#the only way to avoid situations like these is to include empathy in education because sometimes families are fucked up

[celestial-sapphicss]

phum 🤝🏽 phukao; justified anger, extremely questionable ways of revenge.

[naturecpw]

‘Gentle Parenting’ Explainer: No Rewards, No Punishments, No Misbehaving Kids Gentle parenting means a partnership with your kids where they want to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. The Conversation   Rebecca English

In a piece in The Conversation, Bernadette Saunders described positive discipline. Parents who practise positive discipline or gentle parenting use neither rewards nor punishments to encourage their children to behave.    

By “no rewards” I mean they don’t use charts or “bribes” such as lollies or toys. Many don’t even say “good girl/boy” or “good job”.    

And by “no punishments” I mean they don’t use time-outs, smacking, shaming or yelling. Forget the naughty step, forget the sticker chart, let’s take a journey into the world of gentle or positive discipline, which aims to teach children empathy, self-control and calmness.    

What is Discipline?

Discipline has come to mean many things in our culture. When we are discussing child rearing, we understand it to mean reprimanding a child for “bad behaviour”. The word discipline comes from the word disciple and means to teach.

The discipline advocated by gentle parenting families is internalised. They argue that to offer rewards and punishments overrides a child’s natural inclination to try. It teaches them to behave in certain ways for a reward, or to avoid punishment.

 Advocates of gentle parenting say that rewards and punishments do not encourage children to internalise good behaviour for its own sake.    

What Might This Type of Approach Look Like?

They start from a place of connection and believe that all behaviour stems from how connected the child is with their caregivers.

They give choices not commands (“would you like to brush your teeth before or after you put on your pyjamas?”).

They take a playful approach. They might use playfulness to clean up (“let’s make a game of packing up these toys”) or to diffuse tension (having a playful pillow fight).

They allow feelings to run their course. Rather than saying “shoosh”, or yelling “stop!”, parents actively listen to crying. They may say, “you have a lot of/strong feelings about [situation]”.

They describe the behaviour, not the child. So, rather than labelling a child as naughty or nice, they will explain the way actions make them feel. For example, “I get so frustrated cleaning crumbs off the couch.”

They negotiate limits where possible. If it’s time to leave the park, they might ask, “How many more minutes/swings before we leave?” However, they can be flexible and reserve “no” for situations that can hurt the child (such as running on the road or touching the hot plate) or others (including pets). They might say: “Hitting me/your sister/pulling the dog’s tail hurts, I won’t let you do that.”

They treat their children as partners in the family. A partnership means that the child is invited to help make decisions and to be included in the household tasks. Parents apologise when they get it wrong.

They will not do forced affection. When Uncle Ray wants to hug your child and s/he says no, then the child gets to say what happens to their body. They also don’t force please or thank you.

They trust their children. What you might think of as “bad” behaviour is seen as the sign of an unmet need.

They take parental time-outs when needed. Before they crack, they step away, take a breath and regain their composure.

What Are the Benefits?

There are many sites that claim benefits to this approach. For example, Attachment Parenting International argues that the child is more sensitive to others’ needs because they have learnt to expect that their needs will be met, they will be treated with respect and they are equal partners in the family.

Others argue that it may take more effort, but is more effective, because punishment and rewards are only short-term solutions. As Alfie Kohn argues, using rewards and punishments is about doing things to, not with children. Taking a gentle parenting or positive discipline approach invites children to partner with their parents to learn how to live in the community as productive members.

What Are the Problems?

The problems people may see with this style of parenting generally stem from a problem of definition. Gentle parenting is not permissive parenting. Permissive parenting means never saying no, not provoking tantrums or crying and always wanting to please the child. This style of parenting is the antithesis of gentle parenting.

Sometimes parents who practise gentle parenting are described as sanctimommies. The term is meant to imply they are sanctimonious. However, the issue is generally with that individual parent, not their parenting style.

Gentle parenting also requires parental self-control, because you have to take a step back, think and ask, “What is my child’s behaviour communicating in this moment?” and, “What can I do differently to prevent this behaviour next time?”

Rebecca English is a Lecturer in Education at the Queensland University of Technology.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/gentle-parenting-explainer-no-rewards-no-punishments-no-misbehaving-kids?utm_source=pocket-newtab

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[spiritus-sonne]

"The Fall of the Therian & Otherkin Communities"

(Kind of long, I know, but hopefully worth the read, especially in regards to some concerns and discussions that have been going on lately or for awhile.)

The idea that just because some or even many people desire within a given community to have a litmus test of sorts to ‘prove’ or officially ‘become’ a *personal* identity (that, of course, can have social identity aspects due to there being a community for it) does not mean that such a thing should exist. Many people desire for all kinds of things to be done or happen that ultimately are Bad Ideas ™; we need to learn from experiences and our pasts to realize what is and isn’t okay to do within a given community. The fact that someone wants to take the *idea* of an otherkin and/or therian litmus test to potentially make it a reality is unfortunately VALIDATING to the use of that test--it establishes that there must be need for this and it must be a good thing to do because obviously people want it. It creates a sort of positive feedback loop in which the existence (or near and validated existence) of this test is further validated (regardless of whether it is actually or morally problematic to have the test) by those who see the test or have to take it in order to be “initiated” into a given community label--those who ‘pass’ the test become validators of it, showing that it works, and even those who ‘fail’ the test provide further validation because they “proved” they weren’t worthy of the given label. Eventually, the mere existence of the test validates to the community members that such a test needs to exist and the members generally stop questioning whether it actually even *should* exist anymore--it’s simply accepted as something that is “needed” and for the betterment of the community (whether it actually is or not).

From a more personal perspective: my introduction into the therianthropy community was on a forum that regularly practiced “grilling” on all newbies, including myself, and it was purported as a way to both “keep out the fluffies and roleplayers” (that we didn’t want in because they weren’t serious enough about therianthropy and made us “serious, real therians” look bad) and to help out those ‘serious’ therians in their own introspection. I bought it, full force, and after my own ‘grilling’, which turned out to not be much because I so thoroughly answered the standard ‘grilling’ intro questions (I was accepted quickly as being a ‘serious therian’) and felt comfortable on that forum, I practiced the grilling, myself, in people’s introductions. Eventually, activity on the board fell as people went elsewhere to be active in the therian community--they went places where they didn’t have to be grilled or ‘prove’ themselves to a group of people.

As the activity fell there and I found other forums to go to, I came to realize that grilling wasn’t the necessity, nor so useful of a tool as I had been led to believe. I still look back on what I did there--something I genuinely thought at the time was a good thing to do--and kind of cringe at myself for being so intolerant of other people, so unaccepting, and so disrespectful. I had fallen victim to the social atmosphere of that forum and decided that because they had that ‘test’ (the grilling practice) that I should trust in them that it was actually needed and right--that it was validated--and from there I further validated it by practicing the test on others. It’s sickening how this can happen, but it’s so easy *for* it to happen, especially if moderators, especially admins, and other regulars or highly-respected members validate the practice/test. It becomes that positive feedback loop of people essentially nodding their heads in agreement and continuing on with a practice without really questioning if it’s even okay to be an actual practice there or not, with more and more people being added to those seeing it as valid as they “pass” the test and join into the forum, taking after those higher respected members and staff. And naysayers are generally quickly stamped out by a barrage of angry ‘superiors’ on the board who will insist to their last breath that this test is “good and needed”. We stop questioning it, we stop thinking for ourselves about it, and fall into what the given site/community insists should be The Way, and we ignore those who suffer because of it or gloss over them, accepting that they are simply a ‘small cost’ to this practice that is ‘better for the community’.

But then that board was lost and the community managed to grow further on other sites and forums where grilling wasn’t a thing anymore. We came to figure out ways to function in the community, or at least in certain parts of it, without the need for grilling or going on “fluffy hunts”--we found a way to exist at least more balanced and less harmfully. So grilling, overall, became a thing of the past and became more widely recognized as not a valid, let alone good or healthy, practice in the community--it became accepted as a bad practice and it, along with similar forms of litmus testing in the community, became understood as something to avoid.

We can reinstill some kind of litmus test, be it grilling or something else, to try to fight off things like kffs (“kinning for fun” people), to try to make our experiences, identities, and communities more ‘palatable’ to those who are not part of those things, but we’d only be able to do it on a small scale, like a single or few forums. And on those forums, activity will probably eventually taper off and cause a near-death to the given forum(s) because newbies--who are a big source of activity & a key aspect of the ‘lifeblood’ that would keep the forum going--would feel too unsafe going there to be active. Plus, therian and otherkin forums are already borderlining on dying out entirely, do we really want to *assist* in that by further chasing away new people with fear and discomfort? And it would all be for naught anyway as the main places kffs hang out can’t be controlled with some litmus test or whatever--they are most prevalent on social media platforms that give them large amounts of freedom and little control over them from others. And those kffs, on those platforms, are going to be the main or first people most people are going to see in relation to therianthropy and otherkin. That’s the reality of the situation, no matter how much it sucks. That’s the way the world is at this point. We can continue to keep fighting horrendously amongst our own communities here, attacking the shit out of our ‘neighbors’ because we don’t know where else to point our frustration, worry, and rage, so we redirect it at another therian and/or otherkin site, another forum, another well-known therian/’kin, and we become a damn ouroboros devouring its own tail--and it’s THAT which will be the fall of our communities, if we let it happen.

Or, we can try to work toward better solutions. Maybe our focus shouldn’t be about sort of directly fighting off people like kffs. Maybe we should focus on garnering social atmospheres that are more prominent with acceptance, respect, and empathy and trying to honestly focus on *helping* people and nurturing positive social, communal bonds with the community members, including new people, and emphasizing good education. We should not fight with fire and rage, but with compassion and humility. We should acknowledge our limitations as individuals, as forums, as sites, and as communities, and learn to work through ways we are *not* limited. We should speak with voices that aren’t filled with disdain, rage, or defeat, but instead with hope and acceptance to be able to spread words or content of our personal experiences in being other-than-human so that others can find them and realize that THEY ARE NOT ALONE. Should we not allow more of us members--those who are willing and able--to be helpers and stewards in these communities so more therians and ‘kin don’t have to feel the dreadful ache and weight of being *alone*? These communities aren’t all about just each of us as individuals, about our own selves, but they are also about others who need these resources and socializations for their own good and wellbeing, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to just sit by idly with my mouth shut while others try to take that away (whether intentionally or not). My fangs and claws are my words, not of hate or anger, but of compassion, acceptance, and humility--they are my greatest strength and I’m ready to let them sing.

[fefipranon]

Let’s talk about depression

In my latest book ‘The Power of Death’ I talk about this topic in depth. I will post the links to it at the end of this post if you are interested in reading it. If there is one part of the book that resumes the message that I wanted to transmit, it’s Mikasa’s (The main character) press conference at the end of the last chapter. 

It’s okay if you don’t read the whole book, but at least, read the following extract from the book (some stuff removed to avoid spoilers): 

Standing behind the podium Mikasa started the conference by saying, 

"Paradis island doesn't have studies about the topic we are about to discuss, but other countries do. In the United States, in 2019, a total of 47,511 Americans died by suicide and an estimated 1.38 million attempted it. [2] What about other countries? you may ask, well, overall, suicide was in the top 10 leading causes of death across Eastern Europe, Central Europe, high-income countries within the Asia Pacific, and Australasia. Within regions and countries, though, suicide rates soared among people with lower social and economic status. [3] This data comes from research made by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Washington, Seattle. [4] This goes without mentioning that for every suicide, it is estimated that there are seven to ten people intimately affected."[8]

Mikasa stopped to take a sip of water and looked back at the audience to continue her speech, 

"Untreated depression can, and possibly will lead to suicide, death. In biology, homeostasis is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. [5] Depression does have an impact on this. Research shows that the hippocampus is smaller in some depressed people. For example, in one fMRI study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, investigators studied 24 women who had a history of depression. On average, the hippocampus was 9% to 13% smaller in depressed women compared with those who were not depressed. The more bouts of depression a woman had, the smaller the hippocampus. [6] The hippocampus is not the only area of the brain affected by depression, the Amygdala, and Thalamus are also affected.[6] Depression is, and should be treated as, an illness that, if left untreated, can be lethal. Just remember the statistics I gave you about suicide at the beginning of my speech. With that data as the base of my argument, it is safe for me to say that depression is one of the top life-threatening illnesses having, in some countries, the top mortality rate overall."

A woman from the public raised her hand and when allowed to talk she said, 

"How can you call an illness to something that can be 'cured' by just talking to a so-called doctor about your issues?" 

Mikasa gave the woman a serious look and said, "Therapy, is not just talking. Psychotherapy stands over years of research and development going as back as the 19th century. There is extensive evidence of its effectiveness. Also, most cases of depression treatments include medication." 

Then a man shouted, "So now doctors will give our kids a bunch of pills just because the child is feeling a little sad?!"

"Several tests are usually performed before a psychiatrist gives a diagnosis of depression. Tests like: physical exams, lab tests, psychiatric evaluation, and the country's manual of mental health like for example the DSM-5 which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the American Psychiatric Association, is applied. After that, the psychiatrist might do more testing to see if medication is an option. Because they are physicians, psychiatrists can order or perform a full range of medical laboratory and psychological tests which, combined with discussions with patients, help provide a picture of a patient's physical and mental state. Their education and clinical training equip them to understand the complex relationship between emotional and other medical illnesses and the relationships with genetics and family history, to evaluate medical and psychological data, to make a diagnosis, and to work with patients to develop treatment plans.[7] In other words, for a doctor to prescribe medication to your child, it has to first do an extensive evaluation on the kid before even start to consider medication in the first place. If in the end, medication is needed, then it would mean that your kid is not only 'feeling a little sad', it means that there is a deeper problem that needs to be addressed and the physician will have a lot of evidence to back up his claim.", Mikasa said. 

She stopped talking and pinched the bridge of her nose out of frustration, then she looked seriously at the same man she was addressing before, and said, "Would you rather lose your child to suicide or seek valid, scientific-based help to save the kid's life?"

The man was frozen in place. He was not expecting to be put in the spotlight this way. Mikasa noticed the teenage kid who was seated next to him with his head bowed to the floor. Before he could answer Mikasa said, 

"Do you even know how depression feels like? To have your own mind to conspire against you? To illogically feel worthless, alone, like nobody can understand you, or at least, nobody that hasn't been through the same darkness as you. Do you know how it feels when people tell you worthless crap like, 'get over it', or 'just stop being sad' like being sad is just an option you chose because apparently, you like to torture yourself? Have you ever contemplated to end your life out of desperation to get an out, a break, from your own mind?"

By this point, the kid was looking straight at Mikasa with tears pouring down his eyes. Mikasa knew she was getting through him. She grabbed the microphone and started to walk while resuming her speech, 

"To feel like you are constantly drowning. To feel like an ungrateful ass because logically, you should be happy because you have everything. But you aren't... Thinking that there must be something really wrong with you for you to feel this way without an apparent reason. To feel lost, alone with this feeling that is eating you inside slowly until it gets to the point where you desperately want to rip your soul out of your body. When it gets so bad that causing physical pain to your body is an option since, at least, for a brief moment, your mind focuses on the physical pain which is better for you because the emotional pain is so much greater than a little cut on your forearm."

The man realized that she was no longer addressing him but the person seated next to him, his own son. Mikasa stood right in front of his son and looked at him in the eyes. She lowered the microphone and while brushing her fingers through the kid's scars on his forearm she said to him, 

"You are not alone."

Then, she showed him her own scars and the kid stood up pulling her in for a hug while repeatedly saying, "Thank you"

Reporters were recording the whole encounter. It was real. Depression was real, and it was being recorded. The father of the kid sat back down while looking at his son in shock. Trying to find the words to say he just pulled him in for a hug while saying, 

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"You never really asked.", the boy replied. 

"I'm sorry. I will do better. You deserve better.", his dad replied with a broken voice. 

Mikasa lifted the microphone again to talk and said, "Depression is a silent killer. It could be your child, partner, parent... it could be closer to you than what you think. So before you speak about the topic remember that. Your words could be hurting one of your own for your lack of empathy."

She walked towards the podium again to start answering reporter's questions,

 "What would you say to someone who is going through this?"

Mikasa lowered her head lost in thought and said, "You don't need to have a traumatic event in your life to have depression. Depression is not just sadness and is not only caused by personality type or environmental factors. Genetics and biochemistry are also a big part of it, and those two have nothing to do with how much crap you've been dealt in life. What I am trying to say it's that, it's okay to not be okay, you don't need a reason to, and you don't need to feel worse about it for not having a reason. Being sad is not a right you earn after a certain amount of societally accepted shit has happened to you. Just seek help, see the situation logically, and not let people bring you down. If possible, educate others on the topic. Be the change you want to see in the world."

She paused, thinking of her own struggles with depression, and the stability and peace she finally felt once the pills started to work on her. Sure, dark thoughts still lingered at the back of her head, but, it was no longer unbearable, now, it was manageable. With time and therapy, she had managed to live with it, minimizing their negative effect on her. With this in mind, she said,

"Do not get frustrated if anti-depressants don't work at first, sometimes it takes a couple of tries with different types of medications to get the one that works for you. Researchers are exploring possible links between the sluggish production of new neurons in the hippocampus and low moods. An interesting fact about antidepressants supports this theory. These medications immediately boost the concentration of chemical messengers in the brain (neurotransmitters). Yet people typically don't begin to feel better for several weeks or longer. Experts have long wondered why, if depression were primarily the result of low levels of neurotransmitters, people don't feel better as soon as levels of neurotransmitters increase. The answer may be that mood only improves as nerves grow and form new connections, a process that takes weeks." [6]

She paused and looked at the crowd. Then, she said, 

"In the meantime, stay alive, even if it feels against your will. Do not give a permanent solution to a temporary problem, because trust me, it DOES get better."

Stay Alive

Feel free to share this to raise awareness. This book has all the things I wish someone had told me in my darkest moments, and I hope, it can help someone out there who is going through the same painful path in life. Remember, it's not your fault, you are not alone.

Resources used in this part: 

[1]  Oswego City School District Regents Exam Prep Center. Archived from on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 12 November 2012. URL: homeostasis

[2] American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: suicide-statistics

[3] global-suicide-rates-study

[4] Global, regional, and national burden of suicide mortality 1990 to 2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016: content

[5]  Gordon., Betts, J. Anatomy and physiology. DeSaix, Peter., Johnson, Eddie., Johnson, Jody E., Korol, Oksana., Kruse, Dean H., Poe, Brandon. Houston, Texas. p. 9. ISBN 9781947172043. OCLC 1001472383.

[6] What causes depression? Harvard Medical School: what-causes-depression

[7] What Is Psychiatry? from the American Psychiatric Association. URL: what-is-psychiatry

[8] Lukas, Christopher; Henry M. Seiden (1997) [1987]. Silent Grief: Living in the Wake of Suicide. Northvale, New Jersey: Jaron Aronson. p. 5. ISBN 0-7657-0056-5.

Book Summary: 

Mikasa is a woman suffering from clinical depression. There is one thing that she is sure of: she wants to die. But when she received some unexpected news that makes her death wish a reality, she starts to wonder if that was really what she wanted. She starts a journey to discover the truth about her biological parents that gave her up for adoption when she was a baby. This journey will guide her to cross paths with someone as broken as her, someone that hates her to death for what her biological family did to him. Will she have the courage to, for once, fight to live? or will she let him drag her to hell with him?

The book is tagged as an ‘Attack on Titan’ Alternate universe fanfic but honestly you don’t need to know anything about the anime to read it. The story has nothing to do with it so feel free to read if you haven’t seen it. 

You can find the story in the following links: 

Archive of our own:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30452145/chapters/75087657

Wattpad:

https://www.wattpad.com/story/264598251-the-power-of-death

[mybg3notebook]

Gale: Hypothesis and Analogies – Part 2

Here, I will compile several hypotheses that are pretty common to find around and I will express my opinion on them showing what EA has given us so far to justify them or not. 

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Disclaimer about interpretations of Real Life concepts: I’m not a fan of bringing real life issues into plain analogies/allegories in a game which intention in doing so was not made explicit, but the fandom seems to like this aspect and therefore I would like to share those opinions here as well since some seems reasonable despite not being of my taste. This topic may be sensitive for some people. Be aware of it.

Hypothesis: Gale is a gaslighter

Concept

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgement. It may evoke changes in them such as cognitive dissonance or low self-esteem, rendering the victim additionally dependent on the gaslighter for emotional support and validation. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction,and disinformation, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilise the victim and delegitimise the victim's beliefs. 

A gasligther's ultimate goal is to make their victim second-guess their choices and to question their sanity, making them more dependent on the abuser. Fandom does an incredible misuse of this word (and similar ones), that over-magnifies situations which don't have those dimensions. For example, it’s pretty common to read in this fandom that Wyll “gaslights” Tav when he denies that his eye is a sending stone. Gaslighting and lying are not synonymous at all. 

Then, what's the difference? A person usually lies by either withholding or concealing information, or falsifying information and presenting it as true.

Gaslighting is similar to lying, but a gaslighter will also be attempting to confuse the other person by flipping a situation and putting the blame onto them, making them doubt their perception of events and second guess themselves. Typically the gaslighter is either trying to avoid taking responsibility for something and they want someone else to take responsibility, or they are trying to gain control over someone because they have an agenda.

So basically, gaslighting is about flipping, attacking, confusing and blaming, gaining power over another, and trying to get someone else to take responsibility for their bad behaviour. But lying doesn’t involve flipping, attacking or blaming and the liar isn’t trying to get someone else to take responsibility for their behaviour, they are merely hiding information for personal reasons. 

Inside the context of BG3

Honestly, nothing of this is happening with Gale, not even with Wyll and his denial about the sending stone. Gale and Wyll are hiding personal information, but without any interest to control Tav. In fact, the one holding power is Tav: the leader of the group that no companion questions. It's clear for any player that Tav has so much power over the group that they can kill any of the companions without consequences. 

Unlike an average gaslighter, Gale is well aware that his dire situation is the product of his own mistakes; the folly of his young self who believed that Mystra's love would last forever. We also learnt in the Loss scene that he deeply regrets this situation and during the Revelation scene he makes it clear over and over again that the only one to blame is “the silly wizard who did not accept a no from a goddess”, while being quite oblivious of the power imbalance his young self was in (here is where the grooming interpretation comes. Read Part 1 for details). Gale never disrespected Tav's opinions, confusing them or dismissing them. Gale can agree or disagree with Tav, and be very clear about it, but like an expected scholar, his disagreements are done with sensible touch and respecting Tav's individuality. In the only moment where Gale is aggressive due to dissidence is during the conversation after the goblin party or in his final scene before leaving the party when he is very low approval. But it's more than understandable since Tav forced him to be part of evil acts he did not want to participate in (after all, he is a good-aligned character, as Sven said it in PAX). 

Even Wyll, lying straight to Tav's face about his stone eye, is not even gaslighting. Gaslighting is about power, control, and submission of the other. I would really like the fandom to learn the context of the words they use. 

Hypothesis: Gale is a narcissist

Concept

Another word that fandom can't grasp and misuses so lightly. The difference between a narcissist and a cocky person or a high self-esteem person is big. 

A narcissist is not just someone who loves themselves in excess and has a big ego. A narcissist is a person that has very specific character traits, the three main are: having a sense of entitlement, being exploitative, and being empathy impaired, or having a complete lack of empathy for others.

Sense of entitlement: A narcissist views themselves as superior and special and better than everyone else, so they think they should be treated that way. They have delusions of grandeur and a sense of omnipotence and grandiosity that makes them feel entitled to have whatever they want.

They see their needs and desires as a priority and more important than anyone else’s; they are ruthless in getting them fulfilled. They crave admiration and adoration and will demand attention, but they will not give anything in return. They’ll punish others if they don’t get what they want. They don’t care about the consequences because they don’t believe consequences apply to them, since they think they are above reproach.

Being exploitative: Because of their sense of entitlement, the narcissist needs to exploit and use others to get what they want. Exploitative behaviour includes: intimidation, manipulation, control, plotting, conspiring, strategising, teasing, bullying, threats, being aggressive and passive-aggressive. They take advantage and treat people unfairly . They do only what is best for themselves in order to achieve their own goals. Due to their lack of conscience they will not feel any remorse or concern for the person they use and exploit. Instead they will just feel excitement and pleasure at having gained what they believe is rightfully theirs.

Lack of empathy: Empathy is the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes, and imagine what they are feeling, understanding those feelings. Narcissists lack this ability, so they do not concern themselves with other people's feelings, showing little compassion for others. This lack of empathy means they have no problem taking advantage of people or hurting them when they exploit or degrade them for their own means, and they have no conscience or awareness about the pain they cause in others. This is the reason why they can't offer comfort or reassurance. Another big sign that someone might be a narcissist is if they have trouble being told ‘No’. Narcissists lack boundaries and they don’t care about other people’s boundaries, so trying to set a boundary simply by saying no to them, may provoke a very strong reaction in them.

So, the difference between a narcissist and a cocky or high self-esteem person are clear: 

A person with high self-esteem greatly respects themselves. Self-esteem is confidence in one’s ability to think, make choices, and act on those choices, as well as feeling deserving of happiness and benefiting from one’s hard work and accomplishments. Above all, it means valuing the facts of reality and reason to guide one’s life. A lapse in knowledge or a mistake won't threaten their self-esteem. In fact, they embrace facts, whether those facts come from themselves or someone else, because they know that knowledge will help them in their life.

People with high-self esteem rarely (if ever) evade facts or rational advice because they know reality is their survival tool and means of achieving and maintaining happiness. They may be cocky at times, but they have tact and empathy to understand their own mistakes and the effect that they may cause on others, accepting the blame.

Narcissism is the opposite of self-esteem. Narcissists act as if they know everything, and anything that contradicts what they believe is either evaded or rejected out of hand. They’re not interested in facts that contradict what they feel or want to be true. They feel they must be right all the time. Their charm and show-off is usually aimed to belittle people. They always want to remain blameless. 

Inside the context of BG3

Gale is certainly confident in his knowledge and he is proud of what he does; he spent many years learning under many tutors; his skills are a product of hard effort and a privileged education (wizard education). 

Gale: I'm a wizard of considerable acclaim, and scholar of exceptional accomplishment.

Lae'zel: You strike me as cleverer than most istiki, Gale. Multiple tutors I should guess. Gale: Many a wise man and woman, indeed. Waterdeep is the home of myriads of scholars. 

Gale: Benefits of a wizard's education, you see. Of course my considerable talent didn't hurt either. Well... That depends on who you ask, I suppose. I may have summoned things rather more exotic than a winged cat.

This is not mere fake, because the scene of Ceremorphosis shows that Gale has a deep understanding of the process, compared to the knowledge that any githyanki has (Lae'zel or githyanki Tav). What Gale continues stating are facts:

Tav: And what makes you the expert? Gale: Study. 

He is far from being the typical obnoxious scholar who enjoys making people feel small and inferior. Unlike the archetype, Gale doesn't enjoy mocking Tav's ignorance, on the contrary, the excess of explanation can be seen as a typical vice of a teacher (which is confirmed after the Weave: Gale has been a teacher for some students even though his patience was thin). But in the same way Gale states the fact that he knows a lot, he is also well aware of his limitations, and he doesn't hide that fact: during the scene of ceremorphosis, he acknowledges that his “knowledge fails him” when he tries to understand the anomalies they are experiencing. 

During the Weave scene, he acknowledges the obvious: 

Tav: You’re a good teacher. Gale: I Know.

Annoying? yes, but true. After all, the game allowed a non-wizard Tav to channel the Weave, a unique experience for non-magical users. They are casting the Weave for the first time thanks to Gale's good instructions (and some luck with the dice). 

Another situation can be seen during the scene of the consumption of the artefacts.

Tav: Thanks don't get me that artefact back Gale: I myself am a much more powerful artefact in your arsenal. Rest assured of that.

His comment may be cocky, but it once more displays a fact: a functional wizard (with many spell slots) is more valuable than the power that those artefacts give to Tav (usually one spell alone). It’s also worth noting that none of his show-off comments tries to dismiss or belittle Tav. 

Because of his habit of over-explaining, Gale tends to be considered a mansplainer. I would see it that way if his excessive explanations would only happen with female Tavs. But the truth is that he is explaining too much to anyone, even to fellow wizards that may know all that stuff already. After all, it makes sense: he has the [sage] tag; he read all his life, he knows a big amount of things, and he was a teacher: a terrible combination that justifies a character with a tendency to over-explaining.

But Gale is not even that cocky, in my opinion. Many of his scenes have a level of teasing that implies more a hidden joke than high self-esteem. This is a pattern that can be seen in several opportunities: Gale uses this fake cockiness to put some levity in the moment, showing his joking intentions by context or explicitly with words:

The scene of Ceremorphosis starts with him observing his own reflection. When Tav asks him what he is doing, Gale answers: “Indulging in a spot of vanity. Handsome devil, aren't I?”. He deflected the raw context of the answer with teasing. He was not indulging into vanity, what he was truly doing was to observe any change in his physiognomy, and he attempted to levity by teasing. This is explicit later, when the topic of the conversation focuses on the changes that ceremorphosis causes. Even the handsome devil comment has teasing implications: according to some idiom dictionaries, the expression handsome devil “it's usually used playfully or flirtatiously”. Again, a teasing. 

During the Stew scene, Gale puts some levity before introducing the dramatic conversation about the artefacts he needs:

Gale: Curious time to be dieting. Especially with a chef like myself around. 

When meeting the Myconid, Gale will talk with fascination about the ability of this species to raise the dead through spores.

Tav: Sorry, but I don't share your fascination for fungi. Gale: Nobody's perfect. 

Tav can be a bit dismissive with his response, to which Gale will reply with one of his typical teasing/jokes, implying the ridiculous idea that a perfect person should always be interested in fungi. It’s a joke.

Another attempt to levity despite fearing to turn into mind flayers that night:

Gale: More blood. That's a pretty sight. Give it to me straight, how do I look? Tav: Like your handsome self, Gale. Gale: Thanks, that's what I thought.

During the Loss scene, in the romantic path of “more than friends”, we have this silly, teasing/cockiness which lacks belittling intentions. He is just playful. That can be seen because he doesn't let the situation last more than a moment, immediately calling himself “insufferable”. A narcissist, under no circumstance, would call himself as such. 

Tav: When I said we could be more than friends, you answered “perhaps”. What does that really mean? Gale: If I recall correctly, the Waterdhavian Dictionary of the Common Tongue of Faerûn defines it as an adverb that conveys the meaning of “It may be that”, or “possibly”. Sorry, sometimes I just can't help being quite insufferable. In seriousness, I'm glad you asked that question. [...] 

When the joke/teasing finishes, his words change immediately returning to the “serious” note of the conversation, doing it explicitly: “In seriousness”. Meaning he was joking a moment ago. He is painfully explicit. 

The same exact teasing/joke happens during the scene of the consumption of artefacts:

Tav: Let's hope this was the last artefact I had to part with. Gale: Come, come, these are mere fabled objects of great to enormous value. My continued presence though – quite priceless! On a more serious note, I do not wish to give you false hope. We're only treating the symptoms, not the cause. [...]

After the teasing, Gale explicitly says “talking on a more serious note”, meaning, the previous moment was a joke. Again. 

Another example of teasing/cocky joke:

Wyll: Between the orb and the bug you've got more than your fair share of unwelcome passengers. Gale: What can I say. Mother always taught me to be a gracious host. 

Gale claims to be a gracious host, but the context surrounding this... just makes it into a joke. This is why I insist so much in the Context.

This happens during the “Revelation” scene too, when it's Tav who attempts to use this teasing to relax the tense situation with a joke:

Tav: When you put it like that – no one can say no to me. Gale: After all, even I am only human. (Gale Approves)

It's painfully obvious they tease one another. After all the conversation of Mystra and the orb, some Tavs may want to opt for this option to answer Gale, and he even would approve this attempt of levity, because it's the same exact, silly thing he does as a pattern. He also approves it because he likes confidence. Again, I will repeat myself, but it's clear that Gale is char with high self-esteem, and likes people with that same trait. We know this because during the party when Tav accepts his out-of-nowhere “thank you”. Gale immediately says: “There's that confidence I like”.

During the scene after the party, we have some extra silly, cocky moments that could be the result of wine in Gale's system, or the messiness of the scene itself, since it’s so unpolished:

Tav: I think that sounds delightful Gale: That's because I'm full of delights

Tav: You’re a good kisser. Gale: I’m of the opinion one should try to excel at everything. 

Tav: Thank you for a wonderful night. Gale: Like I said; I try to excel at everything.

I would like to highlight this line because the way it's said shows a level of confidence that is not related to an excess of ego, but to a high self-esteem behaviour: he says “try”. Meaning, he knows he may fail. His past is proof that he can try to excel at things that he would never be able to manage, and unlike a narcissist, he acknowledges his limitations once more. 

Another interesting exchange is after that night: 

Gale: A night to remember. It was wonderful, wasn't it? Tav: Oh, I've had better. Gale: I had a goddess, but you don't hear me complaining. [After apology] Tav: We should do it again sometime. Gale: We absolutely should, after all I need to undone the misconception that you had better. 

Tav can question Gale's performance, and after repaying that rudeness with his comment on the Goddess, (again, Gale is a character that will pay you with the same coin [18]) he accepts the criticism and promises—with a teasing—to do it better. Again, an impossible gesture in a narcissist.

But not only in these teasing/joking situations we see his high self-esteem: in bitter or aggressive reactions, we see he uses it to enrage his rude/violent interlocutor:

During the Weave scene:

Gale: What did I think about seeing my head on a spike? That I still looked as handsome as ever, that's what.

Gale is hurt of being depicted beheaded (we know he fears death, the scene with Nettie shows it). His answer is, of course, rude after such a gore image projected in his mind. But instead of resorting to plain aggression, he pretends that it did not have the effect that Tav wanted to cause. To do so, he shows off.

The scene of Mirkon displays both styles of teasing: Gale started using his teasing/cocky attitude with a clear intention of sharing something personal with Tav, who has just done an action that it's important for Gale (saving children/youngsters of their own mistakes [5, 12b], a concept that echoes in Gale's background).

Gale: Benefits of a wizard's education, you see. Of course my considerable talent didn't hurt either. Well... That depends on who you ask, I suppose. 

Tav can ignore this silly cockiness and engage in what Gale wants to share, leaving the moment at that. But if Tav opts for a rude comment, Gale will answer with a degree of rudeness too, using a condescending tone (but it’s very light if we compare it with the level of aggressive condescending he displays with an evil Tav). We need to remember that Gale is a char who follows the philosophy of giving people their own medicine [18]. That's what he does:

Tav: Considerable talent. Are you always this full of yourself? Gale: Only when the occasion suits. That's mostly a synonym for 'yes', by the by. Anyway-- 

Gale is a very confident character, but his high self-esteem is not that broad. It is limited to his knowledge and appearance, but never to relationships. Exactly it's there where he becomes less confident and when his emotions and abandonment issues conflict with his good sense.

Don't get me wrong, Gale's ego is there, I'm not denying it. But like everything in this fandom, some groups tend to over-magnify what the game gives in EA. Gale has a very well founded self-esteem in academic and researching fields: he has been a prodigy of the Weave from a young age (probably very close to a Weavemaster, skill referred in the novel Dead Masks), and a remarkable scholar with artistic attitudes in poetry. He worked hard for years to amass all that knowledge (he has a [sage] tag for a reason) and then he became, briefly, a Chosen one (not a small feat) which catapulted him to an status of archwizard. He could be so immensely obnoxious, aggressive, and dismissive as Fane is in DOS2. Still, Gale remains in a low level of a playful ego that only surfaces when the situation requires a teasing/levity or when it is a bitter tool against an aggressive and rude Tav. Considering him a narcissist is to over-magnify this trait out of the chart. He is a lore-content character; that character that in many rpg games will accompany us while explaining the context of the fantasy world we are playing in; therefore it is natural and obvious that he will over explain like no other companion so far. 

Of course, all this is EA and may change by the time the game is released. But so far we should analyse what has been given to us. 

I personally don't like this trait of his, but I think it's part of his many flaws. After all, he is the embodiment and the concept "humans are fallible", and he is very aware of that every time he speaks in seriousness.

Hypothesis: Gale is a manipulator

Concept

I suggest reading the post about "Context, persuasion, and manipulation" for the definition and understanding of the concept.

Inside the context of BG3

On this aspect, I won't repeat myself, and I will recommend to read the series of posts I've done about "Gale: Manipulation, Lies, and Trust" which explains in detail the Stew Scene, the Loss Scene, the Party Scene and extra scenes (death protocol and dreams). This series focuses exactly on the degree of truth and lies that Gale shares with different Tavs (depending on their choices). As a broad conclusion I can say that Gale is not a manipulator as a main trait in his personality, and may (or not) withhold information if romanced (depending on Tav’s choices). 

He is not even a liar, since he has always made clear his boundaries and never denied to have secrets. Earning his trust to open up takes its time and good actions, and only in a romantic path there is a more messy approach: the scene pretends to create a “great betrayal”, when there is little since all the information concerning the “orb” has been given in broad strokes previously. The information that Gale has been withholding was personal and private but said in a bad timing making it of poor taste. The whole scene is very unpolished, not reacting to the amount of information that Tav can have from previous scenes. It presents two apparent conflicts: 

The “orb”, which danger has been stated since the first moment we met Gale, and it was reinforced in most scenes; so there is not a great revelation in it by the end of EA. 

The other conflict is apparently Gale's past lover: Mystra. Which can be surprising for a Tav, but not so much for a player who knows the lore background. In any case, the scene offers poor options to react to all this: or it ignores all the information that Tav can know by that time (information given by Gale himself), or gives over-reactive options, pretending that Mystra and the Orb are informations that never were informed in the game. 

So far in EA we see that Gale could withhold personal information not because he wants to have power over Tav, but as a consequence of his visceral fear for a second abandonment. Gale suffers from abandonment issues that make him prone to making bad decisions when confronted with that situation. 

As I said before, for a real and detailed analysis read the post "Gale: Manipulation, Lies, and Trust", which is summary of the posts 

'Stew' Scene    (extensive)

Loss Scene ( extensive )

Party Scene ( extensive )

Extra Scenes: death protocol and comments on dreams

Hypothesis: Gale makes you "cheat" your LI

I won't repeat myself so I recommend to read the post Gale proposes you to 'cheat' "

Hypothesis: Gale still loves Mystra

I recommend reading the post Does Gale love Mystra?.

Hypothesis: Gale has no Tadpole

I recommend to read the post of "The Tadpole"

---

Sources for both parts:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( 5V)

Some concepts were summarised from: https://melcrowecounsellor.com www.d2l.org/child-grooming-signs-behavior-awareness/

This post was written in June 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

[avenger-hawk]

Hi, can you talk a little bit about naruto’s dark, controlling and possessive side? Or if you already wrote about it, link me the post? Thankss

I mentioned something here, here and probably there is smth in this tag. 

And like I said countless times since you guys just don’t care about other ppl, if you write n*ruto’s name entirely it will show up in the search pages and I am fed up with raging SN/SN.S/Nar stans bitching at me.

Sorry (nope, not sorry) to break someone’s bubble but Nar is not a happy ball of sunshine and he’s not selfless. 

He was neglected as a child, totally abandoned to himself with some money each month and an apartment he was supposed to clean and manage all alone. He was shunned or treated like sh*t by villagers and classmates alike, his only ‘parent’ was Iruka who couldn’t be with him always, and his idea of friendship, family, everything was twisted, cause try living all by yourself since you’re a child and you have no idea of why ppl hate you and avoid you. Of course he saw the Hokage as this big authority figure that everyone respects and ‘loves’ in his child mind, and of course he wanted to be Hokage so that ppl would finally respect and ‘love’ him. His idea of love is obviously screwed, and it’s a mix of respect, aknowledgement, deference.

He doesn’t have a sense of equality because he never learned what equality is. He was below everyone else being shunned and hated, and his role model was above everyone else, where he aspired to be.

He started to make friends and he’s all about comrades, yes, like all shounen protagonists. But it’s always him reaching out to them, him protecting them, him changing their minds about something (or about himself), him obtaining their admiration and respect from an initial situation of being the opposite, being considered a good for nothing and a loser.

Sasuke is considered the opposite since the beginning, he’s a good student and shinobi, he’s left all alone too and nothing is shown of his alone life but from the little things we see he learned to manage himself and the house better, he didn’t care about people probably talking behind his back about the massacre, and he obtained a good reputation in the academy, so the story starts with him in a different situation. And Nar considers him a rival, he’s clearly jealous of the ‘success’ he has, not realizing that he’s alone too. Because Nar is not empathic at all, and his child self is even less, being a child with clear difficulties in processing things, which makes sense since he had no education basically. He just sees external signs of adjustment and ‘success’ which is what he wants, so he ‘hates’ Sasuke and he provokes him all the time. They become rivals, then comrades (and rivals), then friends, but it’s always Sasuke who, despite his aloof personality, shows positive signs, first hand feeding him, then defending him against Sak*ra, then shielding him and many other little things while Nar is always overreacting or doing questionable, not to say bad things (like attacking him and tying him up to meet Sak*ra) to him.

Nar’s lack of empathy can be seen after the inn scene, cause instead of being I won’t even say supportive but, not irritating, he mocks Sasuke who just woke up after Tsukuyomi, provoking him so that Sasuke, already (re)traumatized and feeling worthless towards both his brother and Naru, challenges him. Right after waking up from a coma, basically. And ofc Nar doesn’t hold back.

When Sasuke leaves in part 1 Nar is enraged, ofc, and he reacts violently, even their fight is very violent, and ofc it is being a fight, but Nar is really really brutal, feral I’d say, and possessive, trying to bring him back. I don’t remember their fight well but if I’m not mistaken that’s when he first threatens Sasuke to break all his bones?

Then Sasuke leaves and Nar starts his own “sad boy missing his ‘best friend’ drama” and all the fandom is uwu look at him so sensitive, but he’s being abstract there, while when he faces Sasuke direcly or indirectly he’s different, more direct and not sentimental. As expected of a badass fighter, cause that’s what he is, that’s what everyone is in the story. when in part 2 Orochimaru calls Sasuke ‘his’ he goes berserk, and his search for Sasuke becomes even more obsessive, to the point of claiming that if they’ll fight they’ll both die and theyll be ok in the afterlife...this is kinda poetic but also creepy af. It’s stalker material tbh. Also because in that moment Sasuke just ‘killed’ Danzo, he’s exhausted, visibly blind, especially after fighting Kakashi, whose fight clearly took his toll on him (He avoided Sak*ra’s pathetic attempt to kill him but that was easy). Nar has all his energies and he’s stronger physically anyway having more stamina and kyuubi’s chakra. But he’s ready to fight him, even tho he gives a speech because ofc. too bad that Sasuke doesn’t fall for it cause he has his own personality and his own goals, which for Nar is unacceptable cause everyone must be on his side, especially the one he wants.

Sasuke remains on his own side until Itachi does his thing and bla bla bla, Itachi first is brougth close to Nar which was interesting to watch but also a huge narrative move to bring Sasuke to his side as well, getting to fight alongside his beloved brother and wanting to understand him and his ideal of protecting Konoha thus summoning Orochimaru, the 4 Hokage and deciding to join the battlefield. Then they fight together and even then it’s Sasuke who accepts Naru’s lead, not the other way round because Nar would never obey anyone who’s not himself especially he wouldn’t obey someone he wants to possess, metaphorically (but if you like also literally).

When the battle is over and their battle starts he shows his true colors. He’s no longer the one wanting to die with his ‘friend’, he’s a leader wanting Sasuke, his ‘friend’ who in his eyes took the wrong road, to get back to the village, because Konoha is HIS concept of happiness. In fact, Sasuke in Konoha is Nar’s concept of happiness. And to obtain it he uses every method, not just a good ol’ fight, the more brutal the better. In fact their last fight has a different vibe, it’s Sasuke the one who’s more stressed and emotional, he’s drained, completely, cause he wants his revolution and he wants to change the world to make him like Itachi dreamed of, and he needs to eliminate Nar for it, he doesn’t want to eliminate him but he needs to and he clearly explains him why in the beginning of the fight. The way he fights is desperate.

Nar instead is calm, his emotions are under control, he fights with his hands but also with mind techniques because he manipulates Sasuke all the time: he tells him that he didn’t understand his own brother (implying that he did it better. That he, who interacted with Edo Tensei Itachi for a couple of hours, understands him better than the brother who basically worships him!), that everything he believes is wrong, that he knows what’s best for him (which is interestingly exactly what he wanted in life, what a coincidence). And it works, cause Sasuke admits his own defeat, and, later, he is further brainwashed and guilt tripped, jailed and submitted until he’s a perfect Konoha dog. Even in his Shinden episodes he’s away but loyal and guilt ridden for his actions. He became Naru’s watchdog, his most loyal servant. Not his equal. He fulfilled Naru’s wish for him.

And, in case someone’s still not enraged because Hawk how dare you shit on their amazing bond?  shocking huh? yeah I write what I think and I am very interested in their bond actually, since it’s a dark unhealthy one, completely unbalanced, just like I’m interested in Nar very much when he’s not idealized, cause he’s much more complex and interesting with his dark side.

Every episode shows Nar’s lack of care and empathy, his inner violence and selfishness, but they also are justified somehow. I can understand why, since his childhood made him self-centered and lacking the ability to interact with people on an equal basis, basically he never grew up for real, he acted like a grown up person but he remained a child inside, a possessive child who wants something and then discards it. And it shows whenever he ‘saves’ someone with his TnJ, this someone becomes his ‘friend’, loyal to him forever, and he moves on to ‘save’ someone else, all the while having Sasuke as his ultimate goal. Too bad that after he saves him too, he discards him as well. Not as much as the other cause Sasuke is special to him, but not as an equal either. I won’t mention the jail moment while Naru is basking in his popularity cause some don’t see it as canon, but when in the manga Sasuke is leaving Konoha and stumbles on Nar he says he didn’t think the other would come greet him. This shows how their relationship isn’t so amazing, since one would imagine that Nar would be 24/7 with Sasuke after he comes back.

So, all these moments show a clear picture of him as a possessive and selfish person who only ‘cares’ about ppl because he wants to be ‘loved’ (=admired and respected and aknowledged as the best) by said ppl, and whose ‘love’ for Sasuke is possessive and obsessive to an extreme point, a desire to be aknowledged and respected but also to submit the one whom he most ‘loves’, because there is no equality in the way Nar sees himself and the rest of the world, including ‘his’ ‘best friend’.

(btw if someone disagrees, keep it for yourself, I don’t give a damn about discussing with you)

[educationtimesblog]

CONTROL YOUR ANGER

Ms. Aanam Verma  | Head of Department | Asst. Professor Biological Sciences  |  CPSM College of Education | Gurugram

HOW TO CONTROL YOUR ANGER  | ANGER MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES | TIPS TO OVERCOME ANGER

Most people get upset simply because they don't know what to do when they experience anger in their daily life. Sometimes aggressive behaviour may get their needs met in the short-term, but there are long term consequences. Your words might cause lasting damage to the relationship or even lead to its demise. So here by, I will like to share some simple tips how to tackle the ghost of ANGER.

When calm, express the anger

As soon as your thoughts are clear, express your frustration in an assertive but non-confrontational way. You must state your concern and needs in a direct and clear way, without hurting others or trying to control them.

Physical Activities

Physical activity like yoga, stretching, aerobic exercises reduces stress which is the cause root of your anger. Neck rolls and Shoulder rolls are good examples of nonstrenuous yoga like movements, which controls your body and harness your emotions. If you feel your anger escalating, go for a brisk walk or run, or do some enjoyable physical activities like cycling, hit a few golf ball, playing your favourite  game.

Relaxation Exercises

There are many relaxation exercises but the key is to find the one that works best for you. Breathing exercises and Progressive muscle relaxation are two common strategies for reducing tension. Your breathing becomes shallower and speeds up as you grow angry. Reverse that trend  by taking slow, deep breath from your nose and exhaling out of your mouth for several moments. In Progressive muscle relaxation, try to tense and relax slowly your different muscle groups in your body, one at a time, along with slow deliberate breathe. Eg. Closing tightly & relaxing your fist along with breathe in & out respectively. You can use kids small smiley ball too. Stress balls are also available in the market. Relaxation exercises take practice. At first, you might feel as they are not effective, but with practice, they will.

Warning signs

Be alert & aware of the emerging signs of anger like fast heart beat, red & hot face, clenching of fist, unable to think properly etc., so that you can take control and prevent it to reach the boiling point. 

 Identify Triggers

Take stock of things that trigger your anger like traffic jams, sarcastic comments, messy room, work not at time etc. You must structure your day differently and prevent the triggers to take place. 

Be aware of your feelings

Think critically what real emotions are lurking beneath your anger. Sometimes anger act as a mask to protect you from more painful emotions like embarrassment or disappointment. Acknowledging underlying right emotion can help you to get the root cause of problem. For an example, if someone cancels a plan on which you were so excited, chances are you rush in anger but underlying emotion is disappointment, so you can explain your feelings of disappointment instead of making the scene. Be honest with your feelings, then only you can resolve the issue. Responding in anger just push people away.

 Keep your mouth shut 

When you are provoked, you may speak rubbish, which will worse the situation rather than any positive result. So, in an argument tightly close your lips as they are pasted. This will help you to take time to collect your thoughts and respond in a mature way.

Repeat a mantra

                                                          When your temper flares, repeat a mantra or calming word or phrase, that will help you to calm down and refocus. Repeat that word again and again to yourself when you are upset. ‘Relax’, ‘take it easy’, ‘you will be o.k’ or ‘everything will be fine’ are good examples.

Picture a stop sign

 The universal symbol to stop can help you calm down when you are angry. It’s a quick way to help you visualise the need to halt yourself, your actions and walk away from the moment. You can put any symbol on your back of your hand which will remind you to STOP & control your anger.

Find a creative channel

You can turn your anger into a tangible production. Consider digital creativity, painting, writing poetry or journal when you feel upset. What you can't say,  perhaps you can write. Jot down what you are feeling and how you want to respond. Processing it through the written words can help you calm down and reassess the events, increases understanding and more possible solutions. Emotions are powerful muscles for creative individuals. Use yours to reduce anger.

Practice Imagination

                                                                                                                       Just step into a close room, close your eyes, and imagine yourself in a relaxing scene. Focus on the details of the imaginary scene. Colour of shedding leaves.... movement of water….brightness of the rising sun etc. This practice can give you calmness, peace, serenity and of course strength.

Keep a calm down kit

Make collection of objects which helps to engage all your senses. When you can see, hear, smell and touch the calming things you can change your emotional state. So, prepare a calm down kit which may include scented hand lotion, an image  of serene landscape or any relaxing scene, Audio- Video spiritual passage or quotes, a few pieces of your favourite candy. Just include all those things that you know will help you to remain calm. You can create a Portable calm down kit  that you can take anywhere. For example, calming music  and images, guided meditation or instructions for breathing exercises etc. to be stored in a special folder on your smartphone. Keep your bag loaded with hand lotion, perfumed wipes & candies.

Change the focus

The best way to calm down is to change the focus immediately on something else. It’s better to distract yourself with an activity. Do something that requires your focus and makes more challenging for negative thoughts to creep in. For an Example, organising the wardrobe, deep cleaning the kitchen, weeding the garden, sign a petition, write a note to an official etc. Pour your energy and emotions into something thats healthy and productive which keeps your mind occupied and won’t able to ruminate on the things upsetting you. 

Listen Music

Let the music carry you away from your frustrated feelings. Put on your earbuds, move to the park or drive the car and listen your favourite music, humming & bopping your anger away.

Countdown

Feeling angry, countdown up to 10. If your anger touching the peak, start slow backward count. By the time you count, your heart rate becomes slow, and your anger subsides slowly. 

Sharing with a friend

Instead of whirling in the episodes that made you angry, you must have a long talk with a friend who is trustful, understands you and your all perspectives and also help you to get rid of the problem. 

Write a letter or Email

Write a letter or email expressing all the events, even minute emotions which made you angry. After that, delete it. This will help you to release the suppressed emotions and make you at ease. 

Rehearse your response

Rehearse what & how you are going to say when the same type problem approaches you. This rehearsal period  gives you chance to role play all the  solutions coming to your mind.

Practice empathy

Fit in other persons shoes and see the situation from their angle. When you narrate a story according to their perspective, you may gain a new understanding and can overpower your anger. Think like a scientist, not a lawyer

Feel the anger but avoid action

In anger person loses judgement and problem solving skills which makes him rigid & blunt. Ambrose Bierce rightly said “speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret”. Anger drives us to aggress , confront,  take revenge and retaliate. It’s better to go to bed  angry, before sending angry email  keep it for few days, just walk away when fight arises.

Self reflection

Some person are proud of their anger. Even they achieved nothing, they experience a warm inner glow of self satisfaction .They believe they have accomplished something tough, powerful and righteous. But that's not.  One must see or hear himself in anger once in life. Tennis great  Roger Federer  who was a racket smashing brat in his junior years, was watching himself throwing tantrums on TV that put him off of it throughout the life. 

Take care of yourself 

Factors like alcohol, pain, fatigue, stress, sickness, unmet drives like hunger, thirst, lust, etc. act as a fuel to anger. Reduce these variables as much as possible. Take proper sleep, make routine timetable, take some time off, streamline your week, delegate, relax, and have nutrition rich diet. 

Stick with ”I”statements

Criticizm or blame game will always  increase tension. So, use ‘I’ statements while presenting the problem. Keep in mind to be specific and warm. Example say ‘I don’t feel good when you leave the table without keeping the plate in sink’ instead of saying ‘you never help in housework.

Take short breaks

Give self short breaks during stressful or overloaded days. A few moments of quiet time will help you feel better, focused and prepare you to handle what’s ahead without getting irritated or angry.

Work on solutions

Instead of focusing on what made you mad, work on resolving the issue at hand. Always remind yourself that anger won’t fix anything and might only make it worse.  

Forgiveness

Learn to Forgive. If your anger overpower your positive side, you find yourself dipped in bitter & poisonous fluid. But by forgiving someone who made you upset will make both of you to learn from the situation and strengthen your relationship. If it finds hard to forgive the person who has done wrong to you then imagine to forgive him. This way your anger slip away.

Evaluation of anger

Analyse  whether your anger is a friend or an enemy. If you see your right is being violated, you are suffering an unhealthy situation or emotionally abusive toxic relationship, then your anger can do justice. Here, you can change the situation rather than changing your emotional state. Anger gives you the strenghth & courage to take a stand and make the right  change. Another case, if your anger is enemy, it will destroy your healthy relationships and make you upset. So, evaluate your anger is positive or negative for you.

Humor, the best medicine

Lightening the situation can diffuse the tension. Humor can give you insight that what’s making you angry or having any unrealistic expectations. Avoid sarcastic comments, it only hurt the feelings and also make situation worse. Diffuse your anger by looking for ways to laugh, whether playing with your kids, watching  stand - up, or comedy movie. 

Gratitude

End of the day, always be thankful to life, what positive things it has given you, even under hard situations. Just ignore the negative part and enrich more with gratitude for right things in your life. Anger will get no attention & will try to eliminate automatically from your life.

Know when to seek help

Learning to control anger is a big challenge. Seek help or consult a psychologist if your anger seems out of control, causes you to do more harmful things you regret. 

Aanam Verma

[aeide-thea]

This is a gentle request for any Geraskier fics you want to rec, because the number of them in the tag is a bit overwhelming but I KNOW there are gems in there 👀

i’m pretty sure i’ve reblogged things in the past! but it’s true that i haven’t done that in any systematic way, so—let’s see. under the cut are 20-ish recs alphabetized by author, which seemed like a good way of avoiding having to make any hierarchical declarations:

o, empathy by almostnectarine/@nectarine-pit: bodyswap! i forgot how much i loved this fic. geralt and jaskier walk a mile in each other’s shoes, and learn to appreciate each other better; this is keenly observed and thought-through, and frequently extremely funny. a thoroughgoing delight.

Jaskier pulled a face and swiveled the straps such that both swords almost fell from their scabbards at once, ruining the moment. “Geralt,” he said, “this leather itches. You’ve lived five lifetimes—” “Not that old,” said Geralt, in protest, and then, considering: “Maybe three.” “—and you never once thought, hm— oh, I see why you do that all the time, it is quite fun, isn’t it— hm, maybe I’ll add a little padding?!” His mimicry of Geralt’s tone was very good, although perhaps it was cheating, when the voice was already the same.

public displays of affection by autoschediastic/@bluesoaring: geralt and jaskier go to a sex party! (not to be confused with the other fic by sospes in which geralt and jaskier go to a sex party, which is also excellent.) if that wasn’t enough of a sell, well, you confuse me, but—the flavor of the power dynamic here is a little complex and unusual in a way i enjoyed, plus frankly the description of geralt stripped down for this party is really, uh. really A Lot. i admit to being biased in favor of sex party stories in general but this one is definitely a keeper.

to you always, also by autoschediastic/@bluesoaring: in which geralt is a demanding, insatiable bottom. ...honestly, this fic has significantly more emotional weight to it than that description might suggest, but i still stand by it. also the initial setup is just really funny to me, because jaskier getting hilariously outraged by geralt’s sheer infuriating geralt-ness is, like, my fave flavor of jaskier. (that’s a lie, every flavor of jaskier is my favorite flavor of jaskier, but i do really delight in this one.)

@blossomsinthemist’s mixing memory and desire series (wip) is basically my favorite thing ever, like, just truly perfectly crafted to please me personally. it’s h/c, and just astonishingly luxuriant and languorous and lovely—or, okay, let me actually just quote a comment i left on an early chapter:

this is just so exquisitely tender and molasses-lovely-sweet so far, my god the glimpses we get dimly through geralt’s hazy bemused perception of what jaskier’s feeling are so heart-clenchingly poignant—and then of course the glimpses of what geralt himself is feeling for jaskier without understanding it, this stunned rapt gratitude for everything jaskier is doing but also everything jaskier is, the lovely gentle sturdy solicitous gift he is & keeps making of himself to geralt, who would probably call it undeserved except that of course we can see precisely what in geralt has tugged this tenderness from jaskier, this terrible aching wounded gallantry that’s so astonished to meet with respite…

the meet death sitting (wip) series by @bomberqueen17 is my other favorite thing—much plottier than the previous, with a much wider cast of characters, and while i’m ultimately in it for the geralt/jaskier and therefore being strung along in exquisite agony while all sorts of plot things get in the way of any real resolution of that, it’s honestly worth it; what you lose in immediate gratification you gain in, like, a sense that this story inhabits a real, full world, with real events that aren’t just arranged to suit our heroes’ convenience. if i could only get you to read two things it would be this series and the previous one: between them they have my heart. anyway i guess i may as well quote myself again:

it’s the rich realistic interweaving of things that’s so remarkable here, how the absolute throat-thickening aches run abruptly up against the entirely mundane and all of it has to be coped with, because that’s life, and this story has life within it, in a realer way than probably anything else in the fandom, maybe anything else i’ve read in a long time. and of course a large part of me is so, so desperate for geralt and jaskier to finally come back together, with enough time and space to settle into a mutual secure tenderness instead of the current wordless, longing, poised-always-to-spring-away-like-deer-in-a-forest situation; but the story is coaxing me into a more adult patience, an appreciation for the smaller quieter incidental pleasures that aren’t the one subsuming great love, and then also teaching me to live with the wounds one inevitably acquired along the way, the pull and ache of those that makes the whole thing real, not a shining fantasy but a homely pie with a rich satisfying filling, savory and bolstering.

my body bruises at your touch by @brawlite: jaskier gets tied up by geralt as bait for the monster of the week, and discovers he likes it quite a bit. smut (and then aftercare) ensues.

demand an encore (wip) by emamel/@theaceace: jaskier is a witcher of the viper school, or used to be. he doesn’t remember it, but geralt does.

it’s been a while since i read this, but the way the layers slowly start fitting together is really satisfying: all the joy of what i think the kids call ‘identity porn,’ with the twist that here, it’s geralt who knows both identities, and jaskier who’s still in ignorance. ugh, i want chapter 3 now.

musica universalis by flirtygaybrit is bookverse and clearly so—it’s not romantic, but there’s a particular ambiguous flavor of solicitous tenderness that elevates this ‘friendly drunken hookup’ scenario to something memorable for me.

of cherries and dandelions by heyriel: in which a still-virginal jaskier bites off more than he can chew, and tries to disguise it until he can’t anymore. as i said to the author:

this is lovely and realistic in its navigation of, like, trying to Be Cool and the ways that can sometimes get you in trouble as a young sexplorer—geralt is so good to jaskier here and i’m having feelings about it!

also geralt uses a dildo on jaskier, which was not a thing i’d known i wanted before reading this, but it turns out i’m very decidedly here for it! i haven’t seen a ton of sex toys in geraskier fic and this story makes me wish there were more.

gentle-sharp and strange by lisztful has some excellent touch-starved pining geralt, also a performatively public bath scene with very satisfactory sexual tension, also an Ancient Tradition which is maybe the thing i remember most about this fic.

i know that you would want it (if i could sink my teeth into you) by objectlesson is... look, there’s an actual emotional arc to this story, but really what i always remember about it is that it’s got the most overwhelmingly visceral rimming scene i’ve maybe ever read? it’s a lot, it’s a gift, go read it.

@pasdecoeur has several stories that are very funny with some very piercingly erotic moments! briefly sketched in some ways and more pining than porny but no less effective for it.

benefits by @shastafirecracker is a pwp story in which jaskier is first surprised to find geralt wants him to top, and then determined to give geralt the best dicking he’s ever had. jaskier’s inner dialogue in this one is really fun; geralt’s exterior dialogue is true to the show in that it’s minimal but nonetheless includes a bad pun. :)

even a small love by shecrows/@leighway is like. you think you know how things are going to go, and then jaskier balks and it abruptly swerves sideways and develops a whole plot, and then comes back around to where it started, but deeper and better. don’t you love how you can summarize a fic without saying anything meaningful or even helpful about it? anyway: read this one.

snowmelt by silklace/@silkcoeur is a/b/o and somehow both extremely hilarious and extremely hot in full measure. the banter is a fucking delight but so are the tension/sex/feelings.

It wasn’t until they were well on the road away from town that it really hit him, though possibly he should have been paying attention to the way the backs of his knees had started sweating the minute he’d seen Geralt walking towards him outside of Yennefer’s manor, or to the way his throat had gone hot and dry despite the taste of sweetness still on the back of his teeth from the wine skin he’d pilfered from her pantry on his way out. In his defense, he’d still been recovering from spending the prior evening steadfastly spitting his insides up onto his outsides. Also, he tended to always get a little sweaty around Geralt, a fact they were both apparently extremely united in assiduously pretending was not happening.

the sevenfold path by star_flaming/@europeansdomusicalsbetter: in which jaskier is demonstrably extremely well educated, and geralt has feelings about it. (i also have feelings about it, but mine are in my pants.)

you are in my blood by @suzukiblu​: au where jaskier is a bruxa. this alters his character significantly—hard to be too skittish about bloodletting when you’re a vampire!—but the story’s so engaging you probably won’t care? plus, uh, hot. :)

Jaskier’s just debating how much trouble he’s actually in when Geralt, marvelously, talks them out of it. After that, well... Jaskier still wants to eat him very badly, but he supposes it’d be a bit ungrateful of him. Geralt isn’t very impressed with the song he writes for him, unfortunately—which, rude—but doesn’t try to run off and leave him either, so.. Well, Jaskier’s a bit smitten. A delicious-smelling witcher who can talk his way out of being murdered is very impressive. And he always has wanted a pet.

taran (@iamtaran)’s manhandling without plot series has no sex but lots of violent, compellingly visceral hijinks and i like to think of it as preslash. three times geralt hauls jaskier out of trouble.

Jaskier is flat on his back with his chemise rucked up to his armpits, salve burning on his bruised ribs, breathing hard; he is drunk, but not nearly as drunk as he was when he threw that first punch; Geralt is stupidly strong and has him pinned beneath one hand and the sheer girth of his own hips, looking grumpy and short on patience, and under everything—the aromatic menthol and chamomile smell of the salve, the aching of his cheek and lip, the relief of seeing Geralt just as upright and uninjured as he had been when he left, Jaskier is… He had thought he was furious. He still is, somewhat. Like… like a seed is a flower. It was, at first, before it became something else. And given enough time it might become such again. It is what it is in the meantime, however. Fury. Seeds.

last but not least, @toyhto​ has a bunch of fics that crack me the fuck up: geralt is unbelievably oblivious to his own emotions even as he acts on them, and it’s just—it’s so, so funny. also sometimes quite sweet, and sometimes quite painful! there’s a particular air of, i don’t know, almost see-spot-run impenetrability to the writing here that lends itself perfectly to the thing the stories are doing, where geralt is just operating totally on a surface level and, like, feelings are moving in the deep but he can’t quite see them...

...and that’s all for now! more to come later, maybe; but this seems like plenty for a first pass, and anyway i’m blurbed out.

[weebslawyer]

Kongou

@lancermylove

Sun- Libra

The Libra symbol is the Scales, which means people born under this sign like things to be balanced. Libras see things objectively; they want what's best for everyone. Because of this, Libras tend to hate conflict. They try to do everything in their power to maintain peace and harmony, which may make them very indecisive. If it allows them to avoid confrontation, Libras will do it.  They like to indulge in artistic, beautiful things.  As an air sign, this sign tries to reach higher, as in the higher mind. Libras like to put their mind to work and communicate intriguing ideas to others. People born under this sign are cultured and they love beautiful people, which is why they enjoy things like theater, cocktail parties, ballet, etc.  Libras are just generally pleasant people to be around. They know how to make others comfortable and are great at charming conversation. They also love to get to know other people, as they love to be around others. In terms of conflict, they make a fair argument, as they are all about diplomacy and compromise. They are not manipulative and don't like to fight, they just want to communicate and talk things through. In some situations, Libras may get lazy, as they need a social component to most tasks in order to be energized about it.  Libras love flirting, romance drama, and first dates. They excel at charming others, however, they have trouble figuring out what they want. In relationships, Libras may get lost in a relationship, unsure of what it is they're striving for. Due to this, Libras occasionally prevent themselves from falling in love, as they are worried that a relationship equals loss of self. A partner of a Libra should be understanding if they pull back, for Libras may need space to explore the relationship on their own terms.  People born under this sign are unlikely to rush into a relationship. As very rational people, Libras will often weigh pros and cons, thinking far into the future. Libras definitely like to talk about the future and value these conversations with partners as a way of shaping a rich life together.  Libras were born to please, and in relationships, this may result in misunderstandings. Since this sign despises conflict, Libras may want their partner to plan date nights. Libras will definitely have ideas, but they are sensitive to criticism and worry that their partner will not enjoy what they want. It's crucial that a Libra must become equal with their partner and realize they are not solely responsible for their partner's happiness. Since Libras hate conflict, it is not wise for a partner to accuse or shout at them. By using phrases like "I feel," Libras will feel more secure knowing that their mate is only feeling upset right now. People born under this sign are also very passionate, so they need both physical and mental turn-ons. They love back-and-forth texting and especially like fantasies. To a Libra, exploration of new fantasies is very sexy. It’s also common for them to fall for a fire sign.   Libras are drawn to this drama; though they are always playing meditator and peacekeeper, passionate fire signs give them a zest of something new. They love impulsiveness in these signs and tend to be more honest wiht each other because they both view life very practically.  In careers, Libras are great at imagination and balance. If this sign is working in a team for something they believe in, their job is fun. They love to dream of new projects and challenges. However, due to a Libra's love for peace, standing up for themselves in the workplace may be a problem. Libras hate to make others uncomfortable, so they may hold their tongue when it comes to constructive feedback or hard truths.  In terms of money, Libras may have a hard time connecting their skills with money. Libras see work as fun, so they may have trouble asking for a larger salary. This makes them uncomfortable, as money is an iffy topic socially. Thankfully, though, a Libra's resourcefulness, charm, and love of luxury will motivate them for a flood of paychecks.

Moon- Pisces

Lunar Pisceans are known to be dreamy and not always in touch with reality. However, though these people may not always show real-world savvy in day-to-day, practical affairs, they make up for this with remarkable intuition. They can put themselves in anybody’s shoes with extreme ease. On the plus side, this endows them with remarkable compassion and love. The down side with this apparent ability to break down boundaries is that these people can easily lose themselves in the suffering of others. Their sense of humor is delightfully silly and a bit odd. These are perceptive souls who seem to be in touch with all the nuances and subtleties of human nature. Often this comes through in a strong sense of humor that is more of the receptive kind than the type of sense of humor that would make people the “life of the party”. It’s generally pretty easy to get them giggling.  Generally considered soft-hearted and sweet, Lunar Pisceans care about others and are easily touched by human suffering. This tendency gains them the reputation as suckers for sob stories. Although this may sometimes be true, many Lunar Pisceans learn, in their lifetimes, how to discern between sincerity and manipulation. Still, they definitely do have plenty of soft corners. There’s a delightful accepting side to Moon in Pisces that is sometimes mistaken for weakness. Pisces is the twelfth and last sign of the zodiac, and thus carries with it a little of each sign of the zodiac. As a result, they see themselves reflected in the behavior of others, giving them seemingly boundless compassion. Since the Moon represents our instinctive nature, Moon in Pisces seems to know how things feel without actual experience. For example, they may have never had sex, but seem to know all about it. The ones that aren’t too shy make awesome actors and actresses. This ability to empathize even in the absence of experience gives them an open mind and heart. Most long to express this through writing, music (both listening and making), poetry, and art —in fact, the happiest people with this position do just that. Solitude is important to them, but they also need people, so their retreats will usually be short-lived.

Rising- Cancer

Their first instinct, when threatened or on unfamiliar ground, is to protect themselves. When new situations present themselves, they can immediately withdraw or act shy. Generally, these people come across as caring people. They seem quite sweet — even innocent. Usually, these people appear unassuming enough to be quite approachable. Some Cancer Ascendants, however, have retreated into themselves so much as to be quite the opposite. Whether you are male or female, you carry the qualities of and in some way embody the archetype of the mother. You will find that you attract people who need care, understanding and encouragement. Your own feelings and moods will often reflect the dominant feeling tone in your environment. You absorb the atmosphere around you and thrive in surroundings that are home-like, personal, supportive, and cooperative. Your Moon in Pisces expands your empathy and devotion to include not just your own immediate family, but all of life. You are a spiritual “mother” to many.

Lilith- Virgo

Lilith in Virgo can take revenge in an off putting way that is non confrontational in basis. It would not be uncommon to see a passive aggressive approach with anger in order to defuse a situation.  Specially Lilith here may use the intellect and the power of words to take revenge upon others who defy values.  The Black Moon can have strong responses using writing as a tool to get a point across to others.  One may be tempted to write a letter, e-mail someone or use a note to defend a value they have or take revenge when something angered them personally. When Lilith is in Virgo a significant person that one attracts can be intellectual, well educated, inquisitive, factual and quite literary. The nature can be health conscious, fit, service minded, busy and productive minded.  The significant individual can show traits of being conservative, practical, modest and even old fashioned. Traits of being caring, nurturing, organized, tidy and clean oft embody the character.  Negative traits of Virgo can also be apparent in the person’s nature.  It is possible the person of strong influence will be self critical, picky, judgmental, anxious, perfection minded and conscientious.  shows Lilith in Virgo projects a very modest and unassuming attitude sex and their own sexuality in general.  Lilith when placed in the sign of Virgo can be judgmental and even critical when it comes to sexuality.  One here can be insecure sexually and have trouble feeling attractive because they judge themselves very harshly.  The Black Moon can restrict themselves from pursue certain partners out of fear they reside “out of their league.” . Lilith in Virgo can attempt to attract a potential sex partner through old fashioned style means.  One can portray an air of innocence and seduction in the ways of drawing others in.  The Black moon will attempt to lore suitors by giving of an impression of being untouched and abstinent sexually. Partners can be sought using writing such as letters, notes, e-mails or even poems as means to tease and lure sex partners in.  When a partner is secured Lilith will show a true feminine nature and fall into a submissive role towards a partner.  They will want to please their partner at all costs and be of service to them anytime called upon.  

[wordsnstuff]

20 Mistakes To Avoid in YA Fiction/Romance

* This is a re-upload due to the original being flagged a few months ago for having a gif of two teenagers...*GASP*... dancing. What, tumblr? What is “adult” about that? The post has been in appeal for 4 months, and I have a feeling it won’t leave, so I decided to finally repost it. 

--

YA Fiction is an incredibly popular genre of literature, and most people have picked one up and devoured it in less than a day, but there is a trend in the genre where in certain instances, people forfeit quality for a cheesy dramatic plot. A lot of these stories are just regurgitated cliches with vaguely interesting characters and just enough drama, fluff, and mildly (or extremely) sexual content to keep the reader paying attention. (No shade to the authors, because obviously, any author who writes and publishes a book works hard, no matter the end product.)

There are a lot of aspects of YA Fiction that repeatedly rear their ugly heads and annoy readers or flat out scream dangerous messages to the young people that indulge in them. I thought I’d put the spotlight on a few in the hopes that it will help clean up the genre’s reputation as new and more awakened authors contribute content to it.

Below you will read about some common mistakes that YA Fiction/Romance writers make that either ruin the story, promote dangerous messages, or unrealistically portray teenagers.

Forgetting The Supporting Characters

The supporting characters are an important part of any story, even if the main plot revolves around two people. Supporting characters provide subplots, information to the reader, and more opportunities for your audience to connect and relate to your story. It’s always good to give your supporting characters love and attention when creating and writing them. Sometimes they end up carrying the story.

A mistake that a lot of authors make is that they give the reader a couple defining characteristics, a name, a relationship to the main character, and then just make that character pop into the reader’s view whenever the main plot needs them to. No backstory. No life of their own. Just support to the plot, and that’s a huge waste of potential. You don’t want your readers to put down your book and either forget the supporting characters existed at all, or believe that they were extra pieces of a puzzle.

Using Slang Badly

Writers should not feel the need to include current slang in order to make their story more relatable or popular amongst their targeted demographic. Slang is constantly changing, evolving, and most importantly, dying. Not to say that you should only write in traditional terms or put “thy” and “thee” everywhere, but using standard English and avoiding the trendy but temporary slang words is key.

If you must use slang, try to use the bare minimum and only in fitting circumstances. If your character is the type to say “OMG her dat boi memes are on fleek” then, by all means, go right ahead, but you probably cringed when you read that. That would have been totally normal 2 years ago, but every bit of that sentence has died over time, and no matter how much you think a slang word will stick, don’t risk it.

Sympathy and Envy Mongering

Two emotions that YA Fiction and Romance always try to invoke in their readers are sympathy and envy. The author either wants the reader to feel bad for one or many of the characters, or they want them to be jealous of the awesome (and usually unrealistic) lives the characters have. Don’t be one of these. It’s tired and boring and not original in the slightest.

Are sympathy and empathy both totally okay emotions?

Yes.

Are they all you need to write a good story?

Nope. Not at all.

The reader needs and wants to feel more than jealous of and sad for the characters in the story. The best stories are the ones that trigger a complex whirlwind of emotion. Sympathy and envy are the easy way out, and you get out of those emotions what you put into them.

Unrealistically Portraying Teenagers & Teenage Life

Teenagers look up to and compare themselves and their lives to the characters and lives of the characters in your story. Keeping in mind that your audience is young and impressionable is essential for authors of the genre.

Love At First Sight

Love-at-first-sight does not happen. Infatuation, maybe, but love is more complicated than that. Writing a plot based on “love at first sight” can leave a bad taste in your readers’ mouths from the start, and that is something you should avoid at all costs. On top of that, love-at-first-sight is a very easy-way-out move and if you’re dedicated to your characters and your story, there’s a good to fair chance that you can come up with a more satisfying build up.

Unrealistic Romantic Situations

If you’ve ever opened a YA Romance, chances are you’ve read a scene in which the protagonist and the love interest end up in a stunningly beautiful place and the love interest sweeps the protagonist off their feet prior to riding into the sunset. This, unfortunately, does not happen very often, especially in teenage relationships. The most romance you’re going to get (usually) is the love interest offering to pay for the protagonist’s bag of skittles with the leftover money from their paycheck they earned at McDonald’s.

Just because teenagers don’t really go to great lengths to rent an entire ice-skating rink in the middle of the night so they and their crush can skate to Ellie Goulding music doesn’t mean there can’t be cute and memorable moments. Great doesn’t always equal grand and that’s important to remember. A lot of the time, teenagers appreciate fantasizing about things that are actually possible.

Happy Endings

Not all stories have to end happily, and you’ve definitely been told this before, but nobody ever takes into account how stories about teenagers have so much potential when it comes to endings. Teenagers read books about teenagers and unfortunately, this means that a lot of them will take what you’re writing about and try to change their own lives to match. Be honest in your depiction about what actually happens when you leave high school.

The majority of the time, high school sweethearts won’t stay together. Long distance won’t work, they’ll find someone else, the spark will die out, their personalities will undergo drastic changes, and their goals and plans for the future will turn out differently than they expected. “And they lived happily ever after” is criticized harshly for a reason, especially in YA and YA Romance. Most stories don’t end happily, but there is more than one story in a person’s life and giving a person their happy ending as they graduate high school is a great injustice, to your character and your readers.

Avoiding The Dark Parts Of Teenage Life

Teenagers, despite what a lot of the media claims, go through some really serious and stressful and damaging things. Teenagers suffer from mental illness and deal with the intense pressure of the education system and hold their heads high in the face of stigma over every little detail about them. They suffer from eating disorders and body dysmorphia and self-harm tendencies, and that doesn’t even bring into account the bullying and family issues and the stress of constantly learning and feeling things for the very first time with little to no guidance or assurance or resources to ask for help. It is hard being a teenager. Do not forget that, and don’t leave the actual teenagers reading your story feeling underrepresented and/or abnormal because they aren’t as stress-free as the characters they look up to.

Exaggerating How Teenagers Interact With Each Other

A lot of teenage interactions are short, awkward, and uneventful. Teenagers aren’t super eloquent and socially apt, but YA Fiction seems to believe they are. It’s quite rare that a teenager will just walk up to someone they like, say “wanna go to dinner on Saturday?” and all will be fine and dandy. It’s quite rare that a teenager will saunter up to someone who talked about them behind their back, say something super clever and damaging to their enemy’s ego, and saunter off like the king/queen of the world. Those interactions look great in our heads, but they usually contain a few stuttered words and “um”s and blushing. Confidence is usually a trait that people develop later in life, so try not to push it if you’re trying to be realistic.

Maturity of Teenagers

Teenagers are underdeveloped human beings with minimal experience in most areas of life. They do not have it all figured out. A lot of YA books revolve around characters that are extremely intelligent, disciplined and ambitious at a level of maturity a 25-year-old be on. This is not accurate. Making characters “awkward” or “childish” does not have anything to do with how mature they seem to readers. There is a distinct difference between an awkward girl with childlike innocence and a girl who makes mistakes, does not have her life figured out, and is not yet comfortable with casual social interaction. The latter things I mentioned are pretty universal when it comes to teenagers.

Unfitting Aspirations

There are more than two paths in life. It seems that in YA you’re either going to graduate, get married, pop out a couple kids and live the rest of your life in the suburbs, or you’re going to leave home, go to college, travel for 20 years and settle in some random country in Europe writing poetry until the end of your days. There is no in between, which sucks. There are a lot of interesting things you can do in life, not to say that either of the two life paths I mentioned are uninteresting. You could take a gap year and travel the world, go to college, move back home for a couple years then maybe get a job that has you traveling and exploring new things for the rest of your life. You could meet the love of your life in college and have some kids but put them in online school so you could travel with them. You could live your whole life in an awesome cabin in the forest casting spells and adopting wild squirrels. There are so many ways life can be and restricting it to opposite extremes takes the imagination out of the future.

Not All Teenagers Think Their Relationships Will Last Forever

This one is pretty self explanatory, so long story short, not every relationship a teenager enters into is with the end goal of staying together forever, or even more than a few months. Most teenage relationships are pretty short and not very meaningful, and portraying every single couple in your stories as “we’ve been going strong for 2 years and plan on getting married right after graduation” is inaccurate and will probably cause your readers some disappointment in the future.

Relationships Aren’t A Teenager’s Only Concern

Most teenagers are more concerned about the F they got on a History test than they are about who they’re going to stare at next period. Everyone has more than just their crush to worry about. Some teenagers have to worry about where they’re going to get their next meal or how they’re going to get a ride home from school or even how they can apologize to a friend they’ve hurt. It’s not all about relationships for teenagers, in fact, relationships are a pretty small part of teenage life. If all your character has to think about is the hottie they sit next to in Biology, perhaps you should work a little more on character development.

Unnatural Appearances

Most teenagers are not model-level attractive. All teenagers have break-outs and leave the house late with greasy hair or with their shirt on inside out. No teenager shows up at school every day looking absolutely flawless, as if they’re about to walk down the runway. Please keep that in mind, because portraying teenagers accurately, especially when it comes to physical aspects such as weight, acne, etc. is super important. In YA and YA Romance, you must keep in mind that the teenagers you are trying to appeal to should not feel like a piece of trash because they aren’t as perfect as your characters. Yes, YA Fiction is Fiction, but just because you know that it’s unrealistic doesn’t mean your readers do. Readers of YA Fiction compare themselves to the characters in your books whether you like it or not. It is not hard to realistically portray physical appearances of teenagers.

Avoiding Dangerous Messages

A common problem found in YA Fiction is the lacing of dangerous messages found in the smaller details. You may miss them the first couple times you read a story, but if you go looking for them, you will find them, and perhaps you will find the source of a lot of mistakes you’ve made. YA has a bad habit of endorsing mindsets that lead to bad decisions. Some of them, however, can be avoided in your own writing.

The Need To Change The “Flawed” One

Nobody in this world is perfect. Expecting the person you supposedly love to be flawless all the time is not realistic. People make mistakes. People are not always happy and bubbly and confident about themselves. People do not always act the same one day as they did the day before. Human beings are flawed and should be portrayed as such, especially in the stage of their life which is the most confusing and scary. Teenagers are underdeveloped human beings, and for some reason, teenager girls in YA Romance expect teenage boys to be charming and loving and never ever make a mistake, which is ridiculous. Creating love interests that appear flawless and can make no mistakes is detrimental to your audience. It raises your readers’ expectations to an unattainable level which causes them disappointment and might cause their future partners unrepairable damage to their self-esteem because they’ll think that in order to find a partner, they cannot be flawed and cannot make mistakes.

Glorification Of Illegal Activity

It’s not “cool” or “edgy” to pump yourself full of deadly and mind-altering substances you know absolutely nothing about. It doesn’t make you “badass” and it isn’t a personality trait unless that trait is stupid. Whatever your position is on drugs or alcohol or whatever, there is no excuse for putting the idea in the heads of young readers that doing things that are illegal and addictive and that might even get you killed is ok. Not only because most of your readers are younger than 21, but because it will always be dangerous to take drugs, commit crimes, and drink. Your choices are your choices. Don’t impose your habits and excuses on kids who don’t know any better.

Slut Shaming

News flash: it’s 2017, people. Nobody cares who you’re kissing or dating or having sex with. People are finally getting used to the idea that maybe, just maybe, it’s not the end of the world if you do whatever you want, as long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else. This recurring theme of “I hate this person because they do what they want with their body” is getting old and annoying. Believe what you will regarding religion and morals and what is right or wrong or whatever you want to believe in, but the second you start turning your story into a commentary on the decisions and beliefs of other people, you’re in the wrong. There are other, more creative reasons to make your characters hate each other than their sexual activity.

Forgetting The First Times

One of the most exciting parts of being a teenager is that everything you’re experiencing, you’re experiencing for the first time. Everything is confusing and exciting and 10x more painful or memorable or enjoyable, and that’s neglected all the time in YA. I don’t mean the common trope of the first kiss or the losing of virginity. I mean love and infatuation and loss and heartbreak; it’s all happening to them for the first time in their lives, and these events make up their memories that they will carry with them forever. Teenage years are incredibly heavy times for people. It is, after all, the years in which they learn the most and the fastest and where the majority of their brain development takes place. These moments that you’re writing, the first kiss, the first time having sex, the first time your character loses someone they love, they’re all going to determine how your character will develop in the future. Treat them that way. Teach young readers that it’s normal and perfectly okay to be scared and inexperienced and lost. That’s the bitter-sweet part of youth and it’s beautiful.

Bad Boys And Boring Girls

Bad Boys are, in reality, bad news. The real “bad boys” in this world are slimy, manipulative jerks who trick girls (usually more than one at a time) into thinking they have feelings for them, using them for things like sex or money, and then either end up controlling their entire lives, introducing drugs and problems, or breaking their hearts. It’s sad, but it’s reality. Yes, there’s always a cause for this behavior, and sometimes these bad boys grow out of it, but that’s not always the case. Portraying these bad boys as “changeable” is not only dangerous for the female readers but also the men in their future. If you make girls think that they can change whomever they’re with to be the perfect prince charming, they will never be satisfied with someone who is flawed (spoiler alert: everyone is flawed) and they may destroy the self-esteem of whoever they’re with by making them think they need to change to be lovable.

Boring Girls are, sort of, connected to bad boys in this sense. They show up in every story, which makes sense financially because authors who make more relatable main characters sell more books. It’s just demographics. But at the same time, this stretch for a wider audience can end up influencing girls’ expectations of themselves and their love lives. If you make every protagonist completely boring, compliant, and devoid of strong, defining traits, girls will take that as advice. They will learn that all a girl has to do to make people fall in love with them is sit quietly and be pretty, which is horrible, in case you hadn’t noticed. Teach girls to look up to strong characters with rich personalities. Nowadays, that counts as an original idea.

Generalization

Portraying every aspect of teenage life and teenagers themselves as if you opened a book full of cliches, closed your eyes and pointed at something is not ok. High schools and families and personalities are different wherever you go, and making blind generalizations about aspects of teenage life can not only change how your reader interprets their own lives, but how adult readers assume teenage life is when they’re not around. It is important to not reinforce the assumption that there is always a popular clique and mean jocks and awkward nerds and dead-beat stoners because these stereotypes are a way for people to justify their snap-judgements, and not only does that say a lot about you as an author, but that will breed a whole new generation of judgmental, close-minded people.

Glorification Of Unhealthy Relationship Behaviors

I’m gonna say this once: It is not “hot” to have the love interest constantly putting restrictions on their supposed loved one. It’s not okay to borderline stalk someone and use “I love you” as an excuse, even if the person reciprocates your feelings. It is unhealthy to ignore someone when they say “no, no, not now” or “no, stop, not here” when you’re in the middle of initiating sex or even just kissing. It is disgusting when romance, especially YA Romance, which has mostly young, impressionable readers taking in your messages, promotes these behaviors like they’re something to strive for. Like it or not, your writing is going to alter the way they imagine a “perfect” relationship. If you aren’t willing to take that responsibility seriously, you should not be writing YA, and especially not YA Romance.

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[legendoftheghost]

I did go off about Jin Sakai as an INTJ, but I’m going to elaborate on more because I can. 

Jin Sakai wants to understand how things works, looking to the future instead of dwelling on the past. A perfectionist by nature, holding himself and others to high standards, but behind that emotionless face, there is a special mind.

Popular hobbies for Jin: reading, cultural events, appreciating art, music, theater, independent sports such as swimming, trekking, or running long distances, and making to-do lists. 

He is self-confident and is considered the most independent type.

It is common to know that Jin is hardworking, meticulous, stubborn and strict about principles — thus he “naturally” meets a number of the official DSM symptoms for OCPD (Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder) by default.

INTJ doesn’t shy away from complex problems, but emotions and unpredictable behaviors can make them nervous.

It is very known that Jin prefers to ignore and avoid the social niceness of small talk and pointless conversation (even if we know that it is necessary for the trust construction from both sides).

Personal values include Achievement, Home and Family (small groups and quiet places), although the latter two is the least likely. 

Jin thinks critically and clearly, and often have an idea about how to do something more efficiently.

Strengths; an excellent planner, maintains composure under pressure, excellent problem solver, organized, quick, imaginative and strategic mind, independent and decisive, hard-working and determined, persistent and thorough, reliable and consistent, open-minded, loyal and honest, forward thinking, creative, self reliant and responsible, industrious and trustworthy.

Weaknesses; Overly analytical, highly judgmental, taking criticism, intolerant, narcissism and arrogance, lack of empathy, emotionally disconnected, cynicism, depression.

The better that Jin Sakai can give to anyone, is his time: the most valuable, worthy and with no return thing that he has. He prefers quality, not quantity. That’s why he is very selective in his relationships.

His personal Achilles heel; the relationships (particularly, the romantic ones). This does not mean that he does not feel, just that he doesn’t express it like everyone.

Jin Sakai is built like arthropods, and have an exoskeleton, but he is a lot more sensitive than one realizes. Why does he do that? For his own protection, of course. From what? from intense emotions from the others.

For what Jin Sakai will be grateful with you; keep things clean, be concise, don’t harass or disturb his free-alone time, play to their interests and hobbies, kill all stupidities you have (or hide them… even if he knows that he’ll find them anyways), keep things somewhat logical and orderly, trust them when you can, be honest and please, do not lie (he can smell it from kilometers), make acts of service, do something good (and help him to believe in humanity again), and understand that sometimes Jin tends to respond to conflict with logical and reason, rather than the desired emotional need.

Jin can be fiercely loyal; once you have his attention, you will have it forever (until you mess it). He wants you to succeed, He will educate himself on you, helping you to achieve your goals and trying to understand you, but please understand that Jin Sakai needs his alone time! This is not about you, this is about THEM (for real).

The best way that Jin can show you love, it is spending time with people, taking care of the ones he loves, making sure the home is comfortable, enjoyable and with a positive affect on the psyche. Jin knows what you like, what you love and what makes you feel bad. He will be attentive and pay close attention to you. 

What really, really means that Jin Sakai likes you, is that you are in his future plans, tries to improve your environment and chooses time with you over his alone time. He chooses time with you over his alone time.

Jin Sakai only likes to share only his triumphs; He tends to not share journeys, projects or paths when it is not complete. Do not take it personal if he doesn’t talk to you about his projects in the early stages, it is normal.

Jin is a confident and an original thinker; He believes strongly in himself, always looking for novel ways of looking at life. In general, extremely capable and intelligent individual who strives to always do their best and continue to move in a positive direction. He is considered one of the most intelligent types from MBTI (in logical, mathematical and sometimes intrapersonal).

Jin’s most deadly weapons; indifference, silence and… absence. He won’t scream at you, he will ignore you. While Jin rarely gets mad or get into chaos and drama, but when he does, HE DOES. He knows that everything is in the mind, and if he loses his control, he can lose everything that he has done (with chaotic and collateral damages).

Jin hates (it is a large list); mistakes (from himself), small talk, repeating same thing over and over again, feeling guilty for procrastinating, having overly high standards for the others, working without clear goal, people who force others to accept their views and opinions, family gatherings, illogical presumptions, overly emotional people, alone time interruptions, when people are chronically late, incompetent authority, being touched by strangers, when friends nag for attention, unnecessary rules, when people ask for an opinion and get offended by it, conflicts instead of logical arguing, unoptimized systems, invasions of privacy, random people, social awkward situations, crowded places, inconsistency, irrationality, surprises, when people interrupt your speech and arrogance from others.

[mediaeval-muse]

Academic Book Review

The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your PhD Into a Job. By Karen Kelsky. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2015. Pp. x + 438. $16.

Argument: Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration. Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success.  They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options. Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers join the select few who get the most out of their Ph.D. As a former tenured professor and department head who oversaw numerous academic job searches, she knows from experience exactly what gets an academic applicant a job. And as the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site The Professor is In, she has helped countless Ph.D.s turn themselves into stronger applicants and land their dream careers.

***Full review under the cut.***

Chapter Breakdown: This book technically has 63 chapters, so I’m going to briefly describe each major section.

Section 1: Dark Times in the Academy Overviews the decline in tenture-track jobs in higher education, as well as the challenges facing PhDs, from adjucting to the feeling of losing one’s identity.

Section 2: Getting Your Head in the Game A guide to the realities of the academic job market, including what it is, what unspoken rules/assumptions are present, what grad students tend not to understand or habits that make them a poor candidate, institution types and rankings, and how to (generally) build yourself up as a candidate.

Section 3: The Nuts and Bolts of a Competitive Record Covers the importance of building a CV, getting teaching experience, publishing, obtaining grants, cultivating references, and going to conferences. Also contains advice on how to take control of these situations.

Section 4: Job Documents That Work Advice on how to compose cover letters, CVs, teaching statements, evidence of teaching effectiveness, research statements, diversity statements, and dissertation abstracts.

Section 5: Techniques of the Academic Interview Information about interview basics, including what kinds of questions are likely to be asked (and how to respond). Also includes information about conference interviews, campus visits, job talks, teaching demos, talking to deans, etc. Also contains advice on how to handle outrageous questions and what to do after the interview.

Section 6: Navigating the Job Market Minefield Covers topics that could cause additional stress in the job market search, such as inside candidates, unresponsive references, poor campus climate, department politics, pregnancy, finances, etc. Also contains advice on how to dress professionally and cautions against attitudes like narcissism, grandiosity, self-juvenilization, etc.

Section 7: Negotiating an Offer Advice for negotiating job offers, including sections on partner (formerly, “spousal”) hires and rescinded offers.

Section 8: Grants and Postdocs Contains templates for writing grants as well as an overview of how postdoc applications are different from a job application.

Section 9: Some Advice About Advisors Overview of what kinds of advisors are “good” (one that has your best interests in mind) as well as a section on how advisors/departments discuss PhD debt (and what that can tell you about job prospects).

Section 10: Leaving the Cult Advice on leaving academia, including a list of transferable skills. More focused on “giving permission” to leave as opposed to traditional job search advice (like how to write a non-academic cover letter).

Reviewer Comments: Despite the intimidating size of this book, The Professor Is In is probably the most useful text I’ve come across (so far) in terms of career advice for PhDs. It contains practical information about preparing academic job materials, as well as insights into unspoken assumptions about the job search from the perspective of the hiring committee. It also does not hesitate in talking about the dismal state of higher education, and is very clear that the contents of this book (and individual action) can’t fix systemic problems.

The tone of the writing is appropriate for its audience. Kelsky doesn’t attempt to give readers an inspirational pep talk, nor does she ignore the fact that readers may have very real, pressing anxieties about their futures. Instead, she lays out the facts of the job market so that readers can make informed choices about how to proceed. I liked that Kelsky’s prose was so down-to-earth and blunt, not trying to coddle PhDs but also not trying to blame them for things beyond their control. Instead, Kelsky was able to balance “tough love” with true empathy and compassion, which made me not only feel open to reflecting on my own flaws as a PhD job candidate, but also respected as someone with real concerns. For some, the tone might be off-putting, as it does, admittedly, come off as “angry” in many ways, but I honestly prefer that over other books I’ve read that tries to “cutesify” the problems in academia. I also appreciated that Kelsky offered stats and secondary sources to illustrate everything point she made, so her advice felt less anecdotal and more rooted in research. As PhDs, most of us like supporting research, so I may be a bit biased; I just don’t find anecdotes that inspirational.

While this book is aimed at PhDs from various disciplines, the sheer amount of information and practical writing advice made it *actually* useful. As opposed to books which tend to offer general pointers like “tailor your resume,” Kelsky has specific advice, like “email your letter writer and ask for 15-20 minutes of their time” or “here’s an example of a diversity statement as well as a brief analysis of what it does and does not do.” Kelsky clearly lays out not just what candidates *should* be doing, but also *why* they should be doing it, which makes concepts easy to grasp and see the value in.

The only major thing that made this book discouraging to read was the implicit suggestion that if you haven’t been building your academic job profile from the beginning (or even before entering graduate school), you’re basically f*cked. Looking over some of the advice, I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed out on some things and couldn’t rectify them because I’m out of school. Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t, but either way, I wanted to see it addressed (or maybe it was and I missed it?). If I can’t get accepted to lead a conference panel in the top conference in my field, what then? What if I apply for tons of grants and don’t get many? What if a journal holds onto my article for 2 years with the promise of publishing it but never moves forward (something that actually happened to me)? What if my dissertation topic is interesting to me, but doesn’t follow popular trends? Am I a bad candidate? Should I give up? Things like that.

Overall, I think this book is one of the most practically useful guides out there, and if you’re a grad student who does not have a supportive job placement program at your institution, this book is invaluable for beginning to understand the realities of the academic job market, as dismal and unfair as it is.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if

you’re a graduate student or adjunct going on the academic job market

you’re a grad student thinking ahead about how to use your time in graduate school effectively

you’re a PhD thinking about leaving academia

you working in career advising (including positions such as dissertation director or department head)

[the-psychopathist]

Psychopathy vs Antisocial Personality Disorder

Given the title of this post it’s obvious what I’m going to be discussing: The differences between psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). A lot of people tend to confuse those two or think they are synonymous, as well as sociopath. I’ll start by given the definition for each of those as well as other similar condition.

Primary Psychopathy: Most commonly referred as psychopathy. When specialists talk about psychopaths, most of the time they mean those who have primary psychopathy. Primary psychopathy is innate, meaning that primary psychopaths are born that way. Primary psychopathy is characterized by callousness, shallow affect, manipulation, and superficial charm. Not all primary psychopaths have antisocial personality disorder. They all have certain narcissistic traits (such as grandiose) but again, not all primary psychopaths could be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder either. Primary psychopaths have a defecting empathy, meaning that they can’t and will never feel empathy. They are usually viewed as high-functioning.

Secondary Psychopathy: Usually referred to as sociopathy, even tho the term sociopath is outdated. Secondary psychopaths are made, they have been mold that way by their environment and possible trauma. Secondary psychopathy is associated with impulsivity and lack of long-term goals, and is related to hostile behaviors. Unlike primary psychopaths, secondary psychopaths are often emotionally unstable and can experience guilt and empathy. Their empathy isn’t defective but instead dysfunctional. All secondary psychopaths meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder and they are more likely to also have borderline personality disorder. They are also more likely to be low-functioning.

Antisocial Personality Disorder: Also often used as a synonyme of sociopathy. The criteria are failure to obey laws and norms, lying, deception, and manipulation for profit or self-amusement, impulsive behavior, irritability and aggression, blatantly disregards the safety of self and others, a pattern of irresponsibility and lack of remorse. The person needs to be at least 18, have conduct behavior before 15 and the antisocial behaviors aren’t related to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. People with ASPD can feel empathy and love towards those they bond with and their level of functioning depends of their IQ, education and environment.

Conduct Disorder: Considered the precursor of ASPD. Conduct disorder is characterized by antisocial behaviors in children and teenagers. The causes can be diverse, such as genetic, environment or even a low IQ. The signs of conduct disorder are bullying, aggressiveness, use of weapons, cruelty (towards humans or animals), stealing, forced sexual activities, vandalism, deceptiveness and serious rule violation. Whether those issues are treated or not can determine if those antisocial behaviors will continue in adulthood (and become ASPD) or not.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder: NPD is a personality disorder from Cluster B like ASPD. To be diagnosed with NPD you need to have at least 5 of the 9 following criteria: grandiose sense of self-importance, fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love, think they are "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people, requires excessive admiration, has a sense of entitlement,  is interpersonally exploitative, lack of empathy,  is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of them and shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes. The exact cause of NPD is uncertain but specialist are led to believe it might be a combinaison of genetics and environments.

Bordeline Personality Disorder: BPD is another personality disorder from the Cluster B. Its characterized by markedly disturbed sense of identity, frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment and extreme reactions to such, black and white thinking, impulsivity, intense or uncontrollable emotional reactions that are disproportionate to the event or situation, unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships, distorded self-image, self-damaging behaviors, dissociation and is often accompanied by depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse, or rage.

Histrionic Personality Disorder: The last personality disorder from Cluster B. HPD is a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive attention-seeking behaviors, usually beginning in early adulthood, including inappropriate seduction and an excessive need for approval. People diagnosed with the disorder are said to be lively, dramatic, vivacious, enthusiastic, and flirtatious.  People with HPD are usually high-functioning, both socially and professionally. They usually have good social skills, despite tending to use them to manipulate others into making them the center of attention. HPD may also affect a person's social and romantic relationships, as well as their ability to cope with losses or failures.

Phew. Now that we got over all the definition, let’s see what differienciate them. Most of those conditions are mainly related to the environment with maybe some genetics component, except primary psychopathy which is 100% genetics. Primary psychopathy and HPD are largely high-functioning, secondary psychoapthy and BPD are often low-functioning while ASPD and NPD it varies. Most of those conditions share similar traits such as a lack of empathy and manipulative tendencis. But they are also largely different on many aspects.

You may wonder why I didn’t mention sociopathy. Well, sociopaths is considered as an outdated term that was previously used as synonymous of either secondary psychopathy or ASPD. So to avoid confusing those two I’ll void using sociopathy.

You may have seen videos of “psychopaths vs sociopaths” and most of them are actually comparing primary psychopathy and secondary psychopathy. They do share similarity such as a lack of remorse, pathological liar, manipulative, irresponsability, disregard for others and a failure to learn from mistakes. But, primary psychopaths tend to be more emotionally shallow, calculating and calm while secondary psychopaths are neurotics, anxious, impulsivity and can actually feel love, guilt and empathy. Primary psychopaths are often known as corporate psychopaths or successful psychopaths and tend to have higher jobs such as CEO, lawyer, salesperson, surgeon, journalist, police officer, clergy, chef and civil servant. Secondary psychopaths on the contrary tend to struggle with keeping jobs and often have low education. Primary psychopaths are part of the narcissistic personalities but not all of them would qualify as an actual narcissist. Even if primary psychopathy and ASPD shares some traits, not all primary psychopaths have ASPD. Secondary psychopaths also have narcissitic traits and antisocial traits and are more likely to have BPD. 

Here’s an interesting diagram to illustrate this:

This diagram, however, is really male-centric. ASPD is more common in male psychopaths, while HPD is more common among female psychopaths. Even for non-psychopathic people, ASPD is more common among men and HPD among women. I don’t think it’s due to biological differences, more because of how men and women are raised in society (aggresivity is encouraged for boys while girls are encouraged to be more passive). So personally, I’d add HPD to this diagram.

You may have heard the saying “all psychopaths are sociopaths but not all sociopaths are psychopaths” or that psychopathy is a more severe for of sociopathy. Even if there’s some sense in that, it’s factually wrong. Primary psychopathy and secondary psychopathy are mutually exclusive, but if in this sentence sociopathy means ASPD, then I understand where it came from. For a long time psychopathy was viewed as a form of ASPD, therefore, if ASPD is sociopathy and all psychopaths have ASPD, then by logic, all psychopaths would be sociopaths too. But we know now that not all primary psychopaths have ASPD so therefore, the statement is incorrect. But, psychopathy and ASPD are often comorbid and do shares a lot of similarities.

Important thing to note, to be diagnosed with ASPD you need to be over 18 and have previously show signs of conduct disorder before the age of 15. Such requirements don’t exist for primary psychopathy, given that CD is a precursor for ASPD and not all primary psychopaths have ASPD. 

I want to precise that even if there’s a large percentage of criminals with ASPD. In a study it showed that around 35.3% (either men or women) prisoners met the criteria for ASPD and around 15% to 25% of men in prisons who are psychopaths. Psychopaths make up 1% of the population while around 3% to 4% of the population are diagnosed with ASPD. Despite that, most psychopaths or people with ASPD aren’t criminals.

I want to finish that saying I’m no professional, I did studied psychology on my own for years but I wouldn’t pretend to be an expert. All I said are based on medical sources I read, which I’ll link bellow. Thanks for reading and don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts.

Psychopaths in prison

Prisoners with ASPD

Primary Psychopathy vs Secondary Psychopathy

Female psychopaths and HPD 

Secondary Psychopathy and BPD

[scientificphilosopher]

Mental Health and General Life Advice Gained Over the Years

Here is a list of some things I’ve learned over the years that have, I think, helped me live a better life

Be flexible in my narrative. When I say things like ‘I’m just an anxious person,’ or ‘I suck at confrontation,’ then I risk fixing onto this narrative rather than managing it in a healthy way. I become unwilling to recognize instances where I’m not anxious. I ignore opportunities for growth. Instead, I find it better to foster a flexible narrative. I know it’s important to acknowledge, normalize, and even embrace my identities, but I don’t want to mistake an aspect of my identity for my identity wholesale. I’m not my anxiety. Rather, I struggle with anxiety. I’m not Depression. Rather, depression has had a formative influence on my sense of self. This, too, goes for my social identities. Identities are real, and they have very real impacts on our world and our experience, but they are not everything. To paraphrase James Baldwin, identities are like garments that ought to be worn loosely so that our nakedness—and ability to change—can still be felt.

Steep in my fallibility. The more I’ve learned about my personal fallibility—which is prodigious—the healthier my relationships and general approach to the world has become. Embracing my tendency to be biased and make mistakes has, I hope, fostered a strong sense of humility. Thank goodness, since this world is messy and complex as shit, and we are often—so very, very often—wrong about things. Or at least overly-simplistic. And because things are so goddamn complicated, it can be hard, even impossible, to see nuance. Our limited and parochial natures can lead us to ignore complexity, especially if that complexity doesn’t cast a favorable light on our beliefs about the world. I’ve developed an almost fetishistic obsession with learning about cognitive biases and the seemingly infinite number of ways my psychology leads me astray (as evidenced by the persistent string of posts I’ve made on it, like here, here, here, here, and here). Paradoxically, fully embracing and seeking out my fallibility has led me to have a much deeper understanding of the world around me. As Simone de Beauvoir says, ‘It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.’ My genuine condition is that of a mistake-prone, biased, and mercurial ape. (And that’s pretty cool.)

Get in touch with the messiness. Why is it important to have a flexible narrative and to embrace our fallibility? Because shit’s complex! Incredibly, intensely, bone-chillingly, awe-inspiringly complex. Our brains have evolved as taxonomy machines where we carve up the world and separate everything into nice and neat little boxes. If only things could be so simple. As it so happens, though, the world is, as William James wrote, ‘multitudinous beyond imagination, tangled, muddy, painful and perplexed.’ I have found it to be very helpful to reflect on the complexity of everything, even the seemingly simple and straightforward. 

Mindfulness exercises. ‘Mindfulness’ has, like ‘empathy,’ become a pop-psych buzzword over the last several years. This is partly because mindfulness is a very potent tool. It can fundamentally alter our day-to-day existence. There is no shortage of ancient schools of wisdom that have prescribed mindfulness as key to a meaningful existence. I’m partial to David Foster Wallace’s construction of mindfulness when he said that it is the true aim of a good education. With mindfulness we cultivate the power to choose where to focus our mental energies, to choose what has meaning and what does not. With practice, ‘it will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.’ In short, continued Wallace, ‘you get to decide what to worship.’

Thinking about thankfulness. Gratitude exercises are a form of mindfulness I’ve found to be especially beneficial. When I have the mental energy to do so, I try to get creative about my gratitude. I try to find gratitude in the mundane, the trivial, the invisible. It’s much too easy to be grateful for grand adventures and emotionally rewarding escapades. It can be much more difficult—but equally meaningful—to find gratitude in the humdrum, or to appreciate the infinite number of shitty things that didn’t happen to me, or to embrace the vast confluence of luck that has led me to this single moment of unadorned contentedness. This is another subject I’ve written about to a near-obnoxious extent (see some here, here, here, here, and here). I sometimes feel reservations recommending gratitude exercises, since, when things are really awful, as they so often are, it can feel patronizing and hurtful to have someone tell you that you should just be grateful. This is not my intention. The world is capricious and fucked up, far more often than it should be. This is why I try to access gratitude in the moments where things are okay. I try to seize moments of grace and calm and squeeze out those drops of thankfulness. This can add water to the reservoir that I will need to pull from when I’m thirsty and in pain. In my better moments, then, I can find gratitude, or some semblance or peace or perspective, even when I’m suffering. I can, as Nietschze wrote, ‘throw roses in to the abyss and say: “Here is my thanks to the monster who didn’t succeed in swallowing me alive.”’ And, ultimately, this has helped me get to a place where I can, more often than not, remain in a ‘contented dazzlement of surprise,’ to use Lewis Thomas’ turn of phrase.

Me and everyone I love will die. You know what else I’m grateful for? This breath. And this one. And this one. It’s pretty wild to be alive, to be a self-aware extension of nature itself. What a stunning convergence of necessary circumstance needed to randomly grant me such a privilege. And, just as it came, so it will go. Randomly and inexorably. Death awaits. There is no stopping it. Dark, suffocating, oblivion. This can be scary, of course. But it’s also motivating and contextualizing. Death is not yet here, after all. And that makes each and every breath, smile, kiss, and laugh a priceless cosmic treasure. Indeed, it is precisely because of our limited time that life is so meaningful. Emily Dickinson, as she was wont to do, summed it up eloquently when she said, ‘That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.’

I am not free. At the very least, I am not free in the way I’ve long thought. I am a physical being, subject to the laws of nature, of cause and effect. My thoughts are not authored by some mystical volition or unrestrained willpower. I am thoroughly restrained. I am, indeed, destined to write this sentence from the very moment the cosmos silently but extravagantly whispered itself into life. Some people recoil from this idea, thinking that if our thoughts and actions are determined by external factors, then life is meaningless, and change is futile. These conclusions do not follow. Change is occurring constantly. Our actions have consequences. What we do chaotically reverberates into our surroundings. We are determined, but not fated. We have power, even if it is not free. Instead of catastrophizing and fearing the implications of our lack of freedom, I like to reflect on what this means for how I treat myself and others. A lack of freedom motivates in me a deep sense of compassion. It demands forgiveness for both my mistakes and those of others. None of us asked to be here. We are, as Heidegger said, thrown into existence, awoken to a set of determined circumstance. I am the type of person who has been able to receive an education, to have supportive loved ones, to have a functioning moral compass, a disposition for moving and meaningful emotional experiences, and to want to work to make the world a better place. But I didn’t choose to be or have any of this. This is all luck, luck, luck. From my country of birth to my balding head and hairy back to every last neuronal blast fashioning my inner life—not one atom or twist of the genetic braid was chosen exclusively by me. So, if I find myself as the type of person who doesn’t want to harm others, who doesn’t have unmanageable compulsions, who doesn’t suffer from debilitating isolation, who isn’t disproportionately oppressed by the unconscious machinations of social systems, then this, like everything and all of it, is luck, luck, luck.

Interpersonal stuff. I’ve been very lucky to have had resources in my life, including access to healthcare, a support system, and loved ones who happen to be badass psychologists and counselors. I’ve gleaned invaluable life advice from these dear friends of mine. And thank the cosmos, as such advice has proven to profoundly improve my interpersonal relationships. A couple of quick ones: avoid ‘Shoulding’ on people. When I’m upset and in pain, I typically desire a compassionate and patient ear rather than practical advice. When people come at me with ‘Well, you should do this…’ I often just feel misunderstood or further alienated. Even worse is the ‘Nike Advice,’ where someone says ‘Just do such and such…’ This often feels invalidating because if it were a matter of ‘Just’ doing something, I would’ve already done it. Things are rarely so simple. Similarly, I’ve found it helpful to listen rather than problem-solve. I will commiserate and look for solutions if that is what the person asks for, but usually, I will try to be simply present for the other person, to sit with their pain and offer my compassion and understanding. 

Meta-advice. Here’s some advice on my advice: take it with a fat, ballpark-sized soft-pretzel’s worth of salt. I am a philosopher, not a psychologist. I try to be very science- and research-driven, and I’ve been lucky to enough to draw from the hard-earned wisdom of other experts, but, nonetheless, I am not an expert myself. I try to live well. I try to be smart and kind and humble and patient, and I often fail. I am human, all-too-human. This is simply meant to be a sloppily-rendered summary of some helpful pieces of anecdotal advice I’ve gathered on my never-ending journey toward eudaimonia. Nothing more. It is non-exhaustive (this post is, like me after a night at home with a book and a DiGiornio, far too bloated), and I’m sure I’ll regret leaving out many pieces of pivotal information. But the above advice has (so far) been useful in my life. This does not mean it will be helpful for everyone. I hope, at least, that it would not be harmful. Do with it what you will, my friends, and good luck.

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Villaneve MBTI Personality Types

Let’s start with Villanelle. She was kind of difficult because she also has the psychopath thing going for her but I think she’s ISTP, the Virtuoso. I don’t want to make this post too long so I’m just going to pull some quotes from various sites and let you guys infer for yourselves.

“I wanted to live the life, a different life. I didn’t want to go to the same place every day and see the same people and do the same job. I wanted interesting challenges.” - Harrison Ford (a fellow ISTP)

“ISTPs are mysterious people who are usually very rational and logical, but also quite spontaneous and enthusiastic. They are often capable of humorously insightful observations about the world around them.”

“ISTPs are attentive to details and responsive to the demands of the world around them. Because of their astute sense of their environment, they are good at moving quickly and responding to emergencies. ISTPs are reserved, but not withdrawn: the ISTP enjoys taking action, and approaches the world with a keen appreciation for the physical and sensory experiences it has to offer.”

“ISTP traits include a penchant for problem-solving, cool pragmatism, and eager curiosity.”

“ISTPs are adventurous and independent. They are fearless and thrive on challenging situations. They are gifted problem solvers. Their mechanical and technical nature enables them to operate many kinds of tools and instruments. They are proud of their relatively effortless ability to acquire many skills. They seek freedom and are typically unemotional.”

“Easily bored, they’re always looking for something new and exciting to do. Sometimes this means they’re drawn to high-risk situations that give them a thrill. Because they react quickly and are tuned into their surroundings, they likely have a better chance than some others of beating the odds.”

“They enjoy when someone takes an interest in their projects, because it creates a shared experience.”

“At times, they’re steady and consistent, plodding along the path they’ve laid out for themselves. But other times, they’re completely spontaneous, making them a bit unpredictable. It’s like an energy builds up within them, and when it hits its tipping point, it explodes without warning — often launching them fearlessly in new directions.”

“An adventurous romantic partner, they’ll never “grow stale” — they’re always surprising their beloved with new experiences, especially sensual ones that invite fun and pleasure.”

“When it comes to relationships, they may be a bit hard to nail down, alternating between detachment and passion.”

“ISTPs enjoy working with their hands and having a day that’s full of variety and action.”

“ ISTPs are very direct and say what they mean. They sometimes have difficulty with emotionally charged situations or conversations. They do not read between the lines and do not understand why others do.”

“They enjoy having other people take an interest in their projects and sometimes don’t even mind them getting into their space. Of course, that’s on the condition that those people don’t interfere with their principles and freedom, and they’ll need to be open to the ISTP returning the interest in kind.”

“Friendly but very private, calm but suddenly spontaneous, extremely curious but unable to stay focused on formal studies, ISTP personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones. They can seem very loyal and steady for a while, but they tend to build up a store of impulsive energy that explodes without warning, taking their interests in bold new directions.”

“Their decisions stem from a sense of practical realism, and at their heart is a strong sense of direct fairness, a “do unto others” attitude, which really helps to explain many of their puzzling traits. Instead of being overly cautious though, avoiding stepping on toes in order to avoid having their toes stepped on, they are likely to go too far, accepting likewise retaliation, good or bad, as fair play.”

“The biggest issue ISTPs are likely to face is that they often act too soon, taking for granted their permissive nature and assuming that others are the same. They’ll be the first to tell an insensitive joke, get overly involved in someone else’s project, roughhouse and play around, or suddenly change their plans because something more interesting came up.”

“Combining spontaneity with logic, they can switch mindsets to fit new situations with little effort, making them flexible and versatile individuals.”

“This flexibility comes with some unpredictability, but ISTP personalities are able to store their spontaneity for a rainy day, releasing their energy just when it’s needed most.”

“With all this hands-on creativity and spontaneity, it’s no wonder that they are naturals in crisis situations. People with this personality type usually enjoy a little physical risk, and they aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty when the situation calls for it.”

“Through all this, they are able to stay quite relaxed. They live in the moment and go with the flow, refusing to worry too much about the future.”

“As easily as they go with the flow, they can also ignore it entirely, and usually move in another direction with little apology or sensitivity. If someone tries to change their habits, lifestyle or ideas through criticism, they can become quite blunt in their irritation.”

“They use logic, and even when they try to meet others halfway with empathy and emotional sensitivity, it rarely seems to quite come out right, if anything is even said at all.”

“This stubbornness, difficulty with others’ emotions, focus on the moment, and easy boredom can lead to unnecessary and unhelpful boundary-pushing, just for fun. ISTPs have been known to escalate conflict and danger just to see where it goes, something that can have disastrous consequences for everyone around if they lose control of the situation.”

Characteristic of an ISTP

Adaptable

Logical

Independent

Active

Adventurous

Problem solver

Self-reliant

Analytical

Technical

Practical

Unemotional

Flexible

Impersonal

Logical

Concrete

Realistic

Direct

Fearless

Positive

Handy

Objective

Hands-on

Damn, that’s long. Oh well, to Eve. Eve is an INTJ, or The Mastermind.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”– Friedrich Nietzsche (a fellow INTJ)

“The INTJ is logic-driven personality type with a talent for solving problems and a focus on accomplishing goals. INTJs are capable of forecasting far out into the future with an astonishing level of accuracy. Perhaps the only area where an INTJ doesn’t seem to be able to predict the future is in their own personal lives; INTJs rarely factor their emotions or happiness into a plan, and can find themselves locked into careers, relationships, or patterns that they no longer enjoy.”

“INTJs tend to be critical-minded, blunt, and focused on getting results.”

“You’ve always known you’re meant for something bigger than punching in at a 9-to-5 job to pay the bills. You want to use your capabilities to do something that matters—and to have real accomplishments.”

“You’re a completely different person when you’re with close friends than you are with everyone else. You can be goofy, charismatic and outrageously funny, but remain very reserved with people who aren’t in your “inner circle.””

“When you’re feeling down, and a loved one tries to soothe you with comforting words, you pull away like they’re offering you a poisonous snake.”

“When someone asks which is more important to you, having an interesting job or having a meaningful job, you’re like, wait, I thought those were the same thing.”

“ You’re great at making life plans, but somehow you always manage to overlook how your emotional state will affect those life plans—or why that’s even important. Getting even a kindergarten-level education in your own emotions feels like you discovered profound truths about the world.”

“No matter what you do, you never feel like you’ve accomplished enough. This is what propels you toward great things, but it also leaves you feeling perpetually critical of yourself and your achievements. There’s always something bigger you feel like you should be on top of.”

“Few things will make an INTJ angrier than a boss or authority figure that seems undeserving of their position. If they see a person in charge that does not appear to think through their actions, avoids making decisions, or only seems to have gotten where they are through blatant self-promotion, it will be very difficult for an INTJ to keep their mouth shut. Above all else, these thinkers value brilliance, self-confidence, and the ability to make firm, effective decisions.”

“It’s not that INTJs don’t care. If you’re in their life, they definitely care about what you’re going through. Feelings just make them nervous, and the more they try to take emotions into account, usually the worse they do at pleasing other people. INTJs do feel, but they tend to take a pragmatic approach to their emotions, trying to optimize their lives and relationships based on what they can immediately control. They also expect the people in their lives to try to behave rationally.”

“Playing by the rules is not very important to INTJs. Give them a list of rules and they may endlessly question you, bend the rules, and even break them if they see a better way. INTJs are always innovating and tweaking. If they don’t have the opportunity to do that, they’ll be very, very, unhappy — and you’ll probably hear about it.”

“Obviously, routine tasks are not looking good for this personality type. INTJs are easily bored with process work and are not good at paper-pushing. They might, say, go to the gym, but only after they’ve created the best, most research-backed and efficient way of working out. Groceries, clothing, cooking, anything routine, will never be done the same way every day — if at all. Or they’ll delegate these tasks.”

“INTJs are private, independent and self-confident. They strive for perfection and achievement. They are gifted strategists with analytical, conceptual and objective minds. They are flexible and like to formulate contingency plans. Strategists are able to see the reasons behind things.”

“The INTJ personality type’s signature strength is deep perception. Otherwise known as “the mastermind,” the INTJ is naturally attuned to “the big picture” and cannot help but see how everything is interconnected. Their ability to perceive deep patterns and causal relationships has helped many achieve eminence.”

“They are typically independent and selective about their relationships, preferring to associate with people who they find intellectually stimulating.”

“People with this personality type are imaginative yet decisive, ambitious yet private, amazingly curious, but they do not squander their energy.”

“A paradox to most observers, INTJs are able to live by glaring contradictions that nonetheless make perfect sense – at least from a purely rational perspective. For example, they are simultaneously the most starry-eyed idealists and the bitterest of cynics, a seemingly impossible conflict. But this is because INTJ personalities tend to believe that with effort, intelligence and consideration, nothing is impossible, while at the same time they believe that people are too lazy, short-sighted or self-serving to actually achieve those fantastic results. Yet that cynical view of reality is unlikely to stop an interested INTJ from achieving a result they believe to be relevant.”

“INTJs radiate self-confidence and an aura of mystery, and their insightful observations, original ideas and formidable logic enable them to push change through with sheer willpower and force of personality.”

“Rules, limitations and traditions are anathema to the INTJ personality type – everything should be open to questioning and reevaluation, and if they see a way, they will often act unilaterally to enact their technically superior, sometimes insensitive, and almost always unorthodox methods and ideas.”

“They are brilliant and confident in bodies of knowledge they have taken the time to understand, but unfortunately the social contract is unlikely to be one of those subjects.”

“They are defined by their tendency to move through life as though it were a giant chess board, pieces constantly shifting with consideration and intelligence, always assessing new tactics, strategies and contingency plans, constantly outmaneuvering their peers in order to maintain control of a situation while maximizing their freedom to move about.”

“If something piques their interest, INTJ personalities can be astonishingly dedicated to their work, putting in long hours and intense effort to see an idea through.”

“INTJ personalities are perfectly capable of carrying their confidence too far, falsely believing that they’ve resolved all the pertinent issues of a matter and closing themselves off to the opinions of those they believe to be intellectually inferior. Combined with their irreverence for social conventions, they can be brutally insensitive in making their opinions of others all too clear.”

“They tend to have complete confidence in their thought process, because rational arguments are almost by definition correct – at least in theory. In practice, emotional considerations and history are hugely influential, and a weak point for people with the INTJ personality type is that they brand these factors and those who embrace them as illogical, dismissing them and considering their proponents to be stuck in some baser mode of thought, making it all but impossible to be heard.”

“Above all else, INTJs want to be able to tackle intellectually interesting work with minimal outside interference, no more, no less.”

Characteristic of an INTJ

Analytical

Structured

Objective

Introspective

Perfectionist

Attentive

Controlled

Private

Responsible

Self-confident

Thick-skinned

Quiet

Determined

Independent

Impersonal

Theoretical

Intense

Strategic

Adaptable

Complex

Conceptual

Disciplined

Deliberate

Abstract

What do you guys think? Agree? Disagree? Praise me or fight me, idc. Just join the conversation. 

Cheers,

An INTP. Part 2 & Part 3

[livingwithasd]

Information Post

Today, I am going to write about Autism Spectrum Disorder. First, I am going to write about what autism is. Second, I am going to write about the signs and symptoms of autism along with the treatments that help minimize the symptoms. Third, I will write about how you should behave around people who are on the spectrum. 

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurological disorder that begins early in childhood and lasts throughout a person’s life. It affects how a person learns, communicates, behaves, and how they interact with others. Autism Spectrum Disorder has three different levels such as high-functioning autism, autism, and severe autism. High-functioning autism is when a patient’s symptoms are only obvious without support, autism is when the patient’s symptoms are still noticeable with support in place, and severe autism is when the patient needs major support because their symptoms impair their daily life. 

Next, I’ll write about the common signs and symptoms of autism along with the treatments that help minimize or reduce symptoms. The signs and symptoms of Autism Spectrum disorder are delayed language and speech development, limited vocabulary, no speech, variable or no eye contact, and impaired communication skills. There is currently no cure for Autism Spectrum Disorder, but there are many ways to help reduce symptoms, and support development and learning. Treatment options include behavior and communication therapy, educational therapy, family therapy, occupational therapy, and medications. Behavior and communication therapy is a highly structured approach that teaches communication, self-care, social and academic living skills, and reduces problematic behavior. Educational therapy is a form of therapy used to treat individuals with learning differences, disabilities, and challenges. Family therapy focuses on individuals and families who live with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Occupational therapy helps people with autism work on cognitive, physical, social, and motor skills. Besides therapy, medications such as antipsychotic are used in patients to improve symptoms of autism. 

Finally. I am going to write about how you should behave around people who are on the spectrum. 

1.) Treat him or her like you would treat anybody else. Do not assume they are disable. He/she might process everything you say, but have difficulty responding verbally.

2.) Take time to listen to the patient. It is important to be an active listener because taking the time to listen informs the person with autism that you care and support them. Ask more questions if you are uncertain in what the patient is saying because it is a great way to define what they are trying to say.

3.) When interacting with people on the spectrum, be literal, clear, and concise. Avoid using sarcasm because this level of communication can sometimes be puzzling to the patient.

4.) If you ask a question, wait patiently for a response. Sometimes, individuals with autism need a little more time to process information before giving you their response to your question.

5.) Do not make fun of people who are on the spectrum. Avoid using the word ‘retarded’ because this word is offensive to people who have disabilities because they didn’t choose to have a disability. Also, avoid using the statement, “I never would have guessed you were autistic.” This statement might me intended as a compliment, but it is not a compliment. Many people who are on the spectrum try to pass as a neurotypical because they have been bullied or judged for who they are as human-beings. 

In conclusion, educating yourself about the signs and symptoms of autism is a great way to understand children and adults on the spectrum. Keep in mind that people with autism do not always react appropriately. Usually, people with autism have a hard time processing and understanding societal norms. It doesn’t mean they are immature, it just means that sometimes they don’t know how they are suppose to act or respond. Also, people who are on the spectrum usually don’t understand emotion. Sometimes, people with autism won’t react appropriately because they don’t understand the emotion given in that situation. It does not mean they lack empathy, but it means it is difficult for them to know how to react. The best way to help a person on the spectrum learn to navigate complex social interactions is to provide sincere feedback that is non-judgmental. 

“If you have met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.”