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.
Society seems to have little interest in the growth or relinquishment of suffering. It seems to reward it and prop it up as some sort of accomplishment. Believing that victimhood is an accomplishment is self-satisfying, but it is in no way self-serving.
It is likely true what you say, that it is a part of things to go through that journey and difficult to say the least, but it is only as difficult as you allow it to be. It is better to rip off the bandage instead of continuing to apply bandage after bandage to a gangrenous wound and consider it to be progress. Everyone can smell the rot, but the person continues to ignore it because it is less emotionally difficult in the moment than actually handling the problem.
You mentioned relearning to walk after a spinal injury. There is a story that exemplifies my thoughts on this from Kevin Harte. He was in a nasty car accident, and had to heal and relearn to walk after that, and was told how much he could do in a day to help that along. It wasn't enough for him and progress wasn't going to depend on some doctor's schedule, and the rules that they told him to follow. He dragged himself around the hospital room, forced himself through the pain to achieve his own healing goals, and did so.
It was incredibly difficult, and he had all the excuses not to do it, and the doctors trying to limit what he could do. I think emotional pain is like this in society. People tell the person that they shouldn't push themselves, and to take it easy. It's not helpful, it's limiting. You don't get stronger by sitting around and waiting to become so. You force yourself to pick up heavier and heavier things and through that your strength grows. People provide plenty of excuses as to why the person dealing with emotional problems should just take a rest, when in reality that will never provide them anything more than that, an excuse not to address the gangrene, and get on with life.
I admit my own limitations in the factual experience of that pain, but regardless of the source, allowing it to make itself comfortable in your presence means you will have that much more of a difficult time trying to drive it out when you realize you let it overstay it's welcome.
I don't at all disagree, from my current perspective. However, when I was still caught up in the victim mindset, I was neither aware of it nor did I even remotely identify as such. I was also not aware of what a deeply emotional creature I am or how much the affective side rules my life. I actually fancied myself a reasonable, stoic person, when in fact I was very unreasonable and much submissive (and entirely oblivious to the fact).
It just felt that somethings about life were unfair, and they ought not to be, if only people could somehow get along and work out their disagreements. Lol. Such cringe. Looking back, it's almost as if I was missing the logical side of my brain entirely.
Nowadays I'm more in a sort of "whatever happens, it's all training and I will roll with it" position, which I agree makes everything much less hard. Emotions are multipliers, for better and worse.
I think the reverence for misery was personified in the beatification of Mother Teresa whose charity pretty much wallowed in the misery of the poor they claimed to be helping.
Making yourself comfortable in its presence implies that you know the difference or that you remember a world without this pain.
What if you don’t know the band-aid comes off because you have never seen anyone remove it?
I’ve come to the conclusion that people that live shitty lives sometimes think it’s like that for everyone. They’re not enjoying victimhood, they don’t know or consider themselves victims.
So long as the person has the ability to see any other example other than that in which they live, they are usually capable of understanding that there are different ways of existing.
There might be also thinking that those different modes are available only to fundametally different people. This ties a bit to class and how there are separate neighbourhoods and stuff. They are surrounded by people like them and those people lead certain similar lives and that sets up the expectations.
I don't disagree exactly, yet I feel I've seen a lot more minimizing of damage than coddling. The damage might be neurological or endocrine-related if someone is subjected to childhood abuse or tortured in a war zone or a repressive society; we're not totally in control of how the pathways in our brains react to such stuff though I wish we were. I think people having flashbacks don't want to!
For a long time, most people denied that most abused kids were actually abused. It still goes on. They denied that wartime experiences cause ptsd in a certain group of people.
For me, what you say is good to aspire to -- it is hard to know just how much time a broken leg takes to heal without the right x-rays or whatever, though, and walking too soon isn't going to help anything. Neurological injuries, if that's what ptsd is, don't have a convenient x-ray we can look at. So how do we know what is too fast?
I know for myself, my cognition feels almost infinitely flexible; if I want to think I can do it, I can. With the speed of thought.
Yet the emotional level, for me, is more like a physical broken leg, sometimes, it has a limited speed of change.
I very much relate to your experience. The way I see it, we live in a emotionally traumatized world - and many aspects of old-fashioned education are proving to be highly counterproductive towards the establishment of a humane society. This is a big part of why recovery takes far longer than it might otherwise; it's as if we all live a emotionally septic environment that is not conducive to healing.
Then again, the fact that such topics are being pressed into public awareness is arguably a sign of overarching change.
The whole thing looks rather dramatic because we're immersed in it, but I suppose it's all pretty normal if we take as step back. It's just a variation of an old theme.
There was a time (not too many centuries ago) when superstitions ruled the people, physical sickness was regarded as the work of the devil, and the physically ill were largely ostracized, microbes were not believed in, and even hygiene was laughed at as a pointless thing (I always think of that one doctor who was ostracized because he insisted it might be a good idea to wash hands between dealing with patients - https://globalhandwashing.org/about-handwashing/history-of-handwashing/)
I think our civilization is undergoing a similar movement regarding mental health, right now.
This movement will likely lead to real progress that might be one day comparable to the advents of public sewage and modern medicine; we're just now fully realizing the implications of psychological abuse and emotional trauma and how those things have all along been dramatically hindering social progress and giving rise to all kinds of bizarre issues and communication mishaps, both at individual and collective level.
Here I would like to add it is being discovered that in some areas we overdo hygiene and medicine and it in fact hampers our health (but oh, all the money in the business). So double-edged sword and one needs to learn balance and side-effects and how certain pressure is needed, how natural maintanance is a thing too (and too much chemical washing upsets your skin pH and artifficial lotions are just not as good a fit). And I think same will apply to work with psyche, it is just even murkier than physical wellbeing.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this as I try to get past and get over old crap from my younger years. It is possible to grow up with absolutely no person to aspire to. (Not me thankfully). If you have never seen someone who has a normal loving relationship, it looks like a fairytale to you,. It’s simply not real. But you have feelings and needs complicating everything anyway.
I have empathy for people who are TRYING to find real love/better themselves/ get past some sh$t. It doesn’t happen overnight.
I have done things that my parents had no idea how to do and it’s hard as hell. It’s also wonderful 😃. But you have to try.
Right on - I think about feelings as multipliers that work for good and bad. Sometimes we really need to set them aside. But sometimes we don't even realize how deeply clung to them we are, especially when we have emotional natures.
This right here is the major hurdle IMO to overcoming the victim mentality. It's like trying to detach a fish from the toxic lake - a fresh water aquarium will be needed for the transition.
And the fish needs to realize that it's not the water that was ever harming them - it was the toxicity in sewage where they'd come from.
You know, I feel that many people out there are going through similar journeys as you and I both describe here. And it's fucking beautiful, and inspirational and its effects are compounding.
Full-fledged empathy does require the fleshing out of reason though, otherwise it's just hollow sympathy. I'm on board with the former, as well.
Actually, the teaching of the four noble truths is not that life is destined to be nothing but suffering, but that the means of finding liberation from suffering is always available to us. therefore suffering is a choice (optional)
How do you suffer without pain? That makes no sense. Pain is the feeling of unpleasant physical sensations or emotions. Suffering is the struggle, denial, worry, regret, indignation, complaining, and self-pity wrapped around pain.
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.
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.
I know that there certainly are. I have had discussions with many of them, and many of them have expressed their ill feelings about such things, and the effect it has on the world in which we live.
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.
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.
It is difficult, and I know that I lack the emotionality that makes these decisions difficult for the people who are in those situations, but I agree with what you say here. You can leave, and not invite them back when they come calling.
There is a limit it our degree of resistance to manipulation, we can be controlled outside of our awareness and so this removes agency in choosing the correct actions.
We aren’t as conscious as we pretend to be, as there are influences beyond our control that steer our thinking and actions.
Don’t think of a Red Cat
However, it isn’t useful to dwell upon what we could not do anything about, we can find the most utility in acting upon what we can in fact control.
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.
Why should anyone feel sorry for the child? Yup, it sucked. Lots of things do, and self-pity is a nasty thing to foster in the world.
Self pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; is it addictive, gives momentary pleasure, and separates the victim from reality.
~John W. Gardner
Helping the child up and cleaning a wound is acceptable and valuable. Making them think that the pain is more than it is, a momentary inconvenience, helps no one.
And yes, I lack emotional empathy entirely. I am wired without it. I have cognitive empathy that informs me that there is a learning curve to all things. They will learn in time that there are worse things in the world, but if they are responded to as though the worst thing has already happened they will never be able to deal with it when they are confronted with an actual problem.
You seem to have a lot of anger directed at women being victims after getting raped. I’m guessing you got caught raping someone and are Now harbouring a lot of anger and resentment that everyone thinks it was your fault even though she was dressed slutty???
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.
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.
I don't know a great deal about it, but I think that people that throw their hands up and say nothing is my fault are lazy in terms of responsibility. The specific argument in stoicism, however, I am not familiar.
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
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!
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.
Society seems to have little interest in the growth or relinquishment of suffering. It seems to reward it and prop it up as some sort of accomplishment. Believing that victimhood is an accomplishment is self-satisfying, but it is in no way self-serving.
It is likely true what you say, that it is a part of things to go through that journey and difficult to say the least, but it is only as difficult as you allow it to be. It is better to rip off the bandage instead of continuing to apply bandage after bandage to a gangrenous wound and consider it to be progress. Everyone can smell the rot, but the person continues to ignore it because it is less emotionally difficult in the moment than actually handling the problem.
You mentioned relearning to walk after a spinal injury. There is a story that exemplifies my thoughts on this from Kevin Harte. He was in a nasty car accident, and had to heal and relearn to walk after that, and was told how much he could do in a day to help that along. It wasn't enough for him and progress wasn't going to depend on some doctor's schedule, and the rules that they told him to follow. He dragged himself around the hospital room, forced himself through the pain to achieve his own healing goals, and did so.
It was incredibly difficult, and he had all the excuses not to do it, and the doctors trying to limit what he could do. I think emotional pain is like this in society. People tell the person that they shouldn't push themselves, and to take it easy. It's not helpful, it's limiting. You don't get stronger by sitting around and waiting to become so. You force yourself to pick up heavier and heavier things and through that your strength grows. People provide plenty of excuses as to why the person dealing with emotional problems should just take a rest, when in reality that will never provide them anything more than that, an excuse not to address the gangrene, and get on with life.
I admit my own limitations in the factual experience of that pain, but regardless of the source, allowing it to make itself comfortable in your presence means you will have that much more of a difficult time trying to drive it out when you realize you let it overstay it's welcome.
I don't at all disagree, from my current perspective. However, when I was still caught up in the victim mindset, I was neither aware of it nor did I even remotely identify as such. I was also not aware of what a deeply emotional creature I am or how much the affective side rules my life. I actually fancied myself a reasonable, stoic person, when in fact I was very unreasonable and much submissive (and entirely oblivious to the fact).
It just felt that somethings about life were unfair, and they ought not to be, if only people could somehow get along and work out their disagreements. Lol. Such cringe. Looking back, it's almost as if I was missing the logical side of my brain entirely.
Nowadays I'm more in a sort of "whatever happens, it's all training and I will roll with it" position, which I agree makes everything much less hard. Emotions are multipliers, for better and worse.
I like that life isn't fair. How boring and pointless it would be if it was.
You're right - such would be a cartoon of a life. Great stories require great adversities.
I think the reverence for misery was personified in the beatification of Mother Teresa whose charity pretty much wallowed in the misery of the poor they claimed to be helping.
Indeed, with monstrous results
Making yourself comfortable in its presence implies that you know the difference or that you remember a world without this pain.
What if you don’t know the band-aid comes off because you have never seen anyone remove it?
I’ve come to the conclusion that people that live shitty lives sometimes think it’s like that for everyone. They’re not enjoying victimhood, they don’t know or consider themselves victims.
So long as the person has the ability to see any other example other than that in which they live, they are usually capable of understanding that there are different ways of existing.
There might be also thinking that those different modes are available only to fundametally different people. This ties a bit to class and how there are separate neighbourhoods and stuff. They are surrounded by people like them and those people lead certain similar lives and that sets up the expectations.
I don't disagree exactly, yet I feel I've seen a lot more minimizing of damage than coddling. The damage might be neurological or endocrine-related if someone is subjected to childhood abuse or tortured in a war zone or a repressive society; we're not totally in control of how the pathways in our brains react to such stuff though I wish we were. I think people having flashbacks don't want to!
For a long time, most people denied that most abused kids were actually abused. It still goes on. They denied that wartime experiences cause ptsd in a certain group of people.
For me, what you say is good to aspire to -- it is hard to know just how much time a broken leg takes to heal without the right x-rays or whatever, though, and walking too soon isn't going to help anything. Neurological injuries, if that's what ptsd is, don't have a convenient x-ray we can look at. So how do we know what is too fast?
I know for myself, my cognition feels almost infinitely flexible; if I want to think I can do it, I can. With the speed of thought.
Yet the emotional level, for me, is more like a physical broken leg, sometimes, it has a limited speed of change.
I very much relate to your experience. The way I see it, we live in a emotionally traumatized world - and many aspects of old-fashioned education are proving to be highly counterproductive towards the establishment of a humane society. This is a big part of why recovery takes far longer than it might otherwise; it's as if we all live a emotionally septic environment that is not conducive to healing.
Then again, the fact that such topics are being pressed into public awareness is arguably a sign of overarching change.
The whole thing looks rather dramatic because we're immersed in it, but I suppose it's all pretty normal if we take as step back. It's just a variation of an old theme.
There was a time (not too many centuries ago) when superstitions ruled the people, physical sickness was regarded as the work of the devil, and the physically ill were largely ostracized, microbes were not believed in, and even hygiene was laughed at as a pointless thing (I always think of that one doctor who was ostracized because he insisted it might be a good idea to wash hands between dealing with patients - https://globalhandwashing.org/about-handwashing/history-of-handwashing/)
I think our civilization is undergoing a similar movement regarding mental health, right now.
This movement will likely lead to real progress that might be one day comparable to the advents of public sewage and modern medicine; we're just now fully realizing the implications of psychological abuse and emotional trauma and how those things have all along been dramatically hindering social progress and giving rise to all kinds of bizarre issues and communication mishaps, both at individual and collective level.
Here I would like to add it is being discovered that in some areas we overdo hygiene and medicine and it in fact hampers our health (but oh, all the money in the business). So double-edged sword and one needs to learn balance and side-effects and how certain pressure is needed, how natural maintanance is a thing too (and too much chemical washing upsets your skin pH and artifficial lotions are just not as good a fit). And I think same will apply to work with psyche, it is just even murkier than physical wellbeing.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this as I try to get past and get over old crap from my younger years. It is possible to grow up with absolutely no person to aspire to. (Not me thankfully). If you have never seen someone who has a normal loving relationship, it looks like a fairytale to you,. It’s simply not real. But you have feelings and needs complicating everything anyway.
I have empathy for people who are TRYING to find real love/better themselves/ get past some sh$t. It doesn’t happen overnight.
I have done things that my parents had no idea how to do and it’s hard as hell. It’s also wonderful 😃. But you have to try.
Why is there a need for someone to aspire to?
Yes, I agree.
Right on - I think about feelings as multipliers that work for good and bad. Sometimes we really need to set them aside. But sometimes we don't even realize how deeply clung to them we are, especially when we have emotional natures.
This right here is the major hurdle IMO to overcoming the victim mentality. It's like trying to detach a fish from the toxic lake - a fresh water aquarium will be needed for the transition.
And the fish needs to realize that it's not the water that was ever harming them - it was the toxicity in sewage where they'd come from.
You know, I feel that many people out there are going through similar journeys as you and I both describe here. And it's fucking beautiful, and inspirational and its effects are compounding.
Full-fledged empathy does require the fleshing out of reason though, otherwise it's just hollow sympathy. I'm on board with the former, as well.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Exactly right.
Actually, the teaching of the four noble truths is not that life is destined to be nothing but suffering, but that the means of finding liberation from suffering is always available to us. therefore suffering is a choice (optional)
How do you suffer without pain? That makes no sense. Pain is the feeling of unpleasant physical sensations or emotions. Suffering is the struggle, denial, worry, regret, indignation, complaining, and self-pity wrapped around pain.
Suffering is a form of pain. It is the second definition of suffering:
Definition of suffering
1: the state or experience of one that suffers
2: PAIN
For clarification, I didn't add the CAPS. Merriam Webster did.
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.
Agreed
Another great read.
Thank you, Elisha
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.
I know that there certainly are. I have had discussions with many of them, and many of them have expressed their ill feelings about such things, and the effect it has on the world in which we live.
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.
Magical life?
Apologies > Charmed life
You had mentioned that people have remarked, that you seem to lead a charmed life, a while back.
I wrote an extensive comment about that.
Ah yes, makes sense. Thank you for the clarification.
Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself - Anton LaVey
A fair quote.
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.
It is difficult, and I know that I lack the emotionality that makes these decisions difficult for the people who are in those situations, but I agree with what you say here. You can leave, and not invite them back when they come calling.
I am a Hypnotist
There is a limit it our degree of resistance to manipulation, we can be controlled outside of our awareness and so this removes agency in choosing the correct actions.
We aren’t as conscious as we pretend to be, as there are influences beyond our control that steer our thinking and actions.
Don’t think of a Red Cat
However, it isn’t useful to dwell upon what we could not do anything about, we can find the most utility in acting upon what we can in fact control.
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.
Why should anyone feel sorry for the child? Yup, it sucked. Lots of things do, and self-pity is a nasty thing to foster in the world.
Self pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; is it addictive, gives momentary pleasure, and separates the victim from reality.
~John W. Gardner
Helping the child up and cleaning a wound is acceptable and valuable. Making them think that the pain is more than it is, a momentary inconvenience, helps no one.
And yes, I lack emotional empathy entirely. I am wired without it. I have cognitive empathy that informs me that there is a learning curve to all things. They will learn in time that there are worse things in the world, but if they are responded to as though the worst thing has already happened they will never be able to deal with it when they are confronted with an actual problem.
You seem to have a lot of anger directed at women being victims after getting raped. I’m guessing you got caught raping someone and are Now harbouring a lot of anger and resentment that everyone thinks it was your fault even though she was dressed slutty???
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”
The Expanse is a very interesting show.
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.
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.
I don't know a great deal about it, but I think that people that throw their hands up and say nothing is my fault are lazy in terms of responsibility. The specific argument in stoicism, however, I am not familiar.
Agreed.
i think this the first time i've seen anger in your prose.
Nope. No anger. Just being direct.
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
That is absolutely tragic.
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
Pretty much.