Prairie

A few that come to mind: NegativesDo I bring problems with my friend to others, without first talking to my friend directly?Do I regularly have criticisms to give about minor aspects of my friend?PositivesDo I talk to my friend directly about problems I'm having with them and generally resolve them?Do I think of this friend when I need someone to talk to when stressed?

I wonder whether the objection is based on use of words in order to restimulate unhealed trauma in the target. If you're doing something that you know will trigger someone else, it seems to fall somewhere between non-aggression and aggression. If someone had been tortured and you repeat phrases the torturers used because you know the person would fall into panic, is it really just a word?

These wife-beating arguments would be a powerful example to bring out when people dismiss child beating. Any links to the articles? I'm not finding much so far.

Point taken. I probed this inside and it was the experiences of someone supposedly helping me but subtly undermining me with their insistence that their idea of action is the correct one. With a parent mistreating their child, having that child see that a big person is on their side is important, even if just someone passing. I suppose it's similar with an adult who has consciously hidden this right to be angry and someone else expressing anger rekindles it.The key for me is that my ally has their own anger at my abuser and doesn't pass it off as something they're doing to help me; it's something for them to settle with my abuser rather than something additional I now have to deal with/placate in order for my ally to respect me. I guess it's obvious by now that I've had experiences like I describe of apparent allies just adding to my burdens and not being honest about their own feelings and motives.I offer this and my previous message entirely as a glimpse into my world and not as advice. Make of it what you will.

Apologies for jumping in. This is my own experience/preference regarding others who are trying to help me, and it might provide some ideas as to her reaction: When I'm having someone listen to me, it doesn't work at all if they try to take up my cause for me, because they inevitably go a different direction and it tends to make it hard for them to listen to me talk about my issue. I don't think the listener to my story has much place to be angry at my abuser. My issue is personal and ever-changing as I work through it. I don't want someone treating them like a bad person or anything that's not connected to their own mistreatment at the person's hands, as it reframes what I'm saying as them being a bad person. At least for me, my sole problem is with the abuser's actions towards me, and their lack of acknowledgement of it (which is another one of the actions towards me). Finally, someone else taking up the cause without my request makes my personal issue something that I have less decision in when it's discussed or acted on. I need to have sole control of when and how it's dealt with; those helping me must not take their own initiative and do what they consider helpful, even if I am not OK with it.

I've been using these for a few days (I have a bookmark to the top-level page listing all the subforums, since these remove those links). I made them by using the Element Hiding Helper and just clicking on them, no delving into the HTML. board.freedomainradio.com##.ipbfs_titleboxboard.freedomainradio.com##.messageboard.freedomainradio.com##.topic_controlsboard.freedomainradio.com###brandingboard.freedomainradio.com###secondary_navigationboard.freedomainradio.com###topic_statsboard.freedomainradio.com###footer_socialmediaboard.freedomainradio.com##.topic_share.left.shareButtons.ipsList_inlineboard.freedomainradio.com###footer_utilities

I was listening to one show linked from another thread and at first I felt irritated at the caller for being so reluctant to say anything, to beat around the bush. At some point I was seeing really hateful things come up in me, casting the caller as pathetic, weak, unassertive, etc. It shocked me and I used it as a chance to examine this in me, because I hadn't realized it was there to that extent. I also gave the caller a second chance in my mind and saw how this was due to the very things they were talking about from their childhood. It was a valuable opportunity to notice some unexamined abusive pattern repeating in myself

Oh nice about turning off signatures. Usually it's in the main board prefs section. dsayers, I got board.freedomainradio.com##.ipbfs_titlebox to hide the thread title. And I was able to remove the .title one. I also found I could get rid of the Reply button at the top with board.freedomainradio.com##.topic_controls. Then I went overboard and got rid of everything but the thread contents, but I won't bother posting those.

I find that if I have a song running in my mind, it's generally the last one I listened to, even if it was days ago that I last listened to one. When I unpause the music player days later I'm sometimes surprised that it starts playing just what I had been hearing off and on in the days before.The biggest effect (maybe not side-) I notice is much less worry over missing out on something by ignoring news/TV/radio/traditional life plans. Years back I felt like I was missing things by not watching movies, TV shows, etc.

Thanks for the feedback. I understand that you found my response an attempt to appropriate what you said. I do sense some of that in my message and I apologize. Perhaps I could have explained myself as I'm doing now. I took "thick skin" to mean insensitivity (basically, lacking sensitivity, not being affected by things one might be affected by) because that's how I've heard it used in general discussion. "You shouldn't let that bother you; you need to get a thicker skin!" "Oh, that's just a minor thing. Don't have such a thin skin." The way I understand it, ad hominem attacks bother a person because they are a catalyst for something unresolved. Being bothered is a symptom. If the symptom is seen as the problem itself, the solutions might simply hide the problem. One common approach is to mentally imagine negative things about the one attacking you, so that you consider them sub-human and therefore don't value whatever they say. Another is to learn to not feel the effects of their attacks, which I took to be what you were referring to as thick skin (which you've now made clear is not what you meant). I wanted to simply call attention to what I see as a danger with this approach, whatever we want to call it, whether or not it was actually being advocated (if it wasn't, then I was simply calling attention to its dangers, out of the blue).

This is very interesting. As a child one was demanded of to give an immediate response to authoritarian parents, or be punished. It's not the case here and there's nothing at stake if one completely ignores the posting (but hopefully explores the internal response). When this happens to me the hook is that it's all happening again and I need to give a response immediately or it's just going to continue indefinitely, because not fighting back has been my approach and look where it's gotten me. In that light these triggering messages in YouTube comments are a golden opportunity to practice showing oneself that they don't matter, that they are purely catalysts. Thick skin, at least to me, implies insensitivity, both to attacks and everything else. I think of the important growth as being able to see reality and that there was nothing threatening in the first place when someone made a personal attack; it's as irrelevant as someone on TV looking out of the screen and berating the viewer. Way back it couldn't be ignored because it signaled that the adult oppressor was going to hurt you if you didn't do what they demanded. Now the threat is no longer and it can be seen simply as a roundabout way for the attacker to express what's on his/her mind.

One warning, I had to experiment with the element hiding helper to not hide other important content. I'm not 100% sure the above won't do that, so be ready to temporarily disable ABP if you have any suspicion of something else being hidden.

I have competitions in my mind to make my own life better. For example, I've held a competition of ideas for the least time-consuming way to manage the kitchen. I regularly hold smaller ones for improving preparation of food. I benefit by spending less time to get something of roughly equal enjoyment. When I was younger I didn't realize that I could improve almost any area of my life by doing something like this, so I just did things whatever way I did them and didn't ever think of the costs in time and energy.Looked at another way, it's not businesses that make it a competition, it's the buyers. They relentlessly choose the best product for the best price, leaving a business owner out in the cold if they consistently provide inferior products at high prices. Every buyer can do their part to make things purely cooperative, by randomly choosing whom they buy from and what brand of product to buy. This ensures that the choice isn't based on price, quality, or the character of the business. This way every business owner and product producer will have equal funding and be able to improve things (or not) at their own pace, and not have to worry about competing.

I was reading this and had a thought that the key factor is whether you are actively resisting ending violence. I imagined people living on a ship in the ocean, on which you're born. At some point you find out that the ship was stolen, and that other people know it too. You all want to arrange purchase of a legitimate ship and return the current one to its rightful owner, even though it would be a sacrifice of significant resources and be a lot of work moving everything over. Some people on the ship resist. Even though everyone is being supported by the stolen ship currently, some are willing to move to another (or dry land until they can purchase a new one). This seems the defining difference. Though, the state isn't like a legitimate owner of a small amount of property, instead it's like someone who tries to control the seas themselves, making survival outside of their realm difficult and costly, so it's not as clear-cut.

AdBlock Plus, add these to Filter Preferences->Custom Filters->Element Hiding Rules (see later message in thread for getting rid of signatures): board.freedomainradio.com##.ipbfs_titleboard.freedomainradio.com##.message

A parent can provide a child healthy food without grabbing things from the child, so the ice cream example seemed poor. Even if such a parent's child somehow came in possession of ice cream, the parent could suggest that the child save it until after other food, or just let the child eat it, since it would be a rare occurrence (if the parent has ice cream in the freezer that the child can get any time, and the child would just choose to eat it instead of other food, that's a symptom of something else, perhaps that the parent shouldn't keep such food around). There's an important difference between grabbing something from someone and not providing it to them in the first place.Just consider a parent that keeps lots of candy bars, etc. around the house within reach of the child, and the child frequently eats them, and the parent yells at the child/grabs them from the child, versus a parent who just doesn't keep that around. It's pretty hard to argue that the first doesn't have a negative effect compared to the second, even though they both involve the parent exercising control over what the child eats.june, my post wasn't so much to make a sterile logical argument, but to attempt to have adults like those on stage consider what it would be like to be in a similar situation as the child being spanked, and perhaps unlock some of that empathic part of themselves that was dormant when they dismissed the issue.

I've become uncomfortable with our interaction and would like to clarify some things. If any/all of this is uninteresting, feel free to ignore this. I mulled over sending this privately, but thought that others might find it mildly interesting. First, a rundown of my experience of the thread:I noticed the introduction area and mulled over whether to post. It involves trying to give a static picture of something dynamic, and I don't often try to sum up myself in words. But I figured that it might help people understand where I'm coming from, give more context to other posts.You made a reply that mentioned your history with others who have mythology (religious) beliefs and presumably some kind of pressure/force based on them, and how what I described about myself related to that.At this point I was concerned that what I wrote about myself meant that I would pressure others to be accepting of others' beliefs, and that I would defend someone justifying mistreatment because it was OK in their mythology. So I replied to show that it was a more fundamental thing, and specifically not about harmful actions from others but only what goes on in their minds.Your next reply asked for more clarification, so I now have the idea that it wasn't that you felt threatened by what I said before, but that you have further interest in how I approach things. You also compare your thinking to mine and describe what conclusions you drew.At this point I become uncomfortable, because I'm not sure what your goal is anymore, and I wonder whether it's to cause some kind of change in my view. In my past I've experienced regular attempts to pressure me to abandon whatever way I'm experiencing things and relating, even though it's not being imposed on anyone else. My attempts at communicating with the person about it have been virtually all unsuccessful, merely giving them more information about my inner world for them to attack. I'm not claiming you're doing this, just noting that for me it has the same indicators that these had. So I'm uneasy at this point.That's my experience and what's gone through my mind, now some questions. I'd mainly just like to understand your intent, whatever it is. That you compared my view to yours suggests some kind of evaluation, and described the outcome for yourself and how you consider it useful to you suggests advice. Are you attempting to get a better idea of me in order to offer advice so as to assist me? Has anything I've shared been threatening? If I indicated that I weren't interested in advice, yet shared more about how I relate with things, would you still want to comment on it?

I think that calling it something done wrong is a form of cheating as well (the guy in the video worded it the same, wrong or naughty). I see it as the child doing something that the parent doesn't like, or that causes the parent to remember their own mistreatment and feel powerless to ask the child to stop. So the justification itself smears the child's actions as defense/attack-worthy.

People peddling religion/mythology to justify their ongoing abuse of people? Reveal their claims to be the inconsistent, self-serving shams they are. They are at the very least accomplices to abuse.I meant on a more fundamental level a pressure to adopt the views that other people have of reality, in any way whatsoever. At some point I realized that I felt unsafe by abandoning the authority of others on reality, and anything related to it, and saw this pressure to conform. I had a real sense of freedom of thought after shaking this intellectual chain loose, of being able to think and believe anything at all about existence, what really is, etc. Even the pressure to be consistent is great from others, which when I'm under its spell feels like I have the weight of my entire past on me. Thus I don't submit to it and likewise don't pressure others to adopt my view of reality. Naturally if someone uses their views to justify using force against me, I will avoid/resist/defend.Thanks for your questions/responses.

Oh wow, that sounds like my mother's objection. "It's not like if you solve this serious problem your life will be perfect. [Therefore, there's no reason to even address it. Your life will never be perfect.]" You nailed it; in each case it's about each of their own parents. Of course they demonstrate exactly why spanking is harmful: it causes even people as thoughtful and self-examined as them to be blind to its effects, precisely because it was done to them and nobody significant in their life acknowledged it as abuse.

I'm like Stefan; having my abusive parent do the same thing she's always done rekindles my rage for what she did to me. I actually sometimes worry about her being receptive because it defuses my anger and my drive to assert what was done to me. Also having her do what she did, but now in the present, gives me another look at it so I can better understand what happened to me in the past where it's harder to remember (oh what I'd give to have dozens of hours of audio recordings through the years, to remind me exactly what happened, of the truth). I can see the abuse again with through my experienced eyes, see it more for what it is and was. I experience anger as something that drives me to disregard risks and costs and act impulsively. It's sometimes what breaks me out of fearful reluctance and worry about what might happen.

I'm on the LibertyHQ forum and have watched several of Stefan's videos. I appreciate his relentless application of consistent morality, especially to those who abuse children. In the past I've read Alice Miller and grasped how people generally side with the abuser when it comes to routine child abuse.I've experienced debilitating psychological/emotional abuse, mostly from my mother, from around when I started to assert myself, non-stop since. I consider myself an addict from age 6 or so, though my drug is burying myself in hobbies. I'm thankful that they provide such endless challenges because I don't think I could have survived without them.In general I turn inside to grow rather than attempt to change the world. There is so much out-of-whack in myself and much of it causes the symptom of imagining that things outside me need fixing. Not that I consider something wrong with myself, only (badly) injured and incompletely developed.Self-definition is central to me. Along with this I greatly value having my own fluid grasp of the world, and allowing others to have their own, without pressure to conform to anybody's idea of what is correct. I often experience others' models of the world used to gain power by putting values on things to justify taking action against me.I've practiced Re-Evaluation Counseling in the past and think highly of the core setup: one person talks about whatever they want while the other listens. The listener doesn't try to comfort, rather listens/assists the talker to connect with deep hurts from the past so that the talker can complete the unfinished processing of them and stop them from continually being retriggered in present situations. I've also had some contact with Non-Violent Communication, which is about resolving conflicts in the present. It focuses on expressing present needs in direct ways and getting them met, rather than indirect judgmental ways that tend to make it hard for the other person to hear ("tragic expression of unmet needs"). I see these two as complementary, one a personal process of working on deep issues and making lasting change, the other on everyday problems when relating with others.I've read some of the discussions, particularly Self Knowledge, and have been pleased with some of the regulars and their promotion of understanding the source of one's distress.

Firefox 24.0 on Ubuntu 12.04 is doing the same thing.

What I'd like to have heard: "But you didn't turn out OK! You condone violence towards the most defenseless of us who are still developing their orientation to the world. Imagine someone regularly grabbed you, pulled your pants down, spanked you for a reason you couldn't understand, and you had zero legal recourse. If you told anyone in law they just laugh at you. This is not conducive to liberty."