Let’s be honest… there are some fragile people out there. They have what can best be described as "issues". A fair number of those people later on learned to blame those issues on others either through perceived abuse or by blaming an entire country, gender or economic system for their woes. This self fulfilling cycle continues – paranoia feeding fear, fear being classified as abuse and so on. When you add in a culture that is uncritically accepting of these self definitions ("I was abused") and there is no one to break the cycle.
Even in those cases where someone has been actually abused (instead of the sort of emotional toe stubbing that gets called abuse these days) at some point you have to encourage them to stand on their own feet and stop wallowing in it. I am sure to many it sounds awfully cruel… but then again maybe that makes you part of the problem.
So that brings us to this post over at "anti_porn", a livejournal community for those folks who are seriously, seriously upset that some folks are having sex and that some of them are much better looking than they are. It has a recurring theme of paranoia, self esteem problems and folks spying on the men in their life. Take note of the completely out of proportion response to something that is, essentially, not an issue.
"Today, through my Google history I discovered that either my brother or my boyfriend was looking at porn. I am about 80% sure it was my brother because my boyfriend was at uni and despite being a pervert at home I don’t think he would/did ever watch it anywhere else. It was amazing how quickly it sent me into a panic though. I ended up shaking and in tears and all over just a mess because it reminded me of when I first caught my boyfriend lying about porn." – the panic of preciouslilme
If the thought of your brother or your boyfriend looking at porn sends you into an anxiety attack, you might want to walk away from the echo chamber of your enabling LJ community and go find a good therapist who can prescribe you something. Seriously. It gets better though…
"At the moment I am seriously considering breast surgery, among other things, in order to become what he wants so badly. He claims he doesn’t want me to get it but when a hot girl walks past in the street and I’m with him and he can barely keep his tongue in his mouth, and then thinks he did nothing wrong…I feel it is the only way to get his attention again." – the panic of preciouslilme
I think it is safe to say that dear preciouslilme’s descriptions need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. It is, in fact, unclear that her boyfriend has any outward reaction to other women. The author is so in her own head and her own fears that it is very possible his reactions are all in his head.
What is interesting is that if she did get surgery we would no doubt later find her sobbing on a blog in the future about how her evil boyfriend forced her to do it and how he abused her. She would get support and all the cookies she could handle by being called brave and so on – but not a bit of it would be true. He didn’t force her – the voices and fears in her head did.
In this sort of paranoia, almost anything is a sign of evil.
"How can I help but think that he only wants them? Or that he only thinks of me as a sex toy? He is already so conditioned by it that unless I am moaning with the best of them he doesn’t believe that I am enjoying myself/doesn’t enjoy it as much himself." – the panic of preciouslilme
Follow along with that. Here is a guy who knows that his girlfriend is an emotional time bomb and prone to tossing around the word abuse. He already knows that she checks up on his viewing habits. He already knows she has serious issues about her sexuality. Not only does he tolerate all this (he must love her, because I damn sure wouldn’t put up with the constant accusations) but he is rightly concerned that she might be in a very, very bad head space whenever the have sex.
So if he isn’t sure she is enjoying herself, he stops. That bastard!
All kidding aside, I feel bad for her. She clearly has deep emotional issues – whatever the cause. She needs help and she isn’t going to get it from an online support group who will re-enforce and reward her feelings of victimization. As for her boyfriend? My advice to him is leave. Get far away before they have a bad night and she decides that he raped her. Because neither the police or the jury will care how crazy she is.
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