I Can Move The Wind

You told me that she was crazy. You told me that she coerced you into having sex, and that it was akin to rape. I felt awful for you.

You told me that the child that you conceived was not your responsibility because you had offered help and it was refused. You told me, again, that she was crazy. I believed you. She was awful. People are warning me about you. But no, she was crazy. I will not listen to them. They cannot stand between us.

You told me that I was the only one for you, and that you loved me with all that you had. You told me I was the Ramona to your Scott, and you wanted to fix my broken past.

You told me that I was cute, and that I "won" every game we had for this reason. You paid so much attention to me. You were broken, and I pitied and loved you. I'm not sure which it truly was.

You told me that my breasts could stand to be a little larger. You told me that all I was good for was sex. I was angry and hurt. You told me to get over it. When I went to walk away, you cried. I pitied and loved once again.

You told me that you couldn't help it. You just wanted me so badly. Nevermind the fact that I didn't. I knew that men would be men. So I let it go. Problem was, only part of me did.

I told you that I wanted to die. I told you that there were noises in my head, and I could control the wind. You believed me. Now we are believing each other's lies.

I don't know why I keep vomiting. I am disgusted with myself. With her. Now I know why you said she was crazy. Now I can't work. She's crazy, she's crazy. She is me.

Now I am better. Now I know what you were. Now I don't want this to happen to anyone else. God, I don't want this to happen to anyone else.

I wrote this late last night for a multitude of reasons, the biggest being that it was cathartic for me. The second reason is to show people what victims of sexual assault go through. This is why we "wait too long to seek justice." 

Squishy Post Hoc Stuff

At work today, a question was posed to me by a coworker. "What do you think about prenups?"

After pausing a minute to think I replied, "I think they are very pessimistic. But it's a good kind of pessimism."

We went on to discuss various relationship possibilities: maybe one partner was lying the whole time. Maybe after marriage, a partner decides to stop trying to better themselves. Maybe one partner receives an unfortunate brain injury and their personality is radically altered--the possibilities are endless. In the end if divorce is sought, things are a bit better for both parties, at least financially.

As it turns out, strategies like these aren't just limited to topics like marriage, and they are used by people every day. Also known as defensive pessimism, these tactics are used by people (generally those with some degree of anxiety) and some research suggests that they can actually help improve overall performance. But how?

If one thinks about certain outcomes of failure, that thought of potential failure can motivate that person to try a little harder than they would otherwise. Additionally, identifying issues or "bugs" early on in a task can motivate one to eliminate those "bugs" and arrive at a more favorable outcome.

Even if the outcome of a task ends in failure, when one had lowered expectations to begin with this failure may not deliver as "crushing" a blow had one been expecting a more positive outcome. The lowered expectations effectively act as a mental "cushion" of sorts.

Of course, these strategies are like double-edged swords. If one worries too much about failure, they may simply give up on the end goal or become so fraught with worry that they allocate too many attentional resources to potential problems and lose sight of what truly needs to be done. Ah, Yerkes-Dodson Law, you've done it again!

Placebo

As promised, here is an explanation of my post from yesterday, which you may or may not have read.

I was online during my break yesterday, and had noticed someone commented on a post without having actually read said post--it was pretty obvious. I complained about this to a coworker, and he mentioned that people have done experiments/pulled "pranks" to see if people will actually read posted articles or just react to the title. He went on to say that people are by nature reactionary, and that I should do a similar "experiment" on my blog. And so I did.

The results were interesting. I posted my article on several different pages/groups/threads to see what different results I might get. On a thread belonging to Joshua Feuerstein's page, a web user called me stupid for thinking that abortion should be legal. (Mind you I threw them a bone on the post, blatantly suggesting in the comment that they should make sure to read the actual article for an explanation). I posted to a Psychology group on Google+ and received no comments, just "likes"--by that I can assume that either a. Everyone read the article or b. Some did and some didn't, but the ones who didn't simply "liked" the post because they agreed. Moving on--I also posted to an Atheist group on Google+, some people commented that they agreed with the post, some said that they liked what I did with the post, and some made it clear that they had read the post but offered an opinion anyway (nothing wrong with that!)

Research on web use posits that even if content of an article is sought in the first place, only about 20-30% is actually read--in addition, web users will oftentimes pick out key words and "scan" rather than read each word in a sentence.

I think the biggest takeaway from this experiment is that we all (myself included) need to make sure we're truly thinking about all the details of what we're reading. In addition, I believe I have another experiment in mind (though I won't be implementing it for a long time).

Eh what the heck. If you got to this point in the article, comment "tufted titmouse" or something equally random/ridiculous.

Abortion Should be Legal in All Instances and All Stages of Pregnancy

Today, work was just horrible. We were understaffed, I had to miss the Bernie Sanders rally at SIUE, and on top of all that, I had to train someone at work while we were understaffed and we were getting slammed. 

But you know what? Deadpool makes everything all better. I'm going to play some of the "Deadpool" video game that my coworker lent me, I have some margaritas, and my fiance cleaned and vacuumed the apartment and is making me dinner! Additionally, I have been making some great friends through my blog--it's so flattering that they took the time to message me about how they like my writing and now I talk to them every day!

You may have noticed that this blog has absolutely nothing to do with the title--that's because this is a social experiment. The title nowhere near describes my opinion on the topic. Congratulations, and I will explain tomorrow night! Shout-out to my coworker who gave me this idea--thanks dude!

The Great Pumpkin

I was perusing The Book of Faces today when I happened upon this post:

Aside from the fact that someone decided to hijack "Peanuts" to make a religious post, I take issue with the message within it. Now I agree that worrying about any-and-everything is no way to live life and that some issues/situations/people just need to be let go. But no all-powerful entity is just going to snap their fingers and do things for you. 

I do know that oftentimes religious beliefs can serve as a buffer to anxiety. Research suggests that attending church and believing in some sort of afterlife are two variables which are negatively correlated with anxiety (meaning that as the frequency of the two variables increases, anxiety decreases). However, strong beliefs in "the pervasiveness of sin" are positively associated with anxiety, meaning that as these beliefs become more frequent, anxiety increases.

Anxiety is not always a bad thing to have, though. The only known law in psychology, known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law, states that there is a "perfect" level of anxiety (or physiological arousal) for an individual to perform at their best on a task. Too little and performance is lowered; too much and performance is lowered again. So attending church and holding beliefs about an afterlife are probably not bad things to do in terms of anxiety (though I would argue that afterlife beliefs help decrease anxiety about the unknown, rather than simply being at peace with the fact that one cannot know the answer to what happens after death), but "giving all of one's problems to God" will probably not help with whatever situation one may be dealing with--there needs to be some anxiety/physiological arousal for one to perform their best in a situation.

Also, Charles Schulz was a secular humanist. 

You're a Sociopayath

A friend of mine at work today proposed an experiment to be carried out at a later date.

This friend was worried that they might be a sociopath. Thankfully, most true sociopaths, when faced with the question of whether or not they are a sociopath, will adamantly deny the possibility--so the fact that my friend was worried about this probably means that they are not a sociopath. In addition, I do not believe that they meet the DSM-5 criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder, which are the diagnostic criteria most closely describing a "sociopath."

However, I am still looking forward to this experiment. In a couple of months, I will present a sad story to this friend and see if they react in an empathetic or cold, uncaring manner.

Aside from this experiment and the criteria, I am of the opinion that everyone has antisocial traits. Even if one does not meet all the criteria, there still may be instances in which one lacks empathy for another based on the context of the situation, as research on the mediating effects of antisocial traits between drinking and partner violence suggests. Essentially, we all have the potential at any moment, based on a whole lot of variables, to be sociopaths.

I Do Not Like Green Kens and Ham.

This morning, a friend of mine sent me an article about something Ken Ham said.

"Intellectual child abuse: when kids are taught they’re just animals in an evolutionary process. This morning I taught kids the creation/gospel message!

The young people today in Alabama learned they’re not made in the image of an ape — they’re created in the image of God."

As someone who was initially raised as a Christian, I know that these attitudes are all too familiar. When I was younger, I was sent to a private Christian school for first and second grade. I do not remember much of what I had learned there (I think I may have blocked some of it out) but the spotty memories I do have involved coloring in pictures representing Bible verses. I wan't allowed to watch The Wild Thornberrys because one of the character's names was "Darwin."

My point here is that people like Kevin Ham are people who live in complete fear of information that conflicts with their preexisting worldview. Even worse, they will pass this fear on, along with delusions of grandeur that humanity was modeled after some supreme being. In my opinion, it is more humble to acknowledge the possibility that we arose from lesser beings. Let us just hope that the children that Ken Ham "teaches" will find their own truth.