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Channel Topic: Navigating toxic relationships Format: Monologues pinpointing manipulative behavior through personal stories, using terms associated with disordered personality. The subject matter is very very serious, but he manages to make light of it all and he is one of a kind. Needless to say, I don't agree with him in everything; he's not entirely philosophically consistent but his ideas and flow of presentation are brilliant and have helped me tremendously. In an incredibly head-tripped stressful time for me his videos helped me to navigate toxic relationships and isolate horrendously toxic behaviors in manipulative relationships. He's helped me as I learn to identify and treat those behaviors as seriously dysfunctional. These are my three favorite videos from his channel, I hope you find the information and his personal insights to be of help or use to you. P.s.: His voice will grow on you! P.p.s.: thank you Sacha Sloan on FDR and YouTube for recommending his channel to me!

Work, in progress... Just beforehand, I want to say that I am currently working with a counselor and my ACE Score is 6. How to set boundaries? I am timid and unassertive. I find it difficult to argue or even express my point and end up going with the flow. I am typical nice guy, manipulative. Then I reach my boiling point and I just start screaming at people in rage, because I reached a critical low of my narcissistic supply. Transformation to Mr.Hyde happened in this circumstances: mother threw a class of water in my face when a "friend" did not stop touching me - I actually told him to stop, I am not gay and I am averse to any kind of male touch, except rare pat on the back. when I dim my peers less professional then me and they do not follow my advice. I switch from manipulative to control freak. Probably mimicking my mother. Memory #1: When I was at age of 6 my mother was mocking and bullying me and my grandfather was holding both my hands so I do not punch her and she threw a glass of water into my face and they were laughing. When helpless meets boiling rage... Is there any book, apart from RTR, that could aid me in learning how to set my boundaries? I do not want become rage addict. Can you also help me with argument against "Why do you only remember bad things, what about all good things I did for you?". It is a pure sophistry because the same was not never applied to me(UPB rules). My Woe - Need to get it out of my chest I had to chose a PC for my cousin to buy. I wanted her to go to a shop and try different models out by her self, or with me if she wanted to. She said that she had no time because she was studying to hard. Enough to buy sandals with a friend, not enough to visit a IT shop just around the corner. Yesterday I called my aunt to talk about it. She said that my cousin told her that she wants to buy a PC two days ago. After searching for a week or two some models I have found had been already sold out. I repeated to my aunt what I had told to my cousin: she needs to go and take look for herself; especially if she[aunt] wants to invest well and not buy some useless toy. Again I am being told that my cousin is studying too hard, so I told her that I can do it by myself today. To that my aunt notified me that my cousin is going to buy a dress and then she goes out with her friends. I told her that it I will do it next day and call ended. But then it hit me: no time at all for a product that she will spend next few years using, because she is "studying too hard", but just enough time to do shopping and partying. I really hate when people ask me for help but I am the one who is most emotionally involved into it. I called again and said, screamed what I think about that among other things. Few things that I noticed about myself: envy could played a part in it, because my cousin is going out, while I am a loner(or just an ancap) I got to emotionally involved probably because of my nice guys syndrome and because I wanted to be important to my family. I understand that I could have just asked for money and bought any laptop I see fit without investing so much time, nerves and making a drama. More background: I was kicked out by my parents roughly a year and half ago. It was celebrated as en expulsion of Satan from Heaven, except I was a scapegoat and now my father wants me to come back, because, guess what he got his "fair share" from my mother now he is sick. At the beginning when I came to this city my cousin and my aunt would visit me on week ends and I would go to their place twice every week. My aunt wanted me to go to a local university and bullied me into doing that. Later my grandmother confessed that my aunt wanted to prove to my mother that she is better and she will deal with this swiftly. This university has one of the worst IT faculties in country and maybe in EU: class are being read from a PowerPoint -- copy paste from Wikipedia -- and there are no books. Also it has an insane level of bureaucracy: I was not assigned till the middle of the quadrimestre and then I was downgraded from 3rd course down to the first grade. Previously I studied to that I have studied in university that had at least some world recognition. Simultaneously with me starting this university course my family stopped visiting me, because they were "studying too much". When I visited them I was treated badly: always discussing male models on TV, interrupting me -- not a "sorry", but just start talking about some other issue when I am in the middle of a sentence. Generally I feet like if it does not matter if I am there or not. At some point I was talking about about history in Muslim invasion and discovery of Americas, my aunt just told me to shut up. I did quite well, obviously, before they down graded me and even made friends with some professors. I became depressed after that and I could not keep studying anymore. It was on Christmas Eve when I told that to my aunt, extremely hard emotionally for me to do that, her answer was: that then you should have your internet cut off... She later justified it like that: "Well, I have to think about money." I found some stupid excuse and left. Not so long ago my aunt went to voyage and asked me to keep an eye on my cousin. I was talking to her almost every day as promised and was offering to come and help if needed, she said no. After returning from her voyage my aunt was not calling me because she was angry that I left university and have not found job right away(I live in Spain). So I asked my cousin if it was ok for me to call, she said that "better not, cause [aunt] is angry". After few week when I told my grandfather that I feel isolated in this city. My cousin writes to me say that this is my own fault cause I neither called them, nor visited my cousin when my aunt was away. When I resent to her "better not, cause [aunt] is angry", she said some thing along the lines "haha i indeed have said that"... I feel like they are trying to feed me bullshit all the time, fog me. Usually I am very afraid of confrontation and feel extremely scarred and depressed after but now I am very much tired of this crap.

Part three in my three-part article series on the voice of reason. "We’ve already established why and how disconnected people react when in confrontation with reality, and that in order to remain in denial and disconnection one has to ignore trauma and silence reason—that of other people and in themselves. Here, I will talk about the personal and social effects of being a voice of reason." Read more here: http://blog.selfarcheology.com/2016/02/silencing-voice-of-reason-part-3-pros.html

The second episode of our podcast is here! In it, I and my co-host Jackie talk about the concepts of hope, passivity, (self-)responsibility, boundaries, and more. Get cozy and join us for an hour of self-archeology.

Part two, where I continue to talk about healthy ways of handling differences in personal relationships and of changing people's minds. Here, I share more of my personal experiences.

Part one in the series I started recently. It's on an issue almost all people I met or observed struggle—or have struggled—with. I plan to upload part two and three in the upcoming week.

The second interview with Daniel Mackler. Here, we talk about the topic of relationships: one's template for relationships, friendship, romantic relationship, sex, boundaries, parent-child relationship, and much more!

I have been following this community for about 2 years now. And in that time I have posted a couple of questions and went on one call-in show for advice about what to do about my relationship with my parents, and donated a little. But I have not felt comfortable doing more then that, even though I think this saved my life from a whole lot of troubles down the road. This isolation is something that has happened because of my parents and their internalized forms in me. Most of the things that have happened since this show have spiraled down to my current situation: unemployed, with a little money saved up, no real friendships and still at home, and completely isolated and anxious for the last month. I'm going to give this a try and start asking for some help. I've been facing increased anxiety almost every day while my parents were home or when they weren't for the past month or so since I quit my job. The anxiety was aimed at how there was constant screaming and conflict between my parents or them and my brother or just the anticipation of what my father, who usually initiates most conflicts, might try to say to me next. I am trying to assert my boundaries with them and thus I have written an e-mail that I have partly sent to them previously, partly written now. Here is the e-mail in it's entirety( the links might not work): I'm curious what the community thinks about sending this e-mail to my parents. What I have the greatest fear about is that the anxiety will have a great impact on my performance and and finding a new job to support myself and move out, which at the moment is something I am considering, alongside starting to see if I can get weakly therapy sessions from my therapist.

Part 2 on the struggles of setting personal boundaries, especially with toxic people. The main theme here is learned dependency. Setting Boundaries with Toxic People (Part 2): Learned Dependency

New article on the struggles of standing up for yourself in a toxic relationship; more specifically about self-doubt: http://blog.selfarcheology.com/2014/06/setting-boundaries-with-toxic-people.html

A quick new video on how and why do people become narcissistic.

I explore how it might be possible to betray yourself in this new video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qS0Y0rufbQ