charlesp
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Posts
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Posts posted by charlesp
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I'm glad it helped but I'm a little confused. Brad Pitt is your father? Where does he fit in?
You're right what I said is something Stefan has referenced at least once on the call in show, probably many many times. I'm glad what I said helped you and I'll do what I can to help more, but don't fear therapy. My first session was Monday and I felt a lot better after. I'm going weekly for the foreseeable future. Voluntary of course.
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Edit: I see that while I was typing a lot of stuff, Tyler summed up things pretty well... Only read if interested in my dual theory of shame.
Wow, Brazilda, how brave of you to face up to what you did so many years ago. I appreciate that you put a warning at the top of your post; when I'm forewarned of bad stuff coming, I'm able dial back my empathy and not be affected so much by what I'm reading - thank you.
Regarding what you might gain from posting this, my take would be this: You probably were very young when you did this and you also had had very, very bad behavior modelled to you. I'm very sorry for the terrible thing your father did to you and I can guess the rest of your childhood, at least around your father, was probably quite bad as well. His actions that day towards you were truly abhorrent.
But you posted about your actions towards the cat, and I'm guessing that nothing I just said is much of a surprise to you. Back then you were a child, of limited moral responsibility, but when you think of your actions now, you being much older, what happens for you when you think of this?
I'm not sure what you gain by posting this. To give you an analogy, I remember doing something I was (and still am) ashamed of and how I have processed it so far. I grew up in socialist eastern Germany and one day there was a meeting one teacher arranged with four of us 16 year-olds, to pressure us into pledging ourselves into the army for a longer than the compulsory term. None of us wanted to do that, only I was safe from danger, because I have a medical condition that precluded me from military service. The teacher kept putting pressure on the other guys, they defended themselves and I got very uncomfortable. I don't know what cues triggered me to open my goddam mouth, but I heard myself say to one of them something like: 'Oh, but don't you believe in the neccessity of defending our country?' Luckily they kept to their stances in spite of my back-stabbing. I'm ashamed of that action. But what came of that feeling? I was ashamed of myself for many years, and I think that's how it should be, even though I had been inculcated with doctrine and with a fear whenever I didn't please people in authority, yadda yadda. I carried the shame of this action unaltered for 20 years, because there was no way for me to make restitution, just like in your case. The shame did lessen not before I learned a great deal more about myself. A few years ago I spent some time going over this and other shameful memories. At first, I didn't want to really fully go into the feeling of my shame and I skirted around it, as if only fleetingly touching a hot stove. But when I finally let myself fully experience the feeling, it subsided to a small ember. And I think this is because I know of myself that I have changed a lot. That I am much less prone to do shameful things to avoid discomfort in conversation, and actually had in the meantime done some brave things in confrontations.
My theory, if you want to hear it, is this: There is a kind of shame that you feel completely within yourself. It has nothing to do with other people knowing about what you did. It comes from you having acted against your values, and it is there to help you learn from your experience. I make a habit of revisiting shameful memories now, to find out what they are telling me. When the lesson is learned, the shame might grow less, but a small reminder remains to make sure I remember always. On my path to living my values I welcome that.
There exists a different kind of shame, and this kind has to do with other people witnessing your actions. It is frequently used to ensure social conformity. "Uh, you're not like the others, shame on you!" I try to grow indifferent to this manipulative abuse of the feeling of shame. I think healthy shame is a very private feeling.
Long story short: I'm a little suspicious of airing one's self-contempt in public, especially since you simultaneously supplied some backstory that could be seen as indemnifying you. Indeed, what are you trying to gain here? Are you trying to provoke in yourself the second kind of shame? I'm alarmed that you feel hatred towards yourself. I don't know when hatred towards oneself would ever be justified. Whatever you have done, you need to deal with it and learn from it. In my mind, self-hatred is just self-attack, likely programmed into you by people like your father. Maybe you can work towards losing the self-hatred as a first step, before revisiting what might be useful private shame over you drowning the cat?
Of course I might be completely wrong. I'd very much like to know what the others think. And I'd like to know what you think, Brazilda? Did I bring some clarity to your feelings or did I muddle things up? I very much admire you exploring your relationship with cruelty!
I think you're on the right track in general, I'm not suspicious of him airing it here though, I find this forum to be an incredibly safe place to talk about things that pretty nobody else in my life knows about.
Back to Brazilda, I think Janne is on the right track, and that your self shame or hatred is something to learn from, but also look at your self hatred like this; who would you rather have punch you in the face? Me? or yourself? Your self hatred and shaming (i'm totally the blind leading the blind here so stick with me im new at this) is basically punishing yourself as hard as you can to absolve you of the outside shame and hatred. I think i did a horrible job with that example but I just actually had a similar discussion with my therapist Monday night. i had told him about a situation from my mid 20s where I expected my parents to kill me, they were generally not super when I grew up, so I truly expected a Full Metal Jacket level verbal beatdown if not actual death. I didn't get it from them, so I spent 6 months torturing myself. Not eating, no socializing, I made my house a prison for 6 months and if I accidentally found myself having fun I cut it off instantly.
I think now that I punished the hell out of myself because I knew I wouldn't hurt me as bad as they COULD hurt me. Not sure if that might resonate or not, but feel free to message me or something if you need someone to talk to.
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I kind of think of it the same way that if you were born as the child of a slave, you too were a slave and had the same obligations foisted on you. It's the exact same process. Except statists claim that their process is somehow legitimate. The obligations to pay the state and do what it says are pushed on you at birth without your consent. Just by being born you are a slave of the state. You can transfer to a different state and have slightly different obligations but you can never fully jettison obligations that you never took on.
If the state asked your signature and you said no, the fraud would be exposed. It would only take one person. But there wouldn't be just one saying no.
exactly right. Just because my parents had sex on this piece of dirt we call USA, I'm supposed to feel morally superior enough to send troops around the world and approve of the government bombing brown people because they aren't Christian Americans?
Like you said, if they asked for permission it would expose the fraud. In the spine tingling last sentence of "the story of your enslavement" it says "to see the farm, is to leave it....wake up"
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Wow, I had never heard of this, I'm pretty new to the podcast, but I've definitely talked to myself before, arguing logic with myself (sometimes out loud embarassingly) just blurt something out and everyone is like huh?
I'm doing a lot of digging into my past and remembering things I'd long buried, and the last two nights I've had weird dreams unlike anything I've ever dreamed before..anyone have episode numbers about the mecosystem so I can learn more?
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I wouldn't say I lacked ambition. I left college after finding it completely useless to waste 4 years and a lot of money for a piece of paper saying I could run a business. I quit college and started a business. I made smart choices, grew only by necessity, and was doing pretty well when the economy crashed. I had (have) excavation equipment and dump trucks, so the DMV is a constant joy. I discovered once the economy ran half of the heavy trucks off the road the state started to hound the half of us left twice as much to make up the revenue. Between that, constant fuel tax audits, new regulations that you're only told about when you're given a fine for it, etc...yeah I've kinda lost the drive to keep on. I went from enough money in savings to pay off my house and work at McDonalds the rest of my life if I wanted to, to behind on the mortgage and living worse off than people who say screw it and collect a welfare check.
I'll live in a cardboard box before i take welfare, and I'll die in a hail of gunfire before I'm forced to buy insurance because some government douchebag "said so", so I haven't lost the fill to fight, just lost the will to keep feeding all the leeches.
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I basically agree with what was posted above. I ventured the conversation with my father a few months ago, and in the moment he seemed truly taken aback and apologetic, but the next day he came back with excuses and bullshit apologies. I'm 34 now and am just now learning and digging up repressed memories of the verbal and emotional abuse i suffered as a child. I run my own business but still work with my dad (no idea why I did that, besides being bullied into it by my lifelong bully) but I'm in the same boat, building myself up to laying it all out for him..he doesn't treat my other employees the way he's always treated me, he doesn't treat strangers that way, the simple act of squirting sperm into my mom doesn't give him special rights to shit all over me. he will either accept that and see the error of his ways or i will defoo.
I'm just now digging up all the repressed abuse, I know the next step is processing it but I'm not sure what that means yet. But I refuse to live the next 34 years the way I lived the last 34. Time to take a stand.
Converting Left-Handed Children
in Peaceful Parenting
Posted
My uncle is left handed and he's schizophrenic too, which is interesting because I'm left handed. Now I'm worried.
As to the suggestion of making your child write right handed, why not make them walk on their hands and write with their feet? If you're going to make them do something inconsequential and uncomfortable to them, go all out.
Growing up left handed was a learning experience for sure, but I think it made me more creative. Mom had to remind me more than once as a kid that "hey, you're left handed...try it the other way" because like learning kick ball I would try to kick the way other kids did, or at a halloween game at school trying to throw darts at balloons I was trying right handed and failing miserably.
When I broke my left hand in high school I learned to write right handed. I've always batted right handed, golf right handed. To this day if i have to write on a chalk board or white board I do it right handed.
I initially learned to play "left handed" on a right handed drum setup, or open handed. After about ten years playing that way I came across a song where I could never come out of the drum rolls smoothly playing that way, so I completely retaught myself to play right handed and now can switch back and forth during a song.