Part of the problem here is that racism isn't just on the scale of "I hate blacks and I want to lynch them" (or as everyone seems to refer to it in comments below, "real racism"). Racism is also when your brain keeps track of every time you see a black person commit a crime, but forget about all the white people who commit crimes, and use your confirmation bias to then conclude that black people are mostly criminals. It's the small, subconscious racism that's the problem.

In the past, outright racism was okay - you could be a racist in public, and you wouldn't lose respect for it. Nowadays, being explicitly racist is looked down upon (e.g. this guy gets downvoted for most of his comments). It's become part of the social consciousness that racism is bad, and that you shouldn't be racist, and anyone who says racist things is a bad person.

No one is ever the villain in their own mind. In our own heads, in our own story, we're the good guy. (This is one of the big sources of cognitive dissonance - when we do something that we personally think is bad, we start making excuses for why it was okay to do it. For a good read on that, check out Mistakes were made (but not by me), it's a really good book.) And so, people think to themselves, "I'm a good person, and good people aren't racist, so I shouldn't do or say racist things."

That's great - that's a huge improvement over explicit racism. But while the conscious mind does have some input into the subconscious, it's not a lot. So thinking to yourself "I'm not racist" doesn't mean you won't ever have racist tendencies.

Send each of two groups of people a resume that is identical except the name - one group gets a resume that has at the top a typically "white" name and one gets a typically "black" name. Recruiters in the first group will rate the candidate as more qualified on average than people in the second group, even though the qualifications were identical. Every single one of the people rating the resumes will tell you they're not racist; and when it comes to explicit racism, they're not. But they still have a bias against black people that hasn't disappeared, and that they don't even know about.

So when you say that racism isn't something you see, I won't argue with that - you probably don't see it. But I doubt that you've never been exposed to it. It is real. It does happen. But being white, you've never had to deal with it. You've never gotten rejected from a job and had to wonder if it was because of your name, or been stopped by police when you weren't doing anything illegal or even suspicious, or any of the other number of subtle racist things that go on every single day.

I know that hipster racism feels like it's proving that you're not racist ("Look, I'm so not racist, I can say racist things and it's funny because we all know I'm not racist!"), but it exacerbates that inner, subconscious racism both in you and in other people. I don't really know what the solution is, other than, when a black person tells you that you said something racist and it bothered them, don't defend it. Don't say it was just a joke, because to them it's not a joke, it's their life, and they have to deal with that crap for real every day. Say sorry, and try to figure out why you said it and how to not say something like it again.

And I just want to add on the end of this... I may have said something offensive or racist or condescending in this comment. Please tell me if I did. I went to a small private Lutheran school, and a small private Lutheran college, which means that 99% of the humans I interacted with before graduation were upper-middle-class whites. I then worked as an engineer in the (semi-)rural Midwest, which meant more of the same. So while I try to not be racist, I know that the privilege I've been unduly awarded my entire life simply due to birth probably creeps in to what I say. It's not that I want it to - I simply haven't ever had to deal with it myself, or had someone point it out to me. Please, please say something. Because I want to correct the subconscious part of me which I know is lurking down there.

TL;DR: Most of us are probably still subconsciously racist, no matter how much you want to not be. Joking about racism probably makes that worse not better.

EDIT: Removed what I had in the edit before because people were taking it out of context and using it as an excuse to whine about how persecuted white guys are, which is really not the point. Yes, I think racism against white people is bad too. No, (in the U.S.) it's anywhere near as prevalent or harmful as racism against minorities.

Read Raising Cain if you want a fascinating analysis of how boys and young men are socialized into embracing the worst forms of poisonous masculinity.

Edit: PBS did a documentary about this as well.

Do that, plus read Raising Cain. The books tl;dr is that boys have complex emotional lives, even if the don't often express that in obvious ways. It gave me huge amounts of insight during the 4 years I spent as a summer camp counselor.

My boy's only 2, but so far, the father protips I've learned are:

• When your baby's very small (like, the first three months), they'll likely hate sleeping alone and love cuddling. You can use this to your videogaming advantage. When baby's fussy late at night, tell your wife, "I've got this." Secure your baby on your chest in something like a Moby or Ergobaby, then go play the Xbox for for a few hours. Baby gets cuddles, your wife thinks you're some kind of superdad and you get to play videogames. It's a win win win situation, and the way I beat Fable II and Gears of War II.
  
• Don't feel bad if you're not deeply in love with your child the moment he exits the womb. When he was born, I loved my son in the "This is my son so I will love him" sort of way. But around the time he turned 1 and became less of a little crying thing and more of a mini-person, I feel deeply in love.
  
• You will never have a better excuse to buy photography or video equipment, so take advantage of this moment. In my experience, mothers are unable to resist the logic of, "I really need a better camera to make sure we have lasting memories or our baby's 1st year." It's like a license to kill. Only instead of killing, you get to go out and spend money on whatever DSLR you've been lusting after.
  
  Congratulations!
  
  
  

I'm guessing the book that the documentary is based on.

My husband has NParents and I absolutely agree with setting boundaries. Some good baselines:

• Never, ever, meet without an escape plan. Going to stay at her house for a few days? Keep as much as possible packed and pre-warn a nearby friend that you might need to crash if things go south. EDIT: I see you don't own a vehicle. You need to rent one or have some other escape route so YOU control your arrival/departure. If your husband has good friends nearby who wouldn't mind rescuing you that's a possibility, but don't leave yourselves at his mom's mercy. That's a recipe for disaster. I even think the Uncle-plan is a bad one unless Uncle is fully on-board with crazy mom, because if you're like "We need to go" and he thinks you should enable NMom's bad behavior... it'll be an issue.
  
  
• Never step back a boundary in response to good behavior. Suppose you left because she attacked. Then she apologizes and wants you to return. NO. She lost this chance. You simply say, "Thank you. We accept your apology. We will come back to visit you some other time." This enforces real consequences to her bad behavior and doesn't allow her to yo-yo you for her own entertainment.
  
  
• Keep information to a minimum. Good topics of conversation include: Things you did that are already over and done with. Pop culture. The weather. Bad topics include: Anything that you are in the middle of, anything you plan to do soon, anything you are considering doing, anything anyone is worried about, anything that could be used as a weapon against anyone
  
  
• Try to identify and pre-eliminate problem areas. Example: My MIL has a habit of buying grossly inappropriate gifts that are often explicitly against our expressed desires. (Pretend I have a fear of snakes and imagine her giving my kid snake-themed gifts. Also buying child-unsafe toys for a child.) So, with Christmas coming up, when I found a great deal on something I wanted to get my son... we passed word to her that there was this thing he'd really love and it was a great deal. Yeah, super-nice gift is now from NGramma, but he's not getting crap I don't want that pisses me off. Other examples might include eating out when she comes to visit if she has a habit of criticizing your cooking.
  
  
  I also strongly recommend this book to you. It helped me a lot in understanding my husband's insane family and helping recognize many of my husband's FLEAs (ill behaviors acquired by proximity to mentally ill people). Feel free to PM me if you need to vent/chat any time. I love my husband but marrying into an NFamily has been a world of hurt.

Texts and Reference Books

Days in the Lives of Social Workers

DSM-5

Child Development, Third Edition: A Practitioner's Guide

Racial and Ethnic Groups

Social Work Documentation: A Guide to Strengthening Your Case Recording

Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond

[Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life]
(https://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Feelings-Harbinger-Self-Help-Workbook/dp/1608822087/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3ZW7PRW5TK2PB0MDR9R3)

Interpersonal Process in Therapy: An Integrative Model

[The Clinical Assessment Workbook: Balancing Strengths and Differential Diagnosis]
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0534578438/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_38?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ARCO1HGQTQFT8)

Helping Abused and Traumatized Children

Essential Research Methods for Social Work

Navigating Human Service Organizations

Privilege: A Reader

Play Therapy with Children in Crisis

The Color of Hope: People of Color Mental Health Narratives

The School Counseling and School Social Work Treatment Planner

Streets of Hope : The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood

Deviant Behavior

Social Work with Older Adults

The Aging Networks: A Guide to Programs and Services

[Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society: Bridging Research and Practice]
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415884810/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change

Ethnicity and Family Therapy

Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Perspectives on Development and the Life Course

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook

DBT Skills Manual for Adolescents

DBT Skills Manual

DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets

Social Welfare: A History of the American Response to Need

Novels

[A People’s History of the United States]
(https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511070674&sr=1-1&keywords=howard+zinn&dpID=51pps1C9%252BGL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch)


The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Life For Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Tuesdays with Morrie

The Death Class <- This one is based off of a course I took at my undergrad university

The Quiet Room

Girl, Interrupted

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Flowers for Algernon

Of Mice and Men

A Child Called It

Go Ask Alice

Under the Udala Trees

Prozac Nation

It's Kind of a Funny Story

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Yellow Wallpaper

The Bell Jar

The Outsiders

To Kill a Mockingbird

Is this your first adolescent client? How did you get set up working with this client if you don't do family therapy...? kind of comes with the territory...Just a bit concerned, because these are typical issues that are to be expected working with this age group (the parent issues, need for family counseling sessions, the teen's response to you, not trusting you, etc.)

To start:

1. let go of using the words "resistant client". not helpful for anyone.
   
2. no where in this description did I hear anything about what the client might want. You have the referral info and plenty of information about mom. The client may sense that you are also preoccupied by mom, probably like they are quite used to. Focus on building trust and rapport with your client, even if mom isn't thrilled.
   
3. Motivational Interviewing IS KEY. I use it with substance use , juvenile justice , and court-mandated populations. Roll with the resistance don't fight it. Use the client's own language to clarify or amplify a statement. "I don't want to be here" "You would rather be anywhere else in the world but here" "Well know I didn't say that" "Oh, what did you mean?" Now you are talking to each other :D
   
4. You are the professional here. You can set the rules if its conducive the best care for the client - such as doing individual sessions without mom present, then building towards a family therapy session. Having mom in the room for a 14 year old coming out of a hospitalization is just not going to work.
   
5. Although it appears you client does not want to be there - make no mistake. Their history and suicide attempt is incredibly serious and this is a child that does want and need help - no one wants to suffer. The key is trust. Right now there is not trust. Establish confidentiality to be between you and the client, and clarify what the exceptions with be for you to tell mom.
   
6. seek supervision and consultation, if this is your first time working with this age group and doing family therapy. Brush up on adolescent development and counseling skills, along with family counseling. I think this sub has a good resource list for books. I learned mostly in the field but I liked this book. It's not too big, a quick read.
   
   Hope your next sessions feels a bit more progressive for everyone :) Good luck!

If you're interested, there are two books that answer your question:

• Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram (More info...), and
  
• The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo (More info...)
  
  TL;DR
  
  
• the further you are removed from your victims, the more likely you'll obey unchallenged authority figures to do anything
  
• you play the roles you're given, breaking previous social contracts
  
  You don't have to go far to see modern-day examples. While we can blame ISIS as some far-away, backwards group of people, we have no such excuse for what happened in Abu Ghraib.

When my son was born, I read a book called "Raising Cain" by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. It was shocking to read because it so succinctly covers everything that, as a boy, you think you're the only one to feel. It's helped my parenting a lot, and I would recommend it to anyone who has a son.

Oh, believe me (or don't) I've spent many hours studying the subject of cognitive dissonance, if you or the people out there would like a good primer on the subject this is a great book about it. And I agree Fox likes creating what's called a siege mentality within it's viewership and itself, their level of intellectual dishonesty is quiet nauseating.

I would describe myself and my situation very similarly to how you've described yours. Perfectionist. Messy. Random collections. I self-medicated with shopping.

Here's how my realization went...

1. Several years ago, I visited my parents in another state and my mom said she had DVR'd an episode of Oprah that I just had to watch. It was about a woman with a hoard up to the ceilings in her home. My mom said, "that's you." I was terribly offended because I certainly did not have stuff up the ceiling (I didn't). I rolled my eyes and went about my life.
   
   
2. For my birthday a couple months later, my mom got me this book. I was once again offended. I put it on a shelf and forgot about it.
   
   
3. That's about when all the shows about hoarders started. I watched Hoarders because it's interesting and I think I liked to say to myself, "See, mom? I'm not a hoarder. I'm not these people living in piles of garbage."
   
   But then...as I watched Hoarders and listened to the hoarders talk about WHY they didn't want to give up one particular item or another, I realized I understood them and I felt their pain. OMG. Do I understand them because I am one of them?!
   
   
4. I dug out that book my mom gave me and read it. I also read this book. They explain in detail a few different thought patterns that contribute to hoarding and I definitely saw myself in a couple of them. I was definitely a low-level hoarder with the potential, as you said, to slide down that slippery slope to disaster. I guess the realization itself was a slippery slope. ;-)
   
   Since that time I have been able to recognize those wrong thought patterns and get things under control before it became a real problem. I give a lot of credit to my SO for helping me channel my energies into productive pursuits.

This was discussed in Joe Korts Book who is a Therapist. By the way I suggest exploring this with a therapist as it has much deeper roots (there are low cost options - aka sliding scale, or ir your in school often they have a free department, LGBTQ Centers also have resources). Your using the sex as a validation to work through some issue your dealing with that might stem from your past. It sounds like you want to ignore those you see for the sex as a use of domination and being wanted. The therapist can work with whatever issue including being ignored as a child or not feeling loved, etc... This also happens when men often have sex with those they are not interested in and can't control themselves to avoid these instances. Some gay men have constantly have "1" time hookups because like a drug their brain produces new neuro chemicals of a natural high every time they meet someone (also called infatuation), this is strongest with the first person you fall in love with, once it fades men get annoyed and loose the infatuated bliss and instead stress over the actual work a real relationship takes to build something great. Sex is a powerful tool, some use it as a self esteem boost and a sign they are wanted. When it is done to quickly it looses the other characteristics that create desire and long term bonding. Your judging these relationships by the sex, which often evolves and gets better with a deeper intimacy. I suggest not having sex with men too soon and build a bond with other form of connection (have sex with a FB until things are solid) then you can truly get to know them.

http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Things-Find-Real-Love/dp/193683331X

http://www.amazon.com/The-Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Straight/dp/1611746450

Only studied it as part of my foray into eastern philosophy. I "came back" with more of an interest in Zen Buddhism rather than Taoism.

Recently I've found in Stoicism the bits I enjoyed in Zen Buddhism, and then some.

Pretty sure Stoicism -- which is not actually about quelling your emotions, as popular understanding would have it-- would be a better fit for INTPs, if not people in general.

Recommended reading is this book on the similarities between Stoic thought/practice and modern cognitive behavioural therapy. It dispells a lot of myths about stoicism and puts it's tenets in a modern perspective.

All of these psych drugs (stimulants like riddalin or adderall, antidepressants like effexor or prozac, antispycotics like seroquel and risperdol, mood stabilizers like lamictal, and benzos like klonopin or xanax) are addictive, and the body reacts to them exactly like it would any street drug. The brain is capable of recovering in some circumstances, but lingering effects can last for years or be permanent. Psych meds are incredibly powerful substances that in some cases can be more powerful than common "street drugs". These are not medications. Instead, pyscg meds are powerful neuroactive substances that are poorly understood. In US society, these drugs are heavily prescribed to all sectors of the population. Including children and pregnant mothers.

In a social sense, these drugs are convenient "control" mechanisms for prisons, psych wards schools. They are also heavily prescribed for depression, anxiety etc. Most of this occurs in the USA, in other countries (excluding the UK) prescription rates are fairly low. Women account for something 2/3 of all psych med drug use, and women are usually responsible for drugging their children.

Riddalin is a common "entry" drug for children. Adderall, vyvanse and provigil are also quite common now. It rarely ends with these stimulants and often progresses to the more powerful antidepressants, antianxity, and antipsycotic medications. That's when the long term and life altering damage can occur.

There's considerable evidence both in the scientific literature and NUMEROUS anecdotal stories on the internet for people who get severe withdrawal from the antianxiety, antidepressant, and antipsycotic drugs. As such, they are not treatment for a disorder, but cause their own dependency and addiction profiles. Psych meds are powerful substances that severely affect the body just like any drug or toxin. There's studies on the long term side effects, and how difficult it is to stop taking the drugs. Sexual side effects can be permanent. This condition is called post-SSRI sexual dysfunction and primarly affects those who take antidepressants.

Some people recover, others never recover. Children almost certainly get permanent damage as their brains are still in development. Lots of dumb ass women take these drugs during pregnancy, damaging their kids brains before they're even born. Then the dumb cunts take it after they give birth, so they are shit mothers doped out on drugs. These are the same dumb cunts who will quickly go to a doctor and start poisoning their kids once the PTA meeting goes badly. Then they'll bitch and moan like the cunts they are about why the kid isn't getting better. Eventually, the poor kid will probably fail to do well in school because the drugs cause brain damage, and the dumb bitch will make his life even more difficult until he escapes at the age of 16 or 18. With brain damage and a dumb bitch as a mother, his life is going to be very difficult. Life is hard enough, life with withdrawal or brain damage can lead to homelessness, jail, lifetime of addiction, and worse. Homelessness due to psych med withdrawal and long term side effects is extremely common for men.

Women have it easy. Even if a young girl gets brain damage, no one will care - standards are so low, and any guy will fuck a girl if she's wet between the legs (or use lube if she can't get wet). If she's got a pulse, she'll never be homeless. Even a heavily brain damaged girl will get a job and a college degree no matter how badly damaged they seem to the world. IF that doesn't work out, she'll just find some dude to take care of her. These drugs primarily affect men, because society puts so much pressure on them. Even small amounts of brain damage, or withdrawal can fuck their careers and futures up permanently.

Scary shit, good reason to never ever send your child into a public school system if it can be helped. Public schools have gotten worse since I was a child. Pyschiatrists and other such doctors"child psychiatrists" are all greedy cunts who want to poison your kid so that they can make some extra money. Most psychiatrists are too brainwashed to understand how the drugs really work, and believe everything the pharmaceutical company tells them like idiots.

Most parents are blue pilled faggots who will listen to the female's desire to do the "right thing". Doing the "right thing" is brain damage to young children with fragile brains. If your child survives the brain damage, he will be prone to addiction and other emotional issues for a very long time. These drugs affect every single part of the brain and especially affect the emotional and sexual portions of the brain.

Also note: there's no such thing as a child dose for these drugs in the literature. They're designed for adults. It's literally GUESSWORK, and everyone reacts differently to different doses. It's a real fucking mess, but doctors pretend they know what they're doing, and are protected from legal repercussions from any consequences these drugs may have on children.

Very few if any studies have been done on children for more than 6 weeks. This is true for stimulants, antidepressants, antipsycotis, mood stabilizers and benzos. There's not much scientific understanding about how these drugs actually work, and there's even less understanding about their long term effects on adults. For children the knowledge is even less thorough.

There's a handful of studies that have been carried out on these drugs for more than 6 weeks in adults, and I don't believe there's ever been one carried out long term in children. The fact is that almost EVERYONE takes these drugs for more than 6 weeks, so there's very little knowledge about how these drugs actually work long term. There is also plenty of evidence that these drugs are no more effective for treating their make believe "diagnoses" than a placebo pill.

There's literally studies that have been carried out which demonstrate that placebo and antidepressants or ADHD meds are equally effective over the longer term. In some studies, patients actually do BETTER for more than 6 weeks on the placebo and those on the drugs do considerably worse. This also holds true for benzodiazepines, and antipsychotic medications as well.

A pulitzer prize finalist (male author) has published two very informative and scientifically based books on the subject of psychiatry and psychiatric medications. He's not a scientologist, just a concerned journalist.

Here's the links for those who are interested:

https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing/dp/0307452425/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527721857&sr=8-1&keywords=anatomy+of+an+epidemic

https://www.amazon.com/Mad-America-Medicine-Enduring-Mistreatment/dp/0465020143/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527721886&sr=1-2-fkmr1&keywords=made+in+america+robert+whitaker

TLDR: All pysch meds are poorly understood in adults, and very few if any studies have ever been conducted in children. In adults, psych meds can cause severe withdrawal reactions, nerve damage, and permanent sexual dysfunction in both men and women. There's considerable documentation that placebo pills are more effective than psych meds for treating the "diagnosed condition". Robert Whitaker's two books are excellent, easy to read documents that can explain far more than I can on a reddit post.

What comes to mind is The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs.

From the Amazon page,
>The most important issue in a gay man’s life is not “coming out,” but coming to terms with the invalidating past. Despite the progress made in recent years, many gay men still wonder, “Are we better off?” The byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, rejection, and anger—a toxic cocktail that can lead to drug abuse, promiscuity, alcoholism, depression, and suicide. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, the author’s own journey, and the stories of many of his friends and clients, Velvet Rage addresses the myth of gay pride and outlines three stages to emotional well-being for gay men. The revised and expanded edition covers issues related to gay marriage, a broader range of examples that extend beyond middle-class gay men in America, and expansion of the original discussion on living authentically as a gay man.

Take it with a grain of salt, of course, as it may be a little dated and it does not dissect every personality trait and life situation, but I think it has some conversational value.

> It’s possible that higher-income people are more able to conceal and mitigate their hoarding, by having multiple homes and storage units.


Came here to say this.

In the book Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, Randy Frost talks about his attempt to treat a wealthy hoarder who had filled his townhome with priceless art. Other known wealthy hoarders include Ida Mayfield Wood, Bennita Grossman, andKevin McCrary.

Wealthier hoarders have an easier time hiding their disorder for a few reasons. As /u/emeraldcat8 states, wealthy people can conceal their hoarding with multiple homes and storage locations. They're also more likely to be perceived as merely "eccentric", due to cultural bias that favor the wealthy.

Fear is an incredibly powerful tool for negativity. It's really ridiculous how "scared" our society is of everything.

This book is actually really really good about it.

https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities-Microbes/dp/0465003362/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537480072&sr=8-1&keywords=fear+book+why+americans

A good book on this (at least that Ive read) is Mad in America by Robert Whitaker. The entire field is built on a house of cards

I'm trying desperately to find a post on /r/anthropology debunking this completely. It sites the range of people who are raped, how they are raped, how much force is used, and all sorts of things and essentially says that the notion that it's not about sex is absurd, and that myth is repeated not because it's true, but because that's what supposedly helps rape victims. I'll continue to try and look for it.

A woman who's a good friend of mine was raped and she let the guy go, and I wasn't there to help her until too long after, so this post resonates with me and my fury about what happened.

Edit: Found it. It took me so long because it was deleted.

Everything below is from this post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Anthropology/comments/mbvsg/the_rapeisnotaboutsex_doctrine_will_go_down_in/


----



Wikipedia:

> Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author. He is a Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.

----

Excerpts from chapter 18 of "The Blank Slate" (PDF):

> When the biologist Randy Thornhill and the anthropologist Craig Palmer published A Natural History of Rape in 2000, they threatened a consensus that had held firm in intellectual life for a quarter of a century, and they brought down more condemnation on evolutionary psychology than any issue had in years. Rape is a painful issue to write about, but also an unavoidable one. Nowhere else in modern intellectual life is the denial of human nature more passionately insisted upon, and nowhere else is the alternative more deeply misunderstood. Clarifying these issues, I believe, would go a long way toward reconciling three ideals that have needlessly been put into conflict: women's rights, a biologically informed understanding of human nature, and common sense.

> The horror of rape gives it a special gravity in our understanding of the psychology of men and women. There is an overriding moral imperative in the study of rape: to reduce its occurrence. Any scientist who illuminates the causes of rape deserves our admiration, like a medical researcher who illuminates the cause of a disease, because understanding an affliction is the first step toward eliminating it. And since no one acquires the truth by divine revelation, we must also respect those who explore theories that may turn out to be incorrect. Moral criticism would seem to be in order only for those who would enforce dogmas, ignore evidence, or shut down research, because they would be protecting their reputations at the expense of victims of rapes that might not have occurred if we understood the phenomenon better.

...

> Brownmiller's theory went well beyond the moral principle that women have a right not to be sexually assaulted. It said that rape had nothing to do with an individual man's desire for sex but was a tactic by which the entire male gender oppressed the entire female gender. In her famous words:

> Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times, along with the use of fire and the first crude stone axe. From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function ... it is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.

> This grew into the modern catechism: rape is not about sex, our culture socializes men to rape, it glorifies violence against women. The analysis comes right out of the gender-feminist theory of human nature: people are blank slates (who must be trained or socialized to want things); the only significant human motive is power (so sexual desire is irrelevant); and all motives and interests must be located in groups (such as the male sex and the female sex) rather than in individual people.

> The Brownmiller theory is appealing even to people who are not gender feminists because of the doctrine of the Noble Savage. Since the 1960s most educated people have come to believe that sex should be thought of as natural, not shameful or dirty. Sex is good because sex is natural and natural things are good. But rape is bad; therefore, rape is not about sex. The motive to rape must come from social institutions, not from anything in human nature.

> The violence-not-sex slogan is right about two things. Both parts are absolutely true for the victim: a woman who is raped experiences it as a violent assault, not as a sexual act. And the part about violence is true for the perpetrator by definition: if there is no violence or coercion, we do not call it rape. But the fact that rape has something to do with violence does not mean it has nothing to do with sex, any more than the fact that armed robbery has something to do with violence means it has nothing to do with greed. Evil men may use violence to get sex, just as they use violence to get other things they want.

> I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on the face of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out.

...

> there is an impressive body of evidence (reviewed more thoroughly by the legal scholar Owen Jones than by Thornhill and Palmer) that the motives for rape overlap with the motives for sex:

> Coerced copulation is widespread among species in the animal kingdom, suggesting that it is not selected against and may sometimes be selected for. It is found in many species of insects, birds, and mammals, including our relatives the orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Rape is found in all human societies.

> Rapists generally apply as much force as is needed to coerce the victim into sex. They rarely inflict a serious or fatal injury, which would preclude conception and birth. Only 4 percent of rape victims sustain serious injuries, and fewer than one in five hundred is murdered.

> Victims of rape are mostly in the peak reproductive years for women, between thirteen and thirty-five, with a mean in most data sets of twenty-four. Though many rape victims are classified as children (under the age of sixteen), most of these are adolescents, with a median age of fourteen. The age distribution is very different from that of victims of other violent crimes, and is the opposite of what would happen if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability or by their likelihood of holding positions of power.
Victims of rape are more traumatized when the rape can result in a conception. It is most psychologically painful for women in their fertile years, and for victims of forced intercourse as opposed to other forms of rape.

> Rapists are not demographically representative of the male gender. They are overwhelmingly young men, the age of the most intense sexual competitiveness. The young males who allegedly have been socialized to rape mysteriously lose that socialization as they get older.

> Though most rapes do not result in conception, many do. About 5 percent of rape victims of reproductive age become pregnant, resulting in more than 32,000 rape-related pregnancies in the United States each year. (That is why abortion in the case of rape is a significant issue.) The proportion would have been even higher in prehistory, when women did not use long-term contraception." Brownmiller wrote that biological theories of rape are fanciful because in terms of reproductive strategy, the hit or miss ejaculations of a single-strike rapist are a form of Russian roulette compared to ongoing consensual mating. " But ongoing consensual mating is not an option for every male, and dispositions that resulted in hit-or-miss sex could be evolutionarily more successful than dispositions that resulted in no sex at all. Natural selection can operate effectively with small reproductive advantages, as little as 1 percent.

> The payoff for a reality-based understanding of rape is the hope of reducing or eliminating it. Given the theories on the table, the possible sites for levers of influence include violence, sexist attitudes, and sexual desire.

-----

Thoughts?

-----

"The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" on Amazon

Thank you ☺️

And absolutely! I bought this book:
Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive... https://www.amazon.com/dp/1623157803?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

I actually think I found it through someone else on this sub. It breaks down CBT in a way that allows you to “be your own therapist.” It guides you through 7 weeks the same way a therapist would: how does anxiety/depression affect X area of your life, what are your values, what are your goals for the next 7 weeks across all areas of life, track your activities/their importance/your enjoyment level, etc.

I’m only on week 2, but already I can see a difference in how I react to my anxious thoughts. At first I didn’t think the book would be right for me. A lot of the examples given are simplistic, more geared toward people with specific phobias, not GAD/panic disorder, etc. but once I got deeper into it I realized that it’s actually a great place to be honest with yourself and confront your anxiety in a non-intimidating way.

I would definitely recommend it!

You just reminded me of something else -- I bet her doctor training had mostly trained her to pay attention / make eye contact in an evaluative way? Skipping over a popscience explanation that is probably half-right anyway, evaluative attention is kind of off-putting and can preclude connection (and I assume attunement?). Supposedly there are physical differences in the physiological cues we give when we're paying attention to evaluate something (to understand it or assess it for threat or whatever) than when we are paying attention with open curiosity, and we pick up on stuff like that.

Ok yeah let me put together a book list (that last stuff was from The Charisma Myth)...

HELPFUL BOOKS (sorry for formatting, I'm on mobile)

• the aforementioned The Charisma Myth, but only after having read the books below
  
  
• Healing Developmental Trauma (Heller, and someone else)
  https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Developmental-Trauma-Self-Regulation-Relationship/dp/1583944893
  
  
• The Narcissistic Family (to see how you might miss out on developmentally necessary stuff even without memories of trauma etc)
  https://www.amazon.com/Narcissistic-Family-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0787908703
  
  
• Waking The Tiger (Peter Levine) (dumb title, legit book; he's worked with bessel van der kill to change how we view PTSD)
  https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Tiger-Healing-Peter-Levine/dp/155643233X
  
  
• Brene Brown's books on vulnerability and resilience
  
  This is a good start, but there are more out there.
  

(continued)

>Are there any areas where you feel CBT or Hypnotherapy have significantly added to or expanded the ideas and techniques of Stoicism?

Yes. This is such a vast issue that it would take a very long time to answer this question properly, so I'll try to just make some brief comments. Modern psychological therapies are diverse and continually expanding, there are hundreds of books on CBT alone, so that in itself means there's always more and more scope for new comparisons with Stoicism. The Philosophy of CBT describes many points of comparisons between Stoicism and CBT, REBT, and hypnotherapy. In all of those areas, modern approaches and Stoicism offer different but perhaps complementary perspectives, and practical techniques. CBT practitioners certainly don't just "do Stoicism" with their clients, they use a vast array of different concepts and strategies, most of which would be of interest to Stoics. One difference is that CBT tends to focus on clinically-severe problems, diagnosable mental health disorders, which naturally leads to a different emphasis from ancient Stoicism. However, there's now more interest in applying CBT to "resilience-building", improving the overall wellbeing and resistance to stress of the normal population, and that's an area where the aims coincide more closely with the focus on traditional Stoicism. Stoicism has a fairly limited repertoire of practical techniques, which modern therapy has vastly expanded. We also have a fairly incomplete picture of Stoicism, unfortunately - only a tiny fraction of the ancient Stoic literature has survived. There was obviously a lot more to Stoicism than we know about. Chrysippus was one of the most prolific authors in the ancient world and yet virtually nothing of his remains. We could draw a huge list of CBT techniques that would be relevant to Stoicism but it would take time to explain them all. You probably want one or two examples, though, so here goes:

• Imaginal exposure. The discussion of premeditatio malorum ("negative visualization") by William Irvine and others seems very simplistic to a modern therapist and very lacking in terms of links to current research on similar techniques. The most robust finding in the field of psychotherapy, in this regard, is that anxiety (and sometimes other feelings) tend to "habituate" or naturally wear off during repeated, prolonged, systematic exposure to the stimulus (when certain factors are controlled). Clearly, if the Stoics repeatedly visualized misfortune one of the things modern psychology tells us is that their level of anxiety will tend to naturally abate, whether or not they directly attempt to challenge their thinking - and in some cases too much verbal rumination might actually prevent the natural process of habituation from happening. So most anxiety specialists would probably advise Stoics to learn a bit more about that process in order to engage in premeditatio malorum, and that the procedure should probably be prolonged beyond the point at which most people would normally stop, i.e., for about 15-30 minutes per sitting, or until anxiety has reduced by at least 50%, in order for lasting habituation to occur.
  
  
• Worry/rumination. In recent years there's been growing interest in the notion that traditional CBT may have placed too much emphasis on disputing the content of negative thoughts and not enough on managing the whole process of thinking, particularly learning to stop and interrupt prolonged episodes of worry (chains of thoughts about future catastrophes) or rumination (chains of thoughts analyzing past events). I'm sure the ancient Stoics make many passing comments that suggest they were "against" disputation or self-analysis being allowed to turn into prolonged worry/rumination. However, they don't give very clear and explicit advice on spotting and interrupting chains of thinking, which is perhaps a particular problem, an "occupational hazard", for philosophers! Again, tricky to be concise here, but learning to spot typical early-warning signs of worry/rumination spirals and then practicing postponing further thinking until a pre-specified time of your choosing is a common behavioural strategy (called the "stimulus control" method) for managing worry/rumination - although there are now many other methods being used for these issues.
  
  
• Learning to gain "psychological distance" (or "defusion") from thoughts rather than engaging in disputation of them seems particularly important in this area, something hinted at in the Handbook of Epictetus but not often brought up in discussions of Stoicism because it's a concept most philosophical commentators don't seem to be familiar with, although it's very important in modern CBT and behaviour therapy. Epictetus appears to say that the Stoic should spot disturbing thoughts and remind himself that they are mere appearances before attempting to dispute them. There's now some evidence to suggest that "cognitive distancing" (or "defusion") may be more powerful than previously assumed and perhaps more important in many instances than trying to question the evidence for thoughts or beliefs. There are lots of studies in this area now and we're learning more all the time about the factors that are relevant and the value of different techniques of distancing thoughts from reality.
  
  > What, if any, practices of Stoic life do you feel should be added to the general practice of CBT, to enhance its effectiveness?
  
  Good question. I'd have to start by explicitly saying that this is speculative and that I wouldn't recommend introducing treatment components to CBT in clinical practice until they've been tested. (Although, incorporating some Stoicism might often just mean making the sort of slight "tweaks" to established techniques, which nobody would think it's necessary to run a clinical trial before doing.) Some suggestions?
  
  
• Values clarification is absolutely integral to Stoicism, i.e., contemplating the nature of the good and acting with virtue. This wasn't really part of CBT, although something similar is now very central to Positive Psychology and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which both evolve out of CBT. Being clear about what you value most in life and trying to act more often in the service of your values (or the virtues) is something that seems to mitigate against and depression and possibly generalized anxiety. It seems to me that expanding this aspect of CBT raises some of the best opportunities for explicit dialogue with philosophers, particularly Stoics. (See my book Build your Resilience for a detailed discussion of values work in behaviour therapy, with links to Stoicism.)
  
  
• Distinguishing between things under your control and things not, which I would call "control appraisal". Obviously that's fundamental to Stoicism; Shaftesbury even calls it the "sovereign" precept of Stoicism. There are traces of it in CBT, especially in a recent protocol (Dugas' method) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) but we could probably develop that concept and techniques derived from it much further in certain forms of CBT.
  
  
• The "view from above", as Hadot calls it, isn't a common strategy in Stoicism. It's not clear how it would function in terms of CBT theory but it's a very popular meditation and I think it deserves to be studied more systematically. It can be done simply by listening to recording, which is "gold dust" in therapy because it makes it extremely easy for clients to do it for ten minutes or so each day, with minimal training or preparation. (It also makes it much easier to do research on a technique if it can be administered with a standard recording: there's a complete script for this at the back of The Philosophy of CBT.) I've used this technique with hundreds of people over the years and almost everyone reports a sense of serenity that comes from it, and a shift in perspective. Technically, it may contribute to "cognitive distancing" but we need to be careful it's not misused as a form of "experiential avoidance", or a way to avoid confronting unpleasant thoughts and feelings.
  
  Moreover, there are lots of aspects of Stoicism beyond "technique" that add something of value, as I tried to emphasize in the introduction to Philosophy of CBT. The beautiful literature, the broad philosophical perspective, the sense of community with fellow Stoics - are all important things we don't really get from CBT.
  
  (continued)

Everyone experiences the things you are describing some of the time. However, it sounds like you experience all of these things a lot, and it also seems like these experiences are getting in your way at times. When your everyday experiences are interfering with your day-to-day life, it is a great idea to see a specialist. You can start with your regular doctor, or you can go to a psychologist or psychiatrist. If neuropsychological testing is indicated, your doctor or psychologist will refer you if needed.

It's not a good idea to speculate about diagnosis via the internet. But it is perhaps worth mentioning that you spontaneously self-described many of the symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. It may make sense to bring up this possibility with your doctor or psychologist.

If you are looking for more information, you might try:

• Children and Adults with ADHD, or CHADD
  
• Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley
  
• More Attention, Less Deficit by Ari Tuckman
  
  Good luck! If you need more books or websites, let me know and I'll do my best to direct you to good resources.

A General Theory of Love is a reasonable, readable place to start.
Or anything by Oliver Sacks (Dr. Sacks was a neurologist and one of my favorite writers).


"Psychology" is a gargantuan subject with myriad options. Is there an area you are interested in?

Barry Glassner's The Culture of Fear has a good discussion of why those drops aren't discussed.

To (over?)simplify his work: People who are afraid of what might happen to them when they're outside are much more likely to stay home and watch TV, which is where all the product advertisements are.

If you've never read Obedience to Authority, you really should make time for it. The book details the years of research that unpacked the many nuances of the power of authority, things like its power relative to proximity, gender differences, obedience and empathy, the influence of cooperative or non-cooperative peers, any so much more. One of the most important psychology books I read in graduate school.

There's a great book about how boys are raised this way, to be "emotionally illiterate." It's marketed as a parenting book but has been SO interesting to me in analyzing the adult men in my life as well. Highly recommend for anyone who loves/lives with/interacts with men!

https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Cain-Protecting-Emotional-Life/dp/0345434854

The Velvet Rage- Alan Downs
https://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Growing-Straight/dp/1611746450

I Am Not Myself These Days-Josh Kilmer-Purcell
https://www.amazon.com/Am-Not-Myself-These-Days/dp/0060817321/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509556002&sr=8-1&keywords=i+am+not+myself+these+days

Here's the thing, (and yes it's shitty but you sound like you don't appreciate sugar coating things, so I'm giving you this straight) PTSD is an anxiety disorder. If your trauma was prolonged or when you were developing, then your brain physically changed to protect you from trauma.

This article details the physical changes to the brain [Trigger Warning for generalized traumatic events].

If you have a disorder, you'll have symptoms. If you have PTSD, your symptoms will get worse when you're triggered (like in therapy), but your symptoms could also get worse at any time.

>PTSD symptoms usually begin within three months of a traumatic event. Sometimes, however, reaction can be delayed, sometimes for years. Symptoms can come and go and are often more likely to occur during times of stress in your life, or if something happens in your daily life to trigger a memory of the traumatic event.

Yes, therapy will aggravate your symptoms, especially at first, but therapy will also give you a dependable structure to figure out how to improve your symptoms (i.e. meds, coping strategies, ect). To use the broken arm analogy: Your arm is already broken (PTSD), which sucks, but you CAN control where you broke it. Breaking it in the hospital or close to the hospital (therapy) or breaking it while backpacking in the wilderness (random triggers).


Here's a few things I think everyone who starts recovery should know so that they can have realistic expectations:

1. Recovery is intense emotionally AND physically. Don't underestimate how much energy anxiety and stress uses. Everyone can get bitchy when they're stressed, so make sure you give yourself more time to relax and rest.
   
   
2. It will take years. You aren't just learning something new. You have to unlearn what you've been doing before now as well. And then you have to practice until it becomes just another habit.
   
   
3. Therapy and medicine costs add up. You'll benefit from a healthcare plan that covers both. Inconsistency with either will make recovery and your symptoms much more difficult.
   
   
4. You can't do this alone. You need compassionate, supportive and PTSD-educated people more than ever during recovery. Group therapy helps with this. Also, communication with your fiance is more important now than it was before. You're going through some rough stuff right now and you're going to change, so don't expect yourself to be exactly how you were pre-recovery.
   
   
5. It gets worse before it gets better. This is what you're experiencing now, but it is impossible for it to not improve with medicine, therapy and support.
   
   
6. Recovery isn't linear. Sometimes your symptoms will get worse randomly or you will struggle or even give up for a while. Ever since your trauma happened you've been coping in your own way. Its okay to say fuck it for a bit if that's what you need. You're human. That means both joy and grief, pain and euphoria, peace and turmoil.
   
   
7. Its your life and your recovery. Every single person with PTSD has different symptoms and experiences and will have their own version of recovery. Take initiative and build a way of living that you can be proud of. As long as you don't endanger yourself or others, you don't ever have to go to therapy again if that's what you want.
   
   
   On that note, here are my own suggestions based on what's worked for me:
   
   
8. Have a goal to motivate you. I got by without therapy until I started college. That's when it really hit me that I either needed help ASAP or would have to drop out (My therapist tells me that she's surprised I managed to graduate high school - all things considered). I didn't even know I had C-PTSD at the time, just thought I had ADHD and a bad work ethic. So now if I get discouraged or things get hard, I just think about why I decided to start recovery in the first place AKA college (since then I've found many more reasons). If you don't want to be in therapy, going anyway will make the whole experience even more miserable.
   
   
9. Find a therapist you trust who specializes in trauma/PTSD that you can meet one on one with. Group therapy is great, but you need more time/attention than only doing group therapy can give you. I've had two therapists before the one I have now and they weren't good fits. I needed someone really calm, but not afraid to call me out on my bs if necessary.
   
   
10. Get some meds. Right now you're in pain, which is important and normal. Anyone who has been through what you have would be feeling just as much pain. That's the beauty of modern medicine: just because you're in pain doesn't mean you need to suffer. After I started working on my C-PTSD in therapy, my symptoms got so bad that I could barely function. I feel better on my meds now than I ever had, even before therapy (but I grew up thinking that suffering and extreme emotional pain were normal - nothing to complain about - so they may not be as dramatic for you). They'll help you feel stable.
    
    
    I'll leave you with a quote, hopefully it speaks to you in some way: "You aren't broken in need of fixing, you're deeply hurt in need of care." - Arielle Schwartz
    
    (edit: formatting)

Here’s the book.

The Complex PTSD Workbook: A Mind-Body Approach to Regaining Emotional Control and Becoming Whole https://www.amazon.com/dp/1623158249/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_bbsODbX5TM4N2

>Combatting depression

Quoting a recent comment of mine:

>You might want to look into cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), if that isn't what you already did.

>Recommended books:
The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and
Unshakeable Freedom.

>Also: Recommended Post.

 
>Philosophy and Stoicism

Apart from the Enchiridion and the Meditations, the primary reading list includes letters and essays from Seneca as well as Cicero or the fragments from Musonius Rufus. Modern books include How to be a Stoic, A guide to the good life and Stoicism and the art of happiness. The FAQ has a nice list which is worth checking out.

>Books about changing the way you think (false thoughts vs. truths)

This might not be Stoic, but you might be interested in Thinking fast and slow.

>Identity

Might not be exactly what you were looking for, but reading The mind illuminated and implementing meditation as a practice, changed the way I think about myself and my thoughts on a daily basis.

>The ego

A favourite of mine is the eight page-long article by urbanmonk.

A good starting point for thought provoking and self-help books is the sub /r/BettermentBookClub. If you search for thought provoking articles, /r/Foodforthought or /r/philosophy is the way to go.

Body issues affect men loads more than anyone cares to discuss and gay men are hit particularity hard. For example, "straight-guy thin" is "gay fat". Guys of all ages tear themselves apart and other gay men are happy to help. In an ever-more image focused culture, it is a struggle to not fall into this trap of trying to live up to everyone else's highlight reel when you're living your b-roll.

I struggled with being a chubby kid forever. I was called 'fatty-faggot' my entire childhood. I am a normal weight now at 29 but my self-image has never caught up. When I am stressed or upset, I feel like that chubby little boy who just wants to hide. That said, what helped me was working on myself inside and out and setting incremental goals rather than grand, long-term goals. Easier said than done, but here is what I did.

The first thing I did was clean up my diet and portion sizes. That is 80% of the battle on the weight front. Figure out your TDE for calories, eat a deficit, lose weight. It really is that simple. I track using the app MyFitnessPal. You can eat anything but a a balanced diet of protein, fat and carbs with minimally processed foods will keep you from feeling hungry and give you steady energy. I always pack my lunch for work and if I forget, I keep Soylent at my desk so I don't eat out. When I can, I research where I'll be eating out so I know what I want to order and don't get tempted by things that'll blow up my daily intake. I know what is not-awful at fast-food joints. I drink but track the cals. And sometimes, I say fuck it and eat a big fat meal...but eating excessively has to be the exception, NOT A RULE. What helps me is not seeing every meal as a pleasure cruise but as me just refueling to do my work and live my life.

Drastic diets do not work. It'll take some trial and error but you will find out a lifestyle of eating that suites you. Remember, this is a long game of changing your habits and your relationship with food. It does not matter what you eat between Thanksgiving and Christmas but rather that you eat between New Years ans Thanksgiving.

I committed to a 'no zero days' approach to exercise. Everyday, I do something for 30 mins that gets me off my ass. Even if my day is crazy, I walk my pups for 30 mins. I use my Apple Watch to track. Often, I eat my lunch at my desk while I work and use my lunch hour to get moving. You don't have to spend 3 hours a day in the gym to build exercise in. If you wanna give your cleaned up diet a boost, this is how you do it.

Finally, learn to start loving yourself being more mindful about how you consider yourself. To this day, I have an automatic negative self-image and when I catch myself being hard on myself, I ask "Well, what have I done today or ever to make this better?" or "who says I need to be this way or look this way?" You can motivate yourself and still be gentle with you. Read some self-help books and if you feel you need it, consider therapy. There is no shame in asking for help.

These helped me shift my thinking:

https://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Growing-Straight/dp/1611746450

https://www.amazon.com/Daring-Greatly-Courage-Vulnerable-Transforms/dp/1592408419

I hope this helps buddy.

The Stoics believed that it is not things that disturb us, but our judgements about those things. In particular, our judgements over whether or not things are good or bad/evil. So, it is your belief that your wife's death is a bad thing that causes distress, not the death itself.

A central element in Stoicism is that only arete (virtue/excellece of personal character) is good, and only departures from it bad. Although it is natural to prefer some external events over others, they are all morally indifferent.

Knowledge of good and bad is more like knowledge of a skill than a set of facts. If you've ever learned to play music, you know that learning a piece is more than just conscious knowledge of what the notes should be. So too with judging of good and bad.

Does this seems heartless? Well, yes. But remember, whether or not you completely believe the central Stoic claim, most of us never expect to completely learn the Stoic skill of judging good and evil, and exercises designed to teach this skill can move us in a beneficial direction. (Edit 2: Also remember that even Sages have "feelings" that are not due to judgements, and although a Sage will not allow the feeling to confirmed by judgement, it can still be present; see the referenced section of the FAQ below.)

Note that some of the modern psychotherepy technique CBT is based on a softened version of this Stoic assertion. (See Robertson's The Philosophy of CBT.)

EDIT: See also this question in the FAQ.

Human action and behavior (aka human nature) CHANGES based on the form of socially authoritative system they find themselves bound to. To learn about the varying features of human nature, I highly recommend reading Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram.

> I've heard it described as boys being handled like they are defective girls.

Yep.

> “Girl behavior is the gold standard in schools,” says psychologist Michael Thompson. “Boys are treated like defective girls.”

http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/28/what-schools-can-do-to-help-boys-succeed/

I found the book Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things to cover the psychological roots of hoarding more than the others. Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding is more of a workbook for groups to go through. I haven't seen Treatment for Hoarding Disorder: Workbook (Treatments That Work) yet and am surprised I hadn't heard of it.

Here is the OCD Foundation's main page for hoarding They have support groups listed somewhere on the site. Clutterers Anonymous also has good literature. We use things from both groups at our meetings. CLA has online and phone meetings IIRC.

We like Cindy Glovinsky's books a lot too. She has a good sense of humor. One Thing At a Time: 100 Simple Ways to Live Clutter-Free Every Day is short sections of tips and how tos for overcoming the issues. I also really like her Making Peace with the Things in Your Life: Why Your Papers, Books, Clothes, and Other Possessions Keep Overwhelming You and What to Do About It.

I haven't spent much time on the hoarding subreddits. One of them tended to be more people asking for help dealing with their hoarding relative. The other was geared more for the hoarders. IIRC, one is r/hoarders and the other is r/hoarding. There's probably more.

While I haven't dealt with this myself, after watching Hoarders, I became interested in the subject and researched it a bit.

I came across this website and this book. I admit I haven't read it yet, but the authors, Gail Steketee and Randy Frost, have great credentials.

What you must know is that your father cannot change on his own. He needs psychotherapy. Also, you and your brother need to go to counseling to undo the psychological damage done by your parents.

Also, as others have pointed out, you have to move out, regardless of whether your folks sell the house or not, because even if the deed and mortgage were in your fathers name, the house would still have to be cleared and fixed so prospective buyers could see it. But, why are you waiting for the house to be sold? What relevance does your dad's house have to you moving out?

Get a job, just any job and rent a one-bedroom apartment. Or find a two bedroom apartment and take your brother with you. And keep on applying to colleges. You have to do this, because you deserve a clean and healthy place to live in. A place to call a home, a place where you can feel relaxed and where you can invite friends. You deserve it and so does your brother. And you have the power to make it happen. You don't have to wait for your parents to do anything. You can do it on your own right now.

How about instead of:
>I aim to live somewhere that is clean, in good condition, where I can find everything and not trip over stuff, and looks like a house rather than a storage unit.

You would say:
> I will live somewhere that is clean, in good condition, where I can find everything and not trip over stuff, and looks like a house rather than a storage unit, and I will do it by september.

Make a plan and stick by it. And once you are out of the house you will also be able to help your father. Psychotherapy really works if he also agrees to go through it.

I think that you will have more strength in confronting your father, more energy, both physically and mentally to do so if you move out first. You said it yourself that the house is a drain on your health (due to allergy and asthma) and on your mind (because it is depressing).

Take care of yourself first and then you will be able to take care of others.

All this being said, a big internet hug and I really hope to see a positive update in a few months.

I also suffer from mental illness, which I believe the bigotry of my upbringing contributed. I don't blame my sexuality, I blame a heteronormative society. The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs, PhD is an excellent narrative on "overcoming the pain of growing up in a straight man's world." It was recommended by one my therapists. Reading this book was cathartic experience and revealed the shared experience of my own struggle. It was very helpful in starting my journey of overcoming anger and shame.

Answers to these questions can be found (generally) in this excellent book which I've read and enjoyed greatly. Be careful though, introspection can be painful.

Þeim mun meira sem fólk veit það gerði eitthvað heimskulegt, þeim mun meira reynir það að verja það. Þetta virðist vera harðvírað í hausinn á okkur og hefur sennilega á einhverjum tímapunkti gefið okkur náttúruvalsforskot. Bók.

Hey já, það er hvorki venja í íslensku að tala um "pírata", né um "partý" í þeim skilningi sem hér er átt við. Þetta á eflaust að vera fyndið grín en hljómar bara kjánalega.

Lots of good advice here already. I'd recommend reading Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. As a parent myself, it really helped me understand some of the root causes for behavioral issues in boys. Maybe you'll find it helpful as well.

I read a (dated) book for my class that highlights this problem. If anyone's interested - Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. It's really an eye-opener.

The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World, Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738215678/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_XN41BbPSAYHHD

Not sure if this link will work when I post this. I’m new to Reddit. You need to read this book. The author Alan Downs, a psychologist, who is also gay, talks a lot about validation and where we seek validation. I could tell you what I think, but I’d rather you read the book and discover it for yourself.

Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change by Miller and Rollnick. Motivational interviewing is relevant to pretty much any sort of problem, and is pretty much the only effective way to engage a client who comes to therapy under duress.

The best exploration thus far that I've found of why we've developed many of our unique social patterns/traits can be found in "The Velvet Rage".

It's a really good book that IMO every gay man should read for many reasons beyond the question in this thread. Granted, some of the patterns highlighted in the book have since receded, but the book is incredibly insightful even in 2017. Similarly, an even older book "The Best Little Boy in the World", may be interesting to check out too.

Basically the author would argue this sort of behaviour stems from the experiences many of us have growing up, while learning how to come to terms with our sexualities. We're often subjected to a different experience than other boys. We're often taught to be ashamed of ourselves, even if it was never intentional on the part of those around us.

To compensate, many of us learn to behave in ways that constantly bring us affirmation despite a nagging feeling that we are somehow undeserving of affection. For some, this takes the form of becoming hyper-masculine, being homophobic, being a straight A student, going to the gym, etc. For others this may take the form of becoming more feminine, more sassy, more sensitive, more creative, or more caring. It may depend substantially on the people around them during those times. Due to the different experience of being gay, young gay boys may find different routes of attaining affirmation than their straight peers (e.g., by hanging around with girls who may be more likely to accept them — or at least less likely to remind them that other boys are different). The idea is the same for both "masc" and "femme" gays though: do something to set oneself apart as exceptional in order to collect affirmation and avoid feeling uncomfortable with oneself.

Later into life, even after coming out of the closet and been "out" for years, this can evolve into acting outrageously (or, alternatively, it can evolve into a facade of "masc"/"not a bitchy queen"/"non-scene"/"straight acting"). The author argues this is a way of compensating for lingering shame, and protecting oneself from getting hurt, even after being out for years or decades — and it can lead to all sorts of harmful problems in ones life like relationship problems, depression, etc.

To be honest, I'm only part way through the book, but I'm assuming that probably after that the author will get into a later stage where people can let go of the need to constantly prove to themselves that they are loveable.

I should say that I honestly doubt the author is suggesting that guys who use the term "girl" are always doing so out of shame. I think the central thesis is more that these types of behaviours, which set us apart from other men, are often shaped by those early experiences of feeling "different" and seeking affirmation to avoid dealing with shame. So in some of us, those behaviours may begin there. After that it's more like a part of our history and development as a person, and may be something we continue even after letting go of shame.

Those last two paragraphs are extrapolation, so YMMV.

So in the case of your neighbour, maybe they grew up in an environment that made them feel different. Maybe it caused them to feel ashamed. Maybe their father became distant after noticing something was "not normal". Maybe they found affirmation from girls in their lives, who told them they also found men attractive — or by a female adult in their lives who helped them feel better about themselves.

Or maybe after coming out of the closet, they lost many friends. Maybe they found comfort and acceptance by playing the role of "gay best friend". Maybe that's how they survived high school. Maybe they found that by embracing the unexpected — by poking fun at gender in a tongue and cheek manner — they could garner affection and admiration from their peers. Or, maybe they found that it helped them filter out homophobic acquaintances before they could get close enough to do more damage than a stranger could.

And maybe they've also come to terms with it. Maybe now it's simply become a part of who they are — something they say to acknowledge where they've been. Something they say to let other gay men know "girl[, I've been there too]". Even if other gay men have handled their shame differently (e.g., by being the best at sports or lowering their voice to seem more "masc"), perhaps there are commonalities among the experience that this person acknowledges with "girl".

Of course, it's pretty much impossible to know just how this particular person came to use the word in the way that they do. I don't think that's really the point though. The word signals "hey, me too", which, if we're being honest, is something I don't think most of us heard enough of growing up.

Now that you're aware you experience a high level of trauma as a child, I hope you can begin to fully heal. There's a complex-PTSD workbook that I've been working through on my own path to healing. Maybe it might help you too? Best of luck on your journey!

>but I know that my underlying feelings about myself have not changed and I keep falling into the same bad ruts as a result


I know how you feel. I've been there. Here's my thoughts on what you described and how I got better :

1. Change doctors, change therapists, change medication, change approaches, anything, just get out of there. Two years of treatement with only minor benefits is a definitive red flag. Whatever those specialists are doing, no matter how good or well-intentioned it is, it's obviously not appropriate for your condition. Feeling improvement should not take two years. Also, the shema therapy is a very intellectual approach that's not for everyone. Maybe try a more patient-centered approach so your feelings are allowed to get out unfiltered. The schematic approach failed me consistently. The humanist approach saved me.
   
   
   
2. Stop trying to figure out how your family became who they are and why they treated you the way they did. The longer you do that, the more you play into the narcissistic game : you spend time and energy on other people instead of yourself. At one point, you have to give up on others and focus on figuring out yourself. When you're feeling unhappy or troubled, it's not your job to understand other people. It's your job to focus on yourself. Use what little energy reserves you have to heal yourself.
   
   
   
3. From what you describe, you totally fit into being the child of narcissist parents. Not trusting people, not trusting gifts, the impression of being "too broken" for anyone to love are things that come up often. These are normal feelings to have after being subject to so much abuse and having your feelings so neglected. Here's a book I recommend : http://www.amazon.ca/The-Narcissistic-Family-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0787908703
   
   
   
4. "I can't teach my brain to treat myself with love and respect because in my heart, I don't believe that I am deserving of love or respect." YES YOU CAN teach your brain that. It's difficult, but it's possible. The brain is a muscle. Just like every other muscle in your body, it was shaped through repetition. All your life you were probably told you were worthless, so your brain lifted that low self-esteem weight a million times. It's now a world champion in horrible weight-lifting. It's now all reflex actions. Others = bad. Others = pain. Me = unloveable. But it IS possible to calm that muscle down (medication) and teach it new gym routines (therapy). Such as others = good and gifts = love. It's a very long road, but it is possible.
   
   
   
5. "I am wary of letting anyone be "that person" in my life because other people are unpredictable and they will hurt me eventually" Of course, shutting yourself down prevents bad stuff to happen to you. But at the same time you prevent the good stuff from getting in. And you need that good stuff to heal.
   
   
   
6. Give yourself time. We ACoNs start with a huge life handicap. We started "late". We were held back against our will. We didn't have the same support growing up so it's normal that we struggle in adult life. Don't try to burn through lost time to "catch up". Go at your own pace. There is nothing in life that says you must have this career and have slept with that amount of people to finally be at the same level of success of other, non-abused people.

https://www.amazon.com/Motivational-Interviewing-Helping-People-Applications/dp/1609182278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497318185&sr=8-1&keywords=motivational+interviewing

That's one of my favorite resources for MI. For CBT, this is the best:

http://file.zums.ac.ir/ebook/082-Cognitive%20Behavior%20Therapy,%20Second%20Edition%20-%20Basics%20and%20Beyond-Judith%20S.%20Beck%20Phd%20Aaron%20T.%20Be.pdf

Miller and Rollnick’s book on motivational interviewing was required reading at a previous job, I highly recommend it: https://www.amazon.com/Motivational-Interviewing-Helping-People-Applications/dp/1609182278

I was a sorta late bloomer, coming out in the later part of college. I didn't really have people to talk to, most people didn't suspect so it wasn't ever brought up. When I decided to start coming out, I wanted to prepare with stories and experiences from others, but really I didn't know where to look. At that age, the internet had slim pickings for what I was looking for. The book The Velvet Rage offered some reasoning to the way I was feeling. In retrospect, I disagree with some of the author's perspectives, but at that time, it helped.

When I actually started telling people, I would get really tired, and go to bed. The following morning I always woke up with nausea and would puke. No drinking involved, but it was a weird psychosomatic response I experienced.

I guess in a way, your sadness comes from a mixture of things; in a way, it's a mourning of no longer having to be a person that repressed a certain part of their life. It's also an overwhelming sadness of knowing that you've missed out on things in life if it hadn't been for the burden of hiding. I experienced A LOT of rage, not with myself, but with the conditions of the world around me. Things didn't make sense for a while, and when they did, they always felt "fresh." Like not knowing when I could start telling friends about the guys I thought were hot. Always thinking "Oh god, am I being 'too gay' now or have I always felt this way?"
Having your situation be an "open secret" can make this process harder as it raises questions about trust and suspicion. But overall, just know that this takes time, it takes a lot of time. Be patient. Listen to yourself, and think things through.

Lots and lots of therapy. The Velvet Rage was essential reading. Knowing lots of other gay men have had similar problems helps. There are peer support groups also--there absolutely is profound trauma we experience growing up in a world that doesn't accept us, even if some have it a bit better. Be kind to yourself--the coping mechanisms you developed back then just aren't serving you now. I fell into addiction because I internalized all the negative messaging churches and schoolmates told me. I think it helps also to be the person you wish you had back then for someone else in that situation right now. You know firsthand what it's like, and by supporting someone else going through it, I think you can be that person for yourself at the same time.

Gays are statistically more intelligent, and as the book The Velvet Rage describes, they frequently channel their frustrations into becoming high achievers, so they often get good jobs that pay a lot of money and thus can afford CA/NY.

​

In my case when this has happened before it's because in previous trusting relationships (parents especially) when I overshared, it was used against me, to say that I couldn't trust my own opinions because I was too messed up. The fact that you're posting this here probably means that you know that quitting therapy isn't right for you, but you're really feeling the intensity of being vulnerable. That's normal, and it means that you're getting to the part that will be really healing if you can stick it out. Your future self deserves your current self's best efforts to sit with the intensity and stick it out. The fact that you're having this reaction means that you're strong enough to have survived some really tough stuff. You're strong enough for this too, and we've got your back.

I found this book to be helpful in collecting the tools for dealing with the intensity associated with processing this stuff. The short version is to take some time for self care, have a cup of hot tea, sit with the emotions you're feeling for a few minutes, and then pack them away for now. I know it'll sound silly writing it here, but in case it helps to have an example, my mental tool for packing away my emotions and overwhelming memories when I'm not working on them is a bookshelf in an orderly old fashioned study housed in suitcase like Newt Scamander's, that I store in a cave behind a waterfall guarded by a pet dragon. You get to pick your own tools that are useful for you, but that one helps me to feel like my traumatic past is safe while I'm going about my life but that I can access it and sort through the pieces and then pack them away when I'm not using them.

Good luck, and keep reaching out!

Hey there. I'm glad things are finally making sense for you. Here is a workbook I've been going through. You might consider getting it. It talks about all the types of therapies available and even gives you a little taste of them. Best of luck to you on your journey. If you have any questions feel free to ask me or PM me.

Just want to say, good question, hoping for some insightful answers to read.

Relatedly, I found this book really helpful, and it has some suggestions at the back for daily practice.

I have been reading this book recently and it has really helped change my overall outlook on life. In the appendix section it talks about various activities that one can do, in the morning, throughout the day, and at night in order to cultivate a stoic mindset.

I usually begin each morning with a 10 - 15 minute mindfulness meditation and 15 minutes of stoic practice. The stoic practices are reciting phrases from various authors (I like Epictetus' quotes on what we can control vs what we can't), imagining ourselves as a famous thinker (I usually think of Marcus Aurelius) and how we can respond to various challenges we may face during the day. During the day, I try to bring these scenarios to mind.

At night, before bed, I take 10 minutes or so to remember my day. I go through it event by event and think about what happened and if I could have done something differently. I then make peace with the decisions and can rest easy knowing that tomorrow is a new day. I find these processes have made an immense difference in my life. They only take about 30 to 45 minutes of real time, out of my day.

The book is awesome though and goes into more details. He has other books available to that I'm working my way through, I will tell you how it goes.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philosophy-Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy-CBT-Psychotherapy/dp/1855757567

I haven't yet read it, but I believe that The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Stoic Philosophy as Rational and Cognitive Psychotherapy by Donald Robertson is the definitive book on the subject.

Protection of self-esteem makes people become entrenched in their decisions, regardless of accuracy of those decisions.

Great book - Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)


http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986

With the caveat that I haven't read any of these yet, but when I found out I was having a boy I looked for similar recommendations and this is my reading list:

• Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men
  
• Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood
  
• Boys Adrift
  
• Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys
  
• The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do
  
• It's a Boy!: Your Son's Development from Birth to Age 18
  
  (I got caught up in reading childbirth and infant care books, which seem more pressing. If anyone has actually read any of these, I'd love to hear your opinions, especially if it can help me prioritize them.)

Hey dude.

I can relate quite a bit.

I have the attention span of a gnat on cocaine, so I can definitely relate to the overall tone of your post.

I am going to give you a different perspective than all the other commenters...

Here are my initial impressions:

1.) I am guessing your job is not 100% predictable and there's a decent amount of unpredictability in the day to day activities? That's probably why you are doing fine in that role. Also, since you also run the risk of losing your paycheck (i.e: loss aversion) if you don't perform provides you with a decent incentive to keep showing up and producing results.

2.) Regarding your difficulty of learning and motivation: This provides more evidence about your ADD tendencies. It's not that you are not motivated or don't want to learn, it's just that your brain is wired to chase shiny objects. If you are not stimulated in conversation, work, or any other task at hand - no matter how important others deem it to be, you simply TUNE OUT.

3.) Based on everything you've said thus far, I am going to put forth the following theory:


You grew up in a very dysfunctional / precarious family environment and your relationship with your parents aren't the best. If anything, this was certainly the case in the first few years after you were born. ADD/ADHD is not a disorder, rather, it is a phenotype.

Actually, it's more accurate to say attunement deficit disorder than attention deficit disorder because one of the biggest factors of it is from your mother not giving you proper attention as a baby.

I am also going to guess that you have underdeveloped emotional circuitry as a result of emotional neglect as a child.

This is all related to ADD/ADHD. The area of your brain (pre-frontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex) that deals with emotional regulation is heavily underdeveloped.

How do I know all of this shit? Because I've spent a decent amount of time trying to understand my own characteristics and it sounds quite similar to yours.

To confirm these theories, I highly recommend that you read or listen to the audiobook version(s) of these books:

• Scattered by Gabor Mate
  
• Driven to Distraction by Edward Hallowell
  
• Running on Empty by Jonice Webb
  
  ..Especially Running on Empty by Jonice Webb.
  
  Here's why: Unlike physical or sexual abuse, it is extremely difficult and subtle to know if you've been emotionally neglected as a child. The reason is that the former is an event that happened (i.e: my dad spanked me) and the latter is an event that didn't happen.
  
  Since you have no reference or experience of what emotional assurance feels like, you don't know if you've been neglected emotionally as a child AFTER you are an adult.
  
  Rather, the symptoms show up as being distracted, ADD, depression, alienation, loneliness etc..
  
  Take this test and if any of the above books confirm my theories, look into the work of Alice Miller and listen to everything she says.
  
  With that said, DON'T GIVE INTO THE UNREALISTIC PRESSURE OF WANTING TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR.
  
  Because, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. Not only that, when you read /r/Entrepreneur and see a 23-year-old making half a million dollars from a business he started 6-months ago, you are going to feel even shittier if you are so attached to being an entrepreneur.
  
  Remember:
  
  
• Frank Llloyd wright didn't make Falling Water until he was 68
  
  
• Colonel Sanders (who wasn't even a real colonel) didn't start KFC until he was 62
  
  
• Sidney Frank didn't start Grey Goose Vodka until he was 77
  
  
• Ray Kroc didn't even get the ball rolling with McDonalds till he was 60
  
  
  On and on....
  
  Take care of your mental health first.
  
  And remember, ADD or being distracted is NOT a disorder, it's a phenotype. (or as I like to call it: Multifocus) -- What you need to do is figure out how to use your tendencies to your benefit and design your life around it.
  
  
  We have sensationalized the idea of being an Entrepreneur so much so that, all we hear about are successes (i.e: Survivorship bias).
  
  What no one talks about is the psychological toll and the number of suicides that happen as a result of the unrealistic (self-imposed) pressure of wanting to succeed as an Entrepreneur. For example, Austen Heinz was running an incredibly successful startup and abruptly killed himself.
  
  Your happiness and sense of self should be 100% derived from within.
  
  The moment you start basing that on external factors, you are likely going to go down the wrong road.
  
  RELAX.
  
  You got plenty of time.
  
  This ain't a sprint.

Scattered Minds by Gabor Mate

Thorough, engaging background information w/ an underappreciated view on the origins behind ADHD and, most importantly, comprehensive 'what to do' chapters at the end.

One of Maté's main and least known points is that our bodies remember our early childhood experiences much better than our conscious awareness in the present-day. He was an early pioneer of the idea that ADHD is strongly related to attachment during infancy, back when most MD's thought it was predominantly genetic.

Anyway, hope that helps and best of luck with whatever resource(s) you go with.

Culture of Fear may be worth reading for some insight

If you're a Nick Hornby fan, here's what you should do - he's got three books that are little collections of the column he writes for The Believer called "Stuff I've Been Reading". They're hilarious, and each one gives you 5 or 6 great suggestions from a guy whose taste is pretty solid.

Start with The Polysyllabic Spree and then go to Housekeeping vs. the Dirt and Shakespeare Wrote for Money.

He's always saying his favourite author is Anne Tyler - I can corroborate, she's pretty good.

This isn't really "literature" but you also might like Mil Millington. He's funny in the same way and even though as I'm reading I'm like "huh.. this isn't that great" his novels are the ones that I end up reading in one 8 hour sitting.

You might like David Sedaris - I'd start with Me Talk Pretty One Day

And someone else said John Irving - he's my very favourite.

A good psychology book (and I'm a major layperson, so it's definitely accessible) is The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks and Mad in America by Robert Whitaker.

The term "addiction" is kind of loaded. Clearly the brain centers involved in addictions to heroin or cocaine are also involved in normal life. On a purely physiological basis, love is an addiction. So I'm with Seinfeld when he says, there's no such thing as sex addiction. We are all sex addicts, which generally bodes well for the survival of the species.

To take the 30,000 foot view, consider the possibility that addiction and depression share a common antecedent: that both are caused by a defect in the brain's reward system that manifests in adolescence. Causing the patient to have a blunted response to pleasurable things, to the point where it's even hard to imagine being happy. Depression is more complicated than addiction -- in depression you can have a disorder of energy regulation, and a disorder of cognition. But in both cases, the patient is incentivized to stimulate the reward center of the brain directly with drugs. Life itself isn't enough.

Unfortunately, antidepressants don't strike right at the heart of the matter. Typically they improve thinking, they don't directly affect the reward center. Any drug that does will eventually turn you into a rat pressing a bar; eventually the drug is enough; you choose to engage with the drug rather than life.

Well, it's enough until it isn't, which is another facet of addiction. Which is, that the brain resists the drug, does everything it can to resist its action. So in the case of opioids, which stimulate the reward center in the brain, and sedate the anxiety center, over time the reward center becomes even more numb and the anxiety center becomes even more over-activated. You wind up more depressed and anxious than you were to begin with, and plus you're hooked. Meaning, removing the drug at that point makes things unbearably bad.

This is true for cocaine, which stimulates the reward center directly, cutting out the middle-man so to speak. Also true for Xanax, which like heroin gets into both the reward center and the anxiety center, moreso the latter.

Emperor's New Drugs More about antidepressants than addiction but good discussion of the parallels between addiction and depression, and touches on spiritual issues like hope

Mad in America This guy is making hay discussing oppositional tolerance, and lambastes the pharmaceutical industry for putting profits first. The website is an iconoclast's dream.

I've approached the question in a bit of an unconventional manner, partially because addition, like depression, is multifactorial. The bio-psycho-social approach has merit. Clearly there are biological factors having to do with the brain's reward center, what's wrong with it to begin with, and what happens after prolonged drug exposure. I imagine most responses will take this tack. There's a psychology to addiction (which people don't talk about much these days). And there's a social component as well, note the parallel between the burgeoning number of people who have "given up" looking for work, and the addiction epidemic. I would submit that model, while valid up to a point, is incomplete. Both addiction and depression have a spiritual dimension, and we will never wrap our head around those things until we take that into account.

With that in mind, I'll say that Man's Search for Meaning is, by a wide margin, the most helpful book on mental health I've ever read.

ETA

That said, given an individual who is susceptible, what makes a chemical addictive is

- how much the drug stimulates the reward centers, and suppresses the anxiety centers

- how quickly it does so

- whether it induces tolerance

- how it induces tolerance (oppositional tolerance is worse than just not working anymore)

- whether the drug activates satiety centers, directly or indirectly (because of side effects).

So, cigarettes are more addictive than chewing tobacco, because one hits a lot faster than the other. Heroin more addictive than codeine, ditto. Prozac is less addictive than MDMA (what's usually in "ecstasy" or "molly") because antidepressants don't whack the reward center like MDMA does. MDMA is less addictive than amphetamine, because MDMA is more likely to just stop working, whereas amphetamines are more likely to induce oppositional tolerance. Alcohol is less addictive than Xanax, because most people get tired of all the puking. Buprenorphine less addictive than oxycodone; while both stimulate the reward center, the former directly stimulates satiety centers as well (leading to speculation that buprenorphine might turn out to be a great antidepressant)

Thought questions.

​

1. Given this conceptual framework, is cannabis addictive? Don't give me a counter-example, like, "I had a buddy who was a total pot-head." I had one patient who was addicted to water, to the point where he had to be hospitalized, several times. What effect does cannabis have on the reward center over time? Do people become tolerant to cannabis over time? If so, to what effects? Do people "fiend" for it usually? Is it more addictive than cocaine or meth? (The DEA thinks so...)
   
2. Are video games addictive? What about Facebook? The CTO of Facebook says it is addictive, intentionally so. How?
   
3. Is porn addictive? Casual sex? Is love truly an addiction, as we have defined it? If not, why not? (Is sex always just a matter of just pressing the bar? Is it ever?)
   
   ​

>Obesity is the result of many other factors. When some are stressed they overeat.

Overeating is a personal choice

>People digest food differently as they have different amounts and species of microorganisms in their digestive tracks.

Your microbiome is determined by what you eat and is therefore a reflection of your personal choices when it comes to your diet

>Additionally, the average lower class obese person is preoccupied with long hours working minimum wage and don't have the energy to learn and just want the pleasure from eating after a difficult day.

Again, personal choice. If you have enough time to keep up with the Kardashians and what other bullshit is on TV, you have enough time to sit down for one hour one day and learn the basics of nutrition, the glycemic index, and insulin response

>While there is a simple fix in a vacuum, it is more complex in actual practice.

No, it's not. It's all about making the decision to follow a healthful diet and applying yourself in that effort. More protein, less sugar. Less junk food. It's called junk food for a reason.

>I overate when I suffered from depression unmedicated, my weight stabilized when I got prescribed antidepressants.

Again, personal decision. You chose to eat. You chose drugs over a healthy lifestyle. You chose not to educate yourself. Put down the TV remote and pick up a book.

https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Drugs-Exploding-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006



>If people in similar situations can't afford antidepressants or have the privilege of having a support system in place, it will be harder to stop stress-eating.

Antidepressants are not medication. They do not work. There's something in between a placebo and an actively harmful chemical. The science is settled and anyone who says differently is either a fool or charlatan. Psychiatry is neither medicine nor science. You just have to make a decision. You have to have strength of will and a strong mind. You have to stop choosing to be a victim and stop evading responsibility for your own actions and decisions.

I just finished "Stuff", a book about hoarding. It gave me some perspective about why people hoard, and some treatment plans therapists have used effectively.

I think there is a divide that is more general, and deeper, than the specific issue of banning.

I elaborated on this a few times before, so I will just quote and link a post describing what I think is the fundamental disagreement here (and advocating for "my side"):

> > That fucker you were pleased with in this very post said that "refusal to debate" is reactionary and/or authoritarian.
>
> Yes... and I don't care much for the exact phrasing (and in fact, I went on about the phrasing here).
>
> But it really is a simple fact that the refusal to debate, the use of pat answers and cliches with the air of finality, the shutting down of disagreement through mockery/abuse, etc., are characteristic of both the authoritarian personality, and of authoritarian societies.
>
> C.f.:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem
>
> > Cis people are that fucking entitled.
>
> Do you really think it has anything to do with "cis people" feeling entitled? Actually I think most people in most circumstances feel entitled to receive justification for assertions given to them. Not to demand justification is actually an authoritarian trait, in a way -- the kind of thing that begins with a childhood of being told "because I said so" and ends with the "agent state" capacity described in Obedience to Authority.
>
> Personally I am trying to raise my daughter in such a way that she feels entitled to explanation in exactly this way. I do not want her to accept anything on a "because I said so" basis. So, I am always giving her the reasons for things (when I don't let her do things, for example), even if she won't understand, so that she will expect reasons. And when she is older I will tell her not to listen to anyone who can't explain why, and I will warn her about the many people who believe things without knowing why.
>
> That was a bit of a tangent, but the point is, I don't think this feeling of being entitled to explanation, debate, rationale, etc., has anything to do with "cis people," and I don't think it is a bad thing. I think it is a very good thing. I think it is the foundation of skepticism. I wish to see more of it, not less.
>
> Incidentally, I'm reminded of a relevant quote. I am sorry that it is so long, in addition to my already-long post with many links. But it is quite good, and there is no way to shorten it.
>
> > Paul Rabinow: Why is it that you don't engage in polemics ?
>
> > Michel Foucault: I like discussions, and when I am asked questions, I try to answer them. It's true that I don't like to get involved in polemics. If I open a book and see that the author is accusing an adversary of "infantile leftism" I shut it again right away. That's not my way of doing things; I don't belong to the world of people who do things that way. I insist on this difference as something essential: a whole morality is at stake, the one that concerns the search for truth and the relation to the other.
>
> > In the serious play of questions and answers, in the work of reciprocal elucidation, the rights of each person are in some sense immanent in the discussion. They depend only on the dialogue situation. The person asking the questions is merely exercising the right that has been given him: to remain unconvinced, to perceive a contradiction, to require more information, to emphasize different postulates, to point out faulty reasoning, and so on. As for the person answering the questions, he too exercises a right that does not go beyond the discussion itself; by the logic of his own discourse, he is tied to what he has said earlier, and by the acceptance of dialogue he is tied to the questioning of other. Questions and answers depend on a game — a game that is at once pleasant and difficult — in which each of the two partners takes pains to use only the rights given him by the other and by the accepted form of dialogue.
>
> > The polemicist , on the other hand, proceeds encased in privileges that he possesses in advance and will never agree to question. On principle, he possesses rights authorizing him to wage war and making that struggle a just undertaking; the person he confronts is not a partner in search for the truth but an adversary, an enemy who is wrong, who is armful, and whose very existence constitutes a threat. For him, then the game consists not of recognizing this person as a subject having the right to speak but of abolishing him as interlocutor, from any possible dialogue; and his final objective will be not to come as close as possible to a difficult truth but to bring about the triumph of the just cause he has been manifestly upholding from the beginning. The polemicist relies on a legitimacy that his adversary is by definition denied.

-----

Finally, for a bit of balance, I will quote /u/Voltairinede's defense of the opposite position, with emphasis added:

> >Is it acceptable to mock people for their assumed physical appearance/grooming?
>
> depends on whether their oppressed or not.
>
> >Is it acceptable to imply that other people have never experienced marginalization, while knowing nothing about them?
>
> its an odds game, but I get it right nearly all the time.
>
> >Does making light of "marginalization" in this way (bragging about the power to marginalize others) create the kind of atmosphere in which the marginalized become safer, or does it normalize marginalization itself?
>
> marginalising the non-marginalised makes safe spaces for the marginalised.
>
> >What kind of response is this type of behavior likely to provoke?
>
> Fear, confusion, anger, frustration.
>
> >What kind of social atmosphere follows from it?
>
> A hostile one for reactionaries, one where the war between oppressed and oppressor is in the open.
>
> > Does it produce the kind of social atmosphere that you would like to see characterize society as a whole?
>
> Yeah

(This may not be the strongest defense of that position, but I quote it as a clear statement of what that position is.)

A General Theory of Love

My advice is to find a therapist who specializes in dissociative disorders. There are a lot of therapists out there who want to help, will take you on as a client, accept your money, but will not provide the right type of therapy for you. DID is a complex disorder. So many doctors are not trained in the specific therapeutic skills that you might need.

If you are struggling to find a therapist, you could start reading self-help books in the meantime. Here's some good ones:

https://www.amazon.com/Amongst-Ourselves-Self-Help-Dissociative-Identity/dp/1572241225

https://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Managing-Successfully-Dissociative-Identity/dp/1932690034/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0FHHASZHRBA7H2K6KBEE

https://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Interpersonal-Neurobiology/dp/039370646X/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0FHHASZHRBA7H2K6KBEE

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation

A little pricey, check to see if your library carries it.

Teaches great skills, easily accessible and doable with practice.

You really should read Mad in America just so you learn that psychiatric scientific studies can also be biased and mistakes in psychiatric diagnoses are fairly common, and if you are going to think like this (and puncture others optimistic bubbles) at least I hope you got a second opinion other than the psychiatrist’s that gave you this diagnosis.

I'll also recommend: Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill.

http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0670031518

Maybe I'm just out of the loop of what's in vogue with psychologists then. For an opinion published for a general audience, it did seem out of balance.

This reminds me of the book I read a few years back called The Blank Slate which describes almost the opposite bias among many in the social sciences, a die-hard opposition to the idea that many things are influenced by human nature, or even of the existence of human nature, by people who try to explain every aspect of our feelings and behaviour as if they were purely social constructs.

What did you think about the 2nd paragraph, with the 'I'm not a beast, I'm a human' business? Is he in denial about being a mammal? Or, since human carries many connotations that Homo sapien does not, was he implying a point he didn't wish to openly state or defend?

> Idk when I'm gonna get trauma therapy. My current therapist revealed something about himself that is making me seriously consider asking for someone else. He purchased a workbook for CPTSD but he says he won't study it unless a client studies with him. Idk, we have a lot in common... but... I think getting help from him will be like pulling teeth...

I just wanted to say that you are more than justified in being skeptical - I would definitely seek out another therapist.

You are the patient, as well as the client - it is not the client's responsibility to shepherd the care provider through their own professional development, education, and training... I would even go so far as to consider reporting this behavior/statement as unprofessional and irresponsible.

If that's the only option you have available, I would purchase a workbook and just work through it yourself. I've done this, myself, in the past - and I'd find that infinitely preferable to paying somebody to "hold their hand" through their own learning process.

I know first-hand how difficult finding appropriate care and therapy is, I really do. However, there are providers out there who are already experienced and trained in caring for patients with trauma and histories of abuse - you do not have to accept being somebody's guinea pig or training exercise.

Here is a helpful resource I have bookmarked. Amazon's top selling books on ADHD http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/598622

I have read all of the books in the top 14 (except the ADHD effect on marriage) and they are all good.

My favorite is More Attention Less deficit: Success strategies for adults with ADHD.

Reasons:

• The book is organized perfectly. Broad chapters with short specific articles. Each article stands on its own and is no longer than a page usually.
  
  
• The corners of the pages are perforated. People with ADHD might not read a book cover to cover so tear off the pages you have read!
  
  
• Covers a bunch of topics and has clear explanations and helpful analogies
  
  Others I recommend are:
  
  Driven to Distraction: THE classic. Really jump-started adult ADHD awareness.
  
  The disorganized mind: While reading this and doing the life inventory I realized I wasn't passionate about computers and instead wanted to help people (I was in tech support). This led me to becoming an ADHD coach. Great book for self-coaching.
  
  You mean I'm not lazy stupid or crazy: Humorous at times and very enlightening. Helps educate ourselves on the various ways ADHD manifests in our lives.
  
  ***
  
  

  Websites to show others:
  

  
  TotallyADD.com - By the makers of the PBS show ADD and Lovin' it this offers a humorous look at ADHD with an excellent blog, forum community, and videos on Youtube.
  
  Youtube clips of Russell Barkley (playlist I created) - 13 videos all under 5 minutes each which are powerful and enlightening.
  
  ***
  
  I have access to nearly every book on ADHD due to my volunteer job and would be glad to start doing quick reviews on various books. I will also complete a Google Doc with my favorite books, fidget toys, and resources to put in the sidebar.
  
  

I'm 31. I've always knew I was lazy, a terrible procrastinator, not able to focus on tasks for a long amount of time, etc. I just thought I was a "smart slacker". At 27 I definitely knew something was wrong but I had no idea what it was. I didn't know what ADHD was (I thought it was the super active 12 year old from my school days). About a year ago, I saw something on reddit that made me learn a bit about ADHD-Pi and I realised I had many of the symptoms.

I procrastinated maybe 3 months, then spent 3 months doing research. I read More Attention, Less Deficit which is a very easy and satisfying read, even for us ADHD'rs. I also read Dr. Brown's A New Understanding of ADHD in Children and Adults. This is a very technical book but it allowed me to convince myself that there is scientific consensus about a) ADHD is a real disorder that can severely effect your life and b) that medication (ie, stimulants) really is a safe and effective treatment. I'd recommend the first book for anyone and the second book if you'd like to learn about the latest in ADHD science.

The next 3 months I spent finding and working with a psychologist. She was great. She gave me a diagnosis. It was a huge relief. I was finally able to know why I had certain behaviors I didn't like and she gave me motivation to work on them. Just discussing my problems, ie "talk therapy", actually really helped. She helped me find a great psychiatrist. It took me another 3 months to get in and I'm working with him now. He has me on a low dosage (5mg dextroaphetamine) and we're working on increasing it. I've already seen huge results. I procrastinate less, I'm able to focus, I'm less distracted, my mood has improved, my anxiety has gone done, I've become more social.

This was a long process. The system is set up to work against people with ADHD. You'll need to do research, book appointments, keep appointments, research insurance options, find doctors. This is not easy for an ADHD'r to navigate! However, even though its taken a year, I am so incredibly glad I've taken this journey. I've made huge gains already and I'm very optimistic for the future.

I think you could probably make huge improvements in your life if you worked on this. I'd recommend using a psychiatrist (over your GP) to make sure you really get a correct diagnosis, address any comorbidities and get a treatment plan that works for you. Although I'm happy to be improving at 31, I wish I had treatment at 27 (or you know, 12!).

Break it down into small steps:

• 1. January: Research ADHD. Order and read More Attention, Less Deficit.
     
• 2. February: (I assume you're American) Research your insurance options. Is a psychiatrist covered? are drugs covered? If drug cost is a barrier, tell your psychiatrist. [I'm currently on generic dextroamphetamine, which is $15 for a two week supply and my insurance overs 90% of that. Yes, that's right, $3/month for drugs]
     
• 3. February: Research Psychiatrists in your area. You mentioned you live in an expensive city, its very likely someone there specialises in adult ADHD. This would be your first choice for a doctor.
     
• 4. February/March: book your first appointment with your Psychiatrist. It will likely take multiple visits before you receive a diagnosis. Be prepared for this and focus on the future - you're almost there.
     
• 5. March/April: begin your treatment plan with your psychiatrist. He will likely start you on a low dosage and increase it over time (i.e. 5mg/week). Here's what a medication chart (PDF) looks like in Canada, I'm sure the US does something similar. You'll have to continue to be patient here as well. It can take time to find the right medication and dosage. This is a trial and error procedure that you'll work on with your psychiatrist.
     
• 6. May/June: Once you're on a medication plan that works for you, consider seeking out either ADHD therapy (psychologist) or coaching (ADHD coach). Again, make sure its a professional that specialises in adult ADHD.
     
     Is the above a lot of work? Yes absolutely. It may be costly too. You know what though, your quality of life will increase. You'll become a better employee and maybe get that big raise. You'll become better at relationships which lead to a happier life. And you could make serious gains by this summer. Think how fast summer is going to be here!
     
     My apologies for the wall of text. Hope this gives you some motivation and direction. /r/ADHD is rooting for you!
     
     

I've let him know. It's hard to understand something so disordered when he comes from something healthier, which I totally get. He's trying. Someone messaged me a book that they said helped:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Narcissistic-Family-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0787908703

At least this whole experience is helping me begin the conversation. I'm not ashamed. You know what? My mom told me throughout my entire life that family matters were SECRET and that I needed to keep them private. That was to keep me under her control and to keep the household sick. I find that talking about it is liberating and healing. FH needs to know about this abuse, but it's going to happen on his time, not mine.

Basically. In The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment (I can't recommend this book enough), narcissistic families are described as families in which the needs of the parents come before the needs of the children. I think that could also apply to abusive families.

No, children don't come with instruction manuals, but there are plenty of parenting books out there. But again, like you said, they are too self-absorbed to seek out such books.

Here are some of the resources I've read, and what I think about them:

• Transgender 101: A good introduction covering a lot of what you mention above. It's more focused on the transsexual experience, though. Non-binary identities and others under the "transgender" umbrella get their own chapter, but it's stuck at the back of the book. Chapter 6 has a really good section on whether transgender should be considered a mental disorder, and talks about the insurance issue.
  
  
• Whipping Girl: Although it's not too hard to get through, I'd consider this to be "advanced reading" for those who already have a grounding in basic trans thinking/terminology. I really enjoyed it and agree with many of Serano's arguments, but it's less textbook and more opinion piece (although Serano has also written a number of academic papers for respected journals). It's mainly focused on the MTF transsexual experience.
  
  
• True Selves: You might hear this one mentioned in lists of good trans books, but it's now 20 years old, is very heavily weighted toward a limited view of the transexual experience, and it defends the gatekeeper mentality. I'd honestly avoid it, unless you're interested in reading about how things used to be, in which case I'd highly recommend Harry Benjamin's The Transsexual Phenomenon (who knew that people used to be arrested just for crossdressing?). Don't show that one to your professor!
  
  
• WPATH Standards of Care v7: Presents a good overview of gender non-conformity and dysphoria with references to contemporary research. Written for a medical/academic audience but easy enough for a general audience to understand too. Focuses significantly on mental health aspects of transgender and medical transition options. The standards of care seem to have become more liberal with each new version, to the extent that they're now presented as guidelines rather than hard rules and are approaching the "informed consent" approach. Still, they're an example of the gatekeeping approach, which some people are dead against.
  
  
• National Geographic magazine gender special edition: Has some good stories covering the whole range of transgender people (i.e. talks about non-binary identities as well as the traditional transsexual experience). Also interesting is the wide discussion of gender issues in various world cultures, although this is of less relevance to what you're looking for.
  
  Obviously there's a lot more out there, and I'm sure others can add to this and/or argue with my take on the above list. This is just some of my admittedly limited reading - please don't take this in any way as an authoritative list of the best resources!
  
  I'd be careful relying on websites and blog posts for information. You need to be critical of the authors' credibility and biases, and there is a lot of poorly-researched, poorly-written stuff out there, some of which is downright wrong, made-up, nonsensical or hateful (I've read a lot on Blanchard's typology and the paraphillia/fetish view of transsexualism, and I'd advise you to avoid it at all costs!). On the other hand, I'd say don't stick entirely to books and academic papers, because there are a lot of interesting thoughts/perspectives from those in the community who don't write books or publish papers.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0787967025/ref=redir_mdp_mobile is apparently quite good ... Don't know of any for pirates though (sorry couldn't resist small joke based on typo in title)

lol. I'm an adult but I transitioned without telling my parents. I saw them all the time. We never discussed it although it was obvious. I go to dinner with them in a dress, makeup and a D cup and they still say HE to the waiter. Fuuuuuk! My therapist thought it was hilarious that we all ignored the elephant in the room. Eventually, I gave them two books to read.

Trans Forming Families: Real Stories About Transgendered Loved Ones, 2nd Edition

True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals

They were more accepting after that although we never did discuss it. They bought me earrings & stuff which was nice. After my mother passed, my father went to visit his sister who is a retired wealthy doctor. When he came back he seemed more accepting. He also gave me a bunch of my mom's stuff he thought I could use. I suspect my dad and Aunt Wealthy Doctor talked about me and she explained things to him. One other thing, her kids all have mansions, yachts and shit. I don't know if I'm going to make rent this month. Boy was I born into the wrong side of the family. Life sucks then ya die. Time for bed. With my luck I'll wake up again.

There's a third edition book out now, and there are a few significant changes in the model. http://www.amazon.com/Motivational-Interviewing-Third-Edition-Applications/dp/1609182278

If you like to hold a book, this is probably the first one you should get. However, there are tons of great free resources for MI training on the internet as well.

Here are a few manual-type easy reads:

http://www.psychmap.org/uploads/Motivational%20Interviewing%20brief%20guide.pdf

http://www.motivationalinterviewing.info/resources/CTI_MI_Pocket_guide.pdf

http://www.motivationalinterview.org/Documents/LearnersManualforMotivationalInterviewing.pdf

this is about coding (how well an interviewer is using MI) but there are some good examples here: http://www.motivationalinterview.org/Documents/miti3_1.pdf

Congrats on the career switch! :) Methinks you'll find helping people with this topic to be quite fulfilling and honestly, you'll have a head start if you're already a teacher b/c there are a lot of overlapping skills.

In the interest of time I'm going to forego personal anecdotes in favor of something that will help 10x more.

When it comes to talking to people / motivating then around fitness, everything is super counterintuitive. Logic won't convince most people, acting like a "trainer" won't motivate most people, and explicitly telling a client that they screwed up will only make them want to rebel. (If you teach kids, you'll see where these parallels come in...)

So, the best advice I can give you is to spend $50 on the book below. It is worth every single penny and will put you ahead of 99% of nutrition/fitness/healthcare professionals in your field who don't realize that helping people is all about being able to interact with them and get past their defenses.

http://www.amazon.com/Motivational-Interviewing-Helping-People-Applications/dp/1609182278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464203858&sr=8-1&keywords=motivational+interviewing

(note: In no way do I benefit monetarily from the link above ha.)

>Not everyone responds well to graphic images and videos, satirical, passive agressive criticism, or being called out and having their beliefs challenged.

So don't do any of those things. Unless the person is already open to the idea of veganism, those are recipes for disaster.

>How do you effectively change people or plant the seed in their minds

This is the book you want. And if you have somebody who is willing to have a conversation with you, something like this book might be pretty good (it's mostly for therapists helping people deal with addictions and stuff, but that's still relevant). One good video I saw recently, that clearly uses a lot of these tactics, is this vegan street interview.

You can probably do some googling for blogs and articles on the psychology of persuasion and behavior change.

EDIT: You can't expect to just show people the truth and have them immediately change their thinking. This is a quote from a book about climate change, but it's definitely relevant here:

>Ironically, one of the best proofs that information does not change people's attitudes is that science communicators continue to ignore the extensive research evidence that shows that information does not change people's attitudes.

Motivational Interviewing.
https://www.amazon.com/Motivational-Interviewing-Helping-People-Applications/dp/1609182278

Find a training here: https://motivationalinterviewing.org/

When you say drug and alcohol unit, what do you mean exactly? Are we talking medical detox only? Yikes. Or are we talking general rehab?

If you are literally doing nothing but medical detox and then the patient moves on to treatment elsewhere, then beware the burnout. ETOH and Opiate detox patients in the throes of detox are some of the most unpleasant people to be around I can think of (and I work in a maximum security prison!). This is generally offset by getting to work with them long-term and seeing the benefits of sobriety and clarity in the long run, so hopefully you'll get to see that aspect, too.

If we're talking just general rehab, then it won't be so bad. The experience you get will also depend on whether or not your clients are voluntary, and if so what level of volunteerism there is there (for example a "voluntary" methadone program can feel very involuntary to an opiate addict).

You will definitely get myriad opportunities to hone your motivational interviewing skills. It can be frustrating at first as you learn the meaning of success in working with this population. Sobriety is hard work and takes time. Sometimes seeing your client shoot up four times a day instead of six after a month's work is the best improvement you've seen in any client all month, and you have to learn to motivate yourself with these little steps.

Anywhoo . . . I used to work at a methadone clinic. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Edit: Just saw that you've not yet been in an MSW program. If you can spare the cash, I recommend picking up Miller and Rollnick's book. It'll give you the foundation you need to start practicing and understanding motivational interviewing, and if the program you get into focuses at all on direct practice then you're probably going to end up needing it anyway.

/u/manwithahatwithatan, this is definitely worth the read. It's a hard one, but also so very important. I also highly recommend taking the time to read a book called The Velvet Rage. The book is far therapeutic and will help you find the tools you need to get over this struggle.

These reads are important because they acknowledge hard truths you are talking about. The Velvet Rage goes into strategies on how to handle issues a lot of gay men face.

It is all about finding lasting happiness and self-worth. I actually think you are on the right track because you are taking the first and hardest step of acknowledging the problems. Getting to that place of self fulfillment will take time, but you can do it.

One key thing I want to note that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being single. In fact, if you struggle being happy while single, you will struggle with happiness in a relationship. I have so many gay friends (and straight) who are married and still feel incredibly lonely. Relationships do not fix this sort of thing.

maybe you should try meditating? it takes some time getting used to but it should help you clear your mind. there are lots of apps for smartphones with guided mediations that are free.

another thing i can recommend is trying to do some at home CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) - there are loads of books online like this one and websites that can teach you basic ways to change your thought patterns as long as you're committed to it. ideally though, i think therapy would be a good idea, but i understand most students can't afford it :(

A type of cognitive behavioral therapy that was originally designed specifically for the treatment of BPD. In fact, the woman who developed it was a therapist who had BPD herself. Interesting story.

Try reading this:

https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748

and doing one or both of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Dialectical-Behavior-Therapy-Skills-Workbook

https://www.amazon.com/Complex-PTSD-Workbook-Mind-Body-Regaining/dp/1623158249

If they resonate with you, then you should consider seeing a therapist, preferably who either specializes in trauma, or who is credentialed in DBT. Much easier to find the former than the latter. Real full-on DBT is very involved.

Memes have been a weird but deep source of relief for me, too! I get a weird soothed feeling about really dark memes about nihilism and despair.

I really hope you find something that can help you! Have you looked at this self-help workbook at all? Complex PTSD Workbook

I found The Complex PTSD Workbook: A Mind-Body Approach to Regaining Emotional Control and Becoming Whole https://www.amazon.com/dp/1623158249/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-ge0Db1GJN9KX helpful, but I don’t know if something geared specifically toward identity-related trauma would be more helpful (please, let me know if I am not describing it correctly). However, it appears to me that there is likely to be overlap, so it could be helpful in those areas.

Yes. Albert Ellis, one of the first cognitive behavioral psychologists, based his cognitive therapy (specifically Rational Emotive therapy) on Stoicism. Aaron T. Beck, considered the father of Cognitive therapy said the 'philosophical origins of CBT can be traced back to the Stoic philosophers.'

There was a book written about the subject, and some articles such as here, here, and here. I don't think Stoicism is always used for CBT, but the underpinnings of it are clear and the methodology are very much intimately linked.

I'm not trying to crap on Epicureanism or anything, they probably have more in common than most would think. But I lean towards the Stoics as Epicureanism always seemed...IDK, incomplete? Or simplistic? It has clear goals, but it doesn't state many ways to achieve them, or have many exemplary or practical applications in the way the Stoics do. Though to be fair, it's very likely a lot of that is due to many of the writings, such as most of Epicurus' have been lost to history, and only a few remain, including second hand accounts. Which is unfortunate.

You're not alone. I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/More-Attention-Less-Deficit-Strategies/dp/1886941742

I can't speak for your side, medication issues, etc. but my husband has ADHD that was undiagnosed until about 8 months ago. So, I'll try to explain how your wife feels and what's worked for us.

When you're with someone with ADHD it can be extremely frustrating, which you seem to get. It's frustrating to have to pick up the little things that get left behind or act as a reminder system for someone who, without ADHD, wouldn't need the help. There's a fundamental difference in a non-ADHD brain and an ADHD brain and sometimes, the compassion for an ADHD brain gets lost. It's like constantly fighting to be heard over the other stimuli coming in and the distractions. Often, at least for me, it leads to me not feeling like I have emotional support or a partner in my marriage.

So, here's what worked for us:

-Marriage counseling with someone who understands ADHD: our counselor helps him realize what are his ADHD symptoms and gives him the tools to lessen the effect it has on our marriage. The counselor helps me realize that he is not ADHD, he has ADHD. She helps me take a step back and focus on myself while still being supportive of him making his own progress. She helps us communicate with one other and bridge the gap that exists between his brain and mine.

-Books: Personally, I recommend ADHD Effect on Marriage to help understand how it impacts your marriage and More Attention, Less Deficit as a guidebook for different methods to try to cope with the symptoms.

-Breaks: take a weekend apart, not a relationship break but go on separate vacations, go visit family, take a day-cation apart. After a while, dealing with the ADHD symptoms can get overwhelming. Taking a break helps both of us decompress and come back focused and ready to take on whatever else life can throw at us. We appreciate each other more, good and bad.

I know it's tough for both spouses in an ADHD marriage. It's frustrating and tense and stressful. But, it can work. Work as a team and be open with each other.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely look into them. These books have been really helpful:

>"when prophecy fails" - its by the sociologists who came up with the concept of "cognitive dissonance", they followed a group that believed they were getting messages from outer space from "Sandana", and a flood was coming and flying saucers would pick them up [spoiler: no flood, but some still believed]

>"Obedience to Authority" - this is the famous Stanley Milgram experiment, and they found that religious people were the most likely to "obey authority" even when it was for things against their conscience, e.g. shocking people to death (actor played the part of the "student").

What people should keep in mind about the milgram experiment is that he did a lot of variables, and there were an specific set of variables that brought out the worst in people. Just FYI. His book Obedience to Authority covers every single variable and what it means.

I think what you're talking about is mostly the anchoring effect, though because people's first impressions are based on what sources of information they seek, and they tend to seek sources of information that will agree with them, the backfire effect plays a role here too (edit: in fact, the article on the backfire effect uses the lack of impact of corrections in newspapers on opinions as an example).

Previous post:

That is a thing. I've never heard discussion of its implications in politics. I forget the name for it, but it's related to cognitive dissonance. I read about it somewhere in this book. If I find it and discover a name for this particular phenomenon, I shall report back.

I'm finishing up a course on teaching social skills (which I will be putting all of the information together and creating a thread in the next week).

I'm reading two books currently: Twelve by Twelve and Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys

If you have boys, Raising Cain. I think the author has one about girls as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Cain-Protecting-Emotional-Life/dp/0345434854

I would either say A General Theory of Love or The Demon-Haunted World are books that I always recommend to people who want to expand themselves.

A General Theory of Love is the perfect message for those who think intelligence and self-mastery means an absence of emotions. For those of us who think being rational means not letting emotions into the decision making process, this book elucidates on why that is not healthy and also why you're probably lying to yourself if you think you are incapable of feeling emotions like "normal" people.

The Demon-Haunted World is a book for everybody. It is a philosophical book written by an astrophysicist using everyday language so nearly anybody can grasp its concepts. It brings the major philosophical question of why within the average person's conceptual grasp, without using any spiritual reasoning. I feel that when more people can contemplate that question, why, without immediately turning to the supernatural and shutting down the mundane, we will be a more level-headed species.

Eh, my two cents. ;-)

I'm really glad you're interested in learning more! A good starting place would be to read the ISSTD's treatment guidelines: https://www.isst-d.org/downloads/GUIDELINES_REVISED2011.pdf. Even though it's meant for medical professionals, it's the best source for factual, evidence-based info. (As you already may have discovered via google, there's a lot of misinformation out there.)

I also strongly recommend checking out Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation: https://www.amazon.ca/Coping-Trauma-related-Dissociation-Training-Therapists/dp/039370646X. Unlike the academic language of the treatment guidelines, this book was written in consultation with people who experience dissociation and it gives the best picture out there of what it's really like and how someone who has it can move forward. (When I got my copy it was like finally being handed "your life: the users manual").

I've been working through this skills manual Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation and have found it helpful. There are worksheets at the end of each chapter and exercises throughout the book on mindfulness.

It turns out parents are people that can be wrong, sometimes horribly wrong.

Keep pursuing it on your own despite their protest. What is the appointment for? ADHD testing? Psych eval? other?

Good for you for pursuing this on your own.

I like passages from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Scattered-Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Originates/dp/0452279631 It's an old book, so you might be able to get it from your local public library.

Checkout The Culture of Fear, which attempts to answer why we fear what we do. Great read. http://www.amazon.com/The-Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities/dp/0465003362

> Peter Breggin has built a career on antipsychiatry. Yes, he's a psychiatrist; he's also a hired gun in legal cases as an expert witness blaming psychiatric medications and ECT. That doesn't mean he can't be right or can't have a point, but he has a definite objective and a lucrative six decade career on the line as a contrarian.

If that's the line of argument that is going to be pursued, ok, what was said is true. But you can also find psychiatrists with a lucrative career who at the time were pretty much in favor of the current treatments. If you go to the book "mad in america" on amazon.com,

https://www.amazon.com/Mad-America-Medicine-Enduring-Mistreatment/dp/0465020143/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523327241&sr=1-1&keywords=mad+in+america

Then go to "look inside" , go to pg 265, starting with the heading "eye on the castle", you can see the example of a psychiatrist who made a lot of money working for the pharmaceutical industry and doing research that had some ethical problems and that helped the industry. The preview of this part of the book only shows up to pg. 268, but that at least shows some of the information in case someone is interested.

> How have researcher framed performance of a certain drug in research process?

I didn't read about this subject as much as I would like, but there is some evidence that antidepressants don't work, or in other words they aren't more effective than a placebo. And there is some evidence that there were a bunch of flaws in the approval process of them by the FDA. This book talks about this subject:

https://www.amazon.com/America-Fooled-Antidepressants-Antipsychotics-Deceived/dp/0977307506/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509910303&sr=8-1&keywords=america+fooled

And I didn't read this other book, but I think it talks about this same subject:

https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Drugs-Exploding-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509910390&sr=1-1&keywords=emperor%27s+new+drugs

So antidepressants might be the focus of your research.

One of my favorites is Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate.

We all hear that a lot, but it's simply not an empirical truth, and it's outdated. That's something they teach rape victims to console them, it's not an absolute fact. And there's no shortage of evidence disputing it and showing that rape has a lot to do with sex. Castration absolutely has an impact on sexual violence, even if you believe that most rape is non-sexual. For example:

Wikipedia:

> Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist and popular science author. He is a Harvard College Professor and the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University.

----

Excerpts from chapter 18 of "The Blank Slate" (PDF):

> When the biologist Randy Thornhill and the anthropologist Craig Palmer published A Natural History of Rape in 2000, they threatened a consensus that had held firm in intellectual life for a quarter of a century, and they brought down more condemnation on evolutionary psychology than any issue had in years. Rape is a painful issue to write about, but also an unavoidable one. Nowhere else in modern intellectual life is the denial of human nature more passionately insisted upon, and nowhere else is the alternative more deeply misunderstood. Clarifying these issues, I believe, would go a long way toward reconciling three ideals that have needlessly been put into conflict: women's rights, a biologically informed understanding of human nature, and common sense.

> The horror of rape gives it a special gravity in our understanding of the psychology of men and women. There is an overriding moral imperative in the study of rape: to reduce its occurrence. Any scientist who illuminates the causes of rape deserves our admiration, like a medical researcher who illuminates the cause of a disease, because understanding an affliction is the first step toward eliminating it. And since no one acquires the truth by divine revelation, we must also respect those who explore theories that may turn out to be incorrect. Moral criticism would seem to be in order only for those who would enforce dogmas, ignore evidence, or shut down research, because they would be protecting their reputations at the expense of victims of rapes that might not have occurred if we understood the phenomenon better.

...

> Brownmiller's theory went well beyond the moral principle that women have a right not to be sexually assaulted. It said that rape had nothing to do with an individual man's desire for sex but was a tactic by which the entire male gender oppressed the entire female gender. In her famous words:

> Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times, along with the use of fire and the first crude stone axe. From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function ... it is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.

> This grew into the modern catechism: rape is not about sex, our culture socializes men to rape, it glorifies violence against women. The analysis comes right out of the gender-feminist theory of human nature: people are blank slates (who must be trained or socialized to want things); the only significant human motive is power (so sexual desire is irrelevant); and all motives and interests must be located in groups (such as the male sex and the female sex) rather than in individual people.

> The Brownmiller theory is appealing even to people who are not gender feminists because of the doctrine of the Noble Savage. Since the 1960s most educated people have come to believe that sex should be thought of as natural, not shameful or dirty. Sex is good because sex is natural and natural things are good. But rape is bad; therefore, rape is not about sex. The motive to rape must come from social institutions, not from anything in human nature.

> The violence-not-sex slogan is right about two things. Both parts are absolutely true for the victim: a woman who is raped experiences it as a violent assault, not as a sexual act. And the part about violence is true for the perpetrator by definition: if there is no violence or coercion, we do not call it rape. But the fact that rape has something to do with violence does not mean it has nothing to do with sex, any more than the fact that armed robbery has something to do with violence means it has nothing to do with greed. Evil men may use violence to get sex, just as they use violence to get other things they want.

> I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on the face of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out.

...

> there is an impressive body of evidence (reviewed more thoroughly by the legal scholar Owen Jones than by Thornhill and Palmer) that the motives for rape overlap with the motives for sex:

> Coerced copulation is widespread among species in the animal kingdom, suggesting that it is not selected against and may sometimes be selected for. It is found in many species of insects, birds, and mammals, including our relatives the orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Rape is found in all human societies.

> Rapists generally apply as much force as is needed to coerce the victim into sex. They rarely inflict a serious or fatal injury, which would preclude conception and birth. Only 4 percent of rape victims sustain serious injuries, and fewer than one in five hundred is murdered.

> Victims of rape are mostly in the peak reproductive years for women, between thirteen and thirty-five, with a mean in most data sets of twenty-four. Though many rape victims are classified as children (under the age of sixteen), most of these are adolescents, with a median age of fourteen. The age distribution is very different from that of victims of other violent crimes, and is the opposite of what would happen if rape victims were picked for their physical vulnerability or by their likelihood of holding positions of power.
Victims of rape are more traumatized when the rape can result in a conception. It is most psychologically painful for women in their fertile years, and for victims of forced intercourse as opposed to other forms of rape.

> Rapists are not demographically representative of the male gender. They are overwhelmingly young men, the age of the most intense sexual competitiveness. The young males who allegedly have been socialized to rape mysteriously lose that socialization as they get older.

> Though most rapes do not result in conception, many do. About 5 percent of rape victims of reproductive age become pregnant, resulting in more than 32,000 rape-related pregnancies in the United States each year. (That is why abortion in the case of rape is a significant issue.) The proportion would have been even higher in prehistory, when women did not use long-term contraception." Brownmiller wrote that biological theories of rape are fanciful because in terms of reproductive strategy, the hit or miss ejaculations of a single-strike rapist are a form of Russian roulette compared to ongoing consensual mating. " But ongoing consensual mating is not an option for every male, and dispositions that resulted in hit-or-miss sex could be evolutionarily more successful than dispositions that resulted in no sex at all. Natural selection can operate effectively with small reproductive advantages, as little as 1 percent.

> The payoff for a reality-based understanding of rape is the hope of reducing or eliminating it. Given the theories on the table, the possible sites for levers of influence include violence, sexist attitudes, and sexual desire.


"The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" on Amazon

> consider that every single video game and every single popular story and every single everything on Earth is oriented towards heterosexuals. Every blockbuster film stars a heterosexual romance and every big new book is about a male and female lead tugging at each other's heartstrings.

Alan Downs talked about this extensively in The Velvet Rage - which is an amazingly powerful book. Especially for people who've been involved in queer community issues for a few years. But I'm not sure that the state of neglect toward GLBT audience members that was once so very painfully true, is still the catastrophe it once was. And catastrophisation beyond actual scope seems like it hinders activism more than it helps.

The L Word. Queer as Folk. Philadelphia. Brokeback Mountain. Will and Grace. Modern Family. All fairly popular pop culture things not really oriented towards heteronormative relationships.

The Doctor Who franchise, especially torchwood heavily references GLBT issues - although my favourite is "I speak horse. His name is Susan and he wants you to respect his life choices.

Transamerica and Dirty Sexy Money have some fairly extensive references to transgender characters...

GLBT characters in scifi/fantasy are borderline common place now. A number of fairly successful works have featured GLBT lead characters. Richard Morgans 'The Steel Remains' is awesome and a personal favorite.

Openly gay celebrities are barely noteworthy at this point. Being openly gay did wonders for Ellens career and certainly hasn't hurt Neil Patrick Harris. Openly gay musicians have been around for a while in certain genres, but Frank Ocean and Rob Halford are seeing their careers unphased by coming out despite being in typically incredibly homophobic genres. Top tier athletes and former athletes are open and out in a number of sports. Openly trans celebrities like Lana Wachowski and Chas Bono get plenty of positive airtime for their openness.

Things are still incredibly far away from good. But it's been a while since every single bit of pop culture available was heteronormative.

Man I'm sorry you're struggling. I went through exactly the same thing here in America. Like you I used to think of my sexuality as a disability. In hindsight that seems fucked up to me now, and really shows how conditioned we are to think that heterosexuality is the only way to be "normal".

Idk if you're a reader, but there's a great book about this exact subject (accepting yourself) called The Velvet Rage. I've seen it recommended before, but I really think it should be required reading for us gays. We all have to go through this process to become healthy emotionally.

It will take time, and personally I'm not finished yet after years of trying. Good friends are important. People that will listen and care about you. Ideally get counseling or therapy from someone who specializes in this if available.

If you can without endangering yourself, try to be "out" as much as you can to your friends, family, and coworkers. Not having to live a mental double life helps.

Whatever you do, don't kill yourself, no matter how hopeless you feel. If you get to that point please go to the hospital. Your situation may seem impossible sometimes, and you will have bad days, but there is always a way forward. Always.

I wish you the best ❤️

The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World, Second Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738215678/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Dg1DCbQMDWC4C

Read "The Velvet Rage" for one thing.

Shame is something we all deal with -- and not in the obvious ways. The hardest part is that we don't get any emotional validation from our relationships (I mean, we do get compliments, expressions of friendship, affection, and even love... but we never accept it... like when your Mom tells you you're handsome... or if you're driving a friend's fancy car and get compliments; We've built up a facade since youth to hide what we really are, so what other people interact with, befriend, romance, etc... we don't own. It's the "friend's fancy car" and we can't take credit for it. We shrug off the good about us because deep down inside, we're afraid that by exposing our true self to anyone, they'll hate us.) So you're gonna need to come all the way out and start living your life. This is you. You are not flawed, you are worthy of love, and you are the only one whose validation matters in your life.

EDIT: Dude, I'm 33, came out at your age and it's been so much better ever since. So just saying. I did the half in, half out, and I hated it. Now that I can actually own myself, I've finally felt free.

This book would be a good place to start: https://smile.amazon.com/Obedience-Authority-Experimental-Perennial-Classics/dp/006176521X/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_g2563698942?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&ie=UTF8

Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious by Timothy Wilson is personally one of my favorites
Anything by Malcolm Gladwell (I really enjoyed Blink)
Anything by Robert Cialdini (He was my social psychology professor and one of my favorite authors / public speakers)
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time) by Claude M. Steele (Who basically uncovered stereotype threat research)
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Phillip Zimbaro (famous for the Stanford prison experiment)


Older books:
Mindfulness by Ellen Langer (about automatic processes and how mindless we can be)
When Prophecy Fails by Festinger, Riecken, & Schachter (To understand how cults work, a group of researchers infiltrate a join a cult. Mainly about cognitive dissonance but details what happens to a cult when the world doesn't end like predicted)
Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram if you want to know all about the Milgram experiments

Sorry that is all that comes to mind now. . . (edited for formatting)

Probably this study. I knew somebody who said electricians refused to provide the shocks, but I have never confirmed that.

I may be in the minority but I don't think that Mills's Sociological Imagination is a good starting point for an introduction to sociology. While the first chapter (The Promise) may be worth a read, the rest of the book is very much an insider's critique of the subject and requires the reader to have a general understanding of sociology as it is being practiced post-WWII. I think that you will get the most out of Mills after familiarizing yourself with sociology more broadly.


As others have mentioned, Ritzer & Stepnisky's Sociological Theory is a very comprehensive overview of sociological thinking but it may be a bit overwhelming. While it isn't as encyclopedic as Ritzer & Stepnisky, I like Seidman's Contested Knowledge because it provides the reader with both a historical overview of sociological thinking and provides easy to read summaries of important thinkers.


I am not sure if you will find these too difficult but here are some other books that may expand your understanding of sociology:

• Outsiders: Studies In The Sociology Of Deviance by Howard Becker
  
• Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram

I would recommend reading [Ordinary Men] (http://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0060995068) a book that uses the narrative about a group of ordinary Germans from all walks of life committed some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust: many Jews were not killed in chambers (the final solution) where their screams could be ignored. These "ordinary men" were forced to take jews out of villages and shoot them in cold blood, even infants.

The author uses it as a cautionary tale of the horrors of brainwashing propaganda and war; how average joes can be convinced that what they're doing is ok because it is sanctioned by a higher authority and therefor rationalize it to themselves. For more on that you can read about Milgram's psychological experiments, described in [Obedience to Authority] (http://www.amazon.com/Obedience-Authority-Experimental-Perennial-Classics/dp/006176521X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342748841&sr=1-1&keywords=obedience+to+authority). In the 1950s people were insisting that the Holocaust was a strictly German thing, that it happened once and never again. Milgram proved that most Americans would be willing to inflict pain on others to the point of death (they truly thought the actor was being killed by shocks) as long as some authority sanctioned it. He showed that even in our "good country" if an authority figure tells you to do something, you place all responsibility on him and become willing to kill. Afterwards participants would say things like "I felt bad for hurting the guy so bad, but I wanted to do my job well" and things like that.


People have always been quick to deny involvement, or claim to be just doing their small part. It's complacency towards hate that leads to these atrocities, not millions of hateful people.

There's a book I got for a friend who is expecting a baby boy soon. It's called "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys". Haven't read it myself yet but it comes well recommended. Maybe you can try and find a cheap copy of it and have a read? Anyway, good of you to try and be there for the kids. :)

PS You're barely out of childhood yourself. Do what you can to help, but first and foremost go out and enjoy life.

My boyfriend is a new special needs teacher/assistant with very little training and he's increasingly patient since he's started the job. He recommends the book Raising Cain to get an idea of what the students are going through and figure out easier ways to communicate with them.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/reviews/0345434854/ref=mw_dp_cr

If you want the book, I'll get it for you if you PM me contact info.

I've at least skimmed a ton of them, some are better than others. The ones I'd recommend are:

• The DID Sourcebook This is a good all-levels overview of all aspects of DID, and is the one that seems most accessible to partners or friends.
  
• [Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation] (https://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Interpersonal-Neurobiology/dp/039370646X/ref=sr_1_1) This is a workbook style manual, very helpful but pulls no punches as far as triggering material, so a lot of people would suggest using this in therapy vs. on your own.
  
• The Stranger in the Mirror This offers a more inclusive look at the whole dissociation spectrum and also includes self-evaluation screening questions and explanations of results.
  

It does sound like you're dealing with severe dissociation. Whether it's DID, OSDD, or something else similar this book Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation is a really good place to start. The first few chapters will explain the basics and help you recognize the symptoms of DID/OSDD, which can help you figure out if these disorders might be what you are dealing with. The rest of the book is really focused on skills for coping with and living with severe dissociation. It's mainly written for people with DID/OSDD, but I think it would be helpful for anyone who is dissociated and has the experience of feeling like there are "parts" of themselves.

I have DID and CPTSD. If you want to talk or ask any questions or anything, I'd be happy to answer.

Hi, I am married to someone who experiences DID. I would talk this over with your wife as to the possibility of having DID. Most of the time with DID, they may have loss of time when these other parts come out. Sometimes counselors and psychiatrists are not open to the idea that DID exists. What has helped me personally through this odd occurrence is to realize that it's not my fault and it's her job to manage herself (including all parts). There is a book I highly recommend (and this subreddit recommends) called Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation. It has been a fantastic resource for my situation. I feel it has helped us gain an equilibrium even with all these alters my wife experiences. Feel free to PM me if you would like.

I'm glad I could help. Sounds like you're attacking the problem from all angles, which is great. I found this book "Scattered"
by Gabor Mate (https://www.amazon.com/Scattered-Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Originates/dp/0452279631) a helpful supplement to my therapy. It examines ADHD from an emotional and developmental perspective, rather than a chemical perspective, so it was useful to me in better understanding my own behaviors and reactions to events.

This book was an awesome read on ADHD and general relationship formation/detachment.

P.S. I just looked, and the author released a Tenth Anniversary Edition in 2010.

Culture of Fear is a great book that really elaborates on all of this stuff.

• The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler.
  
• Waking Up Screaming by H.P. Lovecraft
  
• I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
  
• The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things by Barry Glassner
  
• White Mischief: A Cultural History of Cocaine by Tim Madge
  
  Edit for n00b formatting.

Newsflash, sex isn't just about making babies. When was the last time you had sex for making babies? You know nothing of childhood sexuality. Further, only 4% of childhood cases of sex caused trauma and only because they were violent. The rest either enjoyed the experience or didn't care either way. Read The Trauma Myth and look up the Rind et al research.

I bet you're one of those idiots who thinks there's no such thing as human nature, and that sex doesn't play a part of it. Again, do research before spouting bull shit.

Studies of child-hood sexuality:

http://www.ethicaltreatment.org/research.htm

http://www.ipce.info/booksreborn/martinson/infant/InfantAndChildSexuality.html

http://newgon.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://sexuality.spaceandmotion.com/sexual-development-children-teen.htm

http://www.ejhs.org/volume3/Haroian/body.htm

Studies done into the psychology industry:

http://www.amazon.com/First-Do-No-Harm-Industry/dp/0864700474/ref=sr_1_42?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347509168&sr=1-42&keywords=first+do+no+harm

http://newgon.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.srmhp.org/0402/child-abuse.html

http://www.srmhp.org/0402/repression.html

http://www.ipce.info/library/web-article/trauma-myth-susan-clancy-book-review

http://transres.freeweb7.com/levine.html

http://www.ipce.info/library_2/files/rind_jen.htm

http://www.nambla.org/trauma_myth.html

http://tanadineen.com/writer/writings/sexualharass.htm

Manufacturing Victims: http://tanadineen.com/documents/MV3.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Harmful-To-Minors-Protecting-Children/dp/0816640068/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pdT1_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=76HTLA12QPTR&coliid=I2ZYLJADY7SNA0

http://www.amazon.com/Erotic-Innocence-Culture-Child-Molesting/dp/0822321777/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=76HTLA12QPTR&coliid=I2OBVH6P4AIKLB

Articles and books on the hysteria and others:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities/dp/0465003362

http://bigthink.com/ideas/41459

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/29/six-year-old-wisconsin-boy-being-prosecuted-for-playing-doctor-with-a-five-year-old/

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,460225,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kern_County_child_abuse_cases

http://newgon.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.srmhp.org/0402/child-abuse.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20050310183555/http://logicalreality.com/openbb/board.php?FID=61

http://human-stupidity.com/stupid-dogma/faulty_science/us-congress-senate-condemn-scientific-researc

http://mirror.wikileaks.info/wiki/An_insight_into_child_porn/

http://human-stupidity.com/stupid-dogma/child-porn-witch-hunt/children-loved-child-porn-modeling-photo-sessions-were-the-highlight-of-my-life-children-traumatized-by-federal-government-prosecution

http://www.ipce.info/ipceweb/Library/i_did_not_know.htm

http://www.b4uact.org/facts.htm

http://www.vice.com/read/the-a-to-z-of-sexual-history-incest

http://www.historyundressed.com/2009/08/incest-within-royal-families.html

http://www.srmhp.org/0402/repression.html

http://human-stupidity.com/stupid-dogma/child-porn-witch-hunt/legal-child-pornography-reduces-child-sex-crimes-milton-diamond-hawaii

http://human-stupidity.com/stupid-dogma/teenage-sexuality/child-porn-laws-kill-destroy-lives-judge-jack-b-weinstein

http://transres.freeweb7.com/levine.html

http://human-stupidity.com/irrationality/stupid-dogma/child-porn-witch-hunt

http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/11/child-porn-laws-arent-as-bad-as-you-think-theyre-much-much-worse/

A surprising number of these books were assigned reading from classes.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

And I'm currently reading a book recommended by an excellent redditor somewhere in this sub, Mad in America by Robert Whitaker

> Am I the only Person who takes this and I feel better?

There are probably many who see positive results

It didn't work at all for me

And...serious researchers are questioning whether it works at all

http://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Drugs-Exploding-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416267741&sr=8-1&keywords=emperors+drug

> Has anyone looked into the antidepressant vs placebo debate ?

I did look into it, but not in as much detail as I would like. I didn't study medicine or psychology, I studied engineering and started studying either books or scientific articles or reading whatever I found on the internet about psychiatry because the treatments I did were pretty crappy.

Of what I read about this specific debate of antidepressant vs placebo, there is the article you mentioned that is on the side that antidepressants work better than placebo. [This blog] (https://fugitivepsychiatrist.com/) by a psychiatrist is of the opinion that they work better than a placebo too, but I don't remember where exactly in the blog he makes his argument. If you search for "placebo" inside it, you find a bunch of his articles, some of them will be the ones that deal with this debate. The author of this blog is one of the moderators of the subreddit /r/PsychMelee/ , he is user u/fugitivepsychiatrist

There is this book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0977307506/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_pt_BR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=america+fooled&qid=1571429094&sr=8-1 that I read it all, and half of it is about the whole antidepressant VS placebo debate, and how big farma's influence pushed bad science as good science. According to him, antidepressants simply do not work better than a placebo, trials show this, and the trials that supposedly prove that they work better than a placebo are just bad trials with methodological errors. For instance, one error in those trials is that in some of them, the patient taking the antidepressant was also taking another drug to counteract the agitating effect of the antidepressant. If you search for "timothy scott antidepressant" on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=timothy+scott+antidepressant , you will find some videos on which the author talks about his views. There was a site where you could get one of the chapters of his book for free, I remember it being www.americafooled.com or the same site .org, but it's not on those addresses, and can't find it anymore.

There's also this book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465022006/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_pt_BR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=the+emperor%27s+new+drugs&qid=1571430255&sr=8-1 , which I only read a little of it, it's entirely about this antidepressant vs placebo debate, and the author I think also proposes that antidepressants are no better than a placebo in the book. If you search for the author on youtube, https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=irving+kirsch, you find some videos where he explains his findings.

There is also the psychiatrist Peter Breggin, who is pretty critical of all psychiatric drugs, he was involved as an expert witness in an lawsuit against Ely lilly when they were sued because a patient taking prozac killed a bunch of people with a gun and committed suicide, and he writes about what he found out researching the drug company papers when he was involved in the trial. He writes that the trials the company did to get the approval of the antidepressant had problems (he mentions the same problem I mentioned, that patients given antidepressant were also given another drug), but I don't remember in which of his books he writes about this, it was either one or more than one of these 3 books of his that has this information: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738210986/ref=sr_1_3?__mk_pt_BR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=peter+breggin&qid=1571430780&sr=8-3 ; https://www.amazon.com/dp/073820451X/ref=sr_1_7?__mk_pt_BR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=peter+breggin&qid=1571430780&sr=8-7 ; https://www.amazon.com/dp/082612934X/ref=sr_1_8?__mk_pt_BR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=peter+breggin&qid=1571430780&sr=8-8 .

I've also come across a page from the FDA on the internet saying that the trials to approve the antidepressants really show that they work better than a placebo, but I don't remember what the link to that page was.

So that is what I came across. But as I didn't read each of the individual trials that supposedly show that antidepressants either work better or don't work better than a placebo, I don't know who is right. I just know what the people who read those trials and/or read studies of people who read those trials has to say. I'm actually curious to study more of this subject to find out who is right in this debate, but I ended up not studying this any further due to a bunch of factors.

DFW was on old-school tricyclic antidepressants which have a host of horrifying side-effects.

You're dramatically overestimating the usefulness of antidepressants, which is understandable given the insane influence pharmaceutical lobbying has had over doctors and society at large. The Hamilton Depression Rating scale runs from 1 to 59, and antidepressants have an average impact of a boost in 1.8 points according to a study from Harvard doctor Irving Hirsch, compared to say, sleeping well, which tends to boost 6 points. For some people that 1.8 point bump is a difference maker, sure, but reducing his suicide to cessation of medication is wildly reductive at best and totally presumptive, since, you know, you never met the guy.

>Antidepressants allowed him to live a normal life and believe the stuff he was saying. He was wrong, clearly.

The stuff he was saying is basically mindfulness, which is widely accepted as having a positive impact on well-being and used productively by millions. Maybe it wasn't solely responsible for keeping him alive, but discounting it because he wound up dying doesn't make sense.

If you enjoyed that talk, you'd likely enjoy books from Irving Kirsch and Robert Whitaker. If you don't have a dozen or more hours to read both of these books, the NYBOOKS writeup is pretty good (and might convince you to spend the dozen hours, as it did me). Lastly, if your schedule/lifestyle better accommodates listening to an mp3 rather than reading a book, I cannot recommend highly enough a talk from UW School of Public Health senior lecturer Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, "Is America Driving You Crazy?" [10mb mp3 or low quality YouTube video].

For those who are too lazy to click the NYBOOKS writeup above, here's a brief excerpt that gets at some of the good stuff:

>For obvious reasons, drug companies make very sure that their positive studies are published in medical journals and doctors know about them, while the negative ones often languish unseen within the FDA, which regards them as proprietary and therefore confidential. This practice greatly biases the medical literature, medical education, and treatment decisions.

>Kirsch and his colleagues used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain FDA reviews of all placebo-controlled clinical trials, whether positive or negative, submitted for the initial approval of the six most widely used antidepressant drugs approved between 1987 and 1999—Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Serzone, and Effexor. This was a better data set than the one used in his previous study, not only because it included negative studies but because the FDA sets uniform quality standards for the trials it reviews and not all of the published research in Kirsch’s earlier study had been submitted to the FDA as part of a drug approval application.

>Altogether, there were forty-two trials of the six drugs. Most of them were negative. Overall, placebos were 82 percent as effective as the drugs, as measured by the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-D), a widely used score of symptoms of depression. The average difference between drug and placebo was only 1.8 points on the HAM-D, a difference that, while statistically significant, was clinically meaningless. The results were much the same for all six drugs: they were all equally unimpressive. Yet because the positive studies were extensively publicized, while the negative ones were hidden, the public and the medical profession came to believe that these drugs were highly effective antidepressants.

>Kirsch was also struck by another unexpected finding. In his earlier study and in work by others, he observed that even treatments that were not considered to be antidepressants—such as synthetic thyroid hormone, opiates, sedatives, stimulants, and some herbal remedies—were as effective as antidepressants in alleviating the symptoms of depression. Kirsch writes, “When administered as antidepressants, drugs that increase, decrease or have no effect on serotonin all relieve depression to about the same degree.” What all these “effective” drugs had in common was that they produced side effects, which participating patients had been told they might experience.

>It is important that clinical trials, particularly those dealing with subjective conditions like depression, remain double-blind, with neither patients nor doctors knowing whether or not they are getting a placebo. That prevents both patients and doctors from imagining improvements that are not there, something that is more likely if they believe the agent being administered is an active drug instead of a placebo. Faced with his findings that nearly any pill with side effects was slightly more effective in treating depression than an inert placebo, Kirsch speculated that the presence of side effects in individuals receiving drugs enabled them to guess correctly that they were getting active treatment—and this was borne out by interviews with patients and doctors—which made them more likely to report improvement. He suggests that the reason antidepressants appear to work better in relieving severe depression than in less severe cases is that patients with severe symptoms are likely to be on higher doses and therefore experience more side effects.

Me too.

Fuck items.

Have some stuff.

Hoarding is very closely linked to OCD and depression. If hoarding and hoarders interest you at all you should check out the book Stuff:Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, its amazing and scary at the same time.

It's called STUFF. Here is the Amazon link.

I finished the book in a day. Unlike the shows you see on TV, the authors really dig deep into the psychology of hoarding and how trauma, anxiety, OCD, etc. play massive roles... it made me cry a few times.

(Edit: OCD, not LCD...)

A couple of my recent favourites:

Neurotribes by Silberman - interesting and easy read on the history of Autism/Aspergers

Stuff by Frost - entertaining book around the history and current theories of hoarding

For all the people who have clicked on this just to say "Me too" (or "my mom/dad/SO/child/friend"):

Go read this INCREDIBLY PERCEPTIVE ENLIGHTENING HELPFUL BOOK called "Stuff"

I have a deep distrust of most selfhelp books; this isn't one. What it is is a collection of case histories and a ton of thoughtprovoking commentary. IT WILL HELP.

This is a throwaway account that I will never use again. If y'all upvote this post, people coming here in trouble with hoarders of their own will see it and quite possibly find a valuable resource.

I'm not going to respond to your insults since you have confused me for someone else, but since you are so righteous about commanding to people what they must read in order to have an opinion on this topic, I might suggest some reading for you as well.

Seriously though, all readings and topics aside, you are being incredibly rude and arrogant here. I suggest toning it down and having a civilized conversation with people you disagree with if your goal is to increase the amount of accurate knowledge in the world and not just to throw put-downs at people that you have categorically discarded.

No.

Read a book. May I suggest:

How the Mind Works

Consciousness Explained

The Crucible of Conscoiusness

The Astonishing Hypothesis

The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature

Pick up and read [The Velvet Rage] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Straight/dp/0738215678). It can be a bit one dimensional at times, but it does a brilliant job of describing the different 'phases' gay men go through as their personalities evolve. At the very least it will help you navigate your friendship a bit better.

The book The Velvet Rage talks about this topic in a not very faltering light. The author Alan Downs' premise is that many gay men are over driven in other aspects of their lives to make up for the (often unconscious) shame they feel about their sexuality.

I personally don't think I would be as financially ambitious if I were straight. I basically had to really get me shit together to get out of the conservative place I grew up. The Velvet Rage is worth a read but in my openion it's a bit dated and may not be as applicable to gay men who grew up after the year 2000.

https://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Growing-Straight/dp/0738215678/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464819731&sr=8-1&keywords=velvet+rage

I am going through a similar process and am still healing. Be gentle with yourself. Rest. Learn to forgive. Know that healing takes time and that there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is an end. You are alive, you will survive.

Some active things to do to heal that I've found useful.

• Choose which of your friends to talk to and tell about this carefully. Talk to ones who don't silver-line the relationship and tell you to heal. Don't talk to toxic friends. There are no absolutes in healing.
  
• Read self-help books. How To Survive The Loss of a Love and The Velvet Rage both have helped me.
  
• Meditate. Use Headspace. Lie down and listen to meditation for healing after a breakup
  
• Journal for as long as you have feelings in your head. Get them down. Make sure to include both positive and negative thoughts. Stop journaling when it feels like you aren't writing down anything new.
  

It's something I'm still working on myself. Indeed, it kept me in the closet until I was 48 years old and it's kept me from pursuing any relationships even after coming out. The first step, of course, is recognizing where those feeling are coming from. After that... Well, like I said, I'm still working on that part. Having friends in the LGBT community helps a lot. So far it hasn't been enough for me, though, so I'm considering changing counselors. My counselor has been tremendously helpful to me in helping me cope with anxiety and depression. However, she's rather hopelessly naive when it comes to anything LGBT related.

You might check on the book The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World. Personally, I found the author was a bit over the top in places, interpreting absolutely everything through a lens of shame. Nevertheless, it was eye opening and helpful.

Hey man,
I'm sorry you're feeling this way. I'm Serbian-Slovenian, but born in Canada. I have visited Serbia and spent time with my cousins (Ivanjica + Beograd) . I know how conservative and anti-gay the culture is and can only imagine how lonely you must feel. So the first thing I'd say is it's great that you continue to reach out online about the way you're feeling. You've posted a few times about your feelings, even apologizing or indicating you're embarrassed for posting so often, but I think it's the best thing you can be doing for yourself so keep at it.

I'm 28 and privileged to live where I live and am able to be out and open about who I am and who I love. That being said, I've only recently begun to acknowledge my depression and how much being gay has perhaps contributed to that. I grew up in a small town in western Canada which is relatively conservative and didn't realize how much that experience affected me until I left when I was 18 for university across the country to Toronto and could live my life how I wanted instead of how everyone else expected me to be. That's as close as I'll come to saying 'stick it out, it gets better.' But note: it's not a "cliche" if it's actually the truth. But when you're in the thick of it it's impossible to recognize that as anything helpful, so I get it.

I read this book last summer and wish I could have read it when I was 14. https://www.amazon.ca/Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Growing-Straight/dp/0738215678/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521396766&sr=8-1&keywords=the+velvet+rage If the link doesn't work, it's called "The Velvet Rage" by Alan Downs. It's short, pretty easy read, but holy shit did it change the way I viewed myself, my actions, my feelings. Everything. Can't recommend it enough if you get a hold of a copy or find it online. I understand that having a book like that in your house might be dangerous for you. I recognize my Canadian privilege that I could walk into a bookstore openly and purchase it from the shelf without concern for my own safety.

I started talking with my doctor a few years ago about depression. I pick and bite the skin around my fingers until they are raw and bloody, and twirl my hair and pull it out. It's a form of OCD that's connected to anxiety and depression. I learned about CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) (another user posted a link to it below/above I noticed, so it's not a novel contribution to this discussion) and the takeaway is that you can control your feelings much more than you think you can, it just takes practice and focus. I'm not the best at it yet, but it's a good starting place to learn about your own thought patterns etc. My doctor showed my this site: https://moodgym.com.au/ it's free, I encourage you to check it out.

My doctor also turned me on to mindfulness and yoga. I started doing it at home because I was too nervous to go to a class or something because I felt like I would look like a stupid idiot. So don't let that stop you from trying it at home. If you're in your room for hours on your computer or doing nothing anyway, it's a great thing to do anytime of day to strengthen your mind and body. It sounds hokey, but holy crap do you feel better after. I'm a believer now haha, and have started going to some classes, including a 'hot yoga' session last week which was fun. I started at home on youtube with this 40-minute introduction to yoga video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ6NfFIr2jw&t=1197s I've shown a few people this and I've heard feedback that it was stressful, she goes to fast in some spots etc, which I appreciate especially the first time. But if you have to stop the video, go back, etc , especially the first time, do it, and then the second time, the third time, etc it gets much more enjoyable. Here I CAN safely say 'don't worry, it gets better' :P She has tons of other videos that are shorter/longer/specific to certain body parts etc.

An observation if I would: you seem like a very intelligent, introspective, analytical and reflective person who writes a lot. You say you have no interest in doing things, yet you continue to post long essay-type postings. So maybe recognize that writing is something you do enjoy doing, that you write very well, and maybe writing is your thing! Do you journal? Do you write fiction on your own? Do you comment on other things around the internet, like news stories, politics etc? Looking back, especially in my teenage years, I read tons of fiction and wrote a lot of short stories and I think that was how I dealt with my queer feelings. It's almost funny thinking back to those stories and how subtly gay themed they were, lots of themes of loneliness, feeling out of place, feeling different, the other, even one story was about a Vietnam war veteran who came home from the war and couldn't deal so he ended his life. My teacher had me read out that one to the entire class. It was clearly a cry for help, and instead of allowing me to wallow in my shame and self-hate, that teacher acknowledge my strong writing with a good grade (making me feel good about myself) and then sharing it with the class forced me to not be alone with my story/feelings. 10/10 teacher, I often wish I could find him now to tell him how much he meant to me. Actually maybe I'll write him a letter this week. You've inspired me!

Also on your writing and introspection etc, I think you'd enjoy philosophy if you're not already into it. I'm not, but my ex got into and it changed the way he interacted with the world and felt about himself, and I can totally see you enjoying it too. I don't have any recommendations, but I'm sure there's a philosophy thread on reddit/other dudes on here can give recommendations. You have no interest in things, I get it, but you continue to reach out, and so I'm hopeful that you're open to trying new things and finding something that you might discover you do like instead of just complaining that you don't care about anything. All you can ask for yourself is to try :)

It sucks when you have no interest in things, especially school, but DONT let that slip because if nothing else, strong grades IS your way out. There is life beyond the world immediately around you, outside of Serbia, outside of Eastern Europe. The world seems so shitty because the shitty people are often the loudest, and doom and gloom is what brings good ratings to the media, so they have incentive to report on the shitty things. I've worked as an HIV/AIDS counselor in a slum in Kenya, helping/working with people who have literally nothing but they somehow keep going with a hope is unbelievable given their circumstances. Recognizing how much you DO have, and being thankful for the smallest things you DO have, rather than focusing on the negatives of how shitty you have it and how you're feeling, is really all you can do until one day you might have something to actually actively feel happy about.

Going back to when I was 14, all I dreamed about was moving across the country to Toronto for university. It was all I had. Everything I did (school, part time work, extra curricular activities, sports (swimming)) was for that. And then I got accepted and moved away from my small-town life, and that joy, that accomplishment from completing that goal, probably saved my life. I lost my way a bit after that, but found it again at 26 when I was accepted to law school, and here I am now :)

Keep reaching out. Speak to a doctor if you can. I did end up going on antidepressants last year after things in my personal life broke down and my other efforts at self-help weren't enough (yoga, mindfulness, exercise (swimming, biking, running) healthy diet (so important omg. I'm a bottom with some IBS issues, fml right?. Fibre, fibre, fibre. But I digress!), social network, healthy hobbies, etc), and it really helped me. This year I recently had a bit of a mental breakdown (I'm still in law school and continue to have some personal issues relating to my ex and anxiety about my future, money, debt, etc) and was forced to re-evaluate everything again and accept that I have depression, it's okay that I have depression, and sometimes you need medical help in the form of medication to get you out of it. There is so much stigma still about mental health, and it's not accessible for so many people, but if you need it you need it. Think of chemical depression like the flu or a lung infection: you treat it with medication if you have to and then you get better over time. There's nothing wrong with getting antidepressants and using them until the rest of your life works itself out so that you have the structures and stability in place that you no longer need that chemical help. I'm not decided if I'll restart SSRIs this year or not (a doc gave me a prescription, I filled it, the pills are in my bag, but I'm still on the fence whether I need them or not. I likely will start them so I don't ruin the rest of my semester, and then see how things go) but yeah, fuck the stigma, sometimes you need it. It's okay to be depressed, there's a good chance it's a chemical imbalance combined with you being gay, but don't let it fuck up your future. Please. The world has lost too many amazing gay men to depression, shame, and anxiety, and even if you don't end your own life, being unable to do something with your clear amount of intellect would be an equal shame.

Good luck, dude.

For gay men, The Velvet Rage.

Some of the psychology is a little wonky and the perspective is more than a little college-educated/upper-middle-class, but it was a revelation the first time I read it a couple years ago, just for all the "Holy balls I have had this exact feeling and experienced this exact thing" moments.

> I can’t get help on most problems because my mom doesn’t “believe” in mental illness or abusive parenting.

Hmm. Do you have reasonably private library access? People could point you to books that might help out your situation, like The Narcissistic Family, a book about helping the children of narcissistic parents recover.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0787908703/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1466551952&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=narcissistic+family+system

Have you read that book? It helped me a lot. It gives an objective take on the simple dynamics that arise in a "narcissistic family system". It's technically distinct from NPD because it looks at the family dynamics surrounding a narcissist rather than at the narcissists themselves. It held a lot of truth for me. This new situation for you will probably require you to explore the situation with your mother again as that stuff is one of the deepest layers to peel back to, so an objective re-exploration of yourself through that lens may be helpful.

And thanks! Most people commiserate not congratulate when I share that, so it's nice to hear from someone who knows what it's like. The way I explain it when people react by saying "I'm sorry, that's really terrible" is this: imagine having a 100lb weight tied to your ankle for your whole life. It's always been there, and you just assumed it was part of your body. Now imagine one day, you decide to take it off. Is that sad?" It's a vast oversimplification, but is more or less accurate.

In terms of the ugliness, I'll just say keep exploring yourself and keep searching for deeper truth. It seems like you're doing that already, and aren't questioning that path, I just wanted to affirm it. It's the right thing, and it will guide you to the answers you're looking for and to the happiness and clarity you're seeking. Trust that you'll get through the short term, because you will, and you will come out smarter than before.

The double life thing: basically when I was a kid I withdrew and experienced my real pleasures internally while putting on a mindless act for my parents in the physical world. As I grew and became more independent, I still maintained the act, but increasingly had places where my parents had no eyes or ears. My conversations with them had nothing to do with what I felt, even though I spoke with them often. I was split between the life I projected I was leading to them and the life I was leading for myself. It wasn't a clear line distinction because I would only dare stray so far from the projected life patterns in my "private" life, but the line was there nonetheless. I think this divide helps lead 9's to drugs, etc. in other cases, though I never got much into that kind of thing.

Do you know your mbti type btw?

I gave my family a copy of True Selves. I hear it's a little dated by now, but whatever.

Part of the problem, I think, is that many successful T people lead pretty normal lives and our transgender status doesn't really affect our day to day lives.

It's easy to see an out and proud gay or lesbian person lead a normal, happy life, but chances are that even if you do know a successful trans woman or trans man, unless you know them pretty well, you don't know that part of their history.

If you're looking to get an impression of what transgender people go through, there are some decent resources online (although there's a lot of nonsense too).

The book I recommended to my mom when I came out was True Selves. It explains a lot of the basics, and the process many people go through.

>I'm frustrated that I still haven't developed any strong personal and intellectual relationships with trans people I respect, as I'm absolutely certain they're out there.

I think you're going to have a hard time finding a trans person who is both very successful and vocal about their background. I'm not saying they don't exist, but they're rare.

If there's anything more specific you want to ask about, feel free to PM. I'm a bit hesitant to get too personal on a public forum.

I don't know how well this argues in favor of being trans, but this website has a good summary of trans studies regarding the human brain:

http://transascity.org/the-transgender-brain/

They include the studies mentioned in this review paper, which is one of my favorites (I gave my wife and my parents a copy of it when I came out):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19955753

Finally, I also gave my wife and my parents a copy of the book "True Selves", which really needs to be updated but contains a lot of info, and was specifically written for the families of trans people:

http://www.amazon.com/True-Selves-Understanding-Transsexualism-For-Professionals/dp/0787967025

Your parents care about you and want the best for you, but they're uneducated. It's normal for kids to go through weird phases that they outgrow, so your parents are assuming that's what this is. They're wrong but I can understand it.

Try giving your parents third party sources to educate them. It would be better if you give them information that doesn't look like it was written by trans people, which they may view as biased.

http://transequality.org/Resources/NCTE_UnderstandingTrans.pdf

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/01/transgender-questions-resources (this one addresses the "its just a phase" comment)

Or http://www.amazon.com/True-Selves-Understanding-Transsexualism---Professionals/dp/0787967025/ref=sr_1_35?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414792211&sr=1-35

Wikipedia is also a good impartial source.

How is your therapist? Is he experienced with trans people? How did he react to you saying you are a boy?

The entire process of gender transition is usually a collection of steps taken under the supervision of a psychologist. The process is both complicated and varies widely depending on the psychologist and country you are in. Usually you can go to Google and get a very good idea of what the whole process is like. Start with the wikipedia article on transitioning then start looking up resources and books. True Selves is a good book to start with as well. Though beware, a lot of our understanding of transgender has changed drastically in the past decade.

I have a copy of Motivational Interviewing, Third Edition: Helping People Change (Applications of Motivational Interviewing) and would recommend it as a first read. Motivational Interviewing in the Treatment of Psychological Problems, Second Edition (Applications of Motivational Interviewing) is also pretty good. Also, as a person-centred psychotherapist, I'm bound to recommend 'Client-centered Therapy' by Carl Rogers. His non-directive, phenomenological approach to therapy was a supposedly a key influence behind MI.

​

​

The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs. It may seem like an anachronism, but I feel it is still relevant in our heteronormative world.

It makes sense. I think you had good intentions: staying busy and working hard. It's just there's a balance. And while a good distraction here and there might be nice, you don't want to avoid the proper dialogues you need to have with yourself.

I'm a big fan of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Instead of tracing things back to the source, it focuses on what to do in the moment when triggers flare. I like the book Retrain Your Brain because it goes through the CBT stuff in an easy to read and digest manner. Not too theoretical. Each chapter had me nodding with how it made sense. See if your library has a copy.

If you're a more auditory learner, try listening to one of Noah Elkrief's videos. I'll link this one How to Forgive Yourself.

I'm usually wary of any life coachy type of talk, and Noah doesn't seem to have and therapist credentials. That said, if you listen to a few of his videos, he seems to ask the right questions. And you'll notice he repeats certain themes a lot... Because those are the questions you need to ask yourself.

Good luck!

It sounds like you feel completely trapped and helpless, which is definitely a huge component of depression. I've been there, and it sucks. It feels like it's impossible to do anything to make your situation better because you don't have the energy or motivation, right?

Honestly the best thing you can do is get treatment for your depression - that's the major thing blocking you from making any changes right now. Are you seeking any treatment already? I don't know your situation or your parents, but the best solution would be to go to your doctor, start experimenting with meds to see if they help, and find a therapist to talk to. Failing that, use online therapy, or buy a CBT workbook, or even get one from the library. There's even a few great websites for CBT like https://moodgym.com.au.

Something clearly needs to change, and I really believe your depression is at the crux of all these issues. It's almost impossible to make other changes until your mental health improves. Good luck, and stay safe on your trip!

Probably, but man we can't diagnose you, sorry bro. I'd see a professional for a diagnosis if that's in your books, but otherwise, if the shoe fits, you know? I recommend this workbook highly. it's an often recommended workbook.

I've heard good things about this book. There used to be a free review copy of it available but it has expired. I'm going to take mine into the counselor and see if they'll help me get through it. Maybe you want to try too?

Here you are! I recommend the paperback version.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1623158249?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Honestly I just took from the source itself. However since you ask this one looks interesting:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Philosophy-Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy-Psychotherapy/dp/1855757567

NB I have no training in CBT

I was diagnosed a few years ago (I'm 40 now) but my doc at the time was one to throw drugs at me and tell me good luck. One thing I've found (as I've been to a few doctors now) is that it's really helpful to find one that doesn't just treat you but educates you on what is and isn't affected by ADHD.

I recently picked up the book More Attention, Less Deficit and there are literally parts that almost make me tear up (extremely manly tears, of course) as it hits home so much and I can trace my ADHD back to childhood and see how it affected my life.

ADHD affects so many things that people don't realize, not just your ability to pay attention. I highly recommend you and your girlfriend looking at the book mentioned above, not only will it help her to identify and address the issues she's facing but might also help you to understand what's going on with her brain and how it affects her life and your relationship.

It really does take a book to fully describe ADHD and what it does. However I did read a great description recently where someone said it is like walking into Best Buy with that wall of TV's and every one of them is on a different channel. Now you have to focus on just one channel and comprehend what's going on, with 100 other channels playing at the same time. Imagine the channels as things like listening to a lecture, doing homework, doing chores, remember to pay bills on time. You may watch the "Pay Bills Now" channel very intently but it wears you out trying to focus on that and eventually you cave and that channel slips away.

I hope that makes sense somewhat. I think it's very cool that you care enough about your girlfriend to seek out info on ADHD. I was in a marriage for 10 years where my wife did not extend the same courtesy.. it will do both of you a lot of good.

Please feel free to message me if you have any other questions, I don't want to get 'too' long winded in your thread.

The Velvet Rage. It's specifically for gaymos, but it revealed a lot about why I do some of the things I do. I re-read it every few years.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Straight/dp/0738215678/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373152873&sr=8-1&keywords=velvet+rage

If you're talking about stuff to read regarding self-acceptance, I've seen The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World recommended a lot.

For LGBT history, I'd recommend the documentaries Before Stonewall and "After Stonewall." The latter used to be available for free on YouTube, but it has been taken down now.

I can relate to many of the things you are describing and think that it might be helpfull for you to read the book The Narcissistic Family by Donaldson-Pressman and Pressman. It has been my bible these past months and have finally for the first time in my life made it possible to relate to and connect my childhood-experience and who/what I am today. But best of all it shows a way out of these old and fimiliar pastterns in a practical way that doesnt rely on forgivving or blameing anyone. Best of luck on your journey! (Link to book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Narcissistic-Family-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0787908703)

I think these books would be very helpful on learning why people become narcissists and what can be done to heal: https://www.amazon.com/Trapped-Mirror-Children-Narcissists-Struggle/dp/0688140718

https://www.amazon.com/Narcissistic-Family-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0787908703/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466677067&sr=1-1&keywords=the+narcissistic+family

https://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Hungers-Encountering-Psychic-Ourselves/dp/1570621810/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466677088&sr=1-1&keywords=unholy+hungers

I recently had to deal with this too (34 and just found out that my dad was a toxic narcissist..) and honestly, finding a psychologist has been THE most helpful thing I've ever done. However, they can be expensive so I know it's not an option for everyone. I'm lucky because my benefits cover 5 sessions a year.

The next best thing I can recommend is to read the book called "The Narcissistic Family " https://www.amazon.com/Narcissistic-Family-Diagnosis-Treatment/dp/0787908703. It's a bit pricey (for a book) because it's actually written for other psychologists. However, it's written in a way that anyone can understand and offers many tips and treatment options that you can actually apply yourself.

Sending lots of love and support to you... it's not an easy path but it is very rewarding and freeing.

​

You should read The Narcissistic Family Amazon . It has helped me and some others like yourself.

Yes. Borderline Personality Disorder mother and a Narcissiric Personality Disorder (though this diagnosis is rarely given because narcissists rarely seek therapy unless they are forced to or suffer a flash of light live-changing usually traumatic experience where their narcissism no longer can protect their false dreamt-up reality using others as ‘narcissistic supply’)

My parents sandwiched me growing up with their V-spot BPD-NPD real-self dance when they inadvertently and advertenly activate each others’ false selfs and defense mechanism who are unable to procure true real romantic intimacy to support an authentic true-self loving household therefore inflicting role-reversal enmeshed narcissistic abuse onto their self-esteem identity/indivislity developing children.

https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-romantic-bpd-relationships-425217

https://www.amazon.com/Malignant-Self-Love-Narcissism-Sam-Vaknin/dp/8023833847

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7270096M/Search_For_The_Real_Self

Which is why hordes of internet schizoid-like Internet-type dudes are trying to resolve their fundamental core inability to expresss true genuine feelings of true intimacy with friends, relationships, others, etc. because of a ‘beta’ father and an ‘abusive’ mother in a dysfunctionla nuclesr family structure, if at all. And we live in an escapist dreamworld trying to live vicariously through Hollywood superheroes to imitate — or for the Asian community an idealized person to guide and relate to; the idealized Asian father figure to sooth and ameliorate our lack of identity, self-esteem development, and masculinity.

Luckily for me, my father was masculine so I have no problems standing on my own two feet with dudes of all backgrounds (hustlers, ex-cons, and blue-collar, nerds, etc.) but the romantic part is very difficult for me right now because of an emotionally toxic mother with no immediate female relatives to relate to as a child. This is why long-term insight-oriented psycho dynamic talk therapy is critical to address the identity issues and garner a stable self-image and develop healthy self-esteem building in a ‘safe-space’ private dedicated session with an if good objective psychoanalytic psychoanalyst/psychotherapist. But HMOs/insurance/self-pay don’t want to pay for this only to cheap out with superfiscal cognitive-behavioral “jussss change ur thoughts about the ordeal” approach, rather than bringing about unresolved unconscious intrapsychic conflicts from (early) childhoods that arrests our core identity development/self-esteem building (confidence) as individuals in this “I”-centered Westernsphere whereas conversely Confucianism culture of asserting direct confrontation of “I” or “you’re xyz” is vehemently disrespectful in the interpersonal culture of indirection.

...but Confucianism/Buddhism teaches us we must embrace suffering and self/sacrifice for a better successive generation tomorrow. Our immigrant parents bring this collectivism mindset but to navigate American life, we must assert ourselves as independent functioning individuals with self-stability and self-constancy of who we are. Simply said, the West values the individual irrespective of the family despite the aristocratic lineage rhetoric as Hollywood always admires a great rags-to-riches underdog movie. Whereas the Confucianism East desires to maintain peace, harmony, order and peaceful resistance of nonconfrontation.

However, the irony is that growing up in the Anglosphere we have to garner a dialetically diametrically opposed dualistic strategy of collectivist Confucianism at home and individualist identity in the non-Asian real-world. The village community doesn’t respect the individual because you’re deviating from the social norm and ingroup clique and their collectively shared self-esteem and group identity. Whereas the West cherishes the Johnny Appleseed wanderer, Lewis and Clark expeditions, the visionary dreamer for whatever xyz dreamt-up upotia. The East wants to maintain the Confucius scholar-beaurcrat hierarchy. Essentially, America’s narrative is to explore and find family and a sense of community as an individual leaving home, whereas the East wrt to China desires to maintain internal social stability our 5000 Han Chinese homogenous familial hierarchical family. And it is no mistake that the Asian-to-Asian connection is vehemently ingrained into our inner concious fabric through generations of solidarity until our ancestors lost out our internal familial peace where the Qing dynasty failed his people to the West/Japan with the Century of Humiliation.

Western religious history and narrative is one fraught with master-slave savior-savee god and his followers and competing interpretations of the biblical texts therefore causing seemingly intergenerationally perpetual Holy War conflicts, aggresive exploitation of religious enemies, and war to conquest others to occupy religious superiority and “englightrnment” to them through pillaging villages and indoctrinating the “superior” religion into others through newly erected religious institutions. ....Confucianism has none of that. Heck, Buddha respects his followers worshipping of other Gods. Though the other religions respect you for worshipping other Gods is of their own issue.

Additionally Confucianism culture teaches us to not seek for extraneous help for fear of looking weak (maintaining ‘perception amnagement’ just like we curate our happy social-media happy moment reel to manipulate a certain image in the shared 3rd digital/cyberspace dimensional realities) and keep family matters private as to not air-out dirty laundry in order to ‘save face’ and not being shame to the family name — as in defeat and loss of status. But the crux of the matter is that the family systems dynamic is vehemently unhealthy due to intergenerational trauma and familial tug-of-war narcissism, especially given that immigrant parents self-sacrifice to economically bust their butts but along cling onto their children for emotional security in this new foreign world as we try to forge our own narratives and identity. The more we grow to be American with individuality,the more it counteracts the intergenerational Confucianism familial planning in the name of maintaining the preservation the lineage successive dynastic ‘family name’. (Indians are in the extreme with arranged marriages) Luckily for me my parents despite their narcissism are open-minded cosmopolitan individuals and don’t mind me Americanizing and imposed any racial dating restrictions.

The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787908703/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_rA1-AbZS1J063

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents https://www.amazon.com/dp/1626251703/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_dB1-AbVQXAZTN

Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439129436/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_NB1-AbN0P827E

Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents https://www.amazon.com/dp/1572245611/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ND1-Ab94P47XX

Trueselves is a great one. It was one of the first books on transsexualism written specifically for family, friends, and co workers. It's a great book, and easy to understand. It's decently cheap to buy, so you can get multiple copies to give out to different family members. It is most definitely a "your child is trans. now what?" book!

*Edit forgot to mention that this book was given to my parents by my gender therapist when I first came out. So it's professionally recommended too! :D

To be honest, there's always that risk. It's also possible that, even if they do appear to reject you at first, they may come around later. It took my mother a while to come to terms with it, but then she became super-supportive. Her sister disowned me, though. Eventually, though, it gets to the point where being yourself is more important than being accepted by people who can't comprehend what you're going through.

I believe my mother found reading True Selves helpful, although I don't remember getting on with it myself, as although it's a bit inaccurate and not worded in the most respectful way at times if memory serves, it provided advice for a friend or relative of a transsexual, whereas most books seem to help transsexuals directly.

I’ve given copies of “True Selves” to a bunch of relatives. You can get good used copies for only a few bucks (especially if you have Prime) and I think it’s nice to give someone a book that they can read at their own pace.

Helping People Change by Miller & Rollnick is a great text for learning MI.

Read Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change

Really helped me with issues like this.

Hey no worries, I'd highly recommend you check out motivational interviewing:

https://www.amazon.com/Motivational-Interviewing-Helping-People-Applications/dp/1609182278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521061152&sr=8-1&keywords=motivational+interviewing&dpID=513Sr6aUE%252BL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Socratic questioning is a similar technique that involves asking open-ended questions to guide someone (rather than arguing a point). I think MI is specific to decision-making whereas socratic questioning can be about whatever.

https://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Growing-Straight/dp/1611746450/ref=nodl_

You can move beyond your shame. I hope it happens for you one day 💗

> All of the behaviors of finding a mate is usually in high school. Passing notes in class holding hands while walking down the hall, going out on dates. Do you see what I am getting at? The gay guys in high school do not participate in these behaviors because they are in fear of their safety and protecting their secret from everyone.... Straight couples have professed their love from the rooftop, had sexual relations that everybody knew about and accepted. What do the gay guys have? Nothing but a blank slate and no clue how to rectify that.

Have you read The Velvet Rage? If not, highly recommended. http://www.amazon.com/The-Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Straight/dp/1611746450

Edited to add link.

There are some books on amazon about CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). It is about your thoughts which produce an emotion regarding a situation.

Soyou have to "reframe" your thinking in a way to free yourself from those intrusive thoughts.

The good part is that it not only works for one specific mind frame or set of thoughts, you can use it to cope with jealousy issues, anxiety,insecurity, phobias, etc.

You should give it a shot ;)

https://www.amazon.com/Retrain-Your-Brain-Behavioral-Depression/dp/1623157803/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1485722758&sr=8-5&keywords=cbt

I don’t know your severity but I could recommend some workbooks to help, here’s one that has pretty good reviews online.

I always like to tell people that a therapist could be anyone/anything, not to downplay all of their hard work and dedication but in the very simplest form all they really did was study books that are available to you as well - you have the same capabilities to help yourself but it will take some time and work

Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks: A Workbook for Managing Depression and Anxiety

https://www.amazon.com/Retrain-Your-Brain-Behavioral-Depression/dp/1623157803/

Happy to! It's "Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks."
Amazon UK;
Amazon US (Holy shit, so expensive for some reason?!).

I bought this for my sister a little ways back.

https://www.amazon.com/Retrain-Your-Brain-Behavioral-Depression/dp/1623157803/

Self-help CBT books have been shown to be as effective as thousands of dollars of visits with a therapist. As long as a person commits and does the exercises, it can really change things around.

In addition to seconding your book rec, I'd recommend also "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks" by Seth Gillihan, and "Mind Over Mood" by Greenbereger and Padesky. Also "Rewire Your Anxious Brain."

Has anyone used this one?
https://www.amazon.ca/Complex-PTSD-Workbook-Mind-Body-Regaining/dp/1623158249/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=8-15

You could try the CPSTD workbook. My therapist is literally just reading it and have me tell her my thoughts. If you could come up with the money for it, I know it's hard, I definitely wouldn't have the money for it this moment.

https://www.amazon.com/Complex-PTSD-Workbook-Mind-Body-Regaining/dp/1623158249

:-) all https://www.amazon.com/We-Learn-Nothing-Tim-Kreider/dp/1439198713 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0796QV121/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/Complex-PTSD-Workbook-Mind-Body-Regaining/dp/1623158249/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?keywords=ptsd&qid=1550856112&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/Gone-Girl-Gillian-Flynn/dp/0307588378/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=gone+girl&qid=1550856163&s=gateway&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/Witch-Unleashed-Unapologetic-Lisa-Lister/dp/178180754X/ref=mp_s_a_1_10_sspa?keywords=wicca&qid=1550856223&s=gateway&sr=8-10-spons&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/Witch-Unleashed-Unapologetic-Lisa-Lister/dp/178180754X/ref=mp_s_a_1_10_sspa?keywords=wicca&qid=1550856223&s=gateway&sr=8-10-spons&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0875421180/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Diary-Laura-Palmer-Peaks/dp/1543643256 https://www.amazon.com/Twin-Peaks-Dossier-Mark-Frost/dp/1250163307 https://www.amazon.com/Secret-History-Twin-Peaks-Novel/dp/1250075580 offering 8USD via PayPal invoice. Please pm!

There's a book about that.

First, I thought Philosophy as a Way of Life by Pierre Hadot had few insights and was dull and hard to understand. I do not recommend it.

I highly recommend The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, a book about stoicism and how it relates to psychology. I read this book twice it was so good. Here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy-Psychotherapy/dp/1855757567/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1371647936&sr=8-15&keywords=stoicism

Also, you have to read the Enchiridion by Epictetus. Here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Enchiridion-Dover-Thrift-Editions-Epictetus/dp/0486433595/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371648137&sr=1-1&keywords=enchiridion+epictetus

I initially followed the principles of Stoicism, which is a philosophy that's very close to the principles of CBT. So my first resource was /r/Stoicism, where you can find things like this and this that have direct correlation with CBT principles. Greek and Roman literature might be hard to get into, but there are very readable translations and the principles are applicable.

Of course, not everyone is interested in philosophy, so my recommendation would be to find something along the lines of Judith Beck's Cognitive Therapy, or other similar resources that are based on research. I can't really recommend else because I haven't read much from other authors.

But in general I would recommend reading about cognitive biases in general, along the lines of this, this, this, or this. Being conscious of how everybody thinks might help you see some negative spirals in your life, and can help you change the environment that might lead you to that negativity.

But again, professional help can be very useful, so definitely consult a professional who is maybe better for you. Good luck!

I'm an engineer with the exact same experience. We might have ADHD. Some suggestions:

Evernote: phone, computer syncing note app. Keep all your action tasks on one note. You can have other notes/notebooks for projects etc.

Any.do: another to-do list app. Look at your to-do list as often as possible.

Recognizing you have a problem helps: More Attention, Less Deficit: Success Strategies for Adults with ADHD http://www.amazon.com/More-Attention-Less-Deficit-Strategies/dp/1886941742

Frequently update and log your time in your company time system or just a MS OneNote. The log helps you focus.

Listen to soft soothing music or sound effects via computer or phone to tune out other stuff: e.g. Elmnts for Chrome, your favorite Film Score (Lord of the Rings), etc.

Imagine you're a special agent in NCIS and always getting stuff done.

Talk to your boss and co-workers often to set deadlines, schedules, etc.

Make things a priority to get done quickly and well done.

Go for a walk at lunch.

Get to work early, leave early, get back to living your life.

We can harness our energy if we try a little. We can reward ourselves later when we're off the clock.

Break up your day with tiny breaks to read something interesting or pray. It can even be an e-book on your phone.

Talk to your doctor about ADHD (I've been putting this one off).

Does it help if you give yourself permission to read just a little bit at a time? The best ADHD books contain strategies you're meant to stop and try out anyway, you're not supposed to just read on and on.

Shorter ADHD books:

[Ari Tuckman: Understand Your Brain, Get More Done]
(https://www.amazon.com/Understand-Your-Brain-More-Done/dp/1886941394/)

Crosby & Lippert: Transforming ADHD

ADHD books with really bite-sized chapters:

Doug Puryear: Living Daily With Adult ADD or ADHD: 365 Tips o the Day

Laurie Dupar's edited "365" and "365+1" ways to succeed with ADHD books and ADHD Awareness Book Project

Ari Tuckman: More Attention, Less Deficit

Everybody's different. I love reading, so there's definitely a market for ADHD books, even long-ish ones.

More attention, less deficit https://www.amazon.com/More-Attention-Less-Deficit-Strategies/dp/1886941742

It's written for people with ADHD in mind. It's broken up into lots of self contained sections. So you can skip around and read as you wish.

I think you might enjoy some books that often serve as a learning tool for many sociology students.

A Shopkeeper's Millennium by Paul E. Johnson.

Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

War and Empire by Paul Atwood.

Each book is either a study to prove or present a hypothesis, so naturally tries to present evidence in a simple and clear way. No extended parts on boring sociological theory. The books are all easy to read and understand, and most importantly they are all a pretty good read.
One thing they all have in common is that their value or methodology is often controversial and highly debated in many crowds.

For instance, the Milgram book is the foundation for the famous Milgram Yale Shock Experiments in the 60's, so naturally there is the issue with ethics and methodology. If I remember correctly, this study is the reason any scientist today has to have his/her work approved by an Ethics Committee every time human subjects are involved.

War and Empire is a bit far-fetched at times, but is still very engaging, and at times hard to put away. Some might argue that it falls under 'History' more than 'Sociology', but because of how recent a lot of the topics are, I think there is real value there within sociology.

Guns, Germs and Steel is basically an overly simplified answer to a very complex and multidimensional question, but it's still a very fun idea to explore when you read it. Most people in the social sciences have heard of this book, and with it most people have also heard a lot of criticism.

The Shopkeeper's Millennium is probably the "best" of the four, as it often used as a "benchmark" for many sociology students on how historical research is conducted and used to present a study. The book is old, but it's still taught at many colleges to this day.

Based on your request, I think the Milgram book would be the most interesting for you to start with. Simply put the purpose of the study was to see if there is a correlation between obedience and the presence of authority.

I've also read a few books on poverty and unemployment in the Black and Latino communities. If that sounds interesting, let me know and I'll see if I can dig up some titles and names for you.

EDIT: Fixed some words.

Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram describes a classic experiment and is very readable.

For some really interesting studies about the nature of authority, I recommend:

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo (the one responsible for the Stanford prison experiment)

Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram (of the Milgram experiment)

The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer. The book is freely available at his site.

This book (psychology) has an interesting take on how normal, healthy people might end up convinced to have seen aliens.

At the very least, it teaches you that the brain is not as reliable as most people believe, and that your memory is not as trustworthy as you think it is...

Not denying anything, just saying that alien conspiracies always seem to be based on eyewitness accounts and not actual evidence.

If you want to learn more, this is a really well written book on the subject.

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986

In many ways, this book is nothing too special, because it is a piece of non-fiction that describes some parts of human nature that are pretty broadly understood by educated people. However, I think it fills a nice gap, potentially giving a reader a level of understanding somewhere between what he might get reading the wikipedia pages for "cognitive dissonance" and "confirmation bias" and what he'd (hopefully) get from a lifetime of accumulating wisdom and humility. These are concepts I think most people are implicitly somewhat aware and wary of, but this thorough exploration can reinforce the reader's decision making skills in a very positive way.

I'm pretty sure it was Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) <https://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8> that I read catharsis (with regards to anger) is a totally bogus concept.

Actually a pretty good book if you like to know why people (or yourself) do things the things they do.

Let's go another layer and say that women may exhibit unhealthy behaviors towards other women within a toxic patriarchal society.

Women have to compete with other women for reputation-promoting male attention. And I don't mean primarily sexual, I'm talking about professional, romantic, and platonic attention as well. "One of the guys," especially if she is conventionally attractive, has better success in our society than women than don't conform to male expectations.

On top of all this, women are socialized to use their emotions, men are socialized to use their logic. Without combining to two, healthy communication is impossible. For this last bit, I suggest reading, "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys." This book helped me parent both my kids better, boy and girl. It also helped me realize the quiet anguish of men.

I think that Brain Balance and Sylvan are completely different. Isn't Sylvan just a tutoring place? Idk. This Brain Balance center focuses on kids who have stronger left/right brain type of skills (I think) and then help then really integrate the two using strange repetitive activities (things including finger exercises and music, etc).

Like I said, the mom who I know was blown away by the difference it made in her kids life. I think they had to pay ~$6-8k for the sessions that spanned several weeks.

Although her son reads much much better, she says writing does continue to be more of a chore. His teachers don't mind if he types & they've considered letting him use dictation software for some of his more lengthy assignments, just so he can get his work done and not fall behind.

Kudos to you for recognizing that you've got "a pretty good kid." I hope you can find something to help him with his writing. The comic book suggestion sounds good for reading! Wouldn't it be great if he took an interest in that?

Oh - one last thing - have you read (or seen the documentary): Raising Cain, Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys? I just saw the documentary & they discuss quite a lot about the types of things that boys chose to read and write about (read: somewhat violent at times). It was so interesting to hear their perspective on this & it's relation to encouraging boys to read & write.

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Cain-Protecting-Emotional-Life/dp/0345434854/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322086525&sr=8-1

Well, the trick to making better children each generation is to not do the things you know your parents did wrong.

Like, we now know that being an emotionally unavailable dad is bad for kids. I strongly suggest this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Cain-Protecting-Emotional-Life/dp/0345434854

I recommend reading "A General Theory of Love" https://www.amazon.com/General-Theory-Love-Thomas-Lewis/dp/0375709223

One way to try to stop dating men is to try to figure out the dynamic and learn how to ID it early, and avoid those types of situations. But that doesn't change the fact that your status quo is to crave those situations that are unhealthy, but what you are most used to.

Another approach is to learn healthier attachment, to the point that what you want has fundamentally changed, and that the unhealthy patterns just don't do it for you any more.

The book I recommended is really great for getting an overview sense of how attachment works.

Then, trying to apply it to create situations where safe attachment can take place, and the other person(s) have a healthier, calmer limbic system than you. Therapy, healing friendships, healthy social situations--whatever situations can help "bring you up" to a more connected approach to the world.

You might like A General Theory of Love. It's the only book on the subject I've read, but I found it interesting and easy to follow.

I honestly have no idea (it could have been an article also) but this is good:
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Multitasking-Doing-Gets-Nothing/dp/0470372257/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494875493&sr=8-1&keywords=multitasking

Also two of my favorite pop pysch books (not 'laziness' related but great information just about how the brain works):
https://www.amazon.com/General-Theory-Love-Thomas-Lewis/dp/0375709223/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494875459&sr=8-1&keywords=a+general+theory+of+love
https://www.amazon.com/Love-2-0-Finding-Happiness-Connection/dp/0142180475/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1494875385&sr=8-19&keywords=the+psychology+of+love

>But what about the oxitocine bond between child and mother?
The chemistry of maternal love is real. So is the feeling. And when the chemistry ceases the withdrawal syndromes are all too obvious.

Yes, I've read something that speaks to this poetically alongside physiological detail, in regards to the limbic brain also A General Theory of Love. But this is a specific kind of relational love.

>NO - the feeling of abandonment is precisely result of our experience, it is the very core of our natural identity.

Yet that is what he is meaning I believe, while proposing from and stating there is a condition beyond this. Have you read his work? It is perhaps being operatively aware in this 'beyond' condition that the activity of contraction as he calls it is perceived to be hallucinatory, state/stage conditional.

> That is why depression is the only truly effective state of individuation, the state of detachment from all cultural categories, the state of entirely submerging in the river of pure sorrow, where we can enter only alone, and from which we emerge as true individuals.

It is a necessary state and position-as-perspective to enter, I would agree. But there is more and/or other (transpersonal developments).

You're in luck! I have books for that!

Here's a good book on basic communication between men and women in relationships.

And if you're interested in the psychology and neurology behind how we develop our relationship to love in general, try this on for size.

Whether you have a diagnosis of social anxiety disorder or are just shy, this may help with some skill building. (In fact, just about any good book on social anxiety, as well as skill building for people on the autism spectrum, can be helpful even for people who are more psychologically middle of the road.)

And, not a book but a webpage, some good tips on dating in a more healthy manner. Note the first one especially in the context of our discussion on the seduction community.

A General Theory of Love

I too had been diagnosed with DID and worked with a therapist who had never encountered it before. It definitely was a learning experience for both of us. Fortunately my T was willing to learn and stick with me as we work through a lot of my sh*t. It definitely was a rough ride at times, and my T didn't always make the best or most helpful decisions over the years, but what I ultimately learned was to trust my gut and to speak up when something in the therapy or in the relationship didn't feel right for me.

Have you asked your T how much experience that her supervisor has had in regards to working with DID clients? Do you feel comfortable that your T will be getting some good support and input from this super? I would encourage you to have that conversation with her if you are not feeling good about this.

Also, in regards to your fear of having to address your trauma, you don't have to necessarily do that at this time. I would hope your T is focusing on getting you and your system to be more connected and co-concious so that you and your alters/parts are learning to acknowledge and except each other and their particular roles so they can work together as a unified system. After this is achieved, you may feel more comfortable about facing your particular traumas. And who knows, the trauma may naturally come up and be worked through as you get to know each of your alters/parts better.

Also, don't be so quick to write off other modalities or alternative therapies just yet. Body centred therapies are quite helpful for addressing complex traumas. When I got stuck in a rut with doing talk therapy and wasn't improving, but in fact slipping backwards in progress and worsening in my trauma symptoms, I started doing neurofeedback therapy in conjunction to my talk therapy and it was incredibly beneficial. It helped to calm many of my trauma symptoms, including my overall anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and dissociation unlike anything else to where I could finally start doing my talk therapy without becoming severely dissociated or triggered. I started to make a lot of positive progress in therapy and my healing after I started neurofeedback. Neurofeedback also helped me internally to become more connected with my system.

Also, if you haven't read these books yet, I highly recommend you get copies of them. You may like to share them with your T:

https://www.amazon.com/Dissociative-Identity-Disorder-Sourcebook-Sourcebooks/dp/0737303948

https://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Interpersonal-Neurobiology/dp/039370646X/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=dissociative+identity+disorder+books&qid=1562834073&s=gateway&sprefix=Disociative+&sr=8-3

We have been using parts of the book Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation. Some of it is applicable and some is not, but it is well-written.

Good luck to you!

I'm sorry I don't know how to answer your questions. I have DID, which means I don't know how my friends know the difference between the different parts of my head. It's always been a bit of a mystery to me. But if you're looking for the best information on dissociative disorders, it's in here: http://www.amazon.ca/Coping-With-Trauma-related-Dissociation-Suzette/dp/039370646X

Copung with the same issue. I' ve found the following book extremely helpful, with tons of practical tips and exercises:

http://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Training-Therapists/dp/039370646X/

I bought it on Kindle, which is half the price.

http://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Training-Therapists-ebook/dp/B00O4RPUPU/

Thanks for the question! I work as a therapist (LCSW) in New York in outpatient psychiatric treatment. I also have been dx with PTSD and Unspecified Bipolar Disorder. Meds help with the moods but the dissociation seems to be mostly treated with coping skills, and Ive been looking for self help resources too. One book my supervisor uses is Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation ( Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) https://www.amazon.com/dp/039370646X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_uTGRzbTVK025H ) . I really need to start this asap.

Oh yes! I was sexually abused, beginning when I was 5. There are times when I revert to a much younger version of myself, during which (I've been told) my body language and sound of my voice are completely different. I just started working on this book with my therapist and have found it very illuminating. It's nice to discover that "oh that's an actual thing, and not just me being a crazy person!" :)

I just read an awesome book by a Doctor who is an ADHD father with ADHD kids. It is Scattered:How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It by Gabor Mate He talks a lot about the various ways to help beyond just "get them organized" and medication (which he discusses briefly at the end of the book). The main point is to be there for them and love them unconditionally. But you may want to read the book to see what he means by that. I found it in my local library.

Don't forget that www.yourbrainonporn.com is very popular because it shows WHAT, but not why. We know "what" as far as the interaction of a superstimulous, but not why people medicate. The addiction part. The trauma part. That's what's important,

The origin is trauma.

Check out this amazing theme...on attention defecit disorder:

http://www.amazon.com/Scattered-Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Originates/dp/0452279631

I am coming to this thread really late - but everything you describe matches ADD closer than you think. I highly recommend this book (not self-help, dont worry ;)

http://www.amazon.com/Scattered-Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Originates/dp/0452279631

Anyone reading this who relates will be floored by reading this.

I think it was probably this one by Dr. mate: http://www.amazon.com/Scattered-Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Originates/dp/0452279631. I didn't really agree with everything Dr. Mate said, but it was still very interesting. His theory is that we're all victims of stress or something like that. I think stress is relevant, but I'm not sure it's the root cause really the way he thinks. I'm pretty sure though that he is the one who really emphasized how sensitive we are. I also watched some videos by him. Another very short, interesting read is an article about "orchid children" I read somewhere .... it's based on some studies that suggest that we have genes that make us unusually vulnerable to our environment, which in a way is kind of similar to what Dr. Mate is saying (but is much more scientific). I've also read some stuff by Ned Hallowell and Russell Barkley. I am fairly certain Dr. Barkley does NOT emphasize the "sensitive" nature thing, but Dr. Hallowell might have.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452279631/qid%253D962679148/sr%253D1-2/scatteredmind-20

Sorry, I'm Canadian -- looks like the American title is different. That Amazon page says it's in stock. There are lots of good books out there, but I found that this one covers a lot of aspects that others don't get into much.

I'll remember him when I swing by Barnes and Noble. You should look at this:

https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities-Microbes/dp/0465003362

Allow me to suggest a more informative text: 'The Culture of Fear' by Barry Glassner

>Specifically, NOT a police officer, because kids can't tell the difference between that and a security guard, and many security guards are just people with a desire to have authority.

Are you kidding me?

>Mostly, I think the priority of "someone with little kids" over anyone else is appropriate. They will be more tuned in to the needs of children, and are more likely to take the time to help and understand how to talk to kids.

Are you kidding me?

Edit: Removed abusive language.

If you are genuinely curious on why, there is an excellent book called "Culture of Fear":

http://www.amazon.com/The-Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities/dp/0465003362/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342914601&sr=8-1&keywords=culture+of+fear

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things: Crime, Drugs, Minorities, Teen Moms, Killer Kids, Mutant Microbes, Plane Crashes, Road Rage, & So Much More [Paperback]

> And I don't think I'm being particularly rude but I just don't get why all the people disagreeing with me keep BOLDING EVERYTHING. I think that's pretty rude.

Because in a forum like /r/mentalhealth people tend to gloss over things and get a really bad impression. People are lazy and the stigma of mental illness is so high that they don't like to get into particulars but want the gist of something. Our bolding is to ensure that THESE folks get the right info. Reddit is a public community, there are legitimate mental health professionals answering, folks with some diagnoses, relatives of individuals with MI, laypersons, psychology fans, trolls, etc. Those of us who are passionate about our work/the field take it seriously enough that we need people to get the right/accurate info.

> Anyway, my view is that her guardians letting her run amok on the streets, letting her have access to the media, and generally all the destructive behaviour she is exhibiting (lighting animals on fire?) seem to suggest she is not getting the best possible care.

I don't necessarily agree with your view. It works both ways though. For example, I often have clients who are actively ruining their lives by showing up to work/school drunk/high, who have anger management problems and blow up at their friends and family for no reason, etc. Each MI and even those without have "symptoms" that can ruin their lives. It's unfortunate but it's their reality and that's what we work on in session. That being said, it's not my job, their family's job or their friend's job or whoever's job to prevent them from ruining their lives in this way. Ultimately, they have the right to freedom, which includes the right to be self-destructive to a point.

Laws have been put in place to draw a line. That line is homicide, suicide, child abuse and elder abuse. Everything else is pretty much fair game. Some here would argue that 3 strike laws for drugs is an effort to add that to the mix and prevent people from ruining their lives from drugs/alcohol but it's not worded as such, so I'll leave it out of this discussion.

If you're very interested in this subject, I highly recommend The Insanity Offense and Mad in America for some really insightful history, opinion, etc on the subject.

> If she is getting the best possible care and is not responding to it, then clearly more serious steps should be taken rather than letting her run about.

She has the right to run about though.

> I believe legally you aren't allowed to "deny treatment" when you have progressed to this stage.

Not true. You can deny treatment. But short of suicidal or homicidal ideation, you can't get a 5150 hold for "being crazy", "acting crazy", or "denying treatment". It all comes back to freedom.

> So just because the time limit on the hold runs up, that means she should be allowed to be free and cause harm to herself and others?

I am not sure if you're using the lay or professional definitions here but just to clarify, in most cases she can self-mutilate/harm but if she doesn't present as high suicidal risk (thoughts, intent, plan, means, etc) then that isn't "harming oneself" from a professional point of view. As far as homicidal ideation, in most cases, you need to know exactly who they are intending to hurt and it cannot be a by-product situation - it's a planned, methodical intention to injure or murder someone else.

I'm not sure if that changes your thoughts but I am happy to elaborate further if you want more clarification.

Yeah, I get that. I think one of the major successes in the 20th Century was the movement toward medicalizing mental health issues so that they were given the credit they deserve. We know these experiences are a problem, and people having them are subject to many layers of oppression and human rights violations, and psychiatry has made a lot of strides towards these issues being taken far more seriously. I do also believe that psychiatry and pharmaceuticals do help some people. It is one option, and many people find their life more manageable because they have taken that route, and that's a beautiful thing and I'm very happy for anyone who has found solace there. But it is not universally true, and one of the reasons for that is how imprecise the science actually is on what is going on with the mind, and what the drugs are actually doing. The most famous example is the notion that depression is the result of lower than usual seratonin levels in the brain, which was actually the result of an ad that was using a study that had found that more people with depression in the study had higher levels of seratonin. But they had a drug that dealt with lower seratonin levels, so that's the narrative that was created (links below). Point being, (and see The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton on this), there is no chemical test for depression because there are many potential causes, and remedies. Psychiatry and the DSM have categorized these experiences, which I agree is a necessary thing to research them, but then got fully entwined with pharma. Now policies and laws impose that one narrative onto people who are going through these experiences, even though they often get it very wrong.


There are alternatives, and the Soteria house project by Lorne Mosher was one of the most interesting, where they took people with severe schizophrenia and had a virtually drug free approach, and their results were better than the alternatives. The problem for scaling up was that it did not put people on a lifelong hook for medication. So, I guess it's not about wanting to tear it all down, but I think people should know what's up, they should be informed about all the studies done on the chemicals they are taking, what all the side affects might be, and, ideally, alternative approaches that may benefit them in the long run. I think people going through these experiences should be given the rights and power to make decisions, including whether or not they will self-identify with the DSM categories at all.


I cannot stress the following enough, the result of extensive studies by the World Health Organization, as articulated by Robert Whitaker: "Most Americans are unaware that the World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly found that long-term schizophrenia outcomes are much worse in the USA and other developed countries than in poor ones such as India and Nigeria, where relatively few patients are on anti-psychotic medications. In undeveloped countries, nearly two-thirds of schizophrenia patients are doing fairly well five years after initial diagnosis; about 40% have basically recovered. But in the USA and other developed countries, most patients become chronically ill. The outcome differences are so marked that WHO concluded that living in a developed country is a strong predictor that a patient will never fully recover."

Sources:

Lorne Mosher's resignation letter from the APA

The Icarus Project (theicarusproject.net): "We are a support network and media project by and for people who experience the world in ways that are often diagnosed as mental illness. We envision a new culture that allows the space and freedom for exploring different states of being, and recognizes that breakdown can be the entrance to breakthrough. We aim to create a language that is so vast and rich that it expresses the infinite diversity of human experiences."

Soteria: From Madness to Deliverance, by Lorne Mosher

Mad in America by Robert Whitaker

Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker

The Anti-Depressant Era by David Healy

The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching by Terence McKenna

The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History by Terence McKenna

The point is to try and empower people to improve their lives, and since we don't know how to do that universally, giving people the power and options to be able to choose methods that work for them is a vital part of maintaining their autonomy and preserving their fundamental human rights. I find this subject is very difficult to discuss without it getting heated. Please understand I have so much sympathy for your experiences. I have tried to take care of people while they were in the midst of full psychotic breaks, I have had to call the police, I have had to participate in the forced hospitalization of people I have known, I have lost too many people to suicide. I know these things and they still hurt and I am welling up thinking about all of them. And I care about you too, and you're not alone.

Sorry re length.

That theory is quite new (Thats the first paper, 2004) and needs much more research.

Yeah, there's quite a few thats your classic nocebo response. There's more studies showing positive responses due to ethics. Its all around response expectancies, which pretty much are non volitional self confirming responses.

Open-Hidden (if you tell people the drugs stopped, the effect is much worse) morphine interruption (or really any drug), Benedetti et al. (1997, 2006) expectation-induced hyperalgesia in clinic + Ex setting, Dworkin et al. (1983) verbal suggestion alone changing direction of nitrous oxide action from analgesia to hyperalgesia (havn't read that paper yet, sounds pretty crazy), Response Expectancies are a universal placebo mechanism so they kinda show up everywhere.

The two most interesting papers on RE:

1. Pollo et al. (2001) patients after chest surgery in 3 groups. One control group told nothing, given saline solution and a button for painkiller (buprenorphine) subjective pain rating taking before painkiller administered. Second group in a blind condition, told there was a 50% chance of a placebo or a powerful painkiller (just another saline solution). The last group was deceptive administration, told the saline solution was a powerful painkiller. The results showed 16.4% decrease in opioid painkiller intake in the blind group and a 33.8% decrease in the decieved group. The logic behind this is the blind groups response expectancies are half of the deceived and ACTUAL pain intake was half!!! The researchers controlled for subjective pain ratings and they were equal across groups at the time of requesting more medication. (there's also a shitton of research showing this control > blind > decpt.)
   
   
2. Kirsch et al. 2008 (the father of RE). This paper made headlines... his argument is that SSRI's for depression are simply enhanced (active) placebos therefore strengthen the RE. He conducted a meta-analysis (using FDA data, drug companies don't release all trails) on a antidepressants and showed no clinical difference with comparison to placebo. The EMA disagrees with this theres a lot of controversy and a lot of money involved.
   
   http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0050045
   
   http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperors-New-Drugs-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006

> Your citations are extremely selective

And pharmaceutical companies aren't?! You seem like an intelligent guy too. So why aren't you applying the same incredulity and skepticism towards a trillion dollar industry that have for one individual with nothing to gain?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperors-New-Drugs-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_an_Epidemic

http://www.metafilter.com/113750/How-Corporations-Corrupt-Science-at-the-Publics-Expense

http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1608193942/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1FEQ9E7PZVCNEAJT8VYM

https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Drugs-Exploding-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006

This?

If you're interested, there's a book called "Stuff" about hoarding that's full of good information and incredibly readable.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0547422555?pc_redir=1409968651&robot_redir=1

Made me really feel for hoarders, but also have a glimmer of hope about treatment.

http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0670031518

Absolutely, but while libertarians have ideals they promote, and I want a smaller more effective government with less of the stupid rules and regulations also, it's only because libertarians have lived in a society with social protections that allowed them the freedom to think that their version would be better; unfortunately, it's also a fantasy land.

Humans can be greedy bigoted bastards, because they are human. But not all of them are, and the world is getting better, slowly, because of democracy's and government protections.

I just hope we don't get dragged back into feudal empires by religious zealots, as they sure are trying.

> This is an idea that few serious science supports anymore

This is untrue. Many notable neuroscientists have long documented the structural, chemical, and behavioral differences in the brains of boys and girls. In fact, one study by Simon Baron-Cohen (the cousin of this guy) found that infant boys and girls react differently to their environments.

He studied one day old infants and learned that boys will look longer at objects but shorter at faces; conversely girls will look longer at faces, and shorter at objects. There is zero chance that this behavioral difference is the result of socialization.

A not dissimilar phenomenon is observable in chimpanzees, too. Male chimps will play with tool-like toys and largely ignore baby dolls, while the female chimps often are disinterested in the tool-toys but will spend large amounts of time nurturing and caring for the baby dolls.

Further, Steven Pinker wrote an entire book about the fallacy of what is often called the "Blank Slate Theory"; concluding that, while environment does play a role, biology is by orders of magnitude more influential on human behavior.

Even in countries like Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, some of the most gender egalitarian societies on planet Earth, you still find that jobs like engineering contain mostly men, and jobs like nursing contain mostly women. A documentary was even made on this surprising finding.

Finally, a recent article in the Telegraph cites a study which says that this false narrative of male/female neuro-equivalence is putting women's health at risk.

To quote an interviewed scientist in the article, "the last two decades had proven the assumption [that men and women are neurologically the same] as false, false, false."


Male and female brains are different. The science is very conclusive on this.

> The wage gap isn't real

The gap does exist, of course. It is the reason why it exists that they disagree with. The media will tell you its sexism, Paeger (and the actual Dept of Labor report) will tell you its primarily life choices & biology.

>I am just saying that environment is a much bigger factor than genetic factors in intelligence.

I know, and I've seen no credible evidence to that effect.

On the other hand:

http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0670031518

Wikipedia describes Darwinism as:

> Darwinism is a term used for various movements or concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or evolution, including ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin.[1][2][3] The meaning of Darwinism has changed over time, and varies depending on who is using the term.[4] In modern usage, particularly in the United States, Darwinism is often used by creationists as a pejorative term...

> However, Darwinism is also used neutrally within the scientific community to distinguish modern evolutionary theories from those first proposed by Darwin, as well as by historians to differentiate it from other evolutionary theories from around the same period. For example, Darwinism may be used to refer to Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection, in comparison to more recent mechanisms such as genetic drift and gene flow. It may also refer specifically to the role of Charles Darwin as opposed to others in the history of evolutionary thought — particularly contrasting Darwin's results with those of earlier theories such as Lamarckism or later ones such as the modern synthesis....

> In the United Kingdom the term retains its positive sense as a reference to natural selection, and for example Richard Dawkins wrote in his collection of essays A Devil's Chaplain, published in 2003, that as a scientist he is a Darwinist

So it is used and understood in different ways by different people. I am an evolutionary creationist (who studies Biology) myself so I don't have a problem with Darwinism per se (though I reject metaphysical Darwinism as commonly advanced by atheists).

Further there are very good reasons think that our moral faculty is genetic in origin just as our faculty for language is. You are clearly not very familiar with the current scientific views on these subjects. I suggest you acquaint yourself with it. A good book on this subject is Steven Pinkers' The Blank Slate - http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Slate-Modern-Denial-Nature/dp/0670031518 (of course as a theist I don't agree that our moral faculty is only the product of natural selection).

And when we talk about the brain, human abilities and differences between races we step on the toes of humanists and leftists.

A lot of us end up obsessed with external validation and need to keep 'achieving' to feel good enough - to silence the inner shame.

https://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Rage-Overcoming-Growing-Straight/dp/0738215678/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+velvet+rage&qid=1566700747&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Read this: http://www.amazon.de/The-Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities/dp/0465003362

This is not just about fear, but also stress/anger/insecurity:

• Suicide has now actually surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of "injury death" in the United States.
  
  
• More U.S. soldiers killed themselves than were killed in combat last year.
  
  
• As I mentioned in another article, Americans will spend more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs during 2013.
  
  
• Nearly one out of every four women in the United States are taking antidepressants.
  
  
• The percentage of women taking antidepressants in the U.S. is higher than in any other country in the world.
  
  
• In 2010, the average teen in the U.S. was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs. Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.
  
  
• Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants as children in Europe are.
  
  
• According to a recent article by David Kupelian, "one-third of the nation’s employees suffer chronic debilitating stress, and more than half of all 'millennials' (18 to 33 year olds) experience a level of stress that keeps them awake at night, including large numbers diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorder."
  
  
• Tens of millions of Americans use alcohol and drugs to numb the pain that they are experiencing. In the United States today, there are about 28 million Americans with a drinking problem and about 22 million Americans use illegal drugs.
  
  
• More people have been diagnosed with mental disorders in America than anywhere else on earth.
  
  
• There are also tens of millions of Americans that try to deal with anxiety and stress by eating. Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese. Mexico is #2. (positions are now reversed)
  
  
• Back in 1962, only 13 percent of all Americans were obese. Today, approximately 36 percent of all Americans are obese.
  
  
• Many people try to escape from the pain of reality by getting lost in entertainment. Incredibly, the United States is tied with the UK for the highest average number of hours spent watching television each week.
  
  
• The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world by a good margin.
  
  
• The United States has the highest percentage of one person households on the entire planet.
  
  
• According to the Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of all American adults are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all adults in the United States were married.
  
  
• The United States has the highest child abuse death rate in the developed world.
  
  
• In the United States today, it is estimated that one out of every four girls is sexually abused before they become adults.
  
  
• The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world by a very wide margin.
  
  
• The United States produces more pornography than any other nation in the world.
  
  
• If you can believe it, there are 20 million new STD infections in the United States every single year.
  
  
• The U.S. has the highest STD infection rate in the entire industrialized world.
  
  
• It is estimated that about one out of every six Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 have genital herpes.
  
  
• Sadly, one out of every four teen girls in the U.S. has at least one sexually transmitted disease.
  
  
• The United States leads the world in eating disorder deaths.
  
  
• Nobody in the world gets more plastic surgery done than Americans do.
  
  
• Americans spend more time sitting in traffic than anyone else in the world.
  
  
• America has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world by a very wide margin.
  
  A good quote:
  
  > Fear is one of the primary things that motivates the American people, and that is a very powerful weapon that can be used against us. Just look at how the public votes, and what they say in polls. It's obvious that there's a ton of fear.
  
  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-23/guest-post-america-1-fear-stress-anger-divorce-obesity-anti-depressants-etc
  

>If you dont have a comeback attack the language

hurts your feelings?

Before pulling out of your ass that you believe I know nothing about the subject, do a little search and get informed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hUltqHaGTA

I found another source that claims 2/3.

http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248

Another good thing to read about this subject is: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465020143/?tag=freedradio-20

Oh and hey look from the American Psychological association.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/10/share-reproducibility.aspx

I'm so full of shit. I am sorry for spewing bs. I will leave your voodoo doctor's alone.

> What's one thing that SSRI's, marijuana, and sleep deprivation do the same to a patient? Raise serotonin levels in the brain

I am in no way making the claim that neurotransmitter function isn't related to mental illness, that would be a crazy thing to say. I just bristle at "chemical imbalance" because I think it's a vast oversimplification and has been used as a marketing ploy for any number of things which may or may not actually be effective for the conditions they're marketed for, by companies who have largely been able to internally conduct essentially all of the safety and efficiency trials of those products. Reality is a lot more nuanced and complex. Even the statement "SSRIs raise serotonin levels in the brain" is a simplification, IMO -- yes, short term that happens. What happens longer term? Well, downregulation.... http://www.jneurosci.org/content/22/15/6766.short (the tl;dr from that is that to the extent it remains true long term, it has more to do with downregulation than the blockade action cited in various marketing slicks I've seen).

None of this means that these drugs are wholly ineffective, shouldn't be used, etc -- but we need a much higher standard of data, and, I think, much less direct-to-consumer marketing.

I basically like this book and think it's thought provoking; granted the author has a pretty strong anti-industry bias, but, everyone has a bias and that doesn't mean he's completely wrong (anymore than the fact that companies have cherrypicked their drug data in many cases means that the drugs themselves are wholly ineffective): https://www.amazon.com/Emperors-New-Drugs-Exploding-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006

Okay so basically, this could easily be a form of sexual harassment and bullying in the workplace - your best bet is to write a formal grievance and complaint to your manager about the co-worker, explaining what has been said about you.

However, there's not much legally you can do in this situation - it's not one that you'd call the Police for (unless he was telling your friends and family), and it's not something you'd really go to a Solicitor for. It's an internal employment issue.

>Since I was involuntarily outed I lost my dignity to an extent in the workplace and many people now treat me differently - not just because of implied homophobia but also because they cannot respect someone who was outed like that (i.e. a weakness).

I think you're overthinking this. I'm LGBT, for the record. Yes, people will change as they readjust to their new understanding of who you are, but it has nothing to do with not respecting you because of your sexuality.

What I might suggest is that it is in fact you who feels like you are not worth being respected, because of your sexuality or the method in which you've been outed. Your co-worker is an arsehole, there's no question about that, however, your own issues around self-identity are making this seem worse than it is.

You are the victim of gossip and you are projecting your insecurities onto them, you are (understandably) hypersensitive to what's going on - and that's okay normal - but you need to realistically take a breath, put in a formal complaint to the organisation, and just let things die down; and they will. In a few weeks, after the gossip has moved onto something else, nobody will care.

You might want to seek counselling for your issues to help deal with them - both overcoming the trauma of being outed against your will and the identity issues you otherwise have. I would also suggest having a read through The Velvet Rage to help understand yourself more in the wider context of being LGBT.

My parents seemed to like " True Selves" by Mildred Brown. I'll have a look though my books box when I get home, I know there's a couple of others in there that they liked.

True selves is a good book. Goes pretty in depth about everything. I gave a copy to my mom, and later when I sat down with the whole family, Mom gave a few copies to them. They all read their copies. It's a little dated but provides a pretty good POV on being trans and on having a trans family member.

http://www.amazon.com/True-Selves-Understanding-Transsexualism-For-Professionals/dp/0787967025

Western mental health services are far more pseudoscience than psychics. Western mental health has little scientific basis. It is also used as a tool of both church and state to punish dissidents.

Read the following before commenting further.

http://www.amazon.com/Mad-America-Medicine-Enduring-Mistreatment/dp/0465020143

http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing/dp/0307452425

Puh-leez. Wake up / grow up. Read => http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperors-New-Drugs-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006

"All is Mind," they say. Including depression. Including the antidepressant "effect"