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I don't see any consent given by the person being born so nope. If I drugged you with roofies , hauled you to my house with a rented truck, threw you in my cellar, and said "I own you now because I spent time and money getting you here", who would accept that?

The best way I can put it is this: You're in a torture chamber. The torturer gives you a choice of three implements. A taser, a branding iron, or a drill. You're gonna pick the taser, but it doesn't mean you wanna be tortured.

That was really confusing. But yea I've been told that I always have to be right. It's just a trap claiming your motives are dominance rather than truth, and that you don't accept empirical evidence. Just a character assassination. I only see three possibilities: They believe you reject reality, you also believe you reject reality, so they're arguing with a crazy person. They believe you reject reality, you believe you accept reality, so you're proving their point by disagreeing with them (and they're still arguing with a nut). They believe you accept reality, and you also believe you accept reality, so they're trying to put you in a trap (again, if you agree/disagree, you're nuts). John Cena is that really you? Can you be my dad please?

@MiraiRonin Yes it was. Sorry about the late reply. I listened to both and they touched on what I was thinking too. But you said that you regret not confronting your parents before cutting the rope, I sorta regret cutting it way too early. I've had at least 5 conversations with them about this stuff and made it clear to them that this is the only subject I'm willing to talk about until it's resolved, and they've pretty much ostracized me in their own house. We don't speak or make eye contact, and I'm unemployed right now so the best part of my day is waking up to an empty house and the worst part is them getting home from work. They've even tried the typical "why don't you speak to us" guilt trip, and literally have asked "can we just talk about something? it doesn't have to be important!" It's sickening. We have similar fathers so I think you saved yourself some time and hassle. At least you're not in proximity to them. I made the mistake of charging into battle with 3 months of FDR under my belt the first time and kinda got stomped.

If you know they're a narcissist, don't. If you find out mid-conversation, jump out of window/moving car.

Well I'm not going to therapy until I get a job. I'm living on zilch right now. I am powering through the podcasts though which should speed up the sessions and save me money.

But I'm contributing to the conversation aren't I?

Also check out podcast 16 and 17. It's about dealing with those who aren't Libertarians. Stef talks about where it is appropriate to bring up your beliefs. Also remember that honesty is not a commandment because that's not what philosophy is. If you gotta make bank but your opinions would cut off the flow, no shame in keeping food in your mouth.

@ MiraiRonin yesyesyesyesyes that hit the nail on the head. When I was a kid it was physical threats, yelling, spanking and occasionally hitting on the face. As I got bigger it was yelling and guilt, now that I'm 21 it's exclusively guilt. He's transitioning through aggressive tactics and I have no doubt that when I blow this popsicle stand it'll be all "Why don't you talk to us? What do we have to do to get you to talk to us?" and if I give them conditions for talking to me, they'll follow them, then if I wanna end contact they'll go "WE DID EVERYTHING YOU ASKED" and blah blah blah. I knew making an account on this site was a good idea. You said your father was similar? Was he similar in any of the ways I listed? How did you learn to deal with him/the effects afterwards? For me I just walk away or ignore him.

Warning, amateur philosophy guppy opinions incoming so take this with a grain of salt. You seem to be landing on a streak of narcissistic women. If I were you, I'd stay on the dating break until I figured some stuff out. "Am I & Stefan being too rigorous about requiring people to be logical?" Are you being too rigorous about requiring a car to run properly or for your food to not be poisoned? Absolutely not. Don't blame yourself for other people's nutzo-buttzo head space. You also say you're alone, but those people are too. You just know it. But if you're gaining self-knowledge and amping up your philosophy brain, you're getting to know your true self, so that puts you one up over them because they don't even know themselves. I think if you jump in with one of those chicks, you know you'll feel more alone than you do right now. There's so much other stuff in this post, I think you should book something for the Call-In Show.

@ MiraiRonin No it definitely does tally. There's a few other tactics that he uses against me and my family though that may interest you. When he's angry he'll slam drawers or throw stuff onto the table. He knows when he does this my mom, sister and I will ask what's wrong and just like that he's got us trying to fix/find whatever needs to be fixed/found, lest we don't in which his temper escalates. We all know where that bomb's gonna land because we've all seen it go off before. He also uses guilt in the same way. Like when he was installing a hood to an indoor range and it wouldn't fit, he'd start audibly whimpering and getting really rough with it. It came to a point where I just said right there "I need therapy." not in an accusatory way, just stating. He immediately turned around and say in an angry tone "What, because of me???" and that pretty much shut me up. So you're right that he is getting our immediate compliance, and that's the short term + for him, but I've since worked those habits out of my life. The question still lies with the benefit of comparing myself to others. From what you typed I think I may have a good start on it. My goal when I was a kid (and still today) was to keep my dad and his temper faaaaaar far apart. I'd do this however I could by getting on the honor role, getting good test scores, going and finding whatever he was looking for, getting authority figures to say good things about me, acting depressed along with him when he went through depression, and shaming myself when confronted by him to show him that I wasn't trying to put up any opposition. Just a few but yea that "addiction to helplessness" thing you said sorta opened up a spicket in my brain. Any thoughts on what I've barfed up so far?

@ MiraiRonin Those three examples make sense but now I'm wondering where the habit came from. Because those three examples all points the finger at the person but don't point to anything in their past that could have formed the necessity for the habit. The only thing in my childhood I can think of that may have started this was mid-way through school where I was the outcast and my father had a talk with me that went something like this: "All the kids at school tell me I'm stupid..." "Well they're wrong. You know why?" "Why?" "You're smart and can get good grades. If you get on the honor role and stay on it, you'll prove them wrong." This instantly communicated that: If I didn't get on the honor role, they were right. My worth is dependent on what I can achieve over others. Appeasing those in authority (teachers/parents) was the only way to find personal worth. But I still have no clue where the habit comes in. If it's of any help, my dad is addicted to self-pity as an attention net similar to your first example.

There are other threads on this, but no clear answers. I don't wanna launch into a text-wall of amateur philosophizing (banging on drums and saying you're covering Led Zep) so I'll give a super duper condensed version of what I think so far and what questions I'm left with. I'm trying to figure out what the short term + of negatively comparing yourself to others is. My starting points: It's a bad habit like smoking (short term +, long term -). The "long term -" is low self-respect and everything that grows from that. It comes out of childhood trauma (I don't remember having the habit when I was a kid). When I imagine someone negatively comparing themselves to me, I hate that they're doing that to themselves. So what's the +? Is it a form of self-flagellation? Has Stef done any podcasts on this? If so plz point me. I'm a philosophy guppy so I need an expert.

Holy crap man. No. How new are you to FDR?

From what I've read it's a good way to get external feedback on your thoughts. Like I'm still fighting my false self back, so its signals are probably mixed in with those from my true self and I can't always pick them apart with my beginner philosophy brain so consulting an expert is probs a good idea. As soon as I actually start putting money away again I'm gonna invest in some therapy. I'm already steam-rolling through FDR podcasts and writing a lot in journals and recording thoughts on voice memos, so that'll probably speed up the process which = more $ for the savings.

My friend and I defined friendship as consistency checking. Sadly it's what led up to my decision to stop seeing him.

Wow. This post just made me think of a bunch of different things all relevant to it. Firstly, how I viewed myself in relation to my parents is reproduced everywhere. I have a father who inflicted his authority on me (spankings, timeouts, taking my stuff) and got so angry at petty things he could flip a table at the drop of a hat. Whenever I'm talking to older men I feel powerless and horrified to be of any inconvenience to them, especially if I'm going for an interview. Like I had one today and I felt like I was just irritating him in the beginning, then he laughed at something I said and it felt like it just came out of nowhere. My mother is a sentimental emotionally volatile woman who would spank me, threaten to "tell dad", and would go away from us to cry for some reason. When I speak to any woman I feel this tsunami compulsion to watch what I say, manage their emotions, and always make sure I wear a poker face to avoid showing any attraction. These modes of thinking/processing seem to fit like a star-shaped block into a star-shaped hole perfectly when I'm around my parents, being that I know exactly how to navigate interactions around them, but when applied to people outside the family it just feels like I don't have the right operating system. I think you really struck a chord.