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the-corvidae-collective · 3 years

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We have to start making the inclusive plural community a safer and more accommodating place for trauma survivors.

I feel like we’ve emphasized a lot how much better it is than sysmed communities, which is absolutely completely true, but you need to understand how low that bar is. Those kinds of communities are known for their gatekeeping, grilling, dogpiling, harassment, forced/unconsented pathologization of personal experiences, and denial of systemic oppression experienced by ND people at the hands of the medical system. For us, they largely contributed to a few of our major mental health issues, and were essentially dehumanizing. That is one extremely low bar. Like, actively in hell.

I’m not saying that the plural community is bad, because it’s our community which we love and consider ourselves wholly part of, but part of loving our community is being able to point out issues within it and understand how to solve them. All these processes we’ve talked about before with things like crab mentality and how external oppression breeds internal conflict have not left the healthier and safer plural communities untouched. Non-traumagenic systems especially are forced to always be on guard in online spaces, and rightfully so. There’s a good reason systems like us, who don’t fit strict medicalized narratives, are so cautious and defensive. We’ve been constantly told throughout our lives that our identities and experiences, or perception of them, are simply wrong. We’ve practically been trained to always anticipate someone attacking our identity. For many of us this builds up a mental-emotional association between the kinds of spaces or individuals who will launch these attacks and the ways they impact us and those we care about.

For example, we’ve heard many times before how certain uses of medical terminology can make inclusive systems suspicious or on guard just by seeing them. We completely understand the driving force behind this, because it’s something we’ve had to unpack in ourselves. After having been forcibly dehumanized and in conjunction being called “parts” without our consent, seeing other systems call themselves or system members as a general whole “parts” brings up all the memories of experiencing that dehumanization and the feelings that came along with it. It can be very overwhelming, and many systems have been traumatized or re-traumatized by the medical system, which includes much of the terminology it uses. The hostility from some disordered systems, specifically who use medical terminology or who view their plurality as pathological, has created in response a community of systems who fear the same from other disordered systems and disordered system communities. This is a logical process which we ourselves have somewhat experienced. Although it is not morally wrong to feel a certain way, as feelings are inherently morally neutral, there is a significant issue in the inclusive plural community of attitudes towards disordered and consensually medicalized systems that range from hesitant to fearful to outright hostile. We need to create the space for all plurals to define themselves however they choose, which includes systems that choose willingly to subscribe to the medical model for their own system. So long as they do not lump all other plurals under those same models and are inclusive and respectful of all systems regardless of their compliance with such models, and so long as they have not been forced into anything without their consent, there is absolutely nothing wrong with how any given system chooses to define their plurality. The plural community should be a place open to the entirety of the wide range of plural experiences, which also means DID, OSDD, UDD, some outdated diagnoses like MPD, etc. It also means terms like alters, parts, pseudomemories, etc. The exclusion of non-disordered systems and the aggression/hostility towards them needs to be responded by creating truly inclusive communities that respect all plurals, and in order to do that we need to work to unpack our automatic fear responses and think about how we can best listen to and respect one another, which means trying our best to break down that initial defensiveness and go forth with an open mind. Of course, different kinds of systems (whether that be origin, disordered status, etc.) can, should, and do have their own spaces. Non-traumagenic systems will always have their own specific spaces and communities, as will traumagenic systems, as will endogenic systems, etc. However, the plural community as a whole, which includes all systems, needs to make an active effort to respect the unique experiences and identities of all systems, including pathological ones.

There’s also the matter of fundamentally supporting all trauma survivors in the plural community, regardless of what disorders they may or may not have or what their origins may be. Just like we’ve seen overlap between exclusionary communities and groups that spread rhetoric which harms trauma survivors, the same is just as much true of the inclusive plural community. We, as a community, like all other communities, should be working towards creating supportive structures in our community that address issues like abuse and trauma. It’s something we need to be aware of and discuss. The stigma against these things is part of what allows them to become such pressing issues in the first place. Part of why we’ve recently tried to talk more about our own trauma and trauma in general is because of how much of a difference it makes to be open about these things. Just providing safe and healthy spaces to be open about these stigmatized issues can in and of itself be very healing. None of this is even to mention the more specific issues that may arise in any community and how we might address those.

The inclusive plural community is a wonderful place to be. Even absently passing by exclusionary posts and communities online, we’re reminded of how much safer and healthier our current communities have always been for us. However, that doesn’t mean any community is ever completely devoid of issues. Having an open dialogue about them is what allows us to make our communities safer and more accessible to more people.

#long post #Alabaster has been hanging around co-con lately so that's what's up with all these rambly posts btw #cw trauma mention #cw ableism #cw system medicalism #cw system gatekeeping #cw harassment

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sherwoodland · 3 years

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The Codependency myth.

A liberating and counterintuitive text from the book Attached, by Amir Levine, PhD and Rachel Heller, MA. We need connections, not detachment. Codependency does not exist, it's not an accepted diagnosis and never will be. Romantic love is an attachment bond. Pop-psychology gives you the wrong answers because it's not scientific.

“Emotional dependency is not immature or pathological; it is our greatest strength”.

Sue Johnson, PhD.

THE CODEPENDENCY MYTH

The codependency movement and other currently popular self-help approaches portray relationships in a way that is remarkably similar to the views held in the first half of the twentieth century about the child-parent bond (remember the “happy child” who is free of unnecessary attachments?). Today’s experts offer advice that goes something like this: Your happiness is something that should come from within and should not be dependent on your lover or mate. Your well-being is not their responsibility, and theirs is not yours. Each person needs to look after himself or herself. In addition, you should learn not to allow your inner peace to be disturbed by the person you are closest to. If your partner acts in a way that undermines your sense of security, you should be able to distance yourself from the situation emotionally, “keep the focus on yourself,” and stay on an even keel. If you can’t do that, there might be something wrong with you. You might be too enmeshed with the other person, or “codependent,” and you must learn to set better “boundaries.”

The basic premise underlying this point of view is that the ideal relationship is one between two self-sufficient people who unite in a mature, respectful way while maintaining clear boundaries. If you develop a strong dependency on your partner, you are deficient in some way and are advised to work on yourself to become more “differentiated” and develop a “greater sense of self.” The worst possible scenario is that you will end up needing your partner, which is equated with “addiction” to him or her, and addiction, we all know, is a dangerous prospect.

While the teachings of the codependency movement remain immensely helpful in dealing with family members who suffer from substance abuse (as was the initial intention), they can be misleading and even damaging when applied indiscriminately to all relationships. Karen, whom we met earlier in the televised race, has been influenced by these schools of thought. But biology tells a very different story.

THE BIOLOGICAL TRUTH

Numerous studies show that once we become attached to someone, the two of us form one physiological unit. Our partner regulates our blood pressure, our heart rate, our breathing, and the levels of hormones in our blood. We are no longer separate entities. The emphasis on differentiation that is held by most of today’s popular psychology approaches to adult relationships does not hold water from a biological perspective. Dependency is a fact; it is not a choice or a preference.

A study conducted by James Coan is particularly illuminating to that effect: Dr. James Coan is the director of the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Virginia. He investigates the mechanisms through which close social relationships and broader social networks regulate our emotional responses. In this particular study, which he conducted in collaboration with Richard Davidson and Hillary Schaefer, he used functional MRI technology to scan the brains of married women. While these women were being scanned, Dr. Coan and his colleagues simulated a stressful situation by telling them that they were about to receive a very mild electric shock.

Normally, under stressful conditions the hypothalamus becomes activated. And indeed this is what happened in the experiment to the women when they were alone awaiting the shock—their hypothalamus lit up. Next, they tested the women who were holding a stranger’s hand while they waited. This time the scans showed somewhat reduced activity in the hypothalamus. And when the hand that the women held was their husband’s? The dip was much more dramatic—their stress was barely detectable. Furthermore, the women who benefited most from spousal hand-holding were those who reported the highest marital satisfaction—but we’ll get back to this point later.

The study demonstrates that when two people form an intimate relationship, they regulate each other’s psychological and emotional well-being. Their physical proximity and availability influence the stress response. How can we be expected to maintain a high level of differentiation between ourselves and our partners if our basic biology is influenced by them to such an extent?

It seems that Karen from our example instinctively understood the healing effect of holding her partner’s hand under stressful conditions. Unfortunately, she later gave in to common misconceptions and viewed her instinct as a weakness, something to be ashamed of.

THE “DEPENDENCY PARADOX”

Well before brain imaging technology was developed, John Bowlby understood that our need for someone to share our lives with is part of our genetic makeup and has nothing to do with how much we love ourselves or how fulfilled we feel on our own. He discovered that once we choose someone special, powerful and often uncontrollable forces come into play. New patterns of behavior kick in regardless of how independent we are and despite our conscious wills. Once we choose a partner, there is no question about whether dependency exists or not. It always does. An elegant coexistence that does not include uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability and fear of loss sounds good but is not our biology. What proved through evolution to have a strong survival advantage is a human couple becoming one physiological unit, which means that if she’s reacting, then I’m reacting, or if he’s upset, that also makes me unsettled. He or she is part of me, and I will do anything to save him or her; having such a vested interest in the well-being of another person translates into a very important survival advantage for both parties.

Despite variations in the way people with different attachment styles learn to deal with these powerful forces—the secure and anxious types embrace them and the avoidants tend to suppress them—all three attachment styles are programmed to connect with a special someone. In fact, chapter 6 describes a series of experiments that demonstrate that avoidants have attachment needs but actively suppress them.

Does this mean that in order to be happy in a relationship we need to be joined with our partner at the hip or give up other aspects of our life such as our careers or friends? Paradoxically, the opposite is true! It turns out that the ability to step into the world on our own often stems from the knowledge that there is someone beside us whom we can count on—and this is the “dependency paradox.” The logic of this paradox is hard to follow at first. How can we act more independent by being thoroughly dependent on someone else? If we had to describe the basic premise of adult attachment in a single sentence, it would be: If you want to take the road to independence and happiness, first find the right person to depend on and travel down it with them. Once you understand this, you’ve grasped the essence of attachment theory. To illustrate this principle, let’s take another look at childhood, where attachment starts. Nothing better demonstrates the idea we’re conveying than what is known in the field as the strange situation test.

THE STRANGE SITUATION TEST

Sarah and her twelve-month-old daughter, Kimmy, enter a room full of toys. A friendly young research assistant is waiting in the room and exchanges a few words with them. Kimmy starts to explore this newfound toy heaven—she crawls around, picks up toys, throws them to the ground, and checks whether they rattle, roll, or light up, while glancing at her mom from time to time.

Then Kimmy’s mother is instructed to leave the room; she gets up and quietly walks out. The minute Kimmy realizes what has happened she becomes distraught. She crawls over to the door as quickly as she can, sobbing. She calls out to her mother and bangs on the door. The research assistant tries to interest Kimmy in a box full of colorful building blocks, but this only makes Kimmy more agitated and she throws one of the blocks in the research assistant’s face.

When her mother returns to the room after a short while, Kimmy rushes toward her on all fours and raises her arms to be held. The two embrace and Sarah calmly reassures her daughter. Kimmy hugs her mom tight and stops sobbing. Once she is at ease again, Kimmy’s interest in the toys reawakens and she resumes her play.

The experiment Sarah and Kimmy participated in is probably the most important study in the field of attachment theory—referred to as the strange situation test (the version described here is an abbreviated version of the test). Mary Ainsworth was fascinated by the way in which children’s exploratory drive—their ability to play and learn—could be aroused or stifled by their mother’s presence or departure.

She found that having an attachment figure in the room was enough to allow a child to go out into a previously unknown environment and explore with confidence. This presence is known as a secure base. It is the knowledge that you are backed by someone who is supportive and whom you can rely on with 100 percent certainty and turn to in times of need. A secure base is a prerequisite for a child’s ability to explore, develop, and learn.

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aziraphalesangel · 4 years

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“So, I took {youngest sister} to the paediatrician yesterday. she gained seven kilos. the doctor says she needs to slow down her eating”

“She’s fourteen.”

“I said it was probably the pork buns. I told her if she keeps eating them she’ll start looking like a pork bun.”

“She’s still growing.”

“Apparently she only grew a centimetre this time.”

“She’s only just started puberty. half that weight’s gone to her chest.”

“I know, she went up 4 cup sizes in six months”

“She’s fourteen.”

“She’s 63kg. That’s heavier than you right?”

“...”

“She’s getting a bit of a belly.”

“She’s fourteen.”

There seems to be this idea, that kids just crave being skinny just because. just because of social media, just because of airbrushed pictures in magazines, just because of media, just because of celebrities, just because, just because. And people really thought, the adults really thought, that teaching us about “Body Image” in high school was going to solve that. That telling us that those pictures were doctored, that social media influencers are fake. we know. for fuck’s sake give teenagers a bit of credit.

You know what was always dumb? When teachers got told to sandwich body image and mental health topics in between subjects like obesity in young people. That one second you have an adult telling you that you should love your body, that it will be changing because puberty is a thing that happens, that you will have a growth spurt, that sometimes you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see and that means you brain is lying to you (that was a stupid thing to say to kids), and then you tell us, that there is a growing problem of obesity in children. That gaining weight is bad.

I can’t speak for other people’s schools, or the areas that grew up in, but my school didn’t seem to have those allegedly CRIPPLINGLY obese kids. Of course there were fat kids; kids with a bit of chub around their waist, teenage girls with cellulite, boys with stretchmarks on their bellies, kids who wobbled when they ran. We were children. We were still growing. You can’t have a growth spurt without gaining weight. You cannot start puberty without the necessary fat stores. You just can’t. but instead of telling us that, they told us there was an obesity crisis, and we looked around the room at all the other normal looking kids and wondered who? And when we couldn’t figure it out, we asked: Me?

let me tell you a story:

When I was 12 I was a particularly weight. By the time I was 14, that weight had nearly doubled.

sounds bad right?

let me tell you a story:

When I was 12, I weighed roughly 30kg. That is roughly 10 kilos underweight. I had this trick I could do when I was about eight, where I could shove my entire hand under my ribs. People told me I was skinny, but it was never the insult those people who like to derail fat positivity posts like to think it is. Not one adult ever told me I was unhealthy. Not one adult ever told me my weight was a problem.

By the time I was 14, that weight had nearly doubled.

For the first time in my life I was a healthy weight, and all I could think about was that my stomach wasn’t flat anymore.

I was fourteen

Now lets look at how that mentality happens okay?

2013 I got instagram. I only followed my friends; a bunch of gangly and chubby 12 and 13 year olds. I didn’t care for magazines.

You know what else happened?

We started highschool; year 7. My friend’s parents were finalising their divorce. I didn’t know then, but one of the reasons her dad cheated was because he thought his wife had “let herself go”. Said wife was in her forties, and had given birth to two kids. I don’t know what he expected.

And my friend started parroting her mother. “I’m so bloated, I’m so fat. I can’t eat that, it has too many carbs.”

Never: I’ll get fat. Always: I am fat.

She was twelve. She hadn’t even started puberty yet.

You know what else happened?

2015, my family started going through some shit. My mum got diagnosed with a new chronic illness, which the doctor said she got because she was overweight. The advice the doctor gave her was to lose weight.

And suddenly, everything I ate was a personal attack on her. “Don’t eat that, it’s full of sugar. Don’t eat that, it has too much fat. Don’t buy that, I can’t eat it. If you eat that you’ll end up looking like it. If you eat that you’ll end up like me.”

And of course, my personal favourite: “Are you suuuuuure you should eat that?”

And a year later I was diagnosed with anxiety. Shocker.

My family used to be close to the family of a friend of mine. And my mum still mentions sometimes that the two youngest (a year older and younger than my youngest sister) were always hungry. Their parents used to starve them so that wouldn’t end up fat. I’m still friends with the girl my age, and she gets regularly and violently verbally abused for her weight, because she’s fat, and her siblings are skinny enough that you can see their ribs, and we all eat the same food, what’s your excuse? As if, just because you’re the same family, with the same food, that your genetics, your body, is all the same, all functions the same. As if it didn’t matter how good her achievements were in literally anything, she was fat, and her parents both made sure they would bully her until it just stopped. As if that’s how it works.

Watching my friends, go from these awkward funny kids, to very very anxious and depressed teenagers (and we all developed anxiety and depression to a degree, which is a post for another day), watching as some of them ended up hospitalised and forced to drop out of high school for eating disorders, watch as others tried to justify compulsive puking and laxative addictions with a smile on their face, because of their parents, it’s always because of the parents, or teachers, or whichever adult meant the most to us, because someone instilled that pathological fear of watching that number on the scaled tick up and up and up. Someone warned us that gaining weight meant we failed. And we believed them because we were children.

My little sister is seventeen. She lost seven kilos this year. Her ribs stick out, and when she lies on the floor on her stomach, she gets bruises on her hip bones. She’s still growing.

My little sister is fourteen. She gained seven kilos this year. She hasn’t, yet, internalised our mum’s fatphobia; she doesn’t care, yet, what she weighs. She doesn’t care, yet, what size clothes she wears. She had a big shit eating grin the day she was told her bras were too small. She’s fourteen. This year they did the body image module in PD/H, this year she went to a doctor for her ADHD, and instead they told her she needed to watch weight. This year will be the year adults start ramping up the policing of her eating habits. She’s fourteen.

Telling us there is an obesity crisis isn’t helping. Treating obesity as a social problem instead of a biological one isn’t helping. Doctors deciding their first advice, regardless of the condition, is to loose weight, isn’t helping. People on social media promoting laxative teas isn’t helping. Celebrity endorsement of weight-loss companies isn’t helping. Commercialising weight-loss isn’t helping. All this^ has done nothing to make society, broadly speaking, less fat. It has created a lot of eating disorders and mental illnesses though.

But blaming people’s obsession with being skinny on that, takes away from the very important fact that, the most harmful factor is our parents. And when you’re a teenager, or a young adult who can’t move out yet, you cannot escape that. Because there will always be someone nagging you about your weight, about what you’re eating, when you’re at home. And when you’re not?

Well I can’t speak for everyone, but when I’m eating out, what makes me choose the “healthy” option instead of the filling one, is that little voice in the back of my head muttering;

Are you suuuuuuuuure you should be eating that?

#fatphobia #fatphobia tw #body image #diet culture #my post

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emilydocument · 3 years

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Having a car in New York is a sin and you’re punished for it every day. 6AM the alarm goes off and I’m up and out into the cold to resentfully drive my car around the block looking for available parking on the side without street cleaning. All the other cursed car-owners are up too, in my rear view. We honk at each other, roll our eyes, throw up our hands. The smart people got up at 5AM.

Regardless, I got two parking tickets this week. And a fine for not wearing my seatbelt while parking. I’m drained of money. The devil laughs. I have to laugh.

I try and use my car for the only thing it’s good for: escaping the city on the weekend. I’ve wanted to go to Montauk for some time, inspired by a hazy memory of visiting in high school with an old and long-gone friend, and something special and singular about the rocky end to New York. In my mind, the air is salty, the water a rich navy. LL Bean catalogue vibe.

To get to Montauk you have to pass through Long Island’s sprawl of big box stores and then at some point you cross into the start of the Hamptons, stretches of pastel farm land with the occasional random giant modern art sculpture. The construction is suddenly clean and small and tasteful. I pay for gas (another car punishment) at “Hamptons gas”, a tiny gas station made of wood clapboard where everything is wiped down. Grotesque.

Being in the Hamptons also feels like (is?) a sin. Everything is so manicured, communicating a disgust with dirt, namely the dirt of the city and lower classes. It’s utopia, constructed to look nice from every angle. Here, no visible consequences of exploitation: decay, pain, struggle etc. I am stopped at a red light where on the sidewalk, a man is screaming at his tween son for doing something. The son is not behaving like a man, goofs off too much, never listens, apparently, and he is looking up to the sky with the wide, tolerating eyes of a child being disciplined. He looks around, anywhere but at his flailing father. The costs reveal themselves in private moments.

Eventually, Montauk unfolds from behind roads that snake through woods. You arrive at the top of a hill, and immediately see the ocean in the distance. It’s bluer than I remembered. It is an isolated place, somewhere you have to work to get to, so it selects for small crowds and quiet. The parking is free since I arrived so late (the trip took 2 hours, and I burned through every playlist). It’s 5PM and car sickness mounts.

I brought my camera. Immediately, I want to photograph everything and swallow this memory, wrap myself around it. I spin around capturing the panorama: lighthouse, ocean, rocks, sage green and soft sea grass, the seagulls with their black webbed feet, dipping into the water. I like the families everywhere. We all have our cameras out, all hungry to capture.

There is a specialness about the water there. It feels like the edge of the world, the kind of water you see in a different country where the Atlantic expands. Everything is darker than a regular beach because of the grey rocky shoreline. I walk along it until I reach a secluded piece of driftwood. It’s long and white, clean too, as if carved. I sit there for a while. I hadn’t dressed for the wind and hold my arms around myself.

I stay for the sunset, and the clouds turn pink against the dimming sky. Sometimes, when you are experiencing something profound you want to be witnessed. If someone was here, you could share a memory with them, and the fleeting thing suddenly starts to spread itself out and grow important, durable, a permanent part of something being built up. Instead, I have a camera. I set it on the driftwood and start to film, and then walk out towards the ocean. I turn and wave. When I check the video later, I am out of focus, a yellow blur in the distance. The camera chose to focus on the blades of grass instead, on their gentle dance in the wind.

I realize I haven’t eaten at all, and stop for dinner at a drive-in (which now means someone begrudgingly brings your baggie of food to your car window). I eat a mushy Cesar salad wrap and those seasoned waffle fries you get at the state fair. I always regret the things I buy.

On days like this, I let the loneliness reign. I’m trying to let myself feel more, and also open myself up to things that could bring floods of pain with them. A small act is this road trip, extended time alone.

One long term practice is going on dates again. A few days in, I can feel myself growing dizzy and sick at the feelings dating unearths. I am sensitive to heartbreak, which some people pathologize as “anxious attachment”. I know that I don’t want to feel so split open all the time, that I want to feel “secure” and not bogged down by desire. I am trying not to repress the difficulty of the process, but to let it arrive as a hideous monster and then grow weaker and weaker, less and less real with every appearance.

There are beautiful, interesting people everywhere, especially in this city. I am grateful to get to sit with others, our chins in our hands. We are sharing what we know, at least for now. How nice, a conversation under strung up lights, the backyard of a bar. We talk of international childhoods, the day job, weird and seedy parts of the internet. How sweet, a walk between midnight row houses, arm in arm, heading towards a basement, the music you choose to play someone new.

It’s the periods after and between, when you are washed ashore to the reality and monotony of regular life, when you find yourself all alone again, where the real effort happens. You think about the dates, about new crushes and glowing memories. Chores, another night with your book, a penciled in chat with old friends, a tired day of work. It’s here that I must find a better way of existing, “being”, finding projects that make thoughts expansive and not exclusive, that make me a part of life instead of an observer. I want to be surprised more, flow more, to feel awake, to be able to survive the feeling of the desired just outside of your reach. To get better, all I can come up with is to keep trying the next thing that is nagging you, to return to things that you’re pretty sure you love, or that you are afraid to investigate. Keep nothing hidden away: you are the opposite of the Hamptons.

You’re lonely? You want more and better? You used to be bad? Okay. Drag it out into the daylight and train your eyes directly on the truth. Sob, scream, throw up, whatever you have to do. Let this be a place to start from. Try again. Trip, fall, uncover again and again. And maybe sell your car.

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atissi · 4 years

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What advice would you give someone who wants to play Pathologic but is also terrified of screwing up really badly because I've played just enough of it to feel like there's no way I can succeed without looking stuff up but I don't want to do that! Just basic tips and/or reassurances if you have any?

Updated: Feb. 27 2021 (since I've finished and am replaying P2)

See, the thing about Pathologic is that it’s not possible to “succeed” like you do in other video games. There’s no happy ending for everyone. In the same sense, you can’t really fail. The game accommodates a wide variety of deaths and mistakes—even in Pathologic Classic HD, you can get a character's ending if you hoard enough medicine by the end of the 12 days, no matter how many people get sick or die. In Pathologic 2, everyone can die, but you’ll still be able to get an ending. Even some of the "bad" endings are fun in their own right. Sometimes, the game will reward you with more content because you failed in the first place.

All that being said, I totally relate to your fears. I’ll start by talking about Pathologic 2 first, since I’m more familiar with it. Then there will be some tips on playing Pathologic Classic HD.

Pathologic 2 is incredibly punishing, both emotionally and mechanically. I’ve seen people adapt to this through 3 different playstyles. I’ll rank them in terms of “least close to the intended gaming experience” to “most close”.

1. Just cheat.

“wrt cheating, as a notorious cheater, id recommend trying to do the game as legitimately as possible regardless! if there are some aspects that you absolutely do not vibe with, even with reduced difficulty (for me that's hunger mechanics), i would say that you can load in items to mitigate this aspect. and, tying in with the second point, if you complete a run this way you can always go back and try it legitimately since you've (sort of) gotten an understanding of the mechanic.” - Onion

If you have really bad anxiety, or just dont have the time available to do the other playstyles, cheating is a way to engage with Pathologic 2′s excellent story. Fiddling with the difficulty controls is allowed. Spawning in endless food for yourself is possible. I can even get you in touch with someone who uses cheat codes in the game regularly to get game assets. If changing the game is what it takes for you to get through it, I think it’s better than nothing. But I’d personally at least encourage you to try an Imago playthrough first. Decide if it’s too difficult for you after that. And again: Pathologic 2 is constantly trying to trip you up. It’s meant to be difficult. Sometimes you’ll fail and the game won’t tell you if you could have prevented it. Just keep going. But like Onion said, cheating works as a supplement.

2. Replay, replay, and replay, until you get it right.

“You can always replay. You have more time than they do. Also save states are your friend.” - Alex

“reload as much as possible, do NOT look things up. your first playthru WILL be bad, and thats good!!! experience it fully yourself first. [and] “reload as much as possible” meaning like: [it] isnt a crime, you can do it as many times as possible. but dont get stressed about doing everything perfectly. its an experience!!!” - Zee

There’s no penalty for using your save states. If you get stuck in a death loop, go back as far as you need to in order to get things right. Hopefully this means starting a day over and using your time more effectively. Personally, I got to Day 7 before realizing I had to restart from Day 1, because I was doing that badly. Trust me, if you’ve gotten one miracle cure and 10 bottles of water by then, you’ll be doing better than I was. My friend Bee had trouble too, and took 92 hours to finish their first playthrough. A replay playstyle takes a LOT of time. But Pathologic 2 is so rich in content that replaying isn’t even as annoying as it could be. And this is also the best way to complete as many quests and save as many people as you want. Whenever you’re scared, just remember: you can always go back on your choices! (Other than the theatre’s death penalties. But nothing can help you with those.)

3. Just go through it.

Again. You’re not supposed to succeed in Pathologic. In the words of the lead translator Kevin Snow, “…I know [Pathologic 2’s] script and this is different from other games: there’s so much story locked behind failure and death. You’ll die, and you can’t save everyone. That doesn’t gate you from story; it gives you more. Resist, survive, but continue.” It’s only when you’re suffering that you experience the story so viscerally. That’s when the choices mean something. Sacrificing your own health or the health of others–saving tinctures for yourself, breaking into houses, killing people, choosing not to help people because you just don’t have time–these are impactful because you’re experiencing the mechanical repercussions of your actions. You are not a removed arbiter of the Town’s suffering. Everyone in Pathologic is having the worst 12 days of their life, and you’re dying right alongside them. Spoilers for Day 4, but I don’t think visiting the Rod and seeing the Tragedians would have affected me so deeply if I wasn’t actively starving for the entire sequence. It served as a reminder that I wasn’t the only one in pain; it was heart-breaking and heart-warming. Which I think is Pathologic at its core.

Try to see your failures in the game as another form of success. You’re experiencing the game as it’s meant to be played. And when you feel bad about all the people you’ve failed, remember that this is all a play. The game knows it’s artificial. You can replay the game after you finish–and feel free to use cheats or lowered difficulties on a replay–in order to get everything right. Your mistakes aren’t permanent! But on a first playthrough, try to tough through the hardships. You’ll have a more fulfilling time.

Other tips

You can use these 3 playstyles in combination if you need to. I let myself die when I feel like I deserved the punishment, or reload when I feel like I don’t. Bee managed to finish Day 11 by lowering the game difficulty in the final stretch. Just approximate the intended gaming experience as much as you can.

As for gameplay guides, I don’t think anyone I’ve met recommends it (at least for Pathologic 2). The game does interesting things with when and where it reveals information to you, often in ways that are deliberately inconveniencing. You want to experience that on your own. I also think Pathologic 2 is relatively good at telegraphing mechanics or quests. compared to Patho Classic. That said, I do have tips that I wish I knew before playing:

Sprint everywhere. I know the town is beautiful. But you’re on a hell of a time crunch. If you finish your quests early you can forage or trade for more resources, or just bottom out your exhaustion bar. Sprinting does not make your exhaustion go up faster, and water is plentiful in the first few days. Just do it! Save your own time!

Save a lot. Even if you’re not gonna die on your way in and out of the Broken Heart, this game is chock-full of choices, down to the resource management. If you waste a swig of twyrine, you’ll want a good save point to reload at. You can load any save point in your timeline, so save as often as you want. Keep track of where clocks are on the map--the game tags these in the building descriptions. (For that matter, keep track of where beds are. I didn’t realize I could sleep at Vlad Sr.’s place, which made me waste SO much time travelling between the Shelter and the Lair.)

Learn the trading economy. Everyone holds items at different values. Even the kids value certain nuts over others. There are also some interesting conversion rates between items, like peanuts to soap to pemmican. Make the most of the items you’re bartering. And for that matter, try to build up a cache of items valuable to little girls, in case you find one with a schmowder. The kid’s caches are valuable for trading too: twyrine can show you the locations.

This is also a good spoiler-free guide to Pathologic 2′s mechanics.

For Pathologic Classic HD, I haven’t personally played it, but I’m under the impression that it’s easier than Pathologic 2 because there are less character perma-deaths and no death penalties. The advice about reloading still applies. Here’s what Ally says:

“id recommend using a spoiler free guide (Bachelor, Haruspex, and Changeling guides) but other than that read the diary and letters carefully and try to keep track of npcs that could be affiliated with quests. also! some quests have different options for endings so there could be multiple ways to complete them. stock up on food on the earlier days, and after the inquisitor arrives because the prices drop. try to stealth kill with melee weapons when you can, and also reserve your bullets. …also make sure to trade with the children a lot! hold onto objects like the hooks and flowers [to get schmowders. Like I said before, to win the game you only need enough cures to heal the Bound.] …another tip is to keep a pen and paper around to take notes. like when i got the tincture recipes instead of keeping them in my inventory i just wrote them down.”

And that’s it! If you need specific advice or clarification, feel free to DM me! I love talking about this game. I can also get you in touch with anyone mentioned in this post (except Kevin Snow LMAO). Pathologic has an amazing story and I want everyone to experience it!!!

#inbox #beepbeep.txt #pathologic

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Anonymous asked: I hugely appreciate how educated you are with your education in the Classics (at either Oxford or Cambridge I think) but I ask with sincere respect how does any of it inform your privileged life in this day and age? It’s easy to say how much we should value our European traditions and heritage it is quite another to live it out don’t you agree? What do you personally get from it?

This is a very relevant question and I apologise if I have stalled in answering it as I was busy with work and life to formulate a worthy reply. But your question is an important one indeed for anyone who harkens to the past as a guide for the present and the future.

I won’t waste space here and tick box all the purely academic reasons why the Classical world is still relevant for us today. I think you can find that in easy to read books and articles written by eminent Classicists who do an admirable service in making the Classical World come alive for the general public (Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes, Emily Wilson, Edith Hall, Peter Jones, Bernard Knox, Robin Lane Fox, Paul Cartledge, and Donald Kagan amongst others that come to mind). But it’s an uphill battle to be sure.

Classics - at least in United Kingdom - has been regressively marginalised with each passing generation starting from school up to university entry. It has an image problem. Few pay much attention to scholars of Latin and Greek. The impression is that Classicists are snobbish and is the education of privileged elitists who master languages that are not spoken. They learn to write them only to read them better. They slap your hands when you write a Latin word common in Sallust or Livy, rather than in Cicero. There is some truth to that sadly. To a large extent Classicists themselves have not been a good advertisement for why anyone should appreciate let alone study the classical world.

At one end those educated in the Classics can come across as encouraging elitism, snobbish pedantry and a sniffy social superiority and at the other end those not versed in Classics but through Hollywood (any sword and sandal film like Gladiator etc) and PC white washed TV series (BBC’s Troy is a good example) have formed a romantic attachment to the ‘heroic’ past by having blue pilled themselves into escapism. Both extremes makes Classics a fetish rather than a guide for life through the beauty and power of the language and culture of the singular Greeks and Romans.

The study of Classics can become the proverbial dog who can dance on two legs, but for what practical purpose? There is the rub. Classics, at its best, offers the historical, philological, and literary foundation and discipline to apply a critical method to every general aspect of learning - and living.

I was fortunate that I had Classicists - both within my family and also my teachers - who were cultured and had led such interesting lives and were able to marry their Classicist mind to their life experiences (often through the experience of war). So learning European languages was not just to get one’s head around arid esoteric articles by 19th-century Frenchmen on the Athenian banking system or Demosthenes’ use of praeteritio and apophasis, but also to appreciate the genius of Dante,Voltaire and Goethe. Classics should never just be about philology though because it can result in a life mostly missed.

Perhaps others might call it privileged but I consider my childhood blessed because I was surrounded by family members who were educated in the Classics - more rare than one might suppose. Through my great aunts and grandmother they instilled the discipline that the mastery of Latin and Greek fuelled the ability to speak and write good English -- and why the latter mattered as much or more than the former.

By the time I left both Cambridge and Oxford behind, I could cite passage numbers in Greek texts of what Thucydides and Plutarch thought of Nicias. But it was only when I went through Sandhurst to pass out as a commissioned army officer did it truly jump off the page and become alive for me.

Moreover having had long fire side conversations with both my grandfather and father - both Oxbridge educated Classicists and both served in distant different types of wars as swashbuckling officers - did I use that learning to understand why for example was Nicias such a laughably mediocre general of the Peloponnesian War. And this was essentially the practical point of reading Thucydides and Plutarch about Nicias in the first place.

I spent many hours in my down time during my service in Afghanistan between missions re-reading dog earred favourite Classicist texts. I began to see the ghosts of the Greeks in the characters of those with whom I was serving. Some began to resemble Sophoclean characters - especially the less well-known ‘losers’ like Ajax and Philoctetes - the sort of tragic heroes whom we root for but the odds are against them - think of any American Western film or the more pathological Tarantino films. Like Sophocles I saw majestic characters (some special forces operators) out of place in a modernising world who would rather perish than change - but in a context where their sacrifice schools the lesser around them about what the old breed was about and what was being lost.

A running thread from a childhood spent in many other countries - from South Asia to the Far East - to the present day is learning to appreciate our landscape as the Ancient world did. The cultivation of curiosity of cultures was seeded in childhood. Respecting and even admiring other cultures - Indian, Iranian, Chinese and Japanese primarily come to mind - led me to appreciate and treasure my own cultural heritage and traditions. The DNA of both the Roman and Greek world went far and wide and so teasing out their fingerprints was fun. In northern Pakistan, we came across ‘Alexander’s children’ - children with blonde and blue eyes who were said to be descended from Alexander the Great’s time in Afghanistan and India - and wandering around the banks of the Jhelum river imagining how Alexander beat his respected foe (later ally) King Porus at the Battle of Hydaspes in 326BC.

These days despite having a busy corporate career I help support running a French vineyard managed foremost by two exceptional cousins and their French partners. As such the Classics still resonate in how I look at the land beyond the vineyard - bridges, roads, towers, walls - and imagine the Greeks not with ink and papyrus but as men of action, farmers and hoplites, in a rough climate on poor soils. I suddenly envision them pruning and plowing in Laureion, the Oropos, and Acharnae, more like the rugged local farmers with whom come harvest time I roll my sleeves up and get my hands dirty in the vineyards than as the professors in elbow patches who had claimed them.

Knowing and learning about the Classical roots of our Western heritage isn’t just a question of culture it’s also about what personally motivates us in life and how that determines how we make consequential choices in life.

I live in fear of one Greek word ‘akrasia’. Ancient Greek philosophers coined the term to explain the lack of motivation in life. Most of the philosophical conundrums explored by contemporary philosophers were already explored in Ancient Greece. In fact, Ancient Greek philosophers laid the solid foundation for all philosophical approaches that appeared throughout history: theories of Kant, Hegel or Nietzsche would never exist without Socrates, Plato or Aristotle.

Among the many problems that baffled the Ancient Greeks, one of them gets quite a lot of attention today. Why don’t we always do what’s best for us? Why do we abandon good decisions in favour of bad ones? Why can’t we follow through on our plans and ideas?

Many people would say that the answer is simply laziness or decision fatigue, but Ancient Greek philosophers believed that the problem lay much deeper, in human nature itself. ‘Akrasia’ describes a state of acting against one’s better judgement or a lack of will that prevents one from doing the right thing. Plato believed that akrasia is not an issue in itself, because people always choose the solution they think is the best for them, and sometimes it accidentally happens that they choose the bad solution because of poor judgement. On the other hand, Aristotle disagreed with this explanation and argued that the fault in the human process of reasoning is not responsible for akrasia. He believed that the answer lies in the human tendency to desire, which is often far stronger than reason.

As with almost all philosophical concepts, a consensus has never been reached and akrasia remains open to interpretation. But its practical consequences are all too real in today’s world. Motivation is what makes us unpredictable and persistent, and the life circumstances of the modern world often make motivation disappear.

Today - regardless how old or young one is - many are more and more tempted to exchange a long-term goal for an immediately available pleasure in all its forms from the emotional band aid of porn from a lifeless relationship (or a lack of one) to escaping loneliness for the false intimacy of social media friendship. The lack of motivation can cause us to reduce ourselves to someone else’s standards when we know we can be or do better.

The Greeks felt that the way you think and feel about yourself, including your beliefs and expectations about what is possible for you, determines everything that happens to you. When you change the quality of your thinking, you change the quality of your life. I’ve been deeply influenced by Aristotle’s idea that virtue is a habit, something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes naturally. “The control of the appetites by right reason,” is how he defined it. Another way to reframe this is to say, “Virtue is knowing what you really want,” and then building the intellectual, spiritual, and moral muscle to go after it.

To be cultured - as opposed to be merely educated - is how you put what you’ve learned to work in your own life, seeing the world around you more deeply because of the historical, literary, artistic and philosophical resonances that current experiences evoke. This is the privilege of being cultured. For me Classical stories come often to my mind, and some times provide guides to action (much as Plutarch intended his histories of famous men to be guides to morality and action). The classics then are a part of my mental toolset and the context I think with some of the time. I see that as the real blessing in my life.

Thanks for your question.

#question #classics #education #life #personal #bio #library

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benyhw · 3 years

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Day 3 - Reflections on emotional maturity

"Wielding sensible arguments can at points be as effective as telling a person with vertigo that the balcony wont collapse or a person with depression that there are perfectly good grounds to be cheerful" A lot of our mind is not amenable to hard-headed logic, not when emotions are involved

Yet, truly facing and understanding our emotions and then still be able to act with some rationality and logic is a testament to emotional maturity. There is more to love, forgiveness, trust than what we think we know.

I am sorry for my hurtful words, said in times of emotional turmoil. I regret my texts and posts, impulsive and raging. I've spent a lot of time reflecting on my actions, your thoughts and feelings and ultimately your decision. The turmoil I initially faced was truly a mixture of shock from how sudden things changed as well as the immense void your disappearance has caused. Given time, I have calmed down and could examine myself deeper on many levels.

I learned that I can be loved and that I can have wants and needs. I learned that my careless acts can hurt even when I don't recognise it at that point of time.

I know my mistakes and can see its damages. I triggered this whole chain of events, rocking what was a seemingly stable relationship. I see that we are flawed, but not un-deserving of love. Our innate reactions and nature is built upon by our past, regardless whether we consciously know it or not. Some traumas and hurt that forms our current insecurities are born from history we may not even remember. Though this doesn't discount our current wrongs, it does help to allow us to understand people better.

I do know, that I can and should listen to what I want and love, not only to that of other's demands or requests. I can be selfish in love and loving. I can earnestly seek forgiveness and then put in action to repent and atone for the wrongs I've made. Yet forgiveness and moving on from the hurt I've caused, is not mine to give or take. It is for me to earn and for you to heal from. I can only do what I believe is best, in terms of my love for you and love for myself. I do feel, we both have a lot to learn in terms of emotional maturity and have ways to go to truly understand what it means to love, to hurt, to trust and to forgive.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGV5o6UHjxM - Stay in or Leave a Relationship We expect to be deeply happy in love, and, therefore, spend a good deal of time wondering whether our relationships are essentially normal in their sexual and psychological frustrations or are beset by unusually pathological patterns which will impel us to get out as soon as we can. What films or novels we've been exposed to, the state of our friend's relationships, the degree of noise surrounding new sexually driven dating aps, not to mention how much sleep we've had, can all play humbling large roles in influencing us one way or another. How much of our unhappiness can be tightly attributed to this particular partner, and how much might it, as we would risk discovering five years later and multiple upheavals later, turn out to be simply and inherent feature of any attempt to live in close proximity to another human? Try to have another conversation with your partner in which you don't accuse them of mendacity, and instead simply explain, quite calmly, how you actually felt and how sad you are at quite a few things Consider the annoying traits in all previous partners we've had and people we've known, that our current partners happen to not have, what do we manage not to fight about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLq1ktogxn4 - What infidelity means There are, of course, many cases where infidelity means exactly what Romanticism takes it to mean: contempt for one’s relationship. But in a great many other cases, it may mean something really rather different: a passing, surface desire for erotic excitement that coexists with an ongoing, sincere commitment to one’s life-partner. The best way to recover after an infidelity may therefore be to ignore what Romanticism tells us that infidelity has to mean, and to consult instead a more reliable source of information: what we ourselves took infidelity to mean the last time the idea crossed through our minds or our lives. It is on this basis that we may – with considerable pain of course – come one day to be able to forgive and even in a way understand and accept the apologies of a repentant partner. It is on the basis of subjective experience of unfaithful thoughts that we may redemptively enrich, complicate and soften what happens when we end up as their victims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRaaqN2Atxw - Why We Go Cold On Our Partners Going cold is, in this story, simply the unavoidable consequence of familiarity. he loss of interest isn’t either natural or inevitable. The boredom is something at once more complicated and more active. It exists because we feel hurt by, angry with, or scared of our partner and because we haven’t found a cathartic way to tell ourselves or them about it. Tuning out isn’t inevitable, it’s a symptom of disavowed emotional distress. It’s a way of coping. We’re internally numbed – not just a touch bored. To learn to cope, we need a prominent mutual awareness and forgiveness of this dynamic of sensitivity and distress – and a commitment to decode it when disengagement and indifference descend. When we've gone cold, we may not truly have lost interest in our partners, we might just need an opportunity to imagine that we are quietly really rather hurt and furious with them and we should access to a safe forum in which our tender but critical feelings can be aired, purged and understood without risk of humiliation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgQvqi6aYD8 - The Secret of Successful Relationships: Rupture and Repair Repair refers to the work needed for two people to regain each other's trust and restore themselves in the others mind as someone who is essentially decent and sympathetic and can be a good enough interpreter of their needs Repair isn't just one capacity among others, it is arguably the central determinant of one's mastery of emotional maturity Good repair relies on at least 4 separate skills: The ability to apologise The ability to forgive - To do so requires us to extend imaginative sympathy for why good people can end up doing some pretty bad things, not because they are evil but because they are in their varied ways tired or sad, worried or weak. It lends us energy to look around for the most generous reasons why fundamentally decent people can at points behave less than optimally. We cling to rupture because it confirms a story which, though deeply sad at one level, also feels very safe: that big emotional commitments are invariably too risky, that others can't be trusted, that hope is an illusion The ability to teach - They give their listener time and know about defensiveness and as a fallback, accept that they may have to respect two different realities. They can be in the end bear to accept that they will always be a bit misunderstood even by someone who loves them very much The ability to learn - They have a lively and non-humiliating sense of how much they still have to take on board. It isn't a surprise or a cause for alarm that someone might level a criticism at them. Its merely a sign that a kindly soul is invested enough in their development to notice areas of immaturity, and in the safety of a relationship, to offer them something almost no one otherwise even bothers with: feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci-zID4EAPU - How to deal with trust issues 1. Ask yourself how your reactions line up with reality - The thoughts we may have may not always be an honest perception of what is happening 2. Learn to be non defensive when you communicate - Chances are, people take the time to talk to you because they care about you and not because they want to hurt you 3. Let people know what you need and be direct about it - In order to build trust, you have to be open and honest. People often have trust issues because they are afraid of getting hurt. Trust issues are developed when too much focus is concentrated on the pain, but not enough on overcoming the pain. 4. Give people a chance to show you who they are - Give people time to show you their true colours, and you may be surprised that you can go through challenges well together 5. Practice open-ended conversations that allow disagreements 6. Confront your fears and don't allow them to hold control over you - Remember, you have the power to work through your struggles openly and honestly. You have it in you to connect and build trust with others

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-K5btaxEFY - How to forgive It can be so hard to forgive because – so often – we simply are in the right and the scale of the folly, thoughtlessness and meanness of others seems utterly beyond our own measure. But there are 2 inviolable ideas which should nevertheless, in the face of the grossest behaviour, be kept in mind to increase our changes of being able to forgive: 1. We must remember how the other person got there, to this place of idiocy and cruelty - Every irritating fault in another person has a long history behind it. They became like this because of flaws in their development, which they did not choose for themselves. To forgive is to understand the origins of evil and cruelty 2. There are difficult things about you too - Not in any area remotely connected to the sort of lapses that destroy your faith in humanity. But in some areas, quiet areas that you forget about as soon as you've travelled through them, you too are a deeply imperfect and questionable individual. Gently, you have - in your own way - betrayed. Nicely, you have been a coward. Modestly, you have forgotten your privileges'. Unthinkingly, you have added salt to the wounds of others. We must forgive because - not right now, not over this, but one day, over something - we need to be forgiven too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVeq-0dIqpk - How to build (and rebuild) trust There is 3 facets of trust: Authenticity in actions, Rigor in logic and communicating that logic, True empathy towards the other

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhyfBi-Ad4c - Loving and Being Loved We start knowing only about being loved. It comes to seem, very wrongly, like the norm. Parent and child may both love, but each party is on a very different end of the axis, unbeknownst to the child This is why adulthood, when we first say we long for love, what we predominantly mean is that we want to be loved as we are once loved by a parent In a secret part of our minds, we picture someone who will understand our needs, bring us what we want, to be immensely patient and sympathetic to us, act selflessly, and make it all better we need to move firmly out of the child and into the parental position of love To be adults in love, we have to learn, perhaps for the very first time, to do something truly remarkable, for a time at least, to put someone else ahead of us.

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I know, making this decision has not been easy on you. You struggled internally alone for 5 weeks before taking the brave step to pursue what you believed was right now. I can only imagine the turmoil you've been put through. I cannot and will not blame you for loving yourself more.

When I look at myself and what I've gone through in the past weeks, I do wonder how you are coping along as well. I do believe in what we had, which meant that these days were probably not as easy on you too as you make it seem. I never imagined that my actions were seen as infidelity to you and that while we know it was not ill-intentioned, the feelings you've felt and the hurt I've caused you are valid.

I hope the above few points and videos can eventually help you to heal and move on, to feel ok enough to love another again some day. I am always here to openly talk about us, about our feelings and about what we each want now or in the future for ourselves. In the past 2.5 years, have you done and said anything to anyone or just innately felt that you would feel afraid to tell me of? Has there ever been any breach of trust on your end or guilt, before my current mistake that made you feel betrayed? I am open, with no judgement or shame, to talk about these, if you are ever willing. I have done you wrong, and I truly have repented. I will never ever breach trust like that ever again, not even at the cost of feeling uncomfortable in sharing how I feel.

I too will love myself, doing my utmost best to pursue things I want and love because they make me happy. It is ok to be selfish in love, something I have learned from you that I am grateful for. Take care, I am only 1 text away

Love, Ben

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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WHY I'M SMARTER THAN DRUGLIKE

Foreword to Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. You may not have to go back seven paragraphs and start over in another direction. When friends came back from faraway places, it wasn't just out of politeness that I asked what they saw. Imagine what Apple was like when 100% of its employees were either Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak. Hacker culture often seems kind of irresponsible.1 I can't tell, even now. Certainly schools should teach students how to write. One group got an exploding term-sheet from some VCs. What kept him going? And I can see why political incorrectness would be a momentous change—big enough, probably, to justify a name like the new model spread rapidly. The reason to launch early, to understand your users.

Though the immediate cause of death in a startup, it pays to offer customer service on a level that wouldn't scale, because it's easier than satisfying them. Sun's future. Sun's business model is a down elevator. There are two bad smelling words, color spammers love colored fonts and California which occurs in testimonials and also in menus in forms, but they are not enough to stop the mail from being spam. Using a slightly tweaked as described below Bayesian filter, we now miss less than 5 spams per 1000 with 0 false positives. It's very easy for people to switch to a new search engine. I just wanted to keep people from getting spammed. Of all the great programmers I can think of who don't work for Sun, on Java, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Java. That, it turned out. Sun servers for industrial strength applications. It was a way of hacking the investment process.

Could there be a connection?2 Make something great and put it online. A lot went wrong, as usually happens with startups. Among other things, this would be one of them, because with our help they could make money. Maybe the people in charge of the taxi line. But those are also commodities, which can be handed off to some lieutenant. The winners slow down the least. There were a lot of small, inexpensive computers before the Mac. That makes sense, because there are a lot of nasty little ones. In the old economy, the high cost of presenting information to people meant they had only a narrow range of options to choose from. As Fred Brooks pointed out, small groups are intrinsically more productive, because the internal friction in a group grows as the square of the environment. At one point in this essay I found that after following a certain thread I ran out of ideas.

This is another lesson the world has yet to learn.3 It's like telling the truth. G b 5 max.4 What you want is to increase response rates. Dartmouth, the University of Vermont, Amherst, and University College, London taught English literature in the 1820s. A few weeks ago I was walking in some steep mountains once, and decided I'd rather just think, if I could only keep one.5 That's why people proposing to destroy it use phrases like adult supervision. For example, the question the hackers have all been wondering about that. If someone in my neighborhood heard that I was looking for an old Raleigh three-speed in good condition, and sent me an email offering to sell me one, I'd be delighted, and yet this email would be both commercial and unsolicited. I started writing this.6

For me, interesting means surprise. Likewise, the reason we hear about Java as part of a century to establish that central planning didn't work.7 Hard as it is to double all the numbers in good. Unfortunately that makes this email a boring example of the use of Bayes' Rule. Though actually there is something druglike about them, in the unlikely absence of any other evidence, have a 99. When I was in college in the mid-1980s, nerd was still an insult. Equity is the fuel that drives technical innovation. For example, Y Combinator has now invested in 80 startups, 57 of which are still alive. This essay is derived from a talk at the 2008 Startup School. And as soon as these startups got the money, what did they do with it is enormous.

I found myself talking recently to someone from Hollywood who was planning a show about nerds. You grow big by being mean. 05214485 i'm 0. If you throw them out, you find they often behaved like nonprofits.8 This time the evidence is a mix of good and bad.9 What made it not a Ponzi scheme was that it was unintentional.10 Don't worry too much about making money. If you throw them out, you find that good products do tend to win in the market. They don't want to bet the company on Betamax. Why risk it?11

I'm advocating: filter each user's mail based on a corpus of my mail. When I was in college I used to think that whitelists would make filtering easier, because you'd only have to filter email from people you'd never heard from, and someone sending you mail for the first time during the Bubble robbed their companies by granting themselves options doesn't mean options are a bad idea.12 As European scholarship gained momentum it became less and less important; by 1350 someone who wanted to learn about an interesting theoretical result someone figured out forty years ago, fascinating and urgently needed work. I admire most are not, on the whole, captivated by Java. I need to talk the matter over. There's a whole essay's worth of surprises there for sure. Make something people want. Is anyone able to develop software faster than you? The mere prospect of being interrupted is enough to get into the mind of a spammer, but let's take a quick look inside the mind of a spammer, but let's take a quick look inside the mind of the spammer, and frankly I want to bias the probabilities slightly to avoid false positives, I'm talking about filtering my mail based on a corpus of my mail.13

Notes

Actually Emerson never mentioned mousetraps specifically.

Since the remaining power of Democractic party machines, but its value was as a company if the quality of investor who merely seems like he will fund you, however, is he going to eat a sheep in the sense of a startup you have two choices and one kind that's called into being to commercialize a scientific discovery. This doesn't mean easy, of the problem to fit your solution.

The optimal way to do it mostly on your thesis.

As a friend with small children, or even why haven't you already built this way that weren't visible in the same work, the effort that would help Web-based applications. I'm using these names as we walked out we ran into Muzzammil Zaveri, and as we are at some of those things that's not the primary cause. And at 98%, as they do the opposite way as part of their pitch. Many will consent to b rather than trying to work in research too.

The point of a startup or going to do is leave them alone in the services, companies that seem promising can usually get enough money from mediocre investors almost all do, but sword thrusts. You have to mean the hypothetical people who want to figure this out. No big deal.

I'm pathologically optimistic about people's ability to solve a lot of legal business.

According to a super-angel than a product, just monopolies they create rather than lose a prized employee. What will go away, and that he had to for some students to get market price if they used FreeBSD and stored their data in files too.

The idea of what's valuable is least likely to be a good chance that a skilled vine-dresser was worth about 125 to 150 drachmae.

Acquirers can be times when what you're doing. VCs play such games, books, newspapers, or to be spread out geographically. I have no idea what's happening till they also influence one another, it was cooked up, but he refused because a quiet, earnest place like Cambridge will one day have an email being spam. Teenagers don't tell 5 year olds the truth.

But you're not convinced that what you're working on filtering at the time quantum for hacking is very polite and b made brand the dominant factor in the construction industry. This argument seems to have been seen mentioning the possibility. Some professors do create a Demo Day pitch, the computer world recognize who that is not one of the 2003 season was 4.

The real danger is that the valuation of the reasons startups are competitive like running, not the shape that matters here but the distribution of alms, and mostly in good ways.

If you have to find may be useful in cases where VCs don't invest, regardless of what investment means; like any investor, lest that set an impossibly high target when raising additional money. You won't always get a good product. It is just feigning interest—until you get nothing.

The empirical evidence suggests that if the selection process looked for different reasons. Exercise for the others to act through subordinates. There is something there worth studying, especially if you were doing Bayesian filtering in a world in which YC can help in deciding what to do that.

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roominthecastle · 5 years

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@imyourplusone replied to your post:

This is a great summation. Without a doubt Agnes was conceived after the gratuitous boat sex of 2.22 but I’m unclear regarding Red’s confusion. If he and Lizzy were on the run, isolated and bam! made a baby followed by enough time passing that he sees the signs of her pregnancy then why would he doubt his paternity. Who else would he suspect considering he was with Liz everyday?

The timeline established by the episodes in S3A gets obliterated by the pregnancy reveal (*) but generally speaking, in this period (starting w/ 304) Liz and Tom are in contact. Red doesn’t seem to (want to) know specifics but he knows Liz and her pathological inability to stay away from him. After Aram blurts out that Tom’s back, Red asks Liz not to reach out. She promises she won’t but they both know she is lying. bc she is. She reaches out to him behind Red’s back 3 seconds later.

They are also staying close to the PO team during most of these episodes (304-307), and Cooper keeps meeting w/ Tom, so Tom is around somewhere as well. So Liz wouldn’t have to be away for too long if they decided to hook up for a quickie (or Tom could come to her and knowing him, the deed would take like a minute or 2, tops) - Red should be aware of this, too. And these eps show that Red isn’t necessarily around her 24/7. In 304, they get separated when the Djinn grabs Liz. In 305, Red goes to meet Ressler while Liz stays in the theater. In 307, he is away interrogating and torturing for what feels like a day. There could have been other instances that we weren’t shown where - for whatever reason - he had to leave Liz alone for a while, which created an opportunity to sneak off. We know she didn’t bc they clearly establish that the first time Tom and Liz see each other since 222 is ep 307 (by making Tom remark that he barely recognized her due to her new look, so he hadn’t seen her since she went on the run) and Liz is captured the next day. But again, Red doesn’t know this for sure (imo).

And there are several reaction shots and pointed moments featuring Red getting riled up whenever the topic of Tom comes up. He knows Tom’s close-ish, he knows Liz is more than capable of going behind his back to get to him (S2 is a testament to this), and when she tells him Tom wants to meet in 307, it doesn’t come as a big surprise to Red, he doesn’t even try to talk her out of it anymore. He just throws her a “that’s not a good idea”, then leaves to tend to some business alone. He just ditches her right there and then.

So I really just went with Red’s and Liz’s behavior here, re: uncertainty. He’s jealous but does nothing to prevent Liz from seeing Tom, he doesn’t track her movements (and he’s not always w/ her), so - as far as he knows - they could have hooked up while she was on the run, and that’s a seed of doubt that’s plenty enough, imo. And it only grows right after Liz gets exonerated and immediately goes back to Tom.

We have a gap - a couple of days - btw Liz’s exoneration (310) and her return to work (311) which she likely spends with Tom, and Red likely knows this bc when she shows up at his safe house for a meet in 311, Mr. Kaplan warns her that Red’s in a bad mood - and he really is. 311 is S3A jealousy: continued. He’s distant and testy (the complete opposite of how he behaved at the end of 310). He’s worried that Tom’s pulling Liz away again and that she seems so willing to go w/ him, which can easily nurture that seed of doubt about paternity: if it’s Tom’s, if there’s no doubt about it in her mind -- and there isn’t seem to be any he can pick up on (and he would) -- then a) they did hook up and b) Liz will be even less willing to stay w/ him now. Mr. Kaplan assures him that he’s not gonna lose her no matter what happens, but now we all know where Mr. Kaplan really stood on this issue (so Tom’s continued presence was playing into her hand).

Liz seems sure about paternity and no matter how good an observer you are, you cannot exactly date time of conception based on pregnancy symptoms alone (you can be weeks off, easy), so Red really has no grounds to question her unless he wants to add insult to injury here and he is smarter than that.

If they slept together, they used protection which reduces the chances of conception. Red just strikes me as the kind of person who would insist on it (Tom doesn’t), but no protection is 100% effective, esp in scripted shows, so a small chance is always there and enough to feed a bit of doubt.

if the morning after Red reacted as pleasantly as he reacted to her saving him, i.e. w/ a massive wave of self-loathing and a tortured “we can never do this again” or as he reacted to her “I love you” (=silence and pretending it never happened) or a combination of the two, then he can’t even really blame her for gravitating back towards someone who is vocal about wanting her and more than willing to “do it again” while Red is stuck in this impossible, never-ending battle that grinds up any hope of raising a child regardless of whose it is.

So in 311 he just suffers semi-guardedly as usual, and despite the whole “the world’s elite crime lords are about to vote on my execution for betraying them”, it’s clear what bothers him the most:

and this tense behavior seamlessly carries over into 312 and culminates in that “I assume Tom is the father.” Red can’t even look her in the eye after that as he is trying to process it. While he may have some doubts (no protection is 100%, her symptoms emerged “within range” of their coupling) but Liz is undoubtedly back on her Tom bullshit, so Red has no other choice but to assume she hooked up w/ Tom not too long after their time together.

He keeps telling her how much she reminds him of her mother and we could see that Katarina was in the same position when she got pregnant - stuck between two men under insane pressure and (understandably) choosing to go w/ the one who had at least a chance at offering her baby a sense of normalcy and relative safety. In the present, that’s not our Red, no matter how much he wants to be a dad to that baby.

(*) eps 301-310 actually take place over ~ 10 days (continuity links them up nicely), so I don’t think they wrote those w/ any pregnancy in mind. But something changed in 311 and from 311 onward a timeline was established retroactively (stretching these 10 days on the run into 3 months, giving us lots of narrative blank space) that completely excludes Tom as the father. There had to be some major revision happening in the background but to what end, I am not sure. Red fits in w/ this revised timeline. Tom doesn’t fit in w/ any version and I have tried them all.

#long post #tbl spec #i truly am just wildly speculating here but i hope i could get my point across #im def turning into that last gif now i can feel it #but thank you for indulging me :D #i am just writing fic at this point

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tibdiagnostics · 2 years

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How to Choose the Right Lab for Blood Test For Hair Loss?

Hair loss problems have become common with increased pollution and stress. Regardless of age and gender, people suffer from massive hair loss. In such cases, a visit from a dermatologist is very important. A dermatology expert never prescribes the right treatment or medication without performing certain tests. You must be tested by a trusted testing center to get the correct results and start treatment.

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Finally, address the price factor. It is not a wise decision to decide just by checking the charges. What you need to do is compare their rates and the quality of service. This is the best way to find out if the blood testing lab is worth trying for your hair loss problem.

#blood test #blood test for hair loss #hair loss

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boothanita · 4 years

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Reiki Healing Websites Stunning Tricks

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Ethereal Crystal Reiki

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#Reiki Healing Websites Stunning Tricks #Reiki Healing Okc

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myvoicenottheoneyougiveme · 4 years

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Let's make this very simple. Forget all the business around what kind of person does what. Let's just focus on the actions themselves.

What purpose do they serve? You say like you have said before when you've been cornered on your bullshit. Oh, so now it's for "me", for my own good, my benefit.

What good? What benefit does invasion of privacy provide to the person you are violating? How does it help them? What are you accomplishing by doing nothing more than trying to make the other person feel violated? Half the time, more than half the time, you aren't even saying anything. It's just intimidation. It's "I'm watching you", "I have power over you", "there is no such thing as personal space, or personal discretion. I have robbed you of this vital relationship function." Without the ability to choose how close or how far, without the ability to invest in others, without the choice being made by the person themselves, all you've done is void the very basis of human connection. There is no such thing as trust. There is no such thing, no meaning behind "choice" when there's no such thing as choice. Relatsionship building is built on, it's fundamentally built of trust. Human connection like other forms bridging two persons, it's a door that opens "outward". It is not a door that is KICKED "inward".

I've digressed into the utter futility of forcing oneself and however many others onto someone, where it concerns any kind of healthy functioning or human connection. I've followed your excuse to its logical conclusion.

How are you helping me? How am I not traumatized? How am I not worn down? How aren't very important parts of "me" nullified? How am I not strangled and suffocated? How am I not stamped out only to be replaced with a version of me you've conjured (from within yourself) for your narrative?

Who is "this" for? What purpose? When it's not even forcing others or yourself in some insane notion of "intervention" but just the simple act of making your target feel violated for the sake of making them feel violated, and then you lieing about it.. what purpose is that gaslighting serving? Who are you helping by attempting to destroy their very grip on what is and isn't real? Who are you helping? Who is "this" for?

Who? Who is soothed? Who is being made to feel better? Who is offloading caustic toxicity out of themselves in the most dysfunctional and pathological way imaginable? Who are you helping? Who are you helping?

Who is "this" for?

It's not for me ...There are no fucking words for just how much weight a person can put into that statement. It's not for me. It is not love. It is not "compassionate" to abuse--to beat down and saddistically destroy in the most inventive ways imaginable. It is not for "me" that you do these things. "This" is not for me.

And it's not for "them". Now I'm an awful bad terrible thing that you need to save the world from. We've flipped the narrative again. But no one's lives are made better by the lies you tell. No one's life has ever been made better by the drama you create that you then sell yourself as the solution to. No one's life has ever been convenienced or helped more than hindered by your intervention on anyone's behalf. How many unmendable rifts? How many steps forever after on eggshells, even after you've been exposed for the liar you are? Never the same. Never. No one is helped by the lies you tell.

Who is "this" for? Who are you helping more than yourself to feel better? Who are you helping by offloading your toxicity into me? Who benefits? Who are you helping by elevating yourself to the position of a god on earth, a messiah for the lot of us? Who are you helping? Who is "this" for?

Can you answer that simple question? Can you?

Your next move is an attempt to tell me what I feel and what really affects me or not and what's actually good for me or not. You, you're going to tell me what I feel. You. "Well, well, see you're just a bad terrible something or other and people would rather know. They'd rather not be in the wrong place at the wrong time and be that victim." What victim? "Well, um. Well, you're just kinda this. Just bad. Bad bad. Give me a minute I'll come up with something. And I'll change my mind daily about what that is as the situation calls for even if so many of those things are utterly contradictory. You're all of it. Whatever I say you are, you're that. And as long as people are willing to believe me and affirm without a second thought my newly constructed realities as I pull them out of my ass, my truth will become truth." And the stranger the people the better. Who better than total strangers with no other frame of reference than the one you've given them, people for whom I didn't exist until you made me "known" to them? Or you'll find a way to make it personal for anyone else. Manipulation, utter and total manipulation of anyone and everyone, myself once included hook line and sinker. ...But when you could no longer control me, you were forced to use others. They've always been your safety net, always been the backdrop.

For all of your deflections and attempts to avoid the simplest tells of what is really going on here, I ask you again...

Who is "this" for? Who are you helping other than yourself? Who gains by all of "this"? Who becomes the center of everyone's world? Who becomes the lifeline? Who becomes indispensible? All you need is a crisis. Without drama, there is no need for you. So you create drama, so you can sell yourself back to everyone (myself included) as the answer to the chaos you yourself create. You position yourself between one person and the entire world and you feed on all that passes between. You are the middle-(wo)man taking your cut, siphoning the life. As your target's life shrinks, as he is crushed beneath you and your storm, you grow fatter and all the more encompassing. A parasite, an emotional parasite. A consuming, predatory being feeding. What you can't get from me outright, you get from others at my expense. I am a production and you are my producer (if I may throwback to the conversation about predatory individuals in the entertainment industry). "This" is your show, and you're selling tickets. You gain ALL at the expense of the person you're using. How many people, girls especially, chewed up and spit out by the "entertainment" industry? That was the topic of conversation that you twisted to make a personal attack on someone in order to make a rallying cry to my coworker(s). How are attacks like this not just you assigning to me the disowned parts of yourself that you're trying not to see? How isn't it nearly 100% of the time not just you offloading and distancing yourself from things you don't want to accept about yourself by assigning those parts to me? Parts as though they were parts in a show, a role I was to play, a script I am to follow in the reality you've constructed around me to sell to the world at my expense? You are aggrandized as I am buried alive.

Who is "this" for?

EDIT re re: Cue the rotating screen as though this were a game of basketball. Now, the antagonist is magically a different person and therefore somehow not the object of this rebuke. Hey, I might even soften up if she’s sweet and innocent enough. Oh, maybe she’ll sell it to me again like she’s just caught up in this crazy thing and as much a victim to it as I am. Like when I destroy all the excuses built on the first iteration of “this”. You shed her and sweep it under the rug as though you are not precisely the same no matter which of you I am supposedly addressing. And when the other she is underperforming and is being soundly called out on the bullshit, you rotate again. There’s no cornering one person in the act when you just magically decide you are a different person. As a team, one of you can take the fall in the mean time while the other distances herself from the obvious failing. But the game never ends. It doesn’t matter how many times each of you primary sponsors (my mother included) is supposedly brought down off of that throne, the game never ends.

The question applies regardless of who you say you are at this moment in time. It doesn’t matter. And my intent to be free of you remains the same regardless of who you say you are at this moment in time. I will not and cannot live this way.

This will end, one way or another. It will end, I promise you it will end.

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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 7 years

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One of my pet peeves is when fellow Spider-Man fans argue that Peter and Mary Jane not being together romantically will condemn them both to a lifetime of eternal misery or when people argue that their love and marriage have survived too many hardships in the past (such as the tragic loss of their baby daughter in particular) for them to ever break up.

Peter and Mary Jane are my favourite fictional couple of all time (always have been, always will be) and I want them to love each other and for them to be together until the stars turn cold and falls out of the sky but I refuse to accept the notion that they are each the other persons only sources of happiness. Also there is no such thing as a point of no return were a couple can no longer decide to end their relationship ever because of having endured too much together. That is not how relationships work, that is not how humans work!

Mary Jane could live a perfectly fulfilling life without Peter! She doesn’t need him but she chooses to be with him because she loves him and being with him makes her happy! That is a good thing dammit!

Peter once believed that Gwen was the love of his life and that he would marry her. Following her death he became depressed and sincerely questioned if it would ever be possible for him to love another person like he loved her, a most realistic concern after suffering such a devastating loss. But his life went on and we all know the answer to that question.

Later in life he even started to question if his relationship with Gwen, (the very person he once thought of as the love of his life) would have lasted even if she had lived, thinking that he and Gwen just weren’t compatible enough for their relationship to survive in the long run and that he most likely still would have ended up falling in love with Mary Jane regardless.

If he lost Mary Jane too it would probably be even more devastating than when he lost Gwen, but he survived that loss and he would ultimately survive losing Mary Jane as well.

In summary: I want to think that Peter and Mary Jane stays together because they love each other and want to spend their lives together and not because they each represent the other persons only chance of ever finding happiness.

For me a big part of the appeal of Pete/MJ is that they’re both flawed, messy, real-seeming fictional people who work hard for their relationship, which by definition means that, yes, they could split up. That’s something that can happen with real people, even ones who love each other very much.

To be fair, I think a lot of fans (including me sometimes!) use “Peter and MJ would never break up!” as hyperbolic shorthand when what they mean is, “Okay, I can see xyz scenario where Peter and MJ would split up and it would make sense, but not because Peter gaslights MJ into agreeing to a deal with the devil who then alters reality so that a brick falls onto Peter’s head the night before the wedding because Marvel thought Peter getting a divorce would age Spider-Man too much, are you f***ing kiding me–”

Yeah I think a lot of the miserable without each other stuff is an interpretation/no prize style fix fic of the terms of whatever the Mesphito deal exactly is. Supposedly they’re supposed to unfulfilled without each other per the deal, but because OMD is a piece of shit comic we never really delve into how (except for oddly a small tease in the deadpool/spider-man comic of all ducking unlikely places). Especially since if we accept current events in the comics as the canon they’re supposed to be doing fairly okay (Peter is a goddamn billionaire and MJ’s doing her own thing with Tony and pals).

My personal interpretation of that is the deal is doing more than affecting than romantic lives and is undermining them in other aspects in the long term (they’re stuck in a perpetual one step forward two step back thing-Peter’s company will be lost and he’ll be poorer than before, MJ’s acting dream keeps getting snatched from her despite the obvious successes she’s had there on top of how every time they get closer to together some outside force intervenes and pushes them apart etc.) Although full disclosure, for the time being I’ve dropped Slott’s amazing run.

But otherwise yes. The above. What makes both Peter and MJ interesting as characters is that they actually have flaws and their own characters outside of one another. And those flaws complement each other in a very real way that works for a relationship that feels organic. But MJ is such a developed character she can (and does) support stories without needing Peter’s presence to make us care about her. Or in other words, she’s the mythical strong female supporting character who’s life does not revolve solely around her love interest.

I have to disagree with the points made here. Esepcially the OP...a lot.

First of all...actually there is such a phenomenon wherein a couple will not break up. Different humans behave in different ways...but if you know enough about psychoplogy you’d know actually a lot of human behaviour can be predicted if you have a detailed enough psychological profile. And part and parcel of that is consistent behavioural patterns. The nature of comics essentially means we know EVERYTHING about a character because we live in their heads and are privy to all relevant information about them. Consequently by and large for the characters who’ve been around long enough and in enough situations we know what they are going to act most of the time. In theory if you knew as much about a human being the same would apply. In fact most of the time when we see people act in ways we didn’t expect or claim human behaviour is unpredictable or ‘people change’ the truth is that’s just us trying to explain behaviours that we didn’t know would happen due to a lack of information. We don’t know what exact variables are bouncing around and influencing someone’s thoughts and feelings which would lead to them acting a certain way, or don’t know that person’s behavioural history well enough to have seen a certain action coming. But we do with many fictional characters which means you cannot simply treat them psychologically or emotionally the same way you’d treat a real person and have them act arbitrarily differently because ‘humans don’t workt hat way’.

Which brings us to this point. When people have been in a relationship for a long enough amount of time and endured certain things that act as bonding experiences it becomes less and less likely that they would split for various reasons. One of which being that they are among the only people who understand what it was like to go through said bonding experiences which can take the form of traumatic experiences. This is why veterans or war or even of the police, specifically ones who’ve fought together are often so close and stay friends for most of their lives following a traumatic event.

So in Peter and MJ’s case your talking about people who’ve lived though shittons of tragedies and hardships indivoidually and faced obstacles to wanting to enter into a relationship together. MJ was almost pathologically opposed to any form of commitment due to a traumatic upbringing but still renegaded on that because of her feelings for Peter, an event which occurred following the knowledge that her very life would be at risk through association with him. You cannot sell short how big of a deal for someone in her position thus its a testament to the degree to which she wanted to be involved with Peter, even when she was trying to actively stop herself from being so.

Your talking about someone who for years knew fully well from first hand experience that she was going to deal with being stood up, with a lot of worrying and that she could be killed at any time and her actual biggest issue with getting together with him was worrying that she’d wind up trapped and miserable. But in reality she gained a lot of emotional fulfilment from being involved with Peter even though it actually required MORE commitment than her mother or sister or brother-in-law ever had to deal with. Those issues for her stemming all the way back to childhood (you know the shit which absolutely stays with you in life) was so deep rooted that she was still tempted to run away the night before her wedding but never did.

She had other options at her disposal. Any number of people with money, security or almost anything she wanted would’ve liked to date her or be in a long term relationship with her but she never went for them. At that point you are dealing with someone who is very, very, very seriously dead set on being attached to the person they want to be with.

And then on top of all this your dealing with people who’ve been through multiple immensely stressful and traumatic bonding experiences over the course of several years and both have a consistent track record of responding to such tragedies and traumas by growing closer together never apart. As an acquaintance of mine has said, conflict in life and in marriage either drives you apart or closer together.

Sure, enduring a miscarriage doesn’t mean 100% two people aren’t going to split up. But in Peter and MJ’s case you aren’t dealing with JUST that you are dealing with that on top of everything else in their lives and relationship and then they went ahead and had even more of that crap thrown at them after the clone saga and during the JMS run. In fact they were much closer after the miscarriage and during the JMS run than they’d been even before, highlighting what I said before about how they react to tragedies and traumas.

And here is the thing, the OP and other observers making similar points are making the error of not actually looking at the specifics of the Peter/MJ relationship but rather utilizing knowledge garnered from most people’s relationships, normal relationships. I’m not suggesting Peter and MJ have some sort of magical miracle romance or anything but it is precisely because of their lives before and during their relationships and the tragedies and traumas they faced that it is illogical to judge them the same way you judge most people’s relationships. It’s atypical even for the closest real life equivalencies such as police officers and their spouses.

So yes in fact in real life and in fiction even moreso you can definitely say past actions inform how someone is going to act now or in the future. And in this case your essentially dealing with two people who’s relationship on an emotional level doesn’t erode as crap keeps getting piled on top of it but consistently actually deepens. Could there be something hurtful enough to facilitate them ending their relationship? Maybe...but realistically its very unlikely unless they just fundamentally change as people. The notion that their relationship will end b because they get fed up with the lifestyle one another have led up until this point is ridiculous or they go through something really hurtful and traumatic is essentially ridiculous. When you’ve got people who stayed together and grew closer after multiple kidnappings, multiple near fatal attacks, stalkers, home invasions, the belief that one another were dead for 2 weeks-six months and then a miscarriage which was just the chrery on top then yes...ending it due to something like that is something that would’ve happened a long ass time ago, not at the end of over 5 years of marriage and 10 years of friendship. That is in fact extremely unbelievable and realistic.

Moving on lets talk about the nature of need here.

MJ chooses to be with Peter because he makes her happy. So...she does in fact needs him to make her happy in regards to romantic/emotional fulfilment. She doesn’t need him for financial support, security, or the kind of fulfilment she gains from acting or the dignity that comes from having a career.

But...is she deep down happy with that stuff alone sans whatever fulfilment she gets from Peter? Not exactly no. Check the JMS run. MJ had a well earning career. She could be with her friends and family from NYC if she wanted and if not plenty of people in LA to hang around. She had a certain degree of fame and she lived in luxury. And she was...totally miserable. In fact before Gwen died we know MJ loved to party but actively chose to cut back on that because of her relationship with Peter. She decided that she was going to implicate herself in his life in the 1980s stories despite having a lot of those same career options and knowing the baggage Peter came with. As frustrated and upset as she got upon losing a lot of her success she prioritized her marriage above those things and made sacrifices for it’s sake.These are not merely the actions of someone who finds someone else makes her happy but clearly finds great fulfilment from said person.

I’m not saying MJ NEEDS Peter to survive and that she’d fall apart without him. But am I saying that she would be without a certain large source of fulfilment in her life without him? Or that Peter to her is much more than someone she loves and who makes her happy but whom she doesn’t exactly need as part of her life? Or that without him there would essentially always be something missing in her life she’d want to fill? Yes to all.

Indeed the idea MJ gets this type of deepset fulfilment from her relationship with Peter goes a Hell of a long way to explaining exactly why she has a Job-like patience and tolerance of the massive stress, danger and traumas that comes from being his friend, lover and spouse and why she made an exception for him as far as her commitment issues were concerned.

That doens’ make MJ weak or dependant at all. Different strokes for different folks and some people simply need certain fulfilment in their lives through a romantic relationship.

Now moving onto Peter...this is where the OP is really getting ridiculous.

Yeah Peter Parker, aged 19-20 years old tops who’d dated exactly 3 girls in his whole life and one of those was just a handful of casual dates thought that Gwen Stacy whom he’d known for at most a year and a half (as in had known her face/name for that long, not actually befriended, dated or been in love with her for that long) thought Gwen Stacy was the love of his life and the person he would marry...without telling her his secret identity.

It’s almost as though he was a young and naive idiot who whilst genuinely in love with someone for the first time ever and built it up to unrealistic levels in his head and heart precisely because he didn’t know any better. Peter didn’t have puppy love but...he kind of had the equivalent except he genuinely was in love with Gwen.

Simply put he was a very inexperienced naive kid who didn’t really know what he was doing...also he was like super stressed most of the time trying to save the world but that isn’t the point really....

Now yes after he died he did question if he could love another person like he loved Gwen and he was depressed.

And he got through that and did eventually love somebody like he loved Gwen. As in it was Mary Jane. As in this wasn’t him merely ‘moving on’ it was him moving on with someone very specific who helped him in very specific ways. More than once the Spider-Man narrative has made the clear cut point that Peter would have REMAINED depressed, and wouldn’t have moved on and would’ve gone off the deep end if it wasn’t for Mary Jane’s presence in his life at that time. He didn’t simply work to get over it and allow time to heal all wounds. From the moment Gwen died it was Mary Jane’s support and presence as a friend in his life which enabled him to survive losing Gwen that way. Conveying it as a simple case of someone losing a loved one and moving on like many people do is belying the actual specifics and realities of the situation as it was presented.

To reiterate Peter only moved on from Gwen the then love of his life because

a) He was making a bigger deal out of their relationship than was warranted and

b) Because Mary Jane herself was the one helping him to move on and was the person he moved on to. Flash Thompson and Aunt May weren’t the ones who were going to see him through that crisis

Att he same time....where precisely did Peter ever once say even if Gwen had lived he and MJ would’ve wound up together anyway? Never in all my years have I ever encountered such a story or moment.

The closest things I can think of are Webspinners Tales of Spider-Man where Peter wonders if he and Gwen would’ve stayed together if she’d lived or Web of Romance where he compares MJ to Gwen and says Gwen would’ve needed him to protect and support her most of the time whereas MJ didn’t because she was a stronger person.

The latter doesn’t really support the OP’s statements as it has nothing to do with Peter questioning if he and Gwen would’’ve been together later in life but is simply observing how MJ and Gwen cope differently and maybe that MJ is a better match.

The former however does have Peter questioning if him and Gwen would’ve stayed together...and not coming up with an ironclad answer. But even putting that aside that was a late 20s/early 30s year old Peter Parker who’d done a Hell of a lot of growing up since the days where he was dating Gwen Stacy as a much more naive kid. Of course he’d wonder if he and Gwen would’ve gotten married if she hadn’t died. He has hindsight on his side at that point and lacks youthful naivete to cloud his judgement.

The OP’s point was Peter thoguth Gwen was the one and only person he could ever be with but she wasn’t and he even questioned it as such therefore the same logic should apply to Mary Jane or any woman he was with. But this again takes a broadbrush 1:1 approach to both relationships.

Mary Jane and Gwen and their respective relationships with Peter are immensely different. Just because Peter at one point believed Gwen was the one and only person he’d ever love and no one else could compare and was proven wrong doesn’t mean that in reality he’d be wrong for holding the same belief about Mary Jane at a much later point in life. Because again it’s coming from a completely different place in his life and from an entirely different emotional level.

So no. If Peter lost MJ he would absolutely not survive that loss the way he survived Gwen. Because again...he only survived losing Gwen because of Mary Jane. People forget this but Peter is someone who isn’t at the end of the day a great loner. He really does need people and I don’t just mean for the sake of emotional fulfilment. Peter didn’t just love MJ or feel she made him happy. He literally needed her presence in his life as proven by stories like Kraven’s Last Hunt, ASM #150, the Clone Saga, Doomed Affairs, etc. MJ was vital to keeping him afloat and he’d have gone down a long time ago without her influence.

So yeah Peter and MJ do stay together because they want to and because they love one another. But more than likely when you break down the characters and their experiences, especially in Peter’s case...yeah. Actually there probably isn’t anyone else for either of them. Not at the very least to fulfil them AS much as they would otherwise be in one another’s company.

I know we like Peter and Mj becuase they are more realistic and try to make things work but...honestly there comes a point where you really do have to look at the charaacters and what they are and have dealt with and see them for how they’ve been defined.

Sure their relationship is messy and requires them to work hard in spite of character flaws. But it honestly at this point (or rather before OMD anyway) would be immensely difficult to believably and yes realistically split them up

The only way to do it is if you have them completely change in their personalities and lose the very aspects that one of them loved about the other. And outside of very mean spirited stories where they have kids who are violently killed or where Mary jane is victimized in some way (which Marvel would never due out of fear of the PR and the desire to keep using the character for branding purposes) those changes aren’t going to happen. Marvel would of course never change Spider-Man permanently in any significant way to the point where he loses his personality because again branding.

But if we’re talking about stuff we’ve already seen before now, if we’re saying they remain essentially the same in their personalities and they go through similar tragedies and traumas as they’ve gone through up until now and those things break them up...Hell no. they aren’t going to split up over that stuff. If they were it would’ve happened decades ago. It’d have to be something really extreme or out of the ordinary like one of them being rendered disabled and blaming the other or something. But even that...I don’t buy they’d do that given the losses they’ve endured already. Losing your kid is so much worse than that.

As for the ramifications of OMD...as I’ve said before OMD is a different continuity from pre-OMD Spider-Man and furthermore is literally a consistent series of OOC BS moments stretching across years. Sure if we look at the current stories and say Peter and MJ are perfectly happy without one another...but it isn’t that that proves that actually they are fine without one another. It just proves how deeply the post-OMD comics misunderstand the characters and the series. This stuff has little to do with OMD and actually goes back way into their histories, for example in the JMS run BOTH of them were miserable and missing each other a Hell of a lot.

We never even SAW either of them post-OMD all that upset that the most significant romantic relationship in their lives which was stated in and out of universe to be tantamount to a marriage. Not once. We hit the ground and Peter is macking on some stranger and MJ is dating some loser actor. Not even a hint of them being upset over breaking up and we’ve to this day never seen anything accurately reflect the realistic sadness either would feel, even if this was like a fairly standard relationship.

To reiterate, I’m not saying Peter and MJ have some kind of miracle magic romance where everything is lovey dovey all the time. But I’m just saying because of who they are and what they’ve been through yes it is actually very difficult to dream up a realistic scenario wherein they’d believably break up like many people do. Because many people have not lived thorugh what they have and have not developed their personal relationships in the same ways.

@horselover107 I don’t disagree with your last paragraph but I think there is a difference in discussing a character’s creative standing and issues of mental/emotional satisfaction and fulfilment. Similarly someone doesn’t need their lives to REVOLVE around someone they love for that person to still be fulfilling in their lives and the most important person or aspect to it. MJ herself acknowledged this as such. She acknowledged Peter was more important to her than anyone or anything else in her life but that didn’t mean everything she did hinged upon taking him into account or that she didn’t have her own things going on. Ditto for Peter. He’s acknowledged MJ as the person he loves most and needs in his life but he has other shit to do as well. But that doesn’t mean that for MJ there would be a big hole missing in her life without Peter leaving her at least never as happy as she would be with him, or that for Peter he wouldn’t eventually fall apart without MJ supporting him.

#mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #Gwen Stacy

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cardamomoespeciado · 4 years

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What happens when a person "dies by aging"?

Gizmodo Japan

What happens when a person "dies by aging"?

If I couldn't die.

Some people are trying to solve the problem of "death." They, when they succeed, may remind me when I was 900 years old to re-read this sentence and miss how I wasted the first 100 years of my life, Daniel Kolitz of Gizmodo. The reporter writes.

However, even if it is resolved someday, tens of thousands and hundreds of millions of people will still die. Some will die of illness, while others will die of an accident. Some people die by the so-called "aging".

While I was playing Hinatabo on the porch, I took a breath before I knew-"I die of old age" has a much more calm image than other deaths.

But what does it really mean to be old and die?

The "Giz Asks" series, where experts answer all questions. This time, we asked four people what it means to "die due to old age".

Body wear, illness impairs physical activity and leads to death

Elizabeth Dzeng (Assistant Professor, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco)

"Dying due to old age" is an expression often used around us. However, in reality, no one died of "aging". There is always a leading or new illness that causes death. It is unlikely that a death certificate will say "age". Thus, apart from the cause of death, heart failure due to some infectious disease, underlying disease such as heart attack or cancer is more likely.

For example, when a blood clot develops in the lungs, it becomes unable to send sufficient oxygen to the brain and body, resulting in heart failure. In this case, it does not matter whether the person is young or old. Illness and the symptoms caused by the illness interfere with the physical activity of the body, leading to death.

However, the same illness can cause different symptoms in older people. As we get older, our bodies wear and get damaged. So you can't fight illness as you did when you were young. Of course, a young person can and will die of a heart attack or pulmonary thromboembolism in the same way. However, older people have different body reactions to illness.

Let's take pneumonia as an example. Older patients may not have the initial symptoms that are usually present during infection. If the patient has diabetes, they may develop symptoms of hyperglycemia, and if they have dementia, they may have unstable psychological states or suddenly lose their ability to do what they normally do. .. Even if such symptoms occur in an elderly patient, it is difficult to immediately determine the pathology that causes them.

There are people on the street who want to die while sleeping, but this is a phenomenon that cannot be limited to a specific pathology. People who take their breath while asleep may just have their cancer and infections worsen while they sleep, rather than by chance.

Another important thing is that people with extremely serious medical conditions, such as end-stage cancer and congestive heart failure, may choose a more “natural death”. Rather than receiving active treatment at the hospital, they may choose palliative care to help ease their suffering.

Die with terrible pain, that's a natural death

Jessica Humphreys (Assistant Professor, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, specializes in palliative care)

People often say, "When I grow old, I want to die while sleeping." But all people die the same way. The heart stops. That is the end.

When you write a death certificate, you must write down the cause of death, but rewind to the fact that pulmonary thrombosis occurred before cardiopulmonary arrest and cancer was diagnosed before that. I will. For the students I took care of, what was the cause of death in this way? What happened before that? I ask you to ask.

As a doctor specializing in palliative care, all the patients I am in charge of have serious illnesses and many are nearing death. My job is to explain the process leading to death to the patient and then help them survive that process.

The word "nature" makes you feel calm. If the death process is "natural," you don't have to be aware of it or think about it. But in reality, the process of death rarely goes "naturally" in this way. A healthy person with no medical history suffers from a sudden heart attack for one night's sleep. This is extremely rare. (Although the phrase "die while sleeping" is often used, I didn't see the person directly up close to see if he actually died while sleeping, or if he was awake when he died. As far as it goes, it's very difficult to judge.)

A typical example of "natural death" in the United States is as follows. Someone will find some health problem and treat you to improve it. The treatment that tries to alleviate the suffering as much as possible and keep lives alive is void, and eventually it will turn into a losing battle. There is a change of direction, and the emphasis is on how to spend the best time to the end.

Only one supplement. I have a lot of work in Uganda and India, but I felt that "natural death" is very painful and extremely painful in most countries of the world. In most parts of the world, powerful analgesics like opioids are unavailable. In a sense, dying “naturally” for humans means dying in great pain. So we must strive to eliminate that suffering as much as possible.

"Risk" increases

David Casarett (Professor, Duke University School of Medicine, Chief of Palliative Care. Author of "Shocked: Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead" and many others)

Want to die due to old age? …It's impossible.

It is a popular idea that many people want, because it is a beautiful view like a picture, and it is a common wisdom that "dieing due to aging" is a popular idea. Many of my patients are aiming for it. Just like a downhill skier who draws a slalom, he vividly avoids one life-threatening pathology, and avoids heart failure, prostate cancer, pneumonia, and eventually the new coronavirus. Everything is hoping to eventually die peacefully by "aging".

However, it is impossible to die of old age. As I get older, my heart beats slowly, and finally late last night I can't stop. Aging increases the risk of illnesses such as cancer and dementia, some of which can be fatal. However, aging itself did not cause death.

My grandmother passed Tianju at the age of 103. Although my body weakened with age, my sharpness was still alive until the end, and I could read through one book a day. I was so pinsching that I read the novel I wrote to the end.

Such grandmother did not die of old age. Due to aging and frailty, the risk of hip fracture increased, and in fact, he did. Although he survived the high-risk surgery in a very good condition, he finally entered the demon register due to a seizure.

It is true that he was physically and psychologically exceptionally healthy, and although he died at a very old age, his grandmother did not die due to old age. Her cause of death was a series of unfortunate events that happened to occur in quick succession, putting her older body at greater risk.

Here comes an interesting question. What cause do you want to die for? If you are sensitive to your cholesterol, you may not have a heart attack, and if you are eating raw vegetables, you may not have colon cancer. If you're away from cigarettes you probably won't have emphysema, but what could be the cause of death? What will remain? (I am grateful to my teacher, Dr. Joanne Lynn, for asking this question 20 years ago. I have not reached a personal conclusion yet.)

Where do we go after all the deadly illnesses that modern society throws at us? One answer to that question would be my grandmother. She lived right. He maintained a healthy lifestyle and kept a gentle and gentle temper regardless of the ups and downs of his emotions. All her way of life was right, but the right way of life is effective only to some extent. Eventually life takes the lead, causing falls, heart attacks, pneumonia and death.

Let's add one more thing. I said that I wouldn't die of old age, but it's not uncommon to die of old age. This difference should be well borne in mind.

Many people who live to old age maintain their mental and physical functions until they die. And many-maybe most-fall asleep and suddenly die. Of course, if you were in your twenties, you wouldn't want to reach this end. It's too sudden and I don't have time to prepare.

But if you've been living on this earth for a century, and if you had one or two frightening near-death experiences before, and you're ready to say goodbye I think it's probably a good thing to die while sleeping.

That's probably the biggest difference between people who have succeeded in natural life and those who did not. People who live up to their 90s are not afraid of death. Because I have done everything I have done, and I have done everything I have to say. It may have been ready for many years.

As a palliative care specialist, the older you are, the less likely you will be to flutter at the end, the less likely you are to seek aggressive treatment or long and painful chemotherapy. Accept death and die quickly. If something means "dying in old age," it means that we are prepared to accept death and say goodbye.

Body function is lost at "constant speed"

Allen Andrade (Assistant Professor, Mount Sinai Medical University Elderly and Palliative Medicine)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends doctors not use expressions such as "die from old age" or "natural death." The reason is that these words are of little value to the medical community.

In the past, the cause of death could not be identified from a series of things that occurred before death, the unnatural death such as murder or suicide was not suspected, or the prosecutor or coroner was the cause of death due to limited resources. It was a word used in a broad sense when an investigation could not be performed to identify

But these words are still popular with the general public. It gives the impression that death wasn't unexpected or traumatic, and keeps away from the difficult to talk about the cause of death. This is because we all want to be “young and healthy” for as long as possible, and we want to avoid long-term suffering from serious illness. Like birth, death is a sentinel event in life, and is a theme that many people want to avoid because it is extremely emotional.

Interestingly, many do not delay death itself, but fear the process of death. Many who die without relying on life-supporting devices such as ventilators will experience the same death. The main difference between dying is how quickly the body stops functioning. Some people live for weeks to months, some die for days to weeks, hours to days, and minutes to hours.

People with a time frame of a few weeks to a few months lose their physical functions at a constant rate, and remain seated or bedridden to get the people around them to take care of them. People who live for a few days to a few weeks will gradually lose their focus, become unaware of what's going on around them, and lose interest in eating and drinking. People who die within hours to days do not know what is happening in their surroundings, and gradually become difficult to swallow, and their breathing becomes rough and they become fatigued as if they were sprinting. And those who die within minutes to hours are already unconscious and breathe irregularly.

In summary, death is a natural process and largely peaceful. Depending on the length of the dying process and the causes of death, you may experience symptoms such as breathing disorder, pain, and delirium just before you die. You can make your time as high quality as possible.

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familycourtcorruption · 4 years

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CO-PARENTING WITH A NARCISSIST – 13 STRATEGIES TO HELP YOU DEAL WITH A FEMALE NARCISSIST

Truth is that you can’t co-parent with a narcissist. But that would be a ridiculously short post so instead we are going to look at some practical steps you can take to make the fact that you have a narcissistic ex a little bit easier for you and the children.

I have chosen to write this post about female narcissists. Mainly because it is a hugely under talked about subject but one that is a very real problem. Almost all my clients have identified that their mothers were narcissistic and that it has had huge implications for them growing up and into adulthood. That means that there are a lot of fathers out there attempting to co-parent with a narcissist.

Whilst I appreciate that there are plenty of narcissistic fathers out there as well, I feel that there is already a plethora of information out there for mums (Scary Mommy and The Good Men Project have great articles on this).

Female narcissists can cause just as much damage to their children but they have the added weight of societal views about mothers and domestic abuse on their side. Although there has been a lot of work done in the past decade about father’s rights and equal parenting, the truth is that most people still assume that mothers are the primary caregivers. Whilst I am not wishing to write off the important role of mothers or deny that many more women than men are primary caregivers, I do think that parenting roles have changed and we now have legislation which reflects that in some measure (parental leave for new fathers for example) so it’s important we also talk about the darker side of females as well.

There is lots spoken about toxic masculinity but toxic femininity and toxic females exist too. I think it is very dangerous to label one sex all good and the other all bad. In fact that kind of black and white thinking is a trait of narcissism. I prefer to believe that we are all capable of good and bad acts, just as we are all capable of being victim or abuser. Without going too much into a nature nurture debate, science has long since demonstrated that our behaviours are as much, if not more, the result of our experiences than our biology. In other words, what we have between our legs does not dictate who we are and how we behave. This is where the importance of nurture, and in particular parenting, becomes even more obvious.

But firstly, let’s get to know what we are dealing with.

Female Narcissists

Thought Catalog have written a really great piece on female narcissists so I am going to borrow their five characteristics of a female narcissist:

A sadistic sense of pleasure at someone else’s pain.

Perhaps one of the most understated qualities of the female malignant narcissist is the pleasure and joy she takes in bringing down others. She enjoys making covert jabs and watching gleefully as the formerly confident victim looks crestfallen, shocked and offended. She displays a lack of empathy when the conversation turns to more serious emotional matters, engaging in shallow responses or cruel reprimands that invalidate her victim’s reality.

She is ruthless in her ability to first idealise, then devalue and discard her victims without a second thought. She cannot engage in healthy, emotionally fulfilling relationships, so she enjoys sabotaging the relationships and friendships of others for her own personal entertainment.

An insatiable sense of competitiveness, due to pathological envy and the need to be the centre of attention.

They have to win. At all costs. They will either be overt and play the hero. Or covert and present as a fragile victim, utilising all her womanly wiles to win over sympathy in order to achieve her goal. Usually of putting someone else down or punishing them.

As psychotherapist Christine Louis de Canonville puts it, “When it comes to envy, there is no one more envious than the narcissistic woman.”

She sabotages your friendships and relationships, stirring chaos within social groups.

The female narcissist may use her affiliation with her target to gain access to resources or status, but as soon as the idealisation phase is over, the devaluation and discard follows. She then engages in rumour-mongering, smear campaigns and creates ‘triangles’ where she feeds others false or humiliating information about the victim. She may pit her friends against each other by claiming that they are gossiping about one another, when in fact, it is her falsehoods that are actually manufacturing conflict within the group. By subjecting her victims to covert and overt put-downs, she is able to then confirm her own false sense of superiority.

You are probably dealing with a female narcissist or sociopath if:

You notice an uncomfortable silence, a covert exchange of looks or odd energy when you enter the room.

You were initially idealised, sweet-talked, admired, praised and shown off at the beginning of the relationship. You might have found yourself sharing your most intimate secrets early on, due to her disarmingly sweet and trustworthy demeanour. Later, you find your deepest secrets being spoken about with derision amongst friends or family or rumours based on vulnerabilities and fears you confided in them about. You also notice a chilling smugness when they talk down to you or as she devalues your accomplishments.

You bear witness to the narcissist frequently speaking ill of others in an excessively contemptuous tone, while appearing friendly and engaging with them in public. This is evidence of her duplicity and ability to deceive. An authentic person might vent about others occasionally in the event of stress or conflict, but would not engage in excessive gossip or indiscriminate character assassination. He or she would be more likely to cut ties with those they thought were toxic or address it to them directly rather than bashing them unnecessarily. Make no mistake, the way they’re speaking about others is the way they’ll eventually speak about you.

She has an obsession with her appearance as well as a high level of materialism and superficiality.

Female narcissists fit the ‘femme fatale’ stereotype quite well. Many of them are conventionally attractive and use their sexuality to their advantage. Since females in our society are also socialised to objectify themselves, the female narcissist follows this social norm to use whatever physical assets she has to assert her power.

Hammond (2015) also observes female narcissists tend to excessively spend money. This may result in a highly materialistic female narcissist who enjoys adorning herself with the best designer clothing, indulging in luxuries at the expense of her loved ones or allowing herself to be excessively catered to by a wealthy significant other. Female narcissists can also accumulate their own wealth and use it as an indication of her superiority as well.

A blatant disregard for the boundaries of intimate relationships, including her own.

In keeping with typical narcissistic behavior regardless of gender, the female narcissist is likely to have a harem of admirers – consisting of exes that never seem to go away, admirers who always seem to lurk in the background and complete strangers she ensnares into her web to evoke jealousy in her romantic partner. She frequently creates love triangles with her significant other and other males (or females, depending on her sexual orientation). She rejoices in male attention and boasts about being the object of desire. She engages in emotional and/or physical infidelity, usually without remorse and with plenty of gaslighting and deception directed at her partner, who usually dotes on her and spoils her, unaware of the extent of her disloyalty.

Delightful folks aren’t they!

If you are having to co-parent with one though, you have experienced all of this. You understand their manipulative ways and have seen first hand how they can cut people off in a truly heartless manner. You got out of that drama. But your kids can’t do that. And so you have to find a way to deal with them.

13 Ways To Co-Parent With A Narcissist

Accept that you can’t co-parent with them Co-parenting implies co-operation, communication and collaboration. Not going to happen. They have to be seen as superior so they will make all decisions, withhold information and keep you shut out. Parents evenings will be separate, and no doubt she will have told the school that she doesn’t feel safe being around you. You won’t find out if they are ill unless of course it is as an excuse to stop contact.

We were regularly told the children were ill so couldn’t come. In fact it happened so often I questioned whether she was poisoning them! It also requires both parties to see the other as valid and relevant. The narcissist does not see you as valid or relevant. You are the proverbial shit on their shoe that they want to get rid of. Your opinion doesn’t count as you don’t count. The narcissist went out and pierced the baby’s (and I do mean baby, they were only about a year old) despite the dad voicing that he didn’t want them to have their ears pierced because it was cruel. Didn’t matter. It was what she wanted.

Be realistic with your expectations Your ex is not going to change. She has developed a very sophisticated system for how she deals with people and in particular people who she deems below her or of no use to her. She simply cuts them off. This works for her so she has no motivation to change. The frustration at wanting her to be different lead to arguments between me and my partner and actually, in hindsight cost us our relationship because I was so fixated on her. However, this does not mean that your situation cannot change. You have full control over yourself and how you respond to what is going on. When she attempts to bait you into an argument in front of witnesses so she can “prove” what a monster you are, you can choose whether or not to bite. Learning how to manage your own responses takes time and awareness of what your triggers are though so you must be prepared to do the work. Once you grasp it though, your ex has no power over you which right royally pisses them off. Whenever she would confront me to try to intimidate me, I would always be super kind and smile. I wanted to growl really but being able to control my own response really irritated her. And that, in all honesty, bought me some joy.

Understand that everything is about control and punishment You are child focused. You always have been. You didn’t want to argue in front of the kids and so you let things slide. You let her get her own way so as not to cause distress to the children. She on the other hand used that to control you and things are no different now. She may act like she is mother of the year but the truth is everything is about her agenda. Again, you need to accept that this is who she is. No amount of reason or logic or pulling at her heart strings is going to get her to put the children first. She knows full well that controlling your access and therefore your relationship with your children is the best way to punish you for whatever wrong she believes you have committed. When you stop wasting your energy on trying to get her to understand, you can begin to make decisions and take action on getting what you want.

Go direct to the source The ex won’t share any information with you about your children and if you ask her, you may find yourself slapped with a non-molestation order. Who knew that wanting to find out about your own children (which you have a legal right to) was a crime? Ironic right. They are breaking the law in preventing you from having your parental rights but you get labelled the criminal for wanting to exercise them. I strongly suggest you speak direct to the source (GP, school, nursery etc) and ask them to copy you in on all correspondence. Take a copy of the court order if you have one which will show there are no restrictions in you having access to this information. I also recommend communicating by email in the first instance so that you have a paper trail and you can’t get accused of being a bully. Most of the people involved in your children’s lives have been fed the same lines about you being controlling, aggressive, abusive and unsafe. I have seen it happen time and time again when father’s go into the school to ask for up to date records for their children, they are stonewalled by people who have believed the lies which is frustrating and so they exert their rights a bit more forcefully and before you know it, you have another person and a professional backing up mum’s side of the story. Email or old fashioned snail mail is the best way to avoid this.

Everything you say, can and will be used as evidence against you This is one of the hardest truths to accept but nevertheless it is true. You are not an equal parent. The ex has successfully managed to completely distort your relationship with your children. In two ways. Firstly, she will rule by fear and so they know who to obey and who is in charge. Just as you did in the relationship. They have seen the consequences of disagreeing with her and so they go along with everything she says. This means they have to treat you with the same disrespect and contempt as she does. They don’t believe it but when you practice something enough times it becomes a habit. This leads to the second way she distorts the relationship which is by taking away any parental power you have to discipline your child. So when they are being disrespectful to you, you have every right to tell them they are not allowed to talk to you that way. You wouldn’t accept it from anyone else so why from your children. What your ex then does is illicit that criticism from the children and convince them that you are abusive because of how you spoke to them. “He used to speak to me the same way, you poor thing. What a monster he is!” It makes it almost impossible for you to parent at all. If you want to understand more about this dynamic I recommend grabbing a copy of our free ebook The Painful Truth About Narcissistic Families. However, the important thing to remember is that a parent is many things. The most important being the one person who unconditionally loves their children, no matter what they do and so even if they do disrespect you and reject you, you will always love them. And deep down they know that. It’s part of why they know they can do it. They feel secure in your love for them. So although it is painful, try to remember that your love for them and theirs for you is strong. Hold onto that, despite all that might happen.

Develop some family rules Another way to deal with the disrespect is to share the responsibility for how you want your relationship to look like with the children. Family meetings and rules decided by everyone in the family can be a really good way for you to manage behaviour. All children know right from wrong. They feel guilty when they are naughty. And being unkind to you makes them feel very uncomfortable, even if it doesn’t seem like it. Create a vision together of family life and ask them how they can contribute to it looking like that. Obviously they may exhibit some resistance to this and say things like “I wish I didn’t have to come here” or “I want to be with mum” but try to persevere. Ask them why they don’t want to come here, what could you do to help make it better.

Lashings of praise Your ex will rule with extremes – severe punishment (rage or the silent treatment) or extravagant rewards (puppies or favourite toys) which can be really powerful in getting children to do exactly what they want. I have heard a story where a mother, the day before a child was due to go to contact with their father, bought a brand new puppy. I mean who would want to leave a new puppy? Whilst this looks amazing to the child on the surface, what all children really want is love, affection and attention and narcissists simply aren’t capable of providing any of those things. You know that. You have felt the coldness. Positive reinforcement (also known as positive stokes) in the form of praise, hugs and pride is however, much more powerful. You know the look of joy on your child’s face when you tell them they have done really well and you are proud of them, and then you tell them to ring grandma and tell her. They are beaming! And children want more of that so giving lots of praise for all the good stuff you see not only boosts their self esteem but it also helps nurture your bond with your child. I do recognise that narcissists will give praise when the children do what they want and they use that to encourage them to reject you. However, narcissists are inconsistent and so children never really know where they stand with them. What pleased them one day isn’t good enough the next. Being consistent with your praise provides the child with the security they need.

Teach rather than tell You are your children’s role model. They learn from all that they see, hear and watch you do. This is probably why you ended the relationship, because you didn’t want your children to grow up thinking it was normal. You can use this to help them develop the characteristics and skills you want them to have growing up. It will also help them to manage their own relationship with the narcissist. Think about what you want for your child. Most parents want their children to be kind, happy, loved and successful. Are you all of those things? How are you able to model them? When they misbehave, show them the behaviour you want rather than point out what they have done wrong. I always remember the scene in Jaws when Brody’s son is mirroring all his actions back to him. Think about what your child is mirroring to you and vice versa.

Accept them for all that they are The reality is that your child will mirror back to you parts of your ex and this can be really hard to witness. You may find yourself retriggered and taken back to a situation with your ex. Having her there, in your house, but in a smaller version, can be very upsetting. And can have an impact on not only how you respond to your child but also how you feel about them. I have heard many parents honestly admit that sometimes, when their child reminds them of their ex, in that moment, they don’t like them. That might feel really uncomfortable but it’s quite normal and natural. Your child will take after your ex. They may even look like her. No-one expects you to just forget about all the shit they put you through. However, it is important that you learn to accept those parts of your child. Being aware when they remind you of your ex can help you to manage your feelings. And remember that your child is not your ex. My step-daughter reminded me so much of the narcissist. She had the same look sometimes and I felt my stomach go but just that awareness of that feeling was enough to pull me back into the room and stay with this innocent little girl sat in front of me who was so much more than her DNA.

Get to grips with your ex Something else it is important for you to model to your children, is how to deal with the ex. You no longer live with her so you have the space to recover but your children don’t have that opportunity except when they are with you. They are immersed in her world. The time with you is your chance to teach them the skills which got you through it. You needed resilience, self love, self control, a strong self image, support, determination and courage. When your ex tries to push your buttons, you have an opportunity to show your children how to use self control and be strong in knowing who you are and how you behave. They will learn so much from that. They are looking to you all the time for help with this. If you don’t yet feel confident in managing your ex and yourself around them, I strongly recommend getting some support to bolster up those skills.

Remove the drama Your life with the narcissist was full of drama and chaos because that is the environment the narcissist loves to create. They can control others when they are disorientated by the chaos. Now you are away from that, you can focus on creating a peaceful environment, not just for you but for the children as well. Children get carried away and lost in drama, it impacts their development, self esteem and academic achievement. On the opposite side of that, they thrive in a loving, nurturing, safe and calm environment. Take a good look at your life and your friends and family. Are they always caught up in the next drama or do they live a quiet and happy life? Remove as much of the drama as you can. It will help with your recovery and create a safe haven for your children. Like a lighthouse in the storm.

If you have to go to court, be prepared The reality is, if you have children with a narcissist you WILL have to go to court. They want to punish you and what better way that by using the children. They will start by gatekeeping the contact, dictating the rules as to when and where you can see them. They will begin to cut you out of all areas of their lives: school, after school clubs, your family. Finally they will manipulate the children to reject you (check out our comprehensive guide to How Parental Alienation Is Hurting Your Children to find out more about how this happens). It means if you want a relationship with your child, you have to go through Family Court which can perpetuate the abuse. Every man and his dog will be drawn into the drama, claiming they saw you do x, y and z. Lies will become facts and those trained to protect children, will assist your ex is abusing them. Narcissists love court because they have developed a false self designed to dupe and manipulate others. They love the performance in the court arena. You on the other hand just want to get on with your life and have a loving relationship with your children. Claims of domestic abuse will appear and they will be granted legal aid so that they can use as many delay tactics as they like to keep up this charade. All in the hope of wearing you down so you just disappear. The fact they get to slander your character and destroy you in the process is a bonus to them. Going to court against a narcissist isn’t about the law or the facts. It is about who is best at telling the story and being believed. Now I am not for one second suggesting you become an Oscar winning actor. But it is important you learn how to put in your best performance. Which is why we developed our Get Court Ready course, designed to give you all the skills, tools and mindset to win this battle.

Recognise you may have PTSD A relationship with a narcissist is traumatic and stressful and when you have been exposed to it for a lengthy period of time, you can develop PTSD (and complex PTSD). Symptoms of PTSD are:

regularly reliving painful memories, to the extent that you feel as if you are going through it again

losing all confidence in yourself and are finding it difficult to adapt to different and new situations

developing a chronic illness, anxiety or depression following your relationship with a narcissist

feeling numb and unsure of who you really are avoiding people and situations

PTSD can impact your relationship with those you love, including your children and leave you vulnerable to being retriggered by your ex. Check out our guide to All You Need To Know About PTSD After Narcissistic Abuse.

Female narcissists are dangerous and highly abusive. Like their male counterparts, they take no prisoners and are hell bent on destroying you. If they have to take down others, including their own children, so be it. As far as they are concerned the end justifies the means. Everyone is collateral damage for them retaining their public persona.

It’s important we speak out about this. Men can be victims and women can be abusers. Awareness is paramount is helping our children to recover and not repeat these cycles.

If you have experienced abuse at the hands of a narcissist and feel comfortable, please do share your thoughts. Or maybe you know someone who is a female narcissist. Is what I have said accurate in your opinion? Get involved.

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