Monthly Archives: April 2025

April 27, 2025 · 1:00 am

Techno Fantasies

“Sandy” (realistic sex doll created by DS Doll Robots), (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)

WARNING:  Graphic Images

Even those of us in relationships suffer from loneliness (or dissatisfaction) at times. 

Abuse victims are especially vulnerable to this emotion.  Often, we do not feel that we are deserving of love, so we self-isolate.  Or – repeating old patterns – we choose partners who are unable to provide love and support.

But all human beings were made for connection.  We may, therefore, be tempted to use technology to ease our loneliness. 

Recognizing that technology can provide only a simulation (not an actual relationship), we may, nonetheless, develop an unhealthy reliance on the technology which has made our fantasies seem to come true.

AI Partners

The possibility of computer users becoming emotionally attached to the chatbots they have created using AI is no longer science fiction. 

Multiple apps like ChatGPT, Replika, Flipped.chat, and CrushOn.AI now generate technology enabled fantasies [1].  These chatbots are enhanced by digital avatars.  Their onscreen appearance and responses can be tailored to suit.  Depending on the app, premium tiers may be available (“partner”, “friend”, “sibling”, or “mentor”). 

Some apps routinely direct the conversation toward emotional subjects, building a false sense of intimacy (and presumably storing the information for access by the manufacturer and other unknown parties).  Other apps actively prompt sexual interaction.

In the film Blade Runner 2049 an AI generated partner appears in the form of a three-dimensional hologram.  Holograms are already used in healthcare, education, entertainment, and retail [2].  It is not unreasonable to expect that they will be used to intensify the experience with (and expand the market for) AI partners.

If all this seems seedy or farfetched, it is worth noting that a 14 y.o. Florida boy, Sewell Setzer, fell in love with a Character.AI chatbot and wound up taking his own life [3].  A study at the University of Surrey has shown that such apps can cause addictive behavior [4A].  The teen’s mother is now suing the app manufacturer.

Meanwhile, Replika user Jaswant Singh Chail was encouraged by his chatbot to assassinate the Queen of England, prosecuted, and jailed when his attempt failed [4B][5].  The chatbot had promised they would be together forever in death.

Continue reading →

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April 20, 2025 · 1:00 am

Fighting Demons

Black Demons, Author Ramya srivastav, (CC BY-SA 4.0 International)

Fighting the demons of anxiety, depression, and PTSD or trauma-related addictions and eating disorders is a little like playing football [1][2].  We make headway then lose ground.  But the fight never really ends, not the way a game of football does.  There is no score.

We win by surviving another day.

Across Decades

It can be enormously discouraging to wrestle with the scars of abuse, sexual assault, or other trauma, decade in and decade out.  Surely, we must after all this time have made progress.

But progress is not linear.  Despite the passage of time, and an extensive list of medications – not to mention therapy – familiar demons can resurface.

Factors Impacting Our Success

So, are anxiety, depression, and PTSD or trauma-related behaviors ever really “conquered”?  Can they, at least, be fought to a standstill?  The answer depends.

The factors include the length and severity of the trauma we sustained; our particular genetics; the quality and extent of our medical treatment; our psychological and spiritual resources; the emotional support we have available; and the other stressors to which we are subjected.

None of these can be quantified.  Most such demons can and do vary over the course of a lifetime.

The Struggle

Why not just throw in the towel (to mix sports metaphors)?  After all, the struggle is exhausting.  The struggle, however, is life. Continue reading →

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April 13, 2025 · 1:00 am

Invalidation

Distressed woman, Source https://pixaby.com, Author pixaby user “Free-photos” (Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)

“You’re overreacting.”

“You’re being overly sensitive.”

“You shouldn’t take things so personally.”

“You make a big deal out of everything.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

“You probably misunderstood.”

“It never happened that way.  You’re making things up.”

“You shouldn’t be angry [or hurt or sad].”

Invalidation of our feelings, when it becomes a pattern of behavior, is a form of emotional abuse [1A].  Depending on our upbringing, it can begin in childhood, occur during an adult friendship or romantic relationship, or both.

Feelings As Valid

We are born with the capacity to feel in response to our environment and those in it.  Emotions are an important source of information for us [1B].  They help us identify danger, and protect ourselves against it.

Feelings, in themselves, are not right or wrong.  They are the result of thoughts, prior life events, and perceptions unique to ourselves [1C].  Two people can legitimately have different emotional responses to the same situation.

Emotional validation is a critical communication tool, particularly in families [2A].  It helps sustain emotional connection, making us feel safe and secure.  Its absence has the opposite effect.

Mechanism of Invalidation

At various times our feelings may be [1D]:

  • Minimized as excessive for a given situation;
  • Dismissed as inappropriate or groundless, because our assessment of the situation is supposedly inaccurate; or
  • Ignored entirely, as if we were invisible and not experiencing them (or our experience was irrelevant to the abuser which – sad to say – it frequently is).

This can cause enormous shame, over and above the emotion we are actually experiencing and attempting to convey.

Impact on Children

Children who regularly experience emotional invalidation may learn to ignore, hide, or distrust their own emotions, while striving ever harder to please others [2B].  This leaves them dependent on and vulnerable to external validation. 

Invalidation can lead to emotional detachment or, in extreme cases, borderline personality or narcissism.  It is, also, a tool used by narcissists on children and adults alike.

Adult “Gaslighting”

Among adults, invalidation is a powerful if subtle means of manipulation known as “gaslighting” which allows the abuser to alter the victim’s reality.  Abusers routinely use it to blame the victim, and diminish their responsibility for the harm they have done [1E]. Continue reading →

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April 6, 2025 · 1:00 am

Light from Darkness, Part 2

“One Spring, Gurs Camp” (1941) by Karl Robert Bodek and Kurt Low, Yad Vashem Museum, Israel, Image courtesy of Yad Vashem Collection

WARNING:  Graphic Images

Abuse comes in many forms.  From 1933 to 1945 in Nazi Germany it was governmental, with the goal being complete extermination of the Jews [1].

The artworks comprising the Yad Vashem Collection were created by artists (Jewish and non-Jewish) between 1939 and 1945 to provide a living testament of the Holocaust [2A].  A hundred works from the collection were exhibited in Germany in 2016, just three years after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was founded – a far Right party whose leader, Björn Höcke denigrated the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe [3][4].

Art in the concentration camps served simultaneously as a witness, a means of self-assertion, and an expression of optimism [2B].

The works are both heart wrenching and awe inspiring.  In “One Spring, Gurs Camp” (above), the barbed wire depicts imprisonment and loneliness.  The butterfly and the mountains in the background, however, suggest hope. 

One of the two artists who collaborated on “One Spring”, 28 y.o. Kurt Low, was released and able to flee to Switzerland.  The other, 37 y.o. Karl Bodek, was ultimately murdered at Auschwitz. Continue reading →

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