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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 679988" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>What a crummy position to be in Copa, even as an adult. And you were only a nine year old little girl. As an adult, we could offer to pay for whatever damage we'd inadvertently caused. And, as adults, it would be assumed that the damage was not intentional. But for the friend to have told you she intended to present you to the mother as a little girl who had broken something and lied about it ~ that friend was blackmailing you, Copa. She seems to have relished tormenting you with the loss of her mother's respect or admiration.</p><p></p><p>What a nasty little girl.</p><p></p><p>Do you suppose she was jealous of you, Copa.</p><p></p><p>I wonder whether the mother knew her own child well enough to understand what was happening. </p><p></p><p>How awful for you.</p><p> </p><p>Do you think it could have been that she was that afraid of her mother? Or do you think the girl knew exactly what she was doing. Because of her behaviors as an adult, it looks to me like she knew. Why else torment you with what would happen once the lie had been told and your reputation destroyed.</p><p></p><p>They say we are never safe from people put together like that. That they have no shame about any of their behaviors, and keep popping up in our lives, with horrific consequences for us. </p><p></p><p>My quote stopped working Copa, but I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion regarding this person. That there is no bad guy here because you no longer require yourself to play that role.</p><p></p><p>I will think like that too maybe, once I am further along.</p><p></p><p>But for today, I say there absolutely is a nefarious villain, and it is her.</p><p></p><p>I think she will not have changed, not in all of her life.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think it is not so much that they take advantage, Leafy. Predators take actions that make no sense. The win in what they won is not clear. It's like the story I tell about the lady driver.</p><p></p><p>The other thing that seems to be true about predators is that they prey on everyone they come into contact with. It is automatic to them and has to do with how they see the world and themselves moving through it. They expose themselves through a kind of overweening grandiosity in the way they describe what they do. It isn't that they justify what they do. They celebrate their ascendance in the misfortune they cause others. They seem not to relish or even, to see the pain they create so much as they see themselves ascending. There seems to be a stubborn core of vengeance at the heart of them where everyone else has warmth and real gratitude and an easy, simple kind of joy in the everyday wonders.</p><p></p><p>Or maybe, it has something to do with that Culture of Scarcity Brene Brown writes about.</p><p></p><p>That certainly does become what they set up of their lives, with themselves of course, as the gatekeepers.</p><p></p><p>Every person in their lives will have been hurt or disparaged, their reputations destroyed. The expectation is that the "loved one" can be used and discarded and used again, at will. </p><p></p><p>As though they have no intrinsic value.</p><p></p><p>I've read that the predator's world is empty and filled with rage. That they will forever feel slighted, and that this is the source of their outrage and their hatred.</p><p></p><p>Maybe, they cannot forgive.</p><p></p><p>Maybe that is the difference.</p><p></p><p>Just recently we were debating the banality of evil, here on FOO. Our conclusion was that every evil begins with a series of small, everyday decisions that compromise a moral standard. It isn't that we don't know better. One day slips into the next, and suddenly, we have justified thievery or plagiarism or murder. So, I think it is less that there are predators and easily swayed empaths than it is that the predator has allowed him or herself to weave a reality comprised of a series of morally corrupt choices. Rather than see clearly, they seem to come to believe their own reflected reality. It must be like an echo chamber in there. But even so, it seems to me that it is a choice for the predator/grandiosity addict. That it is more a matter of a series of self-deceptions having to do with grandiosity than it is a genetic predisposition.</p><p></p><p>Well, okay. So maybe it is a genetic thing. Think of the deadlights in the eyes of our addicted children, their brain chemistries desperately altered by drug use.</p><p></p><p>So it could be that there is a brain chemistry deficit in predators...except they do not show the deadlights. They sparkle and shine and laugh way too loud, forever aware of their own presences and presentations. They so relish grandiosity. That is their drug, and they will stop at nothing to have it. </p><p></p><p>So says me.</p><p></p><p>And everything, every interaction, somehow becomes a bargaining point. And at the end of the day, though we know clearly that something sh**tty happened, we never do know what it is that was bought or sold.</p><p></p><p>And it turns out to have been us.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>That is very different than believing the predator is constructed any less perfectly than we are, ourselves ~ that somehow, we are empathetic and they are not. It is probably true that we are all more exquisitely attuned to emotional currents than we have been led to believe. What happens though, if we were broken into external locus of control as children, is that, because we grew up with them, we believe the grandiosity-addict is just another version of human. And not something turned evil by his or her own corrupt moral choices. We never see them coming, not because they are so cleverly invisible, but because they feel familiar to us. </p><p></p><p>How sad, for us and for them, that this is so.</p><p></p><p>We don't even get it that there is something deeply the matter with the grandiosity addict's rages and falsifications and self indulgences because we lived it, growing up. Instead of turning away, instead of naming the predatory human for the morally deficient, less than human creature they have created of themselves, we find ourselves hooked in; fascinated.</p><p></p><p>This is how we sell ourselves into slavery as adults.</p><p></p><p>And in doing this, we also are morally wrong.</p><p></p><p>Two sides of the same coin.</p><p></p><p>For those whose locus of control is external ~ for those who, like me, feel responsible for pretty much everything ~ the more inappropriate the predator's behavior, the more sucked in we get. Where a person with internal locus of control becomes bored or even, deeply offended (which is the appropriate response) at the predator's fishing and hooking behaviors, a person with external control will empathize, believing the predator either better than he or she is, or believing for the predator that he or she can be better. If we've been hurt very badly as children, the worse the predator's behaviors, the more hooked in we will be.<em> </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>It's as though we've been hypnotized. And in a way, we have been. The patterns are such familiar ground for us.</em></p><p></p><p>We have a moral responsibility to ourselves to monitor our own behaviors, lest we slip into victim/villain mindset. Or, martyr/savior. If we have been badly hurt as children, we will chose the victim or savior role as adults, justifying that choice through believing we can help the predator/grandiosity addict to heal when in reality, we recognize familiar rhythms in the sadist's song. Fascinated, we rise to dance, the music overwhelming, irresistible.</p><p></p><p>So, we need to watch out for that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”</p><p></p><p>― <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7113.Anne_Lamott" target="_blank">Anne Lamott</a>, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/841198" target="_blank">Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life</a></p><p> </p><p>I love Anne Lamott. </p><p></p><p>"...and is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft."</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>Tai Chi for me today.</p><p></p><p>Copa, it is so nice to have you back.</p><p></p><p>Later, dudes.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 679988, member: 17461"] What a crummy position to be in Copa, even as an adult. And you were only a nine year old little girl. As an adult, we could offer to pay for whatever damage we'd inadvertently caused. And, as adults, it would be assumed that the damage was not intentional. But for the friend to have told you she intended to present you to the mother as a little girl who had broken something and lied about it ~ that friend was blackmailing you, Copa. She seems to have relished tormenting you with the loss of her mother's respect or admiration. What a nasty little girl. Do you suppose she was jealous of you, Copa. I wonder whether the mother knew her own child well enough to understand what was happening. How awful for you. Do you think it could have been that she was that afraid of her mother? Or do you think the girl knew exactly what she was doing. Because of her behaviors as an adult, it looks to me like she knew. Why else torment you with what would happen once the lie had been told and your reputation destroyed. They say we are never safe from people put together like that. That they have no shame about any of their behaviors, and keep popping up in our lives, with horrific consequences for us. My quote stopped working Copa, but I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion regarding this person. That there is no bad guy here because you no longer require yourself to play that role. I will think like that too maybe, once I am further along. But for today, I say there absolutely is a nefarious villain, and it is her. I think she will not have changed, not in all of her life. I think it is not so much that they take advantage, Leafy. Predators take actions that make no sense. The win in what they won is not clear. It's like the story I tell about the lady driver. The other thing that seems to be true about predators is that they prey on everyone they come into contact with. It is automatic to them and has to do with how they see the world and themselves moving through it. They expose themselves through a kind of overweening grandiosity in the way they describe what they do. It isn't that they justify what they do. They celebrate their ascendance in the misfortune they cause others. They seem not to relish or even, to see the pain they create so much as they see themselves ascending. There seems to be a stubborn core of vengeance at the heart of them where everyone else has warmth and real gratitude and an easy, simple kind of joy in the everyday wonders. Or maybe, it has something to do with that Culture of Scarcity Brene Brown writes about. That certainly does become what they set up of their lives, with themselves of course, as the gatekeepers. Every person in their lives will have been hurt or disparaged, their reputations destroyed. The expectation is that the "loved one" can be used and discarded and used again, at will. As though they have no intrinsic value. I've read that the predator's world is empty and filled with rage. That they will forever feel slighted, and that this is the source of their outrage and their hatred. Maybe, they cannot forgive. Maybe that is the difference. Just recently we were debating the banality of evil, here on FOO. Our conclusion was that every evil begins with a series of small, everyday decisions that compromise a moral standard. It isn't that we don't know better. One day slips into the next, and suddenly, we have justified thievery or plagiarism or murder. So, I think it is less that there are predators and easily swayed empaths than it is that the predator has allowed him or herself to weave a reality comprised of a series of morally corrupt choices. Rather than see clearly, they seem to come to believe their own reflected reality. It must be like an echo chamber in there. But even so, it seems to me that it is a choice for the predator/grandiosity addict. That it is more a matter of a series of self-deceptions having to do with grandiosity than it is a genetic predisposition. Well, okay. So maybe it is a genetic thing. Think of the deadlights in the eyes of our addicted children, their brain chemistries desperately altered by drug use. So it could be that there is a brain chemistry deficit in predators...except they do not show the deadlights. They sparkle and shine and laugh way too loud, forever aware of their own presences and presentations. They so relish grandiosity. That is their drug, and they will stop at nothing to have it. So says me. And everything, every interaction, somehow becomes a bargaining point. And at the end of the day, though we know clearly that something sh**tty happened, we never do know what it is that was bought or sold. And it turns out to have been us. *** That is very different than believing the predator is constructed any less perfectly than we are, ourselves ~ that somehow, we are empathetic and they are not. It is probably true that we are all more exquisitely attuned to emotional currents than we have been led to believe. What happens though, if we were broken into external locus of control as children, is that, because we grew up with them, we believe the grandiosity-addict is just another version of human. And not something turned evil by his or her own corrupt moral choices. We never see them coming, not because they are so cleverly invisible, but because they feel familiar to us. How sad, for us and for them, that this is so. We don't even get it that there is something deeply the matter with the grandiosity addict's rages and falsifications and self indulgences because we lived it, growing up. Instead of turning away, instead of naming the predatory human for the morally deficient, less than human creature they have created of themselves, we find ourselves hooked in; fascinated. This is how we sell ourselves into slavery as adults. And in doing this, we also are morally wrong. Two sides of the same coin. For those whose locus of control is external ~ for those who, like me, feel responsible for pretty much everything ~ the more inappropriate the predator's behavior, the more sucked in we get. Where a person with internal locus of control becomes bored or even, deeply offended (which is the appropriate response) at the predator's fishing and hooking behaviors, a person with external control will empathize, believing the predator either better than he or she is, or believing for the predator that he or she can be better. If we've been hurt very badly as children, the worse the predator's behaviors, the more hooked in we will be.[I] It's as though we've been hypnotized. And in a way, we have been. The patterns are such familiar ground for us.[/I] We have a moral responsibility to ourselves to monitor our own behaviors, lest we slip into victim/villain mindset. Or, martyr/savior. If we have been badly hurt as children, we will chose the victim or savior role as adults, justifying that choice through believing we can help the predator/grandiosity addict to heal when in reality, we recognize familiar rhythms in the sadist's song. Fascinated, we rise to dance, the music overwhelming, irresistible. So, we need to watch out for that. “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.” ― [URL='http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7113.Anne_Lamott']Anne Lamott[/URL], [URL='http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/841198']Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life[/URL] I love Anne Lamott. "...and is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft." :O) Tai Chi for me today. Copa, it is so nice to have you back. Later, dudes. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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