Are Opinions Based On Assumptions, Not Facts?
If you can not change a person’s assumptions with facts, then why argue with them. I someone thinks you are a “hypochondriac” and a “surgery addict”, what can you show them from your actual medical history that will change their mind? Nothing. What hurts too is that they also think “hypochondriacs” and “surgery addicts” are bad people.
Assumptions are just that assumptions and they can be extremely harmful if they are erroneous and associated with bad qualities in other people. “Oh, that’s just a woman for you” or “Oh, that’s just a man for you.” Doing this allows people to make quick judgments of other people without wasting time getting more information.
A debate is an academic activity where each side takes turns arguing one side of an argument. This can lead to a reasoned analysis of a situation both for and against. Lawyers often do this for a living depending whether they are working for the defense or the prosecution in a criminal trial.
More to come as I think this over. Most recent contribution from a friend. “Many people think that their opinions are facts!” This is why arguments and discussions can be so hard. Also, people often form “tribes” and identify with them like “Trump Supporters” and are threatened when a belief contrary to their tribe’s beliefs is presented to them by someone. They become anxious and even angry. Do you see why people often don’t talk about sports, politics and religion at the table?
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Hiding Shame Based Interactions
How often people use shame to get other people to do what they want them to do. Shame is a gut-based reaction that can bypass the forebrain’s common sense and leave a person helpless to figure out what really caused it. You don’t just feel bad when this happens to you feel really bad and usually also guilty too. “Shame on you.”
Shame is often how the victim of abuse feels. This keeps them from getting angry at the abuser and why they often don’t talk about what happened either. Shame doesn’t go away. It stays. The only way it can disappear is if the victim tries to forget it.
When Is Reassurance Necessary?
This is why abuse victims often say that they don’t want to talk about it because they have tried to forget it and talking about it might bring it back. If there are witnesses, they might think they are crazy because they might remember something about what happened; but the victim won’t talk if they ask them what happened.
What if your memory is, “Don’t hit him; hit me.”? You know who the likely abuser was because you were there too. It makes you feel crazy as the witness as you are the only one who wants to or can remember it. “I don’t like to think about things like that anymore” is his response. “I try to forget things like that.” “I don’t want to bring it back.”
Feelings of shame can do that to a person. They might cause the person to feel the pain again both physical and emotional. If a person feels that they might be made to feel shame about something; they won’t tell anyone who might do that to them.
Prevent Child Abuse With the Truth
The cases of sexual abuse by famous people that have come to light have brought it back out in the open. I know I can now say that I am the victim of sexual abuse even though I might not elect to tell you the details because I didn’t do it. The abuser is the one who ought to feel ashamed, not me or anyone in one in the same situation. However, this still happens in countries or religions where they have things like Muslim Surhea law and the rape victim gets killed not the rapist.
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It’s Their Drama, Not Yours
I learned a valuable lesson today: “It’s Their Drama, Not Yours! I’m a fixer-upper by nature and it doesn’t hurt that I am in a helping profession. “Did I hurt your feelings” Whose feelings are they? “You should have known in the first place that I didn’t want to do it!” “So why didn’t you let me off the hook?” Am I a bad guy because I should have known that even though they said,”Yes,” They really didn’t want to do it.and they felt it was an imposition.
Now whatever you do, they get mad because you couldn’t read minds. They take that load off their shoulders and put it on yours. Now you end up feeling bad instead of them. It is like a sudden rainstorm landed right above your head and you get soaked. They wind up feeling better and you have accepted a part in their drama that you really didn’t want and really didn’t earn.
What if you had a really good time and thought they had too. Whose fault is it? It’s not yours and why didn’t they “fess up earlier that they didn’t want to be there. Imagine you cooked a really good meal from a recipe you found and wanted to try and felt you had successfully mastered a good meal. Then someone tells you that there was something in the meal that caused an untoward reaction in them and you should have known it would, but they didn’t remind you and ate it anyway.
Another person who ate the meal smiled and said that they liked it but really they didn’t like casseroles as they were a meat and potatoes type of person. What happened is that you fixed a nice meal for a couple of ingrates. What a waste of time! and now you get mad when you didn’t feel bad before. Is it catching? Drama attracts drama. Sometimes no one is happy unless no one else is happy.
Is drama a disease? Sometimes it is not so bad when the contagion involves happiness and success. How about learning that someone is going to have a baby. Whoops there was one person in the crowd who is childless and unable to get pregnant or better yet did successfully have a baby by in vitro fertilization and then lost it to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). This can be a wet blanket and the person with the news now feels bad that they even mentioned it in front of that person.
Some people even stage a situation so they can create drama. This woman had a display of fragile glass perfume bottles on a coffee table and almost the first thing that she did was to call the toddlers present attention to it and if they would not have touched the perfume bottles in the first scenario; but they will now. Possibly it will result in a broken bottle or two, maybe the most expensive ones. The payoff in drama is superlative and the instigator is super comfortable in her innosence, but the others don’t know how she did it or even that she set it up.
See the previous post, “Leave the Drama to the Lama”. Feelings can be catching; but often not in a good way. Have you ever left a group when an argument became heated. Some of these situations can leave you shell-shocked with PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome). This is what makes soap operas so exciting. What will they stir up next? Calm down. Go listen to some soothing music, take walk in the park. Make a quick exit back to where you are feeling good again. If someone had a bad cold would you stand close to them, kiss them or maybe even drink out of their glass. You wouldn’t expose yourself to that so don’t expose yourself to somebody’s drama.
Sometimes drama is fun like in movies or books; but you know it is not really happening in front of you. You might get scared, laugh hysterically, or even shed a few tears but you know down deep that it isn’t real. If you tend to take some things seriously, then you might avoid certain types of stories. Me, I don’t like horror shows. There are enough really scary things happening in real life. Has anyone followed the news lately?
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How Men And Women Differ On The Subject Of Sexual Harrassment
Men do what women consider to be gross things and some men go so far as to think that women are asking for it. Ugh (my comment as a woman). Ick! Men like to think that women think like them. It makes it easier for them to sexually harass women because then they can think that women are asking for it. This makes it easier for them to do things to or in front of women that are actually disgusting to most women.
I have been shown Play Boy center foldouts and asked to be present when a psychiatrist does a physical exam on male patients so I could do the mental exam. I was not a nurse or physician. I have been invited back to see a therapist that I had seen so I could let him know how I was doing. I opened the door and he had set up his office so that I could join him on the floor and make out. Where had I gone wrong or where had they gone wrong. I was shocked and didn’t know what to say. I am telling you this because I shouldn’t have felt ashamed and kept this quiet for many years. Where did these men come off by doing this? P.S. I was also groped on the Grey Hound bus by the guy seated next to me when I was trapped by him in the window seat.
Men can spend hours talking about women who they think have led men astray. Maybe it was the other way around. Women’s reputations have been tarnished this way. Men’s reputations are not tarnished this way, they are seemingly enhanced. If women fooled around as much as men think they do, they wouldn’t have time for anything else. Most women usually have so much to do involving working, taking care of the home, and caring for children, when would they have time? When could they sneak away to do this?
I think most of this goes on often only in men’s minds and they think that women must think like they do. If this is so, then they think they are justified in acting on it. If a man is running around on a woman, then he often thinks that she must want to do the same. This then justifies their wanting to do it more.
This does not forgive women who use their sexuality to entrap men and use them. This has led to men (especially in conservative circles) not wanting to be alone with women unless their husband is around or they are with a group. What do you think? I think most women will say that they would “like” to be with a certain movie star or music star, but often that is far as it goes.
Often women have trouble accepting their sexual attractiveness and they sometimes “dress down” and use little or no makeup because of this. This can spoil whatever appropriate sexual relations that they have with a man with the women not feeling sexually attractive or even sexually attracted to their partners. Women’s sexuality is often fragile and easily tainted this way. While many men have rehearsed the sexual act both in their minds and in actual self-stimulation. Having sexual thoughts seems to be more acceptable for men.
There is a form of child sexual abuse where a mother may flaunt her sexuality in front of her young son both by having open sexual relations with a man in front of him and by displaying her body to him by having little or no clothes on. This can lead to fondling of the child by tempting the boy to touch her and cuddle with her?!
Education is important. We need to know what is appropriate and not appropriate in the sexual realm. No education does not keep children and some grownups safe and sound. Ignorance is not bliss in many cases. When it is found inappropriate, the victims should know that they should speak up and to whom they can do it. When I was harassed above, I initially had no idea of what to do, I felt shamed, and I kept the secret to myself for a long time.
Notice there are no pictures illustrating this post. I do not want to promote anything by having what might be considered sexually explicit pictures.
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Are You Pineing For A Punk?
What First Attracts!
Are you pining for a punk? You might be if your story is part of the content of a scandal sheet. Being recently confined for illness, my friend gave me a buch of scandal sheets. Whether I knew them or not, I found a common theme, recent breakups and connections between famous people. They have everything, shouldn’t their relationships work out?
How they treat each other is outrageous! When under the influence of first Love, it appears that they can’t see straight! Faults are glossed over and relationships are formed immediately without much time to get to know the other person, faults and all. They have the ways and means with which to get over involved. Common sense goes out the window. When things come down crashing down (reality rears its ugly head), there is surprise and obvious grieving for something that wasn’t to be in the first place.
Falling in love is not supposed to be a revolving door. Test the waters and see if you want some more. In these relations ships, it is just too easy to leave and find someone else eager to be the new LOVE. Doing this seems to mean that the new person is some type of winner and not the loser they might be. Just because you are choosy doesn’t mean you are a loser because someday you might pick the winner and avoid messy relationships with people that don’t go anywhere.
FAME ATTRACTS!
Fame, money are very attractive. Yet somebody with a great talent may not have much to offer other than that. It is hard to mix that kind of glamourise life with success in the real world. Whatever attracted him or her to you might wear off and leave you high and dry. Cheating proliferates in this type of world and is supposed to be tolerated complete with possible STD’s.
The Missing Link
Relationships turn into a kind of a game with one-up-manships proliforating. Security does not exist and when a crisis occurs, the sufferer is usually left high and dry. What do you want a glamourse red carpet evening dress that you have to be sewn into or a practical comfortable attractive outfit that you can wear over and over? Relationships are that way too. Even though he or she is not to your taste and you are not his or her taste, doesn’t mean you are a failure. You both just avoided a big mistake.
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Shame The Great Manipulator, The Great Trap Of Unworthness
I was raised on shame. It was my claim to fame. I was not recognised for what I did well, but for those things I did not do so well. I was also convinced over time that I could not do them well and when that happened that people would give up on me. I thought there were only so many things in life that other people would approve of and that I was not capable of doing them well enough to make other people proud of me. I was recognised for what or where I could not meet up to other people’s standards and I felt like I was a great disappointment to my family so much so my relatives did not want other people to know that I was related to them.
I was so easily made to feel shameful that I was bullied, I was suicidal, and I was made to feel that I could never meet up to other people’s standards (of which there was only one set) and I would ultimately be rejected and thrown out on the street if that was possible. There was only one person to blame and that was me and I didn’t know any different.
Appropriate or Inappropriate? Wanted Or Unwanted?
Worse yet I realized that in sexually inappropriate situations the victim (that was me) was always the one who should feel ashamed and had something to hide instead of the reverse. Getting caught in a sexually compromising situation was something I should cover up, sneak out of, and pretend didn’t happen even though I now know it qualified as sexual abuse. It was something to be covered up and forgotten if possible.
Brene Brown with her doctorate in Social Work found that we have three shields that we can use as shields against shame. We can forget or not talk about what we see as a shameful situation. Men will tell you that they are not comfortable talking about certain things that happened to them as they were growing up or even later in life such as post-traumatic stress syndrome and even had pushed these things so far out of mind that they did not remember them.
Another shield against shame mentioned by Dr. Brown was appeasement. If someone is dissatisfied with you or something you have done, you try to make it up to them or make them so happy or satisfied in another way that they will forget that you did not or might not make them happy. Another word for this might be “brown nosing”.
Another possibility would be going towards or against the person or situation that makes you feel shameful and take it out aggressively toward them or it. This is the third shame shield mentioned by Dr. Brown. Could the liberal Democrats’ behaviour after the election of President Donald Trump be an example of this? Are they ashamed that their candidate did not win over such an unlikely candidate?
Sometimes our entire life can be motivated by shame and others can get what they want us to do by shaming us and can feel better about themselves by winning over us in this way. I have often felt that being a woman, especially a woman professional, made me a target for this sort of thing. If a woman can do it (what I did) it must be something easy to obtain and therefore not worth much. The step between someone with a Masters degree and a Ph.D. must be pretty easy if she can do it. I did not attend the graduation ceremonies when I received my doctorate (because it was not such a big deal)?
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Is It True That Only Those Who Do Good Can Feel Guilty?
Is it true that only those who do good can feel guilty? Does it follow that those who do bad do not feel guilty? On top of this, this propensity for those who do good to feel bad is often used against them. People who do good (or the Goodies) when told that they did something wrong or that they made a mistake, it petrifies them and hinders their ability to do good in the future? Are there a lot of people out there that don’t want people doing good and this is the best way to stop them because they have a conscience and are therefore fearful that they might hurt somebody? The Badies are out there making sure that they get what they want regardless of whether or not they hurt somebody.
The Goodies are fearful of being caught in a lie even if they didn’t know it was untrue until the Badies chastised them with it. Badies lie all the time and to protect themselves from being called liars call other people liars to put the spotlight on someone else. The best defence for them is a good offence. The Goodies can become so busy defending themselves that they forget to point out the Bad Guy’s mistakes.
How can this be helped? The Goodies must become aware of what is happening so they can turn the tables on the Badies. For example, “You call me a liar, when you lie all the time.” When attacked this way by the Badies, a Goody can say this is none of your business. A Bady attacked me once about my hair cut. She loudly stated in a room full of family, “Who cut your hair?” I replied by saying, “Who asked you?” I had decided to not fall for her bait and to put the spotlight on her. It did shut her up and the family members went on with their catching up. Goodies can be too polite and these manipulators can count on this.
Badies not only lie, but they are good rationalizers. and can invent or find reasons why they are not guilty and should not be picked on. It is important to recognise that if a Badie asks noisy questions and is not being polite that a Goody does not have to be polite either!
We all have boundaries and Badies especially like to cross them. For example, within the nuclear family, certain issues are usually kept quiet and not shared with others especially when the Badies are just being noisy and want to lay these problems out in public so they can often give you bad advice and perhaps cause a spectacle. People are not entitled to know your secrets. These people can be very noisy. I had one who looked up our friend’s phone number and called them inquiring about us. Our friends had never met and were shocked and surprised when she called them up out of the blue.
The only boundaries Badies respect are their own and they are inclined to keep secrets. They can be very outgoing and social when things are going good and disappear when things are going badly for them. They can be very secretive that way and you can never get to know the whole person even when you find something that tells on them. It may be a good idea at the time to use a Goodies address, but then something like information about bad checks pops up in the mail or on the phone.
Badies make a bushel barrow of mistakes themselves and they can go far in and trying to cover up past mistakes which are often not found out about until that person leaves the scene. They make up their own rules to benefit themselves like when a person (friend, neighbour, relative) dies that they will naturally inherit from him or her and even ask for that inheritance early. See the story of the Prodigal Son” in the Bible. They can walk all over a Goody when they are alive and when they are in the grave, they don’t stop. An inheritance can be a windfall for someone but the will usually makes sure that all the bills are paid if there is money there to do it. Doesn’t it make sense that the person, often a Goody, who helps the most, inherits the most, even if he or she doesn’t think he or she deserves it.
Guilt is the primary tool of the Badies and they often think to themselves that if I get people to look at another person who is doing “wrong” they won’t see what I am doing wrong. Don’t look at me; look at him. If these defensive maneuvers work, then they can get off Scott free. When they judge others, they are usually revealing what others could condemn them for. “Judge not that ye may not be judged; condemn not that ye not be condemned.” It is written in the Bible. For example, it is likely that the marital partner that desires to commit adultery condemns his or her partner for adultery either while desiring to do it himself or herself or while secretly actually indulging in adultery himself or herself.
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Things That Children Absolutely Need (Which Usually Cost Nothing)
Children are like African violets. (A type of small very ticklish house plant which housewives of my mother’s generation raised.) They are very sensitive in terms of their response to the environment in which they are planted. Children were known to die in orphanages when they were physically taken care of but not emotionally taken care of. Yet some people give more attention to the African violets in their life than to their children.
As each African violet is individual in its needs for light and air and moisture so is each child individual in his or her needs for attention, love, and support. When this is neglected, the plant or child withers and dies inside if not outside like the plant. The payoff of proper care can be great in either case.
Perhaps one can afford to lose many African violets in this process but not even one child. Children can be resilient but still, can be greatly damaged and become of little use to themselves and furthermore to the society that child dwells in.
Moisture, light, and soil and the addition of fertiliser is needed for a violet to grow; but what is needed for a child to grow in the right direction? Love, support, attention, and unconditional love appear to be necessary for this to happen.
Caregivers can not neglect one child while caring for another, This has been shown to happen when a child has a seriously ill sibling. This child needs attention and care too especially if this child gets neglected while the ill child gets urgently needed care.
The sibling does not need to be seriously physically ill to take attention and care away from another sibling. Some children are more attractive to one or both of the parents than other children. How important is it for a parent to have an athlete or gymnast or beauty queen or a scholar over a wallflower, a geek, or any child who is not particularly gifted or attractive
Worse yet are parents who really shouldn’t have any children (P.S. I am not opting for abortion, but I am a champion of adoption in these cases). Sadly what welfare does sometimes does not necessarily encourage parents to be actively involved in bringing children up right.
Wealth is not necessarily the main factor in bringing children up right. The things that are needed to do this often can’t be bought. They often cost more time than money. First is unconditional love which occurs when a person often gives another person love no matter what he or she does or says.
Children need support, not just physical support, but emotional support. A child can do well at something, but this accomplishment might be ignored and/ or at least not supported emotionally by the family or guardian. The child can say to themselves, “Oh, what’s the use?” if the effort that he or she puts into something is unnoticed and they receive little or no help with it on top of that!
Prize winning entries at the county fair can go unnoticed and wining or losing a coveted position on a team or in a play can also be ignored. “You did what?, when said, demonstrates that at least part of a child’s life has gone unnoticed. Worse yet, a child can be hurt or sick and this goes unnoticed until the child is in serious jeopardy.
Psychological needs that go unmet can cause great harm to some children. Children that survive such circumstances can be very resilient but those who don’t are a drain on society and can be lost. Too often the people who make these decisions are incompetent as well. The judge in my family says that custody decisions in his court are given to the least competent to decide.
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Do Women Think Like Men? Do Men Think Like Women?
I wanted to think that men and women are potentially alike; but as I got older and wiser, I don’t think that way anymore. After many, many years of marriage. I have learned different.
For example, when I want to ask a man a quick question while he is watching TV or on the phone, I am told to wait a minute which never comes. If I am doing something, a man expects that I should interrupt what I am doing tell him the information that he wants to know which usually also involves that I stop what I am doing and do it for him. However, I am expected to multitask and to not forget what I was doing or going to do to take care of something for him.
Another example, men have goals and aspirations that can take a good part of their time and of their disposable? income. Or else they think to themselves, what else am I working for? Women work to contribute to the family income and also to pay the childcare costs so they can work to do this. Certain hobbies and their accompanying expenses are considered necessary “man” things to do. Women like to look nice and to have a nice place to live which is not as important to men.
Women risk their lives and their health in order to reproduce while men usually think it is no big deal. Even if a woman chooses not to reproduce, it is still her responsibility. Also often there are men who like to have unprotected sex and who often do not see reproduction as their responsibility. Birth control and a woman’s menstrual cycle usually are two things women have to take care of and suffer from. Men often think that these are things a man does not have to be concerned about.
Also having children can create a great big stress on a woman’s body and under certain circumstances can kill a woman. Any woman who has been pregnant more than once including stillbirths and miscarriages, as well as live births, can tell you that they can all be different. Even I who had three children late in life seemingly uneventfully can tell that you that I could have lost my third child during birth and I didn’t know this til after she was born.
Some women don’t want to bother with being pregnant but still have to deal with mixed feelings about having an abortion and the often dangerous lack of skilled care at abortion clinics. On the man’s side is the possibility that when an abortion is involved, he may still want the child if the woman doesn’t!
Sometimes I think that some men can become so attached to their ideas and accomplishments that they can’t accept the idea that their ideas may no longer work with new discoveries being found and can stand in the way of necessary progress. Academia reinforces this with its publish or perish mandates necessary to obtain tenure. Women are more flexible and more able to see different points of view. Relationships for women are more important for women and often make up for the fact that they are less attached to a job or position or a theory.
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Bullying The New Sport
(Rough Draft) As a victim of bullying, I have felt like the bull in the ring at a bullfight. Poked and prodded until he is exhausted, extremely angry, and unable to do anything about it but die. There have been attempts to outlaw bullfights for humanitarian reasons, but they never get it done.
This seems to be the same way with bullying as the victim continues to suffer and is expected to fight back in his or her own defense against a more powerful foe or gang of bullies. This seems to be shameful. Where does it seem fair to gang up on someone like that who has no defenders and is seen as weak by his or her foes?
Bullying hurts. It is not funny. Doing this to a person who is already down. If a group demands that you join them in bullying. Remember it is a hate crime. It can result in vicious mob behavior. Sometimes persons who should be supervising this group, egg it on and join the “fun” instead.
Sometimes people create a separation between what they call just teasing and bullying. They say it is all in fun and that the victim is thin skinned and needs to toughen up and to learn to take it without being a wimp. These people do not see or care that the person’s self-image is being reinforced as negative when teased or name-calling. Is it just in fun when the victim is being degraded and starts to carry around a nickname that is not flattering and really not funny to the victim?
Has overreaction to bullying and teasing that is not funny led to creating safe places and even offering play therapy where persons can go and take part if the behavior of others upsets them even though it is the right of others to have differing opinions and to share them in public. Now have we created wimps like these?
Taking responsibility in dangerous or difficult situations can create a type of toughness and self-pride that does the person well in future situations where they must take charge of things or do something difficult.
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