74 Comments
Jul 14, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

I very much agree with the general sentiment here. However, I invite you to try to reverse engineer the chains of causality, by observing the results and back-tracking from there to infer the intensity of damage incurred. This is very much what full-fledged empathy does.

I believe I can frame the subtler emotional aspects in a more rational, clear-cut way. Here's a frame of reference of your own, to get started:

"There will never be a time when I am sidelined by suffering unless that suffering literally removes my ability to function."

Let's apply this sound logic to the emotional stuff. One might thus surmise - When a person gets caught up in victim mentality, that suggests the level of emotional suffering indeed has removed their ability to function. For decades I have been there, done that, became that, I can assure you it's not fun. It took me several years to turn things around and open my eyes to reality; I literally nearly had to die in the process. Looking back - I'm not sure change would have actually been possible, otherwise.

These days, I do think very much along the lines of what you wrote here.

But all there while, I clearly understand how complex emotional challenges can be, and I have tremendous respect for people who are stranded in a dark hole, seeming unable to escape. I can see how one can simultaneously be their own prison cell and prison guard and prison key, while simultaneously supposing to have absolutely no say in the matter. I very much know what it *feels* like. That is the gist of having been accustomed/indoctrinated/trained to give away one's personal power.

Overcoming such a position certainly is possible, but it's a tremendous challenge.

It's not any different from learning how to walk again after a debilitating cord injury. There be towering adversarial odds stacked against us, there will be core beliefs sustaining the underlying mentality that need to be re-routed, there will be the need to create and strengthen new neural pathways, there will be a quite compelling tendency to just slide back into old patterns.

Thinking things through as I write it out - I don't think there is at all any difference between physical pain and emotional pain. Pain is pain, and debilitating pain debilitates.

The paradox of the whole victim mentality is that developing resilience is indeed the solution, but lacking resilience was what caused the whole predicament, in the first place. This paradox belies the dangers of the victimization culture - since it cannot fix anything by its own, and can potentially make things worse, on the long run. It would behoove victims to learn a lesson from their abusers, and vice-versa.

Compassionate wallowing is an absolutely necessary part of the healing process, but unless it's followed up with practical accountability, it will inevitably degenerate into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like trying to build a house in shaky ground.

Then again, trying to enforce practical accountability without allowing oneself room for compassionate wallowing will be akin to trying to grow a garden in sterile harsh ground. Change would hardly flourish.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Yes, taking responsibility for outcomes is the key to making a life worth living. Of course, some things *are* beyond one's control, but asking "What did I do that contributed to this situation?" is one of the most powerful questions one can ask.

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Jul 15, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Another great read.

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Jul 15, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

I can tell you there are plenty of us “normals” who are sick of people playing victim and making excuses. I have some natural empathy, but I’m sure as hell not going to waste it on some whiny fool.

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Regarding Athena’s magical life.

I noted that positive expectations tend to condition the RAS (reticular activating system) to not screen out opportunity as it floats past our awareness.

In this post she illustrates a total degree of Internal Locus of Control, agency or being at cause with one’s fate.

A fascinating map of reality.

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Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself - Anton LaVey

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Im not a psycopath, though im very envious at times wishing I didnt live w fkd up emotional thinking. Still I agree with what you said 100 percent. Baffles me when I hear someone say "my ex abused me for ____yrs" or "everytime he came back he was worse" or "he makes me feel like an option" or blah blah blah. These people wernt held hostage. I get being w a narscissist. Its a mind fuck for certain. And im guilty of sticking around longer than I should have. But no way will I bitch and moan for how he treated me when I volunteered to be in the vicinity of him. A man can't hurt you if he's not around to do so.

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Jul 14, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Seems to me you don´t lack empathy, but compassion. To me, empathy has to do with understanding what other are going through, just like this:

" I get it, they sucked, and you hurt, but that hurt is very much like a child crying about falling down to me. Yes, to that child it is the worst pain imaginable. They are suffering through something that they have no point of reference for that pain. The same is true for the person frantically looking on Love Fraud for advice about their supposedly psychopathic, sociopathic, narcissistic, schizophrenic mate. It hurts, and it isn’t pain that they are used to, so to them it is the end of the world. "

I believe that you can clearly understand what someone else is going through. It´s just that you don´t feel the least bit sorry.

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Jan 22, 2023Liked by Athena Walker

Station Doctor: The neurons in his right temporal parietal junction have been impeded.

Fred: Faulty wiring?

Station Doctor: Oh, he wasn't born this way. He was altered. …probably transcranial magnetic hyperstimulation.

Station Doctor: Part of his temporal lobe has been effectively erased.

Holden: Which part?

Station Doctor: The part that governs empathy.

Amos: You can do that with a magnet?

Station Doctor: I've only read about the procedure.

Station Doctor: It's not that simple but, it's not complicated either. It's non-invasive.

Holden: So someone waves a magnet at the right side on my head and, suddenly, I can watch 100,000 people die in agony and not give a shit?

Station Doctor: I've checked the other prisoners, it's been done to all of them.

Fred: The security guards on that station were armed with riot bullets.

Fred: Probably to keep them from murdering each other.

Station Doctor: Well, he's not a homicidal maniac. He just no longer has the capacity to consider any life other than his own meaningful.

Amos: Is his condition reversible?

Station Doctor: I'm afraid not.

Holden: How do you reach a guy like that?

-The Expanse, Season 2, Episode 3, “Static”

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Jul 26, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Funny my son and I just recently had a very similar conversation. So let me put this to you just because emotional pain is something you cannot see it does not make it any less real.

Let's say for instance someone is in a wheelchair they are paralyzed, they cannot get up and walk, they have gone through therapy, they take medications, they have the will to get up and walk, but they are not able.

There is no medical care for these people, in fact the person you used as an example is the exception to the rule not the norm.

In the same way there are people that are emotionally paralyzed and though you cannot see the damage that has been done it is still there.

They take medication, they go through therapy, they have the will to move on, but they cannot.

There is no medical or psychological treatment at this time that can repair this damage.

Now, that being said, most people with emotional damage are not so badly damaged that there is no way to repair it. Just like most people physically damaged are not permanently damaged.

The truth however even though you do not have the empathy to understand it is that emotional damage is real and is sometimes not repairable. As of yet.

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Jul 18, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

What do you think about the Stoic belief that things in your life and life in general are outside of your control? I'm assuming that a person like you with a focus on self-responsibility would disagree with the notion.

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Jul 18, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Agreed.

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Jul 15, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

i think this the first time i've seen anger in your prose.

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Jul 15, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

I was once denied a second helping of Count Chokula at the breakfast table, when I was.... Five. Maybe five and a half. There is nothing in this world that can affect me now

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Jul 15, 2022·edited Jul 15, 2022Liked by Athena Walker

Promoting victimhood as virtue is a manipulation tool, as the person that encourages others to embrace victimhood inevitably has some cure for the inequity foisted upon them

There there now, it’s not your fault that you are a pathetic useless loser, because you are a victim of culture, society, capitalism, the patriarchy… it’s not fair, so vote for me and I’ll fix it all for you!

A psychopaths counseling service: https://youtu.be/4BjKS1-vjPs

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