neural-plasticity
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Posts posted by neural-plasticity
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The Duggar logic algorithm is quite simple. Follow the money. If Jill and Derrick are staying for a spell, it's because they're making money. Money trumps all with this family.
Must be why I don't understand it, because money is not even close to the driving force in my life. :) I'm just glad people other than those of us on this website are starting to see how Jill and Derick really are.
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So how does one go about finding a forum of interest?
I found this one prior to the scandals by accident. I was looking for more info on the Duggar woman and oppression, or something to that effect and PTV popped up. I read a little then moved on. Then a few weeks later I was bored and thought I'll checked that site again. Only it took me 2 days to find it because I forgot the name.
However, I would like fun & interesting forums, not ones that would piss me off. I have a lot of interests, but I am unsure of what kind of forum would interest me.
I randomly found this website about a year ago. I first started watching the Duggars back in the summer of 2014 and was reading some gossip about them on a gossip site I used to follow. I noticed one of the commenters reply to a fellow snarker suggesting they should check out this website. I checked it out, read it a little bit, then went along my way (I was pretty busy getting married myself). That fall, I started thinking things were kind of weird with the Duggers and I wanted to check out this website again, but like you it took me awhile to find it again! I knew it ended with .tv so I happened to stumble across a few weird websites on my way back. :)
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If I was them, I would be embarrassed. I don't think I'll ever be able to understand any of the Duggars' logic.
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Tabbygirl, I do believe that WW put in a lot of research on this topic. And mommy blogs and boards have all kinds of information that she could take from. There is a theory called Munchausen by Internet. It is similar to Munchausen by Proxy. Only it is played over the internet, rather than IRL. For those of you unfamiliar with this, in summary a person feigns illness to gain attention and sympathy. They are driven by having people care for and about them. A lot of these cases on the internet are the same. They want the attention and praise and acknowledgement. Money and gifts are just a very nice bonus.
ETA: The stinken link! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_by_Internet
WOW! Though the years I have been on a lot of boards and have encountered plenty of wacky people but WW takes the cake.
I lost interest in her "story" a long time ago. Call me a cynic but when someone shares WAY too much on the internet I start to get leary right away. I've encounted too many nutters not to know better. I just would read her post and move it along. IDK does that make me cold hearted or just suspicious? So sorry for everyone that got taken by her. PLEASE next time if you have a strange feeling that something ain't right go with your instinct. Your safety first above all others. #hardenedChicagoan
This is my first post on this forum. I originally started coming here only a few weeks ago after some of your random rants in the other forums sparked my interest in what y'all talk about over here :) Because I was so late in the game, I actually didn't know much about the WW story, but I did, like many of you, think it was odd that she was disclosing so much information about herself***. At the same time, I have a sister (who I truly believe has an undiagnosed personality disorder) who discloses extremely sensitive topics online that I wouldn't even necessarily share with just random friends. Or maybe being a cynic is a midwestern-Chicago-type thing, as I live pretty close to "The Region" ;)
However, I do think this Munchausen by Internet concept is really interesting. When I was in college, there was this HUGE scammer on another website I used to go to. She claimed to have cancer (as well as dealing with other issues). She conned some C-list celebrities into gifting her things. She had actual, real cancer survivors gifting her things. Some of these cancer survivors would actually come visit her, and this girl bought a ton of medical equipment online to make it look real. When it was discovered that she had faked the whole thing, there were so many people who were absolutely devastated. I hadn't even donated anything to her and I found the whole thing pretty traumatic. It's sad that there are people out there who feel they need to do that to get the attention they want, and it's easy to do that on the internet nowadays.
ETA: I know a lot of people share a lot of personal information on here, which I think is great, because the support system here is absolutely AMAZING, so I don't want to offend anybody who has shared personal information. What I mean by that, is she seemed to share really personal information about herself and her drama, but she never really communicated with anyone. It seems like many people here share their personal experiences, but then empathize and sympathize with others' stories. It didn't seem like she did that (from the few posts I saw).
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I missed the RU livestream again last night (gotta support my Cubs... I'm sure my people in Rockford understand!), but I did just go back and look and that definitely looks like him. Looks like he's still smug and hasn't learned much there if it was him. I noticed when people were giving their testimonies, everyone would turn to look at who was speaking and he just sat there facing forward with his head resting against his fist. When people were done and everyone clapped, he didn't even clap. Just sat there with his head resting on his fist still. Very interesting.
So did they eventually move him?
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Ah, but Ben already enlightened us that God is incomprehensible to our tiny human brains, thus his Mensa wifey highlights the word "God".
LOL, touché. Very good point. Silly little brain of mine!
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I think they did. I also think I remember that, since then, though, they've made other posts (perhaps kind of inadvertently) still pushing the twin thing -- maybe through the name contest, or something? Could be wrong about that, though.
I've unfollowed her on instagram because I couldn't handle her "holier than thou" attitude she has, but from the few times I've looked at her instagram and whatnot since then, I've picked up on that, too. They're still letting the leg-humpers guess that they're having girl/girl, boy/boy, boy/girl, rather than just a boy or girl. I think it's pretty obvious she's not pregnant with twins. She'd be much larger, and there'd be a good chance that she would've already went into labor by now, since not many go full term with twins. I just think it's really weird. Like, if I was pregnant, I would never string along the idea that I was having twins if I wasn't. I'm also much different than Jessa!
Also - I've been wanting to make a comment about Jessa's excessive highlighting/underlining her Bible. I've mentioned before that I'm in grad school, so I do a lot of reading and highlighting. I've always found that the more I understand a concept, the less I highlight chapters that are related to that concept, because I already know the stuff. To me, when I see all the excessive highlighting, it comes across like Jessa struggles to understand the concepts she's reading and needs to underline/circle them to help her make sense of them. For me personally, it makes her look really unintelligent. That's just me, though.
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Josh is almost a 30 year old man. He doesn't need his dad buying him $325,000 houses, especially after he just had a job making the kind of money he did (actually, regardless, you just don't do that). He literally will never learn from his mistakes when his parents treat him like that. Gross.
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I don't really know anyone's names, and I also am still unsure about whether or not I like this cast compared to the first two seasons, but Devin is the worst. I can totally see that, although he told Kiki they'd still be a thing, he'll be barking up someone else's tree by next week. He's slum, gross.
Also, I'm worried that this season producers cast a whole bunch of crazy people. I think this show is interesting enough without having to have all the yelling and craziness, which was shown during the first season, and second season, too, probably.
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Amy posted a video of her at the TTH which I'm take as a FU internetz moment re: her having issues with them after talking smack in the tabloids. https://instagram.com/p/8TK69-NkJo/
JB is beyond creepy in that video. I can't tell if he's secretly thinking about how to kill Amy, or if he is secretly turned on thinking that many people will watch him on the interwebs.
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I agree with most here that Jill and Jessa didn't do anything wrong with Joshgate I that would mean they couldn't keep their contract with TLC. If they want specials, good for them. But I won't be watching, and it sounds like many others feel the same way.
Honestly, I thought the last season was so boring. I didn't care about watching Jessa, after having just sat around all day, cool Bin dinner. I also was never interested in watching Jill look for baby furniture. They're so uninteresting. And Jessa is absolutely hateful. There's no way I would ever support them on television.
In addition, I'm quite sad for/disappointed in them. My whole thing about the show being canceled is that it's so important for these kids (including the married ones now) to realize they should NOT rely on making a living off of TLC. It's not realistic to have 19 kids and live as comfortably as they did. By having their own specials, TLC is just perpetuating their laziness.
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I think even if Josh was able to participate in every aspect of this program, the likelihood of him never seeking out an affair or sex from someone other Anna would be slim-to-none. I think one of the root issues for Josh to figure out would be - where does this behavior come from? He would really benefit from talking to a licensed therapist to explore what led to his actions (I'm not just talking about his childhood... I'm talking about his relationship with Anna, his ideas of marriage, sex, etc.) and talk about realistic ways to prevent himself from acting upon his impulses. I think that's one of the huge benefits of therapy. The point is that the psychologist would hopefully create building blocks for you to, when you're done with therapy, be able to deal with your issues on your own, should the issue ever come up again. This goes for all mental health issues. If you can help clients with depression through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the next time they start sinking into a depression, they know how to identify their negative thoughts, they know how to work through those thoughts, which helps them overcome a severe episode (sometimes, this obviously doesn't work for everyone, but no treatments have 100% efficacy).
If Josh was actually seeking help like this, he might be able to go home and work on his relationship with Anna. When I asked RU about addiction on Friday night, they basically said something along the lines of addictions are things that affect your heart, so by seeking God he can help your heart (very loose quote... but it was something about focusing on the heart and on God). Josh can "pray away" his issues - by himself and with others - for as long as he's at RU, but the fact of the matter is that when he goes home (from wherever he currently is), the environment will be totally different. If no one's taught him how to work through his issues in all environments and how to identify the warning signs, he's just going to sink back into his past lifestyle, because that's the easiest thing to do. We all know Josh doesn't like hard work...
A related side note: I think Ryan is the perfect example of that. He was sooooooo sneaky! He talked about all the drugs he was into, sneaking around when he was at treatment, etc. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he was still doing all (or some) of that stuff, still. Either that, or he realized that literally the only way he would ever not be able to regress into addiction is staying at RU. Probably because no one taught him how to deal with his substance addiction when faced with the "outside world." He might as well invest all his time and energy into RU, because as soon as he gets a job somewhere else in Illinois (or any other state), he would have a good chance of "picking up" another DUI.
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I'm fairly young, but I've noticed a lot of people my age or younger who get married do the dollar dance. My husband refused to do that (he thought it was tacky) and I agreed with him. I really wouldn't be surprised if Amy had done one of these dances, though. I also agree the cash bar is kind of tacky... but I know everyone has different opinions on it. As long as Amy had the perfect day to her, then I'm happy for her! Now I'll just sit and wait for her to stop talking about her cousins' business that she should stay out of :)
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Honestly, I don't even see Jessa as being interested in cosmetology. I just think she's really worried about her own looks. I know a lot of people who really care about their looks but aren't interested in fixing up others' looks. I really have no idea what Jessa could be interested in... I really don't. I used to like her during the earlier seasons, but these later seasons I felt like she just settled for Bin to get out of the house, and then she got bored sitting by herself so she got pregnant. But I have no idea what she really enjoys doing... sometimes I don't even feel like she likes being around Bin! & she dropped Jinger real quick, so there's that
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I, like many of you, also used to like Kailyn during the first few seasons. I followed her on twitter, etc. Now, I can't STAND her. I had to stop following her on twitter because I was tired of how much she was trying to make money off of her followers (desperate, much?), but just how she carries herself on the show. She is SO aggressive AND defensive. Like, when she met up with Jo to talk about child support - she started arguing with him, then said she couldn't talk anymore because they were just going to argue! When the show first started, I felt that Jo, although he was a good dad, was not a good person, especially to Kailyn. It's interesting to see how much he's matured over the past year or so and how much Kailyn has not. It's almost not worth watching the show anymore because both she and Leah are SO annoying to watch. Kalyn is so ridiculously entitled it baffles me!!
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So right when all of this Josh drama happened, I was in the middle of orientation for school! Then grad school happened and I struggled to catch up with how quick everyone was posting. BUT, I did catch up this week to learn about the livefeed, and I was able to join in on the fellowship tonight (I joined late, so I didn't join the separate chatroom people had going on here), but oh my gosh, that was hilarious! The testimonies at the end.... the comments... I was sitting here laughing out loud!
(Fun fact: I decided to be Dr. Mary Whiton Calkins... she was one of the first women to be involved in psychology at a time that was still so dominated by males that 1.) males would drop out of classes if she joined them and 2.) she did everything she needed to do get her doctorate, but the school refused to grant her one. Despite the adversity, she actually ended up doing a lot of great things (like being the first female president for the American Psychological Association), so I thought she was an appropriate person for joining this type of fellowship!)
Bless you all!
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The whole Samantha comment of how "Joe was just all drama and, it took me awhile, but Nick was my prince charming all along" with the forced smile made me cringe. I don't understand why she felt like she needed to stay until the end. It's not like there was any money incentive for her.....
I do agree, though, that the finale was rather boring. I'm also pretty upset they never had the "you might be pregnant" thing this season that they said would happen. I wonder why they showed that then never aired it....
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I think it's interesting reading everyone's different perspectives on the Kirk/Carly and overall dating process of BiP. Honestly, the BiP situation kind of reminds me of college - besides being in classes (for what, an hour or two a day?) you really have the freedom to spend every waking moment together - and many do (including some of my own friends in college)! You can definitely rush into relationships/feelings when you're together so often, but you rarely see people getting married so quickly (in fact, most of these couples end up breaking up).
In my own personal opinion, it's hard to imagine being that in love with someone after just three weeks that you're talking about marriage and babies? I understand asking those general questions to get a basic idea if you're on the same page, but talking about literally having that person's baby? I can totally understand why Kirk was overwhelmed. Some people like taking relationships slow, and that seems like the kind of person Kirk is. I bet he went into the show hoping to find someone he could see a connection with and really explore after the season ended. Carly was much more extreme - she definitely was expecting a ring.
Also, I might not have been paying close enough attention when Kirk was talking to Carly, but I didn't really feel like he was breaking up with her. It seemed like he was willing to continue the relationship with her on the condition that they toned it down a bit. Maybe it was his way of trying to tell her he really didn't want to propose so she shouldn't expect it. I think it's totally normal to have doubts when you're in a relationship with someone who might be "the one," and I think it's okay to explore those doubts with the person you're with.
Last thing - I'm SO GLAD someone brought up Samantha and Nick's date. Like, O.M.G. she literally couldn't hide her disgust when kissing him. That was so fake/awkward/gross.
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Honestly, I can't help but feel sick to my stomach about this. Not because Josh is finally getting what he deserved (in my opinion, at least), but because Anna. The whole molestation thing was difficult enough for her, and I really do admire her for sticking by his side (even though I do agree she's a bit naive for doing so). I think if she really did know about what happened before they got married and understands that she made a commitment to him with that in mind, then good for her to sticking to that commitment. Even if she didn't know about it to the full extent, what are you supposed to do when you're madly in love with someone and eight months pregnant?
However, this, in my opinion, is such a huge blow to HER. His previous choices, although I do not agree with at all (like anyone would) happened before he knew her. The decisions he made with these websites directly says how much he disrespects her (and women in general, I think). I couldn't imagine staying with my husband if he did something like that, especially if we had such strong convictions that these Duggars do (i.e., being so against gay marriage because it's "ruining the idea of what a family is").
When I first found out about this new scandal, I thought Dear Lord, she's going to stay with him. She really is going to just stay with him. But then I realized while reading all of your comments (and I'm still a couple pages back, so this was probably already said today), she has a sister that got out of this cult. I really truly believe there's hope for her to possibly get out. I think it's still a long stretch because being divorced in this religion is probably the worst thing you can be (because they're obviously not too bothered by molestation and other sexual scandals), but I really, truly hope that her sister reaches out to her during this time to help encourage her if need be. At the same time, if Anna wants to stay, that's her business, not mine. I just have hope in knowing there's someone who can genuinely help her get out now if she really wanted to. She wouldn't be on her own to discover a world outside the one she's lived in.
Last but not least - I'm putting money on Mackynzie being the one who writes a tell-all some day. We're obviously going to have to wait a long time for the bad boy to come out, but I can definitely see her reminiscing on her "early days as a Duggar."
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I feel your pain Neural-p. I have a pretty common M name and I'll admit I was very relieved to be spared sharing a Duggar name... for this one at least, I'm sure there's going to be more chances a-coming. Anyway, Meredith is a pretty name.
There's definitely still hope for you! ;) If Anna had a say in it she'd have at least 16 more kids!
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I hear you NP. I have a J name and hoped for the last 4 girls they wouldn't use my name. Fortunately for me no Duggar has my name. BTW, I love the name Meredith, it is strong and soft at the same time.
Thank you! I figured because everyone likes to find something to snark about, my name would be attacked, so it's nice to see some nice things being said about it!
I'm 24 and I know another girl my age also named Meredith. I've maybe run into one or two other ones in my life. I wouldn't say the name is old fashioned at all (I'm obviously biased though). it's just very uncommon. it's never been popular. that's why I like it :)
I'm glad Anna and baby are both healthy. I sure hope she's enjoying her time with M1 through M4 and not reading the mean comments people are saying about everything. She at least deserves a couple days off!
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OMG. Some disclosure: my name is Meredith. I remembered watching an episode when they were pregnant for the first time and went to the Today Show when Meredith Veira was still there, and they mentioned something along the lines of liking that name. So ever since they mentioned that, I had this sneaking suspicion that this baby would be named Meredith, but I was really hoping it wouldn't be!!
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I'm kind of hoping they (primarily Anna) go the complete opposite and say "suck it" to the Duggars and the TV show and decide not to name their daughter with an M name. I think they've only been doing it because JB and Mechelle, but now that the "perfect family" image is gone, they can stop putting up the front, too. That's wishful thinking, though.Fortunately for the baby she will not have any idea about what is going on with her family or anything to do with it and is in no way capable of comprehending what anyone is saying about anything.
I wonder if Josh will name the baby Michelle in an attempt to get back into the good graces of his parents & family.
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I like that TLC is doing a documentary on the subject, but I don't like that they have the "Duggar family" involved. Didn't they do enough with their Fox News interview? I mean, yuck.
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Small Talk: The Prayer Closet
in Counting On
I used to be a competitive cross country/track runner through undergrad, but now with how crazy grad school is I barely have time for it (in the grand scheme of things when you're stressed and have a lot of schoolwork, exercise tends to be the first thing kicked to the curb, even though it tends to help the most with my stress and productivity). I've always wanted to run a marathon, so I decided that I would finally set a date to run one to keep myself motivated (set for this upcoming summer). I've been slowly but surely running more, but this Zombie Run app may be exactly what I need to really get motivated (especially with the colder weather coming in now)! Thanks for the suggestion!