Leave it to the guys at Roosh V’s Return of Kings blog to find a bright side, of sorts, to a study reporting that one in five Americans suffered from some sort of mental illness in 2010, with more women (23%) amongst those affected than men (16.8%).
Since “at least a quarter of the women you run into at any given time are not going to be alright upstairs,” RoK contributor Athlone McGinn argues, and the percentage is likely to be much higher amongst younger women, you might as well use this fact to your advantage.
But first you need to accept the disadvantages. For one thing, you need to realize your powerful man-logic won’t work on these gals:
If you’re 18-25, you will in many cases be dealing with someone who is fundamentally incapable of being reliably rational.
Never mind that most mental illnesses don’t affect the ability to think rationally about most things. Someone with an intense phobia of Donald Trump’s hair, for example, is able to think rationally about everything except Donald Trump’s hair.
Maybe that’s a bad example. I’m not sure it’s entirely irrational to be afraid of Donald Trump’s hair.
And, like their sane counterparts, the crazy ladies may sometimes turn you down. But at least this time you don’t have to feel so bad about yourself.
You may think you’re a loser because you get shot down by these girls more than you’d like, but this isn’t always the case: you’re often dealing with not-entirely-alright girls with illogical criteria.
Oh, but McGinn assures us that “[t]his isn’t an excuse, mind you.” You still need to make sure your “game” is tight. Just don’t be too hard on yourself, because women (like the prices at Crazy Eddie’s electronics emporiums) are literally insane.
So what’s the great advantage of dating a woman who’s mentally ill? McGinn is a bit vague, probably deliberately, but essentially he suggests that men can keep “dysfunctional” women in line by treating them like shit:
Dysfunctional treatment is often welcomed by dysfunctional people, and many of those with mental issues fit that bill. Since we’ve already established that a very large number of young women fit into that category, you should not be surprised to see so many of them respond positively to dysfunctional behavior.
It is not uncommon for young men to adopt some of these dysfunctional behaviors, find increased sexual/romantic success with their female peers as a result, and then feel guilty about it all. Such guilt is understandable (they don’t like the fact that morally degraded versions of themselves are more appealing to girls in general than the men they actually prefer to be), but ultimately unnecessary—there is nothing a man can do about the female proclivity to welcome such behavior except adapt to it. It is the result of factors much bigger than him.
Poor pickup artists! They don’t want to be abusive, manipulative, exploitative assholes and terrible people generally. They’re driven to this awful behavior by forces beyond their control — like the fact that women are statistically somewhat more likely to suffer from mental illness than men.
Fibinachi. I had no idea you were college-aged. I’d thought you were a seasoned and well-aged traveler of this psychedelic sea. Good on you for being ahead of your time.
Thread: I use coconut oil as a face (and body, and hair) moisturizer and have never really been a makeup person — most foundations, synthetic moisturizers, and even sunscreens make me break out. Since my skin is usually pretty good now that I’m an adult and I have naturally dramatic features, I typically go without any foundation or emphasizing products. But I do want to protect myself from sun damage and deal with the occasional heat/stress breakout, so I often roll into the nearest Sephora to try some samples. Over the past year I have found the Tarte brand twelve-hour moisturizer to be really good for healing breakouts, evening skin tone, guarding against sunburn, etc., and it doesn’t sweat off. I’m a cheapskate but might even invest in a bottle this year. Hopefully that info will be of use to someone else.
As a prime example of hookup culture, the shop person at my last sampling trip hooked me up with a ton of other exciting samples too. You all know how women just love to give it away.
I also tried a NARS brand cheek stain/eyeshadow/lip gloss that looked and felt rad on both my lips and eyelids, and a Josie Maran hair serum that maintained my hair texture but made it very soft instead of dried-out and frizzy. Both of those items were, of course, very expensive and will have to stay in the realm of free samples. Naturally I would fall in love with all the fancy shit: I’m a lady and we’re all about spending those ill-gotten dollar bills on frivolous vanity items in order to manipulate men. … Or not.
Oh, and about “crazy” women? Sure, a lot of abuse victims go on to accept and even perpetrate abuse their whole lives. But a not-insignificant number of us reach a Bullshit Threshold that bestows upon us extremely sensitive Bullshit Detectors with alarm bells that go wild before the “dysfunctional behavior” even begins. This may vary between individuals and even with the same individual in different situations … but speaking only for myself, I know that when I sense someone is purposefully exploiting me because they think I’m “irrational” and therefore more vulnerable, my bullshit switch tends to flip and activate my Kill Code. Not literally, of course, but it *can* be unpleasant for the bullshitter. So what I’m trying to say is: when PUAs start to work their magic, I mean mind games, in the hope of scoring with someone they think will be more likely to take their shit … they should keep in mind that they can never know which type of woman they’re toying with. The kind who is going to cave in out of fear or the kind who is going to fight back, possibly unpleasantly.
Sweet dreams tonight.
BTW: hugs, cloudiah. Warm, fuzzy hugs. If you need to meditate, think of happy cat tails gently wagging and little cat paws going open, then closed.
And Nova: I also have an unpleasant living sitch with an ex, though this one isn’t physically abusive. If you need to chat with someone in private, there are ways to get in touch with a lot of us who post here. Otherwise, just know you are not alone in this situation in this space!
Best to all, and sweet dreams — really.
My mom knows what`s going on, but the stuff he`s claiming is incredibly taboo and, if anyone believed him it could get me killed. Not that most people really would but… there`s still that anxiety there. People can be incredibly ignorant sometimes and I really don’t want to bring it up with anyone because the rumors will be in Moscow by the end of the day.
@Argenti: The ER visit lasted 20 minutes and we didn’t make it past triage, because it was all so ridiculous. Just embarassing and degrading, but I’m getting used to it.
Thanks for clairifying! Like I said, the stuff he’s doing is so over the top, paranoid and ridiculous that only an equally over the top, paranoid, ridiculous person is going to consider it. It’s getting WAY into tinfoil territory. Right now, it’s more the isolation and the fact that neither of us can (or wants to, in his case) talk to anyone about it. No fresh perspectives, no grounding influences. Just a bunch of unchecked paranoid delusions barely even based in reality.
Guffaw-ferrets: I appreciate the suggestion, although I wouldn’t email another poster without being invited to. I know how draining it can be to help someone through this kind of thing and wouldn’t want to impose. The idea that I’m not alone is comforting. We`re all just imperfect people trying to make our way in an imperfect world.
RE: CassandraSays
It should be OK for people to feel sad in response to unfortunate life events, and being sad in that way doesn’t mean that they need to be medicated.
Sometimes, it’s a little tricky, though. I mean, I was PROFOUNDLY depressed when I lost my job, mind, and home in the space of a few months. I don’t think anyone could claim that an unnatural reaction, but I still needed the meds to keep my head above water. (And even then, I still have some pretty nasty low points when more bad news comes in.)
Nova — I’m kinda out of emotional spoons at the moment, so I might take awhile to reply, but you can email me if you want. My nym @gmail
ER trip just makes me go >.< because really? Wouldn’t the ER people think him an asshole for wasting their time? Logic aside, I’m sorry you had to go through that, they make it demeaning enough when you have to be there, to go through that for no reason…
And I guess over the top is better, easier to see as bullshit. Mine was more the vague statements he could claim he meant differently; things he said I said that I didn’t remember saying, but were things I might’ve said and I was way too frazzled to be sure I was remembering correctly; a perpetual string of how my interpretation was wrong because I’d colored it with my fucked up emotions (mood disorder, making “you’re just applying depressive logic” believable).
So yeah, at present I may not have many useful things to say, but my inbox is open if you want to make use of it. And I might be more functional once I have coffee, doubled on my sleeping pill (perfectly safe, don’t worry) after emailing pecunium about rapist ex #1 — the one I never talk about — an emotionally exhausting endeavor, but that’s why I did it, probably better if I can get remotely used to talking about it in some form or fashion!
——
Everyone — I may not be around much today, I have a whole list of things I need to do around here to reclaim my bedroom for the clutter creep being caused by my fish project.
“It should be OK for people to feel sad in response to unfortunate life events, and being sad in that way doesn’t mean that they need to be medicated.”
It really depends on duration of a depressive episode, whether there’s any improvement over time, the severity of the symptoms, whether someone is responding to therapy or meds, and a whole host of other factors. Sometimes people need meds, sometimes they need therapy, sometimes they need both, and sometimes they just need love and support from those around them while they process through a difficult time.
I agree. Too often people internalize the message of “you shouldn’t feel sad” and that’s unhelpful and even harmful.
I wasn’t on the net for the weekend, but here comes…
Okay, yeah, if you have a narrow rationality concept like “rational=always does what makes me most happy”, right. But I don’t think that’s the most plausible analysis of rationality (or “interest”, for that matter).
I wouldn’t want to be the kind of person who just forgets my husband the moment he dies, even if I’d be happier if I immediately forgot all my sorrows. So I deny that grieving for him would be against my interests.
I’m not saying love can’t be irrational… Like, I’ve mentioned before I had an emotionally abusive boyfriend when I was nineteen, and loving him was absolutely irrational, because it’s not like I, on reflection, wants to be with someone who treats me like shit. That is against my interests. But grieving for a loved no? Still loving husband if he’s in a coma? No.
Sorry, should be “grieving for a loved ONE”, not “grieving for a loved no”, obviously.
Yeah. We spent a bunch of years pretty much being an unstoppable robot, behaviorally, which was part of why it was so difficult for me to recognize my own depression. I felt awful, but it became a PHYSICAL thing, not an emotional thing. I was constantly exhausted, everything took me much longer because I felt like I was wading through molasses, but I couldn’t quantify my feelings as sad, so it took me a while. I was just like, “I don’t understand. I always go. Why can’t I go? MAKE ME GO DAMN YOU.” And sure, the effort of existing seemed unbearable sometimes, but I couldn’t die, so it seemed kind of pointless to get help…
Obviously it ended badly.
Or, short answer: It’s not irrational to embrace something that you deeply, truly value. Even if it’s loving in a way that will occasionally make you sad.
Fish keeping, totally
irrationaladorable, rewarding, occasionally heartbreaking, frequently headache inducing (though this is probably because I refuse to just have a nice reasonably sized community tank, I hear those are easy. Fuck, they must be, that’s what my 29g is doing lately and it pretty much runs itself with my father feeding it)Sometimes physically demanding, as I have to clean my room damn near completely for my latest project. This is me between tasks, drinking coffee before diving into what might be the nastiest of it — a bin of things like shampoo and anti-acne creams and all that shit…that’s been tucked away for a decade. I’d toss it all, but pretty much the first thing I found was perfectly good baby powder (and a toothbrush case that I hope my electric will fit in because I’m going to need it in a few days [aahhh! That soon! *freaks*])
Athlone McGinnis is older than me. Fair boogles my mind, that.
(Alternate quip: Yeah, the immersion into psychedelic seas helps with things. So does the magic! But it’s mainly all the drugs…)
Thank you though, I appreciate the sentiment. If I must be an old codger in my mind, then I shall. You bloody whippersnappers! Where’s m’teeth… Millenium hand and shrimp!
@LBT
Did you seek help and then explain this to the doctor-person, and then were informed you had a depression? If you don’t want to elaborate, then don’t – or if this is being ridicolously intrusive – but that… that really, really sounds like my weeks occassionally and now I want to know what happened then (because the situation had a better ending, right? THings ended badly, but then you, because you’re awesome, got better… right? Right?)
—
@Threadish.
I – too – have an e-mail which I check semi regularly, and I should have wrangled Google into hiding enough of my private information that it’s more of a drop box for the Fibi-related things. You are all (Minus you, troll, reading this) more than welcome to compose a message if you feel like venting.
Or require e-books! I have a comprehensive library. It’s a service we offer with pride q: Pride born of caffiene and mania in equal measure.
It’s Fibinaut at gmail,
Why would I subject myself to your inane rhyming?
Good question. Not because of any specific reason, but because sometimes typing out the extent of your current internal state is beneficial and helpful and good for the soul, and it can be great to write to others, and you all seem like decent people.
But also because, well, to quote someone in a fancier suit than I:
Fibinachi — from one psychnaut to another *high five* Seeing what the world is really like is a strange and wonderful thing isn’t it?
Particularly when it comes with the realization that most people are actually decent people who’re just too caught up in their own shit. Maybe ze’s not an asshole, maybe ze just missed the bus. Maybe he didn’t intend to wear stripes with plaid, maybe he had to borrow the striped shirt after his got gross (a conversation yesterday, there’s still no excuse for you pecunium, besides being awesome enough to rock a striped shit and kilt)
RE: Fibinachi
Did you seek help and then explain this to the doctor-person, and then were informed you had a depression? If you don’t want to elaborate, then don’t – or if this is being ridicolously intrusive – but that… that really, really sounds like my weeks occassionally and now I want to know what happened then (because the situation had a better ending, right? THings ended badly, but then you, because you’re awesome, got better… right? Right?)
Welllll… first this happened. When I surfaced from that, I was in partial hospitalization, AKA Loony Daycare. (By all rights, I probably should’ve ended up in FULL hospitalization; that I didn’t is purely through the grace of the people around me.) They quickly recognized I was Not Well, put me on meds, and I was lucky, it was a good dose and type for me, and within a week, I was starting to revive and feel like a hominid again.
That was a year ago, and since then we’ve been completely reorganizing our life to make sure we never, ever have that happen again.
Hey LBT, that outpatient hospitalization, besides the meds, did it help any? You can email me, or ignore me, if that’s not okay to ask…but it’s what they’re trying to force me into…so, yeah…
RE: Argenti
I done a couple of them. The first was an LGBT group, the one I mentioned above. It I found immensely helpful, am very glad I went, and I still keep them in my back pocket for if my brain gets really bad again. (For a bit, it was looking like I need to return, before I got my current housing.)
The other was a specifically ED group, and was much less useful. I stuck it out pretty much on the behest of my therapist.
A lot of it depends on the people you’re with, but I’d generally recommend it. It’s far less constrictive than outright hospitalization, which was very reassuring to me.
To elaborate, meds were useful to me, but far from the be-all-end-all. It just helped pull me out of the deepest depths of my depression; I still had all the dissociation, trauma, ED, and housing/financial issues to deal with. (Plus a brief new system member. Not pleasant.) The PHP/IOP helped teach me new coping skills to work with it, plus support and the meds. It was a very good combo for me to build a solid foundation to build off of.
The truth is out! Fibinachi’s messages come courtesy of his thinking brain dog!
Seriously, add me to the list of those who’re even more impressed by your comments, knowing your Extreme Yoof. I thought you were in your thirties! (That’d mean you were still barely past whippersnapper stage, though.)
Nova: I am going to email Fibinachi, and if Fibi feels it’s okay too, we can start an email tree from there. Please feel free to contact me that way, we can commisserate if nothing else.
LBT — my concern, among many, is that it’s…well, here —
You see my complaints about attempting to Dx me with BPD? Cuz yeah, I’m a lot of fucked up, but that isn’t one of ’em. And no matter how many times or ways I said that amount of emotional soul bearing, in a group, was going to cause full meltdown, all I got in response was “that’s what they’re there for!” (And “you’d think you didn’t want to get better!”…as I told pecunium via email, you know what? If that means risking a flat out suicidal meltdown, no, no I don’t)
Fibinachi — you have casual sexytimes? Better watch out, they’ll label you impulsive and reckless in light of your use of hallucinogens.
Like, seriously, they have to be counting that, and my FUCKING GENDER (like, literally, won’t pick boy or girl => unstable self-image) and no, just no. Among the list of like, actually definitive symptoms are things like frantic efforts to prevent real or imaginary abandonment, eg the end of a counseling session; swinging from idealizing and demeaning people; impulsive anger. You guys have seen what it takes for me to go off on trolls, does any of that sound fitting? (Like, seriously, I’ve had *two* swear fits and they both involved demeaning my friends)
And abandonment? I expect it. Try avoiding it? No, more like kicking myself for thinking this time it’d be different.
The mood and anxiety disorder track might make sense, if, you know, I wasn’t practically having a panic attack in her office at the idea. But the BPD track? Without, afaik, Dx’ing me with it? (Oh but then I might get angry!) It’s a horrible catch-22, I refuse and it proves the point.
Like, seriously, y’all seem to be the only ones taking my “I will end up suicidal, this is a bad idea” seriously (for which you rock)
RE: Argenti
You see my complaints about attempting to Dx me with BPD? Cuz yeah, I’m a lot of fucked up, but that isn’t one of ‘em. And no matter how many times or ways I said that amount of emotional soul bearing, in a group, was going to cause full meltdown, all I got in response was “that’s what they’re there for!”
To be fair, that group is for stuff BESIDES BPD. Hell, I find DBT inordinately useful, and I don’t have any of those Dxs myself. Also, you aren’t required to bare your soul if you don’t want to. If the group pressures you for that, then it’s a shitty group. The one I was in, there were people who barely spoke at all, plus the occasional, “Wait, they weren’t ASLEEP that whole time?”
I mean, I was pretty talky in the group, but I didn’t talk about anything I wasn’t ready to. I didn’t talk about my family much, for instance.
If you do decide to try out this program, keep in mind that you can leave at any time. Hell, people in my group would sometimes storm out in a huff if they were having a bad day, or just really, REALLY didn’t like the topic for the moment.
Part of what might help is to set firm guidelines and boundaries when you go in. What exactly do you want help with? What are your goals? Stick with them, and put your foot down, and if you get pressure to do otherwise, you don’t have to put up with that shit. PHP/IOPs are voluntary. Storming out doesn’t give them the right to involuntarily hospitalize you.
“Part of what might help is to set firm guidelines and boundaries when you go in. What exactly do you want help with? What are your goals? Stick with them, and put your foot down, and if you get pressure to do otherwise, you don’t have to put up with that shit. PHP/IOPs are voluntary. Storming out doesn’t give them the right to involuntarily hospitalize you.”
See, this is the problem. Apparently not being too depressed to function and not turning into a ball of anxiety over, oh, things like this, are not viable goals. Need things with deadlines! Now, maybe this’d be different, but I have my doubts, the clinic is part of the same hospital.
And they aren’t making it feel very voluntary.
Like, I’m not cutting, am eating more or less acceptably (and despite my extreme pleasure at what the scale says, it’s more too busy + too depressed + too hot to cook = eating shit), sleep, ok, but how is turning me into a bigger nervous wreck supposed to help? And the sleeping pill generally gets at done anyways…I legitimately don’t haveq the sort of concrete goals that can be all nice and plotted out (or rather, they have nothing to do with my brain and this is me taking a break from reorganizing my room because I can follow actionable steps just fucking fine [ask pecunium about the to do list I sent him, it’s about 3 pages long])
And shit like “being able to tolerate being around people”…throwing me in with a bunch of people I don’t remotely know is only going to cause my brain to go “see, you’re all awkward!”. Whereas, um, I guess I should spill the beans already — I’m going to visit pecunium Thursday. Which is a far more reasonable “you’re going to have to put up with people to get used to it” (ok, sorta, we’re meeting at Grand Central, I’ve never been to NYC and am freaked about the sheer volume of people there, but he seems to get that enough that I’m relatively sure he’ll keep them from bothering me [which is ignoring that we probably both just exude “go away”])
Meeting pecunium finally — good nervous
The idea of doing this and being guilt tripped that not doing all of it means I don’t want to get better? I won’t let myself drop out since “ahh! I’ll disappoint someone” and it just…
They’re treating me like numbers and Dx’s on paper, not a person. I’m not a complex individual with a clue how zir brain works, I’m bipolar with PTSD (and GAD which uh, hello anxiety about everything!) and give most of their suggestions some “excuse” why I can’t do it. “Excuses” like pondering the idea causes a panic attack or logistical I can’t afford it type things . Oh, yeah, surely I could spend 5k, so why can’t I find it to pay off my degree? (honestly, I don’t think I could, half of it on a new mac, ok, but the rest? Stash it for a fish emergency) — it’s the assumption that I could have the money if I didn’t spend the TWO FUCKING HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH from welfare…on shit like pants that actually fit (sound familiar?)
My mother’s funding my fish project because she feels bad about ich and velvet nearly wiping out my tank, otherwise I couldn’t afford this. And even then, this will probably come out to well under $300, nothing like the 5k I owe Pitt.
Everything I fucking say is taken as “an excuse”, like I’m just trying to be difficult. At best they make me feel like an obstinate child, more often I come home and send pecunium a very long rant to decompress from the panic they’ve sent me into.
TL;DR they don’t listen to me and I don’t trust them.
Oh and I bolder that one for a reason. They want me to do the personality disorder track. Not the mood disorders and anxiety one.
Seriously, everything you’ve said sounds like it’s doing the opposite of helping. With that kind of pressure, yeah, not worth it. In my case, I was incapable of doing the most basic of tasks without assistance, and I wasn’t pressured into where I went. That they’re treating you that way is really shit, and I’m sorry. With that kind of shit, yeah, it doesn’t sound like a very useful place.