The Counselor Project

Well, had my first therapist appointment in quite a while the other day. I didn't even want it, and I was totally paranoid about it. Why had I been given this appointment, anyway? How the Hell did that happen? 

I went back inside a doctor's the other day and a secretary said wearily, "What is it now, Robert?" like I'm some miserable idiot who can't stop worrying, which is true.

All this fueled the old paranoid thoughts, and I restarted the Get It Together Project again.

So I went in. Middle aged Hispanic female, and I hate female therapists. In fact, I typically refuse to ever be seen by one. I got sent to counselor due to being on meds and admitting to smoking weed a few times last fall. Real easy.

I'm convinced that I am insane.

"So, do you think that I act strange, weird, bizarre, odd?" I actually believe that all of this is true.

"No, not at all, you seem quite normal. Why do you ask?"

"Do I seem really nervous, anxious, wiry, like I can't settle down?" I actually believe that I am way too nervous and non-relaxed.

"Actually, no. You really do seem quite relaxed here." Points to my relaxed posture.

"Hmm, so do I seem hostile?" I actually believe that I am totally hostile, cruel, evil, mean, and low down, like a bipedal 6-foot rattlesnake with a permanent bad hair day and an immortal resting bitch face.

"No, not at all. Actually, you seem friendly, and if you were hostile, I would simply order you out of the room."

"So, do I seem unfriendly and not warm?" I am convinced that this is the main problem these days.

"No, not at all. You actually do seem like a friendly person."

Therapy goes on.

I tell her I am worried about checking out hot young chickies because I am afraid they will think I am a dirty old man and they will file a public complaint against me.

"Go ahead and look all you want! You are a single man, of course you want to look at all of the pretty women!"

You know, sometimes I just love Hispanics. They are so backwards on all this sex stuff, and they just assume that all males are total pigs when it comes to sex, but they figure that it is hopeless and we are incurable, so they just chalk it up to nature.

She then informs me that I may be lacking in social skills.

"So, do you think that I am lacking in social skills in here in right now?" I am convinced that I am one of the biggest social idiots on the globe.

"No, no, not at all, your social skills are excellent. Why do you ask? But perhaps elsewhere, there are problems in the social skills."

Ok, now my head is really spinning. 

I need to stop doing weed. 

I need to stop drinking. 

"Why do you have two glasses of wine a night?"

"Why do you go to the bar?"

Well, I quit? 

"Oh, the bar, the bar, why do you go to the bar?"

I don't anymore, but I am broke.

On and on it goes.

She points out that I'm hardly even trying to meet anyone. I think I'm busting butt night and day on the Woman Project. Really, where are you going, she asks? I tell her I am going to the Catholic Church Project to work on the Woman Project.

She almost starts laughing. "You expect to get laid in church?" I think she says.

"Sure." I say, lying as usual. "I just tell em I am God, and that they will worship at my cross because God wants them to. Works every time."

"Plus, most women who go to Catholic Church are in religious ecstasy, and that usually means they are also horny," I offer pitifully. 

"They want to have sex with God. Just tell them you are God to them, and you're in like Flynn," I suggest dubiously.

She's laughing. "You expect to get laid at a church? What are you, a fucking idiot? No ever meets anyone in church. Church is one thing, fucking is another. Two different planets," I hallucinate, hearing voices.

It's very nice to meet a woman who is aggressive about sex and has a man's best interest at heart, which is getting laid of course, as nothing else in a man's life matters at all. Most female therapists are totally insane about sex, which is why I never want to deal with them.

Doctor wrote I was depressed. Was I depressed? 

Course not, I scoff. 

She looks surprised.

Have I ever been arrested? Twice for pot, possession. 

Have I ever been in prison, as if this is the most normal thing to do? No, thank God. 

Have I ever been charged with child molesting? No, I have not, nor have I ever been investigated for it by the police. 

Have you ever attacked anyone? No, not really. I mean I did, but they all deserved it, you know?

Have you ever attempted suicide? No, we don't do that. 

Have I ever been suicidal? Not for 23 years! I say proudly. She looks dubious.

Have I ever been hospitalized? No, we don't get hospitalized, and I will never be hospitalized, unless I get about 20 times crazier than I am now and I just can't function at all.

The Hospital Project is never going to happen. Nor is the Kill Myself Project. The Kill Others Project has, sadly, been put on indefinite hold for the time being. The Molest Kids Project never even got going, thank the  Lord above. The Criminal Project is way back in the hippie dope-dealing past.

My whole life, nothing really grievous or monumental or devastating or audacious has occurred. Truth is, I have been a bit of a bore, the guy who lives in town 15 years and the cops yawn when someone asks them about him.

The Counselor Project is over. I'm fine, nothing is wrong. The Counselor Project will be continued into the future, with uncertain results.

And they don't believe in chemical good times, because they only see the bad end that I have almost never seen in my entire life.

The Counselor Project is just something to be played, like everything else in life. You play the Counselor Project or it plays you, one or the other. It's nothing, really. Anyone can do it.

Is Mood Internally Driven?

I have been developing some theories for a long time now about mood and external events. The common perception is that people are like flags in the wind, blowing this way or that way depending on what sort of things are happening with us. When things are going well, we are blowing happy. Things are looking bad and we are blowing sad and down.

A change in the weather of luck or life means our flag will right itself and blow in a new direction. It's not a bad philosophy, except that if things are not going well by whatever criteria, our flag is going to be blowing sad, and we will feel powerless to change things, as we are just inanimate objects subjected to the whims of the weather.

Having watched people for a long time though, I am starting to wonder about this. Not only are there people who seem to have perfectly horrible lives but who seem to be the happiest people on Earth. But on the other hand are those who seem to have everything going, and they never seem to be happy.

I know one person who goes through down phases that are probably not even diagnosable in the DSM, or if they were, 90% of the population would get a DSM dx at some point. At various times, for no apparent reason, this person will go into a down mood.

The mood typically lasts for about 2-3 weeks, but can go on a while longer or can even be shorter, maybe a week or so. The more typical up moods can go on for months or even years.

The down mood is characterized by anger, but when it is really bad, by despair and hopelessness. Usually it is just anger. If you ask the person what is wrong, they will say they are "tired", or "worried". If you ask them what the worries are, they typically rattle off a number of legitimate worries, especially about people close to them.

There is a problem with this though. Usually, the stresses during the down mood are in general about the same as the stresses during the up mood. In fact, many times the stresses during the up mood are even greater than the stresses during the down mood, but during the up mood they just charge right through them with a "can-do" mindset.

So, we are left with the realization that during the low moods, the stresses are at times less severe than the stresses during some of the up moods!

One more thing, while in the up moods, the person seems to genuinely enjoy good news and just weather the bad, a very curious thing happens in the low moods: almost nothing good in the environment seems to be able to change the low mood!

In other words, when in the low mood, good things happen - say, the person runs into an unexpected extra $100's in cash - and it lifts the mood for a few hours, then the low mood simply returns.

I get the impression sometimes that I could give these people even $1000's in the low mood and I don't think it would lift the mood.

So what lifts the mood? Curiously, the mood simply seems to lift on its own somehow. The low mood runs its course for whatever reason and just ends. External events seem to have no impact on the length of the low mood.

But to the person I am thinking of, they always blame their low moods on external events.

I know another person who goes into manic phases characterized by anger, irritability, insomnia, increased confidence, arrogance, egotism, etc. The things that never bothered the person when in a normal mood state are suddenly horribly irritating. The people they tolerated with no problems in a normal mood are suddenly despised as the worst people on Earth.

The people didn't change. The stresses didn't change. But he thinks they did.

If you finally gather up the courage to ask the person what the Hell has been wrong with them in the last few months they have been manic (You can't say the word "manic" or this person will jump up and try to punch you), they will blame their angry mood on a whole host of stresses and persons that, as I noted, they were tolerating just fine before.

This person also insists on blaming all of her mood states on external events, just like the person before. Once she received $20,000 while in a slight manic state and instead of making them happier, it drove them into a wild, dysphoric, paranoid, florid manic psychosis. So much for, "All I need is more cash" eh?

In both of these people, mood is being driven internally, starting and ending according to its own clocks. External events play no role in starting, maintaining or stopping the episode.

Do happiness and sadness come from within or without? Do they come from ourselves or others? How much of our moods, which we are so quick to blame on the world outside, are actually being generated right in our own minds?

El Suicidio de Maleva Ferreyra

This is the Spanish translation of Public Suicide Fad Hits Argentina by Frederick Furby from Argentina.

I am looking for people to to translate this post into German and Korean. Email me if you are interested.

French translation here (en Français).

Warning! Graphic footage! Do not watch if you are easily upset!

La moda del suicidio público se ha expandido a Argentina. Arriba esta el video en vivo del suicidio de Mario "Malevo" Ferreyra, un ex-funcionario policial argentino. Se suicidó en vivo en la televisión en la provincia de Tucumán, Argentina. Hay una version de 8,4 MB del video con mejor resolución que se puede descargar en este sitio.

Malevo Ferreyra era Jefe de la Brigada de Investigaciones de Estado de Tucumán en Argentina en los finales de 1970 en el apogeo de la Guerra Sucia. En 1993, fue condenado por asesinar a tres ladrones en 1991.

Él se escapó de la corte agarrando una granada de mano en cada mano (!) y más tarde se entregó después de que el ex gobernador de la provincia redujera su sentencia. Cumplió siete años por los asesinatos. Él gobernó Tucumán con mano de hierro, antes, durante y después de la Guerra Sucia.

Se emitió una orden de arresto contra él por la Guardia Nacional ayer por secuestro y tortura durante la Guerra Sucia. Los crímenes fueron cometidos cuando se sirvió en un depósito secreto de armas convertido en un centro de detencion durante la Guerra Sucia. Justo antes de que la policía viniera a arrestarlo, se suicidó enfrente de su esposa e hijos en TV nacional.

Él recien terminaba la entrevista con el canal de TV Cronica en la cima de un tanque de agua en su casa rural en Tucumán. Su casa estaba rodeada por policias y él iba a ser arrestado en pocos minutos. El protesto su inocencia, y después dijo "Hasta siempre, Maria (te amare por siempre, Maria)," desenfundó una pistola calibre .45 de su bota y se disparó detrás de la oreja. Murió camino al hospital unos momentos después.

Después de que se disparara en la cabeza, su hijo lo abrazo y su hija entró en pánico.

Familiares de las víctimas dijeron que el suicidio era parte de un pacto de silencio que aseguraba que Ferreyra no testificara contra sus ex-colegas.

La política argentina es asquerosa, y algunas veces mortal, negocios, con mucha impunidad, pero eso parece que esta cambiando.

Una foto típica de "El Malevo" con su usual sombrero. Parece una forma dificil de vivir compañeros. Su nombre tal vez viene de la famosa película muda de un muy conocido director argentino José A. Ferreyra (mismo apellido) de 1921 llamada La Maleva. No estoy seguro de qué trata la película. Ferreyra es un apellido común en Argentina. El nombre puede ser también en honor a un famoso futbolista argentino llamado Osmar "Malevo" Ferreyra (video).

Aquí hay otra foto de "El Malevo". No estoy seguro de qué esta pasando aca, ni quién es la mujer. Él parece tener un caracter muy rudo. Al igual que esos hombres al rededor de él. La política provincial argentina es desagradable, es cosa dura y difícil. Una especie de mezcla entre siciliano y mexicano. Muchos de los tipos duros en el poder usan todo su peso político, no nada de constitucional, las detenciones políticas y los ataques, el hostigamiento y los ataques a periodistas, jueces corruptos y venales. Las cosas usuales.

Tucumán es un algo en retroceso, "central" provincia en el interior de la Argentina. Es agrícola allí en su mayoría, con una gran cantidad de cultivo de caña de azúcar. Los policías y los políticos en esta parte de la Argentina son algunos de los más brutales, venales, exclusivistas y corruptos del país.

La Mode du Suicide en Public Arrive à l'Argentine

This is the French translation of the Public Suicide Fad Comes to Argentina post, translated by Natalie from France.

I am looking for people to to translate this post into German and Korean. Email me if you are interested.

Spanish version (en Español).

Attention! Personnes sensibles s’abstenir!!!

La mode du suicide en public s’est répandue en Argentine. Ci-dessus la vidéo du suicide en direct à la télé de Mario « Malevo » Ferreyra, un ancient policier. Il s’est suicidé en direct dans la province de Tucumàn en Argentine. Ici vous pouvez télécharger la vidéo avec une résolution plus haute.

Malevo Ferreyra était le chef de la brigade d’investigation de l’état du Tucumàn en Argentine dans les dernières années ’70 au plus fort de la sale guerre. En 1993, il fut condamné pour le meurtre de trois voleurs en 1991.

Il s’est échappé du tribunal en empoignant une grenade dans chaque main et plus tard s’est livré à la police après que le gouverneur de la province ait réduit sa peine. Il a fait sept ans de prison pour les meurtres. Il a dirigé Tucuman d’une main de fer, pendant et après la sale guerre.

Le mandat d’arrêt emis hier par la Garde Nationale pour enlevement et torture durant la sale guerre. Les crimes ont été commis alors qu’il était en service dans un dépôt secret d’armes « déguisé » en centre de détention. Juste avant que la police vienne l’arrêter, il s’est suicidé devant sa femme, ses enfants et les caméras de la télé nationale.

Il venait à peine de terminer une interview pour la chaine Cronica, juché sur une citerne d’eau, dans sa demeure à Tucuman. Sa maison était cernée par la police et il aurait été arrêté sous peu. Il a clamé son innocence, puis dit « Hasta siempre, Maria (je t’aimerai toujours Maria), ensuite il a sorti son calibre 45 de sa botte et s’est tiré une balle derrière l’oreille. Il est mort sur le chemin de l’hôpital peu après.

Après qu’il se soit tiré dans la tête, son fils l’a pris dans ses bras et sa fille a paniqué.

Les familles des victimes ont affirmé que le suicide faisait part d’un pacte secret qui assurerait que Ferreyra ne puisse témoigner contre ses anciens collègues.

La politique argentine est moche, et quelquefois mortelle, les affaires se font parfois en toute impunité, mais il parait que cela est en train de changer.

Une image typique de "el malevo" avec son sombrero habituel. Un air de mauvais garçon. Le nom vient peut-être du film muet dirigé par le très connu réalisateur argentin José A. Ferreyra de 1921 appelé La Maleva. Je ne suis sûr de l’histoire du film. Ferreyra est un nom de famille très répandu en Argentine. Le nom pourrait venir aussi d’un jeu de mots sur le pseudo d’un footballeur argentin nommé Osmar "Malevo" Ferreyra (vidéo).

Voici une autre photo de El Malevo. Je ne suis pas sûr de ce qu’il se passe ici, ni de qui soit la femme. C’est un individu brutal et les gars qui sont avec lui le sont également. La politique locale est extrêmement pourrie. Une sorte de croisement entre la Sicile et le Mexique. Un tas des robustes gars au pouvoir sévissaient dans le coin, pas trop légalement, commettant des arrestations arbitraires, agressions, harcèlement à des journalistes, corruption de juges. Comme d’habitude.

Tucuman se trouve quelque peu en arrière, c’est une province de l’arrière-pays argentin. Très rurale, avec beaucoup de champs de canne à sucre. Les flics et les hommes politiques de cette partie de l’Argentine sont parmi les plus brutaux, avides, fermés et corrompus du pays.

Il y a encore des Indiens qui vivent dans cette partie d’Argentine et les gens sont bien plus métissés que dans le reste du pays. Ce n’est pas la terre des gauchos et non plus la Pampa. Ça ressemble plutôt aux contreforts des Andes.

Dans le milieu des années 70 cette région fut le fief du mouvement d’un foyer révolutionnaire peu connu, piloté par le ERP (l’armée révolutionnaire du peuple). Il a échoué comme tous les autres mouvements. Le ERP fut ensuite anéanti par la sale guerre, il a abandonné la lutte armée et est devenu un mouvement politique qui existe encore aujourd’hui.

Quelqu’un veut un Budd Dwyer? Ici la vidéo de son suicide en direct à la télé (attention). Le sang sort de son nez comme une cascade....

J’ai trouvé le dossier de Christine Chubbuck, un autre suicide en public, cette fois d’une présentatrice de journal télévisé pendant son émission (!), c’est particulièrement poignant.

Trouble de la personnalité évitante.

Je n’aime pas diagnostiquer la mort, mais il semble qu’elle ait les symptômes du trouble de la Voilà une bonne vue d’ensemble de la maladie. Je pense que je n’ai jamais rencontré une personne ayant ces symptômes. Le signe principal est une grande susceptibilité au rejet ou au refus. J’ai connu des gens ayant en partie ce symptôme, si on les critique ils semblent sur le point de fondre en larmes, souvent ils se mettent en colère. Et ce sont des adultes, mûrs, de 40 ans. Je pense qu’ils sont des bébés, mais peut-être devrais-je être plus indulgent, car je ne suis moi-même pas tout à fait normal.

Je consultais un psychanalyste dans le temps, à qui j’ai demandé si j’étais un "évitant." Un de mes jeux favoris est le syndrome du patient psychiatrique , il consiste à parcourir le DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Manuel Diagnostic et Statistique des Troubles Mentaux.) en ayant peur d’avoir toutes les maladies du livre. Il m’a répondu que non, parce qu’il m’avait critiqué et que je l’avais bien pris. Il a dit qu’il avait eu 7 ou 8 évitants, et que dès qu’on les critiquait en thérapie ils se levaient et partaient du cabinet pour ne plus jamais revenir. C’est dire la gravité de la chose.

Pour dire la vérité, je ne me soucis guère que les gens m’aiment ou pas, tant qu’ils ne me tournent pas autours. Je serais très content d’avoir de jolies femmes qui viennent par ici tous les jours, me baisent, en prétendant m’aimer, alors qu’elles me détestent profondément. Tant qu’elles prétendent que je leur plait, tout va bien. Peu m’importe ce qui ce passe dans l’âme autrui.

Je ne crains pas non plus d’être rejeté. Au bout d’un million de fois, on s’habitue. J’imagine que si j’étais effrayé par chaque refus essuyé, je serais probablement tout le temps dépressif. On doit s’y faire, tout le monde n’est pas obligé de vous aimer, nous sommes dans un pays libre. De plus, j’ai moi-même rejeté des tas de gens, donc on récolte ce que l’on sème.

Chubbuk semblait être dans un terrible état de régression, presque une enfant lorsqu’elle quittait le boulot, en dépit d’une grande professionnalité au travail. Un cas étrange.

Je n’avais jamais entendu parler du cas Dwyer ou Chubbuck avant internet.

Il n’y a pas de vidéo disponible concernant le suicide de Chubbuck, mais ici il y a une courte séquence d’elle sur Youtube. Il y a aussi un morceau tiré de Boulevard of Broken Dreams, une émission de variété (video). La police a confisqué tous les enregistrements du suicide, comme preuves, puis les a remis à la famille.

Dans l’excellent film Network (1976) le personnage principal, un présentateur télé menace de suicider en direct.

Public Suicide Fad Hits Argentina

I am looking for people to to translate this post into German and Korean. Email me if you are interested.

French translation here (en Français). Spanish version (en Español).

Warning! Graphic footage! Do not watch if you are easily upset!

The public suicide fad has spread to Argentina. Above is the video of the live TV suicide of Mario "Malevo" Ferreyra, an Argentine former police official. He killed himself on live TV in Tucumán Province, Argentina. An 8.4 MB version of the video with better resolution can be downloaded on this site here.

Malevo Ferreyra was Chief of the Brigade of Investigations of the State Tucumán in Argentina in the late 1970's at the height of the Dirty War. In 1993, he was convicted for murdering three robbers in 1991.

He escaped from the courthouse clutching a hand grenade in each hand (!) and later turned himself in after the former governor of the province reduced his sentence. He served seven years for the killings. He ruled Tucumán with an iron fist before, during and after the Dirty War.

A warrant was issued by the National Guard yesterday for his arrest for kidnapping and torture during the Dirty War. The crimes were committed when he served at a secret weapons-depot-turned-detention center during the Dirty War. Just before the police were coming to arrest him, he committed suicide in front of his wife and kids on national TV.

He had just finished an interview the TV station Cronica on top of a water tank at his rural home in Tucumán. His home was surrounded by police and he would be arrested shortly. He protested his innocence, then said, "Hasta siempre, Maria (I will love you forever, Maria)," pulled out a .45 caliber revolver from his boot and shot himself behind the ear. He died on his way to the hospital shortly afterward.

After he shot himself in the head, his son embraced him and his daughter panicked.

Families of the victims say that the suicide was part of a pact of silence that would ensure that Ferreyra would not have to testify against his former colleagues.

Argentine politics is nasty, and sometimes deadly, business, with a lot of impunity, but that seems to be changing.

A typical image if "El Malevo" with his usual sombrero. Looks like a hard-living fellow. The name may come from a famous silent movie by the well-known Argentine director José A. Ferreyra (same surname) from 1921 called, La Maleva. I'm not sure what the movie is about. Ferreyra is a common surname in Argentina. The name may also be a play on a nickname of a famous Argentine soccer player Osmar "Malevo" Ferreyra (video).


Here is another photo of El Malevo. I'm not sure what is going on here, or who the woman is. He looks like a pretty rough character. So do those guys around him. Argentine provincial politics is nasty, hardcore stuff. Sort of a cross between Sicily and Mexico. Lot of tough guys in power throwing their weight around, not much of a rule of law, political arrests and attacks, harassment of and attacks on journalists, corrupt and venal judges. The usual stuff.

Tucumán is a somewhat backwards, "provincial" province in the hinterlands of Argentina. It's mostly agricultural back there, with a lot of sugar cane cultivation. The cops and politicians in this part of Argentina are some of the most brutal, venal, clannish and corrupt in the country.

There are still Indians living in this part of Argentina, and people are much more Mestizo here than in the rest of the country. It isn't gaucho country, and it's not the Pampas. More like the foothills of the Andes.

In the mid-70's, this province was the scene of a little-known foco revolutionary movement led by the ERP (People's Revolutionary Army). It failed, as all foco-inspired movements did. The ERP was then devastated by the Dirty War - they were history 1 1/2 years into the counterinsurgency. The ERP has long since abandoned armed struggle and now exists as a political movement.

Budd Dwyer, anyone? Video of Budd Dwyer's live TV suicide here (warning: graphic). Jesus Christ man, the blood runs out of his nose like a waterfall.

I found the case of Christine Chubbuck, another public suicide, this time of a newscaster on live TV during her broadcast (!) to be particularly poignant.

I don't like to diagnose the dead, but it looks like she had traits of Avoidant Personality Disorder . It's something like social phobia, but a lot more pervasive. What's odd is that she had such an extroverted job and most avoidants are serious introverts.

The symptoms are there: the lack of romantic relationships despite a tremendous desire for one and her beauty, good job, education and brains; the unrequited love for a colleague at work who would not reciprocate.

And at the same time, whenever people at work made friendly gestures towards her, she would blow them off. This is the "get them before they get me" mentality. I will reject them before they reject me. It's perverse, but like a lot of perverse stuff, has its own crazy logic.

Good overview of APD. I don't think I have ever known one. The primary symptom is extreme hypersensitivity to rejection. I've known people who have some of the hypersensitivity though. If you criticize them, they look like they are going to burst into tears. Then they often get really angry. These are grown "adults", say 40 years old. I think they are babies, but maybe I should be kinder, since I'm not exactly normal myself.

I had a therapist once and I asked him if I was an avoidant. One of my games is "Psychiatric Medical Patient Syndrome" - going through the DSM and worrying I have every illness in the book. He said, no, because he had criticized me and I took it well. He said he had had 7-8 avoidants, and as soon as you criticize them in therapy, they get up and walk out of the office and never come back. That's about the size of it.

Truth is, I really don't care if people like me or not, as long as they hang around with me. I would be perfectly content to have beautiful women coming over here every day, screwing my brains out, pretending to like me, but actually hating my guts. As long as they pretend to like me, it's all good. I don't care what's in someone's deepest soul.

I'm also not freaked out by rejection. After about the millionth time, you pretty much get used to it. I figure if I freaked out about every little rejecting encounter I get, I'd probably be continuously suicidally depressed. You have to make it through life somehow. No one has to like you anyway, it's a free country. Plus I've rejected lots of people myself, so what comes around, goes around.

Chubbuck also seemed to be awfully regressed into an almost childhood state when off work, despite being an uber-professional on the job. Strange case.

I had never heard of Dwyer's or Chubbuck's case until the Internet.

There are no available videos of the Chubbuck suicide, but there are five seconds of Chubbuck footage here on Youtube. There is also a Chubbuck segment on The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, a TV show (video clip). The police confiscated all of the Chubbuck suicide tapes as evidence of a crime and turned them over to the family.

In the excellent movie Network (1974) "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!", the lead, a TV newscaster, threatens to commit suicide on live TV.

Time To Ban the Internet

Incredible.

I found myself laughing when I first heard about this story, but although I realized I should not be laughing, I kept on laughing anyway. This story is just too absurd. When I read about the father's reaction, I quit laughing.

I admit I am a bit exasperated with folks who keep trying to kill themselves over and over. A part of me lines up with the social worker who got so tired of listening to the guy threatening suicide over the line that he drove over to the guy's house and helped him do it.

That part of me says, "Hell, just kill yourself already."

I've known an attempted suicide, close to me. It was a one-time thing, I heard about it soon after he tried it, and I don't think he will do it again. I think it had to do with some psych drugs he was taking (Xanax in this case). Folks like that surely need to be saved. Those that are constantly attempting suicide, I am not sure.

(Now) famous Myspace page of his friend who announces that he's dead to the world, many folks' first confirmation.

(Now) famous thread on Bodybuilding.com, a response to the famous thread that started the thing (now deleted, but here is the cached version of "Ask a Guy Who Is Going To OD (Again) Tonight Anything". On that thread, some folks were apparently encouraging him to go ahead and do it. The thread also contains his famous suicide note.

However, there seems to be an earlier thread here, "I'm Trippin on Bars on My Webcam" . Followed by a warning thread to the mods to call the police here: "Mods?!".

If you click on his profile on the site, it takes you to a link saying, "The BodySpace Member you are attempting to locate is inactive." I should say so.

His site on Justin.tv, http://www.justin.tv/feels_like_ecstacy, has been removed, and there is no cached version. I've been on the site before, and it's really strange, but it's also a lot of fun. Mostly young people on there. If you're older, they call you "pedophile" for even showing up on the channel. Age discrimination.

His MySpace page is here. He seems to have lots of luck with the ladies. Judging by that, I can't see the suicidal ideation, but I'm starting to think this stuff is due to chemicals in the brain.

Some folks on the bodybuilding forum were getting tired of him coming there and threatening to kill himself over and over. Guess they won't have to worry about that anymore.

He's wasn't a boy, but he was a teenager. He was 19, and he was Black, with a beautiful White girlfriend and a young son. White nationalists are encouraged to find some obscure racial angle here. I always heard young Blacks had a low suicide rate, but it has been going in recent years, and epidemiologists are shaking their heads trying to figure it out.

He was Abraham K. Biggs (aka Candyman), 19, of Pembroke Pines, Florida, near Miami.

MySpace page here. Looks like he has lots of luck with the ladies and I can't understand someone like that killing themselves, but I've always thought this is a chemical thing in the brain.

The people who were egging him on are a bunch of idiots. And I think someone should have called the cops, but apparently everyone just thought it was a joke, and he was always threatening anyway. This Dadaist or Kafkaesque charade went on for 10 hours.

Much is made of the fact that he stopped moving at 11 AM and the cops didn't show up til 3:30 PM, by which time he was history, but I'm pretty sure he was already gone by 11.

At one time, there were ~1,500 people watching the feels_like_ecstacy channel. That's the way the site works. You will be on a channel and suddenly it will pile up with visitors for no reason.

Justin.tv is based in San Fransisco. 185 people were viewing the feels_like_ecstacy channel when the cops showed up.

This Is Not Schizophrenia

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

This is not schizophrenia. Let's look at some symptoms here that a fellow is reporting in a weight-lifting forum. Many of the commenters are replying that the guy has "the beginnings of schizophrenia", "mild schizophrenia" "schizophrenia", etc, etc ad nauseum. Let's take a look at his symptoms:

At night, no matter what I do. Not every night it always happens during the week when I have to work the next day, I cannot fall asleep. Music, TV, RX pills, Tylenol PM, melatonin. Even taken together, mixed and matched, I cant fall asleep sometimes. And my body is tired, but my brain wont shut up. And I'm not even thinking about anything important. Sometimes, just fucking music is playing.

And it will keep my up, not sleeping 2-3-4 nights in a row. By the 3rd day, I feel delirious, and I didn't want to train the other day, cause I was afraid I'd hurt myself from how slow, and tired my body felt. I'm trying not to smoke as much pot lately, cause I'm cutting, losing weight.

It's effecting my home life, my job, my training, my relationships. Someone asked me if it was because I was depressed. I really don't have much to be depressed about. I have a good job, I make good money, I get laid, my own place. If I'm depressed, I don't know why.

It's almost like I'm "tripping" is how much sense it doesn't make -like when you're on acid and your mind is racing and none of it applies to anything, or means anything. Random craziness.

I hear voices (not like telling me to kill or anything) but just random babbling and the voices change like they're inhaling helium. It doesn't make any sense. Other times, random songs play through my head and I cant shut them off. I can only control them by putting other songs in, but that causes me to strain my brain and think hard when I'm trying to relax my mind.

My head sometimes gets heavy too, like it weighs like 50 lbs, and my equilibrium gets off balance sometimes. Like a concussion.

OK, the guy is unable to control the thoughts in his head. Thoughts, crazy thoughts, random nonsense, just races through his head with little or no control over it at all. Songs, uncontrolled and unbidden, pop up in his head unbidden and play by themselves in his head.

He can't shut any of this bullshit off, and the only way to stop the music is to substitute one stupid song for another. I am assuming the "voices" he is hearing are voices in his head, not outside of his head. Fortunately, you can hear all the voices in your head as possible without being mentally ill, though it really isn't ideal.

It's crucial to realize that psychotics who hear voices actually hear them with their ears, not in their minds. We all "hear voices" in our heads. Our "inner voice" is a voice inside of our heads. The idiot media and popular does not do us any good by refusing to differentiate these symptoms. Psychotic voices heard with one's ears are transformed into "voices in his head".

Obviously, if it's sane to one one "inner voice", it's not psychotic to have more than one, or an unlimited number, though it's not exactly ideal. You could even have animal sounds in your head.

Hang on.

OK, I just made some animal sounds in my head. There was a cow and a monkey and now there's a lion. Does that make me schizophrenic? Come on.

If you follow the discussion, you will note that many of his friends on there tell him that he is developing schizophrenia. I do not believe he is doing any such thing, and this is not a symptom of incipient schizophrenia anyway.

I've been around folks in the prodrome of schizophrenia, and while their functioning was still ok enough, they were hallucinating (hearing voices) a significant part of the time. No amount of argument could convince them that the voices were not actually real, nor would they believe me when I said I didn't hear them. This is a pretty typical picture of incipient schizophrenia.

Keep in mind that the vast majority of schizophrenics hear voices. In fact, if you don't hear voices, I wonder if you really have schizophrenia.

What's also interesting is that, terrifying and weird as these symptoms are, a number of the commenters admit that they have experienced them - they say they have had strange, out of control, unbidden random thoughts and music in their heads before. So, while it's not optimal, this stuff seems to be pretty common.

What's the diagnosis for out of control, random, unbidden thoughts and songs in your head? I say nothing. There's no DSM dx that has a criteria like that as a sole criteria.

Just like "having a weird look in your eyes" does not give you a mental illness dx either. There are all sorts of folks walking around with all kinds of weird and crazy looks in their eyes. While it's disconcerting, it's not necessarily indicative of mental illness. There is no DSM dx for "has a weird or crazy look in their eyes."

You need to be nuttier than just that. What gives people weird looks in their eyes if they aren't nuts? Who knows? God knows what goes in people's minds. But as long as your speech and behavior remains normal, you're not mentally ill.

Why am I writing about this crap? I'm on a crusade to get people to quit being such morons about mental health. Even if we aren't ill ourselves, it doesn't help to give out false dx's and go around accusing non mentally-ill folks of "being crazy". It's insulting, stupid and cruel.

Personally, I never refer to other humans with words like "weird", "crazy", "nuts", etc.

Instead, I'm going to give you some specific description of their behavior, possibly with a potential dx. I can usually figure out what might be wrong with someone after spending a bit of time around them. I can almost always tell if they are psychotic or not, and usually if they are obviously dangerous or not.

Life's tough for everyone and probably few of us make it out unscathed.

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Hispanics and Alzheimers

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated October 24:

Interesting article shows that, tragically enough, Hispanics seem to be developing Alzheimer's at an earlier age than Whites.

Suggested factors were stress and low educational attainment. The low educational achievement is quite clear, since US Hispanic culture, while not made up of morons, places nearly zero value whatsoever on education.

I don't buy the stress thing though. I live in a mostly-Hispanic city, and these people do not worry about much of anything at all. They are some of the least neurotic people I have ever met. The whole philosophy is, "So what, take it easy, be apathetic, don’t worry about it, don’t think about it, take it one day at a time."

Hispanics seem to live very much in the present moment. Most of the time, they seem to be thinking about their immediate environment and reacting to it. I’m not sure that they think that much beyond the present moment and what’s directly in front of them.

There are advantages to that, but it doesn’t create a forward looking society.

I don’t buy that Hispanics experience massive levels of stress. They seem to be pretty stress-free, happy go lucky, people from what I can tell.

The stress that does exist is in the form of acting out. Couples fight it out like wildcats and stress and distress over this. People go to jail a lot, and there are lots of health problems. Unplanned pregnancies are typical, and I am starting to wonder if any Hispanics ever have a planned pregnancy.

Once you get to know them, the happy go lucky Hispanic will sometimes complain of depression. Ask him what should happen in his life to relieve his depression, and he is likely to say nothing. There is no hope. Misery will always be his secret company. Other Hispanics, like young gangbangers, sometimes say that they don't care if they live or die. Sounds like a depressed person of some type to me.

Hispanic females can be very quiet, such that they seem nearly schizoid, except that the emotional life is full, but the introversion is such that it cannot be easily glimpsed. It's a very shy woman of few words and deep emotions. Obviously a personality type that could be prone to depression. The extent of depression in Hispanic females is not well-known. The culture is people-rich and there is probably a lot of somaticizing.

There may be masked male depression, probably appearing most of the time as depression or drug abuse. Hispanic culture is a culture of action, not delay, introspection and denial of present action.

The true extent of psychopathology in such a culture is not easy to discern, but the absence of observable neurosis and worry is clear. It's not White culture at all; it's something altogether different.

Whenever I look for parallels to Hispanic culture, I keep getting reminded of the psychological type of the American Indians. To understand the Hispanic, first observe the Amerindian of the West and Latin America. There's other stuff going on - machismo from Spain - but that's a good place to start.

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POCD Versus Pedophilia - Differential Diagnosis

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated September 4. This is one of a number of posts I have written on mental illness. It deals with it from a diagnostic point of view that is probably most interesting to sufferers or clinicians, but may be interesting to some laypeople. I've been studying abnormal psychology for 30 years now, and experiencing it for 25 or so.

POCD is a subtype of OCD that is usually thought of as pure-O, or pure obsessional. Pure-O's do not have the usual behavioral rituals that the hand-washers, etc. have; instead, they have cognitive rituals. It is necessary that there be more documentation on this subtype of OCD because unfortunately, quite a few people are suffering from it, and clinicians barely understand it.

Due to this lack of understanding, clinicians think sufferers are psychotic or suffer from pedophilia. Many clinicians have a poor understanding of OCD as it is, and this series is intended to enlighten them about different forms that the illness can take.

I've written some stuff on POCD on this blog, and therefore, I get sufferers coming to me with the condition. As I don't have much issues with POCD these days, I'm capable of doing therapy with them online.

After talking to quite a few of them, it's clear that it's like any other type of OCD, since OCD sufferers, especially pure obsessionals, have a certain "sameness" about them such that you can nearly diagnose them on pure Gestalt alone.

I can tell pretty quickly after talking to someone whether they are suffering from OCD.

One thing to get clear on is that POCD will apparently never be acted on. I'm not aware of anyone acting on any of these obsessions.

There is another type of OCD called Harm OCD, and I have talked to a few of those folks too. Two of them were both convinced that they were serial killers. I quickly figured out that they had OCD and were completely harmless. People with harm OCD never do anything violent, and people with POCD never molest kids.

Once you know this, you can talk to them about all their scary thoughts with worries.

I might have a hard time doing therapy with an actual pedophile or a psychopath who really wanted to kill people. As a general rule though, these types do not feel there is anything wrong with them as they enjoy being this way, and they never seek help.

The usual POCD sufferer is a young man around college age or so. Females are much less common. I talked to one guy who was in his 30's. Sexual obsessions in general seem to hit young people the hardest of all for some reason. Most people with harm obsessions are also young people, mostly males, though I did talk to one 17 year old female.

OCD is a fear-based illness. It will latch onto anything in society that is frightening.

Nowadays, with Child Molester Mass Hysteria on the rampage and everyone worried about "pedos" and "predators", it's only logical that people with OCD would find this the perfect fear. What could be more terrifying than the fact that one may be a pedophile? Not much. Hence, POCD.

We have also seen a marked increase in fears of AIDS among OCD sufferers. AIDS is in our society, it's terrifying since if you get it, you're about dead, so OCD will latch onto it.

The best way we can do differential diagnosis here between POCD and pure pedophilia is to link to some websites.

First of all, a fellow I have been talking to has posted his history online here. He's given me permission to link to it. It's five pages, but if you read it, you should start to get a feel after a while about what this illness is all about.

Note the chronic doubting, the omnipresence of fear, the uncertainty about feelings and whether they are real or not, the questioning of everything from one's thoughts, feelings and history all the way to the actions and thoughts of others.

What's going on here is a hyperanalysis of the individual's history, thoughts and behaviors along with continuous checking of "scientific sources", followed by more rounds of unproductive doubting and worries. As you can see, nothing ever gets resolved here. The worries and doubts just go round and round. Once one gets settled, a new one comes up. This is truly a case of one's mind actually chasing its tail.

In this case, he is trying to prove whether or not he is a pedophile. He finds evidence, questions the evidence, checks, cross-checks and tests the evidence, then starts all over again.

There is atmosphere of wondering, uncertainty and doubting to the point where the person can start doubting his own perceptions. Thoughts and feelings can seem like they are actually occurring and the person becomes uncertain about what is really happening and what is just in their mind.

I talked to one woman who had lesbian fears during conversations with other women. I asked, "You get lesbian thoughts and this bothers you?" She said, "No, I worry that I'm going to say lesbian stuff to her. Then after the conversation is over, I wonder if I made lesbian comments to her." As we see, the person doubts their actual perceptions and wonders if things occurred that are did not even occur.

This doubting of one's own perceptions is actually quite common in this disorder and is almost diagnostic.

Unfortunately, it looks very strange, and clinicians often misdiagnose it as psychosis.

In this post, he says he can hear what people are thinking. That's a schizophrenic symptom, but when I questioned him about it, he said he just watched people very closely and thought he could figure out what they might be thinking, but he didn't really hear it with his ears. He admitted it wasn't really possible for him to know exactly what was in someone's thoughts.

When I heard that, I knew he did not have schizophrenia or a psychosis. Once again, though, we see internal thoughts and external perceptions being confused, common in OCD.

I wasn't impressed with the others in this thread, one of whom was accusing him of being a pedophile. An administrator, a clinical psychologist, finally gets it on page 4 and says he has sexual obsessions.

In this post, he says he is losing his attraction to women, and the attraction to kids seems to be increasing.

There is another sexual obsession called HOCD (homosexual OCD) that works much the same way. The person goes into horrible worries, thinking in a similar manner as this guy, that they may be gay or bisexual. In severe cases, they think that they are losing their attraction to the opposite sex and getting a new attraction to same sex. HOCD is very common; much more common than POCD.

As it's not possible to turn gay, bi or pedo against one's will, this is the common denominator in all sexual obsessions and is pathognomic.

Gay, bisexual and pedophilic persons do not feel as if alien forces are turning them into something they do not wish to be. They are what they are. The attraction, wanted or not, feels normal, natural, right, correct, real. They may worry about the way society will treat them, but it isn't a question of being transformed into something you are not.

He is also masturbating to pedophilic fantasies, but I'm not worried about that. He's doing this as some sort of checking behavior to "see if he's really a pedophile" or to "get it out of his system".

People with HOCD often do the same thing. They search out gay porn on the Internet and masturbate to it to "test their reaction". Then they go find some straight porn and masturbate to that to "test their reaction" to that. Then they endlessly compare reactions to try to figure out if they are gay or not. Typically, the testing never reveals any significant answers, so it just goes on and on.

This is called checking and it's also pathognomic of OCD.

The truth is that in males, sexuality is fixed by age 15. That means straight, gay, bi or whatever, can't change after that. What turns you on, turns you on. Behavior can change afterward, but not attraction. In females, it's different, but no female turns gay or bi against her will.

In one post, he tries to argue with the OCD by saying "I'm not a pedophile" (thought compulsion). His mind argues back, of course, by saying the opposite and telling him he is one. This is also pathognomic of OCD. OCD acts like a gremlin in your mind. It contradicts you and tells 4you stuff you don't even believe in and makes you confused.

The truth is, that's not really an internal dialogue, it's just OCD talking back and being contradictory. The result can be endless wars in the mind whereby one uses thought compulsions to try to contradict obsessions. For some strange reason, these don't seem to work very well, and the OCD often just fights back even harder with more intense contradictory statements.

Although masturbating to pedo fantasies may seem disturbing, I'm not worried about it in this case. Humans, especially young males, are polymorphously perverse, and can get turned on by just about anything.

A pedophile in general has a true preference for kids and does not have much interest in adults. They have been this way since early adolescence. It doesn't probably doesn't come on after age 15 or so, and neither do most other paraphilias. The root of all paraphilias, like the root of all sexual orientation, seems to be in the birthing storms of the teenage years.

My take is that OCD is lying to this guy. As you can see, he also has HOCD. He's suddenly developed gay fantasies. How? By looking at some gay porn on the Net. In his case, both pedo and gay fantasies were fantasy-supercharged due to their forbidden and taboo nature, not due to any real attraction.

OCD is lying to him, telling him he's gay and pedo and he's losing his attraction to women. HOCD sufferers also feel that they are losing their attraction to the opposite sex and gaining a new one to the same sex, but this is just an illusion. How this strange illness does this I'm not sure, but I think it has to do with the way anxiety and fear work on the brain.

HOCD sufferers are also typically young people and most are males, but there are quite a few young females too. They usually are shy introverts, like most OCD sufferers, and often have little sexual experience. The extroverted obsessional exists, but is quite rare. People seem to grow out of this gay OCD thing with age, or at least move onto other obsessions.

Since homosexuality is in our society and a popular meme in our culture and yet is not quite accepted, it's a logical fear for OCD to latch onto. For many young people, homosexuality is just wrong enough and taboo enough the fact that the thought that one might be gay or bi is quite terrifying.

If at some point, homosexuality and bisexuality become more accepted, OCD sufferers may stop worrying about being gay and start worrying about something else.

The nature of the OCD fears is not important. Depending on the era and society, OCD will latch onto whatever fears seem most terrifying for the time and place. The illness is mobile and once one fear is conquered, a new one can be acquired.

HOCD is a particularly horrible type of OCD. I've been to boards on the Net full of sufferers and many are seriously miserable, deeply depressed and contemplating suicide. For some reason, obsessionals, while often complaining of being suicidal, rarely seem to commit suicide. I think the fact that they are so fearful and inhibited keeps them from taking this final step.

For a glimpse of how real pedophiles think, and to tell the difference between POCD and pedophilia, check out this Wikisposure page that gives bios of numerous actual pedophiles that they are tracking. After you read through a number of the bios, you will get a common feel for what these guys are all about.

This, like all paraphilias, is not an anxiety disorder. The dominant emotion is not fear and doubt as in OCD. These guys aren't going round and round about whether or not they are pedophiles. That they are is clear as air to them.

Pedophilia, like all paraphilias, is an illness of desire, of appetite. It's like an addiction. They love it. This is what gets them off. They don't want to change, they don't want to get better, and the truth is they probably can't anyway.

I assume that true pedophilia, once fixed in adolescence and cemented in adulthood, is incurable. What gets you off, gets you off. It's not going to change. They can't help it, but at the same time, society needs to be protected.

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What Do The "Psychos" Look Like?

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated September 2:

As I mentioned in a previous post, for about 25 years now, I've been hearing people tell me that so and so is a child molester, so and so is a psycho, so and so is a pervert, so and so is a predator, so and so looks like a rapist, so and so is a serial killer, or looks like a serial killer. Or whatever.

I've been checking these guys out the best I can for decades now, and not one of them has turned up dangerous yet. Every one I met was just a harmless neurotic, except for a couple of gangbangers. The gangbangers weren't called psychos anyway, they were called "thugs".

I find this whole exercise bizarre. I really do want to know what the Hell a child molester looks like. People keep telling me that so and so looks like a child molester, but this makes no sense to me. Can someone tell me precisely what a child molester looks like?

Let me tell you geniuses something, all you clowns who think you can "spot the pedo". Tell you what, idiots. You can't. Not only that, you can't even "spot the dangerous person". I'd wager a lot of the folks everyone insists are such a menace are probably the most harmless people out there.

Take that notion, that you can "spot the pedo" or even "spot the dangerous people", into the office of anyone who really knows what they are doing, say, a clinical psychologist, and they will laugh you right out of the office.

Mental health professionals will inform you that there is no way to "spot the pedo" or "spot the psycho" based on appearances. Furthermore, you're going to get such a tidal wave of false positives that the whole exercise is absurd.

I can honestly say that I've never met anyone who "looked like a child molester". I've seen all sorts of guys who looked "weird" in one way or another, but I if I observe them for a while, I can usually figure out somewhat what's going on with them mentally.

There's weird-looking people everywhere in this world. I just give em the benefit of the doubt and move on. I don't equate weird with "psycho", "pedo", "serial killer", "rapist". The world's full of strange-looking people, but in most cases, they're harmless. Plus I can actually read people pretty well.

I did meet one guy who "looked like a child molester", but that was due to behavior, not appearance. I was teaching school at an elementary school in Compton in 1989 when I saw a guy parked in a van at lunch. He had long hair and an extremely strange, haunted look in his eyes.

And I swear to God I thought he was looking at the kids. It freaked me out so much that I got his license plate and called the cops. That's the only "pedo" I've ever spotted, and I don't even know if he was a pedo.

I'm even more mystified by what a rapist looks like. Way back in 1980, at age 22, I was coming out of a porn theater in downtown Long Beach very late at night, like 1 AM.

Yeah, I used to go watch the porns back in the day. So fuck me, Puritans and feminazis.

Well, this movie was kind of sick. The basic premise of it was rape. It consisted of I think a main character who wore gloves and a ski mask and I think he was going around raping women. I didn't really enjoy it. I think it was called "Obsession", but I'm not sure.

I was coming out of the theater to the parking lot and there was this young White guy, tough-looking, working class. He looked very, very angry. He was seething and looked like he was ready to kill. The energy was radiating off him like heat in a desert. He was wearing shorts and had a knife in a sheath on his waist. And he was coming out of a sick rape flick.

I don't know if he "looked like a rapist", but he didn't seem like a very psychologically healthy young man, and I worried about what he might do in the future.

Other than that, "looking like a rapist" means nothing to me. There are dangerous looking characters all over the place, especially in working class White neighborhoods, Black ghettos and Hispanic barrios. I figure 50% of the Hispanic immigrant males walking around my neighborhood look like they're capable of rape. Big deal.

I know one guy in the mountains who did time for rape of a child under age 14. He's an Indian and hangs out in the library drawing pictures. He's seriously anti-social and refuses to talk to anyone. He's lived up there for 16 years and he hasn't re-offended. I knew the guy for a long time before I found out about his offense. I don't think he "looks like a rapist". I just think he's an antisocial asshole, that's all.

Even more peculiar is the notion that someone "looks like a serial killer". Wow. What does a serial killer look like anyway?

I can honestly say that I have never met anyone who "looked like a serial killer", nor have I ever known any serial killers, nor have I ever known any killers period, and I wouldn't know what they look like anyway. Do they look dangerous? The world is full of dangerous looking men, mostly younger men. Do they all "look like serial killers"?

I knew one of the local guys on the Sex Offender list here in Madera. He was on there for molesting a child under the age of 14. I don't know the details. He's kind of a sleazy-looking Mexican immigrant guy, but that describes about 50% of the Mexican guys in my neighborhood.

He worked at the local market, and I never thought there was anything wrong with him. In fact, I thought I was weird and he was normal. I would go in the store and try to act more like the child molester and less like myself. Only later did I find the guy on the list.

I knew another guy who went down on a sex offender law. He lived in Oakhurst and he was in his mid-30's. He had really long hair - hippie type - and worked in a computer store. He was absolutely normal in every sense of the word. Once again, I thought he was normal and I was weird. I used to try to "act like the child molester" when I went there (before he went down on charges).

He went down for "child molesting" - what he did was he shacked up with, I think, a 15 year old girl. He went down for 4 years or so. Now, they'd give him 10 or even 20 years. Not good judgment on his part, but whatever. They also found "child pornography" on his computer. In our Modern Bullshit World, that could very well have been naked pics of his 15 year old girlfriend.

For example, this fire inspector just got 20 years in prison (!?) for getting local 15 year old girls to pose nude for him. That's called "production of child pornography". I don't call that "producing child pornography"; I call it "getting a teenage girl to pose naked and snapping pics".

Incredibly, the judge says he's a "pedophile" and he will have to go on the stupid Sex Offender list for the rest of his life. I don't call this guy a "pedophile" for taking pictures of naked 15 and 16 year old girls. That's a perfectly healthy and normal desire for a male of any age. I do think that he broke the law and was stupid and careless.

Whether this stuff should be illegal, I'm not sure, but it ain't worth no 20 years.

Studies show that all normal males have an extremely high, though not maximal, attraction for 14-15 year old girls. They have maximal attraction for 16 year old girls.

That is, they react as strongly to 16 year old girls as to females of any age 16+. The reaction to 15 year old girls is about 90% of maximum (still very high) and to 14 year old girls, it's about 80% of maximum (still quite high. So it's absolutely normal for males of any age to get really turned on by 14-16 year old girls. It's not "pedophilia" or any of that crap. It's just...normal.

Now, in our crazy modern world, guys over 24 at least need to be real careful about girls aged 14-16. Mess around with em, and you are likely to get pounded for 10 years, or even 20. So though your desires are normal, healthy, and certainly non-pedophiliac, it's best to control yourself and not give in to temptation.

The whole crazy idea that we can "spot the sickos" is complete nonsense, but people believe it anyway. But it's comforting. The notion that we can't spot the psychos makes the world a pretty terrifying place.

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Introverts Versus Extroverts!

Yeah! I love it! The fight I've been waiting for all my life! All my life, I've been waiting to fight you extroverted bastards, and now I can finally do it, online even!

An (obviously extroverted, or at least thinks they are) commenter noted that my piece on race and personality was contaminated with personal experience, notably, my jihad against extroverts. Commenter suggested that I split up the piece into two posts. Good suggestion! Done!

However, I want to point out that commenter makes the usual extroverted error. I discuss problems in my life (inevitable in any existence) which commenter then labels with the extroverted slur of "personal problems". "Personal problems" is an extroverted slur that extroverts use to describe anyone who is honest and up front about their normal problems in living that anyone experiences.

Got problems? Course you do. You're alive. You got problems. Duh. If you're an extrovert, you're problems are all other people. After all, you're fine. No wait, you're actually perfect! You're fucking perfect!

But if you're an introvert and you don't shut up, then you have "personal problems".

That means the problems are inside of you, and all your fault, whereas, with the extrovert, it's the same, but they manage to project it all out to where it seems like it's everyone else.

There were few "personal problems" on display in that post.

Instead, the post discussed the obvious and inevitable problems that all introverts face when dealing with opposite species known as extroverts.

To say that introverts having problems with extroverts is a "personal problem" is a gross misrepresentation. Instead, it is an interspecies conflict. No one assumes that a human - coyote conflict is a "personal problem", so no one should assume that an introvert - extrovert conflict is "personal problem" either.

And yeah, extroverts are the human equivalent of coyotes. Precisely. Is it a blast to watch a coyote running around in the wild! Damn right it is. Do you want to invite that same coyote into your home to share some quality time with you? Don't think so. Same with extroverts.

That's it for now! This is fun! Hopefully some extroverts will come around so we can have some all-out world war type conflict.

I've been waiting all my life for this fight, and I have a lifetime's worth of hate saved up for all of you extroverted fucks.

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I Don't Like You Extroverts

At. All.

I mean I like you, from a distance, but as far as the relationship thing, well, it's just never going to work, you know?

It's interesting that in the US, we introverts are considered weird, sick, mentally ill, unhappy, dangerous and creepy. We are potential killers, criminals and especially nowadays with Child Molester Mania, pedophiles!

The truth is that despite all the lone gunman stuff, the vast majority of violent crimes, and real crimes period, are committed by extroverts. I'm leaving out non-crimes like drug use here. Most sociopaths are extroverts, in fact, the two things are nearly synonymous. Sociopath, narcissist, histrionic, borderline, these are some of the logical pathological endpoints of extroversion taken its to its predictable extremes.

The reason America hates introverts so much is because we are an extroverted nation. The Northeast Asian nations are almost the direct opposite of that - introversion is considered to be the norm.

The main problem is that extroverts just can't understand us.

A while back, I was ill (chronic fatigue) was not working, and was just hanging out at my place alone most of the time. Everyone insisted I was depressed (this causing the fatigue, but actually it was being caused by chronic sinusitis), but honestly, I was not at all.

A relative confessed that she insisted I must be depressed because she could not fathom how anyone could have such a crappy life as I had and not be depressed about it. Truth is I had plenty to do, plenty to read, a computer, computer friends, a newspaper and a coffee shop to spend an hour or two a day for the social fix.

Life wasn't exactly optimal, but I expect almost zero out of life anymore anyway, so can make some fine lemonade out of some pretty horrid lemons.

I'm actually kind of a mixture. Long ago, I used to throw parties with live bands, kegs, and 200 people that kept on getting busted by the cops. Later I would go to eight or nine parties in a night. I would go out in the evening and visit five or six different people on the endless round of parties.

This was before I got OCD pretty bad, but it's still a part of my personality. I still talk to strangers out of the blue all the time, and my introverted friends think that is just horrible.

But yet, I still don't get along with extroverts well. They just don't understand us. They insist I must be miserable, hurting and in terrible pain, but truth is, that's just normal life for me. Life's a bitch and then you die, but I don't mind that much, and I'm just going to be happy anyway. I really suspect most older introverts expect very little out of this world anyway, so the tiniest positive thing seems like manna.

I've never gotten along with extroverts. Most of them treated me pretty badly at least part of the time we were together, and I never did anything to deserve it (other than being lame and being an introvert with HIT ME on my back), nor did I ever do anything aggressive to them.

I still resent all their crappy insults and stupid mood swings. Why can't they control themselves? You can hardly even tell if an extrovert likes you or not. One day they do; the next day they don't. One hour they do; the next hour they don't. I guess if they really hate you, they just blow you off totally.

Anyway, at 50, I'm at peace. They are what they are and we are what we are, and nothing can be done about it, so no worries.

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R-K Scale or Introversion-Extroverion Scale?

There are clearly some differences between the races, at least between Northeast Asians, European Caucasians and Blacks. Those differences are obvious to me and to many others, and show up in many statistics on a variety of societal variables.

Whether or not there are global personality differences between the races is very controversial, but it seems obvious to many folks just looking around at the world, and as a former US schoolteacher who taught classes full of Anglo-Americans, Japanese Americans and Afro-Americans for years all over Los Angeles, after a while you have to really lie to yourself to believe that such a thing does not exist.

At Gardena High School, there were many Blacks and many Japanese-Americans, and the contrast simply belts you in the face with a knockout punch. Even those experts who agree that there are differences go on and on about whether they are genetic or cultural, when it's clear that they are both.

Some recent studies have come out (by Jewish psychologists, of course) claiming that there are no significant personality differences between Blacks and Whites. I don't even care to read such a study, as it flies in the face of common sense observation.

Philippe Rushton is a racist who dislikes Blacks and his books are very controversial. He has suggested r-strategy versus k-strategy for the differences between Blacks, Whites and Asians. R-k selection theory is a theory in biology relating different modes of adaptation that animals use to survive in the environment.

I'm going to stay agnostic on the r/k thing and I don't wish to align myself with the oily Mr. Rushton, who, by the way, wishes to do away with all civil rights and anti-discrimination laws, but one thing I think Rushton makes clear is that there is an extroversion-introversion scale that closely mirrors that r/k scale.

As introverts have a vastly lower crime rate and extroverts tend to make up the vast majority of criminals (even among Whites) that makes good sense to me.

Also, extroverts are much more likely to be bored with school, tend to use and manipulate others more, have a "strong prey on the weak and that's ok" mindset, are vastly less moral and mannered, less inclined to repay debts, have much more regard for self than others, are more promiscuous, gamble, drink and take drugs more, take worse care of their health, are less cautious, have more accidents, take way more risks, are much more aggressive, impulsive prone to wild and excessive mood swings (wild emotionality) and are financially irresponsible and have a lowered life expectancy.

It's clear to me that all of these are true even within a race, say, with Whites (that's the race I'm most familiar with).

It's obvious to me that Blacks are the most extroverted race, NE Asians the least, and Whites in between.

Honestly, I have no idea what to do with most of the other races. SE Asians psychologically resemble NE Asians, though I think they are somewhat more extroverted. I haven't the faintest idea what to do with Amerindians, Hispanics, Polynesians, Micronesians and Papuans. I suspect that Papuans and Aborigines may be more like Blacks in extroversion.

Polynesians are very odd. They're obviously part-Asian and can be pretty quiet and introverted, yet at the same time, they are collectivist, love parties and are surrounded by people all the time. Filipinos are much the same. East Indians, Arabs, North Africans and South Asians are pretty much like Whites, cultural baggage aside.

Culture seems to intervene a lot here, as with everything else, and it gets real hard to disentangle everything. Sure, there are introverted Blacks (I've known a few of them!) and there are extroverted NE Asians, but we are looking at these groups globally here.

Francis Galton's Insight

Link.

From American Renaissance, a very problematic website due to its racism, but one that I nevertheless check out regularly. Why? It's the only place anywhere you can see frank talk about race. About the Black and Hispanic underclass, about the illegal alien invasion, and about all sorts of un-PC stuff.

I can't say one word against these 12 million Mesoamerican illegals who have ruined my state and are going to run my whole country. I can't say one word against these nightmarish Black and Hispanic Underclasses in our cities.

One of the worst problems with living in a heavily Hispanic area is that you can't say the slightest thing against them, their gangs, graffiti, crime, illegals, massive school failure and dropout rates, out of control illegitimacy rates, wild teenage pregnancy rates - no one can say one word about any of this stuff. If I do, I am immediately shouted down with accusations of racism.

The Hispanics have learned to wield the race card like every other liar and huckster in our society. I'm almost sorry we campaigned against racism 40 years ago because we created this horrible Racism Club that every reactionary ethnic activist and nationalist on Earth is using to beat up anyone critical of their petty little group.

It's almost an honor to be called a racist nowadays in PC America. All too often, it just means anyone speaking frankly about race in any way whatsoever. I assume that the insane PC hate speech laws come next, and I get threatened with jail.

The piece, among other things, quotes Francis Galton as saying that after observing various races for a long time, he concluded that they had the following personality characteristics:

• Amerindians display taciturn reserve


• Blacks have a talkative impulsiveness


• E Asians are placid

That strikes me as just about right, and it's interesting that those personality traits are observable in the youngest babies. I am not trying to draw any conclusions from that, but only to note that on average, Blacks are more extroverted and Asians are more introverted. American Indians are somewhat different, but seem to be more toward the Asians.

It's also interesting to note that Asians are the latest to mature and Blacks are the earliest to mature. How maturation rate fits into introversion/extroversion, I am not sure.

I am convinced that some the pathologies attributed to Blacks are due to their simply being more extroverted. Even in Whites, the more extroverted folks are much more criminal, hate school because it's no fun, are more sexually active and even promiscuous, are more emotionally volatile, have more problems with drugs and alcohol, and in my opinion, tend to be a lot less responsible and more manipulative.

They are less responsible and more manipulative because they just don't care about others' feelings the way that we introverts do, and they are self-centered and feel entitled to use others to get what they want.

Most introverts are horrified by the idea of openly using or manipulating a human being in a grotesque way to get something for yourself and leave the other person high and dry. Extroverts seem to regard this as a normal part of life like eating and sleeping.

That Indians are display a taciturn reserve is well-known to those who spend a lot of time around them, and fits in with the old stereotypes about Amerindians. Indian babies are said to be like rocks. It's not uncommon to wonder if they are alive or dead, and they often don't cry much.

However, they are said to be quite alert. Alert and silent - this is the stereotypical Indian baby. It's interesting how this fits in well with the stereotype of the silent yet alert Indian hunter, waiting in the woods for hours with his bow and arrow for the game to come into view.

Fine, so races have different temperaments, ok.

Now.

What about this?

I'm not sure I'm even going to there for now, but I will say that different ethnicities do seem to have different levels of morality. Comparing poor Hispanics, poor Blacks and poor Whites, the poor Blacks and Hispanics tend to behave vastly worse.

In the Hispanics' case, it's mostly the young males, who are an absolute disaster and a menace to our very nation such that we really need to consider importing fewer Hispanics until we can figure out which ones are going to do all right and which are going to degenerate into this Hispanic Underclass catastrophe.

In this neighborhood, it is the little things that you notice. Poor Blacks and Hispanics do seem much less cultivated and civilized, and you notice it with the little stuff. As soon as I step outside, they will badger me for "loans". You're insane if you ever loan most of them one dime for anything. They never pay back any loans, and then they have the nerve to still come around!

They come into your house and immediately start demanding things like wine, changing the radio station, this or that. They point at nice things in my house and ask me to get the thing to them! Many of them are will just try to openly use you and manipulate you in any way they can do get whatever they can out of you. That boils down to an all take and no give relationship.

They also engage in petty theft if they get into your place as soon as you turn your back on them. They also tend to be rather disrespectful of your property. They just more or less act like animals. Now, I can't see myself as engaging in any behaviors like that. I would never go to someone's place just to see what I can get out of them.

I would never demand anything on entry to someone's house, much less suggest that they should give me some of their property for free. I don't owe anyone outside my family one nickel, and I'm 50. If I never paid back a loan, I would be ashamed forever. I never ask anyone for money, and I would be humiliated if I did.

Now, the worst actors for all of this are young Hispanics who are enamored of the gangsta thing. Most are not employed or in school, and I am starting to wonder if they will ever work one day ever again. Many spend every nickel they get on marijuana. Most live off their stupid girlfriends, who give these worthless idiots money every day.

Since most of the Hispanics grow out of this a ways into their 20's, one wonders if it's really genetic. We are creating vast armies of sociopaths in our cities, and I am convinced that much of it is due the males being raised by single females. The male children of single Moms all too often are just criminals.

With the Blacks, they don't necessarily grow out of this ghetto mindset at all. I know Blacks in their 50's who still act this way. I am convinced that it is so because many Blacks seem to have a lower level of morality, even on the "little stuff", like throwing trash on the ground or strolling across a crosswalk after the light has already turned, that so many Whites have a problem with Blacks.

Most Whites just have a revulsion to little stuff like that, whereas many Blacks may very well think it's perfectly normal.

Now I know quite a few Blacks who are assimilated to mainstream society and don't act "ghetto" at all.

Blacks are really split into two different groups:

• An Underclass of varying degrees that shows varying degrees of "ghetto" and more or less uncivilized behavior.


• An assimilated group that has left the ghetto behind or never joined it to start with, and whose behavior is in general commendable.

The second group is increasingly washing its hands of the problems of the first group, but the honest to God truth is that nowadays, there is substantial overlap between the two groups. There are Blacks who have crawled halfway out of the ghetto but are not quite assimilated yet. Nevertheless, the distinction should be made, and it's one that almost all racists never make.

I see Hispanics as increasingly splitting into an Underclass and an assimilated group in the future also.

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