neeeel

I dont think this answers my question though. why do you think the bible , or religious teachings, can answer the questions that science cant answer? What is it about the bible that gives it authority, for example?

Possibly this is true, but even if it is, why do you think the bible explains those things?

I am finding it hard to think of any adult that I want to emulate. At some point , they "sold out" to some extent or another. I can realise that "selling out" might actually be making compromises, or choosing something that seemed more important to them over some other thing, but thats only an intellectual understanding. My gut feeling is of "danger, stay away" when it comes to thinking about "being an adult" I am an adult by any definition. I get that ( intellectually, at least). Perhaps these are "childish" pictures of how the world works. but I end up in a vicious circle, because by challenging these "childish" pictures, I am feeling the panic and "danger, stay away", if that makes sense Its funny that, by rebelling against them and everything they stand for, I have ended up where they are, alone, isolated, unemotional.

change = growing up. Growing up = becoming like parents. I dont want to become like my parents. ( of course, change might not necessarily = growing up, and growing up might not necessarily = becoming like my parents, but thats how I picture it,) My parents seemed to me to be full of stupid arbitrary rules, to be illogical, unkind, I felt very strongly that I needed to protect myself, and that meant rejecting the stuff they tried to put on me.

My parents, mostly, but any adult in general.

The idea that it is possible to be "born into the wrong body" is really misleading, and bizarre. Perhaps thats not the same as gender identification.

A lot of it is to do with not growing up, not becoming like "them", I would say this part is about 6 or 7 years old, but maybe also a lot of teenager mixed in.

Its hard to know what to think. The story is portrayed as one of a loving doting father, who spends time playing and looking after his daughter. But Im not sure I believe that. Its portrayed as if "we just dont know how or why it happened, it came out of nowhere", but then there are little things like Was he on anti-depressants before janni was born? Or was he having violent outbursts around her? or directed at her? He talks a lot about restraining his daughter, as if thats the only thing that works, and yet he talks about how bright and intelligent his daughter is, which would indicate that she could understand reasoning and logic. I dont know what I would do in his situation, it sounds horrible. But Im not sure we got the full story. My brother has schizophrenia( at least, thats what he was diagnosed), and I have been with him during the schizo periods, it was very frightening, but he didnt turn violent, or try to attack me. He only became violent if threatened.

thanks to everyone who replied. I think that the therapy I currently have is at least part cognitive therapy. Look at your feelings and beliefs, are they true, do they apply to the present situation. What sort of things do you suggest that are "humbling and enjoy that connecting to reality"? I agree that self pity is perhaps a self attacking term. Perhaps I have in my head someone telling me to "just get on with it and stop whining". I think I dont see the reward. I dont see whats in it for me if I become more open, outgoing, friendly, trusting, I dont know. I cant imagine what having friends would be like. All those things are undesirable in some way. I know on an intellectual basis that humans are social creatures, with a need for bonding, social interaction. That doesnt translate into recognising my need for that. In fact , it seems to be the opposite, I can see the need for the opposite of that, if that makes sense. Yes, I am very resistant to change. Which might seem contradictory, given that I am in therapy and looking for change. I wonder if I am looking for a miracle cure.We have just started to touch on this resistance in therapy, maybe it will become clearer after we have explored it a bit. It feels like change is very dangerous to me.

Its been a year since I found FDR. After listening to a few of the podcasts, and reading a lot of the board, I realised I needed to get in to therapy. so I have been a year in therapy, and I feel stuck. I think my therapist is great. He realises the importance of childhood experience, and is constantly gently bringing me back to look at how my experience was, how I felt then, what the effects are.He is good at reflecting anger or hurt at some of the experiences I had as a child.And yet, I still dont trust him, I am barely ever emotional in therapy( or outside), he points out that I am never relaxed, that I am always sitting on the edge of the seat as if I expect to be asked to leave, or as if I dont feel like I can really be there. I think I have been really emotional 2 or 3 times, the rest of the time I sit and relate things in a pretty monotone voice. I dont maintain eye contact, although I will occasionally look at him. When I was lying in bed last night, I felt really pathetic and useless. Like it was useless for me to try and "change" or get self knowledge. I suppose the belief is that I am inherently flawed in some way, that unhappiness is what is in store for me, that not being able to relate to or trust people is just "how I am", that instant angry reaction to criticism or mockery or insults is the way I am, and the way I will always be. I cant really explain exactly what I mean here, I suppose its like a self image I have. I suppose I expect that the way I feel about things will change or stop, and thats how I will know that I am "better". I am expecting that I wont feel uncomfortable around people, or that I wont feel rejected or sad when certain things happen. Am I mistaken here? Am I looking at it wrong? Is it rather, that the feelings will continue, but I will gradually come to recognise them, and see that those feelings are not necessarily related to whats happening in the moment? I spend most of my time on the PC, I am guessing that its self medication. I occasionally feel very empty , and I have noticed that rather than stay with that, I will turn back to the PC and look for something to do. I dont really have a specific question for people to answer. Would be interested to hear peoples thoughts. Perhaps this is all just self pity ( or maybe thinking its self pity is part of the pathetic and useless self image I have)

Is consciousness electrical impulses? I realise that without one, there isnt the other, but does that mean they are one and the same? I dont think we have actually found what consciousness is, just what conditions are needed for consciousness to be present.

I can understand that it might be taken as dismissive. I could have phrased it better, perhaps. I am not saying that he should stop thinking about it, or forget about it. The impression I got was that he was totally thrown into a spiral of self recrimination, worry, fear, all from what seemed to be from an effort to be interested and curious with someone. He seemed to switch to believing that he was a horrible immoral evil person, just because someone questioned his motives, or threw a few labels at him. I know its difficult to do from the inside ( I am similarly stuck with extremes of thinking when it comes to myself), so I just wanted to say, take a step back, forget the labels, forget what story you are building up around it, and look at it more dispassionately. Not easy to do, I know. Edit: Perhaps this is still too dismissive as well?

this is exactly what I was thinking too, about farms etc. Everything is out there for small children to see and understand, and, as far as I am aware, it wasnt traumatic for farm children, it was an accepted, understood, fact of life. I also agree that the traumatizing or awkward aspect is likely to come from how the adults treat it. I dont understand. If they are already in an r-selected environment ( Im not sure what that means? that the parents, and people they came into contact with, were r-selected?) then they are already r-selected, if the theory is true. Are you saying that, in a k-selected environment, showing anatomical diagrams, for example ( I am not talking about showing porn or anything, but diagrams of the body, how it works, what it contains, the differences between male and female bodies, where the womb is, etc), would turn the environment r? Or that the children would become more r ( whatever that means?) . That makes sense. And I can understand that it would be very confusing and troubling for you.

When you said college textbooks, I assumed you meant anatomy or similar, showing the organs, muscles and structure of the body, do college textbooks really show the "nitty gritty" of sex? Showing anatomy text books of the human body would probably be of great interest to 5 year old children. What does this mean? Can the imparting of information be r-selected? I feel like this is your "icky" feeling, rather than anything else. You could say anything is potentially traumatizing. Yes, it may be, or it may not be, If they were satisfied with that answer, then sure. If they had more queries ( and likely they would, if they had parents who were open, honest, and relaxed with their children), then I dont see why showing them good pictures of anatomy would be bad. What was it that shocked and disturbed you?

I dont see a problem with showing college level anatomy books to 5 year olds, so maybe I am missing something? I imagine they would be intrigued and interested, by the diagrams, at least

you have 266 posts, so youve been around the forum a fair bit, and have probably watched lots of stefs videos. So, you know what the general view on single mothers is. So I am wondering, what are you wanting out of posting this? You dont give much detail, theres not much people can say other than "tsk, single mothers"

I dont know the full story, but the impression I get is that you are reading too much into all this. It sounds like you made an honest mistake, you were trying to help. You didnt string him along pretending to be his friend for weeks, or abuse him, or manipulate him. ( this is assuming your stated motives are true, of course). I have noticed that some people on FDR seem quick to jump onto concepts and ideas, without fully understanding them. For example, I was listening to a call where the guy was saying, I was in a co-dependent relationship, I was manipulated, and when stef asked him what he meant, he finally admitted he didnt really know. Its like, people hear these concepts, and are quick to appropriate them, or use these labels on themselves, or others. If the members of the group deemed you immoral( this is another example of people quick to apply labels or concepts) then you are probably better off without them. Did they give you a chance to explain? Or repair what damage you had done? Or tried to understand in any way? Or did they just lump on with the labels and condemnation?

I take it thats a "no" then

So does this apply to you as well? Ie, if someone stronger or smarter than you comes and takes your stuff, thats ok?

this subject brings to mind the experiment with monkeys, where they separated young or baby monkeys from their parents, with some they put a bare wire frame in the cage. On others they put a wire frame covered with fur into the cage. The monkeys with the fur covered frame spent much more time cuddling or in contact with the fur. the ones with just the wire frame ( which was in the shape of a monkey I think) spent no time cuddling or in contact with the bare wire frame I wonder if the comfort object is a similar thing, since comfort objects are usually warm and furry. I wonder if, if the children got to co-sleep with their parents, and had as much physical contact as they wanted, they would attach to the objects in the same way

treat him as a real person, who has thoughts and feelings. Talk with him, play with him, be open and honest with him. if he brings up death, be curious about what he is communicating. As far as his parents are concerned, it sounds horrible for him. Im not sure how I would approach that. Perhaps give them some info on peaceful parenting or the affects of hitting or verbally abusing children.

while it seems possible that he has suffered some abuse, I wonder if its not just that he has learned about death, or has it on his mind in some way. Perhaps its his way of trying to open up a conversation about death, to help him process it. He probably realises it that its a taboo subject. I wonder why you were disgusted? saying "why would you say something like that" is not very useful, I dont think. It shuts off the conversation and implies that he is "bad" for bringing it up. Children use games all the time to explore subjects. I dont see anything wrong with a pretending to die or be killed game, it doesnt mean that they are turning into a psychopath. Of course, you know him better than me. Another option is that maybe he enjoys and values the reactions he gets from adults when he brings up a taboo subject?

I dislike the "what if" arguments. I was talking to my brother about stuff ( hes a muslim) and we were talking about the ban on pork, His thought process supporting that, was that its wrong to eat humans, so what if pigs were just regressed humans. I was baffled that he would put this out as if it was something supporting his belief. he did later qualify that he wasnt 100% sold on the idea. Similarly with christians, if you bring up something that seems logically inconsistent, they just wave if away with "well, what if god wants X"

That would be awesome to have a record like that. Does it help you remember, or re-remember things you had forgotten, or bring back the way you felt at that time?

No, thats not what I am doing at all