I decided that I am easily brainwashed due to my vivid imagination.

a reply to: rossacus

I'd like to take the time right now and say... therapists do not prescribe drugs. A psychiatrist is the only practitioner in that field who is licensed to prescribe drugs(outside of that field, your family doctor). Secondly, I've said way worse to my therapist... trust me. She's been great and I wouldn't have written that letter to her if I didn't feel comfortable about it. Thirdly, professing a very sincere emotion towards someone who's helped me tremendously is... in your eyes, "devaluing" the word love? So you're saying that because of my personal character, I devalue the word love whenever I use it because I've used it often in this thread? I admit I'm quick to love but you're really pushing it.

Still I'm a lover, not a fighter. But I'll always fight for my right to love things...

a reply to: BeefNoMeat

Now as for you, BeefNoMeat, I didn't respond to your first comment because it was clearly snarky. And I'm not sure how much I can or should reveal here but I'll test the waters a little if I dare be so bold.

Brainwashing deals with adopting a new set of belief systems that were not original or natural to you in the first place. So for example(at the risk of making light of the situation) brainwashing happens when someone who hates peas is then bullied and manipulated to love peas. Something like that. As for me(at the risk of TMI), I was bullied into believing the world was a specific way(not the way I was brought up in) until I became a willing participant in porn... when I was 13. And trust me, it was NOT my idea of a good time to have sexual relations with hairy 35+ year old men old enough to be my dad.

There's so much more to it than that, yes. But yes, I am becoming a firm believer that it was, indeed at least in part(a great big part), my great imagination that allowed me to see the world that they had built around me which in turn trapped me. With their help(nudges, really, dealt in harassment and being assaulted) I was fully convinced that I could never, ever get away. The possibilities that spread out before me(their threats, etc) felt very... very real. And maybe I still am convinced... but in a different way now. And I'm really pushing boundaries here. In the end, I guess I'm just trying to be free and that's why I'm so open.

I'll come back to this post later and write more and respond to others.

How can that be? I have a great imagination--and I have never been brainwashed. Because my mind is active, I find that I am very difficult to persuade and resolutely stubborn. But to each her own, I guess. I'd say that maybe you should try to control your mind more, OP. Also read A Clockwork Orange if you haven't. You'd probably like that book.

a reply to: Bluesma

You’ve definitely got a keener insight on this than most. You’re especially right about when you’re young… you’re more in danger. Children need to be protected. And I think you are right about how when you start to know yourself it is safer for you to give yourself to things. Because then you always have yourself to go back to and you won’t get as lost, yes yes yes. I really enjoy your contributions, have a good night!

a reply to: rickymouse

I love you for giving me this great post. We’re similar. However I’m not a workaholic, lol. I’d rather not work… ever. I daydream about winning the lottery but I don’t even play the lottery but it’s still fun to think about. Seriously though I think I’m still struggling with who I really am so I don’t know what’s going on half the time and like you and bluesma said… It could only benefit us if we make sure the path we are on is ours, the right one, and know ourselves. Cause it has to do a lot with knowing ourselves, which synchs with your suggestion about having to sometimes step back and do a self evaluation. And I like how you said it’s time to get drunk when you start getting obsessed, haha. I definitely need to give myself time outs sometimes… in the same manner.

I hope you or someone figures out gravity! It’s so mysterious. I feel like everything is constantly working towards moving into a state of equilibrium, but idk where gravity fits into that. I only took one course once, basic stuff. I wouldn’t mind taking more tho eventually, just to satisfy my curiosity.

a reply to: rukia

You feel young, tbh. That’s fine and all but I kind of wonder if you even read the OP.

I’ve watched A Clockwork Orange but I’ve never read it.
Have you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? I think it's a better story. I relate to Winston a lot in that one...

Well, I wish you well on your journey of playing hard to get and being invincible! Have a good night now.

As long as you are enjoying yourself and not screwing anyone over, then you are having an interesting life. Just don't get super obsessed or in trouble and try not to get bummed out.

You have time to get serious about life when you get older.

a reply to: geezlouise

Lol. There was no snark in the post. Temporal and spatial differences in the conversation can result in context being lost. But, if you would like, I'll borrow from you, "...just trying to be free and that's why I'm so open" with my succinct post. If you're looking for help/advice/an open ear/heart, I commend you for putting yourself out there with the post. Summarily, I was trying to get to the crux of your situation; did you have a goal in posting and if you did (the OP was a bit of stream of consciousness that just dropped a bomb at the end [I was brainwashed into porn]), what was it?

Now, you have dropped the child porn bomb. Brainwashed into being raped and filmed? 13 years old?? No 13 year old willing has sex on film with a 35 year old man. Plenty of neuroscience out there that proves the brain is still developing at that age....but i digress. You weren't brainwashed, you were exploited. Honestly, that sucks. It really does. I sincerely hope that didn't happen to you. If this is true, I feel like this thread may one day be part of the discovery process in a criminal trial.

So, if we can get past the being raped and filmed as a 13 year old, could you provide any other examples of being brainwashed? Can you be more concrete with your unstated goal?? The gravity of this situation will eventually suck the entire life out of you and you'll be empty space; you're very close to the event horizon of a black hole of a life if you are being honest about being raped and filmed at 13.

Please, throw some more examples of brainwashing out there to alleviate my mind that I just read you were raped and filmed at 13 only to cough it up casually in an open letter that your imagination has been the co-sponsor to your life of unprovoked hell.

Sincerely, again, if any of this is true, I wish you the best and hope you turn to the authorities to prosecute those involved with that crime.

a reply to: BeefNoMeat

TBH? I simply thought that I had a really good idea involving the correlation between having a great imagination and being "brainwashed," and I simply wanted to share it. Because yes, I thought that others here might understand and perhaps expound on it. Which has happened already.

In fact, I'm beginning to believe that a person can absolutely not be really brainwashed if they lack a good imagination. If you want to lead them, you need only put shiny things in front of them... that'll keep em going. So yes, in order to be really deeply brainwashed at all, you MUST have a good imagination. That's really key. Wow, it's all really true isn't it?

Anyway, beyond discussion there's always the possibility that someone else might benefit from it. I do want people to know what can happen and how it happens... so then we can maybe start building a safer environment that will protect the imaginative person instead of "exploit" them as you put it. So yeah, why not? We can do things differently in order to put a halt to these evils! But first, we gotta know what's what and that there is some kind of problem. Cause if you don't know that there's a problem in the first place then you won't be inclined to solve it.

And if someone disagreed with anything I've said then I would be open to their judgement and truly consider their thoughts(let's hope that they will clearly communicate their thoughts, make it easier for all of us)... and if I found them to be sound then I promise my own insights would change. Cause yeah, that's happened already. Tons. Cause yeah, I have the imagination to do it!

So, would you be able to expound on your reasons to believe that a 13 year old can not be brainwashed, only exploited, due to their biology(aka their natural instinct to be disgusted by hairy old men sexually)? Cause you're not being really clear there. I can of course imagine tons of things that you're trying to really say but even then I can't make sense of any of it so it's not looking good for you there buddy. Also I see that you are looking for me to get specific, and I promise I will work on getting as specific and accurate as possible about the how it was done... because that's what I feel I have to do as is. And trust me, a good imagination is one of the key components. So there you go, your first clue.

a reply to: geezlouise

No, I was hoping you would provide other examples to give greater context. And, come man (it's a gender neutral sports catch-phrase), you call me out for snark, but call me "buddy" in a backhanded way? Hypocritical, much? I'll cough it up to differences in time and apace and that literally tool was lost on me.

No, I believe there are subtle, but very important differences in brainwashing and coercion (a form of exploitation). I can touch on that later. But for now, no, I don't believe a 13 year can brainwashed in its intrinsic meaning. I believe a 13 year has a developing brain (up until at least 25 years old) and can be easily manipulated, coerced and explotiared through fear - the very word you used to assert your inability to extract yourself from the situation.

Brainwashing, in its strictest, narrow from involves well-developed brains being reprogrammed for specific purposes that serve the interest of others without the sovereignty of one's mind -- your mind is no longer your's and you have an agenda-driven purpose that is your sole focus of your life.

That should clear some of it, as we seem to ramble a bit

We can continue your discussion - I'm intrigued and sincerely hope you find some answers. It's a solid community.

Cheers,

tl

a reply to: BeefNoMeat

You know what's weird?

I've been under the impression that it's basically the complete opposite of what you are proposing, that it's harder to brainwash someone already set in their ways and doing so would require a lot more work; like torture and kidnapping and total isolation amongst questioning and pushing new doctrine on the subject. However with children, because of the very nature of their developing brains... it's far easier to trap their minds, and brainwashing is very real, and it wouldn't take as much work. Just because the methods are slightly different, does it mean it's not brainwashing?

I still think that you are wrong by stating that brainwashing only deals with fully developed brains but I do understand that there is a difference between what happens to children and what happens to adults and I think that you shouldn't minimize what happens to children because of their developing natures. Maybe that's not what you intended but, why isn't it brainwashing? If brainwashing is defined by methods alone then fine, but a child can be isolated and tortured just as much as an adult. And when children are brainwashed... it's very hard for them to ever come out of it- simply because they never knew any other way. Whereas an adult who's lived a fairly normal average life has a whole lot of normalcy to return to. The adult has a foundation of "normal" to revert back to after a brainwashing event, whereas children don't have that.

But anyhow, you've lead me to do some more reading and this is a pretty tricky subject since there's no way to really study it via experimentation since it would violate all kinds of human rights. So the only way to really learn anything about it... are by historical cases and cults and stuff like that. Or from personal experience.

I'm going to tell you a little how it began.

A teacher made sexual advances on me but I decided I didn't want to further engage with him so I ignored him and completely disrespected him by ignoring his future advances (when he asked to speak to me after class I'd slip out and pretend like I forgot) and etc. Prior to that he favored me and isolated me from the class with awkward conversations and questions. After some days or weeks of ignoring him... I started feeling normal again when suddenly... another teacher assaulted me in the others name, and he wasn't nice at all about it. I went to my teacher intending to demand that he not tell anyone else about me, but I ended up begging him instead and folding. Because wasn't my teacher nicer to me? Didn't he care about my feelings? Shouldn't I do what I was told... or else I might get hurt? And so on and so forth. This sneaky scheme introduced the punishment/reward, and trust me he did make me feel good... he was very nice to me, when I was doing what he wanted. And also, there were other men involved too who surprised me in their involvement and with my cursed imagination I had this sense that anyone could be "in on it" and you never know who. So anyone could punish me anywhere I was, basically, if I didn't obey or please them.

Yes, I intended to tell a parent immediately after the first incident but... it simply didn't work out.

Another note: this happened within the span of 2 years in school, from 13 years old to 15 years old. Maybe I wasn't kidnapped, though... something happened. More than one thing of course. And maybe I wasn't beaten but... some kind of torture, for hours. A different kind. And definitely psychological harassment and having short conversations/arguments where I was essentially introduced to a new belief that this stuff happens all the time behind closed doors it's just the way the world is but most people can't know about it because they're idiots and have to follow laws but we're smarter, better, and faster aren't we? Basically I was made to feel very special and unique. And maybe it didn't happen every day of the school week and the records will show that my attendance fell dramatically due to avoiding school in order to avoid the situation... but, then it followed me out of school, too.

Whenever I tried to tell someone how I felt deep down inside it was brushed aside in a sort of disbelief, like they just thought I was having a rough time with puberty and/or dramatizing and being overly emotional. It's so easy to trap someone when most people will never... ever believe that you can even have sad feelings. Maybe my case didn't involve the harshest methods of brainwashing but whatever it was, it trapped me. And you know what, something in my childhood set me up for this for sure, a week away from home when I was very very young. Unconnected perhaps but it set me up to be able to endure future specific abuses and kind of marked me as a target in a way.

And maybe I'm weak because it didn't take much at all to convince me that I couldn't escape. But I've always pushed boundaries, yes I have, like when I decided to ignore him or by avoiding school altogether- and even right now. If what I'm telling is true then I'm really pushing it.

Oh and, my body randomly developed an incurable auto-immune disease about 2 years ago when I was 30 years old probably due to the stress of what I was facing. Now I need treatment daily in order to survive. TMI? But honestly it's really only been in the past few years that I've been... facing the truth.

a reply to: geezlouise

Whenever the meaning of a word is disputed, I like to turn to dictionaries and encyclopedias for guidance: Brainwashing. A child's belief system and behavior is generally more malleable than and adult's (try convincing an adult that Santa Clause is real if you don't believe me).

a reply to: geezlouise

Flawed assumption. I have an excellent imagination -- I can visualize the worst kind of hell, I don't fear it though because I understand what is imagination and what is real. The distinction -- I know the difference between real and fake, even if I can vividly imagine the fake.



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a reply to: SRPrime

Can you get caught up in a movie? If so, does it have to be something you relate to, or could you be moved by the most outlandish fairytale?

After reading Dante's Inferno I was left awestruck. The symbols seemed to emanate powerful messages. Though I knew intellectually it was pure fabrication I sort of had to shake myself out of it to really get back down to reality.

Ever see the series How Art Made the World? While a vivid imagination may not leave one vulnerable to brainwashing all on its own, it may well be an important factor.

a reply to: VP740

Yes, I see now it's a more ambiguous subject. But yes, certain things are pretty clear. Children believe in almost anything, whereas adults do not!


a reply to: SRPrime

You did not know what was real or fake when you were small. But I believe you. You're doing good controlling it, basically. Congratulations. This is going into the right direction when it comes to putting on armor and guarding yourself, however if you have no strong sense of self or any strong sense of what's real to begin with... your armor will be weak, right? How will you protect yourself, if you don't have a strong enough foundation already laid down? If the very foundations underneath you are continuously shattered... and by shattered I don't mean you slay yourself with your own imagination. I mean real trauma, betrayal, bizarre painful events that you can't communicate to other human beings because no one else has been there and can't reach you mentally and so you're alone in it. Forever.

Well anyway. Great contribution!

People with vivid imagination are usually said to be 'flying in the clouds' making them naive for everything they hear by others and can be easily manipulated in believing in not so earthy things.

a reply to: DivineSoul

I can't help but notice you just joined. So welcome!

And I love you a lot right now. Thank you for speaking up and out.

a reply to: geezlouise


I honestly wish you the best in finding answers and in your recovering from it. Keep us posted. Best of luck!