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sellina-skyfall · 4 years ago

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Dream SMP - We don´t talk about it

Summary: It’s no secret that Tommy believes he’s the greatess person to exist, the ego on that child is bigger then everyone elses in the Dream smp combined. Even thou he can handle his own pretty well in battle, maybe he should think twice before picking fights with gods.

In other words, problem child tries to fight the literal goddess of chaos to try and prove to everyone else that he is strong.

Warning: This work is a work of fiction and in no way should be taken as gospel.This was done with entertainment proposes, and involves the Dream smp characters, and the characters only. It is not my intention to make anyone uncomfortable, or cross any bonderies.

This work contains, a fighting scene, mentions of child abandonment, bad parenting and some violence.

I apologize if there are any mistakes, or if there are some sentences that don’t make much sense. English is not my first language.

This can be read as an Xreader, or as an Xcharacter!

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-I am not a kid!-

-Yes you are Tommy, I'm not teaching you how to murder someone just because you think you're a grown up-

-You're just afraid I'll beat you in a battle!-

I couldn't lie, it was hard not to listen to Techno's and Tommy's querrels. As loud and as annoying as they could get, the two always managed to light up everyones mood. Accuratly, this didn't always work, but for the most part, their little arguments were light hearted and fun. A change of scenery for the usually calm and honestly, quite boring winter empire.

-Ten minutes max until they are at eachothers throats-

The hushed comment made me snicker slightly, a small smile breaking out as I carefully adjusted the tea cup on my hands, making sure to not spill it over the beautifully decored table me and Philza were sitting by. The winged man gave me a knowing look, smile crooking slightly as he gestured back to the fighting pair with a simple nod of his head. My eyes immediatly snapped over, teeth suddently digging into my lips as I held back a laugh. Philza was more then right, those two would be at eachother sooner rather then later. Not that we were too worried, if anything escaled we would simply step in.

Like we always did.

The bird-hybrid more then me, I simply did not have the mental strenght to argue with both Tommy and Techno, they were already hot-headed when alone.

Oh but when they were toguether?

A living time-bomb that could go off over the smallest and dumbest things.

-It really does run in the family, uh Phil?-

It wasn't really a question, if anything, it was more of a little jab to the mans raising methodes. Not that I could really talk, it had been centurys since I had last held a baby, even longer since I had to take care of one. If I had been in Philzas place I would probably have been a worst parent then he ever was.

In response to my teasing, the bird-hybrid simply rolled his eyes, smile softening as he leaned somewhat closer to me. Immediatly catching onto his antics, I decided to play along, quietly suffling forward in my chair before bringging up the cup of tea up to my lips, the smile I had only widening as the childish behavior.

-Mighty words coming from someone who abandoned their child-

-I did no such thing, do you really believe I would be able to abandone a baby? Scar was a follower of mine-

-A very dedicate one if I might add-

Phil's sentence was abruptly interruted by Tommy's voice, the teenager had somehow approached us without any of us noticing. His hands slamed down onto the table, the impact making the glasses and plates shake slightly. It didn't take five seconds before the hybrid was scolding his youngest soon, eyes Sharp as he told Tommy to apolegize.

The teen, however had other plans. His Bright blue eyes were focused on me as his smile praticly occupied half of his face. His next words had be chocking on the tea I had been drinking.

-Well! If Techno won't teach me how to fight then Sellina will! Right!?-

I looked over to Philza in disbelief, eyes widened at the bluntness his child possessed. Tommy really had no manners in conversation, especially when it came to woman. The blond man simply stared back at me, his expression mirrowing mine as his mouth opened and closed several times. We were both at a lost for words. The silence that took over was quite unconfortable, and the intense stare Tommy kept giving me did nothing to make me feel better about the hole situation.

After breathing in slowly I found myself forcing a smile at the teen, hands coming down to rest the partly now spilled tea on the table.

-I don't think that's a good idea Tommy-

-What, you think I can't handle my own?! I'll have you known I'm the strongest in this house hole!-

Techno's snicker was loud enough to catch our attention, so much so that Tommy turned over in his direction to curse him out. Talk about na big ego.

Really, where were this childs manners...

-C'mon Sellina! I'm sure I can beat you in a fight!-

-I don't think so T, but the intention is what counts..-

-Well! If you are so sure of yourself why won't you fight me? At least teach me some cool moves so I can use them agaisnt Techno!-

-You'd have to have blue blood for that buddy. Maybe when you're older Tommy-

The frustation was evidente in Tommys face, his cheeks had redden up and his mouth had dropped into a frown. Without another word the teenager simply stormed off, bangging the door loudly behind him.

I couldn't help but feel slightly bad, a tired sigh escaping me as my shoulders dropped slightly at the teens mood swing.

Humans were way too emotional.

But in the end, there was nothing I could really do, teaching Tommy how to fight was out of the question, and fighting him was na even worst idea. I was not about to train a sixteen year old kid to be a soldier.

My train of thoughts was broken by Philza, who at this point had gotten up and was grabbing the dishes up from the table to put them in the kitchen's sink. Before he did so thou, he gave my shoulder a tight squeeze, eyes soft and understanding. The smile on lips lips was small, but welcoming all the same.

I found myself smilling back with ease.

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-Are you sure you don't need me to accompain you home Sellina?-

-With all the due respect dadza, I can take care of myself. You should be more worried for Techno, he seems...-

-I know. The fight with tommy lefy him in a sower mood. He'll be back to normal before you know it-

-If you say so... Alright, take care then. Give the boys kisses for me!-

Quietness.

That's the only real way I could describe the winter florest, apart from breathtaking and beautifull view. Honestly, the scenery looked like it had been straight out ripped from an old fairytail book, the kind of book kids swore held magic.

And maybe, they did.

The snowed covered trees almost touched eachother a the top, the casted shadows creating this welcoming sense of protection. Their frozen leafs shook slightly in the welcoming breeze of the night, even the animals seemed to have gone silent. I found myself slowly coming to a stop in the middle of it all, eyes locked onto the brightly illuminated moon. It had been hard to spot her, after all the threes were rather large, but the sight that welcomed me had made it all worth it.

Nights like this were what made me remember why I was so found of earth. So found of these people that slowly destryed everything they touched. So found of their interactions and relations.

It was never this peacefull and serene out there.

My shoulders relaxed quite quickly, and before I knew it I was calmly enjoying the presence of the cold winter spirt. The wind had started to pick up, but it didn't bother me in the slightless, in reality it made me smile harder.

The small moment of bliss was cut short by the sounds of foot steps fastly approching. For a moment I thought it might have been Techno or maybe even Philza but none of them had any reason to follow me into the florest. I forced myself to stay quiet, holding my breath in as a way to hear the steps better.

They had broken out onto a full blown sprint.

My reaction was pretty much immediate, right hand coming down fast to to summoning my battle axe. I turned on my feet as fast as I could, cape flowing behind me as my eyes fell on the tip of the sword that had barelly missed my face. Instinctively my arm came up, axe in hand as I swung it down with so much force that it sliced right through the dimond sword that once had been held up to me. A squeek left my attackers mouth, but before he could do anything I brought my left leg up, swiftly quicking his leg before swingging once again. The blade barelly missed his face as he fell to the ground with a muffled "thud", the snow aiding in his fall. His breathing was much faster then it should have been, teary blue eyes widened in shock and in terror as he stared up at me like I was some kind of monster. The gripo n my axe flaterred as soon as I recognized who was on the other side of my blade.

-Tommy?-

His name came out in a whisper, arms shaking as I realized how close I had just been to hurting the small teenager. The axe slipped past my fingers and onto the snow as I stared down at Tommy, the frightened look he had inprinting itself into my memory.

Calls of both our names echoed through out the florest, not that I could hear them clearly, everything had started to turn into white noise. That is until Techno stepped into view, rough hands carefully grasping at my face as he tried to gain my attention back. Still, my eyes stayed focussed on Tommy, even when Philza started scolding himw hile checking over for injuries.

-I could have killed him-

-Hey. Hey, c'mon it's it's not your fault. Tommy shouldn't have sneaked up on you-

-Oh my god I could have killed him. Techno I could have killed him-

-It's fine. It's going to be fine-

I don't remember exacly how that night ended, nor' how the next day started.

One thing had been certain thou, Tommy made sure to never ask me to fight him again.

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the-homicidediaries · 3 years ago

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Issei Sagawa

“Sometimes I wonder why I did such a horrible thing. Maybe it’s because I come from another planet, or another dimension and accidentally fell to Earth like a meteorite, disguised as a baby crying on the street. My mother walked by and took pity on me. I must have come from a place of cannibals, and I’m the only one of my kind who exists on this planet.”

Good afternoon, everyone who takes the time to read this!

Today, I have the very displeasure of telling you about one of the most.. bizarre human beings I have ever read about.

I have been interested in true crime ever since I could remember. My father is really interested in it as well, so growing up there were always books laying around about the worst of the worst kind of people. Even to this day, my dad and I share stories we heard or a new podcast we listened to or swap books; it’s real fun. And when you are heavily interested in true crime, you hear and see so many similar stories. This person had an abusive childhood and became a serial killer, this person was not longer interested in being a family man so he killed his whole family and moved away to start a new life, this person was strung out on drugs, this person caught her husband cheating on her and stabbed him as a crime of passion, etc. And while I am not downplaying or excusing these murders AT ALL, because no one should be murdered, I do find myself skipping stories like that. They don’t check my boxes.

Cannibals check my box. And I have, admittedly, unconsciously, been surrounding myself with cannibalistic aspects. I just finished (another) three part podcast about Jeffrey Dahmer, I’m reading My Friend Dahmer, and watching Attack on Titan like my life depends on it. (Attack on Titan is a Japanese manga series turned into a long running anime about three conjoined towns who are constantly being attacked and eaten by the HUGE human-like zombie creatures, but that is for another day.)

Have I rambled enough? Yes. Yes, I think so. Let’s get into ittttt.

Issei Sagawa, known as Pang or The Kobe Cannibal, was born on April 26th, 1949 in Kobe, Japan to a very wealthy family. Issei has said himself that his childhood was the happiest time of his life and he was a carefree child. He said his parents love him deeply. One thing to note about Issei is that he was born prematurely (and he looks.. off) and doctors did not think he would survive. Issei said because of this, he has always seen himself as an undesirable person. So, instead of friends, Issei had books! Because his family was so wealthy, Issei was afforded an incredible education and was able to travel all over the world and learn about music, art, literature, etc. He was very interested in art. This will come back around later.

So how does a rich, seemingly normal, intelligent child become a cannibal? Issei contributes a few things to this: *Issei said his first cannibalistic urge happened when he was in first grade and saw a fellow classmate’s thighs. *Issei said sex was a taboo subject around his household. He said when he had reached a certain age, he began having erections, like all boys do, but he thought he was sick and was too embarrassed to tell anyone. He didn’t know how to relieve himself at this time.. soooo. He, uh, got help from his dog. Yeah. Yeeeah. (I watched an interview he did with Vice about ten years ago, which I will link below, and watching him describe this so nonchalantly made me the most uncomfortable. Actually, he is nonchalant the entire interview and it’s so disturbing and uncomfy. At one point he says, “I think my sexual desires began to distort around that time.” Yeah, I would say so, buddy.) *Issei said he would have a reoccurring dream where he and his brother were being boiled in a large pot to be eaten. Issei said he flipped the script and began to fantasize about what it would be like to eat someone. As with most premeditated killers, his fantasies escalated from curiosity to behavior. *Issei was obsessed with western women. He said they are tall and beautiful and he has described himself as a “weak, ugly, and small man”. In an interview after what he keeps calling an “incident”, Issei claimed one of the reasons he consumed human flesh was to “absorb her energy”.

Issei said he did practice a good amount of restraint for his cannibalistic urges until his college years. While attending Wako University in Tokyo, Issei said he saw a beautiful, blonde, German woman walking by and he was “dazzled by her white thighs”. One day, he broke into this woman’s apartment on the ground floor. He said his plan was to hit her in the head with an umbrella so he could get a knife from her kitchen and cut into her buttocks and eat it. He was extremely hesitant and his knees accidentally brushed against her stomach, waking her up. She screamed and Issei fled. Police charged him with attempted rape. Issei said he did explain to psychiatrists about his sexual urges but they didn’t consider it cannibalism and let him go.

After this, Akira (his father) sent Issei to study comparative literature at Sorbonne University in France in 1981. In the interview, as Issei is recalling this, he said his mother had the an extremely sad look on her face the day he was leaving, “like she knew something horrible was going to happen”. (I could think of a reason why.)

Issei had not forgotten about how close he had gotten to fulfilling his fantasy of eating a European woman back in Tokyo. He was convinced if he was more prepared he could follow through with it flawlessly. He said when he moved to France, he would bring home a sex worker almost every night, but everytime he tried to shoot her, his fingers would freeze. While studying at Sorbonne University, Issei set his eyes on 25-year old Dutch student, Renée Hartevelt. Issei said Renée was so beautiful and he had never seen anyone like her before. (She really was stunning and looked like such a sweet person.) He also said he didn’t want to get caught staring at her, so he began making sketches of her. From what I read, and I do not know how accurate this is, the two started as friends and eventually Issei began to pursue Renée romantically. He would take her on dates to art museums and dinner. When he confessed his feelings for her, she insisted they just remain friends because she was not sexually attracted to him. So Issei lied to Renée and told her his professor wanted him to record some German poetry. Renée didn’t think anything about helping out a fellow classmate, so she was happy to come over and help. Issei said he picked out the poem she read, and as she was reading the poem out loud at his desk, he pulled a rifle out of a closet and shot her in the neck. He said she kept reciting the poem after he shot her, then she just.. stopped. Issei said he fainted after he shot her and when he came to he almost called an ambulance for her, but he knew he would regret it if he lost this opportunity to act out his fantasies.

I am going to quote Issei verbatim from his interview with Vice.

TRIGGER WARNING

“I lied to her that my professor wanted some German poetry recorded. That was the pretext. She didn’t doubt a thing. I chose the poetry. I reached for the gun while she was reading. I was talking to her with a smile on my face. I was really scared. Yet I did pull the trigger. She... kept on talking... until suddenly she fell silent. First she collapsed onto the desk, then fell to the ground with the chair. I laid a towel under her head then undressed her. I had everything planned out in my head from which part i would start feasting on and such. Starting with her ass. I thought it looked the most delicious. It had to be the right cheek, not the left. The left cheek is closer to the heart and I’m scared of blood. I abruptly bit into it, but it was too hard to bite into. It hurt my jaw. I tried cutting in with a fruit knife but it didn’t go through. I gave up and went to the market. I bought a curved meat knife. Finally it went through the flesh. I thought I’d see red meat right away, but there was a yellow corn-like substance, which I later found out was fat. I had to cut deeply to reach the red meat. I don’t remember if I sliced it off, or tore it off with my fingers. I put most of my favorite parts, like the thighs, in the fridge.”

My face right now.

He’s leaving out a lot of details on this.. right after he shot Renée, he had sex with her corpse. And, like I said before, he is so nonchalant about all of this. He ate a LOT of her. I saw a picture of eleven paper plates loaded with human flesh, muscles, and fat. Both of her breasts, her nose, her tongue, her bottom lip, and most of her lower half (her hips, middle of her stomach, and thighs) was missing. He did say he tried to eat her breast, but it was mostly fat and he didn’t enjoy it. Her buttocks, however, “(It) melted in my mouth like raw tuna in a sushi restaurant.” He continued to try different parts of Renée’s body. He would fry pieces of her and eat other parts with mustard. He even decapitated her. He took pictures of Renée’s mutilated body and would have sex with it while listening to the recording of her reading the German poem.

For four days.

He mentioned how June is the hottest month in Paris and he was worried the body would start to rot. So he took Renée’s body to the bathroom and cut her up so he could get rid of it. (He also mentioned after finishing his graduate program, he wanted to go to Greece. He said he took a big luxurious boat and actually shared a table with a butcher and his wife during dinner. He said the butcher was a fat, jolly man and told him how to butcher meat. Issei wrote a letter to the butcher after “the incident” thanking him. He said the butcher never wrote back.)

One he had cut the body up into pieces, he placed the pieces into two suitcases and, made plans to dump the body in a lake in Bois de Boulogne, called in a cab. “It wasn’t easy getting the body into [the suitcases]. The torso is extremely heavy. It’s really hard to cut to begin with. It’s nothing like a horror movie.” When the cab driver picked up Issei’s suitcases to put them in the cab, he asked Issei if he had a dead body in them. (That tidbit made me really sad.)

Once Issei reached the lake, he pushed the suitcases down the slope. He vastly underestimated how light it still was outside at 8 pm. He said several people were sunbathing still. The sun was setting across the lake, and Issei said for the first time, he saw color. He was fascinated watching a young boy and his grandfather at the top of a hill and while he was distracted, another man came up, opened one of the suitcases, and saw a bloody bedsheet with legs wrapped in it. A woman screamed and someone else yelled, “Murderer!” Issei said he just walked away.

Issei was, of course, arrested. He was interrogated by three psychiatrists who deemed him mentally insane. Issei was sent to a criminal psych ward, but before he could even begin treatment, he was deported back to Japan because the French people were very uncomfortable with him being there at their expense. Once Issei arrived back in Japan, he mentioned the hospital he was staying at didn’t conclude that he was mentally ill, just that he had a personality disorder. Issei was forced to leave the hospital without undergoing any treatment. He did not serve any time in prison for ungodly crimes he had committed. Actually, in a weird turn of events, he became a local celebrity. He became an author, had several interviews, has illustrated mangas (that’s why I mentioned he loves art), made porn, and was even a food critic. He even travelled to Canada, Mexico, and Iceland with two friends of him. I don’t have time to cover all of that because that in itself could be a whole other essay, but like I said, I will link the YouTube video I watched below.

And that is the gruesome, awful, gut wrenching story of Issei Sagawa.

Below are pictures of Issei Sagawa and his victim, Renée Hartevelt. I am also linking the Vice interview on YouTube as well as the crime scene photos. Please view at your own risk.

Thank you for reading. <3

Crime scene photos: https://murderpedia.org/male.S/s/sagawa-issei-photos-2.htm Vice Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BosZxa1bYcE&t=336s

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girlmeetsliv3 · 6 years ago

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Yandere Types

Warning: The following story contains mentions of manipulation, abuse, and vivid descriptions of abusive acts. The behavior and mindset of the characters in this will be incredibly yandere and toxic. This is a work of fiction and doesn’t represent the character of bangtan sonyeondan. Enjoy ~~~

These are the characteristics of each of the boys or their yandere types

Kim Namjoon

He was the devil incarnate, no doubt about it. Namjoon would have his mindset about you the moment your eyes met and the moment you decided to give him a soft smile your fate was sealed. Life was a game of chess, but a man of his wits and intellect found playing just one game far too boring. His tactics were guerilla warfare: he would attack you physically, emotionally, and mentally until you finally surrendered. He knew which strings to pull to get whatever he wanted and you could swear he was psychic with the foresight this man had.

His punishments were the worst since he inflicted wounds that never healed. A snide comment here, a backhanded compliment, a string of insults whispered so softly and daringly into your ear. It was like a snake that slithered into your conscious and made you doubt everything about yourself; everything you knew true.

Namjoon is a modern man and would be bored with a trophy wife so you would be someone intellectual but a bit naive. Probably younger, but mature for your age. He doesn't want a doll, he desires for you to be his equal. That doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy having you break your spine to please him quite the opposite really. Overall, if you find yourself in a relationship with this man or “in love” with him. Expect it to play out like all the greatest Shakespearean love stories: an ironic tragedy entirely avoidable but one that will go down in history.

Kim Seokjin

If Kim Seokjin was the embodiment of anything it was vain and all the implications that word held. He was a beautiful man and knew how the world responded to that beauty. Knew the things he could get from weaponizing it and he often did just that. If his beauty was the weapon, his words were the artillery. That man could charm virgin Mary into his bed and possibly Joseph too. The power that beautiful people held was one often exploited by society; why should he behave any differently. Had he desired it he could rule the world, simply be controlling those that did.

You were not as beautiful as him. Nowhere close. Seokjin would never date anyone who could rival him. Still, it was the way in which you held yourself, the way you knew of the power you also held that intrigued him. He had seen it in action various times. When you wanted something, you went from being the shy recluse in the back to something entirely different. All you had to do was straighten your back and part your lips slightly and suddenly the world was on its knees. Seokjin knew plenty of people that had this ability, but what interested him was how scarcely you used it. Only for insignificant things. But his curiosity turned to full-blown obsession once you refused him.

He felt that you needed to learn to hone of your skills to properly utilize them entirely to your benefit (and his). However, you blatantly refused his advances and stated you were disgusted by individuals like him. Him? Disgusting? Oh, darling, you have no idea what you've done. Seokjin will go into power mode with his charms, but he'll do it with the purpose of turning everything and everyone against you. It works so well, even birds don't sing in proximity to you. When you finally succumb and beg him to stop, he agrees but not before he's the bed you and marked you as his for the world to see. There's no escape now.

Min Yoongi

Everyone needs company even those who blame to despise it entirely. Yoongi saw the world around him as hopeless and doomed; the individuals who resided in it is the perfect example of this. He was aware of how the world worked: everybody is somebody's whore. Something to be used to achieve an end goal and then tossed aside when no longer necessary or gratifying. He too participated in this ritual for he had no choice. Being one of the elite held certain responsibilities and if he was entirely honest, he found the other side to be much worse. Isolation, desperation, and distress plague those that live there.

If Yoongi where ever to be listed in the dictionary, you would be listed under antonym. It wasn't that you believed the world wasn't cruel, but that not all of it was. Not that people weren't used and abused, but not everyone. You believed that every human being had good in them and that is what separated them from animals. Yoongi believed that what made human beings animals is that they could often choose differently but they never did. When the two of you met, you found yourself in the midst of heated arguments more often than not. People around you had developed a nickname for the two of you: the hippie and the war veteran.

Though to you, it was all in good fun and a way to openly communicate differences in a healthy way. The obsession Yoongi began to form with you was anything but healthy. He actively sought you out, looking for any reason to prove you wrong so that you could try to prove him wrong. Things escalated one night when he claimed that humans were entirely selfish and took whatever they wanted with little thought. When you disagreed, Yoongi proved you wrong by drugging you, taking you to his car, driving you to his house and locking you up so you could never escape.

Jeon Hoseok

A wild card. This man can go from being an angel to falling down from the heavens in a matter of seconds. Hoseok is a smart man but doesn't see the point in wasting time with complicated plots and extreme forms of manipulation. He's old school. If you disobey him, Hoseok has no qualms about hitting you, breaking a few bones, or even permanently paralyzing you. He has suffered too much under the pressures of life and finds it unfair that others have not.

You would likely come from a tragic background like him. However, you refused to learn. Refused to give up hope that a rainbow comes after the rain. Hoseok would see it as his responsibility to protect you, devote himself to you. He would be your knight in shining armor and defend you against the cruelties of the world at whatever cost. Even if that meant subjecting you to them so you would learn. All that could be handled if not for the fact that under that armor could be found a dragon hiding far more dangerous than the one you were being protected from.

As an outgoing man, he would enjoy someone on the calmer side to balance him out. Hoseok grows attached extremely fast; it's more of imprinting than love - but don't you dare tell him that. Unfortunately for him, every bone in your body could be broken but never your resilience. Meaning that even if you never escape, you'll never truly belong to him. Unless of course, external force your hand.

Park Jimin

Appearances can be so deceiving. Park Jimin looks like a giant ball of fluff and acts like one too. He's that elementary crush you had on the boy who was extremely nice to everyone and everyone seemed to like; up until you realized he wasn't actually all that nice. You'd always know of him. His looks and talents always gave him a spot among the elite in school and life, but he also knew of you. Though his voice might be quieter and softer pitched, his body was crafted meticulously. You were also aware of his reputation as a ladies man or a man's man whenever it piqued his interest.

The two of you would never outright approach each other, it was fate that was responsible for bringing the two of you together and all the tragedy that ensued. As polite as you attempted to be at the beginning the bluntness of your personality created a riff. It wasn't until the project both of you were working on got more complex that things began to develop. After spending so much time together, it became clear that there was something between the two of you. Neither could really pinpoint what it was, not until an argument the two of you had about the presentation; which resulted in you being bent over a table, wrists trapped as Jimin attacked your lips. You agreed to go on a date because you assumed the man might realize the lack of chemistry between both of you.

The exact opposite happened. Every time you bickered with each other, he assumed that it was because there was so much passion it couldn't be helped. When he asked you what kind of movie you wanted and the response was, “anything that isn't romantic”, he’d taken it to mean that no love story could ever live up to your own. The date had been a failure, but the second you walked onto campus the next day everyone was talking about Park Jimin's new girl - their words weren't all that nice. Putting up with Jimin was a lot easier said than done: the man followed you around more than your imaginary friend had when you were six. Finally, after a month, you had enough and marched straight into Jimin's apartment to end things with him. That day you learned that for as much light as someone may seem to possess there must always be a balance. You weren't able to walk or wear short-sleeved shirts for two weeks, but it was okay because now you were stuck by his side and would never leave him. The ends would always justify the means.

Kim Taehyung

Peculiar was the perfect word to describe Kim Taehyung; perhaps it was even made for him. His peculiar actions and behavior often drove others to distance himself from him, but not you. He eventually learned to disguise his stranger impulses and how to appear like a normal part of society. It also helped that the older he got the more handsome he became. People are willing to overlook the most atrocious things if they are done by beautiful people. None of that ever mattered to him though, he was content living in his own little bubble - with you of course.

Being a little strange yourself, you were attracted to Taehyung from a young age. It was more of a child's curiosity and your parents have taught you that everyone deserves a friend. You became his friend instantly. His only friend. He didn't care for the outside world or what it thought of him, but your opinion and affection was worth everything. He would always be glued to your side and more often than not it felt like the two of you shared a soul. Something you wanted to severe when his odd habits were exposed. Something he would never allow.

Despite everything, he could always be pacified - unless you tried to leave him. Then you would find yourself dealing with a man so crazed, nothing would seem extreme to him. You were his and he was yours. In life and death. Rest assured that if the first one didn't work out he wouldn't hesitate to attempt the latter. Taehyung would never lock you inside forever, he wanted you to live and love the way you had before. Wanted everything to be the same as it was before; with the added benefit of you sharing not only his heart but bed. For the sake of you and everyone you love, submitting to this crazed man is the best option out there. If you don't well, don't say you weren't warned.

Jeon Jungkook

A God among mere mortals and he behaved that way. Nothing existed above him: no societal standard, no law, no moral. He was the embodiment of them. It was he who was responsible for exerting his will over the world, and the world seemed quite fine with that. There were words that didn't exist in his vocabulary, but the most recognizable one was “no.” That was a word that could never be uttered in his presence or God bless your soul. Actually, considering who he was, Jungkook bless your soul. The man held no regard for those that lived under his rule and took pleasure in torturing them whenever he was bored. Not that it was very entertaining as they were far too eager to please most of the time. You, however, were not.

It must always be noted that it is the atypical maiden that captures the god's attention and that the events that ensue are anything but sweet. Maybe it was because you always spoke your truth, you didn't believe yourself to be superior to anyone, and you looked him in the eyes when you spoke. Though it was probably because you were the first to utter that infamous word to him. Had you been anyone else, he might have had your head. But it was the way in which you said it, with no rude intent, that had the man obsessing over you for weeks. There is a negative thing to be said about gods and that is that they can be quite delusional. Jungkook believed you were trying to play a game of cat and mouse. That whenever you would glance at him, smile politely, and wave you were truly confessing your love to him. Jungkook being the gracious man that he was accepted your confession and began a relationship with you - entirely without your knowledge.

You would realize soon, however. When wherever you looked he was there. Whenever you needed something only he could provide it. When a nice transfer student had asked you out to lunch and he ended up in the back of an alleyway dead. God's will should never be tested and there was little you could do to refuse. If you attempted to escape, he would trap you in his home permanently. Trying to resist would result in your loved ones being threatened. He was not against beating the resistance out of you. Besides, all you needed was him. It was he that allowed you to live, to love, to experience things; all through him. God was inescapable and not even death will do you part.

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criticalotterstudies · 5 years ago

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To Dworkin's admirers, she was a hot-rod combination of martyr and holy warrior, a survivor of sexual abuse who dared to speak truth to power. To her critics, she was a raging harpy who rose up out of nowhere, intent on taking away their porn and (some of the male ones vaguely suspected) their manhood. With law professor Catharine MacKinnon she wrote an ordinance (passed by the city of Indianapolis) that defined pornography as a kind of speech crime that violated the civil rights of all women -- the law was later overturned as unconstitutional. She testified before the infamous Meese Commission on pornography, forming what many saw as a dangerous alliance with the radical right. She was said to have written that all heterosexual intercourse was the equivalent of rape, though she denied that the passage in question amounted to such a claim.

Dworkin was a gifted, galvanizing communicator, both in print and as a public speaker. She was the Jonathan Edwards of radical feminism, capable of calling ecstatic souls to her cause, transforming her listeners and readers in ways many of them never forgot, even if they eventually came to disagree with her. (See Susie Bright's eloquent eulogy for an example.) She could inspire impromptu Take Back the Night marches and the instant formation of anti-violence groups, sincere efforts to do something to check the abuse that real women really do suffer every day, even if the response to it in this case was more ideological than practical.

But Dworkin was also a pioneer of a particular and pernicious type of rhetoric, one currently being used much more effectively by talk radio hosts and the extreme political right. Here's a classic example: During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Dworkin quarreled with feminists who did not consider Bill Clinton's sexual encounters with the White House intern to be sufficiently exploitative to merit impeachment. A principled, reasonable argument could be made that Clinton's behavior was unethical, but Dworkin was never about reason. "What needs to be asked," she told a British journalist, "is, was the cigar lit?"

The statement (it seems too sensationalistic to be called a quip) is pure Dworkin: a ghoulishly creative melodramatic flourish that has little bearing on the matter at hand. Clinton may have acted sleazily, with a callous disregard for the emotional consequences of his actions on a young woman who was too naive and eager-to-please to grasp them herself, but no one suspects or has accused him of sadistically torturing her. Yet Dworkin was never able to enter into a conversation about morality unless the stakes were escalated to the stratosphere. The everyday realm where most of us commit our minor sins against, and injuries to, each other didn't really interest her. She only cared for the Grand Guignol.

Dworkin came out of and contributed to a subculture of feminism that specialized in this kind of irresponsible overstatement. A certain style developed: Throw out a handful of lurid, grisly anecdotes as if they amounted to an indictment of an entire class of people (usually men), who, if the worst of them can be shown to be guilty of such outrages, must all be equally responsible for them. The shock will soften your audience up enough to keep them from asking just how typical such atrocities really are and how widely condoned. Yes, they do happen, but like the handful of kidnapped little girls during the summer of 2002, such horrors can be made to seem epidemic when they're actually a rarity. Meanwhile, the much less exciting, if far more common, troubles of women who are simply trying to feed their children on inadequate wages, or get a decent job, fall by the wayside.

After this came the dodgy statistics, the one out of every four women said to have been raped in her lifetime, the alleged upsurge in domestic violence reports after the Super Bowl, and other mediagenic numbers. If these "facts" later turned out to be wobbly (or, in the case of the Super Bowl story, an outright hoax), many women's advocates rarely seemed to grasp the damage they'd done. After all, they were only calling attention to real, pervasive problems, which rape and domestic violence unquestionably are.

But here's the rub: If you get sloppy with the truth, then anyone who doesn't feel like dealing with those problems can happily devote himself to quibbling with your numbers instead. Does it really matter that much whether it's one women in four who will be raped, or one woman in 10? Or 20? It's still too many, and it needs to be stopped. Good luck getting that done while everyone's busy arguing about your stats.

The ravaged, bruised and mutilated women who parade through Dworkin's writings can seem as insubstantial as these numbers. As described by her, they're like the characters in an urban legend or campfire story, like the girl who finds the bloodied hook hanging from the car door handle. She tells their stories with an unseemly relish, and they're portrayed as completely and utterly helpless and abject, with no one to turn to but their equally brutalized yet indomitable champion. "Heartbreak" professes to be the testament of someone who has devoted herself to abused women, but the only three-dimensional human being who emerges from the book's Sturm und Drang is Dworkin herself. It's a mistake to equate a writer's work with how she lives her life, so let us hope that, in person, Dworkin managed to treat these women as more than rescue objects.

Perhaps in recent years Dworkin was pleased to see support for her own ideas in the theories of evolutionary psychologists who argue for the innate aggression of male sexuality, and even go so far as to suggest that men are born to rape. Probably not, though; she would have likely seen it as an excuse to go on raping. The very opposite of self-reflective, she never reconsidered her position on porn, so she surely never wondered what all the time and energy feminists spent on the "Sex Wars" of the 1980s might have accomplished if it had been redirected toward helping abused women gain the financial and emotional wherewithal to reclaim their lives. Her contribution to the discussion on most issues failed the ultimate litmus test: Even when she was right, she made the public conversation stupider. (Though some of her opponents, who could rarely resist ad hominem remarks about her appearance, surpassed her even in that.)

https://www.salon.com/2005/04/12/dworkin_3/

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goddamnitlady · 6 years ago

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OOC // super long post of me talking at myself, trying to make sense of my behaviour.

I need to put this chaos of thoughts down on the page. Or else they might claw my skull open from the inside out. This text is so super personal it would fit better in my diary. This is me talking at me.

So no obligation to you to read this!!!

I realise I’m so shaken, that in the below text, I will be (re-)constructing my own narrative about myself. I’ll do that right here.

I will use this narrative to review what I learnt about my behaviour, re-interpret my past and then frame my current social reality. If I use kinder language, perhaps I'll think kinder of myself? Gotta try that. This is my unstructured train of thought, me talking at me. If you want to read about me talking at you, scroll down.

Enjoy some nude TMI. It’s long.

INTRO - BEHAVIOUR

Yesterday I went to A.DHD Central to get tested and maybe a diagno.sis and surprise, I have it! I saw it coming and I'm okay with this. It explains why...

why I'm always so easily distracted

why it's almost painful to be bored

why it's almost to do difficult tasks

why I've got social periods that can last days or month and then suddenly get asocial periods

why I forget something 3 seconds after you said it

why I can't remember more than 3 instructions

why I don't have one train of thought, but 3 or 4. And I need to jump from train to train to keep up with them.

Okay so that's that.

The OTHER thing that I cannot stop thinking about now is just as important. The old man said it very casually, like: "oh btw on such an intense diagnosis day our team of trained specialist always finds other mental difficulties people developed too. AD.HD comes with friends. We see you have (traits of) avoi.dant personality disor.der okay continuing on, your computer test showed..."

And today I'm at home. I picked up my me.ds this morning and I've started dosing. I started thinking, wait what did they say yesterday about that other thing? So I read through Wikipedia.

ME TALKING @ ME. ^That new info about my behaviour changes my interpretation of my past.

Yesterday a professional told me that 50% of the kids with ADH.D leave primary school feeling like an outcast so it's not weird I was bullied too.

On primary school I was dia.gnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia. It means that letters and numbers magic to me. They tremble and swap places or vanish. The classes Maths and Languages were awful to me. Biology and History were better and more fun but they also make use of numbers (dates/calculations). Art class (with my hands or brain) was the one thing I could actually do. I could do presentations and discussions as well.

But I felt different from my peers because they could learn things so EASILY compared to me. I wasn't dumb, I understood, but then the explanation was gone and I'd forgotten it again(AD.HD). So I needed lots of repetition to learn. And then once I understood it the letters/numbers kept moving without my consent! (dyslexia/dyscalucia) Stupid letters/numbers.

I moved houses and thus switched schools. On the new school became bullied by being socially exluded, ignored, and critisized.

That bullying made me feel like I could be 'attacked' in class all the time. In hindsight I was sensitive to stimuli. Everyone has a filter on their mind that ignores certain things (like the fact you are breathing. congratulations, you are now aware that you are breathing) and lets other things through (such as the honk of a car when you're jaywalking). Child!me must have been working super hard to

pay attention to class

filter stimuli

categorise high-speed which stimuli are hostile

muffle intense emotional reactions

consider which version of reply would create least conflict/emotion

A lack of sleep (from reading books until late) make me sleepy during the day thus less sensitive to (negative) stimuli.

So I became from age 10 onward very much an outcast/ anxious/ nervous/ shy/ avoidant-of-confrontations-where-I-could-be-rejected.

I was bullied on secondary school too. Jackpot.

I worked harder than average but my grades were lower than average. I felt inadequate. Inferior. My self reflection went into overdrive. I started to think things like... if I can't do maths or language and don't like people, what sort of career could I do? What value did I have to humanity? Was I not just taking up resources? I felt guilt and shame that my parents had to waste(!) money on me. No economic equation could justify having me around. I was a useless human being. My only good trait is that I'm kind to people, showing kindness always -- even if they don't deserve it. Because I know what it’s like to be hurt and I don’t want to do that to anyone.

(I feel so fucking lucky that I grew up in a loving family because holy shit teenage!me sounded like the textbook perfect victim for types of abuse.)

I worked hard in all my classes and it paid off. I went to the above-medium level of education for secondary school. Finally away from my bullies at age 15,5! I think that ended my de.pression too. I switched schools to above-medium, it was a normal period on that secondary school. Two more years after that went fine. Made my long-term school friends and cosplay friends in that time and since. Yay!

After that, I studied graphic design on adult education medium level, then for Teacher of English As A Foreign Language on above-medium level, now I'm this(!) close to finishing Literature Studies on university (highest) level. Take that, insecurity. I'm not stupid. My specialities (creativity) just lay elsewhere than the standard measurement.

I read somewhere that AD.HD people don't have normal emotions but that one emotion TIMES TEN. So a small mention of rejecton from another person causes a feeling of REJECTION TIMES TEN in me. I can easily say that I have joy times TEN, fear times TEN, and enthusiasm times TEN too, which can make me a very charming person?

I initially thought this strong emotional fear of rejection was the AD.HD-only symptom called RSD, rejection-sensitive dys.phoria. What makes it into a personality diso.rder?

Answer: Persistent malfunctioning in society.

ME TALKING @ ME. Re-framing my social reality and examining my behaviours.

I malfunction as follows: I experience extreme shyness in certain moments, feel anxious before or during new social situations, don't want to go to the kitchen if my housemates are there, have a fear of emailing/calling people, or approaching groups. Fear of asking money back (I feel like "I'm not worth even a euro"). I have a GIANT fear of being rejected by others. Giant fear of being ridiculed. Cast out.

This leads to a behavior pattern where I avoid conflict. I'm just too scared to do them. Critique freaks me out (because me emotions will skyrocket times ten). And it's the worst when I'm doing a project with people (such as preparing a presentation with a group/making cosplay costume with a friend/travelling home by train and someone needs to pick me up). People are the worst. I feel I always let them down.

So then anticipate on being inadequate, take longer to do it perfect, get ill from thinking up a thousand stressful could-be's, then fiiiiiinally reach out, and hear "you should have done X" or "why didn't you call me earlier?! Now I have to deal with this escalated mess!"

HOW I RESPOND TO ONLINE STIMULI

When friends send me a message online, I get scared. I ALWAYS have fear of opening them. I always think "what did I do wrong this time?" I always anticipate an attack. This is why it's good I have both friends AND other people on whatsapp. Sometimes this emotional anticipation or reaction is so strong that it can dominate my mood for hours.

Sometimes (when I'm most afraid) I open the message to get rid of the notification and don't actually read it.

Sometimes (when I'm fearful brave) I take a deep breath and read it and take an hour to deal with the stressful emotional reaction. I want to reply but 1)I need to think of the perfect reply to type up so the negative situation will be quelled or/or followed by 2) my AD.HD forgets it.

Sometimes (when I'm happy) I can respond immediately. I'm functional!!!

Sometimes (when I'm happy) I respond immediately and them too and it's fun! And I have a blast! Wow, talking to friends is so much fun!!! I'm charming. I'm fast. I'm celebrating.

Nowadays I have a lot of friends. At least twenty five! They're divided into four groups: hometown, student life, online, cosplay. These are "friends without obligation" MEANING that my presence is a addition and not a requirement. They will never guilt me for cancelling on them. We can only hang out once a year and have a blast without talking at all during the rest of the year, and we will still conciser each other friends. I consider them friends if I can message/call them up at 2 a.m. and cry about a boyfriend or needing a place to sleep. Which is a huge deal to me, me-who-feels-guilty-for-taking-up-resources.) It don’t always function. I can hide for weeks, avoiding social contact. Then I can be super functional for weeks. Ups and downs. I function best around friends without obligations.

ME @ TUMBLR FRIENDS.

I suppose I want my tumblr friends to know that...

I 'squish' on a person. I use the word here in the meaning of 'plantonic crushing' and 'wanting to have an emotional bond with them as friend'. I sometimes stalk/bombard a person with messages/like every post/am super invested in everything they do. Usual reason: because I think they are a fantastic content creator. This makes me feel like they are inspiring and amazing and sometimes 'socially higher ranked' than me. To battle my inferiority, I want them to acknowledge me. I want to 'have' them. I hate to admit it, but the words "notice me senpai" sum it up badly. A better way of describing it is “proving my inferiority complex as wrong and my internalised social hierarchy as false as fast as I can”. The resolution is often hanging out in chat and writing a thread together. It will make me realise that we're both humans. Often, once the person gives me attention, I very quickly normalise them and am able to stop bad thoughts. I really dislike the senpai/kohai dynamic and want to get rid of it asap. Giving me attention helps! I've experienced this squishing in class/ social/ work/ online/ cosplay environments. If I am 'squishing' on you, just pat my head, okay?

I feel compelled to admit have had squishes on but then normalised as equal Sky.e, Ni.kki, Ju.lia, E.su, Ham.my, J, Cel.este, Va.na, and various others who I don’t need to mention because I never became friends with them. My squishes on these people were on the creative person as future friend, not(!!!) on the muses. I still have a ton of respect for these people.

People I'm in the process of normalising are Surfi and Jana. I'm doing well. I’m not that bad. When Hammy appears I still want a pat on the head though.

One person I'm squishing on quite much right now is Nami. I want all their attention. Nami, if you're reading this, I hope it doesn't drive you crazy (not as mad as it drives me). So I'm sorry that I post a reply 0.3 seconds after you post and seem to be online 24/7.

And if anyone else is reading this, sorry I’m paying less attention to you.

I hate it when partners drop threads unannounced because I'll be waiting by the front door like a labrador waiting for a dead owner to come home.

Its fine if you tell me you want to drop a thread, no problem, no feeling of rejection here.

It's fine if you take 2 years to reply to a thread. Literally.

I forget thread posts. Feel free to poke me when I take longer than a month.

Me not replying to your roleplay request is because I'm imagining that my rejection of your request will hurt you as much as it would hurt me. I'm imagining your pain and emphasize with my fantasy to the point that I leave your request in my inbox for months. And then it hurts that I didn't reply.

Me not posting your submission/ask message is because I'm always feeling inferior. I don't feel worthy of your attention. I don't feel worthy of your text/art/time, so when I get it I feel THRILLED. Like, "WOW they like me!! Take that inferiority complex!!" I feel thrilled. I have to give you the perfect reply that will show you exactly how thrilled I am. Or give you a perfect drabble as reply.

Me not replying to your chat messages is not me intentionally disrespecting you. You are important. Goddamnit I want to keep you as a friend. It's me being EMOTIONAL AS FUCK AND I'M PREPARING A REPLY or I FORGOT ABOUT IT.

I only give myself permission to delete those after 6 months of struggling.

Me roleplaying super intensely with you and then suddenly not at all, is because the following happened:

I squished on you back then,

we wrote and for a while my days centerend around your online hours,

I normalised you and I found tranquillity (good ending) OR

I was called away because I had ignored real life and it became on fire. (bad ending, very much at risk of uncontrolled squishing on you again!!!)

(I want to continue to enjoy being friends with you Super Duper Much, I respect your distaste for my silences, I’m sorry, and I feel bad TIMES TEN that I put you in this mood.) (I then feel worthless. Then inferior and wow hello devil on my shoulder that tells me bad things. Hey devil if you’re here do you pay rent? And I begin to avoid you which makes you even unhappier. Then I avoid you and - etc. etc. Goddamn I just want to be friends and write rp WHY am I like this! Why am I so fearful? It doesn’t make any sense!)

The thought of writing with you makes me excited times ten. I respect you. And because we didn't RP and you're worried and I feel I let you down... I want to "make it up to you by being perfect and worthy". It catapults me right back into the mindset/habits from where I used to squish on you, and my day will center around you again. I know I don't /want/ that mindset to ambush me. It'll control me. So I either postpone engagement with you, OR I ask/agree a day where we can write together. Then my intense emotions and refresh-the-page obsession and "OH MY GOD THIS RP IS SO GOOD U R SUCH AN AWESOME CONTENT CREATOR WE HAVE SO MUCH FUN" thoughts can be limited to that day. During the next days (I usually need days), I can cool down from the hype and try to continue with my life and productively avoid the bad squish. This may come across as cold. But I assure you, my mind is constantly on you. And when I’m settled, I’ll be easier to approach for casual RP again.

I find it extremely hard to deal with users who see me as their senpai. When I feel that you idolise me as senpai, want my attention and affection, want to be my friend, I get really uncomfortable. I usually search for ways to calm you down and make you realize I'm human. But if I do not feel equal, (because of IM chat/because writing styles clash) I can’t hang out with you. That’s not you, that’s me. Feeling inferior is something I’m trained in now and know how to go to ‘equals’ level fast, I’m not trained at all to feel superior. I screw up wayyy to much to accept that role. I will fear hurting you. I wouldn’t know how to try to become equals. So then I dash away. I’m sorry.

I'm not good at IM messaging in chat on tumblr or other social media online because I'll 1)get scared of the messages or 2) really really want to write with you. So I generally don't want to chat at all, except to plot roleplays. I find it difficult to send friends regular 'hi how are you' messages because I want a "friendship-without-obligations" that I described earlier.

Wow this list must scare you. I'm sorry.

It scares me. Wow, what a manual. I'm so complicated.

I'm worried now about whether I should post this. I sound like such a... a crazy online person that has a ton of things wrong in the head and should be avoided at all cost. ......... No, let me rephrase that. I’m a self-reflective person. I am a critical analyst of my mind and it's unique I can put it into words.

DEAR TUMBLR FRIENDS...

- You don't want my squishing + I don't want my squishing. Let's work together so this bad mindset doesn't thrive, OK?

- You don't want to be ignored + I don't want my ‘conflict avoiding anxiety’ that makes me ignore you. Let's continue to communicate!! Please sandwich your critique in kindness. Kind-critical-kind. Then I'll reply faster!

- I am worth as much as every one of you. I am NOT your kohai and if you start seeing me as such I'll feel offended. I'm worth as much as any of you. (My mind cannot be trusted.)

- You cannot control what emotions I feel, nor the intensity. Anything(!) could spark me to go into a different mindset.

ROLEPLAY I suppose I have a 'type' of muse.

I like writing confident-arrogant muses who never hesitate about being better than others. They used their unique traits that set them apart to excel (not fall), and are so fearless of social rejections that they boldly abandoned social-mediocority to craft a setting they thrive in. Its because their growth/conquer mindsets appeal to me. I want to continue training myself to think like that. It helps battle my fears. I identify with them. Reasons: I worked hard and rose from being bullied at primary school and medium education level to upper-middle level. Now I'm at highest level of education (university) despite my flaws. I channelled my traits of creativity + kindness + hard work and made a ton of friends. I am now struggling with my university bachelor thesis. I have to finish it asap, but damn, I'm amazing, I never thought I'd get this far?? I'm in my world of my own making. My loving supporting surrounding friends/family/teachers help me function.

IN CONCLUSION....

So in conclusion, I can only ask for your friendship, your kindness to forgive me when I mess up, and to please occasionally pet my head.

In return, I will generously offer friendship for however long you want me, will bravely engage in struggles to reply to your messages in time, and I offer you lots of FEELS from my muses.

I'm going to make sure that the time we hang out and write together, will be the MOST AMAZING EXPERIENCE.

Excerpt from my thoughts to show you how it goes: Small bad thought in my head: "don't abandon me, please accept this RP service I offer, because you won't hang out with me for my personality due to my bad attention/communication skills. I can see why you like my Orochimaru/muses but can hardly see why you could like me." Louder good thought in my head: "Shut up you're a feeling from the AD.HD or conflict-avoident-personality-type part of my brain and you can't be trusted. LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING. I'M GREAT." Small thought: "...Keep telling yourself that." Louder thought: "Ouch. I mean. LA LA LA. POSITIVE SELF-DECEPTION AGAINST BAD THOUGHTS UNTIL IT'S AN INTERNALISED TRUTH IS AN EMPOWERING METHOD THAT WORKS. LA LA LA." So that’s how it works. Sometimes I cannot differ which of the thoughts is bad and which one is the good one.

EPILOGUE, I’m done.

Okay. I think I have figured myself out. I’ve re-evaluated my past.

The urgent mess of thoughts in my brain has calmed down. I no longer feel like my head will explode.

I’ve said all the things I wanted to say to myself, and I’ve said the things I want to say to tumblr friends.

I’m going to pretend nooooo oneeee took the time to read this big post... so no one will be angry (something which I fear for no logical reason) ... and I’ll be able to sleep right now.

#lady vs life #ooc

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wsmith215 · 4 years ago

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Policing Can Take a Lesson from Health Care

The grief is indescribable. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other unarmed Black Americans dying at the hands of police is unacceptable. It is happening repeatedly, and we are fed up.

I will be forever haunted by the images of a police officer’s knee being used, not in protest, but to asphyxiate a fellow American. While I had to watch parts of it on mute to keep from hearing the calls of Mr. Floyd asking for water, begging for his deceased mother and pleading for his life over and over again, I keep thinking of the details of how he died��how his carotid arteries were compressed, leaving it impossible for his brain to get oxygen; how the vagal, or relaxation, centers in his neck were overstimulated by the pressure, likely slowing or stopping his heart; how his trachea, as rigid and firm as it is, may have also been collapsing from all the external pressure; and how pinning him down kept him from expanding his chest cavity to take in enough air and compensate for his already oxygen-deprived organs.

For days, I avoided watching the entire video, but reminded myself that this was not an experience Floyd asked for or deserved. As much as I wanted to protect my mental health, it paled in comparison to the horror of being killed slowly and unjustly. After watching the video, and seeing that the officers knew that they were being videotaped, I realized that what the public sees as solely an accountability tool may in fact be a stage for some police officers to amplify and assert to the world who is in charge

What we attempt to sweep under the rug as isolated instances, bad apples that should not spoil the bunch, is increasingly becoming a pattern. The bunch is unmistakably being spoiled, and the American public is watching. We are watching for the true acknowledgement of ills in policing by the police themselves, for the recognition that all parties involved, including those setting the stage for murder, those ignoring or mocking the cries of screaming bystanders and those using a person’s past or current misfortune as justification for murder, are all complicit.

It is incredibly tough to be yelled at, assaulted and chastised while being a public servant. I am an emergency medicine physician, and I have had bodily fluids thrown at me, been assaulted by patients and been accused of withholding resources and care. I recognize the stark differences between the natural hazards I am responsible for trying to fix and the human-to-human hazard that police respond to. My job does not require me to interface with a potentially armed public. Nonetheless, the decisions we make every day, in either circumstance, can result in life or death. Even on my worst day, I could only hope that those who have also made the pledge to “Do No Harm” would not let me get away with hurting anyone. To be responsible for a life is to be held accountable for life. To be a teammate to another public servant means encouraging the best behavior possible.

So, if our police force says these murderers among them are bad actors, how do we better screen for them before they are hired? How do we remove and punish them for egregious acts against weaponless Americans? How do we best account for and address implicit and explicit bias and Chauvin-ism in policing?

Health care may be able to provide a model for improvement. Health care in America is far from perfect and needs its own serious introspection. To be a physician or nurse in the U.S. and not recognize that mistrust, bias and inefficiency in medicine is real would be willful ignorance. Nevertheless, our health care system recognizes that even the best and brightest trained and most well-intentioned among us are imperfect people functioning in an imperfect system. Our job requires a constant mental exercise of risk versus benefit, checking bias, examining power dynamics and staying current on the best practices for patients.

In risk management, analysis and prevention, an accident causation model called the Swiss cheese model, proposed by James Reason, author of Human Error, is used to help avoid unacceptable events in an organization. It is a model commonly used in health care as well as in aviation and engineering. Each component of an organization is considered a slice of cheese. If there are any deficiencies in the slices of your organization, you will have a hole in that slice, hence Swiss cheese.

If a hole, or an area of failed or absent defenses in several slices of an agency line up, it can create a continuous hole, thereby resulting in an adverse outcome. Factors that contribute to failure of a system or a bad outcome result from problems in organizational structure, supervision, preconditions and unsafe individual acts. For example, a hospital purchases an electronic health record that does not record allergies upon patient arrival. The supervising physician unknowingly orders a medication that a patient is allergic to. The pharmacist is not prompted to check for allergies prior to filling and delivering the medication. The nurse then administers the medication to which the patient is severely allergic; the patient is then unable to breath and dies.

The layers of cheese are aligning quite strikingly in American policing.

While we work to address the systemic issues of inequality and racism, as well as campaign finance reform, voter turnout and suppression—bearing in mind how such electoral conditions contribute to the employment of local officials such as district attorneys, prosecutors, sheriffs and medical examiners—I want to offer 10 solutions to support effective and unbiased maintenance of public safety in our communities.

1. Third party external review of deaths under police custody. There should be an external, nonpartisan body that reviews every death under police custody for police departments nationwide. This would allow for an impartial assessment of pattern and practice in the review of deaths in custody and would be made of a panel of law enforcement leadership, legal officials and civilian participants. Cases that may present potential conflict of interest would be escalated to the state governor or federal Department of Justice. An unbiased, third-party medical examiner should also be selected to conduct autopsies in these cases as local medical examiners are often appointed officials with political relationships that could pose conflicts of interest.

2. Anonymous reporting with no retribution. Police should be encouraged to securely report activities of misconduct without the concern of punishment from police stations or colleagues. To facilitate this safely, I recommend reporting through an anonymous external reporting system or hotline.

3. Internal reviews for quality and safety. All police departments should be required to engage in routine quality audits of their activities for continued improvement of policing practices. Quality audits would include reports from the anonymous reporting system, as well as frequent review and audit of police reports, dash and body camera footage, radio exchanges with both peer and community review. This would also encourage preferential use of alternative nonlethal agents when a citizen is posing a possible nonlethal threat to the officers. A system for remediation, probation and termination should be enforced for officers with repeated offenses and not meeting requirements of their corrective action plan. Special attention will also be paid to precincts with disproportionate disciplinary action of officers based on their race or gender.

4. Evaluation for racism and socioeconomic bias in the recruitment and hiring process. Screening through entry questionnaires, interviews and scenario-based evaluation with mental health professionals and character assessments via diverse job references should be conducted with all entering police officers. Longitudinal training in implicit bias and systemic inequality would also be required.

5. Routine psychological evaluation and mental health care for all police officers. Repeated trauma of frontline professionals, particularly those at risk of physical harm and death, should be acknowledged. Those at higher risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, including officers with backgrounds in wartime conflict and high-risk adverse childhood experiences such as significant bullying, violence, physical or sexual abuse, should be identified and supported. Partnerships with mental health professionals, consistent participation in activities promoting mental health and wellness, and routine sabbatical opportunities and respite from policing activities may also prove useful.

6. Training, in-service and continued policing education. In addition to routine training and in-service activities, police officers should be required to complete a set amount of continuing education units (CEUs) annually or at minimum every two years. This would include conflict resolution and basic first aid as well as cultural competency training involving members of the community that addresses the unique needs of the communities they serve.

7. Unarmed public safety teams. These teams can function as enhancements of or alternatives to armed police officers particularly for patrolling and nonviolent 911 calls. This public safety option would include locally recruited public safety workers trained in de-escalation and mental health emergencies.

8. Enhancing education and entry requirements. Journalist Sara Llana, in an article titled “Why Police Don’t Pull Guns in Many Countries,” describes a police training process in Germany wherein “rigorous education standards help to widen an officer’s vision when stress narrows it.” Currently, in the U.S., police training lasts on average 19 weeks. This may or may not include a field experience and probation period. In addition to academy training, local governments would require, at minimum, bachelor’s level liberal arts education focused on courses such as ethics, communication, history, psychology, domestic and international relations, foreign language and ethnic studies.

9. Performance review–based compensation. Compensation of officers would be increased based on fulfillment of the above requirements with incentives for strong peer, community and performance reviews, and avoidance of adverse events.

10. External review for accreditation. By fulfilling the above requirements, a police department would be accredited by a third party for continued operation, potential increases in budget or fines if requirements are not fulfilled.

When an apple is rotten and a slice of cheese riddled with holes, a typically delectable combination, is now difficult to eat. I hope these points can contribute to the dialogue and provide potential action items for change. Our nation should never have to witness an unnecessary, gruesome death at the hands of police. As a fellow public servant, we are the people that the public calls upon in times of distress, fear and concern. We are layers of protection and should function as such. We should prioritize trust and comfort over fear and terror and call out our colleagues who prioritize the latter.

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dragonlands · 8 years ago

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hannigram - an abusive relationship?

Spoiler alert: it’s not. (But it kind of is. I’ll go in depth about that in a moment.)

I wrote this for a conversation I had in twitter, and thought I wouldn’t need to post it here, but since I saw yet another person claiming that hannigram is abusive I thought I’d post this.

People use the term abusive about relationships that are unhealthy (in their opinion), as evindence for why it should not be shipped/supported. The correct definition of abuse is:

“Treating badly or injurously, mistreating, especially psysically.”

And of relationship abuse it is:

“A pattern of abusive and coercive behaviors used to maintain power and control over a former or current intimate partner. Abuse can be emotional, financial, sexual or physical and can include threats, isolation, and intimidation. Abuse tends to escalate over time. When someone uses abuse and violence against a partner, it is always part of a larger pattern of control.”

So according to this it is abusive, I get it. They both try to kill each other multiple times, they manipulate and lead each other on. They don’t sexually abuse each other though, which at least in my opinion is the worst sort of abuse and I couldn’t ship a couple who did that to one another.

The other thing in this description that doesn’t quite match Hannigram is “abuse tends to escalate over time – it is always a part of larger pattern of control”. The mental abuse between them is at it’s worst in S1 where Hannibal manipulates Will into believing he’s a killer - but this is not to show his power over him, it is simply the only way Hannibal can bring Will into his life. Hannibal has after the first half of S2 been ready to drop the manipulation and violence between them as soon as Will does. And I haven’t seen anyone blame Will of being the main abuser, even though it could be argued that it’s solely his fault that the abuse continues.

The reason why Hannigram doesn’t fit the normal description of abuse is because their relationship is meant to be read as symbolic, not as a literal ideal of love. It’s fiction, and it should be treated as such. Fiction is great, because we can explore possibilities and relationships etc. that aren’t possible in real life. Thankfully the majority in this fandom are really intelligent and understand this, and only few people have failed at understanding what the shoe is about. That group still exists, and that’s why I felt the need to post this

What I believe the antis actually mean when they say it’s abusive is not just that it is violent and manipulative, but that “It’s an abuser/abused relationship, Hannibal is evil and Will is innocent, their relationship won’t work and does more bad than good for both of them, or at least for Will”.

Like I said earlier, it’s not a healthy relationship and it’s not one that I literally want for myself or for anyone I care about - but it’s not unbalanced. At least when we reach the end of third season they are certainly equals, there’s no denying it. I understand that some people don’t ship it because it’s too far from an ideal realtionship, and that’s okay, but hating on it and denying the fact that they’re equals who both choose each other in the end is just plain ignorant.

Will has always been alone, always been different. His relationship with Hannibal gets so close so fast because Hannibal is the first person who actually sees him. I’m gonna quote a Hannigram fic here because I think it described their relationship so well. (Will to Hannibal:) “You always wanted me to be the best version of myself when no one else accepted me for what I already was.” Just like Hannibal let Will see him, Will also let Hannibal see him. Hannibal didn’t “make an innocent puppy become a murderer”, he helped him to become what he already had the potential for.

If the antis and/or deniers have only seen season one, I need to admit that I understand them. Will did kind of seem like an innocent dog loving introvert back then if you didn’t pay much attention to details (like how coldly he treats the parents of the missing girl, how he isn’t afraid of human contact but despises it, how his humor is so dark that it often shocks his colleagues and friends and so on. I could make a post about this, if anyone is interested about that let me know). The first season is about Hannibal manipulating everyone into thinking Will is a killer, experimenting on Will and he does seem like a coldhearted psychopath there.

In season two we see Will gaining more power back, him manipulating and even seducing Hannibal. He isn’t afraid to kill a man in the progress, he eats people with Hannibal almost flirtatiously. This is not what an “innocent” man would do, or even what innocent man physically could do. The darkness inside him is becoming more clear, and even he himself admits that even though he wants to, he can’t hate Hannibal.

Will (to Peter): “I envy your hate. Makes it much easier when you know how to feel.”

He still betrays Hannibal in mizumono (even though he does call him at the last minute to warn him). Before I always though it was just because Will was still trying to cling to some sort of morality, but after Hugh’s comments it is obvious that Will was also afraid Hannibal didn’t and/or couldn’t love him the way he loved him, and so he thought it would be dangerous for him to run away with him and trust Hannibal with his life and wellbeing. Here is what Hugh said:

“I think Will has probably in some way never conceived the possibility that Hannibal could be in love. I mean, he’s got such a black heart. The awareness that they have this connection is something Will knows and is probably in some way profoundly ashamed of, and is also, you know, he keeps coming back to and actually kinda fills him with joy as well. But I don’t think he’d ever give it the name love, because I don’t think he’d ever associate love with Hannibal. – He’s never thought of Hannibal as being capable of love. Because like most of us, he probably had love put off on a kind of pedestal, as an idea, a more perfect thing, as he made the awful realisation: ‘Oh crap, maybe this thing I’m feeling is like love.‘”

I think it is clear to everybody at this point that Hannibal loves Will. His love, though, isn’t your typical “murderer obsessed with a beautiful and innocent woman (obviously man in this case)”. Hannibal loves Will because they understand each other, because they share a way of seeing the world, but also because they have interesting conversations and because they share the same sense of himor and have fun together. In a way, it’s just normal love, just deeper and richer since neither of them has ever had a change to explore that kind of love with anyone else before.

So to conclude: if you take it literally, yes, it is abusive, but that doesn’t make it wrong to ship it, by Hannibal standards at least. (The whole show is a little fucked up so if you can’t live with that why are you here?) Also, it has been abusive until this point only because they (well, mostly Will) have still struggled to accept their feelings for each other. Hannibal has only physically hurt Will if he has betrayed his trust or tried to hurt him first. Personally I don’t believe Hannibal would ever hurt Will again if they were to be a real couple. He also stopped the mindgames and manipulation as early as when Will got out of prison, knowing what he was. And Will has hurt and betrayed Hannibal mostly because of the reasons I stated earlier, because he thought it was the only way to save himself. If they stopped their game of cat and mouse (a game of cat and mouse where the roles change from time to time, or maybe even better description would be a game of cat and cat like Bryan called it) I wholeheartedly believe that they could live in a relationship where neither of them abuses the other.

Like Bryan once said, the core of their relationship is that:

“They had imagined they were unique before they saw each other. Obviously it took Will longer to appreciate that because he didn’t quite realize what he was dealing with in Hannibal, but Hannibal sees it instantly. It’s two people who have never been - I mean Will probably wears it heavier - but still, essentially alone in the world and then see some kind of, maybe not mirror image but the other side of their coin.”

And like Hugh said:

“In a sense the two of them have been wandering the Earth, totally isolated, because they have such a specific and elevated mentality. Not identical, but it is as if not only are you the greatest chess player on the planet, you’re actually the only person on the planet that can play chess. And then suddenly you walk into a roon one day and there’s a guy playing chess. I think that’s how they feel about each other.”

If you leave out the murder and cannibalism and manipulation, Hannigram is about two people who are different than anyone else finding love in each other. Their relationship evolves slowly from friends to lovers, and even though they try to move on neither of them can because they share something so intimate. So in its own, weird and symbolic way, i think Hannibal and Will’s relationship is build on a much better base and is possibly even healthier than many other ships and canon couples out there.

#hannigram #hannibal #will graham #hannibal lecter #hannigram meta #mine #hannibal meta

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ptsdcollab · 7 years ago

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Narcissism and the Prevalence of Abuse

Narcissism the definition Narcissism is defined as an obsession with oneself, arrogance, self-interest, and extreme selfishness. At its best, it is the personality of a leader, charismatic and charming. At its worst, Psychology Today describes it as “manipulative and easily angered, especially when they don’t receive the attention they consider their birthright” This story discusses a problem that has become more common and, I believe, has its roots in narcissistic behavior. This is Caroline’s story. Caroline Caroline grew up in a loving home. Her parents were encouraging and she learned to love freely. Her personality shows empathy and a desire to truly understand another person’s feelings. She is what our family calls a “fixer”. She sees other people’s pain and wants to make it better, at least as “better” as she is capable of. How we look at others I have always told my children that everyone judges others by themselves. By that, I mean that whatever your personal response to a given situation, you are more likely to attribute that action to another. So Caroline would automatically assume that everyone would want to be loving and giving and would not have selfish motives for the things they do. For a narcissist, she is an ideal target. Expert opinion Rebecca Webber of Psychology Today states that narcissism may not be as widespread as some may believe. Let’s look at how narcissism might direct someone’s behavior. An average healthy individual needs some sense of “self-worth” as it helps protect us from many things. We want to eat healthy foods, brush our teeth, look nice, and shower. At its fundamental core, these things are all traits of “healthy narcissism”. Having the ability to ask for a raise, stand up for ourselves, and encourage others are also traits of narcissism. Narcissism at its worst The self-involved, uncaring individual we have all heard stories about describes the extreme narcissist. Perhaps we have even experienced it in our own lives. Then there are those shady in-betweens. I want to explore the possibility of bullying being rooted in narcissism and if unchecked can lead to the extreme and clinical personality disorder we all deplore. Bullying as a form of Narcissism Bullying is on the rise in our country. It is taking shape in younger and younger kids. Online harassment is becoming an epidemic. The story we have heard too many times. The one about the kid who is ganged up on, tormented online, vilified, and harassed. Compromising pictures might be put up, false stories told, their character put into question. We hear of kids who commit suicide because the bullying gets so extreme the person does not see any way to get out from under that torment. Bullying unchecked and under acknowledged becomes the seed for narcissistic personality disorder. Bullying in college Caroline was a victim of bullying. College is a difficult time for many kids. They leave home for the first time, with little to no supervision, to find friends and activities on their own. Many kids do well, after some adjustment. However, some kids do not fare so well. Caroline was one of those kids. The friends she found encouraged her homesickness. They encouraged her to feel bad about herself and her life. Once accepted into the group, her loving and loyal nature began to kick in. Caroline is one of those fiercely loyal friends. She will go out of her way to help, take care, and support those she calls friends. When she and her friends would go places, she would offer to pay for the candy bars or soda. It gradually began to escalate and she was paying for everything, makeup, food, movie tickets. Her friends just expected it. They would go to Caroline’s and leave her the mess to clean up. They would eat her food, take what they wanted and never give it another thought. More prevalent now? As someone from the older generation, I don’t remember this being such a prevalent problem when I was in school. We had bullies, but it was most common for them to be ostracized by the majority of students. They also had to be much more subtle. No one could hide online behind an alias. If you bullied someone, everyone knew. Now it seems that there is less involvement in other people’s lives. Our parents taught us to pay our own way, to respect others, and to clean up after ourselves. It was just something you did, it was expected by everyone. Statistics According to the National Bullying Prevention Center (NBPC) slightly over 20% of kids grades 4-12 report being bullied. They also say that the primary reasons most often reported are looks (55%), body shape (37%) and race (16%). Let’s look at why narcissism might be behind the bullying epidemic and how it could be curbed. The Narcissistic Personality Narcissism is an over inflated view of oneself. Narcissism is a “ constant need to have their greatness verified by the world around them .” (Webber) The narcissist will be number one, they need it, they deserve it. The compulsive need to be noticed, to be the center of life drives the true narcissist. When they don’t get verification of their importance they can become depressed and lash out. Sometimes the narcissist will gain that verification by belittling those around them. Does someone come out of the womb a narcissist? Possibly, but how many more kids become narcissistic adults because there was no one there to check their behavior. How many kids learned this by over indulgent parents who taught their child he was the center of the universe. What about those who are told they aren’t on top because of favoritism or their teacher isn’t competent. What flips the switch differs, but we do know that once flipped that person can become a danger to those around him. Getting out of the relationship Caroline found just this group of girls at college. They talked about how hard their lives were. The fact that they didn’t get what they deserved. How nothing went right for them. They didn’t have the friends they wanted, the grades they should get, their teachers hated them. They were happy being in their little group being miserable about their lives and taking advantage of whoever was willing. Caroline has been the willing party. Until one day she wasn’t. Caroline realized she did not want to be taken advantage of anymore because of her family’s love and understanding. She started saying no to paying for stuff. She told them she was ready to start taking charge of her life and working for what she wanted. In doing so, her actions pointed out to them they were just expecting things to fall into place. They expected life to just be “right” for them because they deserved it. Caroline’s statement made it sound like it was their fault things weren’t going the way they wanted, and that was not a popular statement among her friends. The Reaction When Caroline began to stand up for herself the name calling, derision, bad mouthing her to others, and anger all became a part of the reaction she faced. She had to stand her ground. The more she stood up to them, the worse it became. She had lots of hard days. Lots of days she wondered if she could go on. Many days she just wanted to go home, maybe even end it. But her family encouraged her to stand up for herself. They loved her and supported her. Caroline also has a deep faith in God that helped her through. She knew many times that God used the people around her and even her dog to send messages of love and encouragement. A Problem of Abuse Though not as dramatic as many of the stories so far, Caroline’s story has importance for us as a society. We need to see bullying as one of the roots of abuse as adults. We need to stand up for those being bullied and abused. An encouraging statistics from the NBPC? 57% of bullying cases among children stop when a peer intervenes. How will our kids know when to stand up for someone being bullied if we don’t model it ourselves? Stand up to the epidemic of bullying, human trafficking, sexual and physical abuse. Speak up against injustice on every level. Speak out for that part of us that is loving, selfless and respectful of others. We stand at a crossroads. Let today be the day you get involved . If you feel the desire to become a part of Give Them A Voice , contact them and see how you can get involved. There are many ways, on many levels. Give money directly, buy some of the prints from these stories, help post to social media and share this blog with others. I would love to hear your comments on this topic. If you are a survivor or just want to encourage Caroline and others like her please post your comments below. The Metaphors I chose the metaphor based on Caroline’s answers to some of my questions. When I asked what words had been used to describe her, she said “confident, self-aware and a really big heart”. She also mentioned that although she has a bit of the “house cat innocence” she can take care of herself now. The last thing that made me choose the imagery is Caroline’s faith and reliance on God. She talked about God having a plan for her life, about His looking out for her. It made me think of the Chronicles of Narnia and the obvious reference to Aslan being a Christ figure. It made me think of how male lions are very involved in the raising of the cubs and can be very patient and protective of their cubs. I felt that Aslan was a perfect representation of Caroline’s journey. The lion in the painting represents both her faith and her family supporting, guiding and protecting while also allowing her to grow and become strong. Please leave your comments below and sign up for the newsletter to get updates on the latest stories.

http://www.drjohnaking.com/the-voice/narcissism-and-the-prevalence-of-abuse/

#dealwithitbook #drjohnaking #dealwithit #ptsd #ptsdbreakthesilence #complexptsd #facesofptsd #poetryquotes #ptsdsavior #ptsdisreal

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jamacianbrown-blog · 7 years ago

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Narcissism and the Prevalence of Abuse

http://www.drjohnaking.com/the-voice/narcissism-and-the-prevalence-of-abuse/

#drjohnaking #dealwithit #dealwithitbook #americanpoet #sexualabuse #ptsdhelp #romantic #PTSDTherapy #facesofptsd #ptsdrecoveryart

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bentonpena · 5 years ago

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Mental Illness – No Shame – Lots of Hope via @alanbleiweiss

Mental Illness – No Shame – Lots of Hope via @alanbleiweiss http://bit.ly/34pfQKV

Clinical depression (diagnosed by a professional). Panic attacks. Blackouts.

Suicidal thoughts and planning. Destructive societal behavior.

PTSD. OCD. Drug addiction (including alcohol).

Nine years of recovery. Nine-year relapse.

Second round of recovery.

Now approaching 15 years clean and free of “drugs.”

The list of psychological challenges and illnesses I have lived through in my life is long.

Trigger Warning: This post briefly describes severe abuse as a child, and goes on through to suicidal thoughts. If you are not prepared to read even brief content about a little child being severely abused, or how that eventually led to considering suicide, please skip this section and go on to “From Surviving to Thriving“!

Early Environmental Influence

While at least some of my issues may, in fact, have genetic origins to varying degrees, I have come to learn that we can be shaped and molded based on our environment. And for me, that all started as a result of having been severely abused – physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually throughout my childhood by my parents.

I was physically beaten routinely. Belts. Wooden hangers. Hands. Whatever was convenient. And crying, yeah that cliché “This hurts me more than it hurts you” was said often. As was “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.”

I was also told at various times growing up:

“You’re not good enough.”

“You don’t deserve ____.”

“Look what you did to your mother – why do you get her so upset?”

“You’ll never have anything in life.”

“It’s my house, and if you don’t like it, you can leave.”

One of the worst, from my mother: “Don’t argue with your father – he’s right even when he’s wrong…”

The chaos and abuse at home were only reinforced by being bullied from elementary school until my teen years.

I was taught “turn the other cheek,” “don’t cause trouble at school,” and concepts along those lines.

I was never taught how to stand up for myself early on, as a human being. Never taught at that age any concept of self-worth or self-esteem.

So it was almost guaranteed that I’d seek to escape from that hell.

The Early Years of Insanity

My earliest escape was daytime, waking life blackouts. As a very small child, I would literally be doing one thing somewhere in the house, and next thing I knew, I was outside, doing something completely different.

When my parents would have friends over, I would hide behind the couch, in fear.

I had nightmares that some evil being would come through the window to attack me.

Sugar became a drug. The adrenaline rush in pouring sugar onto sugar-infused cereal was an addiction.

Daydreaming about a better life became a constant outlet.

Escalated Escape

Eventually, escape for me transitioned into schoolwork. I found that if I did really well in class, my teachers would praise me, show me appreciation. So that became a drug.

Seeking approval actually got results somewhere. I craved it. Obsessed over obtaining it.

Except as the years passed, and the abuse got worse, none of those escapes were enough anymore. And that led to drugs. I fit in. Got acceptance. And at the same time, could numb my emotions and thoughts.

Any drug I was exposed to. Could get access to. For me, one drug didn’t lead to another. It was a free-for-all of access and impact. Its use grew though – in volume and frequency.

I almost didn’t graduate from high school because at that point I was “tuned out” – from a straight-A student to failing because of not even showing up at class.

From there, I ended up creating a path of chaos wherever I went with jobs, friendships, everything, and anything.

I got arrested for “minor” infractions more than once. That happens when you are “tuned out” all the time, and when you end up in places you don’t belong, with people you aren’t going to win societal participation awards among.

Life eventually hit bottom (my first of multiple bottoms). Nothing worked anymore. None of my escape mechanisms could numb the pain or internal turmoil.

So I thought suicide was my only way out. Tried planning it out. Yet never did come up with a method I could guarantee would work.

That was 1986. I was 27, and it was the darkest period of my life.

From Surviving to Thriving

Yet I stand here today, writing this post, to say that with a lot of help, support and effort, I’ve overcome so much over so many years.

No, my life is not “perfect” these days.

All of those mental health challenges still, even now, have a residual impact on who I am and how I face the world.

And I can, in the blink of an eye, end up falling into the chaos and insanity at any time for the rest of my life because some of it became so ingrained in me over so many years, that there’s a residual set of beliefs right there.

Just beneath the surface. That close to wanting to take control again.

That’s how it is with addiction, and that’s how it is with the psychological parameters that allow addiction to awaken even when we “know better.”

It’s why, after my first nine years clean from drugs, I relapsed. And spent nine more years out there, fighting the demons.

And while I am approaching 15 years clean this time around (if I can make it, one day at a time until October 27), recovery is still not guaranteed to last forever.

There is no cure when the damage is so deep. There is only mitigation, alleviation, and remission.

In spite of that, I’ve learned to build a pretty amazing, miraculous and spectacular life for myself overall.

I’ve gotten to travel much of the world – consciously chose to live a nomadic life, moving from city to city, state to state every couple years until I went and bought a house at Lake Tahoe this year, where I now reside.

I’ve built a reputation as one of the industry’s top site auditors, gotten to do that work on hundreds of small, medium, and global enterprise sites.

I’ve established lifelong friendships with industry peers and been able to give back in countless ways to the search community and to people in need out in the world.

I often have very good days.

Productive. Happy. Serene.

Even when I have bad days, they are not anywhere near as bad as they used to be because I have tools and resources and an entire support network.

And I have been practicing their use for so long at this point, that most of the time, the noise doesn’t get very loud, if it shows up at all.

When it shows up, I know what to do about it.

That doesn’t mean I instantly take positive action all the time.

Some days, it is a struggle.

Yet I know better now. I have practiced and done the work enough, and gotten the positive results. So there’s much more balance in my life.

Overcoming Mental Illness, Addiction & My Past Demons

How have I done that? How have I been able to overcome such crazy obstacles and challenges on so many levels?

Caveat: What I share here is what has worked for me, what continues to work for me. I cannot possibly say, with absolute certainty, that any of this will guarantee to work for you. And I don’t go into the details here as there’s too much of it.

What I do know though is this – there are many ways to achieve success in SEO. So too, there are many ways to overcome challenges arising from mental illness, addiction, and other outward signs of internal chaos.

So please understand that if these things help you, that’s a blessing. And if they don’t, it does not mean there is no hope. You just may need to find something else that works for you.

And as my brother told me many years ago when I was at a psychological bottom – as long as you have a breath left in your body, there is hope.

First Rule: No Shame

First, I’ve done so by not accepting that any of these issues are something to be ashamed of.

There is no such thing as perfect except in that every human has challenges. Every person suffers from the broader “human condition” called life.

Anybody who ridicules, stigmatizes, or disrespects mental illness, for example, or physical limitations others have, is themselves, suffering from a form of mental defect.

Maybe it’s “only” a lack of empathy. Maybe it’s something more insidious.

Regardless of the cause, people who fail to respect others who are not like them physically, intellectually, or emotionally, are no different than those who fail to respect others due to color of skin, sexuality, or any other major life framework.

That does not mean I am free from embarrassment, fear, guilt or shame all the time.

Heck, even writing this post, fear kicked in.

What if I allow this to be posted on a top industry site? Will people still want to hire me for audit work?

Will they think I am unstable, or incapable of helping them given how messed up my life has been at times?

Yet when that does come up, I understand and recognize that the need to share my truth with others is more important to me than some unrealized fear.

I cannot keep my path in darkness. It needs to be brought into the light.

One of the most important things that have helped me countless times over the years has been learning that others have gone through the fires and come out on the other side.

So I believe I have a moral, human responsibility to write this. And guess what?

Anybody who reads this and ends up running away from me, well, that’s on them. They’re not wrong or bad or evil for doing so if anyone does that. They too are only human.

And the world is big enough that I will be okay. My entire identity is not, these days, wrapped in having to get approval from every single person I encounter.

In fact, I’m also writing this because others in the industry have, themselves, been vocal about mental illness and other life challenges. So they themselves, have given me inspiration, and courage and hope that writing this is OK.

Second Rule: We Need Others & We Need to Take Responsibility

Second, I’ve learned that “I can’t, we can.”

One of the biggest character defects I developed growing up was the belief that I had to be the one to resolve all of my own problems in life.

That I couldn’t ask for others to help me, let alone accept it.

I had to figure out what to do in everything – which, in my case, was made better and worse at the same time because I happen to be highly intelligent, and I also suffered from “the great I Am” syndrome (thinking I was the center of the universe).

So I used to think “if only this outside situation or circumstance will change, everything will be better.” And then I’d go and find a way to make that change quite often.

Except I never, back then, looked inside, to see what my role in any of it was.

I never stopped to consider that I had a broken picker.

Broken relationship picker. Broken job picker. Broken societal participation picker.

I also had deeply a flawed understanding of how to participate in society and didn’t understand humility can coexist with confidence.

As a result, while things would appear better on the surface, for a while, I inevitably ended up having it blow up in my face.

Relationships fell apart. I’d quit or get fired from job after job.

I’d end up in dangerous situations and circumstances within society. Ended up on death’s doorstep many times.

I call it “hell on earth.”

So I eventually learned “wherever you go, there you are,” and “when one finger is pointing outward, three more are pointing inward.”

Yet I also needed to learn that I am not “The great I Am.”

I am not God. Or a god. I am not the center of the universe. I don’t have all the answers.

This means I need to learn to seek out those who have been where I was, or I am, and who themselves, have overcome some aspect of what I have yet to overcome. And, or, for different needs, I need to turn to professionals.

Sometimes, you really do need search science when your blogging friend can’t even identify with why you aren’t ranking organically, right?

So too, sometimes we need medical professionals or clinicians regarding our mental health needs.

Even a recovering addict needs pain medications sometimes, like after major surgery.

I need to reach out to potential support and help resources, when appropriate.

And if they are willing, and able to offer any support, guidance or help, I need to be honest, open-minded, and willing myself.

Honest about what’s really going on. And about what I don’t know or understand.

Open-minded to a better way to live. And to the possibility that they may have answers I seek.

Willing to change. Willing to take responsibility for my actions. Willing to learn.

Third Rule: It’s Simple, Not Easy

Third – when it comes to mental illness, addiction, behavioral patterns that need to be overcome, the process is almost always simple.

Whether it’s taking certain steps physically, mentally, psychologically or spiritually, they’re just steps.

Footwork. Effort. Sequential change in how we think, what we think, how we feel, what we feel. Or behavior modification.

Yet the deeper the wounds, the more complex the layers of issues, the heavier the load – which means that even simple steps can feel monumental.

And the more years we’ve lived with these challenges, the more ingrained our behavior has become based on raw survival learning. How to survive while suffering internally. Which means we have established, maybe even carved into proverbial stone, rules we live by. Entire belief systems on how to exist.

And that in turn, has led, for many of us, into creating, then maintaining our entire life identity around what just may turn out to be a complete misunderstanding of how we need to live this life.

So it’s possible that at the mere thought of needing to change any of that, our fight-or-flight survival mechanisms may kick into high gear.

We may think we want to change something, on the surface. We may feel there must be a better way to live. We may say we are willing to change.

Yet we may not be ready. Or willing.

Fourth Rule: Accepting Reality, Resisting Change

When push comes to shove, subconsciously, we may panic, else need to accept that everything we came to believe about our selves and our world, needs reevaluation.

That, quite often, can be the scariest concept we face in our lifetimes. The notion that “what worked for me all these years may have been completely invalid,” is heavy.

Yet for someone like me, whose life was constant chaos, turmoil, and insanity, none of it was truly “working.” I was barely surviving.

Heck – even with several years of growth and awakening to a new way of life, and yes, even sometimes, to this very day, while the chaos has been lowered, the insanity “mostly” eliminated, those old beliefs still sit there, on the sidelines, waiting to jump up and take charge again.

The more I resist acceptance about the truth of my situation, the more likely I’ll tell myself “hey, don’t change – you got this far without that abracadabra or woo woo nonsense.”

When that happens, I’ve come to learn to listen inside. Where is that coming from? Is that from my past? Quite often, when I need answers to that, I go to my intuition.

Some people refer to intuition as “a gut feeling.” Others call it God, or Holy Spirit. Others still, refer to it as wisdom. I even turn to “God” sometimes. Which is not a religious god for me.

God, to me, is its own complex notion of endless wisdom, love, positive direction. None of the condemnation stuff. Whatever label you put on any of it, that is where to turn.

Yet we also need to avoid becoming trapped in self-convincing con artist level internal dialogue. Because the more years we have in “just surviving,” the more power we’ve given to the voice of insanity in our own being.

Whether it’s ego, the devil, fear, or whatever other “source” of the “self-deception,” we need to be vigilant for that as well.

Healthy Support from Others

I could spend hours and hours going further into the psychology and the process of what I’ve been through, what I’ve learned, and how I’ve overcome personal challenges to the degree I have – except this is “just” a blog post meant not to be a life story or a book.

(In fact, I’m in the final stages of actually writing a book on how we can change our life stars. It’s currently in the hands of my editor.)

However, that’s another subject altogether.

What I will say now, in moving toward a conclusion of this blog post, has to do with the fact I mentioned earlier that we need others in our life to help us.

When I say that, I need to emphasize how important it is to also realize that we almost certainly cannot seek help from just one other person, or just one book, or one medication, or just one course in wellness.

Our lives, like SEO, are so complicated, multi-faceted and unique to us that we almost certainly need help from multiple people, books, courses, or medications.

We’ve built a lifetime of circumstances and issues and needs. Some directly relate to others, while others still are ultimately not related. Involve different causes, require different solutions.

So thinking only one person or one answer is needed, is potentially not true.

And if we look to rely on just one source for help, that may lead to other problems.

Take people, for example. It is probably not possible that any one person is going to have enough direct experience, themselves, to align with all of the facets of your unique situation.

When you need SEO, you may, hopefully, seek out an SEO professional.

Yet when you need accounting restructuring, or Human Resources changes in your business, or a business loan, or legal advice, it’s almost never advisable to expect your SEO professional to have the depth of experience in your unique path’s history, let alone the experience in how to win with all of those things.

Unless you need a veterinarian. And your SEO is Marie Haynes.

Yet even then, if you hire Marie or her company for SEO, and at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night, your dog needs medical help, is it really appropriate to call Marie?

So too, is it true that when we have mental illness challenges, they are likely to have manifest in ways that not everyone we meet who themselves has overcome mental illness challenges, can help with.

Or where a given individual counselor or psychologist has expertise in one area, they may not have expertise in another.

We may need a food or gambling addiction support solution, a medical doctor, a psychologist, a drug addiction support solution, a marriage counselor, a physical therapist, a spiritual advisor, or any number of other “specialists.”

And even if/when we find any one of those, that one person may not be able to be available for us every time we are in crisis.

We can not allow ourselves to think they “should” be either. We can not, ourselves, be all things to others, 24/7/365. Not even to those we love the most.

Trying to do that will eventually cause us to lose our own sanity. So why would we think that isn’t true for someone we turn to for help?

Which means we need to find multiple resources sometimes even regarding one aspect of our growth needs.

Take What Works – Leave The Rest Behind

Even when we find someone or several people or support groups, or practitioners, it’s just as important to realize going into it that what they offer may apply to us, and it may not. Because they’re as unique as we are. They too, are only human.

And what works for them or worked for them, may not work for us, even if, going into it, we think they know our situation, or we think their story is our story.

So we need to be OK with situations where something they offer, whether out of love or compassion or empathy or training, may not be ideal for us. Or may not fit out truth.

And that’s OK.

If we rely on honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness, we also need to rely on that intuitive awareness I also talked about.

And if there is something in their background, or story that tells us they’re not perfect (that illusion of reality), or is radically different than our story, we also need to allow ourselves to be wise enough to accept what does align, without allowing what does not align, to prevent us from receiving value.

As long as it’s a healthy relationship scenario with that person, that practitioner, or that support group, it’s healthy to have the courage and capacity to see and accept what works and aligns, in spite of differences.

Like me and Jeremy Knauff. As brilliant as he is, he’s a jarhead, and I’m an Army rat. So how can a crayon eater possibly help me?

Well when it comes to WordPress code, I turned to Jeremy to get my site lightning fast. And now it is. In spite of his poor choice of military service.

I use that as a joking way to say “Look, not everything about our two paths is the same. Yet for this thing, he has what I need.”

That same silly concept, when taken seriously regarding mental health support, applies as well.

If there is enough alignment with someone else, in an area I need help with, and I am able to focus on that thing from them, that’s what matters.

Codependency

On a final note regarding seeking help from others:

Codependency is another major barrier to growth as individuals. If we are or become codependent with people we turn to for help, that’s self-sabotage. Self-destructive behavior.

We need to learn about codependency, enough to learn its patterns and warning signs, no matter what type of help we are seeking for ourselves. So I encourage people to, at the very least, get a good book on the topic and read it.

Warning – you may discover all or many of your relationships are codependent. It’s not uncommon for people with mental illness, or addictions, to suffer from that.

And it’s not uncommon for people in relationship with or in a family where someone has mental illness or addictions, to also be codependent.

And if that’s true, it’s OK. It just may mean there’s something else that needs to be addressed on your path in life. Which means there’s still hope.

The Bottom Line

No matter what you have been through, no matter what you are going through, you are not so unique that nobody else has gone through it.

No matter what.

Why? Because if there are words to describe it, that means someone else has been there, experienced that.

And because of that, given the age of humanity, there is almost certainly somebody who has gone through it and overcome that thing. Probably exponential numbers of others, in fact.

Maybe not in the exact combination you have lived, yet to enough degree that together, we as a society, can provide answers. And help each other.

So if you are seeking help, in whatever way, please know that as long as you have a breath left in your being, there is hope.

More Resources:

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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita

Seo via Search Engine Journal http://bit.ly/2ZRRdDd September 6, 2019 at 09:09AM

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andrewromanoyahoo · 8 years ago

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How the tiny Montana ski town of Whitefish defeated its neo-Nazi trolls — and became a national model of resistance

Hazel Ryan, 8, who traveled from Butte, Mont., holding a sign that she made for the event. (Photo: Lauren Grabelle)

WHITEFISH, Mont. — If you were to judge the small, northwestern Montana town of Whitefish solely on the national media frenzy that has descended upon it in recent weeks, like a blizzard that blots out everything else, then you’d probably write it off as a frightening place — an intolerant place, an unwelcoming place, a place where the worst of the United States has taken hold.

But what if the opposite were true? What if, at a moment of mounting political anxiety and creeping Internet thuggery, of fear and loathing and all the rest of it, Whitefish has, in fact, been demonstrating how America, at its best, can defeat such ugliness in the months and years ahead?

Because that’s what I found when I actually bothered to spend some time there. In the first weeks of January, I made two extended trips to Whitefish. I got know to dozens of locals — activists and actors, skiers and shopkeepers, loggers and L.A. transplants. What I found was a story that was a lot more interesting — and inspiring — than the one I had been reading about on the Internet.

***

The headlines have certainly been unsettling:

“Jewish leaders in Richard Spencer’s home town targeted in posting on neo-Nazi website”

“White Supremacists Threaten Jewish Community in Whitefish, Montana”

“‘We can march through town carrying high-powered rifles’: Neo-Nazi plans march against Montana Jews.”

Since mid-December, every Whitefish news alert has been about the same thing: its most notorious resident, white nationalist Richard Spencer, and the vicious neo-Nazi “troll storm” unleashed on other Whitefish residents, most of them Jewish, after Spencer and his mother, Sherry, accused a local realtor — Tanya Gersh, who is Jewish — of trying to run them out of town.

(Of the more than 6,000 people who live in Whitefish, only 100 or so are Jewish. There’s not even a synagogue nearby; members of the Glacier Jewish Community — a “synagogue without walls” — meet “wherever Jews can get together.”)

It’s a long, twisted tale, but the basic contours are easy to follow. Richard Spencer, who claims to have invented the term “alt right,” has spent the last 10 years or so promoting an ideology that, despite his hipster haircut, preppy vests and elite degrees, is really just neo-Nazism in disguise: Whites are a superior race, America belongs to people of “European” descent, and “peaceful ethnic cleansing” is necessary to establish an all-white “ethno-state,” where citizens who look like Richard Spencer can congregate under a “declaration of difference and distance.” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as a “suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old, a kind of professional racist in khakis.”

For seven years, Spencer has lived at least part-time in Whitefish; more recently, he has registered his mother’s home address as the principal office location of his innocuous-sounding “think tank,” the National Policy Institute. Before Sherry Spencer opened a shiny new commercial and vacation-rental building at 22 Lupfer Ave. in late 2015, Richard’s name was on the official documents.

Richard Spencer speaks at the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas, in December 2016. (Photo: David J. Phillip/AP)

Again and again, the town of Whitefish has tried to distance itself from Spencer’s noxious views, passing a series of symbolic resolutions denouncing hate groups and endorsing diversity. But the situation came to a head after the alt-right’s dream candidate, Donald Trump, won the 2016 presidential election, and after Spencer raised his glass and shouted “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” at an NPI gathering in Washington, D.C., in November, inspiring his lusty followers to respond with stiff-armed Nazi salutes.

What happened next is a bit of a puzzle, since neither party — Sherry Spencer or Tanya Gersh, the real estate agent — is speaking to the press. What we know is that members of Love Lives Here, a local activist group, became alarmed by the idea that Richard Spencer’s mother was somehow “facilitating” his white-nationalist activities. Talk spread of a sizable protest outside 22 Lupfer; Gersh appears to have been part of that conversation. When word reached Sherry Spencer, she phoned Gersh.

According to the co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network, Rachel Carroll Rivas, who spoke to Gersh “within an hour” of her call with Spencer, “Tanya and myself saw a window where we thought that potentially Sherry Spencer was not happy with how everything was playing out, and maybe she wanted to do something about it. Her words were, ‘I feel bad for my tenants. I feel bad for what the presence of my son has done in the Whitefish community.’” Gersh believed that, as a gesture of goodwill, Sherry Spencer was open to selling 22 Lupfer.

Spencer, however, seems to have seen things differently, and soon she accused Gersh of “shamelessly” trying to “act as my realtor” and pressure her into selling — perhaps, Spencer speculated, as a way of gaining “financial benefit from threats of protest and reputation damage.”

“Whatever you think about my son’s ideas,” Spencer continued, “in what moral universe is it right for the ‘sins’ of the son to be visited upon the mother?” (In a local op-ed published the same day, Sherry and her husband, Rand, made it clear that they do not agree with Richard’s ideas. “We love our son,” they wrote. But “we are not racists. We have never been racists. We do not endorse the idea of white nationalism.”)

“Somehow,” says Rivas, “the conversation went sideways.”

The commercial and vacation-rental building at 22 Lupfer Ave. in Whitefish, Mont. that set off a neo-Nazi troll storm after its owner, Sherry Spencer, mother of alt-right leader Richard Spencer, accused a local real estate agent of trying to drive her out of town. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

***

That’s when the troll storm began. “Jews Targeting Richard Spencer’s Mother for Harassment and Extortion,” wrote neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin on his Daily Stormer website. “TAKE ACTION!” Anglin encouraged his army to visit Gersh “in person.” He ran photos of her, her child, and other activists, including Rabbi Allen Secher, a Love Lives Here founder, superimposed over an image of a concentration camp decorated with a yellow Star of David from the Nazi German era. He posted their phone numbers, their Twitter handles and their email addresses.

“The Jews,” wrote Anglin, “are a vicious, evil race of hate-filled psychopaths. … So then — let’s hit ’em up.”

Right on cue, the death threats came flooding in. Activists and city council members were inundated; trolls sent vile messages to Jewish businesses in Whitefish — and to non-Jewish businesses they assumed were Jewish, like the popular Buffalo Café owned by the Maetzold family — while spamming their Yelp pages with negative reviews.

“Go choke on a shotgun and die,” read one note. “You would all be of greater worth to society as human fertilizer than as citizens.”

Spencer has not been accused of making threats, but neither did he seem to be bothered by them. In a series of YouTube videos and interviews, Spencer dismissed Anglin’s efforts as “mean words” and “pixels,” choosing instead to blame the controversy on the “morally repulsive” actions of Love Lives Here, which he described as a “local hate group.”

“Even criminal gangs don’t engage in such behavior,” Spencer said. “They don’t go after a rival’s mother. It is sick. And the person who did this is named Tanya Gersh.”

The lesson of all this, Spencer added, should not be lost on anyone. “I fight back,” he said. “And other people in my broader community, they’ll fight back, too. They’re gonna stick up for one of their own.”

When I arrived in Whitefish, Anglin had just escalated his harassment campaign, announcing that in mid-January — “just before the inauguration” — he and 200 neo-Nazis with “high-powered rifles” would be marching through the center of town to protest “Jews, Jewish businesses and everyone who supports either.”

“We will be busing in skinheads from the Bay Area,” Anglin wrote. “I have already worked out most of the details with the leaders of the local groups.”

On my first day in town, I met a young activist named Bo Zhang, who, like me, had traveled from the West Coast to see firsthand how the community was handling the situation.

“I can’t believe you’re going there alone,” a friend had said before she left Seattle. “Aren’t you afraid?”

***

As any visitor could tell you, the town of Whitefish doesn’t look scary. In winter, snow glazes the ground of the Flathead Valley and glistens on the needles of the tall Western white pines to the northeast, the high peaks of Glacier National Park crown the horizon, beckoning the skiers and snowboarders who hang out on Central Avenue.

The Canadian border is only 60 miles away, but the signs and sandwich boards lining the streets would look familiar to any visitor from, say, Los Angeles: Stumptown coffee, crystals, Pilates, crepes, fresh sushi, acupuncture, local craft brewpubs and distilleries on nearly every corner. You can shop at a farmers market, sleep at a boutique hotel, work out at a CrossFit gym.

Trump clobbered Hillary Clinton by 20 percentage points statewide; in Flathead County, he won a commanding 65 percent of the vote. But Whitefish — alone among its less wealthy, less educated, less liberal neighbors — went for Clinton.

Downtown Whitefish as activists protest a threatened neo-Nazi march on Whitefish’s main drag. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

Yet for all of Whitefish’s cosmopolitan charm, there’s a strain of bigotry in the surrounding area. Montana was a bastion of the 1990s anti-government Patriot movement, which culminated in 1996 with an 81-day standoff between the FBI and an armed militia known as the Montana Freemen.

Western Montana in particular has long been home to small pockets of white supremacists who believe in the notion of a Northwest Territorial Imperative, which means they want to expel nonwhite people from the Pacific Northwest and transform the entire region into a monoracial Aryan republic.

In late 1993, neo-Nazis launched a harassment campaign in Billings, Mont., after locals put up menorahs in a show of solidarity with a Jewish boy whose window had been smashed by a brick. “Over two weeks in December,” the Associated Press wrote, white supremacists “broke windows at two Jewish homes and two churches that displayed menorahs, shot bullets through windows at Billings Central Catholic High School, and stomped and battered six vehicles at homes displaying menorahs, telling two owners in phone calls, ‘Go look at your car, Jew-lover.’”

More recently, in 2010, a group named Pioneer Little Europe started screening Holocaust denial films at the library in Kalispell, Flathead Valley’s largest city; its ringleader, neo-Nazi stage mom April Gaede, enjoyed a brief round of national notoriety in 2003 for training her twin daughters, Lamb and Lynx, to perform as Prussian Blue, a white-power singing duo.

The Montana Human Rights Network and Love Lives Here were formed in response to these provocations; their leaders recognize that white supremacists seem to be drawn to the region. (Since arriving in 2006, for instance, Gaede alone has lured a dozen new sympathizers to the Flathead Valley, according to MHRN’s research.)

“There are a few reasons why,” explains Rivas. “One, it’s a pretty white place, right? That’s part of the draw. It’s also a pretty rural, libertarian place. There’s a lot of ability to purchase land and get in and get involved in a community — that ‘Live and let live’ mentality. And it’s not necessarily an expensive place.”

But Spencer’s presence in town notwithstanding, the whole Daily Stormer campaign was something new. Anglin wasn’t a local troublemaker. Nor were his minions. They were Internet trolls intent on weaponizing bits and bytes, rather than bricks and bullets, to terrorize Whitefish from the comfort of their own futons.

This was a very 2017 twist on a tale as old as the Ku Klux Klan, and the proposed march raised some dizzying questions: Was Whitefish actually in danger? Or was this all just fake news? Can digital trolling translate into physical marching? And did the distinction even matter when real people, in a real place, were really, truly afraid?

For his part, Spencer thought his neighbors should “stop freaking out.” “The trolls are playing the tune and you’re dancing to it,” he chuckled in one of his YouTube videos. “Which is kind of funny.”

But as soon as I set foot in Whitefish, it was clear that if there was a “joke” here — Spencer’s language — no one was laughing. Quite the opposite, actually: Whitefish was serious about the threats, serious about the Daily Stormer, and serious about the march, which Anglin, in true troll fashion, would soon reschedule for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and rechristen the “James Earl Ray Day Extravaganza,” after King’s assassin.

The seriousness of the resistance was thanks, in part, to the community’s prior run-ins with neo-Nazis. Whitefish already had the information and infrastructure it needed to organize against Anglin & Co., regardless of whether these particular provocateurs ever managed to materialize in Montana with their “high-powered rifles.” The town was ready, in other words, to respond — for real.

“We don’t want to be like Hayden Lake, Idaho,” one Love Lives Here activist told me. “That’s our negative model — a town that just shriveled up and died because they let these people get a foothold and were slow to fight back.”

***

Handwritten Post-in notes stuck to a makeshift “Wall of Empathy” during the Love Not Hate rally in Whitefish, Mt. on Jan. 7. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

Signs of the resistance were everywhere. Strolling Central Avenue, I spotted blue paper menorahs in dozens of windows — the same menorahs that had first surfaced in Billings six years earlier. Same goes for the Love Lives Here logo. Picking up a local paper, I read about the bipartisan team of top Montana politicians —Democrats Sen. Jon Tester, Sen. Steve Daines and Gov. Steve Bullock, and Republicans Rep. Ryan Zinke (Trump’s nominee for secretary of Interior) and Attorney Gen. Tim Fox — who had recently joined together to declare that “those few who seek to publicize anti-Semitic views … shall find no safe haven here.”

A cashier at Amazing Crepes, one of the targeted businesses, recalled how her boss had refused to serve Richard Spencer, and how he continued to refuse even after Spencer, seeking to capitalize on the exchange, began to record it on his smartphone; a bartender at Tupelo Grille told me how her mixed-race friend had confronted Spencer at a local coffee shop. “Who picks fruit in your white state?” he’d asked.

Elsewhere, Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial — who served as an officer in Skokie, Ill. back in 1977, when another band of Nazis famously tried to march through town — kindly explained that if any of their descendants were “going to protest in our city, I want them to understand they’re going to do it our way … or we’re going to kick their a**.”

But the most telling display of how Whitefish was fighting back was the one I’d ventured to Montana specifically to see. At the north end of Central, next to Depot Park, a late-morning block party was just getting underway. “Love, Not Hate” was the theme.

The crowd watching Montana musician Jack Gladstone on the stage at the Love Not Hate gathering in Whitefish, MT, with Whitefish Mountain ski resort in the distance. (Photo: Lauren Grabelle)

Inside the lobby of the adjacent O’Shaughnessy Center, neighbors huddled and hugged as they sipped coffee and hot cocoa and nibbled on pastries donated by local merchants. Some hand-painted messages of peace and harmony on small prayer flags (“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now”; “Love Trumps Hate”); others stuck Post-it notes to a makeshift “Wall of Empathy” (“You belong here”; “There are no others”). One table was bestrewn with $15 T-shirts — “love,” “hate” and “Whitefish,” with a line through the word “hate” — that were well on their way to selling out; another was covered with hundreds of sympathetic letters from around the country.

“The whole world is watching to see whether the U.S. will allow or support the continued harassment and discrimination against marginalized people,” read one from Cashmere, Wash. “Thank [you for] your bravery in standing up to ensure all residents are treated equally under the law.”

The event had been organized by two rookie activists, Jessica Laferriere and Dominica Cleveras, who were, as Laferriere told me, “learning as we go” (and fortunate to have Love Lives Here to lean on).

“We were really frustrated that Whitefish was in the news for all of these negative reasons, while all of the good stuff was getting lost,” she continued. “We knew we weren’t alone. Still, our initial vision was maybe 100 people in the park with a single PA system and a guy with a guitar. We never could have imagined this.”

With the temperature was hovering around minus 7° F, hundreds had gathered outside. They stayed for more than two hours. There was a guy with a guitar (Blackfeet musician Jack Gladstone), and a girl, too (Halladay Quist); dancers from the Halau Ka Waikahe Lani Malie hula school performed barefoot.

(L to R) Love Not Hate organizers and Whitefish, MT, residents Dominca Kau’ano Cleveras and Jessica Loti Laferriere welcoming the crowd and introducing the speakers at Love Not Hate. (Photo: Lauren Grabelle)

But the heart of “Love Not Hate” was a pair of speeches by two members of Whitefish’s tiny, badly shaken Jewish community. Both had the town in tears.

Hilary Shaw, executive director of the Abbie Shelter, a local domestic-violence resource, spoke first. Her grandfather, she said, is a Holocaust survivor who has always felt “an undercurrent of anxiety that he was never safe and that he would never really belong.”

“I am awed by the contrast of my experience as a member of this community,” Shaw continued. “I feel so privileged that I can speak publicly against hateful ideology without fear of persecution or discrimination.”

Shaw’s grandfather taught her to never “judge a book by its cover,” she told the crowd. Not all Germans were bad, he told her, and he passed on stories of those who had helped him survive Hitler’s regime.

“Now I find myself and my town under siege by hateful, cruel people, and while I’m trying to stay rooted in my values of kindness and fairness, it is getting harder,” she said. “It is easy to assert that Love Live Here when it’s business as usual. But now my beliefs about welcoming openness are really being put to the test.

“How do I hold to my compassion when faced with such shameless ignorance and hate? If I respond in anger — and I do feel angry — how will I know if I have crossed the line into hatred myself?”

The answer, Shaw said, was a kind of radical, against-all-odds empathy: to see the “deep loneliness in the people who are working hard to hurt us,” and to understand that those who hurt others have probably been hurt themselves.

Rabbi Francine Green Roston spoke shortly after. Back in New Jersey, Roston became the first woman in the Conservative rabbinate to serve a congregation larger than 500 members; she moved to the Flathead Valley in 2014 to replace Rabbi Allen Secher as the head of the Glacier Jewish Community.

Roston recounted the story of God telling Moses, at the edge of the Red Sea, to stop praying, and to act instead.

“I’m not telling you this because I don’t believe in prayer,” Roston said. “I pray every day, and even more, recently.”

The rabbi’s voice began to break. For several seconds, the park was silent, save for the sound of Roston sniffling. “You let us know that we are not alone,” she finally said. “You let us know that our community, that our amazing magnificent town of Whitefish, is not only protected by great, divinely formed mountains of earth — this town is protected by a wall of humanity that refuses to be quiet or sit still in the face of bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia or anti-Semitism.”

Rabbi Francine Roston speaking at the Love Not Hate gathering in Whitefish, MT. (Photo: Lauren Grabelle)

Roston and Shaw had stepped to the microphone to publicly proclaim their resistance — an act they knew full well could provoke more threats, more trolling. That took real courage. The fact that hundreds of their non-Jewish neighbors stood in the crippling cold to cheer them on was a powerful reminder — to the world outside, and to the Nazis themselves — of how marginal the haters really were. In Whitefish, the majority had refused to remain silent.

Yet I couldn’t help but notice a lingering sense of unease, even fear, despite all the talk of tolerance and love. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was still more than a week away. No one knew what would happen. After the event, I approached Rabbi Secher, but he quickly backed away; Rabbi Roston looked terrified when I told her I was a reporter. I felt guilty. They were reluctant to attract more media attention, and rightly so.

Rachel Carroll Rivas, the co-director of the Montana Human Rights Network, explained the situation.

“In the weeks post-election, we received more reports of hate incidents in the state than I receive in a year, on average,” Rivas told me. “We’ve also seen an increase in fliering by white supremacists in the Flathead Valley, and that is a direct result of Anglin and Spencer spreading these ideas and saying they are legitimate. It has emboldened local activists to up their game.”

It was these “April Gaede types,” she suspected, who had told the Daily Stormer which Whitefish businesses to target — likely by looking for Love Lives Here signs in their windows.

The crowd at the Love Not Hate gathering in Whitefish, MT, in sub-zero temperatures. (Photo: Lauren Grabelle)

“Anglin is not a community organizer,” Rivas continued. “He’s an online troll. He may not have the capability to pull off the march himself. But the reality is that he doesn’t control everyone who is paying attention and who is susceptible to his hateful ideas. Same for Richard Spencer. So do I think there will be 200 skinheads there next Monday? I don’t know. But even if there aren’t, that doesn’t mean some random person won’t show up with a gun. That’s the moment we still need to watch for.”

***

And so, on MLK Day, I went back to Whitefish. I wanted to see how the whole thing would end.

By then, the Daily Stormer’s official “James Earl Ray Day Extravaganza” had evaporated. Anglin had failed to file a complete permit application, failed to pay the full fee, failed to purchase insurance and failed to notify business along the parade route — probably because, as Rivas had put it, he is an online troll, not a community organizer. Predictably, Anglin blamed “Jewish trickery” for his misfortunes and promised that an even “bigger” march with “more guns and special guests than we originally planned” would take place in February. But mobilizing hundreds of neo-Nazi to travel to a remote corner of Montana in the dead of winter isn’t easy — and as one Daily Stormer commenter admitted, “at some point its [sic] too late to be relevant.”

Even so, the 16-man Whitefish police force had summoned 100 officers from other jurisdictions for the occasion, and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. — the hours when the march was scheduled to happen — Love Lives Here was hosting a last-minute retreat at the middle school for families seeking refuge from whatever messiness might unfold on the streets. There were still white supremacists in the area. People were still concerned.

Activists calling themselves “Trolls Against Trolls” came from Missoula, Mt. to protest a threatened neo-Nazi march on Whitefish’s main drag. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

I pulled into Whitefish right at 4 p.m. As I made my way toward Central, the previous weekend’s prayer flags now fluttering above the sidewalk in the low, late afternoon sunlight, I could hear passing pickup trucks honking their horns. My heart jumped. There were protesters gathered at the corner. Some were holding signs with swastikas on them.

I shouldn’t have worried. It was just a bunch of puckish left-wing activists, up from Missoula, several of whom were wearing bright blue troll-doll wigs. “Trolls Against Trolls.” “Seig [sic] Fail.” “Fascists Fear Fun.”

I asked whether they’d seen any skinheads.

“Some people didn’t like our signs,” one troll told me. “But that doesn’t make them Nazis.”

Over at the middle school, the usual announcements had been replaced on the marquee by a simple suggestion: “Be kind.” Cardboard signs steered visitors toward “free soup.” Down the hall, a “Matzo Ball Soup Brigade” had assembled.

“Nothing like chicken soup & matzo to help everyone calm down,” read one placard. “Look for a bowl, not a bang,” read another, above a childlike drawing of a gun.

As volunteers wearing goofy hats made from empty boxes of Manischewitz Matzo Ball Mix ladled hot soup into cups and hauled crock pots outside to feed the shivering counterprotesters, I sat down next to Juliena Moore and her 26-year-old daughter, Sheena. Moore told me that all four of her children have autism spectrum disorders, including Sheena — who was quick to point out that she hasn’t let her disability stop her from cross-country skiing in the Special Olympics or creating a jewelry business with her mom.

“It’s frustrating to see how much hate has arisen since the election,” Juliena added.

Here? I asked. Or everywhere?

“Both,” she said. “I remember just feeling so depressed and so devastated. Usually, I couldn’t care less which party wins or loses. But this time, I found that I actually did care. Because, as the mother of disabled children, the most vivid image I had was of Donald Trump mocking that disabled reporter. It made me realize that my kids don’t have a place in this new world of his.”

Does that have anything to do with why you came out today? I wondered.

“It does,” Juliena said. “I’m not going to let that kind of bigotry ruin my life. My disabled children have contributed so much to this community. Every time someone tries to spread hatred, we should always try to speak louder.”

It was almost 7 p.m. I walked back to the center of Whitefish. It was so quiet I could hear my footsteps echoing off the icy pavement. The counterprotesters were gone. The white supremacists had never shown up. Richard Spencer was 2,300 miles away in Washington, D.C.

According to Will Randall, the chairman of Love Lives Here, it was too early to declare victory. You never know, he said. Maybe Anglin and his allies will march next month. And yet, he added, there were lessons to be learned.

“What this has shown me is that if we want to make a change as a community, our best way to do that is at the grassroots, local level,” Randall told me. “That’s where can confront these issues of racism and anti-Semitism and bigotry first. It’s not just someone on social media making a comment — thumbs up, thumbs down. It’s neighbors meeting face-to-face and coordinating plans to put their values out there. It’s pretty powerful stuff. Here in Montana, we might not have much say nationally. But we can make Whitefish a better town. And if we do that all around the country, I think the national narrative can change.”

Later that evening, Love Lives Here hosted its ninth annual MLK Day celebration — an event produced, as usual, by Rabbi Secher, who as a Freedom Rider in the early 1960s, marched alongside King, a figure Spencer has derided as “a fraud and degenerate,” as well as a symbol of “White Dispossession and the destruction of Occidental civilization.”

Local Whitefish residents stood for hours on the corner of Central and Second, just in case any white supremacists showed up. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

“Whatever the place you have known or the flags of your heritage,” Secher announced at the start of the program, “you’re welcome here.”

Singers sang. Musicians played. An actor recited King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. Students read their own letters to the incoming president about their “dreams for the future” — some from the left, some from the right, all respectful and rooting for his success.

And near the end of the night, Rabbi Francine Green Roston took the stage again. She hesitated before she spoke — and when she finally did, her soft voice was trembling with emotion.

“I can tell you that for the past two and a half years, there were moments when I questioned if we’d made the right move for our family,” Roston said. “And I can tell you, for the past five weeks, I have had no doubt that Whitefish, Mont., is our home.”

The hall erupted in cheers. It sounded, to my ears, like some kind of catharsis.

That Roston still needed convincing after all that time was proof, I suppose, of the brokenness of the world. But as the applause died down, I was reminded of something a man named Rick Nagle had told me over coffee earlier that day. Now 70, Nagle is a Vietnam veteran from Cincinnati who moved to the Flathead Valley more than two decades ago. In 1967, he participated in one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s equal housing demonstrations in Louisville, Ky. — “primarily because our base commander told us not to,” he laughed. It was there that Nagle first discovered what patriotism meant to him.

“I remember a bunch of hillbillies standing on the side of the street calling me a ‘nigger lover,’” Nagle said. “And I realized then that the only way it gets done is if I do it.”

The only way what gets done? I asked.

“Democracy,” Nagle replied. “Over the last 10 or 15 years, I’ve been lazy. I lost my sense of patriotism. But I think this election has changed that. It’s always easy for everybody to get riled up for two or three weeks after Election Day. And then they have to go buy Christmas presents, and in January, they forget about it. But this time they didn’t do that. I think that the enthusiasm and commitment you’re seeing in Whitefish is for real — and it’s not limited to Whitefish. I think that people are realizing that democracy is their responsibility.”