u/Spagelo

Sometimes I just sit with myself and the memories take over, weakening my will to do anything. I'll feel so alone, and I imagine people being disgusted by me - even people who love me. As if I should shove it all down even it as it erodes at me every day. I'll start shaking and shifting around and get into this blank panic where I become almost irresponsive as I get flashbacks of having my arms pulled and being hurt and feeling terror at the things he'd say and being painfully raped and being unable to escape. When someone talks about child abuse, when someone points cameras at me, sometimes just whenever with whatever trigger. I'll have asthma attacks, severe panics, crying fits, or if I'm in public or feel unsafe, it'll just break me inside and I'll feel like a shell. I hate it so much. I just want to live a normal life and it feels like attaining that is a monumental, herculean task. I don't know if I'm strong enough.

Yesterday, I managed to put the earliest memory into sequence. And... I think it makes me feel just as disgusting as even the torture that came later. Is that strange to say? I... participated at first. I thought it was a game and I thought he was my 'new friend'. It's not that I understood what was happening or that it 'felt good' or anything like that, it was just... playing, to me. And I knew that I wasn't 'supposed to' and the first threat he made to me... was that if I told anyone, he would show the pictures he was taking to my folks and they'd be mad. How twisted is that? I mean how can you say something like that and not understand how wrong it is? That you could manipulate someone who would actually believe that showing abuse material to the abuser's parents would be taken as the victim doing something wrong. I cannot comprehend what drives anyone to do something so evil.

He gave me ice cream after. He told me to leave my red little league socks on - said that while he was adjusting the tripod. I was so confused by everything. What was I doing? Why was I doing that? What was he doing to me? I can't bring myself to say much more... it makes me feel guilty. He made me feel guilty and said I had to hide it. I could never tell. He said that if I didn't tattle on him, that he would never tattle on me.

I think, for posterity, it's important to make the distinction that even if individuals involved in the movement may feel a certain way, the organized leadership is not endeavoring to make accusations towards the commission for anything where there may be an absence of evidence. It is not that we are in any manner unsympathetic with those who may feel strongly, and some volunteers may have said some things independently, but I think it's important to keep in mind that we are not making a statement until we are officially making a statement.

Hi, friends! I just tore an ACL in my ankle and need something to help the bum foot a little. I was hoping to find a stylish walking cane, something out of a Fred Astaire movie or maybe just something a little dressy and regal. Maybe a sword cane? I dunno. I'm visiting from out of town (Missoula) so I only really know the touristy parts of Santa Cruz. Thanks!

Thru traffic has right of way. If the light is green and I'm not at the light when it turns green, I am going through at normal speed (40mph) because that is what you are supposed to do. What you are not supposed to do is go left into the thru-way when there is a car heading straight into you, when you are close enough to get into a head-on collision if their brakes are bad or they look away for a couple of seconds. Even crashes at 30-40mph can be deadly. I'm not even mad, I'm glad to have walked away with my life. It is only because I was paying attention and I had good quality brakes that we are not surrounded by emergency vehicles and not being thrown into whatever kind of legal disaster may have occurred for whoever survived the accident. Next time, you may not be so lucky. If you are going to continue to drive like that, you'd better get a good lawyer, pal.

I feel like a lot of dumb-dumbs especially would absolutely excel in hard labor jobs at a higher pay grade where a lot of raw strength is needed. Couple them with some first gens to run their unions so they are not easily exploited and I feel like they could be pretty efficient. The Quarry Junction problem? Forget about it. Rail lines, construction, roads - come on. I mean really, they're absolutely built for it. I'm not sure the dumb-dumbs would know what to do with the money, but I'm betting the first gens would have the means to begin building a more comfortable situation for everyone than even Jacobstown. Funding for stealth boy schitzophrenia research, defensible cities, legal representation in the NCR...

I despise the use of the word 'pornography' in what was done to some of us here. Pornography is meant to be film, photo, or audio where normal adult actors will perform with pay to produce content that normal adults can enjoy with consent all around. Nothing is consensual about child sexual abuse material. It is the product of manipulation, coercion, violence, and torture. The only thing 'sexual' about it is the fact that predators 'get off' on committing an act of extreme evil upon a child. The people who 'consume' it live vicariously through it and expose the victim and perpetuate that victim's abuse. It's not entertainment for any normal stretch of the word. It's a way for a child to be victimized repeatedly. Somewhere, someone has the document of my abuse. I did not consent or enjoy it, nor do I forgive that it's out there now. I was raped and tortured. I was hurt. It was pure evil and it's not anyone's entertainment - it's simply a way to partake in my abuse. It's still out there on some sicko's computer and now, this summer, it will have been twenty years (if my estimation for when it happened is correct). The worst moments of my life are documented for the lowest of the low to exploit so they can fuel their desires to create more victims, and I have to live with that knowledge day in and day out. I don't even like being photographed now because of what was done to me.

It's not pornography, it's CSAM. It's material made from the abuse of a child victim. It is the invasive documentation of an extreme and heinous criminal act where people are harmed. And we need to start calling it what it is because it harms us when it is viewed. Too often we are spoken for. I think today, when we have the voice at long last, we need to speak out and say what it really means.

There is no part of me that is 'dead'. I am not half a person. I did not have my life taken from me. I was hurt. I was hurt. I was hurt but I was not lessened. Every day, I choose to build upon who I have made myself to be. These acts of violence wrought upon me cannot be diminished for what they were, but I am so much more than them. I have a voice now. I have spent so long learning how to speak it. I have been given love, I have made strides and personal achievements, I have chosen romance for myself because I choose not to let my sex life be deadened by rape - in spite of how difficult that was for me to overcome. I may be in pieces and I may not have the harmony that I would like to learn some day, but I am a whole human being - copper spots and all. I have so many things that he could never take away from me. I am a talented artist, a good writer, a loving human being. I have always been ambitious. For every setback I have ever had, I have come back stronger. I will come back from this, too. It is the longest struggle I have ever faced, to grow beyond my childhood rape. But I feel closer now. Even so far away from the end, I feel closer than ever before. I can make it. I know I'm going to make it.

I am not a very 'Stoic' person. I've read texts, sure - parts of the SVF, translations in the Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge) and the Stoics Reader (Hackett), the Discourses, the Meditations, some works of Seneca and Rufus, some smaller texts. Truth be told, however, I'm a very emotional person with a mood disorder and whatever efforts I make only leave me 'slightly behind the fringe of beyond help' in a lot of ways. But on the other hand, I have crosses to bear and so I have to be at least a little steeled to the challenge of things I cannot control.

In the beginning chapter of the Discourses, Arrian documents Epictetus talking at length about how Nero stamped out the Stoic Opposition. As far as I know, this seems to have been the most politically significant role that Stoicism played in the ancient world aside from the privately held beliefs of Marcus Aurelius. And so you get a glimpse of what things were like when the Stoics were faced with real life consequences - being thrown into prison, being executed, being exiled. These were the first words that I read when I picked up my first proper work of this school of thought, and it was very interesting to me because I had my own reality to overcome, which is that I am a victim of rape. And I had gone my whole life at that point feeling powerless.

I want to express the value here that this philosophy has even to people who are not devoted to following its doctrine. I've met some purists - even bickered with one on here and brought them down to my level of pettiness. I am many things but a Stoic I am not. I do, however, subscribe to some of the tenants. They were incredibly helpful when I needed them to be. I do not always have control of how things are forced upon my body or even how it affects me in a sense of raw emotion but I always have dominion in the realm of my own hegemonikon. I can choose for myself that these disgusting things done to me do not lessen me as a human being, that I am not 'dirty'. I can choose to be a little more than my darkness each day even if it is not something I can be free from carrying. I can find my own peace of mind.

Stoicism is probably the most compassionate of the philosophies I have learned from in my life. Between the Ionian astronomers and the political thinkers of our industrial age, Stoicism is the most 'everyman' amongst them in how essentialist it is. Zeno shared with all comers and Epictetus taught school boys. You could be a slave and have freedom that even the Emperor of Rome may not have possessed at many given times. What offers more safety than what you can find in your own self control? What is a greater comfort in the face of adversity than peace of mind and clarity? What brings more love into your life than to at first do things to build your own self-esteem?

Too often when I visit this forum, I see a mix of people who are often either misguided and interpret it as some kind of macho self-help thing, or too involved with the coding of their lives in the tenants to see that the same approach does not always bring harmony to people who could otherwise use aspects of what this philosophy has to offer. I also see a lot of people who come here for advice and understanding, and I see people who do their best with offering just that. I think that perhaps the most important aspect of the entire philosophy is how it strives to teach self-kindness in a way that reckons with the human condition in a constructive manner.

I think this is about where Epicurus gets lost. He too believed that peace of mind could be achieved by letting go of things that are inherently beyond your control. But it does not so much help to hide from the hardships of life in the service of maximizing personal comfort until the end. This is a resignation that life is no more than suffering and pleasure. I have always found this to be very pointless. As though to say that there is little more to living than death. But Stoicism teaches that even when looking upon the face of death, you can make the most out of life, and be more than anything you may suffer.