About Sex Offenders

I was studying the case of the murder of Brooke Wilberger in Oregon (I am a true crime buff). A man named Joel Patrick Courtney was eventually convicted of the crime. They only suspected him on dumb luck, as he lived in New Mexico and the crime was committed in Oregon. However, there were three other men who were also suspects in this case. And they were all very good suspects. Each of them was a dangerous sexual predator like Courtney. This got me to wondering just how many nutted out men there are like this out there? You would think men like this would be rare as hen’s teeth, but it turns out that they are very common. I am very interested in the development of such types and how a man gets so whacked out as to turn into a predatory sex offender. The first man was Sung Koo Kim, age 31. He was suspected of stalking a woman at the local Oregon State University. In searching his home, they found 3,500 pairs of panties stolen from five different local universities. They also found 40,000 porn movies and photos showing women being tortured, raped, murdered and mutilated. In addition, they found a Word document detailing what appeared to be a plan to abduct, rape, kill and mutilate a college student. He was arrested for possession of child porn and for stealing women’s panties and sentenced to six years in prison. At his trial, he said that he suffered from severe social anxiety and had never had a girlfriend or even so much as a date. I am curious what turned him into such a psycho. Did he turn this way from never getting a chick and being frustrated with women, leading to the desire to murder one, or had he always been this way? One would think that panty-stealing is innocent, but many dangerous sex predators also like to break into women’s places and steal panties. Some of them like to wear the panties that they steal. As far as the porn videos went, if he really had 40,000 rape and murder videos on his computer, then this is what he has been masturbating to. He may have been masturbating to images and thoughts of abducting, raping, torturing, killing and mutilating women for a long time. This pattern is often set very early in life, often around age puberty. With the constant masturbation to this disturbing stimuli, the pattern becomes more entrenched and difficult to extinguish. Guys like Kim typically never show up for therapy because they enjoy what they are doing. He liked to steal panties, stalk female students, jerk off to snuff porn and write down fantasies of rape and murder. This is what he enjoys. He’s doing what he wants to do. As he sees no problem with this behavior (this is what gets him off) he never shows up for therapy. The next one was an immensely disturbed man named Loren Hugo Krueger, age around 40. At age 26, he was convicted of attempted rape. He served time when he was in his mid-20’s for an incident in which he attacked a female jogger, pointed a gun at her, tried to drag her off the road, and punched her in the face when she resisted. At some point, he was released. At age 34, he sexually assaulted a girl under the age of 12. He was convicted of this crime five years later. At age 37, police questioned him when a young woman reported that he had followed her in his vehicle down several streets, stalking her. The same year, neighbors filed a stalking order against him when neighbors said he masturbated in full view of their house (exhibitionism). At age 38, he was arrested for trespassing when a woman reported that he was in her backyard at night, wearing a ski mask and watching her in her house. At age 39, he climbed into a 15 year old girl’s window and tried to rape her. She fought him off and he ran away but was convicted via DNA. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Notice that this guy is a habitual sex offender. He has been stalking, flashing, assaulting, and attempting to rape women from age 26 until age 39. He also molested a little girl. There seems to be something compulsive about his behavior and he doesn’t seem to want to stop. It also seems like he is doing what he wants to do and he doesn’t want to stop. The third case was Aaron James Evans. Age 20: Approached a woman and fondled himself. Age 20: Masturbated in front of a girl in a parking lot (exhibitionism) Age 21: Harassed a woman at a shopping center. Age 21: Leapt out of the bushes at a woman and attempted to abduct her. She pepper sprayed him and fought him off. Sentenced to three years in prison. Once he is out of prison, what is likelihood that this guy will re-offend? How does someone ever get this whack in the first place? I am starting to think that once you get to the point where you are stalking women, attempting to abduct them using weapons, raping them or trying to rape them, and your fantasy life is mostly about rape, torture and murder, that for all intents and purposes, you are just gone. They don’t want to stop. They are doing what they want to do. They don’t want to get better. In addition, many of them have become habitual in their behavior. I suppose it is possible for someone like this stop, but I would wager that most of them don’t want to. Antecedents: In boyhood and teenage years, these types often spy on their sisters, the sisters’ female friends and their female cousins. Most boys probably do this, but these guys do it in a creepy way. The girl wakes up and sees her brother staring blankly from the doorway as she sleeps in her bed. She wakes up at night to find her brother hiding under her bed. Sisters and cousins wake up to find the relative stradding him with his penis out and trying to take their clothes off. In some cases, he is straddling them with his hands around their necks. He is basically trying to rape them. The attack on a sleeping suspect (always non-consenting) is particularly disturbing and is a prelude to rape. Any boy who is doing this stuff with his female relatives is in extremely bad shape. This sort of thing is not normal in any way, and he desperately needs intervention. Date rape: Often there is quite a bit of “date rape” type behaviors with females during the high school years. Some of them are very popular with girls, date a lot and have a lot of female friends who they hang out with. They go out drinking and doing drugs with their female friends and make moves on the girl. She bats him off and he socks her in the face. Next thing you know she is on the ground and he is raping her. They often get away with a lot of this date rape stuff because the girls don’t press charges. Voyeurism can also be a prelude. Peeping toms are often harmless, but some of them escalate into dangerous sex offenders. We often see voyeurism in the teenage background of rapists and serial killers. The connection is here is that peeping is a violation of the woman. In addition, anyone ballsy enough to go onto someone’s property to peep in their windows has no qualms about violating the property of others. They can easily break into a home if they can creep into a backyard. Prowling is always creepy and menacing behavior in a male of any age. Burglary is often found in the background of these types. They break into women’s houses, often to steal their undergarments. Sometimes they steal other things. Serial killers often have a teenage background of prowling and home burglaries. Although many burglars are harmless, some can be quite dangerous. Cat burglars are some of the most dangerous of all, since they burglarize when people are home. Exhibitionism or flashing. Although many flashers are harmless, some can escalate and be dangerous. Quite a few rapists have flashing in their background. There are two types of flashers, an inhibited and guilt-ridden type and a more aggressive type. It is the more aggressive type that can be dangerous. Once again we are looking at a serious violation of the woman, and this is what this behavior has in common with rape. Exhibitionism can become very compulsive to the point where it resembles an addiction. It becomes hard to quit. Escalation: One problem with sex offenders and sadists is the tendency to escalate. The sex offending or sadism is like a drug for them that they do to get high. However, like most dope, tolerance builds up and they start doing increasingly dangerous acts in order to get the high that they are missing. This is how an exhibitionist can escalate to a rapist and then to a killer. They are “chasing the high.” Frotteurism: These are the “rubbers” and “grabbers.” They operate in crowded areas, especially trains, buses and subways. They use these crowded scenes to rub up against women. Sometimes they grab women and then run away. In some countries like Japan and India, this behavior is almost normal. I do not know much about these type of offenders. Child molesting: I didn’t cover these offenders here because it really deserves its own post. These are different from the above as sometimes the victim is consenting. 90-9 Pedophiles are however more dangerous since they are fixated on kids and are only aroused by kids. It stands to follow then that quite a few of them will try to molest kids in order to satisfy their sex drive the only way it can be sated. However, there are quite a few pedophiles who either never offend or are not offending at this time. They can often go for long periods without offending, especially if they get involved with a supportive group that tries to keep them from offending. In quite a few cases, a sex offender who habitually offends against women will molest or try to molest a child. These men are not pedophiles; they are simply displaying the “versatility” that many sex offenders have.

Joel Patrick Courtney

Joel Patrick Courtney is a possible serial killer from Albuquerque, New Mexico who was convicted of the murder of Brooke Wilberger in Oregon and the abduction and attempted rape of a New Mexico female exchange student.

The disappearance of Wilberger shocked the town of Corvalis, Oregon when she disappeared in 2004. She was washing lampposts outside her apartment complex when she vanished. The crime scene looked as if a forced abduction had taken place. Soon afterwards, a green van was seen driving erratically in the area. That was the only clue. Her body would not be found for years.

The investigation soon focused on Sun Koo Kim, a 30 year old man living with his parents in Tigard, Oregon, 8 miles north of Corvalis. Kim had graduated from Washington State University with degrees in Genetics and Cellular Biology.

Kim had been arrested 10 days before for stalking a student at Oregon State University in Corvalis. The woman frequented the same apartment complex where Wilberger disappeared. Kim had a photo of the woman he was stalking, her bio, and a bag of dryer lint from the apartment complex.

Kim was a very odd bird. When they searched his house, they found 3,400 pairs of panties stolen from eight different colleges around Oregon. Apparently he had been breaking into women’s rooms and stealing their panties. Although this behavior seems innocent, it is a lot worse than it seems.

There are men who only break into women’s places and steal their underwear, but unfortunately that particular crime (breaking into women’s places and stealing their underwear) is also associated with men who abduct, rape, torture, and kill women and in some cases children.

Why so many killers are also fetishists is not known. Another common behavior with dangerous predators is peeping. Many peepers are pretty innocent, but it is common for a dangerous rapist type to start out his crimes in his teen years as a peeper and petty burglar. The violation of another person’s being, either their privacy or the actual violation of their space in a break-in, may be what is important here.

They also found 40,000 pornographic photos and 4,000 videos of women being tortured and raped. There are websites out there who have pics and movies like this, but I do not think that this is harmless.

Most very dangerous rapists or killer types also like to collect this stuff. If they have a pornography collection, it tends to be this sort of thing. They also often collect pornography of women who appear to be dead. Yes, there is actually a market for this sort of thing. Most serial killers have collections of this sort of stuff.

Most of Kim’s porn collection consisted of women being tortured, raped, killed, or dismembered. Collecting this sort of pornography, which is probably hard to find, is not an innocent pastime, anyone who collects this stuff is playing with fire, and in many cases is a dangerous person at least in their minds even if they are not acting it out.

It’s not ok to collect porn like that. It shows that you have a demented and bent mind at the very least and at worst you may be dangerous. No healthy person would collect porn like that.

Now, I have quite a large porn collection on my hard drive, but I do not think I have any videos of women being raped or tortured. That stuff is not my thing.

The men who like this sort of thing are sexual sadists. Being a sexual sadist is A-OK in the BD/SM community, most of which is made up of either sadists or masochists.

On the other hand, you do find some dangerous people in the BD/SM scene, especially males. Women in the scene have many scary stories to tell about sadistic men they met in that underworld, many of whom were psychopaths. And quite a few rapists, kidnappers, killers, and serial killers get involved in the swinging or group sex scene. They especially like the BD/SM aspect to it. The BD/SM scene is not as innocent as you think, and it attracts quite a few folks who are anywhere from uncool to dangerous.

He also had child porn.

On his computer, Kim also had a file called osu.doc which detailed a plan to abduct, rape, strangle, and then mutilate a woman.

Unfortunately, this is also pretty common with killers. They often keep detailed notes of their depraved fantasies. They collect notes and newspaper clippings of their crimes, including their rapes and homicides. Drawings and maps are often included. When they go to prison, they continue to produce drawings, maps, and stories about their morbid fantasies. In the computer era, it is not uncommon to find a file with a detailed plan to kill someone on the computer of a dangerous person.

It is not against the law to have fantasies or even plans to kill people in files on your computer. They have to prove that the person was actually going to carry out these plans, and that involves a conspiracy charge. Conspiracy is one of the hardest charges to make stick.

After Wilberger disappeared in Oregon in 2004, later that year a foreign exchange student was abducted at knife-point in Albuquerque. She was threatened with a knife and sexually assaulted. She managed to escape from him and ran screaming across a street and into a Mexican restaurant.

A teenage girl driving in a car with her mother saw the naked girl running across the street and pulled into a parking lot. No one in the restaurant would help her. She was coming out when the girl and her mother grabbed her and got her into their car. The abductor then drove very slowly by their car parked car.

Police went to the parking lot where the abduction took place and found a shoelace. People in the area said a man named “Joe” hung around there a lot. Based on information given by the college student, police arrested Joel Courtney.

Police had been called to Courtney’s place five months before for a report about him beating his wife.

Courtney also had a record of sexual assault dating from age 18. In this case, he had been drinking and using drugs with a female friend when they were driving home for the evening. He started kissing and fondling her while she was driving him home (bad idea in a moving vehicle).

She pushed him away and told him to stop. He flipped out and punched her. The car was stopped and he grabbed her and threw her down on the ground and stripped her naked. She stopped fighting him and he lost interest. She learned that he had done similar things to other girls her age, so she went to the police. He was arrested on sexual assault charges.

As a teenager, Courtney started getting in trouble at age 13, and at 14, he got interested in Satanism.

Already what I am seeing here looks like a budding psychopath and by adulthood, he appears to meet criteria for psychopathy.

His relatives reported sexual assaults during his teenage years. His sister and cousins reported waking up a number of times with him on top of them, sometimes straddling them and sometimes with his hands around their neck.

This sort of behavior is very disturbing in a teenage boy, but it is not uncommon to see this sort of thing in the background of rapists, killers, and serial killers. As boys and teenagers, they hide in their female relatives rooms and spy on them. The girls wake up to find the boy standing over their bed watching them.

A boy who is repeatedly assaulting his female relatives in their sleep, especially putting his hands around their necks, is one disturbed boy. Most boys simply do not do such things. What you have here is a budding rapist and  possible killer.

Somehow, the Corvalis police came up with evidence against Courtney for the Wilberger homicide. I have no idea what evidence led them to that conclusion. As part of a plea deal, Courtney told officials the location of her body and confessed to the crime, so he definitely did the deed. He was recently sentenced.

The FBI feels that he may have been involved in the homicides of three other women in Oregon, and they are seeking information about that.

He is a strong suspect in the murder of Kathryn Eggleston, a saleswoman abducted from an Oregon parking lot in 1993. She was last seen walking out of an elevator with a dark complexioned man wearing a blue blazer. Her body has never been found.

He was also a suspect in the murder of Stephanie Condon in Oregon in 1998, but another man is also suspected of that crime. He was recently acquitted.

Prosecutors say Courtney is a possible serial killer and may have left victims in New Mexico, Oregon, Florida, and Alaska, as he lived in all of those places as her traveled around.

Asperger's or Non-Aspergers?

Tai writes:

Well I strongly agree about your idea that many people who are antisocial or perhaps just a bit on the odd side are falsely diagnosing themselves with Asperger’s Syndrome or diagnosing others, I do not agree with the over simplification you suggest stating “people with Asperger’s” as in all people with Asperger’s do the exact same things. I am a 20 year old female and I was diagnosed when I was 7 years of age by a child psychologist, Dr. Seymour. Asperger’s Syndrome or Autism Spectrum Disorder (spectrum meaning a great variety of “symptoms” from person to person) is the Highest Functioning form of Autism. A diagnoses of Asperger’s excludes any mental retardation. It is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. Also hypersensitivity with touching, hearing, tasting and smelling. Albert Einstein had ASD, and television characters Brennan from Bones and Sheldon from Big Bang Theory also have Asperger’s. Though not everyone with ASD is a genius, they tend to be extremely bright in classes and situations that interest them and my excel greatly among their peers. Some things take people with ASD longer to learn though, to which extra help and a new way of learning and patience will help them along. For example, lets say 10 year old Bobby has Asperger’s. He knows everything about Dinosaurs and can memorize the lines 10 That is one example of someone with AS. Another person with AS might love fireworks and hate the sound of car motors, love mushy things but hate crunchy things, be able to tie shoes but can’t jump rope, knows everything about his favorite cartoon instead of dinos and is an excellent writer but a poor learner with math. They may be able to NOT take things as literally but are unable to look someone in the eye. It is a spectrum disorder. Because of this is can be hard to get a proper diagnoses. However I would suggest to all people who assume they have AS to go get evaluated. And to get evaluated by 2 or 3 doctors for more professional opinions. Falsely diagnosing oneself can only lead to issues, especially if there is another psychological problem.

My understanding is that Aspergers comes on at an early age, say age 2-3. In 10 People’s functioning varies with time. I know people who used to function perfectly but now they can barely leave their houses. So functioning can dramatically collapse in any given individual. One thing that I noticed was that many people self-diagnosing as Aspies had anxiety disorders. I work with OCD patients, and many of them think that they have Aspergers. I generally do not think that they have it. Aspies do not seem to be very common. I think I met one in my life so far and another couple on the Net. The problem is that a very large number of people are odd, weird, strange or out of it in some way or another. I run into them all the time. They can’t possibly all have Aspergers. Schizophrenics are obviously pretty odd. I have met some odd OCD’ers. A lot people with anxiety disorders can seem pretty weird. Many very shy people seem out of it and odd. Just being weird doesn’t mean you have Aspergers! In addition, many introverts to super introverts are identifying as Aspergers. Obviously many introverts have problems in social interactions, but just because you have problems dealing with other humans because you are an introvert does not mean that you have Aspergers! I read a recent paper that said that Aspergers and introversion are along a continuum, with introversion at one end and Aspergers at the other. I agree with this, and this is where the confusion sets in. Although I am quite an introverted person and many people think I am pretty damn weird, I certainly do not have Aspergers. For one thing, my social skills are actually excellent, but my brain works in funny ways so that right there turns people off. They see my brain apparently working in a weird way and they just don’t want to have a conversation. But I am a master of social rules and not only that, I understand other people very, very well. I even know what they are thinking most of the time, to the extent that you can do that at all. Of course I know what they are feeling too. I read people very fast and I respond very fast too. I get all the subtle little nuances in conversation, the tricks and hints and whatnot and usually respond to them right away. Things that I think are odd about Aspergers: Not wanting to be touched. WTH? Sensory overload. I don’t really get it, but we introverts have a bit of this. Parties are a bit much for me anymore, but the Aspie sensory overload just seems downright bizarre. Not wanting to eat something because it’s too mushy or too crunchy? Huh? I eat anything and I don’t care what it feels like in my mouth. Who cares! Hypersensitivity with hearing, touching, smelling or tasting. Ok that is just weird to me. Wanting to talk about one thing all the time and not shutting up when you are boring people. I do this too sometimes, but I usually shut up when it seems like people don’t want to hear what I am saying. Think everyone else is weird. Huh? No way, they are normal. Takes everything very literally. This makes no sense to me either. Hates loud unexpected noises like fireworks. Looks like sensory overload to me. I don’t care about fireworks. They are going off around me for the last few days now, and I don’t even care. Someone lit one in the street near the path of my car the other night and it was no big deal, but it was a little weird to drive past the burning, fizzling, crackling thing. Why would I love one loud sound but hate another. They are all the same to me, just another loud sound. You get used to them sooner or later. Ten years old and can’t tie your own shoes? Sorry, but you have major, major problems, kid. Excellent writer but bad at math or great at math but poor at writing. This I can relate to, and I have known many non-Aspies who are like this. Intelligence is variable, and abilities differ even within the individual. Can’t look someone in the eye. I have been accused of this myself sometimes. A lot of very shy people have problems with eye contact. I have gotten a lot better at this over time, but I still hardly think this is diagnostic because you are going to suck in a lot of introverts. Although I imagine an Aspie might be quite strange about not looking you in the eye to the point where it seems they are just being strange about it as it is so extreme. As you can see, I obviously do not have Aspergers at all. But believe or not, some folks have insisted that I must have it! Introversion and Aspergers are not the same thing, but they make both be part of a spectrum.

Alt Left: India As a Poisonous Culture; Indians As Poisoned People

A good, decent, Indian Hindu woman named Sittingonthefence writes:

An advance warning.. this is going to be a long comment: I am a Hindu Indian, and I felt a sting every time people are chided on this blog for being Hindus. However, I landed on this blog because I am frustrated and wanted to see what people out there think about India.

I was brought up to be an honest, hardworking girl. My parents taught me all the right things, lying and cheating is bad, work hard for what you want, everybody should be treated with respect, etc. Needless to say I grew up feeling like a misfit. Actually, my family was a misfit even among our relatives.

I was brought up to believe that a Hindu is a person who lives by his Dharma and lives a morally pure life, and this is what I try to live by.

I think the main problem with Hinduism is that it confuses ritualism and superstition with religion and God. Everywhere around me I see people having different values for themselves and others. Nobody respects other peoples time and space (be it on road…where people keep driving deeper into gridlocks, or in personal relations…where elders decide whom their children marry or what they study etc.)

My sister is married to an American (whom she met in Singapore while working there), is settled abroad and barely has any Indian friends. She is not in touch with any relatives except us (her immediate family). Me and my husband were also in the US, where I did a Masters in Social Work, and this urge to work for the betterment of my country took me over. Hence, we came back last year.

However, I am already frustrated…how do you help people who do not want to be helped or even understand and accept the deep-rooted issues in this country.

I have also met some amazing people here…Many of them are born Hindus, and all of them are either spiritual (not ritualistic) or agnostic.

However, I have to add that maybe religion is not the only culprit because I have seen corrupt, selfish and unreasonable people of all religions, castes and genders.

I want to delve deeper to figure out why? Is it because of insecurity (due to centuries of foreign rule), is it because of a corrupt upper class with absolute power (I am guilty of being born one)? Could it be a distorted interpretation of Hinduism? Could it be the genes (but i know many amazing people born out of the same gene pool)? I do not know the answer…however I do know that I don’t want my daughter to feel like a misfit growing up.

Welcome to the blog. You are a good Indian Hindu. Apparently there are a few.

India and Indians are sick and messed up because their culture is sick. It is like a poison that poisons everything coming out of it. Most Indians get culture-poisoned, so they are damaged people, poisoned and damaged by their culture. They could get rid of it, but that would mean renouncing just about everything they were brought up with. Few people are prepared to do that.

Indians are not really bad people. Most of them are good people who have simply been poisoned by a sick and perverse culture. So they are damaged people. They can be cured, but most of them don’t want to get better. I work as a therapist, and if people don’t want to get better, they won’t. Indians don’t want to get better because they don’t think anything is wrong.

Plus being an amoral, parasitic, opportunistic, somewhat sociopathic human is very profitable in a way. Sociopaths often clean up in life. Morals get in the way of getting all the money and stuff you need in life. The person mostly likely to clean up in life is the most selfish, opportunistic, parasitic and rather sociopathic person, as they are not encumbered by morals in getting what they want.

The Psycho 5 Year Old

Video here. This is actually a pretty humorous video. This is from a news clip interview of a 5 year old girl who takes part in talent shows and her mother. Through the whole video, the child is making hilarious faces at the camera. It turns out that she can see herself on a video screen in the studio and she is making faces in order to see them on the screen the same way one might make faces in the mirror. The range of faces she makes is very wide, and it shows that by age 5, most children already have a very well-developed personality. Amazingly well-developed, in fact. Although the theory is controversial, some personality theorists say that the personality is formed in full by age 7. That is a bit of an overdraw, but I see what they are talking about. In fact, all adults with personality disorders have a disorder that has roots in childhood. This does not mean that they are blameless, but they hardly chose their personality. I doubt if any of us did. Our personalities developed in the same way that our face and bodies did, as forces of nature and largely free of willfulness. Even the pathological structures of a personality disorder are best seen as the best defensive way that the child had for dealing with the life that they were thrown into. People deal with life the best way they can, and they build up the best defenses that they can logically think up. In that sense, even psychopathology has “rational” roots as the individual tries to carve an adaptive path in order to function best in whatever environment they find themselves in.

This is a Gay Website

Repost from the old site. I have a little secret. Lots of people think that I am gay. It’s actually a problem. I get a girlfriend, and if she is not a total moron, she asks if I am bisexual. Or if used to be gay. WTF is this “used to gay” BS? Once a homo, always a homo, right gays I mean guys? If she’s a moron, she asks if I still am. This is supposed to be some sort of a horribly embarrassing and humiliating thing for me, as my enemies love to use it to attack me. I must suffer sexual confusion. I must indeed. I never really understood precisely why people think this way, as I have never seen myself on videotape. I consider myself a fairly masculine acting guy, and that’s how I feel deep down inside and that is what I identify with, but hey, I grew up in the 1970’s when everyone was sort of androgynous, and this is how I sort of ended up. I have a very soft voice and I like to walk in a fluid way. I’m still kind of skinny in a stupid and now 10 pounds overweight and can’t lose an ounce kind of way. I cross my legs sometimes. I call it relaxing, but others call it gay. Can’t a guy kick back and enjoy himself? Maybe it’s gay relaxing, in which case, dude, I am all fagged out, but that is ok. One thing you can do if it seems like half of the sentient universe thinks you are a fag is to find a nonsentient partner, who are easy to acquire in our inner cities. Or else you can get an Asian chick. Asian chicks never think you are gay, cuz compared to Asian guys you are probably like Sylvester Stallone. I was in bed with this Asian woman once, and we still had our clothes on but not for long, and she asked, “So, are you feeling lazy today?” It’s true I was, but actually I was totally exhausted and plus I was totally stoned out of my gourd, as what better to do an Asian chick, then to take a couple of massive bong hits and then go to town on her? As I am one lazy-ass mofo, and anyway truth is we all are, even so-called workaholics (GMAB), but yet I was insulted, yet I should have agreed and bragged about how I was swindling welfare or something equally lumpen and parasitical. So Asian chicks think I am lazy but they never think I’m queer, except this Vietnamese woman who pointedly told me, “You look like a gay!” Well, that was nice of her, blaming God and all that. Thanks bitch. It’s true! My face is all fagged out and I have the queerest features around, and let me tell you man, there’s nothing better. You get girls and guys both after you in whole armies sometimes, and it’s good to be loved. One consequence of the Dang is that dude fagged out or what? thing is HOCD, or homosexual OCD. This is easily the stupidest mental illness on Earth, except they are terrified they are queer even when they are not, and it totally ruins their life over absolutely no damned good reason whatsoever. So in a way it is a nihilistic sort of mental illness, a mental illness that only Kafka could have invented, an absurd mental illness that has no right to exist at all, kind of like most of us, you know? I have done therapy with some HOCD sufferers online. It’s an interesting experience, but it’s also terrifying in a stupid way. If you ever got caught up in the straight person worried they are queer illness (Man, this that the lamest mental disease on Earth or what?), I do have some therapies for you. First of all, admit it. Admit you are queer, take pride in it and advocate it in everyone around you. If you are really insane, you can even make sexual offers to the males around you. This is fun, because since you are straight (Yeah sure! LOL) you don’t really want to do it. It’s the ultimate expression of macho to say you’re queer and shout it to the skies. You hope everyone knows it’s a lie, but if not, you were just gay for a day, and that’s always a blast. If I were comfortable with this, it would be one thing, but really I am not. I don’t like effeminate behavior in men, and I try to stay as far away from gay and bisexual men as I can. I’ve had far too many experiences with regular guys, married guys, on and on, to not be wary. I can’t even count the number of guys who I felt were getting way too friendly with me. At least 2 Second of all, advocate for gay rights, now that you are gay and all that. Imagine that you are driving down the street and there is a billboard that has your name and picture on it and says, “[YOUR NAME] IS GAY!” And it has your photo and everything. And then the paper comes and your pic is on the front page with a headline about how you are REALLY GAY! And everyone is laughing at you and calling you a fag and all, but that right there is a great reason to party, so just make one. Now when someone asks you to sign your name, you want to lie and write “Gay fag McCoy” and just leave it at that, but for the sake of social peace, you resist the urge. Anyway, it took me a long time to just figure out that I am what I am. Not only do I dislike effeminate behavior in males; I also dislike wimpy males. Deep down inside, there is a part of me that is as macho as any man that ever lived – a lumberjack, a trucker, a fisherman – you name it, I can play that role. Not only that but it’s really me, it really is, and if you disagree with that, will kill you will no regrets as my inner Viking dictates. I guess there is another side to me, and that’s ok. I always idolized Mick Jagger, Steve Tyler, the New York Dolls, Mott the Hoople and all the androgynous rock stars of the 1970’s. We all grew up with that, and it’s just normal to be that way. These dudes dressed up like chicks and even wrote totally fagged out songs, but really they were just a bunch of gangbangers, a White Crips and Bloods, and they never queered around, or not too much anyway, or at least I don’t even care who fagged off and sucked on knobs and who didn’t. If I could just tell folks, no, I’m straight, thank you very much, and it would be over, that would be ok. But the questions never stop coming, and the doubts never end. I must say it is discouraging, but only because this is such an important question. A certain type of woman gets asked if she likes women, says, “No, I’m strictly dickly”, and the questions end, but for us guys, the doubts just linger. Is that stupid or what? I mean, bitch, I mean woman, I said I’m straight and that means I’m straight! You either understand that or you get tied to the bed again, is that understood? And you will answer Sir!” Society must find male homo- and bisexuality much more upsetting than the female kind. Anyway, as there is nothing I can do about this, and this unfortunate issue with remain with me for life, I assume, I hereby anoint this website an officially gay website. We will just make macho fraternity jokes about fags and stuff, and guys who are bi-queerious, I mean bi-curious, but all the while we won’t even fag off, not even once, and if he’s real cute, we promise. Kind of like a great bachelor pad or frat house. I must admit that there is a part of me that loves being called gay. It’s just so wrong. I’ve gotten to the point where the best way to deal with it is to laugh uproariously and say, “I LOVE it when people think I am gay!” Then I dance around the room and do my best gay imitation while hopefully some dudes go, “Whoa! Is this guy really is a queer?”, in their friend’s ear, and that makes it even better, as long as they don’t try to kick your ass or anything. Then I love to tell gay stories just to freak people out and keep them guessing. Like, “I’m not gay or anything, but I once went to a gay bar and drank 13 Penis Coladas, one after the other. Oh, man were they great!” But hey, I was young and experimenting and lots of guys do crazy things once or twice, even Hugh Hefner fucked a guy once, and if you call me a queer one more time, I am going to have to seriously kick your ass or maybe even kill you, do I make myself understood? So it’s time for an obligatory gay post. How about Heroic Homo Sex? I love to talk about this website, because every time I do, everyone starts freaking out and looking at me like, “Shut up you idiot! Are you a FAG or what?” All the more reason to talk about it more and more and not just piss off a few people, but piss off as many people as possible! Anyway, even if you are not gay, this is a great site. This is a site that deals with homosexuality and masculinity, gay culture and effeminate men, AIDS and the contours of masculinity. The author is gay himself, and the site has quite a bit of gay erotica and pornography. If that freaks you out, you better not go there. But it’s definitely worth the look. The purpose of the site is to attack several aspects of modern gay life: anal sex and promiscuity. These are gay men who are not into anal sex; they think it is painful, dangerous and degrading. And they have a fascinating thesis. The thesis goes like this: Before gay liberation, gay men met and had relationships and engaged in all sorts of sex behaviors. Anal sex was not even that popular, and gay men were not tremendously promiscuous. But with gay liberation, came the normalization of gay anal sex. According to the various articles linked on the site: the obsession with anal sex has been linked to gay liberation – gay lib mandated anal sex as a substitute for heterosexual intercourse. But the site painstakingly points out that the two types of sex are not the same. A vagina is designed by evolution to take a heavy duty penis-pounding, after all, this is one of its purposes. It’s hard to damage a vagina, as it has a lot of redundancy in its walls. Hence the vagina is relatively refractory to getting blood-borne diseases like AIDS and Hepatitis C and B. You pretty much need to bleed a bit to get a disease like this, and it’s not so easy to make a vagina bleed. It amazingly accommodates a full-grown baby easily, another of its purposes. An anus is not like this at all. Evolution designed it for elimination, and it has a very thin wall that is easily damaged, if even slightly, during anal sex. Bottom line: bleeding, even microscopic, usually occurs during anal sex. HIV is transmitted easily this way, as is Hepatitis B. Furthermore, no one ever talks about this, but the site points out that regular anal sex causes anal leakage and fissures (small tears in the anus). More heavy duty stuff like fisting (that a lot of gays are into) can cause anal incontinence, fistulas and all sorts of nasty stuff. Anal prolapse can occur with years of this sort of sex. Yet the gay community relentlessly promotes anal sex in gay pornography and even gay medical sites. On the medical sites, gay docs tell you to go ahead and engage in anal sex and don’t seem to steer men away from it. Heroic Homo Sex feels that anal intercourse is ultimately damaging, if only slightly, to the anuses of gay men. Plus they are repulsed by the whole act. They also promote a fascinating theory: it is not possible to get fucked, anally or vaginally, without having to play a submissive role. Getting fucked makes a person submissive. So gay sex, or being on the receiving end of it anyway, makes gay men submissive and ultimately effeminate. This because getting fucked is feminizing. Fucking is masculinizing. Andrea Dworkin tried to say much the same thing about the violence inherent in the normative heterosexual sex act, but she was raked over the coals. It is rape, dammit! That’s why you need to encourage your female partners to engage their rape fantasies to the fullest, since tons of women love to think about getting raped. So rape and rape and rape away, and make a satisfactory adjustment to married life anyway, as the old Abnormal Psych textbooks used to say. Women act feminine in part because they get fucked. Men act masculine in part because they fuck. Have you ever noticed that when a woman wants to get fucked, or if you are getting ready to fuck her, she tends to act more and feminine, to the point where she is some kind of a silly Barbie Doll Southern woman thing? Then in the sex act itself of course, tons of women want and love pain (trust me), as (my theory) being a woman is so painful, so if you’re a woman, you either become a bit of a sub and enjoy life or you are screwed and miserable and all bitched out. The sex act itself, and the role one plays in it, has carry-over effects into nonsexual life. The guys at Heroic Homo Sex are some interesting gay men. Not only are they repulsed by anal sex, but they are also sickened by the effeminate behavior of gay men. They propose an alternative: that gay men should become more masculine. As, deep down inside, I love masculine behavior, I have to cheer this on. This is great: there is a positive value in masculinity for any male, even a gay one. The site is full of images of masculine gay men acting masculine, and it promotes a masculine mindset among the gay men who go there. Hear hear! What they promote is something called frottage, which is basically two guys more or less rubbing their dicks up against each other. This is often combined with masculine images like wrestling and various forms of martial arts. I guess there are variations on this theme, but it’s quite safe in terms of VD (a horrific problem with gay men due to the wild homosexuality many of them pursue), and it enables gay men to have sex with each other and at the same time retain a masculine identity. They take the theorizing a bit further. They suggest in some of their essays that anal sex is inherently degrading in and of itself, at least as it is practiced in the gay community. So not only does anal sex make gay men effeminate, it also degrades them and makes them into “sluts”. This has been a part of gay porn culture too – the promotion of anal sex and rampant promiscuity in gay men. The two are connected, the website suggests. For a man to get fucked anally turns him effeminate and has the effect of “turning him into a slut”. Gay culture promotes the image of the gay man as slut, whore, pig, prostitute, etc. The use of degrading terms is encouraged. So getting fucked effeminizes men and degrades them, turning them into promiscuous “fuck pigs”. There is ample support for this theory if one takes the time to peruse gay culture. Check out the gay personals of any gay website, if you dare, and you will see tons of insane and rampant promiscuity along with a lot of dangerous anally-focused sex and the continuous promotion of the gay slut-pig sort of fellow. Not that I am against slut-pigs at all, but more of them should be female and disease-free. This is my only wish at age 50 where Viagra moments become normative events. The site goes so far as to term this whole gay degradation and sluttification process as a death cult. With AIDS raging through the gay community, that’s not just idle talk. Anyway, interesting website from some gay men who are looking to turn gay culture seriously on its head. In the meantime, they are promoting some fascinating theories to explain hard to explain phenomena – theories that at least look good on paper. And they promote an alternative image of gay men as sexually responsible, disease free, and masculine in a warrior sense. As a straight man who values masculinity in myself and other men, I have to cheer it on. There are links all through the site leading to variations of their main theoretical issues, and you need to click around to get a feel for their whole worldview. I sort of still have a “terror of gay stuff” OCD thing, so it’s really therapeutic for me to click through all this totally fagged out stuff, just to flood myself some more. You cannot run from your fears. They must be embraced, head on, like diving into a swimming pool from a high board with no worries. Then you climb out and do it again and again and soon it’s nothing. The author of the site is a gay man who went through the whole hippie thing in the 1960’s like a lot of us. His partner and the love of his life had a similar developmental trajectory and later acquired AIDS and died of it. The whole site is sort of a tribute to this man who he obviously still deeply loves. I found this touching in an odd way, though normally gay romance doesn’t do much for me. Warning! There is lots of gay male erotica and even gay male porn on that site. I don’t mind; I just kind of speed through that stuff as it isn’t very interesting to me and it bothers me on some level. So if you can’t handle that sort of thing, don’t even go there. If you have HOCD, you need to go there, stop everything, hold the horses, not now, yesterday!

Drugs, Mental Illness and Psychiatrists

Sutanu writes:

Hi Robert, Your article was very interesting, I have a very personal experience with schizophrenia and I do not know the role marijuana had to play in it. I have been a pot user since I was about 22. My wife was a cigarette smoker since age 18 and alcohol user since 20. She started smoking pot since age 24 – sometimes 3-4 times a week sometimes once daily. Around the age of 29 she started developing symptoms of schizophrenia, which was full blown by the time she was 30 (with auditory hallucinations). She has been in treatment for the last nine years. In the opinion of her psychiatrist, it was the use of pot that triggered and maybe even possibly caused the illness. Reading your article and your responses, I am now confused whether this is possible as you have said that the safe age to start on pot is 21. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Statistics show that there is no increased risk of schizophrenia after age 20. Your risk is almost all used by age 19 or 20 anyway. Anyway, the cannabis-schizophrenia link does not appear to make any sense. Of all of the recreational drugs out there, cannabis is one of the easiest of all on your brain. Schizophrenia appears to be characterized by extensive damage to the brain. Since cannabis does not cause extensive damage to the brain, there is no way that cannabis could possibly cause the sort of brain damage that is present in schizophrenia. Since the 1960’s, rates of cannabis use have gone through the roof and the rate of schizophrenia has been completely flat. In fact it has actually declined a bit. If cannabis were causing any schizophrenia at all, much less tons of schizophrenia, we would have expected rates to have increased if not skyrocketed since the 1960’s They have not, so the notion that cannabis or illegal drugs in general cause schizophrenia is very dubious. I have known hundreds to thousands of cannabis users in my life. Two developed schizophrenia. One had very extensive meth use for decades. They other has a mother with schizophrenia. It’s certainly possible that cannabis can trigger schizophrenia in a vulnerable person. However, those persons were probably going to get it anyway. Cannabis may bring schizophrenia on sooner than before. This is a tragedy as each year lost to the illness is a year is a lost year for the person who has it. Psychiatrists are assholes. They all hate illegal drugs, and they think that illegal drugs cause tons of mental disorders. If you have a drug history and you go to a psychiatrist, the asshole will automatically and immediately say that the drugs caused your disorder, no matter which disorder you have or how little you drugs used. If you smoked one joint in your whole damned life, the asshole psychs will insist that it caused whatever you might have. Psychologists on the other hand for some reason to not seem to have these same prejudices against illegal drugs and in general to not seem to blame illegal drugs for causing tons of mental illnesses. My observation has been that heavy drug users sometimes appear to be mentally off in some way or another, and sometimes their behavior is disordered. In general however, the off mental behavior seems to clear up when the person stops using, and they just go back to their previous psychological state. I do not believe that drug use in general causes long term psychological damage persisting after the use of drugs has ceased.

Pedophilia Versus POCD Redux

Anonymous wrote:

I’ve had pure O my whole life. As a child it was both religion and contamination related. As I got older it turned into health and contamination related. (I became an atheist and stopped caring about intrusive anti-religious thoughts.) But here’s where it gets a little tricky. When I was 10 years old and just discovering my sexuality, I noticed that I especially had a fondness for girls who were 5-7 years old. I knew this was much different than others my age, and felt quite guilty about it. I was also attracted to 10 year olds, however. As I got older, every time I saw a cute little girl, I would avert my eyes and repeat to myself in my mind “I’m not a pedophile, I’m NOT a pedophile.” It felt very much like the intrusive thoughts from my OCD and happened constantly. This continued until around 16 years old. At this point, I became interested in anime and the primary school aged characters in these shows. I talked to others who were interested in animated little girl characters also. At this point, I was still having intrusive thoughts, but being interested in the fictional characters didn’t bother me at all. And then, in the same places where I was discussing these fictional characters, people would also often post pictures of elementary school girl models and actresses. I began masturbating to these photographs, but every time I would feel immensely guilty and hate myself for it. Awhile later, I met a 6 year old girl. She began visiting us often. I just fell in love. In no other time in my life had I felt this way before. She was a joy to be around and extremely beautiful. We became very close, and I cared for her more than anything. After meeting her, all intrusive thoughts stopped and I accepted my attraction as normal for me. I’m now in the my early 20s, and have very little interest in women. The pedophilic intrusive thoughts are no longer there, only the ones based on health worries and contamination remain. I do have sexual thoughts about young girls, but I see them as normal for me now. Although when I see a cute girl that I’m interested in, it’s closer to crushing than lust. “Oh wow, she’s so beautiful.” The girls that I tend to like are between the ages of 5 and 11. They are just so cute. Now, based on this information, do you think I have a pedophilic orientation? Or do you think it’s possible that I had POCD and just gave up fighting it? A few things to consider: I would never touch a girl, I know it’s wrong. It also has nothing to do with being dominant. I actually find the idea of dominating a young girl extremely disgusting. It also is not only physical, I am extremely attracted to the personalities of very young girls, and just hanging out and playing games with them have been the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life.

This is a fascinating post. It shows that someone can have both OCD and pedophilia, so the notion that OCD’ers are too good or too moral to develop pedophilia is not correct. Pedophilia in my opinion is simply a sexual orientation like homosexuality, bisexuality or heterosexuality. It can’t be much changed like any of those. There are countless gay and bisexual OCD’ers. I know because I have talked to many of them. Surely there must be some OCD’ers with a pedophilic orientation. It’s probably better for a pedophile to have OCD than to not have it. The OCD pedophile will be a lot less likely to act on his urges due to his extreme morality, guilt and conscientiousness. The OCD will act as an inhibitor towards acting on the pedophilia. I am absolutely certain that he has pedophilia. There’s no way that he could possibly have POCD and just gave up fighting it. Though it shows that there are some similarities between POCD and true pedophilia, and this shows how differential dx is so difficult with these cases. I am actually sorry to hear that he has no attraction to adult females, but perhaps this is his normal orientation. I wish he had an adult attraction so he could live and love happily and legally in our society. As is, his sex life may well be barren or solitary and his love life may be thwarted. However, many pedophiles are absolutely happy with their orientation and love being this way. He seems like he is too. I am very glad to see that he is happy with his orientation and his sexual and love desires. I love to see people who are happy. I agree that him that he should not act on this orientation as it’s illegal. If he ever wants to have a real sex life with a female or really fall legally in love with a female, he will need to expand his love map to include adults, though most pedophiles have no interest in doing this. In fact, many to most pedophiles say that even if there was a cure for pedophilia, they would not take the cure. I also love females of all ages. I love females period. Little girls are wonderful in a special way as a special kind of female, though I see them as seeds of women rather than fully formed entities and I see women as the fully town product rather than girls that moved on. But there’s a girl inside every woman, and a budding woman inside every girl. If you love females, you learn to love the sprouted seed of girl in the woman and the sprouting woman in the girl. In a way, they are one and the same – females at different stages. I actually like teenage girls a lot more than little girls. Little girls seem ridiculous to me, and there’s little sexual attraction there. I had a world full of good and great times with teenage girls, often sexual, when I was young, and I think about those wonderful days all the time. When I see teenage girls, I reminisce. About the teenage girls that I knew and loved, who will live forever in my heart. Though when I do meet a teenage girl nowadays, they seem silly to me, and I can’t see getting involved with them. I would not do it even if it was legal. But the teenage girl is definitely a special type of female – not a girl and not a woman. Not better than a woman or a girl but only different. I probably like adult females 18+ best of all, since they are legal. I like teenage girls who are fully developed, around age 16-17 because to me that’s just a woman. But their immaturity is a massive turnoff. Even young women of college age often turn me off now because they seem to immature and silly. A fully formed and mature woman is not only maximally attractive to me (all females age 16+ are maximally attractive to me) but her mind is also fully matured, and that is a massive turn-on to me as I get older. Sex and love is more than just a hot body you know. And the fully formed and fully matured woman has a joyous wonder and glory about her that is equal to if not superior to that the teenage girl and the girl. All the female maturational types are wonderful in their own special ways.

Potential Psycho Completely Cured

I am reading about the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker on forums and I ran across this fascinating post. I can’t really relate to it at all, I must say, though I do understand the feeling of wanting to kill people in general, unfortunately. But that’s as far as I’ve ever gone – feeling that way – and that may not even be a fantasy but instead it may be something else altogether. Raping women? Nah, not my fantasy. Prowling? Never done it, don’t have it in me, and don’t even like the idea. I think the very idea of prowling and enjoying it is a bit sick. Fascinated with fire and ways of killing? No. My friends and I did use to make non-shrapnel bombs and detonate them. We used one to blow up an enemy’s car windshield, and another was tossed onto an enemy’s lawn and burned a large hole in the lawn. Animal abuse? Not mammals, no way. My friends and siblings and I devised all sorts of fascinating ways to kill insect pests until our parents put a stop to it. We used to go fishing and catch smelts and the salt marsh. We would catch up to 100 in a day. We got so bored of catching smelts that we devised methods of killing them. We played, “Acapulco Cliff Divers” and cast the smelts, still on the hooks, onto shore rocks and then quickly reeled them in over the rocks. We tied live smelts to the backs of our bikes and dragged them to their deaths part of the way home. But torturing fish and bugs and ain’t killing mammals. Screw that. And I never tortured or killed reptiles either and certainly not birds. I never fantasized about being a criminal really. It doesn’t really appeal to me to be a creep as it’s not part of my self-image, and I just don’t think I have it in me to do these things. But I get why people do this stuff. I get it. I know how their minds work. This guy went way beyond that. He had actual fantasies of rape starting at puberty (a very bad time for intense rape fantasies to start in a male), he tortured and abused animals, researched killing methods and ways of getting away with the crimes he wanted to commit, spent countless hours in the woods being weird when he wasn’t prowling around residential areas at night plotting crimes, was fascinated with bombs and fire, had intense feelings of rage, etc, was unable to control his feelings on his own because they were so powerful that they had an intense hold on him, etc. His mother recognized that he was one sick puppy as a child and put him in therapy at an early age. He received professional help was eventually able to become completely free of all such feelings and behaviors.

Typing on smart phones is hard for me. As I was saying, my father was nonexistent in my upbringing. My mother did the best she could but was unable to have a lasting relationship with a man. The area we lived in was a middle class area on the edge of town. A levee wound through the woods and behind my home as well. I spent a great deal of time in the woods as well as prowling the neighborhood at night. I started to have rape fantasies during puberty and would find myself engaged in working through the best M.O. to avoid detection. I’ve always had rage issues. I used to abuse animals and was fascinated with explosives, fires, and killing methods. My mother put me in counseling at an early age, and I have been in and out ever since. I as well as others am lucky that I had the help in place to learn to think in better ways. Perhaps my sense of shame for having these thoughts coupled with my conscience kept me from acting on these feelings. I could not help having these compulsions anymore than I could choose my eye or skin color, but it was my responsibility to everyone around me to not give in. When I learned of the EAR/ONS, it sent shivers down my spine. Here was someone who had put into action an M.O. VERY similar to what I was thinking during those times. I guess part of the reason I came here was to find more about myself. Perhaps remember things I can’t (blocks of my childhood I can’t remember). Those reading this that have never had these issues can never understand. You can’t just turn it off and without professional help – it may be too much to overcome. If you have no regard for anyone but yourself as EAR/ONS did/does, then my guess is you won’t. I do know wanting these thoughts to go is not enough to make it so. Based on my background, there are some things I am convinced EAR was and what he was not. I don’t think anyone is a “monster” or “pervert” or “sicko”. I think people just are. It’s when “The selected route will unmask Character when plans take action”. I look at my situation as a re-birth having come close to hurting innocent people but got help. I urge all of you to view offenders as broken people WHO SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS. Perhaps if there was less of a stigma attached to such urges, more people would seek help. I’m a recovering alcoholic and don’t tell everyone, but I’ve told far more about my drinking than about my other issues. Some family know, and I have shared all with my wife. If anyone reading this wishes to label me, you may. That would be your problem, not mine. If there are those out there that are feeling urges 1.) You’re human, and it’s ok 2.) It is NEVER ok to act on them 3.) Acknowledge you are not feeling “Excitment’s Crave” – you wish to hurt others as you are hurt, and you must treat it as the sickness it is 4.) There is hope and you can succeed in taking the right path. I don’t know if I have done anything here, but I have shared what I can. I cannot speak to those like EAR that crossed that line and CHOSE to live out their fantasies and wallow in the rage and pain and pull others into it. I don’t understand that, and I doubt I ever will. Perhaps he did have a conscience and was haunted to the point of suicide.

What is absolutely fascinating to me is that someone can get this twisted and then be completely rehabilitated from these thoughts, urges and feelings. I figured that once you get this far gone at that early of an age, you’re basically history. Even if never act on this stuff, I never thought you could get over of it simply because it seems that you’re already wired up in a very twisted way. Perhaps one way he was able to get over this so well is that he had not yet started offending. He says that he had moral values that kept him from acting on these feelings, and this is what kept him from offending. He had kept himself in check. And having some base level of morality is perhaps what helped him to recover so well. Once you start offending, you’re pretty far down the road and without a base level of morality, there’s no reason to get better. At the end of the day, this is a very hopeful post. It shows that perhaps with early enough intervention, a lot of potential psychos can be arrested in their development, converted into moral humans and a lot of crimes and victims can be prevented from ever occurring and existing. There is more hope for humans than I thought.

The Man Who Thought He Was a Cat

Repost from the old site. While I was at the university getting my Master’s Degree, I used to read a lot of journals. I really liked this one journal called the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. In one issue I found a case study of a man who suffered from the delusion that he was a cat! As a cat lover, I kind of enjoyed this case. I don’t think I’m a cat or anything like that, but sometimes I wonder if my two female cats make better companions than the women in my life. He was a 40 year old man who worked as a technician in a laboratory. Considering his delusion, one of the most peculiar things about him was that he actually looked like a cat! He was kind of thick and heavyset and had a big full beard. All of this contributed to a rather strange appearance somewhat like the Lion Man in the Wizard of Oz. The man stated flat out that he was actually a cat and not a human being. All attempts to disabuse him of this notion were met with airy dismissals. He had believed that he was a cat for a long time, possibly since childhood. He said that as as child and young man, he had spent a lot of time playing with cats, especially in open fields. He got down on all fours and walked around in fields and spent hours socializing with the cats out there. He continued to engage in this behavior to this day. He said that cats had a special affinity for him, because they realized that he was actually a cat and not a human. Hence, he said that cats accepted him as a fellow cat and treated him as such. He said that cats are actually very intelligent – much more intelligent than people think they are. Over the years rolling around in fields with cats, he learned that cats actually had a spoken language in their meows. He had finally learned this language over time and could now communicate with cats in their language. He also said that he had had sex with cats on many occasions out in the fields (How does one do this?). Over time, he had learned that most people did not want to hear about the fact that he was a cat, so he had learned to stop talking about it. He was diagnosed with Delusional Disorder and it was recommended that he take an anti-psychotic. I am not sure of how the case resolved. I believe that he did not see any problem in being a cat and refused treatment.

What OCD Is Not

First of all, let us look at the case of Jack Harrison Trawick. Trawick is truly one sick puppy! He was executed in 2011 in for the rape and murder of a 22 year old woman in 1992. His defense attorneys said he had a lifetime history of schizophrenia since age 11, but he sure planned his murders well. He had long been preoccupied with sex and violence and treatments were rendered to him to try to cure him of these preoccupations. He also murdered a 26 year old woman, for which he was also convicted. For decades, he committed burglaries to terrify women he saw as attractive. He cut up their underwear and left menacing messages on their mirrors in lipstick. A man set up a website dedicated to him, vowing to turn him into an international superstar. Trawick sent the website many of his sick drawings and letters, including imaginary conservations with his last victim, sicks jokes and threats to famous women such as Brittney Spears and Jennifer Lopez. The author says he has been fascinated with serial killers since he was a young boy. He also says he has OCD, apparently with the harm theme. He gets thoughts about killing his cats. “I’ve always been an animal lover,” O’Connor said in the telephone interview. “I have four very cute cats. The cutest of the cats a lot of times I just think about stomping on it until her eyes pop out of her head.” The website supposedly alleviates his symptoms somewhat. The problem is that this guy seems to love violence. He seems like he likes to think about killing his cats, and he loves to think about serial killers and all of the horrible things that they do. He relishes this stuff and wallows in it. There are plenty of people like that, but folks with Harm OCD are usually terrified of their thoughts. Many stop reading, listening to or watching video of murders or any kind of violence because it sends them into a panic. Quite a few said they used to like horror movies or violent video games but they stopped enjoying these things after the thoughts came on. Now I am not saying this guy doesn’t have OCD, but his fascination with the subject of violence doesn’t seem to be normal for these people and paints a false image of people with this problem as some sort of maniacs or sickos. It is true that some folks with this problem expose themselves to violent material as a therapeutic tool, but I assure you that it’s a painful and anxiety-ridden process for them. I am not going to reprint the killer’s letters here, but if you go to the site and read them, they are really sick! On this site, a woman writes that her mother knew the killer as he delivered furniture to a store she worked at. She said he was also so nice and kind that she simply refused to believe that he could do such a thing.

Alternate Identities in OCD

A lot of people with OCD develop “alternative identities.” Harm O folks develop identities called “the murderer”, “the serial killer,” “the sociopath,” “the rapist,” “the criminal,” etc. HOCD people develop identities called, “the queer,” “the fag,” “the gay,” “the lez,” “the dyke,” etc. POCD people develop “the pedo,” “the child molester,” etc. Others might develop “the racist,” “the misanthrope,” or “the misogynist.” You really start to feel like these other things. I don’t know much about other themes too much, but there might be identity changes with those too. If you are really bad, you will be in the alternate identity all the time. If less bad, it will fade in and out. You will be driving along, and “the fag” takes over. You walk into a store, and all of a sudden, “the serial killer” becomes you. Often a lot of effort is expended trying to shake off the alternate identity and get back into what feels like your real one. It’s extremely creepy and unnerving.

Do People Without OCD Ever Try to Stop Their Thoughts?

I do not think that most normal go around trying to stop thoughts all the time. Most people just think about whatever they want to, and aren’t resisting unwanted thoughts all the time. I asked a friend of mine if she had ever tried to stop a thought, and she said she had never tried to stop one thought in her entire life. She acknowledged that she worried about things sometimes, but these thoughts were not resisted as unwanted or alien intrusions. I asked another friend whether she resisted or tried to stop her thoughts, and she told me that she never did. She said sometimes she gets unwanted memories or thinks about stuff she doesn’t really want to think about, but she doesn’t try to stop the thoughts. Before I had OCD real bad, did I try to stop thoughts? Not much, but I did have obsessions from time to time. The first one that I remember was when I was 12 years old. I was in Sunday school and they told us that God can hear every single one of your thoughts. Well, that set my mind off. Mind started saying, “Fuck God! Fuck you, God!” over and over. This went on for 10-15 minutes while I panicked and tried to stop the thoughts. They didn’t return that I am aware of. The next one that I am aware of was about the garbage grinder. Not sure when it started, but I would get very strong urges to stick my hand down in the garbage grinder when it was going. That would be a catastrophe if I did that, so of course I never did it. For a while, I even stuck my hand in my back pocket while the grinder was going to keep from doing it. I also had some gay thoughts, but those were obsessions and not real feelings. They started around 1979. I would be sitting there talking to some guy, just him and me together, and all of sudden I would think, “I want to suck your cock!” That thought would just repeat over and over for 30 minutes to an hour. I would try to stop it, but I couldn’t. I seemed to able to carry on the conversations anyway, though it was annoying. I’ve always been heterosexual, so the thoughts didn’t make any kind of sense. They were not accompanied by any erotic feelings or anything like that. One time I was interviewing a very famous rock star in a record company office in Hollywood when the gay thoughts started up. They went through the whole interview, but he was nice enough anyway. I still got good notes. He just died the other day. One time when I heard about Hinckley, the guy who shot Reagan, and that he was in love with Jody Foster, my mind said, “I’m in love with Jody Foster!” I thought, “Whoa! Weird thought, man,” and I just dismissed it. I later mentioned this to my father and pointed out that just thinking something like that doesn’t mean you’re insane, but he just glowered at me and shook his head contemptuously. I guess he thought I was nuts. Another time I was reading about the Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris case, a truly horrific case of serial murders that rocked Los Angeles in 1979 and 1980. They tortured one woman to death by stabbing her in the ear with an icepick. When I read that, I got an image of the stabbing with the icepick going into her ear repeatedly while she screamed. Every time the pick went in, my mind said, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” It was extremely disturbing to have those thoughts, but they only lasted a short time, maybe less than a minute. I was panicking out and furiously trying to stop them the whole time. They didn’t come back, but for a long time afterwards, I was really worried about myself even for thinking that way for 30 seconds one time. All of the above are more or less OCD symptoms, or obsessions. Science has proven that ~8 There were other times when I just felt uncomfortable, but that didn’t feel like OCD. It just felt like a crappy feeling that I wanted to get away from. For a while there, I was hanging around with people made me uncomfortable because they were ignorant and not that smart. At the time, I was in college. It was annoying to hang around with these people, who struck me as idiots, so I would get uncomfortable a lot of time when we were hanging out. They would come over to my place and put the latest retard Hollywood blockbuster on the VCR and sit there and laugh and cheer while I put my head in my hands. Another time I was on a date with this 16 year old girl who was wildly in love with me. I was 20 at the time, but I used to screw all kinds of underage girls back in those days. I stopped when I was 21. The first date was ok, but she was so stupid and idiotic teenage girl girlie that I was almost cringing. We had sex anyway, and it was lots of fun. She was horny as all get out. We planned a date for the next weekend, and that week, I was a wreck. My friend was over visiting me at my place, and he asked me what was going on, and I said I had a date with girl, and I didn’t even like her. He was outraged. “You’re going out with a chick and you don’t even like her! You’re an asshole!” He shrieked. I felt horrible, like the worst person on Earth, crushed with guilt. Well, the hottie was even hornier before the second date, so I figured, “Why not, let’s get laid. What the Hell man?” I went out with her, and I felt so uncomfortable, I was almost squirming the whole time. We tried to have sex, but I had an impotence problem, which made me feel really awful. I relaxed more and an hour or so later, we tried it again, and this time it worked and we had wild sex. But I was still really uncomfortable with her. I am not sure if I was trying to get outside that feeling or what, but I was just stuck with it, and it didn’t feel good. I wanted to fake it with this chick, but my body was just saying,  “No way, dude.” I dropped her off at her place, and she said her parents were going out of town in a couple of weeks, and she wanted me to come over every time so we could fuck constantly. I was like, “Oh my God. No way can I do this.” I saw her later, and I dumped her just like that. Her face melted right in front of me, and she burst into a vale of tears like a little girl, then she ran inside her house really fast, like a little girl once again. I stood there feeling like the worst scum on the face of the Earth, just devastated with guilt. Later she told all her friends about me, and some of her teenage friends saw me one time. They came up to me and said, “We heard about what you did. You fucked her and dumped her! You’re an asshole!” I felt like a sack of worms once again. Later I was with a friend at some park fair, and she was at a booth. I gingerly walked up to the booth, greeted her apologetically, and maybe bought something. She was pleasant enough. I walked away, and her two teenage girl friends were all over my ex girlfriend, swarming their lips in her ears the way girls do. She was apparently telling them, “Hey, I fucked that guy!” Her friends looked at me like I was a Fillet Mignon. Another time we were on a bus going to Colorado. We had a keg on the bus and we were getting wasted. Most of us were totaled, and some of us were stoned on weed from a bong. The driver was laughing about the keg, but he was mad about the bong. This girl was in the lap of this total idiot, and he was doing much about it. I looked at her and worked my magic. Her eyes saw me and went to Heaven. I reached my hand out and she reached out hers, and I pulled her away from the idiot. She was happy to be rescued, a damsel in distress. We had a hot and wild messing around session for while, and we even had some weird kind of sex, or as much sex as you can have on a bus seat in a bus full of people. My friend came by and saw us messing around. He leaned over, the chick left me, and then he and her made out for a while, him leaning over her while she was in my lap. Weird and almost group sex but not quite. I woke up the next morning with a hangover, and I looked at her and I thought, “Damn! She sure looked better last night when I was totaled!” She looked like Hell. I went back to a couple of seats where a couple other chicks, friends of mine, were sitting, squeezed in between them and smoked some weed. Then I went back and felt more and more uncomfortable. I could not wait to get away from this chick. We stopped for breakfast, and she went off with her giggling friends in a whispering gaggle as her friends pointed at me. Some idiot “friend” of mine said accusatorily, “You blew it! You got involved too early in the trip!” I felt crushed. A couple I was friends with came up to me and basically said, “Good score!” We went back on the bus, and I got more and more uncomfortable. I did not want to be with this chick! Finally, she read the writing and moved to another seat, and it was all over. So sometimes we struggle with our feelings for this or that reason, but that isn’t the same thing as resisting an unwanted thought, feeling or urge that you get in OCD. Qualitatively, it’s completely different. I can’t put it into words, but it’s like the two experiences are from different planets. Bottom line is I just do not believe that normal folks go around struggling with unwanted thoughts, feelings and urges all the time. It’s just ridiculous.

Resistance Is the Essence of OCD

I am familiar with Harm OCD. At the same time, of course I have had many homicidal feelings and feelings of wanting to hurt people. Generally people who I hated for this or that reason. I have even fantasized about murdering them, how I would go about it, how I would pull it off, etc. Those thoughts were extremely pleasant, and of course I never tried to stop them a single time, although I tried to make sure I didn’t actually do it because I didn’t think it would be a good idea for a lot of reasons. I might get caught, number 1. The victim might turn on me and kill me, number 2. I might not be able to live well with myself afterwards, number 3. And last, wondering if even my worst enemies on this Earth deserve the death penalty via me. I assure you that I did not try to stop any of these feelings, urges, behaviors or thoughts! Never, never, never, never, not even one time did I try to stop a thought, feeling, urge or action like that. True violent feelings are so completely different from OCD they are like from different planets. I am also familiar with sexual OCD. I am also heterosexual and have had about a trillion sexual thoughts, feelings, urges, etc. towards mature females of a variety of ages. I assure you that never a single time did I ever resist any of those thoughts, feelings or urges. Not once, not ever, ever, ever. Real sexual thoughts are so different from sexual OCD that once again, they seem like they’re from another planet. I have asked people without OCD and they told me that they simply never try to stop their thoughts. One person said, “I only think about things I want to think about.” They said they had never tried to stop a single thought in their entire lives. In my opinion, if you try to stop the thoughts, feelings, urges, etc., then it’s OCD. Period.

A Look At a Narcissistic Sociopath

In the comments, Tiffany describes the narcissistic sociopath that wreaked havoc in her life. This is a pretty good portrayal of this type of individual. I am currently delaying with one of these types, probably more narcissist than sociopath, who is unfortunately quite close to me. He is currently attacking a number of other people who are also quite close to me. The number, type and degree of head games that these characters play is simply amazing. Pretty much everything is some sort of a head game or other with these types. You are a dealing with a master manipulator where everything is just a game, a charade or some sort of manipulation. Unless you tune into looking at the world as a gigantic chessboard, you can’t figure these people out. Once you start looking at them from a “games” POV, you can start to figure out a lot of their weird, sneaky bullshit which otherwise doesn’t seem to add up or make much sense. These folks are like actors. The whole world is their stage, and they are always “on.” As a general rule, most of them are personal catastrophes. You can have a narcissist in your life, but you may need to keep them pretty far away from you. I know a narcissist right now, but we do not have a close relationship. He lives about 300 miles away. I saw him in my town the other day as he was driving through, and he was extremely warm and friendly. Nevertheless, we are not close. If we were closer, it might be more of a problem. You need to deal with them in a certain way. You need to be harsh with them in a sense, or deal with them as “one narcissist to another.” Put them in their place, and don’t let them push you around. Don’t go along with any of their games. With the truly sick types, probably none of this is going to work. This is an interesting case and I have a lot more to say about it, but maybe save that for another time.

My ex knew I just broke up with a guy I was engaged to, and that we were supposed to be married in 2006. My Ex said very kind things and was loving. He became my partner at work and the relationship was great even though he was 13 years older than me. He told me he was a captain in the Air Force during Desert Storm. And he was a police officer and worked as a task force guy for the county he lived in. He told me he was relieved of duties and retired from the AF because he had heart problems, and he had been in an accident similar to (what my other ex had been in—but the newest ex did not have any scars). That we worked for many different places. That his 11 yr. old was from IVF and his 18 yr old–burned his garage down–at 8 yrs old–mind you– so he returned his kid back to his mother. He was the perfect guy. All that changed when I became pregnant, and over the past six years he grew more and more distant. Our sex life was like a chore for him–he would sometimes even roll over and go to sleep. He had me and half my family convinced that no one could do anything with out him. He made sure I had no alone time on his days off. He got paranoid at one point and started reading my emails, my texts and Facebook and Twitter accounts. He was hiding over $700 dollars a month, and we were sinking financially. We were losing–he even over ate so no one else could have seconds. He was constantly putting everyone down. He never took the blame. He was fighting with co-workers. He actually had multiple email accounts. He also had multiple cell phones. He was interviewing for jobs and a flying on fighter jets in Vegas. He would yell at my girls ages 5 and 12–blaming them for everything. Get 6 inches or less and scream in their face. Pure Hell we were living. He put down everything I did – everyone was always wrong and he was always right. He is still playing mind games. I found out the truth – he went AWOL from the AF, he was never a cop – never on a task force–nothing he told me was true. He told his family I was a mistress – that is true – we were married–but surprise he was married to his second wife. His family knew the truth but never told me because they thought I was this home wrecking person and he was happy. He pretends he is all that–lies still about his kids and who and what they are—he lies about his kids–he tells his kids lies–then they tell his lies. You even tell his lies–your family will tell his lies and once the truth is found out—it feels as if you are mugged/robbed. He tries to take everything–knocking you down over and over—he enjoys the head game. If you try to play a head game he turns the tables and hello—new Game–he is no in control of. He is always a hero or victim—people either love him or hate him. Ladies run-don’t walk. A guy like this is a category 5 hurricane. You will wake up one day being upset and mad–wondering What was that? Honestly you have to run run run and never look back.

Normal, Happy Guy with Irresistible Urge to Kill People

Seeks female with same desires for fun, games and who knows what else.

Just kidding.

But that’s the title of a post on AskReddit.

Full title: I’m a Relatively Normal, Happy Guy. I Have an Almost Irresistible Urge to Kill People. What’s Wrong with Me?

Well, it’s certainly an interesting question! One of the top-voted responses links an article of mine in which I discuss something called Harm OCD, in which people have unwanted thoughts, urges and feelings about wanting to kill or harm other people. They never act on the feelings to my knowledge anyway, though some say there have been a few cases. I have talked to some of these folks online, and I’m not the slightest bit worried about them. I would go on an overnight trip with any of them no problem. They’re simply not dangerous at all, which is very interesting right there.

The woman who makes this comment says that she has Harm OCD herself, and it’s a nasty illness. It does involve a lot of avoidance as folks sequester themselves away to avoid hurting others.

In my opinion, this guy does not have Harm O. He seems to very much enjoy these feelings, and he doesn’t want to get rid of them or try to stop them. Trying to stop them in particular is pathognomic of Harm O. On the other hand, I don’t think he’s a psychopath either.

He does say that he has gone so far as to plan out these murders in detail in his mind and he has taken careful note of people’s schedules as part of these plans. That is, he knows where certain will be, given their schedules,  most any day or time. The thing that prevents him from doing these murders is mostly the harm to his self-image that would come if he were to be a murderer. He’s not particularly concerned about the fate of his victims, nor is he concerned about the legal implications.

This guys seems like a case of narcissism. I see a lot of narcissism shining through this guy’s post. Other than that, I refuse to give him any kind of an overused DSM diagnosis, mostly because I think it’s ridiculous to pathologize a whole nation or planet. Are his preoccupations healthy? I don’t think so, but we are dealing here with more or a moral question than a case of psychopathology.

I wish we would deal more in terms of good and bad and less in terms of crazy or sane. A lot of so called crazies aren’t crazy at all, they’re just bad. A lot of so called scumbags aren’t really bad at all, they’re just nuts.

What’s going on is more of a case of what I would call bad karma. It’s bad karma to sit around devising ways or murdering innocent people, regardless of whether or not you believe in reincarnation. It’s bad vibes, bad for your mind, a bad idea if you want to have a proper and healthy mind.

Should folks like this guy be imprisoned? Of course not. Unfortunately, you have to wait until someone does something bad before you arrest or imprison them. You can’t lock people up on preemptive charges of dangerousness. Down that way lies totalitarianism.

I did see one case online of a guy who was imprisoned as a danger to others as a potential serial killer, but he was mentally ill anyway, had written down extensive plans for killing his victims, singled out a variety of victims and formed long dossiers on them, gathered a great deal of murder and getaway tools to carry out his plans, and said he was going to start killing people. He was hospitalized for 1 1/2 years, treated, and released. Upon release, he was healthy and free of his fantasies.

The really sick ones won’t even show up for treatment. This guy was cured because he was just healthy enough to show up for treatment about his out of control urges. Serial killers cannot be cured not for some biological reason, but because in general they simply do not want to get better.

I have a sneaky suspicion that guys like this are everywhere. I figure for every serial killer who gets caught, 100 or 1000 fantasize about such things but never do it. Why not? Because they have enough behavioral controls that they are able to keep these urges intact without acting on them. I think most don’t do it either for moral reasons (they think it’s wrong) or due to fear of getting caught.

I read a post online by a woman who had sexual fantasies of being murdered. She posted them online and was deluged by offers from young men to “murder” her, apparently just pretend kill her but who knows? She ran it by some male friends and many of them also offered to “kill” her.

She finally acted it out with a male friend, and the guy said he got so carried away during the games that he had to physically control himself so as not to kill her for real. His mind just went nuts and wanted to kill her, and he had to reign himself back in. It was amazing that so many young men apparently have fantasies of such things.

One reason we seem to have fewer serial killers now than we did in the 1970’s is due to the progression of police forensics, especially DNA. Those serial killers now operating are mostly preying on street prostitutes, drug users, runaways and other throwaway types. Some of these types are so isolated from mainstream society that years, even over a decade, may go by before they are even declared missing. On the other hand, killing ordinary people like you and me for fun is going to be a Hell of a lot harder.

Bottom line:

Who wants to kill people for fun? Lots of people!

Who really does it? Thankfully, not so many!

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More OCD and Psychosis: Differential DX

Let us look at some more cases from the Internet. Case 1 here and here.

I’m trying to pin down one of my major symptoms that can and has completely impaired my life. My OCD revolves around harm, such as fears that I will harm someone, violent thoughts of harming someone, and even urges to harm someone. I don’t think I want to hurt anyone, but my OCD tells me differently. Sometimes I will get a violent thought when I am standing near someone, and I will not hurt them, but I will quickly walk away to avoid any chance of ever acting on my thought/urge. Ok, here’s the weirdest part: Later on, after I have walked far away from people in order to avoid hurting them, I believe that I actually did hurt someone after all, and that my memory of avoiding him/her is a false memory, or I just forgot the true memory of actually harming the person in question. I truly have believed many times that I was a murderer, despite tons of evidence to the contrary. Looking back, I realized I’ve wasted so much time believing I’d done something terrible and waiting to be locked up forever. However, at the time, my beliefs were unshakable and persisted despite all the evidence that my family/friends/counselor threw at me to try to convince me that I had done nothing wrong. I think my OCD may involve hallucinations as well. Whenever I think I may have harmed someone I hear police/ambulance sirens. Coincidence? Maybe, I’m not sure. When my OCD started to improve at school I was hearing less sirens. This is the situation I’m in. It started with me walking beside people on my (very hilly) campus that has a lot of ravines. I got the anxious thought “What if I pushed someone into one of the ravines?” So I’d actually go DOWN into ravines to search for bodies. Crazy huh? Well, it got crazier. One day, the thought or belief (delusional) came into my mind: I DID push someone into the ravine and kill him/her. I compulsively searched, but I couldn’t search very well because I was embarrassed and scared because I was getting weird looks. So I dropped out of school. And I believe that there is STILL a body in one of those ravines (even though I called my counselor numerous times asking if there were missing students and she always said no) and I checked the news for five weeks – nothing. No evidence, but I still believe I killed somebody. I had to drive today as an OCD exposure and I had to drive very close to a bicyclist because he was hogging the road. I drove as far away from him as possible, even onto the curb to avoid him. Of course my senses were heightened and I would have felt a bump even if I sideswiped him, which I don’t think I did. There was no damage to my car or anything, and when I drove back on the opposite side of the road cars were driving normally and I didn’t see emergency vehicles but I still believe deep down that I hit him. It sucks. And I can’t check the news either – in program we are discouraged from checking and other compulsions.

There is a lot of back and forth about this in various threads for some reason. She also has a dx of schizoaffective disorder, which is never explained. Various people feel that this symptom is a combination of OCD and a psychotic symptom, but I am not so sure about that. The part about searching the ravines is also OCD, though it’s rather extreme in that it made her drop out of school. I honestly feel that this presentation is simply OCD of the Harm OCD type. The person fears that they will attack others, but they never do it. Apparently it’s all just fear. Going back and checking over and over to make sure she didn’t kill someone or push someone into the ravine is also very OCD-like. A psychotic person simply says that they killed someone by pushing them into the ravine, and that’s that. There’s no going round and round about it, checking the ravines, calling people, reading the papers. That’s called “checking,” and it’s an OCD thing. Although these symptoms are very disturbing in that they involve violence, a person with this type of OCD is very unlikely to act on the obsession, and probably will never act it. They are less likely to commit a violent act than anyone else. The presentation is rather strange in that most OCD folks don’t have this degree of certainty in the obsession. The hallucinations of police sirens are odd. Some clinicians are saying that there can be hallucinations in OCD, but they are generally minor. The whole idea of hallucinations in OCD seems very strange to me, and I don’t know what to make of it. OCD experts claim that there are no hallucinations in OCD. Case 2 and here

The other night I had a thought about gouging my dog’s eyes out; it was terrifying to me. I could never do that, but the thought alone was enough to keep me obsessing about it for hours. Made me very anxious. Woke up the other day worried I was going to spontaneously run someone over or grab a knife and stab someone, like it would be a compulsion I couldn’t control. My therapist said that’s classic OCD. Sometimes I hear music playing, like tonight I was hearing a band playing, but it turned out to be just some noise from the a/c cause i left the room and returned. Sometimes I hear people saying “hey” or think I heard someone else say something when they didn’t, but that’s really not a big deal, I imagine everyone has thought someone said something once in awhile, but the music thing is pretty real. It sounded like a parade going on outside my house, until I got up and moved around. Not a big deal, just enough to make me stop what I was doing and listen.

This is classic stuff – Harm OCD. In general, they never act on the thought, even if they are thinking of it 24-7. There is controversy on whether or not there have been cases of people acting on antisocial or violent obsessions. Some say there have been some cases, but I have never heard of any. I do therapy with some people who have this type of “harm OCD,” and I never worry that they will act on it. Note that this person is also worried that they are going to go psychotic, just as Case 1 is obsessed with whether she is psychotic or not. The worry that one will go psychotic is pretty OCD like right there. People with psychotic disorders don’t generally worry about such things. The part about the hallucinations is stranger. First of all, they are not hallucinations. He just thinks he is hallucinating. He heard the AC, and it sounded like music because he didn’t realize that it was the AC. We live in a noisy environment, and mechanical objects will often make sounds that sound like auditory hallucinations. Other noises in the environment can also fool you. These are called illusions, not hallucinations. Case 3

I have thoughts that someone is going to poison me or slip me drugs or somehow do something “bad” to me. When I was a kid there was all the talk about people putting razor blades and drugs in Halloween candy; there was a rash of OTC drug packages that were tampered with that killed someone and had these drugs pulled from the shelf, and there was also a case of someone getting poisoned by their friends. This was all in a relatively short span of time. I seem to have latched on to all of that in an unhealthy way. I don’t think people are out to get me. I don’t think there’s a conspiracy to hurt me. What I fear is that there are a lot of nutty homicidal people out there, and they may decide to tamper with food or whatever, and that it would be my luck to be one of the unlucky people that would be the victim. I’m afraid that people are crazy, unpredictable, and there’s just a lot of random Bad Shit out there that people do. I also worry that somehow food will be contaminated with deadly microbes – botulism is a fun one to worry about. I know this is insane. I know that the likelihood of something like that happening is very small. Still, it can drive me to panic attacks and anxiety as well as some fun compulsions. If there’s only one of something left at the grocery store, I can’t buy it. I have to take the package of food that’s the second one back, not the first. I inspect packages. I give my dog food that is “suspect” knowing that if she’s okay, I’ll be okay. I know it’s stupid and silly, but the actions reduce my anxiety so I don’t have a panic attack or start freaking out. In some ways it feels like a fear of flying. It could happen, even if the chances are low. Very low.

Strange case. The doc said that these were symptoms of “paranoia,” but I don’t agree. I think it’s just OCD. Thing is, your food could be being poisoned at any time. Most of us just assume it is not and go ahead and eat it anyway. That’s all you can do in life really. Case 4

I have similar thoughts. Whenever I go to the supermarket, I’m always thinking that the food that I’m about to buy has been tampered with. So for example, when I grab a jar of pasta sauce, I start to think that someone injected poison into the the jar. So I put that jar back and grab the one behind it. But then I become convinced that the person who poisoned the jar would know that someone like me will be expecting the jar in front to be poisoned, so they must have put the poisoned jar in the second row instead. So then I put the second jar back because I get convinced that it may have been poisoned. Then I sit there debating the whole thing in my mind because I don’t know which jar to buy. Ultimately I just say fuck it and take one of them. I also worry that people will tamper with my food at restaurants and food courts. So lets say I’m eating at a food court by myself and I sit at the table and realize that I forgot to get a straw, when I go back to food place to get a straw, I always make sure that I keep an eye on my food the whole time.

Not sure what to do with this one, but it looks like Case 3. The way he takes jars our and puts them back and stands in front of the shelf debating which jar to take looks awfully OCD like. It’s a Hell of a way to live your life though, I must say. Case 5

I was at a comprehensive psychiatric clinic/ward recently, and one of the patients there had very bad OCD. He would often ask me for reassurance about things that really didn’t make any sense at all. On the night that his new roommate was moving in, he was terrified that he brought a bomb in his luggage. He asked me if I thought that his roommate brought a bomb, and I obviously told him no. Later that night (maybe under an hour later), he decides to pull the fire alarm and make a run for it (he wasn’t able to get too far because of the severity of his OCD). I don’t believe that he ever actually thought that there was a bomb with complete certainty. The uncertainty just became so severe that for him to act as if there was actually a bomb became the better option. It was the only way that he could diffuse his anxiety.

As you can see, the illness gets pretty weird, but it’s just OCD. He pulled the fire alarm because he could not be completely sure that this roommate had not brought a bomb into his room in his suitcase. Case 6

Does anyone else have such poor insight into their OCD that instead of knowing that its irrational, you think its real? For example, I think that I’m a dead person living in a fake world to the point that its considered delusional. I’m also paranoid to the point that I truly believe people are poisoning me because they have something against me. My doctors are confused as to whether I have OCD with psychosis or just OCD. Multiple doctors have said they can’t tell, but most lean towards OCD. Anyone else experience this? Also does anyone else hear voices in their head which aren’t their own but instead like a family member or a priest or even someone you don’t know?

Strange case. The responders are all saying that this is psychosis rather than OCD. I am inclined to believe them. He hears voices apparently, and believes that he’s dead and the world is fake. But he says he hears voices in his head. This is crucial? Are they really just inner voices like we all hear (in which case they are not hallucinations) or is he actually hearing them with his ears (in which they are auditory hallucinations). He also thinks people are conspiring to kill him. Case 7

Ok I have a boyfriend, and he is 30 yrs old, he said he had OCD and phobias, lately after some stress, he came to me crying and asked, “What if no one else but me exists? I feel so lonely like I am alone in the universe and that everything else is fake.” Then I asked him, “What r u talking about?” And he replied, “I walked out of my office onto the street, and I thought ‘if I see someone I know this thing I am thinking its true.'” He saw one of his colleagues, and now he thinks that this thought of his is true, and he is anxious and crying. Do you find this normal for a 30 year old? Then he asked, “I thought, What if I am a cat?” He listened to some cats meowing, and he started crying and asked, “What if I am a cat???” Is this normal? He had lots of stress before he starting saying all these things; he was afraid that he had some serious illness but in the end he didn’t, and after that he started this paranoia.

I am afraid that this is just OCD, but it’s pretty serious. He is not psychotic, although the symptoms are strange. Case 8

Years ago I went through a serious bout of depression. I had fits of rage and crying and purposely avoided friends and places I enjoyed. A doctor put me on Lexapro, an antidepressant. I got better. Years later, I have a new problem. I thought it was the same old depression with a new twist. But it’s not. My last psychiatrist tried treating me for a problem I had. He diagnosed it as depression and said that I also had OCD. This was because I had a depressed mood and frequently battled thoughts of anxiety. This doctor tried me on a few different medications. Either they had no effect or they had terrible effects. They made me more depressed, anxious, and at one point suicidal. They were all small doses, but they showed their effects within days. The drugs that had these disastrous effects were Imipramine and Lexapro. I’m seeing a new doctor now. This one says the root problem is NOT depression or OCD. He says it’s psychosis. His reasons for his diagnosis are this: The obsessive negative thoughts are a manifestation of the paranoia attribute of psychosis. These thoughts include worrying about getting diseases, worrying about dying tomorrow from something, worrying about aging or getting Alzheimer’s, worrying about thinning on top, worrying about getting diabetes, worrying that I might be schizophrenic, worrying that I got brain damage from the smell of a dry-erase marker, the list goes on and on. Some of these are too irrational to list. Some days they’re tolerable, other days they make me anxious, even cry, or prevent me from doing my work. Another symptom that I had described to both doctors was the fact that nearly every task that I start, or even think about starting, causes me stress and anguish as if it were some daunting job having to clean up after a hurricane. This is true for nearly everything I do, including things I enjoy doing. Hanging out with friends, just watching a movie alone, or painting which I love to do will sometimes feel this way and compel me to avoid these things. The first doctor said that this anxiety over starting things was possibly ADD. He tried me on Ritalin for that with equally disastrous results. Then he tried me on biofeedback treatment. It improved my memory, that I am sure of. The second Doctor said that symptom was also due to psychosis because it shows there are two thoughts fighting each other simultaneously with each of these actions I take. Things do seem much easier for me when decisions are made for me.

Strange case. One thing for sure, this person is not psychotic. I don’t see the OCD. Where is it? The worries about bad things happening could be a variety of things, GAD, OCD or depression. In the context of the Depression that is going on, these could well be what we call depressive ruminations . Feeling like everything is too much is also not ADD, it is instead just a symptom of Depression. The inability to get things done or even start things in the first place is typical of depressives. Case 9

When I saw my psychiatrist last year, he seemed to think I had OCD because I was having problems with various obsessions including a morbid fear of death or dying young and several compulsions (such as repeating actions and counting in sets of 4 whilst avoiding ‘bad’ numbers etc) to prevent bad things from happening or ward off my obsessive thoughts and images. I would often see images of myself lying dead in bed, and it would freak me out. However that was a year ago. He wanted me to change to Anafranil at the time, and I freaked out because I have a fear of chemicals I am not familiar with and didn’t return to my next appointment thinking I could deal with it myself. It did lose its intensity after a while but didn’t go away completely. Now I seem to have developed a completely new obsession, if that is even what it is. I fear that I am suffering from some kind of psychosis because I feel spaced out a lot of the time, as though I’m walking around in a dream state. I am also having problems with chronic daily headaches. I am now spending hours researching psychosis, schizophrenia and headaches on the internet. I am analyzing every single thought I have to check for signs of psychosis, and it is driving me around the bend. How much research does one person need to do anyway? It’s not like im a Dr. and can diagnose myself? Why cant my brain just drop the subject until I have seen my Dr. about it again? I have made an appointment to see my psychiatrist again shortly, but I am terrified that he will want me to try the Anafranil again. Not only do I have to contend with my original fear regarding changing medications (which in short is that I will take it, and I will have a bad reaction it and become ill or die) but now I have this awful fear that I will take it, get worse, won’t know what im doing and will hurt my son as a result. I’m terrified, I couldn’t stand it if I hurt my son, the thought is making me feel sick. I am worried that I may not know what I’m doing and hurt someone or my son at the best of times, especially with feeling spaced out, but I am even more concerned that the Anafranil will make matters worse. It does say on the cautions list not to give it to patients who suffer from psychosis or schizophrenia. I used to have a fear of hurting myself or my son in my sleep so I’m not sure if this is a variation of that one or not? I do know that my mother suffered with anxiety and depression and during her later years (65 onwards), she became paranoid and delusional. I am terrified that my depression and anxiety will take a similar course. I also feel like I can’t organize my thoughts as well as I used to be able to. I will try to organize my household chores for the day, my brain will take one look at the washing pile and give up because it doesn’t quite know where to start! I also can’t remember when I took my medication. I’m on painkillers for sciatica and my headaches, and I will often need to debate with myself over when I took my last dose. I will go to take one and will find myself thinking “Am I sure I haven’t already taken one?” to which I respond “I’m sure I haven’t, but I could have, but I don’t think I have anyway,” to which I respond again, “Am I sure I haven’t taken one? Perhaps I shouldn’t take it in case I have already taken one,” to which I then respond, “I’m sure I haven’t taken one,” and then start trying to retrace my steps over the last 4 hours to check I haven’t in fact already taken one. I worry I will forget that I have taken one, take another one and overdose by mistake, become ill and then die as a result. I have tried writing down when I take one but then I find myself questioning if I have written it down correctly. I have tried putting out what I need for the day/hour, but then I worry I that I didn’t put them out correctly in first place. Also I have a nagging feeling that I have forgotten something a lot of the time, and I don’t know what exactly. The last few times I’ve left the house, I’ve had to check I had my keys and purse 4 times before I even shut the door! I feel like I’m developing early onset Alzheimer’s or something, its seriously doing my head in. I also tend not to go out very much at the moment because I’m afraid I will forget who I am, where I live, get confused or not know what I’m doing and hurt someone when I’m outside. So I find myself only going out when I absolutely have to in order to avoid the anxiety it creates.

This really looks like OCD. It doesn’t look like anything else. The doubting about whether or not she has taken her meds, the fears of going psychotic, fear of medication, Harm OCD about her son, having to check for her keys over and over, the endless checking to see if she has schizophrenia or not, etc. The spacey feeling is disassociation, which comes from anxiety. Get rid of the anxiety, and the spacey feeling goes away.

OCD Versus Psychosis OCD with Psychotic Features

This is another in a series of articles on psychiatric diagnosis. This one will focus on the interface between OCD and psychosis. Keep in mind that there is a now a dx called “OCD with psychotic features.” Here are five cases of OCD with psychotic features. As you can see, these people believe in some really strange stuff! They are also very, very ill. Case 1

Z suddenly developed rituals at age 17. While watching television he looked up and saw a man’s face at the glass kitchen door and heard a voice say: “Do the habits and things will go right”. He came to believe in a ‘power’ that could bring him luck if he could retain it within his possession through ritualising.

He bought an electric guitar which he felt contained the ‘power’ and would turn the controls ritualistically. He often saw a ‘black dot’ the size of a fist leave his body and enter some object around him. When experiencing the loss of the ‘black dot’ he felt compelled to ritualise to regain the ‘power’ that he believed was contained in it.

At age 19 he began to believe that a workman possessed a second ‘power’ for evil and began a second set of rituals to ward off this evil power while striving to retain the good one. He believed absolutely in the ‘power’ and feared disastrous consequences for himself and his family should he fail to retain the good and repel the evil power.

Before his admission to hospital, obsessions and compulsions affected every area of his life. Before performing any action he felt compelled to imagine the letter ‘L’ and the phrase ‘X away, power back’ for up to 20 minutes. He felt unable to sit on chairs or walk on grass or leaves, and slept with his feet uncovered for fear of the ‘power’ being transferred to some object from which he might be unable to retrieve it. On leaving home he constantly retraced his steps to place his foot on a crack in the pavement or a leaf that he felt he had trodden on and so lost some of the ‘power’. If he saw the black dot leave his body (about 20 times a day) he had to touch the object it had entered and superimpose the letter ‘L’ and the phrase ‘X away, power back’ in his mind until he saw the black dot return. From age 18, Z also had recurrent depression, hopelessness and suicidal urges, with deliberate self-harm (overdoses and wrist-slashing) when he was in a depressed mood. He said he harmed himself to appease the power or as a wish to die “when everything was perfect” after a day of ritualizing.

Case 2

Y developed beliefs about a ‘power’ at age 13. He felt that everyone had a certain ‘quality’ or ‘goodness’ which was stored in the brain as a ‘power’. He believed that other people drained the power from him and replaced it with their own rubbish (feces and urine). The exchange of power was triggered by an image in his mind of a face or object. When it happened he felt distressed, ‘dirty’ and ‘horrible’. He could only regain the power by doing complex rituals. He imagined the person’s face and that he had detached their head from their body and sucked the power from the major vessels of their neck or from their eyes. He then transferred the power back into himself by banging his palm on a particular spot on his forehead, and breathing out repeatedly. This made him feel relieved and ‘good’, but as the events recurred up to several times a minute the relief was short-lived. He felt ‘compelled’ at times to get revenge on people who stole his power by drawing with his finger on a wall a deformed and ugly representation. If he touched anything he left a ‘power’ trace behind and so had to touch it repeatedly to get the ‘power’ back. Y’s belief in the experience was absolute. He knew it might seem strange to others but believed that if they experienced it, they would understand. From age 17 he also had recurrent depression, hopelessness and suicidal urges requiring hospital admission.

Case 3

At the age of 8, X had transient counting rituals associated with fear of harm coming to others. When she was 15, after a relative died, she feared that harm would befall her family and friends unless she completed specific tasks. She thought a supernatural ‘power’ inserted unpleasant thoughts into her mind, e.g. “if you read that book a relative will die”. She believed unshakably that the power was supernatural, but could not explain it. To appease the ‘power’ and the thoughts, she developed complex counting rituals pervading her daily activities. She also did ritualistic hand-washing and checking. She avoided specific numbers, colours and clothes and counted from 0 to 8 on her fingers and toes throughout the day. She repeated rhymes, avoided multiple numbers she associated with death or harm, and brushed her hair hundreds of times a day. She felt unable to resist the rituals, as her belief in negative consequences was absolute. Before she was admitted to hospital, rituals took all of her time until she fell asleep. X had two episodes of moderate depression at age 25 and 34, both associated with worsening of her OCD. She had never harmed herself.

Case 4

At the age of 7, W developed fear of harm coming to relatives. He engaged in hand-washing and touching rituals to prevent this. Gradually he began to believe that ‘spirits’ or an outside force ‘reminded’ him to carry out his rituals lest harm should result. He associated the numbers 13 and 66 with harm and, if he saw them, believed they were placed by an external force to remind him to carry out his rituals. He defended his belief absolutely but said he could not be 10 Prior to admission he was homeless and had thrown away all his ‘contaminated’ possessions, carrying all he owned in two carrier bags.

Case 5

For 20 years V had had a fear of being transported into another world. At age 17 he worried that reflections in mirrors represented another world, and had complex checking rituals involving mirrors. This gradually spread to all reflective surfaces. He believed that turning on electrical switches, using the television remote control or hearing car engines turned on could cause him to be ‘transported’ and constantly checked to make sure this had not happened. He believed that if he ate while in another world, he would be forced to stay there, and so either avoided eating, or ate with complex rituals, or induced vomiting. Other rituals involved switching electrical switches on and off and wearing particular clothes. The ‘other’ world was tangibly the same as the real one, but ‘felt’ different – he felt that friends and family, although appearing the same, were ‘different’ and might have been replaced by ‘doubles’. The symptoms gradually worsened, occupying all of his time prior to admission to hospital. When he was 27 he suffered severe depression requiring in-patient care, and again at age 30. He had no history of self-harm.

Crazy Women Ahoy, Pull Up the Anchor and Leave

Repost from the old site. Ah, crazy women! I suppose if I were really nuts, I would not mind a crazy woman. After all, I would probably deserve her, right? Sad thing is, I am hopelessly prejudiced against crazy women. I don’t like em. I discriminate. I also require that all females be no more than 1 Women find out I am fat-prejudiced, and they go nuts, I mean ballistic. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that. Hey, look, I have to have sex with this creature, so I have to be able to tolerate your unclothed appearance enough to be able to do that, and at 50, it ain’t a walk in the park anymore, baby. I have enough problems of my own to deal with without crazy women on top of everything else. I remember this one crazy woman, I broke up with her, and she goes and punches a hole in the wall! Whoa, baby, hold onto your horses! I broke up with you? Hell, you should be happy! She used to swallow handfuls of acid tabs (like five hits at once) when we went out on dates. She drank like a fish. She would smoke any kind of weed you gave her and probably take any kind of drug too. All her friends were fags, and she specialized in the sickest fags of them all, the ones in Hollywood who loved masochism. She regaled me with their tales of how these guys require welts raised two or three inches before they were satisfied. Her idea of a good time was going to an LA fag bar. That was what she did most of the time, as she was almost a full-time fag hag. She also had straight boyfriends, apparently, as she did like men and sex. Going to an LA gay bar is not my idea of a good time. One night she was drinking like a maniac, and she grabbed four or five tricyclic antidepressants and tossed them down. I protested, and she cried out that this was all of the misery that she was in. So she was deeply psychiatrically ill, as you can see. Diagnosis: borderline schizophrenia, which nowadays goes to Borderline Personality Disorder for the most part. She had a weird way of talking, and when we would go out, it seemed that she would act so crazy and weird in public that I would be embarrassed to even be seen with her. She spoke in weird metaphors, and it really started annoying me. I’m kind of like neurotic, staring off into space like a weirdo nuts, but I’m not stark raving acting out bats like that. Forget it. I told her, “Hey, look, you are just too nuts for me,” and she freaks. I wonder if she is still alive. She was also quite a masochist as far as sex went, but I could not really get into that too much. Anyway, most females are like that to some degree or another, let’s face it. It goes hand in hand with being female. She was always telling me about stories where she was meeting guys who would pull knives on her, rape her, threaten to kill her, torture her, etc. One time it was a whole group of guys and she gangbanged them all. Whopeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Except they were all pulling knives on her and trying to torture her and threatening to kill her at the time. She was quite proud of her gangbanging experience, but my best friends heard about it and were totally freaked out and appalled, saying she was a disgusting slut pig whore. That was true, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing in a female. In fact, one could knock on my door right now and even at age 50, I might not even mind too much. She also liked women a little bit, but only a little. She really loved young boys, as she called them, and delighted in having sex with teenage boys, especially around 13 years old. Her Mom was schizophrenic and had tried to stab her to death in her sleep when she was a little girl, and I guess it was all downhill from then on. She had all these weird seemingly different personalities that she would fade in and out of all the time. Now, I’m into channeling myself, but this sort of thing really ought to be controlled in order to work best, otherwise you just seem like a street person or a potential maniac. Later she accused my best friend of hitting a baby in the EEG lab where he worked. According to everyone else, it never even happened, but she insisted and insisted. I think maybe they fired her, but I forget. I saw her once later, she came over to my house in the daytime, and you know how that goes. I was 27 years old, graduated USC with post-BA degree, teaching school full-time, smoking lots of dope, going nuts. The culmination of the sex act on my end left her all pissed off, but I thought it was funny that when I kissed her goodbye at the car, I swear some of the middle aged neighbor ladies were laughing and smiling and giving me the thumbs up? One housewife even sneaked outside and gave me a great big beaming smile. Who says women don’t like guys who score? Women ain’t all bad.

Paranoia Versus Social Anxiety

As if people were not confused and idiotic enough about the mental disorders. This is one of my pet peeves. Even very educated people don’t seem to know the slightest bit fuck-all about mental illness. I’m not really sure why this is. Most of them don’t have a dx, but many others do. Typically, the ones that do have never been formally diagnosed or treated by a clinician. This is really unfortunate. There’s nothing really wrong with having a mental dx. If you have one, you have one, right? Isn’t it best to know, and to treat it as best you can, than to go on in denial, screwing up your life by acting crazy, denying that you have a problem, and not doing anything about getting better? I am always stunned at the number of educated people who don’t even know the difference between neurotic and psychotic disorders. In addition to the third way split with the personality disorders, these are three of the top splits in mental illness. If you don’t understand the nature of these splits, you don’t know fuck-all about mental illness. If you don’t know anything about it, you have no right to talk about it, and you need to STFU. This is a painful subject to me. I have OCD. That’s a neurotic illness, or more precisely an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders have a certain flavor about them, but the main one is that the person with the neurotic illness is still in touch with reality, that is, he is not crazy. Even Freud recognized this. In fact, he isn’t the tiniest bit crazy in any way, shape or form, which is what makes these illnesses so puzzling to deal with. In general, neurotics are not the slightest bit dangerous either. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps it is because of the nature of the person who gets these illnesses. This is often a very nice person. Nice, fearful, cautious, conservative. They are do-gooders. I’m told that people with OCD have the lowest rate of violence of anyone else, much lower than any random person. So why are they non-violent? In addition to the reasons above, all of the energy is directed inwards, not outwards. This is characteristic of the introvert, and it why introverts are so nonviolent. The beloved extrovert externalizes most of his energy and almost all of his problems and issues, putting them onto other people. Hence, the average extrovert is many times more dangerous than the average introvert. Indeed, almost all of the world’s serious violence is caused by extroverts. If all or nearly all of your energy is going inwards instead of outwards, you simply are not directing enough energy to the outside world to get violent, or even very aggressive. In order for substantial external aggression to occur, quite a bit of energy must be directed outwards towards the object(s) of the aggression. With the introvert, so much energy has been exhausted going inwards that there is simply not enough reserve left over to put enough outwards to do anything violent. Combined with the introverts fears and worries, basic conservatism and do-gooderism and extremely high morals, and you just don’t see a lot of serious violence in these folks. Not to say some won’t fight back though. Some will, and people are always stunned at a counterattacking introvert. They are ready to call the police, because they are sure that he must be insane or homicidal. This is because his behavior is so contrary to his nature. But even counterattacking, the introvert’s violence will be measured. He will throw food, dishes, water or books. If a serious object is flung, he will deliberately miss you. He will scream and yell and call you horrible names. If you really deserve it, he will punch you, but not very hard. Everyone has a breaking point. Extroverts’ violence is much more likely to be the initial violent blow, to use fists or kicks or other weapons, or to have serious consequences. This is because the extrovert, by his nature, does not think of consequences of acts so much as the introvert does. He’s more likely to get caught up in things. One of the things that is annoying about having OCD (other than having it) is dealing with all the dipshits who don’t understand it and insist that I must be crazy, a criminal, a killer, a rapist, a schizophrenic, a psychotic, a manic depressive, or some other bullshit. Some idiots keep on with these delusions after I have known them for years and they really ought to know better. It’s very frustrating! Paranoia is totally misunderstood by your average dipshit. One of the prime splits in paranoia is between social anxiety and paranoia. It’s true that it’s a bit hard to tell the difference sometimes, but I am convinced that these are two completely different ways of looking at the world. They might as well be on two different planets. The person with social anxiety may or may not be falsely evaluating situations. I have known folks who were afraid to go out because they thought that people thought that they were weird. Guess what? I knew these folks, and definitely, people did think they were weird! So that wasn’t a false analysis at all. But many social anxiety types take this way too far. They assume that everyone that they know or meet hates them, usually because of some inadequacy that they may have. People are always talking about them behind their back. Whenever anyone laughs, they are laughing about them. I’m convinced that this is probably a false analysis. The news is that most people are not looking at you all the time. If they are laughing, most of the time, they are not laughing at you. Sometimes they are looking at you, but you often can’t tell what the looks mean. Once in a while they might be laughing at you, but what of it? Let them laugh. The problem here is that this person thinks that the world is focused on them. Not so. Most people are just thinking about their own stuff all the time and are not thinking about you at all. If you are acting very strange, a lot of people will be more likely to pay attention to you. The more normal you act, the less people will care. I don’t generally think that everyone is looking at me. Most people seem to be ignoring me most of the time, which is the way it ought to be. When people are talking, most of the time, they surely are not talking about me. Every  now and then people seem to be talking about me. I try to figure out why, then adjust my behavior. Sometimes it’s something like, “Look at this guy staring at us.” In which case, I quit looking at them. When people are laughing, I assume they are not laughing at me. A few times, I have caught some idiots laughing at me, and it pissed me off. I don’t know why they did it. Why doesn’t someone go interview them and ask them why? If I catch you doing that, I will hold it against you for a very long time, which is proper. The truth that we are just not that important. We are grains of sand on the beach, blades of grass on the football field. Most people are not paying attention to you very much. The paranoid takes this a lot further. The paranoid thinks people are watching them, following them, commenting about them in menacing ways, trying to kill them, trying to break into their homes, hatching conspiratorial plots against them, etc. In the vast majority of cases, this is simply not the case. Not only are folks too self-involved to notice you very much, but they surely have better things to do than hatch idiotic conspiracies against you. Nevertheless, paranoids carry on with their paranoia. Why? For many, there is probably something wrong with their brains. They probably need to take a drug to make it go away. For others, they may have adopted an erroneous thinking style for some reason. For yet others, it seems to serve some sort of defensive purpose. I don’t have much issues with paranoia. In fact, I’m the anti-paranoid. I tend to think that everyone likes me more or less and that no one or almost no one hates me. Sadly, this is just not true. I’ve definitely got some enemies out there. There are some others who just don’t like me. Where one ends and the other begins, I’m not sure. This is painful for me to acknowledge, so I keep falsely assuming that these folks are my friends. But they are not! And this causes me all sorts of trouble. Where people may indeed by laughing at me, I am inclined to assume that they are not until proven otherwise. I assume that hostile persons actually are my friends, seeking out little bits of niceness amidst the emotional glaciers. Where people are talking about me, I assume they are not, or at best, it takes me a while to figure out that they are. This anti-paranoia is probably better than being a paranoid, but it causes a lot of issues in that I am too friendly towards folks that just flat out don’t like me for whatever reason. I try to talk to them, and that’s typically a bad idea. I’m overcorrecting in the direction of mental health, but the best social actor is a very cautious person. Here are some cases below, some of social anxiety, and some of paranoia. Social anxiety first: SA Case 1:

Well, what can I say? I am starting to believe that I genuinely suffer from one form of paranoia or the other. I started university last year and it has not been entirely easy, academically and socially. Although I have encountered feelings of anxiety and paranoia before in my life.If I am with a friend, who maybe has a closer friend with them who does not talk to me as much in the conversation, I always get the feeling that that other person does not want me around, or is slightly resentful of my presence. If someone I text does not text back, I assume it is because they do not want to talk to me, and just ignore or delete my text. I also feel they must be annoyed with me for bothering them, and wish I would leave them alone. Also that they are only being polite with me in a conversation and eagerly want to talk to someone else who shows up. When I am in shops or on the street, I presume they are watching me to see if I do something strange, so they can secretly laugh to themselves. Or if I have been in a group meeting, as soon as I walk away, they start making comments about how I acted. I also think people are going to make “look at loner/saddo” expressions when they see me on my own. I also panic and look to see if everyone else is with their friends. I really want to be happy and stop looking behind my back for threats. I also don’t want to quit studying, and would like a job as an auxiliary nurse, as I do enjoy working with people on a professional level. I have one best friend and two or three other close friends, and people I talk to. However, I wonder if people pity me or think I am a loner because I do not go out clubbing or anything, and don’t have more buddies. So do I suffer from paranoia, and/or low self-esteem? I really want to do something about this, and talk to someone professional who I can trust. But I am even afraid of a professional getting it wrong and putting me on a cocktail of drugs- which I don’t want! I would rather talk. I’m scared that I am just selfish, and want everyone to like me or at least think I am alright.

SA Case 2:

I have suffered with paranoia for most of my life and I’m now heading for 40. The worse time i have with it at work. I had a manager a few years back who bullied me and got me thrown out of my job and made it clear that it was because I was a threat to her position. Ever since then I fear that in any job I do that people are talking about me behind my back, unfortunately in my last long term job I had this did turn out to be true.

I am now in a job that is temp to perm and there has been issues in getting me perm and I cannot stop the thought that they never will and that they will get someone else in and they will take my place because of my paranoia as I am not fit to keep down a job.

The fear of being made unemployed and thus losing my place I live is tearing me to pieces. It hasn’t been helped by my parents pointedly telling me that if I ever need somewhere to live I could not live with them as the only spare space they have is reserved for my niece and nephew whenever they stay over.

I suffer badly with self esteem and I know that a lot of this stems back to my childhood as my mother was always telling me that I was an accident and that my younger siblings were planned and wanted. My mother also is still to this day very happy to tell anyone who wants that she has never been able to love me and only tolerated me because she gave birth to me. I am doing my best to fight my paranoias but it is hard to keep going on your own. My doctors refuse to listen to me and just want to prescribe drugs all the time, but they just make me very ill and the only option open me they state is lithium and i refuse to take that or any other antidepressants as they don’t solve the issues or actually help me.

SA Case 3:

I always think my friends don’t like me and people are out to get me and I don’t have any confidence in my self I think I am ugly and fat even though people tell me I am not I still think I am I also get depressed and angry very easily what can I do lol I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels like this though 🙂

SA Case 4:

I’ve always felt that, when I go down hallways with people in them, they’re looking at me, making fun of me, ridiculing what I’m wearing, my hair, no matter if they are or not. It’s even worse if I hear them talking about someone else, because then I just assume it’s me. No matter who I talk to, I feel like I’m annoying them, like no one wants to talk to me. Because of this, I don’t start conversations very often and only talk to a tight-knit group of friends.

I reminisce on old fights with my family and friends, thinking they still hate me over things that happened a long time ago. In essence, I guess it feels like everyone’s always out to get me, and that in reality, I’m a nuisance to everyone.

SA Case 5:

On a really bad day I hate people even looking at me – I image that they are thinking that I’m so ugly they really pity me. I hate it when people are walking behind me for the same reason. I’m sure that people hate being near or around me – and I agree with Ian that if I’m near a group of people and they start laughing I’m convinced they are laughing about me.

That ought to give you a basic flavor. The principle issue here is one of insecurity. Now onto some real paranoia: Paranoia Case 1:

I thought there was a camera in the lamp-post and a microphone in my button. I thought the cars behind were following me. People at work always seemed to use certain “phrases” – or I noticed them. Helicopters flew over our house and I was convinced they were spying on us and checking we were at home. I thought the phone was bugged.

I really noticed policemen – they seemed to be everywhere and police cars and vans were there because of me. I did not think there was something wrong with my thinking, I thought there was something wrong with society. Why didn’t society trust me’ I learnt in the end that maybe it was me not trusting myself and maybe I needed to do stuff that I “approved” of and felt good about.

Paranoia Case 2:

Like Alex I always think someone has come into my home and stolen the thing I can’t find. My son always says ‘who would want that’!’ it is a family joke now but I still think it immediately something is not where I thought it would be!

When very paranoid I think my phone is being tapped/I am being secretly filmed/being followed. I know it’s not real but at the same time it is real: ignoring these thoughts just help them to grow. I have nightmares about someone being in my flat when I am asleep.

I have started reading the book and am finding such reassurance from other’s personal accounts – such incredible relief to know I am fairly ‘normal’ for a paranoiac :o) I know why I feel the way I do but, before now, I didn’t have any solution to stop these thoughts.

Paranoia Case 3:

I always seem paranoid. I think when i hear people laughing, that they are laughing about me and slagging me off. The television, radio, books, mags all are disclosing personal information about me, like reading my mind. When i cant find something in my home i always think my friends or mother have stolen from me. I hate talking in groups because i think i am being judged by everyone.

Paranoia Case 4:

I hate my paranoia, i think people are going to attack me for no reason. I can’t get on public transport, i often think i hear the doorbell and there’s no one there. I hear people saying my name out in the street when I’m sitting in my room and there’s no one there. I think i hear the phone ringing as well. The doctor has put me on Seroquel (300mg) every day.

It’s taken over my life, I’m absolutely sick of it, I sometimes start to get really angry. I’m getting angry speaking about it now, it makes me feel stupid. Not right in the head. None of the doctors seem to want to help.

Paranoia Case 5:

I have had a lot of problems with anxiety in the past but recently I have been so scared all of the time. I often think people are following me, especially when I’m driving. Often I think that someone in front of me is slowing down and waiting to see which way I’m indicating then going the same way. I think people are watching me.

Tonight there was a car in the street outside and when he saw me looking out of the window he sped away. I cant stay at home on my own at night. I am just scared all the time that someone is going to harm me, try and break into my house or kill me 🙁

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Nice Sid Vicious Montage

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-fsf8cHiLU&feature=related] Tracks are Black Leather by the Professionals and Here We Go Again by the Sex Pistols. Sid Vicious was a complete asshole, but I love him anyway. He embodied the punk spirit very well. I still miss him. The story of the love affair between Sid and Nancy Spungeon is a sad one. After the Pistols broke up, Sid and Nancy moved to the Chelsea Hotel in New York and Sid tried to get his career going. They were both very heavily into drugs, in particular opiates and heroin. Nancy was found dead in Sid’s place with a single stab wound to the abdomen. Sid said he awoke from a drug stupor to find her dead in the bathroom. He gave conflicted reports at booking, claiming that he did it, then claiming that she fell on the knife, then saying that he loved her but she treated him like crap. They fought all the time and were both totally strung out on drugs. There are other stories claiming that a heroin dealer killed Nancy that night. Rockets Redglare is sometimes named as the killer. A dealer, he had delivered heroin to them that night. Another dealer was supposed to come over later. Redglare said he thought that that dealer had tried to rip off the drugs from them while Sid was passed out and ended up getting into it with Nancy. Surely the world of heroin dealers and heroin users in New York City is a sleazy one and ripoffs no doubt go down all the time. Most heroin addicts are after all thieves themselves. I would probably trust your average heroin dealer about as far as I could throw them. However, Nancy was stabbed with Sid’s very own knife. This mystery will probably never be solved. Redglare died in his early 50’s from a lifetime of drug abuse. His liver and kidneys were shot. He was an interesting person, and a movie about him has recently been made. Nancy Spungeon was a very mixed up person. A beautiful young Jewish woman, dead at age 20. At age 15, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but that can’t be correct. Borderline Personality Disorder is more like it. She was despised by the rest of the band for her unpleasant and abusive behavior. Sid was arrested for Nancy’s murder. Soon after, he attempted suicide by slitting his wrists. Four months later, there was a gathering celebrating Sid’s being released on bail. Sid’s Mom (!) sent him some heroin, although he had been clean for some time. Sid had began using drugs as a boy when he took up using speed with his speed using Mom. Sid shot the heroin that night in three doses. It was nearly pure heroin. He passed out with his new girlfriend and was found dead the next morning of heroin overdose. This very strange and sad story was immortalized in a move called Sid and Nancy, which is highly recommended.

Differential Diagnosis: Schizophrenia Versus OCD

From Yahoo Answers:

I have really aggressive thoughts sometimes. I don’t even understand why I have them. Usually (not limited to) they’re about hurting people. I feel really crappy about myself after these thoughts. I won’t go into all of my thoughts because some of them are really disturbing and they come out of no where sometimes. It’s surprising and then I start feeling like maybe I’m just a really evil person although I’m considerate of other people, most of the time.

I have a heart but sometimes I feel like how can I have a heart with these thoughts in my head! They don’t pop up in my head unless I think about it.

So then I thought well these thoughts might be schizophrenia, I started looking up what schizophrenia was. Then right as I saw the symptoms and examples of the symptoms I started like displaying the symptoms in my head. It’s almost like once I absorb an idea my mind plays on it. Like when I saw this CSI episode where this person got poisoned with Cyanide, I started worrying about cyanide poisoning. When I read the symptoms of Schizophrenia where you have like hallucinations (Like voices in your head) I started making a voice in my head. Once these ideas are in my head I can’t get them out. It’s like they become apart of me. Like sometimes I think “what if” all the time for every symptom of schizophrenia. Like people watching you. I started thinking: WELL, WHAT IF someone was watching me. Errr! I can’t get these thoughts out of my head and I think I’m starting to convince myself that I have schizophrenia. I’m scared. I feel like a sicko. My mind is also very contradicting: Like if I say I’m not a bad person my mind says “yes you are” and really self-deprecating thoughts. Every time I want to feel good about myself my mind will convince me that I shouldn’t and that I’m a sick freak who thinks horrible thoughts. I’m 19 about to be 20 soon and I heard schizo starts early 20s. I just don’t know what to do…I don’t have any insurance to go see a doctor. I’ve been a worry-wart ever since I was in elementary school. Also, like schizo, I heard you hear voices in your head and you believe what they’re telling you. Like let’s say something says, “This is God talking to you!” and I’m an agnostic and I don’t really believe in God. I like create scenarios and voices in my head ever since I heard about schizophrenia. NEVER before. It’s like my mind is trying to give me these symptoms it’s hard to explain. It’s like I know they’re my voices but I don’t understand why my voices are saying these things. It’s like WTF? :\

A most interesting case. This is a completely clear-cut case of OCD, screaming loud and clear across the landscape. I won’t tell you how I know this, but I know this illness like the back of my hand, since I have it. Been there, done that, ok? Not that subtypes matter, but this person has a couple of subtypes of OCD. The first is Harm OCD. The second may as well be called Schiz OCD. This is a person who starts to worry that they have schizophrenia. In the case above, he is starting to invent crazy voices in his head due to his fear. These voices in his head are causing him to worry that he had schizophrenia. This person clearly does not have schizophrenia. First of all, the voices in the head. The person with schiz hears these as actual voices with his ears, the same you would hear the voices of the people around you. The voices sound just like the external voices of persons near you, so much so that it is hard to figure out who is really talking and what’s just a hallucination. So the voices are not really in the head but in the ears, so to speak. We all have internal voices in our heads that we hear all day long. Nothing to be alarmed about. The “what if” questions are typical of OCD. A person with schizophrenia or other psychosis simply says, “People are watching me.” If you try to question them about the belief, you run into a brick wall and get a big argument. It’s a rock-solid delusion, and all delusions are hard as stone. The person also has “contradictory thoughts.” This is unfortunately quite common with OCD. The person thinks a good thought, like “I’m a good person,” and the OCD chimes in with a contradictory thought saying, for instance, “No you aren’t. You’re evil. You’re the most evil person on Earth.” These thoughts will probably be violently resisted. When doing differential diagnosis, look first of all at how hard the person fights or resists the thought. The more ferociously the person fights or resists the thought, the more likely you are dealing with an obsession. A good rule of thumb is: If you try to stop the thought, it’s an obsession. Unfortunately, clinicians understand OCD very poorly, and I doubt if this person is going to get a good diagnosis or treatment. In particular, OCD patients these days are often diagnosed as psychotic and treated with anti-psychotic drugs.

A Bit About Harm OCD

This is particularly disturbing OCD subtype as the person has thoughts, feelings and even urges of violence to themselves or others. They can be quite intense, and they often feel like they are on the verge of doing the violent act. They feel absolutely terrified much of the time. Many of them feel like killers and develop a personality that says they are a killer of some sort. I’ve done therapy with a guy who was convinced he was a serial killer. Of course he’d never hurt a soul and he never would, but I could not convince him of that. The obsessions were powerful, continuous, and 24-7. They were so persistent and tenacious that he had given up all hope of resisting them. They had also become quite strong in that the illness was actually telling him or ordering him to commit the violence. He had suffered from this for 15 years in the time I met him. Of course, he had never come close to committing any violent act in that time. This is a case of a good person who is being mentally tortured every waking hour. I spoke to another woman, a young schoolteacher, who had thoughts of killing her students all day. She was shaking like a leaf, as she put it. A young man, a multimillionaire, has been more or less housebound with Harm OCD for 4 years. I talked to him on the phone for 1 1/2 hours and helped him more than the best and most expensive therapists in his country had in a long time. He was spending $1,500/week on therapy and not getting much better. I told him he was fine and told him to put a knife into his pocket and go out shopping. Of course he could pull out the knife at any time and start carving up passerby, but he didn’t. He told me that I had gotten him out of the house for the first time in 4 years (an exaggeration). The avoidance with this type of OCD is particularly severe. They start to avoid all human contact for fear of the violent thoughts, urges, etc. It’s also very disturbing for laypeople, and most laypeople think they are dangerous. Curiously, these people either never or almost never (I’m not sure if there have been cases or not, but I’ve never heard of one) act on these strong violent feelings that may wrack them every waking hour or even minute. Something is preventing them from doing it. Fact is, they really don’t want to hurt anyone, and they are trying not to do it all the time. Furthermore, acting on the thoughts would violate their morals. I’ve heard that a person with violent obsessions is actually the least likely person to ever commit any violent act. This does not seem clear to the general population, and I’ve talked to people with this condition who tell me that others are terrified of them, people often say that they are killers, criminals, etc. This is clearly a most bizarre illness! The person least likely to commit any act of violence is wracked by violent thoughts, feelings and impulses day and night that they will never act on in a million years. How can we make sense of this? We can’t, except maybe to consider that the best people have the worst thoughts. The least impulsive person (a person with Harm OCD is a very non-impulsive person) is wracked by terrible impulses through the day. The illness targets the persons least likely to do something and convinces them that they are most likely to do something. It doesn’t make sense until you understand human nature. The best people feel the most guilt. The worst people feel the least guilt. Obsessionals feel incredible guilt, yet they never do anything aggressive. Antisocials commit tremendous aggression, yet they feel no guilt at all. Here we go beyond psychology and into the realm of religion. Priests and ministers have always understood such things, going back hundreds of years. The best people do the least harm because they feel the most guilt. The guilt keeps them from doing bad things. The worst people do the most harm because they feel no guilt at all. The lack of guilt is what causes the bad behavior. The worse the behavior = the less the guilt. The better the behavior = the more the guilt. It’s so paradoxical, but if you have any sense of human behavior, of course it all adds up. And a priest understand this intuitively. He’s nodding his head before you are done explaining it to him. We wonder what the mindset is of the person who commits violent acts. Let us say the sociopath. For example, let us look at the serial killer. This person typically has violent fantasies a good part of time. It’s how they like to pass the time. The crucial factor here is that the violent thoughts are not resisted and attempts are not made to stop them. This person enjoys thinking violent things, thinks them all day long to his heart’s content, and never tries once to stop them or resist them. When he kills people, he’s simply doing what he likes to do. He feels no guilt and is incurable, since you can’t put a conscience into someone who lacks one, and anyway, he’s having fun. He doesn’t want to change. He doesn’t want to get better. He’s already fine. He’s in hog heaven, killing away, doing what he loves. Why give it up? If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a contribution to support the continuation of the site.

Just Kill Yourself and Get it Over With

Seriously, you sick bitch. Borderline personality disorder, apparently. She’s a cutter. I knew some cutters once. They actually formed a club called Oakhurst Cutters. Bunch of stupid, sick, fucked up young White women. She told us that at a table with a bunch of other people and started laughing. I stood up, pointed at her, told her she was a sick bitch, and walked away. In modern society, that’s considered impolite. I think it’s impolite to use your own living body as a med school cadaver, sorry. Why don’t we just line these people up and shoot them and get it over with? I’m not serious, but that’s what I often think about these BPD types. Just line em up and shoot em!  

Rumors of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

Savvas Tzionis, one of my favorite commenters, writes in, expressing some concern:

Robert,I thought YOU were dead…. post wise, you were (relatively) quiet! LOL

Boo! I’m here! Scared you, huh? Sorry folks, it’s Thanksgiving, I’ve been depressed for some reason, and I’ve been extremely tired. This is a very bad time of year for me. I tend to get depressed from around Thanksgiving to around Christmas and maybe through January too. This coincides with the two months in which the days are the shortest of the whole year. Not only that, but even when the sun bothers to come out, it might as well not even be there. It gives off little heat and the light it gives off is pitiful. You look up at the sun and think, “Damn, is that all you can do? You’re sorry!” Sometimes the sun is so shitty and dim, I figure the moon might as well come out in the day instead and it’d be a wash. I think I may have Seasonal Affective Disorder – SAD. This time of year is so damned dreary for me! I used to have it a lot worse, but I’m on Lexapro fulltime now, and ever since then, I don’t have it as long. I used to have it all winter until the start of true spring! I remember once I was in therapy for OCD and Depression. It was March or so and we were making no progress with the depression. I was apologetic, but when you’re down, you’re down, and there doesn’t seem to be much you can do about it! I had a girlfriend at the time and she was getting pissed too, because she wasn’t really subject to depression. Finally, Spring came, and I brightened up just like that! Nothing had changed; my life still more or less sucked just as bad as before. Next therapy session, I announced that my depression had lifted. The therapist was joyful and wanted to take credit. I shot him down real quick. It was nothing he had done, it was only that the seasons had changed! He looked a little downcast, but he was still happy that I was better. Often, it’s Spring, Summer or Fall, and I’m happy as a clam. Every now and then I look around and notice that my life frankly sucks to high heaven, but I’m happy as a pig in shit anyway. Then I look outside, it’s 90 degrees outside, and it’s like no matter what’s going on, how could you possibly be depressed in this? I’m told that most humans in non-tropical climates get happier and more active in hotter weather and longer days and gloomier and less active in the depths of the dark and cold days, but it’s only clinical depression in a minority. I’ve also heard of folks in Minnesota or places like that who had bad Winter Depression moving to tropical places like the Philippines and suddenly they were happy year-round. By the way, there are high suicide, depression and alcoholism rates in Siberia, Russia, Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska. Obviously, it’s related to latitude and little else. I wonder if any of my readers have the same experiences?

Sometimes They Really Are Out to Get You

Repost from the old site. While I was getting my Master’s Degree at a local university in the 1990’s, I used to read a lot of academic journals. One of my favorites were the psychology and psychiatry journals, but I read journals in all sorts of areas – medicine, linguistics, history, political science, biology, sociology, etc. I found the most interesting case study! At some time between 1991-1994, a middle-aged man presented to a Canadian mental health unit complaining that “the Mafia was trying to kill him”. (When I wrote this post, I thought the Canada part was strange because I was not sure if there was a Mafia in Canada, but Googling shows there is). He described an elaborate conspiracy involving various figures, surveillance, threats, etc. After an extensive interview, the man received a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. He stayed in the hospital, was medicated, and was released after a few weeks. About three months after his release from the mental hospital, the man was murdered…by the Mafia! This was a true case written as a letter to the editor up in one of the most respectable, peer reviewed journals. I could not believe what I read! The theme of the letter is that you have to be careful diagnosing psychosis in folks complaining of plots to kill them, because in some cases, there really are people trying to kill the person.

Psilocybin Doesn't Cause Brain Damage

Repost from the old site. Told you so. Hell, I’ve only taken it, what, 30 times or so? It never fried me, or at least I don’t think so. I never noticed any long-lasting harm after taking this drug. One time, I had bright colors for about six months after I took it. Another time, I got depressed and sat around alone on Saturday night feeling sorry for myself. Next morning, I woke up and was not depressed anymore. One time, I took some, got in my car, and drove from Los Angeles to the Owens Valley, then turned around and drove home again. I think the whole trip took me about 12-14 hours. You can drive great on the stuff if you have a nice, clear, open road in front of you, and the towering Sierra Nevada sure looks great when you are frying. Plus, the stuff keeps you awake for many hours somehow. I used to sell these mushrooms, and boy was it fun. I was a student, a schoolteacher, a paralegal and a drug dealer. I would sell quarter pounds and pounds and make insane profits like $300 for an hour’s work or so. Plus you get to feel like a spy and feel some real terror when you carry the dope around and do the deal itself. You get to drive past lots of cops with a car full of dope that could send you to jail for a long time. You look at the cops and just drive right on by like nothing is happening. You carry the dope in a briefcase and dress up like an office worker, or you carry it in an athletic bag and dress up like you’re going to gym. There’s nothing like the rush you get being out in public with a car full of felonious dope or a wallet full of tainted drug money. My friends and I dealt dope in the smart way, and most of us never got caught. We were not all totally White, but most of us were raised in a mostly-White beach town. We dressed up like college kids, office workers, gym enthusiasts, and conformed to White middle class society in every way. Yet we sold dope right in front of the cops and society’s noses for years for years and never got caught. There’s a luscious feeling in that. A friend of mine made so much money selling coke that he bought two homes in San Fransisco, one to store the coke and another to live in. He was so hot I didn’t dare even look him up. You don’t even want to hang around some super-dealer like that. I just checked him out and he’s resurfaced in Southern California, fit, healthy and fifty, selling real estate. A survivor. I guess he never got caught either. Even my Mom shakes her head in admiration of him. White society always respects someone who can outsmart the cops in a not-too-evil way. Why? It places a premium on not being stupid, and not being caught. I often wonder if other ethnics share this value. Sometimes I think that these young Blacks and Hispanics nowadays place a premium on getting caught, and therefore being a moron. This I will never understand. These Hispanic kids around here are the biggest idiots on Earth. They do dope deals, albeit for small amounts of pot, right out in the open in front of everyone. They seem to take special delight in doing an obvious drug deal right out where anyone can see it happen. I guess it’s a macho thing. White middle class me says it’s not a macho thing, it’s a stupid thing. No wonder they are always getting hauled in on dope-selling charges. They dress up like gangsters and criminals and then wonder why they get stopped by the cops. Duh. There really is an art to being a criminal. All in all, psilocybin is a fun drug. You keep hearing horror stories about this stuff, about people who took too much of it and are mentally ill, or people who took too much and are fried in some way or another. Problem is that there is not the tiniest evidence that this stuff damages your brain, unlike almost other drugs of abuse. Yes, the drugs that make you feel the most insane of all do not do the slightest harm to your brain in any way. All those stories floating around about people taking too much hallucinogens need to be taken with a grain of salt. If it’s harmless to the brain, how is it supposed to create fried-out acidheads? Answer: it’s can’t. I’m not saying take them every weekend. I haven’t taken the stuff in about 23 years, and I’m not sure if I will ever take it again. Taking these kinds of drugs is one of the most bizarre experiences that one can have on this Earth, though, and you can have some really terrifying bad trips. Psychological harm can occur from traumatic experiences. By the way, it’s not harmful to any other organ in your body either. Plus there are long-lasting positive effects, apparently. On the other hand, this drug can cause HPPD , so I’d advise against taking it. I have HPPD, but I only have bright colors, and it’s really not so bad. You’re living in a Technicolor world, and if you just accept it, the world looks a lot better this way.

Cannabis, Teens and Schizophrenia

Repost from the old site. I received a mail today from someone who attended an interesting conference in the Midwest. At a Mental Illness and Criminal Justice Conference today in Omaha, Nebraska, Dr. Frederick Frese, who is the Coordinator of the Summit County Recovery Project and Assistant Prof of Psychology in Clinical Psychology at NEOUCOM and Case Western Reserve U, and on the Board of Trustees for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, gave a session on teenage cannabis use and schizophrenia. He has been a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic for 40 years. Frese stated that use of cannabis between the ages of 15 and 18 in persons who have a variant allele of the COMT gene will lead to an almost certain psychotic break by the age of 25. He said it’s because of the formative time that the brain is in during those years, in combination with that certain allele, together with cannabis use. He said that if you have do not have the variant allele, no problem. Frese is so concerned about this that he and his team are going to start setting up genetic testing booths for kids at rock concerts because of the very real danger that the studies show exist. I applaud Dr. Frese for the very real efforts he is taking to try to prevent schizophrenia in vulnerable youth. I am dubious about how many kids this will save. The rate of schizophrenia has not gone up since the cannabis era began. This suggests that use of cannabis if anything will cause schizophrenia to occur sooner than it would otherwise occur, and it would occur anyway, just later. The number of folks with this variant allele is high in absolute numbers, and many of them use MJ and don’t get schizophrenia. But it does cause a 10 times elevated risk. I think that Frese is wrong to say that it’s almost certain that these kids will get schizophrenia by 25 after smoking one jay between ages 15-18. As I’ve said before on this blog, I have known 1000’s of cannabis users over my lifetime, many heavy users. The number who went on develop schizophrenia? Zero. This is why this whole subject makes me yawn. I wish Frese good luck with his experiment though. Ideally, we could construct a good experiment this way. We could follow kids with the variant allele who wait til 19 to start MJ (Is this protective?) or avoid it period, with another group who did not avoid cannabis and see how many of each develop schiz and at what ages. Tell the truth, I am quite concerned about use of cannabis by minors. I wish they would not do it. Period. Wait til you’re an adult! I have OCD (another, though vastly less devastating, mental illness), and I have found that cannabis is actually a superb psychiatric drug for this illness. It works better than almost any med I have ever taken for this (The drugs work great at high doses, but nuke my sex drive, so what good are they?), and I have suffered for 26 yrs. No clinician believes me when I tell them this; all insist that pot makes you mentally ill or worsens all mental illness or caused my problem in the first place (The gall of them!?), and all try to steer me to drug treatment or drug counseling when I tell them I use. I’m really getting tired of this shit. I’m 50 years old, and I’m being treated like a child. I have some opinions about the mental health profession, but in general they are extremely low. For such a bunch of super-smart people, there sure is a lot of bullshit groupthink, scaredy-cat thinking and just general lack of an empirical outlook.

Problems of Democracy Under Capitalism

Repost from the old site. I’ve always been opposed to public dishonesty, which is one of my problems with Communist states. They lied about so many things that now even when they tell the truth, people figure that “All Communists lie,” so they are unlikely to be believed even when they are honest. You get a “boy who cried wolf” syndrome. Well, capitalists are pretty much the same. Almost all capitalists will always lie to defend their own interests. That is why whenever a businessman or business interest is quoted in the paper on some controversial issue, they are almost always lying. So it seems that in order to be a businessman in capitalist society, one must lie continuously. There are cultures, such as Arab, Japanese, Thai and Filipino culture, where lying is definitely a state of art. American society proscribes all lying as evil, and your average American will tell you that he never lies. The Japanese mindset, which I subscribe to, is, “Only an idiot never tells a lie.” So there is a time and a place for this sort of thing. But in the sort of issues that we read about in our daily paper – controversial issues where two sides are sparring it out – you really want to figure out what’s going on. If the business side can be counted on to lie in defense of its interests nearly 10 Fox News is a more or less 24 hour lie machine, but most Americans are too stupid to figure this out. American political campaigns are all about money and never-ending lying. I can pretty much sort out the lies from the truth after a while, but it’s quite an effort. I figure most folks either don’t have the brains to do this, or they don’t want to know the truth, or they don’t care, or they don’t have the time. Let me give you an example. It is very hard for schizophrenics to tell hallucinated voices from regular voices. After a while, some of them get to where they can tell the hallucinated voices from the real voices. Well, that’s what it’s like for me to winnow out the truth from the lies in our media. The media doesn’t’ really help you too much. I can figure this stuff out after a while, but it takes a lot of time. Time I figure most folks don’t have. At any rate, elections that are nothing but waterfalls of money and lying are hardly exercises in democracy. Under capitalism, typically the state is simply an arm of the business community. Some more progressive capitalist states (Europe, for instance) have gotten away from that somewhat, but it’s never really easy. Furthermore, nearly the entire media is usually controlled by the top You would think that these things would be obvious to anyone living in a capitalist society, but toss that idea out sometime in a crowd and watch the hostile responses come back. It’s painful to admit that the media one loves so much is hostile and run by one’s class enemies. That hurts, and it makes you feel stupid. You’re reading your enemies’ propaganda, you idiot! That’s the message. People get their backs up. In recent years in the US, the state has become more and more entwined with business interests, and hence has become more and more dishonest, just like the businesses that it is now essentially a part of. That is why the Bush Administration is a never-ending Lie Machine. That is why US administrations increasingly wage war on science – because under capitalism, businesses typically despise science. Science is out to discover the truth, come Hell or high water. To the businessman, truth is whatever helps the bottom line and falsehood is whatever hurts the bottom line. If a businessman has to lie 20,000 times about 20,000 things to protect his bottom line, he will do it and not blink an eye. Then he will get up and start it all over again. Since business sets the dominant cultural hegemony under capitalism, most capitalist societies will tend to be hostile to science. So, living in a capitalist society, one is really swimming in an ocean of lies. Once you enter corporate culture, you need to become a lying sociopath like the corporation itself, or you are fired. The corporation is like an ant hill. Let us call this Lying Ant Hill. If the corporation itself is a sociopathic pathological liar, so must most of its component parts, the humans who make up the corporation. An educated and aware populace is essential for democracy. Yet how is this possible in capitalism, where the elite-controlled media lies nonstop? Where the state itself is a lie factory for wealthy interests? Where business interests can never be counted on to tell the truth? You can be like me and try to get to the bottom of things, but it’s frustrating and time-consuming. Most folks have better things to do. Democracy in most capitalist countries has serious problems. As long as the media is completely controlled by the wealthiest capitalist interests, the truth will be difficult to discover. The state itself can no longer be counted on, as it is captured by business interests and finds itself lying constantly to defend those interests. In short, the classic Marxist argument that capitalist democracy has serious issues has a lot of truth. The way out of the tunnel is to get some of the money out of politics via campaign finance reform. As almost all politicians are completely bribed and corrupted (bought and paid for), this solution is generally a nonstarter. Media democracy is another route out. But it’s difficult due to high startup costs. One solution would be to allow access to more of the radio band to local or pirate radio stations. The ferocity with which the government has attacked pirate radio shows how terrified the US state is of media democracy. The TV band, which is mostly cable now anyway with up to 500 channels, should be in part licensed out to local entities. There should be channels available for all sorts of folks all across the political spectrum. If you’ve got the camera and the studio, do it yourself. But the need to sell ads makes democracy in media under capitalism very difficult. Papers, radio, TV and magazines need to sell ads to survive, and hence necessarily become the mouthpieces of the business and corporate entities that advertise in their media outlets. Progressive presses are usually only possibly via some wealthy benefactor who is willing to eat it on advertising in order to publish a Left or pro-labor paper. This is why public access channels are the only progressive and pro-people spots on the radio band – no ads. They are listener-supported, but listening to their endless fund drives makes you realize how tenuous their existence is. Media democracy via licensing out the cable and radio spectrum to local outfits, however, is almost impossible because the government entities that license the spectrum out are completely controlled by corporate media interests. Hence, our public airwaves, owned by you and me, worth billions of dollars, are given away to our class enemies for pennies on the dollar. The rest of us are then locked out of the band or even arrested if we try to break into the spectrum like the pirate radio guys did. Even if public access is granted, the fact that we have allowed horribly abusive private cable TV monopolies everywhere in the US means that these companies would probably refuse to carry any progressive stations that somehow got on the air. The Internet offered a breath of hope to this dismal state of affairs. The cost of publishing was down to just about zero, or at least nothing but time. The Communist dream (pure Communism, after the withering of the state) where media was so democratized that neighborhood media outlets sprung up everywhere and every man could be a journalist, seemed to be happening before our eyes. The government and the big media are really scared. Progressive voices, anti-corporate voices (like this blog, for instance), could break into the media, and the circulation was limited only by how many readers you could somehow convince to come to the website. Hence we see desperate efforts by the cable and telephone monopolies to create fast lanes on the Internet for big-money payers and slow lanes on the Net for everyone else, like for instance this site. There is one important lesson here: capitalism never really tolerates dissent to its essential elite structures and business interests. They will allow dissent a lot of times, but the Hell if they will give it a voice or allow it any power. Under capitalism, the elites and business interests have to control the media space, necessary to construct the Gramscian cultural hegemony. In the Third World, dissenters against elite and business interests are regularly arrested, beaten, jailed, tortured and murdered. And if the voices get loud enough or strong enough, the capitalists will just launch a coup, overthrow the state, then launch an Argentine or Chilean style wave of terror to permanently shut folks up. If that doesn’t work, they will make the economy scream. That’s “democracy” under capitalism in a nutshell. To put it mildly, it’s got some serious issues.

Some Good Yoga and Meditation Techniques for OCD, Anxiety and General Peace of Mind

Kundalini yoga works great for OCD and for just anxiety in general. I believe it works for other anxiety disorders, but I’m not sure it’s been documented well. The following Kundalini yoga technique has been documented well for OCD. I doubt if it’s all that useful if you don’t have the illness. Kundalini Yoga Therapy for OCD 1. Sit up very straight and tall. 2. Try to clear your mind. 3. Hold right nostril shut with a finger. 4. Breathe in slowly through left nostril for 15 seconds. All the way in, as deep as you can go. Fill your lungs completely to where they feel as if they will pop. 5. Hold breath for 15 seconds. No inhalation! 6. Release breath slowly for 30 seconds, continuing to hold right nostril shut. No inhalation! Release breath completely to where your lungs are utterly empty and you are almost starving for breath. or: 7. Release breath slowly for 15 seconds, continuing to hold right nostril shut. 8. Then hold breath after exhalation for 15 seconds, continuing to hold right nostril shut. This one is difficult because you’re basically out of breath for 15 seconds. Repeat. Good idea to do it for up to 30 minutes a day if you can. I wish there was something to add to it, but I can’t think of any. Notice that each breath takes a full one minute and that you are breathing in and out through only one nostril. Our average breath lasts only maybe 5 seconds or so. So you are breathing 20 times slower than you normally do. Kundalini Yoga Therapy for Anxiety 1. Sit up very straight and tall. 2. Try to clear your mind. 3. Hold right nostril shut with a finger. 4. Breathe in slowly through left nostril for 15 seconds. All the way in, as deep as you can go. Fill your lungs completely to where they feel as if they will pop. 5. Hold breath for 15 seconds. No inhalation! Continue to hold right nostril shut. 6. Switch finger to left nostril and now hold left nostril shut. Release breath slowly from the right nostril for 30 seconds, continuing to hold left nostril shut. No inhalation! Release breath completely to where your lungs are utterly empty and you are almost starving for breath. or: 7. Release breath slowly for 15 seconds, continuing to hold left nostril shut. 8. Then hold breath after exhalation for 15 seconds, continuing to hold left nostril shut. This one is difficult because you’re basically out of breath for 15 seconds. This is one is basically 30 seconds in with the left nostril, then 30 seconds out with the right nostril. This should work well for anyone who wants to calm down or mellow out. You don’t need to have a diagnosed anxiety disorder. There are some other parts of this therapy dealing with some weird concept called “chakras,” which I don’t understand, but I don’t think you need to deal with your “chakras” for this therapy to work. You can also do meditation. I prefer what I call Zen meditation. I have no idea if I am doing this correctly or not, but this is how I do it. You can do this any time, but I often do it at night before I go to sleep while lying in bed. It’s often said that you have to sit up straight to do this, but I don’t think that is necessary. Simply try to clear your mind of all things except for one thing. I use, “Om,” but you can use any mantra you like. “Om” is a mantra. You just try to fill your mind with “Om,” the thought of Om spreading out across your mind and consciousness and blottiong out all other things. You will find that other thoughts are constantly trying to invade your mind. There is probably no good reason to think about any of these thoughts at this time. So just try to dismiss them or push them towards the outside of your mind so they are smaller. Imagine that your thoughts are like a gigantic sunrise or sunset spreading across your entire mind from top to bottom and left to right. All of this should simply be “Om,” possibly lit up in some bright color or scenery. The other thoughts, as they come in, just push them to the periphery of this brilliant OM sunrise, to where they are smaller and less prominent. Just keep on moving away from them. Your mind will resist this on various levels. My mind is furious and insists that it has many important things to think about! Why waste time thinking about “Om” when I could be thinking of this or that (what or what?) and solving this or that problem (what or what problem?) or learning this or that? I figure that’s all nonsense. Most of my thinking seems to be a complete waste of time. I would call it mental masturbation, except that jerking off is a lot of fun. Most of my thinking is just stupid and pointless. It may as well not even be there. You learn nothing by thinking. You only gain knowledge via observation and input. With no input, there is no learning. By thinking, you can work with stuff you already know to try to make more sense of it, but you learn nothing at all. Sure, you can go over memories by thinking, but those memories will be there whether you think about them or not. Summary is that most thinking, at least the kind I do, is not only a waste of time. It’s actually harmful. Meditation is just about shutting off your mind your mind for a bit. I have found it very helpful for OCD. It also works great for concentration. When I meditate while listening to talk radio broadcasts, I follow the broadcast a lot better because my mind wanders less. Anyone could benefit from this. You don’t need to have an anxiety disorder diagnosis.

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