Jumping To Conclusions Or How Opinionated Are You?
Thanks To Facebook And Twitter And politics, we are having a rash of rash conclusions about what should be going on in the world. Last night I heard on Fox News that oxycontin was responsible for drug deaths and was falsely promoted by the drug company as a safe drug that could be taken for pain in increasing amounts and was responsible for a rash of deaths due to people becoming addicted to the drug implying that nobody should be-be taking the drug even reasonably for moderate pain relief. The speaker was completely sure that nobody should have access to the drug even if they suffered from intolerable pain without it. Needless to say that this speaker was very confident about his conclusions but he had totally left out the other side of the story since it didn’t affect him. Opinion-oriented presentations can lead to one-sided presentations and to making decisions that affect people who are not misusing the drug and who can’t receive massive amounts of drugs under current prescription laws and who wouldn’t ever try to get them from the black market.
I am one of those patients. I have neuropathy due to spinal stenosis and even though I was successfully operated on many years ago to prevent me from becoming a quadriplegic; I still had some neuropathy which initially developed before the surgery which still exists and persists. I am on medication for this but it is limited in what it can do and it has progressed so there are times when the pain is intolerable and the medication for the neuropathy can’t control it. I also take over the counter pain medications with my doctor’s knowledge but there are times when neither medication can control the symptoms and there are times when I feel like I could wind up in the emergency room which is some distance away and an intolerably long ambulance ride because I can’t take the symptoms which involve spasms and burning pain. I receive a limited amount of oxycontin which I cautiously use for this but not every time it happens which can be every day, but I limit it by what I might have to do that day and what I can tolerate.
I fortunately or unfortunately have had oxycontin before after a couple of surgeries and in one case developed intractable constipation and loss of time where I thought a long period of time had passed and it only was a few minutes. I had a pump that time which was supposed to limit how much of the drug I got but it was too much for me and on top of that it seemed to me that nobody was checking on me either.
To me, it seemed that presentation was made by a “smart aleck” that thought he knew what he was talking about, but who had not really covered the subject or investigated what he was told or read somewhere and who could be responsible for a group of people who might not abuse the drug not getting the pain relief that they needed and would cause needless suffering.
It seems to me that people often promote ideas about things that will not have a direct effect on them rather carelessly and often from a dictatorial point of view being that most dictators tell others what to do when they themselves will suffer no direct effects from their own commands.
Why Does The Victim Often Have More Trouble than the Offender?
Here I am in trouble again and you may often find yourself in this type of trouble too. The offender gets out of trouble by blaming the offender. Such as they deserved it. They were so stupid that they deserved to lose to me. Why should they trust people so much? If caught often the punishment does not equal in cost, inconvenience or shame what the offense cost the victim. Often victims have to take on the role of being a damaged person whose repair is difficult, often incomplete and leaves scars.
I am a sexual abuse victim. Even the word victim is personally damaging. I didn’t ask for it but I got it anyway or will get it for sure if I tell anybody like I am doing now. I didn’t realize it until the first time I felt a sexual response while making out and it went away. I tried many ways to fix this without any luck and so I live with it. Also, it seems that once a victim, always a victim.
I had a therapist who once called me sexually attractive which made me uncomfortable at the time. At the end of therapy when I was moving out of town, he invited me to come to see him and let him know how I was doing if ever I was back in town. When I came back, I found out that he expected me to have sex with him. I remember nothing that happened after that. Boy, was I naive and I became a victim again. Now I know why I never felt I was sexually attractive because that was dangerous. It also affected my self-esteem. Now does being seen as sexually attractive mark me as someone to be exploited? It seems to be true at least in this case.
I was considered a behavior problem in grade school. Was I reacting to being sexually abused? I had almost men teachers at that time. The best year I had was with my only woman teacher! In those days, no one considered the fact that I was a problem because they didn’t know what to do with me. In fact, at graduation, I wasn’t made the valedictorian because of my behavior so I said I wasn’t going to graduation if they didn’t. We compromised, I got the award for the highest grades in the class instead. I think I was one of the first people to threaten to boycott their graduation. Also, I was told I would never make better than a “B” in high school; however, I graduated high school as the class Salutatorian. I also suspected that they suspected that I was fairly intelligent because they had someone give me a WISC (the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children), but I never learned what my IQ was.
I was also bullied in high school on the bus and nobody did nothing about it. I did nothing to deserve it. In fact, I spend my time reading to the little kids on the bus. I ended up not riding the bus even though I live in the country. I also was a member of what I called the “out” group in high school. the members of which, including myself, all sat in a group in the auditorium to eat our lunches. We all were there for different reasons, the country kids (but that was not my reason to be there), the less intelligent kids, the poor kids, etc. I was there just because I didn’t make into one of the uppity groups whose members snubbed us.
In ending, I would like to say that from my point of view that I became a victim of other people’s enjoyment at my expense. Victims of crimes also seem to get not fully repaid for their losses caused by those who victimize them. Victims of break-ins often never feel comfortable in their own homes again.
What are the losses, peace of mind, monetary especially the extra cost of legal fees, medical expenses, the cost of therapy needed? Also, the inability to have normal emotional responses again, the lowered ability to trust people, tragic memories or the loss of memories of things that happened, fear of getting into certain situations again. What of these costs does the offender ever have to pay and does the suffering of being caught and having to pay for these offenses by going to prison ever catch up with them? Remediation often doesn’t really happen for some reason such as the inability to identify or catch the offender or the offense is not considered a crime.
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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Devilish Behavior And The Las Vegas Shooting – A Hypothesis
There has been a lot of people looking for a motive for the shooter in the Las Vegas shooting. They haven’t found any accomplices and the shooter was a known moderately (by Vegas standards) successful gambler and he had openly lived that life before the shooting. He had gone on 12 or 13 cruises in the last year. He had several homes. It apparently took a lot of planning, the acquiring of specific knowledge, and the scoping out of other possible locations and events where he could have carried the same type of atrocity. He knew how to aim his semi-automatic weapons standing upon special platforms and he had made calculations to be sure he would aim the rifles in such a way as to enable him to kill or wound the most people.
Now you might not believe in the devil and/or in demon possession as described in the Bible but it seems to fit here. Could a bargain have been made with the devil which allowed him to live the successful life he did even though he started his life with a very low-level job? Also, his girlfriend said that he would struggle and thrash in bed (was he fighting with a demon or dealing with demon possession?). It also accounts for the extensive planning that he did, the knowledge that he acquired, and possibly the targets. Surely the devil would like to have him choose a target which would include a lot of lovers of country music which are often Christians? Maybe he didn’t need an accomplice if he already was involved in a pact with the devil or had opened himself to demon possession. As I present this hypothesis, I am calling upon the name of Jesus to rebuke the devil and his accomplices and to protect me from the devil.
The possibility of mental illness has been proposed, but it usually is not possible for a mentally ill person to be so successful in doing something that involved so much knowledge and preparation. Was he a narcissistic sociopath? a paranoid schizophrenic? Often mental illness leads to confusion and unrealistic ideas of special powers and also unrealistic ideas of how to carry out distorted ideas. Yes, they can desire to kill people. Maybe he had it in for Christians; but if he did, he told no one about it. There has so far been any evidence of any delusions. He was not the type of guy who stood out in any crowd and he was known as a frequent successful gambler but he did not cause any problems. He was not known to associate with anybody but his girlfriend and, if not her, prostitutes.
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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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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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Children Are Our Most Precious Resource, Don’t Waste Them
Finally and still important is an education on the rights of people, the rules we need to respect so that we can all get along, and the development of an inner sense of right and wrong. History is a necessary part of education so we don’t make past mistakes and so that we can also learn from past successes. Children also need protection so that they are not used only to satisfy other people’s needs when it is not in their best interest.
Last, but not least is creativity. Each individual child has some unique talent or ability that the world needs that should be supported and developed in each child. Children are not useless trash made to be used and thrown away. Abortions support this meme!
Parents or parent substitutes can be valuable assets to our culture. Those who take on the responsibility of providing for their or other children’s needs. Support is often provided for those parents who fail but not for those who want to succeed at doing this. Laws should be created and adjudicated with the child’s rights in mind. Children are not property and are individuals with innate rights. Custody determinations often forget this. I know of one county court system that penalizes the worst of their judges by having them do custody cases. Yuck!!! Children are not property!
Once a child forms an attachment to an appropriate parental figure, it should not be broken unless abuse occurs. Natural parents should not be allowed to slip in and out of a child’s life threatening his or her security and sense of trust. Often such unattached children will attach themselves to anybody almost instantly as he or she is so needy.
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Precursurers to Domestic Violence
There are some things a woman should look out for when establishing a new relationship with a man. Don’t believe that his last girlfriend or wife deserved to be labeled as the “bad” one in the relationship. Be careful if either you or he came from a family where violence was common or accepted if a woman or child did not do the right thing according to the man of the house. Be aware too that men or women can come from families where violence was common among the women of the family.
There is no real excuse for violence. When anger is considered “justified” because the person who is angry thinks that someone or something made him or her feel that way and that is enough to justify acting it out. This can lead to a very explosive situation. Add alcohol to this in some people and the situation becomes even worse.
Anger Controls People
Being the only man in the family, besides my elderly grandfather, my dad was called upon to “handle” his brother-in-law when he was in an alcoholic rage in order to protect my mom’s crippled sister and kids. My dad had been quite an athlete in his youth but this did not always help when my uncle was threatening them with a butcher knife. Also, my younger brother was still at home and had to witness this. I don’t think Police usually made domestic violence calls back then.
Women and children and even some men are not punching bags and it can leave a strong impression on some children even if they themselves don’t get hurt. “Don’t hit him; hit me” was a brave statement made by a sister when her brother got hit, not her. How helpless does a child feel when they watch their sibling or parent get hurt on purpose when the other parent has a “mad fit” and takes it out on him or her?
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Joining In On Doing Something Wrong Does’t Make It Right
People who sin or do something that they know they shouldn’t do often encourage others to join in with them. Somehow this makes it more okay. Have you ever done that? Did something you knew was really wrong but did it when you saw others doing it?
Have you encouraged others to join in with you in doing something you really knew was wrong because it encouraged you to do it and somehow made it seem more right than if you did it all by yourself?
Gang violence is like that. People who wouldn’t ordinarily destroy property, curse, pick on other people are more likely to do this when they can get others to join them in doing it or they can join a group that is already doing this and they feel there is safety in numbers.
Bravery occurs when a person does something all by himself or herself without the support of others or the example of others doing it.
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Why Children Are Easy To Use And Abuse
- Children believe what they are told because they don’t know anything else.
- Children think that almost everything is fun.
- Children usually don’t refuse an invitation to do something they think might be fun.
- Children are easily frightened.
- Children can go with someone they don’t know if they think that he or she is removing them from possible danger.
- When children are kept sheltered, this might make them more vulnerable.
- Ignorance is not always bliss.
- When an adult tells children something that they don’t know they usually believe the adult.
- Children, when faced with a new request, might not know it is wrong
- Children are naive and are easily shamed if they do something that was wrong but didn’t know it.
- Children learn early that if they do something they later found out was wrong, they don’t tell to avoid punishment.
- Children can be forced to repeat something they feel is wrong because they think they might be physically punished, their parents might get hurt, or no one would believe them.
- Children can also block memories from their minds because they are too painful.
- Often children often don’t know any better.
- Children are gullible.
Prevent Child Abuse With the Truth
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