Feralism

Dixie said:
Other than that this thread is making me dizzy.
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:shrugs:

You're holding the vines too tightly. You need to release your grip a little just as your ascent on the vine slows down, so you can grab the next vine and keep going in a smooth up and down wave across the jungle.

:D
 
Dixie pretty much said what I said.

Isolated tribe members would be comparitively boring... to other members of the same tribe. To someone from another tribe, they would be so exciting!!! In other words... people the same as you are boring in comparison to people who are different. Not that YOU are boring, to me you would be exciting... but to someone like you, you would be boring. To you, people just like you should be boring.
 
JanatheShort said:
Not that YOU are boring, to me you would be exciting... but to someone like you, you would be boring. To you, people just like you should be boring.
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Me, exciting? Are you saying you want to see if we could be cave nugs?

:naughty:
 
Throw six narcissists together, and they would all be hypercritical of each other. None of them would find anybody but themselves an object or major fascination.

On the other hand, it would get them out of the hair of the people who currently have to live with them. :hmm:
 
Bottesini said:
Throw six narcissists together, and they would all be hypercritical of each other. None of them would find anybody but themselves an object or major fascination.

On the other hand, it would get them out of the hair of the people who currently have to live with them. :hmm:
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I can think of at least 4 people like that that I would like to throw into a room and let them deal with each other :)
 
Again, thank you all for participating in this thread. It has given me a much clearer understanding of who and what I am, and why I do things the way I do. See, I always remembered that in the past prior to getting hearing aids, I was isolated from society and communications through my deafness, which gave me a very different worldview from what most people are exposed to (and understand). What had not been really clear prior to this week, when the thread started, was how it put limitations on what I do because of my perspective on things in general (I knew it did, but not how). For instance, valuing my person freedom to do what I want rather than be tied down with family and a house. What I see more clearly is how different my world is (though the argument against that could be made as well), and maybe just how much more evident the natural state of being is within me. I remember when I was with someone I shouldn't have been, and I decided to move to be close to her family, and I stopped by to visit a relative on the way there. Years later, looking back on it, he said that it was amazing just how human I was in the decisions I was making about the relationship and the move. "You were so human. I didn't want you to go there. I cried after you left." I've always suspected something along these lines, but I wasn't sure. I think I am sure now. Time will tell what the next twist in my adventure will be.

I've read about feral children online this past week, and I couldn't believe it, but case studies of such children found outside the tropic circles of latitude show that these children apparently have indifference to cold and heat. They're often found outside in the ice and snow naked, undisturbed. They can handle hot and cold objects without pain as well. I have noticed that I've always been insensitive to a point to hot objects (I can wipe food off a hot pot without burning my finger) and to heat in the summers - I typically have no AC on in the apartment even as it registers 80-83 degrees in there, and I step outside and generally feel good, relaxed, and everyone is screaming about heat waves and drinking plenty of water. I'm like "Heat wave?! WHAT HEAT WAVE?? A real heat wave is sitting in your car while it's 130-145 degrees inside with the windows up." What's strange is getting chilled when I step into something that is hotter (not colder, you read that right), like my car in the summer.

Since I processed this week and have a better understanding, I feel like I am at peace with myself about my history and my limitations (and advantages that other people don't have in the psychological sense). I have a stronger sense of being an outsider in a lot of things, yes, but a lot of things I'm sure I would not want to be a part of. It's like I'm standing at the edge of the forest looking into someone's yard, and the people see me. I feel that sense to back away sometimes, because I feel more comfortable where I am. Another thing is, I've been outside without a jacket 10-12 degrees below my former lower temperature limit or at work without a light jacket. I wonder if this process has helped with a psychological block about cold weather... It's supposed to get chillier this coming week, so it's a good opportunity to see how it goes.

I also noticed last summer when I started to go to bed much earlier, but getting up about the same time in the morning. I think that more sleep helps the body catch up on maintenance and allows the body to have more residual energy to adjust to temperature changes better. I noticed that when I don't sleep well, I don't tolerate cold as well, and I was sleep deprived for years. It's still a period of recovery from sleep deprivation. What has helped is mimicking the sleep cycle of a natural human through three things; one, go to bed soon after sunset (around 9 - 9 30 PM), two, twist part-way out bright lights and twist back in very dim lights prior to going to bed, so that when I get up to go to the bathroom, I don't turn any bright lights on and disrupt the sleep state during the night, and three, wear an eye mask to mimic the night time light away from light pollution. This has all been part of the process of minimizing the "civilized habits' " impact on my health and giving me the rest I need.

Oooowwww!

Buudeee...

Ttktktk (waving fingers on my hand)
 
deafdrummer said:
Again, thank you all for participating in this thread. It has given me a much clearer understanding of who and what I am, and why I do things the way I do. See, I always remembered that in the past prior to getting hearing aids, I was isolated from society and communications through my deafness, which gave me a very different worldview from what most people are exposed to (and understand). What had not been really clear prior to this week, when the thread started, was how it put limitations on what I do because of my perspective on things in general (I knew it did, but not how). For instance, valuing my person freedom to do what I want rather than be tied down with family and a house. What I see more clearly is how different my world is (though the argument against that could be made as well), and maybe just how much more evident the natural state of being is within me. I remember when I was with someone I shouldn't have been, and I decided to move to be close to her family, and I stopped by to visit a relative on the way there. Years later, looking back on it, he said that it was amazing just how human I was in the decisions I was making about the relationship and the move. "You were so human. I didn't want you to go there. I cried after you left." I've always suspected something along these lines, but I wasn't sure. I think I am sure now. Time will tell what the next twist in my adventure will be.

I've read about feral children online this past week, and I couldn't believe it, but case studies of such children found outside the tropic circles of latitude show that these children apparently have indifference to cold and heat. They're often found outside in the ice and snow naked, undisturbed. They can handle hot and cold objects without pain as well. I have noticed that I've always been insensitive to a point to hot objects (I can wipe food off a hot pot without burning my finger) and to heat in the summers - I typically have no AC on in the apartment even as it registers 80-83 degrees in there, and I step outside and generally feel good, relaxed, and everyone is screaming about heat waves and drinking plenty of water. I'm like "Heat wave?! WHAT HEAT WAVE?? A real heat wave is sitting in your car while it's 130-145 degrees inside with the windows up." What's strange is getting chilled when I step into something that is hotter (not colder, you read that right), like my car in the summer.

Since I processed this week and have a better understanding, I feel like I am at peace with myself about my history and my limitations (and advantages that other people don't have in the psychological sense). I have a stronger sense of being an outsider in a lot of things, yes, but a lot of things I'm sure I would not want to be a part of. It's like I'm standing at the edge of the forest looking into someone's yard, and the people see me. I feel that sense to back away sometimes, because I feel more comfortable where I am. Another thing is, I've been outside without a jacket 10-12 degrees below my former lower temperature limit or at work without a light jacket. I wonder if this process has helped with a psychological block about cold weather... It's supposed to get chillier this coming week, so it's a good opportunity to see how it goes.

I also noticed last summer when I started to go to bed much earlier, but getting up about the same time in the morning. I think that more sleep helps the body catch up on maintenance and allows the body to have more residual energy to adjust to temperature changes better. I noticed that when I don't sleep well, I don't tolerate cold as well, and I was sleep deprived for years. It's still a period of recovery from sleep deprivation. What has helped is mimicking the sleep cycle of a natural human through two things; one, go to bed soon after sunset (around 9 - 9 30 PM), and two, twist part-way out bright lights and twist back in very dim lights prior to going to bed, so that when I get up to go to the bathroom, I don't turn any bright lights on and disrupt the sleep state during the night. This has all been part of the process of minimizing the "civilized habits' " impact on my health and giving me the rest I need.

Oooowwww!

Buudeee...

Ttktktk (waving fingers on my hand)
Click to expand...

Interesting. I have been reading about how early experiences such as neglect, not having verbal communications, etc. affects the growth and development of children... (For my child abuse and neglect class, not for this... and yes, I think your experience would be much more similar to a child severely neglected, who did not learn speech, than to a child running naked with wolves.)

Plasticity. This is the word for the brain's ability to recover from these lacks. Much of what the child lost because of the early experiences can be regained later. It's difficult, but it is possible. In other words, you have to work on the areas of your life that are affected if you want to learn the things you missed, like how to enjoy human company.
 
JanatheShort said:
Interesting. I have been reading about how early experiences such as neglect, not having verbal communications, etc. affects the growth and development of children... (For my child abuse and neglect class, not for this... and yes, I think your experience would be much more similar to a child severely neglected, who did not learn speech, than to a child running naked with wolves.)

Plasticity. This is the word for the brain's ability to recover from these lacks. Much of what the child lost because of the early experiences can be regained later. It's difficult, but it is possible. In other words, you have to work on the areas of your life that are affected if you want to learn the things you missed, like how to enjoy human company.
Click to expand...

The point that I'm trying to make is that I'm not yearning for the things I missed out now, as I did in the past. There aren't the resources to help me as you describe. I had asked for decades from therapists for assistance in socializing skills. It's not enough to read a book. As I mentioned, I have thousands of hours of counseling, and it never really touched on this. I thought that my deafness was wholly responsible for this. It's is a part of it, but the biggest part is the isolation causing me to miss the social lessons I was supposed to learn. Even today, there aren't the resources to be able to reach this far to me. You see, as the years went by, I became more and more isolated, socially, in the same sense that someone with a foreign language comes here and never learns English. Except that I don't have others who can speak the same language I can.

In order to be able to reach me, you have to ascertain what skills I have, what I don't have, and how I see things. I had one therapist in particular string me along for years, and we never really got to the part about "simply being." Simply Be. The next therapist finally said that, but when we found that I had no idea what to do or say in casual conversation to move beyond acquaintance into a real friendship, never mind an intimate relationship, she was out of her league. "What am I supposed to do or say?" She never taught me. She couldn't even admit that she was out of her league in that department (it's not her specialty, that's for sure). To this day, I don't know what to ask for except point the right person here to this thread. Just like I tried for most of my then-childhood to get Mom to understand that I had gone deaf, I'm now asking others that this is what had gone wrong, how do I fix this?

I will consider the possibility of speaking with someone who knows specifically how to work on cases like me.

Shel and Alley, please keep these irrelevant comments to yourself. Be glad that you have the skills to be able to have the relationships you have, deaf or hearing. I don't have them in either world. I stand alone, as far as I can tell. Do you know what it's like to lay in bed at night, by yourself for years on end and wondering what's wrong? The problem I see is, people are afraid of me because they don't see the behaviors expected of me and don't know what to do. My few friends overlook that and are my friends anyway, especially one who has past military and police experience. The young'uns shy away from me unless they have a lot of confidence as a person.
 
I think at this point, the therapeutic advice would be: Just do it. Instead of waiting for someone to fix you, just go out there with people, suck at it, try again, suck at it less, try again, etc.

You'll never grow or develop if you wait for a perfect fix... there isn't a perfect fix. Each person is different. If you learned anything from your counseling, books you read, etc... use those. If not, just learn for yourself what does and doesn't work.
 
I need to rethink my last post, because something tells me that I NEED to use what I have, not what someone SAYS I should have to do what I want. I don't want to be like everyone else. I want to be ME. I have a rare perspective. I think I need to figure out how to get it out there, in a way that bridges that gap.
 
deafdrummer said:
I don't try to push people into my beliefs because I'm WAY past even wanting to try. People are going to be the way they are. Why bother? Can we do something for fun instead? The Jeep club is a great place to be without deeply personal stuff getting in the way. Do you like to camp/go Jeeping on the trails? Let's go, you're invited. It's not like, "You're invited, and in the evening, we'll be covering verses from (insert book of your choice here). Cool with that?"
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For some of us, studying the Bible is fun. I find serious discussions of philosophy and religion far more interesting and meaningful than jeeping on trails. I really don't see what's so awful about somebody inviting you to a Bible study that they tell you is a Bible study. Now, when they trick you into coming, and it's kind of like Amway, but with Bible verses, that's obnoxious.

Trying to get people not to share something that means so much to them is just another way of trying to get people to be less the way they want to be and more like you want them to be. I recognize it can be tiresome, but all of us have topics we care a lot about that we can be tiresome and annoying about.
 
Grayma said:
Trying to get people not to share something that means so much to them is just another way of trying to get people to be less the way they want to be and more like you want them to be. I recognize it can be tiresome, but all of us have topics we care a lot about that we can be tiresome and annoying about.
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What you fail to understand is that I DON'T WANT TO BE CONVERTED. You have no idea of what people around here are like. They think in such black and white terms. They tell me that I'm going to go to hell when I die. This thread is not what this is about. Please understand, I have been through Sunday School after diagnosis. You have no idea how this sounds to someone truly on the outside looking in. I'm not going there. Back to the original post of this thread; "someone with training with late-developed children or even feral or semi-feral children to see this and put me in contact with others like myself."

It sounds like that I'm rather rare... I've had ONE person contact me off-site to share a similar story.
 
deafdrummer said:
What you fail to understand is that I DON'T WANT TO BE CONVERTED. You have no idea of what people around here are like. They think in such black and white terms. They tell me that I'm going to go to hell when I die. This thread is not what this is about. Please understand, I have been through Sunday School after diagnosis. You have no idea how this sounds to someone truly on the outside looking in. I'm not going there. Back to the original post of this thread; "someone with training with late-developed children or even feral or semi-feral children to see this and put me in contact with others like myself."

It sounds like that I'm rather rare... I've had ONE person contact me off-site to share a similar story.
Click to expand...

I think that what Grayma is saying is that not everyone who happens to enjoy studying the Bible is going to attack you. If the person invites you to a Bible study and you say no, it's all good. If they don't respect that decision, they aren't your friend, and you are free to tell them rude things. If they respect it, you get a friend. If they don't, you get to say rude things with no guilt! Win-win situation! :giggle:

My Muslim friends invite me to the mosque all the time. It's a big part of their life, and it would feel weird for them not to share it with me. If I wanna go, I say yes. If I don't wanna go, I say no. As long as they respect my right to say no, its not a big deal.
 
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