engineer

Here are some web pages describing social blindness:

Antisocial Personality
http://www.millon.net/Taxonomy/ANT.htm

-Failing to heed consequences

-Actively intrudes upon and violates the rights of others,
as well as transgresses established social codes.

-Cognitively Deviant (e.g., construes events and relationships
in accord with socially unorthodox beliefs and morals; fails
to conform to social norms)

-Autonomous Self-Image (e.g., sees self as unfettered by the
restrictions of social customs)

-Internalized representations comprise degraded and corrupt
relationships that spur revengeful attitudes and restive
impulses

-Acting-Out Mechanism (e.g., inner tensions that might accrue
by postponing the expression of offensive thoughts and malevolent
actions are rarely constrained; socially repugnant impulses are
not refashioned in sublimated forms, but are discharged directly
in precipitous ways, usually without guilt or remorse).

-Callous Mood (e.g., is insensitive, irritable and aggressive,
as expressed in a wide-ranging deficit in social charitableness,
human compassion or personal remorse; exhibits a coarse
incivility, as well as an offensive disregard for others.


Antisocial Personality Disorder
http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe04.html
http://www.bconnex.net/~cspcc/psychopathy/diag.htm

-Pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights
of others

-Failure to conform to social norms

-Irritability and aggressiveness

-Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or
rationalizing having hurt or mistreated others

-Harassment of others

-Blames the victim for being foolish, helpless, or deserving
their fate, minimizes the harmful consequences of actions
or indicates complete indifference.

-Fails to compensate or make amends for their behaviour.

-Lacks empathy and tend to be callous, cynical, and contemptuous
of the feelings, rights, and sufferings of others

-Inflated and arrogant self-appraisal

-Excessively opinionated, self-assured, or ****y

-Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder are more
likely than people in the general population to die prematurely
by violent means (e.g., suicide, accidents, and homicides).

Borderline Personality Disorder
http://www.mentalhealth.com/icd/p22-pe05.html

-"behavioural explosions"; are easily precipitated when impulsive
acts are criticized or thwarted by others.

-Markedly dysharmonious attitudes and behaviour involving ways of
perceiving and thinking and style of relating to others

-Maladaptive to a broad range of personal and social situations

Conduct Disorder
http://www.mentalhealth.com/icd/p22-ch02.html
http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-ch02.html

-Repetitive and persistent pattern of dissocial, aggressive, or
defiant conduct.

-Major violations of age-appropriate social expectations

-Excessive levels of fighting or bullying; cruelty to others

-Defiant provocative behaviour

-Persistent dissocial or aggressive behaviour

-Lack of effective integration into a peer group

-Isolation from and/or rejection by or unpopularity with others

-Lack of lasting empathic, reciprocal relationships with others

-Relationships tend to be marked by discord, hostility, and
resentment

-Rudeness, uncooperativeness


Oppositional Defiant Disorder
http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-ch05.html

-A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior

-Actively defies or refuses to comply with requests

-Deliberately annoys people

-Blames others for his or her misbehavior

-Touchy or easily annoyed by others

-Spiteful or vindictive


If multiple participants in a newsgroup tell you that you
exibit the above behaviours, please consider the high
probability that you have one of the above disorders and
that your disorder is blinding you to it's existance.

"We have more reason to fear the hollow man than the poor
neurotic who is tormented by his own conscience. As long
as man is capable of moral conflicts - even if they lead
to neurosis - there is hope for him. But what shall we
do with a man who has no attachments? Who can breathe
humanity into his emptiness?"
-Selma Fraiberg

"...Over their lifetimes ... [those with the above
disorders] demand a disproportionate amount of time and
money from society in general and from health professionals
in particular."
-Comprehensivee Textbook of Psychiatry

bromo

Seems pretty typical of just about everyone on this group at one time or
another, Guy. :-)

bill

I'm not sure why Engineer wrote his post, but I think he may be the person
long active in this news group who has been told by more participants than any
other that he exhibits a number of the behaviors listed. I am hoping that he
is indeed taking the advice he quotes.

Bill Samuel, Silver Spring, MD, USA bill[at]friendsinchrist.net
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/wsamuel/ http://www.quakerinfo.com/
Internet Ministries Coordinator, Friends in Christ, http://www.friendsinchrist.net/
Member, Adelphi MM, BYM; Affiliate, Rockingham MM, Ohio YM
"There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition."

coggè

Or perhaps a qualified psychiatrist or licensed mental health professional
would be better equipped to diagnose a person with such disorders. That is
like telling someone who has alot of headaches that they probably have a
brain tumor. There is alot more involved in diagnosing a mental illness
than just checking off a list of behaviors and ''symptoms''. There are alot
of people in this world who are annoying or have a short fuse that are not
mentally ill. It takes a professional full evaluation by a licensed
professional (and a full assessment is usually a 1 1/2 to 2 hour appt. where
an extensive medical history is taken in addition to an evaluation of
presenting problems)

cogge

engineer

I apologize for being unclear. When I wrote "please consider the
high probability that you have one of the above disorders and
that your disorder is blinding you to it's existence" I did not
mean to imply that the person should decide that they do have
such a disorder, but rather to seriously consider the possibility
and to see a qualified mental health professional.

I couldn't agree more. My point is that the person most in need of
such an evaluation is least likely to realize it, instead attributing
the constant conflict he experiences in newsgroups to perceived flaws
in the religions of the other participants. In one example that comes
to mind, an individual has tried to start fights with Quakers, Moslems,
Baptists, Mormons, etc. etc, always thinking that the conflicts are
because of others, never realizing that most of us manage to disagree
on the subject of religion without constantly engaging in attacks on
other religions. It gets very ugly indeed when two such individuals
run into each other in a newsgroup.

rudy

Bill, would you accept advice, given the way that you are giving it
here? Salted with faint sarcasm? I know I wouldn't.

I am often guilty of using sarcasm with my kids, and it doesn't work.
("Not being sarcastic" should be one of my New Year's resolutions...
but it usually comes out when I am at my most tired and grouchy, and
so would be equivalent to Resolving Not to Ever Be Tired and Grouchy in
2004.)

rudy

timothy travis

I have been working on my sarcasm for a while, now, and am here to
report that progress can be made!!!

sarcasm is a form of using pain--emotional pain, in this case--to
control other people through their fear of humiliation and ridicule.
Eye rolling and other put-downs are in the same category. It's a
manner of tearing people down rather than edifying them.

one way I have used with some success is to immediately say, when I
have been sarcastic, "that was sarcastic, I apologize." It really
confused my children when I started doing that, inhibited me from
doing it again and modeled for my wife (who also recognizes it as a
problem). This had an interesting impact, too, when I had been
sarcastic about someone not present and said this to those who heard
me.

it's a daily struggle.

timothy

bromo

I have not found that sarcasm is not used that nefariously all the time -
and is an effective method of evoking HUMOR in the audience.

The same way that a joke can be used in a way to hurt others, it can also be
used to lighten the mood.

timothy travis

but at whose expense?

I may not share your defintion of the word, beause for me sarcasm goes
beyond humor...its roots are in terms such as tearing the flesh, bite
the lips in rage, sneer. It's primary definition (dictionary) is
cutting, hostile or contemptuous remark.

I am sure that, given some examples of remarks, however, you and I
would agree on which were, in your words, not nefarious, and which
were.

Timothy

engineer

This is the sort of nasty personal attack that caused me to killfile
Bill before, and if he does it after I drop my killfiles on Jan 1st,
he will quickly become killfiled again.

Bill, *please* stop doing this sort of thing. I haven't done anything
to you. Why do you feel the need to engage in unprovoked personal
attacks? Is this really the witness of Christ in your life that you
wish to convey to the world?

Why attack me when you have no expectation that I will read your
words? What is your purpose? To turn others against me? No need
for that - my own personal shortcomings are quite enough for that.

On your web page ( http://www.friendsinchrist.net/fic_val.shtml ),
you say "We are committed to living Jesus' command to love one
another." and "We are committed to unity with others in the body
of Christ in a common effort to witness the Good News of Jesus
Christ." I don't see this in your words above.

I am planning on clearing the slate on January 1st and will try
very hard to not let past wrongs influence me. Please try to
break your pattern of personal attacks. I would very much like
to see this turn out to be an example of how God can change both
of our lives.