trenton

I have had a bad relationship with my sister for a very long time. It goes back to our dysfunctional childhood in which my father showed favoritism toward me for being a boy. He started telling these stories about how I was the one who would break the cycle of criminal life and how I gave my grandpa hope when he saw the good in me. During this time my mother wanted me to have empathy for my sisters for their position, but there was not the same emphasis on empathy when speaking to my sisters. This is a common bias in how boys are raised in that they are talked to about compassion and empathy more than girls because it is assumed that boys are less compassionate. The girls needed to understand my position because I myself was conflicted about my father because my love for him led me to enabling his criminal behaviors. This is the trauma that my sister has begun to weaponize against me as a means of getting revenge for me telling our cousin that my sisters didn't like his behavior at the renaissance festival and that they were mad at him. Unfortunately, my sister appears to have a chronic deficit of empathy. She would lash out at me over very minor issues to the point that I would cry. She would make excuses about her performative outrage claiming either that I was overly sensitive or that she was on her period. Whenever I tried to express that she had hurt me, she would refuse to self-reflect and immediately find any way to frame me as a hypocrite. She would mention the past favors she did for me, implying that I was ungrateful despite all the harm she was causing me. She would tell me that I was inconsiderate for many things including risking myself to save my mother's life from my abusive step-father while protecting my younger siblings in an environment that was far too dangerous. She would place logically impossible expectations on me such as being more open while not being too honest. She simply could not handle criticism because her ego was far too fragile. She would ask me how I felt, yet I constantly felt unsafe because I was walking at eggshells, and I would inevitably fuck up again anyway. Every interaction with her led me to getting paralyzed because I would understand that anything I say would be weaponized against me and lead to a worse outcome. Nevertheless, if I stayed silent, she would call me childish for not being able to handle conflict. She would intentionally place out of reach standards on me while looking for reasons to get offended so that she would keep me in a position of perpetually out of reach approval. She would not only weaponize my trauma against me, but also demand I take 100% responsibility rather than being so one-sided only to capitalize on the situation should I apologize in an effort to humiliate me. I felt trapped in this awful relationship for about 8 years. I am still terrified to see her. When she is present I start having anxiety attacks, I lose my balance, my heart races, I get trouble breathing, I start having muscle spasms, and I feel deeply angry and powerless as she makes seemingly benign comments which were implicitly targeting my trauma. I noticed how my vulnerability was now being used against me and she had no remorse. She would then manipulate the rest of the family into gaslighting me as they treated me like I was the problem. They would insist that I be the one to apologize even when I clearly did nothing wrong. They would make all kinds of incorrect assumptions about how I think and they would project their behavioral problems onto me. My sister would consistently reverse victim and offender, causing me to be blamed unfairly constantly. I would have nightmares about my sister, including sleep paralysis episodes in which I could hear her and she sounded angry. I felt terrified in those nightmares. I tried to explain that she had a pattern of behavior that I did not like. When I would bring up examples of her behaviors, she and my family would tell me that that was in the past and I need to let it go. They would insist that I be more forgiving even though it was impossible for me to feel emotionally safe in her presence. They would tell me that I need to spend more time downstairs and socialize more. On top of that my therapists would tell me that I was the problem because I kept ruminating on bad situations with my sister and would not let them go even though these were symptoms of severe trauma. Therapists are often terrible because they are hyperspecialized, leading them to pathologizing trauma responses. The result is that I was given ineffective anti-psychotic medicine which damaged my liver, and I am still trying to get help recovering from this. My medical insurance has complicated this though. My family repeatedly insisted that all of this was normal family conflict and it was okay to have little tiffs, even if they involved mom threatening suicide. They insisted that I needed to go to therapy for depression, but my sister decided she didn't want to go as she insisted I needed to. I wrote a message to some of my family members explaining the situation. So far it seems that my cousin is the only one that understands me. I have sent the message to my grandma, mother, and younger siblings as well. My younger brother might understand the situation because he is aware of my older sister's behaviors and how she reacts when you say something negative about her. I haven't told my other grandma yet. She also thinks I need to just let go of the past even though the presence of my sister was making me feel suicidal because of the intense emotional reactions it caused. My family is ignorant of my trauma responses, so they treat them as if they were moral failings, proving that I was the problem and my sister was doing everything just right. Sometimes I wanted to cut myself in response to these intense feelings. I was trapped in a toxic family dynamic which the others were blind to, and I was the only one trying to work on myself and improve myself. I tried the book list on this website, the life purpose course, and so many different things, but it just was not enough. I was hoping that emotional mastery would help me to overcome the constant torture in my mind which kept me locked into a traumatic thought pattern. Once again others would tell me that my thinking was the problem and I needed to focus on something else. My experience with mental health has demonstrated to me how stupid the average human being is. Not even the therapists could be trusted because I had done enough research and self-education to objectively know better than them. So many people make all the wrong assumptions about me and it makes it hard to communicate with people. Too often do people overestimate their intelligence and their capacity to help as well as their moral character. There is a bit of a paradox because I tend to think of myself as objectively more intelligent than the average person, but I am aware of the potential problem that could come with this. There is some trauma around this as well because my family treated me like I was stupid. I understand that my profound suffering has strengthened my empathy for the suffering of others. I recognize the mental torture that seems beyond our control no matter how hard we try to make it stop. I used to think it was my fault, but actually it was PTSD. I have been struggling to love myself all my life, but I have found that I love myself even more when I extend the love to others. It was kind of like the dream I had back in high school. I jumped into a black abyss of deep suffering with unwavering faith that I would return to the light stronger. Through this journey I have come to realize that I am the light and it is love which makes me stronger while giving others the strength they need. Originally, I saw Jesus in the dream, but I still have no interest in being a Christian. In fact I am even more repulsed by it because my therapists made me pray when I objected to the practice. I do not want to make people miss love by trying to make them be Christians who clearly have no idea what love even is. From my point of view it looks like moral posturing in which they pretend to be selfless and loving when they are not. I tried forgiving my sister, but I simply could not do it. I tried Leo's forgiveness exercise, but it did not work because Leo said that they did not hurt me intentionally. In my case, it was far too obvious that my sister wanted to hurt me because she was emotionally abusive without any remorse or respect for my boundaries. I simply could not forgive her no matter how hard I tried and even as the family told me that I was in the wrong for not being more forgiving and letting things go. I have found a method of forgiveness that works now that I am away from my sister. Rather than framing forgiveness within a psychological or interpersonal viewpoint, I framed it as more of an existential viewpoint. I struggled with a deeply dysfunctional situation for my entire life and I used whatever I could leverage best to help me be able to love myself. In my case I chose truth, intelligence, and goodness. I did however devalue relationships in favor of a "higher purpose." Meanwhile, my sister chose power, control, and manipulation. She chose a survival strategy which shaped her into a covertly abusive narcissist who enjoys having power over others, and therefore cannot find genuine love for them. She will act like she loves me until the second she gets angry and decides to weaponize my trauma against me. I don't want to forgive her in the sense of wanting to be within 50 miles of her because of how good she is as a human being, but I do forgive her in the sense that she is existentially limited by whatever she can best leverage as a survival strategy even if it leads to intentionally harming others. I don't expect her to recover from her condition, not only because of my experience with her, but also because her chances of recovery from narcissism are not good statistically. She is too psychologically resistant to self-reflection because it would be too painful for her to realize how terribly she has been treating others and getting away with it all her life. I now feel a deep sense of love for myself because I chose love, truth, and goodness. Of course I was limited in my understanding of these things and I had to make a lot of mistakes in the process. It kind of makes me want to cry because of how fucking awesome I am. I initially used these values to compensate my self-worth problems, but I now see the incredible being I have become because I chose love over hate, truth over lies, and good over evil. From my point of view it would not have been intelligent to not be committed to truth because if I intentionally lie to myself all my life then everything I believe is probably wrong. Therefore truth and intelligence were closely related to each other, although my understanding of intelligence was as something that would make me feel good about myself. I now realize that it would be incredibly fucking intelligent if this entire process throughout my entire life was designed to lead me to realize that the universe is very fucking intelligent. I still need to stay the fuck away from my sister as I continue to look for ways to navigate this situation. I find it very hard to be in her presence. I will also need a fuck ton of trauma therapy, no matter how much my family tells me I don't need it. It is actually not a good idea to trust my family at all because they don't understand me in the slightest. I also see how deeply ignorant people were on this forum including myself as I struggled to figure all of this stuff out. I hope you guys find this helpful.

So basically, Tim Pool is using a manipulation tactic like gish galloping. He is rambling on about many different sources so he can sound intelligent, but in reality he is hoping that you just get lost in the word maze and just believe him because he sounds like he knows what he is talking about. If you listen to him he sounds like Ben Shapiro in this clip.

Cindy was a kind person to me. She was always happy to see me. It seemed that she had a genuine smile and laugh whenever I was with her. I was told that she loved me to death. I cannot recall her ever saying or doing anything cruel to me. Cindy was my father's girlfriend. When I would visit them, they would act as if everything was fine. They were happy to see me as we played videogames, board games, and watched movies. I was aware of my father's criminal activity, but I was in a complex situation with my mother and her boyfriend as well. Sometimes the facade would slip. My father and Cindy would get into fights. I then discovered that dad was grabbing and hitting Cindy and calling her a "stupid f****** b****." I realized that dad and Cindy were like mom and Mike. I saw similar behavior like pawning to pay the bills and the use of some kind of opioid pain med along with domestic violence. Dad was also a drug dealer who would steal cash from partners and family despite his belief that he could keep his criminal behavior separate from his family. As I struggled with being caught between my mother and Mike and my father and his gang, I later discovered that Cindy was taking medication for depression and anxiety. I never discussed this with Cindy because I was worried about getting away from mom and Mike while ensuring the safety of my younger siblings. I underestimated how deeply she was suffering because she always seemed happy when I was with her, but she was likely faking it. Cindy eventually died by mixing alcohol with medication, causing her to go to sleep and not wake up. My family framed the incident as if it were an accident or a mistake. I am now realizing that this situation was likely a suicide. My family never talked much about this, so I didn't know it was something like this. Apparently family silence is common in this issue. Upon realizing this, I felt a grim sense of emptiness. I wondered if she ever knew what I was going through. I myself was struggling with suicidal thoughts and behaviors and I would continue with that for years. Because of my struggle, I would now be in a better position to understand her and support her in whatever way I could. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to help her because neither of us told the other about our depression and suicidal thoughts. By this point I already understood that when those close to us die by suicide, it increases the risk factor of suicide for others close to them. For me it seems to be having the opposite effect. This situation makes me want to not kill myself. As far as I could see there was nothing wrong with Cindy and she seemed like a decent human being to me. I wouldn't want her to die like this while suffering so deeply. I would have at least wanted a chance to understand how she felt and what she was going through. However, she wore a convincing mask and it didn't occur to me that she was in this position. If she had known how deeply I was suffering, I wonder how she would have responded. Unfortunately, it is far too late for such wishes and if only thoughts. It seems to be a common psychological phenomenon where it is easy to offer compassion to a friend but not to yourself. Cindy was probably like that as she showed happiness and love on the outside but she probably hated life on the inside. It is easy and natural for me to give such people compassion, yet I tend to treat myself like I'm awful. The reason this realization makes me not want to kill myself is because I see myself as someone similar to Cindy. Like her, I am worthy of love and receiving help. I don't want to end up repeating her actions without giving others the chance to offer compassion. I tend to connect very well with people who are in this kind of deep suffering like me. It feels like Cindy's love for me and her death would be for nothing if I did the same to myself. Perhaps those suffering deeply from depression and suicidal thoughts may respond to it by acting as good of a person as they can. This is a survival strategy that is intended to restore a sense of self worth through morality and being good, therefore justifying a person's existence despite deep suffering. I do this as well and this behavior may be more common than I think. It is close to the root of how I try to find some grand life purpose for myself that helps the maximum number of people in the hopes of being good and therefore justifying my existence. Therefore, attachment to morality is a trauma response, and those suffering deeply may act very kind because of their empathy and compassion for those in deep suffering. This seems to be part of why I am confused about things like life purpose as those with depression are prone to nihilism. I hope my experience has helped you guys somehow. May Cindy rest in peace and may I avoid the same mistake she made.

Autism may be a factor. I often describe things in great detail because I process things differently.

I've seen several psychologists in the past. I've had problems with several of them. I hope to see a trauma therapist once I get my new medical insurance. My current insurance does not cover mental health. It does not cover my hospitalization for severe depression from last month. To be honest I find ai more helpful than human therapists. Oftentimes mental health professionals can't be trusted. They don't seem to know what they are doing.

@Yimpa i can definitely relate to that video. Part of me wants certainty yet spirituality taught me not knowing. The of OCD as the doubting disorder should be helpful.

In my experience, it seems to be repeatedly confirmed to me that I am an unusual man. The way in which men generally behave and think when seeking a sexual does partner does not compute with me. This is likely due to a combination of autism, trauma, OCD, and PTSD which seems to have shaped how attraction works for me starting from a young age. I would like to share how attraction works in my experience. Originally, I was like every other boy. If nothing had changed, then I likely would have grown up to be a normal man who would try to get laid at every opportunity, hitting on girls because he likes their breasts or butt. Due to my experience, I became appalled by what appears to be natural and normal masculine sexuality. I wanted to distance myself from this behavior, reasoning that it could be the case that a girl was sexually abused. In my experience after a traumatic event, it made me far more uncomfortable with this kind of behavior, and I thought that there were others who might actually feel the same way. A girl who was sexually abused probably wouldn't like it if I walked up to her and told her that I wanted to do some x rated sexual fantasy to her after meeting her five seconds ago. I also didn't like it when I was sexually harassed and assaulted, which appears to be ridiculously common. As I went through school, I saw this behavior constantly from both boys and girls. My experiences caused me to develop a strong negative judgment toward sexuality. First of all, I developed OCD behaviors around intrusive sexual fantasies which made me afraid. Secondly, there seems to have been a fundamental change in how I perceive beauty. Rather than primarily being attracted to a woman's physical appearance, mainly her face, eyes, and smile, I would instead prioritize evaluating humans by their character. I instantly lost interest in nearly everybody because I saw a lot of people as low quality human beings. I distanced myself from the normal boys who would sneak up behind girls and start dry humping them, and instead became very isolated. My family was crap, the schools were crap, and I had little interest in meeting new people. It would be a very long time before I experienced sexual attraction toward any other human in my life. One of the challenges with OCD which changes how attraction works is that I am afraid of women with big breasts rather than being attracted to them. The reason I am afraid of them is because when I am speaking to them, I experience this really strong urge to briefly stop making eye contact with them and glance at their breasts. I try to resist because I don't want to make them uncomfortable, but I sometimes I just can't help but glance at their breasts. This creates a situation of intense anxiety and it makes it very difficult to connect with her as a human being because I want to get away from her as quickly as possible. Deep down, maybe I feel that large breasts are nice like a normal man would, but this makes me hate myself because it seems wrong. It makes me feel like I am connecting to a woman as a physical object like a normal man rather than as a complex human being who has a unique personality, history, and values. The fact that I am triggered by large breasts therefore prevents me from accurately evaluating her character which is necessary for me to develop genuine love for her rather than being like a man who would hit on any girl with large breasts. This is part of how I am conflicted about my sexuality because normal masculinity seems wrong and disgusting, but it still exists within me despite past trauma, thus creating an aspect of myself which I hate, causing me to avoid people and self isolate. To be clear, the reason I think this behavior is wrong is because if I don't account for this woman's unique situation by reducing her to an object, then I might make her feel uncomfortable sexually due to her past trauma, but also this rationalization did not occur to me until after my own trauma which made me uncomfortable with people flirting with me. This is a sign of projection in which I may be overestimating the discomfort of others. Even so, I need to know them more deeply before making a proper evaluation in terms of how they would react to such things. Therefore, in my experience, I seem to have an easier time connecting with women with small breasts as I don't get extreme anxiety. It then becomes easier to look them in the eye and have a normal conversation. When this happens, I then discover ways in which we can relate to each other and we might even have similar interests. This leads to deeper and deeper discussions as we enjoy each other's presence. As I learn more about them, I might start to see them as a nice person in terms of how they behave and how they treat others. They might even do an act of kindness for me like offering me a ride when I am stuck in the rain. When their behavior appears to be consistent and they appear to be a decent human being, I start to like them more and more. I then continue talking with her, and this is when I start to notice details more and more. I begin to see her as physically beautiful, mostly her eyes, face, and smile. The opposite would occur if I encountered a woman who sexually assaulted me. When that happens, it causes me to feel like her face looks like dog shit. Therefore, if I evaluate a person as a good person, then I am more likely to be attracted to them, whereas if I think you are a horrible person, then I will quickly lose all attraction for you. Assuming this person was consistently kind and I now see them as beautiful, I now suddenly start getting thoughts about having sex with this woman I like, mainly as a human being. This then triggers anxiety, so I sit alone and try to carefully plan describing these feelings to her without making her uncomfortable. In this particular case, when I was talking to this woman I discovered that she was raped by her cousin when she was young. I eventually came up with a method for expressing these kinds of feelings to a woman safely and properly. First of all, I should avoid any explicit references to sex, or sexual feelings. Originally, I was thinking that I could frame it simply as a report of my feelings without any intent to actually hit on her provided she was uncomfortable and would rather go slowly, but I see some problems with that. Here is what I believe to be the proper way to handle this situation. I think I should explain to her why I like her. It would go something along the following lines. "Rylee, there is something I want to tell you. As I have spent time with you, I have found that I enjoy your presence. I see you as a kind and beautiful person. I like who you are and I would like to have a closer relationship with you. Is that okay with you?" I understand that this might seem a little romantic, but this kind of approach computes with me more than the normal male approach. If you compare this to things like Pick Up and how men typically think of women, I am left with the impression that I am supposed to evaluate a woman based on her appearance on a scale of 1 to 10 and then decide right then and there if I want to have sex with her. This kind of masculine mindset does not compute with me at all. That entire mindset seems like a red flag to me that indicates a problem with character. It reduces sexual attraction to appearance without prioritizing who the person is on a deeper level. Attempting to adopt that kind of approach would make me feel horrible about myself. I know this is normal for most men, but I can't see myself walking up to a woman because I glanced at her for half a second and now I immediately want to fuck her up the ass. This is why judgments like "hot" never really computed with me. It is as if the appearance of a woman is such that it causes me to want to have sex with her even though I could end up impregnating a psychopath who will cut off my penis and murder me which actually happens in some cases. I would prefer to know who somebody is prior to determining whether or not I want to have sex with her. The only time appearance triggers sexual feelings, given the proper context, is when I see a naked woman. Perhaps that is what is considered "hot" by my standards because the appearance is such that it causes me to want to have sex, but context is still important beyond mere appearance. For example, it could be my sister getting undressed in the living room or a naked woman running terrified or screaming "rape." This would be bad context in which appearance alone is not enough to make it sexy because it could be something horrible. Hotness is therefore more than appearance in my opinion. Therefore in my opinion something hot would be me being with a woman in a relationship of mutual attraction in which we enjoy each other enough to now have sex. This would involve being completely naked and saying things like "I love you." Similarly, I have doubts when I see overly flirtatious women. It makes me question their character, likely due to trauma just like with Pick Up. When a woman walks up to me and tells me she wants to have sex with me, it makes me very uncomfortable. I had previous women do that to me and they ended up sexually assaulting me. They are likely making assumptions about my character purely based on the fact that I am a man and it would be normal for me to immediately want to rip off her clothes and have sex with her. I am actually turned off by this behavior because I don't want to be made to feel slutty. I also have doubts about women who posts pictures of their naked bodies online. Although such images do illicit sexual feelings in me, the situation causes me to doubt the person's character and what a potential relationship would be like. Such a woman is probably expecting me to be a normal man, and she probably would not be a good match for somebody like me. Therefore, I avoid such women as they are probably expecting me to be a slut, resulting in an incompatible relationship. So far I have never made to the point of actually being on a date with a woman I like. If ever it does come to that point, I have a strategy in mind, granted this mindset will likely need to be refined. It shows signs of a deep seated fear caused by past trauma from other horrible relationships. My primary concern in such a situation would be to ensure that we can avoid a toxic, dysfunctional relationship. This would involve a lot of intellectual discussions about things like abuse patterns to avoid or dysfunctional relationship patterns. In this case if a woman were sexually abused, then she likely has significant trauma, leaving her prone to emotional codependence. One thing that would need to be made clear is that attempting to heal together creates a trauma bond, which in turn is an early sign of a dysfunctional relationship as healing would require professional help. My instinct is to approach this situation somewhat seriously as we can create a situation in which we love each other, but it would be dysfunctional to use each other as a psychological crutch. This kind of situation or dynamic would demand my full attention as we seek a way to navigate this potential pitfall in such a relationship. Of course, these are just my initial thoughts of what would be important to me, but there is probably something wrong with this mindset. Maybe I am showing signs of trust issues, which is also a sign of potentially dysfunctional relationships. I am genuinely curious as to how somebody should go about striking such a balance in this case. This could be a complex and fascinating discussion. Maybe my seriousness itself could be problematic if it creates excessive pressure. Unfortunately, I never got to the point of making it to a date with somebody I like. There is kind of a catch 22 with finding potential partners. Attraction seems to happen most naturally for me, when it isn't the goal. If I set the conscious goal to find a woman to fall in love with, then something immediately feels off about it. I feel like this kind of mindset positions me to look at a potential partner with rose colored glasses because I am actively looking for the outcome I would want. At the same time, it doesn't make sense to go to some kind of club of my interest with conscious intent to be sexually attracted to somebody. In fact a club of my interest might be a spiritual retreat where dating might seem incompatible, or at a chess club in which I am so focused on the chess board position that I am not having deep conversations about a woman's history and character. Meanwhile, sexual attraction in the workplace is problematic. I actually did find myself attracted to somebody at work, but I never told her because she was the manager and I thought it was inappropriate. Her name was Hunter. It is interesting to note that Hunter and Rylee had a lot of similarities in terms of their appearance. They both had a tan skin tone, were shorter than me, had brown eyes, dark hair, a white smile, seemed thin and lightweight, and had small enough breast and butt sizes that it did not trigger extreme anxiety and OCD, allowing me to comfortably hold a conversation with them without the instinct to overly sexualize them causing me to feel slutty, dirty, improper, and ashamed of myself. They both had a similar tone of voice which I would describe as caring and compassionate. They both were kind to me, causing me to evaluate their character positively and in turn causing me to see them as more physically beautiful. One of my doubts is that such women seem kind of young. They were both about 20. I am 26, and I see the young age a likely sign of lower development and maturity. The human brain does not fully develop until the ages of 25-27. There are also a lot of women at the age of 21 who become incredibly immature due to their newfound opportunities to drink. In order to evaluate a woman's character, I would need to understand her relationship to alcohol. If a woman I like becomes old enough to drink and she decides she likes getting drunk, then I don't like her. The situation becomes too unpredictable with a lot of possible danger. I don't want my girlfriend to be an alcoholic. Aside from these two women, there were other women who I saw as physically attractive, but I never got to know them. These were athletic women, and I never managed to successfully approach them because they were jogging with their headphones in and I would have to chase after them yelling at them to get their attention. That doesn't seem right to me. This is why I have a hard time approaching athletic women. I recall that this particular woman was white, blonde, had a somewhat muscular build but nothing extreme, had blue eyes, a white shirt, and blue shorts. I noticed slightly larger breasts than with Hunter and Rylee and that triggered anxiety. I guess that would be one of the exceptions in which I saw a woman as beautiful prior to knowing her character, kind of like with Alice. Alice was another complicated character, but I felt like I wanted to be with her. I thought that she was beautiful the moment I saw her, so I started talking to her. This however, was prior to some of the traumatic experiences which caused me strongly focus on character when looking for humans that I should have a relationship with. Anyway, Alice was white, had short black hair, brown eyes, was taller than me, had a white smile, and also small breasts that would not have triggered OCD. I don't know what happened to Alice, but I wanted to be with her and I enjoyed her presence. I recall that her voice was significantly different from those of Rylee or Hunter. Rylee had a consistently cute sounding voice, Hunter alternated between the compassionate and intentional tone of voice obviously because we are at work and she is the manager, and Alice had a somewhat deeper tone with a slight crack. I was young at the time and maybe she was going through puberty. I remember a higher celebratory voice from Alice when she said "I'm a pro!" after beating a computer game called Midnight and a higher happier voice when she told me "goodbye" only to never return. It made me think that actually she didn't like me. Now that I think about it, if she was going through puberty and I was about five, then it makes sense that she wouldn't want to be with me. I used to hate myself because I thought it was my fault, but this would explain it too. The traumatic event happened when I was six which changed my entire approach to attraction. What are your thoughts on this abnormal attraction? What kind of advice would you give to somebody like me? Part of me wants to have a deep loving connection with somebody, but I am afraid that my depression, suicidal thoughts, and other mental health problems might harm any relationship with a potential partner. I was recommended dating by multiple therapists, but my situation is complicated and I hesitate to go out intentionally looking for somebody to love. I was planning on trying dating, but instead I ended up hospitalized with severe depression which made me doubt the idea again. At the same time I have not had a deep connection with many human beings and the therapists think that I am lonely. Following the trauma I started prioritizing intellectual ideals over love and relationships, resulting in a situation in which I have a lot of barriers to intimacy. This kind of mindset and disposition is what ultimately attracted me to Actualized.org. I wanted to seek higher intelligence because I believed my ignorance was the cause of my trauma and that knowledge and wisdom could protect me from doing something stupid. I now understand that actually a lot of people develop this kind of personality in response to trauma. It is a system of compensatory values which cloud my authentic values. That is another complex subject that I could discuss some other time. I hope somebody finds this helpful or is able to offer good perspective. Thank you.

Thank you for this. It feels nice.

@Emerald thank you for sharing that story. I can relate to your friend a ton. I actually did start training myself to not recognize attractiveness. I started doing that after the traumatic events because I wanted to distance myself from that behavior, but in fact attractiveness had nothing to do with those events. The reason I have a hard time relating to other men is because I forced myself to be different due to seeing myself as inherently broken otherwise. I remember that in this process I also got worse at remembering names and faces which I used to be really good at. I didn't see much value in others and I didn't see value in myself either. I also started thinking of how my insecurities could he used against me and lead to bad relationships. I see a lot of parallels between myself and your friend. If it is okay to value a woman physically in addition to everything else, then how do I make sure I don't over do it? Maybe it would help to examine a hypothetical scenario in which I find a woman's breasts attractive. I would then examine how in theory the situation should be handled should I speak to such a woman. It would help to know the woman's complete appearance in case there is anything else I find physically attractive. It might be the case that I trained myself to be repulsed by large breasts due to seeing the instinct to glance at breasts during conversation as improper. The thought of explicitly mentioning attraction to breasts or butt occurred to me, but I need to remember that she might be traumatized.

You are right about a lot of these things. The OCD behaviors are what I believe to be resulting from trauma. This is why I am trying to get a trauma therapist rather than an OCD therapist. Actually now that I think about it again, I see that many of my trauma responses are wrong. I will explain. I was exposed to a lot of terrible versions of masculine sexuality as a child. Firstly, my father had sex with my mother when she was underage and fled the state to avoid paying child support. He went on to have children by other women as well as my mom struggled to raise her kids. For the most part I grew up as the only boy with two sisters, my mom, and my grandma. No positive male role model existed. In fact I became isolated and fearful after my mother yelled that she went to easy on me for being the only boy which made me feel like I deserved harsher treatment. Mom doesn't remember this but this was the reason I started staying in my room so much and not talking to the family. The situation was even worse than that. My father was also a gangster who sex trafficker minors with his gang who were child predators. One night he took me to his gang leader. He was called "fat ass" and he offered my father 600 dollars to have me spend the night with the gang in exchange for sexual favors. In this particular instance my father declined the deal. I haven't told the rest of the family about this. As a six year old I had a disturbing dream in which my uncle molested me. I don't have any memory of actually being sexually abused, and that's why I was recommended to get emdr for repressed memories. I am in a weird position in which I don't know if I was sexually abused or not because I don't have much memory from when I was 2 or 3. I didn't tell my family about this either. Because of everything I was exposed when I was six, I went on to repeat the behavior on my four year old sister. When I realized I didn't like it I started experiencing intense anxiety, fear, and a sense of violation. We thought we were just playing, but then discovered that something was horribly wrong. My sister then told my mom about it so my mom accused me of sexually abusing her daughter. She attributed adult motivations to a six year old and it led to a lot of trauma responses. I became hypervigilant, I had a harder time sleeping, I was extremely self conscious, I started distancing myself from masculine sexuality, I started acting very serious rather than playful, I had intrusive memories and nightmares, I had intrusive thoughts of sexual violence, I was afraid of becoming a sexual predator, I started avoiding closer relationships in favor of being isolated, I felt incapable of loving myself, I had a crippled sense of reality, I judged myself harshly, and I started adopting compensatory values which clouded my authentic values in an effort to rebuild a sense of self worth. This ultimately ties into a sense of nihilism and a lack of purpose and meaning which in turn leads to depression and suicidal thoughts. This behavior of taking issues like purpose very seriously to justify my existence started with the childhood incident. Some of what I described are OCD like behaviors. The fear of being sexually abusive is part of my fear of losing control and doing something stupid. The thing is that this has never happened before. None of my trauma was caused by a lack of self control. It was caused by ignorance and a lack of guidance. However my experiences has indeed created intense friction between what I believe a good person to be and my sexual desires. Sometimes it leads to muscle spasms. This kind of experience led me to thinking that I needed to prioritize intellectual ideals over things like love and sex. I looked for a higher purpose and started behaving as if lust were an objective sin even though I don't believe in the Bible. I felt tainted and ashamed and unable to restore a sense of peace in my own body. The outcome is that i end up with a lot of barriers to intimacy and i hope a trauma therapist can help. I genuinely have a hard time seeing how typical masculine sexuality is healthy. This leads to me hating myself when I see these desires in myself. I want to make sure I am not merely using a woman for her body even though I am also curious about sex which I see as inherently problematic. Can you explain how on earth is typical masculine sexuality healthy? Why is it good to rate women on a scale of 1 to 10 and objectify them even though the women may carry sexual trauma and often don't like being overly sexualized? From my point of view healthy sexuality should account for the imbalance in the masculine and feminine perspective and create a dynamic balance. Otherwise the relationship seems incongruous in terms values. I feel like I am doing something wrong when I start thinking of women in a way that sexually objectifies them because it is my understanding that they dont want to be treated this way by men who think like pigs. It might help to see a steel man or accurate version of what masculine sexuality is to make sure my trauma is not distorting the picture. However, it is my understanding that it seems to involve interest in breasts, butts, and vagina. My theory is that this is a psychological pattern rooted in biology and evolution. Back then men used the size of breasts and butts as a sign of fertility. Back then normal masculine sexuality made sense because life expectancy was short and women often died from complications due to pregnancy. Men also needed to be more aggressive and violent, explaining the discrepancy between male and female violence in terms of statistics. Therefore in my opinion, society has transformed such that the primal instincts of men are no longer compatible with what is needed for a healthy society. It made sense in ancient cultures, but now there are many more complications concerning sexual propriety and morality. Religion has been baked into various cultures which fundamentally condemn these base instincts. Trauma leads to similar condemnation. In order to have a healthy society we can't have men acting on these instincts. This seems to be the fundamental tension in terms of my sense of morality and trauma and my sexual desires and instincts. In my opinion normal masculine sexuality is not healthy, but it exists because it was necessary. It is impossible to simply discipline sex away. This is the bind that I believe men are in as a consequence of how we evolved. Maybe this explains why hate myself. What do you think? I know there are exceptions like porn stars who love being viewed as objects, so in some contexts normal masculinty is okay if certain women are in to that. This just seems like a bad assumption to make when approaching women in general if not all women want to be porn stars.

I'm feeling kind of mad about recent news concerning my cousin and her boyfriend. My cousin's boyfriend won the Kentucky Power ball lottery for 167 million dollars. I tried to warn them about what usually happens to lottery winners. They often ruin their lives by doing a lot of really stupid things. I sent my cousin a message expressing my concerns, warning them of the serious danger they were in. They had posted their winnings on Facebook and now everybody was going to go after them. I didn't want their money. I wanted them to live the best life possible, but instead they did something really stupid. I wanted them to hire a financial advisor immediately, and to avoid drugs or alcohol. The top priority should be to secure the winnings rather than blow through it foolishly. They needed to ensure their judgment was sound before making any major risks, but they could not be stopped. My cousin and her boyfriend went to Florida. They went to a bar and started getting drunk. They ended up getting in a fight and attacked a police officer. Furthermore it was found that there was a parole violation and now my cousin's boyfriend is likely going to prison. It is all over the news now. My hope is that the boyfriend split the money with his mom. Maybe there is hope that going to prison will straighten him out so he cant do anything else stupid. He will probably lose a lot of money in the process, but if he gets his act together and manages to save about 10 million dollars, I hope he can recover and make it out of this. https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-lottery-florida-arrest-winner-powerball-police-b6925a595a351c3455a769b3ba19c7a1 It looks like there really was nothing I could have done to prevent this. The red flags were all over the place and I knew it was going to get bad. This is going to complicate the wedding plans, which is another way in which the lottery ruins relationships in addition to all the other relationship problems. Do you have any idea on how the lottery should be handled in order to prevent these kinds of disaster? Those who win the lottery are usually not very conscious individuals.

I'm not very familiar with how people will react to this picture. If I showed this picture to a girl, would she laugh or would she react negatively? I would like to discuss the thought process in dating and attraction. I thought this picture would be funny, but would it actually? I thought it would be funny to put this on a dating profile image. Maybe it would be better to keep my main picture as something normal and this picture in an album for later after a connection.

@Sincerity I actually ran this by an ai and the ai thought that this picture after my surgery was good and humorous. It said that it shows me finding positivity and humor even in challenging and painful times. It said self depreciating humor is funny in this case,, but recommended not making it the main profile image. It said it should be saved in a collection instead. I wanted to run this by humans to see if the ai could be trusted on this. I'm not sure I trust the ai with this.

This looks hilarious. I'm trying to think of something similar. I have an idea of sending something like a wedding picture and saying "here is a picture of me." In this case there is a wedding couple up front, but there is a crowd of people in the back and I am a random guy in the background. She would have to sort through all the faces to find me. If that doesn't work, then maybe I could take a picture and say "this was taken back when I was being potty trained" but in the picture I'm about 10 years old. I still think your idea is better than both of these. I'm trying to think of what would be funnier than what you sent but I'm not sure. Maybe I could say "this is a picture of me preparing for a chess tournament" but then show a picture of a sumo wrestler. I haven't quite developed my sense of humor in a way that it resonates with others. I'll need more practice.

@shree that sounds epic. Are you able to show me better pictures than this one?

@Salvijus thanks for the input. I'll try to figure out what actually is funny.

I just had surgery to get four wisdom teeth removed.

It depends on who is using the AI. I have had some excellent insights with help from Claude and I have learned a lot. Meanwhile, there are people using AI to plagiarize because they can look smart with minimal effort. I'm not sure if those people are dumber or about the same because they were probably pretty dumb to begin with and would have used some other method to cut corners.

I think there are problems with these online tests that are intended to point you to your level of development which make them misleading. These tests seem to be oversimplified because they give a limited multiple choice set up which then places you in one of the boxes. Furthermore, they don't seem to evaluate you according to each line of development. I think these kinds of tests would be better if they instead used written answers to explain how you would approach different situations and how you would think about them. I think it would be better if these written answers were evaluated by a human who is an expert in developmental psychology. The online tests appear to focus on cognitive development rather than all of the other lines which are necessary in order to get an accurate evaluation. In my case, I have been exploring a lot of different developmental models, not just Spiral Dynamics. I think this helps by adding additional perspective in terms of possible room for growth. In order to get an assessment, I went to AI like Claude and had it design questions to assess me. I did my best to study Trenton as if he were a separate subject. After giving some information about the subject, the AI gave the following questions. Some of them include chess questions, so they these questions don't apply to everybody. 1. Meaning and Purpose Questions These questions explore how the subject constructs meaning from his/her experiences and what he/she sees as his/her purpose: "What patterns or lessons do you see emerging from your life experiences so far?" "If you could design a system to help people overcome challenges like those you've faced, what would be its core principles?" "What moments in your life have felt most meaningful or purposeful to you and why?" "How has your understanding of your purpose evolved as you've moved through different living situations?" "What do you hope people would understand about your life if they knew your full story?" 2. Epistemological Questions These questions explore how the subject knows what he/she knows and evaluates truth: "When faced with conflicting information about a situation, how do you determine what's true?" "How has your chess training influenced the way you analyze problems outside of chess?" "What role does intuition play in your decision-making compared to systematic analysis?" "Which philosophers or thinkers do you find most resonant with your own understanding of reality?" "How do you differentiate between helpful systems of knowledge and potentially harmful ideologies?" 3. Developmental Framework Questions These questions explore how the subject understands development and growth: "How do you understand the relationship between different developmental stages in the models you study?" "In what ways do you see yourself still developing, and what's driving that growth?" "What do you believe is the relationship between individual development and societal progress?" "How has your understanding of your family members evolved as you've learned about developmental frameworks?" "What aspects of development do you find most challenging in your own journey?" 4. Ethical Framework Questions These questions explore the subject's moral reasoning and ethical priorities: "When you're faced with a moral dilemma, what principles guide your decision-making process?" "How do you balance your value for truth with potential harm that truth-telling might cause?" "What responsibilities do you believe individuals have toward vulnerable people in their communities?" "How do you reconcile the tension between systemic change and immediate individual action?" "What ethical principles do you believe should never be compromised, regardless of circumstances?" 5. Shadow and Integration Questions These questions explore the subject's relationship with disowned aspects of himself/herself: "What aspects of yourself have been most difficult to accept or integrate?" "How do you recognize when you're projecting your own disowned qualities onto others?" "What parts of your family history do you find yourself most resistant to examining?" "In what situations do you notice yourself shifting into defensive or reactive patterns?" "How has your understanding of human darkness evolved through your experiences?" 6. Systems Thinking Questions These questions explore how the subject understands complex systems: "How do you balance seeing both individual responsibility and systemic factors in social problems?" "What recurring patterns have you noticed in dysfunctional systems, whether family systems or larger institutions?" "When you envision more effective systems for helping vulnerable people, what principles guide your thinking?" "How do you understand the relationship between micro-level interactions and macro-level system behavior?" "What barriers do you see to implementing the kinds of systems you believe would be most helpful?" 7. Relationship and Connection Questions These questions explore the subject's understanding of human relationships: "What qualities do you most value in the relationships that have been supportive to you?" "How has your approach to forming connections with others evolved over time?" "What do you believe creates the conditions for healing within relationships?" "How do you balance your need for autonomy with your desire for connection?" "What patterns from your family of origin have you found most challenging to transcend in your own relationships?" 8. Future and Possibilities Questions These questions explore the subject's vision for the future: "If you had unlimited resources and support, what kind of impact would you want to have in the world?" "What gives you hope when you consider the future despite having witnessed significant darkness?" "How do you envision your relationship with your family evolving over time?" "What kind of legacy would you like to create through your work and relationships?" "What aspects of your potential do you feel are still waiting to be fully expressed?" After finishing all of my detailed responses which took about 30 pages, I shared the document with the AI to see how it would evaluate me along each line of development. Cognitive line: Advanced (Yellow/Teal) - Highly developed systems thinking, metaperspectival awareness Moral line: Advanced (Yellow/Teal) - Nuanced ethical reasoning that integrates multiple perspectives Interpersonal line: Moderate (Orange/Green) - Understanding of relationship dynamics but practical challenges Emotional line: Underdeveloped relative to cognitive (Orange with trauma disruptions) - Emotional self-regulation challenges Identity line: Inconsistent (Green with trauma disruptions) - Ongoing identity integration challenges Aesthetic line: Moderately developed (Orange/Green) - Appreciation for beauty and form, especially in structured systems Somatic line: Underdeveloped (Purple/Blue with trauma disruptions) - Significant mind-body split Spiritual line: Theoretical understanding exceeding direct experience (Orange/Green with Yellow theoretical understanding) Here is the percentage breakdown. Purple (Magical-Animistic) Estimated presence: 5-10% Red (Power-Gods) Estimated presence: 5-10% Blue (Traditional-Mythic) Estimated presence: 10-15% Orange (Modern-Rational) Estimated presence: 20-25% Green (Postmodern-Pluralistic) Estimated presence: 25-30% Yellow/Teal (Integrative) Estimated presence: 20-25% Turquoise (Holistic) Estimated presence: 0-5% The other online assessments ended up giving me a higher level of development, but I sensed that the tests were overestimating me because they seemed oversimplified. Some of these questions asked me to describe how my understanding of life evolved over time. Due to growing up in a chaotic environment, there were significant trauma disruptions such as those which led to me becoming more withdrawn in social situations. Something that stands out to me is the gap between my cognitive and moral development compared to my somatic development. The mind body split is when I started prioritizing intellectual ideals over physical desires. Part of this leads to trauma being stored in my body, creating a disconnect between my theoretical understanding and my embodied emotional reality which is full of depression, anxiety, and other unpleasant experiences. I am scheduled to finally see a trauma therapist sometime next month. Hopefully that helps. The AI also pointed out that I appeared to be operating off of extrinsic values which further complicates my understanding of purpose and identity. Some of my values focus on transcending my humanity, especially my physical and emotional nature which were disowned due to trauma. Some of these extrinsic values include achievement and helping others in the hopes of justifying my existence despite deep suffering. I have other approaches to purpose I could try though. What do you think about this method of getting an assessment for developmental levels? Do you like these tailored questions and written responses more than the multiple choice questions? How else can I study myself as if I were a separate subject? Outside opinions seem to be unreliable unless I am being studied by an expert. I don't really trust my family's evaluation of me because they operate off of many projections and misguided assumptions when describing me.

In my understanding of life, commitment to truth is key to living a fulfilling life. Go of example, how can you live a meaningful life of you don't know what the meaning of life is? If you do not realize how deeply self deceived you could be, then your life will be full of falsehoods and illusions. Commitment to truth is my understanding of self love. I don't see how I can love myself if I don't love myself for who I truly am rather than as something I am not. This is about being authentic and honest, and it overlaps with things like God realization. In my understanding self love is impossible without truth. I have been curious about existence since my childhood. I started exploring different religions at a young age and ended up agnostic. Part of this was originally a trauma response. I wanted to use truth to ground my sense of reality, but the result is the use of relative truth to resist absolute truth while creating an identity around a narrative. Absolute truth might instead undermine your entire sense of reality.

Currently, I am very unhappy with my life. There is this deep existential void around not living by my values or by my potential. Sometimes this leads to depression and suicidal thoughts. This then leads to thoughts like jumping off of a bridge. Rather than jumping off of a bridge, I could at least figure out what I could possibly do with the money I saved up. It is possible that I actually have a lot more freedom with my life than I assume due to saving up money from the job I hate. I hate this job because it is grunt labor, low wages, lack of creative expression, and lack of personal growth opportunities through learning and intellectual growth. It makes me see survival as fundamentally pointless so long as it comes at the cost of anything that makes life worth living. Therefore, rather than killing myself immediately, I could take a chance at building a better life and still kill myself afterwards if necessary. I am now exploring what I could possibly do with this money that would help me live the best life possible. One option is that I could probably open a small business. Currently, given my actual skills I could in theory start up a chess club or cafe for about 30,000-45,000 dollars depending on the location. It could hold tournaments and charge membership fees while selling food. This is just one example of a possible business I could do, but there are likely others. A second option is that I could quit my job and move to another country. Countries in Europe tend to have cheaper colleges for further educational opportunities that I could look into. They also have better wages. Maybe I could travel somewhere in the world where psychedelics are legal to see if God consciousness would recontextualize my entire life, creating an entirely new approach to things like meaning and life purpose. Part of what drew me into spirituality was my deep struggle with things like meaning and purpose. Another option is some kind of mental health investment, but I don't know about that one. They might just put me on more anti-depressants that don't actually make a difference. There are several therapists who misunderstood me in the past and they might not actually help. However, one specializing in existential issues such as the one that leads to suicidal thoughts might help if they can aid in transitioning. There are a bunch of personal development courses I could afford. I am doubtful of these courses though because I don't know which one would actually be helpful. There might be a lot of crappy courses I need to sort through. I saw some courses that cost over 2,600 dollars and they sounded like they might be a rip off. I remember in the past I wanted to use my money to take off of work and focus entirely on chess. Unfortunately, my family was opposed to this and they would not let me do it so long as I lived with them. At this point chess no longer gives me the same joy it once did. The prevalent idea that it is too late for me because I'm supposed to be younger eliminated the interest of playing professionally. I would likely prefer to look to something else instead of chess as I did with this previous idea. In terms of what would actually make me fulfilled, here are a few things that I think makes life worth living. I value using deep understanding to improve people's lives. This can be done through research, learning, and teaching. I like having the ability to express my creativity. I have previously shared my insights about the mind in a way that saved people's lives. My interest in understanding the mind draws me to fields like psychology, philosophy, and spirituality. I like being committed to truth as I do my best to remain as objective as possible in seeking pure understanding. I seem to enjoy exploring the limits of knowledge and logic in understanding reality. I like looking across multiple domains of study and integrating them through making connections that others normally miss. I like how fields like Quantum Mechanics challenge the limits of classic human logic. A few things that interest me include truth, creativity, personal development, insight, self-understanding, wisdom, contribution, purpose, self-love, intelligence, pure understanding, and using this to help improve other people's lives. It would probably interest me to have somebody to grow alongside of me with similar goals or a similar purpose. That would create a situation which would likely have more opportunities if I don't have to do everything alone. I was previously suggested that I should become a life coach, especially since I used my insights in a very helpful way for other people. The reason I hesitate to do this is because I still feel horrible about my life, and it gives me doubts about my abilities to fix someone else's life. I don't see myself as being in any position to help somebody with a career dilemma if I feel lost in life. I know that I am able to help people psychologically and spiritually well enough to save lives and I once got a victim of predatory loaning out of debt, but I don't feel confident enough in my own life. Likewise, I don't feel confident in dating if my depression might make me a psychological burden to potential partners. It might be in their best interest to avoid such people. I want to be in a position where I am not having this kind of problem during dating. What else could I do with this money? Are there any other business ventures that would probably be better than the chess club? I want to consider all of my options that could possibly improve my life and exhaust those before making an irreversible decision.

I am a former fan of Ben Shapiro, a right wing conservative pundit. He constantly straw mans the left, gish gallops to win debates, does mental gymnastics with religion and politics, and much more. Here is Ben listening to Imagine by John Lennon.

I have been reading a lot about metaphysics, epistemology, and the origins of the universe. I found a lot of fascinating possibilities. I put this together with various profound findings from quantum mechanics and the implications in how humans do logic. I was deconstructing various logical principles in the process by demonstrating when logic fails. Eventually I came to the idea that if there were nothing in the beginning, then what existed before there was nothing? The answer is still nothing. The implication is that nothingness existed forever with no beginning because it is impossible to not have existence. Nothingness itself is also absolutely infinite with no end or beginning or space or position. Nothing therefore fills everything in existence. This paradox left me with a sense of fascination and awe as I looked into all of the infinite possibilities of the universe. However, throughout the process as I was deliberately looking for the limits of human knowledge and logic, it was also triggering feelings of anger and frustration for some reason. I was still intrigued by everything so I pressed on. Maybe this anger was an ego defensive response to my sense of reality being undermined. It was completely automatic and natural even though there was no real danger. Human knowledge is extremely limited and human logic and our capacity for sense making is flawed and limited. This makes me think that if there is an absolute truth then it might be something which defies all logic and reason to the point that it seems like insanity. Once again my mind was opening up to more and more possibilities with fascination even though there was automatic anger.

@Aaron p I own that book. I have several books from Leo's list, but I was going to read that one next. It is hard to break out of the materialist paradigm if you have been conditioned your entire life to think everything happening is physical. I know there are several things which suggest this paradigm isn't true, but psychologically it is hard to shake.

This sucks. I was just writing a book about self-love in which I describe the insights I had about how the mind works and how I helped others along the way. Do you think this corruption will be a problem for people who actually are interested in writing high quality books that will actually help people?