By David Futrelle
A lot of what’s called “Red Pill Dating Strategy” is little more than abuse — mimicking the behavior of real-life skeezebags who employ assorted psychological tricks designed to keep their partners feeling desperate and insecure. It’s as if the Red Pillers read a rundown of toxic behavior in relationships and decided to use it as a to-do list.
But for this strategy to work properly, the subject of this sort of manipulation has to remain unaware of the tactics their abuser is using. So what happens if a woman learns about these tricks and realizes they’re being used on her?
Well, for one thing, it freaks out this dude who never thought he’d get caught. And so he turned to the Ask The Red Pill subreddit for help.
Oopsie daisy!
Naturally, one of the Red Pill regulars suggested that he respond to the accusations of manipulative abuse by … gaslighting her.
“I would honestly look at her crazy … and act stupid, ‘redpill? I don’t understand what you mean by that?’ Or some bullshit,” wrote rprookie.
Another suggested that he try to convince her that the abuse was a good thing.
Be blunt, yes it is selfish and narcissistic in some ways. Here’s the catch there’s nothing wrong with that. Surprise!! Most of therapy or psychology is helping people prioritize themselves in a healing process to develop healthy and more effective habits/behaviors. The red pill provides a way for men to better themselves and simply be honest about what they want and encouraging them to pursue it. For example, how many men want a threesome, but never try to get it?
The red pill has literal posts about how to get it and that’s the point self improve men/ actualization has an element of selfishness because you are the subject of change.
I’m sure his “abuse is good at least when I’m doing it because then I might get a threesome” argument will go over swimmingly.
Another commenter blames the therapist, and psychiatry in general.
So your midwit girlfriend learned some big girl words from her therapist, thus causing the very untheraputic outcome of more conflict on her life.
Your basically experiencing the same thing ever American Dad experiences when their daughter gets back from libtard university.
Google the antipsychiatry movement and if your not a midwit you should be able to hard counter with serious anti therapy critique.
Still another commenter thought that the OP had nothing to worry about.
All of the girls who called me a manipulative, abusive narcissist went on to fuck me even better. Those are just cute nicknames they use for us with their friends and orbiters.
Meanwhile, another commenter suggested that the girl was being the manipulative one:
If a women calls you manipulative/abusive whatever, basically anything remember that it’s for her personal gain. It’s just a tactic to manipulate you into turning into a little beta pussy for her. You should be worried tho if someone you trust and respect calls you this.
I’m pretty sure he neither trusts nor respects her; that’s why he’s treating her like shit.
There were also numerous commenters telling the OP to break up and move on and though their reasoning was often suspect I have to agree with them on this. OP, end this abusive relationship — and move on from the Red Pill altogether. Use this as a wake-up all. Get some therapy yourself. And don’t get into another relationship until you’ve expunged all traces of the “Red Pill philosophy” from your system.
H/T — The Blue Pill subreddit
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Ironically, one of them DID get something right: “Most of therapy or psychology is helping people prioritize themselves in a healing process to develop healthy and more effective habits/behaviors.”
This is in fact why standard therapy doesn’t work well for abusive men or can even worsen their issues. A lot of therapy is about self actualization and prioritizing yourself, which abusers are already great at, and can even make it worse by giving them rationalizations for their behavior. There’s a book that addresses it in places, “Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men” but there’s a reason therapy works a lot better for the victims than the abuser.
@Naglfar
Habanero peppers too.
@Kereea
Bancroft also has spoken specifically about MRAs/red pillers and how their ideologies make abusive and violent men even more dangerous.
Fans of The Sopranos may remember the bit where one of Dr Melfi’s colleagues says that violent criminals can use therapy to justify their actions and actually become better criminals. It’s almost like a confessional for them.
Looked into that and it turns out to be true. Well, insofar as the research they talk about is real.
This book got referenced a lot.
Yochelson and Samenow: The Criminal Personality
@Alan Robertshaw
Anecdotes are not data, but from personal experience that is exactly what psychopathic abusers do with therapy. Become more sophisticated psychopathic abusers.
Anecdote incoming.
I tried non-medicated therapy for years. I avoided medications. Then I had a total psychotic break from all my non-medicated issues reaching the breaking point at the same time. It took medications to get me able to walk down to my mailbox, let alone be a postal worker.
Michelle wrote:
I scroll down after reading about narcissistic twits who hate it when their abuse is called abuse and I find a comment about … habanero peppers?
Brain, trying to make sense of it all:
Brain goes on to imagine a habanero pepper talking to his girlfriend about how he’s not a sexist, selfish narcissist, he just needs his plant leaves to get more sunlight than girl plant leaves and he’s not afraid to say it. And don’t you steal my pollen, Miss Pimiento, don’t you do it!
TAKE THE RED
PEPPERPILL, PIMIENTO!Me:
@Seoirse:
Ayup. Thought the same thing.
Interesting. I’m probably anti-all the same things as you, but I wouldn’t call myself anti-psychiatry for various reasons, including (but not nearly limited to) the fact that people who are profoundly, proudly ignorant have thoroughly mixed anti-psychiatry with anti-science.
Psychiatry, after all, includes such things as taking an MRI of my brain when I was having blackouts and memory problems and erratic behavior that I’d never engaged in before. I can’t possibly be “anti-psychiatry” even if I’m anti-many, many things that are routinely done as part of psychiatry. To be anti-psychiatry would imply that I’m against all of it, and I’m not. I have specific critiques against specific bad practices. I’ve got ***reasons***.
I’m not saying you don’t, of course, I’m comparing myself to the reactionaries who stand athwart all psychiatry even when they don’t have any good reason to be opposed to, for instance, taking an MRI of my brain.
Anyway, I would guess that the two of us are in very, very similar places.
@Naglfar:
First, let me say that as an individual, you have a right to deal with this shit any way you need to.
But as a society, I strongly oppose this approach. There is a very specific diagnosis for a broken arm. There are even multiple different diagnoses so that different types of breaks can be categorized for studying the effects of different types of treatments.
And yet, people are not stigmatized and exiled or alienated if they suffer from a broken arm.
A diagnosis doesn’t not create stigmatization and alienation. Society does that.
To say that autism or GID or whatever else shouldn’t be a diagnosis and/ or should be removed from the DSM because people with the underlying condition don’t deserve stigma is to tacitly agree that the people who have conditions that continue to appear in the DSM do, in fact, deserve that stigma.
Justice demands not that we make exceptions for ourselves or certain people that we like or certain diagnoses that we think are bullshit.
Justice demands that we simply destigmatize mental health variance, including mental illness. All of it. For everyone.
And I’m not trying to lay this on you. Just like ending trans oppression isn’t on trans people, ending the stigmatization of variance in mental health isn’t on the people who are stigmatized.
I’m just taking the opportunity to address a point that your writing raised: no one with autism should be put in this position, but while we’re working to destigmatize autism, we can’t use tactics that reinscribe the stigmatization of others.
Destigmatize all that shit, in the DSM or not, diagnosed or not. I want a world where we simply confront the assholes who are alienating or stigmatizing others, rather than one in which we have to say, “But don’t stigmatize and alienate me, because I’m not like THEM.”
@Crip Dyke
Re: the habanero peppers
The context for that was how on the last page I mentioned that jalapeño and bell peppers have lots of vitamin C. Michelle was adding that habanero peppers also do.
I am aware that stigmatization is a societal issue. That being said, I still disagree with describing autism as a mental illness, as that would imply that I would somehow be better off if there were a cure. Autism is a part of who I am, I do not want to be cured and would certainly refuse a cure if it existed.
I do not mean to imply that anyone deserves stigma. I am sorry if I inadvertently suggested that, I would like to destigmatize all types of neurodiversity and variance.
@Cats In Shiny Hats @POM
I’m glad that medication helped you and that you guys had good experiences. As I said, my complaint wasn’t with the idea of medication, or the idea of psyciatrists, but with how psychiatry tends to be run due to insurance, and regulation, and the inherent shorcomings of the human mind. I’m not actually anti-psychiatry, more just psychiatry-critical, but I still think that it’s not good to conflate psychiatry with performing therapy. Medication is good and all, but it doesn’t do shit without learning skills to go along with it.
My personal antedote? I wouldn’t know if medication was good for me because I was always forced to go off it. I’ve never had a psychiatrist spend more than a couple of minutes talking to me and diagnosing me, which is actually literally illegal, but more concerning is that due to regulations they require an appointment during the last week of every month, and hold your medication hostage if you, like me, were a single parent with two jobs at the time who couldn’t always make those appointments. I was on a medication that could potentially cause seizures if withdrawn from cold turkey, not to mention how hard it is psychologically to go cold turkey, so after the 5th or 6th time of running out of my meds and being forced to go cold turkey, from different psychiatrists, I decided that the psychiatrists weren’t worth the trouble, whether or not I needed the meds. That’s the easy version of my antedote.
This isn’t even considering my sister, who has psychosis with anosognosia, and is currently dying on the street due to psychiatrists (and yes psychologists) fucking incompetence. However I’m currently drunk on dark and stormys and far too drunk to get into that.
Here’s the thing about antedotes. My shitty anecdotes don’t negate your positive ones. Your positive anecdotes don’t negate my shitty ones. Antedotes are just shitty like that. And what threshold makes something anything? Something tells me that 40 years ago, when psychiatry “was”* pathologizing black men for being angry, and telling homosexuals that we were crazy, and getting white women permanently hooked on valium, that they were using all the best and brightest data as well.
*”was” hahahahahahahahah lol
Cool. That’s just a different argument than you made above:
It’s the “this is why” part (and the “as that adds to” part) to which I would have some objection, not any other argument for removal (or inclusion for that matter) which has nothing to do with stigmatization.
with this, though:
It sounds like we’re on the same page, generally.
@Crip Dyke
I identify with the term largely because it’s the most broadly used one. One closer to my feelings and that you might be more comfortable with is “Mad rights”. It’s a reclamation of the idea that we aren’t capable of or should not be allowed to make our own choices, especially when it comes to healthcare.
I like “mad rights”.
I think the last time I actually did any work with people who used it was at the Queer/Disability conference 15 years ago or something at SanFranState.
It was a good conference, but like a lot of ’em, it had its problems. The biggest was that they billed it as a conference for all types of disabilities, but they really privileged perspectives of people who had mobility issues.
I wasn’t one of the organizers, but one of the organizers was a good friend, so I ended up holding his hand during a big feedback session the morning of the last day. It was pretty raw.
Anyway, there were some “mad rights” people there, but I haven’t heard the term since (or at least I don’t remember hearing it since). It’s nice to know that it’s still going.
Ah, found the webpage. Still up so that people can access/request copies of the sessions.
If anyone is interested, you can get audio files or transcripts, or at least could at one point:
http://www.disabilityhistory.org/dwa/queer/index.htm
…and that’s 18 years ago, not 15. Damn I’m old.
Naglfar:
AFAIK this trend was meant to specifically annoy the subset of people who are firearm enthusiasts and also “libs” in the sense of highly valuing firearm safety rules.
Though generally, often trolls have an inflated view of how much they’ve disturbed your mental peace if they successfully goad you into saying “that’s stupid”.
Re: OP
Ah, I was wondering how the PUAs were doing these days. Well, no I wasn’t, but it has sort of seemed to me that David’s posts of late (as in probably for the last three-and-a-half years, for some odd reason) have been much less likely to address the PUAs, and I was vaguely wondering if they had sort of crawled back into the woodwork or if it’s just that the rise of the incels had made them a lesser concern.
Anyhow, let’s see. PUAs still assholes? Yep, PUAs still assholes. OK, got it. Just checking.
Though have any PUAs been whining about how lockdowns and social distancing are a vast conspiracy against their life choices?
Re: History of the American West
And for God’s sake, don’t tell them about how a third (?) of cowboys were Black.
Re: “Midwit”
I assumed this was attempted cleverness on their part. There’s “nitwit,” which means “complete idiot,” so “midwit” would mean “fairly dumb, but not that dumb.” Presumably both nitwits and midwits would be unable to understand, so it’s also a way of boosting the poster’s status — “Here’s my advice, though it’s only advice for people who are as smart as I am.” Which would make him what, a truewit? A bigwit?
@Naglfar:
The other reason, though, is to try and make sense of a complicated world by simplifying it, despite the fact that from the outside, that’s exactly the opposite of what their imagined conspiracy does. I’ve always found it fascinating how conspiracists build up these literally incredible and complex theories out of a desire for simplicity — including, in some cases, the simplicity of believing you’re absolutely in the right and therefore don’t have to evaluate your own behavior. It’s not even just hiding from the possibility of being the baddies, I think: it’s hiding from the possibility of being wrong. (Thus, Trump is secretely carrying out a war against extremely evil people, because I can’t have been wrong to vote for him; he must just be having to do it in secret. And the baddies must be particularly evil satanic child-killers, because there’s no way they can be morally superior to Trump and co, even if they seem that way.)
I mean, the Occam’s Razor explanation of the JFK assassination is that a random misfit took a very good shot. But the idea that a random misfit could take down the president of the US makes the world a much scarier and more complicated place, which is unbearable. So to explain it, let’s imagine how the FBI and the CIA got together with the KGB and Fidel Castro and invited some mob bosses to the table to all figure out how to kill him, probably while also getting some early work done on instructing Stanley Kubrick to fake the moon landing. Which is ridiculously complicated and unbelievable, but means that in the large scale of things the world still makes sense, because the idea that a vast conspiracy has the power to make a major event happen is easier to take than the idea that a random misfit can affect the world like that — a powerful cabal killing the leader of the most powerful country on earth can be accepted, a powerless nobody doing so can’t. (As someone pointed out, there are no massive conspiracy theories about John Hinckley and his attempt on Reagan’s life, because that time, the world worked the way it’s supposed to — the president didn’t die, the Secret Service got the guy at once, etc.)
I wonder if it would be possible to do a study of conspiracy theorists and people who have been cured of them, and see whether one of the things that cures you of them is there being a tipping point between Occam and the complexity of the theory.
I took ‘midwit’ to be a misspelling of ‘dimwit.’
@Lumipuna
I guess that makes slightly more sense, although I’ve never owned a gun I know people who are on the left and own guns and they are very invested in safety, and one of the key rules they told me was “assume all guns are loaded, don’t point it at anything you don’t want to shoot.” Evidently the man on the last page learned that one the hard way.
@Rabid Rabbit
Or how Black musicians played a key role in the invention of country and western genres of music.
Therapy never did anything for me. It turned out that I already had the skills needed; what I needed was meds. I haven’t been in therapy for more than 20 years, but I’ve been on meds all that time because meds were what I needed, and only meds.
Therapy didn’t work for me, but I’m not anti-therapy.
I don’t know what regulations you’re talking about. Are you in the US? No state I’m aware has regulations that you must be seen at the end of the month, and there’s certainly no federal law about it. I’ve had appointments at all times during the month.
I don’t think anyone has claimed that psychiatry is innocent. I certainly haven’t. What I’m saying is that it’s not a complete shithole, because it helped me and I am alive today as a result. It’s not above criticism, but to be honest I shouldn’t have to be sitting here “both sides”ing the matter and specifying that it’s not above criticism because that ought to be obvious. Nothing is above criticism. Therapy is not above criticism either. Nothing is. Every part of society is anti-woman, anti-black, and anti-poor, to some degree or another. Including therapy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwit
@Lumipuna:
I’d say the main effect this guy has had on me is to destroy any last vestiges of worry about having a medical emergency on a day when I’m not wearing my best underwear.
@Rabid Rabbit:
Oddly, the reverse seems to have happened in the case of Lincoln’s assassination. Booth actually *was* part of a conspiracy who pulled coordinated attacks on the President, Vice-President and (iirc) the Secretary of State, but he’s remembered in the popular imagination as a lone gunman—possibly because the other assassins failed, possibly because he was already a famous actor, so there was less of a “how could some random misfit have done this?” factor.
@POM
I wasn’t basing everything off of my own personal story, if that’s what you’re implying. Just like I wouldn’t base my ENTIRE opinion off of your personal story either. Antedotes aren’t data.
I never said that psychiatry is a complete shithole beyond all good or redemption, just that it is a medical shithole that deserves the criticism that it gets. But I can see why you would read my post as calling psychiatry irredeemable, since a lot of people who criticize psychiatry do think this way.
Psychiatry *is* uniquely powerful in that can act take away a person’s freedom and act on that person’s body without that person’s consent and based upon no more evidence than medical opinion. It can also do harm by going to the other extreme and not helping when they could intervene as well. Yes, Psychiatrists are only human, but besides all that general “people suck” stuff, psychiatrists are overburdened and overworked. And far too many are far too overconfident in their abilities to make accurate snap judgments.
I think that we’re starting to get away from the original complaint, which that some asshole was going to use criticism
of psychiatry, and all of it’s issues, to confuse and gaslight his girlfriend about her therapy because her therapy was teaching her how to spot signs of his abuse.
I wasn’t basing my whole opinion of psychiatry based off of my own personal antedote, if that’s what you’re implying. Just like I wouldn’t base my opinion of psychiatry off of your personal antedote either!
Yes I’m in the US. And that’s just my own story, they always all could have been feeding me bullshit to make me more compliant with their scheduling demands. I wasn’t using it as “evidence”. But anyway,
1. In my state the law for prescriptions for controlled substances is that they have to be picked up, in person, from an in state doctor at least every month. The months prescription MUST be hand written on a prescription pad, so not even any of the electric stuff.
A lot of ADHD and anti-anxiety drugs do fall under this regulation, so it seems like psychiatrists schedule all their clients this way whether or not they’re on a controlled substance at the time.
2. One of my psychiatrists that I asked for flexibility from because she was constantly HOURS late and I had leave appointments told me that, even though I was not on a controlled substance, she could lose her license if she wrote me more than a 30 day supply of meds without seeing me within so many days of that prescription. This is because if I wereto commit suicide it could have be due to an issue with medication, and she couldn’t risk having me out there depressed or something without being seen, because of her license. This always seemed like a weird argument though, since apparently a CYA isn’t needed if your patient commits suicide because they run out of medication? So take from this what you will, it always impressed me as dumb. But in this case, it sounds like the problem is lower than the government.
Another issue with psychology and psychiatry, besides the fact that they reflect society’s biases, is that they’re fairly new as branches of medicine. So how everything is categorized might not be that accurate yet, and treatments are probably in their early stages.
E.g. This isn’t just my idea, but I think it’d be more helpful to characterize ADHD as an attention regulation issue rather than an attention deficit one.
I was talking with my cousin recently and I was surprised when she referred to us both as autistic people. Turns out she thinks ADHD is a kind of autism. After my first question, I didn’t try to argue back more, because a) it might sound like I was saying autism is a worse thing to have and b) I was also thinking, “Eh, who knows, it might be categorized that way in the future.”
Like with her: She was diagnosed with Asperger’s and then that changed to a form of autism spectrum disorder because of a shift in categorization.
@Naglfar – I go back and forth on the label “disorder.” On one hand, my ADHD makes me better at the kind of writing I do – I think. On the other hand, sometimes I just hate it! because being disorganized with time gives me a lot of stress! (though maybe my anxiety is the bigger problem). And then on the social level difference is stigmatized, and that’s a whole other issue…
As for me, when I talked to a doctor last week about my anxiety and panic attacks, she recommended therapy rather than meds for now, because of the nature of the problem. She also treats my mother who’s taking antidepressants.
Oh yeah, result: I’m on a list for a free counseling program but it will take about 3 months. I can’t afford private psychotherapy right now so hopefully it doesn’t take longer.
Anyway, yes, even if psych medicine is fairly new, meds and/or therapies can still be very useful, like how early cancer treatments weren’t the best but they still saved lives.
@Epitome
Makes you a seriously good editor, as well. 🙂
Yes. How many parents of children say “Oh they can’t have ADHD, just look at how well they focus on /insert subject of hyperfocusing/?
Part of the problem definitely is psychiatry as it stands lumping all manner of things under an umbrella that doesn’t fit them. Neurodivergence is one, most famously the autism spectrum (of which ADHD and OCD are quite probably a part). The brain works differently to many people’s, but this is only pathological insofar as the surrounding society is unadapted to their access needs. E.g., an autistic person in a low tech farming village will hardly even be noticed: doesn’t talk much, likes a routine, very task-focused, often gets along better with animals than people. Well, that’s pretty much a stereotypical farmer, no problem there.
Then there’s mental illnesses, neurological states that are pathological because they cause harm or distress to the person experiencing them. These can further be subdivided into innate and acquired illnesses. A propensity to psychotic breaks is a problem in practically any situation, and the person having them usually wishes they weren’t, at least when they’re lucid. PTSD, likewise, is absolutely pathological, a mental illness in the truest sense, but it’s something that’s caused ny previous experiences.
Then there’s personality disorders, or whatever they’re called these days, which are mostly states of mind rather than of brain, a set of learned behaviours rather than an organic malfunction of any sort. Here, the pathology comes from the propensity to victimize others, as they’ve leared to do and learned how to get away with. These are the people that neither therapy nor medication can help, becuae the problem is volitional: they choose to be assholes on an ongoing basis, because they like it. We see them a lot in the posts here.