Mark

All, The subtitle of this forum reads: This message is intended to emphasize the peer support nature of this community, and to provide a focused place where frantic or otherwise urgent people can seek support for pressing needs. It does not mean that this community can offer any sort of treatment or professional help. By posting here you may increase the speed with which other peers respond to your posts, hopefully with supportive messages. However, if you require actual urgent care from trained professionals, this is the wrong place to be. Call the Emergency Operator in a Crisis If you are experiencing an actual urgent crisis, such as an imminent and acute suicidal crisis, please immediately contact your local emergency operator (by dialing 911 in the United States; other countries will vary) and plainly state the nature of your crisis so that the operator can coordinate an appropriate emergency response. Depending on the nature of your crisis, it may also be appropriate to contact your physician or therapist, a friend or family member, etc. Please use your best and most conservative judgment when determining who to call, keeping in mind that from a safety point of view, it is better to tell others about your urgent crisis and to submit to evaluation by doctors and/or other qualified professionals at the first opportunity than it is to keep your concerns to yourself. Other Potentially Useful Resources: MentalHelp.net maintains a list of Telephone Numbers, including Suicide Hotlines which may be of use to you as you respond to your crisis. You may also find it useful to read some of our Suicide articles, Coping with Suicidality How did you get to this suicidal place? Why does suicide seem like a solution to your problem(s)? How do you know your level of suicide risk? Suicide Warning SignsSuicide: What do you do now? Suicide: What will happen to you when you ask for help? Outpatient Suicide Treatment-Finding A Psychotherapist The Initial Suicide Treatment Interview Jeremy's Story Follow-up Suicide Therapy Visits Suicide: Other things you can do to help keep yourself safe Suicide and Self Harm Resources or some of our Self-Help articles Introduction to the Online Self-Help Book Taking Action is Key Example of Taking Action (with analysis) Steps in the Self-help Process Steps 1-4: Problem Analysis Steps 5-7: Planning a Solution Steps 8 and 9: Taking Action Steps to Self-Help Overview Other community members who are aware of useful resources which specifically may help people to cope with and survive a crisis should feel free to post them in this thread.

Just so it is clear (because if we don't lay it out, it probably won't be), we have a forum on this board called "small penis syndrome" and some of the more negative posts that have appeared in this thread are from members who post a fair amount in that forum. These members (Lifeless Existence, Recluse) have had a negative experience with regard to their sexuality. They attribute this negative experience to their penis size. I'm not suggesting here that they are right or wrong in their conclusion (it's *their* experience), but I do want to point out that there are men out there with smaller penises who have not had such negative experiences and who are not so bitter. Lifeless may not recognize that this is the case, but it is the case, nevertheless. Please take each of these posts as representative of that individual's personal experience and do not think that any post contains the whole truth.

All, At GingerSnap's request, I'm posting a link to our free online self-help book, titled "Psychological Self-Tools". This is a 150+ page resource that provides an overview of psychologically oriented self-help strategies for managing mental health and illness issues. It's been a part of the MentalHelp.net website for many years now, and is a well loved and well utilized resource which I encourage you to take a look at. Psychological Self-Tools - Online Self-Help Book The book is divided into chapters which I will link just below: Chapter 1 - Self-help: What is it? Chapter 2 - Understanding the Nature of your Problem Chapter 3 - Overview of Bio-Psycho-Social Theories Chapter 4 - Meeting Basic Needs Chapter 5 - Changing Behavior and Thought Chapter 6 - Changing Your Mood Chapter 7 - Changing Your Knowledge Chapter 8 - Changing Your Relationships Chapter 9 - Changing Your Identity and Motivation Chapter 10 - Your Unique Self-Help Plan Chapter 11 - Specific Problems Chapter 12 - Dependency Hope this is helpful! Mark

Some time ago, I wrote an essay on this topic, Elliott Smith and the gift of Vulnerability Music. It fits in with the theme of the thread. I guess I like to listen to music that skews to the sad side of things more so than the happy music. Richard Thompson is also an amazing artist in this capacity, but I can't seem to convince anyone I'm friendly with of his utter brilliance. This one *radiates* sadness - you have been warned: God Love A Drunk This one is about grief and the sweet aspect of romantic loss: The Ghost of You Walks

whenever there are marriage troubles, you want to get both sides of the story before you come to any firm conclusions. However, it doesn't take a psychologist (which I am by the way) to know you are being abused. YOU ARE BEING ABUSED! This husband of yours is extremely controlling, verbally insulting, etc. YOU NEED HELP, either to 1) get out of the marriage entirely, or 2) to learn to safely assert yourself within the marriage if it is possible so that you can get the freedoms back that you deserve. Frankly, your husband sounds **Paranoid** to me. At least he is in the neighborhood of paranoid personality disorder: "a pervasive distust and suspciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, begining by early adulthood and presents in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following: 1. suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her 2. is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates 3. is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarrented fears that the information will be used maliciously against him or her 4. reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events. 5. persistantly bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries or slights 6. perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack 7. has reoccurring suspicions, without justification, regarding the fidelity of spouse or sexual partner. Any of this sound familiar? I think you have at least four, maybe more that you can check off based on your description. When it comes to paranoia, there is the personality disorder form and then there is the psychotic form, associated with schizophrenia. In that form, there is a break with reality and the form of the paranoia can get really odd looking. In non-psychotic paranoia, your husband might suspect that you are cheating on him. In psychotic paranoia, your husband might suspect that you are a creature from the 12th dimension come to eat his soul from the inside out. See the difference? On the surface of things, I'd say that your husband has the non-psychotic form - the personality disorder, but when you factor in his religiosity and when you say I'm frankly not so sure this is not the psychotic form of paranoia - a lite version to be sure. Even in my very short time working on locked inpatient psychiatric units, I saw many people who manifested with religious delusions. So long as such people keep to themselves (as your husband does apparently); don't act out their craziness too publically; and stay functional in terms of being able to earn a living, etc. their illness (which would be Schizophrenia or something similar) can remain undetected for years. So yes - based on your report, you may very well be living with someone who is diagnosably mentally ill and in need of care - which given the nature of his core paranoia - he will not ever be motivated to receive treatment for. Some resources to read: - Our Abuse topic center article - Our Schizophrenia topic center article. - In the Schizophrenia topic center, specifically read this page about the types of delusions that some people with Schizophrenia will experience, including Persecutory and Religious delusions Like other people who have responded, I too suspect that this is a potentially dangerous situation which you should get out of sooner rather than later. I note that he's already got you accepting a pattern of increasing isolation and dependence upon him. He controls the money, he controls the internet, he controls the transporation. The typical abusive pattern here is for him to slowly but deliberately strip you of all the things that make you capable of living without him or escaping from him or having any sort of independent life. This is done slowly along with a steady stream of talk designed to make you think that all of this is happening because you are a bad, ugly person, etc. He will tell you how useless you are; how no one else would ever want you; how stupid you are; how it's just charity that he's keeping you around. And - if you stick around in this echo chamber you're living in - chances are pretty good that you'll come to believe that it is true (though it is not true!). It's important to start asserting yourself and standing up for yourself NOW while you still have some self-respect left. If you wait, it will get harder and harder to do. That's how these things tend to work. Others have suggested things you could do on that account - such as reaching out to the local women's shelter. I can't say how important it is that you learn how to drive and that you demand to have access to a car at all times. In the USA a car equals freedom. Without access to transportation, you can't even get to the women's shelter if you need it, and he has that much more control over you, maybe enough to keep you down permanently in his dominance game. You need to learn how to drive if you're going to live in the USA where I guess you are living - people who live in the USA who cannot drive are helpless (unless they live inside a major city). Expect your husband to fight you on any attempts you make to learn how to drive as that will lessen your dependence upon him. If you are ready to leave, maybe you are packing bags now. But that would not be typical. More typical is for someone like you to get caught on the "but I love him" stuff. The sentiment and feelings of duty and honor and obligation that bind you to him. A lot of dead women (physically and emotionally both) and men have stayed with their abusers "because I love him". So let me ask you, and please respond so that everyone can help you pick it apart: - What is it about this guy that you love. - What are the factors that bind you to him (love, money, education, whatever) - Do you believe that you cannot get along without him? - Do you believe that you are better off without him or with him? Why? Looking forward to your response.

I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but if so it bears repeating. All these millions of chats and forums you've all found and shared with the women in them that complain are a self-selected group: the group of women who have a dislike of small penises and want to talk about it for whatever reason (and other women who don't feel so strongly but say bad stuff anyway out of peer pressure). The women who don't care so much have no bee in their bonnet to discuss the issue, so they don't, and they are therefore invisible. In other words it's not a good idea to generalize from the forums to the population of women at large. the ratio of people who care about the issue vs. don't is not going to be the same. Separately, another key issue here has to do with the generalized need to be acceptable socially. It's not possible to be accepted by everyone in the world. So - under the circumstances, how many women would have to accept you before you felt adequate? And how would you trust that they were not faking their acceptance? Many people have a great deal of difficult with the concept of "enough". They think they will be happy if they can just get enough acceptance or enough wealth or enough sex or enough something, but then, when push comes to shove, it's never enough and they are always left craving more and feeling empty. That particular issue is best dealt with via contemplative interventions and practices such as psychotherapy and meditation.

Take several deep breaths JJ. You sound very panicked at the moment, and you need to get through that feeling before taking any actions. When you have managed to calm yourself (or when it wears off), then when you aren't feeling like jumping out of your skin, you can start to problem solve what to do about the situation (which I don't have context enough to understand - sorry!) but which sounds very painful and which is causing you to feel very helpless. Mark

Tony, I did not lock the thread - one of the moderators did - but I completely agree with what Julian so eloquently said in the previous post quoted above. I've been very glad to have you as a responder here and in the AA essays on the main site, but this sort of thing is at least unproductive, and at worst childish. Get it through your head that there is no winning here. People have had very different experiences which have led them to very different conclusions and there is no right and wrong about anyone's particular "truth" insomuch as it is driven by their past experience. Bating someone for an argument because they have drawn different conclusions based on different experiences just doesn't go anywhere that this community wants to go. I think it's fine, and even a valuable service, to promote awareness of the positives about your AA experience and AA in general I think it is useful to learn about what other people think about AA so as to understand why those people think that way. If you make them into enemies (even if they treat you as an enemy) you won't learn anything - you'll just get the momentary jollies of an argument or fight. However, if you try to understand them, you will learn something about someone else's experience of AA and that may prove useful to your own development as a person and a sober person. Mark

Narcissism is very much rampant in contemporary western society - probably has been since the 1960s. This is not to say that every third person is a narcissist, but rather that we (as a generalized culture) end up celebrating narcissists and cooperating with them to elevate them to positions of fame/power. My two cents anyway. Personality disorders are social disorders because identity is a social process. So - when someone has a personality disorder, what ends up happening is either they suffer, or those around them suffer, or both. In the case of narcissism, so long as the narcissist's needs are met, he does not suffer, but those around him do. If there is a period where the narcissist's needs do not get met, the narcissist suffers as well as those around him. If you look at a reasonably closely allied personality disorder like borderline personality disorder (BPD), you find that the person with BPD suffers as well as those around her.