Deformed people

(Taking assumptions that most people start in relatively UI heavier role)
I am currently in lead/principal role and have not needed portfolio for a while (not beyond simple presentation deck) but recently was asked for interview for which I did somehow nicer one but still just effective conveyor of information without frills. It did not workout mostly because mis alignment of expectations.
So I was thinking it was about time I move out country and try something else. So I started doing some designs and while not bad when I looked on it it was just keep coming up only "good" or boring - not bad but you know not enough for this level of experience. I realised I kinda got deformed by working in automotive industry chanting usability safety mantra I kinda stopped being creative visually - which was shocking as early of my career was being visual exploration machine.
Did anyone else experienced this decline due to more leadership role and producing more systematic designs? Any tips and tricks for someone who wants to practice but kinda dont want to do the usual fake tasks around the internet - they just generally dont offer much of a depth or interesting target audience or hardware. Currently I am scavenging failed old pitches and proposals and trying to take them further but eventually. Of course the case studies
I was thinking it would be awesome if there was easily reachable volunteer opportunities or early stratups that would let you practice for free or cheap or whatever without much commitment. Anyone wants to starts HMI related usability focused design system and principles side gig maybe?
(also yes I sound bit lazy, in sense, because I am or rather my main development is in other direction kinda)
Cheers

The story of Eiyuden is OK for me, it's tempered because of the E10+ rating and was only kind of good when Kenan betrayed us (but then it ended up being anticlimactic). During the whole story, it felt like nothing was at stakes (we could freely go around occupied towns, Seign despite being a traitor could walk around Ardinale like it was nothing. Meanwhile, in Suikoden III, we had Chris Lightfellow changing her appearance because it would not make sense if she could walk freely around the Grasslands after burning the Karaya Village to the ground. In Suikoden V, the Prince, Lyon, Sialeeds had to disguise himself from time to time, otherwise the enemy would recognise him).
So here's how I would change some of the story:

1. Make Lian less annoying
2. Put more interactions with the Watch. Maybe do 1 small mission (which also functions as a kind of tutorial) before meeting Seign. In this mission we should see more bonding between the members.
3. After discovering the Primal Lens, maybe do 1 more mission with Seign that can further strengthen the friendship between Nowa and Seign. Maybe bringing the Primal Lens to the Dux in Ardinale, and then we start seeing that he's an unsettling character (like when we first met Marscal and Gizel in Stormfist)
4. After the six months jump, do a mission where Nowa saves Garr's life or smthg (maybe Garr being held hostage by Hurstwine or something so that he can take the blame for the purported attacks on Galdean border), so that it makes sense that he then becomes the captain of the Watch.
5. In Kyshiri, start by having a feast between Nowa and the villagers and Aunt Martha to see how nice people they are. And then when the attack came, burn the village to the ground, have some villagers being slaughtered and Aunt Martha killed. We need to see more rage from Nowa, and maybe Nowa crying after. Seign rescuing the villagers so that none of them died is really out of place here, it's better to have more drama and make us feel bad that these good people were slaughtered. This also gives us more tension with Leene, we don't really know where she is (instead of Aunt Martha saying she is on adventure), and we can have cutscenes of Nowa worrying and Mio and Lian trying to console him.
6. Eltisweiss war: explain how the Galdeans suddenly appeared out of the mountains and occupied Werne.
7. Sneaking into Werne: have Nowa meet Seign to have a dramatic cutscene, and then Hildi seeing them and sounding the alarm. Maybe one of the members of the Watch can stay to hold the enemies and be arrested to add more drama.
8. I didn't really get how there's suddenly an abandoned castle connected to the abandoned mines. Maybe when we sneaked there and saw Kogen etc, we could have more scenes exploring how they found the castle, how they have been living there, etc.
9. Siege of Eltisweiss: Perrielle being let go is not so outlandish, but it really removes the tension and it felt like nothing was at stakes. It would be better if she was under house arrest in her manor, and later we have to rescue her.
10. I don't like how we can freely walk around Eltisweiss to play Beigoma with Reid and Dr. Corque. Also didn't Seign destroy the gate in the war, but suddenly the gate was left intact?
11. Seign's defection was too fast, the infiltration to the laboratory should have been before the defection. It will make more sense that way. Also it may be a good Pahn moment to have one of them (maybe Hildi) not defecting immediately, but only later after some convincing. Also Seign's defection should have led him to being forced to fight his father in battle, that would have been really interesting + Teo moment.
12. The chimaeras in the laboratory could have been made of the corpses of the people of Grum County being deformed by the Primal Lens, so not just those adept in lens magic. That could also explain the Dux's war: to get human sacrifices. This will really raise the stakes of losing, and makes Perrielle's confrontational approach more questionable: she indirectly brought her people's demise by being so oppositional to the Dux. This can also be used to explain Valmaurice's betrayal: the Dux promised him League lands that can be resettled by dragonewts.
13. Invasion of Hishahn: explain how the imperial army can cross mountains without logistic problems.
14. The attack on Yarnaan was kind of random also, why?
15. I will end here because it's getting too long, but I would certainly not make things anticlimatic right after we were in such a desperate situation after Athrabalt. I also wonder how those sharks could bring those ships through the mountains to reach the great seas...

It's such a shame that the story could have been amazing, but it has been tempered to have a more lighthearted feeling + be more accessible for more people. I guess we'll see if this decision is more justified from a financial perspective.

TW: mention of Sh
I (18F) am so deeply unattractive. To be honest, there is not one single feature on my body that is “conventionally attractive.” I’m a once in a lifetime kind of ugly. I hate my body of course, but my face is the worse. I look deformed facially + I’m chubby. I have extreme acne, visibly asymmetrical face - makes it look like one side of my face is paralyzed almost, horrible yellow teeth, big nose from the front and side, etc. I’ve never been complimented without makeup on, and even then with makeup I’m rarely complimented. I also would really like to be in a relationship, but guys tend to treat me as if I’m a gremlin that crawled out of a cave and either ignore me, or are just plain rude to me. I really crave a relationship and everything, however I think I’m too much to deal with. Whenever I see a photo or video of myself I feel ill, it usually sends me into a spiral. I also am surrounded by really attractive people and it makes me revert back to feeling like the D.U.F.F. of the friend group. The attention and validation the people around me get on a daily basis is something I could only dream of. I don’t know what to do anymore, and have started relapsing in SH and feeling more and more like it would be better if I wasn’t here anymore as I wouldn’t have to be in this body anymore. I don’t want to leave the house without makeup. I often times don’t feel as though I have body dysmorphia, since I think I’m simply being realistic with how I look. How can I ever achieve the one thing I want (to be loved), when I look as hideous as I do? How can I expect anyone to love me and chose me over any other person, when I look as ugly as I do? How would anyone not be ashamed to be seen in public w someone as ugly as me?

It went something like this; A man goes out to get something for his son, who stays by himself. Later in the video, shit gets weird and chaotic as people turn into toys and deformed (?), and then at the end, the house is completely dark and the son is now giant, naked, and curled up in a ball.
I tried to look for the video on youtube, but can't seem to find it. Can you guys find it?

Such as in government, teaching, key industry leadership roles etc. They are not fit for these roles because their critical thinking skills are deficient and will lead to poor decision making and in the end it is bad for humanity. To define magic - it is the belief that the supernatural can influence and/or affect the physical world.
This includes attributing magic to ideas and behaviour, such as believing fantastical stories in old texts are factual. Not necessarily including belief in God, or a higher power, there should be room for mystery and discovery, believing there might be something after this life here is fine, go mad with your eschatological theories (though they can be ridiculed if they are ridiculous). Proscribing behaviour that does not contravene natural law is another form of belief in magic. Such as believing homosexuality is immoral, which is a demonstrably a natural phenomena, if you believe it is immoral/illegal because your god said so, you believe in magic too.
We as human beings have come far enough in our development to know ghosts don’t exist and spells are not real - whether in the form of incantations or prayer - (meaning they don’t have a supernatural effect). There is no such thing as a totally harmless false belief, it may be benign now but any false notion, being ambiguous by nature, can be twisted and deformed and next thing you know some nutters are flying planes into buildings.
We need to have zero tolerance on “accepted” forms of magic, tribalism and racism blinds some to not recognise dangerous belief in magic when it’s coming from their own “tribe” - like the belief you are god’s chosen people and therefore can claim ownership of land on that basis. Untold evil comes from this heinous and racist belief. Also believing in dystopic end time prophecies should automatically disqualify you from anything that is working in strategic positions for the betterment of humankind, if you believe the world will inevitably end in an apocalypse and only certain people will be “saved” (magic) or anti-messiah is coming or someone who has already died will come back to life to kill the said anti-messiah… I mean should you say be allowed to take charge of hospitals for the mentally ill? Should you not check yourself in instead?
Yeah magic is stupid, human beings need to grow up. It’s imperative that our application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world follows a systematic methodology based on evidence, you can call it science if you want to. It’s just the pursuit of truth, we don’t have all the answers but we sure can tell some “answers” are implausible at best and total BS at worst.
This might read a bit messy. I’m tired but needed to get this out. I can form more coherent sentences to explain further if there is interest. I really think I’m on to something here 😂
Thank you for taking the time to read.

I want to start off by saying, no I don't hate women for wanting to be with attractive men. I mean everyone wants to be with attractive people so it makes sense. I also don't hate attractive men that can get women just by looking good. If I was that good looking, I'd go out and sleep around too.
So I fucking hate how I look. I feel like I will die alone bc of how I look. There are a lot of things that I just can't fix about myself unless I want to spend thousands of dollars on risky BS surgeries. I can't fix my 5'6 height, I can't fix my skinny wrists or ankles, I can't fix my fat nose, my lazy eye, the moles and skin issues I have all over my body, I can't fix my uneven jawline, my fat head or my small dick.
I just hate that I have to deal with it and stop being depressed about how I look. I hate that most people will tell me that I need to work on myself by taking a shower and smelling clean. Lol like I always do this. I make sure I leave the house smelling fresh and clean. I make sure that my grooming is on point. I make sure my clothes are clean and fit me well. Like this is all basic advice reddit gives out anytime an ugly guy talks about how he hates his life.
This isn't gonna make my deformities go away; I'm still gonna look ugly. Reddit likes to tell men that looks don't matter at all and that every guy can be a 7 if they try. Well I know that bullshit. I'm a part of that group where that rule won't apply. No matter how good I smell, I will still be ugly. And yes, I know I'm ugly. I've been told that I'm ugly by a few women.
Again, I'm not mad at women or other men. I'm mad that I was fucked over in life and given the worst genetics. There are days where I just want to end it all bc of how I look.

Just want to preface this that I am aware practically none of what I'm about to come up with is cannon. This is all just my personal headcannon.
So I believe that Alex Wesker was contacted by Carlsa Rademes long before the events of ReR2. Carla wished to create a clone of Albert Wesker in order to enhance the C-Virus, as she needed a much larger sample size than just one blood vial. So, she contacted Alex (who was head of the Wesker Project during the days of Umbrella, and would most likely have access to a sample of Wesker's blood) and offered to fund her t-Phobos Virus research and experimentation if Alex assisted in the cloning process.
Alex would accept the offer and have her and her team relocated to The Family's research lab for some time. The first attempt at cloning Wesker using the C-Virus would end in faluliure, with the clone emerging deformed and brutish. However, this clone would be repulsed in Carla's loyal servant, being known as Ustanak.
The second attempt would end up being a success, with a young clone of perfectly normal appearance being created. With her end of the deal over, Alex and her team would relocate to the island where ReR2 takes place and begin their t-Phobos research. However, a female researcher would become attached to the young clone, stealing him and fleeing The Family. She would end up hiding in Edonia, where she would raise the clone, named Jake Mueller, as her own son.
Anyways, just wanted to post this and see what people thought of this. It's just a neat way of connecting Re6 and ReR2 together, as well as giving a better backstory to Jake and Ustanak.

i understand that adding extensions and adapters between the impact and the socket will reduce the amount of force that the impact can apply to the fastener. wouldn't it also make using nonimpact rated stuff safer?
if i added a universal adapter between the impact and the socket, wouldn't that likely reduce the damage the impact can do to the socket by a significant amount? i haven't tried it but i have had the odd occasion where i needed to use an impact on non impact sockets (6 point, 15/16 socket with a mid torque 1/2" drive impact wrench) and it didn't seem to do any damage at all, it seems to me that adding an adapter between would completely eliminate the possibility of damage.
to be perfectly clear i am only looking for people who have tried this kind of thing and also damaged their sockets.
update:
after doing extensive searches for video and photo evidence of exploding sockets i've come to the conclusion that this is a myth. it is clear that sockets do crack, whether they are chrome or not, but they do not explode. furthermore there is more evidence of impact sockets cracking than there is of chrome sockets possibly because impact sockets are more represented in high force applications. there are lots of stories about impact sockets exploding but not one instance have i seen that is verifiable.
i will admit that it seems possible under the right circumstances, but no more so with chrome than impact rated.
that being said, i know from first hand experience that smaller 12 point sockets can get deformed when used at high force whether by an impact or breaker bar which can make them useless.
there is some evidence that chrome sockets on an impact anvil can distort the anvil making it so it needs to be serviced but servicing an anvil can be as simple as replacing the hog ring (friction ring). even this isn't clearly the chrome sockets fault as in my experience no impact is only used with chrome sockets; which means the wear on the anvil could be just as much due to impact rated sockets as chrome sockets.
until i see some verifiable scientific data on the subject, i remain extremely skeptical of the exploding socket on an impact myth.

Hello people of reddit👋. This is only my second post, so don't blame me too much if I don't do something right. Anyways, I am a 19yo male. Ever since I was a child, I've recognized at least somewhat that I have the bodily deformity Pectus excavatum or funnel chest. It's minor, so I've never had to have any surgery or anything. But it wasn't until recently that I discovered the gap between my toes is actually a hallux varus or sandal gap. I always just assumed it was a variation just as curly hair is to straight hair. Like I said, I have recognized this as a child and asked my parents if I have any sort of underlying condition, but they've always insisted I'm healthy and normal. I suppose my question is, is it normal to have multiple bodily deformities and no underlying condition, or is it possible I do have a condition I'm just not aware of akin to having autism, aspbergers, down syndrome, etc? Any sort of comments would be appreciated, and I'll try my best to answer questions.

It started with me not really being me, and my family and friends being people I don't actually know. I was up at late hours, as usual. My friend was in my bedroom sleeping. I felt off, like there was something lurking around. Then I see it. This giant mass of dark colours, a scary face with teeth, and long arms that could stretch and also work as deadly claws. He was there for my friend. He comes for you while you sleep. He somehow made me believe that it is a painless way to go, and made me okay with him taking my friend. There was a darker motive though. When he tried to go into the bedroom, my parents woke up. My father asked why I was awake still, and I just shrugged my shoulders without really knowing what to say about the creature I just saw. Even then, he would have thought I was hallucinating from lack of sleep. The sound of my parents waking up, woke up my friend. She started playing loud music, and somehow knew about what was happening. Then I got a phone call. "Don't let them take you or anyone out the window. They will cut you until it feels like fire, and make you wish you were dead. Trust me." "They?", I thought. Thats when he went back to sneaking into the bedroom, and just as I was about to intervene, something grabs me, and pulls me back. Slicing into my sides, I started screaming. Was this what the girl over the phone was talking about? The giant creature pulls my friend out the window, and thats when I get released and whoever was holding me darts out the window to go with them. My parents came out of their bedroom once again because of all the screaming. I'm hysterical, crying, bleeding, and in a lot of pain. They ask me whats going on, almost in a yelling tone, and thats when I spill about everything I saw, what he said to me, and the phone call. My mother looks skeptical. My father looks like he believes me, but wishes he couldn't. This is when he decides we're all going to get my friend back. Me, my mother, my father and my younger brother. We leave the house and head in the direction they launched out the window. After a lot of walking, we come across a town that seems like it shouldn't exist. Its small, but filled with life, and kids, and a fun feeling. My father makes us pick up the pace. "We're being followed." He says in a hushed tone. Thats when I see it. Its a girl, in a pale hoodie and jeans, with bandages over half of her face, and the hood over her head. She could pass for my friend, but very clearly isn't. Her body language was too different, and why would she follow us instead of running to us. We lose her in the alleys, but then decide to make the mistake of cutting her off in the street. We ask her what she wants, she doesn't reply, but makes a few steps closer. Suddenly the town that was so filled with life, and the sun, and colour, spins under us. Everything is red, there's screaming, dead bodies laying and hanging everywhere in the streets. The girl that looked like my friend, starts running. She disappeared around a corner. Once we turned the same corner, there was a gate. It looked like it could fall any second, or like there was a lot of patch work done to it. We go through, and that's when the testing began. At first it was just running away from different beasts, or people who had gone insane from being here for so long. Then there were two actual trials. We had to crawl up into these vents, while they were on. It wasn't too hot or too cold, but there was enough air flowing to make us slip, a lot. All four of us held hands. The openings in the bottom would pop open randomly, in attempt to lose one of us. My mother was first in line, and I almost lost her during one of the vents popping open. In the very bottom of each opening it was different. A different way to die each time, and none of them quick. Her hand slipped from mine, but I had caught her just in time. If it weren't for my father holding my hand, I would've fallen through with her. We continued on, and we eventually make it to the end. At the end there was this pipe that went downhill. There was running water all through it, so we could easily slide down. There was nowhere else to go, it was our next test. Still holding hands, we jumped in. It seemed easy enough. Other than the random spikes, or deformed monsters coming out of the water and trying to kill us, we were pulling through just fine. Then, that's when we all heard him. Mid-slide, his voice echoes. "The young one must eat to keep his energy up." That put all of us on edge. My little brother had to eat little fruits out of the water. That was the actual test. So many thoughts ran through my head, but the one that was the loudest was a worry of him getting poisoned. But, he is naive. He just grabbed one and ate it. He is too young to have such worries. After that, we had to walk through a hallway, almost office like. The rooms you could see into, since the walls were just windows. Once we looked ahead again, at the end of the hall, was him. He was standing there, so still that we didn't notice him the first time. In the room next to him, we could see her. My friend was on her knees, blindfolded. I ran to her, and the creature just let me pass. I removed the blindfold from her face, and when she saw me, she gripped me so tightly into a hug.

• Follows their own rules, disregards society.
• Masters their emotions completely.
• Cares little for the consequences of their actions. They're in it for the fun.
• Never loses sight of the big picture, the meaning of life, the reason we're here.

Now, I understand that in the case of psychopaths these qualities are not attained, and that they are not the result of self-mastery and abundance, but of a neurological deformity, expressing itself as a fundamental lack of empathy. These come at the highest price, these people are unable to love anything or anyone, consequently they are unable to feel happiness beyond momentary gratification. It's thought provoking how much a lack of empathy can determine!
In the case of the "regular" higher man, these qualities are a supreme achievement, not because of their existence, but because of their development despite empathy. In the case of Nietzsche himself, it is understandable that the virtuoso of self-overcoming would view such a drift from his own excessive emotionality as an achievement, an attainment that signifies excellence and masterful scaffolding of his nature. Denying nature any more access than is reasonable, a philosopher's ideal! That is why, observed Frau Overbeck, that Nietzsche came to admire Stendhal!
That is the man fit to enjoy life, and is also the man that precisely a type of man like Nietzsche should aspire to become, being by nature, the anti-psychopath. I wrote a post here last year noting that Nietzsche's ideals have too much of Nietzsche in them. I guess this is more evidence.

It’s now 2024. We met in 2016.
We were both 20 at the time we met. I became pregnant very quickly into our relationship. We were both 20 and turning 21 when I found out I was pregnant for the very first time. We had also only been in a relationship for 6 months before we found out. When we first found out we were pregnant, we obviously freaked out but we were so in love with each other we decided to keep it. We had so much support from all of our family that it seemed like a great idea. He was happy, I was happy and we were determined to make it work. We both moved in together and everything was great.
However at my 14/15 week scan the doctors noticed something was severely wrong with our baby. She had severe and major deformities that were most likely life threatening and because we were so young we made the mutual decision to no longer continue with our pregnancy. I was 24 weeks along when I gave birth to our little girl.
After her passing and some time went on and we both grieved very differently. I needed him and it seemed like he wanted nothing to do with me. He stopped communicating, became extremely insecure and would gaslight me every time I brought up any concern I’d have. He would tell me I was trying to fight with him and completely shut down when I was just trying to make sure he was good and we were good. He was mean.
Our relationship was so toxic and I was ready to leave him but then I found out I was pregnant for the second time.
When I told him I was pregnant again, we were in such rough shape that he broke down and we both didn’t talk for 48 hours. But when we finally spoke about it we decided to have the baby. But we were terrified of everything because we had just lost a baby 3 months prior. So we were living in so much fear and all of our relational issues became amplified.
We were SO toxic and we made the dumb decision to get our family involved in our toxic relationship. So we had so many opinions of other people interfering with our relationship. But there were some pretty significant issues.
Fast forward, our son was born. He started drinking, 20 pack a beer every single night, he stopped taking care of himself, he started smoking poppers and just went completely down hill and basically abandoned us completely. Mentally, emotionally and then physically.
It was exhausting and extremely emotionally painful for me because I needed him. I loved him and I’d beg him to just be with us and be a family. I wanted his love so badly. But he eventually left us when our son was 6 months old to go move back in with his mom and we tried to make it work from different houses until our son was eventually 1 years old when he completely decided to abandon ship.
He moved onto someone else only 1 month later.
Which was the worst emotional pain I’ve ever felt in my life.
And the girl he left me for was horrible to me. She would bully me with the help of other female members of his family.
I was angry because he has also abandoned me and I wasn’t even from the province I gave birth in. I tried to move back to my province him he essentially baby trapped me so I couldn’t move away with my son.
I was trapped, abandoned, isolated and absolutely heart broken. I had nobody to lean on, nobody that was there for me. It was extremely hard.
Fast forward to now, he had broken up with his girlfriend a year ago, I’ve healed from everything and we are actually able to be friends now.
He flirts with me all the time and I can’t help but feel some type of way. I do still love him, I probably always will and I know he loves and cares about me to. Hes apologized for the way he treated me and I forgave him and apologized for the way I reacted when I was younger as well. I imagine all the time what it would be like if we gave things another shot…
But I am stuck with the fear of the past. He left me for someone else and I think that’s the hardest part for me. If he did it once, could he do it again? Has he really changed? Is it worth it to find out?
I’d love to be a family again, but I’m worried about things failing miserably again and then now our son is older and how that would affect him.
Any advice on what I should do here if I do consider giving this a second chance?

BARPOD relevance: WPATH files/surgical intervention, strange internet communities; gender identity, Body-modification (Helen Lewis’ former BMEzine interest in episode 210!), potential new kinks for Katie to tease Jesse about;
Initial warning: NSFW discussion of surgery (in medical context and self-performed)
A couple of “interesting” unrelated stories in the last week that "maybe" have some interlinking ideas (feel free to challenge my logic on this!).
Obviously starting with the "main event", in the UK a ringleader of a pay-per-view website where users could watch men “consensually” having their genitalia amongst other body parts removed (the full case reports are harrowing and not for the faint of heart) largely as a fetish practice* has been jailed for a minimum of 22 years (actually an extremely long sentence here; by contrast a high-profile acid attacker received a 6 years minimum and served just 9 but that’s another story!). Now live-streamed castrations aren't exactly my cup of tea for casual supper-time viewing (Dr Pimple Popper on YT is more my thing), but I suppose the saying “one man's meat is another man's poison” is rather apt! The ringleader himself had also had the “surgery” (done with a popular brand of kitchen knife I happen to own as the BBC had to share - mine's used strictly for culinary use) to become a eunuch or a “nullo”. The case has called to mind a few prominent legal precedents such as R v Brown 1993 (confirming once and for all that hammering nails into certain sensitive body parts for pleasure is a crime - we Brits are such prudes!) or R v Peacock 2012 (aka the “fisting trial”) and where the murky question on the legal thresholds of consent were discussed.
'Eunuch-maker' mutilator jailed for 22 years - BBC News (worryingly BBC's reporting is tamer than others!)
I found the above an interesting contrast with similarly timed news on other bodily amendment: the article on the complex case of the man with Body Integrity Disorder legally having fingers removed (shared by a fellow BARPOD member, linked below), and an article (it's Daily Mail, but is 100% legitimate) on a wave of novel reassignment surgeries for nonbinary individuals (or "bigenital" or "salmacian" genders) available in the States. I had heard of “nullo” surgery (i.e. the Ken/Barbie doll surgery) as part of the WPATH “Standards of Care 8 (Section 88 referencing Eunuch surgery), but this newer surgery offers the option of a hybrid to ultimately have both a penis and a vagina. What does shock me is how unlike with classic transgender surgeries where there is a much longer history of research into both Gender Identify Disorder and physical/psychological impact of surgery dating back to the early 20^th century (albeit much we are finding now to be low quality), with nonbinary surgery there really is…. pretty much nothing. There is barely any scientific or even social consensus on how this identity is defined (no clinical thresholds like with traditional GID), only a handful of sociology surveys – this truly is “experimental” treatment, much akin to the advent of puberty blocker use.

Looking into one of the leading surgeons in this space performing this surgery (I won't name here to avoid any pile-on and as I think this discussion is bigger than one surgeon alone) it doesn’t give much reassurance for me – obviously they have all the appropriate medical qualifications for surgery, but also a degree minor in Gender Studies. I’ll admit perhaps an unfair mental stretch on my part but it did make me wonder the extent the known capture on campuses/medical academia in general PLUS in this case the more radical/laissez faire ideas coming from Queer Theory in these sorts of "grievance studies" courses, could influence upon into the boundaries a surgeon feels comfortable pushing (is it a case of “anything to satisfy the patients whims”). My biggest hang-up here is how these surgeons have now accepted that an individual could "naturally" and "healthily" desire something that they themselves have had to invent on the operating table (not found in nature beyond maybe some intersex deformities) - it feels very far-removed from wanting the bodily appearance of a healthy member of the opposite sex (e.g. a transman wanting pecs as per a biological man).

In terms of the crossover, whilst taking place in different states (UK, Canada, USA), I can’t help but wonder how different the first-mentioned legal case would have looked had the individuals involved essentially performing somewhat similar bodily modifications to find their “true selves” had actively identified as “non-binary”, BID, or “nullo” in the trial (even if superficially as a sneaky legal defence). Would they have received lesser sentences for being higher up on the “progressive pyramid”? (I'd place good money saying yes and the guy should look sternly at his lawyers for not suggesting this tactic!) - if he did would Trans Rights Activists and the non-binary community protest fiercely on the streets for them to be pardoned? - would left-wing publications like Pink News describe the case with more sympathy (e.g. how they were "let down" by the medical system for failing to provide accessible surgeries)?
*BIG caveat with all the above: obviously for the "Eunuch-maker" this was very clearly a kink/fetish practice (whereas non-binary surgery would not necessarily have any sexual motive, and is coming from a place of compassion, even if arguably misplaced), but given the extremeness and permanence involved and seeming "contentedness" at the results for him, this for me does almost cross the line into a Body Integrity Disorder space as afterall that too can involve a paraphilia. I do think it poses questions about whether kinksters could fall into using these new legitimate medical channels, and exactly how far we should allow voluntary body modification. I'm a lefty-liberal so my gut always leans to "you have one life, do what you want with your body", however my fear with the nonbinary surgery is this could go the way of puberty blockers and trans reassignment surgery whereby it is no longer a last-resort but advocated as the first and most appropriate treatment.
Inside the bizarre rise of the 'phalgina': Cosmetic clinics are offering 'grotesque' £10,000 surgery to craft non-binary people a penis AND vagina Daily Mail Online (obviously coming from a particular bias and not the most compassionately written, but does summarise the surgeries accurately)
Also mentioned:
Quebec man has two healthy fingers amputated to relieve 'body integrity dysphoria' : BlockedAndReported (reddit.com) (Eartern_Camera_2222's post)
R v Brown - Wikipedia
R v Peacock - Wikipedia (worth it for the cheeky photo alone)
Fantastic (and bizarre) long read on the Peacock case and others and this area: One lawyer’s crusade to defend extreme pornography Law The Guardian
WPATH World Professional Association for Transgender Health

Here was the prompt/reading:
In the June 1862 issue of The Atlantic Monthly magazine, American author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau published his essay “Walking.” The essay is considered to be a classic expression of American transcendentalism, a nineteenth-century philosophical, literary, and social movement that was skeptical of conventional social institutions and fearful of the changes wrought by industrialism. Transcendentalists such as Thoreau extolled self-reliance and encouraged a profound engagement with the natural world, which they sought to preserve in its pristine state. Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Thoreau makes to convey his message about the value of walking in nature.
In your response you should do the following:
Respond to the prompt with a thesis that analyzes the writer’s rhetorical choices.
Select and use evidence to develop and support your line of reasoning.
Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation.
Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us if we walked only in a garden or a mall?1 Even some sects of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to themselves, since they did not go to the woods. “They planted groves and walks of Platanes,”2 where they took subdiales ambulationes3 in porticos open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is—I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what are called good works—for this may sometimes happen.
My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours’ walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey.4 There is in fact a sort of harmony discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle of ten miles’ radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and the threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite familiar to you.
Nowadays almost all man’s improvements, so called, as the building of houses, and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. A people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest stand! I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle of the prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see the angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the middle of a boggy stygian5 fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his bounds without a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been driven, and looking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor.
I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and then the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. There are square miles in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can see civilization and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most alarming of them all,—I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the landscape. Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower highway yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveler thither. If you would go to the political world, follow the great road—follow that market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight to it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy all space. I pass from it as from a bean-field into the forest, and it is forgotten. In one half-hour I can walk off to some portion of the earth’s surface where a man does not stand from one year’s end to another, and there, consequently, politics are not, for they are but as the cigar-smoke of a man.
and here's my essay:
In the June issue of The Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1862, author Henry David Thoreau published an essay giving his views on the natural world. His essay is all about how valuable walking through the woods can be. Thoreau uses comparison and personal experience in order to convey his message that walking in nature is very valuable.
Thoreau uses comparison in order to convey his view that walking through nature can have value that people might not intrinsically think of. He does this when he compares what he sees during his walk to something of high value. Thoreau does this by saying "A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey." By saying this, Thoreau makes his audience realize that something, such as a mundane farmhouse, can be an extraordinary sight because he compares it to the great dominions of the King of Dahomey. He also makes his audience realize the value of something like a farmhouse which one can see on a typical walk through the woods since his audience now sees the farmhouse as something extravagant. Thus, if the audience now sees the value of the little things they can find in nature, they will now be more inclined to go on a walk in the woods. Furthermore, referring to lumberjacks as "the Prince of Darkness" also exemplifies the importance of nature to his audience by showing how those who try to destroy nature are very bad people. Understanding the value of the small things one can see in nature and how evil those who try to destroy nature are through the comparisons that Thoreau makes, the audience is ultimately moved to seeing Thoreau's perspective that walking in nature is very valuable.
Thoreau also uses personal experience in order to convey his perspective that taking a walk in nature can be a very valuable experience. Thoreau does this when he says "In one half-hour I can walk off to some portion of the earth’s surface where a man does not stand from one year’s end to another." This line gives the audience a sense of wonder toward nature and makes people want to explore nature for themselves. Thoreau also uses his personal experience to convey the value of walking in nature when he says "My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet exhausted them." to show how walking in nature never gets boring. Mentioning how by walking in nature one can see things that almost no one else has seen makes his audience intrigued because people are always looking to new experiences. Since his audience is now intrigued, they are more likely to listen to what he has to say. Thus, if people are now more willing to listen to Thoreau, they are more likely to be persuaded by his point of view on nature. Furthermore, mentioning how he never gets tired of his walks helps further Thoreau's influence over his audience by ensuring them that once they start going on outdoor expeditions, they'll never get bored of it and will always be entertained. Understanding how vast and entertaining nature is through Thoreau's personal account, the audience is ultimately moved to see Thoreau's perspective that walking in nature is very valuable.
Many people are skeptical about walking in nature because many people do not want to spend their time alone in the woods when they could be doing so much more interesting stuff in society. It is also very hard to convince these people to change there ways because it is very hard to make a walk alone in nature sound interesting. Thoreau, however, masterfully employs comparison and personal experience in his article in order to convey his message about the value of walking in nature.
Any help is appreciated because I've had exams and haven't been able to see my lang teacher the past 2 days to grade my essays

I'll start by saying that I'm no stranger to knee pain. I was born with a bone deformity that makes it so that my kneecaps dislocate very easily and very frequently. I've had about 100 knee dislocations in my lifetime, and two of them were violent enough that they chipped bone and required reconstructive surgery.
Recently I started having these "episodes", what I now strongly suspect are flare ups of gout. I'll be fine, and then suddenly—without a dislocation, or without any other kind of sprain, strain, or tweak—I have unbearable pain in my right knee joint. It swells up, I can't straighten it, and can't bend it much without extreme pain. Sometimes I can't put weight on it at all.
At first I thought it was maybe just regular arthritis, which I'm probably prone to developing due to so many knee dislocations over the years.
The last two episodes started in the middle of the night. Went to bed fine, woke up around 2am with unbelievably intolerable pain. The pain was so intense it woke me up from sleep. I tried taking a T3 that I had leftover from an appendectomy—and which I'd never needed to take—out of desperation, but it did nothing. I'm not overexaggerating when I say in that moment I wanted to amputate the knee. I didn't know pain like that was possible.
I don't have a formal diagnosis yet, I'm going to talk to my doctor ASAP, but I suspect it's gout because:

• It happens in the middle of the night
• My dad has it, and I hear it can be genetic/hereditary
• I have PCOS, and I understand metabolic issues predispose people to gout
• The pain is NEXT FUCKING LEVEL which seems to be a common denominator amongst gout sufferers
  I have a very high pain tolerance, beyond the knee dislocations I've also had appendicitis and I get frequent brutal migraines, I can usually power through with Advil and a sunny attitude. But holy holy holy shit, this issue.
  

If it is indeed gout, how do you folks manage the pain?

Someone close to me has BDD and is always distressed when she goes out and people look at her. Be it at a cafe, walking down the street or driving by in a car. Men look, oftentimes women do as well. She is 19 and very attractive, but thinks that when people look at her it's because she is ugly or looks weird and different. I believe that in reality, people (especially men looking at women) don't look at other people because they are ugly or unattractive (unless they are disfigured and have some deformity that they can't help but turn away from). Rather they look past them, ignore them or look and dismiss. When a person looks at another person, particularly of the opposite sex, it's almost always because they find you attractive (which is why friends will often say to friends - oh my, "he's looking at you" as form of validation of your attractiveness to that person.). When at a singles bar, someone looking at you is an invitation, they are hoping you return their look to give them the okay to walk over and introduce themself, etc. Yet, this friend thinks that people looking at her is indication of her ugliness. That is her only interpretation. This is what I believe is a negative core belief or schema about people in general -- and it is a faulty one. So for those of you who feel the same, I want you to consider that unless you are clearly disfigured or wearing really revealing clothes, etc, it is unlikely that anyone is looking at you because you are "ugly", in fact it's probably quite the opposite. Ironically, my other very attractive friend WITHOUT BDD gets distressed when no one looks at her because she's so used to people looking that she thinks no looks are an indication that she looks bad that day.

What is Looking-Glass Self? This is concept in sociology, discovered in 1902 by Cooley - and his theory states that we form our own identity based on what we think other people think who we are. In fact, the whole sociology is based on social anxiety- the very same social anxiety that psychiatry (CBT and DSM) are pathologizing and trying to cure and destroy and present as mental illness.
Without social anxiety, without ability to worry what other people think about us - we would lose social skills, empathy and civilization norms - such as not eating others.
"If it weren't for the nervous people in the world, we'd all still be eating each other." The Misfits (1961) https://youtu.be/h56iL7vK5Y0
When people consume chicken - they eat the flesh of animals because there is no ability to connect with the slaughtered animals as conscious beings who are able to think and perceive us. So when we destroy social anxiety- our ability to worry what other people think - we will become psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists. This also provide us with important information of self expression and holding toxic people accountable - by stating the facts and truth. Toxic people learn to suppress social anxiety - and this gives them ability to be cruel. And the only way to probe their delusions is to speak the truth to them. And that is why toxic people mock and go into hysteria mode - because their suppressed conscience and morality and ethics are eating them from inside.
Dolphins are not caught with smiles but cruelly with hooks, Michele. One day you will learn to be cruel. Caravaggio (1986) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF12uM_GK74
Sociology is based on social anxiety - that we form our own identity based on society. We need other people to provide us information who we are and how to express ourselves. The language is the very first thing that society gives us to define who we are - by using the very words that society is using.
Theories of the Self
William James (1890): A person has "as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry and image of him in their minds"
Charles Cooley (1902): Views of self reflect the standpoints of significant others in our lives ("looking-glass self")
George Herbert Mead (1934): We imagine the perspectives of others and incorporate these into our self views - and that this occurs continuously as we interact with others on an ongoing, moment to moment basis.

Having a distorted looking glass (incorrectly imagining others’ opinions of us) can cause bad feelings, or a negative self-image. https://wa01001786.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/WA01001786/Centricity/Domain/70/Socialization%20Notes.pdf
What happens when we are around toxic people - is that our identity is deformed as well. CBT claims, along with DSM, that our worry what other people think - is personality disorder, called Borderline:
Reality testing is ability to perceive reality properly. Without too much deviation from facts. Borderline refer to you if want to know anything about reality. “Do you think so too?” Narcissist will tell you "am I not genius". YT Richard Grannon & Prof. Sam Vaknin about Fantasy
Borderline personality disorder is a mental health condition that affects the way people feel about themselves and others, making it hard to function in everyday life. It includes a pattern of unstable, intense relationships, as well as impulsiveness and an unhealthy way of seeing themselves. (Mayo Clinic)
The truth is - if we are around toxic people, their criticism will affect our self worth. Their constant nagging, constant nitpicking, constant error finding and constant drama about anything that moves - will have an effect on our sense of stability and security in the world. This is not disorder. This is simply how society works. In order to heal our mental health issues - we need to repair connections with other people - which may include minimizing exposure to toxic people or cutting toxic people completely off from our lives.
We will never feel secure, confident, worthy - if there are toxic people around us who are criticizing us and others all the time.
Improving our relationships is improving our mental health. William Glasser
Interpersonal strife with those close to us leads to rifts and resentments that produce symptoms of mental illness; these problems are, in fact, the logical consequence of troubled relationships. Glasser emphasizes that lasting psychological problems are usually caused by problems in our personal relationships (rather than signifying a biochemical abnormality in the brain), and distress can be remedied through repairing these relationships without recourse to psych drugs. DK psychology book, WILLIAM GLASSER
Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
In another words: feel safe with other people = mental health
The single most important issue for traumatized people is to find a sense of safety in their own bodies. 🟦 Bessel A. van der Kolk
Toxic people cause social anxiety. That is why social anxiety is called social+anxiety. There is social element that is causing the anxiety. There is social factor contributing to anxiety. It is not called self-anxiety. We did not catch social anxiety by walking randomly in the street when it was rainy, so we caught a common cold. It is not like we felt bored in our lives so we invented neuroticism to keep us active and occupied. Social anxiety must start in childhood with ACE and ACoA where we learned from early on - that life is dangerous, that people are not safe, that we must worry to be hyper-vigilant and that we are unworthy if we make any kind of mistakes. We learned that our flaws, imperfections and mistakes are our core personality - abnormal and inept.
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. B. F. Skinner
This is how we end up with Broken Looking Glass Self. Distorted Looking Glass Self. We end up with operant conditioning - to worry what other people think in such way that we attempt to think for the other person ahead of time, so that they do not get mad of us - and then attempt, we try hard not to make other people mad. And how we execute this operant conditioning - depends on our background, people around us and punishments to which we were exposed as kids. Most socially anxious learn to keep quiet. To shut up. To self censor. And to self blame. If the other person is angry or hysterical - we will feel responsible for their mood swings and we will try hard to fix their emotions and their problems. Soon - we spread this fixing on other people, who are not angry - and we create fake social mask that is always pleasant and nice and helpful to anyone, especially if they are angry and rude and intrusive. We learned to interpret their anger as our fault and our abnormality. Looking glass self is broken - because it does not reflect any more - now we imagine how to please other people without using looking glass (mirror) - as all people use it.
Other people are there as information post. They broadcast who they are, many of them mask their true Self and present fake version of themselves, their social mask. Our brain will naturally form opinion about us through the words and opinions and non-verbal gestures from other people, strangers or our acquaintances. This part is totally normal. This is not disorder. This is not illness. The disorder starts when we try hard to fix other people's conclusions about us by making ourselves small and by changing our routine so that we soothe the other person. Instead of CBT techniques - all that we need to do here is to allow other people to think whatever they choose to think about us. Simply allow other people to hate us and leave it at that.
We really have to work very hard at changing our programming because we don't understand we're upset because someone else has a perception of us that we're uncomfortable with. And we challenge this person's perception of us. We're upset that people think this about us. Something amazing happens when you begin to accept that other people are allowed to have their own faulty perception of you. 🟥 Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life coach Inc.
For the next step, sociology will also help us. CBT and DSM, psychiatry is telling us concrete steps which we must take - and morally and ethically speaking - this is illegal. When someone orders us what we must do - this is called manipulation and coercive control. This way anyone who is psychopathic and narcissistic can climb, grab and push their way to powerful position of ordering others what to do - and then evil people can easily manipulate and control the masses. This is what happens with psychiatry. Psychology on the other hand explains concepts - psychology does not order us what to do in life and how to react. That is why Humanistic psychology is healthy.
It is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried. Carl Rogers
In the same manner as Humanistic Psychology and IFS Model - sociology also has the similar term that allows clients freedom in own choices - which is called Thomas theorem.
The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated in 1928 by William Isaac Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas: If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. In other words, the interpretation of a situation causes the action. This interpretation is not objective. (wiki)
If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. - formulated in 1928 by William Isaac Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas
This means - that no other person can objectively tell us what is the best way to go in life. We need our inner GPS, our intuition, our common sense, other people as well - to form our reality and our construct of the future where we are headed. With CBT and DSM - we do not have this freedom. With CBT and DSM - we are pathologized instead - and all our focus is spent on fixing our symptoms - we are literally self consuming ourselves with CBT.
In real life- real life situations will not allow us to form rigid mindset. Any other person, any other situation in life - good or bad - is always unique and different. Sometimes it is great that we shut up and that we self censor ourselves - especially if we are tired and we don't want to harm other people with our nagging and complaints that will go off as soon as we get to sleep and rest. On the other hand - many situations in life that are triggering our social anxiety require from us to self express, that we talk out our truth - no matter how much manipulative people attempt to shut us up with mocking and shaming.
So when we allow other people to form toxic conclusions about us - we need to know that we can rely on our brain, on our intuition to tell us how to react and what to do and how to behave. We have this mechanism inside us. We do not need to pathologize ourselves with CBT. CBT will tell us that we must be assertive in order to handle toxic people. This is horrible advice because:
"If you have been the scapegoat in a narcissistic family system, the concept of setting a boundary is laughable. You would be telling them exactly how to hurt you, and they would happily oblige. Also, trying to set a boundary in a calm and tactful way would be met by resistance in the form of mocking and ridicule, attempting to bait the scapegoat into anger, which would prove you are the problem." YT kingbee9778
"I feel gaslighted by the therapy mantras of “ you have to teach people how to treat you “ ,(setting boundaries). No you don’t and no you can’t. First of all, it’s not my job to teach an adult how to behave like one and quite frankly, it’s a trap and a drain hole. Secondly, I DON’T CONTROL OTHER PEOPLE. They will do what they want, especially if they have the tiniest ounce of power over you." YT gertrudewest4535
When we follow CBT - we will repeat the broken Looking Glass Self when we exposure ourselves to social situations - and social anxiety will not go away - because we will continually process the same ways reality and other people in a manner that is toxic to us - through seeking approval from other people, through self flagellation, through harsh inner critic and internalized toxic shame.
To fix broken Looking-Glass Self means fixing social anxiety: when we are afraid of what other people think about us. With CBT we self pathologize our normal reaction to worry what other people think about us. This is not disorder, it is totally normal to have awareness that other people are thinking about us.
Many social anxiety coaches will use "Spotlight effect" as proof that other people do not worry about us:
"The spotlight effect is the psychological phenomenon by which people tend to believe they are being noticed more than they really are."
In toxic contact - toxic people - those same ones who trigger our social anxiety - do notice anything about us. In normal population - other people will think about us and we will define each other - through the process called The Michelangelo phenomenon - where we chisel each other into better version, where we change our toxic habits that hurt us as much as they hurt other people. In unhealthy, toxic social dynamics there will be the opposite: Golem Effect and Crab mentality. Where there is competition and where other person is perceived as threat and someone to pull down.
A lot of content on mental health in mainstream media does not cover the unique corner that survivors of narcissistic abuse live in. Not one mention of being in any kind of toxic relationship. “Avoid your triggers” is not easy in narcissistic relationships. When the discomfort is living in your house or down the street or in the next office. It was not even rumination, but reality. And the constant exposure means you don't get a break. 🟥 DoctorRamani https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uusKWmjUk6k
I'm not setting boundary with these people. “Don't do this with me”. “Don't say this with me”. It's all internal. Because if you try to set a boundary with someone who's narcissistic or antagonistic – it's never going to work. And I think it's unsafe guidance to give.
With this dangerous person no. But what are you willing to tolerate. How can you protect yourself emotionally. What access can you remove. Move these people from VIP section.
🟥 Dr. Ramani - Terri Cole
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSHI5N-w5sk
With broken Looking-Glass Self - we end up being trapped in toxic people's minds. Similar to horror movie / book The Cell from 2000. Even when we develop Who cares attitude, and when we consciously try to block and build walls away from toxic people, when we try hard to push down and suppress toxic people - we are still trapped in their reality of what they potentially might think about us. This is why CBT is not working - because CBT tries hard to convince us to use suppression as method to block social anxiety. And we cannot block other people - we need other people for our identity and our self worth - where there is healthy interaction called Interdependence. Toxic people behave in codependent way - they see other people as competition and this creates codependency. They need other people like vampires need blood - to exploit someone's attention, someone's focus, money, time and or resources of any kind. It is like give me, give me, give me - and provide nothing in return. With social anxiety we end up giving others without observing if the other person is emotionally invested in us at all. It ends up and one side interaction, exploitation really. Social anxiety means suppress anger as well. We learned to push our anger away - and this attracts toxic people who count on our silence and understanding and toxic empathy - knowing that they can cross boundaries of social interaction in their favor and we won't make any kind of protest. Then our own only protection - is avoidance. Therefore - social anxiety is natural defense mechanism against dangerous criminally insane psychopaths who are abusing their power position against ourselves.
In our teen years we experiences bully experience - after years of exposure to ACoA and ACE (constant criticism and constant drama at home) - so we generalized the belief that we cannot trust other people - and we learned that we process reality through broken Looking Glass Self - where we appease other people with our decisions - by being afraid what other people may think badly of us - since we were pressed and pushed into equating social rejection and our self worth as if they are one of the same. And psychiatry - instead of explaining us that it is totally normal to worry what other people think - CBT explains us that this is abnormality. This faulty explanation from medical industry is adding more trauma and more toxic shame and it gives our inner critic free reign to self abuse us - because we believe we are abnormal and ill if we worry what other people thin about us. In reality - all people worry about others. Even psychopaths worry what other people will think, along with narcissists - because they know that they need to form fake social mask of charm in order to seduce new victims into their agenda of exploiting and manipulating others.
Looking-Glass Self tells us - that we simply allow toxic people to form bad opinion about us in their heads - and that we absolutely do nothing to change this image that toxic people freely choose to believe about us in their heads.
You're no longer going to play the game of what can I do differently to get them to behave differently – because the answer is to that is nothing. That's radical acceptance. It takes long time. And it's not just accepting their behavior is not going to change, it's also the way it affects you is also not going to change. Just because you radically accept doesn't mean that somebody screaming at you is going to hurt any less- it does,it hurts a lot 🟥 Dr. Ramani - Terri Cole https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSHI5N-w5sk
Other people will hurt us. They will say mean and untrue things about us. They will attack us - this has nothing to do with who we are. Their choice to harm and hurt other person - is abnormality in their brain. Normal healthy sane people do not attack others. Normal healthy sane people have ability to emotionally regulate themselves. Person who does not have this ability - is sick and mentally ill. And this has nothing to do with us. We are not the ones who can cure them by changing our behavior.
Lundy Bancroft: "Abuse is NOT caused by bad relationship dynamics. You can't manage your partner's abusiveness by changing your behaviour. But he wants you to think you can."
The pain that we feel when toxic people attack us, verbally or physically - is normal pain, we need this pain as the instruction for us what to do with severely damaged people around us.
If you are not feeling pain, anger and sadness while you are taking in psychological abuse or something similar – you are going to end up in those situations over and over again –because you are not logging information that your body telling 🟥Heidi Priebe https://youtube.com/watch?v=GTQohPaGnSY
People say it bothers me when they say these things. I say, because they say bothersome things. I don't want you to lose that part of you. That part is good index what is okay, what's not. From that point – excavation. A person pulling their true self out of their relationships. If you grew up with narcissistic parent, it was a true self that never even got to develop. It's how much your identity got co-opted. What do I like, what do I stand for. 🟥 Dr. Ramani - Terri Cole https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSHI5N-w5sk
The core of narcissistic person is very fragile. That's why they lose it when you critique them. Or give them feedback. Or don't read their mind. Or don't do exactly what they want. And that's why they use all kinds of tactics like manipulation, gaslighting, invalidation, dismissiveness, competitiveness, betrayal. Some of them are tactics, some are unemphatic behavior. And it gives them the upper hand in relationship. Control, power gives them supply. 🟥 Dr. Ramani - Cole https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSHI5N-w5sk
With social anxiety - we do not need psychiatry. Socially anxious need sociology. It is after all social issue. Social anxiety is anxiety that is connected to society - the name itself reveals this crucial aspect: society, social, societal. Psychiatry will only leave us lacking and with belief that something is horribly wrong with us, when we are around toxic people:
DSM doesn't explain anything. So many therapies and particularly CBT and others are just so focused on extinguishing symptoms which were once strategies of survival. And it doesn't make sense that you want to extinguish – we want eventually to move away from these symptoms and these strategies but I certainly don't want to pathologize them or look at them as somehow defective because they have saved our lives. 🟥 Transforming Trauma Episode 21 IFS & NARM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRTHacVAwdk
When we stop self pathologizing our social anxiety - we will unburden ourselves with toxic idea that feeling pain is abnormal and sick. And it will give us energy to start looking what is causing this pain - instead of focusing ourselves on chasing the symptoms. Without the stigma and labels - we will have much more resources at our disposal to handle difficult people in life who are causing our social anxiety in the first place.
With social anxiety - we need to learn about the Cooley's concept Looking-Glass Self and other terms from sociology. Instead of pathologizing our social reactions - we simply need information to confirm us that we are not abnormal and inept as CBT paints the socially anxious. We need information to learn what our rights are.
Five themes of microaggression against people with mental illnesses
1. Invalidation
When other people dismiss their illness or symptoms through minimizing their experience, symptomizing their normal experiences, and patronizing
2. Assumption of inferiority
When other people assume that people with mental illness have lower intelligence, are incompetent, and that they do not have control
3. Fear of mental illness
When other people fear them because they believe that they may be dangerous or unpredictable
4. Shaming of mental illness
When other people tell them that they shouldn't let others know about their mental illness
5. Second class citizen attitudes
When other people treat them as if they don't have the same rights as the dominant group of society.
Mental Health Forum, 2016

Diagnosis is not an excuse to be selective about their rights. Autistic not weird
Healing the Broken Looking-Glass Self means learning about the mentality - which we never had chance to learn in our developmental years. Other children learned this concept via keeping connections with other people. We - started to avoid people. Even when we were around other people - we pulled our investment emotionally with other people - and this way we never learned that other people are safe. We developed the stump growth - that is being stuck in age 12, when we started to avoid people. Similar to the plant that cannot grow roots in small basin or tree/plant that is stumped in growing due to some kind of obstacle to grow upright. Our growth was shaped from the perspective of not trusting other people - because they harmed us. Other people learned to develop certain amount of trust. They learned to filter out the bad people. And they learned that they are safe to express themselves - without being punished for it. This is why their social anxiety is in normal threshold. They will experience stress and then behave in anti-social manner, they will express their anger without problems - because they were never pushed into forming their self worth through worry what their tormentors might think about them. So it is not like social anxiety is abnormality or sickness - it is simply that non-socially anxious people were lucky enough to grow in healthy ambient, and that is their secret. They were not stronger. They were not more competent. They were not better or superior to the socially anxious. They simply had privilege and entitlement that helped them over-pass developmental years without fearing other people. Their mechanisms how to handle triggers - are mostly unhealthy (lacking empathy) - but their Looking glass self was not broken. With interaction with other people, with other children, they learned naturally to allow difficult people to hate them. Instead of worry - that is found in social anxiety - they simply turned their focus onto other people. With social anxiety - we do not have other people, we have no one to turn to, since we learned that other people are painful and traumatic. We never learned that hanging around with other people is enjoyable experience - and if someone is rude, toxic and abnormal - that we are allowed to focus and place our attention to better, healthier people around us.
In shame culture ambient - we will learn that other people criticism is reflection of our worth - and that is Broken Looking-Glass Self. That we cannot feel good about ourselves until other person reflects positive words about us to us:
Young American explained why she left Croatia:
"In Croatia people constantly express intrusive opinion about matters which are none of their business. The most irritating things were rude people."
https://www.poslovni.hlifestyle/amerikanka-napusta-hrvatsku-neucinkovitost-i-birokracija-te-ljudi-koji-nemaju-motiva-za-napredovanjem-u-poslu-358422
Young American explained why she escaped from Croatia:
"Often I heard Croats intruding why am I eating something, or commenting about what I wore. There is no such thing in America, we allow people to be what they want to be. People here are strange as if I am inside toxic relationship."
https://www.vecernji.hshowbiz/amerikanka-u-hrvatskoj-iznenadila-objavom-ljudi-su-ovdje-cudni-kao-da-sam-u-losoj-vezi-1351757
Don't look to the approval of others for your mental stability. 🟦 Karl Lagerfeld
We will heal social anxiety trauma with healing our choice to stay stuck around toxic people. We can cut toxic people - even when we are unable to leave them physically - by severing the trauma bonding in our mind - that is broken Looking-Glass Self.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt
Yes, toxic people are pathological liars, They spread gossip. They create drama and hysteria. Toxic people do not have word toxic stuck on their forehead. Toxic people will not behave toxically in front of others - because they depend to look good in the eyes of other people - so they also have Looking-Glass Self no matter how much they said that they do not care what other people think about them. Therefore - social anxiety is clear indication that we are around toxic people. Toxic people do not allow us to express ourselves - and they use various methods of coercive control to manipulate their targets. The first step is to sever this trauma bonding - by allowing them to hate us.
That we basically stop impressing others.
Don't try to impress others. ✝️ Bible, Philippians 2-3
Cooley said our sense of Self comes from how we think other people see us. “I am not what I think I am. I am not what you think I am; I am what I think you think I am.” Other people's reflections of us and how we think about those images they have of us help create our sense of Self. Grades from teachers can reflect back to us an image of ourselves that we then internalize and becomes our self-perception. They effect self-image. 🟥 The Looking glass self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X1wwTCuZBo
We imagine we are seen by others. And that imagination forms our identity. Our identity is being shaped by others. Others is agent which influences who we are in society. You begin to believe that and you begin to see as your identity, what other people think of you. Intelligent, high self esteem, outgoing – you believe what people say about you, it becomes your identity. Our identity is formed through the way we imagine people see us.
🟥 Looking-glass Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UWOflUXKUQ
That imagination comes from interaction with these people. In the process of interaction they tell you this is what we think about you. And then you go off believe in that. You don't control what people think about you. Front Stage Behavior: Familiarity breeds content-With front stage they behave nicely. It's in subconsciousness of individuals that they have to behave a certain way in public. At interview- they smile, but is this who they are?
🟥 Looking-glass Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UWOflUXKUQ
It is often said that American Beauty is a film about identity. Each character seems to go through a very personal identity crisis. But I would argue that this crisis are not personal at all. They are products of wider social forces. We may define ourselves based on prevailing attitudes towards sexuality, beauty and material success. Sense of self strongly influences by social world.
🟥 American Beauty Film Analysis: The Sociology of Identity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6youJFbEgQ
Ricky shows Jane that he likes her as she is. Eventually this leads her abandoning the idea of surgery and gain enough confidence and self-esteem to tell Angela what she really thinks of her. Freed from idea that everyone looks down on he because of her physical appearance, Jane's sense of self is no longer defined how she looks, how she looks to others.
🟥 American Beauty Film Analysis: The Sociology of Identity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6youJFbEgQ
An individual realize its self by reflecting others' perceptions about him. They use social interactions as a mirror. A Person grows and develop due to interpersonal interactions of the Society. When one interacts socially, one completely considers how one looks in the eyes of others. Negative response leads to depression and anxiety.
🟥 Looking Glass Self Theory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAzsBj6yTpw
Looking Glass Self where you see yourself the way you think others see you. You can't see the way others truly see you. So you're seeing yourself they way you think others think they see you. You can see how much is lost in the translation. You're much more beautiful than you think. You attract so much more than you know. There's more going on with you than you care to acknowledge. Beauty is not about what you see. It's about what you reflect. 🟥 Looking Glass Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFEkq8uDiJU
Mirror in front of you, and you are looking at yourself in the mirror, the way it is – is mirror in reality. As Masha labels you, tells you, comments on you, provides you all kinds of feedback, your self continues to develop. The way society perceives you and gives feedback about you. It is considered important to yourself and you have that impression that is how I should be. Their significance or importance makes you proud.
🟥 Looking Glass Self https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa-PD1YVxj4
There is something you have never understood, Joe. These people at the top, they are the same as anybody else. But you had it inside of you to be so much bigger than any of them. You just had to be yourself. That was all. With me you were yourself. Only with me. Room at the Top (1958) https://youtu.be/Cs1C_Tu2crI

I am 38(m) ky area. I don't understand why friends abandon me. I stick through their woes and turmoil, yet when I have any, it's ignored. I give so much to make people feel safe and welcomed around me and it's always me getting berated for bringing up my sad thoughts.
Eventually I get overloaded and start spewing my thoughts on their crap that I suppressed because of their vulnerability at the time they are venting. Apparently I don't know what it is to be a friend.
As a child growing up I got picked on quite a bit due to a miniscule deformity on my face. (Hardly noticeable now with facial hair and whatnot) ((as well as me being weird and diagnosed with ADHD in the early 90's)) well my "friends" would be my "friends" outside of school...once we were on the bus, as well as at school, I was a target. Day after day. Year after year. I did this "rigamarole" and I adapted to this type of "frienship". The type where when threatened, I exploit trauma, physical features, and whatever hurts.
Years later...This what was considered friendship to me. I thought it was ok and fun to basically bully someone "jokingly"
It's not...
My teens were weird. I stopped ADHD medication, on my own accord, started smoking weed, drinking, and having sex at twelve. (Bad neighborhood)
My twenties....my prime was fueled by alcohol and it was mid 2000's. Shit was weird but fun. Apparently it was ok to be a douche by "default" I was the funny guy.
Fast track to my 30's. Complete confusion. Depression. Anxiety. sigh the norm I suppose after a decade or more of partying. Friends were slim. By choice. Kept it to three or so.
Those friends used me constantly. For my emotions, loyalty, and sometimes monetary gain. I confront in a nice concerned way for reassurance. Next thing you know I'm the bad person for thinking that and just attacked.
Why am I always the bad guy?
I ask for nothing in return for anything I do. They would always do things together, without me. Never invited to anything. The only time I would see them is when I would go up to their job and hang out as they would tell me about the fun things they did with their other friends.
I eventually cut them off. Never even got questioned why I stopped showing up to their job. I guess they knew I caught on. Idk.
Well I end up meeting a girl at their job at some point. We hit it off. Empathized with eachother and bonded over trauma...can be good, can be disastrous. Everything was great at first...then I happened. She needed me for something. Of course I got her. At this point I had fallen for her and told her. After that, it was constant. After a while I just got drained. And vocalized my questions to her.
I'm the bad guy again.
I knew about her trauma and empathize. She knew about mine and used it as ammo. Phuck. My emotions are being used again. I get drained by constantly reassuring her. Now she has abandoned me. Why bother even existing.

When I was younger I was intrigued by gaslamp fantasy works because it looked cool. But as I got older I learned that the Industrial Revolution which is the real life basis for steampunk had a dark side:

1. Unsafe workplaces: Since there were no regulations regarding workplace safety working conditions during the Industrial Revolution were bad. Prime examples included places like the Textile Mills and Coal Mines. In a textile mill the entire place would be warm and humid leading to workers having lung problems and workers would often suffer from stress injuries and physical deformities from doing jobs over and over everyday. And in some cases like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory a lot of flammable materials weren’t stored properly so if a fire happened they wouldn’t be able to put out because there is no sprinkler system. In a coal mine workers had to work places that were no higher than 30 inches and they had to breathe in coal dust and gases like methane. And like the textile workers the men, women, and children also suffered from stress injuries and physical deformities from backbreaking work. Assuming of course they didn’t die from an explosion which was the result of a buildup of methane and they also had to worry about the roof caving in on them. To top it all off workers in both places had to work 12 -16 hour a days with no overtime pay, endure corporal punishment, have no paid vacations or holidays, if they got injured on the job they wouldn’t get any medical attention, and their wages could be arbitrarily cut, docked, or suspended.
2. High Pollution and environmental degradation: In addition to contributing to global warming the Industrial Revolution also lead to a lot of environmental degradation. Since there were no air pollution controls and regulations, the sky would be clouded with smog and soot from factories. Deforestation also increased either to harvest more wood, increase settlement, or to mine or drill the land for natural resources. If it was to mine the land miners would often use heavy metals like mercury to separate the minerals from the rock which resulted in contaminating the soil and the water. And when plumbing came along this led to a lot of cities dumping their waste into natural lakes and rivers like what London did.
3. No sanitation: As I said above when plumbing was introduced this led to a lot of people dumping their waste into natural rivers and lakes. In addition the streets would also be a dumping ground for waste (animal/human), garbage, and they would often be covered in soot that spewed from the factories. This often resulted in the spread and outbreak of diseases like cholera, typhus, and TB.

To be fair nobody back then anticipated that these problems would arise from Industrialization.
Though in any case are there any gaslamp fantasy works that show the downsides of the Industrialization? So far the only ones I could find were Arcanum of Might and Magic, Dishonored, His Dark Materials, Jonathan Strange, Guns of the Dawn, Arcane, Avatar, Girl Genius, and Temaire.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-negative-effects
https://www.britannica.com/story/the-rise-of-the-machines-pros-and-cons-of-the-industrial-revolution
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/industrial-revolution.asp
https://www.thoughtco.com/gold-mining-mercury-usage-2367340
https://www.historyonthenet.com/industrial-revolution-working-conditions
https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/triangle-shirtwaist-fire
https://www.grunge.com/319516/the-truth-behind-the-great-stink-of-london/
https://www.thoughtco.com/public-health-in-the-industrial-revolution-1221641
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2183/the-textile-industry-in-the-british-industrial-rev/
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2201/coal-mining-in-the-british-industrial-revolution/
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2212/trade-unions-in-the-british-industrial-revolution/