An Inadvertent Beginning

After I set this blog up and posted the Gusty photo entry, I was left to wonder where to go next.  I am an eclectic thinker and have by accident and design established a life that allows me the time to think, read, and research that which catches my fancy. And I tend to fancy a fair amount of the world around me.  Usually it is the anomalies that catch my attention and gets me to ask why and wonder what is going on behind the surface.  Once on the trail of an idea I try to treat it with respect; allowing it to unfold on its own rhythm; not preordaining the outcome of where we are going; and staying open to the teasing offshoots of enquiry whose pursuit can be immensely rewarding.  While following an idea, I cross several disciplines which both enriches what I am pursuing and adds depth to my understanding of each area I traipse through.  There are many directions that this blog could go if left to document the numerous rocks I turn over in the course of my day to day life.

Over the last decade, however, I have been drawn to try to understand one part of this world in more detail.  I became fascinated in knowing what happens when people are sideswiped by individuals with personality disorders.

I realize that this was not exactly the most mainstream interest.  Or at least I thought that in the beginning when I started to delve into the subject.   In time, I noticed that it is actually an undercurrent to many areas of our lives.  Even though they are not identified, they show up in most movies and quite a few books - the more mainstream the entertainment the more they or their values are there.  You can't get through the news without see several stories where they figure in. They fill our court system.  You can't understand the current economic meltdown without taking them into account.  Nor can you avoid them when looking at Ponzi schemes.  They are a large part of corporate greed and political corruption. They are on reality shows and they are people we talk about.  Because, by definition, they exploit others they gravitate to professions where they can do that: politics, finance, personal development, religion, celebrity, cult leader, crime - among others.  They are the people in our lives who we would like to forget about, but can't.  They are the people in our lives that draw us in and leave us mesmerized and queasy at the same time.  They are the people who hurt us and cause massive financial and emotional hardship.

For a minority of the population, individuals with personality disorders have a huge impact on how we live.

And yet we know almost nothing about them.  To calmly examine their behaviour is a cultural taboo.  The misconceptions about them are rampant.  Yet a growing body of work has developed over the last forty years which allows us to understand them with greater and greater clarity.  It is a body of work that is largely ignored, under reported, and unacknowledged.  The work is fascinating and the implications that derive from it will change your perceptions of what it is to be human.

That is predominately what we will cover in this blog.  Which occasional means that we get to explore a few mysteries like the one about the Gusty photos.  Sometimes to understand what happens, you have to stop thinking how you would behave in a situation and, instead, take on the perspective of someone with a personality disorder (as well as how the people around them would be reacting).

There is a lot of ground to cover.  I hope that you learn more about yourself and the world as we explore it.

Vera