psychology – Page 101

The Holocaust Religion

Most people think that, with the decline of Christianity, there is no longer a religion that unifies the Western world. These people are in error, because the forces and social phenomena that led to the rise of every previous religion still exist, and continue to give rise to new ones. Not only has the Holocaust been mythologised to the point of being an actual religion, but this religion, as this essay will examine, is now the one that unifies the West.

Where history becomes religion is when you aren’t allowed to question it without facing strict censure. In any society, whatever it is that you’re not allowed to question is the mainstream religion, which has to be respected otherwise the transgressor will face the wrath of God.

Back in the day, you couldn’t question God or the Bible, else you be shunned and persecuted by your fellows. Now you can’t question whether or not the Holocaust happened. British writer David Irving got a three-year prison sentence for denying the Holocaust in Austria, and many Western groups would like to bring in similar laws in their own country.

There might well be piles of evidence that supports the contention that eleven million people were killed in the Nazi extermination camps, of who six million were Jews. This essay does not contest this belief. But there are piles of evidence for many historical events, yet questioning any of these is permissible – even such events as the genocide of the American Indians, involving ten times as many deaths as the Nazi genocide.

The Holocaust occupies a unique place in that it is uniquely unquestionable, taboo – sacred.

After all, you’re allowed to question everything else, no matter how obscene. You’re allowed to question whether the Earth revolves around the Sun, or whether European colonisation of the New World was a good thing, or whether ghosts exist. You’re even allowed to argue that mutilating the genitals of a newborn baby is a legitimate spiritual or medicinal practice.

But question the Holocaust and people gasp and go quiet, and a dark shadow seems to fall, as if one was playing with opening Pandora’s Box.

In this new form of Abrahamism (perhaps we could call it Holocaustianity), the Jew is Abel and the Nazi is Cain. Hitler is the devil, the Germans the Romans and the Jew is collectively Jesus: enlightened, persecuted, innocent. The creation event is World War Two, when the Allies banded together to defeat the Nazis. This was the act that bonded the West together and created the modern world.

Because of the pre-eminence of the Holocaust religion among Western political and media elites, we’re led to believe that the deaths of the six million somehow collectively won us a spiritual peace or absolution from evil. This sacrifice replaces the sacrifice of Jesus as the one that we should all be grateful for; we should all grovel before the priests because of it. Questioning this narrative is worthy of rage, disgust, social rejection.

The charge of “Holocaust denial” is a modern way of saying blasphemy, the religion so blasphemed against in this case being the Holocaust religion. To suggest that fewer than six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust is to blaspheme. This is effectively a heresy, in other words a sin against God, and deserves to be treated as such, with the utmost contempt and censure. Germany even went as far as putting an old lady in prison for questioning this sacred myth.

The reason why this Holocaust narrative was chosen and given sacred status is not because of the machinations of some Jewish conspiracy, finally triumphant. It has arisen simply because it serves the geopolitical aims of the Western ruling classes.

Israel serves very effectively as a Western colony and beachhead in the middle of the Middle East, allowing the Western ruling classes to project power into that area easily, which keeps the oil flowing. If that oil stops flowing, the world population is set to drastically decrease, because that oil is the basis of the fertilisers that grows most of the world’s food. Hence, the presence of Israel solves an immensely important strategic objective.

To that end, the Holocaust religion has been promoted to dispel the sense of outrage that the Israeli presence in the Middle East would otherwise have. The Jews must have Israel, we are told, because the alternative is Holocaust.

Central to the Holocaust religion is the belief that Jews must be completely absolved of any blame in the events of World War Two. The Holocaust didn’t happen because of things like the Jewish support for the German Revolution of 1918-19, or the Jewish influence in the Holodomor that starved ten million Ukrainians to death. The creed states that the Holocaust happened because of the inexplicable unique malice of the German people, or at least the Nazi Party.

This means that anything Hitler is believed to have said is exactly wrong and something we shouldn’t do. Note that this has no relevance to what Hitler actually did say. It doesn’t matter, for instance, that Hitler said that Islam was a natural warrior religion and would have suited his vision for an all-conquering Germany perfectly – if a person criticises Islam, that sounds like someone criticising Jews and therefore criticing Islam makes you a Nazi.

Any discussion or line of discussion that leads to even the smallest likelihood of someone raising what some like to call the “Jewish Question”, like alt-right talk, is the forbidden fruit, and media figures like Lauren Southern are the hissing serpent that wants to corrupt the minds of the innocent. This is the power that the Holocaust religion has.

The curious thing is that America has just recently become a net exporter of oil, thanks to technological advances that have driven down the cost of recovering oil from shale and from tar sands. This means that the geostrategic imperative to prop up Israel is about to disappear. One can predict from that that the grip of the Holocaust religion will also fade.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis).

Writing Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a condition characterised by extreme emotional instability and sensitivity to criticism. This means that characters with the condition are naturally well suited to dramatic fiction. This article looks at how to write interesting and believable characters with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Originally named because it was the label given to those on the border between diagnoses (in particular psychosis and neurosis), BPD has taken on a somewhat different meaning in recent editions of the DSM. Indeed, some believe the name is no longer accurate, and the condition ought to be renamed as something like “Emotional Disregulation Disorder”.

People with BPD tend to have extremely strong reactions to criticism. This is believed to stem ultimately from a weak sense of self, which makes them prone to being heavily impacted by what other people say about them. It’s as if they don’t have the same defences that most people have when it comes to accepting criticism and resisting bullying.

They also tend to have problems when it comes to interpersonal empathy. A character with BPD might seem a bit narcissistic or psychopathic to other characters because of their apparent refusal to take other people’s feelings into account when making decisions. Alternatively, they might perceive someone to be angry at them when they really are not.

If the protagonist of your story has BPD, it might be that they experience even mild criticism as brutal, sharp and denigrating. This could make them seem extremely sensitive, or even narcissistic, to other characters. The difference between BPD and narcissism in this sense is that a person with BPD can be reassured that the criticism was not intended to be wounding, whereas a narcissist would likely bear a grudge.

People with BPD also tend to have a very strong fear of abandonment. It is uncommon for them to feel secure in romantic relationships. A protagonist with this condition will probably experience a lot of thoughts of jealousy and suspicion going through their minds. They will frequently perceive their partner as flirting with others when they really aren’t.

A protagonist that gets involved in a romantic relationship with another character who has BPD is probably in for a rocky time. People with BPD tend to treat their lovers like a demigod one minute and dogshit the next. This is often very difficult for those lovers, who then don’t really know where they stand. The line between this kind of behaviour and narcissistic abuse is not obvious.

On the other hand, a character with BPD might be more than memorable in bed. The combination of emotional intensity, need for reassurance, and lack of inhibition can make for an incredible sexual experience – perhaps even enough to make up for all the insanity otherwise endured. A psychologist can tell you that this kind of treatment is liable to become addictive, which makes for a tumultuous time.

Realistically, an experience with BPD is more likely to be deeply unpleasant than it is to result in legendary erotic achievements. Self harm is common among people with the condition, and could be considered characteristic of it. If the protagonist of your story encounters someone with scars on their forearms, this could foreshadow some intensely emotional scenes.

If your protagonist encounters a character with BPD, they might realise something is amiss on account of that that character has dysfunctional life goals. The borderline character might seem to drift from one meaningless activity to another, with little awareness paid to the fact that they’re getting older and that time is passing them by. This might manifest as a nihilistic streak.

A character with BPD might be disliked by other characters, sometimes intensely, if they don’t have sympathy for the condition. Because people with it tend to be deeply wounded by criticism, they can develop a tendency to lash out hard at minor insults. This can make them antagonistic and grudge-keeping. Other characters might get the perception that they have to walk on eggshells around the borderline or else run the risk of being attacked.

BPD is around three times more common in women than it is in men (this is likely one of the main reasons why women are often seen as less emotionally stable than men). This can add to the difficulty of having the condition. If you’re writing a female character with BPD, that character might discover that other people don’t take their condition seriously, because their prejudice leads them to put it down to being a woman etc.

In the eyes of a protagonist who is encountering a character with BPD, the borderline character might just seem like a loose cannon, akin to certain other conditions like Schizophrenia and Histrionic Personality Disorder. Much as with those conditions, the risk of self-harm and suicide is often present with BPD. This is partially a result of the disinhibition that comes with the disorder but it is also the result of the fact that people with BPD tend to have difficult lives.

All in all, a character with Borderline Personality Disorder is a good choice if your dramatic fiction needs some more drama. Things are unlikely to remain stable for long with such a character around. However, care will have to be taken to portray such a character with compassion, and not make them seem like an arsehole.

This article is an excerpt from Writing With The DSM-V (Writing With Psychology Book 5), edited by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.

Writing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an unusual condition in that almost everyone has it to a greater or lesser degree, but few realise the impact that it has had on their lives. As the name implies, the condition describes when a person’s stress levels or reactions don’t go back to normal after a major traumatic experience. This article looks at how to write believable characters and situations involving PTSD.

PTSD is caused by exposure to a traumatic event, usually one in which a person thinks they are going to die. The classic examples are exposure to warfare, traffic accidents, sexual assault or physical assault. Experiences like these cause the brain to flood with fear, which can form long-term associations with the other stimuli present. This means that future exposure to those stimuli can trigger that deep fear again.

The classic symptom of PTSD is becoming full of adrenaline and going into combat mode when exposed to a loud noise or a touch to the head. In the former case, the loud noise might remind a character of the explosions of grenades and shellfire in combat; in the latter case, the touch to the head might remind of early childhood abuse at the hands of a parent. In either case, powerful memories of immense fear can quickly come flooding back.

The effects of PTSD are what could be expected from a close brush with gruesome physical death: adrenaline and cortisol prime the character for either combat or running. A character with the condition might easily become stirred into fight-or-flight mode as a response to the trauma. Here it can be seen that PTSD has considerable overlap with other psychiatric disorders, in particular Panic Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder and Generalised Anxiety Disorder.

Other effects are an increased propensity for self-harm. After all, one of the natural consequences of having a massively traumatic experience is that a person comes to realise that the world is much nastier or more dangerous than they thought it was. Some people with PTSD might decide that this world is actually pretty shit and not worth living in, given the horrors it contains.

In the case of violent crime or rape, a person might also come to lose all trust in a major societal demographic, which entails everyday difficulties. If a woman comes to distrust all men or a robbery victim comes to distrust all blacks, their life might become a lot harder and quickly, for no real fault of their own. Like children who have had bad experiences with dogs, a person with PTSD might come to dislike anything associated with their initial trauma.

Because PTSD is frequently portrayed in dramatic fiction, care must be taken not to write in cliches. The example of a nightmare leading to someone waking up in the middle of the night screaming, only to realise that the object of their terror is no longer present, is a striking one but also very heavily used. So too is the man staring into the distance, reliving a traumatic experience, not hearing someone calling to them.

A protagonist who suffers from PTSD might be aware of their condition or unaware.

If they are aware that they have PTSD, they might be a deep and sensitive character. They could be directly aware that a particular early life event has damaged them irreparably. This might be the reason for their unusual levels of compassion – the character knows what it feels like to be scared to death and commiserates with others who also do.

A story featuring such a character might be one about how they overcame their psychic damage and managed to find a way to engage joyfully with life. Often this involves healing oneself, the shamanic path. An extremely wise character may have attained their insight through having overcome an equally extreme trauma earlier in their life. Perhaps this experience caused them to understand what another character is going through.

It’s common to have PTSD and to be unaware of it. This is especially plausible on account of that people who incur severe psychological trauma might not show signs of it until many years later. A person might grow into early adulthood with a particularly surly or nasty character because of some heavy trauma incurred while a child. They might also show other signs of being strongly emotional, reckless or impulsive.

Just because a character with PTSD is not aware that they have PTSD, doesn’t mean that other characters will not be aware. In some cases it will be very obvious, because they will observe the first character go into kill mode for what seems like an insufficiently grave provocation. The character with PTSD might soon find that their condition is part of their reputation – they seem “damaged” in the eyes of others.

A combination of the two can also tell a story, such as the case of a protagonist who gradually becomes aware that they have PTSD or something like it. Perhaps they are perceptive enough to realise that a prior event has damaged their psyche – for example, they observe that they feel intense anxiety when presented with a stimulus that reminds them of a particular traumatic event.

If your protagonist encounters a character with PTSD, how that protagonist behaves might depend on their naivety and openness. A naive character might think that simply by being nice to someone with PTSD they can get them to behave normally. Although this is sometimes true up to a point, the reality is that PTSD often carries with it sinister undertones of bitterness and resentment.

It’s common for people who have PTSD for similar reasons to bond strongly over the fact. This is especially true in the case of soldiers, emergency personnel and survivors of abusive relationships. For one thing, misery loves company, but for another, severe trauma is often the kind of experience that deeply shapes a person and their conception of life and reality, so people who share the trauma often share an entire worldview that’s based on it.

C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) isn’t actually in the DSM-V, but it’s worth covering here for the sake of completeness. Essentially it’s a similar condition, only brought about by repeated exposure to a traumatic person or stimulus, as opposed to one single, horrifying event as is usually the case with regular PTSD.

The major difference with C-PTSD is the loss of a sense of self. One’s boundaries are violated with such consistency that it becomes hard to say where one ends and the outside world begins. This can be related to Depersonalisation Disorder and frequently coincides with a deep sense of distrust about other people.

This article is an excerpt from Writing With The DSM-V (Writing With Psychology Book 5), edited by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.

Writing Narcolepsy

Best known as the condition that causes Grandpa Simpson to fall asleep at a moment’s notice, narcolepsy is an uncommon disorder linked to sleep patterns. This article looks at how to write believable characters with narcolepsy.

Narcolepsy is a decreased ability to regulate sleep-wake cycles. The overwhelming problem with narcolepsy, and its most characteristic feature, is that people with it can feel extremely tired during the day. The most notable symptom is recurring bouts of extreme daytime sleepiness, which can result in falling asleep in unexpected and inappropriate places.

Because being properly awake during the day is virtually a necessity for normal life function, narcolepsy can be a crippling condition for those afflicted. If it’s bad enough, driving a car will be impossible because of the risk of crashing (similar to epileptics). Taking public transport might not be possible either, which means that the life of the a narcoleptic character in your story might have to be a restricted one.

The author should pay close heed to what’s known as the “tetrad of narcolepsy”: cataplexy, sleep paralysis, hypnagogic hallucinations and being extremely tired during the day.

Cataplexy is a strange condition that involves the sudden weakening of large muscle groups. A bout of cataplexy can involve a weakening at the knees, or in the neck and head (similar to nodding off to sleep). This is one symptom that can truly wreck the life of a narcoleptic. It isn’t just that the physical debilitation is a problem, it’s that the narcolepsy sufferer learns to fear the social occasions that pose a risk of provoking one.

Sleep paralysis is the experience, often terrifying, of not being able to move one’s body when awakening or falling asleep. The experience of a character undergoing sleep paralysis might be similar to one undergoing night terrors. They may feel as if they have died.

Hypnagogic hallucinations are felt by narcoleptics when falling asleep. These are intense, vivid and dreamlike experiences that usually manifest as sights and sounds. These experiences can feel much like salvia divinorum experiences in that they are surreal and cause one to feel like one is present in another world. These hypnagogic experiences are sometimes disturbing enough to cause a person to get out of bed again.

The excessive daytime sleepiness is probably the most striking and obvious symptom. This manifests as powerful “sleepiness attacks” that overcome the narcoleptic, no matter how much sleep they have had the previous night. These attacks may be irresistible, so much so that the narcoleptic can literally fall on the ground asleep.

Narcolepsy might be more useful as a plot device than as something to afflict a character with. It could be that someone’s narcolepsy in the past led to a car accident, which then had far-reaching consequences for the protagonist of your story. Or it could be that, as a small minority of narcoleptics are “supertasters” with heightened olfactory awareness, your protagonist has a special use in forensic science or perfumery.

It might even be that a character’s narcolepsy has led to them waking up and rearranging their environment during the night. This could be combined with more interesting sleep disorders, like somnambulism.

Another curious point about narcolepsy is that it’s easy to confuse with an addiction to heroin or some other drugs. After all, it need not be immediately obvious to a close observer if a given person nodding off is doing so because of narcolepsy or heroin, drunkenness or something else. A character with narcolepsy might then feel that they are hard done by on account of being treated like something they’re not.

Unlike most of the other psychiatric conditions in this book, narcolepsy is not caused by early childhood abuse or neglect. So a character with it is unlikely to demonstrate signs of being damaged. Possibly they are an entirely normal person by most apparent measures apart from the narcolepsy.

Many stories about mental illnesses are tragedies because of the exposure to violence, neglect or abuse that caused the trauma underlying the illness. In this sense, a story about narcolepsy is probably different. The trauma might be ongoing, on account of that the coming of narcolepsy can ruin the life of an otherwise entirely normal person who had previously given no indication that they might be mentally unusual.

Alternatively, the narcoleptic could be a good choice of character to place at the centre of a comedy. A problem with suddenly falling asleep all the time could make it very hard to get things done. If a band of characters had to achieve some set goal, and one of their number was a narcoleptic, that character might constantly be letting the others down by falling asleep at inopportune times.

Likewise, a narcoleptic guard, surgeon or helicopter pilot might be considered inherently funny, on account of that their condition makes them exceptionally unsuited for that particular job, in a fish out of water sense. The author will have to take care to find the right balance between comic and ridiculous here.

This article is an excerpt from Writing With The DSM (Writing With Psychology Book 5), edited by Vince McLeod and due for release by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2018/19.