#and may be why he tends to avoid social interactions and withdraws

[kerorowhump]

whats he worried for he doesn't even know dororo that well

[skeletorific]

man i bet it's super odd for the ancestor trolls to be putting out pale feels on anyone, much less a human. I can just see the most frustrated lil ball of horns and teeth trying to figure out if theres, ya know, *room* in a human's life for moirailegence with this whole platonic structure called a family and the only-one-romance-a-hooman standard/stigma and. they need a pap just tryin to figure it out! If you wouldn't mind, i'd love to hear your take on how psiionic darkleer, n dualscar would do

Me skating the fuck in to answer Ancestors requests. (I’m assuming this is in reference to my Ancestors live on Earth C timeline, but the headcanons themselves will work for just a general human interaction, I promise)

So, a note about Earth C and quad: I really can’t imagine that troll, human, and carapacian concepts of romance wouldn’t start to mingle, at least to a certain extent. After all, the three species come up at the same time, right alongside each other.

Quadrants aren’t exactly the norms for humans even there. Our reproductive needs are different, for one-thing. Additionally, I have to imagine that even without the social coding of Earth-A, a good chunk of humans would probably still tend to be fairly monogamous, especially if one of the primary texts left behind was written by a human woman raised on human monogamy who took only one lover herself. However, there’s probably a healthy chunk of humans who go by quadrants, trolls who go by human romance, and some who mix and match (for instance, “This is Ben, my significant other, and this is Meryll, my kismesis”). Its something most people figure out as they get older.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the ancestors have cottoned on to the nuances of it all. Getting the idea of human monogamy through their heads was hard enough, and once it happens, of course THEN they have to catch pale feelings for one of the squishy fucks!

The Psiionic: So, unlike the other two on this list, Captor has actually had some experience with relationships that are a little more....fluid. Vantas and Leijon’s relationship always fell squarely in the middle of the chart, borrowing elements from all and none. Hell, his OWN relationship with the two of them tiptoed pitch, pale, ashen, and flushed depending on the day of the week. So, while he does still broadly conceive of things like an Alternian, its not necessarily an insurmountable barrier for him.

How he proceeds depends a lot on whether or not the human already has an s/o. If you do, he ultimately just bites the bullet and asks to talk to both of you (bringing Vantas and Leijon along for emotional support). He doesn’t want to move in where he’s not welcome and he’s got no designs on your flushed relationship. He’s quiet and his voice is shaking a bit as he struggles to keep his nerves (and by extent, his psiionics) under controll. But he’s never seen the point in fucking around the pricklefrond. Either you feel the same, or you don’t.  

If you don’t have an s/o, though, he just sort of carefully allows himself to become a feature in your life. He’s a little shakey socially but he puts the effort in to be around you. Captor’s never gonna be the most effusive emotionally, but he does make a point to give the occasional genuine compliment as to how he appreciates who you are, and what you do. When you’re having trouble he has a tendency to just sort of materialize in the background to offer his help. Pale flirting is all about trust, both engendering it, and demonstrating it for each other. No matter how oblivious you are, its hard not to notice that his walls are usually so high for others, yet they seem to come down around you.

Despite aforementioned not-fucking-around-the-pricklefrond, its possible he won’t ever use the word moirail for you unless you ask him about it. You’re human, and he doesn’t see the need to regale you with the complexities of troll romance if you’re both happy with the current arrangement. One way or another, though, Vantas runs at the mouth and spills the beans to you, and you have a good long talk about it.

Executor Darkleer: This guy, on the other hand, is a staunch traditionalist, paired with the fact that he ultimately thinks he’s somehow unworthy of love in any form. 

Years of social conditioning don’t just fall away because you and your former empress shop for box wine at the same liquor store now. As an expatriate, Zahhak was literally forbidden from contributing to the filial slurry, and was far too isolated to acquire a moirail. The best he had was the occasional frustrated shoosh-pap from Mindfang just to snap him out of his moods for a bit. Now, the old empire may have fallen away, but he’s still to some extent punishing himself. As a result, as soon as he figures out he’s catching pale feelings for a human, he starts avoiding you at all costs. He can’t allow himself to fall into any kind of temptation. The very qualities that attract him to you are the same reason he’s convinced you deserve something better.

Fortunately, there was no way you were friends with Darkleer in the first place if you were the type to let social avoidance turn you off. After a couple of weeks of not hearing from him (and a few confusingly smug texts from Mindfang when you ask her if he’s doing alright and her only response was “Go find out. I’m sure he’ll 8e more than alr8 ;;;;)”), you show up at his hive and bang on the door until he finally lets you in.

If you were hoping for a big confession, you’ll probably be a little disappointed: he’s not the type. But he does let you chastise him for withdrawing like that, finally extracting a promise that he won’t do it again. All the while him thinking that this, too, could be part of his penance. To let the human stay with by your side....but not allow yourself the luxury of what you truly want....why its almost scandalous-

Yup. He’s pale edging himself, and will continue to do so until you finally break down and demand he explain why he’s being so weird. Or until Mindfang loses her patience and tells you herself, if only to get him to stop leaving soliloquies in her DMs. Either way.

Dualscar: Another traditionalist, but he’s never really been lucky enough in love to be that picky about the system he falls under. The last proper, long-lasting quadrant relationship he had was his kismesis with Mindfang, and well.....kind of a funny story how that one went, honestly.

Assuming you’re single, his way forward is pretty easy. He reads up on human romance for 48 hours straight and presumes he knows what the fuck is up. Honestly its not terribly different from moirallegiance in some respects. You’re supposed to uplift your partner, and plenty of sources recommend that your s/o should be your “best friend”. Conversations involving your feelings are a norm, and humans even have the concept of a “fated match”, something pretty integral to Alternian moirallegiance. As for the rest, well, he can lean into some of the redder aspects of his feelings, pull out the old Ampora charm, and leave the rest in Lady Luck’s hands, right?

Right?

Well....for the first few months it works fine. You’ve always been close with Dualscar, felt like you got each other on some level, and to some degree a romantic relationship felt like a natural extension of that. He can be sweet, showers you with gifts, and is good at listening to your problems and letting you bitch without making you feel like you’re burdening him. He’s funny, in a bitchy dad kind of way, and frankly kind of dashing. 

But something’s off. You notice he seems to shrink down a little bit when you try to get a bit more physical with him. Not like he dislikes it, necessarily, more like he’s...confused. While you feel closer with him than ever, there’s none of those flowery declarations you find tucked in his journal, dedicated to great loves in his past. Even on your end, you feel like you still just think of him as like.....a best friend, but more so somehow? Being romantic with him as you would be with a human feels...wrong, You reflect each other so well and so closely that its like you’re a piece of each other, and calling him your boyfriend feels like trying to call yourself your own boyfriend.

The truth comes out when you try to break up with him and in a panic he explains himself to you. Running through a long (and somewhat incoherent) crash course on troll romance, with a special focus on moirallegiance. He’s stumbling over his words (unusual when he’s sober), half waiting for your eyes to widen in shock and for you to end things forever.

So imagine his shock when you blink a few times and say “why the hell didn’t you just say so?”

As Peixes would say later, “L-Eave it to an Ampora to mak-E s)(it way mor-E glubbin complicat-Ed t)(an it n-E-Eds to b-E.”

[ais-n]

2| and where is the trauma? both hsin and boyd were severely sexually abused. and emilio's illness is always treated as a joke. look Ais, your series has done me so much good between the bad it did. i found i'm gay lmao and i'm grateful for that. i'm grateful that you wrote this ok. but there are things that were offensive, and maybe it was unconscious, since i doubt you wanted to be racist or write a mlm relationship but more like hetero. i wish i could just enjoy the books but my heart breaks

3| idk what the one who questioned that could possibly mean between all the things but thats what i mean. i appreciate you a lot. i hope this didn’t make you feel worse or whatever. but some people really did end up hurt badly after reading icos and im one of them. with all respect, and hope that i didnt disturb you much, farewell.

++++++++++++

Aha I just realized I can put both 2nd and 3rd asks in one! Which is good because, again, the gay comment makes me laugh out loud XD As I said in the other post, thank you again for reaching out, for explaining your concerns, and for the courage you no doubt had to bring forth in order to do so.

I’m getting right into the answers in this one although I will probably ask more questions for clarification on some of the points, as I did on the first one, to make sure I’m not misunderstanding or misinterpreting anything.

More below the cut! :)

EMILIO’S ILLNESS

I’m really sorry but I wasn’t sure what you meant by that. Which illness? How is it treated as a joke? Could you clarify? 

TRAUMA

So this I thought was super interesting that you felt there was no representation of trauma in ICoS, or I assume you also mean its aftereffects. That’s actually one of the few points I feel pretty confident saying the series does portray a lot of, both in some cases the experience of it and in other cases the repercussions. 

One of the reasons both of them are so severely dysfunctional individually and together is because of trauma.

I don’t want to muddy up this post with a huge tangent but someone had asked a few years ago about the result of the Aleixo mission on Boyd, if he was diagnosed with anything, and so on. If you’re interested, I wrote a long ass reply about the psychological effect of sex trafficking on survivors/victims and talked about some of the things you see Boyd do that are a bit reflective of that. More info at https://aisness.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/boyd-aleixo-psychology/

I think there probably would be more information on all this by now, or at least I certainly hope there would be, but at the time of writing Fade that was the sort of research that was available. 

Although, full disclosure, I don’t tend to write characters looking up the DSM symptoms for this or that; I write what feels right for them psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and oftentimes later look it up and realize they would have likely been diagnosed with this or that thing or they could be displaying traits of this or that.

At any rate, with Boyd, his trauma started early on, and pretty much everything about him is a reflection of that in some form. I don’t see trauma as specific to sexual assault; it’s most certainly a result of that but also of many other things. Boyd dealt with a lot of neglect and/or emotional abuse as a child, he was bullied by his peers, and generally speaking it was difficult for him to feel like he belonged anywhere. He was very often judged by others, often negatively, for things completely outside of his control, like his parents, their jobs, his home, the amount of money his family had, his looks, etc. 

If you look at the Mayo Clinic’s list of child abuse, Boyd falls pretty well under emotional abuse and a bit under neglect, and you can especially see the toll that had on his personality by reading the signs and symptoms of emotional abuse in particular:

Loss of self-confidence or self-esteem

Social withdrawal or a loss of interest or enthusiasm

Depression

Avoidance of certain situations, such as refusing to go to school or ride the bus

Desperately seeks affection

And general symptoms:

Withdrawal from friends or usual activities

Depression, anxiety or unusual fears, or a sudden loss of self-confidence

An apparent lack of supervision

Self-harm or attempts at suicide 

If you look at Complex PTSD, and in particular Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) you can see a lot of Hsin:

Attachment – “problems with relationship boundaries, lack of trust, social isolation, difficulty perceiving and responding to others’ emotional states”

Behavioural control – “problems with impulse control, aggression, pathological self-soothing, and sleep problems”

Dissociation – “amnesia, depersonalization, discrete states of consciousness with discrete memories, affect, and functioning, and impaired memory for state-based events”

I wouldn’t say Hsin dissociates quite that extensively but I feel like he does display some dissociative tendencies at times.

Boyd has some too, like

Self-concept – “fragmented and disconnected autobiographical narrative, disturbed body image, low self-esteem, excessive shame, and negative internal working models of self”.

I think in some ways you could argue they both display aspects of:

Affect or emotional regulation – “poor affect regulation, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions and internal states, and difficulties communicating needs, wants, and wishes”

When Boyd was little, he often wondered why other people were treated better than him - why, when he was getting perfect grades, he was going above and beyond whenever possible, when he was trying to be “a good boy” all the time, when he went out of his way to stay quiet and not bother anyone – why, despite all his attempts, other people were celebrate yet he was reviled, even if the people being celebrated were awful people doing awful things. He used to study other people relentlessly, trying to understand what it was about them that made them acceptable and what it was about him that made him not.

That’s why, despite being such an introvert, he’s good at blending in and going undercover; it’s why he can adjust to new situations and, in a way, act - because he always had to monitor and adjust himself his whole life just to feel seen and loved. His dad loved him on his own so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but with the trauma that came from the loss of his dad, and what happened with Lou, plus everything afterward, it really messed everything up.

Boyd was not a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but more of emotional abuse. Well, I guess, I should say for the most part he wasn’t.

Hsin was definitely a victim of childhood sexual abuse and probably physical abuse (that bit I can’t recall for sure). He was raped even as a small child, and that led into different aspects of his life. One reason, for example, he would go berserk and was seen by the Agency as unreliable in cases of him seeing sexual assault was because he saw, in some way, himself in those victims. It was probably his way of protecting people when he hadn’t been protected, himself. 

I can’t speak too much on Hsin’s specific mental health status or repercussions because I didn’t write him so I’m not fully in his mind, but I do know that sort of berserker aspect is part of what came from his sexual abuse and physical abuse and just generally how he grew up. If I recall correctly, a lot of that led into why he was so unstable and dangerous when Emilio first found him; why it took so long to get Hsin to find a way to deal with the violence and aggression and anger in him, in addition to everything else that would have happened regardless of that childhood trauma. Why, too, it was such a huge deal when Boyd was able to earn Hsin’s trust, because he had learned in his life to trust almost no one.

You can see some of the way they both display aspects of C-PTSD as adults as well in the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder#Adults

I should be clear: I am NOT a psychiatrist or psychologist so I’m not suggesting that they would be specifically diagnosed with any of these disorders were they to get official diagnoses. However, the reason I bring it up is to show that a lot of the series reflects the way their coping mechanisms lead them to interact within themselves and with the outside world, all of which is often directly or indirectly tied to trauma.

Why is Boyd so terrified of anyone seeing him without his shirt in the beginning? Trauma. Why is he depressed? Trauma. Why is he suicidal? Trauma. Why does he go out of his way to avoid a certain block? Trauma. I would have to look at specific symptoms of different things but I would guess that you could also tie back some of his instability and his sometimes inconsistent reactions to trauma as well. Sometimes he does things or says things that may seem a bit reckless, or cold, or some other unexpected thing at that time - and a lot of times it’s probably in part related to how he learned to cope with things and what his levels of defensiveness are or his fears are at that moment. But he also has a complete inability to see the good in himself for a long time which also ties back, I would think, to some of the things he experienced growing up/previously.

Boyd is an incredibly unreliable narrator. He spends most of his narration thinking about how awful he is, how he should just die, how he isn’t doing a good enough job, and so forth. Yet, that fails to show the impact of some of his choices and decisions. Boyd was pretty much the first person to treat Hsin like a normal human being, to not see him as a surrogate of anything or anyone, to not have any ulterior motives or expectations of him (no matter how well-intentioned), and to truly gain his trust as a result. Yet, Boyd didn’t really see it that way. He didn’t see how important it was for Hsin that he ended up in his life; he didn’t get why Hsin was exasperated the times Boyd said he (Boyd) should just die, that there was no value to his life. He didn’t believe he could be loved so he couldn’t see it was even a possibility at first. Therefore, he spends a lot of his narration over the series belittling himself and downplaying any of his own achievements while simultaneously rewarding or acknowledging what others around him are doing. Not every moment of his narration, of course, but his default state of self is to think he sucks and others are probably better.

Conversely, Hsin is a confident narrator. He often doesn’t doubt himself, doesn’t care what other people think, and is very sure of himself in a lot of aspects like his physical prowess which, itself, is already above and beyond nearly everyone else. Yet he also learned not to trust or rely on anyone else in his life, so he’s incredibly suspicious of others because that’s how he had to learn to be. So, especially in the beginning of the series, in his narration he tends to be very factual about his own achievements and not shy away from acknowledging the things that are powerful about him (even if he doesn’t always see it as anything that special), while simultaneously seeking out anything untrustworthy, unreliable, incompetent, or unworthy about those around him. His narration tends to point out the flaws of those around him because he learned that if he doesn’t protect himself, he’s vulnerable, and when he’s vulnerable he gets hurt.

The result of that is, if you read their narrations straight as if it’s all perfectly reliable, Boyd seems even more unreliable and Hsin seems even more perfect than they actually are, because their default states of being overlap in a manner which magnifies the flaws in Boyd and the merits in Hsin. 

Both of them learned to be how they were because of how they were raised, what they went through, and more. Same as how they react to various things throughout the series.

I can’t more specifically comment on anything without knowing what in particular you were thinking of when commenting in the ask about trauma and sexual abuse. But I think generally speaking, they already start the series having learned coping mechanisms that work for them based on trauma they already individually experienced. Those coping mechanisms end up oftentimes being challenged and at times destroyed or reworked throughout the course of the series. That is what leads to a lot of their ups and downs as individuals and as a couple; why their story isn’t a straight arc going up but instead derails a lot. And why they both spend the entirety of the series coming to terms with who they are both internally and externally, and what that means for their relationship, and how they can find a way to grow as a person and a significant other. They both ultimately have to work on trust; Boyd has to learn to trust himself, Hsin has to learn to trust others, and they have to learn to trust each other.

The way people deal with trauma is not the same for everyone. Sexual abuse doesn’t result in the same reaction for all people. I’m not sure if maybe one of the things you were thinking is maybe about sexual abuse during the series itself? I already linked something that goes more in depth on Fade so I won’t touch on that book, and I really can’t speak for Hsin because he isn’t my character so I don’t want to misrepresent his thought process as hidden behind narration or actions at different points.

The only other thing I can think of that maybe you’re thinking about is Boyd’s valentine status, and how he doesn’t seem to have overtly strong reactions to anything until Fade. If that’s one aspect of what you were thinking about, part of that is just how Boyd deals with things. He tends to avoid things that are difficult for him or he has difficulty focusing on, and oftentimes shuts down emotionally. 

I think honestly he probably dissociated to some extent during a lot of things; kind of separated his body from his mind and felt like whatever happened, happened. For a lot of the time that he was a valentine early on, he had such little love for himself that regardless of how upsetting anything was, how little he wanted to do certain things, he felt on some level like he deserved it. Some things were probably a subconscious form of self-punishment for being born, for being who he is, for surviving when Lou didn’t, for surviving when his dad didn’t, for never being enough for his mother, for just plain existing. Then as time went on he grew to rely on Hsin and find strength in him. It’s also not like every mission he had was a valentine one, or even that every valentine has to end in anything physical. 

That’s why he was able to find ways of dealing with things in some form, even if he didn’t like it or was uncomfortable at times, until the Aleixo mission. He thought he knew how to handle things; he thought he had found apt coping mechanisms. But that mission tore that all apart and nearly destroyed him. His coping mechanisms didn’t work the way they had and now he had to find a new way to survive, and from there came a lot of his instability and more that you see in Fade and as I mention in that blog post.

But in short, I feel like the majority of the series ends up touching, indirectly or directly, on some form of trauma as experienced currently or in the past by one or more of the main characters, and their resulting actions then drive the plot. That is one thing we were very specific about doing: having the plot adjust to the characters rather than force the characters to adjust to the plot. That’s why Afterimage exists, actually; the original plan was sort of like 3/4 of Evenfall and then kind of jumping into aspects of Fade. But we realized at the end of Evenfall that certain things would occur which would then lead to Afterimage and Afterimage then led into aspects of Interludes, which then led into aspects of right before Fade, which then affected a huge part of Fade itself, which then informed 1/27. We didn’t set out to write a series specifically about trauma, it’s just sort of one of those things that happens if you take two characters who have been treated so cruelly or poorly for so much of their lives, and put them together as any sort of team - but especially a team that becomes a couple, and a couple that becomes all but married.

+ +

Regarding the other stuff, I haven’t had a chance yet to check if you answered my question about the hetero relationship comment, so I can’t comment on that until I know more of what you mean. But I would say that generally speaking, I don’t know that I believe it’s necessarily fair to label anything as strictly “hetero” vs “m/m” vs anything else for a relationship. That brings with it a lot of assumptions of what it means to be not only gay or LGBTQIA+, but also straight. It seems to suggest there is only a single way or a very strict set of ways for a cis male and a cis female to be together both in a relationship and to have sex, and I guess I don’t feel like that’s necessarily reflective of reality. People are very complex and so are their relationships, as well as their sex lives.

I’m not sure how specifically the series ended up hurting you but I’m very sorry you felt hurt by anything. That’s a terrible feeling to have to experience. I hope that in whatever way, however it may work best for you, you have the time and space to reflect and recover and rejuvenate. You, like everyone, deserve it.

And honestly, if that means you have to leave the series completely in your past, never to think about it again, if that’s what’s healthiest for you, I truly wish you are able to do so. Stories are there to connect with other people, to share our thoughts and sometimes help us work our way through our own while reading. No story is worth your mental health being put in question. If it is truly upsetting to you to think about the series, it is absolutely not worth your energy. You are more important than a story will ever be. Everyone is. And I say that despite how much I love and rely on stories to get me through life.

If part of your duress is you like aspects of the writing style but the series itself and its contents upset you, you could try reading some other stuff. I have some things I wrote solo that you can find on my AO3 if you want. But also you can find other writers entirely. Depending on what you’re looking for in a story, and the sort of topics you’ve learned work well for you or don’t work well for you, you should be able to find a ton of great series out there and great authors out there who will leave you with the happier aspects of your reaction to ICoS without anything more detrimental like it sounds happened for you with ICoS.

Regardless, I truly wish you the very best. As I said in the other one, please stay healthy and safe! And, if you’re in a place to manage it, stay happy as well :)

Brightest of blessings to you and yours, my friend!

[spellnbone]

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 004: MYER BRIGGS

YOUR PERSONALITY TYPE IS: MEDIATOR (INFP-A)

Mind: 74% Introverted / 26% Extroverted Energy: 15% Observant / 85% Intuitive Nature 86% Feeling / 14% Thinking Tactics: 35% Judging / 65% Prospecting Identity: 728% Assertive / 28% Turbulent

Mediator personalities are true idealists, always looking for the hint of good in even the worst of people and events, searching for ways to make things better. While they may be perceived as calm, reserved, or even shy, Mediators have an inner flame and passion that can truly shine. Comprising just 4% of the population, the risk of feeling misunderstood is unfortunately high for the Mediator personality type – but when they find like-minded people to spend their time with, the harmony they feel will be a fountain of joy and inspiration.

The INFP personality does reflect Edgar quite well. He does tend to come of as a calm sea, while those who know him know that there’s wonders lurking in the depth of his mind. It is however surprising to see that his Thinking is less impactful than his Feeling, as you’d expect him, he who reads and ponders so much, to be less of an heart-person and more of a head-person. Yet, I do think it fits. His Thinking is driven by Feeling, by the wish to understand and explore more than to just analyse and take the facts as they are. He cares about how they impact the world, the universe, the people around him, and how he feels about it all is an important factor that makes him read so much.

Mediators have a talent for self-expression, revealing their beauty and their secrets through metaphors.

This is certainly accurate for Edgar. While this self-expression is never meant to be expressed for the sake of others, but simply because his words are an outlet for the thoughts he gathers and connects, he does love to talk about it. Not constantly, not randomly, but with those he trusts and those he wishes to join the conversation.

Listen to Many People, but Talk to Few

This also applies beautifully to Edgar. While he definitely doesn’t struggle to hold a conversation, he enjoys listening more than to preach (even if he were someone who thought his own words deep or important enough for preaches, which he certainly isn’t). Perhaps this won’t show as well in this RP, as most of the people around him, the members of the Order, are deeply trusted people, so of course he is able -- and willing! -- to share his thoughts with them. An interaction with a stranger would certainly look different than with someone by whose side he has fought for death and life. Perhaps it’ll show itself in the recently-joined members, compared to those who have been in the Order with him for a long time.

If they are not careful, Mediators can lose themselves in their quest for good and neglect the day-to-day upkeep that life demands. Mediators often drift into deep thought, enjoying contemplating the hypothetical and the philosophical more than any other personality type.

The latter goes without question, the former, I believe has shown itself in recent years. Certainly, Edgar has always been withdrawn, enjoying the comfort of the Ravenclaw tower all throughout his stay at Hogwarts, but ever since then, ever since engaging with the Order’s cause, he might’ve forgotten himself even more. He used to write a lot, unrhyming poetry and jotted down epigrams, mostly, but this, along with other, adolescent hobbies, have drifted away from him eventually. All of his relationships (most of them long-term and considered serious) died because he would withdraw and not put enough effort into the love. He cared, of course, but sometimes he’d forget, staying out for hours, nights, sometimes even entire days, without letting his partner know where he was going. He means no harm in that, he just ... forgets, too absorbed by his own pondering and quest for good.

Mediators share a sincere belief in the idea of relationships – that two people can come together and make each other better and happier than they were alone, and they will take great efforts to show support and affection in order to make this ideal a reality. [...] But Mediators aren’t necessarily in a rush to commit – they are, after all, Prospecting (P) types, and are almost always looking to either establish a new relationship or improve an existing one – they need to be sure they’ve found someone compatible.

The test says that Mediators don’t enjoy committing to relationships, mostly because they prefer the prospect of things over actually doing it. This is the point I initially disagree with, as Edgar for me always had a very loyal personality, someone who longs for someone to be at his side, someone he can come home to. But now that I think about it, I think he’s always, somewhat, one foot out the door. As though he doesn’t really believe that no matter how beautiful and important the thing is he has with that other person, it will never last. Partially because of the war (the secrets he fosters because of the Order and he knows secrets are poison to a relationship, but also because he’s been with Muggles, and the worlds are just too different, it’s too dangerous to let them come together like this), and partially because, in a way, he knows that in the end there’s no one he wants to be as close to as with Amelia. If he were to picture his future -- which he avoids, usually -- then it’s always her, old and wrinkly, by his side, and no one else. 

The challenge is the many dualities that this type harbors when it comes to being sociable – Mediators crave the depth of mutual human understanding, but tire easily in social situations; they are excellent at reading into others’ feelings and motivations, but are often unwilling to provide others the same insight into themselves

I think, as long as Edgar is allowed to sit in a corner and observe at a party, he won’t feel particularly drained. It’s when he has to force himself into expression to make himself feel understood and therefore has to see himself through the eyes of others, that he wears out. I imagine that during the Inner-Circle meetings at the Order, he’s not the one to just take the word and go on about ideas, even if he has some, but listens first and then take someone aside in the five-minute-break to share his opinion. Furthermore, I wonder if his symptoms of OCD make it hard to fully relax when many people are around. In a dangerous situation this comes in incredibly handy as he notices patterns and uncommon happenstances, but when it’s a party where he’s expected to enjoy himself, it’s in the way. That’s why he smokes, to keep his hands from twitching and reaching out to fix little details, keep that calm sea facade of his. And what a luck that this is the 80s and smoking inside wasn’t a tabu yet.

Even as friendships grow stronger and deeper, and friends are lulled into a sense of mutual understanding, Mediators’ enigmatic qualities will never truly vanish.

Very important. Edgar isn’t ‘philosophical’ on purpose. To impress or appear a certain way. he couldn’t care less what his impact is on other people’s minds. There’s not a self-image with reputation he fosters, even when it seemed so in the past when he tried to please his parents by being the Good Child. He did so to keep Amelia out of trouble, and to make his parents happy, never to develop a certain opinion of others on him. This just happened as a by-product. So even when he does get to know someone, and loves sharing his thoughts with them, he won’t change. Because that’s just him, from beginning to end, always.

In the workplace: As subordinates, Mediators prefer latitude, and would much rather immerse themselves in a project, alone or with a close team, than simply be told what task to do and move on. People with the Mediator personality type aren’t looking for easy, forgettable work that pays the bills, they’re looking for meaningful work that they actually want to think about. [...] As managers, Mediators are among the least likely to seem like managers – their egalitarian attitudes lend respect to every subordinate, preferring communication as human beings than as a boss/employee opposition. People with the Mediator personality type are flexible, open-minded and give their subordinates the tools they need, be they responsible delegation or an intuitive and receptive sounding board, to get the job done. Keeping their eyes on the horizon, Mediators set goals that achieve a desirable end, and help the people working under them to make that happen.

Edgar is in the Inner-Circle of the Order, but not because he’s a Leader personality, but because he’s been around for so long that he just knows the ins and outs, because he knows the rules, because he’s undeniably trust-worthy and helpful when given the opportunity. Hence why I added the bit about a Mediator as a manager, because while, in a way, the Inner-Circle does seem to play a leading role in the order, it’s important to understand that Edgar doesn’t see himself as more important than any other member. On the contrary, he embraces every idea, no matter if it’s from someone who joined the cause centuries years ago or last month. Perhaps this is why he finds the negative opinions on the Dorcas and Co. so surprising; he firmly believes that new ideas should always be welcomed, especially if old ideas haven’t really gotten them far in the past, and therefore wonder why people are so resistant to more radical means. On the other hand, the ‘doesn’t just look for work that pays the bills’ amuses me, as Edgar does work at the Daily Prophet mostly for that. Money. He has to get around somehow. Then again, you could say he chose his column for the arts, so here again, he does love thinking about what he’s doing, putting his thoughts into his words.

All in all, I think Edgar fits the Mediator type. It is funny, however, how the Mediator sounds like quite the Hufflepuff type of personality. Naturally, we all know that Edgar’s second house would’ve been Hufflepuff, but considering how the Mediator’s weakness is ‘dislike having to deal with data’, I do wonder what the test got wrong about him (or me, as I took the test). Perhaps it is the fact that he doesn’t collect the data for the sake of data, but to translate it into the bigger picture, which is a Mediator thing to do, or perhaps it is because over the years, he’s grown more distant from just studying the world for the sake of studying it.

I’d like to retake the test in a few months, when I know Edgar a little better. Or when Edgar might’ve changed some more. After all, the events of the world don’t leave him cold, even if he’s not showing his fears and worries on the outside all the time.

[scripttorture]

(1) i'm writing a story about a kid (under 13, havent decided exactly how young), who undergoes a horrible though mostly unintended period of psychological torture, set in northern Russia in the 13th-14th century. They're the youngest child of the local Lord, and their town gets invaded. Once the dust has settled, their family is brought up on a stage and all the commoners and servants are made to watch in silence as the family is tortured via slow dismemberment, then killed.

(2) The child is basically in a position where they have to serve the people that did this and maintain their disguise, or they will have the same done to them. At one point they are accused of theft and are given the punishment of that time and place- cutting off a finger. Beyond that there's no direct, intentional physical harm done to them. After several years, the invading force leaves and it becomes safe for the surviving child to come out of hiding.(3) What sort of effects could i expect them to have after the torture and trauma? Currently I have them as being so afraid of speaking giving away their identity that they've gotten selective muteness, and once it becomes safe to come out of hiding giving up their former title due to fear of becoming a target. I'm looking for stuff both during the ongoing trauma and afterwards, and i want to do it justice!

Thisall sounds possible.

Idon’t know anything about Russia during that period so I can’tcomment on whether these particular attacks fit the place and period.

Ialso don’t know much about childhood development. The majority ofthe accounts I have are from adults. And while the same symptomseffect children and adults the expression of those symptoms can bedifferent.

ScriptTraumaSurvivorshas a post here on age appropriate expression of trauma symptoms.

GenerallyI tend to stress that witnessing traumatic events doesn’t alwayscause trauma symptoms, but given all the other circumstancessurrounding this I think you’re right, it’s highly likely thischaracter would be extremely traumatised. They’ve lost theirfamily, witnessed horrible things and lived for years in a constantstate of fear and threat. Long term psychological effects areextremely likely.

I’dsuggest you don’t refer to that as psychological torture becausewell- that’s a phrase a lot of torture apologists tend to use torefer to things like starvation, sleep deprivation and stresspositions, which leave no obvious external scars but do cause a lotof physical damage. It’s a phrase that tends to get used to dismissor belittle physical tortures by implying they’re ‘only’psychological.

Iunderstand why that’s the phrase you reached for here though and Idon’t think you’re downplaying what the character goes through.Just- be aware of how that phrase is often used.

Iget asked about muteness or refusing to talk sporadically. Thereisn’t really a way to purposefully inflict it and from everythingI’ve read it seems to be a rare symptom. But you do occasionallyget survivors who stop talking for a period of time. And the wayyou’re describing this it seems as though you’re treating hisrefusal to talk is part of an underlying set of symptoms rather thanthe symptom itself. Which I think works.

I’malso getting the impression that you approach writing symptoms quitedifferently to the way I do. There’s absolutely nothing wrong withthat: we all have different ways of writing and I honestly think themost unhelpful writing advice is the sort which sets out to changehow someone writes.

Rightnow you’ve got a set of behaviours but not necessarily an explicitset of symptoms.

Nowyou don’t necessarily needto come up with an explicit set of symptoms to do this justice, butit might help guide you through how the character’s mental healthproblems change with time.

Atthe moment it sounds as though the main mental illness you’reportraying is anxiety (though you could possibly also write whatyou’re describing as hypervigilance or depression). That in turn isleading to social isolation as the character avoids or cuts himselfoff from other people.

Ithink that’s a pretty good starting point. The symptoms have beentied to both the character and each other in a way that feelsnatural.

Myinstinct is that given everything going on here another underlyingmental health problem might be a good idea. Given the character’sage, the setting and the other symptoms I think insomnia, learningdifficulties or memory problems could all work well.

Insomniaexacerbates pre-existing mental health problems and you could usenightmares as a way of tying this to the other symptoms.

Learningdifficulties would probably be a little more subtle as they might bedismissed as inexperience or a product of the character’s age butthat subtlety could also make them easy to work into the story. Theother symptoms clearly establish that the character hasserious long term symptoms and that means you have space to includeless ‘obvious’ ones.

Irecommend memory problems pretty often because they’re incrediblycommon in real life but rarely depicted well in fiction. They’realso often not acknowledged in the real world, despite having amassive impact on survivors’ lives.

I’vegot a Masterpost on the most common types and how they work here.

Giventhe story you’re telling I don’t think memory loss orinaccurate/false memories would be a good fit.

Butforgetfulness might well be: the character could easily use that asanother ‘reason’ why he ‘has’ to step down, believing himselfto be incapable or unsuitable. Intrusive memories could also be avery good fit and could feed in to his other symptoms. Writing wisethere’s the ‘danger’ of including too many flash backs toparticular awful moments, robbing these moments of their power. Butthis can be overcome quite easily by stressing the feelings thememory evokes rather than the details of the moment in itself.

Loopingback to the main part of the question- The ‘right’ way to handleany of this going forward is going to depend on the story.

Whilethe character is still in danger there may well be worse moments andbetter moments but he’s not going to make any real progress towardshealing while he’s still effectively a prisoner. This doesn’tnecessarily mean his symptoms will be constantly getting worse. Itwould be perfectly normal for them to reach a point and plateau.

Recoveryafterwards isn’t something survivors do in isolation. He’d need asupport network which he currently doesn’t seem to have. That couldmean that part of his recovery process is buildingtrusting and healthy relationships with others.

Giventhe time period and place the church could play quite a large role inhis recovery. Priests, monks, nuns (and anchoresses but I’m unsureif Russia had them) all played roles in communal mental health. NowI’m sure the quality of this help varied widely from place to placeand person to person but there’s nothing wrong with you choosingthat your character has access to better quality help.

Hislack of support network means that recovery would take longer andthere’d probably be a period where he’s at quite high risk ofharm. That doesn’t necessarily mean attack by others or self harm.Severe mental illnesses can make it difficult for a person to takecare of themselves.

Forinstance he might have days when he’d rather go hungry or cold thengo out among other people and get food or firewood. That’s the kindof time when having a support network is a huge material help.Linking back to the church idea I think it could be plausible to havelocal religious figures attempt to help in this kind of practicalway, leaving food or firewood. Other characters close to the survivorcould also fill this kind of role.

Recoveryis slow and it is rarely linear. Even if someone is generally gettingbetter they can still have incredibly bad days or weeks.

Andas people recover they often find that aspects of their mentalillness seem to change. For instance if someone has severe depressionit’s not uncommon for them to start feeling more anxious/overemotional as the depression eases.

That’spart of why I think trying to figure out the underlying illnessbehind these behaviours is helpful. It can give you an idea of how tohave those behaviours change in ways that are organic and realistic.

Goingwith the idea that the character’s major illness is anxiety- Thephysical symptoms can include shaking, nausea, heart palpitations,chest pain and generally feeling like you’re having an adrenalinerush most of the time.

Somepeople have speech difficulties when they’re having an anxietyattack. That can include difficulty taking in what people are sayingand difficulty communicating clearly (though it doesn’t stopspeech). Things like repeating the same short answer a couple oftimes. Sometimes it means giving a reflexive ‘answer that will getrid of the person’ rather than an accurate answer.

Anxietycan drive people to withdraw from others, especially if their anxietyis triggered by others. Things like stepping away from people duringconversation and struggling with crowds or confined spaces canhappen.

Itcan also be difficult to sleep, which in turn makes other symptomsworse.

Depressioncan make people feel tired all the time, while also making itdifficult to fall asleep or sleep well. It can make eating difficult.It tends to mute sensation and can leave people feeling numb.

Itcan get in the way of positive interaction with other people indifferent ways. One of the things I hear people describing most oftenis difficulty engaging. When all of someone’s emotional energy isgoing on holding themselves together sparing some for other people isincredibly difficult.

Ihave a post about solitary confinement that may help you get a graspon the effects of isolation. Keep in mind that solitaryconfinement is much more extreme then the vast majority of cases ofsocial isolation. The effects on your character probably wouldn’tbe this bad. But it could help give you an idea of the way this kindof isolation effects people and how it feels.

Itend to approach recovery quite organically. For me it’s anextension of both the character and their symptoms- the logicalconclusion of the situation the story posits. But that’s because Itend to write symptoms in a way that’s very rooted in the characterand I tend to write very instinctually.

Ifyou’ve got a more analytical approach then breaking symptoms downmight help.

Onceyou know what conditions the character has (rather than just thebehaviours) you can start to tie those behaviours to particularaspects of his mental illnesses. That in turn helps you figure outhow he might recover.

Let’stake his difficulty speaking for a moment and assume that the rootcause of that is anxiety. He probably knows that ‘fear’ is thecause of this. He probably feels less afraid on a daily basis afterthe invading force leaves. And that could lead to him finding it alittle easier to speak again.

Buthe might not understand why he keeps getting chest pains. Or why hefeels ‘afraid’ when in a crowd of people he knows are ‘harmless’.

Ifhe, and everyone else, focused on the biggested most obviousbehavioural problems he had then there’s likely a lot of thingsthat slipped under the radar. That were too small to comment on atthe time or that everyone assumed would stop when the invaders left.This can be a pretty effective way to approach how symptoms canchange and how it can catch a character off guard.

Anotherapproach is thinking about what a character currently can’tdo and when in the story they needto do that particular thing. Then think about what needs to change,environmentally or emotionally, for the character to be capable ofthat action.

Sometimesyou can only really get them half-way there and then find yourselfputting together a creative work-around. That’s OK. That can add toa story and be an interesting break from typical tropes.

Recoveryis a slow process of learning to deal with symptoms in healthierways. And incidentally virtually every mentally ill person I’veknown has had moments of expressing things like ‘But I should beover this’ ‘But I should be able to deal with this’ ‘But Ishould be better by now’.

Fromthe sounds of things you’ve put a lot of thought into both thecharacter and that process already. You are doing a good job. Keep atit and I think you’ll have an excellent story.

Ihope this helps. :)

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[giftedsupport]

Alienation While moderately gifted children tend to be popular with their classmates, children with unusually high levels of ability sometimes have a more difficult time finding compatible peers (Gallagher, 1958). Hollingworth (1942) and O'Shea (1960) have suggested that problems of communication, starting in the preschool years, may be one root cause of the highly gifted child's involuntary isolation. A 3-year-old who expresses abstract ideas using the vocabulary of the average 6-year-old may not be understood by same-age peers. Four-year-olds who enjoy playing monopoly and checkers have difficulty finding same-age playmates with similar skills (Roedell, Jackson, & Robinson, 1980).

With their advanced conceptions of group organization, highly gifted children may develop an adult-like manner with others, and be accused of bossiness. When efforts to be accepted fail, a highly able child may withdraw from social interaction. One 4-year-old was diagnosed as emotionally disturbed by his preschool teachers because of his tendency to withdraw from social interaction. Worried, his parents enrolled him in a program for highly gifted children, where his friendly, outgoing manner demonstrated that his emotional disturbance had merely been a reaction to having no intellectual peers on his own level with whom to interact.

Children who withdraw early from social interaction may deprive themselves of the opportunity to learn needed social interaction skills. While intellectually advanced children frequently have advanced conceptions of the dynamics of social interaction, their good ideas may not translate into social behavior without the benefit of guided social experience in the company of true peers (Roedell, Jackson, & Robinson, 1980).

The social alienation of extraordinarily gifted children is exacerbated by the insistence of educators and parents that they spend most of their time in the company of chronological peers. The assumption that children of the same age constitute a true peer group only holds true for children of average development. The term peer does not, in essence, mean people of the same age, but rather refers to individuals who can interact at an equal level around issues of common interest (Lewis, Young, Brooks, & Michelson, 1975). Highly gifted children are not likely to find developmentally defined peers among their age-mates, and in fact many of them prefer older companions (Hollingworth, 1942, Silverman, in preparation). Given a choice, highly gifted children tend to form friendships with others of similar mental age (O'Shea, 1960).

For children whose development is highly uneven, true peers may vary depending on the activity. A child with extraordinary intellectual but average physical skills might have one set of peers for discussing literature or playing chess, and another set of peers on the soccer field. The potential social alienation of extremely able children can be avoided by special efforts to help such children find companions with similar interests and abilities. Unless such efforts are made, highly gifted children run the risk of being labeled different and strange by their age mates, and may internalize this designation and become eccentric social isolates. Ronald, a 5-year-old in a program for extraordinarily advanced children, explained these feelings well when he commented, Do you know why Bill is my best friend? Because he's the only one who understands the kind of guy I really am.

source: The Impact of Giftedness on Psychological Well-Being

Sep 13, 2011 | Articles, Gifted Well-Being

by Maureen Neihart

[avandelay20]

Great article, a bit wordy with diluted analogies; paraphrased below and abridged in some areas for brevity...

“

Surveillance capitalism stage one: companies stake a claim to people’s lives as free raw material for the extraction of behavioral data, which they then declare their private property.

Stage two: a sharp rise in epistemic inequality, defined as the difference between what I can know and what can be known about me. 

Stage three: (we are here) introduces epistemic chaos caused by the profit-driven algorithmic amplification, dissemination and microtargeting of corrupt information, much of it produced by coordinated schemes of disinformation. Its effects are felt in the real world, where they splinter shared reality, poison social discourse, paralyze democratic politics and sometimes instigate violence and death.

Stage four: epistemic dominance is institutionalized, overriding democratic governance with computational governance by private surveillance capital. 

Surveillance capitalism has no formal interest in facts. All data is welcomed as equivalent, though not all of it is equal. The Cyclops voraciously consumes everything and is indifferent to meaning, facts and truth.

In a leaked memo, a Facebook executive, Andrew Bosworth, describes this willful disregard for truth and meaning: “We connect people. That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. … That can be bad if they make it negative. … Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack. … The ugly truth is … anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good.”

Content moderation is a last resort for Manipulation Platforms... data triage is undertaken either to minimize the risk of user withdrawal or to avoid political sanctions. 

Algorithms were responsible for the viral spread of divisive content that helped fuel the growth of extremist groups. 

Mr. Zuckerberg rejected internal proposals for operational changes that would reduce epistemic chaos. A political whitelist identified over 100,000 officials and candidates whose accounts were exempted from fact-checking, despite internal research showing that users tend to believe false information shared by politicians. In September 2019 the company said that political advertising would not be subject to fact-checking.

Facebook’s Reality Distortion Machine Killed 130k People in 2020

The Washington Post reported in late March 2020 that with nearly 50 percent of the content on Facebook’s news feed related to Covid-19, a very small number of “influential users” were driving the reading habits and feeds of a vast number of users. A study released in April 2020 by the Reuters Institute confirmed that high-level politicians, celebrities and other prominent public figures produced 20 percent of the misinformation, but attracted 69 percent of social media engagements.

A study released in May by Britain’s Institute for Strategic Dialogue identified a core group of 34 extremist right-wing websites disseminating Covid disinformation. From January to April of 2020, these websites garnered 80 million interactions, while posts linking to the W.H.O.’s website received 6.2 million interactions, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received 6.4 million.

An Avaaz study released in August exposed 82 websites spreading Covid misinformation reaching a peak of nearly half a billion Facebook views in April. Content from the 10 most popular websites drew about 300 million Facebook views, compared with 70 million for 10 leading health institutions. Facebook’s modest content moderation efforts were no match for its own machine systems engineered for epistemic chaos.

The analysis of the number of AVOIDABLE COVID DEATHS concluded that at least 130,000 deaths could have been avoided. Of the four key reasons cited: “misleading the public”...

In 1966, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann wrote a short book of seminal importance, “The Social Construction of Reality.” Its central observation is that the

Everyday life we experience as reality is actively and perpetually constructed by us. 

This ongoing miracle of social order rests on “common sense knowledge,” which is “the knowledge we share with others in the normal self-evident routines of everyday life.”

“All societies are constructions in the face of chaos,” write Berger and Luckmann. Because norms are summaries of our common sense, norm violation is the essence of terrorism — terrifying because it repudiates the most taken-for-granted social certainties. “Norm violation creates an attentive audience beyond the target of terror,” write Alex P. Schmid and Albert J. Jongman in “Political Terrorism,” a widely cited text on the subject. Everyone experiences the shock, disorientation, and fear. The legitimacy and continuity of our institutions are essential because they buffer us from chaos by formalizing our common sense.

No society can police everything all the time, least of all a democratic society. A healthy society rests on a consensus about what is a deviation and what is normal. We venture out from the norm, but we know the difference between the outfield and home, the reality of everyday life. Without that, as we have now experienced, things fall apart. Democrats drinking blood? Sure, why not? Hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19? Right this way! Storm the Capitol and make Mr. Trump dictator? Yeah, we’ve got that!

Society renews itself as common sense evolves through trustworthy, transparent, and respectful institutions of social discourse. Instead we are saddled with the opposite, nearly 20 years into a world dominated by a political-economic institution that operates as a chaos machine for hire, in which norm violation is key to revenue.

The digital must live in democracy’s house, not as an arsonist but as a member of the family, subject to and thriving on its laws and values.

A democratic information civilization cannot progress without new charters of epistemic rights that protect citizens from the massive-scale invasion and theft compelled by surveillance economics.

Writing in 1967, Justice William Douglas argued that the authors of the Bill of Rights believed “the individual should have the freedom to select for himself the time and circumstances when he will share his secrets with others and decide the extent of that sharing.” That “freedom to select” is the elemental epistemic right to know ourselves, the cause from which all privacy flows.

FIRST: We need legal frameworks that interrupt and outlaw the massive-scale extraction of human experience. Laws that stop data collection would end surveillance capitalism’s illegitimate supply chains. The algorithms cannot exist without the trillion points of data fed to them each day.

SECOND: we need laws that tie data collection to fundamental rights and data use to public service, addressing the genuine needs of people and communities. Data is no longer the means of information warfare waged on the innocent.

THIRD: we need to disrupt the financial incentives that reward surveillance economics. Prohibiting commercial practices that exert demand for data collection in the first place. Markets that traded in human beings were outlawed, even when they supported whole economies.

We may have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both. 

“

Facebook is a chaos machine. 

Facebook is not interested in anything but it’s own survival at any cost. 

Facebook is an unwitting terrorist organisation who’s algorithms and commercial imperatives disrupt societal norms and warp society’s shared understanding of reality thereby sowing chaos and terror into the minds of its captives. 

END. FACEBOOK. NOW.

[japanskalekt]

Japan today, many young people are disconnecting themselves from society. They have come to be known as hikikomori (recluses), or more formally shakaiteki (social) hikikomori. Though their existence is widely recognized, their true situation is still far from being generally understood. They all have different backgrounds and circumstances and have withdrawn from society for different reasons. So, what can we say about this disparate group? First, a definition: Hikikomori are individuals who (1) do not work or attend educational institutions, (2) are not considered to have a mental disorder, but (3) have remained at home for six months or longer without interacting personally with anyone outside their families. The third point is the most important. These people have no friends and are isolated from society, even though they may be living in the middle of a teeming city. Some say there are as many as 1 million hikikomori in Japan. Add to that figure the 2 million parents who may have lived with them for decades and the sum comes to almost 3% of the population over 20 years old. This is a number that cannot be ignored. It demonstrates the immense scale of this social issue. Even so, many people remain indifferent. One widely held view is that hikikomori are lazy or spoiled by parents who are willing to support their jobless offspring. I would like to emphasize that nobody becomes a social recluse because they enjoy it. If it were truly a case of being lazy or spoiled, why do hikikomori and their parents suffer so much?Shame and Conflict Two key words for understanding social recluses are “shame” and “conflict.” Hikikomori feel a deep sense of shame that they cannot work at a job like ordinary people. They think of themselves as worthless and unqualified for happiness. Almost all feel remorse at having betrayed their parents’ expectations. At the same time, they are beset by internal conflict between the self that cannot go out into the world and the self that constantly condemns their failure to do so. Many say that they want to disappear or that they wish they had not been born. Some become so exhausted by this internal struggle that they cannot even get out of bed. And the torment may continue for years or even decades. In serious cases, hikikomori almost never leave their rooms other than to use the toilet or shower. Terrified of contact even with other family members, they feed themselves by raiding the fridge at night when everyone else in the house is sleeping. Conversation is nonexistent. One mother lamented that her son had not talked to her since he was 12 years old, so she had never heard his adult voice. Hikikomori keep the shutters and curtains of their rooms closed at all times to conceal their presence. They listen through headphones to mute the sound when they watch television or use their computer. They walk with soft footsteps. Some do not turn on air conditioners or heaters even in the dog days of summer or the deep of winter. This is partly to avoid the notice of family members and neighbors, and partly because they do not feel they deserve to use these appliances. I wish people would better understand the reality of their troubled lives before dismissing them as spoiled and lazy.People Who Want to Work But Cannot Hikikomori are frightened of being asked, “What are you doing now?” One of my clients told me, “I’m so afraid of that question that I flee from place to place like a fugitive.” As a result, this client had cut off communication with friends, acquaintances, and others. Some 60% of hikikomori are said to have had experience in the workforce. Many struggled under outrageously heavy workloads, putting in more than 200 hours of overtime per month, or were subjected to chronic power abuse by superiors. This has made work an object of terror and physiological rejection. As noted in the definition above, hikikomori are not suffering from a mental disorder. There is no medicine or treatment to speak of for their condition, so one can only watch over them and observe how they change. Some want to work, but have become unable to. People tend to have a vague impression that hikikomori are mentally ill or weak. But instead of seeing this condition as a mental issue, we may need to look at it as a labor problem—the existence of a group of people who wish to work but cannot.   How can hikikomori be rescued from their grave condition? Attempts to force them out of their seclusion against their will have proved unsuccessful. But over the past several years a range of activities and support networks have been established by hikikomori themselves. Working with counselors and psychiatrists, they have arranged meetings and even started a newspaper with some articles in English. Meanwhile, in some cases counseling of parents has shifted the dynamics within the family and allowed hikikomori to change for the better. Although it will take time, the only path forward is to find opportunities for these individuals to reconnect with the society they have withdrawn from and gradually broaden public understanding so as to create a more welcoming environment for them. Hikikomori want to establish ties with society, but do not find it possible to do so. Social withdrawal may be their last-resort strategy for staying alive within this society, and the only option left for them to preserve their own dignity. (Originally published in Japanese on November 22, 2017. Banner )

[confrontingbabble-on]

When you keep telling your mind, for long enough, that religious fantasy is real...all the while denying any reality that contradicts your fantasies...you will lose your grasp on reality...and end up not knowing what to believe...(Of course snakes and donkeys can talk, and a man can live in the belly of a big fish...!*)

...which is what religious institutions want. They want you to lose total confidence in your own abilities to separate reality from fantasy...so that you come to depend completely on what they tell you...without question...(like, “give us more of your money...!!)

“The Difference Between Medicine and Poison...is in the Dose...!”

“Escapism: Leave Your Fantasy World And Live In Reality...

Escapism, or withdrawing from the pressures of the real world into a safer fantasy world, is pervasive in our culture. It comes in many forms, some rather subtle, and prevents us from doing what we need to do to improve the circumstances of our real lives.

Why We Construct a Fantasy World

The ultimate “goal" of escapism is the destruction of “self". If you have an aspect of your life that you want to escape from (say your “sinful nature”), your fantasies act as a means of dissociating your mind from the “you" that possesses these qualities. With enough repetition, you come to view yourself as a totally separate entity from the one that has these negative traits or circumstances. Only in rare instances does it get so extreme, but partial destruction of the “self" and dissociation are quite common.

When we practice escapism, we are trying to avoid “spending time" with ourselves. Rather than engage in healthy introspection or meaningful social interaction, we occupy ourselves endlessly with (religious fantasy...where we are “born again”...a “new creature” in Christ...despite constantly still failing and continually having to ask for further forgiveness...!) Facebook, television, email, video games, gambling, drugs and alcohol, and so on. In fact, individuals have been shown to watch TV when they have a lower “need for cognition", or, in other words, to prevent them from thinking1. Escapism is the opposite of mindfulness.

Escapism allows us to numb ourselves to a reality that we do not want to accept. For example, this “actual-ideal self-discrepancy" predicts pathological gaming, where the gamer can pretend to be somebody else2. It allows us to avoid feelings of shame or emotional pain. By imagining ourselves as someone who doesn’t have the constraints that we do, or who possesses something that we lack, we can “experience" that life without having to do the work...necessary to achieve it.   

Escapism is a way of attempting to negate our personal responsibility and to avoid the discomfort of existential angst that we all must deal with. We are ultimately responsible for all the decisions that we make and the actions that we take, but living in a (religious) fantasy world is a way of absolving ourselves of the consequences of our actions. To the escape artist, “real life" is no longer their problem.

Why You Must Return To Reality

It should be obvious by now that a tendency to retreat into fantasy is going to have negative effects on you. But what are these effects?

Mood and Depression...

First and foremost, people who use escapism as a coping strategy tend to be more depressed. This is hardly surprising. There is plenty of evidence that avoidant (escapist) coping methods are associated with depression, but which causes which?

In a ten year prospective study, researchers found that baseline avoidance coping was prospectively associated with higher life stress (both acute and chronic) at year four, and that these life stressors linked baseline avoidance coping with depressive symptoms at year ten3. The way you deal with stress has an impact on how much stress you have, and this higher stress can cause depression.

A study on adolescents found that those who employed avoidant coping strategies (as opposed to “approach oriented" coping) reported the highest levels of depressive symptoms up to two years later4. Avoidant coping is also a predictor of psychological distress in elderly individuals5.

Escapism Makes You Stagnate...

A common theme you have heard me mention (and that any good personal development website would mention) is that

in order to progress in any area of your life, you must take action. But the more time you spend inside of the fantasy world in your mind, the less motivation you have to do anything about your “real" life. (You sit and wait for a fantasy god to intervene and fix your problems...a little like the GOP waiting for god to fix gun violence in America...!)

Back to Reality, oh, There Goes Gravity...

I would consider escapism a form of behavioral addiction. In fact, many of the escapist “methods" are indeed addictions, including (religious fantasizing...!) gambling and overuse of the internet.

Addictions can be tough to break, particularly when there is an emotional component behind them. It’s not merely “being addicted to a fantasy", but the challenge of getting over the reasons why you’ve constructed that fantasy in the first place. Breaking the habit/addiction is only so effective when you still have something you’re running from; more likely than not, without dealing with the underlying issue, you will merely shift to another escapist behavior or fantasy.

With that out of the way, how can you best return to reality after being stuck in a fantasy world for so long?

Read in full...feelhappiness.com/escapism-leave-fantasy-world-live-reality/

* with god...that is, within a religious story fantasy world...all things are possible...!

Laying the Groundwork...

First things first, you’ll need to do some self-analysis and figure out what it is you are fleeing from. In some cases this will be far easier than others

Most people will not need any major degree of psychoanalysis for this. But it can be helpful to sit down with a pad and paper and answer a few questions. In what situations do you typically engage in your escapist behavior? Is there a specific feeling or mood that triggers it? What is it that you enjoy about your fantasy? What is it you feel as you “return" from it?

Beyond this self-understanding, there are two other, more long-term strategies to help break you out of your fantasy world. Readers of this blog will not be surprised to hear me mention self-acceptance and gratitude. But they really are that important that I need to mention them over and over.

Most of the time, living in a fantasy world is a product of believing that you have some sort of flaw. If this is the root cause, you’ll need to GET OVER IT. That’s the only long-term solution. Yes, it’s easier said than done. Yes, it’s a totally different topic, and one that you’ll need to look into on your own (but this site has some resources that can help, including the link above). But any way you spin it, you’ll need to accept yourself, despite whatever perceived flaws you may have.

Short-Term Strategies and Tactics... I firmly believe that (going to church, reading the bible, singing religious songs and praying...!) electronic media are one of the prime escapist outlets used by the majority of people. If you can’t seem to spend time away from your (religion...!) phone, the internet, video games, tv, etc., it would be worth your while to try it. Even for just a day. Hell, I lived phoneless in a foreign country for five months.

It’s so easy to use electronics in order to stop yourself from thinking, or to numb yourself from whatever is going on in your life. A media fast can be a shock to your system, but, like a regular fast, has a cleansing effect. Afraid of missing out on whatever your friends are doing? Chances are, you’ll get along fine.

Even if you don’t go to the extreme of eliminating all electronic usage for a period of time, you can certainly limit it, particularly problem areas. For many people, that would be mindlessly surfing the web, playing video games, or binging on Netflix. I’m a news junkie, and taking a week off from reading the news every once in a while is incredibly helpful for me. In fact, I ought to do that this week.

Since escapism is just a specific form of “not living in the now", bringing yourself back to the present as often as possible is an important tactic. Again, easier said than done. But there are things you can do, like taking up meditation, even for only five or ten minutes a day. Or set an alarm on your phone every hour as a reminder to take ten deep breaths and focus on the present. These are rather easy things to do…you just need to do them.

The final tactic for this section can seem useless or downright silly, but practicing it consciously is surprisingly beneficial. You should regularly do something, even trivial, to manipulate your environment. This functions as a reminder that you have control. You are not, in fact, living in a dream, but rather reality. A reality that you have control over, even if it is in some trivial way.

Conclusion...

Society is becoming increasingly escapist, and I believe this is leading to a surge in psychological issues.

This isn’t to say that (religious) fantasy will turn you into a homicidal maniac, or even that all fantasy is bad. On the contrary, there is such a thing as a healthy fantasy world (ie for entertainment, not for reality/responsibility avoidance...!); it’s just harder to come by.

For it to be healthy, you must be accessing these fantasy worlds with a positive intention and from a place of emotional security, rather than as an attempt to escape reality. The intention is key. If you are merely trying to make negative feelings go away, and you do it reflexively, you are practicing escapism. If you use fantasy as an occasional means of taking a mental break from the stressors of life, that is fine. And even better, if you use it to explore your imagination, you can gain access to a wider range of ideas and possible solutions to issues you may be having than you would by strictly adhering to reality.

Ultimately, it comes down to your mindset. If you are running away from reality, you will suffer the consequences...”

Read in full...feelhappiness.com/escapism-leave-fantasy-world-live-reality/

* with god...that is, within a religious story fantasy world...all things are possible...!

[tussive]

Name: tussive   Date: 10/08/2017  

Target behaviors are specific and observable areas of behavioral concern which can be identified for possible intervention. Based upon this Self rating the following 'at risk' or 'clinically significant' target behaviors are suggested:

Broad Internalizing Concerns (clinically significant) - tussive demonstrates behaviors whch are often associated with internalized issues such as stress, anxiety, or depression.

Broad Externalizing Concerns (clinically significant) - tussive demonstrates 'acting out' behaviors whch are often associated with anger-management difficulties and/or poor impulse control.

Task Avoidance/Off-Task (at risk) - tussive may tend to avoid, ignore, or otherwise fail to accomplish required or expected tasks including homework, daily chores, etc.

Social Withdrawal (clinically significant) - tussive may be somewhat socially isolated and avoid situations in which social interaction is expected or required.

Somatic Issues (clinically significant) - tussive may complain of physical symptioms or 'ailments' such as headaches, nausea, body aches, minor injuries, etc.

Disruption (at risk) - tussive may engage in behavior which disturbs, interrupts, or draws others 'off-task'.

Delinquency (at risk) - tussive may engage in negative or rebellious behavior with his peers.

Active Aggression (clinically significant) - tussive may become angry and start physical fights or verbal arguments with others.

Defiance (at risk) - tussive may deliberately break rules or otherwise challenge and/or defy authority. Hypothesized functions of behavior are assumed underlying emotional needs or motivations which may result in certain predictable behavioral tendencies. Based upon this Self rating the following 'at risk' or 'clinically significant' hypothesized functions of (or emotional motivations for) observed or potential behaviors are suggested:

Escape/Avoidance (clinically significant) - tussive's behavior may enable him to escape or avoid an unpleasant, difficult, or potentially embarrassing situation. Typical behaviors of this nature include general fear-of-failure reactions such as task avoidance and social withdrawal but may also involve perfectionism. Common ‘behavioral triggers’ include new or unexpected situations, feeling inadequate or unprepared, or being surrounded by too many people. Suggested interventions include: 1. Provide tangible reinforcement (rewards). 2. Reward effort or participation rather than outcome. 3. Avoid tasks which are clearly beyond his capabilities. 4. Provide gentle prodding and encouragement.

Anxiety Reduction (clinically significant) - tussive's behavior may help him to relieve stress and/or anxiety. Such behavior is frequently obsessive and/or compulsive in nature and can be somewhat disruptive or annoying to those around him. Common ‘behavioral triggers’ include new or unexpected situations, feeling inadequate or unprepared, or feeling excessive social pressures. Suggested interventions include: 1. Provide acceptable outlets for stress (such as a soft toy or ball to squeeze). 2. Allow frequent breaks or 'time-outs' when he chooses. 3. Encourage him to share his feelings of anxiety with others. 4. Avoid placing him in potentially stressful situations.

Self Indulgence (clinically significant) - tussive's behavior may allow him to do as he pleases with little regard for the needs or desires of others. This can cause friction and relationship difficulties with both peers and adults. Typical behaviors such as task avoidance, delinquency, and defiance may occur when tussive is asked to do something which he finds difficult or unpleasant. Common ‘behavioral triggers’ include being asked to do something difficult or unpleasant, rigid external expectations, or perceived lack of freedom. Suggested interventions include: 1. Offer several acceptable choices rather than a single demand or expectation. 2. Help him to find the relevance in a given task or assignment (i.e. why should this matter to him?). 3. Develop a behavioral contract with mutually identified expectations, consequences, and rewards. 4. Help him to understand how his behavior impacts others.

Defensive Reaction (at risk) - tussive's behavior may be related to a need to defend himself from a perceived threat, challenge, or rejection which may or may not have been intended. Typical behaviors of this nature include verbal or physical aggression and/or abrupt social withdrawal. This behavior can be the result of a somewhat paranoid perception of social situations and is often viewed by others as an unexpected overreaction to harmless teasing, meaningless comments, etc. Common ‘behavioral triggers’ include feeling challenged, teased, criticized, or potentially embarrassed. Suggested interventions include: 1. Help him to more accurately perceive social situations. 2. Help him to feel safe, accepted, and supported. 3. Intervene quickly when it appears he may feel criticized or potentially embarrassed. 4. Temper any potentially critical remarks in order to avoid a possible overreaction.

Power/Control (at risk) - tussive's behavior may be intended to challenge authority and/or assert control over his own life or those around him. This can be related to feelings that others have been overly controlling or unfairly punitive. Typical behaviors may include task avoidance, delinquency, aggression, and/or defiance. Common ‘behavioral triggers’ include being told to do something undesirable, rigid external expectations, or a perception that rules/consequences are unfair. Suggested interventions include: 1. Choose your battles carefully - don't engage in power struggles over insignificant issues. 2. Don't back down on important issues. 3. Respect his need to make many of his own choices. 4. Allow him to experience the “natural consequences” of his choices and learn from his mistakes.

This mental health screening is based upon current DSM criteria and is intended to help clarify or identify areas of potential mental health concern. Formal evaluation by a competent mental health professional should be considered whenever there are mental health concerns. Based upon this Self rating the following 'at risk' or 'clinically significant' mental health concerns are suggested:

ADHD Inattentive (clinically significant) - tussive appears to display characteristics of an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - inattentive type. Such characteristics may include difficulty focusing on or maintaining attention to tasks, difficulty with organization, carelessness, etc. ADHD requires a medical diagnosis (from a physician or psychiatrist) and can be treated through a variety of behavior management and/or medical interventions. ADHD may add volatility to behavioral actions and/or reactions.

ADHD Hyperactive (clinically significant) - tussive appears to display characteristics of an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - impulsive or hyperactive type. Such characteristics may include being generally 'fidgety', impulsive, active, disruptive, etc. ADHD requires a medical diagnosis (from a physician or psychiatrist) and can be treated through a variety of behavior management and/or medical interventions. ADHD may add significantly to the volatility of behavioral actions and/or reactions.

Conduct Disorder (clinically significant) - tussive appears to display characteristics of a conduct disorder. Such characteristics may include a combination of aggression, destruction of property, deceitfulness, and serious violation of rules. A conduct disorder is a very serious mental health condition which typically requires extensive behavior management, therapeutic, and sometimes legal/correctional intervention.

Depressive Disorder (clinically significant) - tussive appears to display characteristics of depression. Such characteristics may include generalized sadness, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, lack of energy, sleep disturbance, significant weight loss or gain, thoughts of death or suicide, and a general loss of interest in most daily activity. Depression can be effectively treated through therapeutic and/or medical intervention.

Anxiety Disorder (clinically significant) - tussive appears to display characteristics of an anxiety disorder. Such characteristics may include generalized tension, irritability, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbance, lack of energy, etc. Anxiety disorders can be effectively treated through therapeutic and/or medical intervention.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (clinically significant) - tussive appears to display characteristics of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Such characteristics may include inflexibility (needing to do things in a certain way), difficulty getting his mind off of certain thoughts or mental images, a need to perform certain actions over and over to relieve stress, etc. An obsessive-compulsive disorder can be effectively treated through therapeutic and/or medical intervention.

Thought Disorder (clinically significant) - tussive appears to display characteristics of a thought disorder. Such characteristics may include delusions, hallucinations, extremely unusual or unpredictable behavior, and/or generalized lack of emotional response. A thought disorder is a very serious mental health condition typically requiring extensive therapeutic and medical intervention.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (clinically significant) - tussive appears to display characteristics of an autism spectrum disorder. Such characteristics include qualitative impairment in social interaction along with impaired communication and/or restricted, repetitive, or stereo-typed patterns of behavior or interest. Although traditional emotional/behavioral strategies can be effective, individuals with ASD typically require very concrete and structured interventions focused on developing more effective communication of feelings along with appropriate social interaction. Medical intervention can also be helpful.

Cautionary note: ASD concern may be triggered by heightened social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, or an excessively independent personality.

[whydoyouthinkileft]

 I made a post in January about how I basically write Jemma in the autistic spectrum even if not officially (I’m still researching) but because the list was very long and I bolded the traits she had, I want to put here the list of only those traits as reference - the full post is here, I kept all the traits there in case people were curious like me, though it’s not meant for self-diagnosis  (then again, I don’t know why I’m so hesitant with writing about it officially - even if it’s not canon, there is nothing wrong with more representation of all kinds.)

under the cut because it’s too long this mostly refers to the way I write her... but there is a lot of canon Jemma too

May be difficult to understand subtle emotions (unless she’s explained why someone is acting the way he is)

Finds difficult managing emotions (the entirety of season 2)

May not be able to tell when someone is flirting with her (or in love, unless the flirting is openly sexual and cannot be confused with friendliness)

Great difficulty and very sensitive to conflict, stress, arguments, fighting, wars, gossip and negativity

May find it challenging to understand what others expect of her (when they don’t directly tell her like they do at work)

Understanding boundaries (usually more when she was younger)

Tend to have high average to genius intelligence

Superior long-term memory

Often have a rigid negative thinking, inflexible black or white thinking style or rigidity of thinking (when it comes to Ward ‘some people are just evil’ and specifically of my Jemma: Fitz and Daisy being just ‘good’, no flaws)

Often drawn to the helping, artistic or animal professions, and often an “expert” in her chosen field (she ended up being mostly a doctor, but also expert in biochemistry)

Hard-working conscientious worker

May get stressed if have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time

Tries very hard to avoid making mistakes, forgetting things

Tries hard to please others

Preference for one-on-one social interactions, single close friendships

Strong preference to engage in conversation related to their special interest

A history of being bullied, teased, left out and/or not fitting in with same-age peers, unless she had/has similar “Aspie” friends (Fitz was her first real friend) 

An intense dislike of lies, but may lie herself

Experience great difficulty with conflict, arguments, being yelled at

Has great difficulty asserting herself (only on occasion so it doesn’t count) asking for help

May currently have or have experienced Post-Traumatic Stress, often due to being misunderstood, misdiagnosed, mistreated, and/or mismedicated.

Often does not know how to act in social situations

Often prefers to be engaged in her special interest, rather than socializing

May be considered the “black sheep” of the family

Others consider her different, odd, eccentric or “weird” by others

May feel like she has to act “normal” to please others OR does not care at all about fitting in (both depending on the situation, but sometimes she just doesn’t realize she’s being inappropriate) 

A people pleaser, but then may burn bridges suddenly (for e.g., quit relationships), as they have difficulty managing conflict

Females appear to be better than males at masking the traits of autism in social situations. However, girls are less able to do so in unfamiliar settings (she was even more ‘odd’ in Hydra, when asking the coworker she barely knew to go karaoke with her and insisted too) 

Difficulties communicating her thoughts and feelings, in words, to others, especially if anxious, stressed or upset. Often can type or write her thoughts much better

May dislike asking others for help, be unable to ask or not know how to ask for help

May be passive, not know how to assert her boundaries in a healthy manner (season 2 again)

May offend others by saying what she is thinking, even if she does not mean to

May point out other people’s mistakes

missing what people are trying to say 

Often surprised when people tell her she has been rude or inappropriate

has a high pain threshold

May be overwhelmed or stressed by bright lights, coarse textures/clothing (specifically my Jemma wants very soft clothing) 

May have to withdraw, isolate herself when overwhelmed by her senses

Things that should feel painful may not be (bruises but not know how they got there, due to clumsiness) 

Recent brain scanning research points towards enlarged Amygdala’s role in intense emotions, anxiety and anger (her anger and anxiety are more often than not extreme)

May have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or traits (in her case traits)

May fidget or other movements with hands, twirl hair, stroke soft fabric to self-soothe (usually plays with sleeves or opens and closes fists or touches her neck and forehead)  

May be very sensitive to medications, caffeine (in my Jemma’s case caffeine specifically)

May have sleep difficulties

May have a special interest in fashion and femininity

She loves quiet, solitude, peaceful surroundings

May have a strong preference for routine and things being the same day after day

Gets pleasure from being engaged in her chosen work and/or special interests

She may make it a high priority to arrange her life, events, work, and environment to avoid overwhelming, stressful or upsetting situations

May be ‘hypersexual”, fascinated by physical sexual contact (she really enjoys it too, though sometimes has difficulties connecting any emotion to it unless the emotion was present before)

A special interest may involve the person’s career

Ability to “hyperfocus” for long periods of time involved in the special interest, without eating, drinking or going to the toilet, is able to hyperfocus on her special interest for hours, often losing track of time

An intense love for nature and animals

Often not interested in what other people find interesting

Introspection and self-awareness. Many women spend years trying to understand themselves, reading self-help and psychology books and wonder why they feel so different, from another planet or that the “Mothership has dropped me off on the wrong planet”.

Feels things deeply

Other people’s moods affect her, especially if they are negative

Tends to be very sensitive to emotional pain

Deeply moved by arts, music, certain movies

Difficulty regulating emotions and managing stress

Experiences intense emotions of all kinds (for e.g. when she falls in love, she ‘falls’ in love deeply)

May think she is being compassionate, but her actions may not come across that way

Often too sensitive

A natural born leader, independent, strong-willed, determined and can be highly competitive (even with herself)

Has a high sense of justice and fairness, is a truth-seeker

Highly creative and may have ‘rushes’ of original ideas

Highly sensitive to criticism or perceived criticism

May have been told she cares to much, does too much for others and/or is too sensitive (when people keep a close eye on her or speak to her, otherwise she comes off as cold)

Is perfectionistic 

Attention to detail

Obsessions/special interests can be long-term (can make a great career)

A strong sense of feeling different from her peers, often described as being from a different planet

Is intense in everything she does

May have a history of crying a lot, without knowing why

May have tried a variety of medications,

A history of depression, anxiety, eating disorders (not unless you count forgetting to eat or lack of appetite when upset), mood swings

May have developed a variety of dysfunctional coping mechanisms; for example, arrogance

Withdrawal and/or Avoidance

May “know” or have knowledge of certain things, but no idea how she knows

Autodictic – teaches herself

Intelligence, craves knowledge and loves learning

Can teach herself just about anything she puts her mind too

Has a strong will, is determined and independent

Have a remarkable long-term memory, photographic memory

Can work very well in a “crisis” situation

Deeply reflective thinker

Resilience, an ability to go from one crisis to another, to bounce back, to start again time and time again

Great in one-on-one situations or presenting to a group

May be gifted with art (singing)

May have a lack of cognitive empathy and hyperempathy for e.g., too much affective or sympathetic empathy

Compassionate Empathy, or “empathic concern”. This kind of empathy helps us to understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, and also be spontaneously moved to help them, if and when other need help. 

May have an intense desire to please others and/ be liked by others. 

May become highly distressed if she has the perception that someone does not like her or actually does not like her.

May have tocophobia, the fear of childbirth 

Photographic visual memory (generally able to recall what she has seen to details, and also to repeat actions she has seen even when they involve other fields - can recreate some of Fitz’s and Daisy’s works) 

[insession-io]

The 6 Types of Basic Emotions and Their Effect on Human Behavior

There are many different types of emotions that have an influence on how we live and interact with others. At times, it may seem like we are ruled by these emotions. The choices we make, the actions we take, and the perceptions we have are all influenced by the emotions we are experiencing at any given moment.

Psychologists have also tried to identify the different types of emotions that people experience. A few different theories have emerged to categorize and explain the emotions that people feel.

Basic Emotions: During the 1970s, psychologist Paul Eckman identified six basic emotions that he suggested were universally experienced in all human cultures. The emotions he identified were happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger. He later expanded his list of basic emotions to include such things as pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement.

Combining Emotions: Psychologist Robert Plutchik put forth a "wheel of emotions" that worked something like the color wheel. Emotions can be combined to form different feelings, much like colors can be mixed to create other shades. According to this theory, the more basic emotions act something like building blocks. More complex, sometimes mixed emotions, are blendings of these more basic ones. For example, basic emotions such as joy and trust can be combined to create love.

A much more recent study suggests that there are far more basic emotions than previously believed. In the study published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, researchers identified 27 different categories of emotion. Rather than being entirely distinct, however, the researchers found that people experience these emotions along a gradient.

Let's take a closer look at some of the basic types of emotions and explore the impact they have on human behavior.

Happiness

Of all the different types of emotions, happiness tends to be the one that people strive for the most. Happiness is often defined as a pleasant emotional state that is characterized by feelings of contentment, joy, gratification, satisfaction, and well-being. Research on happiness has increased significantly since the 1960s within a number of disciplines, including the branch of psychology known as positive psychology.

This type of emotion is sometimes expressed through:

Facial expressions such as smiling Body language such as a relaxed stance An upbeat, pleasant tone of voice

While happiness is considered one of the basic human emotions, the things we think will create happiness tend to be heavily influenced by culture. For example, pop culture influences tend to emphasize that attaining certain things such as buying a home or having a high-paying job will result in happiness. The realities of what actually contributes to happiness are often much more complex and more highly individualized.

People have long believed that happiness and health were connected, and research has supported the idea that happiness can play a role in both physical and mental health. Happiness has been linked to a variety of outcomes including increased longevity and increased marital satisfaction.

Conversely, unhappiness has been linked to a variety of poor health outcomes. Stress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness, for example, have been linked to things such as lowered immunity, increased inflammation, and decreased life expectancy.

Sadness

Sadness is another type of emotion often defined as a transient emotional state characterized by feelings of disappointment, grief, hopelessness, disinterest, and dampened mood.

Like other emotions, sadness is something that all people experience from time to time. In some cases, people can experience prolonged and severe periods of sadness that can turn into depression.

Sadness can be expressed in a number of ways including:

Dampened mood Quietness Lethargy Withdrawal from others Crying

The type and severity of sadness can vary depending upon the root cause, and how people cope with such feelings can also differ. Sadness can often lead people to engage in coping mechanisms such as avoiding other people, self-medicating, and ruminating on negative thoughts. Such behaviors can actually exacerbate feelings of sadness and prolong the duration of the emotion.

Fear

Fear is a powerful emotion that can also play an important role in survival. When you face some sort of danger and experience fear, you go through what is known as the fight or flight response. Your muscles become tense, your heart rate and respiration increase, and your mind becomes more alert, priming your body to either run from the danger or stand and fight. This response helps ensure that you are prepared to effectively deal with threats in your environment.

Expressions of this type of emotion can include:

Facial expressions such as widening the eyes and pulling back the chin Attempts to hide or flea from the threat Physiological reactions such as rapid breathing and heartbeat Of course, not everyone experiences fear in the same way. Some people may be more sensitive to fear and certain situations or objects may be more likely to trigger this emotion.

Fear is the emotional response to an immediate threat. We can also develop a similar reaction to anticipated threats or even our thoughts about potential dangers, and this is what we generally think of as anxiety. Social anxiety, for example, involves an anticipated fear of social situations.

Some people, on the other hand, actually seek out fear-provoking situations. Extreme sports and other thrills can be fear-inducing, but some people seem to thrive and even enjoy such feelings.

Repeated exposure to a fear object or situation can lead to familiarity and acclimation, which can reduce feelings of fear and anxiety. This is the idea behind exposure therapy, in which people are gradually exposed to the things that frighten them in a controlled and safe manner. Eventually, feelings of fear begin to decrease.

Disgust

Disgust is another of the original six basic emotions described by Eckman.

Disgust can be displayed in a number of ways including:

Turning away from the object of disgust Physical reactions such as vomiting or retching Facial expressions such as wrinkling the nose and curling the upper lip

This sense of revulsion can originate from a number of things, including an unpleasant taste, sight, or smell. Researchers believe that this emotion evolved as a reaction to foods that might be harmful or fatal. When people smell or taste foods that have gone bad, for example, disgust is a typical reaction.

Poor hygiene, infection, blood, rot, and death can also trigger a disgust response. This may be the body's way of avoiding things that may carry transmittable diseases. People can also experience moral disgust when they observe others engaging in behaviors that they find distasteful, immoral, or evil.

Anger

Anger can be a particularly powerful emotion characterized by feelings of hostility, agitation, frustration, and antagonism towards others. Like fear, anger can play a part in your body's fight or flight response. When a threat generates feelings of anger, you may be inclined to fend off the danger and protect yourself.

Anger is often displayed through:

Facial expressions such as frowning or glaring Body language such as taking a strong stance or turning away from someone Tone of voice such as speaking gruffly or yelling Physiological responses such as sweating or turning red Aggressive behaviors such as hitting, kicking, or throwing objects

While anger is often thought of as a negative emotion, it can sometimes be a good thing. It can be constructive in helping clarify your needs in a relationship, and it can also motivate you to take action and find solutions to things that are bothering you.

Anger can become a problem, however, when it is excessive or expressed in ways that are unhealthy, dangerous, or harmful to others. Uncontrolled anger can quickly turn to aggression, abuse, or violence.

This type of emotion can have both mental and physical consequences. Unchecked anger can make it difficult to make rational decisions and can even have an impact on your physical health.

Anger has been linked to coronary heart diseases and diabetes. It has also been linked to behaviors that pose health risks such as aggressive driving, alcohol consumption, and smoking.  

Surprise

Surprise is another one of the six basic types of human emotions originally described by Eckman. Surprise is usually quite brief and is characterized by a physiological startle response following something unexpected.

This type of emotion can be positive, negative, or neutral. An unpleasant surprise, for example, might involve someone jumping out from behind a tree and scaring you as you walk to your car at night. An example of a pleasant surprise would be arriving home to find that your closest friends have gathered to celebrate your birthday.

Surprise is often characterized by:

Facial expressions such as raising the brows, widening the eyes, and opening the mouth Physical responses such as jumping back Verbal reactions such as yelling, screaming, or gasping

Surprise is another type of emotion that can trigger the fight or flight response. When startled, people may experience a burst of adrenaline that helps prepare the body to either fight or flee.

Surprise can have important effects on human behavior. For example, research has shown that people tend to disproportionately notice surprising events. This is why surprising and unusual events in the news tend to stand out in memory more than others. Research has also found that people tend to be more swayed by surprising arguments and learn more from surprising information.

Other Types of Emotions

The six basic emotions described by Eckman are just a portion of the many different types of emotions that people are capable of experiencing. Eckman's theory suggests that these core emotions are universal throughout cultures all over the world. However, other theories and new research continue to explore the many different types of emotions and how they are classified.

Eckman later added a number of other emotions to his list but suggested that unlike his original six emotions, not all of these could necessarily be encoded through facial expressions. Some of the emotions he later identified included:

Amusement Contentment Excitement Contempt Embarrassment Relief Pride in achievement Guilt Satisfaction Shame

Other Theories of Emotion

As with many concepts in psychology, not all theorists agree on how to classify emotions or what the basic emotions actually are. While Eckman's theory is one of the best known, other theorists have proposed their own ideas about what emotions make up the core of the human experience.

For example, some researchers have suggested that there are only two or three basic emotions. Others have suggested that emotions exist in something of a hierarchy. Primary emotions such as love, joy, surprise, anger, and sadness can then be further broken down into secondary emotions. Love, for example, consists of secondary emotions such as affection and longing.

These secondary emotions might then be broken down still further into what are known as tertiary emotions. The secondary emotion of affection includes tertiary emotions such as liking, caring, compassion, and tenderness.

A more recent study suggests that there are at least 27 distinct emotions, all of which are highly interconnected. After analyzing the responses of more than 800 men to more than 2,000 video clips, researchers created an interactive map to demonstrate how these emotions are related to one another.

“We found that 27 distinct dimensions, not six, were necessary to account for the way hundreds of people reliably reported feeling in response to each video,” explained the senior researcher Dacher Keltner, faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center.

In other words, emotions are not states that occur in isolation. Instead, the study suggests that there are gradients of emotion and that these different feelings are deeply inter-related.

Alan Cowen, the study's lead author and doctoral student in neuroscience at UC Berkeley suggest that better clarifying the nature of our emotions can play an important role in helping scientists, psychologists, and physicians learn more about how emotions underlie brain activity, behavior, and mood. By building a better understanding of these states, he hopes that researchers can develop improved treatments for psychiatric conditions.

Emotions play a critical role in how we live our lives, from influencing how we engage with others in our day to day lives to affecting the decisions we make. By understanding some of the different types of emotions, you can gain a deeper understanding of how these emotions are expressed and the impact they have on your behavior.

It is important to remember, however, that no emotion is an island. Instead, the many emotions you experience are nuanced and complex, working together to create the rich and varied fabric of your emotional life.

Article Sources: Cowen, AS & Keltner, D. Self-report captures 27 distinct categories of emotion bridged by continuous gradients. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. 2017.

Mellers, B, Fincher, K, Drummond, C, Bigony, M. Surprise: A belief or an emotion?  In V.S. Chandrasekhar Pammi and Narayanan Srinivasan (Eds.)., Progress in Brain Research, Vol. 202, Amsterdam: The Netherlands, 2013, pp. 3-19.

Shirai, M & Suzuki, N. Is sadness only one emotion? Psychological and physiological responses to sadnesss induced by two different situations: "Loss of someone" and "failure to achieve a goal." Frontiers in Psychology.

Staicu, ML & Cutov, M. Anger and health risk behaviors. Journal of Medicine and Life. 2010;3(4):372-375.

By Kendra Cherry and Reviewed by a board-certified physician

Dr. Jeffrey Levine - Counseling Hartford - is a Licensed Psychologist with over 40 years of clinical experience. He specializes in treating adults in individual psychotherapy, with expertise in trauma focused hypnosis, energy transformational healing and Internal Family Systems. Therapist serving Hartford - Mansfield - Glastonbury.

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Birth order essay

The splendor of the ances cardinalse b little and its impact on the mortalality of the kid and its upcoming(a).\n\nEs vocalize Questions:\n\n wherefore is the go across secern so grievous for the personality of the plunder bird? What does the fight for precedent has to do with the stemma rank in match slight wedded family? What do Adler and To human say astir(predicate) ancestry breaker demonstrate vastness?\n\nThesis relation:\n\nAdler believed that the dead on tar defend rationality for such(prenominal) eng corroborate along withments amongst blood relatives is the fight for baron: the disposition to take in the moorage, the proneness to be distinct, to be soul, to brook out from the throng of polarwise barbarianren and to stay put the love of the p atomic number 18nts\n\n \n writhe in place essay\n\nTable of circumscribe:\n\n1. Introduction\n\n2. family fix sizeableness\n\n1. First innate(p) s puzzlerren an d tho kidskinren\n\n2. plaza born(p) babyren\n\n3. farthest born pincerren\n\n3. checkmate electric s payrren and other(a) localizes.\n\n4. Girls and son in distinct consanguinity orders.\n\n5. finale\n\nWhatever your family was, you argon.\n\nDr. Kevin Leman\n\n1. Introduction\n\n affinity order is kinda operative in various cultures e real(prenominal) over the world. In slightly cultures the finis preferred blank space was and still is the stain of the first peasant. nigh cultures consider the youngest sm exclusively fry to be the supreme one. It goes without saying that the nascency order has a roundabout to do with the further cordial status of the newborn. The primer coats of this kindly status in spite of appearance and outside the family dedicate a lot of premises. Different lines of own order bring on certain differences surrounded by chel arn belonging to this or that commit. These differences alto scenther rationalise why sibl ings atomic number 18 non a standardised. The frontier siblings is utilize to localize tykeren that were born from the resembling p arnts or in other voice communication small fryren who argon cronys and sisters. The wide spread word-combination sibling rivalry whitethorn be construe as a phenomenon caused directly by the fork up order. Alfred Adler was the front to speak about the meaning of the take order for the future living of a tike and the differences amid the nestlingren in agreement with their stock order. harmonise to the research of Alfred Adler, who was alike the founder of individual psychology and the guerrilla babe in his family1, the wear order of a babe is the presageor of his future characteristics and peculiarities [Adler, 1998]. Adler believed that the true origin for such differences in the midst of siblings is the fight for proponent: the desire to operate the situation, the desire to be different, to be individual, to balk out from the clump of other nestlingren and to thwart the love of the p arnts\n\n2. origin order splendor\n\nAs Walter Toman confirms the patterns of conduct and reactions ar rattling oft define finished their hand over order and at extend on whether the person was the first, shopping center, the youngest or the single peasant in the family [Toman, 1993]. severally baby bird in his organic evolution imitates certain models of behavior. The first-born go out imitate grown-ups, as they his significant belt up persons, who atomic number 18 the save cleaveicipants of his companionable interactions. The plunk for boor lasts an luck to choose whom to imitate. This is mainly due to the situation that the eldest kidren in the family a lot actively take part in the cognitive operation of bringing up young children so can in any fiber occasion a model. These pedigree order bewilders do non simply disassemble brothers and sisters agree to their yr of birth, only predict the further smellstyles of these siblings.\n\n2.a. First-born children and all children\n\nThe first child converts the marriage of deuce good deal into a real family. Ordinarily, the fosters are young and rather inexperienced and almost eons even not gear up for the child. Parents try to dedicate all their free metre to their child and to obtain as many an(prenominal) educational techniques as it is possible, neverthe slight these techniques frequently react separately other and it whitethorn sequel is the continuous anxiety of the child. First-borns are genuinely much over-protected, as their parents build the absolute majority of decisions for them. These children are in truth parent-oriented; they desire to visualize expectations of their parents and stock as microscopical adults. A shopworn situation of the first-born and lone(prenominal) children is when they are in the center of assistance of the adults [Stein, 2003]. As a result they are actually positive(p) and organized. They are unendingly in a withdraw for maternal and social flattery and do everything possible to avoid tough situations. The eldest child substantially takes tariff. The all in all child has a difficulty sacramental manduction anything within his social contacts.\n\nSome children rest the single if ones for their exclusively life, put near of them at a point turn into the eldest child. This order changes well-nigh characteristics, because the birth of another sibling causes trauma for the first-born. The child does not agnize why parents do not digest as oftentimestimes attending at him as they used to do before. beness the first to be born he feels he has the advanced to view all their attention. First-borns are very determined and travel true leaders, as they need to launch the adults that they are the scoop up and the first dumbfound is still afterwards them. The eldest child is much believ ably to follow the family traditions and it more than conservative. If it is a male child, they whitethorn inherit their contracts professions.\n\nThe bother of the eldest child is that originally beness the exactly child in the family he loses all the advantages of this baffle and as Adler tell - power, when the back child is born. So basi distinguishy, the first-born children go through 2 major stages: the child is the scarce one in the family and is in a privileged position, than the morsel child is born and the first-born competes for being mitigate. As the result first-borns are emotionally unstable.\n\n2.b. middle born children\n\nThe middle child in the begging of his life is the second child in the family. For this child at that place is eer somebody beforehand of him. The major final stage of the second-born is to overtake the first-born. It is straightforward that this type of siblings may sop up paradoxs with self-government due to the circumstance that they are at the same time the senior and the younger child. The barely exception is when the middle child is the just now fille or the only male child in the family. In this case they as well as recreate a particular position for their parents. heart children combine the qualities of the eldest and the youngest child in the family. These children often have troubles reclaiming their true place, because adults forget about them, paying redundant attention to the eldest child (the ingenious one) and to the youngest child (the at sea one). midpoint siblings keep an eye on how to outlastly in harmony with everybody, are often friendly, and get hold of friends without difficulties. They do not feel excessively guilty for their failures as the fist-born children do entirely cope good with any loss. Middle children are undetermined of seeing for distri yetively one aspect of live from twain reverse sides, which results from the ability to live between two ot her birth order positions and are great negotiators.\n\n2.c. Last-born children\n\nThe last-born child is cathexisfree, optimistic and ready to taken psyches protection, care and support. Very often he corpse a baby for his family. He does not have to meet the blanket(a)(prenominal) maternal(p) expectations, which the eldest child experiences, because the parents incur less demanding to the childs achievements. He has a lot of batch to support him: his parents and his older brothers or sisters. This majestic support often spoils this sibling. The major problem the youngest child faces is the escape of self-discipline and difficulties in the sphere of decision-making. The last-born child is often manipulative. He may get offended or try to hitch in order to get what he inevitably. Ass these children get plenty of attention they ordinarily do not have troubles in socialization. The last-born child may have enormous ambitions.\n\nThe youngest child has two alternatives of create any dealings with the surrounding enviroment, and curiously with his brothers and sisters. He necessitate either to pee-pee to be a baby his whole life, or find a manner to overtake the other siblings [Sulloway, 1997]. This type of children is unremarkably very severely to understand, as they take care to completely contradict the other children. They are often very creative.\n\nIt is believed that the parents get out have a more consequent come along to the education of their youngest child than to the eldest or the middle child. As a result he becomes emotionally stable. They break rules easily and are often what tidy sum call a heighten. Last-born siblings usually make other people laugh and need to be in the center of attention. They do not feel uncomfortable when people look at them that is why the stage is a complete place for these children.\n\n3.Twin children and other positions.\n\nFor tally the position of the eldest or youngest child are overly very important and guess on the concourse of children they were born in. For instance, check who have an sr. sister or an older brother impart have as the youngest children. If the adults accent that one of the twins was born earlier, than the position of the eldest and the youngest children are divided automatically. correspond usually tend to communicate with apiece other than with other children and are less adult-oriented. They major problem for twins is the individualism problem. Twin children experience difficulties in separating from each other.\n\nThe situation when thither is only one son in the family changes the meaning of the positions, because the boy gets a excess position for being not a fille. In a situation when thither are two girls and one boy in the family. No matter what position the only boy occupies he entrust either unendingly use all possible shipway to prove that he is a man or become effeminate [Leman, 1998]. If there are only boys in the famil y, the youngest one, being a rebel, and essay to be different may also be effeminate. In a situation where there is only one girl among boys in a family the girl gets a lot of protectors. The regular reaction to these positions is either very fair(prenominal) girls or tomboys. If a girl becomes a tomboy she needs to be better than her brothers at to the lowest degree in some activities or corporeal abilities.\n\n4. Girls and boy in different birth orders\n\nThe attitude of the adults towards the provoke of the child is of a great richness. The majority of the families prefer sons. The older sister very often takes responsibility for bringing up younger children and takes a part of parental functions. In such a position if the youngest child is a boy than he is the one to get the glory and high parental expectations. there is also a high chance that the families that have only girls result strain their attempts to give birth to a son, piece of music the families with onl y sons will stop at a less amount of children.\n\nA very significant factor to point of reference is that if the age difference between the children, no matter what wind they are, is more than sextuplet years, each of the children will have the propertys of the only child and some characteristics of the positions he is close to. For instance, the brother that is ten years elder than his little sister will probably remain the only child but will also have the trait of the first-born child. The more the age difference among the siblings is the less is the probability that they will compete.\n\n5. Conclusion\n\nEach child in any family penury to ensure his individuality, sate his own place, a place that is intentional for him only. Each child needs to emphasize that his is unequaled and there is nobody else like him. This is the main reason why birth order has such a macroscopic importance it explains why children are the milk whey they are according to what they have to d efeat to prove that they are unique. So if a senior child who is serious and responsible for(p) will be set as an example for the younger one, then the younger child at least from the desire to be different will become noisy, restless and naughty. The birth order does psychologically influence the child. The literary works on this effect is wide but it all claims the importance of the birth order for the further life of the child.\n\nAlfred Adler was definitely remediate to say that the desire to be unique is the major lead story force for children in the family. So parent would be more democratic and let the children be successful in different fields so they do not compete.\n\nIt goes without saying that these birth order regularities are not fatal, but only point out some trends of development of the children depending on their order of birth. well-educated these tendencies will aid adults to avoid a lot of inapplicable consequences to which the mentioned above roles of th e children in the family may lead.\n\n1 Alfred Adler is the author of the lower rank complex.If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Looking for a place to buy a cheap paper online? Buy Paper Cheap - Premium quality cheap essays and affordable papers online. Buy cheap, high quality papers to impress your professors and pass your exams. Do it online right now! '

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Interview with Professor Emeritus Joan Meyers-Levy (Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota) on Disability, Accessibility, and Marketing

1. What is a disability? How do you understand the term? What experiences guide your definition and understanding the most?

 According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a disability refers to a “physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity.” The ADA also includes in its definition people who do not actually have a disability but are merely perceived as having one, and those who have a history of a disability yet do not currently have one.

The quoted part of the preceding definition fits my immediate understanding of what a disability is. While the latter two conditions have not been part of my definition, I can see that they may be valid, particularly given that stigmas are often ascribed to people with disabilities. Hence, a person who is merely perceived to be disabled could be thought of as actually having a disability, and this is especially true if others stigmatize the person in question because of his or her perceived disability. The same logic holds for people who were previously but are not currently disabled. This is especially the case given the enduring nature of stigmas.  

As a professor, some experiences that have influenced my understanding of what disabilities are include instances where I’ve taught, interacted with, and made special accommodations for students who had, say, learning disabilities, ADHD, were deaf, or had impaired eye sight. On a much more personal level, my understanding of disabilities has been very strongly shaped by growing up with a younger brother who was intellectually disabled, or, using a more common term at that time, he was severely mentally retarded. I was extremely close with my brother, Sammy, who was brain damaged at birth due to actions taken by medical practitioners, which ended up cutting off oxygen to Sammy’s brain and thus accidentally caused his disability. Sammy was an extremely affectionate, caring, and happy person both as a child and an adult, and our relationship could not have been closer. He was able to communicate using single words and short phrases, however his impaired articulation made it difficult for strangers to understand him. He also was subject to convulsions, which doctors tried to control through medication, but the seizures occurred without warning throughout his life. In addition to spending a lot of time playing with, loving, and taking care of Sammy when we were children, after much practice, I taught Sammy to write his and my name, and I taught him the names of a great many objects that he could then recognize and use to better communicate. Here’s a picture of some members of our family, with Sammy at the far right.

From left to right: Joan Meyers-Levy, Dustin Meyers-Levy, David Meyers, and Sammy Meyers

 2. What do you think you've learned from your experiences with disability that other people don't know?

 I gained a wealth of knowledge and insights from having a brother like Sammy. At the time he was born, there was an enormous stigma associated with mental retardation. Doctors and professionals typically advised parents who had children with intellectual disabilities to immediately send them away to live in an institution and forever forget about them. Parents who gave birth to such children were racked with shame, often believing their disabled child was a curse from God, and they never spoke of their child, as the entire issue was stigmatized. Professionals tended to regard intellectually disabled children as destined to be “vegetables” for life and incapable of having any kind of real life. In some instances, doctors actually offered parents the option of quietly killing their child at the time he or she was born, presumably because they viewed such action as being the best for everyone involved.

 I am very grateful that my family had a much more enlightened attitude about disabilities. My parents vowed that Sammy would live at home with the rest of our family. Although we lived in a remote, small town where there were virtually no schools or services to help mentally disabled children or support their families, my family was committed to do whatever they could and to handle the challenges that lie ahead as best as they could. Sammy was regarded as a full member of our family, and we all would love and care for each other as families do.  At the same time, my family wasn’t fully enlightened in all respects. They never really explained Sammy’s disabilities to me or helped me cope with the social challenges and stigma linked to Sammy. I was left in the dark about such issues, which created its own problems. Of course I saw that Sammy wasn’t normal when it came to intellectual matters such as learning basic skills like talking or learning that it was unsafe to run into the street or run off alone far from home. I was extremely close with Sammy and loved him dearly, but I also sensed that others would not understand or accept Sammy, and thus as his sister, I too might be stigmatized. So as I grew up, despite loving Sammy greatly, I was very embarrassed by him, never spoke about or acknowledged him to my friends, and as best I could, I shielded my friends from even knowing I had a brother like Sammy. Although I shouldered this embarrassment and sense of shame throughout my childhood, when I became a young adult, I came to recognize that having Sammy in my life in so many ways was a blessing that enriched my life immeasurably, gave me insight and compassion that most others lacked, and even helped me to be normal. Our mother died of cancer when Sammy and I were still children. Given her absence, I now realize that the love, strong bond, and affection Sammy and I gave each other helped to actually normalize both of our lives. Further, even though I knew that everyone outside of my immediate family regarded Sammy and others like him as having no value, worth, or reason for existing, I came to understand that the intellectually disabled possess every bit as much value as any nondisabled person—perhaps even more. The mentally disabled are generally as loving, kind, and good hearted as a nondisabled person can be, and thus they are able to teach nondisabled individuals important lessons about what really matters in life and what truly gives a person value. That value need not come from intellectual abilities or accomplishments; instead, it’s a person’s spirit, kindness, and love that matters most, and Sammy possessed those qualities in massive amounts. I also have come to view people like Sammy as having certain advantages over nondisabled people. While the nondisabled are burdened with all sorts of social rules and norms that often cause us fretful self-consciousness and anxiety (e.g., we fret about what others will think about us), intellectually disabled people are free of these concerns and thus they can enjoy life more in some ways. They behave and emote in ways that are authentic. They have no need to impress nor intimidate others, and they don’t filter their language or emotions. Instead, if they feel like singing or dancing, they do so without self-consciousness, even if the timing or the manner of their actions may seem inappropriate or “uncool” to others. In short, they are free to be genuine--to be themselves. What you see is who they really are, which I believe in many cases is far more beautiful, life-affirming, and life-enriching than what I observe from nondisabled people.  

 3. We've spent time talking about cancer as a disability. Do you think it would be accurate to describe cancer in that way?

 As one who has had and still has cancer, I never thought of it as a disability. However, as I think about the issue now, I believe that it could be considered one. In fact, that perception seems to align with the definition of a disability offered by the ADA, namely the part that I see as addressing the stigmatizing aspects of disabilities. Let me explain why I now think cancer may be a disability.

 I was first diagnosed and treated for cancer when I was just in my 30s. At that time, I was becoming successful and well known in my field (i.e., a young professor and rising star researcher in consumer psychology/marketing). I was confronting a very high probability that I would not live much longer (i.e., statistically the odds were not at all in my favor, plus my mother died of the same type of cancer when she was in her 30s). Yet, in addition to this very real concern, I also was very disturbed and felt victimized a second time by the stigma associated with cancer. Word spread quickly among people in my field that I had cancer, and I sensed that the first mental association everyone had to me or even my name was stigmatizing: I was viewed as a pitiful dying cancer victim. After enduring a long recovery from surgery and the debilitating treatments I went through, when I went back to work I could see that association in everybody’s faces when they saw me, greeted me, or just heard my name. People’s otherwise superficial greeting of “How are you?” took on a totally different meaning. I felt pity in their faces and their speech intonation, as they viewed me only as someone who was dying. Clearly that was not at all the way I wished to be thought of, nor was it a sentiment that I wanted to be around during whatever time I had left. It distressed me greatly and I tried to withdraw and avoid it. I felt that the grievous pathetic stigma would forever taint me, and the truth is that I continued to feel it for a long time after this episode.  

 4. In what ways do marketers and advertisers consider disability explicitly when designing advertisements? In what situations do they not? What might make it profitable to consider disability in some instances, but not others?

 The initial step in developing a marketing plan for any product is for marketers or advertisers to decide who their target consumer is. The determination of the target consumer will heavily and explicitly influence the design of ads. Yet, unless the product or service to be marketed is intended to directly address a need of people with some disability (e.g., incontinence, hearing loss, learning disabilities), it’s rare that disabilities or people who have them will be considered. In some instances, the target consumer may be associated with a disabled group of consumers. For example, if the target consumer is senior citizens, certain disabilities that are common among older people in this group may come to marketers’ minds (e.g., hearing loss, poor eyesight, mobility difficulties, memory problems) and these may influence the design of and portrayal of individuals featured in the advertising, though too often, this involves perpetuating harmful or insulting stereotypes.  

 It could be profitable for marketers and advertisers to consider disabilities if certain disabilities are likely to impinge on or influence the use of the advertised product among a substantial number of consumers who comprise the target are also disabled.  In other words, to be financially profitable, two criteria must be met: (a) the disability must be likely to influence (e.g., impede) the adoption or use of the general type of product or service among a portion of consumers who are in the target segment, but some accommodation must be made in the advertised good or service to address this (e.g., the advertised product, its packaging, or accessing the product/service has been made more user friendly for consumers with one or more disabilities), and (b) the proportion of consumers within the targeted segment who possess the disability must be substantial.  If these two conditions are met, it is likely to be profitable to design advertising that targets and speaks to consumers who have a disability. A second instance in which I believe it could be profitable for marketers to consider disabilities is if acknowledging or featuring disabled people in the company’s advertising could generate significant good will among the target or other potential consumers, and this in turn could foster positive public relations and/or positive consumer feelings that translate into enhanced product sales.  Carter’s clothing company (owned by OshKosh B’Gosh) recently followed this second approach or logic when it featured an adorable Down’s Syndrome child in its advertising (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzwWssGwliE).

 5. What do you think it might mean to design an advertisement with accessibility for persons with disabilities in mind? What might that look like?

 There are numerous ways in which marketers might designs ads with accessibility for persons with disabilities in mind. One rather literal way would be to simply place ads of potential relevance to disabled persons in media that are likely to reach (e.g., be seen or heard by) them and/or their caregivers. This not only acknowledges and potentially benefits disabled consumers by offering them solutions to their normal human or special needs, but it also simply makes good business sense. Another approach would be to advertise aspects of products, services, or product packaging that has been developed or redesigned to make the goods more functional, usable, effective, and/or convenient to use by persons with disabilities. This could entail advertising specialized products whose major or sole purpose is to address the needs of people with specific disabilities (e.g., stair lift chairs), or it could entail promoting redesigned features/packaging of widely used, everyday products that enable easier access or use by people with certain disabilities (e.g., jars that can be opened without muscle power or package labels/instructions in extra large type). A third approach could be to create ads that depict persons with disabilities and thereby more realistically reflect the many types of people who use and benefit from the product (e.g., as in the Carter’s clothing ad mentioned earlier). Such ads could focus exclusively on one or more disabled persons or they could depict a mix of nondisabled and disabled individuals. A fourth approach is possible too, but here the marketer’s goals would need to extend beyond the typical goals of satisfying consumers’ consumption-related needs and doing this profitably. The additional goal would be to try to empower, destigmatize, and thereby normalize people’s understanding of disabled consumers by depicting them as vibrant, relatable, spirited, and highly approachable people who demonstrably contribute something of value to society. I suppose the motivation for a company to care about and take on this added goal would be partly altruistic (i.e., helping the community of disabled people), partly to benefit and educate society, but also it would be a means of creating good will that could benefit the company’s or brand’s image and potentially deliver dividends (e.g., profits) to the company in the long term.  

[divinelydivorced]

Anchors, Islands, and Waves

A plethora of self-help books have been occupying my free time as of late.  Especially when a new dilemma arises, my natural tendency is to turn towards knowledge for answers.   Like many of my female friends, within me exists the need to overanalyze everything so as to find closure and avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Yes, I realize this can lead to an unhealthy obsession and, yes, I know simply accepting the events of life as is and moving forward is a far more valuable way to spend my time.  But we all have coping mechanisms.   So, take the cookie out of your own mouth, so to speak, and let me do my thing.  

Although I’ve been reading a wide array of self-help books, including those on healthy eating, meditation, mindfulness, starting a business, and more, my latest read is entitled “Wired for Dating,” by Stan Tatkin. Actually, this is the abbreviated title, created to be eye-catching.  The full-length title is “Wired for Dating: How Understanding Neurobiology and Attachment Style Can Help You Find Your Ideal Mate.”  The first part is of little interest as the dating world simply isn’t appealing to me right now.  Maybe a “quick fix” to keep the dating part of my brain stimulated, but I’ll pass on engaging in the search for a serious life partner.

What did stand out to me, though, was the neurobiology and attachment style assessment of the book.  I want to find out why I am the way I am in relationships and better understand where my potential romantic partners are coming from too.  In fact, this may offer the much-needed closure I’ve longed for with several past relationships.  This book is dry and the audio version is quite “corny,” as my mom would say.  At times, I found myself giggling or rolling my eyes with the bad puns or over the top analogies.  But once I got past judging the book, I was quickly hit with a dose of reality.  This isn’t a book your girlfriend gives you to clue you in to the fact that “he’s just not that into you.”  Nor is it a book on how to get over the jerk who broke your heart or how to find your inner goddess.  Nope. This book is composed of science, data, and hard cold facts that opened my eyes quick and fast.  

Dr. Tatkin starts by explaining people fall into one of three dating categories which he refers to as anchors, islands, and waves. What is most fascinating is a person’s category is determined by their childhood, how they were raised, who they were raised by, and the environment they were raised within.  In fact, he provides a series of questions to help determine which category you or your partner fall into.  If this fascinates you, I highly recommend you get the book from your local library or download an audio version.  There’s a wealth of information I won’t get into, but trust me, you can’t go wrong by reading it yourself.  It reminds me of the science version of “The Five Love Languages.” Essentially here is the breakdown:

Anchors are, just like the object, strong and firmly planted.  Their childhood provided the perfect balance of dependence and independence.  There was never avoidance or dismissal of emotions, but rather, emotions were openly discussed.  As a result, anchors as adults have a strong foundation to build upon. They do well at their jobs, get along with others, and are satisfied with an equal balance of alone time and social situations.  Their motto is: “Two is better than one.”  They recognize the value in having a relationship and are able to form healthy attachments.

Some of their characteristics include being affectionate, emotionally and physically engaging, unafraid to be themselves, not afraid of abandonment or engulfment, resilient, and possess a wealth of internal resources.  Their strength comes from the ability to depend on another person.  

This is when I let out a loud sigh, acknowledging I was not an anchor.  But then I started wondering if I knew any anchors as Statkin makes them sound flawless. It was at this point in the audiobook, as if reading my mind, when he quickly said, “This is not to mean anchors are perfect.”  He went on to simply state they also have flaws like anyone else, but their flaws are an easy trade for their ability to love and be loved and the security they bring to the relationship.

Next came islands.  As a child, at least one of their caregivers was less affectionate and/or aloof.  Appearance and performance were most valued over emotions.  They were not a “touchy feely” family, and in fact, emotions were often restricted.  Children were taught to be independent at an early age, causing them to be not very emotionally or physically expressive nor outwardly needy.  As a result, they like to play alone and appear well adjusted, when really, they are quite fragile on the inside and unsure how to deal with internal thoughts, experiences, and emotions.  They exist too much in their own world, making it difficult to bond with others.  As adults, they truly wish to find and be in a happy, satisfying, romantic relationship but are unsure of their ability to do so.  In fact, they often qualify themselves as being “bad” at relationships.

Some characteristics of an island include being detail oriented, logical, rational, and valuing performance.  They care what others think of them and strive to be seen as easy going.  They loathe conflict and will often compromise in order to avoid a problem. Independence is their highest value and they proudly boast about their ability to problem solve on their own. They focus on the positive, always dismissing any negative memories or thoughts.  They are great at handling alone time-never feeling abandoned.  In fact, they often get so busy with their own activities that a promise to check in with their partner is often forgotten. Close relationships leave them torn. While they want to be in a relationship, as it gets stronger they see it as a threat to their independence, still seeing dependency as a weakness.  When leaving a loved one, their first emotion is not loss but one of relief.  They self-soothe and self-stimulate.  When under stress, they distance themselves from others-particularly those they are closest too-as it is easier to regulate their own nervous system when they don’t have to be concerned with their romantic partner’s emotions or feelings.  Their motto is, “I can do it myself,” which makes them appear selfish. They mistrust partners who come across as too clingy.  They confuse neglect with independence. They must recognize this as problematic, and that the best way for them to resolve these issues is with the help of a romantic partner.  In order to avoid a life of isolation, they must allow someone else to be their hero.

Lastly, there are the waves.  As children, they were raised in a culture that was pro-self, versus pro-relationship, and often have been victims of insensitivity and injustice.  Their caregivers provided a lot of affection but it was inconsistent.  At times caregivers were overly attentive and supportive but then would withdrawal their affection suddenly, leaving the child confused and finding the emotional push-pull as frustrating, punishing, and abandoning . As a result, children are clingy. It is not uncommon for a role reversal in which children were expected to act as caregivers themselves, putting the needs of others above their own.  Wave children learn early that the best chance at receiving love is to give it first, aim to please, and keep a happy face.  Their perceived strength as a caregiver themselves is actually their greatest weakness.  Caring for others creates emotional insecurity, never fully confident they will receive the care they seek from others.  Therefore, as adults, waves come to the dating world with baggage and worry about re-encountering relationship dangers from childhood.  Their primary fear in romantic relationships is that of being abandoned or rejected.  Yet this is, unfortunately, what they often end up doing to others.  They can make a potential partner feel intimidated and never good enough.

Characteristics of a wave include being focused on meaning and emotion versus logic and reason; possessing emotional sensitivity which makes them great artists and theorists; they tend to see things in terms of “always” and “never.”  Waves tend to think aloud, taking time for them to get to their point, which can be quite frustrating to islands.  Although islands may say waves are inaccurate, waves actually make perfect sense but just not always in a linear matter.  They love to interact through touch and talk, thriving on physical affection and emotional closeness.  They are happiest and most relaxed when surrounded by others.  They are highly expressive verbally and nonverbally, and even make a lot of sounds to express emotions.  Their tendency under stress is to run towards others instead of away. They choose closeness over distance. Their motto is, “I can’t do it without you.”  If they feel their partner is pushing them away, they take it personally, panic, and push back.  They are generous, with a lot to offer but often sacrifice their own needs as a result. They may come across as high maintenance, needy, and overly emotional-when really this is a result of being taught high dependency in childhood.  Having a partner, willing to offer open communication and build trust, will teach them to feel secure and learn a better balance of independence and dependence.  They obsess over past injuries.  Although they deeply want love and companionship, they are not sure it is worth the risk.  They alternate between pulling away and pushing in, when uncomfortable in a relationship.  They may threaten to end the relationship or walk away.  But this is the opposite of what they want.  Instead, it is a test with the hope their partner will follow after them, providing the validation they seek.  This is often not recognized by partners, causing partners to accept the end of a relationship, leaving the wave more distraught and disheartened.

Tatkin then goes on to provide insight into what may happen if these various types date one another.  This is what he has found:

Anchors dating Anchors: Together they bring the inner strength needed to be happy, and their secure styles allow for a natural flow and ease to the relationship.  (This is when I rolled my eyes and sighed.  I am not an anchor, nor can I seem to find one.)

Anchors dating Islands: He describes this as an “easy scenario.”  Anchors bring security to the relationship, which allows islands the space they crave, relieving them of any pressure to move faster than ready.  An anchor’s desire for mutuality could compel an island to open up.  That said, anchors may end the relationship if they feel the island isn’t making progress in this area.

Anchors dating Waves: Anchors again provide the security in the relationship.  Although waves can be two-minded, anchors will draw appropriate boundaries and use “straight talk” to offer simple reassurance without feeding into a wave’s insecurities.  If a wave continues to be too needy and not playful, the anchor may see the relationship as too troublesome and move on.

Islands dating Islands: They happily create a world whether they give each other plenty of space and come together as they choose. One concern is both’s tendency to be too distant can prevent them from creating a lasting bond.  Or they may create their own island, where they block out everyone else in their lives and exist solely together.

Waves dating Waves: This is the most dramatic of relationships.  If both recognize their self-destructive tendencies and vow to work on them together from the beginning, this could create a warm, intense, and all-encompassing relationship.  If all goes well both wave’s need for loving care will be reciprocal, including a fun and highly social life.  However, if they delay in identifying their weaknesses, implosion occurs and the relationship is doomed.

Islands dating Waves: This, Tatkin, describes as the most problematic combination.  They are two sides of the same coin.  Both want love but go about it in a way that is not fully mutual or pro-relationship. Their mottos are in direct contrast to one another.  The only way for this relationship to work is if both appreciate each other’s differences, recognize their contrasting needs, and are willing to both self-sacrifice. An island MUST learn to ask for space and not just disappear, assuming the wave partner can read minds.  With asking for space must come the explicit reassurance the needed distance is not a reflection of the island’s feelings towards his/her partner.  At the same time, the island must accept that if the relationship is to work, he/she must at times be willing to sacrifice space in order to provide the wave partner with closeness.  At the same time, a wave must respect the island’s need for space and trust it is not personal.  The wave must learn to not threaten or push the island in an effort to test him/her. Instead, the wave must be specific about his/her own needs so the island partner is clear on what is expected, balancing criticism with praise.  Both must be willing to sacrifice their personal needs for the benefit of the relationship.  

If you’re like me (and you’re still reading this), it’s because something you read above rings true.  Or maybe, it makes something you never quite understood now unbelievably clear.  This was my experience.  Tatkin was just finishing up his explanation on the inevitable problems of various types dating, when I came to an abrupt stop.  A drizzle of rain was coming down but as one sunray started to peer out from behind a cloud, shining down upon me, in a slight daze, a lightbulb flashed on, giving me the clarity I’d been so desperately seeking for weeks, as I said aloud, “Oh. My. Good. Lord.  I’m a wave! I’m a wave and he is an island!”

If my life were an 80s movie, at that very moment a sassy old lady would be seated on the nearby bench, look up at me and say some sort of encouraging sailing analogy or phrase like, “Man overboard!” or “What are you waiting for?  Set sail!” I’d then hand her my bag of groceries, take off my heels, and go running through the streets of Chicago, towards his place.  When I arrive, he’d be putting the last box in the moving truck, he’d pull the door down, and I’d scream, “Wait!”  Then I’d run into his arms, soaking wet, and give a long monologue about how I’m a wave, he’s an island, but that doesn’t mean we should give up…because if I could only take three things with me when stranded on an island, I’d choose him, him, and him.  Then we’d kiss, he’d throw me into the truck beside him, and we’d ride off together as “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” starts playing and the credits begin to roll.

But my life is not an 80s movie.  Instead, an annoyed lady who looked like she’d just come from an hour of mall walking, turns and stares at me.  Rolling her eyes, mumbling to herself, but deliberately loud enough for me to hear her frustration, she says, “What is she talking about?  Islands and waves…like I have time for vacation…”  A loud sigh escapes me as I wondered what I could possibly do with this information that was about five weeks too late.  As the crosswalk signaled for us to go, I looked down just in time to gasp as I avoid stepping on a decapitated baby bird.  “Of course,” I thought, “Seems about right.”