FAQ

Find answers to some of the more frequently asked questions on the Forums.

Forums guidelines

Our guidelines keep the Forums a safe place for people to share and learn information.

Pain, Confused, Enraged, Tortured, Despairing, Begging, NEED OPTIONS!

S_A_D_
Community Member

I am in pain. It hurts so much. I feel very tense, the muscles all over my body are spasming and convulsing. I am angry at the person who hurt me, and also feel very threatened by them. I am sure they will hurt me again. They are cruel to a psychopathological level, and are well practiced at concealing their cruelty with the appearance of kindness, generosity, empathy, sympathy, and compassion.

They are very experienced at manipulating people into doing what they want. They lie, cheat, steal, and anything else they can be sure, from experience, will help them achieve their goal without getting caught and punished. They have established strong relationships with very high ranking law enforcement officials to get out of any sticky situation. They use this power immorally to "play God", manipulating people into giving them more power, much like a global corporation has a pathological persuit for profit and power. This person is EVIL.

They have the resources to track me down wherever I go, so there is nowhere to escape to. There is no safe haven. I am, and always will be, continuously watched. As their power and influence grows, they become gradually bolder and overt with their cruelty, and more confident they are untouchable. They are a storm growing all around me, and will continue to grow until the imbalance that created them is corrected. They are a significant and immenent threat to everyone caught in the storm, and everyone in the path of the storm. They found me the last 2 times I cut off contact with all humans everywhere, and disposed of all electronics. I walked away from modern life, and lived in a tent in the middle of an area of state forest for an unknown period, but I couldn't get away from them. They stuck me in hospital again, where I received more brainwashing under the guise of therapy.

In the past, my attempts to fight back have been not just ineffective, but usually backfire. If I  throw a kilo of manure at them, they throw 5 kilos back at me. You'd think this would give me 5 kilos worth of ammo to throw back, but it's kinda hard to throw when you're drowning and choking on the sticky mess. I've never tried to kill or seriously injure anyone, and I sense most people will discourage this kind of action.

I have also tried shutting down, and basically surrendering to them in a "do your worst" kind of attitude, but they have a way of getting under my skin, pushing my emotional buttons, and triggering a full rage experience which they then say is "... for fun. We're just kidding around, you know that right. You don't have to go off the handle at me for making a joke."

I assume everyone here knows about the fight or flight response. There is a third: Freeze, mentioned above, when we hide inside ourselves. I've tried it all, and this person has a counter strategy for everything I've been able to come up with. There is nowhere to hide, inside myself or in the world, and fighting back makes everything hurt more.

I am seeking help. I'm looking for any strategy that has ever worked against a ruthless and powerful authoritarian tyrant. I am begging for any method of acquiring peace from this person.

The person I have described accurately represents not one but MANY people in my life. Several. numerous. A multitude. They're all sucking the life out of me, and there is no escape. Some of them work together against me, each one powerful in their own right, but in a temporary alliance there is no hope. I feel so weak, tired, stretched, all the time. I can't fight on 2 fronts at once, let alone dozens. I lack the coordination and multitasking skills for simultaneous conflict against several aggressors.

I welcome death with open arms. I have had parties hoping it would attend. I have made many attempts at making it's acquaintance in spectacular fashion, but something always happens to prevent me. I don't understand this fear of death so many seem to have. Does that make me suitable for an employment position as an undertaker?

I'm not trying anything drastic at any time in the near future though. My university course is interesting enough for now. I will still welcome death should it appear, but I'm not going to go looking for it for a while, unless there is another major trigger event to push me over the edge. No, I don't mean like low grades or the cafeteria being sold out of my favourite flavour of yogurt. I mean like another incident of "joking around" (torturous bullying) in a way that is so harmful to me I instinctively start looking for a weapon to defend myself with until I again realise self-defence against these types of tormentors is a futile endeavour.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

16 Replies 16

Dear Pandora's Paradox.

We have another paradox.   Responses disallowed / 9 ladies leaping / etc.

Probably my (5) whimsical paradoxes are not related to you in any way but merely some made up examples.   But the fact that you are reading something into everything is a very positive sign of your mental powers and insight.  It's actually quite impressive that you can turn nonsense into perspective.  If we carry on like this I might have to reconsider our staggered relationship and count you as being simply a very unique and challenging individual.  I might even propose by Xmas.

You gave me a laugh with your perceived control on how responders quote things.  I seem to remember a vast amount of quoting of other responders on many of your own responses.  Even if the context is lost we can still communicate in a patchy way or have illumination later.  Context being only context in a ....context.

I had an altercation with a nearby 2 up neighbour today over his dangerous dog that he walks off the lead everywhere.  After coming close to mauling a 1 yr old in the park I got it to walk with my dog (they are buddies) and headed into his driveway.  The owner, Mr Ego, abuses me for 10 mins as he wanted to get his dog over the road and into his driveway (not admitting that he was 120m away !).  I think I counted 18 counts of being abused as a "Fat F***" and a couple of "Mind you own business".   For me, I was more concerned with the babies safety and keeping the dogs away from nosey neighbours who would report matters.  And we're about to re-sign a 3 year lease.  Now I can sign, with distinction, David Fat F***.  It's a win : win.  Lol.    I think I enraged him more by suggesting an anger management course.  My bad.  My wife's take on it (she witnessed the whole thing) was to just walk away.  What I really needed was an instant moderator to intervene.  With a cat.  The dogs would have loved that.  Comment at will.

Adios, David.

PS  I think you are coming across with a bit more verve / reality.  Maybe Scotty 2013 will pick up the thread - he's an old BB site responder from Adelaide.  Bit of a wicked sense of humour but very compassionate and knowledgable.   Beam me up Scotty.   From memory you are based in Perth.  And possibly like U2.

S_A_D_
Community Member

Well I'll be damned. It got published after heavy editing.

David,

Your (2) is about unsustainability, right? Are you saying I'm stretched too thin? Too much multitasking? Ignore my "secondly ...". Maybe I was being unfairly critical, whatever that means.

To the community at large,

Analogies suck! Is it really so offensive to say exactly what we mean instead of talking in codes and stories.

When I was young I was told to do good in school, so I did good. I was not encouraged to do excellent or try to be the best I could be. Good was enough. When I got older, people started expecting more from me, and nobody could understand why I wasn't able to do any better than "good", regardless of incentive. The pressures placed on me to do excellent increased until I crumbled under the stress. This applied until I began to understand what it meant to be nurturing, which is such a rare and powerfully helpful characteristic. At no point was I being nurtured when I was younger. In circumstances when I was nurtured, I proved I could do excellent. These occurances were rare, so my confidence remained in the tank.

I was told to do good. I did good. I was told I had done good. There is ambiguity on the word good. Good can mean satisfactory, passable, acceptable, and it can be used as a nurturing word, a bit like "well done". If you are paying someone a compliment, and trying to be encouraging, don't use words or phrases that are syntactically or semantically ambiguous, and don't get lazy about it.

ELABORATE! Say what you mean and mean what you say, or the person could end up like me, having misunderstood the intended meaning of the words people used when I was young.

By the same measure, if you're going to use analogies, or tell stories, specify the intended meaning of the story at both the beginning and end of the story, as I have done here. People will look for meaning in stories, but if you're trying to make a point it is quite common to need to spell it out. This is an identifying trait requirement of all good storytellers like Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, George Lucas and J.J.R. Tolkien. Neglecting this responsibility is risky at best.

There is no additional "hidden" meaning to this, and it is not addressed to, or intended for, anyone in particular.

Pixie15
Community Member

Hi, I really am not used to posting yet and not sure where to reply to. Should it be the last post in the thread or can you reply back at the original post?

There is no denying that the world is both very wonderful and very dangerous. There are reports all the time of random acts of violence. A person may be peaceably walking down the street on a Saturday night and be king hit by a total stranger and end up dead. People do not respond with honest emotions. There is an excessive amount of cheerfulness especially among shop assistants and you never know where you really stand with anyone.

 I have had some experience with fight or flight responses myself. Usually in a situation where I feel my dignity or my person may be threatened and I have no ability to defend myself either in a place or with a person where I would expect in the ordinary course of events to be safe.I do not think that not being afraid of death is the same as not being afraid of being hurt.

 It is especially difficult if others around you do not appear to be bothered by the same perceived threat. I have read that fight or flight is a more masculine response and that women are more inclined to tend and befriend. I would be curious to know if an increased incidence of fight or flight response as you age may be more to do with and increase in knowledge or changes in hormones. 

I have found in situations where I have needed to continue to be for what ever reason the best thing I can do is to try to reason the response. Who or what is the trigger? Is it really irrational or is it my personal alarm bell ringing the presence of a danger that nobody else has at yet detected.

I think some people may be like the little birds that they used to send down with the miners. They are more sensitive and more readily detect a toxic environment. I am currently working on developing a personal protection plan to deal with some of my triggers. I hope I am not paranoid but I have been accused of having a tendency to exaggerate. I hope this all makes some sense to someone. Thanks Chris.

PS.Sorry I am not sure why the font is smaller in parts of this post I will have to work that out when I have more time. 

Welcome Chris,

There are "easier" threads !   You really made a fantastic response for a 1st timer.

I have to be quick today and I wanted to message Pandora's Paradox with the simple "You were young, you say ????".   There's always a bit of the Benjamin (?) Button about you - the guy born very old who grew and lived backwards to a little baby.   Hollywood going crazy on hormones.  His immense wisdom gets taken back to mid life, teenage, and childhood.   Something tells me I may have referenced this wrong and it's more about amazingly quick aging but I didn't see the film.  My bad.

Maybe art is a bit more precise.   Basically you cut a CD or make a film than throw it at the wall of society and see if it sticks.   Or, with your post remarks, to see if it is good enough.   Maybe "good" is better than "good enough" ?   After 20 years of marriage I'll settle for "enough" at night time.  I want to get enough vs You've had enough.    Maybe you have to be "bad" to be "good enough" ?  It's endless.

Adios, David.

Hi Pandora

thats fine if you are atheist as long as it works for you I am not here to convince anyone of anything because I know how important it is to make up my own mind about things as by the look of your ability to debate you do too.

I discuss things like this with other people and they all have completely different views which to me has to be normal imagine what it would be like if we all had the same beliefs. Might be a bit boring.History and the world politics shows us what happens when One belief wants total control of things.

Did you receive any options that are/were useful to you for your difficult time?

Giggles

Dear Giggles,

Most of life is boring - you are on the money.

Someone at uni once conjectured that the far left and far right factions of politics are so far spread that it is possible that they have become the same thing.  Ask most people about politics and they'll just say "it's boring".  Even a "death stare" used too much is a bit so so, and all the dramatics.

Is respecting each other's differences the same as respecting each others experiences ?  When one gets older it's worse - getting set in our ways.  Probably what makes having a "bucket list" so wonderful.  It's breaks things up.

Hey, Pandora's Paradox, what's in your bucket list ?  And saying "a bucket" doesn't count.  Lol.  Maybe selling off the Barrier Reef to a Japanese Theme Park Company would provide much needed funds for the Australian Mental Health Industry ?

Adios, David.

PS  Is 'Batman' really 'Rodentdron' ?  Did someone light the beacon (of knowledge) ?  Or maybe that would have worked better for the former 'french pastry' tag ?

Hiya David,

Thanks for the helpful responses. I tend to support, encourage and complement helpful and healthy attitudes, and I'm liking this side of you. I have learned that bipolar includes wild moodswings, so I don't require or expect you to hold yourself this way. It's just good to know I'm not despised as much as I thought I was during the parenting thing.

I was wondering if you would know I was being facetious about using quotes. It's QI all over again.

There seems to be a strong correlation between obesity and mental illness. For me it's like ... I'm in so much (psychological) pain already, why would I ever consider taking on more (muscular) pain? Sure, I'm active and involved, but start talking about visiting a gym and you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming. Contradiction: I've just joined a gym, and will start exercising regularly from next week without complaint. Oh, who am I kidding, of course I'll be complaining. When a person is in agony, complaints are inevitable. Maybe I should stick to doing stuff in the gym that doesn't have me in agony, during or after. If I'm gentle and patient with myself, I could be trim and fit in about 200 years. You can ignore the fact that at that age I'd be a brain in a 95% artificial body, because I got slim and strong all on my own, right? Don't you be twirling your finger around your ear at me like that, these are serious life saving prosthetics, and I've always wanted 21 fingers on three arms, eyes looking in every direction with infrared and ultraviolet sensitivity, and more control over my hearing sensitivity. Levitation and flight would be cool too. What features would you look for in a prosthetic?

Your reference on Benjamin Button is correct, well done. Sometimes I feel like "a few years ago, when I was older and wiser I would ... but now ...". Are we so afraid of embracing our inner child? I like waterslides and icecreams. I like roller coasters and petting zoos. I see nothing wrong with adults behaving childishly.

Whinging and whining has been misappropriated with children, and that's what I think of when someone says "don't be childish." In truth that ridicule is an example of a resurfaced habit of domination (adults behaving badly). From an early age my favourite response to this has been "try and stop me." I got punished a lot for that, to which my response was to increase the unwanted behaviour. This game continues today, them discouraging my happiness and me futilistically resisting their control over me. I have a lot of issues with authority figures that abuse their power.

This is part of my story. Not directly related to the arguments between us recently, and not intended to respark that conflict. My disdain, mistrust, disgust, and resentment of Australian parents is all aimed at the behavioural application of fundamentally flawed parenting models like my parents used on me. I have nothing against any living physical people, here or anywhere, that happen to also be parents (or dead people that were parents). When applying a flawed model, their best may never be good enough (and maybe very harmful), and yet with a good model and a half-&#$ed effort, kids are coming of age happy and healthy.

Let me give you an example: say you have 1 hour to reroll a roll of toilet paper at home that has been completely unrolled to the cardboard. You can do this any way you want, and use anything from your home to help you achieve the task. The objective is to make it look as close as possible to a new roll off the supermarket shelf (without the packaging). What do you do?

One way might be to grab the cardboard tube, and start wrapping the paper around it with your hands. You could put it in the dispenser in the loo, and roll it back up there. Go try it now. Does it look like one off the shelf? Not quite? Why? Your model was oversimplified to make it appear easier, but with a complex model you could do it in half the time, and make it look almost perfect.

My criticisms are also somewhat aimed at government departments that neglect to provide sufficient funding for educational institutions to target low income areas in training adults to be more nurturing parents. Too bad they probably won't ever hear me.

So what if, in learning to reroll unrolled toilet paper, an expert reroller were to show you the world's easiest way to reroll toilet paper using household appliances. Could you apply their rerolling model in your home in a way that might be better than any model you could come up with on your own? You can be forgiven for checking YouTube for videos on how to reroll toilet paper, because this is just an analogy.

Anything can be learned, and anything (once learned) can be improved with more learning. We learn by practice, as in trial and error, but errors are demotivating. What if there was a way to learn to be better at something, AND make the experience of learning a positive, encouraging, supportive, motivational environment that any adult can participate in? I really think it's a pathetic failure of the entire history of our species that no place in the world can offer such a learning environment, but maybe I'm asking too much, or maybe I'm missing something. Anyone know of such a place in the area where they live that they can suggest?