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(have own computer again, and was looking for old threadwhere anon and i were discussing these topics.)A few years ago my nephew was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. (ADD) My sister took me aside and shared with me a book, driven to distraction, about adults with add. It seemed to fit me very well. I went for a screening to a doctor who offered ADD screenings. He said I didn't have it, and that the patients he sees are highly disfunctional, depressed and in crisis. He also noticed I didn't have insurance.A few years later, I was depressed, in crisis, and had lost all my money in what was probably a manic perioid.A second crisis point happened a couple months ago and i'm in a depressed mode now and going in for treatment soon.ADD is part of a spectrum of personality types.extrovert > average > shy >introvert > add > ausberger's syndrome >autism. The autistic kid may withdraw socially and have strong objections to being touched, may have a strong sense of personal boundaries. More extreme cases live in their own worlds and might be catatonic.My theory, not the one about dinosaurs being skinny at the ends and thicker in the middle, is that, the further along that spectrum towards autism one is, the more a spanking might be a traumatic experience.Trauma can lead to post traumatic stress sydrome, shellshock.Now, let's add in some cultural factors, the british or puritan idea that children should be seen and not heard, distant aloof parents who punish severely for trivial or imagined infractions.Children need touch and play. When a child is denied a lot of touch, and beaten at random, there can be a conflict - i'm getting attention, but it hurts. This can end up creating fetishes. The child puts the hurt away somewhere inside so that they can deal with it later in a safer space, like having a nervous breakdown as an adult.So, trying to put these together:Take a kid with a personality type somewhere in the autistic direction, maybe with ADD. Throw in a victorian stuffiness, a usually-absent but authoritarian father, punishing nearly at random, rather than enforcing clear rules followed by a hug. [Optionally, throw in some fundamentalist indoctrination, about how god the father is usually absent, but can smite at any moment, and offers pits of fire for the naughty.] For that kid, childhood is going to be traumatic, with all the ingredients for a fetish, or for a monomania, in which the kid is driven to take over the world to save it.My sense is that people with this kind of personality type and upbringing will be disproportionately represented among a) authoritarian dictators (whether of countries, companies, or households) and b) sexual fetishists.We can check this data by taking a group of authoritarian dictators from the 20th century, and reading their bios to see what kind of childhood they had.Similarly, fetishists could be, and have been studied.One population that can be studied is prisoners, or psychiatric patients, or psychiatric prisoners. another is fetishists of the sort that will answer surveys online posted to groups or pages that attract that sort.People in jail for sex crimes are often compulsively acting out stuff that happened to them as a child.Leading up to some kind of conclusion here, I want to suggest that for people diagnosed as manic depressive,who also have spanking as an erotic trigger, it's worth assessing their personality type to see where they are on the extrovert > autism dimention, and see what style of parenting they had, and see if attention deficit or something along those lines is a factor. In some cases,you might find that shy kids who get spanked and not otherwise played with by parents, end up depressed and with fetishes, and may have strong drives expressed in other areas, may be doctors or lawyers or indian chiefs.Partly i'm overgeneralizing from my own experience. Partly I've put this together from my study of history - i'm currently reading about kennedy, clinton, and halliburton.I am not trained in anthropology or sociology or psychology, and would welcome insight from those, er, disciplines. I'll be happy to co-administer the grant.I think you were kidding about the grant. I find jokes funnier by taking them seriously. A couple days ago I met a lawyer, a public defender, who is writing proposals about restorative justice, offender-victim mediation. The people who fund that sort of thing might be interested in our topics as well. I don't have this all tied into one smooth package... during my acute depressive periods, my thoughts jump around a lot and i have trouble finishing anything.But I would be happy to work with anybody doing serious grantsmanship - I need some money thrown my way soon to justify my "research", or i have to go back to doing other things. The open society institute, melinda gates foundation, rockefellers, etc, are likely targets - because my ideas, if massaged slightly, might tend to help explain where the 'great men' who founded the foundations got their drive and motivation.For example.. and i didn't intend an anon length rant, it's just that ideas lead to more ideas... a study of the childhoods of 100 major philanthropists, looking for common factors that might explain their drive, in relation to parental roles, discipline, trauma... there might be a fundable study there.All for now. It's getting dark, and reality intrudes. But i'm glad i stopped by.[ Post a Reply to This Message ]
[> [> Subject: (PS) Theory In Progress: Responses to Rb (Medium Length Post)
Author:Male Anon Too[Edit]
Date Posted: 02:31:16 07/29/04 Thu
Rb,Thank you very much for your 'anon length rant.' I was looking forward to this kind of comment from you and appreciate every word of your somewhat lengthy but meaty contribution to our thinking!Here are a few comments about myself that have been triggered by your words: I distinctly remember sitting on the sun porch before attending the first grade (there was no kindergarten grade in the school where we lived) sitting on my mother's lap, cuddling and enjoyably and possibly enthusiastically learning my ABCs and 123s from my mother. Then I was put into the children's home for some time at age 5 or so and in the insane asylum my mother's frontal lobes were burned and partly destroyed due to arguably unnecessary and egregious electro-convulsive shock therapy. When my mother took me out of the children's home and across the country alone with her after her husband had divorced her, she was emotionally cold in comparison with the way she had been before. Then, whether it was something at age 7 that was innate in myself or whether it was in response to this coldness on the part of my mother, I felt uncomfortable when she touched me and I shied away from her touching me. There was one particular moment of this that really stands out: We were temporarily in the relative's home that we had moved to (actually I think the same home that my mother had grown up in under a raging alcoholic father who was reported to be as willing to kill someone as to look at him) until my mother could find a job and move out on our own to low cost public housing with me. Someone there said to her, "You never show affection to or hug Male Anon Too!" Her response was to grab me tightly in her arms so it actually hurt but it was not warmly affectionate at all. I was very uncomfortable being squeezed that way and tried to wiggle away while she responded, "That's not true! I do so hug him!" but it *was* true and that very uncomfortable demonstration to the contrary was the only time she even tried to be physically affectionate toward me since she had been in the insane asylum!! Now, I don't know what to make of that in respect to Asperger's Syndrome: Frankly, I think that AS (something I have only had a suspicion of having for less than a year, based on my sister's study of the subject) is due largely either to hereditary proclivities or due to autism spectrum disorder speculated causes that are environmentally caused but either pre-natal or possibly post-natal but for only maybe a year or so. If my speculated AS was hereditary or environmental from effects pre-one-year-old then it was already set up prior to the events that happened to my mother when I was five years old and subsequently which was environmental for me but beyond the time period thought to be important for development of autism spectrum disorders. Those forces that have molded me, though, might actually include hereditary, environmental pre-age-one-year-old and environmental post-five-years-old and it might be hard to sort out what forces caused what effects. But when Rb mentioned autistic children not wanting to be touched, I have to acknowledge that that definitely happened to me and it was consistent from when I was seven years old and my mother was so cold toward me and couldn't help it to when I became an adult (and beyond that right up until now, for that matter, witnessed by my sister hugging me after the visit to her home during which she told me about her suspicions that I had AS and while hugging me trying to get me to give her a warmer hug than I tended to want to and saying, though I questioned the validity of it, "I know it is hard for you [[unspoken message -- because you have Asperger's Syndrome]] to be affectionate but try to hug me better now, OK?" or words of similar effect). I definitely had a strong sense of personal boundaries after I left the children's home with my mother at seven years old.In response to Rb's theory that people further toward autism along on the continuum he presented he thinks would be more inclined to perceive a spanking as a traumatic event, I want to write that I believe that possibly very intelligent people, and my IQ is well above average but I don't know what it is -- typical of very high functioning AS people, might have a greater nervous sensitivity about many things. Put differently, this might mean that they can see more acutely, hear more sharply, feel more sensitively (literally), etc. as if the nerves send higher amplitude signals to the brain in comparison with people of more ordinary IQ levels. If true this higher amplitude of nerve signals from all human senses explains a large number of things: Easier for the brain to process inputs, resulting directly in higher IQ to the extent that IQ depends on ease of perception; sensitivity to touch mentioned by Rb associated with autism; sensitivity to developing fetishes to the extent that the amplitude of nervous signals from erogenous zones during potential 'lovemap vandalization' events is a key factor regarding whether the lovemap will actually end up being vandalized or not (a concept possibly corroborated by Joanne Denko's observation in her klismaphilia defining psychological journal article that her very small sample of klismaphiles seemed to be weighted with an abnormally large number of highly intelligent people); and the likelihood that a spanking given with any, say calibrated, level of intensity will seem to sting more on the behind of the person with AS or certain autism spectrum disorders than it would on the behind of a more normal child resulting in either a greater sensitivity to spankings that means each one, if properly given, will be more effective in curbing disobedient behavior (because it will sting the kid so much that he won't want it repeated -- ever, or at least for a very long period of time) or else, if improperly given, will be more likely to be perceived as egregious abuse that could traumatize this sensitive child much more easily than it would traumatize the average child, all other things being equal. Thus my idea just expressed here is arguably an attempt to explain how, possibly, those further along on Rb's continuum toward autism could be more likely to be emotionally or psychologically traumatized by abusive or unnecessarily harsh spankings as he speculates.I have already read or heard that in many cases those people who are physically abused as children tend to end up as abusive dictators. Hitler, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein I believe all fit this pattern and many more may as well. Possibly they were closer to the autism end of the continuum than most other people and were subject to forces that Rb and I both *speculate* about here (but speculation is much different from proof and readers are cautioned not to take our musings as certain truth -- there is a big difference -- yet our musings might point out directions for further research to either prove the speculations or disprove them more completely).Best wishes to All![ Post a Reply to This Message ]
[> [> [> Subject: Re: (PS) Theory In Progress: Responses to Rb (Medium Length Post)
Author:rb[Edit]
Date Posted: 11:54:23 08/01/04 Sun
Bravo. Great response. It looks like we each have pieces of the puzzle, each knows a bit the other doesn't, by working together we are helping each other.I should make a point to save your comments, since there's a risk this forum could go poof any day.Your point about high intelligence being connected to sensory overload makes sense. I'm the classic underachiever - I always have the highest test scores at whatever school i'm at, but can't get work turned in on time, so my grades are poor. I can't get the work in because i stress out about it and can't function. I recently had a horrible experience of getting a project rejected becuase it was a day late - something i'd worked on for years to get it to that level. I flunked out of college a number of times before i went back and graduated with a 4.0 during a relatively calm period in my life.I can't do social hugs. It was my sister, whose son had ADD issues, who brought this stuff to my attention.Maybe I said that part already. I'm not good with social relationships, I tend to drive away anyone who gets close to me. I'm sorry about what happened to your mother, and how that impacted you. I've seen a couple movies about that sort of thing - my life as a dog, the butcher's boy.You are right that electroshock was used as a form of violence against women in that era, and could have had the effects you describe. So you would have been raised without the emotional support every kid needs. My mom was there for me, although she's a bit odd herself - frumpy and formal in a queen elizabeth kind of way. My father was generally reserved and distant and angry. He spent quality time with me, playing cards and chess and tending the garden, but you never knew when he would blow up over something, so I was scared of him and in later years angry. of course it never occured to me there might be something wrong with -me-. I had had some appointments scheduled with counselors.. maybe i'll try to find out if i do indeed have aspergers or something like that. I expect to be away for a month shortly on a work assignment and don't know if i'll be able to get online during that time, or if this forum will be here when i get back. I've been going through a depression lately -milder than a previous incident, but enough to make me not very functional right now. So I'll probably be getting back on some medication, spend the rest of this year coping with a current personal crisis, and not really knowing much about what my future holds.I have alot of faith in this transition to a post-scarcity economy i mentioned earlier - all i need is a room, a computer, some peace and quiet, and i'm happy. I should be able to manage those things.I don't know yet if i'll be able to keep doing the work i've been doing for the past few years. Ideally, I should find some people to work with, instead of trying to do it all myself. But i'm not so good at working with others. Anyway, thanks for letting me vent and the exchange of ideas and support. I thought this was going to be a two-line post :)
later update
I would agree that repressed anger, no, he said 'rage',is part of the picture.Repressed rage can manifest in several ways.It's one cause of depression.Fetishes are another.Obsessive-compulsive behavior is another.The person who experiences trauma may feel a need to act it out. Serial killers, child molesters, and so forth, are often acting out in specific detail, the kind of things that happened to themselves as a child, as they understood it at the time.It might be acted out in a diminished way, play birthday spankings instead of beatings, consentual adult play with other fetishists.It might be channeled into storytelling and narrative. The two books I read a couple months ago, "Echoes of Combat, the vietnam war in american memory", and The Artist's Way,both talked about using creative process and narrative to tell our stories, so the rage and trauma gets expressed and shared and worked through and processed. Isn't that why we're here?Or, someone's stuck in a rut, and asks the same questions, reads or writes the same kind of story, over and over. Ever notice how some people get dogs just so they have someone to yell at? Other people have wives or kids for the same purpose, perpetuating a cycle of violence down through the generations, until someone finds the tools to break the cycle.In my own life, I have repressed and buried, every day, rage against the violence that soaks our society, violence against me, against children, against men, against women, against animals, against taxpayers, against prisoners, violence on tv, in the streets, in our homes. As an intelligent and hypersensitive person, any of that violence upsets me. Specifily, I have repressed rage against my late father, who hit me. One recommended way to process the trauma is to forgive the abuser. I never did that, and a few years after he died I became irrational, lost everything, had a nervous breakdown.Forgiveness isn't something you do for them, you do it for you. But I didn't, and probably still haven't. Maybe someday.As a person with a spanking fetish, that I occasionaly get to act out with consenting adults, or read about in online stories, the details are specific to what happned to me as a child. People who were paddled don't primarily fantasize about being caned, or vice versa. Fetishes may manifest with the person acting out the role of the abuser or of the victim. In my case, i take the role of the spanker.In apost I haven't been able to find again, anon suggested maybe all this internet discussion just digs us deeper into our ruts, and risks turning us into addicts. Based on my own experience, there might be something to that.Trying to use it for therapy is a new approach; I hope i'll hav good things to report in a year or two. Can a person lose a fetish? Is there some way to resolve the underlying conflict that produced the fetish, and does it then go away? Getting tired, all for now.
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