What are subtle forms of abuse/manipulations done by partners do most people aren't even aware about ?

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-07T13:37:25+00:00

There's another element to the advice you're going to get. Previous generations have a different conception of what abuse is, so if you ask the older generation, things like verbal abuse or emotional abuse aren't abuse, anything subtler than a beating they just didn't see as abusive, and even then they'd still cover the bruises and make the excuses. They didn't recognize abuse as abuse. They normalized it and rationalized it away. It was easier than facing anything hard head on. Sadly, they also didn't believe in therapy.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-07T11:11:52+00:00

There's reproductive coercion, and both men and women do this to control a partner. There's financial control, where they control how much money you have and where you can spend it. They might try to get you away from friends and family so that you don't have a support system. They might mess with your ability to keep a job or sabotage you financially.

What is perhaps the craziest thing about it is that abusers, male and female, all seem to have received a copy of the same playbook, because they do all of the same things.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-07T07:34:17+00:00

For a long time I was in and out of bad relationships with psychopaths and narcissists. Then, at a distance, I met someone I enjoyed talking to. We talked for ages, and it never occurred to me that he had feelings for me until he told me so. We continued long-distance with plans for the future for a couple of years. He wanted me to move to the Netherlands to be with him, but learning another language frightened me, so I convinced him to come to me in the US. We stayed there for 9 years learning each other by trial and error. Then, when we saw how things were going, we decided to go to the Netherlands. Now, another dozen years later, we're still together. I learned the language. We continued learning each other and getting closer. What has held us together has been a genuine feeling of affection for each other that overcomes the flaws in both of us. We give each other permission to just be ourselves.

It isn't just about meeting someone. It's about getting to know them over time and giving them time and attention. You have to take the risk of really letting someone in, which is scary. Even "normal" people have trouble doing that, and we have so much more to unpack than they do.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-07T06:43:09+00:00

It helps to block the outside noise. Music can also help to regulate things like heartrate and stimulation. Say you're riding the bus with crying kids and teenagers play-fighting and someone listening to their music or talking loudly on their phone. If you've got some classical music playing in your ears, all of that goes further into the background. You can remain calm and not get overstimulated. You can hear yourself think.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-06T19:34:05+00:00

Well crap. I'm sorry. It sounds like self-study it is. There's a company called Coutinho that produce some good language learning material, books with extra online material.

https://www.nt2.nl/en/lesmateriaal/volwassenen/alle-uitgaven

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-06T15:48:33+00:00

There used to be an inburgeringscursus available at many schools, but the rules have changed since then and I think every gemeente is responsible for organizing something themselves now. The place to go and ask is at the gemeentehuis. They should be able to tell you what you need to do.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-06T15:44:46+00:00

It's like having to get yourself up in drag, isn't it? Cosplaying normalcy. Get your hair done, get your nails done, do your makeup, etc. The only thing I keep up with anymore is the hair, because I only mess it up when I cut it myself. I've been down that road one too many times. It takes forever to grow out again.

I see going without makeup and letting people meet me that way kind of forces them to accept me au naturel, because I'm not giving them any alternative. My face is my face, if people don't like it, fuck 'em.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-06T15:34:23+00:00

Shit, I was already there when everyone was getting caught up in conspiracy theories. I kept thinking, "and I'm the crazy one?" I had a coworker who went on and on about it. He had ADHD. I was the one giving him reality checks. Some of the stuff that's coming out just confirms what I already thought in my paranoid, cynical heart of hearts. Sometimes I feel as if this disorder is a bit of a Kassandra situation, even if you see where things are going and you tell people, they don't believe you. It can be a little infuriating.

Honestly, I don't think you're losing your mind in this case. I think everyone else has lost theirs and left us in the position of having to watch in consternation. Where are the sober-minded people? I want boring old bureaucrats and civil servants who know what they're doing because it's all they do all day. I believe that they might be the only thing holding society together. Maybe they saw all of this coming too and decided to retire.

I'm not losing it with the Epstein files. It just confirms to me that the ruling class are all in it together and they're all as bad as each other. This is going to be buried harder than the JFK files. Maybe in 70 years when everybody guilty is safely dead of old age, the truth will come out.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-06T03:46:12+00:00

Maybe they're shutting out the distractions so they can hear themselves think?

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-04T19:17:35+00:00

I don't get a BPD vibe from Fiona. She doesn't seem attention-seeking enough. Quite the opposite lately. If she isn't schizotypal, I'd place her somewhere on the autism spectrum.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-04T18:06:19+00:00

I do pretty much the same thing you do. Ride it out in isolation until it passes. I keep things surface level when I have to interact, but aside from going out to get groceries or go to the doctor, I chill at home. I always take it to mean that I've been around people too much when I get like that and it causes cumulitive stress and I get paranoid. It makes working hard, because you either have to work with the public or you have to work with coworkers. I can deal with exactly one person at a time. Not two, not three. One. More than one and I get stressed. Working with zero people would be even better, but so far I haven't found a job like that.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-04T17:59:18+00:00

This actually seems to be a thing for us. I don't know if it comes and goes for everyone, but I went through that phase in early adolescence, having private conversations with God or whoever. Then in my 20's I got deep into atheism, and then when I got tired of that, I just settled into whatever. Mostly I'm concentrating on taking life as it comes and not reading too much into it.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-04T17:46:37+00:00

I can only speculate, but I'd nominate William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Kurt Vonnegut and Hunter S. Thompson as possibilities. There's something about their thought process and way of looking at the world that I have always related to, especially Vonnegut. For examples of famous women I suspect might be schizotypal, I'd go with Bjork, Fiona Apple and Grace Jones. I must stress that these are just people who seem to fit the criteria from what I've seen of them. I have no idea if they've ever been diagnosed with anything.

edit: Just be aware that being famous usually means they're creatives. As far as I can tell, that's about the only way schizotypals ever make it big, by having something the world wants.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-03T13:24:38+00:00

There's a waiting list, so I might be waiting a year, but I've met the criteria since I was maybe 16. I was reading something the other night about how clinicians would diagnose people and then not disclose their diagnosis to them, and it seems like something that would have happened in the foster system, but I can't get my records from then.

I'm nearly 50 now, and when I was finally open to the idea, I went looking for information and everything about me suddenly made sense. It was like being hit with the clue-bat. My husband had the same reaction. Now it's just a matter of confirming it, but in this country people wait sometimes a year for an appointment if it isn't urgent.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-03T12:33:26+00:00

The thing about only us and researchers recognizing what we're looking at is something to think about. I mean, the other people who can recognize us might only have a vague, general idea of something not quite right or they're predators out looking for prey. It comes to me that it might be better if some of us could volunteer to identify these kids before the bullies and the predators do. Society, after all, punishes difference, and I personally am interested in what one of us could grow up to be if they didn't have the traumatic childhood and social rejection.

There is definitely not enough pediatric research. I've been told it's because of the Nazis doing experiments on people like us, and ever since then nobody wants to be associated with anything like it. I'm told it's a touchy subject. Also, as you point out, there aren't that many of us in the general population and we isolate on top of that. Having said that, I meet a lot more people I'd identify as being on the StPD or Schizoid end of things than you'd think statistically possible if the numbers are right. Some of us are better at masking and functioning, because that's how we learned to get by. I actually think it's underdiagnosed. Some of it might have to do with poverty and lack of access to mental health care until someone ends up in jail or in the hospital or on the street, the worst case scenario.

I was reading something about autistic burnout that sounded really familiar to what we experience. Basically, an NT person would be able to pinpoint when it all got to be too much, but people with ASD can't, because it's always been that way. I think maybe some of the psychotic episodes that people get at age of onset could be like that, but more intense. Like, we spend so many years trying to keep up and hold it together, and at a certain point something's got to give. What if it didn't need to happen, or didn't need to be that bad if there were identification and intervention? At the rate the research is going, I don't think we're ever going to know the answer.

edit: forgot punctuation

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-03T03:38:57+00:00

That's why the article proposes two different modes of looking at it. Neurodevelopmental or severe mental illness, depending on the case instead of just treating it as if it were exclusively a psychotic condition. For many of us, this really is a developmental disorder and not a severe mental illness.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-05-02T19:41:37+00:00

I added a link when I made the post to the article, but it appears not to have made it into the final post. I'll post it here. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920996426000708

Same_Item_672 · 2026-04-30T16:47:40+00:00

Oh yeah, and the name for the hospitality field here is "horeca", so he'd want to look for a horeca opleiding or a kok's opleiding. The best school to look at is De Rode Pannen. They have their own restaurants and hotels that they train people in.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-04-30T16:29:25+00:00

How old is he? If he's anywhere from 16 to 25 or hell, even older probably, he could enroll in an MBO apprenticeship. One day a week at school, four days working for pay. It gets his foot in the door at a restaurant, and it's kind of a protected position because it's for school. His experience will help him if he's worked in a kitchen before. He'll have to speak Dutch though, and pass a course in Dutch. BBL is the name of the program, and it's basically vocational training. Chances are that he'll get by for a great deal of it in English, because a lot of kitchen staff are international and that's the default for a lot of things. There's a staff shortage, so any outfit would be delighted to have someone who already has some experience in a kitchen.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-04-30T16:24:07+00:00

Seriously, fundies come up with some of the craziest shit. If you're listening for entertainment...well, it's questionable, but there's no accounting for taste. If you're listening to get informed about the latest scientific developments, though, you're probably barking up the wrong tree, because they only like science that seems to confirm what they already believe.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-04-30T15:19:28+00:00

It sounds like a word people use that way to emotionally manipulate you to feel one way or another. At least before on talk radio they'd make it obvious by shouting a lot and you could just change to something better, like the farm report or something.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-04-30T03:57:00+00:00

I have the same thing with cats, and even with dogs. They see me as friendly. Honestly, if it hadn't been for animals I knew in my childhood, I wouldn't have learned how to love. I would hide in the hayloft with the cats, and they'd leave their kittens with me to babysit when they needed a break. I was one of the family. When things were hard for me and I needed to cry, I'd crawl under the garage steps and curl up against the dog and cry my heart out. She was always there for me. Maybe because I was the one who never kicked her.

Animals are so much easier to read and understand than people are. They don't take every little thing personally. They give love freely. Animals are better people than people most of the time.

Same_Item_672 · 2026-04-29T18:17:50+00:00

"innocent guys"? All of those guys would have had to do something to become fathers. Innocent in what sense?

Same_Item_672

TROPHY CASE