Re: Exposing Online Predators & Cyberpaths
They're good/They're bad
They're sick/they're bad
Their sick or bad/I'm sick or bad
These are three dissonant sink-holes that occur from pathological exposure? Direct consequences of a human psyche trying to resolve a discordance between intellectual data and emotional experience.
That such a discrepancy is noted, and recognized as such, is not something you are born knowing how to do. I am pretty sure most of us react at a simple gut level, but that response is non-specific, just "danger, Will Robinson!!", maybe :D .
In retrospect, I had so many nonspecific "Danger, Will Robinson!" reactions to new relationships, and tended toward the third sink-hole. I personalized . . . almost everything :( . I didn't have much in the way of personal boundaries. I have had many relationships where my "gut" reacted with a warning, and only in the recovery from the relationship with my exH did I realize that "gut" warning was an intact, brilliantly accurate tool. Knowing how to proceed from "Danger, Will Robinson!" to informed action has been a learned process.
I suspected that cognitive dissonance was a red flag, indicating an encounter with a pathological person but don't have anything to back that up with but personal observation.
Awareness of the state of cognitive dissonance is not instinctual either, far from it.
sandrabrownma said:The process of the inability to integrate the information and be congruent between intellectual data and emotional experiences, is what creates the cognitive dissonance that is so strong from pathological exposure. (Laura, sounds sort of like what you were going thru). Normally in these, we battle between choosing the Jekyll or Hyde personas. They're good/they're bad, or in hyper empathy cases, They're bad/they're sick. But Laura, in your case it still sounds like you went thru a round of cognitive dissonance, only personalized I'm Good/I'm Bad. Pathologicals typically target people who are in helping professions or educational ones. It's exactly the kinds of 'events' we have seen through the antics of the Camwell/McGrannahan approaches. Camwell has pretty well hit every major website in this genre (and used others to do her marketing) trying to create those personalized cognitive dissonance reactions from those sites that were targeted.
I think the mark of pathology is the experiencing of cognitive dissonance whether it is other-oriented or whether it produces personalized self dissonance.
They're good/They're bad
They're sick/they're bad
Their sick or bad/I'm sick or bad
These are three dissonant sink-holes that occur from pathological exposure? Direct consequences of a human psyche trying to resolve a discordance between intellectual data and emotional experience.
That such a discrepancy is noted, and recognized as such, is not something you are born knowing how to do. I am pretty sure most of us react at a simple gut level, but that response is non-specific, just "danger, Will Robinson!!", maybe :D .
In retrospect, I had so many nonspecific "Danger, Will Robinson!" reactions to new relationships, and tended toward the third sink-hole. I personalized . . . almost everything :( . I didn't have much in the way of personal boundaries. I have had many relationships where my "gut" reacted with a warning, and only in the recovery from the relationship with my exH did I realize that "gut" warning was an intact, brilliantly accurate tool. Knowing how to proceed from "Danger, Will Robinson!" to informed action has been a learned process.
I suspected that cognitive dissonance was a red flag, indicating an encounter with a pathological person but don't have anything to back that up with but personal observation.
Awareness of the state of cognitive dissonance is not instinctual either, far from it.