Latest videoblog from Mr Grannon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dnPRb99vfw

Interesting that within a day the comments are already on to page 3 - this issue obviously affects alot of people.

One comment went like this:
"Just had to say one more thing Richard, you said this is not fighting
related but I think this is something we as martial artists or the
general public should be educated on. Also this is violence and I feel
does warrent discussion. Combat is not just about techniques but
understanding human nature. Again well done Richard all the best
brother."

There's that 'understanding human nature' thing again ....

fucking brilliant. trauma bonding and low esteem.

you already mentioned addiction, and so i wanted not to throw in something as if you
hadn't but to expound--in my opinion from knowing the ebbs and flows of addiction
and all the negative aspects of wanting to avoid the withdrawal as well as the so called
positive aspects of enjoying the high. i think the enormous gulf between a beating and
a honeymoon phase sex session serves for an unreal kind of illusion of an even bigger high.
kinda of like contrast being the essense of vision, but one person is giving that full range of
possibilities. one person seemingly representing the highest of all experiences--by way of
of a loss of perspective, only by virtue of the extreme low life experience that preceded it.
in the end, the push and pull creates a sick kind of expectation after the shit.

i can only guess that, just as with drugs...in the end, the only motivation is to stay away from
the withdrawal [beatings]...the high is never as glorious as that first time. that initial encounter
was probably nice by normal standards but now serves as something nice to hope to work back
to, always illusive and slipping away like that lottery ticket desperate person who hasn't won yet
but buys more and more tickets.

there's probably a twisted kind of narcissism attached--like all depressed people seem to have
a little of, that presumes these men really can't do without them. i've known a few that i've tried
to help to no avail. let me tell you the one thing that these men did to finally break the spell.
cheat. fookin'hell. in two examples--different women, that fantasy shattered in a moment. one kicked
the shit out of her husband that had been in poor health and possibly was at a rare time when this
would be possible. he died later and i think this brought the woman guilt--not from the beating but from some brain thing. another was able to leave the guy, really decisively. ironically he died too of some brain thing.

anyway. i've thought about this crap for years...but never really knew about trauma bonding. it might help explain why acculteration works. why abusive dad's raise daughters that go into shit marriages.
i used to ask women--not obviously, over time...'did you get on with your dad?...just curious?'.

Quote :

i think the enormous gulf between a beating and
a honeymoon phase sex session serves for an unreal kind of illusion of an even bigger high.
kinda of like contrast being the essense of vision, but one person is giving that full range of
possibilities. one person seemingly representing the highest of all experiences--by way of
of a loss of perspective, only by virtue of the extreme low life experience that preceded it.
in the end, the push and pull creates a sick kind of expectation after the shit.

thats a really good point Russ, hadnt thought of that- sort of a really sick version of the "Contrast" sales technique usually this would cost *insert painful amount of cash* but today it costs only *moderately less painful, infinitely more acceptable amount of cash*

good points, you clearly have been thinking and picking up stuff about addiction for a while, got some good ideas there

Maija, Im actually pretty surprised at the positivity of the response, thought it might be "wrong subject, wrong people, wrong place" type of thing- I recorded a version a week ago and then shelved it, but when I met up with my mate and she told me what she had been going through these last few years I thought "fack it" and posted it anyway

Not sure if this will be coherent, but anyway ...
Abuse and return to an abuser happens over a time period and involves more complex factors than straight up street violence but I do think the subject is relevant here as Richie pointed out in the clip.
I think both have similarities when you think in terms of how to avoid being a victim. The difficulty in abuse situations is that often, the person being abused is less aware of what's happening to them on some level than someone getting attacked on the street (like the frog in boiling water story).
The connection between someone escaping an abuser and someone escaping an attack is that both involve an aggressor using fear and intimidation to exert control over another.
Just like it seems you need to learn how to build in a trigger to hit back to defend yourself in an attack situation, so is it in an abuse situation where you need to learn how to leave.
Both involve developing a sense of what is acceptable behavior, and then a righteous indignation to defend yourself - verbally, physically, emotionally.
They also both involve overcoming fear and transmuting it into something useful.
Also BEFORE any of this, of developing an awareness of your circumstances (know yourself) and "knowing the ways of men" as Musashi said, and hopefully avoiding the situation in the first place.
Hmmm ...knowing yourself? I guess as always, it starts there .....

interesting Maija,
regarding domestic abuse...
i think you're talking about instituting some fence like behaviors and
script like scenarios for where boundaries lie. so as to counter act the
lack of instinct, or over-ride the unhealthy inner behavioral patterns.

i'd wonder how important it would be to get it right the first time--it happens.
if the fight--a fight, becomes a metaphor for an abusive relationship, then
the fence [just like the real fence] only works if one is talking about one and only
one warning. the rest is psychologically losing ground/resolve/confidence.

one wouldn't give two warnings, three warnings...leave the door open after
throwing them out. it presumably would take training and drills, not unlike a
life-skills sort of class, on how to identify unhealthy and respond accordingly to
it.

this sort of a hypothetical class would be better instituted early--because there is
some history to factor in [scripted behavioral patterns being acted out, etc] on
occasion that normalize unhealthy relationships whilst still forming world views.
brainwashing for healthier [self worth] outcomes and brainwashing for managing fear
...

are you wondering yet how people who are prone to relationship abuse fair in
fights? i wouldn't want to make any bets on the subject but if i were to generalize,
i bet the answer is counter-intuitive--meaning only that they might have some
unused fire in them coming out surprizingly. i only base this on several students at
our school who've had red flags for abuse being a bit resolute and scrappy in other
unemotionally attached scenarios. but again, i would imagine the range of human
possibilities to be more vast and less formulaic--but not too vast.

need more mind altering drugs before writing more...hmmm???

I like where this is going

Quote :

Just like it seems you need to learn how to build in a trigger to hit back to defend yourself in an attack situation, so is it in an abuse situation where you need to learn how to leave.
Both involve developing a sense of what is acceptable behavior, and then a righteous indignation to defend yourself - verbally, physically, emotionally.

this is "boundary hardening" people with weak boundaries are easy to manipulate and therefore terrorise without serious repurcussion- not massively different from the more physical "line in the sand" Fence type scenario... at least in principle

know what you will tolerate and what you wont

look at what happens in therapry when you successfully raise someones values and self image- they start falling out with everyone

boundaries have to be redefined, turbulence ensues

Russell,
I don't think I've really thought hard about how you would even start to re-wire a real individual. I'm thinking there are many variables, not the least of which is the person even believing they are in trouble and then actually wanting to do something about it.
If they do, then it has to be about how to stop it before it starts - like you said, it can get too late real fast (like fighting?).

Having said that, I do think that a common thread in self protection training is making solid connections between the frontal lobe/higher function brain, and the mammal/lizard part of the brain that works fear and rage, etc - the fight/flight/freeze part so you can do something smart about your own survival.
Somehow it seems you need to be able to use both parts at the same time, or at least switch quick from one to the other and back.
I think one can train this, as well as learning about healthy behavior and self esteem etc, and it seems this skill set would be useful in any threat scenario.

Quote: "... they might have some unused fire in them coming out surprizingly."
Absolutely. In fact just today I was talking about this issue with a friend who had an absolutely godawful, abusive childhood. If an argument gets heated with a boyfriend, she says she goes into 'tilt' mode - shaking, backing away etc, full on 'flight'. However if said boyfriend follows her and won't back off, she says she strikes out at them, full on. Total survival mode.

As an aside, it reminds me of teaching people how to relax. At first most people only have the on and off switch - totally tense and rigid vs complete limp noodle. It's only with practice that you get the dimmer switch .....

Richie,
Quote: "know what you will tolerate and what you wont

look at what happens in therapry when you successfully raise someones values and self image- they start falling out with everyone"

Knowledge will set you free, as they say .... it's just you may be on your own for a while ... at least it'll feel that way, until you realize it's not a problem

We're all just a bunch of monkeys really, looking for acceptance and approval from the others. Not so bad as a way to get along, but wow has it got us into all kinds of trouble!

ironically i'm eating a banana right now and picking a dirty great rhino beatle
up for a late-night.
where's RichardB for the monkey referrence?


Richie
i really like the idea of boundary hardening, that's what it is, isn't it? never had
the expression for it until now. having an expression like that makes the path
still hard but more clear. call a class that and the objective is never far away, no
matter how one strays.

Maija
i would think what would be tricky is developing two personalities to sort this out.
i say this because of the way these things tend to spiral--maybe what you mean by
two parts of the brain communicating affectively [frog in warming water], suddenly
after the honey moonish beginning.

if i were to compare it to a fight, it would look like a friendly person that seemingly
passed the personality test, being asked to stop by because you're having a party.
suddenly after much laughter and award winning anecdotes, he tries to all out mug and
thug you. you would either need you're fence up all the time just a wee bit, Geoff
Thompson-esque, working it and always taking in information for changes just as an
exercise regardless of how nicely things are going, and perhaps some other comparable thing
to switch into [for example] another personality that you have on hand for just
such a thing. after all, the people with these unstable personalities have their mr. hydes.

i know there must be room for the intelligence that serves as the gradual
let down and digression--but this has so many variables and chances for misreadings. it would
seem critical if possible to develop because most of these [largely but not entirely] guys are
moving through nasty little weather patterns that brings storms, transition, and sunny days
accordingly. as such people can become weathermen to these signs.

i'd then imagine that not unlike fighting, the grey comes over time from training and
experiences. or maybe more personalities to cultivate for those without any esteem for natural
inner changes that mirror the environment?

i can say from my background of taking verbal abuse
more than i should have--not from real physically threatening people, but usually when emotional
baggage is on hand...i can say that i'm always aware of the shit build-up, but not as sure how i
sort it out as it doesn't threaten me physically, AND i don't see myself as a physical push-over so
i'm often thinking, "yeah...if i verbally explode...everyone in the room will be so unnerved and no one will get out of it what i think they need".

i say that only as a feed to the idea that possibly [on the other hand] these [largely] girls do probably
see it coming from far away and start putting up metaphorical meek-sand-bags to avoid the big flood that comes with the storm. what kind of grey could one nurture for this--seeing the storm and responding appropriately? leaving for a bit? most of the abusers thrive on privacy. rulers of their nauty
little worlds where they are king, because in the real world they're shit. and the threat is so often physical, the results of fighting back can be interesting.

[no fight]
i knew one girl that tried to leave a man and got raped by him. "i'm shite and my girl is shite, how dare she leave me and give her value-less self to another...i must scent mark her because i'm too cowardly
to fight the other man who i know she's off to"

[fight]
same girl [different person] who lost it--better late than never, and started choking the guy. it was a thought pattern interrupt just long enough for her to drive away because what he didn't expect was fortitude of
any kind. still shit scared of him after, but a long enough paus to re-write the script for only a moment.

a learning curve for her as these incidents are in chronological order.

all i wanted to say to her was, "shit, find the most boring person you're least interested in and that's probably the guy you need to be dating".

i've seen a woman try and fight back in front of her kids and get dropped. so as a minimum i'm thinking
that boundary hardening by way of an unrecognizable personality to the other [showing a very strong front and fence]. ...i'm thinking that what would be most surprizing is another personality even the
guy hasn't seen yet. imagine the possibility of some guy who's combustable but has been keeping it bottled for a long time. what would be more surprizing to him than another side he also has never seen in the girl. the opitome of everything she hasn't displayed as of yet. a 'hyde' in a bottle.

can of worms--got to go teach just now.

Interesting discussion. Let's see if I can't squeeze an ape or two in here. Incidentally I actually have a couple fairly thick tinfoil hat books about trauma and evil illuminati mind control. Intended to read them and see if it seemed to make sense psychologically. But... procrastination. Trauma bonding itself makes sense though.

Through trauma an abuser creates fear, dominance, uncertainty, and then on the other side, with comfort and friendliness they create relief, often dependency (through isolation, whether physical or mostly social) but the real thing here is that they get into this appeasement mode of behaving. Anything for the sake of maintaining the abuser's nice behavior. That's where the dominance and fear really gets to work. Where the control takes place.

First they show them hell. Then what they've got to do not to go there. But they take them there every once in a while regardless just to show who's boss and keep them off balance. Metaphorically. The basic pattern in various forms and intensities can probably be found many places in society. In the animal kindom too I believe. Semi-instinctive stuff.

This seems to connect very well with the mechanics of maintaining boundaries. Being able to back them up by force if need be is one thing. No law without enforcement. But convincing all the other ambitious apes to respect them seems like the real task. That's where that old seduction line comes in real well. Perception is reality. People generally only know what they percieve. More often than not it seems like your auditory and visual signature is the main source they base their immediate judgement on. And that's what needs to convince them that encroaching on your boundaries will result in more pain than pleasure. Deterrence.

On the level of first impression. We've got all these wonderful instincts to exploit. Mental shortcuts. You see a big animal; it means it's dangerous, even though it's just an ungodly amount of fur. or clothes. It makes loud and deep noise; it means it's dangerous, even though that's only sound. In fact accordig to Dave Grossman that's why they began using muskets, even though the crossbow was a superior weapon in almost all areas at the time. The BANG scared the shit out of people, and that was enough. Stuff in this area seems like what should be the bread and butter of interpersonal deterrence. The stuff that muggers percieve which makes them assume you're a hard target, and so on.

Who'd you rather mug, happy slap, talk trash to. A skinny hunched over guy or a big muscular guy standing straight ? Very generally speaking of course, most human predators seem to pick the skinny dude. Predators tend to go for the old, limp animal or the young whenever available. Strong healthy animals typically need to be in a real bad position for them to be taken. Away from the herd and outnumbered or something. From what I've gathered at least. The principle seems to hold in the human social world.

You need to let them percieve that you are able to create significant pain in various forms with your stick, while getting them hooked on the carrot so that you've got them between the two. Similar to the abusive relationship thing but in a more passive, benevolent form. The carrot may not be necessary in very short term encounters. It's more about communication than action. Letting them percieve potantials, more nebulous than specific. As fear tends to be a lot worse than knowledge. And letting them "discover" it for themselves will give it a lot more credibility than if they see you trying to show them. Posturing 2.0 basically. And, as with the abusive relationship you need to realize some potential every once in a while. Pop a nuke in the desert or let them grab a bite of the carrot.

Pain and pleasure. The carrot and the stick. I believe they are the two primary tools in any kind of social or semi social work with most creatures, including humans. It's a pair of pliers you use to grab people and move them. You can pull people in and push people away with each half respectively but both together become more than the sum of their parts. Fear, reciprocity, greed, there's a lot of powerful stuff going on. But being able to organize you communication this way seems to require a small amount of study and training. The fence blank face and verbal combatives stuff is real good material here. Communication is where you make or break your image in other people's heads. And we're operating almost entirely in fiddling with peoples map of reality here, by managing what they percieve.

Well... Bit of a brainstorm. But the monkey is delivered so all is well.

SilverBackRichardB,

i like the analysis. i was wondering where you got off to you cheeky monkey, erm...

i like the whole fear being stirred in guessing and hype, not as much in reality.
reminds of me of why horror movies--from long ago, and books that illuded and
not spelled out were so much scarier than the all out 'freddy' flics with all the
computer graphics of today.

rose-mary's baby was much scarier, or creepier at least, than that goofy movie
where an alien pops out of a corn patch and walks around looking like a tour guide
from walt disney--only to have water melt him like the witch in oz... i forgot the
director who later faded into said corn---shamalama-something.

playing on one's own mind is always scarier. threats are always scarier, once a
few frames of referrence can be accessed. good point!

i once helped a girl by getting her stuff out of a guy's appartment--fook'it, it was
a family member. the guy knew of my reputation with my hands, ironically by way
of said family member. i took a pistol from him and turned it in. he didn't actually
know what i was going to do with it. i'm told he boarded up his windows and didn't
venture out much. imagined things like me pissing in his mouthwash because 'it is
not the right colour'--during my short initial visit. his mind was doing what i no longer
needed to even bother doing. it was very interesting. i didn't want to spoil the mind
fook, so i just happily stayed away since she was no longer with him.

Great posts!
From this idea of "Perception is reality" and the psychological fence -
I think that it is most important to carry yourself in a way that makes you seem like a hard target. Women can't generally rely on size to do this so have to use different tactics.
Obviously the way you carry yourself is very important - stance, gait, awareness, eye contact etc (predator vs prey).
I also very much agree with this idea of creating uncertainty on some level. The 'mind fook' as it were.
A diminutive woman I know, a martial arts teacher and certainly no push over, related tales of living in New York and traveling on the subway late at night, now this is back in the 70s/80s when it was much nastier than now. She said she used 2 main strategies if she saw some guy paying her too much notice. Either she'd start talking to herself and brush imaginary things off her shoulder, or she'd pick her nose and eat it. She said both always worked like a charm!
My teacher (a small and thin man) carried a blade all the time, and avoided a few encounters on the street just by flourishing it (which he was very good at). He said you could always say something like "Where have you been all my life?" for added effect.
I love that part in The 13th Warrior movie when there is the challenge match for the purpose of having the adversaries "fear what they cannot see".

Russell, what I meant by 2 parts of the brain interacting, is for those moments where there is imminent threat, and fear is taking over. To have the ability to recognize what's happening and trigger an appropriate response I think involves both frontal lobe and 'lizard'.
Nice story about the guy and the gun!

gotcha!

as an aside, i'm taking all this in and processing it because of collisions
with people's lives that have gone through it, but now i'm also training
someone who's exhusband has recently lost his house and is showing up
and assuming he can bully his way into a place to stay. she also has a
daughter. he's been giving signs that physicality is not out of the question,
in true ritualistic form--proximity/intimadation/etc...he stayed several
hours before finally walking out when she had shouted at him to leave.
he's LARGE. i'd say it's serious.

i'm going to talk to her tomorrow about things she can say to have him
take her more seriously. i'm sure the history doesn't help her case. i can
tell she must have not had much in the way of fortitude to stick up for
her self in past times. the plus side of that is that i think she's more
open to my self-protective brainwashing.

Not domestic abuse but a great story all the same about a woman defending herself in her home:

March 3 2009
Matters in Hand


News article by Mike Royko for the Chicago Tribune

We've
had the year of the woman and it is still going on, with females being
elected to high office and named to the Cabinet posts, and the power of
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
But what about Curtescine Lloyd? You never
heard of her? Well, she is my choice as one of the most amazing and
heroic women of recent years. Ms. Lloyd is a middle-aged nurse who
lives with an elderly aunt in the rural hamlet of Edwards, Miss., near
Jackson This is her story, most of it taken from the court transcript.

One
night, Ms. Lloyd was awakened by a sound. She thought it was her aunt
going to the bathroom. Suddenly a man stepped into her bedroom.
Terrified, she sat up. He shoved her back down and said: "Bitch, you
better not turn on a light. You holler, you're dead. You better not
breathe loud." He declared his intentions, which were to rob her and to
commit sexual assault. Of course, he phrased it far more luridly. He
then took off most of his clothing and jumped into bed.

Here
is what happened next, according to court records: Ms. Lloyd: "I got
it. I grabbed it by my right hand. And then I grabbed it, I gave it a
yank. And when I yanked it, I twisted all at the same time." (Need I
explain what Ms. Lloyd meant by "it"? I think not.) "He hit me with his
right hand a hard blow beside the head, and when he hit me I grabbed
hold of his scrotum with my left hand and I was twisting it the
opposite way. He started to yell and we fell to the floor and he hit me
a couple more licks, but they were light licks. He was weakening some
then." With Ms. Lloyd still hanging on with both hands, squeezing and
twisting the fellow's pride and joy, they somehow struggled into the
hallway.
"He was trying to get out, and I'm hanging onto him; and
he was throwing me from one side of the hall wall to the other. I was
afraid if I let him go, he was going go kill me" "So I was determined I
was not going to turn it loose. So we were going down the hallway,
falling form one side to the other, and we got into the living room and
we both fell. He brought me down in front of the couch and he leaned
back against the couch, pleading with me." "I said, 'Do you think I'm
stupid enough to turn you loose and call the police?' He said, 'Well,
what am I gonna do?' I said, 'You're gonna get the hell out of my
house.' He said, 'How can I get out of your house if you won't let me
go? How can I get out? I can't get out.' "
Ms. Lloyd, still
twisting and squeezing, dragged the lout to the front door, which had
two locks, and told him to unbolt them. It was a difficult process
because he kept collapsing to the floor and she kept hauling him back
to his feet. Ms. Lloyd, now confident that she had the upper hand (or
should I say the lower hands?) and a full grasp of the situation, said:
"When I turn you loose, I'm going to get my gun and I'm going to blow
your (obscenity) brains out, you nasty stinking, low-down dirty piece
of (obscenity), you."
"And when I did that, I gave it a twist, and I
turned him loose. And he took a couple of steps and fell off the steps
and he jumped up and grabbed his private parts and made a couple of
jumps across the back of my aunt's car." "And I ran into my aunt's
room, got her pistol from underneath the nightstand, ran back to the
screen door and I fired two shots down the hill the way I saw him go.
And then I ran back into the house and dialed 911."

The police
came and examined the man's clothing. Inside the trousers was written
the name Dwight Coverson. They found Coversion, 29, at home, in
considerable pain and wondering if he could ever be a daddy. A one-day
jury trial was held. As coverson's court-appointed lawyer put it: "The
jury was out 10 minutes. Long enough or two of them to go to the
bathroom." And the judge gave him 25 years in prison.

What a great story... Good for her

Quote :

Pain and pleasure. The carrot and the stick. I believe they are the two primary tools in any kind of social or semi social work with most creatures, including humans. It's a pair of pliers you use to grab people and move them. You can pull people in and push people away with each half respectively but both together become more than the sum of their parts. Fear, reciprocity, greed, there's a lot of powerful stuff going on. But being able to organize you communication this way seems to require a small amount of study and training. The fence blank face and verbal combatives stuff is real good material here. Communication is where you make or break your image in other people's heads. And we're operating almost entirely in fiddling with peoples map of reality here, by managing what they percieve.

Well... Bit of a brainstorm. But the monkey is delivered so all is well.

Good points , I was missing the monkey

really nice story Maija.
i m ust be a sick f@#k because i was almost hoping she was able to rip off the
fookers and shove them up his arse. god that was good. god bless maija.
i need a smoke.

there's a gichin funakoshi [sp?] story like that. he was old man, incensed to take
the 'safe' route home. he got mugged and managed to hold on the guys 'nads' for,
well 'forever'. he felt guilty about it later, since he could have taken another route
home. [and by 'forever', i mean he didn't let go until authorities were able to allow
the painful release of said bollocks--chi'ching, here's your change ].

the girl i'm [slowly] training had at once been living in complete terror of this
guy. he stuck a gun to her belly when she was pregnant with their daughter.
he's held it to her head, etc... she's so PTSD when things aren't right. some
nutter came in to where we work ready to raise the roof. she was rocking and
practically in the baby position. heavy handed cowardly man--subhu'man [her ex].
he did a number on her--carrot and stick. i can only assume the guy she's with
now is probably some version of not right either--hopefully the physicality is removed
from the equation though. i know it's a two-part sickness so my only investment is
not letting her skip a class. i feel like i can raise someone's inward temperature to
just below boiling--for better or worse. can't say they wont need therapy or some
yoga retreat afterward, but i've seen at least what is possible for the battered. one day
they can be like dogs that have been kicked too much, and turn mean. what to do with
that i can't say, and it's a serious question isn't it?

so this is what i mean by slowly training her. i told her i'd be her teacher free of
charge until she is a commited asshole and can deliver all by herself.

all i'm working on is her being really surprizing and explosive--without any guarantees
other than having the probability of unexpected responses on her side. whole game being to
get him out of the apartment, or herself and daughter up the road, etc...


oh yeah, really thorough and nicely worded response monkey dude and king--RichardB.
i still always think of bonobos and chimps. almost identicle in looks. when exposed to pressure
and tension: the bonobos fornicate; the chimps fight. i think that's makes us all chimps.
that's alright, bonobos are weird anyway.

I'm surprised those nuts were still attached. Stories like that are good.

Regarding horror movies and how much they reveal. That movie, boogyman was pretty good. At first at least. Usually in horror movies you're generally safe if you're A) with other people and B) in the light. But the movie broke those rules right off the bat, plus they didn't show the boogyman either. Who knows what might happen next? It was all going good until they showed the boogyman near the end and the whole movie was just stupid after that. It ruined the whole effect.

Cloverfield was also good at this. Although you see the monster and all, you never get to know what the hell is going on. There's a credible danger element and a lot of unknowns. It gives your imagination room to unfold, which is where the effect comes from. To paraphrase Hannibal Lecter, fear is the curse of imagination.

Then again you've got what happens when you apply this strategy for too long without realizing some potential to maintain credibility. Lost. While I only followed the series for a while, I never saw that scary thing in the woods or what the hell it was. It's absence became predictable. It seems necessary to unexpectedly realize a bit of potential dangerousness to maintain credibility. In the case of the series lost, to not fall into the pitfall of boogyman by showing the monster (whose entire effect comes from being unknown), they could have at least came in out of leftfield and killed a character or something, which is incidentally how boogyman broke with all the rules early on. By finding people where they thought they were safe, and pulling the rug out from under them.

It's like those maps people used to draw. whatever they didn't know was "here be monsters."

So, to continue the idea of using the 'hidden threat' parallel in the context of this thread -

Quote: "It seems necessary to unexpectedly realize a bit of potential dangerousness to maintain credibility."

That moment could be used once for sure, to facilitate "getting the hell out of Dodge" as it were, but you can't use surprise over and over again can you?
That's the problem in anything long term, right?
I'm not sure whether an abusive person will be dissuaded from their violent behavior unless this happens from the get go and the relationship never starts ...or you don't go back after you've used it ... ??

absolutely what i keep bringing up to my student...
"you have a job cut out for you because you're history is being
a push-over, this works better for those who don't know you"

is what i say to her, i've been focussing on safety/survival, and in building
self esteem--not to mention forgetting the expectation of win/lose. she's
locked, presently, to an address. messy. and she's used to [for the history]
tidying up 'in house' [meaning she has a history of NOT calling the cops but
instead patching up a sinking ship]. the latest thing i've indirectly heard
is that he planted a 'hicky' [sucked on her neck to leave a love-bite looking
mark] on her neck whilst bear-hugging her--in an attempt to mess with
a relationship she's presently cultivating with another bloke. that should have
been a call to the cops. she's hasn't told me about it, which is interesting in
of itself. she covered it up with make-up and moved on. messy. so i keep
making training 'installments' under the pretense that,
'if this is an attack in the making...at least fighting back will have a positive
affect on self esteem'. which the added focus on having people nearby to
call to, run to, etc...and trying to stop the whole avoidance behavior [make-up
applied rather than cops called].

muscle soreness from her own hard work is slowly building some esteem
in her, brainwashing is slowly building returns, but a pressure test awaits
that is--at this stage, russian roulette at best. i'm really mostly focussing on
her mind. and not investing more than the time i have with her 'in class'. i
can't help but feel, because of my necessary peripheral role, that it is a
weird kind of dangerous chess match between two strong personalities--the
difference being that i'm trying to make her stand on her own, so she has
to be able to see her own success [which is more daunting than it sounds].

i see this subject directly now because i have a student who's close to it. i've
seen the situation play out enough times with others, and all i'm trying to do
is diminish [not eradicate--which would be unrealistic] the risks in a balance
that is short term and long term. behavior modification works better for
new guys in her life. they have a daughter--which is now a pawn for visitation.
he's more desperate now since he's run into some bad luck. hmmm...

as for coming back to a bloke repeatedly--back to a theoretical discussion, i see
that like putting up a fence, then doing it again, then doing it again--and never
following up making someone's position that of a bluff and not carrying real weight.
i've said this to her as well, "if you make a threat like 'i'll the call the cops if...', then
follow through or you wont be taken seriously, you're almost better off saying
nothing".

but, in the end, i give her what i have seen in terms of my own--and others, experiences.
i'm, like all teachers...1% inspiration. the 99% perspiration has to come from her own
self preservation instinct. so this is why i've focussed on her mind and self esteem. padwork
for good measure. drills for good measure. not surprizingly, she's a ball of fire on the pads.

maija wrote:

So, to continue the idea of using the 'hidden threat' parallel in the context of this thread -

Quote: "It seems necessary to unexpectedly realize a bit of potential dangerousness to maintain credibility."

That moment could be used once for sure, to facilitate "getting the hell out of Dodge" as it were, but you can't use surprise over and over again can you?
That's the problem in anything long term, right?
I'm not sure whether an abusive person will be dissuaded from their violent behavior unless this happens from the get go and the relationship never starts ...or you don't go back after you've used it ... ??

Those are good points. I don't think you can surprise people over and over unless they've got Alzheimer or something. Using a pattern interrupt type of thing in an abusive relationship where the abuser has come to expect submissive behavior is mostly a single use thing. Really, the concept of a long term abusive relationship is the first that has to go. Simply staying in one destroys most credibility of any deterrence one could put in place. IMO as a general rule a relationship should end the moment violence enters into it.