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theparanormalperiodical · 3 years

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The Real Story Behind Insidious (2010) And The 5 WEIRDEST Stories Of Astral Projection You Need To Know About feat. The Cold War

It's one of those horror films that just gets it right.

Yes, it wears all the trademarks of overworked tropes, and sure, it has yet to shed its transphobic skin. But the beast that emerged from James Wan's mind and slithered onto the cinema screen recaptured timeless traditions with a new sense of terror.

And yet somehow the rosy cheeks of the Lipstick-Faced Demon gleaming in his various jump scares aren't the scariest thing about this film.

You see, most of the horror movies that manage to scar me for life are allegedly based on real stories - James Wan (who also directed The Conjuring franchise) is no stranger to fleshing out his dark ideas with even more twisted truths. So it was only recently when I discovered how accurate Insidious (2010) was to real paranormal phenomena that young Dalton's venture into the Further became far more terrifying.

And I need to tell someone about it. From the supernatural to the Soviet Union, Insidious is grounded in far more than rumours of a haunted house.

Insidious is based on real historic events and real experiences.

The first installment of one of horror’s most famous franchises, Insidious is already celebrating its 10th birthday. In fact, that’s how old Dalton was when he fell into a mysterious coma - and then stumbled into purgatory.

Instead of having anxiety dreams about not studying for the french exam like the rest of us, Dalton is falling asleep, separating his soul from his body, and having a gander ‘round an astral realm (like heaven or hell) called The Further. The Further is crammed full of dead people and they all want to possess the fresh young body that basically walked into the wrong room.

The first 2 films follow Dalton and his family as they navigate the all-American struggle of being followed by endless paranormal activity and various family members being stuck in purgatory.

After strange occurrences follow the family from house-to-house (which only seems to extend as far as hot-topic-goth-demons standing by the beds of Dalton and his younger siblings) a local psychic is summoned to figure out what in the f*ck is going on. Elise uses her spidey senses to determine that yep, there’s a demon and no, the house isn’t haunted.

It’s the boy, it’s Dalton.

It then turns out that this ability is hereditary (*piano wire flashback*) and comes from Dalton’s father. Josh actually worked with Elise when he was a kid after his astral projecting resulted in a ‘parasitic spirit’ of an old woman following him the afterlife. Elise therefore sends Daddy-O into The Further to fetch Dalton and bring him home.

Daddy-O does the job, and Dalton returns to his body safely and wakes up. But Daddy-O ain’t Daddy-O. Josh’s body has been possessed by the female spirit that stalks him and his soul is stuck back in The Further. The next film follows up on this plot twist and deepens our exploration into the capabilities of astral projection - namely the potential for time travel. But Insidious 2: Papa Don’t Preach mainly revolves around the backstory of the female spirit that possesses Josh.

[INSERT TRANSPHOBIA]

I’ve already dissected what Hollywood Horror gets wrong with transphobia. But I’ve yet to tumble into the world of astral projection - a world full of proof of the paranormal and political chaos, too. Dalton and his daddy issues are only the tip of the iceberg.

What Is Astral Projection?

Astral projection is an intentional out of body experience and is practised by those that follow esotericism (a religion which combines loads of different Western religious ideas) but it is present in many different belief systems. During projection the soul separates from the physical body.

The soul, or the astral body, is a body of light that links the rational soul to the physical body and is considered to be a silvery spine-like ‘cord’. The astral body travels to different astral planes which can be populated by all types of entities including angels, demons, and dead people. The Further represents one of these astral planes.

Each culture and each religion has a different take on projection, for example the Japanese believe those who are ill or comatose - like dear Dalton - are more prone to astral projection.

In Insidious we also see astral projection take a number of forms: there’s obviously the travel to different planes like The Further, but we see time travel, too. This chimes in with the different schools of thought regarding astral travel.

The history of this practice dates back to the Roman Empire, but only in the 18th century did discussion of astral projection take place when Emanuel Swedenborg wrote about his own out of body experiences. Interest in projection increased throughout the 20th century with many notable historic figures claiming they’ve ventured into other realms including noted American activist Helen Keller (she claimed she astral projected to Athens):

"I have been far away all this time, and I haven't left the room...It was clear to me that it was because I was a spirit that I had so vividly 'seen' and felt a place a thousand miles away. Space was nothing to spirit!"

Aside from being practised by historic figures, it took centre stage in a historic era, too. It was during the Cold War that the study and practice of projection took off and it became a political weapon. Beyond the cultural war, however, was a plethora of evidence suggesting the events we see in Insidious might be all too real.

The Soviet Union & The Supernatural

Unclassified CIA documents are a staple amongst paranormal enthusiasts, especially those who have a habit of following mysterious lights in the sky. A top secret memo from 1974, proposed an experiment where Patrick Price, a former police officer, would use astral projection to gain information regarding a Soviet installation in the Ural Mountains. They wanted entry and exit points, they wanted floor plans, and they wanted operations details. This was a covert operation that used paranormal capabilities already being tested and trialled by their communist rivals.

In the 1970s the Cold War took a different turn: thanks to Soviet research into ordinary people’s supernatural abilities including astral projection, American intelligence agencies sought to do the same. Just as the atomic bomb was being built, scientists Seymon and Valentina Kirlian were developing technology that could capture one’s aura in a photograph. They were investigating energy fields, trying to mentally influence animal behaviour, and practicing telepathic communication.

Yogis and masters of ancient magic were even brought in in an attempt to harness the potential of paranormal forces.

“the major impetus behind the Soviet drive to harness the possible capabilities of telepathic communication, telekinetics, and bionics is said to come from the Soviet military and the KGB”

A Defense Intelligence Agency report

Throughout the 1960s a surge in parapsychological research centres took place as ordered by a Kremlin edict. As per the Cold War, the US swiftly did the same.

But it was when the US caught wind experiments using bioplasma they grew concerned. Bioplasmic connectors to human beings echoed claims of the silver cord which - as mentioned previously - was a key part of astral projection.

A Soviet agent could travel across realms, eras, and countries in spirit-form and be going through American filing cabinets. The Americans needed to make astral projection a weapon of their own. Dr Eugene Bernard was one of the many doctors who would pioneer research into projection and sought people willing to travel to these distant realms.

Bernard was quickly caught up with the Soviet-supernatural-situ which included theories of an army of psychic spies.

Soon dozens of recruits would practice astral projection and recount their experiences including a woman called Beverly Chalker: she travelled in spirit from Dallas to a house in New Jersey and described in detail the things she saw. She saw a man asleep with a book on the floor, describing his pyjamas and the decor of the room. The team investigating her astral projection verified her claims.

She was right.

Similar stories soon leaked to the public and many ordinary Americans began to try their hand at exploring spiritual realms. Books, articles, and even a set of infamous tapes released in 1973 claimed to reveal how one could separate their soul from their body.

It used a rhythmic ticking noise to hypnotise those seeking new paranormal abilities - something we hear throughout Insidious. The tapes would be used by one Robert Antoszczyk, an infamous practitioner of projection who would mysteriously die in during a session. 6 weeks later, Patrick Price died, too. We will talk about Antoszczyk later.

Even security in the White House was allegedly amped up over reports the Russians were looking into giving their astral soldiers physical strength so they could become assassins. Interest in projection soon grew out of control, and by the 1980s the surge in serial killers was pinned on a vast number of them practicing it in prison.

(Many followed a range of extremist religious beliefs - practicing astral projection doesn’t make you a serial killer.)

Concerns also claimed some projectors could become ‘zombies’ if the soul got lost, just like Dalton was in Insidious. In fact, one practitioner demarcated several zones of astral travel with Zone C being the limbo where souls were trapped. According to some, The Further was real.

And Robert Antoszczyk was stuck there.

5 Craziest Stories & Accounts Of Astral Projection

#1 - Robert Antoszczyk

Antoszczyk was one of the many Americans swept by the incoming tide of astral projection. He had been taught the practice by a yogi whilst in India, but unlike many other Americans who tumbled into amateur projection, he delved in head-first.

He then began to have dreams about a beautiful woman. Her exotic looks and compelling voice was calling to him from a different realm and he wanted to follow it.

On the 1st of June 1975, he told his roommate not to disturb him. He went into his bedroom, locked the door, and followed the method of astral projection as explained by those tapes released in 1973.

3 days passed. His roommate grew concerned. He broke down the door to discover that Robert was dead. His seemingly healthy roommate was lying on his bed and smiling. There was no signs of a struggle or a seizure or any other cause of death.

Medical experts could offer no answer as to how he died. A local astrologer, however, claimed the answer was obvious: he simply decided not to return to his body. His death would be blamed on his astral projection and it would make headlines across the states.

But some alleged that he was not fully at fault - he was drawn in by a beautiful female entity that would call out to many others with her enticing voice. The descriptions of the woman all related to Ammut, an ancient Egyptian female demonness. And according to the Ancient Egyptians, she existed in astral planes and consumed souls of those she came across.

Laverne Landis heard the same voice. It might have killed her, too.

#2 - Laverne Landis

This mother of five was found dead in the woods in Minnesota by a construction worker in winter of 1982. She wasn’t a typical recruit for projection as a nurse working at a local hospital - but she had started hearing a voice.

The voice was from an astral spirit that promised her the power to heal the sick. So she quit her job, abandoned her children, and drove for 6 months with the voice of Ammut as her guide.

The voice grew stronger and she felt the voice vibrating in the wilderness around her. Her psychic group warned her against astral projection, claiming she might get stuck in limbo. She ignored them, and Landis and her boyfriend followed the voice to Loon Lake on a long trail road through the wilderness.

“We’ve got to stay here. They’re going to be in. I know it, I can feel it, they’re almost here.”

After Laverne passed away, probably from starvation or hypothermia, her boyfriend pulled himself through the snow and alerted a local.

Landis also reportedly was very interest in UFOs and was part of a UFO ‘cult’, and might have also gone to the woods to wait for a flying saucer to land. Either way, she was waiting for something out of this world.

#3 - Seton High School

In 1975 an entire class of students in a prep school in Cincinnati attempted astral projection. They were led in an experiment from which they would ‘travel’ home, report back what they saw, and phone calls home would prove travel via spirit was real.

(Unfortunately, this is all I can uncover on this case, but it is still creepy AF.)

#4 - Robert Monroe

Robert Monroe was obsessed with astral projection. He had often practiced it during the 1970s, even becoming angry seeing a man sleeping next to his wife in bed - before realising it was him. He subjected himself to examination at a local hospital by a psychiatrist.

They verified his astral projection put him into a comatose state rather than a sleeping state.

Monroe then spent a huge fortune on an institute in Virginia to specialise in research into projection featuring an isolation chamber to provide optimal circumstances for projection. And on one occasion he even felt a ‘trunk’ in his back during projection, something he believes was the silver cord.

The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command investigated his techniques and used his claims to inform their desire to create an army of astral projectors.

#5 - Cadell Jeansen Raja

What do Charles Manson, Herbert Mullin, and David Berkowitz have in common? Yes, they are some of America’s most infamous serial killers. But they also all studied astral projection with a desire to harness paranormal abilities they believed would provide new tools to accompany their horrific acts.

(I don’t often make mention of serial killers on this blog, but the perplexing and evil acts committed by Cadell Jeansen Raja should be mentioned.)

In 2017, Raja killed each member of his family over several days. He constantly changed the motive for murder to mislead the police, but later admitted he harboured anger against his successful family members and was obsessed by the occult.

He experimented with the separation of the soul from the body and was living in a ‘virtual world’. He then claimed his family members were killed during their own astral projection.

***

Would you dare venture into The Further?

Let me know in a comment below!

Make sure you also like and reblog this post and then hit follow to read a new article on the paranormal every weekend.

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mma3youf · 3 years

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FA222 ,principles of graphic design:

Instructor: mr.munwar mukhtar

@uob-funoon @mnwrzmn

Project 1 : design

Covering up the Cracks: The Return of Wallpaper

How artists from Édouard Vuillard to Dorothea Tanning and Kehinde Wiley used wallpaper in their work

Forget fragrant roses and honeysuckle. Forget soft-throated songbirds and sunflowers. I always see spiders in wallpaper. My eyes trace the patterns, searching them out, those crooked arachnids. The mere hint of one turns my stomach. Look: there’s one! Tarantula-black, wriggling through that ivy-blossom, crouching behind those camellias. See its distended abdomen, those unwieldy legs?

What this says about me, I don’t want to know, but spiders also spring to mind whenever I think of a certain painting by Édouard Vuillard. Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist (1893) is a most peculiar work, wrought with invisible tensions. The manner in which Vuillard configures his mother and sister hints at a curious dynamic, one more commonly imagined between a spider and a fly. Here is Madame Vuillard, a throbbing black presence, legs set wide apart, hands placed defiantly on her knees in as dominant and sinister a pose as she can muster. To the left, Vuillard’s sister, Marie (or Mimi as she was known within the family), looks as if she is being engulfed by the wallpaper. Or is she already trapped? Can you hear the frantic buzzing as she struggles to escape? It’s almost unbearable. Marie is ensnared; it’s as if Madame Vuillard has forced her into a web. The awkward angle at which Vuillard composes his picture fosters this tension. Somehow, the artist seems to suggest, maman is driving her daughter into dangerous territory.

Or is she? Is Vuillard really attempting to convey that his mother is pushing his sister not only to the limits of physical space, but also of sanity? Although the narrative is not explicit, Vuillard painted several similar portraits of his mother and sister that imply domestic disharmony. In The Door Ajar (1891), for example, Marie appears alone, this time peering into a room as if she wants simultaneously to enter and retreat. Marie’s dress and the wallpaper are barely distinguishable from one another: the maggoty yellow pattern of the latter insidiously overlaps with the strange crescent moons of the former to suggest … what exactly? Is Marie, once again, being pushed in to the web of the wallpaper? Or is something else at play? Could Vuillard be trying to capture some deep-seated predisposition in his sister? Perhaps, psychologically speaking, Marie wants to entwine herself with the background of life. As in Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, rather than being pushed out of the room by maman, Marie is perhaps choosing to contort her body so as to escape? Whatever the case, for Vuillard, wallpaper is never simply decorative. Loaded with narratives, in the artist’s hands it becomes a metaphor for the divide between physical and psychological space, between inner and outer realities.

A little less than 100 years after Vuillard completed Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, a young woman on the east coast of America took a series of photographs, ‘Space2, Providence, Rhode Island’ (1976–77), one of which could stand as a companion piece to his painting. An eerie connection exists between the two works, a conversation of sorts across the decades. Here is the image of another young woman who appears to want to escape and who uses wallpaper as the means by which to do so. Unlike Marie, however, who is the subject of her brother’s narrative, the woman in this photograph is most definitely the author of her own disappearance. Using strips of paper to cover her face, breasts and legs, Francesca Woodman attempts to take herself out of the photographs she so carefully constructs. Like wallpaper itself, with its repeating patterns and shapes, the desire to remove herself from the picture occurs throughout Woodman’s work.

In other self-portraits, Woodman crouches beneath a tilted door, disappears through a wall, merges with mirrors, windows and fireplaces. She is a ghost light, a will-’o-the-wisp, a haze and a blur; present only in her absence, a non sequitur made physical. Indeed, looking every bit like Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), with her long blonde hair, floor-length skirts and black pumps, Woodman seems desperate to slip beyond the here and now, to use every available surface in order to vanish – not into Wonderland, but towards some other dimension. Ironically, much like the Cheshire Cat whose smile lingers long after the rest of his body has disappeared, by highlighting herself in the act of vanishing, Woodman’s spectral presence grows ever more compelling. Who is this beguiling figure dedicated to both evading and haunting? The answer is never clear. In fact, the nearest we come to it might be the manner of the photographer’s death. In 1981, at the age of 22, Woodman took her own life by jumping out of a window.

Appearance and disappearance. Repeating patterns and shapes. Integration and disintegration. A year before Vuillard completed Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, a novel was published in America that foreshadowed it. The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman takes as its subject the agonizing mental decline of an unnamed narrator who has just given birth. Confined by her husband to an upstairs nursery with bars at the window, the woman is advised to empty her mind and do nothing but rest. Instead, she begins to tell us about her predicament. Having been deprived of any mental stimulation, she begins to believe she has seen glimpses of a woman trapped behind the room’s sickly yellow wallpaper. As a metaphor for the morbidly restrictive society into which 19th-century, middle-class women were born, The Yellow Wallpaper is highly effective; on a psychological level, it is unsurpassed. As with the walls in Vuillard’s painting, the paper crawls with meaning; the narrator projects her fears onto its ‘bloated curves and flourishes’, its ‘sprawling flamboyant patterns’ and ‘wallowing seaweeds’ until, finally, they take on a life of their own and begin to seep through the paper in the shape of a deranged ‘other’. The wallpaper, in other words, has become a reproduction of what is playing out in the narrator’s misshapen psyche.

It is hard to think of Gilman’s work without being reminded of that doyen of the 19th-century British arts and crafts movement, William Morris. The intricate wallpapers and textile designs he created for Victorian homes could easily have graced the room in which Gilman’s narrator was incarcerated. This made American artist Kehinde Wiley’s first UK museum solo show, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, at William Morris Gallery in London earlier this year more than a little intriguing. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper is something that has haunted me for years,’ Wiley says of the novella in a short film about the making of this work. ‘The idea of being in a room and not being taken seriously.’ This is not something that can be said of the six black women and two children Wiley met on the streets of east London, whose strikingly beautiful portraits filled the exhibition. Whether sitting or standing, whether their faces turn away or directly look out, each sitter is centre stage. More than that, each is engaged in a serious dialogue with the background patterns from which they emerge. These patterns are based on Morris’s own wallpaper designs that would have papered the walls of mansions inhabited by, among others, former slave-traders and plantation owners. In doing so, Wiley’s work plays on the conflict between the sinister history embedded in the prettiest detailing and the self-possessed women who emerge from the patterns, who seem to defy anyone to repeat it.

Lindsey Mendick, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, 2020, installation detail, Eastside Projects,Birmingham. Courtesy: the artist and Eastside Projects; photograph: Stuart Whipps

Coincidentally, artist and sculptor Lindsey Mendick’s exhibition at Eastside Projects in Birmingham earlier this year was also titled ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. Featuring untitled videos, ceramics and miniatures, the show pivots on a disturbing episode in the artist’s life when, during a nervous breakdown in 2006, Mendick glanced from her bedroom window to see six men dressed in black, walking up and down the street speaking into walkie-talkies. Mendick related the incident to her mother who, given her daughter’s vulnerable state of mind, found the story difficult to believe. A few days later, however, news broke that the former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, had been poisoned; he was Mendick’s neighbour.

Unlike Gilman’s narrator, what Mendick had seen was real; however, in her exhibition she, too, played with the idea of wallpaper as a borderland between sanity and insanity. The show also included other domestic items as receptacles into or onto which all that was unendurable could be projected. A large teapot (with a hole in one side through which you could view the vessel’s interior) contained two small ceramic figures taking tea from a large teapot containing two ceramic figures taking tea from a teapot, in what felt like a claustrophobic dance to the death. Nor did the claustrophobia end there, for all the pieces in the small, over-lit gallery spoke of other confined and confining spaces – from the hollowed-out, ceramic head of Russian President Vladimir Putin, inside which the figure of a distraught woman (Mendick herself?) sits on a toilet within a cramped bathroom, to a 1960s-style bedside cabinet inside which reside Mendick’s family members, configured weirdly as Russian dolls. But, of all the dialogues taking place inside this room, the loudest is also the most hallucinatory: the one inside my own head between Gilman and Mendick. What is it they are saying? That yellow is an unfortunate colour with which to decorate a room? That the divide between sanity and insanity is paper-thin? Or that even the most innocuous of objects can pulsate with the unconscious?

This is a sentiment with which the surrealist artist, sculptor and writer Dorothea Tanning would surely have agreed. Writing in the catalogue for her 1979 exhibition at New York’s Gimpel-Wietzenhoffer Gallery, she declared of her hometown of Galesburg, in rural Illinois, that ‘nothing happened but the wallpaper’. Tanning’s Chambre 202, Hôtel du Pavot (1970–73) is a three-dimensional, life-sized room in which two grubby pink torsos, shaped as if carved from ham, poke through the dingy wallpaper while the chimney breast gives birth to three further mutations – although whether these are animal, vegetable or some other tumorous mash-up, it is impossible to say. The work was partly inspired by a song Tanning recalled from her childhood: ‘In Room 202’ (1919) composed by Dave Harris with lyrics by Edgar Leslie and Bert Kalmar, tells the story of Kitty Kane, a gangster’s moll who poisoned herself while staying at a hotel in Chicago.

In room two hundred and two The walls keep talkin’ to you I’ll never tell you what they said So turn out the light and come to bed.

But if the song suggests talking walls, Tanning pushes this idea to its very edge, wishing to create a space in which the wallpaper, as she once explained, would ‘tear with screams’ while maintaining ‘an odd banality’. The latter is captured by the dreary ordinariness of the installation’s wallpaper while the former is contained in the hotel’s name: pavot is French for poppy, the flower from which opium is derived. By conflating these disparate ideas, Tanning succeeds in heightening the room’s creepiness; this in turn precipitates a sense of impending doom. What springs to mind is a back-street abortionist’s or the lair of a serial killer such as John Christie who, over several months in the early 1950s, murdered (among others) Kathleen Maloney, Rita Nelson and Hectorina MacLennan, hiding their bodies in a kitchen alcove, which he subsequently wallpapered over as if it were a solid wall. The women’s bodies were only discovered after Christie moved out of the house and his landlord, wanting to redecorate, tapped on what he thought was the rear wall to the kitchen only to discover it was hollow. As Ludovic Kennedy wrote in Ten Rillington Place (1961), the landlord then ‘pulled away a small piece of paper and shone his torch inside. Whatever he expected to see, it could hardly have been what he did see: the naked seated body of Hectorina MacLennan.’ You can almost envisage the landlord stumbling backwards in horror, just as the chambermaid might have done when she pushed open the door to Chambre 202. This is a room that distils much of what the work of Mendick, Vuillard, Wiley and Woodman makes clear: that wallpaper does not so much cover the cracks, as serve to reveal them.

Main image: Lindsey Mendick, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, 2020, installation view, Eastside Projects, Birmingham. Courtesy: the artist and Eastside Projects; photograph: Stuart Whipps

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lohvur · 4 years

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Identifying as nonbinary & having people use my preferred pronouns, my new male name, etc, felt great. Truly affirming, in the same way as choosing a nickname as a child & convincing people to use it - that one line in Lady Bird, where Christine says “call me Lady Bird like you said you would!”, that was the feeling. I came out to my mum, I was going to change my name - my mum said to me, please don’t take hormones, it’s really not good for you. I didn’t have the intention of doing so, but I wonder now, if I’d have been around groups of people affirming me earlier... would I have considered a trans man identity?

I have obsessive compulsive disorder, so the idea that I technically could be a man trapped in a woman’s body was a very real, worrying, persistent thought. I didn’t want to be a trans man, I didn’t experience dysphoria in that way & I liked being a lesbian (though the fact many in trans spaces online said dysphoria was no longer a necessity...). Gender ideology’s false narrative of being “born in the wrong body” was really damaging for me personally, & I imagine it is for many with mental health issues. I remember going onto an OCD forum & seeing a teenage gay boy say he had the persistent obsession - what if I’m a trans girl?

He was told by a well-meaning adult that potentially he was just worrying about this because of his sexual orientation - amazingly, this adult who likely had no clue of the modern discourse in trans activist circles hit the nail right on the head. I begun to not want to think about the fact I was a lesbian, worrying any soul-searching in that area would lead to me realising I was in fact a straight trans man, leading women on & lying to myself. This thought disgusted me, that I could be lying or abusing lesbians somehow. I chose a male name & thought a lot about wanting to be perceived as a man. I didn’t claim the femme lesbian identity at this time, but if I'd have been butch instead, I’m sure this would have been a lot worse.

Honestly, I felt as though at least I’d be able to hopefully escape womanhood online, if nowhere else. On loads of online games, especially ones with chats when I was younger, I’d always have a username with a male-sounding nickname. I was treated so much better & I loved when people mistook me for a guy.

I constantly felt pulled between wanting to be a lesbian & understanding I was, with this worry that everything I did or felt just confirmed I actually wasn’t. It made me so unhappy, & I can’t help but wonder how many people like me did start to identify as trans men after id’ing as nonbinary for a time & finding it so freeing. I know ‘nonbinary’ is mostly a laughable point in rad feminism, but I think we need to talk more about how this can really plant a seed in a kid’s head about their body & identity that can lead to a lot more dysphoria than they may have experienced otherwise. Nothing helped alienate me from my body, my femaleness, or my gayness more than gender ideology’s expanding its reach through terms like nonbinary/bigender/genderqueer, & I wonder how often these identities are simply test runs or stepping stones for medical intervention.

I’m just venting, but it does feel so insidious to me now... they really tell young kids, if you feel alienated from your body or sex, at all, you may be nonbinary, & if you then feel comfy in that, try a few of these different pronouns, oh & remember you don’t need dysphoria to be a binary trans person either so if it really works for you, then... \\: & of course it works. You tell a teen that adults will have to validate your play at make believe & they/them pronouns & of course a kid loves it! & it’s so often gay & mentally ill kids, like I was, but they don’t care. If I’d come out as a trans man everyone I knew in my online circles at the time would have been thrilled. Much more so than if I’d have just been a plain old lesbian.

#I've been thinking about this time a lot lately #idk I just hate mainstream trans activism it's so damaging #radfem #radical feminism #rad feminism #terf #tra #trans activism #nonbinary #terfs please touch #terfs please interact #gender critical #gender ideology #genderism #love.txt #trans rights activism #trans rights activists

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lonelyopinions · 3 years

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A Story of Healing, Forgiveness, Adversity, Wisdom, and Improvement

This is the story of a young man who needed to find where he belonged. A man who felt out of place everywhere he was until he realized what his life was missing. He had to reinvent himself several times before he got it right, but he eventually *did* find his peace. His story is as true as it needs to be for others to benefit and learn from his experience.

It’s also the story, to one degree or another, of everyone who has found themselves in a similar situation.

I hope this helps all of them. Hold on. Things will work out for you.

His name is not important. What his story can teach others is.

Although he did not at first realize it, he was born into a broken and abusive household. His parents never really meant to harm him -- but, as is so often the case, well-intentioned people often hurt the ones closest to them not out of malice, but simply because they are flawed. His mother, to be precise, was the product of a severely abusive home, herself. She also had had a major head injury and, probably, a variety of mental illnesses. Thus, although quite clearly very well-intentioned, his mother often was an extremely anxious, alarmist, and controlling woman. After the young man had become more mature, he would realize that his mother’s behavior was caused not by her being evil, but simply by the fact that she had been quite damaged.

Her husband, the young man’s father, was almost completely dominated by his mother. This was not because the young man’s father lacked a spine or courage or sense (in later years, the man would recognize that his father had all of these virtues and many more in abundance), but rather because his father was not terribly wealthy, and his mother, for the most part, owned most of his family’s money. Throughout their troubled and often horrid marriage, the young man’s parents were constantly fighting, mostly about money. Beyond that, though, his mother was actually fighting for stability and control -- something that, for a person with serious mental health issues, was ultimately very important.

This domination by his mother led to some very unhealthy dynamics in his household.

The young man had an elder brother and a younger sister.

His brother went on to become very ambitious, headstrong, tough, and dedicated. Despite this, his brother had some serious flaws. Perhaps because of this brother’s good qualities, his brother was also often very judgmental, arrogant, and, on occasion, cruel. The young man had, through the stupidities and insecurities of youth, done serious harm to this brother on occasion, and he and this brother fought often and bitterly. Although there was often intense hostility and sibling rivalry between the young man and this brother, this brother would also go on to do quite well, eventually being accepted into a prestigious college after a superb high school career. When he thought back on his early life, the young man would later realize that his brother’s toughness and drive probably came from the severe adversity his brother had had to go through in the absence of caring and attentive parents. The young man would thus eventually come to view his brother with a combination of respect and admiration, and would beg forgiveness from this brother.

The young man’s younger sister did not have the elder brother’s drive and ambition, but had also gone on to make a life for himself. The young man was glad that his siblings had made lives for themselves.

The young man’s own life turned out to be far more troubled.

Although there was never much point in rebelling against the authority and power of his two parents, the young man would spend most of his adolescence fighting a hopeless battle against their unfair rules and restrictions. Not only were these rules and restrictions damaging and dangerous, but they were also so extremely unfair.

Even as a youth, the young man knew that rebellion was ultimately futile. His parents simply had all the power and money, and he had no legal right to insist that they behave fairly or to request that they justify their behavior. Still, he rebelled anyway, if only because his parents’ behavior was so outrageous that it almost demanded rebellion. In the end, he defied his parents simply because not doing so would have made him submissive psychologically.

Perhaps because of this, the young man had a very troubled adolescence. He would often skip classes, run away from home for significant periods of time, and neglect his homework. He was also diagnosed with clinical depression around age 15, and his life at home quickly deteriorated into chaos. As his behavior and mental health declined, his mother’s behavior became more and more histrionic, intense, controlling, domineering, and bullying. These problems led him to do very poorly in school, and he would spend the later years of his adolescence just surviving one crisis or another. Although he would eventually graduate from high school, his performance had been very mediocre, and he had lost a lot of potential to these problems.

Due to these and related issues, the young man would spend most of this adolescence and 20′s simply coasting through life, jumping from one menial job to the next while taking a very light load of college courses. Far too much of his life was spent “just getting by”, without a clear idea of what a meaningful or happy life would be like or a clear idea of how to create such a life.

As it turned out, in addition to his troubled childhood, the young man also had another, insidious problem that prevented him from gaining a strong sense of meaning or purpose from any particular career path or area of study.

Perhaps because of his unusually troubled childhood and life, the young man had, very unfortunately and unwisely, become a “deep thinker”. Although he recognized that this had certain great advantages in helping him think clearly and carefully, he also had a certain odd indifference and apathy towards many of the things his peers and friends found interesting. It wasn’t that he could claim that the things his peers wanted in life were bad -- they just were missing something. It wasn't as though status, money, sex, fun, and prestige were bad -- it was just that the young man was searching for something else.

This would cause the young man a great degree of trouble during his adolescence and early adulthood. Not only would he never feel a strong attraction to any particular area of study, but he would often avoid socializing and interacting with his peers due to this odd feeling that something was profoundly missing from these social events.

It was due to this and similar problems that the young man would ultimately waste his 20's. Before he knew it, he was on the cusp of his 32nd birthday, with few accomplishments to show for it and very few interests. The man often wondered why he was so indifferent toward most of the world and the people and things in it. His life had become a pathetic, apathetic, grey shell of an existence. Would this be the rest of his life, drifting aimlessly from one distraction to the next without any real profound sense of meaning or direction? He hoped not, and because there was still hope that this would not always be the case, he continued surviving -- but never living. In a fit of desperation, he turned toward contemplation of his problems and philosophy as both a consolation and a self-diagnosis.

And that's when it happened. He suddenly had an epiphany. That's when everything changed.

He realized in a sudden flash of insight what his life had been missing. Finally, after so many years of aimless searching, he had his answers. Things finally made sense.

He had been contemplating the many problems he had gone through in his life when it struck him. Without quite knowing what had prompted him to this realization, he slowly came to a conclusion about what his life had been missing -- the something missing that he had never found.

It was simply faith in humanity.

This point needs to be clarified. For most of his life, the young man had been a die-hard pessimist. This was not because he considered pessimism to be edgy or intellectual or cool, but rather because so much of what others deemed so deserving of worship was, ultimately, not what they thought it was. For some people in the young man's life, they had preached the value of their religious beliefs and devotion to God. For others, patriotism and nationalism were their bedrock. Still others simply tried to live as happy and pleasurable a life as possible, thinking these goals were the main reasons for the majority of human civilization and progress. And yet others claimed that he should help his fellow man.

But the young man had seen through each of these. When it came to religion, the young man felt he had very strong reasons to be an atheist. When it came to patriotism, he knew that, while serving other individual people might be worthwhile, his country had done horrible things in the name of national pride, prestige, and power. And, oddly enough, even living life for the pleasure and happiness that one could get from it rang hollow. Happiness, he had realized, was not a result of pleasurable, exciting, or comfortable surroundings. Happiness, instead, was a byproduct of living a good life that one was content with. Perhaps some people could live life happily with only creature comforts, fun, and hedonistic pleasures. However, the young man and most of the human race required something more -- a sense of meaning. He realized that all the luxury, fun, and free time in the world would not satisfy him. At least, not by themselves.

It was service to humanity that appealed to the young man the most -- but eventually it, too, was promptly dismissed. The young man had, once upon a time, been idealistic. He had earnestly believed that the world could be saved -- if only enough people combine their efforts behind a common cause and work toward furthering that cause.

Pessimism and experience would eventually leave the young man disillusioned from this dream. Although many people in the world had shown him the potential for good in human behavior, it had always seemed to him that humanity's potential for immorality was far greater. Furthermore, when people were charitable or generous toward strangers, it was often due to an underlying assumption that the stranger was, in general, someone fundamentally good and worth helping – which, the young man reflected, was not necessarily true, by many people’s standards of the word “good”. Add to this the fact that people had a right to their own opinions and very frequently chose to believe senseless or irrational things or make senseless or irrational choices. Bettering the world was, the young man reflected, a very hard thing to do on any notable scale.

However, in a sudden moment of clarity, the young man saw the flaw in his previous beliefs. Although large scale change might be too hard of a thing to hope for (large scale changes were usually caused by large numbers of people mobilizing), the young man saw a quite different and far more reliable and compelling reason for morality. On the level of individuals¸ a great deal of good could be done. As the young man thought about this more and more, he realized that his biggest regrets in life were the times where he had hurt others out of his own insecurities, and that the proudest moments of his life were the instances where he had encouraged or helped others. Helping other individuals on a day-by-day basis, the young man realized, was worth the effort. For some strange reason, the young man had gotten the foolish and pessimistic idea into his head that only large scale changes in humanity mattered – that, since society at large wasn’t going anywhere, it was ultimately pointless to try to change things.

Now, though, the young man saw the error of his ways. He had a new purpose in life, and a new reason to be the best person he could be, and it had nothing to do with believing that human beings were all God’s special snowflakes, or with denying the hard truths of this world. Going forward, the young man would pay attention to the good that could be done in the world, from the daily decencies and kindnesses toward the people in his life, to the small acts of humanity and generosity he could accomplish. He felt, for the first time in a long time, like he was moving forward and like he had a purpose worth working toward and fighting for.

It was true that he had lost a lot of time.

But he would catch up, he realized.

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monstersdownthepath · 4 years

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Theme Finale: Isph-Aun-Vuln

CR 25

Chaotic Evil Medium Outsider

Pathfinder Bestiary 6, pg. 234~235

The smallest of all Qlippoth Lords by an enormous amount, one could almost mistake Miss Aun-Vuln here for the lesser Nyogoth Qlippoth given their similar shape, size, and appearance. This suits her just fine, as she is the most subtle and controlling of all Qlippoth Lords... And, to a party of adventurers, the most dangerous.

It’s difficult to exaggerate the power packed inside this writhing beach ball, but how about we begin with the fact that her sole natural attack--a bite which resolves as a touch attack--deals a flat 150 damage every single time it connects? Pretty bonkers, right? So insane that victims also take 1d6 Wisdom drain on top of that! Don’t worry, though, because you CAN make a save to reduce the damage. A DC 33 Fortitude save means you take only 1 point of Wisdom drain and a mere 20d6 points of damage! Much easier to take! And now I will alleviate your fears in one fell swoop by informing you that this is negative energy damage, and thus entirely blocked by Death Ward, or by being a Construct or Undead. Death Ward and undeath won’t protect you from the Wisdom drain, but miss Aun-Vuln likely won’t waste her time bothering with biting for just Wisdom drain when the rest of her kit is so potent.

Now, granted, I called Isph subtle, and that’s what she’s all about. She has Greater Object Possession, Charm Monster, and Greater Command at will to turn allies against one another or meld herself into the terrain features to grant herself a fighting body. With Greater Possession 3/day to assume direct control of her most threatening enemy, a battle against her plays somewhat similar to a fight with Mammon, Archdevil of Greed, with whom she also shares incorporeality and the power to grant herself a Wish 1/day. Where she exceeds the Archdevil, however, is in just how damn good she is at weaseling her way into someone’s body; her Insidious Possession ability automatically dispels any protective enchantments on her target, be it a creature or an object, allowing her free entry. In addition, anyone possessed by Isph for any length of time is cursed with an eternal -4 penalty to saves against mind-affecting effects generated by any qlippoth.

With Dominate Monster 3/day available to her she can easily turn a party against itself, and her 3/day Quickened Mass Suggestion can do a pretty good job of doing that to the whole group at once. Her Mass Suggestion and Greater Command are augmented to terrifying levels by her Destructive Commands ability, which lets her override the normal compulsion restrictions by having her victims take self-destructive commands, or commands which defy their nature. Though they can resist the command with a Will save, there’s nothing stopping her from trying again next round. The most dangerous enemy a player character can have is often their own allies, loaded down with magical gear and items and prepared for any situation except conflict from within, a fact that Isph is basically BUILT to take full advantage of.

While most of her tricks are reliant on her foes being Isph-Aun-Vulnerable to mind-affecting effects, she has her ways to make sure they land when they need to and on the target she wants them to. Once every 1d4 rounds, she can unleash hurricane force winds that blast either 120ft outwards or 60ft inwards, rendering ranged attacks useless and potentially blasting a whole horde of foes right off their feet. Most importantly, however, is the fact these winds carry an airborne poison which inflicts Wisdom damage, lowering its victims Will saves. Those aren’t the only poisoned clouds she can unleash, though, because there’s one specific spell in her repertoire that’s such a powerful force multiplier for her other tricks that it’s basically a Save or Suck on its own: Quickened Mind Fog, spraying down an area with a mentally jamming mist that slaps its victims with a nigh-insurmountable -10 penalty to Will saves.

Of course, all of her spells and tricks are basically only for show. You were always under her control to begin with, as proven by her Horrific Appearance: Seeing the true shape of Isph-Aun-Vuln reveals to you that free will was never real. You were always hers, and now you just see the puppet strings. Those puppet strings grant victims a 60ft fly speed and an eternal Freedom of Movement effect, though they relentlessly pull the victim towards Isph. Once adjacent to the puppeteer, the victim is kept in an eternal daze until Isph moves away (dragging the strings with her), possesses the victim, or simply slays them outright, devouring them so utterly that only Miracle or Wish can bring them back.

You will read more about her here.

#Beasts From Before Month #Monster Spotlight #CR 21 to 25 #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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santa-monica-sunrise-blog · 4 years

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WHAT IS NERVOUS EXHAUSTION, AND HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH IT?

What is nervous fatigue?

Nervous fatigue or asthenia is a condition that affects our mental, intellectual faculties, such as for example:

See more about it today.

Concentration: it seems more and more difficult for us to concentrate; our mind is elsewhere... Attention: it diminishes and we lack vigilance in our daily life as well as at work or behind the wheel of our car. There is therefore an imminent danger that must be taken into account. Intellectual functions seem to be idling and we have the feeling of being in a second state, an unpleasant state that gives the impression of losing control. How can we prevent nervous fatigue and avoid its consequences? Nervous fatigue can manifest itself in all areas of our lives. It has the peculiarity of settling in until you have the opportunity to rest and recover.

In the professional field, nervous fatigue insidiously sets in at the same time as physical fatigue. This can happen because of the postures you adopt, the attention or the concentration required by the tasks you perform, for example.

In the private sphere, nervous fatigue is also associated with physical fatigue because of the daily tasks you have to perform. You have to be on all fronts at the same time, managing the children, accompanying them to their activities, all this represents an emotional and physical load that induces fatigue.

It is for all these reasons that you must learn to allow yourself moments of relaxation, to relax, to take a break. Regular breaks can help you avoid the overload that leads to asthenia.

It would be good to learn to practice sophrology which can bring you both mental and physical relaxation. Sophrology helps you to control your breathing, leads you to moments of letting go during visualizations for example.

The advantage of this method is that you will be able to practice it quickly in everyday life, without a guide. For that, it will be necessary for you of course to begin by making you accompany and your sophrologist will guide you towards autonomy.

HOW CAN HYPNOSIS HELP US TO GRIEVE?

Crying, depression, pain The loss of a loved one can be a real hecatomb when it occurs. Grieving, a mandatory step in accepting death, is a difficult but not insurmountable moment. Sometimes, it is good to recognize that help would be welcome in this ordeal, and hypnosis is a great ally in dealing with the situation.

Belen Canovas, explains to us what grief is and how hypnosis can help us.

Grieving in the 21st century

Many people have had to deal with the loss of a loved one. And while mourning takes time, the society in which we live rarely allows us to take the time to grieve, "mourning" in the traditional sense of the word is no longer possible. Modesty is often responsible for the silence that prevents mourners from expressing their sadness. Death has almost become a taboo. It is also common for relatives, no matter how attached they are, to expect the bereaved to move on after a period of time. That said, there are no pre-set rules about how things will unfold. We are all different and experience grief in our own way. Some need more time, others need dialogue. However, a pattern emerges in most cases.

The different stages of grief

We'll call it the mourning journey, because mourning doesn't have much of an end. Even if we recover from the loss, it is nevertheless definitive and will have changed many aspects of our lives. Doctor Christophe FaurÃ©, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist specializing in mourning, defines mourning in 4 stages: - Shock / denial: This is not a matter of denying the facts, but rather of feeling the need to have concrete proof of what happened. This is often a short period of time immediately after the loss. - Flight/search: In the year following bereavement, the person will retreat into action. For example, he or she will concentrate on work by putting in more than the right amount of time. - The destructuring phase: This is a state that can be difficult to surprise since it often occurs several months after the funeral. However, the feelings are often violent: depression, pain, anger, crying spells.

- The restructuring phase: Here, we redefine ourselves in relation to others and the world. For example, a woman may go from being a wife to being a widow.

Recognising the symptoms of grief that is too difficult to cope with

There is no time limit, everyone has their own mourning time and this is something to be respected. But if the situation doesn't change, that's one thing.

Check this out page

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emilyrosebass · 4 years

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‘Too Hot to Handle’ and the Illusion of Self-Improvement Reality TV

We all know reality TV is messy—and that’s precisely why we love it. These shows scratch the most rewarding itch: Our carnal desire for drama.

So why do so many reality television shows claim to have a bigger moral purpose? While the audience admits to watching for the meltdowns and blowouts, the shows still cling to aliases, often claiming to help their contestants achieve personal growth.

Dozens of shows embrace the self-improvement format: Love Island and Are You the One invite sex-crazed commitment-phobes to find a person to seriously settle down with. The Bachelor (and, surprisingly, even its sensational spinoff Bachelor in Paradise) promises a tested path to true love, yet season after season, conflicts are touted more proudly than connections. The Circle aims to show that honest and humble people often gain more support IRL than influencers with the hottest profiles, while Love Is Blind proposes the most genuine romantic bonds are formed when physical appearances are left out of the picture.

Yet, most of these shows actually aim to embarrass contestants for the very qualities they claim to eradicate. They frame entire seasons around contestants’ most undateable and unlikable moments—bursts of jealousy, impulsivity, ill-intention.

This misalignment between motive and message is more obvious than ever in Netflix’s new dating show Too Hot to Handle, which challenged a notoriously debauched group of 20-somethings to abstain from all sex for a month for the opportunity to win a $100,000 cash prize. Breaches to the rules—kissing, heavy petting, and even masturbation—cost the whole group money.

While claiming to help the one-night-stand-prone find a deep romantic connection, Too Hot to Handle actually mocks contestants for their promiscuity and lack of self-control. Every aspect of the show’s production sets contestants up to fail—not in an attempt to challenge them and help them grow, but because it’s more entertaining when they don’t.

Despite its personal growth spiel, Too Hot to Handle openly favors the contestants who cause the most drama. The most screentime by far is awarded to Francesca—a siren seductress who loses the group the most money out of any individual player—and everyone she’s involved with. Unsurprisingly, the couples who make the most progress mentally and emotionally rarely appear on screen (Simply put, they’re less interesting.). And nothing cracks the show’s thinly-veiled self-improvement facade like the final award ceremony, when it’s announced [SPOILER ALERT!] Francesca would be allowed to share the cash prize despite showing no true signs of progress. Make it make sense!

But in the reality TV world, rewarding the villain makes perfect sense: Francesca’s antics made the show compelling, which was the outcome producers wanted all along. Rehabilitation never had anything to do with it.

So why do networks so desperately cling to this mirage of self-help if the contestants aren’t actually expected to grow?

The obvious disconnect between what we’re told vs. what we get with reality TV is designed to make the audience feel like they’re in the loop—like we’re privy to information the contestants aren’t. We know the self-improvement schtick is a ruse, but we’re led to believe the players are in the dark.

Reality TV aficionado Sarah Willis reveals how this secretly functions, saying, “Self-awareness as a treat captures us even more than a wild story because it establishes trust. We feel comforted someone is calling attention to the ridiculousness of the characters’ behavior. By fixating on the individuals, we don’t question the system.”

By guiding us to focus on the individual contestants’ troubles, these shows avert our focus away from the messy details of their own construction. We’re directed to pay attention to the explosive meltdowns without looking too hard into the strategies producers used to coax these conflicts.

Take Champagne-Gate, the infamous blowout between Bachelor contestants Kelsey and Hannah Ann prompted by a champagne bottle mixup, which became a main arc of season 24. Fed clip after clip of the prolonged fight—which involved multiple confrontations, bouts of sobbing, and a moment of near-redemption for Kelsey soiled by a burst of champagne to the face—viewers were meant to be too preoccupied watching Kelsey unravel to realize the whole thing was a setup. The spectacle of Kelsey’s overreaction was intended to outshine the producers’ obvious involvement (Now, many theorize they intentionally mixed up the bottles, knowing Kelsey’s champagne was saved for a special occasion.).

In Too Hot to Handle, we’re captivated by how vindictive Francesca is, how reckless Harry is, and how jealous Haley is, but never how orchestrated the show itself is. We aren’t given space to consider how forced abstinence impacts the contestants’ emotions to elicit unusually intense reactions (I’m not saying blue balls is real, but repeatedly revving up someone’s libido and then denying them physical contact is sure to affect a person’s hormones.). While some shows load contestants up with alcohol, Too Hot to Handle fires up their sex drives (and siphons them alcohol) to point and laugh at the results.

While it’s clear there’s a disconnect between what reality television says it does and what it actually does, rectifying this misalignment wouldn’t necessarily make shows more enjoyable. Revealing every detail of production would actually be horrifying, as producers are notorious for insidious meddling—telling dating show leads how to act or who to pick, lying to contestants, using manipulative editing techniques, and likely much more than we’ll ever learn about.

While the self-improvement mantra is obviously a front, it’s one we’re willing to ignore because we’d prefer to enjoy the plot. At the end of the day, nobody really wants to know the full reality of reality TV. That’s a whole different level of drama.

#blog #blogs #Too Hot to Handle #reality TV #reality television #The Bachelor #The Bachelorette #The Circle #Love Is Blind #Are You the One #Love Island

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2dtacokit-blog · 6 years

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oh jeez. Coming Back and I guess, Coming Out?

Well it has been over a few years I think since I was last on here and boy has things changed, myself included. I wasn’t planning on coming back on here as it was a horrendous triggering mess, couldn’t stand the bitchiness and toddlers... But my best buddy dragged my sorry ass back. My blog was an unmitigated disaster, I cringed for the longest time and was furious with myself. Mass deleting spree. It’s a long old read, maybe the longest post in the entire universe, but I cannot put this concisely. If you make it to the end, I thank you for witnessing this.

TW for CSA, SA, R, Su, Si. Just tread carefully. Crude, explicit and uncensored.

If you know me in real life, please please do not reveal this information.

Some things are the same, still parenting, still confused, still in therapy, still fighting the same old demons but a lot has changed. I have grown up for a start, wizened up a bit, got some of my shit together and I am now single. I gave two fingers up to the NHS mental health service after the complete closure of therapeutic services in my area and sought private medical care. I am in private analytic psychotherapy weekly, getting to know myselves. I have now been formally/clinically diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, which has been a tough nut to get my teeth around. An old me, unsure who, used to write about it on here with complete assurance that it was the case and I didn’t recognise that attitude when I came back on. I will now be a lot more cautious with what I write with relation to my mental health because it puts me at great risk. I do not want the whole perimeter for my existence to be based on my mental health anymore... Even though it still governs my existence.

So yes, we are a “system” working towards consolidation of trauma and experiences in therapy and with private specialists, but we are primarily Aly.

Another biggie to cover, and this will be the first place other than the survivors forum I will post this on, is that I am having serious issues with gender dysphoria. Now this is gonna sound very strange, for most that have known me I have seemed someone who sexualized their female body continually, putting it on display and clinging to it. Well... It came as a shock to me as to anyone I haven’t already come out to (literally 5 people I know in real life?). I will do what I can to explain and make sense of what is an ongoing discovery with my therapist.

Trauma fucks with people in many ways. Sexual and psychological trauma is an insidious beast that disguises themselves in many forms. Now as I have already covered, I have DID. A condition caused by having to adapt to survive severe and repeated complex trauma in childhood. I still have not much of an idea what that is but other me’s do. That is neither here or there for now, that is my business, but what it does is erase chunks of my memory of things I have been unable to process/deal with.

As a kid, I was abnormal to say the least. A large chunk of that was due to trauma, switching continually and just casually failing my way through anything other than academics. One thing I didn’t understand was how the heck I couldn’t connect to the girls around me. I didn’t understand them, couldn’t get my head around how they worked or how they looked. I was tall, scrawny, long haired boyish thing that was torn between doing what they loved (getting muddy, trashing shit, buying the most ridiculous jeans you can imagine, pummelling people in rugby, pummelling people in the playground ((not proud of it)), studying, hanging out with boys, being silly) and who I felt I should be (cute, girly, into pink, dancers, sweet, gentle).

That conflict tore my little primary school brain apart. What used to happen at home is a mystery but school was agony. I would go in a dishevelled mess and was a freak, as all and sundry used to make clear. Girls didn’t want me as their friend because I wasn’t like them, and my attempts to emulate them came across desperate, copycat, attention seeking behaviour. But dammit I still tried. Tried the pink, tried the cute stuff, but they were my sisters stuff... Not for me. I loved them but they didn’t look right on me, made me feel worse. My younger sister was an alien to me; a proper real life girl and that highlighted my freakishness. I was being rejected by everyone. Experiencing massive emotional and physical neglect at home, bullied at school, turned away by counsellors and tutors, ofc rejected by the boys and girls I fancied.

ENTER FROM THE LEFT MY MAGICALLY SHIT DISSOCIATIVE POWERS.

I had a few angry boy personalities about by this time, I didn’t know they were boys until like September last year. I had a mass emergence of parts, all male, that stored these memories like time capsules. Memories I had forgotten due to my dissociative amnesia. Anyway, similarly to how these parts formed and were there early, so came a female personality. One that could preform girl where the rest of us couldn’t. Not very well at this stage, she was a young girl, but she dutifully tried to copy the girls we grew up around. Camouflaging what I guess was early stage dysphoria from myself and those around me. This part felt terror at appearing anything like a boy, because looking like a boy when we should be a girl would get us bullied and rejected again. And we were alone enough.

Around this time, I think between 9-11, I was visibly changing a lot in photos. Sometimes I would be incredibly tomboyish, othertimes... painfully... a mismatched attempt at what we felt a girl should be. Combine that with the elusive sexual abuse we aren’t clear of yet, we prioritised being sexually attractive over all else. Boys liked girls that had tits. Boys liked girls that liked their tits. My family liked girls that were girls, and tits were a thing girls had, make up were what girls wore. Girls liked girls that looked like girls, and were jealous of girls who looked sexy. Well that is who we will be, couldn’t be cute, so let’s be sexy instead. I wore miniskirts that were obscene, tank tops saying “sexy kitty” on it, and stuffed my croptop to make sure my tiny prepubescent body looked that little bit more adult. That didn’t go how we wanted it to. We looked more like a freak than ever because parts were still clinging desperately to their boyhood, and we looked like a clusterfuck to be honest. A sad one though. Desperately sad and my heart breaks to look back at that confused person in the photos.To be clear though, we were not at this point attaching any of this to gender, boyhood wasn't at this point me saying “LOOK I AM A BOY” but kinda what we really were without connecting the word boy to it. I wasn’t afforded an opinion of my own at this age, raised in the church, within a violent and abusive household in literally one of the whitest, hetero-normative, conservative towns in the UK erases ones ability to discover themselves.

In a final act of madness to solidify that i was a normal girl we went to an all girls school.

Mistake.

Before we even got to that dam school we watched The Matrix. For the first time we saw someone that looked like a girl but also looked like a boy. We were mystified. We bypassed Trinity, she was a she and we didn’t connect at all, but the blonde one (who died very early on) has short boyish spiky hair. So we took our smol ass to the hairdressers and insisted we got our past shoulder length hair cut completely off. That did not go the way we planned. We looked older, looked somehow more like a freak girl/boy thing, and it was horrifying. We also looked like our mum, which was another problem related to the abuse stuff. We cried for ages because we felt like a freak, didn’t understand why we did it, couldn’t change it and we were about to start at the new, All Girls Grammar school. Shit.

The first two years at that school was hell. My mum finally kicked my dad out, but we were still having to see him weekly. I was at this point dissociating all the time. I would have three loads of school stuff with me all the time, for reasons i couldn’t understand. I didn’t understand why the other girls had one pencil case when I had 3, had to have 3! How in the heck did these girls carry their stuff not in a bag or a giant tray like I had to?! Well I was catering to the parts that were present without knowing it. Either way I was bait man, freaking bait.

Skinny, tall, covered head to toe in excoriation marks, short tufty hair, looked like a boy, but so desperate to fit in I wore my dam mums make up. I got lost all the time, was crying all the time or having fits where i would smash stuff, steal things, yell for no reason or be very sexually overt. I was torn apart. A website was set up by my old so called friends called The Aly Fan Club, where they took photos of me around school, uploaded them to the net and commented on them, with people (usually men) commenting what they wanted to do to me. I took all this in silence because when i got home, my amnesia would wipe that shit clean from my brain for ages. From one hell to another.

Coming out as what I thought was gay at this time was another huge problem, like any emo nerd I drew all this trash and put it on dA. In no time at all, most of the school knew I liked girls and there was now something NEW to bully me for. I tried to see this as punishment for my bullying behaviour in primary school to justify it but there was no justification. So much at this point was about punishment.

Punishment for being a freak, for being a loser, for not being like anyone else in this entire dam school. Punishment for looking so gross, for wanting these awful, naughty things, for liking the wrong people, for drawing how i felt... I needed to be punished. So I let it continue. I was an awful person and i needed to be punished.

But here is a thing. Breasts. When mine came in they came in suddenly. It felt like all my prayers had been answered and my ticket to being a girl like all these other girls had been called. I was One Of Them. I hated my body so much because of the hatred I got from others and my own discomfort that when these babies came in I adored them. Not what I anticipate anyone expects to here from someone suspecting they are a trans guy? “if you were truly dysphoric you would have hated them, that would have made it worse!” well for most cases probably. What these fatty parts gave me was attention, which i had been starved from in almost all aspects of my life, family included. What’s more, this attention was positive. I had never experienced such a thing for my body before that wasn’t... locked in another trauma pocket.

For someone who was ready to kill themselves at age 12 because they were such an unforgivable, wretched, disgusting, freak, that wasn't even a girl, that couldn't stop biting themselves till they bled... The power my newly sexualised and definitely female body gave me was sorely needed. People fancied me now. They wanted to touch me rather than just hit me, or throw things at me. They wanted to pull me not swear at me or spit at me. Survival Aly adapts, it is what we do, so we adapted. But things were still not right. Self harm was a massive problem, so were suicide attempts because we were still... not quite there yet. We ventured online a lot, where older men from across the world would ask for photos, videos and meets. I had no idea this was sexual grooming, but we were also dependant on that to survive. Somehow though, the impact of that, some bullying that was still happening, my everpresent self hatred, confusion and discomfort and increase in abuse in the home led us to attempt suicide in the school toilet when i was 14.

We tried to cut our neck open this time.

A teacher found us and dragged us to student services. My mum as usual was angry as heck and embarrassed. Apologising for my behaviour and the inconvenience. My dad was cloying like molasses creeping into my head. I remember because i bled all over the blouse of Ms Ginsberg, a tutor i fancied since forever. It wasn’t that severe, it was considered a superficial wound, but the amount we were doing and the continual attempts were serious cause for concern. Then my step mom found photos of me being sexually active at 14 and before, my mom found a load of the video files for the other men and I was hospitalised. Something miraculous occurred during this time though, another part came out. One that was confident and proudly female, one that was overtly sexualised but more cunning. She was a chav, an incredible cheemo (idk if anyone remembers this fashion disaster movement thing). She could adapt and fit in to any social situation and essentially helped us waltz out of hospital with no memory of being there for years.

All memory of confused tomboy/greyspace/whatever the fuck i was me was gone. This me didn’t give a dam and was in it for themselves and to survive, to be adored. And sex was their weapon, they just had to be cunning about it. By this point I was 15 and didn’t really think more about what I was. We were screwing guys now, guys and girls, thought this was something to be proud of. Dismissed the old small group of friends i had for the guys that hung around at the park and girls that used to go out and get drunk. We took naked photos of ourselves and put them online, and paraded ourselves around scantily clad because it made us feel powerful and loved.

At 16 i was raped. I was again at 17 twice, and this pattern continued beyond being hospitalised for the second time at 20 (the worst 21st birthday ever), beyond getting pregnant which was also conceived through rape. I had been sexually abused and raped a lot during this time, but my dissociative amnesia would wipe the memory. So I would know something bad was happening but was denied processing it by my inbuilt survival mechanisms that kept me alive as a kid. I was unable to get out of the loop or register any danger because the switching would be so automatic, so ingrained, it basically was not up to me to get us out of the situation because another part was there in brace position having dissociated fully. All during this time I preformed female because it was necessary. I didn't have room to question my gender because i was too busy surviving and trying to literally not die.

Then the pregnancy. I cant relive any of this trauma stuff too much, that isn't the point of this post but during this time, my gender was more apparent than ever before. Drawings we used to do of parts that had male appendages but still looked female started to change. Become more male. The internal distress was so monumental for many reasons; rape pregnancy, the gen father not leaving us alone, fear of my dad, still loosing my mind, desperately trying to be loved my my partner at the time. But there was another distress there.

I cant be a mum. Women become mums. I cant hold this child in me. This shouldn't be there.

Everyone was hammering home how much of a glowing woman I was and each time they said it I wanted to die. I tortured my body, got others to torture it too. Despised it, loathed it. It wasn't right to any of my parts. Three parts got us through that pregnancy but we dont know who gave birth. I dont remember it. We destroyed almost every pregnant photo of us. What were we disgusted by aside from the feeling of being broken, used and bred? How undeniably, unquestionably female we were.

Even so things were happening inside my head and body that made us feel insane. We started feeling like we had a penis, like felt like we could touch it, could feel stimulated by holding an appendage there (tmi i know). We tried in secret without thinking about it, moving our breasts up, down, flat, out of the way (fairly impossible by this point i was a lactating G cup *vomits*). We had glimmers of feeling male... which... felt good. First time we pegged we cried in the toilet with the door locked because it felt real, felt right though we couldn't explain it. So we were too scared to do it again, tried to force feminise ourselves again because that is WHO WE SHOULD BE. I mean look? I have a kid now, i am “mom”. Stopped drawing these mysterious genderconfused parts and forcefully only drew accurately what our body was. Which was agony.

Until September 2017.

Ploughing through therapy, maturing, making milestones in recovery when we started to talk about childhood trauma, my dad, the first and only time i drew myself fully as a man for my friend, and BAM! Bam! is not overrated it was literally a Bam! moment, because the part emergence I mentioned earlier occurred. And with these male parts came the bloody nail bat of gender dysphoria hitting me in the head over and over till I self harmed for the first time in years. The male parts were terrified and disoriented at first, they had a lot of growing up and catching up to do, some more so than others. They remembered being 15, 13, 10. Remembered the first pegging experience, remembered... things we had no connection to. Now they are mostly my age, helping each other to mature and grow as needed due to being a parent.

The first used to cry and scream in the mirror, punching walls because the body was wrong. Attacking our breasts like i had done subconsciously for years but this time, because they knew their breasts were wrong. They drew themselves over and over to solidify their gender identity when all else was screaming they were female. We pulled away from our partner, couldn't be touched, couldn't be interacted with because it would be a reminder of our gender. We flinched at being called a woman, a girl, female, and with that came memories of feeling like that as a kid. Fuck me, we were dysphoric as a kid. The first proper realisation.

Up until this point we had NO idea we had ever experienced gender dysphoria. But this is how DID works. It erases traumatic information and stores it in the parts that dealt with it. When the parts properly emerge, this information is leaked out over time. So great. Dysphoria.

Another part came out to implement what I am now starting to think is their cure for this, to ultimately feminise us. Because we needed to be female. Erase the dysphoria and with it that other male part. Nothing feminises me quicker than one of my most terrifying abusers. So guess what bellend got back in contact and re-traumatised the system, this one *points to self in dismay*. Long story short, shit went down, not un consensual shit as before but still shit. That part would routinely draw the male part being hurt by this guy over and over again till they freaked out.

But wait! The hellscape is not over. From stage right we have another destructive part, hyper-masculine, angry and unempathetic. Grateful to him because his presence pulled us away from that guy (he viewed him as pathetic and beneath him), but now we are just... drinking. Getting wasted in the park, hitting things, smoking up at night again. My specialist had told me to get to know these parts as they are vital for my recovery so we drew what they needed us to draw and goddam these guys are hurt. These are protective parts. They took the shit we couldn’t. And this one, swearing at my partner, exploding all over the place, trying to run away, self harming, kicking the shit out of the wheely bin outside survives threat of physical violence. The one that went to my old abuser survives some of the more extreme sexual violence and torture and the first male part deals with psychological abuse. I can see it in their drawings, their confessions and in our therapy sessions. We have other parts but they dont want to be discussed.

All of these parts are heavily dysphoric because they are all male. Unquestionably so. Their rage at this body is because it isn’t the right one. So where do I come into it, me being the primary/fronting part, or leader of the twisted UN committee that is my brain? That has taken longer to figure out, and has been a more agonising journey.

I am dysphoric too.

I cannot erase now i have them, the memories of my childhood spent dysphoric. The memories of trying at any cost to be a girl. Which shouldn’t be hard considering genetically I am one. I have had to fight within myself my transphobia i didn't even know was present. We aren’t talking bigotry here, but the genuine terror that i could be transgender. When most of the make up of who I am, and my survival to this day has been formulated by trying to accepted, loved, normal (though i failed at that horribly), not rejected and safe from physical, sexual and psychological abuse... Coming to terms with the fact you are transgender is not a comfortable thought. Not one I welcomed, and one that terrified us.

The fear of being transgender was so great it made us sick, sent us into crisis, started us self harming again. Trying everything we can to not be transgender because I have been through enough and survival brain is screaming as loud as it can that this will cause serious problems. But we couldn’t. Cant draw myself as a girl at all without wanting to cry or wretch. Cant wear girls clothes because i feel like i am crossdressing?! Cant wear bras, cant do feminine make up, cant do anything I used to do to be accepted anymore. Cant be a girlfriend anymore.

We started without realising it trying to make ourselves masculine. We would zone out and be drawing on facial hair with eyebrow pencil, tried using vetwrap to bind my chest, do not do this, it bruised us for days. We bought a mans top and a guys jeans and we lived in them exclusively unless family was over. We started wearing boxers, packing (though going to the loo and watching a dam sock fall out your pants makes your dysphoria worse and left us feeling humiliated so stopped doing this). I started drawing me not my parts but me and that me was always always male unless we were trying to force ourselves to draw a female us.

We reached out eventually to my best friend Ruth, and they encouraged us to get a binder. This provoked fear again. Self harm, self medicating, the usual destructive bs. But now the distress levels were triggering depersonalisation and derealisation; both symptoms of DID survival patterns. We stopped being able to recognise ourselves in mirrors because the damn amnesia was wiping it in an instant. My hands would feel male then flick to female, my body was glitching continually and I tried to get out of buying a binder by talking about my “genuine transgender friends” saying how I couldn't be trans because of their experience, that I am so obviously taking the piss, that I cannot be trans this must all be trauma. But Ruth stuck with me, as did a few other people, and still pushed for me to get a binder just to see how it felt.

I did and when it arrived and i tried it on the reaction was... well... overwhelming. Much like looking in the mirror seeing what is a very female face with a drawn on beard, i was looking at a body i hated being crammed into something that kinda hurt to put on, and making me look like i had a deformed ribcage. I cried. I dont know what i expected in that moment. Maybe that all the dysphoria will go away and it would be fixed and that would be that. All okay. But no. I felt sad that I was punishing my body for not being right, angry at myself for not being able to just be a dam woman. I MADE A BABY WITH MY BODY THIS SHIT SHOULD BE EASY.

Standing in a mirror, with a binder on, boxers on and socks stuffed in them trying my best to look like a man, I felt like a freak.

But then i put a shirt on. And holy heck i could see my feet. I was small, the first time i have ever looked at myself and seen a small body rather than something deformed that i see when i see my breasts. I looked smart, I looked beautiful in that shirt. The tears were still rolling down my dam cheeks, and i was a snotty wreck but I for the first time in 4-5 years I also didn't feel rage at being fat. Because I wasn't fat, not in the slightest. Standing there in shirt and boxers with flat chest, masc make up on, i looked like a guy... just about. And i smiled. I smiled so much.

I urgently facetimed Ruth and was like “come see how good I look” something I hadn’t genuinely felt in a very long time unless a man thought I was sexy. But here, in my tip of a room, almost dancing on cam for my best friend, showing her how i could bend over and no udders were just dangling there, how i could type and see my hands move... I looked at myself and felt good. I didn't care if anyone else thought i looked good because I felt on top of the world

This was my first introduction to gender euphoria, that wasn’t related to some obscure masturbatory habits and pegging. That feeling made things liveable for a while. I wanted to chase that feeling because it felt incredible. I was working out before but now I did it to not get thin, to not starve myself but to love myself. I started taking weight training seriously, and whilst the gym was a trigger for my dysphoria (room full of massive dudes who all see you and talk to you as a girl in your skimpy ass gym kit will do that to you) I pushed on. My shoulders are getting broader now, muscle definition starting and i love each of these changes. I eat more than I ever have done but I eat healthily because this male me, this real me that i seem to love I want to treasure, look after and care for.

I am not gonna wear baggy clothes and cut my hair off to look like a passable cis guy because that feels like punishment, and I have done that enough in my life and been punished by people in ways that have left me unable to walk and bleeding. I want to see my body when i work out because i love seeing the muscle definition, I wince at my breasts but try to imagine it being different. I love my long floppy hair, and I am not gonna change that because men with long hair are stunning. People talk about “the cut”, and I get the feeling of shame that i must be making this all up because i dont want to cut my hair off, but I am not a boy, I am almost 25. I have lived through some shit, I am not a boy. I am... a man. And I like how my hair feels like a lions mane. I associate cutting my hair off with my own lack of control and desperation so i dont want to return to that ever.

My therapist has been exceptional. He wants me to embrace this because he has seen massive improvement. Yes I am in and out of crisis a lot, there is a lot on my plate and dysphoria is a c*nt when you are already struggling, but here is the dam thing.

For the first time in my miserable fucking life I don’t want to be hurt or punished. I don’t want to be beaten, spat on, assaulted or killed. I don’t want to starve, I don’t want to be anywhere near any of my old abusers or rapists. I don’t want to submit to be liked. I don’t want to preform as a character to be accepted. I don’t want to be dependant on anyone to survive. I don’t want to sexualise myself to be loved.

The dysphoria will challenge this, oh man it does. My depersonalisation and fear of being trans challenges this.

Little voices going “you are not really a man. you have tits. you have a baby. you are a mom. you are doing this for attention, all this because you have to be somehow sicker than you already are. It is just trauma. You are making all of this up. You are trying to just not be the snivelling wretch that they made you into. You make a mockery of a very real cause. You are not trying hard enough, a real trans guy would cut their hair. You like your appearance sometimes which means you must not be trans. You are not a man, you are just like literally any of those cases of confused survivors of abuse that you see all over the internet, that is you. You just cant admit it because you are scum. It’s the same as everything, none of this is real, none of this is true. You are nothing like a man. You are a nothing, A NOTHING”.

Those are the voices that send me into crisis. That have me self harming, suicidal, terrified, self hating. Not when I pass as a guy, not when I draw myself as a guy or just... am a guy. The doubt and pull back to my assigned gender is what is killing me. Well alongside the actual traumas and parenting a toddler, alone, with over £2000 in debt. I never want to lie, but unpicking the truth when you are multiple people and have amnesic survival programming to prevent you from uncovering traumatic realities is very hard.

What is amazing though.... which I will cling to when my binder is crushing, when Instagram is full of BS about what is True Transgenderism, when FB is full of trans hate and I am still annoyingly in the closet with my family and most of the universe is this... When my BFF Maddy calls me an amazing, perfect boy, I blush and well up with tears and feel seen. I felt visible. When she sends me gifs of someone snuggling the death out of a tired proud lion, ruffling his mane, I feel seen again I cry with happy relief feels. When she or my friend Ruth says i look handsome, or masculine and I am blushing again forever, that is precious. When I look in the mirror after working out and see my shoulders broader and chest almost flat from the binder, hair swept back, I look strong, i look male, i look right. well almost. When i complete a drawing of how i wish i looked and i get it correct, i feel ready to punch the goddamn sun in its stupid face like LOOK! I EXIST! When I dream of being a guy and being touched by another person as if i am a guy, i feel like i am gonna take off from this planet and leave it in my dust... because not only do they see me, but they accept me and love me for who I am, who I want to be rather than who they want me to be or who i need to be... It makes me put that blade down and walk away. Make a hot chocolate or draw something.

So... I guess this is it. I am a guy.

A closeted guy for my safety for now. But a guy.

A guy with a shit tonne of trauma. But a guy.

A guy with DID, and female personalities. But I am a guy.

A guy who has a 2 year waiting list before he can talk to a gender clinic about this but still. I am a guy.

A guy that yes, despite all my best efforts, looks androgynous at best, and uses feminine appearance for protection because they are still too scared to present fully as male. But still a guy.

If this changes in future, well then... whilst living without dysphoria would be just the best... I dont want to loose who I am now i have finally caught a glimpse of them for the first time. It has made me a better person, a better parent, a better friend... Why would I ever give that up? It is gonna be a long old road, it may all change, I may change again, I may legitimately forget all about this. I may be too scared to ever come out to my family. The doubt, fear and dysphoria may actually win the next time I am in crisis. I may just delete this post out of shame but fuck it.

My name is Aly and I am a fucking guy.

#return #did #dissociativeidentitydisorder #d.i.d #dissociation #trauma #coming out #like wtf #realisation #tw #confession #long post

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cksmart-world · 3 years

Text

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

February 16, 2021

MIKE LEE'S GRANDCHILDREN: WHO'S MIKE LEE?

Bob: Man, that takeover of the Capitol on Jan. 6 was sure nasty.

Mike Lee: What takeover?

Bob: You know, the one where a cop got killed and a woman was shot to death.

Mike Lee: I really didn't notice.

Bob: Remember Trump told all his groupies to come to D.C. and then he told thousands of them to march to the Capitol and take back the country from evil Democrats.

Mike Lee: Well, I don't think Trump had anything to do with that. It just kinda happened.

Bob: No, no, no. For two months Trump said the election was stolen and Fox said it was stolen and Trump said come to D.C. on Jan. 6, it will be wild.

Mike Lee: I think that was Antifa and Black Lives Matter. White people wouldn't do that. White people are patriots — at least the Republicans are.

Bob: Didn't you see all the video of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the Shaman with horns? They were beating on cops and tearing the Capitol to bits. They wanted to hang Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.

Mike Lee: Video? What Video?

Bob: Come on, Trump was trying to overthrow our democracy. He called the election rigged and got his groupies frothing at the mouth.

Mike Lee: President Trump is like Abe Lincoln. Maybe he should just take a Mulligan.

Bob: Hey Mike, your unborn grandchildren will disown you. And you deserve it.

“TASTELESS” HOUSEWIVES OF SLC HITS THE BIG TIME

Salt Lake Tribune ace Scott Pierce must be doing backflips now that “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” reality TV show is featured in the recent issue of the high-brow New Yorker magazine. Scott likes to keep his readers up to date on every thing those “housewives” are up to. They hang around their McMansions in low-cut cocktail dresses, pearls and spike heels. And when they get together — look out. In one segment Jen Shaw retorts to a slight from Mary Crosby, saying, “Well, you fucked your grandfather.” And it's true: Mary got her family's empire of Pentecostal churches and she's loaded. But to do it she had to marry her dead grandmother's second husband — her own step-grandfather. (You can't make this stuff up.) The foil for a lot of their real lives, of course, is the Mormon church. As Doreen St. Felix writes, Real Housewives of SLC incorporates “cultural politics into the sketchy morality of a guilty pleasure.” No wonder Scott's readers love it. The staff here at Smart Bomb is just guessing, but Scott's columns on “Housewives” probably get more web hits than say a bill pending in the Legislature to relax requirements for cosmetologists. But don't expect anyone at church to bear testimony relating to “Housewives,” 'cause nobody in the ward has ever seen it. Hey Wilson, no laughing.

THOSE DAMN HOMELESS PEOPLE AND THEIR POOP

Why don't they do something about all the homeless people. They say it's all Reagan's fault because he closed mental facilities and slashed the budget for affordable housing. But that was 40 years ago and there're still people with mental illness on the street and no affordable housing. So why doesn't the mayor wave a magic wand and make it go away? Some people say the minimum wage of $7.35 and rents that start at $900 a month make it impossible for low wage earners to make it. But why don't those single moms with little kids just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like Burgess Owens. There are well over a million homeless Americans and they don't have toilets or trash cans. That's why there's garbage and poop where they camp — even downtown. Some people think they like being homeless so they can live out in the rain and drink warm beer and poop behind dumpsters. Police hassle them 'cause camping is illegal. Ben McAdams and Gary Herbert tried to fix it, but after all that talk, they couldn't. Maybe the problem is bigger than we'd like to admit. Homeless people don't have any pull in Washington, so the next time you step in poop, you might want to wrap it up and send it to Burgess Owens and Chris Stewart. It probably won't help but you'll feel better.

Post script — Holy history. People are going to be writing about this past week for decades to come and it won't be pretty. The president, who had just lost an election, fomented an insurrection in order to stay in office. Of course, Republicans refused to convict him after he was impeached. But like Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said, Trump was absolutely responsible for the rebellion. Then McConnell voted to acquit. So in keeping with the season, the staff here at Smart Bomb is giving it's Marie Antoinette Smartie Award to McConnell for “Eating His Cake and Having It, Too.” For his part in the insurrection, in which he was the first senator who would not certify Joe Biden's election, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley wins the Jefferson Davis Smartie for stirring insurgency and then retreating to the rear with a smirk of self-righteousness. His sleazy compatriot, Sen. Ted Cruz, just couldn't stay out of the limelight, either. He gets the Aaron Burr Award for his insidious patriotic subterfuge. The staff here at Smart Bomb saved the biggest Smartie of all, the Benedict Arnold Award, for Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and his ability to kiss Trump's ass even while complementing the Emperor on his New Clothes. Now that's multi-tasking.

Well, Wilson, that was one hell of a week. We know the guys in the band had to seek sedation to stay sane, but tell me they're thinking clearly enough to make some sense of ... whatever this is and play something to help us through these trying times:

Well, did you ever wake up, With them bullfrogs on your mind? Well, did you ever wake up, With them bullfrogs on your mind? You had to sit there laughin', Laughin' just to keep from crying. My mother got em, My father got em, My sister got em, My brother got em. I woke up this morning, My grandmother had them too, Well, don't you know about that, I got the bullfrog blues. Bullfrog

Well, did you ever wake up, With them bullfrogs on your mind? Well, did you ever wake up, With them bullfrogs on your mind? You had to sit there laughin', Laughin' just to keep from crying.

(Bullfrog Blues — Canned Heat)

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lorrainewiseman · 4 years

Text

Leadership Is More of a "Practice" Than a "Theory"

https://ift.tt/2VJlcil

Lessons from our recent Leadership Academies with clients.

Summary of article key points:

Leadership is more about practice than theory, even if theory can inform some relevant insights as part of a leadership development programme.

Leadership is a blend of art and science. Some leaders are born / pre-equipped better than others (nature), but intelligent training and development (nurture) can enhance virtually anyone’s leadership capability.

Theories and models have a use, but only to underpin “practice” in leadership and real world outcomes.

Functional skills and previous performnace are no guarantees of future leadership capability.

You will only get the leadership qualities that you select and train for.

The cost of promoting without leadership skills and then desperately seeking to equip people with adequate leadership skills can be high in human and economic terms.

Well-designed internal leadership academies can help when they match enhanced leadership awareness and capability to actual business needs.

_______________________________________________________________

Main article:

For centuries much has been written about the “science” and the “art” of leadership.

Most of us have read and absorbed elements of this wisdom (and too often perhaps some of the come and go fads rather than wisdom). Many of us have subsequently pondered that age-old question about leadership; “are great leaders born, or are they made”?

Based on our experiences we have found that effective leadership capability tends to arise from a little of both in terms of settling that ‘nature versus nurture’ debate? Sabre’s recent work on a number of high-level leadership academies (including one that was integral to the Coles turnaround) has confirmed that whilst there are many valid theories and models for the “science” of leadership, it’s often the “art” of leadership that still evades adequate capture and definition.

Many businesses simply don’t get it right, but it’s reassuring to see those that do reap the positive rewards that flow so evidently from putting in the effort.

It is certain that nature does equip some people better than others in terms of their leadership traits (from a genetic, neurological and thence a behavioural perspective). There are those who just seem pre-loaded with healthy measures of IQ, charisma and also enough EQ to meld it all together in a way that gets their people to where they need to be.

Arguably though the honing of these skills that may at first glance seem to be gifted from “nature” can be attributed in at least part also to a degree of “nurture.” For example, the development of complex neurological systems and patterns that drive much of our behavior (social systems of the brain, core belief patterns and embedded personality) can be traced to responses to external stimulus over the course of a lifetime.

It is however equally certain that proper approaches to ‘nurture’ can be used to raise the bar for virtually anyone who wishes to play the leadership game by enhancing awareness of their own strengths, areas of struggle and weakness as they manifest day to day.

Discipline is then required to act upon those insights of self-awareness to help cultivate better leadership capability for their own personal and professional circumstances.

One thing we often see is that being gifted in a particular functional skill or specialization, even to the point of genius, is no assurance that you can then lead a group of former peers in that field (or indeed any other).

Regular experiential “practice” of leadership comes into play as a valuable tool for enhancing the quotients of leadership talent that are gifted or acquired from our own recipe of nature and nurture. In the cut and thrust of day to day work life we don’t always have adequate time to discern the true source of, and impact of our leadership and team role styles.

Current research and models from such emerging fields as neuroscience confirm some leadership theories and debunk others, and are often very useful in framing approaches and delivering ongoing insight. They are at the end of the day however just more tools for the toolbox, with leadership capability itself something that needs to be lived and developed day to day and powerfully linked to real world outcomes.

One of the clearest examples that I have observed was in the military when being selected for and subsequently entering into Army Officer training. Now whilst not all attributes of military leadership are relevant to commercial or non-military endeavours, it’s safe to say that many are with respect to the human dynamics of leadership (particularly leading amidst complexity).

For Officer selection the emphasis was first and foremost upon personal leadership capability (and the potential to hone it further for a military environment). It was only much later after rigorous training in general military skills and leadership that relevant specialist streaming was done into various specializations and functional skills.

In commerce the reverse is often the case, where people are selected and promoted firstly with their “functional” skills and credibility strongly in mind (e.g. a great engineer, lawyer, stockbroker, salesman) with their leadership skills seldom given the same rigorous analysis as their functional results.

The Officer selection process was designed to reveal “leadership” potential first via a careful blend of psychometrics followed up with a host of mental and physical challenges that were rigorously observed by an experienced leadership selection panel. Their emphasis for selection was first upon core leadership traits exhibited under pressure, and the potential to polish those.

It was only much later that the aptitude for possible functional roles was to be explored. Functional experience and past performance, whilst taken into account if it was present, was never taken as an assurance of future leadership capability.

In commerce the best and brightest performer in a functional sense may not be the best person to lead a team of their former peers (unless they have been equipped by nature and nurture to lead also). The skills for leadership often exist outside of our functional skills, and are deserving of attention.

The military naturally values both individual leadership capability, and functional proficiency in an Officer’s chosen trade post graduation (e.g. Infantry, Armour, Artillery, Intelligence etc), but the term “General Service Officer” is used to describe Army Officers upon graduation, and is used to imply that it’s the “Officer” bit (your designated status as a leader) that comes first, and any functional / technical proficiency that may come later is second.

So much so that in theory any General Service Officer can be moved to or seconded into to virtually any military role or command should it be required of them. Of course you won’t get far, or get much respect form peers or subordinates if you don’t have some credible functional capability also, but the foundation is first your personal “leadership brand” which can be transferred into almost any other challenge.

Again, the military doesn’t always get it right, but there is much to be said for the “leadership first” approach given to seeking and honing “Leadership DNA” as part of the overall process of developing organisational leadership talent. This in tandem with functional capability is ideal. Both matter, but the “personal leadership capability” bit is often overlooked in commerce (or considered as a clear second to ticking all the boxes on functional results and skills).

We have all seen people who are highly adept specialists in their given field (e.g. engineer, lawyer, doctor, stockbroker, IT professional) given leadership roles after getting runs on the board functionally speaking, without necessarily coming equipped with the requisite inter-personal and leadership awareness to handle the “non-functional” challenges of leadership.

Even being a respected genius at your chosen trade, does not ensure that you may end up out of your depth when asked to lead a cohort of your former peers (unless you have the “leadership bit” sorted first)?

The low morale, high turnover, friction and inefficiencies that can arise from poorly lead dysfunctional teams costs a great deal in both personal and economic terms This is where teams that on paper may have fall the boxes ticked for functional brilliance with their professional skills, experience and qualifications can simply fail through poor leadership and poor teamwork.

In a military environment the price paid for this is often instant, but in business it’ can be slower and more insidious, but the outcome is the same, your team takes casualties and loses.

The ideal package for a leader is perhaps having enough functional proficiency to establish credibility, whilst also ensuring that they have been given ample opportunity to properly explore and develop their own leadership capability before being advanced to lead others. There is thus far less chance of being caught out of their depth in the all-important “leadership bit”.

So how can business get the balance right?

It is our assertion that businesses can ‘cherry pick’ from the very best of the military approach by carefully designing and delivering their own internal leadership academies to target existing and emerging leaders. This enables people to build and develop upon existing leadership skills within the critical context of what they actually need to do and deliver within the business.

Time taken “outside” of the business, but very much “about” the business can really pay off when leadership development is tailored to meet business needs.

We have been involved with several wonderful examples at Coles where senior leadership skillfully identified a need to design a series of highly tailored leadership academies for enhancing personal leadership capability. This is one of the few examples where we have seen a company achieve such a wonderful balance of leadership capability development wedded to real world needs and outcomes.

Coles recognized leadership capability development as a key factor in itself and that it was by “practicing” it in tandem with cutting edge theory that worked best. It was our privilege to be invited to work with Steve Robinson and Dr Malcolm McGregor who were brought in by the Boards of Coles and Wesfarmers to craft the overarching strategy for these approaches.

An enormous amount of design work was done to ensure that every aspect of the Academy would hone and develop each individual’s leadership capability, but very much with the business in mind and putting valid personal insights immediately into practice.

The blending of theory and practice in facilitation was done very carefully to ensure constant linkages back to a leader’s daily planning, interactions with their own teams and daily execution. The careful and intelligent exploration of personal leadership styles was matched to personal leadership plans and real world business scenarios. This was all within an environment that focused meaningfully upon people taking responsibility for and ownership of their own development and the impacts of their behavior (in both tailored simulations and shared real world case studies).

Participants were existing leaders within the business, and emerging leaders with high potential who were engaged in meaningful pre programme diagnostics followed by an intensive 7 day residential programme with targeted follow though, mentoring and coaching back into the business.

Theory was carefully linked to real world and business case studies were used throughout and the targeted experiential content was linked powerfully and intelligently to individual profiling and learning. Leadership was lived and “practiced” throughout.

All approaches used were of sufficient complexity and sophistication to meaningfully engage intelligent leaders (there certainly weren’t any tacky reality TV show rip off team games or treasure hunts). This is very much along the lines of what most successful military academies embrace, and that is to take the time to properly select leaders then develop and hone personal leadership capability itself as a powerful enabler for better functional capability and success to follow.

Some well selected theory is fine, but at the end of the day it’s all about putting it into practice.

This was reflected in the outcomes that ensued for the many alumni of this Coles academy, and the turnaround demonstrated by Coles as a company and as a brand.

Yes there is a price to pay in terms of taking key people outside of the ‘day to day’ business for a time, but it’s important not to forget that ongoing development of leadership capability is still very much “about the business” when it’s done well.

Investing in leadership capability in this way removes the “lucky dip” approach of selection primarily for a person’s functional skills, then finding out all too late that real world productivity and lost opportunities has been caused by poor leadership that transfers into low performing teams.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8616480

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#Leadership

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thelowartgloominati-blog1 · 6 years

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Net Neutrality Talk (what the hell just happened?)

Okay, so y’all probobly already know about the FCC’s vote today to undo Title II Net Neutrality protections passed by the Obama administration in 2015. To put it simply, Net Neutrality means that ISPs have to treat all websites the same, no preferential or detrimental treatment, no throttling one sites bandwidth, and most importantly, not providing “fast” or “slow” lanes to one website or another based on which site is willing to pay more for preferential access to users. There’s been a bit of talk that without Net Neutrality in place ISPs will begin selling their internet packages in cable-like tiers and charging users individually based on which websites or type of websites they visit. This is probobly not going to happen, at least not out in the open. Oh, there’s gonna be gating, but it won’t be so cut and dry, it’ll be much more insidious, these are tech companies we’re talking about here. You need to get inside the mind of these CEOs and corporate politicians, they want you to go on surfing without even consciously realizing anything has changed, aware people make for angry people, angry people aren’t profitable in the immediate sense. Changing everything like that day one would be a pretty bone-headed move on their part. See, the idea behind ISPs wanting to get rid of Net Neutrality is more about making more money off Google, Netflix, Facebook, etc. themselves, and more importantly bolster the sites that play the most nice with them (read: pay them the most/have corporate ties with them), whilst stifling out competition cropping up in order to maintain their monopolies (can’t have any actual CAPITALISM now can we?). Example: Remember ‘Ello? Yeah, that invite-only thing everyone said was going to kill Tumblr and then disappeared after 20 minutes? Well, let’s pretend for a second that it was relevant, and it was looking like a serious competitor TO Tumblr. Well, you know who owns Tumblr? Yahoo! You know who owns Yahoo? Verizon! So they have vested interest in keeping Tumblr the only micro-blogging game in town. So in this scenario, without Net Neutrality making this action illegal, if Verizon is your ISP or has corporate ties to it, they could slow down access to ‘Ello and speed up access to Tumblr, so you’d keep on using Tumblr instead of using that slow ‘Ello site. And lets say they do the same thing with any other site that doesn’t want to or can’t pay a fee to the ISP to get into the fast lane, and keep it’s consumer base. People have short attention spans, they will, 9 times out of 10, move on to another site if the one they’re on fails to load after a few seconds.

THAT is the real danger here, it’s not a question of will you be able to access XYZ site anymore without paying, it’s can XYZ site afford to pay bribes to the ISPs to keep existing at all. So, in the immediate future, you don’t need to worry about losing your venting platform for mental health stability, you’re not losing your ability to do homework or look for jobs, and don’t tell Reddit because their misunderstanding in this regard has been instrumental in getting the word out on NN, but you’re not losing your porn either. You’re probobly not losing much that you would REALIZE you’ve lost. Because the things you’re losing DON’T EXIST YET. I’m not worried about Facebook, Google, Amazon, Tumblr (definitely not Tumblr), I’m worried about the sites that could have been the NEXT Amazon, the NEXT Facebook, but now can’t because they can’t afford to be put into the priority lane.

Anyway, the FCC’s decision is very unsurprising. We’ve known that the FCC had been in talks about this ever since Trump appointed former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai as the chairman of the FCC (yeah international readers, industry-regulation revolving door corruption is 100% legal here in the states), and it’s been pretty transparent that the whole idea behind doing so was for this purpose specifically. Even before that, when Obama’s FCC put those regulations into effect many of us called it early on that when a Republican (or a corporate enough Democrat, at this stage I don’t really put much moral stock in almost any american politicians) eventually got back into office this exact thing would happen. What’s more, it’s very likely that once the pendulum swings the other way, NN or NN-like provisions will be re-adopted, since this is largely a party line thing, and then we’re right back where we started.

And THAT, my friends, is the real kicker: Net Neutrality is about to become a back-and-forth issue. That’s the kind of issue where it keeps getting enacted and rescinded with each presidential administration of either party, with it getting a little more extreme every time it comes and goes, repeat ad-infinitem. There are many examples of these sorts of issues and legislation, indeed when Trump got into office the very first executive orders he passed were rescindings/re-implementations of back-and-forth issues that dated back to as early as Nixon (The Nixon Administration is actually where a looooooot of our modern political climate started, but that’s another topic) It’s gonna become a Democrat vs. Republican, Red vs. Blue, LIberal vs. Conservative, party line issue (even though it’s really not, a vast majority of Republicans do not support the repeal of NN either, it’s mostly just the corrupt “representatives”), and it’s going to almost become routine for each admin to volley the ball back to the other side.

So yeah, you might only really have to deal with this for 3-7 more years, then it might go back to what WAS normal before for 4-8 more, then back again, and each time that pendulum is gonna go a little bit further...

Is there a way out of this? YES!... but it won’t work. If Congress stepped in and passed actual Legislation (remember, the FCC doesn’t pass laws, it just interprets guidelines based on existing law) that contradicted or actively voided the Net Neutrality repeal that would override whatever the FCC has to say about it, however that would be congress’ department, and even though good ol’ Mr. Jones brought it to a narrow 49 - 50 the Republicans still hold the majority, so not until 2018 at the earliest on that one, and even then it could still fall victim to the pendulum dynamic. It could also be challenged in court (which is already happening), but the FCC can keep appealing all the way up to the Supreme Court, and since this is largely the same supreme court that made the Citizen’s United ruling... let’s just say your future is murky.

So yeah, TL;DR, we’ve lost the battle, and the war might rage on for decades to come. Kind of a bleak takeaway, but it’s kinda where we’re at right now.

#net neutrality #long post #My writing skills have deteriorated greatly #but I think I still got my point across

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un-enfant-immature · 4 years

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UK Council websites are letting citizens be profiled for ads, study shows

On the same day that a data ethics advisor to the UK government has urged action to regulate online targeting a study conducted by pro-privacy browser Brave has highlighted how Brits are being profiled by the behavioral ad industry when they visit their local Council’s website — perhaps seeking info on local services or guidance about benefits including potentially sensitive information related to addiction services or disabilities.

Brave found that nearly all UK Councils permit at least one company to learn about the behavior of people visiting their sites, finding that a full 409 Councils exposed some visitor data to private companies.

While many large councils (serving 300,000+ people) were found exposing site visitors to what Brave describes as “extensive tracking and data collection by private companies” — with the worst offenders, London’s Enfield and Sheffield City Councils, exposing visitors to 25 data collectors apiece.

Brave argues the findings represent a conservative illustration of how much commercial tracking and profiling of visitors is going on on public sector websites — a floor, rather than a ceiling — given it was only studying landing pages of Council sites without any user interaction, and could only pick up known trackers (nor could the study look at how data is passed between tracking and data brokering companies).

Nor is the first such study to warn that public sector websites are infested with for-profit adtech. A report last year by Cookiebot found users of public sector and government websites in the EU being tracked when they performed health-related searches — including queries related to HIV, mental health, pregnancy, alcoholism and cancer.

Brave’s study — which was carried out using the webxray tool — found that almost all (98%) of the Councils used Google systems, with the report noting that the tech giant owns all five of the top embedded elements loaded by Council websites, which it suggests gives the company a god-like view of how UK citizens are interacting with their local authorities online.

The analysis also found 198 of the Council websites use the real-time bidding (RTB) form of programmatic online advertising. This is notable because RTB is the subject of a number of data protection complaints across the European Union — including in the UK, where the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) itself has been warning the adtech industry for more than half a year that its current processes are in breach of data protection laws.

However the UK watchdog has preferred to bark softly in the industry’s general direction over its RTB problem, instead of taking any enforcement action — a response that’s been dubbed “disastrous” by privacy campaigners.

One of the smaller RTB players the report highlights — which calls itself the Council Advertising Network (CAN) — was found sharing people’s data from 34 Council websites with 22 companies, which could then be insecurely broadcasting it on to hundreds or more entities in the bid chain.

Slides from a CAN media pack refer to “budget conscious” direct marketing opportunities via the ability to target visitors to Council websites accessing pages about benefits, child care and free local activities; “disability” marketing opportunities via the ability to target visitors to Council websites accessing pages such as home care, blue badges and community and social services; and “key life stages” marketing opportunities via the ability to target visitors to Council websites accessing pages related to moving home, having a baby, getting married or losing a loved one.

This is from the Council Advertising Network's media pack. CAN is a small operation. They are just trying to take a small slide of the Google and IAB "real-time bidding" cake. But this gives an insight in to how insidious this RTB stuff is. pic.twitter.com/b1tiZi1p4P

— Johnny Ryan (@johnnyryan) February 4, 2020

Brave’s report — while a clearly stated promotion for its own anti-tracking browser (given it’s a commercial player too) — should be seen in the context of the ICO’s ongoing failure to take enforcement action against RTB abuses. It’s therefore an attempt to increase pressure on the regulator to act by further illuminating a complex industry which has used a lack of transparency to shield massive rights abuses and continues to benefit from a lack of enforcement of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.

And a low level of public understanding of how all the pieces in the adtech chain fit together and sum to a dysfunctional whole, where public services are turned against the citizens whose taxes fund them to track and target people for exploitative ads, likely contributes to discouraging sharper regulatory action.

But, as the saying goes, sunlight disinfects.

Asked what steps he would like the regulator to take, Brave’s chief policy officer, Dr Johnny Ryan, told TechCrunch: “I want the ICO to use its powers of enforcement to end the UK’s largest data breach. That data breach continues, and two years to the day after I first blew the whistle about RTB, Simon McDougall wrote a blog post accepting Google and the IAB’s empty gestures as acts of substance. It is time for the ICO to move this over to its enforcement team, and stop wasting time.”

We’re reached out to the ICO for a response to the report’s findings.

#TechCrunch

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love-god-forever · 5 years

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No Longer a Slave to Money, I Have a True Life

By Youxin

There being no clouds in the blue sky, I was standing in the yard enjoying the sunshine and feeling particularly happy. I thought back on the past several decades, how in order to make others look up to me I had struggled to make money and thus lived in misery. It was God’s words that led me to establish a correct view on life and gave me a new life direction. At this moment, I couldn’t help but cast my mind back to my childhood …

Feeling hurt in my young heart, I pursued to become rich.

I was born into an ordinary family. My father was a low-paid worker and had to support a family of six, so we lived a poor life. Therefore, the relatives and friends all looked down upon us. At that time, I made a vow: When I grow up, I must work hard to make money and become a rich person, and I will no longer let others look down on me.

When I was fifteen, I began to pick up cinders and coals for the village coal mine. Though I was young and weak, every day I, carrying a bamboo basket, constantly went back and forth through the mountains to scrounge for coals. Every night, I came back home feebly, and my arms were so hurt that I didn’t want to raise them. I didn’t want to eat anything, and only wanted to have a long sleep. This work was too tiring and hard, and I really wanted to quit it, but thinking of the monthly salary of 60 or 70 yuan, I endured the pain and went back to work the next day.

Picking up coals was not only tiring but dangerous too. Sometimes when the mining carts dumped their loads of coals, we had to immediately run aside, otherwise we might be hit by the falling coals. Once, I saw with my own eyes that a falling coal hit my companion on the head and he knocked out on the ground at once, and I was struck dumb by that scene. Fortunately, he’d made it to the hospital in time and escaped the danger of death after treatment. After that, I was constantly worrying that such an accident would befall me someday, but I still refused to give up this job, as I didn’t have any other way to make money. I thought then: “These days, only having money can bring the admiration of others. No pain, no gain. As long as I keep working hard, I will stand a chance of changing my financial situation and sooner or later, I will live a wealthy life.” Therefore, I bit the bullet and continued working.

Despite my struggles, I still failed to get my wish.

Afterward, I often vomited, and felt dizzy and chest pains, and my body was very weak. After an examination in the hospital, the doctor said that overwork left me with joint problems—cervical spondylosis. I had no choice but to stop work and rest. After I had just got better, I dragged my sick body back to collect coals and kept working from dawn to dusk for another three years. Later, in order to make more money, I learned how to fry bread sticks in a grain distribution station. Then I started a business selling fried bread sticks, my mother sold her homemade tofu and my father got a higher salary. Our life became a little better off, and that year we built my younger brother a house for his marriage. All these toils finally earned us admiration from the neighbors and friends. When I saw how much I earned per day, I was quite pleased, and felt that I was getting closer and closer to the life of a moneyed individual.

Afterward, I got married. I’d always wanted to live a prosperous life, but my health became worse and worse, to the point that I didn’t have the strength to turn the millstone. I received treatments for my cervical spondylosis, such as acupuncture, cupping and cervical traction, but the illness came and went, never thoroughly cured. Seeing that others lived a life of affluence, I thought: “Am I really supposed not to make big money this lifetime? No, I must keep working.”

After some time passed, my health improved somewhat. I initially wanted to continue selling fried bread sticks, but I was too weak and couldn’t bear the smell of frying. Therefore, I started to sell pancakes, and was in this business for several years; I often stayed up late and smelt the coal. Afterward, one day, when I was making pancakes, I suddenly got sick and ran to vomit out the door. Unexpectedly, I vomited blood. Having no choice, I had to stop work again. Thinking of how the money my husband earned was just enough to cover our living expenses, I, who was so ambitious, cried out in the heart, “Why is my fate that hard? I just want to be a rich person and live a fantastic, dignified life. Why is it that I cannot realize this dream? Heavens, I live so painfully. How should I live? …”

The sufferings from the illness and the lack of money made me exhausted both physically and mentally. I felt life was so tiring. I was constantly depressed, and every day was painful to me.

God’s words revealed the root of my suffering.

Later, I accepted God’s work in the last days. I saw God’s words saying, “‘Money makes the world go round’ is the philosophy of Satan and it prevails among the whole of mankind, among every human society. You could say that it is a trend because it has been instilled into the heart of every single person and is now affixed in their heart. … Regardless of how much experience someone has with this saying, what’s the negative effect that it can have on someone’s heart? Something is revealed through the human disposition of the people in this world, including each and every one of you. How is this interpreted? It’s the worship of money. Is it hard to get this out of someone’s heart? It is very hard! It seems that Satan’s corruption of man is thorough indeed! So after Satan uses this trend to corrupt people, how is it manifested in them? Don’t you feel that you couldn’t survive in this world without any money, that even one day would just be impossible? People’s status is based on how much money they have as is their respectability. The backs of the poor are bent in shame, while the rich enjoy their high status. They stand tall and proud, speaking loudly and living arrogantly. … Satan corrupts man at all times and at all places. Satan makes it impossible for man to defend against this corruption and makes man helpless to it. Satan makes you accept its thoughts, its viewpoints and the evil things that come from it in situations where you are unwitting and when you have no recognition of what’s happening to you. People fully accept these things and take no exception to them. They cherish and hold these things like a treasure, they let these things manipulate them and toy with them, and this is how Satan’s corruption of man becomes deeper and deeper.”

God’s words thoroughly revealed the views that I’d had on what to pursue all these years. It turned out that such views as “Money makes the world go round,” “No pain, no gain” were wrong views that Satan had instilled in me. These satanic rules of life had been rooted deep within my heart, so that since I was little, I regarded money as precious and treated becoming a rich person as the proper goal for my life. I thought that only struggling to become a rich person meant having ambitions, and that only living this way had value and meaning. As a result, I worked so hard to the extent that I made myself sick, causing myself to suffer physically and mentally and feel deeply tormented.

Thinking back over all these years, I had been so harmed by Satan’s poisons, and had always pursued to make good money and earn others’ admiration. When I was fifteen, I began to pick up coals from dawn to dusk like an adult. However hard or tiring it was, I forced myself to go on. Even though I might encounter the danger of being injured by falling coals, I insisted on doing that job. Though I’d had cervical spondylosis for the sake of making money, I still dragged my sick body to sell fried bread sticks and pancakes. Not until I drove myself to collapse did I finally halt the progress of my pursuit of money. And since I could no longer realize my dream of becoming rich due to being stricken with illness, I always worried about financial gains and losses, feeling pain and torment all the time. Now I realized that all these sufferings were because I accepted Satan’s wrong views, stubbornly careened down the wrong path of pursuing money and didn’t cherish my own life in the slightest. I saw clearly that pursuing to become wealthy and live better than others is not the correct view on life, and it’s only Satan’s insidious trick of corrupting and harming man.

Then how can we establish a correct view on life and live a life of meaning and value? I saw God’s words saying, “If one views life as an opportunity to experience the Creator’s sovereignty and come to know His authority, if one sees one’s life as a rare chance to perform one’s duty as a created human being and to fulfill one’s mission, then one will necessarily have the correct outlook on life, will live a life blessed and guided by the Creator, will walk in the light of the Creator, know the Creator’s sovereignty, come under His dominion, become a witness to His miraculous deeds and to His authority.” “After you recognize this, your task is to lay aside your old view of life, stay far from various traps, let God take charge of your life and make arrangements for you, try only to submit to God’s orchestrations and guidance, to have no choice, and to become a person who worships God.”

The Creator brought us into this world in order for us to worship Him, and gives us an opportunity of experiencing and knowing His sovereignty and authority. That is what we should pursue and the true life goal for us. Yet the views “Money makes the world go round,” and “No pain, no gain” are the fallacies of Satan. These wrong views can only make us merely care about money but fail to know how to worship God and live out the likeness of a real man, with the result that we become ever more distant from God and miss the chance of knowing the Creator in our whole life. Moreover, I also understood that how much money one has in his lifetime is preordained by God. I should let things take their course with making money, and learn to obey the Creator’s sovereignty and arrangements; besides, I shall experience His authority and sovereignty in all things in my life, pursue the truth and perform the duty of a created being, and obtain His praise. Only then will my life have value and I will live with dignity and character.

Relying on God to overcome Satan’s temptation, I saw God’s blessings.

Once, an acquaintance met me and offered to teach me how to raise mushrooms. Hearing her say it was profitable stirred my heart, and I thought: “That’s a rare good chance. I’ve tried very hard to find a good way to get rich but failed. Now the opportunity is knocking at the door. If I lose it, maybe I won’t have such a good chance again.” So I consulted her earnestly and learned all the details about raising mushrooms. Yet after she left, I felt a battle being waged in my heart: “Should I raise mushrooms or not? If I don’t do this, it’s a pity to lose this good chance of making money, but if I do, I can’t take such work in the grip of disease. Am I really to exchange my life for money?” Just as I was struggling, I thought of God’s words, “Remain quiet in My presence and live according to My word, and you will indeed remain watchful and exercise discernment in the spirit. When Satan arrives, you will be able to guard against it at once, as well as sense its coming; you will sense real uneasiness in your spirit. The current work of Satan adjusts to the changes of trends. When people behave foolishly and lack watchfulness, they will remain in captivity.” God’s words instantly made me understand that the trend of making money was Satan’s scheme of swallowing me and making me shun God. It arrogantly wanted to use my desire for money to bind me again, so that I would get worse and even die of the illness. I would no longer be Satan’s fool. And I also thought of how, in order to be rich and admired by others, I worked desperately hard to make money and suffered so much all these years, but after I began following God, I knew from His words that whether a man will be poor or rich is ruled by God and up to Him. I wished only to obey His sovereignty and arrangements and should be content with having sufficient food and clothing, and I mustn’t struggle to make money in spite of my illness, for it wasn’t worth it. When I came to this realization, I turned down my acquaintance’s offer, and I felt much more at ease and relaxed.

Afterward, my younger brother’s factory needed a stoker. My husband got that job, and the salary is enough for the whole family to live on. What’s more, I haven’t developed cervical spondylosis from then on. In ordinary life, when I see others make good money, I’m able to face it calmly and no longer worry about whether I can become a rich person. Through my experience, I’ve deeply appreciated that whether we be poor or rich and whether it be disaster or blessing that we encounter, they are not decided or controlled by ourselves but are preordained and ruled by God. Only by transforming our wrong views of pursuit, obeying God’s orchestrations and worshiping Him can we escape from Satan’s harm and live a happy life. I’m willing to repay God’s love and comfort His heart in my future fulfillment of my duty. All the glory be to God! Amen!

Extended Reading:

Grow in Christ | How to Live a Happy Life

#Christian Testimonies #Life Insights

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