Exulansic And The CAIS Of The Phantom Censor

February 19, 2022 by

Recently, the Gender Critical community was rocked by the sudden removal of a prominent voice from a prominent platform.

Stalker

Can’t you just leave us alone??

“I do plan to keep making this content, because it’s more important now than ever to keep speaking out.” 

The Case Against The Case Against CAIS

Exulansic made her well-considered views known regarding whether individuals born with the anomaly of sexual development known as Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome should be counted as women. There was some passionate disagreement, but she stood her ground and even won over a few people.

Debate sputtered when a newcomer to the fray stepped in and dragged it to a grinding halt – Someone who had to make sure everyone knew the Intersex Truth.

His response video makes up fifty percent of the content on Intersex Truther’s brand-new channel. Blowing through the studies Exulansic cited with, “Gish gallop!” guarantees him a spot in the Mansplaining Hall of Fame. Still insecure in his infamy, he also commissioned a rap song calling her a bigot. And an unflattering caricature. Just normal Alpha Male stuff, you know.

Exulansic responded promptly with an analysis of the caricature, tracing echoes of classic anti-Semitic propaganda. YouTube shut her down a few hours later, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

Personal Bias And Image Management

Don’t worry, I’m not going to offer my personal opinion on the intersex debacle. I believe it’s a distraction that’s taken time and airspace away from our real fight. It adds nothing to the immediate debate surrounding women’s rights, and has the Gender Critical community taking sides over something irrelevant to most of us. It has served as cover for the sabotage of our movement, and I am not going to add fuel to the pyre in the form of my two cents.

Private Letter

My personal feelings are beside the point!

I won’t be naming the highest-profile person involved, either. Whether you agree he has the kind of clout to take down entire channels, this person has absolutely zero flotsam online. None. I’ve been researching all kinds of people for these posts for years, and everyone over 30 with any clout has some random articles from ten years ago. A couple awkward photographs. At least one snarky, dissenting op-ed.

Not this guy – I searched through eleven pages of Google results. Make of this what you will, but I’ll be referring to him as Benedict Arnold in the hopes of avoiding digital oblivion.

But the basis for Exulansic’s video – The one that triggered Intersex Truther and sparked the whole chain of events – was a Benedict Arnold interview featuring an intersex individual.

He threw some strong words at anyone stepping up to support Exulansic, and she has said she felt threatened with cancelation. But he’s also been known to sling slurs, then laugh off anyone reacting seriously. Karen Davis over at You’re Kidding, Right? has provided receipts for his free-wheeling language. However interesting his interview choices, I don’t think Old Benny is a friend to women’s liberation.

But I don’t think he’s responsible for the demise of Ex’s channel. For one thing, he’s interviewed her more than once and they seemed to get along. Karen Davis is a big proponent of this idea but, if Benedict could do such a thing, seems to me she would have been first in line during the Great Whore Debacle of Summer 2021. Mr. Arnold seems to roll on from our criticism just fine.

Rise Of The Machines

YouTube, on the other hand, will censor certain words without notifying anyone not to use them. One of my first videos – A takedown of medical professionals attempting to discuss the affect of COVID vaccines on menstrual cycles without saying the word ‘woman’ – was itself taken down. The V-word keyword has become common knowledge, but how many words do you suppose we don’t know about?

Chloroform

Some people are just ruthless!

The increased prominence of extreme right-wing groups has reminded us that anti-Semitism never really died, and I suspect YouTube (among others) has set up bots to squelch any mention of it outside official sources.

Ex is a rabble rouser, her channel ruffled many delicate feathers. Before her Patreon was also taken down, she told her patrons YouTube removed her for ‘inciting violence.’ I must have missed that bit listening to her caricature video while making dinner that night. But the invocation of anti-Jewish hatred – and actual Nazi propaganda – may have just been the massive final straw.

The case for a political hit job is compelling – Karen and Ex discussed it explicitly. Karen has stated many times she believes Benedict Arnold is responsible for the whole mess, and Exulansic supplied incriminating details. Cluniac makes his own argument for sabotage, pointing the finger at Intersex Truther. Both assume an organized team of trolls behind the scenes, and it’s not hard to imagine in our age of the Twitter Mob.

But it’s too easy to explain too much using only YouTube’s mindless self-interest. Association with Nazis is bad for market share, and my embarrassing depth of experience tells me this topic is essentially absent from the platform.

That Feeling Of Being Watched

But can so many intelligent women be seeing a phantom? Why does Exulansic’s cancelation feel so targeted?

The online world can be a tricky thing; Digital engineers have spent the past decade completely remaking the back end, meanwhile the interface remains largely unchanged. Your old friends look the same, but they’ve all defected to the other side. It sounded paranoid 20 years ago, but everything we do is tracked and logged in some massive mainframe… for some reason. Uses for this level of information and technology are limited only by the imagination.

More mundanely, the Trans Femme are extremely over-represented in tech. Even I have a former in-law who fits this trope perfectly. It’s not hard to believe they would rig their own platforms in their favor, just like they try to tilt everything else.

Vampires

Can we just get this over with, Gary?? You look absolutely ridiculous!

I’m not a programmer, but I know enough about computers to know I don’t know that much. Most of us don’t really know how all this shiny shit works, but we shouldn’t have to – Modern society encourages individuals to specialize, reaching new depths in a narrow field of focus. A high population ensures a cornucopia of topics in development. I don’t know how to fly an airplane, either, and I shouldn’t be expected to.

I may not be a pilot, but I can recognize a dangerous trajectory. Ignorance of flight protocol doesn’t mean I can’t see a crash coming.

Haters Gonna Hate

Just a few years ago, with #MeToo in full swing, even the passing thought that women were being targeted and censored for stating banal facts would have felt absurd. Now, we have Slightly Twisted Female and others pleading for the community not to fracture further, as we frantically hunt down the source of our anxiety.

Supporting Exulansic and anyone like her is important enough to venture into new platforms, but I worry about stretching ourselves too thin. I can hardly keep track of things as it is, and I don’t even have an Instagram!

Seems to me that any organization of any decent size is bound to have a mole. I’m not ruling out Benedict Arnold and his freaky-clean vibe, but I’m content to leave him to his trolling. Focusing on supporting those whose work I do admire and appreciate will help build momentum towards the liberation of women from the rule of men, and anyone who joins me is welcome.

Presenting a united front on this point is absolutely vital, because there does appear to be a guided effort to fracture and discredit Gender Criticism through stoking in-fighting and paranoia. Just like so many radical and leftist groups before us. But women know who we are.

And we know that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. But if they’re coming for us, let them find us hard at work.

 

Filed Under: Everyday Misogyny, Wokism, Women’s World Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Gender Dysphoria Is Normal

December 11, 2021 by

“Being a girl and hitting puberty is so traumatic.”

Flower Eater

Can I just de-blume the blossom?

An anonymous Tumblr post expressed a common shame in simple words. It rippled through Gender Critical social media in the form of screenshots after the original post was quickly deleted.

Her spurt of stifled frustration struck a chord, breathlessly relating a firsthand account of female suppression: “You go from being a genderless little free thing to being hit with shaving and makeup and growing breasts and skincare and menstruation and suddenly being sexualized, 

“When like a few years ago you could take your shirt off to play in the stream and trade cards with the boys and come home covered in mud and not even think about it.”

But eventually you realize everyone around you is thinking about it. Compliments focus on appearance or social skills, while questions often get uncomfortably personal. The sudden societal burden can combine with newly dawning self-awareness to create a perception of generalized critical observation.

Others have expectations you can’t meet, and a young person might not consider that those expectations are unreasonable. Especially when most people they know seem to be doing fine. Suppressing stories like this one furthers the myth that most girls are just fine with ‘femininity.’

“And then you spend years hating being a girl and hating everything puberty did to you and wishing you could be a boy or be completely genderless again and it takes you many years to come to terms with yourself,

“Or you simply try to Lean In to everything and do makeup tutorials on YouTube and claim it’s for fun. How can this be treated as normal?” This hatred-denial continuum seems to mimic the classic whore/virgin dichotomy, doesn’t it?

Frustrated With Flowers

We’ve been over this a thousand times!

The bitter invocation of Cheryl Sandberg taps a deep well of bile from digesting many betrayals. Powerful women often become so by learning the boys’ game, which many of us are just not very good at. They join in the elite chorus of supposed meritocracy, clinging to their ego-driven narrative as tightly as any man.

Naturally, the framing of this as a Women’s Issue had to be squashed: “To be honest, this sounds like the kind of thing a transgender or non-binary person who is AFAB might feel once puberty hits. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that, but it’s just what comes to mind.”

This person admits to not knowing what they’re talking about, but feels free to weigh in on this young woman’s life. And irony and misogyny continue their slugfest for supremacy.

But there were some responses claiming more authority: “100% this. I am trans, and this is what dysphoria feels like.”

“This is gender dysphoria.”

Let’s assume, for a moment, that this is true. If gender is a social construct that’s imposed on us, it makes sense that a one-size-fits-all approach will cause some people issues.

“I suppose it could be. Is it also possible that cis kids could struggle with puberty?” A reasonable suggestion! Let’s see how they disregard it – 

“Sure it is, and plenty of cis girls complain about how society’s perception of them changes and the pressure put on them to act a certain way increases. They don’t, however, spend years hating their bodies and never fully recover,” Thanks for the heads-up that you have absolutely no firsthand experience with this topic. Women’s body issues are their own cottage industry!

Mirrored Yellow Shawl

Ugh, I’m hideous!

“…looking back and wishing they had never gone through puberty and that they still looked genderless. OP is trans/nb, 99%.” Oh, right, I forgot gender is innate and springs forth from deep-seated personal essence. It’s so easy to get confused when they oscillate more than Brian Eno.

And, of course, someone stepped in to tell her what a weirdo she is: “Look, I agree puberty isn’t fun but this is not a normal reaction to it. The person who wrote this seems like they are probably trans or nonbinary. Most people (regardless of gender) struggle with some aspects of puberty but it doesn’t make the majority of us hate who we are/our gender.”

Struggling with sexual stereotypes is the basis for a lot of friction and static in women’s lives. Far from demonstrating a lack of womanhood, it may be the most common shared experience. It speaks to the shame surrounding it that this sensation was only recently named.

But someone else came right out and said what they were all thinking: Fresh meat! “Maybe you are just a boy/genderless? Plenty of cis women can probably relate to not liking gender stereotypes or oversexualization but cis women don’t hate being women lol”

Plenty of women hate sex stereotypes and still find joy in womanhood because we’ve learned not to take them personally. We understand that stereotypes are like Bigfoot – Lots of sightings but very little proof. We understand that our culture’s idea of what women are is generic and shallow, disconnected from the reality of our lives.

I hope the young woman who wrote this has found a more understanding audience, but I was glad to see it floating around. The more stories like this are shared, the more obvious it will become that ‘gender dysphoria’ is a normal part of growing up.

Grumpy In The Corner

Leave me alone – Today I identify as wallpaper!

Individuality is our strength, but conformity makes us disposable. This is exactly how Patriarchy wants to see us, and normal mental development plays right into its hands.

Part of it is the shock of sudden self-awareness that strikes with puberty. Younger children are less conscious of how they are seen by others, dwelling blissfully in the warm glow of their own ego. Around the age of 12 or so, neurological development reaches the conceptualization of those same passions in everyone else. Suddenly the world is looking back at you, and just when you’re least prepared!

In the cataclysmic shifts of body and mind, chunks of once-established reality come into question. Social pressure can be one of few beacons of certainty.

The gender industry relies on these stories remaining shameful secrets. This young woman’s experience may be more extreme than some, but these commenters used women’s isolation in suffering to tell her she was alone. Divide and conquer. Rinse, repeat.

It’s normal and rational to get jetlag on the trip from subject to object. It’s painful to squeeze an entire human being into a shallow stereotype. If this is gender dysphoria, we all have it.

Noble Sigh

Sometimes all these layers feel so stifling!

Embracing this would defang it, robbing this discomfort of the power to overtake our psyches. Rejecting the stigma of failing to adhere to ‘feminine’ ideals is an important step on the road to liberation, and it would show young women that we all carry this burden.

Struggling as most women do doesn’t make you less of a woman, and we are stronger together.

 

Filed Under: Everyday Misogyny, Found In The Wild, Queer Ideology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fight Despair Together: What Does Life on Your Terms Look Like?

July 16, 2019 by

You see the well-trodden paths in your life. You learn ways to stop getting stuck there. You go, killer! The next question is, “Where do we go from here?”

We have to forge new paths, create new ways of relating to people around us. If we are doing our inner work well, this should be obvious to us. We recognize familiar situations and remember how we would have reacted in the past.

Late Night

My coping mechanisms work fine…. Until they don’t!

Take Responsibility for Your Reactions

Personal example, a weird thing I have is I hate waking up alone. Like, if I went to bed alone, okay. But in that half-awake haze of the Night Owl at 8am, I seek out the comfort of my beloved.

And if he’s up early playing a game, it takes me to this weird, awful thing where each of my parents preferred a screen to my company.

Please keep in mind, I’m still barely half-awake.

There have been days when I was well into a spiral of lashing out and self-loathing by the time I really became conscious.

My new favorite YouTube shrink is Abdul Saad. In one video he says that stability is necessary before self-development can begin. This is so true! I’m so grateful to my husband for putting up with all my drama and being a consistent presence in my life.

Saying ‘No’

Sometimes I’m sad when I think of my old family and how none of my efforts made any difference. But without those people around, my dust is finally settling. I can begin to see myself as I truly am, without being drained by people who don’t know how to give.

So, when you see the old reaction – In my case, freaking the fuck out – but the instinct behind it is muted because you have been working through the blockage that triggers it – My fear of abandonment – you begin to see new ways to handle things.

Mostly these days I can stay calm long enough to remind myself who I’m talking to. Why I got up in the first place. Maybe I help deal with something bothering him. And, more often than not, I simply go back to bed.

Yawn

I love you guys, but I need my rest!

You might call this a ‘soft no.’

Another thing Dr. Sahd said is that suffering is a necessary prerequisite for personal growth. Not to throw a pity party but, dear readers, I have been suffering.

I have been tired before. I ran myself ragged in my 20s because I didn’t know any better.

And I thought pushing myself would make me harder. It just makes me numb.

Since I married my husband I have pushed myself harder than ever, in love instead of fear. I hoped this would carry me through. I hoped I would adjust to this complicated life.

I’m doing okay. But I have had to start saying no, as an act of desperation. It’s not easy! My impulse to prove myself and my enthusiasm for giving made me turn away from my own inconvenient needs a few too many times.

My family is a wonderful source of love, cuddles and companionship. But I need to be alone.

I have described it to my husband as a house – I am happy to have guests but I need time to clean up and take out the garbage. It’s starting to pile up.

Despite all my explanations, he is very extroverted and just doesn’t quite get it. He is getting better at anticipating my needs, but I can’t expect him to be my emotional babysitter.

I have to let go of needing to always please others and always feel included, because I have to find a way to include solitude in my life.

This is a must. I’m starting to lose my inner thread more and more. Even when rested I’m irritable and distracted.

Reading By The Window

I know I wrote it down somewhere!

Life on My Terms…. Who am I?

I bring it up because life on our terms isn’t just about deciding what we want and pursuing it. I reshaped my life a few years ago because I reached a crossroads. But Happily Ever After is always more complicated than we might wish.

We will always hit walls. Sometimes our goals don’t align with our abilities and we have to re-evaluate.

Most of all, remember you are a work in progress. Life on your terms requires a strong understanding of yourself.

My first dream was to be a musician. I pursued this dream for years and with various methods. At 20, life on my terms would have looked like playing out with my band every week. Travel, drugs and alcohol, all that stuff.

Now I understand that, if I had succeeded, that lifestyle would have fried me. And quite possibly killed me. The crippling anxiety that stopped me makes sense in retrospect. I still hope to communicate with the masses, but I don’t even like watching other people play stadiums!

A big part of actually accomplishing growth is letting go of how you thought things would be. The Buddha said the root of all suffering is wanting and, although asceticism mostly pisses me off, I think this is where that wisdom applies.

The Only Constant in Life is Change

It’s important to keep trying to be a little better, day after day. And while our goal vision is a great motivator, remember that it’s just a vision. It’s an idea. The only thing that’s real is what’s in front of you right now.

Life on our terms is not about bullheadedly pursuing an ideal. And you will find that your terms, your boundaries, your needs change as you change.

Unbalanced

I had it balanced there for a second!

My mother once cautioned me against using psychedelics because “it changes your brain chemistry. It changes who you are, forever!” Later I learned that, yeah, that’s kinda the point.

And anyone who wants to stay exactly the way they are is not someone I want to spend a lot of time with.

Once again I’m going to urge you to keep a journal. Just a notebook to write down your thoughts as they come up. It’s an invaluable tool for organization and reflection. Plus, you will be amazed how much you plain old forget.

What you want is only half the picture. Who you are will assert itself in sneaky ways.

Radical Acceptance is the Cure for What Ails Ya

I could easily have gotten some pills for the anxiety and blamed the world for whatever level of failure I attained in the sexist music business. And I can only imagine what a miserable fuck I would be at 35.

Don’t imagine for a second that this tomboy thought she would have four kids and just want to stay home to clean and write. Hell, no.

There is what you want, and there is who you are. You have to radically accept who you are, otherwise you will be running in brambly circles forever.

**We’re coming up on the last push in our Fight Despair Together series. I hope I have helped a few of you gain some insight and get a little grounded for the hard work in the coming year. Heal yourself, come together.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Filed Under: Aging Gracefully, Fight Despair Together, Self Care, Women’s World Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Fight Despair Together: How Do I Know It’s Working?

July 1, 2019 by

When we are going inward and doing personal work, the most important thing is to stay on-task.

How Do I Choose Which Path to Take?

Raking Leaves

This is harder than it looks!

Stay focused on a simple goal, don’t be distracted by side paths that may pop up. If you are working on expressing yourself more clearly and you realize that you are experiencing social anxiety, it’s tempting to run off and treat the anxiety.

But why? Who’s to say the communication issue didn’t cause the anxiety? Or they could both have origins in a single, forgotten event from childhood.

But you know they are related. Focusing on one will help the other.

Pick one.

Keep notes of your discoveries so you can go back over what you run into. Focusing on one thing at a time is harder than it sounds, but it’s vitally important.

I like to think of my mental landscape as a forest, some paths well-worn and easy to follow. Some are new and tentative, others old and overgrown.

But I try to follow one simple course at a time, because it’s easy to get distracted and end up going in circles.

I’ve done it. So many times.

But how do you know when to switch it up? Building new habits can get boring and frustrating. How do you know if you should stick with it?

How Do I Measure Progress?

You know that feeling when you’re out and about and the self-consciousness is just weighing on you? You realize you feel like a weirdo.

You second guess every little thing, stressing about how you’re standing or the shirt you chose or whatever never-ending minutiae. That feeling of being 13 on the first day of school, forever.

Wigs

I obsess over superficial things to avoid my own lack of definition!

Maybe you’re dealing with a negative person. Maybe these feelings are coming from your own mental habits.

Regardless of origin, the less often you feel like this, the more you know you are on the right track.

I think the end goal of personal work is to never feel this ever again. Not just because it sucks but because it’s the manifestation of so many different mental misalignments.

The world at large is not judging you. And if they are, they need to get a life.

War is Over, if You Want It

There are (mostly) two kinds of people out there – Friendlies, who are willing to engage on the field of social commerce, and Unfriendlies who aren’t.

This classification system is good for every bank teller, store clerk, customer, playground parent and most co-workers.

If they are not interested in engaging with you, feel free to decline in return. This will free you up even more to pursue your goals.

The negativity of others should roll right off of you because you choose not to engage with it. You are too busy with your important business.

This mindset is a machete for slicing through the brambles. As a sensitive person, it’s very helpful to have a method of steadying myself against constant bombardment from the world.

And that self-conscious feeling makes the machete mindset almost impossible. When you notice it’s been a while since you had to remind yourself that no one is staring at you, you’re making real progress.

Filed Under: Aging Gracefully, Fight Despair Together, Self Care, Women’s Interests Tagged With: , , , ,

Is Fear of Abandonment the Root of Narcissism?

May 23, 2019 by

No one talks about it this way, but lots of people selfishly sabotage their relationships. Lots of them are called narcissists. 

But most of us have some kind of damage… How do we know who’s who?

Watch Them Fight

Sometimes, I think you’re both jerks!

Narcissistic people, who appear grandiose but are actually cripplingly insecure, usually follow a cycle in relationships.

One big tell is that the Narcissistic Cycle dominates a person’s life. All their hang-ups, all the time. Abandonment phobia is only triggered in certain circumstances.

But both people enter relationships with high expectations that they can’t help – They are needy to a fault, and they don’t see it.

At the beginning, they Idealize you. ‘Love-Bombing’ is beautiful, but shallow. You are their most perfect person in the world.

This is hard to think about, because normal love makes us crazy! We do weird things and aren’t looking for red flags. The Cycle is cruel, and beginnings can be terrifying for anyone bitten by emotional vampires before.

Because the downturn is insidious. You are Devalued slowly, until the one who said they’d always be there seems completely uninterested.

In her article on GoodTherapy.org, social worker and therapist of 20 years Andrea Schneider explains how it works: 

“By being in a relationship with such a nurturing, loving person, the narcissist is able to consume that person’s authentic love and extract narcissistic supply.”

You give them your energy, and they happily take it. As much as you’ll give them.

But when you are inevitably revealed as imperfect, your dysfunctional darling begins magnifying and imagining flaws. Little things you don’t even think about, a tone of voice, suddenly canceled plans, sow seeds of doubt in your flawed flame. 

If you’re not paying close attention, before you know it you’re rehearsing how you will account for your time when you get home. Reassuring him about that male friend, again. Your own point of view can begin to drift as keeping the peace takes over.

This is commonly known as Gaslighting. After a while, you can start to go a little crazy.

Big Black Dog

This is the only position I can sleep in anymore!

Your volatile valentine may show symptoms like, “intermittently lacking emotional or physical intimacy, withdrawing affection, seductive withholding, inexplicably disappearing from contact, or blaming [you] for [their] issues (projection).” It’s important to mix in crumbs of that old affection – You don’t get to leave until they’re through with you.

It’s all a setup for the final phase, where you are Discarded like rubbish.

Now that you’re all shook up and insecure, your weirdo is on his merry way. He’s drained his victim and will use his charm (and maybe the sob story of this break-up) to hook someone else.

Demanding better treatment can drive your broken boo away faster. Pleas for support are met with temper tantrums. “Inevitably, the discarding occurs when the narcissist either disappears or orchestrates his or her own abandonment by engaging in some form of egregious emotional abuse.”

Basically, they turn on you. Suddenly everything you do is wrong, and the only sensible thing to do is cut your losses. My ex and I went through this three or four times.

Wait… How do you do it more than once? 

Part of it was me refusing to walk away. Part of it was him refusing to be alone.

If you hang around long enough, eventually you slip into the last phase of the cycle, called Hoovering. It’s not always officially included, but I think it’s the most important.

Hoovering (like the vacuum cleaners) is where real confusion can set in. The storm clouds suddenly seem to part!

Making Up

This time, you swear you’ll be home at least three nights every week!

You’ve been torn down, rejected, abandoned. Then, the minute you start to get your head together, he’s back. Apologizing and saying everything you want to hear.

He’s sucking you back in. The moment you begin to play along, the whole thing starts over.

Pathological neediness is created by abuse. Whatever label you choose, dysfunctional people usually raise more dysfunctional people. We can’t teach what we don’t know, and most people would rather have a dozen root canals than examine their own shit.

Let loose, abandonment phobia plays out the same pattern. Without self-awareness and support, your phobic paramour will quickly spiral into survival mode. 

Verywellmind.com steps us through escalation of abandonment phobia:

  1. Getting to Know One Another
  2. The Honeymoon 
  3. The Real Relationship
  4. The Slight – Imperfections revealed, paranoia is triggered
  5. The Reaction – “If you have this fear, you are probably completely convinced that the slight is a sign that your partner no longer loves you…. Some people handle this by becoming clingy and demanding, insisting that their partner prove her love by jumping through hoops. Others run away, rejecting their partners before they are rejected.”

In my experience it’s usually one, then the other. 

The moral of the story is that, although your defective darling is showing these signs, that doesn’t (necessarily) mean he’s narcissistic. It works like a phobia, hibernating in an otherwise reasonable person.

A person who is able to look at his own behavior and see where he could improve. Narcissists are incapable of this. They may talk the talk, but they will never walk the walk. They talk themselves out of things just as quickly. The other big tell, way more obvious but takes time to see, is change. Real, positive growth over time is a very good sign… for anyone.

Narcissists will never really take responsibility for anything. Admitting weakness exposes them to the judgment they are so afraid of. They will spin and spin until you’re so dizzy you forget why you went in there.

Swinging Sixties

Do you love me now??

Even the most loving and patient person will be exhausted eventually, and unable to take any more. That’s when the true vampire ghosts like a pro.

They can’t take any responsibility because they are extremely insecure. I think it’s what happens when abandonment phobia totally takes over.

Narcissists create baby narcissists by teaching their children not to rely on them. Usually, they’re not even reliably unreliable. Sometimes, they love you.

And then, they emotionally abandon you over and over.

Narcissism sometimes looks like abandonment phobia grown so big, they can’t even open up to themselves.

Myself, I do get a knot in my stomach that every little argument is the beginning of the end.

I’ve been left out and left behind more times than I could possibly count, and I almost never understand it. 

After a while, you start assuming there’s something wrong with you.

Everyone is temporary, they come and go, you see them on Facebook. And maybe, once in a while, a relationship starts feeling stale. The downslide to the inevitable is like nausea before vomiting, and you just get it over with.

You learn a lot if you pay attention to patterns. Taking responsibility for your own lets you grow beyond the ones who can only criticize.

You may get a little old and a little misty, wondering where someone is now. Hindsight shows you what a shithead you were, things you totally misunderstood.

Life can seem like one long ending. Lots of people are gone. But so is lots and lots of awful bullshit. Maybe, most of the time, when someone leaves they are doing you a favor.

It’s never too late to do better. I want to fill my life with sound, kind people. And then keep from driving them crazy.

Filed Under: Aging Gracefully, Fight Despair Together, Inner Growth, Relationships Tagged With: , , , , ,

What is Family? What is Love?

May 20, 2019 by

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

I was doing alright ignoring them until a few days ago. My sister Quinn, my only sibling from childhood, sent me a novella about why she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. She immediately blocked me.

Friendly Fire

Woa! Friendly fire!

Was there some kind of argument?

I sent her a link to my post about Donald Trump’s mental problems, because she doesn’t like him either and I thought she might appreciate it. She said it was terrifying, and she was “tired of being afraid all the time.”

Afraid of what?

She said Trump and all his supporters want her dead.

I told her that seemed like a bit of an overstatement. That I thought being unnecessarily incendiary weakened a position that I basically agree with.

She insisted, so I let it go with “Okay, I can’t convince you otherwise.” And I have neither the energy nor the conviction to try. But I wish she weren’t afraid all the time, too.

She called that passive-aggressive. Called me “gaslighty.” Okay, nice chatting with you, too, you ray of sunshine.

Hours later I received that long message telling me how emotionally abusive I was to her as a child and how I goaded our mother into her petty behavior last year.

How my not wanting my younger sister following me around gave her abandonment issues. Forget that she was annoying on purpose, and was very open about it. She was four years younger and drove my friends crazy.

But I’m not going to argue here. Anything I have ever tried to say is beside the point: “And since I have little faith that you’ll read all of this and not have a LOT to say about it, I am temporarily blocking you on this account.”

Gin And Tonic In Blue

Sometimes, the only thing to do is drink!

Of course I have things to say! For one thing, that’s what I do. Also, I’m expected to let her completely mischaracterize our lives and not comment. Let her stew in half-remembered unhappiness just like our mother. Let her push me away.

But she has never wanted my help. Nothing I do is ever right. She has been trying to make something out of our rough childhood for years, and it reminds me of the abandonment issues I have been working on lately.

It mirrors the Narcissistic Cycle and I think its extreme form is at the root of that. It involves devaluing someone until you feel like you are better off without them. Then you can leave them before they leave you. It’s an unconscious thing that keeps you stuck in the early stages of relationships because, as soon as they slip up and fail to meet expectations, you are spooked and the devaluation begins.

I have been supportive of my sister’s choices. I have told her I usually don’t understand them, but I don’t need to.

But I’m not allowed to have an opinion. She’s always been the kind of person to take disagreement personally, so I just stopped expressing myself on a lot of things. Both face to face and in public places where she might see.

And for what? Peacemaking with someone who can’t be bothered to stop for lunch when her trip takes her an easy 20 minutes from my house. Who has tapped my skills but was never interested in being an ear. Who would rather blame me for her issues than see me as a co-victim.

Gloves Off

Time for the gloves to come off!

I can defend myself forever and people will see it however they see it. But I feel robbed of so much, not least of which is the opportunity to have a real conversation about any of this.

What my mother showed me last year was that everything we had built between us since I became an adult was fake. If you have grown as a person, you don’t revert right back like 20 years never happened. No matter what is going on. That’s what growth is, it holds up under pressure. It helps you hold up under pressure.

I didn’t care that the furniture arrangement was a sore spot then, and I don’t care now. We’re talking life and death stuff here, and Quinn accuses me of “starting a pissing contest.” 

If that’s how she perceives me, I wonder why I waste my time. She overheard a panicked call home where I said something about not feeling comfortable “talking to my family” which she made all about her and then neglected to consider why I might feel that way.

Hubs was actually impatient with me for being upset by this whole thing. He was arguably being insensitive but he has a point – “She’s crazy, anyway.”

He’s biased but he has seen how I tiptoe around her despite her being hundreds of miles away.

What really upsets me is now I have to accept that my family is dead. 30 years ago next month, more than three times what their marriage lasted. For many of those years I was the only one in contact with everyone. So I could look around and say, ‘I have a family! See?’

“You lost her a long time ago.” Hubs does have his moments of wisdom.

I guess I’m not gonna get away with not really looking at the roots of my abandonment fears. I have been dealing with individual symptoms, but they share a common cause. Now that I’ve been paying attention, I begin to see how vast the issue is.

And somewhere on the other side are my sisters. I hope they can figure out how to be happy.

But get ready for some Brazen commentary on previously-untouched subjects. I don’t have anyone to tiptoe around anymore.

Filed Under: Family, Inner Growth, Relationships, Unpopular Opinion Tagged With: , , ,

Fight Despair Together: Healing Through Self-Compassion

May 15, 2019 by

What is stopping you from working through your problems and becoming who you want to be?

Redhead With Pistol

I’m not defensive! Just stay away from me!

Depression and anxiety are both subsumed anger over how we have been treated. 

Over and over, researchers have shown that those who suffer from such things are overwhelmingly victims of abuse as children. 

Of course you would be angry if those who were supposed to care for you instead treated you like crap. Or otherwise made you feel lesser. And there’s a good chance you don’t even realize it. Or the depths to which it shapes your experiences to this day.

The most important thing is to have compassion for yourself. This sounds a little weird but we all know what compassion looks like. We just usually reserve it for other people. 

Our expectations of ourselves run unreasonably high and we chastise ourselves for small mistakes. Dammit, that was stupid.  If you wouldn’t say it to someone else, don’t say it to yourself. 

This is something I’m struggling with right now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not presenting myself as some kind of self-healing guru. I’m just determined to figure this out and share my discoveries with you.

You are human, with flaws, like everyone. A lot of attention is given to forgiving others but forgiving yourself can be more difficult. Admitting someone else made a mistake is easy! But it’s absolutely vital, because turning compassion on yourself has been shown to soothe the Fight/Flight/Freeze mechanism.

Often referred to as Fight or Flight, this is an ancient brain system that is triggered by stressful situations. But when you are a child, and you can’t fight or flee, this stress response can go unresolved. If this happens many times over a period of years, years when your brain is growing, the overload of stress gets baked in and becomes part of the system. This is why, sometimes, you feel like crap for no reason.

Sad On The Porch

I’m just not feeling these shoes!

Plenty of people are dipshits to their kids. I suspect some common parenting practices are worse for little ones than most of us know. Chances are, the things or situations that throw you off-balance are related to bad experiences in your formative years.

Maybe you rare painfully aware of this but aren’t sure what to do about it. Traditional therapy can feel like endlessly rehashing trauma. Happily, the best treatment for these things is something anyone can do at home for free.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy works by helping change the way you think about things. Unlike most forms of therapy, there’s quite a bit of evidence that CBT actually works.

According to the American Psychological Association, “CBT is based on several core principles, including:

Psychological problems are based, in part, on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking.

Psychological problems are based, in part, on learned patterns of unhelpful behavior.”

CBT is all about learning to see things differently. 

First, you have to admit, really understand, that you are not infallible. What you experience is not reality. You see your mind’s representation of reality. It’s impossible to get away from because you can’t get out of your mind.

But you can change it. The brain is flexible and always thirsty for new knowledge, until the day we die. 

The APA continues, “CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns. These strategies might include:

Learning to recognize one’s distortions in thinking that are creating problems, and then to reevaluate them in the light of reality.”

Peak Behind The Lace

I see plenty! And those kids over there are up to something!

Experience can condition us to anticipate certain behavior from those around us. We may even misinterpret what they say and do, following our customary script.

That’s right, I’m suggesting you could be wrong.

Maybe you are just totally jangly, too jumpy to think straight. Admit that the issue lies with you, rather than the world being unfair or unwelcoming. The world at large isn’t watching you. The world at large doesn’t care.

This may sound harsh but, when you realize the pressure is off, you can start living your life however you want …. Whatever that means.

In the words of the National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapists, “If we are upset about our problems, we have two problems – The problem and our upset about it.”

The power lies in putting some breathing room between yourself and the issue.

I feel angry

instead of

I am angry

Then we can see more clearly, “Often, we upset ourselves about things when, in fact, the situation isn’t like we think it is. If we knew that, we would not waste time upsetting ourselves.”

CBT calls this the Inductive Method. It’s the simple act of checking yourself before you wreck yourself.

Indtruder

You’re not sneaking up on me!

“The Inductive Method encourages us to look at our thoughts as being hypotheses or guesses that can be questioned and tested. If we find that our hypotheses are incorrect (because we have new information) then we can change our thinking to be in line with how the situation really is.”

Mental flexibility is the key to what we’re doing – Facing our fears and putting them to rest.

Top of the APA’s list of unhealthy behaviors CBT addresses is denial. They stress, “Facing one’s fears instead of avoiding them.”  This is the #1 most important thing!

You must be willing to do this or you are wasting your time.

By the time you get to be in your 30s, you will have noticed that certain scenarios – or situations that feel similar – keep cropping up. You don’t need to be a mystic to see that if you learn to handle these things better, you can stop going in circles. 

You can guarantee that your emotions are messing you up, keeping you from putting your best foot forward. This is why we often struggle with things related to our history. It’s not anything supernatural, and it’s within our power to make changes.

Take a moment, either during the situation or after, and ask yourself why it brings out the feelings in you that it does. How are you approaching or conceptualizing things in ways that come from thoughts that cause you pain? From ideas you know are probably unhealthy?

It’s not complicated stuff, but it does involve dealing directly and honestly with things that make you uncomfortable. With things you’ve taken for granted. It’s easy to get defensive.

Television

We all got way too much of this!

Watch out for anger directed at people or things who don’t really deserve it or are not worth your time. That’s your defense mechanism kicking in to deflect attention from a sore spot.

Time after time, take that pause to step back. Understand that your feelings are like a flowing river – You may be soaking wet, but you are not the water. 

By applying Self-Compassion and Check Before You Wreck, over time you will begin to see patterns in your thoughts and behavior. Understanding will enable you to act more with purpose, instead of just reacting to the world as it comes at you.

You can’t go back in time and undo trauma, but you can fix the damage it caused. It takes time. If you get frustrated trying to understand yourself, imagine the most sympathetic character you can think of – A small child, a puppy, an old lady – and imagine they are having your difficulty. Take how you would feel for them and apply it to yourself. 

Yes, it takes that much patience.

Coming soon: Part 2 – What Does Life on Your Terms Mean, Anyway?

Filed Under: Fight Despair Together, Inner Growth, Self Care Tagged With: , , , , ,

Summer Series: Fight Despair Together

April 24, 2019 by

Summer Series 2019 is all about finally moving forward.

Tea By The Tub

I could use some self-care!

Last year I did my Tripping the Fright Craptastic series, where I told you all about my struggle dealing with my parents. I was attempting to show some of the crap that comes with being in the middle of life while supporting either end.

This year’s Summer Series is about all of us.

The Middle Class Never Existed

Reality is sinking in for the 90s kids. The reality that we may never own a house. That the endless ascension toward a blissful, shining future full of robots is not going according to plan.

We hear a lot about the Middle Class – That fabled land of mowed lawns and street lights. Most of us probably know someone we would consider Middle Class. But the Middle Class doesn’t exist.

It never did! In a strange twist, our parents and grandparents just happened to live in an historical vortex. A unique combination of events conspired to create a freakish period of prosperity.

Writing for Medium, Jonathan Peter Schwartz quotes economist Robert J Gordon on the different phases of the Industrial Revolution (IR):

“In particular, the period following IR#2 (1920 – 1970) saw incredible annual productivity growth (1.89%). Gordon argues that…. IR#2 impacted ‘virtually the entire span of human wants and needs. 

“‘Given how impoverished the human condition had been, and the vast array of technologies that intervened, it should come as no surprise that productivity skyrocketed and tremendous amounts of wealth, economic growth and improvements in living standards were observed during this period.'”

Haircut

So, I’m gonna be cutting my own hair for a while?

The Nothing is Spreading

Those of us who grew up listening to the stories about this great party are having to accept that we will never attend.

And on top of that, they trashed the place.

We are left with the same old story, a chosen few living high on the efforts of everyone else. The Middle Class was a technology-induced fever dream.

Fight Despair Together

As we slip into middle age it gets harder to talk about someday. That better job might not be coming. Prices just keep going up. All the rules have changed and many of us are floundering. Most of us know someone who OD’ed.

I covered the spreading despair in my last post. We are a big group and we are very diverse, but we can’t let stress cause us to focus on divisions.

We need one another. The antidote to despair is fellowship. Camaraderie. Talking about what’s going on is the first step to fixing it.

But First….

Each of us has to be in the right frame of mind to ensure our focus stays on unity. In order to listen, we have to calm the panicked voice telling us we’re drowning.

Before we can clean up the world, we have to clean house.

Originally, this was going to be a single post but I decided it needs more space than that.

This year’s Summer Series is about soothing the anger and beginning to heal from the journey so far. By Fall we will be centered and equipped with new tools to build a better future.

Part 1 coming soon: Self-Compassion Promotes Healing

Filed Under: Aging Gracefully, Fight Despair Together, Inner Growth, Self Care Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Nothing is Spreading: Millennials’ Company in Misery

April 18, 2019 by
 

By now, everyone has heard about the depressed blue-collar White Guy. His jobs have dried up, the mainstream is leaving him behind, and he’s paranoid about signs he’s becoming a minority.

Sad Cafe

I don’t even know if I’m depressed or just tired!

People have blamed this demographic for the Alt-Right, electing Trump, and for generally being a cesspool of simmering privilege. The consensus seems to be they are upset because they are entitled. The world doesn’t revolve around old white men anymore, and they need to adjust.

New data challenges this stereotype. The American Journal of Public Health released analysis of a longitudinal study they started in 1995. Visiting with the participants five times over 20 years, they interviewed them about things like drinking and drug use.

“We examined changes in measures of despair across the early adult life course from adolescence to adulthood from 1994 to 2017…. Whether increases in indicators of despair have been particularly acute among White, low-educated, rural members” like had been found 10 years earlier. “We documented racial/ethnic, educational, and geographic-specific trends in 4 indicators of despair among US adults.”

Their nationally-representative group didn’t show Poor Whites as being especially unhappy at all: “By contrast to this narrative, our findings demonstrated a generalized increase in multiple indicators of despair among all White, Black, and Hispanic adults in their 30s.“

“[This group] is distinct from earlier cohorts reflected in the rising midlife mortality of low-educated Whites with more highly educated parents, different perceptions of racial and ethnic diversity, and labor market entry following globalization. Nonetheless, the generalized increases in despair indicators we documented are worrisome for forthcoming midlife mortality trends.”

In The Jungle

It’s a jungle out there!

So, these people aren’t entitled racists. They aren’t hicks afraid of modern life. They are everyone.

“Despite a lack of scientific consensus regarding the cause of elevated midlife mortality among Whites, There is some evidence that opioid disorders and declines in mental health are concentrated among low socioeconomic status Whites….”

This is a whole post unto itself!

“….This pattern of rising despair is not isolated to rural America but is heterogeneous across geographic locales…. [The] patterns of despair potentially underlying increased midlife mortality are not restricted to low-educated Whites and [we] caution against an overemphasis on this single demographic group.”

Recently in my little corner of the internet, I read a comment written by a Black woman. She said she wants to be called a Black woman because she finds the term Person of Color insulting; As if a Latina, a Black woman and an Indian woman are all in one giant category: Non-White.

Maybe some of the focus on White people is backlash from the way Europeans treated the rest of the world for so long. But Poor Whites are being screwed over by the same wealthy few as everyone else.

Aside from being exactly my age, this group was interesting because “[it] is nearing the age range of elevated midlife mortality (45–54 years) and is beyond the age range of highest opioid mortality risk from opioids (25–34 years).” In this group born between 1974 and 1983 they found that “suicidal ideation, depressive symptoms, marijuana use, and heavy drinking increased as the cohort aged into their late 30s.”

The older you get, the more you understand just how fucked you were from the beginning.

Lbj Meme“We found no evidence that increases in despair were limited to low-educated Whites. Furthermore, levels of despair increased across the 30s in all geographic locales.” Our generation grew up in the glow of the Boomers burning bright. We are left with smoke and ash. And thousands of great songs about how much fun it was.

“If rising despair was indeed responsible for the increases in mortality among earlier cohorts of low-educated Whites, then the generalized increases in despair we documented among a younger and more recent cohort could presage increases in midlife mortality in the coming decade for all population subgroups.”

There probably is something to the notion that working-class whites are mourning a cultural privilege. But, as Lyndon Johnson famously explained, that was an illusion anyway.

The whites may have been at the top of the working-class heap, and so felt the deprivation first. But as the middle class evaporates like a mirage, no amount of Affirmative Action or increasing numbers is going to make much difference.

Sad Karen

I know the doctor betrayed you, Karen, but you’ve got to pull it together!

The Boomers are just the latest hideous iteration of a story that’s been the same forever – A few live lives of comfort on the backs of many others who don’t. This is the story they told us was over. Modern technology was turning the world into a middle-class playscape. Fascist countries were called “backwards.” Castles that once housed despots became museums.

Today’s despots have a different style, they are more collegiate and behave like they are not members of the ruling class. But you will know them by how they are beholden to power, and follow it over principle.

It’s easy to shit on white people and make scapegoats of hillbillies, but the reality is sinking in everywhere that we’ve been duped. The twentieth century was one long con game. Now the wheels are coming off and we are left with the same old problems to solve. Piled on top is the mess made in maniacally skipping into the “Post-Modern” era as if Better Living Through Chemistry were Happily Ever After.

Millennials are more diverse and numerous than any group before us. It feels like an abdication of responsibility to blame the system for the struggle. Work hard, we are told. Get good grades, a good degree, and you will be rewarded. Personal responsibility is empowering except that it fails to support those who stumble. And everyone stumbles. The culture of every-man-for-himself is the ultimate divide and conquer strategy.

Katie PorterCalifornia Congresswoman Katie Porter handed it to Jamie Dimon the head of JP Morgan Bank, breaking down for him exactly how impossible his employees’ budgets are. 

After detailing his employee’s bottom rung budget and how it doesn’t add up, she asked him, “She’s short $567, what would you suggest she do?”

“I don’t know,” He replied. “I’d have to think about that.” 

Many of us find ourselves in positions that seem increasingly impossible. I don’t know how we’re going to fix it but we need to understand we are not alone.

Filed Under: Aging Gracefully, Fight Despair Together, Relationships Tagged With: , ,

Relationships Hurt, And That’s Okay

March 7, 2019 by

Cold snaps hit the South extra hard, because we are not expecting them. Our bodies react like a corrected teenager.

Our bedroom is behind the kitchen, across from the back door. So when my husband started to come in, then decided to let the dog in from the yard, he opened a wind tunnel directly onto our bed.

Big Blue Teddy Bear And A Gun

I’m not trying to attack you, I swear!

Instead of indulging the flash of anger I felt, or squelching it and adding it to the pile, I chose a middle ground of saying something I thought was non-confrontational.

I got zero response.

I tried again, but I could see the steel door behind his eyes had closed.

Most of the time, my man is good at communication. When he becomes stoic it’s because he’s tired, or upset, or feels attacked. Specifically by me. He has this infuriating habit of seeing the best in people who don’t deserve it, then playing dumb when I’m upset about something.

The first few times scared me silly. My passionate, articulate husband turns on a dime and becomes the embodiment of his shadow self. He is abruptly distant and unresponsive. My normally attentive and caring friend has sat staring blankly at me while I cried.

I felt like I was taking crazy pills.

I have a low tolerance for crazy-making malarkey because I have dealt with it for far too long in the past. I specifically chose this man because everything about his life told me that he was as fed up with that crap as I was.

Turns out, maybe even more so.

After the first few times seeing this transformation I couldn’t reconcile how at odds these spells seemed with who I know him to be, with how he wants to be. How later on he would say things like, “I understood what you were saying and I wanted to talk to you, I just couldn’t.”

And in a flash I saw it was a defense mechanism. All his life he’s had someone close to him jerking him around mercilessly. Authority figures, girlfriends, an ex-wife who saw arguing as a sign of affection. That steel door slams down as protection from a world that has been almost unbearably cruel to one who feels it all so deeply.

Sidehug

It’s okay, your distracted half-hug makes it all better!

I know not everyone subscribes to personality classifications, but reading about my Meyers-Briggs type has brought me a lot of solace. To think that the way my mind works is a recognized method, rather than something I need to struggle against.

That my habit of trying other people’s perspectives on for size doesn’t necessarily indicate a weakness in my own. That maybe being tuned into other people is a feature, not a bug.

This is helpful to remember when I feel compelled to address something with someone and they agree but don’t do anything about it. Or attack me for poking a soft spot. Or when I’m having a moment of my own and there’s no one to walk me through it.

Or when I do my best to be cool and he shuts down anyway.

I spent years tiptoeing around another man’s feelings, a man who I’m pretty sure had undiagnosed mental health issues and whose mood I could not help. By comparison, my husband appreciates me almost more than I can take.

But in those few moments when he’s flawed and hurt in his own right, his icy moodiness rubs me just exactly the wrong way.

So my immediate reaction is righteous indignation. Followed quickly by epic despair as my parental-induced terror of emotional abandonment kicks in. At this point, it’s just embarrassing how quickly I spin out. I run and hide if I can. Usually, there’s not much to do but ride it out.

And sometimes, a flash of inspiration sparks between the clouds.

“I don’t want to be hurt like this. Isn’t there a way to avoid this?” I had to admit that only if he did some serious work, and I can’t make him do that.

Ship Gun

I saw something in the water, really!

“So should I keep my distance?” The idea of pushing him away is very painful. And anyway, aren’t I supposed to accept him for who he is? Isn’t that how this is supposed to work?

“So, I just have to accept that this is going to happen sometimes??” Well yeah, relationships hurt sometimes. Welcome to the world.

Oh shit, I am wallowing in nothing.

I’m pretty convinced this man honestly loves me. That’s impressive because I don’t really believe most people even genuinely like me. Sometimes I get some weird mixed signals from him but, when I can glimpse beyond my own insecurities, I’m noticing a pattern. He has some indirect communication habits that sometimes border on misdirection.

Habits developed from decades of dealing with, living with and relying on people who were just as likely to screw him over.

I’m not the only bright spot, but we are outnumbered by the shitheads. The best thing for me to do is to use my insight to control what I can (myself) and maintain my balance better in these moments.

But sometimes it’s extremely hard. My mother isn’t talking to me at all anymore. I’m pushing against a boulder of rage and regret that’s going to take a while to break down. Hubs is having a hard time lately too, but it’s sinking in just how unfair it might be for me to expect others to think like I do.

And sometimes even good people are hurt and lash out. Or shut down. People are mercurial and it’s not my fault. Sometimes, relationships hurt. And that’s okay.

Filed Under: Inner Growth, Introvert Stuff, Marriage Tagged With: , ,
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