if having parents such as she had was at all related to her indifference to her tenants bringing alcoholics in for nighttime sexcapades?

Does a child not have to be taught aggression before they themselves initiate it?

Hello, my name is Bryan and while I have been a long time lurker (2 1/2 years), this is my first post. Until very recently, I have been living disconnected with myself and the world, to the point where I felt like I was living in a video game where everyone were npcs. Just empty pixels to interact with occasionally along my solitary journey towards nothing in particular. As a result, human contact has become very alien to me, and I have only recently begun the process to learn how to reconnect with others and myself. I basically feel as if I have just woken up out of a coma, and I have yet to learn much of anything deeply about who I am, what I like, what I feel, and how I can bring others to myself as well as myself to others. I am incredibly confused about a lot of things at the moment, but I am trying to be as honest and totally open as I can. This is critical I think, as I have a lifetime pattern of lying to myself and others when it comes to asserting my own feelings and preferences. In terms of "close" (I use quotes because I have realized the relationships are only superficially close in most areas) family I have one brother and two aunts (both of whom are common law married). I also have another aunt and two cousins who I am not very close to at all. My father passed away in 2001 from an embolism, and my mother passed away in 2011 from complications from liver cancer. In the 10 years that passed from those two dates my mother modeled incredibly hermit-like behavior. I think part of the reason I "woke up" recently is that I have realized that I am living basically as she did, except even worse. If she was hermit-like, I could almost be labeled a hermit, as she was at least working steadily and had people around her (unlike me then, and now where my brother is the only person I see on a regular basis). Basically, I feel as if I have had no friends or really any significant people in my life, my brother being somewhat of an exception. Despite the fact that he was the one who introduced me to FDR, and is older than me, I feel like I am more committed to personal growth than him. I see him consuming so much socially and politically material, but nothing of self growth, so I can only know that I don't see him actively working towards self growth I am only just now awakening to this fact after a desperate depression has gripped me over the past week (which is what I think is helping me to finally get over my apathy and to enter the path to finally become mentally healthy). A little bit about my childhood, what I can remember at least. My father was the primary presence in my life, with my mother making nearly zero impact (of course other than to have chosen my father and birthed me, which is a pretty big part of me being here, but I digress). I only vaguely remember him yelling at me only sparsely throughout my childhood about nothing that I can remember specifically. I only remember 3 times that he ever spanked me. The rest of what I remember (or think I do) seems to be of him being a really good dad, and person in general. He was the biggest "people" person, in that, everyone really liked him and what he contributed to them and what he liked to do. According to my brother, my father was incredibly abusive and did such things as dropping a full, unopened gallon of milk on his head as he slept. This is very far from what I remember, but I have recently begun to think that my memories might be very clouded. I have also entertained the notion that perhaps it was simply that my father treated me "better" than him, although I feel the former is the more likely. Basically, I have been isolated mentally or physically for all of my life and interacting with other human beings is incredibly alien to me and extremely awkward and unknown territory for me. I am tired of being so alone, and I am tired of me being so alone making me feel awkward about just talking to people. I guess this is really just a desperate cry for connection from someone who has had a life devoid of it. I live in Columbus, Ohio with my brother and 2 dogs. A little over a year ago me, my brother, and my aunt, with the help of the trust that my mother built over the last years of her life founded a gunsmithing/machining/firearms training center that has not succeeded. We are not dissolving the business, just moving it to our home and no longer being a full time gunsmith/machinist, so I suppose I am now unemployed. I enjoy reading, particularly science-fiction and fantasy, nature, history, animals, and more recently, writing. I realize I have been fairly intellectually lazy for a good deal of my life and I have not done anywhere near as much intellectually stimulating/philosophical reading as I would like. Basically I have only read Stef's books in terms of philosophy. If anyone has a suggestion of good material in regards to philosophy, self knowledge, or history, that would be much appreciated. I have spent most of my life just doing things in compliance with the desires of those around me, always squelching my own feelings and desires. As a result, I have only just begun to work on examining my own desires and am still working out my own personality, desires, feelings, and so forth. I hope you can understand any awkwardness that might be present in my introduction, as I am very new to opening up and even speaking directly and truthfully to others. I suppose this is simply a desperate plea for reciprocated honesty, vulnerability, and openness that I feel I have never truly experienced in my life. I truly thank you if you have taken the time to read this with an open mind and curiosity, and I very much look forward to hearing any replies there might be. All the best!, Bryan Schwartz