Idealization is a real bitch. For those of us who’ve experienced having been idealized, we’re aware of the cycle, the incredible highs, the depth of the lows, and the emotional roller coaster that goes along with it. Is it love? No. It’s dysfunctional. It’s full-throttle excitement and always with a viscous and painful ending. With idealization, the pedestal becomes your best friend and your worst enemy. As the old saying goes, ”The higher you are, the harder the fall.” Idealization is about extremes of hot and cold, fire and ice. You can go from having conversations for hours, talking about your deepest fears, your biggest regrets or your wildest dreams, to being pushed aside for a podcast. It’s addicting how they can draw your emotions and feelings out of you, impressing you with their compliments, their promises of forever-after and fairy tale endings. Any compliments you receive aren’t about you, but about mirroring parts of your qualities they want for themselves. Promises of forever-after have an expiration date, and fairy tale endings…don’t exist. You’ll go from being adored one day to abhorred the next; showered with affection today, to chasing validation tomorrow. These relationships usually happen fast, filled with passion, incredible moments of intensity and sooner than later, the dreaded fall from grace where the same things they “adored” yesterday become their ammo today. Today, you’re showered with everything you want to hear, or need to hear. Your basic needs that may have gone unmet earlier in your life are now being handed to you on a silver platter and it’s addicting, giving you a sense of validation, perhaps for the first time in a while, or the first time in your life. By the time you recognize the “red flags” you’re in over your head in love and believing their love is genuine. That’s also about the same time you get replaced for their next conquest that was usually already in the works. For anyone who has experienced idealization, then you know the other side of that coin is devaluation. It’s destructive, painful and can cause trauma. It can damage your view of the world and your view on humanity; your view on yourself. When relationships are unhealthy, what makes you perfectly imperfect and beautifully human that they once claimed to love, are now used against you, making you question everything and trust nothing.

Dr. Annie Tanasugarn in “Signs their love is authentic” @medium.com

Bjork - It’s Oh So Quiet

Crowds protesting against hate crimes against Asian Americans appeared in Washington DC following the Atlanta spa shootings.

image source: BBC news

How many more?

Chris Britt's  award-wining editorial cartoons offer commentary on national and international political events

Oil spill in Israel coastline .

source: https://apnews.com/article/wildlife-oil-spills-israel-ba022d9e5fa65f78901d752daad3c190

“Fortunate Son,” Creedence Clearwater Revival

Eyes stand in for a smile when connecting with strangers these days. #MasksSaveLives

Image: Andrew Ginzel & Kristen Jones "Oculus" (1998) at Chambers St/Park Place (1,2,3,A,C,E) station.

The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.

Anton Chekhov (b. 29 January 1860)

02/02/21

Myanmar coup and Aung San Suu Kyi's arrest presaged by world ignoring Rohingya genocide

Following a colonial legacy, the Myanmar constitution of 2008 has an official classification system of "135 national races," based on assumptions of who the original inhabitants of the territory before colonial rule were. It created categories of national status, which allowed the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority to be disenfranchised and ultimately expelled. Now they are largely a stateless community living in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

Even after the U.N. and other international fact-finding bodies showed that ethnic cleansing and even genocide might have occurred in the violent episodes of summer 2017, Suu Kyi still went to the International Court of Justice at the Hague to defend the army. This only helped secure its position among the Myanmar's Buddhist population and encourage it to take even bolder steps.