Danske

3 good friends? IRL? You are incredibly lucky. Before recommending anything I'd ask why those 3 friendships aren't enough.

I've had a therapist with a huge blind spot too. Basically she is afraid of anger and male assertiveness. So those parts of me simply didn't get processed or acknowledged. Still I ended up seeing her for faaar too long. It sounds more like you doing therapy (trying to teach her about responsibility etc) for her than the other way around. Frankly disgusting. As I've heard described about a lot of female therapists, you end up knowing more about their shit than they do about yours. Don't make my mistake and cut your losses early.

I thought I'd give my thoughts on this topic because it seems I have an issue that doesn't seem to be all that common (or at least not that obvious) around here. I've had a mixed experience with bullying in my life. Particularly in terms of mental bullying and psychological domination. In the house I grew up in. Insults were thrown about with total abandon and with accompanying rage. It seemed like the only way to carve out enough space for me to breathe was to issue a humiliation or shaming remark to someone that would act like a kind of mental cattleprod shock, that would temporarily dent the ego of the other and keep them away for a small amount of time. On a few occasions when the abuse and hostile atmosphere got too much I would lash out, I remember feeling satisfaction at striking my brother's skull with my fist. My violent fantasies in regard to my family are all to do with blows to the head. Looking back, obviously I loathed them for what went on in their heads the most. Physically nothing about them offended me (why would it?). Different brains in the same bodies would have been great. The fantasies I have had in the months of defooing all involve tying them up and issuing baseball bat blows to the head. Even now in conflict I feel the same way. In arguments if I feel attacked or cornered I slip into a terminator mode of detachment where all I see before me is a few pounds of offensive meat encased in a skull that if I cannot strike directly, I will use all my self-knowledge and knowledge of psychology to break it and turn it in on itself with shame, humiliation etc etc. I understand this will cause me no end of grief in my life if I cannot work through it. I think my prior counsellors have been intimidated by this 'inner bully' that I have and so when it came up their empathy dropped like a power line in a rainstorm, and the therapy continued in a kind of lifeless way until things petered out. In particular I feel women simply disengage when this part of me comes up, even if it is attacking those who are not present, because obviously they know it's ire could be turned on them too. I think (from what I gather), a lot of people in FDR are bully victims, and though they may be defooing and feeling lots of anger. This is the first time it has surfaced for them and so it is manageable. Whereas for me it feels as if my inner-bully surfaced rather early and has become a malignant and extreme part of my personality. I feel it stands in my way and isn't so nice to deal with for anyone. I was wondering if any of you have had similar experiences and what helped you handle it?

The fact that people reach adulthood having only bonded with fucking ANIMALS fills me with such rage.

https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer One paragraph that stood out: "As we navigate through the world, we are changed by a variety of experiences. Of special note are experiences of three types: (1) we observe what is happening around us (other people behaving, sounds of music, instructions directed at us, words on pages, images on screens); (2) we are exposed to the pairing of unimportant stimuli (such as sirens) with important stimuli (such as the appearance of police cars); (3) we are punished or rewarded for behaving in certain ways. We become more effective in our lives if we change in ways that are consistent with these experiences – if we can now recite a poem or sing a song, if we are able to follow the instructions we are given, if we respond to the unimportant stimuli more like we do to the important stimuli, if we refrain from behaving in ways that were punished, if we behave more frequently in ways that were rewarded" The only thing I would counter is, given the standard of most childhoods, the way to become more effective is to behave more frequently in the ways that were punished in our formative years, and less in the ways that were rewarded.

For me, introversion is just a side-effect of being continually thwarted at every stage of emotional development. It breeds a passive, weakened will, where one needs to continually consolidate a lot of ego-strength in order to do something risky, social or socially risky. I think a better environment in the future can help. But it's extremely difficult once life has given you these habits.

Found FDR sooner (I left home in '06 just as FDR was getting started) It would have led to me confronting my father sooner. It would have kept a lot of destructive people out of my life. It would have given me hope that there were rational people in the world, thus keeping me away from the crazy of musicians, artists and new-agers who did nothing but hoover up my finite empathy and time. It would have meant less physical injury and illnesses which I now have due to persisting in the aforementioned mutual exploitations with irrational people. I would have found a better therapist/mentor who could actually connect the dots, give insight, encourage further exploration and be firm with me. Job-wise, I still don't know what to do or should have done in terms of a career but I'd have had a better idea if I'd known at least one other person was aiming for virtue and connection.

I think you have to decide on a case by case basis. A lot of people nowadays are predisposed to play the victim and make an emotional mountain out of a molehill. If you think an apology is going to backfire and give them fuel for their victim mentality I'd avoid it. Same goes for anyone you feel is likely to use it as a stick to beat you with. When I apologised to my brother he immediately aggressively apologised back (virtue signalling 'if you can apologize then so can I!' oneupmanship) before again launching into a diatribe about how I'm treating my family like shit by being away from them. In this case, I feel better than I apologized, but it didn't register at all for him emotionally.

'It is simple to diagnose and for many it is really easy to treat if caught early enough.' Are you treating it in yourself? How is that working out? Btw this would be better posted as a topic not in the introduction section.

Does anyone else feel like 'half a leftist'? i.e. even though you are immersing yourself in reason, you still have hairtrigger emotional reactions? I've always been a dissociated/fighter type person. I can dissociate for a long time, then lash out. Even though reason has been coursing through my veins for a couple of years now, I still find myself managing my stimuli so as not to overload my degraded rational response. For example, there are many people whose work I wish to peruse, yet because something about them intimidates or otherwise discomfits me, I avoid it. I was reading somewhere that this is the classic leftist mind. They experience so much cognitive dissonance (beginning in childhood) that the only way out is to continually dissociate from reality. In this process however they eject not only from the uncomfortable truth they are avoiding, but from other realities they need to work with in order to have a happy life. This is why so many become 'hands off' kind of people, as so much of reality has the ability to trigger them. At 30, I feel this has become a rather ingrained habit. I wonder if anyone can relate, and if anyone has any tips on how to make the best out of it? I feel like there is some benefit (the quick thinking which grows out of the 'quick to take offence' habit) but also downsides (dissociation).

Nope. Not all false selves respond the same. The people you ran into probably had a 'fight' response from their false selves (these people are generally the hardest to reach, their emotions are hair-trigger), others will internally be disgusted but will not show it on the outside (these people having a more fawning/freezing/codependent response), A better way might be to add follow up questions to see if they were paying attention, if they are the kind of person who will 'suck things up' or put on a brave/happy face.

WOW. Thankyou so much for taking the time! That was great and I think you hit some real truths I have been hiding from myself. There's so much I want to type right now but I'm tired so I'll sleep on it and give a full answer tomorrow. It's really shook things up and made me re-evaluate, particularly in regard to the self-sabotage issue. Thanks again.

I think you can always offer something of value. It's merely a case of whether happiness is attainable for you. I really believe there are some people who cannot recover their emotional natures, and not just because they've done something terrible. Sometimes the pain is too great to revisit. Thus leaving behind a life of robotic dissociation. Even in that state however. There is still the chance to offer value. There just won't be the emotional impetus behind it on your part.

In most of this dream I'm simultaenously (or one after another) helping Bill Gates and chavs achieve their goals. A chav is the UK equivalent of an aussie bogan, or US 'white trash/guido/hick'. They are often violent, drug taking, dissociated, predominantly white youths. Of which there were plenty where I grew up (and also where I live now). However to begin with (I think, I'm not 100% sure about the chronology of this dream) I am in the front room of my parent's house where I grew up (haven't lived there since my early twenties). This gang keeps bringing mutilated dead bodies to the room, where I and a medic (although perhaps I AM the medic, I feel like the perspective was unclear. It could even be that I am merely a voyeur watching this on tv and am not actually present..) tend to them. When the bodies come in, around 75-80% have mutilated lower-halves from the waist down, where they have either a huge scaly fish lower half, or a huge scaley cockroach abdomen lower half. There may have been other types but it's always something without legs and the appearance of the least human looking animals i.e. scaly insects and fish. The colour is always a dirty dark orange. They also have bloody faces and other injuries. Sometimes me and the medic discover someone who is still alive (again I get a feeling it's the ones that still have legs that have the best shot) and we immediately tell them when they regain consciousness (or at least he does and I just mentally urge him) to stay quiet and play dead while we plan their escape. They have to pretend to be dead each time the gangs come in. It's like the gang thinks the room is a place to dump dead bodies, while me and the medic treat it more as a medic tent in a war. Either before or after this (I suspect after), the dream cuts to me working with Bill Gates as some kind of personal assistant. He comes accross as very cold and unfeeling, it's a young (early thirties) and physically vital Bill Gates who is slightly more heavyset and taller than IRL, almost like a cross between Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Christopher Reeve's superman and that portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in 'The Social Network' (personality wise). He has the Bill Gates specs. I get the feeling he is desperate and at some point he is in the process of having a boat made to send to a girl he wants. I feel it is an aggressive attempt to 'capture' her as he shows no sign of fondness for her, beyond her being something to 'own', another 'thing' to add to his collection of expensive things. I don't bring up this issue with him. At one point we are in his convertible driving around silicon valley and I feel like he is trying to school me (though looking back this could be my delusion, as he seems to merely be thinking out loud) he says something like: "people think I hire remotely, but I get close and personal, I like to be 'right there', I will travel the 34000 miles" (incidentally - though I'm not sure if I did the maths in the dream - this is the same distance it would take to do a round trip to a place on the other side of the planet, which for where I live would be somewhere like Australia or NZ.) At some point, either after or while I am helping Bill Gates, I am also helping these chavs to achieve their scummy ends. The first one either dies, gets locked up or I stop helping him, the second chav I start helping looks a little like my younger brother (though not extensively), though his name is 'Atta' which is pretty similar to my brothers name. He has beadier eyes than the first chav and looks like the actor Gerard Kearns. He's in his early twenties at the latest. I can only recall what happened with Atta and not the other chav. At one point we have just committed some kid of crime and another chav who was helping us runs away. Immediately Atta transforms into a policeman's uniform (here in the UK that's flourescent yellow clothing and a hat) and begins leaving a trail of evidence framing the absconder for the entire crime by leaving a trail of socks in the path he ran - which frames him for some reason - before transforming back into his classic chav gear. Later we are in the woods under an old railway bridge, similar (perhaps the same) to one I grew up near. Atta is taking a piss under the bridge while I am keeping lookout, while pissing he tells me "you don't like to rise, that's why I like you". When I ask him if he likes to rise himself, he zips up his fly, walks out from under the bridge and says "yeah, I want to get to the top" as he walks past me. As with Bill Gates, he doesn't look at me when talking, but just assumes I am listening (I assume). I get the feeling both Atta and Bill are just getting on with their own thing and don't really need me, while I hang on for snippets. The only time I could see them focusing on me would be if I made a mistake in helping them, at which point they would come down on me like a ton of bricks. At the end of the dream something is burning in the woods at a distance and me and Atta decide to go investigate. I have a vague idea of what the burning is about (perhaps it was in the dream and I forgot), and I encourage the investigation. Looking back just now however, I feel like Atta perhaps knew even more than me about it, judging from the vague, cruel half-smile on his face. ---- Notes: I felt I had no choice throughout the dream. Like I would be lost without helping these people, however immoral they may be. I felt nervous, but also a shaky sense of security, in that at least they are taking 'the bigger risks' and I am 'safer in their shadow'. Bill Gates reminded me a little of my dad when he was younger, and Atta of my brother. I am not in contact with either of them. The dead body situation was the most scary, but again, I don't remember feeling terrified, when surely it would have been be an entirely natural reaction! --- Recent Events: I had this dream the night after I met an FDR member for the first time (first member of FDR I've met) earlier that day. In my old town (which does have a high chav population). We had a good time and some good conversation but I was pretty nervous and left after a few hours in a state of mental exhaustion. In particular I felt sick in a museum we went in that I hadn't visited since I was a child. --- I'd really appreciate any ideas about what this dream could mean. Bit of a math mistake there. It's actually 34000 in kilometres not miles. I may well have believed it was 34000 (17000 each way) miles before I had the dream however.

An idealized childhood that you simultaneously barely remember? Huge red-flag. The de-idealization of childhood is a horrible, long process.

I could be able to help. Why Liverpool though? Of all the places!

Triggered

Lol. So what? Is this what passes for philosophical discussion around here? Even as a thought experiment you could at least inject some philosophical concepts. What do you mean by 'be required', is this some fantasy of yours? To become president and impose laws about chewing wood?

What do you mean by 'be required' (underlined)? Do you want to make some kind of gnaw law?

Sorry to hear that. I hope you have some rational people you can also spend time with. We do become like the people we spend time with after all.

I have some problems with Stef's advice here. Perhaps I don't fully understand it. But from what I gather the idea is to achieve 'closure' or 'certainty' with a relationship on a deep/gut/heart level, something that when achieved with close family members will have a powerful life-enhancing effect for you long-term (If I have this wrong someone please correct me). In my own case I am 99% sure of how an interaction with my father (the only person I haven't RTR'd with) will go. His tenuous sexual identity he gets by being with my extremely disturbed and abusive mother is all that matters to him, and I anticipate rage and an emotional meltdown if I am relentlessly honest about how he enabled her abuse, treated me like a slave and refused to 'be a father' and equip me for the real world, both intellectually and emotionally. That is if he doesn't make a quick getaway. The only reason I can think for doing it is that it is some kind of 'trial' whereby I free my unconscious, by confronting the scariest person in my life. All this being said I am completely independent of him anyway, so it would be a completely free choice on my part to confront him. In your own case you also have some fear. I wonder if you have considered ending the relationship totally after the interaction? All the best

Even though it's fairly short, this is probably my favourite article of yours. It reminds me of my own history dealing with inconsistent people, and helps me come to an understanding of its purpose Being forced to pay attention to a disordered, crazy person all the time (my mother) in a fruitless effort to manage their state, made me resent those afforded a modicum of quiet, private, unabusive time. I always developed silly voices and impressions to distract people (if they're laughing they aren't abusing me!), but when I saw other kids / teens intently focused on a TASK rather than a PERSON, I would start to resent them, call them 'boring' and oftentimes try to mess with their mood (not a good tactic for endearing yourself to others). The prevailing message throughout my childhood was 'be cool, be extroverted, be popular', and she would actively sabotage my friendships with saner, steadier, more well adjusted people. She had to condition me to crazy in all walks of my life. So she wouldn't stand out so badly. I was a mess when I left home. I couldn't calm down and I had no sense of others boundaries. That compulsive 'trying to make sense out of randomness' has left a deep mark.

In my opinion they're easy to spot. A million videos on youtube about red flags (love bombing, sensitivity to criticism, speed things along, don't apologize etc etc etc). The problem is how much you have been conditioned to help, support, appease abusers early on. It's easy to avoid drug dealers if you're not a drug addict. This is what most people in the psychopath/narcissism recovery circles don't want to focus on. They want to focus on how evil their partner was, instead of examining the root which is parents/people in their early environment who were wolves, threw them to the wolves, and who brainwashed their child into seeing them as benevolent sheep. My one and only relationship was with someone who sulked, drank, had no impulse control and lied about her interests. It was blatantly easy to spot but I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, acting out of compulsion and with no moral direction or values.

Cheers bro!

This question puts me in mind of a walled garden. In general I would associate femininity (not women) with tending the garden, and masculinity (not men) with building the wall, and deciding who to let in. An undefended garden will be ransacked, and a wall defending nothing is a waste of time. The nurturer, and protector so to speak. That we must all adequately develop in ourselves. The worst relationships I see are overly aggressive men with overly sexual/manipulative women. They truly are stuck in fixed roles. One thing I will add, even as a man, I find myself identifying more with the feminine due to my childhood experiences and am trying to grow my masculine side now (i.e. part that can 'get things done' with gusto, determination and energy), probably due to my mother wanting a daughter and being unable to shake that desire even after I was born so it greatly influenced my early childhood experiences. Or perhaps it's propoganda. The more they can promote women working male jobs, the more willing human capital the tax farmers get.