Like, just something simple like "Some people really do want you to be miserable and will do anything they can to achieve it" would have helped me avoid a lot of anguish if I'd learned it earlier.
Most people are not used to dealing with proper predators. It's way less common than people like us suspect. But it's also less common than the predators themselves also think. They think everyone in the world is like them, but they really are the abnormal ones.
I've spent many years seeing psychologists and using psychiatric drugs (stopped the pills, not worth it). Most of that effort was pure curiousity; I needed to understand how I worked. I often advise for others to give it a try
I never gave it a try because it was my intellect that got me through it. I literally had to think my way through problems. I'm not patting myself on the back here because I still got most of it wrong, but there's no way I could have used drugs to fix my problems, when my problems were primarily perceptual, and required introspection to fix.
If anything, I'd just post it online somewhere and probably never reach the intended audience.
We could always right it here, and use it as a foundation for teaching as an institution. We should try to attract more gamers, which are bound to be kids in similar positions. Might be worth a try.
What's your friend making process like?
I didn't.
The solution that I came up with scared the shit out of me, but it was the only rational solution that could have possibly existed. As an analogy without detail. I was scared of the dark, and so were my predators. So I embraced the dark, and found it far less dangerous than the light. I realized that my predators burned bridges to control my movement, but they were always the ones burning them. So I burned the bridge we both stood on.
This solution worked, despite toll in all other areas, so I replicated it. I avoided risk, and so I avoided social relationships. At the first sign of trouble, I burned bridges permanently, even to people who never intended for the bridges to be burned in the first place, surprising both of us: them being surprised that I burned the bridge over nothing, and me surprised that they weren't a predator and didn't intend to burn the bridge in the first place.
It turns out that 'becoming the darkness' and 'burning all of the bridges' is not the normal way of solving problems, and forming relationships.
...
oops
my bad
Basically, whatever friends I made, I made very early as a child. One of those is still around, and it's important to sometimes have my cold perspective on family issues because we come from wildly divergent perspectives. He is highly sociable. Such that, he needs my anti-social perspective to analyze problems analytically, and he is personally responsible for the entirety of my social life.
Which is fairly inappropriate on my part. I will need to ask him how he does that. "How do you friend?"
Best as I can tell, it involves repeatedly saying yes to social environments, developing contacts in those social environments to focus on, making an active effort to maintain relationships with those people by creating new/custom environments to share with your "social network", and prioritizing those relationships on interest, benefit, and feedback.
See, this is why they keep me around.
I'm not saying that I can't do these things. I can, it's just not part of my own development to do these things because I've never done them, and they are not part of a disciplined or repetitive regime for social engagement.
See, normal humans respond to emotional stimuli that results from prolonged isolation, loneliness, or even simple boredom by seeking out social gatherings that provide them with affirmation, entertainment, and intellectual stimuli among other things. So it comes naturally for them to reach out and engage in social groupings based on those stimuli. Since that has never been my response, I'm not currently wired to respond in a similar way. I take different ways instead.
What I, and probably you, need to do is use disciplined regimentation to re-condition ourselves into intentionally engaging in beneficial social environments as a response to those stimuli. I'm still working on that. It's much easier to do when you either value yourself enough to demonstrate self-worth as social value, or if you have social value in your social groups. So, it's always a good start to carry yourself (and present yourself) with confidence and affirmation. Hilariously, it works even if you don't mean it, because it's so internal and subjective that making yourself believe it, and it being true, are actually the same thing.
I never gave it a try because it was my intellect that got me through it.
That's pretty good as far as coping mechanisms to develop. I pulled the card for dissociation so all I can do is nope out at will (and by reflex) - I have been trying to not do this recently because it's interfering with other skills developing. I'm almost jealous, but I'd have to take the history with it and I'll stick with the devil I know.
As far as "oops" goes, have you considered what you would have had to do in the absence of that choice? I've thought a lot about what I could have done differently, and the other paths available to me either sound worse or were impossible with the information I had at the time. I try to live my life with no regrets, but sometimes I still wonder if maybe prisontime would have been better for me. I'd probably be a different person, at the least, but I don't hate myself so there's not much potential for regret there.
no way I could have used drugs to fix my problems, when my problems were primarily perceptual, and required introspection to fix
I should elaborate, then. I didn't mean to imply that pyschiatric drugs are actually helpful for real problems. The only person who should even consider long term use is a person with a chemical imbalance, and even then I'd recommend trying to find a different solution. I was largely just playing along with idiot professionals in an attempt to experiment on myself because I wasn't clever enough to think out my answers.
I suppose an exception would be drugs that have recreational value. Alcohol helped me get through high school and helped me walk out of my room. The short term, regulated meds I stockpiled work to help me through unavoidable scenarios I'm forced into that I can't afford to "nope out" from. But these are shitty solutions.
The conclusion I came to in my therapy is that my only path forward is to open a door inside me that was closed for a reason. It's great to know this. But I refuse to ever open that - I will choose death first.
He is highly sociable. Such that, he needs my anti-social perspective to analyze problems analytically, and he is personally responsible for the entirety of my social life.
Hmm, sounds similar to a friend I had during school years. I got involved in a lot of 'normal' activities and with a lot of 'normal' people through him. Only, I never really spoke my mind to him, so I was appreciated as a listener instead of as a friend. I'm grateful, regardless, and consider my debt paid. All of my "friends" betrayed me when I asked them for help and understanding. So I said fuck this shallow friend shit and never bothered again. Now, what I call friend is probably closer to family for other people.
Even if I misinterpreted your words, I'm glad you have at least the one friend. Life gets real bleak with no one to talk to.
Relatedly, your evaluation of how to make a friend sounds..well, correct, but I think all it can produce is shallow friendship. That may be useful for you in a self-mastery sort of way. I won't try to give advice there, as my process for friends and mates are identical and it created many years of trouble for me. The times I tried switching to a more normal method like what you describe would quickly veer off course - my bad there though because I thought it'd be okay to socialize with furries in college (people think fags are bad about promiscuity, holy shit they have no idea about furries).
I have one close friend and one mate right now. Feels bad sometimes, I know I can't fulfill my role in a romantic relationship properly with the state of my emotions, but I'm dang dumb enough to do it anyway.
Since that has never been my response, I'm not currently wired to respond in a similar way. I take different ways instead.
We should try to attract more gamers, which are bound to be kids in similar positions.
Y'know, I never really thought to pry with gaming buddies that vaguely mention abusive pasts. Perhaps I missed some. Though I wasn't in the mindset to look for a long time. I only recently found out that there's a psych label for it (to the best of my knowledge, and borrowing from my sister's expensive therapists): cptsd. Basically when you get ptsd and then instead of being allowed to recuperate you're damaged repeatedly for years. Not recognized by american psych institutes so no tendies for me. Your prior explanation of it was more in depth, but I think a normie might understand "ptsd squared" better. Rambling, sorry.
Perhaps I'm reading in too deeply, but the two quotes put together seems to make a decent case. The only real counter I have is that I'm unsure how to imagine a troubled kid getting mixed up in culture war. Kids should be focusing on cool stuff and learning. The topics we get into here kind of demand an advanced set of mental filters that I wouldn't expect a kid to have, similar to how a kid should never be bothered with political talk (real politics, not the political circus stuff). I can't imagine how I would have even reacted to having casualized internet in my youth, let alone gamergate. Maybe I could have instinctively sided against journos because I became disgusted with the emotional manipulation present in news media fairly young.
carry yourself (and present yourself) with confidence and affirmation.
It activates my grim humor sometimes when doing so. People so easily swayed, I reflexively look down on them. Ironically, one of my most common presentations is slave mentality - by that, I mean, present yourself as a beaten dog. But I spent a lot of time around lowlifes where it helped me blend in. Simple confidence is definitely more comfortable, but sometimes it just serves to increase my cognitive load by adding extra variables into my efforts to read the minds of everyone in the room - easier to go unnoticed on a slow brain day. It did take me quite a while to understand how to get confidence to draw on, though.
As far as faking...I get you there, but it ties into an advanced dissociative technique I learned at my first/last job, where I turn on autopilot and crank out a bunch of mimicry to get through any small social encounter. I'm good at it, but it makes me feel sick in my gut and heart afterwards. Like a tiny betrayal of my values, I dunno, it's been hard to figure out.
What I, and probably you, need to do is use disciplined regimentation to re-condition ourselves into intentionally engaging in beneficial social environments as a response to those stimuli.
I've considered it, but I always come back to "no way". I can always figure out a way to solve a problem caused by isolation, and I'll always justify it even if it's inefficient or ridiculous. I've accepted that. The biggest part of it that kills me is that one of my hobbies is pnp game design and playtesting is a monumental task when there's zero playtesters.
Most people are not used to dealing with proper predators. It's way less common than people like us suspect. But it's also less common than the predators themselves also think. They think everyone in the world is like them, but they really are the abnormal ones.
I never gave it a try because it was my intellect that got me through it. I literally had to think my way through problems. I'm not patting myself on the back here because I still got most of it wrong, but there's no way I could have used drugs to fix my problems, when my problems were primarily perceptual, and required introspection to fix.
We could always right it here, and use it as a foundation for teaching as an institution. We should try to attract more gamers, which are bound to be kids in similar positions. Might be worth a try.
I didn't.
The solution that I came up with scared the shit out of me, but it was the only rational solution that could have possibly existed. As an analogy without detail. I was scared of the dark, and so were my predators. So I embraced the dark, and found it far less dangerous than the light. I realized that my predators burned bridges to control my movement, but they were always the ones burning them. So I burned the bridge we both stood on.
This solution worked, despite toll in all other areas, so I replicated it. I avoided risk, and so I avoided social relationships. At the first sign of trouble, I burned bridges permanently, even to people who never intended for the bridges to be burned in the first place, surprising both of us: them being surprised that I burned the bridge over nothing, and me surprised that they weren't a predator and didn't intend to burn the bridge in the first place.
It turns out that 'becoming the darkness' and 'burning all of the bridges' is not the normal way of solving problems, and forming relationships.
...
oops
my bad
Basically, whatever friends I made, I made very early as a child. One of those is still around, and it's important to sometimes have my cold perspective on family issues because we come from wildly divergent perspectives. He is highly sociable. Such that, he needs my anti-social perspective to analyze problems analytically, and he is personally responsible for the entirety of my social life.
Which is fairly inappropriate on my part. I will need to ask him how he does that. "How do you friend?"
Best as I can tell, it involves repeatedly saying yes to social environments, developing contacts in those social environments to focus on, making an active effort to maintain relationships with those people by creating new/custom environments to share with your "social network", and prioritizing those relationships on interest, benefit, and feedback.
See, this is why they keep me around.
I'm not saying that I can't do these things. I can, it's just not part of my own development to do these things because I've never done them, and they are not part of a disciplined or repetitive regime for social engagement.
See, normal humans respond to emotional stimuli that results from prolonged isolation, loneliness, or even simple boredom by seeking out social gatherings that provide them with affirmation, entertainment, and intellectual stimuli among other things. So it comes naturally for them to reach out and engage in social groupings based on those stimuli. Since that has never been my response, I'm not currently wired to respond in a similar way. I take different ways instead.
What I, and probably you, need to do is use disciplined regimentation to re-condition ourselves into intentionally engaging in beneficial social environments as a response to those stimuli. I'm still working on that. It's much easier to do when you either value yourself enough to demonstrate self-worth as social value, or if you have social value in your social groups. So, it's always a good start to carry yourself (and present yourself) with confidence and affirmation. Hilariously, it works even if you don't mean it, because it's so internal and subjective that making yourself believe it, and it being true, are actually the same thing.
That's pretty good as far as coping mechanisms to develop. I pulled the card for dissociation so all I can do is nope out at will (and by reflex) - I have been trying to not do this recently because it's interfering with other skills developing. I'm almost jealous, but I'd have to take the history with it and I'll stick with the devil I know.
As far as "oops" goes, have you considered what you would have had to do in the absence of that choice? I've thought a lot about what I could have done differently, and the other paths available to me either sound worse or were impossible with the information I had at the time. I try to live my life with no regrets, but sometimes I still wonder if maybe prisontime would have been better for me. I'd probably be a different person, at the least, but I don't hate myself so there's not much potential for regret there.
I should elaborate, then. I didn't mean to imply that pyschiatric drugs are actually helpful for real problems. The only person who should even consider long term use is a person with a chemical imbalance, and even then I'd recommend trying to find a different solution. I was largely just playing along with idiot professionals in an attempt to experiment on myself because I wasn't clever enough to think out my answers.
I suppose an exception would be drugs that have recreational value. Alcohol helped me get through high school and helped me walk out of my room. The short term, regulated meds I stockpiled work to help me through unavoidable scenarios I'm forced into that I can't afford to "nope out" from. But these are shitty solutions.
The conclusion I came to in my therapy is that my only path forward is to open a door inside me that was closed for a reason. It's great to know this. But I refuse to ever open that - I will choose death first.
Hmm, sounds similar to a friend I had during school years. I got involved in a lot of 'normal' activities and with a lot of 'normal' people through him. Only, I never really spoke my mind to him, so I was appreciated as a listener instead of as a friend. I'm grateful, regardless, and consider my debt paid. All of my "friends" betrayed me when I asked them for help and understanding. So I said fuck this shallow friend shit and never bothered again. Now, what I call friend is probably closer to family for other people.
Even if I misinterpreted your words, I'm glad you have at least the one friend. Life gets real bleak with no one to talk to.
Relatedly, your evaluation of how to make a friend sounds..well, correct, but I think all it can produce is shallow friendship. That may be useful for you in a self-mastery sort of way. I won't try to give advice there, as my process for friends and mates are identical and it created many years of trouble for me. The times I tried switching to a more normal method like what you describe would quickly veer off course - my bad there though because I thought it'd be okay to socialize with furries in college (people think fags are bad about promiscuity, holy shit they have no idea about furries).
I have one close friend and one mate right now. Feels bad sometimes, I know I can't fulfill my role in a romantic relationship properly with the state of my emotions, but I'm dang dumb enough to do it anyway.
Y'know, I never really thought to pry with gaming buddies that vaguely mention abusive pasts. Perhaps I missed some. Though I wasn't in the mindset to look for a long time. I only recently found out that there's a psych label for it (to the best of my knowledge, and borrowing from my sister's expensive therapists): cptsd. Basically when you get ptsd and then instead of being allowed to recuperate you're damaged repeatedly for years. Not recognized by american psych institutes so no tendies for me. Your prior explanation of it was more in depth, but I think a normie might understand "ptsd squared" better. Rambling, sorry.
Perhaps I'm reading in too deeply, but the two quotes put together seems to make a decent case. The only real counter I have is that I'm unsure how to imagine a troubled kid getting mixed up in culture war. Kids should be focusing on cool stuff and learning. The topics we get into here kind of demand an advanced set of mental filters that I wouldn't expect a kid to have, similar to how a kid should never be bothered with political talk (real politics, not the political circus stuff). I can't imagine how I would have even reacted to having casualized internet in my youth, let alone gamergate. Maybe I could have instinctively sided against journos because I became disgusted with the emotional manipulation present in news media fairly young.
It activates my grim humor sometimes when doing so. People so easily swayed, I reflexively look down on them. Ironically, one of my most common presentations is slave mentality - by that, I mean, present yourself as a beaten dog. But I spent a lot of time around lowlifes where it helped me blend in. Simple confidence is definitely more comfortable, but sometimes it just serves to increase my cognitive load by adding extra variables into my efforts to read the minds of everyone in the room - easier to go unnoticed on a slow brain day. It did take me quite a while to understand how to get confidence to draw on, though.
As far as faking...I get you there, but it ties into an advanced dissociative technique I learned at my first/last job, where I turn on autopilot and crank out a bunch of mimicry to get through any small social encounter. I'm good at it, but it makes me feel sick in my gut and heart afterwards. Like a tiny betrayal of my values, I dunno, it's been hard to figure out.
I've considered it, but I always come back to "no way". I can always figure out a way to solve a problem caused by isolation, and I'll always justify it even if it's inefficient or ridiculous. I've accepted that. The biggest part of it that kills me is that one of my hobbies is pnp game design and playtesting is a monumental task when there's zero playtesters.