By Ox Drover
I got to thinking today about being stronger now than I was prior to the last experience with the psychopaths in my life ”¦ but when I really got to thinking about it, I realized I have actually always been as strong as I am now, I just didn’t know it or take advantage of it.
One of the reasons that humans are able to work horses, mules and oxen to pull heavy loads is because the beasts we use for our labor do not realize their strength. They don’t realize the absolute brute force power they have over us. We “control” them because they allow it.
Why do they allow it? The answer is because they are not aware of the strength and power that they have, so they allow us to take it from them and use it for our own benefit. We may “give back” something to them, like food and care for what they give us in the form of their obedience and labors, but the bottom line is that any time they realize that they have the power and strength to break away they could do it. Even if we were to abuse them, not feed them, they would still allow us to use their labor until they dropped over dead of starvation, because they don’t know any better. They don’t recognize that they don’t really “need” us to furnish feed, they could run away and find grass to fill their bellies and not labor for us. They just don’t know it. Even the fences I have around my farm are not strong enough to hold them if they really want through them, but merely “suggestions” for them to stay on this side of it. If they wanted through, the wire and posts would topple.
When we start training oxen, which are really nothing but baby calves (no special breed of animal just cattle), we are stronger than they are, and if necessary, we could wrestle them to the ground, and we also teach them that we are the “food gods” and that ALL GOOD things come from us, as well as some pretty painful ones if they do not conform to our alpha position in the “herd.” When you get right down to it, in many ways we (humans) control animals the way that psychopaths control their victims. The only difference is that I actually care about my animal’s welfare and am emotionally attached to them, whereas a psychopath really doesn’t care much about their victim’s welfare or health.
Intermittent reinforcement
In training animals, trainers use “intermittent reinforcement.” The psychologist B. F. Skinner wrote that this brings on a stronger “bond” with a given behavior than if you rewarded them every time they did the behavior. That’s why a “slot machine” will keep someone stuffing money into it, because gamblers are just sure that “NEXT time” it will give them the jackpot. Psychopaths also use the intermittent reward system with us, and we keep hoping that by doing what they want, the NEXT TIME we will get the “jackpot” reward from them.
We could rebel and tell them to take their intermittent rewards and shove them, that we are not going to knuckle down and be their victims, to “pull their plows” by going to work and giving them our money, but we don’t rebel against them. We are unaware that we have the strength and power to rebel, to stand up on our own. If we are earning the living and giving them the money, why do we need them? If s/he is earning the living and we are staying home taking care of the kids all the time, still, what do we need them for?
Power and strength
We have the power and strength to take care of ourselves if we will just recognize it, acknowledge it and then use it. One working parent, taking care of the children and still making a living and a home, is still a “better deal” for children than one good, nurturing parent who is stressed and depressed most or all of the time because of the drama and abuse from a psychopathic partner.
I really am no stronger today than I was back in the midst of the psychopathic chaos, when I was literally huddled on the floor in the fetal position, emotionally “sucking my thumb,” fearing I would be killed by my psychopathic stalkers any minute.
My psychopathic son doesn’t hate me any less, most of my other relatives are no more supportive than they were back then, but I feel stronger. I feel safer. I feel better, because I recognize that I am strong enough to protect myself as much as anyone can. I can live a good life, a happy life, a healthy life, and take control of my own life. I don’t have to give that control and strength and power to anyone.
I can reward and reinforce my own good behavior, I can exercise my power, my strength and my autonomy to be what I want to be, to be the best that I can make myself.
One,
Uuuuuuuggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LL
Thank you God that I can live in the woods and the worst neighbor I have is over 1/4 of a mile away! Thank you for the rats and mice, possoms and snakes, and even the skunks like the one that sprayed my dog a while back, that are my neighbors. Thank you too for having enough ammunition to kill them if I need to. Thank you that I have clean water to drink even if I have to haul it to my house and can’t drink out of the well any more. Thank you that I have plenty to eat and that I have indoor plumbing and enough money to keep the lights burning, and enough medicine to keep me from going ape-carp without it, and thank you for giving me the determination to stop smoking and quit eating so much salt. Thank you too for my wonderful friends at LoveFraud that are there for me when I need to SCREAM TO SOMEONE about what a lousy day I’ve had. Amen!
well, given my just noted circumstances i think mentioning that you have a nice place to live is a bit mean, oxy. LOL
OXY…
Was there ever a time when Charlie Sheen didn’t think he was “special”? I don’t think he’s ever hidden that opinion.
UNLIKE Charlie Sheen’s definition of “special”, you authentically are. If I was gay, I’d knock on your door. If I was male, I’d knock on Hens. As it is, I’ll just admire from afar and when someone is smart enough to seek you out, I will be happy for you.
Sorry, One, it is just someone sent me an e mail yesterday that I laughed til I died—“I will never again complain about my job” was the title and had pictures of people doing AWFUL JOBS–one guy was giving an enema to an elephant, one was collecting semen from a horse who was humping a dummy horse, and one guy was up to his hips in water around about 20 toilets in a row all in water, and so on….I did put in there that I have mice and rats and snakes and possoms and skunks that spray my dog as “neighbors” I thought you could probably appreciate what I had to deal with—but I DO have the ammunition to shoot at them if I see them…sorry you aren’t allowed to shoot at YOUR TRASHY NEIGHBORS. ((((hugs))) I am not allowed to shoot at Crazy Bob though…but I won’t tell you it has never crossed my mind! (but would never do it actually)
I hope that things do get better for you sugar, I do remember the days that the pimp up stairs and the two hos that lived with him used to dump their BBQ ashes on top of my patio down below them and sit there and CRANK the stereo at 2.a.m. and the old lady that lived above me when I was preg and got up at 2 a.m. to pee every night who would call the land lord and complain because my toilet flushing woke her up. The night before I moved I put an avacado seed in the food disposal and cranked it on at 2 a.m. and rattled the walls! Just my little bit of revenge as a cranky preg woman! LOL (((hugs)))
Thanks Katy, you know I have met some REALLY SPECIAL people here at LF, and I’m glad you think I’m one of those special people! (((hugs)))) You’re kind of neat yer self!
Ox I am glad you got a giggle out of that email…..
Katy I think Charlie Sheen has always been a spoiled narcissist brat. I dont feel sorry for him at all, I hope he has to go to a soup kitchen for his last supper and soon..and the media is just as sic as he is for telling the world every fricken thing he does..if they were not in the lime lite they mite get a life…p.s. Katy you dont have to be male to knock on my door just promise you wont put the move’s on me, I am friged..
Think this would cure him?
http://widget.newsinc.com/fullplayerwvars.html?wid=2245&cid=9653&spid=23342720&freewheel=90051&sitesection=nydailynewslocal_top
Unbelievable!
Hens, I make a GREAT friend. I have NEVER put moves on anyone…But I admit I am a hugger!
I learned to hug when I started working with cardiac patients; when someone is dying I didn’t want them to ever feel alone and I didn’t ever want their family member to think they were uncared for. Up to that point, I had only been touched to be beaten or sexually abused. Somehow God kept that empathy part intact in me.
Katy, I’m a hugger too, can you tell? LOL Actually I think part of it is just that it is the part of the country that I am from…”hugging” hello and goodbye is just part of our cultural thing. But you know, research has shown that physical contact, a hug, etc. is good for a human’s mental and physical health. Physical contact doesn’t have to be sexual contact to be pleasurable. I’ve been reading some books on the importance of touch to infants and young children, but I also think it is very important for adults too. I think a lot of our feelings of being lonely are simply hug/touch deprivation and our friends and others can provide that needed touch.
I know with pups or kittens or other mammals that are weaned too early for one reason or another and deprived of enough touch have emotional problems afterward. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us have not been touch deprived as infants and young children—or even as adults.
Katy, I also have long held a special interest in taking care of dying patients—have had since I became a nurse—because I think it is important that people feel connected, even as they are passing from this life. I was privileged to be with my stepfather for his final months and journey and his passing was peaceful and he was ready and we were ready. I also was with my husband, and able to touch him and his passing was peaceful It doesn’t get any better than that I think.