Sunday, May 19, 2013

Book appendix (part 6)

Here's a section on information warfare that didn't fit anywhere in the book:


My dad’s need for control manifests itself in diverse ways.  We call one control game “information warfare.”  In this game, the goal is to try to disclose as little information as possible while not seeming to obviously evade the question.  For example:
Dad comes through the door in the middle of a workweek.

Me: “Hello?”
Silence.
I look up to see who it is, “Why are you here?”
Dad: “I have to be here, I’m sorry.”
Me: “Why?”
Dad: “I’m not good.”
Me: “You’re not feeling good, or you have been bad?”
Silence.
Me: “Well it’s good you’re here, we can get burritos for lunch.”
Dad: “I can’t do that but you can do that.”
Silence.
Me: “You’re not making any sense.”
Dad: “Why?”

The game is played all the time.  Like soccer, most of it is just little trade offs until my dad finds the right time to strike and make a “goal”.  A goal in this game is for him to get the other person to make a false conclusion based on incomplete and/or false or misleading information that he has been feeding them.

Brother: “Dad, are we going to refinance that rental property?”
Silence.
Brother: “Dad, I was talking to my realtor who says that if we refinance we might be able to get enough out for a down payment on another property.”
Silence.
Brother: “Apparently the rates are the lowest they’ve been all year.”
Days later.
Brother: “Dad, I filled out some paperwork for the bank to refinance that rental property.”
“You did what?!”
“We talked about this, my realtor thought we could get some extra money out and lock in a very low rate.”
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.”  Three stupids in my dad’s lexicon is almost like an epithet—you are very seriously stupid.  “That property is in a limited liability partnership!  Banks won’t refinance a property that’s in a limited liability partnership!”

And that’s how you score a goal.

49 comments:

  1. I just dumped a guy who exactly started doing this all the time. I slowly came to the conclusion he was doing this on purpose. He also gaslighted me in other ways. I'm convinced he's a socio/N and I threatened him to stay the F out of my life. And he was pity playing like 'but whyyyy' He can go F himself in Hell. I don't find it suprising that you felt the need to hurt your father. People like this are killing our precieous time with their bullshit and therefore should pay with their own lifetime.

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    1. Probably the guy was cheating on you many times before. This kind of people are very toxic to be with. I think ME could try to analyse more how his dad is and why. We come to better conclusions by analising other people rather than ourselves. We are to close to ourselves to accept some premises. Maybe ME has no disorder besides having learned by example many toxic behaviours. It is up to her to get rid of that way of interacting. We don't have to use everything we have learned.

      Jessi

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    2. With the little bit of info you've provided, he sounds like some kind of whiny, sheltered manchild to me. Sure he's an asshole, but neither a sociopath nor a narcissist would wine like that.

      I only dodge one type of question, which are those that aim to know how I feel about something. The answer is usually 'nothing', but I have to be more creative than that. It's easy being a dude in that regard. People expect me to be all closed off and stoic about things.

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    3. tnx for not making me feel like a freak
      for my bad spelling if you do it to it must be cool

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    4. Neither a sociopath nor narcissist would whine that way? Huh.

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    5. narcissists whine when they cant have what they want. they stomp and whine and cry in a tantrum whilst picking their nose and eating it. Then at the day's end, it's back to catatonic twirling of their hair (men, yes) and pondering themselves before masturbating into the plastic mold of the jenna jamison vagina

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    6. I rescind my statement, I like your perspective better 12:51

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    7. thank you, Andy. Please do appeal to my empty inner narcissist.

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    8. Lol! Ha! That's awesome 12:51.

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  2. spy sv spy a classic

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  3. My ex antisocial was this way. He'd ignore his sibling question for hours and hours till letting her know her question was stupid (in a rage, no less) at the end of the day. It was the most exhausting shit to be around. It gets very boring.

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    Replies
    1. i agree siblings are exhausting and boring

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    2. hahahahaha you made a funy

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    3. wagging my tail
      (no girl can resist my puppy dog eyes)

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    4. i'm a guy, andy. ...dimples, well hung, etc etc.

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    5. I got hit on by a gay black dude once. He kept on insistently asking me, "Do you like assholes?" I said no, not really. And he was all like, "Oh, gonna stick with the old girlfriend, then. I hear ya."

      I was confused as fuck about why he was asking me if I liked assholes or not. It was only when he mentioned me staying with a girlfriend that I realized he was asking me if I wanted HIS asshole.

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  4. This father sounds very toxic.

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  5. Just like daddy and or mummyMay 19, 2013 at 8:48 AM

    Toxic parents.... The only problem with them is that children look up to them as their creators until it's too late to accept who they really are, and without that acceptance one can't see her/his own toxic ways, and even when one assumes self-awareness and wants to change damage is so deeply engrained it's next to impossible to change.

    Just today I found myself talking too much to a stranger, exactly the problem my parents both suffer from. Dad even says he wants to be the one talking that he has no interest in what you have to say but he is ready to dump all his past achievements despite the fact that you heard them so many times.

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    1. I really do not like to see myself in my mother.

      Delete
  6. Schzoid... a distant cousin of psychopaths
    http://shy-in-the-firelight.com/schizoid.htm


    Happiness

    The normal basis of happiness is the presence of positive emotions and the corresponding activation of reward centres. But emotions are fickle, as positive emotions inevitably give way to negative ones, and a high level of reward centre activation is followed by a crash—a crash that those addicted to drugs are so very familiar with. Even worse, with time the things that once gave rise to pleasure now cease to do so, as the brain adjusts the numbers and nature of its neurotransmitter receptors to maintain the status quo. In short, looking to pharmacological or emotional fixes to generate happiness only works on an intermittent basis, and comes with the caveat that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch!”

    Happiness for the serene schizoid is very different from the desire and emotion-driven happiness that is experienced by the other personality types. Once desires and emotions fall away the result seems to be a mental state that while empty of desires and emotions is not empty of everything. In these circumstances the mind seems to undergo a phase change in the way it operates. In the absence of desires and emotions a calm yet very intense bliss seems to arise in their stead. This bliss is not only more intense than the peaks of emotion-driven happiness it replaces, but it is also relatively unvarying. While it may slowly increase or decrease in intensity, it never dissipates, and never reverses its polarity.

    So the serene schizoid abides in bliss, observing the dream appearances as they arise and fall away, including that dream appearance that he once mistook to be himself.


    Of course, if you have a pure schizoid personality type then you won’t care whether or not the world labels you as shy, so it’s unlikely that you’ll be reading this in the first place.

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    1. i like this post, serene schizoid :)thank you.

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    2. Schizoids don't like sex.

      Sociopaths use it as a tool in their belts.

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    3. "In the absence of desires and emotions a calm yet very intense bliss seems to arise in their stead" You don't have to be a sociopath or a schizoid to experience this bliss ... you just have to learn how to modulate your emotions. Once that is achieved practice using the analytic part of your brain more. If you want to engage your emotions make it your own choice not someone else's choice. This gives you the best of both worlds.

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    4. huh. i think i confuse this bliss with active dissociation. when you have absolutely no control, what you describe works.

      when I choose how/when to reveal or engage emotions this feels like it can turn into a slippery slope to manipulation. It really is just away to take care of self, get what you want, be more efficient.

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  7. My mother is the same way with the "goal". The goal is her getting you. The subject does not matter. All that matters is the goal, as ME said.

    The last time I stopped talking to her( and have not resumed) she was dissing me because I had too many of one vegetable. She was laughing that I should go door to door selling collard greens.

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    1. Monica are you familiar with "Strangers on a Train"?

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    2. "Throw Momma From the Train" ?

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    3. I know of it but I did not see it. Any other picks?

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    4. They're supposed to give you ideas, Monica. Google the plots lol

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  8. Wow- It's so bright in here now.

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  9. K, maybe i am stupid, but what is the point of this? I don't get it.

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  10. point of what?

    here is a socio cop that was clearly a socio to go after 3 guys w/o calling out and after his eye blown instead they gave him hero status and then watched him remain far too aggressive:
    http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/19/us/philadelphia-police-rape-charge/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. aren"t hero's entitled to some free pussy and a get out of jail free card?
      what els is the pint of doing something good ?

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    2. do some good do some bad keep them guessing

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    3. hero's = heros

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  11. That "game" seems TREMENDOUSLY petty.


    Sounds like the easiest way to drive your Dad bat-shit during this particular "game" is to start acting like he's invisible. In fact, I think this is why they INVENTED the "silent treatment"

    Which is exactly what I think every twelve year-old on the planet would do. Just respond with "fine, don't tell me" or "here we go again" and then let the matter drop.

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    1. i would pretend i did not hear and i would make him explain it to me a thousand more times staring with a blank face until he threw his hands up in the air and mumbled what an idiot child he managed to sire.

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    2. "Here we go again." I hate that phrase. I had a relationship with a sociopath who used to pull that phrase out strategically whenever he did not want to answer a legitimate question and wanted to make me feel like I had done something wrong for asking. Asshole.

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    3. when people lie over and over they say things like that.

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  12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2N_uvnvGbI

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  13. Themes for SW Regulars - Everyone!

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  14. I'm beginning to see why she wants to kill her father. I know i would have

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