Saturday, April 2, 2011

Guest post: Protectionism


When dealing with a social path one must ALWAYS remember and look for those signs that are what I call "Protectionism"...

Here are the (real life) signs I endured;
  • Look for other bank accounts or funding that will aid their "escape" when they are ready to leave.
  • What they show as a "openness" such as the sharing of email passwords, bank accounts, etc. or things that typically would be shared between "trusting" couples, you can bet they have another bank account they funding, another email account they are confiding or undermining the relationship to someone they trust very much...Maybe a Sister, Mother or a "friend" that you will seldom have access to or see very sparingly as to ensure "innocent" conversations never lead to some information accidentally leaked out.
My comments to the above: My wife has what I call "Escape-ability Issues"... When one looks at her history, funding her "escape" from day one is key. They will bankroll their plan by skimming a few dollars here or there. What my wife did was to take full advantage of my lazy and uninterested attitude in what bills needed to be paid, how much was being deposited or taken out of the accounts. For me, as long as the bills were paid and no bill collectors calling - I was fine. This was the key for her. While both our pay checks were deposited into the same account it didn't take long for her to open another account in another State (Usually where a relative or Friend lives). From there, she would take a few hundred dollars and U.S. MAIL it to that friend to deposit into the "secret" account. Soon as I was to learn she actually had 5 bank accounts.

As our divorced neared, I began to check the bank statements.As my trust in her built, the bank accounts were created. By the last 4 years of our marriage those bank statements showed my 2 checks per month being deposited and only one of hers (because she knew my habits of never checking) What really gave this away were the many Post office Receipts I found from many Post Offices around her job, where we shopped and a few near us but nearly all the receipts continued to show the same amount ($1.06) and certified mail. It was the weight of these envelopes that were all the same...In a test, I mailed myself a check to my house from one of the same post offices she used. The weight and cost was exactly what showed on those receipts. I then asked for the cost to States using the same method she mailed to (California, N.C., PA.) and it was the exact same for the weight.

Lastly, Watch for those (seemingly) innocent trips. In my Case just two months before we were to be married, her Mother was in NYC, just a few hours from where we lived yet, she met up with her Mother but....Advised me it was a "Girl meeting"....Like, WTF? We're getting married in two months, I never met her Mother and this was a great chance (Her mother lived in California)...Yet, she didn't want me to meet her.

In another instance, her "Best Friend" was getting married but only the wife was invited....I later found the invitation with both our names. Her "Best Friend" was also the person she was sending checks to deposit to for years.
My best guess is that she never wanted us to meet thus jeopardizing innocent conversation to reveal anything....Which means, my Wife was probably lying to her to make deposit's...and of course, setting up the stage of when she left...She had the perfect cover story....The old, "I never wanted to tell you"...

They Calculate like a Cray Computer but, sooner or later when they are discovered failing to note some "loose ends", they leave your life as fast as they came into it and they have no fear because they have already funded their escape. They move on to their next prey.

Mike.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Guest post: Sociopaths in manga

I've been thinking about certain Japanese anime and manga I am audience to recently, and I realize that openly sociopathic characters, or at least characters that fit those criteria without being labeled as such, seem to be more common in roles that do not involve out-and-out villainy. I'm not certain whether there might be a difference in cultural perceptions involved, but I suspect that diverse sociopathic characters are more common in Japanese media simply because, freed from regular social conventions, you can do more things with them than other types of characters.

There is one sociopathic villain who sticks out in my mind because, unlike most in Western media, he *doesn't* fit the mold of an unrepentant murder-rapist - Izaya Orihara, of the light novel, manga, and anime series called 'Durarara'.

Izaya is a twenty-six-year-old information broker living in the Tokyo district of Ikebukuro. The chief joy he gets out of life is simply playing with other people's intentions and expectations, and he uses his occupation as an excuse to screw with people on a professional basis. In addition to this, he has a particular modus operandi that seems to suit all of his purposes simultaneously:

Step 1: Find a high-school-age girl, preferably an insecure or withdrawn one.
Step 2: Ply the girl with attention until she is completely infatuated with him.
Step 3: Plant the girl as a spy/information gatherer wherever he feels she is necessary.
Step 4: Once he has gotten enough use out of her, find ways to undermine her confidence and self-worth, which are at this point totally dependent on his approval.
Step 5: Repeat ad nauseam.

In the very first two episodes of the anime, Izaya contracts a group of kidnappers working for an unlawful pharmaceutical company to abduct one of the girls who works under him in this way. Once she is rescued by the heroine, the trauma has affected her so badly that she goes to the top of an abandoned building with the intent to jump off the roof, but relents at the last minute. Izaya takes the opportunity to pop up, revealing that he's been following her the entire time, and congratulates her - on doing exactly what he thought she would do in the aftermath of such an event. He goes on to tell her, in a syrupy tone, that he's rather disappointed in her now... because she's not *quite* as special as he initially thought. Her anguish at this latest insult and manipulation is palpable, and once he leaves she really does jump, but is again saved (physically and emotionally) by the heroine, which is fortunate for her because it releases her from Izaya's control.

Izaya mentions in passing that he loves humans - 'humans' being the operative word, because it indicates that he thinks of himself as being on a separate level from them. This does indeed seem to be true, but not in the way that normal love is expressed. As far as he is concerned, his use and abuse of others is a fitting expression of affection, and despite his skill at manipulation he seems to be unable to grasp the sincerity of other people's feelings. Late in the series, when he ends up in the hospital, a girl who has been covering for him (in a complicated way) by pretending that both her legs are still broken has a breakdown and bursts into his hospital room with the intent to kill him. Her own stress is so great that she breaks down crying - and Izaya, startlingly, responds to this by embracing her and telling her how much he still loves her.

Why is this significant? Because Izaya is easily the most popular character in the series. Fans do not downplay his sociopathic tendencies at all - in fact, they actively revel in them, and look upon him as hugely entertaining. I find myself hard-pressed to argue with them, considering that he is a man who thinks nothing of using his connections to hound a particular target he's been hired to search for, then turning up moments after the man trips and falls flat on his face and jumping up and down on him like a trampoline. If what Izaya does isn't hilarious in a mean way, it's still damnably fascinating to watch.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Getting better

Since last post I have been vaguely concerned about my state of hazy mental health when I happened upon a new game. It’s a seduction of sorts, not a classic one, more a winning the hearts and minds of the people type game. As I started thinking about the game (always tonguing that point on my canine tooth, like I do when considering something deliciously devious), I immediately started feeling better.

I started wondering whether the mental strain was not just a direct result of trying to be something I am not for too long. Last time it happened, it was because I wore a mask too long, tried to do too much to the point of being totally ineffectual and then poorly handling the fallout. This time I was putting my nose to the grindstone and doing a little bit too much legitimate work, not leaving any time for pleasure. “All work and no play…,” and all that rot.

So I’ve decided that I am going to go on a fast from real work and go on an all games diet, or at least that is the goal. Most likely I will have to do some work, but will be sure to include a steady and heavy dose of games into my daily routine, at least until I start feeling better.

I really should have known better. It’s like running a marathon, steady intake of water and calories. Instead I did a mental version of that time I stayed too long in a sauna and woke up having apparently passed out in a public shower.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

No limits

I have a tendency to not know my limits, either from big things like going 10 days with my appendix ruptured before I finally passed out and was rushed to a hospital, to smaller things like having nicks and scars all over my hands from recklessly handling cooking knives. I eat rotten food and have no real sense that I should stop. I have driven too fast, pushed too hard, lied too much, and turned the screws on people so hard that they snapped. I don't know what it is, I am blind to certain boundaries, certain warning signs that I need to back off of whatever it is that I'm doing.

Another small, but illustrative example -- when I was a child, my parents used to monitor what I ate and in what portions. When I first started eating by myself, it took a while for me to understand not to eat until I vomited. I had no desire to overeat, I wasn't even eating sweets or anything particularly desirable. It was more like I either couldn't feel the sensations of being full, or that I was somehow able to override those sensations, to ignore them and keep eating then promptly wretch it all up into toilets, backyards, parks, parking lots, etc.

These past couple months I pushed myself very hard, particularly mentally. Now I feel a little broken. I can feel that I have hurt myself. I am mentally not all there. I don't feel bad, I just don't feel right. When I go to say something, it's like someone else is saying it, and not what I meant to say. There is a disconnect between me, my conscious self, and the me that is talking and acting like me in the world. I feel like I have a very mild form of alien hand syndrome, but affecting my entire body and mind. The inner me has to some extent vacated the premises, leaving the rest to survive on evolutionary autopilot.

This has happened at least once before for different reasons, and I recovered, but was never quite the same I don't think. I wonder what will happen this time. It's odd thinking that my mind and body can take so much punishment, that I can subjugate my will in so many ways, but that there is finally a breaking point where something will just snap -- an irreparable injury. When I was reading that article about Elon Musk, I found an interesting quote from him, an explanation of why his marriage failed: "I went from working hard to working ridiculously hard. And stress breaks things."
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