Saturday, 5 September 2009

BEING CONTROLLED





Okay, so some people excercise power and others are victims. Inbetween there's a rather gullible middle class who believes in authorities and feels sorry for those victimized, but is unable to truly relate to either or. What they want is just comfort and a happy life, characterized by a whole set of comfortable clichés and stereotypes that contribute to a feeling of familiarity and thus security in an insecure world. Among these clichés are pseudo-psychological ideas about how politicians are selfish, victims victimize themselves, and nothing can really be done to change the way of the world. Because nothing can be changed, the only thing one can do is resort to jargon. I know that when I feel helpless and confused, I become more judgmental and easily get stuck in mental and emotional patterns. At the other end of the stick we have the mechanism of denial, which focuses on eliminating negative thoughts in favour of the positive ones that may ensure a smashing future for the individual in question.


If you don't really want to belong in either of these three categories, you probably become an outcast or a dissident. Yes we all have human feelings, as we are after all human beings on a very arduous journey here on Earth! So for instance, we all feel sorry for ourselves every once in a while. I hate it when people either stigmatize others for feeling this way or pat them on the shoulder with some insipid comment that is supposed to be encouraging. "You can do it, everything will be alright", and so on. While sometimes these words can be of comfort when accompanied with real love and concern, most of the time they are just annoying empty phrases. Hope is after all not a taken at all, it's a simple mechanism of survival. There is no other basis for hope than a religious belief that bad things can't last forever or a simple wish that one will at some point gain more power to fight the negative challenges. Still, human beings usually have a will to live and a fear of death, so having hope is a natural means of trying to make it in a harsh world. After all, hope is not directly connected to feelings of control, and so can not be harmful.

I have had to deal with many people who have tried to exercise control over me. Some people enter relationships of dependency without paying much attention and others simply suffer in silence. I'm talking of all sorts of relationships, not only intimate ones. I'm one of those who kick and scream, however. I refuse to be submissive. For instance, my position as a disabled person has turned into a nightmarish fight for survival within an totalitarian social system that leaves no room for personal freedom. Once a person is being removed from working life and has to ask the state for money to survive, the authorities lock you into a prisonlike system that denies you a whole bunch of human rights. The less you have worked in your life, the worse it gets. Someone with a basic pension has to beg for some extra from the social services, and this puts them under the influence of certain laws that cut down their freedom to the max. For instance, such a person is not allowed to gain any money, take any loans, exchange any money within family members, travel anywhere, use any other services than the ones appointed by the social services (for instance in the case of the glasses that I didn't want to get from the local optician this summer), and is obliged to report just about anything to do with their personal life and financial choices. Of course, the scanty money you're supposed to live on doesn't only limit your life but prevents you from actually having one. Usually you don't really know what you enter when you are being pulled into the System. If you're unlucky, you will be treated like a second rate citizen the way I am at present here in the small town where I moved some years ago. Other people in other counties are more fortunate and also receive more money to help them get by.


I participated in yet another radio show about social injustice for marginal citizens and got my say in, but it does take a toll on me to have to expose my basic lack of security to the rest of the world. The programme clearly showed that politicans have little interest in helping people like myself since I'm not considered a significant booster of the economy (which ultimately serves the highly paid politicians). Taxes are certainly being lowered but for some reason there is no money to increase the pensions to at least the double, which is considered reasonable at this time. It's as if I'm expected to live some sort of medieval life while the well-to-do rush by in their fancy cars and play with their technical gadgets. It's truly surreal.



Another thing that has taken a great toll on me lately is netdating. Speaking to all these middle class men online has left me disenchanted and sad. No one cares to truly get to know me, indeed they may pretend that they do but they are only trying to see what faults I have that will disqualify me as their partner. What I resent the most is the manipulation. I have written more extensively about these things in Swedish on my other blogs but here are a few points to watch out for:




  • An ambiguous way of talking. For instance, the guy may ask you to reveal everything about yourself but doesn't really do the same for you. He may be playing at "I do want to meet you, but right now I can't because..." and so on. There will be an uncomfortable element of "let's see", and you feel somehow watched. As soon as you feel it's time to open up a bit more in order to get anywhere, you get rejected. He's a scumball because he didn't give you a chance to present yourself in real life, and that's just a way of exercising control. Alternatively, the man wants to meet you at once and doesn't have time to hang on the internet talking to you. That's probably bullshit because most men do spend an extensive part of their day online. Perhaps they only want a quick lay.





  • You open up a lot but the guy doesn't comment, and that's a way of exercising control over you and the situation. He's probably sitting there evaluating everything you say, and will stab you in the back when you least expect it. Suddenly it's clear he hasn't understood anything you said. And the sad part is that you probably felt it all along and now you're frustrated because you have wasted time and energy on yet another imbecile.





  • Men who keep you waiting are exercising control. The guy is too busy to write regularly, and is evasive when you ask what he wants. He may suddenly take an interest but you can bet that he's only interested to discuss that one word in your profile that could be interpreted as something to do with sex.





  • The guy complains that men should be treated just they same as men are expected to treat women. He's got the equality issue all screwed up and doesn't realize that equality is not about switching roles. Swedish men have this sort of passive-aggressive and thus controlling attitude quite a bit. It's really disconcerting because they are not really in touch with their manliness and so they can't treat you like a woman either. He'd be better off be you friend or become gay.





  • The majority of all men online appear dyslectic. I've tried to accept a lack of proper writing but it never gets me anywhere. These men are just sloppy and probably neither well educated or particularly intelligent (in other words, they are not true dyslectics). You won't get any real sympathy from them dispite their sleazy wording.





  • If a guy keeps insisting he's told you things he hasn't, then that could be a sign of a passive-aggressive attempt to control you by messing with your mind. I can't even begin to describe the way such men talk, it's truly surreal since they are not there with you at all. Maybe one day I'll translate one such discussion.



  • Men who straight away give me an nick name (such as Viva, which for some inexplicable reason is a number one) or keep misspelling it, turn me off. It's as if they want to own me somehow, by putting their own label on me and insisting that my own wishes don't count.





  • A spiritually minded guy might put you to the test to see "if vibrations connect". For instance, he could say that he's from some really remote country just to see if you'll still be attracted to him. Be aware of any little lies like that. They are probably a sign that he's a control freak.





  • Some men want to save you from your sordid life, but that would be a major means of gaining control over you. See my blog about the saviour's syndrome.


  • Obviously women can behave in similar ways. Well, all this has left me more suspiscious and reticient than I was to begin with, and there's not much I can do about that right now. Now to another highly frustrating issue of control. The man I visited two years ago in the USA has been holding onto the belongings that I left there because I wanted to believe that I would return. I was probably under some influence of this man, energetically speaking. Once I realized that he was an extremely selfish person and that I was better off not returning, I felt very keen to get my things back. I did not want to give in because I didn't want for him to keep my things. As long as he did, there was a bond there that I was unable to severe. The things also happened to be important ones since I meant to stay in the USA. So are all his excuses for not sending off everything at once valid? Well, he's a man of excuses. He also over-reacts to my frustration and regresses to the state of a five year old. I suppose that his strategy of behaving like a child is working, because I have to become the adult and usually give in to his tantrums. Needless to say I have not really been up to this role play and so many an angry word has been exchanged between us though most of the time he doens't even bother to read my mail. I have heard of men and women who have done the same thing with children, and obviously that's even worse. Still, my nervous system is not strong enough to deal with this on top of all the above issues.

    Lastly, do I need to mention the swineflue pandemic that actually kills less people than any other flu, or New Age mindcontrol such as the law of attraction that only increases negative feelings such as self-blame, guilt and a belief that making money is always okay (which it would be in a perfect world, but this isn't, is it?). Not to mention how "manifesting a partner" sounds more like an issue of imaginary control...

    Artwork: Digital photograph by author, all rights reserved 2010

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