#its horrible but the stats do not lie. in fact the issue is even worse than the stats show bc they dont count ''mixed breeds'' as pits

[lobotomy-lady]

throw back to when a local pitmommy launched a freakishly long lasting campaign against me on nextdoor bc I told her I didn't wanna sit for her XL rescue bully, & also that it's heinously irresponsible to keep that thing in the house with her toddlers. I literally referred her to countless news stories of little kids being mauled by dogs they raised lovingly since they were puppies-let alone her giant beast that was quite possibly raised in some depraved dogfighting ring (though I'm sure the fuckass animal shelter tried to say it was a "bait dog" lol. newsflash, these dogs always go for the kill when theyre set off, if it was a meek little bait dog it would be dead). she literally implied I'm a racist (yes, really) for not wanting to read about her kids horrible painful deaths in the paper. she was like "I don't care about the stats, it's still 1 in 10,000 chance" hello?? if a plane had a 1 in 10,000 chance of crashing would you put your daughters on it or would you choose another goddamn airline that only has a 1 in a million chance of crashing???? fucks sakes

I truly don't understand why these people won't just get a fucking lab or a golden or any of the numerous breeds that are proven to be FAR less likely to snap & kill people out of nowhere. there is nothing you can get from a pit that you can't get from any other breed. I have a theory that they just want to feel like heroes for "saving" a dog that the evil bigots like me would refuse to adopt for silly reasons, like not wanting my family to be mauled. lol

[level20mallow]

The most insidious lie the state tells you is that it can and will protect you from harm. That is a flat-out fucking lie. And it is the most insidious, because that promise is the basis by which people accept state authority over their lives, meaning they allow themselves to be tyrannized and subjugated for no real benefit.

We need only look at the statistics behind major crimes and apply the tiniest ass-hair of scrutiny toward how the state handles major issues in reality to see this.

Hit and runs

Florida: Only 1 in 8 hit and run drivers are actually cited for leaving the scene; only 30% of that number are ever actually convicted of anything.

Los Angeles: Police only solved 8% of all hit and runs in 2017

United Kingdom: Only 8 to 10% of all hit and runs were solved in 2017

Numbers on the issue are sporadic but the few we do have do not look good. Keep in mind, most hit and runs happen in major cities with cameras everywhere, a lot of them traffic cameras that scan license plates, so police have no excuse to just not find most of these people. It's safe to say, therefore, that it's not the circumstances or the victims' fault. It's clearly the police not wanting to do their job and a failure of the state.

Thefts

Pew Research has a lot to say about violent crimes in the U.S. in general, so we're going to casually rip off its charts to look at thefts specifically.

Have a look at those numbers for larceny, motor vehicle theft, and burglary. A lot of the time, people don't even report them, which I wholly blame on the failure of the state and people's increased recognition of that fact.

But look at the numbers we have. 69% of all car thefts are reported, and only 13.1% of that 69% are solved. That means only 9% of all car thefts are actually solved. That means, if you chose to steal a car, you'd get away with it 91% of the time!

Only 6% of the burglaries are solved, meaning if you chose to break into someone's house, you'd get away with it 94% of the time. (And you all wonder why right wingers obsess over the possibility of evildoers breaking into their house and killing their loved ones in the night)

Even robberies are only solved 18% of the time, so if you were ever wondering why Bruce Wayne donned the cape and cowl, there's your answer.

Alright, so now we're going to move on to the heavy stuff. And let me warn you now, these stats WILL piss you off or hurt you if you are sensitive to that sort of thing, so big fucking trigger warning for incoming rape and murder discussion. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Murder

We'll start you off gently. The Pew research numbers up above state that murders are solved 61% of the time, which people would assume by banana republic standards is pretty alright. But it's not the whole story, not by a long-shot. Those clearance rates (percentage of solved cases) used to be a lot higher -- the state used to actually attempt to do a good job -- but have dropped like a rock since the 1960s.

Case in point, Los Angeles. Have a look at this chart that I totally ripped off from CBS:

Look at that horrific shit. It went from 90% in 1965 to 55% in 2020. Like why even pretend the state has any meaningful authority if this is what they're going to allow to happen on their watch?

The Murder Accountability Project has national stats that really drive the point home:

Look at that. Throughout the 2020s so far, only half of all murders go unsolved. You see how on the left, the red bar and the gray bar almost touch, while on the right, they're both the same fucking size? And how the bars split apart and stayed apart since 1980, meaning this is not just because of the lockdowns. That means the state is failing in its most basic of functions: protecting the lives of its people, and therefore it should just be ignored and people need to start doing for themselves.

Oh, but it gets worse, friends. Much, much worse. So much so that I'm going to have to make a second post addressing the other, more horrible statistics that have come out.

And given that, I will actually have to place a giant fucking trigger warning when we look at them, because the numbers are so disturbing as to be terrifying, and without the right mindset walking in, they actually can damage the reader's trust in other people.

So look out for part 2, and consider yourself warned if you do.

[dwindlingashesburnt]

How long do the shields stay down?

This is something I think is really really important for you to be aware of if you're in a situation that's bad for you or are just doing kinda shit in any way - physical, mental, emotional, whatever. And I'm including stuff like food, shelter, sleep under physical for the sake of this

And that is this - at some point your body and or mind will almost definitely try to protect you by shielding you from it. When it's mental or emotional this is typically a very long term thing to keep you safe that you have to actively unlearn, as is physical stuff like training yourself not to flinch or stuff like that. When it's a lack of something physical like sleep or food or so on, it's generally just intended to keep you going until you manage to get whatever it is you needed, at which point the shields should start falling on their own pretty quickly

But the obvious problem with this is that if you're being shielded from the problem, you don't know how bad said problem is. You might not even be sure what the problem is, or even worse, might not even be aware that there is a problem. This means that until those shields go down, you can't figure out what's wrong or how to fix it, and you may end up actually making the problem much worse without realising in the meantime

(That's the end of the general advice bit - which is important btw! - and now goes into my own stuff, which isn't important except to me cos it's mostly just venting so feel free to stop reading at this point)

I rediscovered this yesterday night.

Every time I get this badly worn down, it always happens exactly the same way - I've already been apathetic and tired for quite a while, low on sleep, and been constantly tense for a long time, but bc I'm apathetic and can't sleep, I stay up watching videos on youtube for far too long. At some point, I find myself actually in quite a bit of pain and only then realise it's because I'm so incredible tense, and at this point I start finding it to be a real struggle to focus my vision or pick out the voices and concentrate enough to really watch videos. A while after this, I normally find that I'm shaking uncontrollably, and acknowledge to myself that it's most likely a mixture of a shitty mental place, being so tense for so long, and utter exhaustion. So to double check, I put some simple music on that doesn't require much focus, close my eyes and focua on going limp - I know that if my own thoughts fade to absolutely nothing while the singing drifts through my mind, and that I lose ALL tension and start melting into the bed...This means I'm on the point of passing out and or veering into dangerously sleep deprived suicidal ideation type territory, and need to sleep stat.

And this is the part that really alarms me - before I go to bed I need to put the light on so I don't trip, put my phone on charge, go to the bathroom and have a drink of water. Before sitting up at this stage I am AWAYS exhausted, noticably shaking, struggling to focus my vision beyond a blur, and so mentally wiped out I can barely string a single thought together, not to mention thirsty, empty, and feeling tired down to my bones, off balance and like I want to either pass out or start sobbing any second.

But by the time I get back into bed I'm always seemingly fine, if not better than when I first started watching videos - and this fucking scares me.

Because that switch happens in less than five or so minutes! Nothing has changed in that time, I am still on the borderline of passing out, I am still exhausted, I am still in an absolute shit place both mentally and emotionally and quite frequently in the middle of a relapse, and god knows what else. NOTHING HAS CHANGED I'm just far too good at putting up a front even to myself, and so practiced at it I just do it automatically- even though this normally happens around 2am or 1am when there is absolutely nobody to put up a front for!

And when I get back in bed, if I didn't remember exactly how bad I had been not ten minutes before, even I wouldn't realise there was any issue whatsoever! Let alone an issue THAT bad

That means that every time I walk into the bathroom and instantly feel sluggish thoughts crawling through my mind and then rapidly speeding up to a somewhat normal speed, every time I fill my water bottle and watch as my hands go from shaking so bad I dropped my phone and struggled to take out my earphones to not shaking at all, every time I stand and feel the majority of the tension leave and my shoulders force themselves up and back into more of a slouch and less a slump, every time I realise my vision is suddenly clear enough to be able to plug my phone in, and balance good enough to safely walk past the landing...It scares the fucking shit out of me.

I don't make any conscious, or as far as I'm aware, unconscious decision to do this, to put up this front - it just fucking happens without my input, automatically. That's terrifying because it suggests it's going to be difficult or even impossible to stop this, or any lesser form of this, from happening in the future

It also alarms me that it tricks me, that it goes so far as forcing my thoughts and mindset to shift, and that it happens when I'm entirely alone and safe. That's fucking scary - how do I stop it if I'm not even aware of it, if it's deep enough to change how my thoughts are happening, if no outside input seems to affect it? It's not a case of just, remove the bad input and I'll be fine - what do I do with that?!

Additionally, the fact that it's so thorough, tricks even me and happens without my input..I'm horribly aware that means that at more or less any moment I may be maintaining this front and not even realise. And I know for a fact it impacts my decisions...It makes me feel scared that maybe, maybe I'm hurting far more often and far more than I think, maybe I'm effectively lying most if not all of the time, maybe I'm making decisions I wouldn't if I wasn't shielding, maybe, maybe others don't even know me properly with this.

It's only maybe ten minutes total between music (shield down) and getting back in bed (shields up)

Sometimes I suddenly and very temporarily break free of this front, or apathy, or simple fear and nonoIcan't, and message my friends trying to tell them things I urgently want to share that I know I won't be able to when those shields come back up, so it's urgent and important.....And sometimes they don't reply in time and they ask something like, "what is it?" but I won't have the words anymore, or it won't seem important, or it will seem like the worst idea ever, or I'll struggle to even remember what "it" was, or I'll feel unable to say it

But every time I know I urgently wanted to say something, and now I can't because my mind and body is just, doing its damn best to protect me, which I appreciate but I just....But it also is awful because I don't know how to tell them in a way that makes sense "I'm sorry. You missed your ten minutes. I can't, I can't, I'm sorry - I want to but I can't. You missed it" so...so often I end up deflecting because at that point really do anything else

And usually in THAT kinda scenario it's not ten minutes (it may be anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours) but it never lasts too long so, so if they're not online or busy or caught up in another conversation etcetcetc......I lose the chance to be honest.

And I often don't get another chance to be really, truly honest, for LITERAL MONTHS

Apparently it's been determined that this is the best way to keep me safe and not in even worse health, but it's also incredibly isolating and I hate it

Quite often all I really want to say or do is more than a quickly passed over "I love you" and a brief hug - I want to be able to say "I love you. You're my best friend and I love you for this reason and this reason and this reason. You're amazing, and I love you - you help me in this way and this way and this way and I'm so grateful. If there's ever anyway I can ever help you or make you happy...Tell me. I want you to be happy. I love you - how could I not love you?"

And I CAN'T and I FUCKING CAN'T and I can't share any of the other stuff about my experiences or personality or relationships or opinions or anything that my brain has deemed "unsafe" BECAUSE OF ABSOLUTE PIECES OF SHIT WHO THINK IT'S SO FUCKING FUNNY TO BULLY AND BELITTLE AND GASLIGHT AND EMOTIONALLY ABUSE AND HURT AND IT'S NOT FAIR

The three biggest things for me, are affection, understanding, and being close to people

Do you know how much it fucking kills me to not be able to say EXACTLY how much I love everyone near me, because I was told so often that to love anyone and especially to love so freely, was am invitation to be hurt?

Do you know how alone and miserable and frustrated I get when I try to be understood and understand others and succeed in neither?

I nearly started crying one time because I was with my dad and sibling, and that was all, both of whom should be safe, and I started telling a funny story about one of our cats. And suddenly I just realised that the words coming out of my mouth weren't the truth. I knew damn well they weren't, and I hadn't been planning to lie at all, and I'd started off truthfully, but some stupid small part of me had started going "this isn't safe this isn't safe you'll be hurt they'll hurt you scream at you make you feel like you should be dead they'll make you cry then call you evil for it it's not safe it's not safe" so suddenly I realised the words coming out of my mouth weren't the ones I meant to say, and I tried to stop talking and it didn't work, and I tried to go back to how it actually happened or just my original story which was very very minorly altered (like 10% different from the truth) to keep me safe, but I couldn't and that scared me because I just kept talking, this version of the story that played up how cute and tiresome the cat was, that simultaneously diminished my part in it all and yet at the same time painted me as being silly and harmless and useful and entertaining and I just....I remember I freaked out a bit when I kept speaking even though I didn't want to, but that part of me was still going "not safe not safe not safe" and then I remember feeling for an instant like I was going to have to flee because I was about to start sobbing, but then I just felt some part of me shatter and go dim and silent and die. And suddenly I felt hollow and miserable and I was shielded again, and so I just kept talking even though later I cried about it and freaked out a lot and just...I hadn't even meant to lie. I was safe. I was among allies. It was a harmless story about a cat that didn't even feature me heavily and certainly didn't cast me in a bad light, but the entire time some part just kept chanting "not safe not safe they'll hurt you you musnt you cant you cant let them theyll hurt you its not safe its not safe its not safe"

And that fucking kills me